cindy's world

I had the feeling for the longest time about my baby being Riley. I felt I knew him, felt him, his personality was familiar. Rebecca had said that he was my son in a previous life and that he was coming with the same intention he did then — to take care of me. I felt his sense of humor, knew that he helped send us a family of dolphins the day before the embryo implant. So when the 20-week ultrasound revealed a girl, I was totally confused and felt like I’d “lost” Riley.

I brought up in my phone conversation with Rebecca last night that I had always thought I’d have 2 kids, a boy first, then a couple years later, a girl. I had thought Riley was that boy. But I’d also always felt that if I could only have 1 child, I’d like to have a little girl, like me (I’m an only child, too). Rebecca had told me years ago during a coffee house reading that there were 2 souls ready to come through as my children, they were just waiting for me. I felt then it was my boy (I “saw” him as a little taller and older than the spunky little girl) and my girl. Now that we’ve given up our other embryos, the would be no older boy and younger girl. Based on other things she told me about my would-be son early on in pregnancy when we all thought it was a boy, he would be “very small,” would take awhile to start talking but that when he did, it would be well-established longish sentences. None of those things matched Allie; she’s long and tall, she was big at birth, and she’s so talkative now and concentrating on our mouths when we talk that I feel like she’d be talking really soon. The “feel” I have for Riley doesn’t match the “feel” I have for Allie, as if they’re different people. So guess what. Rebecca told me over the phone that her intuition is that Riley WAS about to come through. Allie and Riley were on the Other Side preparing, Riley was asking her, “Come on, are you doing to do this with me?” But at some point they KNEW it was just going to be one, not two, and Allie was saying, “I need to go through, I need to go NOW,” and Riley and Allie agreed that Allie would come through and be the only child, my little girl. Riley “opened the door” for Allie to come through. I said this must’ve happened later in my pregnancy, then, because I “felt” Riley earlier on. She said souls can come in and out of a fetus and they settle in about 3 months. 3 months would be my 20-week ultrasound when the tech told us, “To me it looks like a girl” and shocked the hell out of us. That was when Allie came through and stayed. Before that, I DID feel Riley, as I’d described in this post.

Rebecca said they did know that if I were to have 1 child, I would’ve preferred a girl. I said I hoped Riley wasn’t offended. She said there’s no “offense” in the conscious field; the two of them made their decisions together, they decided she would come through. There’s no judgement or right or wrong; they were just decisions and paths. I guess it’d be like, do I want to wear a blue shirt or a white shirt today? Just neutral decisions.

But I FELT it. I KNEW it. This would explain why I felt the disconnect with Allie early on, and I’d thought it was the postpartum depression. I had expected Riley, and altho I’d thought she maybe WAS Riley but just in a different gender, turns out, she’s Allie. She’s always been Allie and Riley has always been Riley. They are two.

I couldn’t help it when I told Mr. W this — I cried. I love Allie, but now in addition to my love of my child, I miss my other child, Riley. I know there’s no good or bad and that Riley will just come through to this plane a different way, but now I understood why I’d felt my confusion and my loss before.

Rebecca also reminded me that Allie is a wonderful person, altho instead of being the boy who’s here to take care of me, she’d be the girl who’d boss me around (in a cute way). “But you’ll soon see, there are good reasons for her choices in life. She may tell you, ‘Mommy, do this, not that,’ and you’ll ask her why, and she’ll tell you ‘Because of this and that’ and explain it to you. And you’ll go, ‘Oh! I see. Okay,’ and do it the way she suggested.” Rebecca still sees Allie in the medical profession because she’ll want to help people, and she sees adult Allie in a white lab coat.

I’m gonna figure out a way to have a chat with Riley, if I can handle it without bawling.

