Thursday, June 28, 2012

Choose another 'path'


Tia told me the other day that my blogs read kind of negatively.  I don’t see it that way, but evidently she does and, I assume, maybe others do as well.  It isn’t my intent and certainly not some condemnation of my life at present.  I just generally write about things I feel strongly about, whether they be extremely good or not so good.   The major gist is, this isn’t a painting of my life as a whole, but rather a series of snapshots.  Because honestly, who wants to hear about the generalities and mendacity that make up a stereotypical day? 

On to actual events, there is some seemingly exceedingly positive news; we have found a daycare.  We went to 3 in-home sites and found one that had the right combination of safety, location, price and mission.  The first place we visited was also very promising, but all things being equal we didn’t see anything that made it worth nearly 25% more per month.  It is still not ‘cheap’ but it is comparatively reasonable.  The only two high comedy watermarks came at the only center we visited (and walked quickly out of as it appeared to be run by the homeless and what appeared to be an amalgamation of every late middle aged woman you see on ‘Hoarders’) and at the last in-home care we saw. 

The last place had a wildly different POV on parenting, largely in their refusal to negate anything.  In our hour we saw the woman who runs the place’s daughter pick up an ink pen.  Her mother gave her the option (or ‘path’ in her speak) of putting the pen in her cubby or giving it to her mother.  She chose neither, opting instead to write on the wall.  The presented another series of ‘paths’ to redirect her from drawing on the wall and led to her drawing on her dress.  That failing, she was given 2 other paths and, you guessed it, chose to start drawing on her body.  Then we had to sit and talk about the place after our tour, and while other care centers introduced us to the kids, took us on a tour, and then brought us somewhere to discuss and ask questions, she chose the ‘path’ of having most of the kids climb on her like a jungle gym and interrupt her every sentence.  Meanwhile her assistant did nothing to ‘redirect’ them elsewhere.  I envisioned Tia and I having to spend every night trying to undo the learning each day.  Honest to god, it was like being on a bad blind date.  You show up and the other person launches into diatribe lifted from Fox news and you know instantly you need to extricate yourself, but end up sitting through dinner because you can’t figure out a polite way to do so.  It is an hour I will never get back, but at least it provided some interesting stories.  And for that, we thank you.



We also have finally finished our nursery.  Once we get a car seat, we will be ‘unofficially’ done buying stuff (or getting stuff as the case may be).  I am very pleased with how it came out.  Tia and I had to be creative to get it to work within budget and special thanks to everyone who sent us Dr. Seuss books, to Diane for the Cat in the Hat clock and lampshade, and to My mom’s friend Rhonda for the beautiful hand made Cat in the Hat blanket.   

As for work, well that just gets stickier and stickier and I am finding it difficult to remain above the morass.  They approved the position here and will be posting it “soon” per my supervisor.  However, the position at the Park remains murky.  If the charge there, KV, opts to cut back her schedule to 4 days a week (per her, she was just hoping to do every other Thursday), they may post the position there as a .8 instead of a .6.  This obviously could prove troublesome from a childcare perspective, though we could probably still make it work 3 days a week.  Honestly, my major concern is when the hell they are going to post it.  The only upside (and it isn’t a huge one) is I have not put my notice in in any shape or form, so they can’t just get rid of me until that occurs and if that were to happen I could collect unemployment at that point, possibly mitigating the need to have childcare initially.  But again, WTF!?!?  The next step is evidently KV contacting our actual supervisor, interim as she may be, instead of the nurse exec at her site who is not in fact her boss.  Then, once Janine gets that info, they can in theory move ahead in whichever manner they are deciding to.  I always have the option of on call, and may need to avail myself of it, but it is increasingly frustrating that they show me one thing (the part time job they have been talking about since at least February) and then continue to dangle it far out of reach.    

And so the story goes…….. 

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