Birthing With Midwives - One of those days of pure frustration

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One of those days of pure frustration

Written by Aletha Craft

Monday, 14 May 2007

WARNING: total girl/mommy vent below.

Today started out like any other day. Then I get a phone call from the radio station manager. "Ali, will you call of my scheduled guests and cancel their appearances? We are off the air."

"Huh?"

Turns out that the owner of our radio signal decided to pull the plug. This means that he took our money (we have to buy air time for our shows) and then decided to cancel on us. Can you say bad business practices? He knew this was happening but cashed our checks anyway. Without my money, I have no clue how I will pay my advertisers back. I am stressed.

Then, I get a call from my son's babysitter. He bit someone today. He has been going to that place since last August and has had 4 incidents of biting. Each time, he was bullied beforehand (or what he perceived as bullied). Now, I am NOT making excuses. It is not ok. Ever. It is also not ok that he has been bitten by another child (the babysitter's to be exact) and that her son also will get bossy and push the other kids. He, like all kids, is acting out. My feeling is that kids will be kids. If getting bit or pushed is the worse thing to ever happen to a child, then they are lucky.

Later on, I call to check on him. He is doing fine but she wants to mention that if he is going to stay there over the summer, she will either need to cut his hours or hire someone else to help her. I guess with school being out, she will have 8 kids. And, my son is a handful (he likes to climb) so it is too much on her alone. I get this. But I feel like it is so not my problem that she now has too many kids. And how will cutting his hours back benefit? If she has too many kids and cannot give him adequate attention, how will cutting back his hours help? It just means, to me, that she has fewer hours she has to deal with him.

Obviously I want my child to be happy. If he feels he needs to bite, as my husband points out, he must not be happy. If she is overloaded, then it is not wise to keep my son there. If he is being bullied, he is learning bad behavior. It needs to stop. It is about his needs.

So now I do not know what to do. I am a writer. I need a few hours a day, two to three days a week, to do my work. I guess I need to get asomeone to watch him in my home. With summer here, perhaps I can find a nice teenage girl with great plans to become a nun upon graduation. I pay well. Not that future nuns care, but it will give her quite a bit for the offering plate.

Ah. I do feel a bit better. I think organizing my thoughts in a rant was key. I really want to have another child but when I think that it might take away from my time with my son, I get depressed and feel it will never happen. I can barely get him to take naps as it is. His current babysitter does. Why can't I work with my own child? He looks at me like I am so uncool and have no authority. He really is the most awesomest little person ever, I just want him to think I'm slightly awesome.

There, I depressed myself again.

With the closest family members being 10 hours away at best, and no support group, days like this become especially frustrating. Not that the family is dependable....

Read or add comments about this item.

No. 1 :

Ali, I'm so sorry to hear about your show getting canceled. What a disappointment.

Your situation with your babysitter reminds me of something that happened to me during a brief time where I decided to go to work outside the home while raising my three children (because of finances). The whole story is too long for just a "comment." But I had to fire one babysitter for treating my children very poorly. Fortunately I found a really good one to replace her. But I eventually ended up quitting work completely and staying home with them full time. In my experience, I discovered that I could live without the "extra" income and my children were better off with me as a full time mommy. I have to admit, the "mommy" job was a LOT more work, though