And now for the conclusion (Part II)

I chatted with the daycare director face to face yesterday when we went to pick up Clara. The room was in much better condition (still not 100% but a lot better than when I walked in yesterday). Ms. Millie had left for the day so I still didn't get to speak with her (apparently her hours are 8:30-5:30. We have to drop Clara off before 7:30am and we can't pick her up until 6:15pm because Ray and I both work in the city and the daycare is way out in the 'burbs). After having a brief chat with two of Clara's "old teachers" (they are the original Infant I teachers that are now the new Infant II teachers) I spoke with Jessica (the director).

I explained to Jessica how I felt and what I thought about the switch and how I wished it had been better explained to us. I told her I was rather upset with the state of the room in the morning and I felt like there was enough time for Ms Millie to set up her room for all the new infants she was about to get. I let her know that I didn't think it was acceptable that if I am handing over medication to teachers that the actual teacher who would be administering the drug to my child wasn't there to speak to. Jessica explained that whatever teacher I spoke to could relay any messages. I said "look I know they are supposed to do that but when you have 6 children who are all either in stages of crawling, crusing, walking etc your primary concern when another teacher walks into the door is to get help. That usually means handing over whatever children aren't really 'your' children and stopping the children that are 'yours' from running amok in the room. Now with that in mind some things, some very important things, may not be communicated and while I know I can write a page long note about my Clara-once again with other children involved things don't get read, things get missed and we have problems." So Jessica said she understood my concern. Then I mentioned about the little babies typically being asleep earlier in the morning (or at least going down earlier than the 9-18 month crowd). I said "listen most 9-18 month olds have set nap times, right? Little little ones usually don't-they sleep when they are tired, eat when they are hungry typically-they are much harder to schedule. When you have to have them in a room where there is no place for them to sleep except the floor on a boppy or in the bouncy seat or in another child's crib [I actually don't think they allow this] it's really not conducive to their happiness and well-being. Not to mention when Ms. Millie comes in the door at 8:30am if my child happens to be napping already, now Ms. Millie has to pick her up, move her to the other room, put her in her crib. That can be disruptive and disturbing to my kid, you understand what I am saying?" And Jessica said "absolutely and I never thought about it like that. Perhaps what I need to do is have one of the Infant II teachers in the Infant I room until Ms. Millie comes in." Then Jessica said she thought it might be difficult to convince any of the now Infant II teachers to move to the Infant I room because all the Infant II teachers are very social and part of the reason Ms. Millie only has three babies is because she likes to "work alone." Well HELL PEOPLE- this ins't a freaking democracy is it? I wanted to say "Uh but Jessica YOU ARE THE BOSS AND YOU MAKE THE SCHEDULE" I mean tough crap that you HAVE to be in an hour early so you can actually TALK to parents (GOD freakin' forbid that happens) or that you have to leave your precious Infant II room so that someone can pay attention to my kid while she sleeps. LOOK I know it's no fun dealing with a 4 month old- I mean what does a 4 month old do but eat, sleep, poop, smile and be charming? But honestly NOT MY PROBLEM. You get PAID to sit and watch my kid sleep for heaven's sake. It's the easiest f'ing thing to do that, no?

Anyway, we'll see what Jessica ends up doing.

*sigh* Yet another reason I need to be home with my kid. WHY does it have to be so hard folks? Why?

P.S. The doctor called and she has e. coli in her urine. Ugh. We have to keep giving her the abx and call the doc in a week. My guess is for a follow-up cath. Fun!

And now for the conclusion (and a rant)

Meh

So yes she did have to be catherized on Friday (ugh). Ray took her to the doctor and once again he found not apparent problem with her but to be sure he made Ray take her over to St. Joe's peds wing to get a catheter so that they could do a urine dip and a culture. The results of the dip were inconclusive (there could be something but it's really not likely causing the issue etc etc) we were told the doc would have the results of the culture yesterday but in the meantime he was putting her on abx. The doctor didn't call yesterday so Ray will call this morning to see what the results are. She stopped needing the tylenol on Saturday afternoon. But that's normally how it goes with her. She runs the fever for less than a day and then she's perfectly fine. So, if it is a UTI then at least she won't be running any more fevers with no apparent cause. However, if it isn't a UTI then I am not sure what our next step will be. Ray will find out today.