So Mr. W’s renter’s wife, Jayne (turned out it’s not “Jane,” it’s “Jayne,” which is so much prettier) came over to meet Allie. She came by yesterday afternoon when my parents were here. (My mom insisted on coming over because I didn’t respond to her texts on Wednesday and she didn’t know what was going on so she thought I was out doing something “foolish” and was freaking out.) I thanked her and hugged her at the door. As soon as she walked in, the entire energy was SO different. I didn’t really think about it, but I guess I wasn’t ever actually happy and relieved to see Laura. Maybe it was cuz she was usually a little bit late. And I didn’t realize there were so many MORE red flags with Laura until Jayne. For example, when Jayne came over, Allie was napping and I showed her cameras on the monitor. She immediately did this “Aww!” thing and I thought, “Hmm, I didn’t get that from Laura.” When I showed Jayne our bedroom and Dodo was napping in the closet, she melted in an “Aww!” again and went over to see if she could greet Dodo. Which made me realize that Laura in our bedroom had barely glanced at Dodo, altho she said she’d always had cats and grown up with cats, and knowing about Dodo’s kidney disease, Laura had said, “Now, he’s going to start having ‘accidents.’ I’d hate to see that ruin your nice carpeting. So maybe I can fence him in right here,” motioning blocking off the tile section of our master bathroom, which is like 8 square feet. What? You’re going to come in here and confine my cat in our bathroom? He’s already only in the bedroom. Who the heck do you think you are? Seeing my hesitation, she said, “Okay, maybe I’ll just close the bedroom door, then.” When Allie woke from the nap and I went to get her, Jayne melted and said, “She’s such a mix of both of you!” and kind of respectfully walked around with me smiling at Allie, and then later, asked, “Can I hold her?” Laura had just kind of come in and picked her up and held her as if she owned the place. I’d thought at the time, “Great, she’s comfortable here,” but knowing what I know now, she was totally audacious and bossy. Also, remembering how Laura was practically pushing us to evict Jayne and her family and get paying renters in there so that we can get better income to pay Laura and pay for her health insurance, I now realize, “What the heck. These are OUR major life decisions, she’s known us a WEEK, she doesn’t know the relationship we have with our renters and Mr. W had already told her they are good people and we like them, who is she to tell us what to do?” She told me how to feel, too. When I was a mess on Wednesday cuz my intuition was screaming at me, Laura had said, seeing my discomfort, “I think you should be pleased. Everything went really well here.” I watched my daughter screaming and crying in her crib to the point where she was rolling over. Rebecca said yesterday, “She’s YOUR daughter. She has intuition, too.” Jayne asked me how I do things, and wanted to watch me so she could learn how I want things done, listened carefully to me, kept saying she wanted ME to be comfortable. Laura, on the last aggravating phone call in which I disclosed how uncomfortable I had been, argued, “*I* was VERY comfortable.” It was such a difference. Allie seemed GREAT with her, too.

Today, Jayne came over in the morning as a trial run. She and her husband had talked and figured out how to work the ride situation. Having her help us out had come up long before at her husband’s suggestion, and at that time, I was instantly happy and at ease, so relieved picturing this, but when I’d called her and she’d said it wasn’t possible because she had to drive her daughters to school and work, I’d been disappointed and nearly in tears again. This was before the nanny sites, before Susanne. She and I talked a long time then and she’d been trying to find people from her church and social circle to help me, but nothing long-term or full-time came from her leads. Now suddenly, very recently and unexpectedly, her older daughter got her license, and they just got her a used car. She suddenly was able to do this, and she found herself suggesting this to her husband when he told her about his meeting with Mr. W over the rent issue, thinking, “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, and feeling completely at peace with it.” So they decided they could rideshare, drop him off at his work on the way to our place, and the younger daughter that needed a ride to school could get it from her boyfriend, or a neighbor friend and they could even pay the neighbor a little gas money. Her husband said that getting in to work at 6am is a good thing for him because then he could take calls from the east coast and midwest clients, pick up more business that way. Things totally just lined up to where even Jayne was amazed. (My dad noted that this was a major personality difference: Laura wanted us to cater to HER needs and wants, even to our detriment, and was ungrateful and demanding; Jayne and her husband were trying to figure out how to arrange their lives and routines to accommodate us and our needs because they appreciated us and wanted truly to help, and were turning an inconvenient situation into a blessing, i.e. the time difference working to the husband’s advantage.)

