Sunday, September 18th
Two weeks ago today, out of the blue, I received an email that said my children's M0ntessori school, which had been a huge part of our family's life for more than four years, was closing effective immediately. Like, hello, tomorrow is your first day back at work after six weeks off and you have no childcare! Oh, and also, the Director, who you always thought was a really good person, is actually a sociopath who intentionally did this to you and 25 other families with babies and toddlers. Oh, and she also stole close to $2,000 from you that you will likely never get back.
Every reputable daycare in Portland has a wait list a mile long. And, it was Labor Day weekend, so we couldn't even call around to see who had available spots. So, we did what any reasonable people would do. We called the sitter, went to the shitty Mexican restaurant down the street, took tequila shots, and cried. I fucking love that this was my husband's idea. My husband who doesn't drink. Anyway, we took shots and called all the (now unemployed) teachers at the M0ntessori school and begged them to be our nanny. Too bad there were 24 other sets of parents doing the same thing. We cried some more, and ordered taco salads, because thats what people like to eat when they're binge drinking, right? We pieced together a few days worth of care with family and friends, and arranged childcare swaps with some of the other families who were also caught in this mess. We stayed up all night for three nights obsessing over what had happened. What had we missed? There had to have been a red flag that we overlooked. And even if we had missed the red flag, why hadn't one of the other families seen it? As the week progressed, we fell further down the rabbit hole. We discovered that the Director had quit paying rent three months ago. She had known this was coming and said nothing to anyone. She sent out October tuition reminders two days AFTER the business had been dissolved with the state. Just sent us all home on Friday with a, "have a great long weekend, see you Tuesday" when she knew that the sherrif would be serving the eviction that day. That we'd be rolling up to drop our children off only to find all of their clothes, their art work, even the fucking class guinea pig out on the sidewalk.
So yeah, that week was probably the second worst week of my life. And I know that sounds dramatic, but there is a special kind of turmoil that results from encountering a sociopath. We also lost a massive part of our social circle. Noelle spent the entire week asking for her teachers and her friends. It was just so goddamn devastating. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. Back in the spring when we first bought the house, I had toured a M0ntessori in our neighborhood, thinking, wow, wouldn't it be great to have both kids going to school in the same part of town? Because the onramp to I-5 south in the Rose Quarter at 3:45 on a weekday is like the seventh circle of hell. So even though I was reticent to pull Noelle out of her school, I took a tour and I paid a deposit to put us on the wait list. And the Director there was lovely; we had a good rapport. So when Mark and I were at the bar drinking tequila and lamenting the shit tsunami that had just washed over our lives, I was able to pull out my phone and fire off an email to her that said, what number are we on the wait list? After a few days, once word had spread through the M0ntessori community about the circumstances under which the school was closing, the Director of the new school wrote me back a glorious, one-line email that said, "what schedule do you need, I want to make this happen for you."
Last week was Noelle's first week, and she did great. Just walked in there on Monday like she owned the place. Everyone has been so kind and welcoming. And, I no longer have to spend 40 minutes in the car everyay crawling through the seventh circle of hell. In the end, we ended up right where we needed to be. It was just a rough go getting there.
Every reputable daycare in Portland has a wait list a mile long. And, it was Labor Day weekend, so we couldn't even call around to see who had available spots. So, we did what any reasonable people would do. We called the sitter, went to the shitty Mexican restaurant down the street, took tequila shots, and cried. I fucking love that this was my husband's idea. My husband who doesn't drink. Anyway, we took shots and called all the (now unemployed) teachers at the M0ntessori school and begged them to be our nanny. Too bad there were 24 other sets of parents doing the same thing. We cried some more, and ordered taco salads, because thats what people like to eat when they're binge drinking, right? We pieced together a few days worth of care with family and friends, and arranged childcare swaps with some of the other families who were also caught in this mess. We stayed up all night for three nights obsessing over what had happened. What had we missed? There had to have been a red flag that we overlooked. And even if we had missed the red flag, why hadn't one of the other families seen it? As the week progressed, we fell further down the rabbit hole. We discovered that the Director had quit paying rent three months ago. She had known this was coming and said nothing to anyone. She sent out October tuition reminders two days AFTER the business had been dissolved with the state. Just sent us all home on Friday with a, "have a great long weekend, see you Tuesday" when she knew that the sherrif would be serving the eviction that day. That we'd be rolling up to drop our children off only to find all of their clothes, their art work, even the fucking class guinea pig out on the sidewalk.
So yeah, that week was probably the second worst week of my life. And I know that sounds dramatic, but there is a special kind of turmoil that results from encountering a sociopath. We also lost a massive part of our social circle. Noelle spent the entire week asking for her teachers and her friends. It was just so goddamn devastating. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. Back in the spring when we first bought the house, I had toured a M0ntessori in our neighborhood, thinking, wow, wouldn't it be great to have both kids going to school in the same part of town? Because the onramp to I-5 south in the Rose Quarter at 3:45 on a weekday is like the seventh circle of hell. So even though I was reticent to pull Noelle out of her school, I took a tour and I paid a deposit to put us on the wait list. And the Director there was lovely; we had a good rapport. So when Mark and I were at the bar drinking tequila and lamenting the shit tsunami that had just washed over our lives, I was able to pull out my phone and fire off an email to her that said, what number are we on the wait list? After a few days, once word had spread through the M0ntessori community about the circumstances under which the school was closing, the Director of the new school wrote me back a glorious, one-line email that said, "what schedule do you need, I want to make this happen for you."
Last week was Noelle's first week, and she did great. Just walked in there on Monday like she owned the place. Everyone has been so kind and welcoming. And, I no longer have to spend 40 minutes in the car everyay crawling through the seventh circle of hell. In the end, we ended up right where we needed to be. It was just a rough go getting there.