Waitlisted
When three-year-old Jake got waitlisted for daycare, his mom tried to bull open a seventh spot. Six was the legal limit. I don't recall the nuances of Janie's petition, but the sting underneath was painfully dealt: “Can't you fudge a little for your daughter's best friend's mom who's six months along and sits three pews back from you at Sunday service?” Then she sicked her husband Steve on me, who added the guilt of his wife's fragile emotional state and possible need for continuous bedrest.
In Woodland, Alabama—population 186 according to the aging town limit sign—there is one school, one bank, one gas station, one beauty shop, one-half of a restaurant, one recycling joint, roughly seventeen churches, and six daycares. At least there are six that anyone official knows about. All in, local parents have four basic options: Grandma, Rita's Little Angels Preschool, rogue underground home-based child depots, and licensed home providers like me. And there are three like me.
Parents in need of daycare hash out the ins and outs of center versus home care at t-ball games, Sassy Scissors, and at the Grapevine over pita bread and fried chicken. Moms drop words like “socialization” sometimes, but the buzz mainly falls to provider reputation, cost, structure, level of exposure to sickness, and preparation for kindergarten. No mom wants her child to be behind at five years old. Scholarly preparation for preschoolers falls reductively in the “learn through play” camp or the “whiz by worksheet” camp.
Janie—a stay-at-home mom—wanted socialization for Jake with minimal exposure to vomit, snot, and diarrhea. Also, loose structure, a provider she knew personally, and prep through play ranked high on her list. The best I could do was offer Janie a drop-in option for days that other children were out. She took it. When Janie dropped Jake off for the first time, he had his own stipulation. “I'll stay, but I ain't eatin' no beans.” Jake had a penchant for stomping the feet of other children when my back was turned. Sometimes I forgot to call Janie when a spot opened up for a day.
Waitlisted kids rarely got in anyway, most years. Spots generally only opened up when an enrolled child started school. Jennifer—eventual mother of three—once paid six months for a ghost child so that her as yet unborn son could get his sister Carley's spot after she started school. So Carley was replaced by Callen. And five days a week, 6:45 am to 4 pm, Callen, Cade, Kaylie, Kenzie, Kenzlie, and Mattie—this is not made up—played their way through my home into my family.
Callen, carried in by his father religiously at 6:45 am every morning, slept on the couch while the seven-o'clockers ate a starch, a protein, and a fruit, my husband Jeff feigning a craving for their hot biscuits and milk, raising the decibel to an unbearable level before complaining in my ear that it's too loud and leaving for work.
Without fail, Mattie and Cade arrived at 7:45 am, their mom throwing them at me, their tongues and chins stained orange from popsicle juice, the standard bribe to hurry up and get in the van.
Kenzie's mom—who answered the phone at her husband's body shop for a living—brought Kenzie's 10 o'clock "breakfast" from the Grapevine every morning as a bribe for her to stay. A “salad” consisting of shredded cheese, banana peppers, thousand island dressing, and bacon bits. No lettuce. Christy stood next to Kenzie while she ate, putting off, or prolonging, the whiny exchange over her mom leaving a half an hour later. Sometimes Christi gave in and took Kenzie back to the shop with her. Sally Kelley, a provider mentor from Auburn University who visited me once a month for on-site training, had something to say about that. According to Sally, Christi was conditioning Kenzie to use negative behavior effectively.
Apparently, Kenzie has a timekeeper in her subconscious that allows her to record and remember how long she needs to cry to get mom to take her back to the shop with her. Here's how it works. If Kenzie cries for five minutes, and mom says no, then she cries for ten minutes, then fifteen, and so on. (Sally theorizes in five-minute increments). If, one day, after a 30-minute whine, mom finally caves and loads Kenzie back in the Chevy Yukon for the seven minute ride back to Andy's Body Shop, Kenzie's invisible clock tells her instinctively that thirty minutes is the ticket out of daycare. After that, it's up to Kenzie to decide if she's willing to invest that much time on any given day. Thirty minutes of crying is as long as it sounds.
On the days that Christy won the showdown and left for the shop alone, Kenzie forgot all about her before the Yukon took a right out of my driveway. Sally managed me. I managed the children. The children managed the moms.
I'm really impressed by this, Pam.
ReplyDeleteI think both of us have interesting avenues when it comes to writing about our jobs--they seem similar, because I do children's birthdays, right?--but tend to cater to whining mothers more so than whining children.
My best suggestion right now is just to keep on writing. I love the segway from the waiting list into the kids you have in the daycare (the names are gold!) As far as this particular section goes, I think I'd like to hear more about the town. The description is intriguing already, but what else can you tell us? Can you flesh it out in such a way that it almost makes your daycare at the center of all of the activity? Almost like the townspeople pass through your home, and that's how we get a picture of them, and their interaction with the kids?
Where does this take place? Again, I know it's at your house, but I picked a friend's daughter up from an at-home daycare once that was going to be closing in a few weeks, and the woman told me how excited she was going to be to have her living room back. I looked in the living room and it had no adult-furniture--only Fisher price tables and chairs, and a ridiculous amount and array of toys. Can we get some of that in your piece, too?
Great work! I'm jealous!