So today, the husband dropped Jayne off at our place, and came by later on to pick her up. She spent a day with me, and did EVERYTHING, including putting Allie down for her noon and afternoon naps. Allie cried for 10 minutes during the soothing, and then fell asleep on Jayne. When Jayne put her into her crib, she awoke cried for about 10 seconds, then settled into a peaceful nap that lasted an hour and 45 mins. Jayne was scared I’d be dying downstairs watching the monitor while Allie was crying, so after awhile of the crying, she came out and said, “Do you think something is wrong?” I said no, she just needed to be held a little lower so her head has somewhere to lean. After that, it was fine. I saw that as Allie was crying in the crib, Jayne was torn about whether to pick her up and resoothe her, so I ran up and motioned Jayne to come out of the bedroom and let Allie settle on her own. I was totally at peace thru the whole thing, unlike when Laura was doing it and I was watching Allie go into hysterics in her crib and I lost it crying in the car on Wednesday. I knew intuitively it was fine, and told Jayne her protest crying is going to be shorter and shorter each time until she got used to Jayne, it’s not a problem. The afternoon nap, Allie cried for FOUR minutes during the soothing, and maybe 30 seconds in the crib after she fell asleep and was transferred, and this time Jayne knew to come out and let Allie settle. Allie settled and napped an hour and a half, very long for her afternoon nap. She even had two poopies. The chart for today looks BEAUTIFUL. Jayne and I also had great chats, getting to know each other better during Allie’s naps. I chatted with Laura during Allie’s naps, too, but I always felt slightly uncomfortable, and forcing myself to kind of make an effort to act friendly, even tho in the back of my head I was already feeling guarded.

Rebecca called me to check up on me yesterday, and she had said that the energy with Jayne was “right,” and that as two couples, we’d be good friends in maybe 6 months. She said Laura didn’t respect us, but Jayne saw me as an equal except she would defer to me as Allie’s mom and would do things the way I would want her to. That certainly turned out to be true, from napping to bottle-washing. I didn’t even realize that Laura never asked me stuff about how I wanted the bottles and nipples cleaned until Jayne asked me and watched me clean a bottle to see the attention I gave the nipple and how I used the nipple brush hidden inside of the bottle brush handle. I had noted that the nipples of the bottles that Laura washed were hazy and I had rewashed everything. Now I’m thinking she just rinsed them; she never even asked me where the dishwashing soap was.

So I’m totally comfortable and at ease now. I’m looking forward to work on Monday, as much as I may be crying in the car on the way there, not because I’d be scared or nervous about Allie at home, only because I’d miss her.

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with Jayne and her husband in the afternoon to discuss placing a value on this arrangement. They were thinking her working as our nanny could partially pay for each month’s rent, but their total monthly rent is actually well LESS than what we would’ve been paying Laura monthly. I’m happy with her care covering their entire rent each month, and still giving her paid holidays and vacations.

Laura texted me earlier:

Thought you should know. The Saddleback position was filled because I let them know I had a job. They filled the job before I could let them know it had fallen through.”

That is of course none of my business and the ONLY purpose for texting that is to continue to make me feel guilty. However, the more she does this, the more transparent it is and the less I’m going to feel bad given her own way of being vindictive. I see Susanne online all the time and I leave her alone. I was considering texting Laura back, “You were and will continue to be in my prayers, and I will add to them that He reveal to you soon why he used our financial situation to keep you from those positions, since even if we had you continue for a month, it wouldn’t have changed those things.” To sort her bring her back from her anger at me to realize that this is something that likely happened for a reason.