And while this is all stressful enough for a new mommy I've got other issues on my mind.

Last Thursday the daycare sent out a letter saying that they were changing the Infant I and Infant II rooms because they had more infants that were crawling, cruising and walking then they had in Clara's age range (under 6 months). The way they were doing it is to move the younger infants to the smaller room and leave the older ones in the bigger room. The teachers, however, would remain in their original rooms (i.e. Clara would have a new teacher). OK, fine I thought not a problem she's only 4 months old she doesn't care who gives her the bottle and changes her- this should not be an issue.

HOWEVER, I thought that since today was the first day of the switch I would (A) get the meet the new teacher (nope didn't happen-apparently "Ms. Millie" doesn't get in until 8:30am) (B) the room where she would be staying would be set up (no again). In fact the mattresses weren't in the cribs and there were no names on the cribs. And just an aside Clara is ALWAYS and I do mean ALWAYS asleep when I bring her in the morning and I like to lay her down in her crib so she can get some extra zzz but with no teacher in there and no freakin' crib to sleep in what the heck am I supposed to do???? THAT on top of the fact that usually I fill out a sheet for Clara (saying what time she ate and woke up plus special notes for the teacher) but the new room didn't have a clipboard, pen or the freakin' sheet for me to write on. Not to mention the fridge being an absolute mess and labled with the wrong freakin' names. And finally, to add insult to injury, I am supposed to leave Clara's medication for Ms. Millie to give to her but I couldn't talk with her about it because she wasn't in. No thanks. I'll just give her all the medication at home thankyouverymuchandhaveaniceday.

They knew they were doing this Infant I/Infant II switch-a-roo long before the parents got notified (which for the record no one asked if we were okay with). With that in mind why didn't they have all the stuff done? This switch should have been freaking effortless and not the cause of frustration. I am so angry right now. I should not have walked into the new infant I room today to see other children's names where my child's name should have been. I should not have walked into that room and NOT seen my child's teacher. If anything TODAY (and even if it was just today) Ms. Millie should have gotten her ass in early to meet the parents of her students. For crap sake!

I guess I'll be making a phone call this morning...

Mama Really Does Know Best

Last week the teachers at Clara's daycare asked me to talk with the pediatrician to up her bottles from 4oz of formula to 6oz since she seems to be "hungry" all the time. Anyway, Clara and I have had some issues breastfeeding lately (she's on a bit of strike I'd say) and because my production has gone down (due to a nasty cold and the return of my not so wonderful cycle) I've had to really start to supplement her at daycare with formula (not really by choice mind you, by necessity). She's taken to the formula okay but she does tend to spit-up a lot more when she eats it. Now, I am not sure if it's the formula (probably not) or the fact that she cannot control herself when she gets her cute little mouth around the bottle nipple. Either way- disaster almost always strikes within moments of a feeding if she is not burped right away.

The thing is, I believe the teachers have mistaken her "I am so full" cry for "I want more" cry. So this weekend I tried a little experiement. Since Clara is still on strike with my boobies (I pump to retain any semblance of supply- ask me how that's going :/) I gave her formula and then pumped (the amount I pump is not enough to use at the next feeding so I just keep it in the fridge and continue to add to it until I have enough for a bottle-very sad). This past Sunday morning I gave her 6 oz like the teachers at daycare suggested. She gulped it down and then without missing a beat promptly, without even so much as me lifting her up after feeding, spit up half of it. Ahhh, I thought to myself she is WAAAY overfed. Next feeding I gave her only 5 oz and when she was done she cried like she was still hungry but instead of making another oz or two of formula I let her cry and burped her through it. Wouldn't you know it, she burped up a really good burp followed by two smaller ones, she sorta cried after that, I gave her the pacifier and she went right to sleep. SOOOOO- what that tells me is that she would eat as much as I put her little mouth even if she isn't hungry enough to eat it. She still only needs maybe an extra ounce of formula/breastmilk and one really good burp followed by some extra sucking time (like she usually does when she breastfeeds) in order to keep most of her food down.

