Remembering our success from that encounter I have been on a mission to produce the same satisfaction from my daycare after they sent little Nico home for the 5 millionth time this year for a minor rash. I mean seriously!! I have an albino baby who is simply prone to little red bumps resulting from laundry detergent, grass, food, minor fevers, etc. - you name it, he comes in contact with it, he gets a rash. But since when have allergic reactions been contagious???
So when I got the call on Wednesday (after already staying home for two days from a minor fever) that Nico had a rash and had to stay home until the rash was completely gone, a deep dark side of me that I so rarely show came on display in full force. To put it mildly I was NOT nice and they got an earful of opinions that came projecting from my mouth like a crazed beast in desperate need of an exorcism.
I spent the rest of the day justifying my actions and stewing over the whole encounter. I finally talked myself into justification after a visit to the doctor when they reminded me that I had been in 8 times in 6 months for benign rashes. My justification quickly turned back to anger though – in all my stewing and justifying I lost my senses and felt the need to continue justifying things, going way overboard describing where and how Nico got each and every one of his 100 bruises looking thoroughly guilty of abuse. To top it off Hope ate an entire bag of carrots yesterday and had some serious discoloration on her face that unfortunately resembled the color of a healing bruise. I chalked it up to the carrots and got quite the questioning look. I’m pretty sure social services will be here shortly.
All that, of course, made me angrier and the stewing started all over again. My emotions ranged from publicly humiliating this daycare for their carelessness in diagnosing sick children to a more professional approach of trying to partner with them to determine when it was really necessary to send a child home back to yanking my children out of the center and filing a complaint. I was all over the board and an emotional wreck.
When my children are sick I want to be the one who comforts them. I would never, ever take them to daycare when they are sick. But it is incredibly frustrating when they continually get sent home when they get the smallest bump and are obviously not even aware of this ailment. It didn’t help the situation that the admin assistant is the one who decides when a child goes home and I have not cared for this woman’s less than professional manner from day one.
It makes it all the more frustrating when I know that the care they get there is superb. I have developed lifelong relationships with their core teachers and love everything else about this daycare. That knowledge stops me from making a rash decision that I so desperately want to bestow on this center. But that would be revenge and would only find me looking for better or equal care elsewhere – which I have already done to no avail.
Instead, I brought in my note stating that it was safe for Nico to return to daycare and left them all with some more of the Yarbrough wrath (and the suggestion that for the $2,500 a month I pay them they should probably hire a nurse to assist them in diagnosing children). I doubt I will be getting a $100 check for my troubles as with did with Krups but I also doubt that they’ll be sending Nico home for a rash any time soon.
After all this I’m living with a bit of fear that he’ll break out with the Chicken Pox next week and I’ll have to eat my words.
You go girlfriend! I'm behind ya all the way!
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