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Introduction
Halloween has never been a favorite holiday of mine. I could do without it. A friend has a costume party every year, I am the one who shows up without a costume. But having kids has changed all that for me! The whole experience of going to get pumpkins, carving, caramel apples, costumes, candy, fall weather – the kids loved it so much how can I not love it too?
We dressed up Reilly as a beagle, Katie was a black cat and off we went trick-or-treating for our first time. Reilly loved walking between the houses and looking at the decorations. She had already seen them many times on our neighborhood walks, but they seemed so much better on Halloween night. We made it up and down our street then headed back home to hand out candy. Reilly liked a Tootsie Pop she got the best and opened it before we even got home. She had never had one before so I wasn’t sure how she would do but she loved it. We got the girls cleaned up and started answering the door – what fun! We had bought two bags of 100 pieces of candy each (OK, so I ate a few beforehand, but not THAT many!!). Reilly & Katie both liked opening the door and handing out candy more than the trick-or-treating itself. When the bell would ring, Reilly went running and Katie went crawling, head down so she could concentrate and go her fastest. The funny thing is that if you could catch a glimpse of her face, she had the hugest smile. Every time we opened the door Reilly would pull her Tootsie Pop out of her mouth and say “Hi guys” and then put it back in. She finished that whole darn Tootsie Pop clear down to the stick. We had so many trick-or-treaters we ran out of candy and resorted to handing out the little we had collected ourselves, then the caramels I had leftover from the apples, then we gave up. I had to get the way Reilly says “Happy Halloween” on the video camera, it was something like “appy owl-o-eeeeeen” said with such enthusiasm you can’t help but smile. Thanks girls, for showing me how fun Halloween can be!
You may know daycare has been a problem of ours since the beginning. I was lucky enough to bring both babies to work with me until they were old enough that I wasn’t getting any work done anymore. Then we were lucky to have schedules where we only had to use daycare 3 days a week. We put Reilly in what is considered the best daycare in town, paying top dollar, but WebCams can be good and bad-when we saw she wasn’t getting much attention we talked to the daycare 3 times, every time being told that she was a good baby and that unfortunately the more demanding babies get more attention. This wasn’t acceptable and we dis-enrolled her. That was when we decided to get more attention we would try a dayhome provider. After much searching, we chose our ideal dayhome. As you may know this turned into any parent’s worst nightmare; Reilly is lucky to even be alive right now. Soon after, Katie came along and by the time I went back to work we had been educated by Child Protective Services, child-abuse detectives and other parents of abused children that we have developed relationships with, that daycares can be a good place if you find the right one. We did interview several recommended nannies-they were sweet, nice women but we just couldn’t do it. It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of trust and can’t trust anyone alone with our kids again. Before I quit my job or Brent quit his, we decided to give a different daycare a shot. We chose another recommended daycare, a nationwide chain, to watch both Katie and Reilly 2 days/week. At this point we obviously have issues and were scared-to-death about doing this.
We had some troubles with diapers not being changed on time and such but nothing too terrible. Then Katie started getting bit by another baby that has enough teeth to make a full circle mark on her skin. Reilly has already been bit twice in her room, but it really bothered me with Katie, a baby down at ground level with the other babies-she doesn’t know to get away or stay away from a particular baby. When I picked her up 2 weeks ago and she had a bite mark on her face, I was furious. I met with the daycare director and district manager–the mother of this baby is an employee and the only thing they would do about it was provide further training of the caregivers in the room. Not an acceptable solution and we dis-enrolled both kids. It is apparent that daycare is not an option for us. With some schedule juggling and arrival of Brent’s parents for the winter we are able to have the 3 days/week we need covered by grandparents and one close friend; the other 4 days they will be with either Brent or I or both of us. We will try this and see how it goes before one of us quits our job. We both have good jobs, it would be a shame for either of us to quit, but we’ll do that if it’s necessary. Next fall Reilly will start pre-school and we’ll have to rearrange schedules again but we’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now it feels like 100 lbs has been lifted from my shoulders –although we knew they were safe there, it was still a very difficult situation for us.
On a lighter note: Katie is officially walking!! She walks more than she crawls now. When she falls down, she gets back up and walks again. She can say Mamma, Dadda, Tex (dog’s name), diaper, bottle and is making new sounds all the time. She is a pro at her sippy cup. How can my baby be 1 years old already?! Next week she has her 1st birthday…………
Until then,
Jenny
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