Today was kind of an aggravating day. Work was fine, nothing bad…busy enough, and the girls made it through the day at school. I checked in with the director a few times, and she said Olivia was doing great, no issues. I was worried about sending her, but I thought the distractions at school would help take her mind off of her issues…seems to be exactly what happened.
I ran home to let the dog out after work, then met Christian and the girls at his mom’s house for dinner. This is where things got pretty aggravating to me. I’ve been semi-vocal over the years of his parents, and their care of the girls. But I think I “ignored” a lot of the issues I had and the things his mom did, or just let them go because it was really our only option at the time. Now, I’ve just had enough with it. Tonight, it’s like everything that bothers me was happening, and I was getting more upset by the minute.
Now, time to vent (haven’t done one of these for a while)…
First, it’s been frustrating dealing with Christian and the daycare switch. He just doesn’t understand some of the things the daycare does, or how it works. He doesn’t get that they have a classroom full of kids to take care of, so the level of attention is obviously not going to be the same as it was at his parents house. We get into arguments about it, but it’s obvious he talks to his mom about these things, and she just fuels the fire because she does not get it AT ALL either. As soon as we sat down to eat she started in on things about the school…why don’t they give us a recap sheet for Olivia every day, do they help them go to the bathroom, they probably just give them pizza every day for lunch, yada, yada, yada. I was getting so upset. No, they don’t do recap sheets for Olivia’s room…because, they don’t. The older the kids get, the more structured it is. It’s more like actual school, and they are old enough to tell us what they did, what they ate, etc. I mean, they’ve been in business for how long? Obviously they know what they are doing. They DO help the kids go to the bathroom…but obviously, just like at home, if the teachers are busy or with another kid, and Olivia has to go potty, she’s just going to go. She’s been potty trained for almost a year, she’s not going to wait for help if she has to go. No, they don’t eat pizza every day…they have something new every day – REAL food, just like if they were at home. Fruits and veggies are part of every meal. Amelia’s daily sheet tells us what they ate – the entire school eats the same thing, so we KNOW what she eats every day. I finally lost it a little bit and said – you know, I don’t make the rules and I don’t run the school. They know what they are doing, and if they have issues or problems with the girls, they would tell us. And I pretty much dropped the subject. What really bothers me, is that Christian KNOWS all of this, he knows what it’s really like, but he lets his mom brainwash him and refuses to just stick up for us and our decisions.
Next, she’s has randomly over the years complained that we “treat her like an employee, and not like ‘grandma’”. This is completely untrue, and ridiculous. If anybody treated our situation like a business, it was her. I mean, just look at what she charged us to watch her grandchildren, and you don’t need any more proof than that. She started talking about one of the neighbor kids, and that they have a nanny come every day and watch her. She said she talked to the nanny one day and asked how things work…that she works 40 hours a week, never any more, and she gets paid vacation and sick days – she kept repeating this, and emphasizing it, as if she was trying to make a point…as if that’s how we should have been treating her. Yeah, she watched them more than 40 hours a week…she watched them Mon-Thurs, from about 6:45 to about 5:00. So, OK, 41 hours a week. Anything more than that was because Christian sat over there with them every night, for like an hour, instead of leaving to come home right away. Apparently she was counting that time? And, why would I pay you when you don’t watch them? When she started watching Olivia we paid her the full amount, every week, no matter what. Then, she started canceling days because she “had to work”, or because she had an appointment or something. So, I finally put my foot down and we stopped paying her for days she didn’t work. So, this was obviously a stab at that – and she also brought up the fact that we have to, pay the daycare even if they don’t go/are sick. So I had to explain the way it works, and that you are basically paying them to hold your spot in class – like any daycare. So, again, who treated our situation like a business? Again, Christian says nothing, doesn’t stick up for me or OUR decisions. Just sits there. Seriously, grow a backbone. It IS OK to stand up to your mom, and stick up for yourself.
Finally, the last straw. The girls have always been really competitive with each other. Somewhat natural with their small age gap, but a little extreme really. I’ve never understood why they haven’t changed or gotten over that “phase”. His mom has always talked about it too, just baffled by it. Tonight she was trying to get them to eat yogurt, and it turned into a fiasco. It was the kind of yogurt that had fruit on the bottom. So, I mixed it up. Olivia wouldn’t eat it, apparently because she doesn’t like it mixed together. So she got a new thing of yogurt out for her. Really – I can’t imagine why she’d be picky like that when you give into her every fit. The girls weren’t cooperating, so she started taking a spoonful and yelling “who wants the last bite”, and they would both come running and push each other around for the bite. Then she looks at me, laughing, and says “This is how I get them to eat”. Wow, I can’t imagine why they don’t stop competing with each other over everything – maybe because you basically force them to?!? I was livid at this point, put the girls socks and shoes on, and we headed home (luckily it was getting late, so it was an easy excuse to leave without causing a scene).
Christian packed up some leftover and arrived home shortly after us. I told him right away, straight out, that when he gets home from Mexico next month, we need to figure out some financial stuff so we can find a way to get the girls in daycare full time. That after REALLY watching how his mom interacts with the girls, I really don’t want her watching them anymore. All of these activities tonight were completely inappropriate. To top it off, they got rid of the crib…they don’t have any appropriate beds for the girls to sleep on when they are over there – Olivia has been sleeping on a big twin bed since Amelia was born. They’ve taken away almost every toy (95% of which we bought and kept over there anyway)…they’ve either sent it home or packed it out in the garage. God forbid they have toy “clutter” in their house, and, of course, if the girls fight over something, she’s always just taken it away and stored it away instead of teaching them how to share and play together. Again, another lovely issue that’s always driven me crazy. Everything, every issue, every annoyance, everything I don’t agree with, is just boiling over at this point and I’m so sick of it.
OK – vent over. It feels good to just be able to get it out! I am SO happy to have the girls in school now. It’s such a huge relief to have them in that environment, and know that we’re doing the best thing for them and their futures. No more sitting around the house, and they are so much happier. Now, if we can just undo all of the damage that has been done, and get them to act at home the way they act at school, we’d be golden!
Needless to say, I didn’t get a picture today. I was a little too preoccupied with my anger! LOL. So, I threw together this Collage of Christian’s past Birthday’s…lots of memories!
