well fed and alive

i need someone to watch 2 wonderful children one day a week. it doesn't seem like such a tall order, does it? no. well, it is. most places have a two day a week minimum apparently. nannies don't want to work just one day a week - although truthfully, i haven't looked into this option all that much yet, but if i were a nanny, i wouldn't want such a gig.

when i finally found a place that had an opening on tuesdays, i really really wanted to love it. really really really. i even brought their immunization books to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. so in we went, the 4 of us. at first everything seemed normal enough. no screaming kids. no screaming adults. so far its better than home! we start on the tour - which is being led by a nice young - they were all young - girl who told me that the head honcho had to go because something came up. ok, whatever.

in the first room (b's room) there is a nice little circle of kids who are sitting around learning some thing important like what month this is and the teacher/whatever gets pissed at a kid. so she starts talking to him in this tone which could best be described as me at 5PM at my wits end arguing with a 2 year old for 5 minutes about how i will be the one to wipe her bottom after she goes to the potty. suffice to say, it was a really nasty tone and we'll leave it at that. but hello, we're pretty obviously on a tour here and this dimwit can't tell joshua to sit his ass down calmly through a clenched teeth smile?

a's room is next. infants through 2.5. is that normal? personally i don't want my little bruiser drewser ass-kicking cruiser in there with a sweet defenseless infant. they had a cage of sorts, to keep him in or out i don't know but if he had a partner in crime, that gate would be history. aside from this logistical nightmare, everything in the room was tired. i could spend $20 on a saturday morning at yard sales and get some better sh!te than the crapola they had in there. i think i'll be donating our old stuff to this place whether my kids go there or not.

i'll spare you the tales of snotty noses, needy children of employees getting the lions share of the attention, meeting some genuinely nice "teachers" and finally the owner and skip right to the straw that broke this camel's back (not that it would take much but, like i said, i REALLY wanted to love this place.) we are just about through when bridget tells me she has to go to the bathroom. do we want the big one or little one? so i say, we'll take the little one that she'd be using and get walked to a bleach-scented bathroom in the back of what would be her room. not bad, little cubbies with alternate outfits, little posters about cleaning your hands, a diaper-genie shitcan (i might hate those) and oh yeah, pee all over the seat. oh and what's that in the unflushed toilet? pee and toilet paper, thank god i suppose. but it was still there. so i clean up the toilet, bridget goes and then we go. michael is out there talking "yeah, we're looking to get them going as soon as we can...blah blah blah..." and i'm practically twitching to get his attention to make him STOP talking to the owner. finally its over and we leave.

back to square one.