Daycare Drama

We’re having a bit of daycare drama. Depending on whose perspective you’re looking from, the right one, Colin is not the perpetrator. If you’re looking from overprotective Dad’s perspective, he’s the hell beast who “taught my daughter to hit.”

To lay the correct foundation for this rant, let’s all agree that:

• Colin is a hands-on boy. He’s not a hitter, he just likes to reach out and…touch everyone.
• Colin is not a mean boy.
• Combined with his “wow, he’s as tall as a five-year old!” size and strength, Colin's friendliness can be a bit overwhelming to adults, let alone kids, when he comes in for a hug at full tilt.
• We’ve been working with Colin on being less aggressive with his friendliness.
• Colin is always super duper (SUPER DUPER!) happy to see the other kids at daycare.
• I am fully aware of Colin's handsy tendency, Rob knows, and (daycare) Donna knows.

At daycare, Colin is now the oldest child of four. The others are a two-year old boy, two-year old girl and a something-month old baby girl. Boy can hold his own with Colin, and Baby is under Donna’s purview.

Here’s some more foundation (just the facts yo!)

• Girl’s parents bring her late every day, so the other kids have already started their routine
• Girl’s parents don’t bring her at a consistent time, so her arrival is always a surprise.
• Girl is small. Actually, I have no idea where she sits on the Girl growth curve, but she looks pretty petite compared to the two boys.
• Girl is (to use Donna’s words) a drama queen. It’s a fact. Don’t hate the messenger.
• When Girl’s father drops her off, he hangs for up to 15 minutes.

Combine these two foundations, (foundationi?) and you will start to see the issue we’re having. Colin (or rather, Donna) has been busted a few times by Girl’s father because of Colin’s enthusiasm in saying hello to Girl whenever she shows up. Girl’s father will now basically wait until Colin gets put in a time out for touching Girl before he will leave. Donna, having decades of experience with the small and loud set, doesn’t think Colin is necessarily doing anything to deserve a timeout considering all of the above as well as the fact that no kids will act normally when a parent is looming about.

Girl and family just returned from a vacation where Girl was with cousins. Girl came back to Donna’s and started hitting. Donna mentioned the hitting (not placing blame on anyone) to Girl’s mother, and Girl’s Father came back the next day ranting about how the cousins were perfect little angels and surely she learned this from COLIN.

Really Girl’s Father? Explain that brilliant logic to me. She never hit before, and after weeks AWAY from the alleged hitting exemplar, and IN THE COMPANY of other kids she doesn’t normally interact with, she decides to start hitting? And wow, what a shocker that a two-year old would be hitting. It's not like a natural phase or anything. It's not like if she wasn't hitting, she's be biting. Or if not biting, than pinching. Or if not pinching, than shoving.

Donna isn't buying it. She knows Colin is not a hitter. She doesn't feel great that Girl's father has singled him out as the Source of All Evil. We heart Donna. We trust Donna. She’s kind, firm and honest. She’ll correct Colin if he deserves it, and she'll defend him if he deserves it. We work with Donna as a team, if she lets us know she needs help reinforcing a behavior, then we work with her on it. Right now we're learning how to say hello without using our hands. Believe me, I know Colin can be a little over the top. I'm not denying that he needs to tone it down a little, but he's being made out to be some bad little boy bu Girl's dad and I think that's crap.

I think Donna would like to say Girl's father is full of shit. But since that’s something she would never say, I’ll say it.

He’s full of shit.

In my brain

Found a cool site that lets you analyze a webpage to see what is being discussed most often. Although I was looking for work I tried it out here to see what would come up.

Wow, I'm boring. Whew, nothing too scandalous!

baby better birthday bring bully bumble called cat chin colin coming comments community days family food friends gets going happens happy head hi home instead job life night person plan pm posted procedure red rob roller several something soss stomping talk thanks things thinks vet watch week weekend work world

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We're gonna ride, a roller coaster baby baby...

