A bittersweet moment...

I waved to an empty window this morning.

Not one little girl stood there frantically waving to me this morning, like usual. And it reminded me of something...

Today was the last day that I'll drop 3 children off at daycare in the morning. School starts on Tuesday. Abby and Hannah will go over to our neighbor's house in the mornings to wait until the bus comes and I'll be taking just Becca to daycare.

I'm not sure why that saddens me... We've been looking forward to the big girls both being in school, daycare costs (hopefully!) going down and all of that. But we hit a milestone this morning and I didn't even realize it until it was over.

Nobody waved to me. And nobody will next week either since Becca doesn't usually wave - she's off and running and busy from the moment we get there.

I didn't realize how much waving to my girls out the window of the van while I pull out of the driveway had become a part of my morning routine. I guess the routine will have to change, like so many things will next week. Two big girls in school - where has the time gone?

I'm not sure why they didn't wave this morning - they were probably busy with seeing their friends and got involved in an activity right away. Which is a good thing really. Or so I keep telling myself. It's a milestone for them too - the last full day at daycare.

Yes, there will be school vacations and various days off throughout the school year. Not to mention next summer, when all 3 of them will go back to daycare. But that will be temporary. Today was the last 'official' day that I had 3 little ones to drop off. On Tuesday, Abby will be a first grader and spending full days at school like the 'big kids' do. Hannah will be in 'real' school for the first time. And the van will seem very empty in the mornings as Becca and I head to daycare by ourselves.

I wonder how long it would take to teach Becca to wave out of the window at me...

A lot about daycare

I'm feeling the need to talk daycare. I realized that my post about being frustrated with our daycare costs not going down as expected didn't touch on the things that we truly like (well, love) about our current daycare situation and provider.

And to do that, I almost have to explain our whole daycare history, so bear with me, ok?

First off - I never thought much about it when I was pregnant with Abby. I worked, I was our main breadwinner and our insurance came through my job. There wasn't any other option, so I just assumed I'd go back to work after the baby came.

I never expected to not want to go back to work. But I was pretty much stuck at the time - our debt load was massive and there was no way we could survive on Ron's smaller income. So I did some research and found a daycare, run by two young moms out of one of their homes.

It wasn't a horrible situation, but I was struck when I came to see Abby at lunchtime and at drop-off and pick-up times by how little these women (girls, really - they were very young) actually interacted with the kids in their care. They seemed to spend more time chatting with each other than down on the floor playing. Coupled with the fact that I hated her being in daycare to begin with - we made the choice to have Ron stay home. In a practical way, it made sense since his was the smaller income. And we knew that Abby would be safe and happy with her daddy.

I wasn't expecting to feel the jealousy that came on as i headed off to work every morning, wanting nothing more than to stay home with the rest of my family. I began to hate going to work, and to hate my job.

However, Ron realized after a few months that he wasn't cut out for the stay-at-home life - he needed the interaction with other adults and to get out of the house. And financially, we weren't doing too well on just my income. So he found a job and I found a new daycare provider - this time recommended by someone we knew.

And we loved her!! And so did Abby, and Hannah once she came along. I still wasn't happy with going to work, but I was comforted to know how well my kids were doing and how loved they were. She really made her daycare kids a part of her family, and she and I became friends as well, especially when I came every day at lunch to nurse Hannah.

The two things we regretted leaving the most when we moved here? Our pediatrician and our daycare provider.

I actually drove the girls back to her house for the first couple of months after we moved, since I was commuting back to my old job anyway. But when I found a new job closer to home, it came time to find daycare again. So I searched, and found someone who seemed nice and reliable.

Two things happened after that. The first is that Ron was offered a new job a month after I got mine - he'd been commuting also, and this new job was in town. Plus, he'd be working part-time from home for the first several months, then full-time in the office after that.

We also weren't completely happy with our daycare. There were lots of little things - I guess we'd been kind of spoiled in a way because this was so much more 'business-like' than we were used to. We looked at Ron's job opportunity as a way to let the girls stay home with him for a while again. We kept them in daycare for one day a week originally, but our relationship with our provider soured and we ended up pulling them out entirely.

Back to the search, since Ron's days at home were numbered. We talked to one of our neighbors who watched kids on an informal basis, but she wasn't able to commit to full-time (she's always been our backup provider though, when she's able). After interviewing several, we met someone who we just 'knew' was right. And she was awesome, both with and for our kids. Both Abby and Hannah still ask to visit her and point out her house whenever we go by. They'll ride the bus with her daughter this fall and I'm so happy because they've missed her too - she was like a third sister to them while they were there.

