I'm a virgin. Would someone take me to daycare third base, please?

I don't know what to do. But then I do. And then I don't.

Junior’s been going to pre-preschool for two days a week for about a month now. Even though the staff were a bit zombie-ish it seemed ideal. The school is next to my office. I can check on Junior whenever I want, also known as Operation 007 Daycare. Junior makes friends. Chuck gets time to look for a job. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Except for me. I’m a wreck. My log of my stealth missions reads like this:

February 24, 11:34 a.m.: Escaped work and crawled through parking lot. Thinking of taking up smoking so I have better cover for break-outs. Crept to side of building. Stood under window. Overheard teacher shout, “PARK IT! NOW!” to children. Where is Junior???

and

March 3, 2:12 p.m.: Escaped work and slid across parking lot. Hid behind bush. Overheard teacher yell, “They’re like VULTURES! They’re ANIMALS!” Snack time? Are they eating remains of zombie grandma? What the hell is going on?

Every day it’s something. One day I found Junior crawling on a floor that was caked with mud. Another I arrived as Junior was getting yelled at for spitting. Should he have been spitting? No. Should the teacher have been shouting at him like he was a cretin undeserving of life? Hell no. He’s a child.

Even worse, there’s little educational interaction. The only singing I hear is when I arrive, squeeze Junior and hum “Let’s get out of here, let’s get out of here, I’m picking you up, taking you home, let’s get out of here right now...” (Sung to the tune of “99 bottles of beer on the wall.”)

Obviously, I’ve been thinking about taking Junior out of there. But he likes it. I'd even say he loves it. I keep waiting for an indication that he doesn’t want to go back so I can yank him but so far, nothing. And trust me, Chuck and I accost him with questions.

You know, just a few...

"Are you happy there? Did you have a fun day? Do you like your teachers? Did you sing/dance/walk/talk/eat/sleep? Did you laugh/cry? Do you want to keep going there? Do you like school? Did you make friends? Do you like your friends? How’s the air quality? Do the teachers seem happy? Do they seem engaged? How can you say you like it? Dammit, Junior, how?"

Then today, I got an email from a co-worker:

Just wanted you to know that yesterday as I was leaving work, the kids were outside at a picnic table. I heard a teacher yell, WE’RE ALL DONE. She slammed her hand on the table, shouted I SAID WE’RE DONE, and threw something over the fence. Not sure if your kid was there or not????

Well, let’s see, was Junior there? Let’s refer to yesterday's super happy write-up from the teacher which reads "Junior loved digging outside":



Yep, looks like Junior was happily digging and avoiding flying objects. What a multi-faceted approach to education! Motor skills practice and tactical maneuvers all at once! It’s perfect—

—ly unacceptable.

So there. I have my answer: We need to pull him. I shouldn't be worrying about him picking up bad habits from adults. And they couldn't even recruit a decent grandmother. What kind of place botches a free granny?

Right? He's outta there? Agh. I suck at this.

I guess you could call frostbite and shrub lacerations dramatic

A pre-preschool and preschool opened up right next door to my office building. For a year I’ve watched it being constructed. Every time I imagined it completed, it had a golden hue and was blanketed by sparkly clouds and rainbows.

How ideal it would be to have a place for Junior to go a few days a week when Chuck gets a job, so we’re not relying solely on my mother. Or back-up if Chuck selfishly gets sick. Junior could make friends, sing songs and experience the toddler rite of passage: learning how to share.

So last week, Chuck and I went to the open house. The Director, Karen, dropped words I had never heard before. Words like “creative curriculum” and “dramatic play.” The center even imported a local grandma. “Without a mullet!” she promised.

By the time we were done, Chuck and I were so stuffed with fluffy kinder-speak I felt the need to stick my finger down my throat. Still, the sparkly clouds. Friends for Junior. Chuck and I agreed we would try a few hours each day this week to see how Junior acclimated.

