Hellcare?

This is what my friend calls daycare. At this very moment I'm starting to think that is pretty accurate! What a day!

I want to start by saying that Cbear is very happy at this new place. He is happy to get up early and go to play with his new friends. He's thriving with the new routine and all that he's learning to do. His language skills are developing by leaps and bounds and he is by all accounts very smart and adapting well.

However the administration end of things is leaving much to be desired. I'm a very organized routine based person. If I need to get in contact with you I prefer email to phone. If you tell me something once I generally retain that information for all of eternity. (Especially if you'd prefer I forget)

Any time I've emailed this place they have taken at least 2 days to respond. Not acceptable but I can adapt. I will just phone from now on.

They specifically told me that with regard to potty training I should bring several pairs of pants etc for them to allow him to have accidents. I was assured that it was not a problem that he's not 100% on the train yet. Any time he has had more than one accident in a day there's been a big production of telling me so along with informing me that he's in a pull-up. This includes the very first day he was there ever! Fine. I can understand that it must be difficult to be dealing with 5-10 kids all having possible multiple accidents in a day. Not a big deal, put him in a pull-up if need be but let's not detain me over it at pickup time. Add to that today, she actually tried to tell me that they put him in a pull-up not because of the number of accidents but because he didn't have any more clothes. I turned and looked at the basket full of his clothes and said "Really? Cuz there was three pairs of everything there when I brought him this morning and more in his bag". She quickly began fumbling on her words deciding she must've been looking in the wrong kids basket.

I sent two small containers with his lunch and only one has been returned. I've also lost a spoon last week. I don't send spoons anymore and I won't send containers either. I was trying to be kind to the environment but since they can't prevent my child from throwing them out I guess it's bad either way. The garbage bag had already been removed and tied and they looked a little horrified that I wanted to break into it and look for it. We haven't even had them for two weeks. I'm not pleased.

The part that really gets to me about today though is that we've spoken about payment timing already. I told her I usually pay half and half rather than the full month all at once. She assured me this was fine. Today when I enquired as to why I had still not been invoiced (because I was told to wait for the invoice before paying) I learned that she was working on that today because they had to wait for the accounting year end to be complete. Cool, I can appreciate that since that's what I do for a living, even if it is already the 7th. I took the opportunity to confirm that it's ok to pay half and half and she told me it was but that they usually had parents pay a half a month in advance in those cases. Let me explain. They expect the first half of January to be paid on the 15th of December, then the second half would be paid on the 1st of January. That means I would have to be able to pay the full month of January now and still pay half a month for February by the 15th. A week from now! I don't know about you but I don't live in a world where that makes sense or would be even remotely possible! I told her flat out it wasn't happening and I think she was a little shocked. I told her I pay the first half of the month on the 1st the second half on the 15th and that's that. Ultimately they are still being paid in advance of doing their job and let's not forget they already have a half a months fees as a deposit! I'm trying to sort out how we can just pay monthly if this gets to be an issue because I am getting the impression that the less I have to deal with them in the administration aspect of things the BETTER!

Today has been a rough day! The filing has been backing up at work and I've been avoiding it like the plague but with year end it's a necessary evil so that's what I spent the day doing. I'm now regretting it on an epic scale since every inch of my body is aching. Scared to see how I feel tomorrow. Add to that all this daycare stress and I am pretty much wishing I had a rock to hide under. Thankfully my husband was awesome and he came home from work to cook the dinner I was supposed to have done but couldn't and then he was on full time daddy duty until bedtime. I love that man. We have our moments but he's my knight in shining armour when I need it.

Thursday is the big day for the specialist appointment so if you can remember to keep me in your thoughts. Hoping for some answers instead of more questions.

Oh and for anybody wondering? I haven't so much as glanced at my book/writing. I have intentions to do so but I just can't seem to actually DO it. Not sure about all these moms of 4 that say they wrote their books doing 20 minutes a day. 20 minutes isn't long enough for me to sit down and think "ok so where did I leave off? And where was I going with that? Oh right ok, fingers on the keys - The...." "MOMMA!" Ugh Maybe next time. I'll get there, I just haven't yet.