Tag: daycare

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Befriend a child; adopt a family

friends We all have them I expect. Some perhaps more than others, but they’re there. Lurking…waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring up on you when you least expect it. They’re resourceful, they’re sneaky, they’re…parents of annoying children who want to do things with you ALL THE TIME!

Ours is a divorcee’ with a daughter who, for one reason or another, has glommed onto my family as if we were a rich uncle come to take her away from the orphanage. She’s loved MLI since he first started going to his daycare. When MLE was born, she always asked, “Can I touch him?” as we’d bring him around while picking up MLI.

We also included her and her mother in some fun outings with our kids and others. And now, she’s driving us nuts. Both the daughter and the mother.

If it’s not the daughter begging either myself or CareerMom to go do something after daycare, her mom is calling up acting as if we had made previous plans to do something, when we know good and well we had not.

We watched her daughter overnight a while back when they moved and it’s only gotten worse since then. The daughter didn’t even want to leave, and keeps asking if she can come live with us.

The mom called CareerMom over the weekend and the conversation went something like this:
CareerMom: Hello?
Her: “Hi, this is “L”, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over on Saturday for swimming?”
CareerMom: “We have a big work picnic this Saturday, so that won’t work for us.”
Her: “Well, how about Sunday?”
CareerMom: “Sunday isn’t good or us either. Maybe we can do something sometime next week.”

Her: “How does Monday look for you?”

Let me just stop here and point out that there’s a fine line between being insistent and being rude, and CareerMom, who does not subscribe to my particular brand of “persistence” finally caved rather than making it (any more) obvious that she didn’t want to do anything.

So finally, CareerMom just said, “OK.”

Over the weekend, CareerMom got buyer’s remorse and decided that the last thing either of us wanted to do was go over there after work, spend a hour swimming, and then eating her idea of dinner (usually McDonalds) while watching both hers and our kids. So she’s going to call her today and cancel.

Or so she says.

But, people like this just don’t get it. If we are going to spend so much time with another parent(s), I’d like it to be with A) another little boy who shares my kids’ interests, B) with another couple so that if I come (and I usually do), I actually have someone to talk to who’s not bitter about life and men in general.

Now OK, I should just keep my mouth shut and do the Christian thing and help out this poor lady and her daughter who are in need (I’m also sure Jews would do the right thing here too, but since I’m a Christian, I’m using that analogy).

But they aren’t really. She’s not poor. She has a good job. She has a 4-year old daughter; only one. The only thing she doesn’t have, is other friends. So really, how much should we be going out of our way here?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Oh, obviously! The moment I sat down I thought I was looking into a mirror.

two strikes I swanny; if my boys weren’t born three years apart, I’d swear they were twins. When one is happy, the other is happy; when one is sad the other is sad.

And when one is bad, well…let’s just say that MLE now has “Two Strikes” on the old biting policy chart.

Yesterday, both of the boys had a little trouble at daycare. MLI’s class gives out stickers for being good, and one little incident can keep a child from getting a sticker. Depending on which story you listen to from MLI (the one he gave CareerMom, or the one he gave me), the infraction went something like this:

“We came in from playing outside and we were waiting in line for water, and I hit Carter and then I went and sat down.”

Now, if this doesn’t quite make sense, realize it’s coming from a four year old whose recollection leaves a lot to be desired, and who probably figures he’s about to get in trouble despite what daddy just told him about being honest. We had our own little “sticker contest” going at home where if he got five stickers, he could go see Wall-E with CareerMom. He had already gotten the requisite stickers, but knowing he fudged up yesterday, when CareerMom picked him up and found out he didn’t get a sticker, he psyched himself out of movie excitement with, “It was probably going to be boring anyway.”

Since he’d already gotten five stickers, I told CareerMom that he’d already earned it despite what he’d done that day, so he went to the movie with CareerMom last night anyway, and turns out he was right. They didn’t even finish the movie.

On to MLE! All’s I know is that he and another little boy were fighting over a push-toy, and recognizing that he might be about to lose the fight, MLE decided to fight dirty and reached over and bit the other boy. Which, as it turns out, worked…up until the point where the teachers came and put him in timeout with a “stern” admonishment.

Let me just point out here that a stern admonishment is about as effective with MLE as well, timeout. Which, shockingly, for a 16 month old, MLE is very good at. He’s apparently had lots of practice in timeout. We put him in timeout this weekend for something and he actually sat there until we told him to get up.

To say were were in “shock and awe” would be an understatement. And as CareerMom has said on many occasions, “It’s a good thing he’s so cute, because he’s going to be quite the troublemaker!”

Isn’t that way of it? How many hotties do you see going to jail? Male or female?

I’m just sayin’.

So anyway, we have one more strike before the mandatory parental meeting, and then if he continues to bite, it’s expulsion. CareerMom swears she’ll pull MLI AND MLE if it comes to that; although she’s not figured out what we’ll do with them then.

Hey, don’t look at me! I may work from home a lot, but that’s only because nobody else is there!

Any suggestions as to how we can curb this biting thing? Barring that…anyone know where we can find a really good (cheap) nanny?

