69 thoughts on “October 9, 2017: I Could Daycare Less”

  1. AMR, there's a dead bird on the sidewalk on the north side of 3rd, probably 20 feet or so from the corner with Marquette. It's probably a little smaller than a robin and has black feathers with white spotting on the wings.

  3. The best part about days like today are that they enable me to bring Philosofette her purse when she forgets it, which means I get to load up all the kids into the car, which means that they're sitting in their car seats when they pee, which means that I get to clean up a mess and wrestle with removing the car seat cover so that I can get it in the wash. Wee.

    1. Reminds me of the day when Sheenie was in California for a conference, and I got a flat tire a block from home on the way to day care, and then needed a tow, a rental car, to switch the car seat to the rental car, and then to get breakfast because we were now too late for the Valet to get breakfast at day care, and so we stopped at Burger King for him to eat french toast sticks, and then he crapped himself at Burger King. Anyway, you have my sympathies.

        1. And yet, one off-hand comment about Eagan and towing and I'm vividly remembering being stranded on crosstown in sub-zero temperatures on my birthday, unable to loosen the lugnuts on my flat tire while I waited in vain for the company who shall not be named to come and get me.

      3. Yeah, this day (so far) pales in comparison to that. And to others I've blocked out before...

    2. Two separate occasions my 3 year old has either had a poop-splosion in her carseat, or mass vomited in her car seat. Both involved needing to stop, hose off said car seat, clean toddler, and buy new clothes. Neither fun.

      1. We had a mass vomiting incident this summer, which involved multiple cleanings of the seat cover and pretty intense sanitization of the rest of the seat, particularly the straps. Both of us took turns on that unpleasant task. Thank goodness for leather seats in the car.

        1. Nietzsche used to get car sick with some regularity. We don't have leather seats. The first time she got car sick (so I was unprepared) I was driving down a very busy highway with nowhere easy to stop for quite a while. I found some random parking lot just off the road and used literally every napkin, paper towel, baby wipe, piece of clothing, and unused diaper that we had in the vehicle to try to clean her/the car seat off, and then drove the last hour to our destination with the windows down (because smell), since she fell asleep and stopping to clean up better seemed like it was just tempting a second bout of vomit.

          1. Living so far away from family, we take lots of long driving trips. Our oldest has frequent bouts of carsickness. That combination means I've spent many hours of my life trying to get all the vomit out of every tiny nook and cranny of car seats, and my wife has spent many more hours than I.

            On the recommendation of someone here (AMR I think?), I finally bought a pack of emesis bags for our cross-country road trip this summer. Haven't needed to use them yet, but I felt much more secure having them, especially for the drive from Minnesota to Virginia when it was just me and the kids.

            1. I spent a lot of time vomiting in cars as a kid. The receptacle of choice was a 5-quart ice cream bucket. My dad always bought vehicles with vinyl seats.

              1. My parents kept a small wooden bowl in the car for me. Seems like a pretty terrible choice in retrospect....

        2. The only time we ever had a projectile vomit in the car, The Milkmaid and I were on the way to drop the girls at their aunt's so we could go to the Seattle Symphony. Skim lost it all over the back of the passenger seat. We didn't get to the symphony.

    3. Our best moment, was getting halfway down to the river at the Royal Gorge Bridge, (on a tram) when my 4 year old son says he has to go #2 really bad. Well, no toilet or even bushes to hide behind at the bottom, and a 20 minute wait before the tram goes back up. We get 1/2 way up and he lets it go in a tram full of people. On vacation. No change of clothes in the car. The. Worst.

  4. We have a generally favorable opinion of our daycare provider. The Poissonnier seems to like her & the two other kids she takes care of, and so far there haven’t been any major issues that would send us looking elsewhere. That said, there have been way more days off than allotted for in our agreement this year, and at a certain point that means we’ve had to ask my mother-in-law to come up or one of us has had to take the day(s) off. I try to be empathetic when it’s due to illness, but when you say that you get a week off during the holidays and that’s your yearly vacation, I’m not really happy when you charge us for a full week and then take a day to go to a concert unless we’re getting that back (unlikely) between Christmas & New Years. There’s been a little bit of making up the rules as she goes along, and we haven’t really been in the position to push back.