We lost this daycare after just a year in part because she was overwhelmed in the mornings and trying to cut back her hours. She could have kept Hannah, but not Abby since Abby was in afternoon preschool that year (her program was only offered in the afternoons) and needed morning-only care. I also was pregnant with Becca, and she knew she wouldn't have an open space available, so when she cut back, we were the obvious choice since we'd end up having to look elsewhere a few months later anyway. I seriously considered leaving just Hannah there, but we decided it was too important to keep the kids together. That was a very, very sad parting.

We found a replacement daycare, and she was nice enough - although after our previous experience, I don't know if anyone could've lived up to our expectations. Since I was hoping to start my own daycare after Becca was born at this point, we knew this situation was temporary and it was fine for the moment.

I'm not going to talk about why my own daycare failed - that's a longer story than I want to go into right now and I've talked about it some already. I got my current job last August, prompting the need to find daycare again - for 3 kids this time. We knew it would be expensive, but we also knew that the cost would improve as the kids started school. It was much harder to leave the kids this time, especially since I'd been home with them for 6 months.

We found someone we liked and the kids liked well enough, and we were happily going along until she decided that she couldn't handle Hannah's potty accidents and her 'attitude'. Hannah was difficult to handle at that point (just turning 4) but I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary or that a daycare provider shouldn't be able to deal with. I knew that Abby wasn't happy there at all - there were no kids her age and she was horribly bored with no structure or activities. I think in the end it was a combination of things on both ends (she'd put Becca in a forward-facing carseat at 7 months old and nowhere near 20 pounds!) and she gave us 3 weeks notice right before Christmas.

I was happy enough to have the kids out of there but then stressing over what to do. Our wonderful neighbor watched the kids for the rest of December but come January we needed someone permanent.

I knew someone through church who did daycare - I'd called her a few times during our previous searches but she never had any openings. Her twin daughters were in Hannah's preschool class and I'd heard many good things about her. So I took a chance and asked her one Sunday if she had any openings. She did.

I know that this is where my kids are meant to be right now. This is the 3rd daycare provider that we've been blessed with who treats our kids as her own and truly loves them. And they love her - as do I. I enjoy chatting briefly with her when I drop the kids off and pick them up. I only wish we had more time to talk and get to know each other better, but she's a busy single mom with 4 kids of her own.

From the beginning, she was more expensive than we really wanted to pay, but we knew she was worth it. And it was only temporary - if we could make it through until fall, then our costs would go down and we could breathe again. I guess that's why I feel like the bottom's dropped out after that e-mail yesterday.

I really need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with her. I love her and her family, and I want our kids to continue going there - since I can't be home with them. I hope we can work something out.

Daycare, in one way or another, has been my single most stressful thing to deal with in the past 6 1/2 years. There are so few quality options out there that parents can afford - yet I know that daycare providers and teachers don't make nearly as much as they deserve.

My friend Cheryl is going through the daycare search right now and I feel for her. She's had her ups and downs with this issue as well. I think most families probably have...

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So much for saving money on daycare this fall...

So I am really frustrated. We've been waiting for a year, since I came back to work, for this school year to start since with both older girls in school, we'll be saving a bunch of money on daycare.

Or so we thought.

I dropped the girls off at daycare this morning and our daycare provider didn't say one word to me that wasn't normal every day conversation.

Then I got to work and found this e-mail in my inbox (written yesterday):

Hi Deb,

I want to apologize...I made a mistake when figuring your fall tuition.

Becca will stay the same, $150. Hannah will stay at $100, technically she should be $125 because even though she will be going to school, she will be here more then 4 hours per day and is taking up a full time space. Abby can stay at the $2.50 per hour, but I charge my other before and after school kids $5 per hour. I gave you a break in the beginning because I know that having 3 kids in daycare is expensive. I will offer a discount for the fall as well. I again apologize. The way I have it figured now is~

Becca $150

Hannah $100

Abby $12.50

total $262.50 per week.

I will have a new contract for you to sign with the new tuition on it. The contract is the same, just the total tuition will change. As before, tuition is still due on Mondays.

I hope this works for you, I am sorry for messing this up...I feel terrible. It seems we never have time to chat, this email seems so impersonal.

Have you heard from the doctor in regards to Abby's testing? I am sure that when she starts school they will also have some resources for you. Please let me know if I can help in any way. She had a good summer, I know this last week will be the hardest!

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. I don't know if I will have the chance to check my email until Monday evening, things are busy during the day.

Thanks, and again I'm sorry for my mistake!

This is after I'd sent her an e-mail a couple of weeks ago verifying what I thought we'd be paying this fall, and she wrote back agreeing with me.

What really bothers me is two things. First, she could've said something to me this morning in person when she saw me - even just a "hey, I sent you an e-mail" kind of a heads-up would've been nice.