And then moments later, when I was considering responding to her with the above, I get notification of Idlehouse’s comment to the prior post. It was so en pointe that I decided, this is the Universe’s way of telling me, “Do not go there with her.” So I am not going to respond at all. Thank you, Universe; I’m listening. And thank you, Idlehouse, for your caring and your comments.

It took me almost 3 hours to fall asleep last nite, and Allie had a 4am awakening and feeding, and that took me another hour to start to doze afterwards, so Mr. W’s alarm woke me up right when I started to doze after that, and the snooze alarm after that. I got about 3 hours of sleep.

I really loved the first Kindercare I visited; they had a brand new infant room as they’d just switched the infants who were there into the toddler room (they “graduated”) and were accepting a new class of infants. It was new cribs, new sheets, new mattresses, new everything. I met the director and the infant room teacher, and they were very loving, professional, and knew a LOT about kids. The director had 25 years of experience and the teacher had 8. There were kids around and they knew everything about those toddlers, what each cry meant, what they needed with a certain behavior. They interacted with the kids, no TV, all age-appropriate and developmental activities. They say it takes the average baby Allie’s age about 3 days to adjust and then the napping goes on according to the baby’s routine and scheduled provided; they’re not conformed to a routine for the location. Teacher-infant ratio is 1 to 4 so they had room for 1 more. Their first new infant goes in mid-month, with an addition of another one each week afterwards for 3. The place was sparkling and their system seemed amazing. I was surprised how much they provided — sippy cups, etc. And it was going to cost less than $320/week for a 5-day plan, less for 3 days and 1 day plans.

I tearfully forewarned Laura before I left (so little time because she came a few mins late again and I had to be at the Kindercare at 10) that Mr. W’s conversation with the renters the day before was not good and it looks very likely that we would have to put Allie in daycare. It was extremely uncomfortable to leave Allie with Laura just those few hours. I checked the cam once and Allie was still down for the morning nap that I’d put her in. Once more, didn’t see anyone and the baby was no longer in her crib. I checked it again on the way home from the bank and saw Laura soothing her in her room, and was surprised because it had barely been over an hour since she woke up. At a red light, saw Allie doing the same thing that happened last time when Laura tried to nap her — Allie was rolling over and crying, unable to soothe herself in the rolled over position. She did not do that when I napped her, she went peacefully, and this likely isn’t Laura’s fault, it was just different for Allie. But I lost it. I was in hysterics. And I also knew I couldn’t do it with Laura. When I arrived home, Allie was laying listlessly in her crib with her eyes open, but soon fell asleep in a different position for her. I tried to gently tell Laura what was going on and the direction headed toward. I explained the financial impossiblity of having her. I wanted to spare her of all my “red flags” about her because there was no point adding insult to injury, I thought, and it was all a moot point anyhow as we can not pay a nanny, especially what she’s demanding of us. And I paid her in cash the hours she’d been at the house for the past 3 days.

The problem with that is that she obviously tried to salvage her job, so she tried to convince me to evict the renters, to keep her on for a few months in case things got better, to try to turn my prior words against me about how Susanne flaked on me and I said I wouldn’t do that to someone else but here I am in that position. I told her no decision was made, I was telling her where things are as soon as possible so that she could put herself out there and not cancel out on other potential jobs, etc. She said she was already committed to this job so it was too late (altho she again didn’t say anything about Saddleback so I think she’s still potentially a hire there). It was uncomfortable and her daughter stopped by while I was still in tears to go with her to their plans. She left soon after because it was apparent I needed to be alone.

I put Allie to a nap around 3p and Laura called me again from there. She wanted to negotiate and threw at me all kinds of things designed to guilt me into keeping her on at least for the month. Given the stuff she was saying, I became less and less inclined to deal with her and felt increasingly uncomfortable by the way she was trying to verbally back me into a corner. I told her I’d talk to Mr. W about her offer and get back to her that evening, but it was a loooong pressure-filled conversation.

