In terms he can understand

A conversation with the boy this morning, during the usual dawdling as I’m trying to get out the door to walk him to preschool.

Me: You know, if I’m late for work, I’ll be in big trouble with my boss.

The boy: You’ll be in Big Time Out?

Me: No, but if I don’t work, my boss won’t give me any money.  And we use the money to buy the things our family needs. 

The boy: We use the money to buy my toys?

Me: That’s right, your toys, and all the other things that we need for our family.

The boy, suddenly walking very quickly: Let’s go, mommy.  Walk fast!

Other accounts of May’s daycare debacle

Back in May I wrote about our infant daughter’s abrupt expulsion from daycare caused by the mismanagement, lies, and greed of the owners. Two other parents, EhiPassika and cellwynd have also blogged about their experiences with Tiny Tots Playroom. I’d like to think that the word is out, but last night on a local parents listserv a mom wrote that she was considering the facility for her infant daughter and asked for feedback. I immediately sent her an accounting of our experience. The owners acted with such dishonesty, poor judgment, and lack of ethics that I would never entrust them with the safety of my child, and could never in good conscience recommend that other parents do so either.

I’m not surprised that Tiny Tots Playroom has space for new families. Either families who were “allowed” to stay are finding better care and leaving, as many said they intended to, or the owners figure the pressure is off and they can once again start cramming as many people as possible into the building, zoning and licensing laws be damned.

Daycare woes

I’ve been negligent about posting lately, but there has actually been a lot going on.

We suddenly lost our daycare spot for baby girl a couple weeks ago. She had been attending a center for about 2 months since I returned to work. One afternoon we arrived to pick her up and found out that the center was closing effective immediately and they weren’t sure if or when they would reopen. It seems they were over capacity for zoning, among other violations, which they had known for a couple months but never communicated to parents. They did reopen two days later but with a reduced roster and we didn’t make the cut. But after the way the situation was handled by the owners, we wouldn’t want to return there anyway. Communication was mostly non-existent, and they lied misled us about the situation when they did say something. After promising to call everyone, they only contacted the families who (by some arbitrary process) got to keep their spots; the rest of us didn’t even get the courtesy of a phone call. And it wasn’t just us as newbies who got the unceremonious boot: families who had sent multiple children there over the course of several years were also dropped without so much as a phone call. Unbelievably poor business practice. Unfortunately, given the shortage of child (particularly infant) care in the area, I suspect that they will still have no trouble filling spots and staying in business, despite their terrible treatment of their customers. As difficult as it was for all of us parents who had to scramble to make other arrangements, I feel worse for the older children who suddenly found out that they could no longer return and they wouldn’t see their friends and teachers again. No chance to say goodbye, no transition, nothing.

The upshot to all this for our family is that we were fortunate enough to find an in-home provider who had a spot open for baby girl. She’s gone there for two weeks now and it seems to be working out just fine. She’s in a mixed-age setting with one other infant and several older children, and seems to enjoy watching the antics of the older kids. One of the providers calls her a “steady-smilin’” girl and said she’s the easiest baby they’ve ever cared for. I’m grateful that we were able to make arrangements so quickly. Some of the families are still cobbling together care while they try to work out a long-term solution.