And yes, Hannah will be there for 5 hours. But Hannah will be there the exact same hours that Abby was during the last school year. Abby cost us $62.50/week even though she was technically "taking up a full time space" then. And now we need to pay $100/week for the same hours? This just doesn't make sense to me at all.

Sigh.

Somehow it seems like we just can't ever get ahead. I was really looking forward to our daycare bill finally being lower than our mortgage payment and maybe having extra money to get caught up on bills...

Sorry - I know it's a drop in the bucket compared to what other people are going through and dealing with, but I just needed a chance to vent. Back to what you were doing! :)

Digging for 'jewels'

I did a lot of laundry yesterday. Since I hadn’t been feeling well for most of last week, not much had gotten done around the house so we were definitely feeling the lack of clean clothes. Let’s just say that by Saturday night we were scrounging for anything the kids could wear to sleep in (yeah sweetie, you do want to wear that t-shirt and pair of shorts to bed, right?). So yesterday I did all of the kids’ laundry (including Hannah’s bedding since she decided to sleep in underwear instead of a pull-up Friday night, with predictable results…), a load of Ron’s and I’ve got a load of towels still sitting downstairs waiting to be put in the washer, since I didn’t get to it this morning. Oops.

I’ve never really paid attention to checking the kids’ pockets when I wash their clothes. Up until this point, I’ve never really had to. Ron’s – yes. He keeps pens in his shirt pockets for work and a few of them have made it into the wash in the past (there’s nothing like pulling clean, wet clothes from the washer and seeing blue ink stains all over them…), not to mention all of the little coaxial cable connectors and other assorted pieces of metal that end up in his pockets as well. And his wallet’s been washed at least a couple of times too.

In the past few months though I’ve started noticing some strange things mixed into the girls’ clothes when I’m sorting and folding them. Their toy cell phones have been washed several times – did you know those ones from the Disney Store can go through the wash a couple of times before they start sounding a bit – odd? Play jewelry, the assorted stuffed animal, doll blankets... Hannah is generally the culprit since many of the items I’ve found have been in the pockets of her shorts.

Last night I found something that scared the heck out of me.

I’m reaching into the washer to move wet clothes in to the dryer, when I see something shiny. Not in a pocket – just mixed in among all of the clothes. I pull out of the washer – a shard of (real!) glass – it's flat, like from a window, several inches long and broken off into a point on one side.

What the…??!!!

I’m just glad I saw it before I reached in and gashed my hand open or something!

So I carry this ‘dagger’ of a piece of glass upstairs and show it to Ron. Who is about as speechless as I am – where did this thing come from and how did it end up in our kids’ laundry?

Have you guessed it yet?

She didn’t admit to it right away, but Abby knew and once she said something, then Hannah said yes, she’d found it at daycare and put it in her pocket.

?????!!!!!!

So first of all, my child walked around for a good part of a day with this glass shard in her pocket – thank goodness she didn’t stab herself with it or get cut. Or bump up against something and break it into even smaller pieces. Big sigh of relief.

But then, what the…????!!!!!

On further questioning, Hannah said that she found it in the dirt at daycare, in the back yard. I do know that she and a couple of the other girls have been digging in the yard (after being told repeatedly not to) and on Friday Hannah came home pretty much covered in dirt. Now I know why they’re not supposed to be digging.

I took the glass with me this morning and showed it to our daycare provider. It seems the girls have been digging in the dirt in an area way off in the back that at one time was used for burning garbage. They are not supposed to go near there, much less dig, and they’ve gotten into big trouble for it several times.

And why are they digging? Apparently they like looking for the pieces of plastic and plexi-glass that they find – they call them ‘jewels’ because they shine when the sunlight hits them. This was the first piece of real glass that our daycare provider had seen from back there.

We had a long talk with Hannah last night about why this is not a 'jewel' - it's dangerous and not something to be played with or put into pockets. Our daycare provider is going to sit her and the other two girls down again today to have another long talk with them as well.

I’m also thinking that I need to insist that she fence or block that area off somehow. Yes, if the little kids are out there, she’s always out there with them to keep them in the main part of the yard. But the older kids do go out and play on their own (they can be easily seen from the kitchen). I don’t know that I completely trust Hannah not to dig or put things in her pockets – it’s very tempting, especially when you’ve been told not to and when other kids are doing it. But I’m thinking that she has maybe learned her lesson from seeing how scared, worried and freaked out I was when I found that piece of glass yesterday. We'll see.

And new house rule for us - all pockets have to be (carefully) emptied at night before they change into their pajamas. So I don't have to be scared to reach into the washing machine the next time I wash their clothes.

You know, I just thought too about how much trouble she could've gotten into if she'd had something like that in her pocket at school (once it starts) - in today's world, that may very well be considered a 'weapon'. Yikes.

I'm not sure what else we can do? I feel like I'm maybe over-reacting in some ways but under-reacting in others...