Mr. W’s daughter came over with her boyfriend for dinner (she hadn’t been around for a few weeks) and I put Allie to bed, after which, and after many chats with Rebecca with her saying I must cut Laura off immediately because this was going to get worse and I can’t keep her for a month because this is just the beginning of her true colors, I made the call. It was basically her berating me for an hour about what a horrible person and hypocrite and liar and bad mother I am, altho she never used those words. She demanded to know how I could do this given that Susanne did it to me; I tried to explain that Susanne took a better deal for herself, whereas I was in an unexpected situational change and my baby comes first. I did have to tell her how I was uncomfortable with the month because I’d wondered about her priorities being her kids over Allie, which is a good thing for her and I hope to be as good a mother as she is, but bad for me as Allie’s mother. I need to think about the baby’s needs first. She said “Wow, I guess I shouldn’t be honest and tell people about my relationship with my daughters.” It was a lot of comments like that, it sounded like she couldn’t understand or accept what I was saying, didn’t see anything wrong on her end re my feeling insecure about the fact that she wasn’t there as much as I needed during a transition (she said that in every baby book, it says the transition shouldn’t be long, and should be as short as possible, so she already had felt that a week was unnecessary and that a couple days at most was best, but she imposed that on me, not the other way around, and she’d never communicated that. either way, she ought to do it the way *I* need to be comfortable, not the way SHE wanted), said that I had to understand SHE was going thru a transition with HER kids as well cuz when she starts the job she wouldn’t be around for her daughters as much. (They’re grown! And they were allowed to visit!) I was basically passive and explained the things she demanded of me, listened to her rail me and I simply told her I understood how she felt, but that I didn’t feel I have the time she seems to, to drag this on another month at her request. I didn’t feel like I could handle a month of limbo and then another transition after Allie got attached to her. She claimed Allie woudln’t have problems transitioning, so I should allow HER the courtesy of a minimum 2-week notice before termination. I said this isn’t a corporate job situation, this is my baby. She said she would’ve at LEAST done that for ME and I was going back on my word of our agreement. I said we were in a transitional, pre-trial period, it wasn’t to the point of agreement yet, but she disagreed. Besides, after all the berating, I KNEW I could not be comfortable leaving my precious baby alone all day for weeks with her while I was helpless an hour away at work. “I’m just so SURPRISED at your BEHAVIOR,” she kept saying. In the same tone she had said during negotiations, “Well, don’t YOU get paid when you take vacation?” to say why we should pay her full base pay plus any overtime on days of our vacation and her vacation. It ended with her demanding how I could do this, why, how was I different from Susanne? Didn’t like what I said, said we were going in circles, cried, and then hung up on me.

She has my sleep book, and I don’t want to get it back from her.

I had a loooooong talk with Rebecca after that. Rebecca strongly supports me and doesn’t feel I did anything wrong; of course Allie had to come first, and Laura was the beginning of bad news. If she was that demanding already, and controlled things in a way that I was uncomfortable with so immediately, it was going to get worse if she stayed and had a month to attach more — even to the point of lawsuit. Right now, because she’d only been on part-time for 3 days, the courts would see her as just a temporary babysitter who got proper compensation for her time. We were not in a contract period; we weren’t past the tryout period, and I DID give her early notice as soon as I knew things had changed; I didn’t stall her in the dark for a month just to get some use out of her and then say it wasn’t working when I had other things in place. Rebecca found her controlling behavior, and the things she said to me over 3 long conversations to be “appalling,” said I was manipulated, and asked me to put myself in Laura’s shoes; would I tell a new boss or a new judge I’m working for, “You want me in when? No, I’m going to come in later. No, I won’t be in that day, I’m going do spend time with my daughter instead.” Nope, especially not the beginning. And I certainly wouldn’t guilt him for having a problem with it afterwards. She basically feels wronged, and I get that. But to protect Allie, I can NOT have someone like this alone with her. Besides, she was due to take Allie back to her place next Wednesday when the cleaners are here, and we never got the invitation to her place nor do we have her address, all of which were supposed to be covered in the 1st transition week which she blew off.

