Hurry, Nanny. Many thanks, sincerely.
Blah blah blah, Baby School. Blah blah blah, don't know what to do. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
That's the gist of this entry.
So I joined some nanny-search website and posted an ad explaining what I would like in a nanny, and I've gotten quite a lot of replies. However, the range of what the nannies want to be paid is really wide. The nannies who want to be paid what I can afford seem... not exactly well educated. The very literate nannies want to be paid a lot of money. I've noticed this with day care centers, too.
There is one nanny who seems literate, experienced, and nice, and she's also older, which I find compelling. She has been persistent in emailing me, even when I've gone a few days without replying to her, and she is approaching affordable. I've gone over and over this in my mind, coming up with different scenarios: Atticus and Penelope both stay home with the nanny, or just Atticus stays, or Atticus stays in the morning and Penelope goes to half-day preschool somewhere. Unless I can get us into some kick-ass school, I think I would want Penelope to stay where she is, because she really does enjoy her class. Every day when I get her dressed and tell her it's time for baby school, she says, "I want to go to my new class!" And she's singing all kinds of songs now, and talking about all the great shit she's learned, and I really want to let her hold onto that.
I have called and called again the handful of "good" day cares in town. They all say I can expect not to get in until at least August of 2011. Maybe June. MAYBE February, but not likely. But even the good day cares still have enormous class sizes. The one I've been pinning my hopes on the most actually has SIXTEEN babies in the baby room. Six. Teen. Babies. The woman I talked to told me it's okay because they also have five teachers, which is better than the state minimum ratio, and the babies are usually not all in the same room at the same time because some are in the sleeping area, and some may be outside, or whatever. But still. That is so damn many babies! And this is the "good" day care!
You know, sixteen babies isn't the only problem with that scenario. Five teachers is also kind of a problem. With that many teachers, all of them switching up, do the babies make a connection with any one person? Teacher turnover is a big problem in day care and really pulls the rug out from under kids. If a small child doesn't know from day to day which of the five people he only vaguely knows is going to be caring for him, can that really be okay?
I went and visited this other one I thought could be really compelling, because it is extremely small. The whole center has 44 children total. The baby room has only four babies. One teacher, but still only four babies. I think four babies would be a lot for me if I were the one teacher, but this teacher also has support from "floaters" such as the co-directors, and I found that very interesting. But my visit left me feeling unwowed.
The baby room teacher and I realized that we knew each other in middle school, which is cool. Then later, the director who was giving me the tour mentioned that the baby room teacher texts the moms pictures of the babies and stuff during the day. She said this to demonstrate the point that this day care is in touch with the parents, and at first I thought, "Aw! I want picture texts of MY baby during the day!" But then it seemed like maybe feeling comfortable enough to text the moms could be a red flag for feeling comfortable enough to do other crap on your phone when you're supposed to be watching my baby.
Then the older children's rooms seemed kind of disorganized. Everyone was coming in off the playground, so it's understandable that they weren't doing anything particularly constructive, but one of the kids in the 1-year-old room was actually running around naked until the teacher snagged him, and then he ran for a while in just a diaper. My tour ended in the kitchen, and just before I left, someone came to start getting ready for lunch, and the director who was talking to me realized she was 15 minutes late getting that going. Then as I walked out, I peeked in the 1-year-old room again and saw two children climbing onto the changing table while the teacher stood there and watched. The facility is rather shabby as well, and there is some problem with the mulch on the playground, so everyone who was coming inside after playing was visibly filthy.
They don't have openings for both my kids anyway. They have a spot for Penelope but only a part-time spot for Atticus, and they probably won't have a full-time spot for him until February at the earliest, unless someone drops out. So even if all that other stuff hadn't turned me off, it's still not doable. I liked a lot of the stuff that the co-director told me; I think philosophically it would be a good match for ME, but I didn't see it applied in the way I'd want it to be. It doesn't seem that it would be much of a step up. Maybe for Atticus, but maybe not for long, and maybe not for Penelope. And it doesn't matter anyway since they don't, strictly speaking, have the availability I need.
The day care at my university alma mater is supposed to be good, and I'm on the list, but the list is four pages long, and Atticus's name is the second to last on it. Priority is given to students, and if I were taking 1 graduate class or 2 undergraduate classes, there would be only 8 names ahead of his. I said I would consider enrolling if it meant we could get in. That seems very unrealistic, though. I work for the state, and I can get a tuition waiver, but just thinking about taking a class is exhausting! I'm done with school. I did it before I had kids so I wouldn't have to think about taking classes when I have kids. Even an online class would require, like, reading and writing, and I just don't have the time. It takes me two months to read a book these days, and that's if the book keeps my attention the whole way through.
So, back to nannies. That one nanny, the older one. I could actually maybe afford her, even just for Atticus. But then I start to think, "what kind of nanny am I getting for that kind of money?" I'm not talking about a lot of money here, folks. I'm talking less than minimum wage if you break it down into dollars per hour. And Atticus can't tell me if she plops him in the crib all day, or if she drinks from a flask as she walks him to the park, or if she forgets and leaves the stove on all afternoon. Plus, it just seems so unrealistic and fantastical to imagine having someone in my home, watching my baby, all day long. I don't know; it doesn't seem possible. Maybe I should have some nannies over for interviews, at least the ones I can afford, even though they don't seem very literate. Maybe. I don't know. Unrealistic!