This has been an interesting week. Not interesting in a, wow, this is really informative! sense. More like a, hello roller coaster I don't want to ride! kind of sense.

This week’s theme actually started on a down trend last week, with a horrendous work atmosphere (think of a bully stalking kids – even to calling them at their homes on weekends, including me. Thank you caller ID). Down. Then we noticed on Friday that our cat, Soss, was holding his mouth funny, and his chin was looking puffy. Down.

Things swung back up on the weekend, with a much-needed daylong meditation class and a surprise birthday party for a good friend. Up! Sunday was a non-day, watching movies, reading, going to the nature park for a stroll. Up! Sunday evening I tried to wash Soss’ chin (he wasn’t grooming because, duh, he hurt) and was darn glad we had his claws clipped recently when he howled and swiped at me in response. Something was very wrong. Down.

On Monday morning, I called the vet to see if I could bring him in that day. They had an opening for later in the day so I headed in to work for another not easy day at the office playing hide and seek from the bully. Down. But I got lovely flowers from Rob which was awesome. Up! The vet felt that the Jay Leno chin was due to either a bad tooth that abscessed, or acne that didn’t clear the skin. Down. The plan was to put Soss on antibiotics for several days to see if the swelling would go down, then have him in for a small procedure to open up the chin and see what was going on. Down.

Soss has a few health issues that make him a less than ideal candidate for anesthesia. But since the alternative was that his chin would explode or he would get a system infection – we had to risk it. Down. As I sat cringing for Soss (and for the estimated bill) I realized um, yes, we’re flying out on the day he wants to do the procedure. Down. So the revised plan was to board him at the vets so they could do the procedure and then watch him over the weekend. Up! We tend to be fill up food and water bowl kind of pet parents for weekend trips, so I just pictured the money signs floating higher. Down. Surprisingly the whole estimate for the surgery and boarding was only about a quarter of what I was expecting. Up!

Tuesday was my birthday, which was kind of an “eh” deal, since it doesn’t involve a 0 or a 5. But it’s a birthday so, Up! I had to sit through a three-hour meeting with federal and state agency people *yawn* AND I got stuck sitting next to the bully. Who is also a creeping personal space person. You know the kind. His papers start creeping into my paper zone, and his body starts sprawling in his chair towards ME. Par-doan paper creepy no personal zone respecting SIR. Get the fuck away from me. You wear too much cologne too. Down.

But then I got to enjoy a faboo sushi lunch with the girls from the office which was terrifically YUM. Up!

And then coming home to my boys I enjoyed presents and cards and dinner at Red Robin, oh my! Up! We had a date night planned for the next night so it was all good hanging with Red (literally. The bird was there and kept coming over since Colin was ga-ga with him/her/it.). Up!

Coming home though we felt Soss was looking worse instead of better so I revised the revised plan to see if we could get him in on Wednesday instead of waiting. Down. They could. Up! So I had to corral him again and drop him at the vets. Down. They found a bad tooth and he would start feeling better immediately. Up! When I picked him up he looked exponentally better and was even willing to give me a few head butts. Up! So I got him home and got ready for our night out. Got Colin’s dinner ready, put on my party panties and got things laid out for the sitter. Our departure time rolled around and no sitter. Down. Rob got mad. Down. Apparently she forgot, which she never does, and she couldn’t get to our house in time. Down. I suggested a reschedule and Rob said no, we needed to take Colin with us. Down? Up?

We headed out with Bumble in tow and discovered friends waiting for us at a restaurant I’ve been wanting to go to for a while. Up! Up! Colin mostly behaved himself. Up! The food was terrific. Up! Colin slapped the waitress on the ass… down? She laughed and said it was the best part of her evening. Up! (But don’t do it again Mr. Handsy) We got home at 10pm and Colin was Ready For Bed.

And that’s the week so far. Rob left for MotoGP races in Monterey and Colin and I head out for Sacramento, the pools, fireworks and bbq. Up!