    1. This is one of the nice things about using a center. We don't ever have to worry about random days where we can't bring them in. Plus, the place we send them to allows us to take up to three weeks "vacation" during the year that we don't have to pay. One of those weeks was enthusiastically used during the summer when we were paying twice as much as during the school year. The other nice thing is that the bauble started 4K this year and his "school" is also at the center, so no need for any kind of transportation to and from 4K.

      The downside is, of course, with the extra staff you may not really know them and how they handle the kids as well as when its just one person as well as less individual attention for the kids. But, its been a year now and both of ours like all of the staff and do great socially with the other kids there.

      1. We did our own in-house nanny, then a private provider and then a center. In-house nanny was convenient, but we learned 2 years after we let her go, that she would lock our kids in their room so she could take a nap. Not cool! Private provider seemed fine until we found out her teenage son was a drugged-up lunatic (who I worked with) and so we bailed on her. The center was actually pretty good, except the time my daughter climbed up on an unsecured book shelf (illegal) and it fell on top of her and split her forehead wide open to the tune of 10 stiches.

        I did absolutely loath the private provider contract in which we seemed to pay for more days of daycare than we actually used. Always fun to pay a provider who is on vacation and pay someone else to watch your kids at the same time. Glad that all is way behind us.

        1. I love our private provider, even with this week. She caters to teachers so we don't have to worry about summers when Philosofette is off. Plus she is amazing with the kids. Past private providers proved problematic.

        2. My wife used to be a nanny (thanks, Madison doctor-types, for the money), but yikes, she would never have done something like that. Daycare really seems a lot like a landmine field, so I'm glad we were able to find a good center right away.

          1. Interviewing potential daycares we once pulled into a yard and turned right around in front of the active auto salvage thing that appeared to be going on next to the small plastic slide. We at least called and told them we couldn't make the interview...

      2. We don't ever have to worry about random days where we can't bring them in.

        This. So much this, especially with having no family within 1800 miles of us.

        We have enough trouble covering for days when the kids are sick, I don't know how we'd handle dealing with days where a childcare provider is sick or otherwise unavailable.

        Our kids go/went to a Montessori school that has daycare available after school time, and we love it there. Plus, then they get some kind of educational environment in addition to the free play time.

    2. Thanks to my working evenings at the time and my wife being a teacher, my kids never went through daycare. For a while, Junior had a babysitter when my wife's school decided teachers' kids couldn't be with them at the school. They have at times also stayed at their school's before and after school program (they call it extended care and this was a different school than the one that wouldn't allow kids in the classroom after school), but that's it. It made it hard to do things as a family, but it at least made sure the boys were with at least one parent for a larger majority of the time.

    1. I think he deserved to come back. I don't know that I'd have given him three years, but I suppose if they decide they want to be rid of him at some point that won't really be much of an impediment.

      1. Assuming, as I did before, that this move is at least in part about sending a signal to players, 3 years suggests stability and confidence in a way 1 year does not.

  7. A special eff you to Delta. Every time we've flown on the direct from New Orleans to Minneapolis scheduled at 4pm it is at least thirty minutes late. Today, it is three hours late and Delta refuses to either confirm our deny that the pilots and crew will not be at their hours max for the day before the delayed flight.

    1. As of right now, we're looking at a 3.5 hour delay. Weather delays I understand, a stray mechanical issue happens, but this flight is always late. Too bad it's the only direct flight all day.

        1. Watching a douchebag in a Gronk jersey find out the Red Sox were eliminated was slightly enjoyable.

      2. OFFS, turns out the delay is because

        Actual Spoiler SelectShow

        1. And a very, very intoxicated woman just got arrested at the gate for threatening to kill a fellow passenger.

        1. Oh, heh, it kind of did. I wasn't going to watch it, because bloodsport (and not the good JCVD kind), but now I'm gonna go back and turn the sound on to see if he sounded Russian.

  9. I know we hate football here , so I guess I'm just going to say, Vikings gonna Viking.

    2. I don't hate football, but I don't know why someone would watch it when there's a baseball game on.

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