I've also looked into home day cares, even though I feel very wary of them, but all the ads for home day cares in my area are, again, written by people who do not seem to have any idea how to write a proper sentence. I know Atticus isn't going to be learning to read in the next 10 months, but come on!
Ugh. Sigh. Uuugh. Sigh again.
Meanwhile, Jeannie tells me that Atticus has been "pitching little fits" lately. She's not sure why. She says she tries to hold him and rock him during these, and sometimes he just doesn't want to be held, so she puts him down. She said today he was crying and didn't want to be held, so she put him in the bouncer, and he cried for 3 or 4 minutes until he fell asleep. She wanted to know if he was doing this at home. Nope! No, he does not do that at home. She said, "maybe he's just frustrated with the whole thing." What whole thing? Being in a shitty day care? Maybe.
To be fair, I think he could also be having some digestive issues as well. I had been off all dairy for a long time, and then I started letting a little cheese back into my life, and then I started letting a LOT of cheese back into my life, and now Atticus seems fussy again when he poops. So I'm trying again to cut it out (cut the cheese! tee!), but it takes several days or a couple of weeks to get it all out of your system. Plus, whatever I pumped during that time will be milk-protein-fortified, which means any time I have to use my freezer stash, he could be eating something that disagrees with him. That could explain the "fits."
At the same time, Sheila becomes more human in fractions of a degree every week. She is nice to me, and she smiles at Atticus. Keegan (the one who clawed my baby's face up) particularly loves her, and I've seen her holding him and heard her talking about his fun personality. But she also has this unpleasant habit of staying in the room when she's clocked out on her break, and ignoring the babies because she's not on the clock. Today, Jeannie was feeding one, and the person covering Sheila's break was feeding another, and I was feeding Atticus, and I swear three other babies were all crying at the same time. And Sheila just stood there. I get it that she was on her break, but wtf?
I mentioned to Lee yesterday that we need to buy a new car seat, maybe two if one of P's old ones is about to expire. I was rattling on about weight limits and expiration dates on car seats or something, and Lee said, "Don't you have enough to worry about right now?" I said, "Yes, but I can't solve the day care problem! I want to worry about something I can solve. Like the car seats." It's true. I really feel trapped in this day care, and I really don't know what to do. It's not dangerous, and it's not the worst place my children could be, but it's imperfect. It's imperfect enough that the imperfections really get under my skin.
That's the gist of this entry.
So I joined some nanny-search website and posted an ad explaining what I would like in a nanny, and I've gotten quite a lot of replies. However, the range of what the nannies want to be paid is really wide. The nannies who want to be paid what I can afford seem... not exactly well educated. The very literate nannies want to be paid a lot of money. I've noticed this with day care centers, too.
There is one nanny who seems literate, experienced, and nice, and she's also older, which I find compelling. She has been persistent in emailing me, even when I've gone a few days without replying to her, and she is approaching affordable. I've gone over and over this in my mind, coming up with different scenarios: Atticus and Penelope both stay home with the nanny, or just Atticus stays, or Atticus stays in the morning and Penelope goes to half-day preschool somewhere. Unless I can get us into some kick-ass school, I think I would want Penelope to stay where she is, because she really does enjoy her class. Every day when I get her dressed and tell her it's time for baby school, she says, "I want to go to my new class!" And she's singing all kinds of songs now, and talking about all the great shit she's learned, and I really want to let her hold onto that.
I have called and called again the handful of "good" day cares in town. They all say I can expect not to get in until at least August of 2011. Maybe June. MAYBE February, but not likely. But even the good day cares still have enormous class sizes. The one I've been pinning my hopes on the most actually has SIXTEEN babies in the baby room. Six. Teen. Babies. The woman I talked to told me it's okay because they also have five teachers, which is better than the state minimum ratio, and the babies are usually not all in the same room at the same time because some are in the sleeping area, and some may be outside, or whatever. But still. That is so damn many babies! And this is the "good" day care!
You know, sixteen babies isn't the only problem with that scenario. Five teachers is also kind of a problem. With that many teachers, all of them switching up, do the babies make a connection with any one person? Teacher turnover is a big problem in day care and really pulls the rug out from under kids. If a small child doesn't know from day to day which of the five people he only vaguely knows is going to be caring for him, can that really be okay?
I went and visited this other one I thought could be really compelling, because it is extremely small. The whole center has 44 children total. The baby room has only four babies. One teacher, but still only four babies. I think four babies would be a lot for me if I were the one teacher, but this teacher also has support from "floaters" such as the co-directors, and I found that very interesting. But my visit left me feeling unwowed.
The baby room teacher and I realized that we knew each other in middle school, which is cool. Then later, the director who was giving me the tour mentioned that the baby room teacher texts the moms pictures of the babies and stuff during the day. She said this to demonstrate the point that this day care is in touch with the parents, and at first I thought, "Aw! I want picture texts of MY baby during the day!" But then it seemed like maybe feeling comfortable enough to text the moms could be a red flag for feeling comfortable enough to do other crap on your phone when you're supposed to be watching my baby.