Well, I’ve been to the land of the sparkly clouds, and I have one thing to say: zombies. The 20-year-old “teachers” are the biggest collection of apathetic, bored, disengaged zombies I’ve ever met. The first day, I thought Hmmm, maybe it’s just me. The third day, I tried rousing them with loud speech, like “I’M JUNIOR’S MOTHER! IT’S NICE TO SEE YOU ALL AGAIN! HELL-THE FUCK-O?”

By today, co-worker Judy was tired of listening to my incessant questions: Were my expectations too high? Was I overreacting because I’m a Junior zealot? Why isn’t parenting easier?

Judy suggested a stealth mission, to see if the teachers were more engaged when the parents weren’t around (because that’s so typical). When no one was looking, we escaped from work, snuck across the parking lot (again), climbed a shrub and looked in the window—in a snowstorm, I might add.

The teachers were sitting in the hallway, staring at the walls. The kids were roaming aimlessly. Even the imported grandma was zombied out! Granny, no! Junior was having a great time entertaining himself, but I was livid. Having someone neglect your child shouldn’t cost you money.

I went back to my office and called Karen the Director. She listened politely then explained that I must have observed “creative play” every time, which is uninterrupted, free play. She suggested I go back at a different time to observe “dramatic play” of dress-up and pretend.

“Would you like me to let them know when you’ll stop by?” she asked.

“Hah! And let you foil my plan to unsleuth your zombie workers? Never!”

Chuck had already picked up Junior, but Judy and I went back at three anyway. This time we managed the shrub better. We peeked in. The kids were staring vacantly at a boom box. I don’t expect anyone’s head to be up a child’s butt for seven hours a day but eye contact would be nice. Or that thing people do with their lips called smiling.

A few years ago, I might have let this go. But this place is brand new and next to my office. I can walk over and have lunch with Junior. He can ride to work with me. Plus, despite the zombie teachers, he loves it.

I want this to work for me, and I don’t give a shit if that means I have to write Joyce a letter a day.



I’m going to stop in every chance I get. I’m going to keep a written log. I'm going to be “that mom”—the one who’s like a burr in their asses. I’m not going to let a couple of bubble-brains—who clearly don’t enjoy children—ruin this just because the other parents are willing to accept mediocrity.

I am going to be someone who gets the hype she was promised. Vivacious granny and all! One for the people! Hip, hip, hooray!

(Oh God, please don’t check in next week when I write about how Junior’s back at home full-time with Chuck and there’s a restraining order again the “crazy shrub lady.” Ok?)

Someone send this woman a lasagna

Okay, okay. I was wrong to get rid of My-day-sucks-worse than-yours-Wednesday. So very wrong. Did you have to be quite so zealous about letting me know?

This shitty day comes to us from Delana, a fellow mom whose diet needs a little more, um, balancing. And Hubby needs a swift kick to the groin.

6:00 am — Coffee pot starts.

6:15 am — Baby is up and playing in the crib, so I make him a bottle and a daycare bottle and daycare juice.

6:25 am — Heat a blueberry pancake for baby, break it into 100 miniscule pieces, and put it on his tray. Get him a sippy of water. I eat the edges of the pancake.

7:15 am — Finish getting ready.

7:20 am — Get baby. Change a poopy diaper, grab some toys and tell Hubby to get up. Hubby rolls over, grunts and sleeps.

7:30 am — Drive 30 minutes.

8:00 am — Drop baby at daycare.

8:15 am — Drive to work.

9:30 am — Try to teach class to 20 teenagers. Give them back their exams, tell them how crappy they are.

11:00 am — Back to office.

12:30 pm — Lunch.

1:45 pm — Back to work. Can't get motivated.

3:30 pm — Go to a meeting lead by the one person that is the most cluesess in our department. Try not to roll my eyes too many times.

5:00 pm — Get baby at daycare. Make him a bottle in the car and strap him in. He drinks his bottle and falls asleep.

