Buh-bye Montessori, buh-bye

After the little man's school on Wednesday told me that "it's just not working out", I had to hatch a plan pretty quick.

We actually had recently quietly landed a spot at another well-established daycare but the spot isn't available until June. This is the joy of finding quality daycare in Chicago -- long wait lists everywhere. We were on a wait list for more than two years (!) for this place and they had called at the end of March just as we'd already handed a check over to the montessori school.

Fortunately, two weeks into montessori, when the school told me my 3-year-old was "violent" and "angry", I knew we had to get the hell out of there so I called up the other place, said please, when does the next spot open and was told June.

BTW my kid is not violent or pissed at the world, he's THREE YEARS OLD, people. He's a rowdy, matchbox car-loving, lovey-toting, chatty three-year-old. (who is currently tooting up a storm on the couch right now, hoo boy...)

When we visited the new daycare and discussed things like tantrums and refusing to nap, the teachers were like "eh, nothing we haven't seen before." This daycare is part of a church and gives first preference on its mega-waiting list to teenage moms. A compassionate place, I like that! Montessori decided tantrums and not napping = dangerous child. WTF.

But, in the meantime, I had to figure out what the heck we were going to do for the next six weeks. Of course, Thursday work was insane -- big presentations, deadlines, monkeypox scare/media onslaught -- you know, just another day at work, haha. A friend emailed that morning me a possible short-term sitter who could bridge the gap until the little toddler man can start at his new daycare in June.

I waited eagerly Thursday to hear back from the young woman who might be able to take care of little man as I slogged through the workday. She finally called back, as my boss was giving a big presentation at a conference. Crap. I practically crawled under the table and whispered "hi-I'll-call-you-right-back" and hoped I didn't sound too abrupt. Not cool to sit on your BlackBerry interviewing a babysitter when your boss is talking, right?

Anyway we finally connected and set up a time for her to come over that night to meet the family. Then, said monkeypox situation blew up -- just a scare folks, thank god -- but I barely got home in time to meet the sitter. The hub was already home with the kids. Little man was standing in the shower because he'd just blown out his diaper, badddddd. Baby C was howling, hungry and tired. I was still finishing up work calls. Good lord.

J, the lovely sitter-to-be, arrived. I had to have her help me fix the kids dinner as the hub and I peppered her with questions about her experience and availability, it was such mayhem. Baby C did NOT like a stranger in her kitchen and wanted mommy to hold her no matter what. Work emails still poured in. Fortunately, J passed all my tests, I checked her references as soon as she walked out the door and hired her an hour later. 9 p.m. dinner and a giant glass of wine later, the day was done. WHEW.

So as I dropped off little man at the opposite-of-compassionate montessori school Friday morning, I couldn't help but play that SNL skit "Total Bastard Airlines" in my head over and over, where the flight attendants (Helen Hunt and David Spade) rudely bid deplaning passengers "buh-bye."

For fun I've included the link here and it made me tear up laughing this morning.

Why a school that offers care for toddlers doesn't like toddlers, I'll never know. As I dropped him off that morning he started bouncing up and down as we walked up to the front door, squealing "that's my friends! that's my friends!" That made me sad -- poor guy, he had no idea that he won't see these kids again.

But it's good, too, that he's so little and hopefully has no clue of the rejection he got from that place.