I repeated this experiment the next feeding and, same thing. She cried after the feeding, I burped her until she let one out and then she calmed down a little, gave her the pacifier and she went right to sleep. I had a feeling that upping her to 6oz was going to be too much. The girl is only 11lbs at the most, technically she only needs 28oz of food each day in order to gain weight. If I gave her 6, 6oz bottles she is being WAAAY overfed. Even 6, 5oz bottles is more than she really needs but I feel more comfortable with 2 extra ouces than I do with 8 extra ounces that she spits up anyway.

Needless to say, today when I went into daycare I told them about our weekend and explained to them what they need to do in order to make sure she is getting all the food to stay in and at the same time sending home with me less bibs with spit up on them (now granted she does tend to droll a lot). PLUS I was noticing with the more formula she was drinking the more constipated she was getting. Also a sign she was getting way more than her body could handle.

Mommy 1, Daycare 0. And reason #12,342,302,935,982,349,283,749,823 I need to find a way to be a SAHM. *sigh*

Why Daycare Stinks

Oh, I don't mean my daycare. I mean daycare in general. The daycare Clara goes to is extremely nice- very learning focused and the teachers are wonderful. But having her go there sucks in general.

30 years ago when I was born I think women had it the best. I say this because- they had the option to work but didn't have to. Now I feel like it's the opposite of the way things were in the 50's. Back in the 50's women couldn't/didn't work- they didn't have a real choice to work. These days I don't have a choice but to work. So few women these days can really afford to be stay at home mothers. There are probably more working moms out there now than there used to be. Back in the 50s there were probably very few working moms-today there are few stay at home moms. You see where I am going with this?

That's why I say things were better 30 years ago. It was probably more evenly mixed back then. Or perhaps I romaticize it a little. I just know that my mom stayed home with me and my dad worked and he was the only one who had to work. Now in order to pay our bills, I have to work. And that isn't to say that we live beyond our means. We don't-at all. But we have an electric bill, oil bill, water bill, gas bill, mortgage, car payment, cable, food purchases, student loans and, of course, daycare (notice in there no credit card bills...can't imagine how we'd do anything if we had that kind of debt hanging over us). And although Ray makes a nice chunk of money that chunk would only pay about 1/2 of our bills and my income has to make up the other half. It's totally sucky.

So that's why I say- Daycare Stinks because if it didn't exist we probably would find other means for me to stay home but because it does, and because it doesn't even come close to being ineffective cost wise (i.e. it's still "cheaper" for me to put Clara in daycare than to give up my entire salary to stay home with her)-here we are. And it sucks.

I have this fantasy of when Clara is in elementary school. I'll be able to pick her up after school (not possible now with my 9-5) and take her home, work on her homework or watch her play. Then in the summer I'll be able to take her to the park or out to Nana and Pappy's or up to Grandma and Grandpa's without having to "request time off" to do all that stuff. But it's a fantasy and that's it. Because, it can't and never will happen.

I told Ray one of the reasons (besides the whole pain of labor thing) why I don't want to have any more children, isn't because I wouldn't LOVE to have more (providing I could get over the whole pain of labor thing-which so far, not happening) but because I cannot feel my heartbreak by putting yet another child into daycare. Having someone else watch all his/her milestones, wondering if his/her first word will not be Mama or Dada but a teacher's name. It's an awful feeling.

I try to convince myself that being at work is okay. That being here is good because 1. I get adult interaction 2. I use my brain more (ok some days that isn't true) 3. I am providing a home, clothing, food for my family. But- money is money and at the end of the day I am providing tangible things for my family but what I have to exchange for those tangible things is quality time with my baby. What do you think, at the end of the day, she will remember more? The fact that she had new clothing to wear or the fact that Mommy made her breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, picked her up from school, helped her do her homework, did art projects, took her to swim lessons...yeah that's what i thought.

And now, I must end this post before I cry.