5:35 pm — Get home. Hubby and our daughter are already home (they left after me and got home before me, how is that fair?) Make dinner for baby while Hubby cuts the grass.

6:00 pm — Feed baby (he self feeds, I just slap it on the tray). Ask Hubby to give baby a bath ‘cause I don't feel good. He says, "I don't do baths" and he goes and plays Xbox.

6:15 pm — Give baby a bath.

6:40 pm — Baby spits up and needs new shirt.

7:10 pm — Hubby makes a bottle for baby, then says he is done with baby duty for the day and goes back to Xbox.

7:35 pm — Put him to bed.

7:42 pm — Eat one chicken nugget and one oreo for dinner.

8 pm — Pick out clothes for next day.

9 pm — In bed.

Hump Day will do just fine for now

I'm sorry to announce that I am retiring My-day-sucks-worse than-yours-Wednesday.

Yes, I know darlings, it's so very sad, but there's enough bad news in this world and I'm not as eager to spread banality's phlegm as I was when I began My-day-sucks-worse than-yours-Wednesday. (It did have a good run of, um, one week.)

Maybe it's the fact that I listened to a coworker discuss the intimate details of her pap smear all day when I could have been snuggling with Junior. Or maybe it's because I visited the most horrible daycare ever after work and I'm sick about the conditions in which some babies spend their days.

Or hell, maybe it's the heat and onset of August and proliferation of toothless wackos walking past our house on the way to downtown.

Who knows.

Maybe next Wednesday can be My-day's-way-better than-yours-Wednesday?

No, that's just obnoxious.

Oh Oprah

I’ve been on leave from work for one year. I’m one of the lucky ones. Every time I bemoan the fact that I have to return in July, another mother trumps me.

“I had to go back after four months.”
“Two months.”
“Six weeks.”

On Friday I visited a daycare people in town had raved about. I dressed my son in his best clothes. Prepared a list of questions to ask. Wore lipgloss.

I was unprepared for what I saw. Toys and empty bottles littered the floor. The dank room was windowless. The furniture was ragged, at best. A beautiful baby boy sat in a swing in the corner. A little girl in pink, with a barrette on top of her head, was writhing on her stomach on the dirty linoleum, precariously close to a metal chair. A woman in her late thirties with long black hair who looked like she despised children was feeding another baby girl. She did not speak, smile, or make eye contact.

The room monitor, a girl who couldn’t have been more than 18, asked if she could hold my son; she wanted to see how he interacted with strangers. He didn’t cry, he just sat there as she launched into her speech about the personal attention every child receives. I asked if I could pick up the little girl now crying on the floor. She laughed and said yes; the irony of her previous statement was lost.

I didn’t hear the rest of what she said. Instead I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t cry. I wanted to take all those children home with me.

I still haven’t found childcare. When I’m home with my son, kissing him and making him laugh, I look at the clock. If it’s noon or two o’clock—an hour I will soon be at work—I think, Soon I won’t be able to do this. Every night I calculate the hours I’ll be away from him and how I can make it up. I think about sick time and vacation time and holidays and tell myself that it won’t be five days a week every week.

I also think about ways I can make money at night, after my husband gets home from work. I tell him I’ll waitress, work retail, anything! Then he reminds me that I have my Masters. That we need the money to pay bills, replace windows, buy food. I suggest selling the house, canceling cable, growing our own food. I won’t buy new clothes. I won’t drive anywhere.

“That doesn’t sound like much of a life.” He’s right.

“What if I write to Oprah?” I ask him. “Maybe she’ll find my cause worthy and pay our mortgage?”

“Call her.”

But I don’t. In a world of poverty, disease, war, and global warming, a wanna-be stay-at-home mom would be a gnat on her radar screen.

Websites and studies that extol the evils of daycare make me ill. Don’t they understand? I know no one loves my son like I do.

I know.