Then the older children's rooms seemed kind of disorganized. Everyone was coming in off the playground, so it's understandable that they weren't doing anything particularly constructive, but one of the kids in the 1-year-old room was actually running around naked until the teacher snagged him, and then he ran for a while in just a diaper. My tour ended in the kitchen, and just before I left, someone came to start getting ready for lunch, and the director who was talking to me realized she was 15 minutes late getting that going. Then as I walked out, I peeked in the 1-year-old room again and saw two children climbing onto the changing table while the teacher stood there and watched. The facility is rather shabby as well, and there is some problem with the mulch on the playground, so everyone who was coming inside after playing was visibly filthy.
They don't have openings for both my kids anyway. They have a spot for Penelope but only a part-time spot for Atticus, and they probably won't have a full-time spot for him until February at the earliest, unless someone drops out. So even if all that other stuff hadn't turned me off, it's still not doable. I liked a lot of the stuff that the co-director told me; I think philosophically it would be a good match for ME, but I didn't see it applied in the way I'd want it to be. It doesn't seem that it would be much of a step up. Maybe for Atticus, but maybe not for long, and maybe not for Penelope. And it doesn't matter anyway since they don't, strictly speaking, have the availability I need.
The day care at my university alma mater is supposed to be good, and I'm on the list, but the list is four pages long, and Atticus's name is the second to last on it. Priority is given to students, and if I were taking 1 graduate class or 2 undergraduate classes, there would be only 8 names ahead of his. I said I would consider enrolling if it meant we could get in. That seems very unrealistic, though. I work for the state, and I can get a tuition waiver, but just thinking about taking a class is exhausting! I'm done with school. I did it before I had kids so I wouldn't have to think about taking classes when I have kids. Even an online class would require, like, reading and writing, and I just don't have the time. It takes me two months to read a book these days, and that's if the book keeps my attention the whole way through.
So, back to nannies. That one nanny, the older one. I could actually maybe afford her, even just for Atticus. But then I start to think, "what kind of nanny am I getting for that kind of money?" I'm not talking about a lot of money here, folks. I'm talking less than minimum wage if you break it down into dollars per hour. And Atticus can't tell me if she plops him in the crib all day, or if she drinks from a flask as she walks him to the park, or if she forgets and leaves the stove on all afternoon. Plus, it just seems so unrealistic and fantastical to imagine having someone in my home, watching my baby, all day long. I don't know; it doesn't seem possible. Maybe I should have some nannies over for interviews, at least the ones I can afford, even though they don't seem very literate. Maybe. I don't know. Unrealistic!
I've also looked into home day cares, even though I feel very wary of them, but all the ads for home day cares in my area are, again, written by people who do not seem to have any idea how to write a proper sentence. I know Atticus isn't going to be learning to read in the next 10 months, but come on!
Ugh. Sigh. Uuugh. Sigh again.
Meanwhile, Jeannie tells me that Atticus has been "pitching little fits" lately. She's not sure why. She says she tries to hold him and rock him during these, and sometimes he just doesn't want to be held, so she puts him down. She said today he was crying and didn't want to be held, so she put him in the bouncer, and he cried for 3 or 4 minutes until he fell asleep. She wanted to know if he was doing this at home. Nope! No, he does not do that at home. She said, "maybe he's just frustrated with the whole thing." What whole thing? Being in a shitty day care? Maybe.
To be fair, I think he could also be having some digestive issues as well. I had been off all dairy for a long time, and then I started letting a little cheese back into my life, and then I started letting a LOT of cheese back into my life, and now Atticus seems fussy again when he poops. So I'm trying again to cut it out (cut the cheese! tee!), but it takes several days or a couple of weeks to get it all out of your system. Plus, whatever I pumped during that time will be milk-protein-fortified, which means any time I have to use my freezer stash, he could be eating something that disagrees with him. That could explain the "fits."
At the same time, Sheila becomes more human in fractions of a degree every week. She is nice to me, and she smiles at Atticus. Keegan (the one who clawed my baby's face up) particularly loves her, and I've seen her holding him and heard her talking about his fun personality. But she also has this unpleasant habit of staying in the room when she's clocked out on her break, and ignoring the babies because she's not on the clock. Today, Jeannie was feeding one, and the person covering Sheila's break was feeding another, and I was feeding Atticus, and I swear three other babies were all crying at the same time. And Sheila just stood there. I get it that she was on her break, but wtf?
I mentioned to Lee yesterday that we need to buy a new car seat, maybe two if one of P's old ones is about to expire. I was rattling on about weight limits and expiration dates on car seats or something, and Lee said, "Don't you have enough to worry about right now?" I said, "Yes, but I can't solve the day care problem! I want to worry about something I can solve. Like the car seats." It's true. I really feel trapped in this day care, and I really don't know what to do. It's not dangerous, and it's not the worst place my children could be, but it's imperfect. It's imperfect enough that the imperfections really get under my skin.