The beginning and end of daycare

THE BEGINNING: (1st day of school)



THE END:


Well friends, little Ally didn't fare so well in daycare. Not socially. She loved it actually. Every time I would call, the director would say that she was the happiest kid in there. All the other kids would be crying, but not Ally. Unfortunately her good spirits weren't enough to keep the germs away and Miss Ally contracted a "cold" last week. It began relatively benign, a mild fever and a snotty nose. I was working from home anyway on Wednesday because our cable guy was supposed to come install a phone and internet.

Side note about TDS cable: We have been waiting a month (that's right a month) to have our phone/internet installed. Meanwhile, we have been graciously "borrowing" from our kind neighbors, unbeknown to them. We got a phone call on Monday from TDS, but no message. Matt tried calling them back three times and got no answer. Finally, he got a hold of the main office that night, who informed him that the technicians had been out at our house, but left since we weren't there. He was furious that they didn't call ahead after waiting a month, but they rescheduled for Wednesday between eight and noon. I worked from home, presumably for that morning, and waited. I didn't want to miss them, so I got up at 8:00 am and sat by the front door until 10:30 when Ally woke up. At this point, we ate and played and whatnot, but all upstairs so we could listen for the door. At 12:15 I called TDS. The customer service rep said that they had no record of anyone scheduled to come out that morning. "Well you better get someone out today because I can't take another day off work." He assured me that he would find out more information and call me back. Two hours later, I still hadn't heard anything, so I called again. This time the rep informed me that someone came to our house at 9:00, but no one answered the door. I told him that this was a blatant lie because I was sitting by the front door from 8 until 10:30 and that I couldn't stay home another day because although their technicians may have the luxury of documenting work they don't actually do, most of us don't have that luxury. When I told Matt what had happened, he called TDS and then all of a sudden "they had no record of anyone coming out today." They can't get their story straight. So Matt politely informed them that if he so much as caught anyone from TDS on his property he would "shoot them" and we decided to go with Charter, who managed to come out the next day and even came out on a Saturday to finish installing the phone.

Back to Ally: it began as a cold on that Wednesday. Matt stayed home from work on Thursday and took her to the doctor who told us that it was just a cold and there wasn't anything we could do, she would just get over it. Well, she didn't. Come Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she still wasn't doing any better. Not to mention Sunday morning she woke up with a red spot in her eye. It looked like she scratched herself or burst a blood vessel coughing. She wasn't sleeping and wouldn't eat. So Matt stayed home again today to take her to the doctor's and here was the diagnosis: a cold, a sore throat (swollen glands), pink eye in both eyes, an ear infection in her left ear and inflamed ear on the right. She's a wreck. Matt felt so bad about exposing her to all this that he told the daycare we would NOT be bringing her back and then called to quit his job. The company offered to have Matt do some computer work from home while Ally recovered, but Matt feels like it would be better for the time being to stay at home. So we are back to where we were before, and Matt will resume school in the fall. I guess you live and you learn, too bad we had to do it at poor Ally's expense.