T's preschool teacher, Mrs. J, is leaving us in June to PCS back to the states. The other Moms and I are very, very sad about this. We all feel that she has been wonderful with our kids. She's worked wonders with T since October. Sigh.
So, we are all spreading out and looking for the same type care. Right now there are four kids in the toddler program and they all seem to get along really well. If only we could find another home daycare provider that has a comparable enrichment program. (At this point, I don't think any of us believe that we'll ever find an equal or better program...sniff!)
Right before Mom and Debbie came, I was calling around to explore other options. S has entered the clingy stage and I was, and still am, hoping to get her used to being around other kids. When T entered that phase, I kept him with me and I think that was a disservice to him in the long run. Then one day there was a flier in our stairwell about a home daycare provider, Pamela, who seemed to have all the elements of Mrs. J's enrichment program. Hmmm... so I called her and the kids and I went up to meet her. I was impressed. She's got a degree in early childhood development, she was friendly, the kids liked her from the get-go, so I thought, GREAT! If we can just talk her into starting a toddler program, that would just be fabulous. So I told Jenny and Heather about her and we decided to see if we could convince her to do this. Then Heather got orders and had to PCS. Crap! Since Angela, Jesse's mom, was PCSing in June, that just left Jenny and I. Then Crystal's daughter moved into T's class. Perfect! She, too, was interested and now we were back up to three.
For one of T's evaluations during the whole autism screening process, I made arrangements with Pamela to keep S. Pamela only does drop in care and it's a minimum of two hours at $6 an hour. From what I could tell, when I went to pick S up, it had gone well. But every effort I made after that to arrange care didn't work out. Hmmm. Then I get an email from Jenny. Pamela is going to start an enrichment program. YAY! So, I call Pamela and get voicemail in German. Now, I know that I had left a message with her before this and she had a recorded message, so I figured I dialed the wrong number or she was having phone problems. With TKS (the phone/cable/internet provider here) that's not unusual. And then it just slipped my mind until Jenny mentioned it Monday. So I came home and called again. This time Pamela answered, but said she was in the middle of something and could I call her back in five minutes? Sure! So I called back, again got the voicemail with the German recording, but this time I left a message to this effect - "Hi Pamela. This is B____. I spoke with you a few minutes ago and the reason I was calling was because I spoke with Jenny, who's son is in T's toddler class at Mrs. J's. Jenny said you were seriously thinking about starting a preschool program and I'm very interested in having T come. If you aren't I'd still like to make arrangements for you to keep T some of the same times you keep Jenny's son. If you could please call me back so we could talk about the possibilities and pricing, I would really appreciate it. My number is ______."
When she hadn't returned my call by 6 pm, I decided to call her back and leave another message. It was basically this, "Hi Pamela, it's B____ again. I spoke with you briefly this morning and then I called you back and left a message. I haven't heard back from you, so I thought I'd give you a call back. I wanted to try and arrange care for T, either on the same schedule as Jenny's son or in an enrichment program. If I don't hear back from you, I'm going to assume that you have decided not to do the program or that it won't work out for T. If you'd like to call me back, my number is __________. Thanks!"
And then I emailed Jenny later that night letting her know I was having trouble getting in touch with Pamela so I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I was also concerned at that point that something awful had happened or that she just didn't want to watch T and didn't want to tell me. I mean, of all the people on the planet, I'm well aware he can be quite the handful.
Jenny, God love her, emailed back and said - that's strange. I'll call her. I don't mind asking the hard questions.
That works for me, since I can't get her to answer the phone OR call me back. So Jenny calls me today, tells me that she's talked to Pamela and Pamela said that she tried to call me back (lies! I have caller ID, DUH!) but that I left a hostile message on her machine and since she needs to have a good working relationship with the parents of the kids she keeps, she now thinks it won't work out for her to keep my kids again.
LOL!!!! ROFL!!!! ROFLMAO!!!!!!! Don't do me any favors, missy. I also briefly entertained calling and actually leaving her a hostile message so that she'd know what one sounded like (at least from me), but then I decided that wouldn't solve a thing and frankly, I'm better than that. So, as Jenny and I talked about what she told me vs. what she told Jenny, vs. what she told Crystal - there's no way I'm taking my kids over there. T's had enough trauma as it is without my adding to it by taking him to a day care provider that thinks we have a hostile relationship.
And, the search continues for decent child care. I did tell Jenny that I would call Pamela and attempt to explain that I wasn't trying to be hostile (which I wasn't), but that I just wanted to know either way if we could work something out. Yet, I couldn't make myself do it today. Maybe tomorrow when I'm actually feeling less hostile. Heh!!
So, for anyone out there that ever felt like I was hostile towards them, please let me know so I can determine if this is something I actually need to work on or if this lady has just lost her mind. Hostile. HAHAHAAAAAA. Sorry.
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