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Dad Blogs Family

Cuz it’s One, Two, Three Strikes You’re Out…

three strikesAs I’ve mentioned, the daycare we have our kids in was recently purchased by a major chain (sounds like, “Bids R Bids”). Turns out, the new owner also owns a facility just up the road; one which, I might add, we had previously looked at and turned down summarily! Since the hostile takeover, the following things have happened:

– They didn’t tell anyone about the purchase until it was a done deal. Even people who had put deposits for Fall enrollment were not told. I know of one lady who dislikes the other facility these owners have so much, that she walked away from her $250 down payment.

– They removed all the wood chips in the playground, effectively shutting the playground down for a week. They have now put in different wood chips that are apparently easier on the lungs of those with breathing problems (so…let’s charge everyone more so that we can make it easier on one or two. Sounds similar to our government)

– They have now instituted a “3 strikes and you’re (at least) suspended” biting policy

It’s this last biting policy that most concerns us and many of the teachers. If you have ever had kids, or had kids around other kids, then you know that biting is common among toddlers. It’s not nice, it’s not fun, but it’s a fact of life. MLE is a bit of a biter and we’ve been working on him at home by not letting him and MLI wrestle (which sucks because, Come ON! they’re boys!), by reprimanding him when he does, and even by swatting his hiney when he does it.

But yesterday was his first offense under the new policy, so CareerMom is freaking out already about what we’ll do IF he gets suspended or kicked out. Neither of us have jobs that lend themselves well to keeping our kids at home and we’ve already scoped out all the daycare facilities around us and aren’t thrilled with our choices, not to mention the fact that with Pre-K registration having just finished, space is at a premium (if available at all).

The teachers of MLE’s class are trying to talk some sense into the owners, explaining to them that you can’t reason with a 15-month old like one of them tried explaining to us, “Well, have you tried sitting him down and explaining to him that biting is bad?”

*snort* I wish it had been me there when they said that rather than CareerMom because I would have retorted with, “I would hope that anyone who owns a daycare would be more aware of the developmental milestones of children.” You can’t reason with a 15-month old, when their attention span is no bigger than a Goldfish cracker. Sure, you can get their attention for the moment, but in an hour, in the heat of playing, their not going to stop what their doing and suddenly recall a lesson about biting! It’s madness I tell ya! Madness!

In his defense, he’s gotten better, but every now and then, usually when he gets excited and when he’s in close proximity to another person, he’ll just latch on, not hard though, but enough to hurt a bit.

But we do understand the concern that biting causes. MLI got bit a LOT when he was little and thankfully, he only bit a couple of times, and only in retaliation; but, as the mother of the child MLE bit yesterday said to CareerMom, “Oh, don’t worry about it! My son has certainly done his share of biting too!”

Anyway, my daily prayers now include, “Dear Lord, please don’t let MLE bite anyone today…oh and please let us have World Peace! Amen!”

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"It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds…"

DaddydaycareAs I admitted (gasp!) to CareerMom this weekend after she scolded me for saying, “Dammit!” in front of the boys, I’m not perfect. I drink a beer in front of them every now and then. I get annoyed when they keep asking the same, or similar, questions time after time. And OMG! When MLE starts crying in the car, I could scratch my nails down a chalkboard and find a happier place. I’m not perfect, I’ll freely admit it.

I am also, I’m discovering, a sexist and a hypocrite to boot!

See, despite my, “Hey, men are just as qualified as women to be child-care-givers,” attitude, I’m finding myself having a hard time accepting the fact that a man now runs our daycare facility.

What happened is, our daycare, which was previously run completely by three generations of women (they all worked there at the same time) has apparently made so much money off us parents that after only five short years, they are selling to a national chain of daycare centers (sounds like, “Grids R Grids”). We actually found out about this poorly kept secret this past weekend, and it was confirmed this morning as CareerMom greeted the new daycare owner, a man, in a wedding-reception-like gladhanding session as she dropped the kids off.

And I’m not too thrilled about this. I think part of it stems from the fact that another large chain of centers in our area (sounds like, “Snoddard School”) is also run by a man who just creeped the hell outta me each time I visited there; so much so that right after enrolling MLI after he was born, we pulled him out based almost entirely on the “creep vibe” the dude put out. So, I was already biased against men running daycare centers.

Call me crazy, but I can’t for the life of me, figure WHY a man would WANT to run a daycare center! I’m pretty sure that I lack several a gene that I consider prerequisites to caring for children over extended periods of time, such as:

  • the “sit on the floor and endure hours of monotony” gene
  • the “don’t react violently every time one of the kids swings something at crotch level” gene
  • the “fix three different really good things for lunch/dinner only to have them go and try to eat the dog food” tolerant gene

…and there are others I’m sure.

So here I am, finding myself railing against my kids going to a daycare run by a man, when some of the most well-adjusted men I know, are stay-at-home dads. Admittedly, running a daycare is probably more about project management than it is hands-on with the kids, but still…I can’t shake the bad feeling. I can’t shake the feeling that a man is more likely to cut corners if it’ll save a buck than a woman would.

See, hypocrite. That’s me.

What do you folks think?