Last night, I still felt rotten. I hope to get over it very soon.

I had a traumatic day and I can’t blog about it right now as it’s too late and I need to try to sleep. In a nutshell, Laura is no longer the nanny and she made it extremely difficult for me and left non-physical claw marks on me. However, my priority HAS to be the baby. I really liked one of the KinderCares I visited, and I would be comfortable placing Allie there; I would still prefer she be older, however. I have cried way too much today and have been slammed into the wall (figuratively) too dizzying much today and I’m still nauseated. Hoping for things to be better for everyone tomorrow.

Day 2 of this transition week. I was so not feeling it after Monday that before Laura arrived this morning, I had to enact a Plan B. I’ve made two back-to-back appointments with the 2 closest branches of a chain daycare for tomorrow.

So here’s how today went. Laura arrived at the agreed-upon time of 10a (a few minutes late). Allie was still sleeping from her morning nap, so we got a chance to talk, and altho she’d said yesterday that given the short day, she insisted on not being paid, today she said to apply the hours she was here yesterday toward “banking” as credit, i.e. she wants “credit” for the hours she’s worked yesterday to apply later when we’re on vacation. So now I have to keep keep a log of hours she’s “preworking” that are going toward future “credit” to be paid for, and days that we’ve paid full wage for her that she hasn’t yet worked that’s owed to us as time. It’s going to be an accounting nightmare.

When Allie awoke from the morning nap, I’d explained how to add a little bit to the 4 oz bag after it goes in the bottle to make a bottle between 4.5 to 5 oz. Then I left her to that as I went to change Allie. When I came back to the kitchen, I saw that she’d overfilled the bottle so that it was past the 5 oz line to where I estimate it was about 6 oz, but I’m not sure cuz that particular bottle size doesn’t have any markings beyond 5 oz and the bottle shape changes a bit as you get to the top. I mentioned she overfilled and that I didn’t want to waste milk that Allie can’t finish. She said as Allie drank all 5 oz yesterday at her bottle feeding, that she feels Allie can finish this, and that it wasn’t THAT much over 5 oz (I disagree), and then asked what I wanted to do, pour some back (which I’d initially suggested) or give it to her? I relented and said she could try feeding it to Allie as I pumped. When I came back downstairs from pumping, she said I was right, and there was a full ounce left over in the bottle she couldn’t get Allie to drink. We managed to salvage that by putting the bottle immediately back into the fridge and deciding to have 2 bottle feedings that day. I’m glad she chose to tell me rather than dump it so that I wouldn’t be upset or know she was wrong.

Allie took 2 great naps that I put her down for; 2 hours 15 mins for the morning nap (which Laura wasn’t here for because she didn’t want to come in early when I was still here), and 1.5 hours for the noon nap that I put Allie down for as Laura watched on the camera downstairs. She’d watched me put Allie down for one or two naps yesterday as well. She didn’t pick up on the details, though…when I had her put Allie down for Allie’s 3rd nap of the day, she bounced Allie around instead of swaying her by gently shifting weight from foot to foot like I do, and it was too much motion to lull Allie to sleep. She also patted Allie’s back and I heard occasional talking to Allie, so it was more stimulation than Allie’s used to. Allie was popped up on Laura’s shoulder and started fussing and crying. So I was thinking, “Just put her down, just put her down,” so that Allie would at least soothe herself to sleep in her crib instead of feeling the strangeness she wasn’t used to. But Laura tried to keep soothing, and kept readjusting Allie, trying to move her hand, move her head, move her positioning. Finally, eventually, Allie had her head down against Laura’s chest altho she never got into instant soothing position like she does on me and never sucked her thumb, but as she started getting sleepy-eyed, Laura put her down in her crib, but didn’t do a transition with her hands like I do, turning Allie sideways and then sliding my hand out once she’s in position. She basically picked Allie up by the armpits, dangling her over the crib, and that woke Allie up even more. Allie ended up popping up in the crib, moving around, crying, and learned to roll over for the first time. So now she was on her back, crying, not used to being on her back during the nap, awkwardly positioned against the side of the crib, staring at the ceiling in the room that she’s not used to seeing from that angle in the daytime. Basically, she cried and moved for half an hour, and ended up not going to sleep. I finally went and got her at 4:30p so that I could feed her, feed her again at 6:30p and put her down early for the night to make up for missing her afternoon nap. (Allie was so tired that as soon as I walked with her into her room to throw a diaper away or to get anything, she thought she was getting her nap and would go into soothing position on me. And she kept yawning, and when I nursed her at 4:30p and 6:30p for an earlier bedtime, she couldn’t even stay awake for a full feeding both times. I’m afraid to think what that’s going to do to her sleep tonight.)

As Laura was getting ready to leave, she asked when I’d like her in tomorrow. Well, given that it was a short day at HER request so that she could leave early, I thought she’d be in at the regular time in the morning since this IS transition week. She didn’t want to do that. She said as she’d expected to be in for the full normal days Thursday and Friday, on Wednesday (tomorrow) she wanted to come in later, even tho she was leaving earlier, too. So I’m going to put Allie to nap at 8:30a, she’ll be here at 9:30a (which cuts it close for me but that’s what she wants to do), and I’m going to leave at 9:45 so that I can make it to the first Kindercare by 10a for a tour, meanwhile Laura is here alone when Allie wakes up and she’ll change Allie’s diaper, bottlefeed her, play with her, and put her to nap around 12p; meanwhile I go straight to the 2nd Kindercare for a 11:30a tour, and I get home a little after 12p when hopefully Allie has been put down and is napping, and Laura leaves with her daughter between 1:30 and 2p. Her daughter offered to bring some Lee’s Sandwiches for us for lunch when she meets her mom here. Just writing all that I’m leaving to Laura tomorrow makes me nauseated. I’m so scared. I guess you can say I don’t have the confidence in her.

I was not impressed Laura’s still reluctant to be here for the full hours, even tho she’d be paid for them. We went for a stroller walk between the 2nd and 3rd (failed) nap, and that went okay. We also played with Allie outside for a bit (Laura took her out while I was cleaning the pump parts). I noticed that she’s not doing anything developmental with Allie. Just playing with her, laughing, talking to her. When we were on the big outdoor bed thing, I suggested we give Allie some exercise so she’d use up some energy before her nap, and Laura said okay, asked what I suggested. I suggested tummy time. She didn’t know what that is. It’s just terminology, but it’s such current common terminology that childcare providers really ought to know them. Mr. W mentioned that he watched Laura try to burp Allie thru the cameras, and agreed with me that she is rusty with infant care; he said she had Allie sitting on her lap like I do trying to burp her, but when Allie didn’t want to sit still and kept straightening her body, instead of burping her in another position, Laura would just pat her back twice, and keep try to readjust Allie’s sitting, then pat twice, while covering Allie’s mouth with the burp cloth with her other hand. Basically it wasn’t working. She wanted to use the Boppy to bottlefeed Allie (which she’d seen me use a few times to nurse Allie), but couldn’t figure out how to use it. She had it turned out so that it made a reverse “U” in front of her instead of going around her waist like a donut. When I turned it for her, she placed Allie in her lap in the hole instead of on the Boppy, meanwhile looking confused. Not a big deal again, except that it shows how she’s very out of date with the infant care thing. And Mr. W has told some people at work about how much we’re paying Laura monthly, and he said everyone balked. When he mentioned that she wanted to be paid max pay for the days she’s taking off, the days she’s on vacation, the days WE’RE on vacation, AND wanted us to pay half her health care, people REALLY balked. I think Laura feels that this is fair because she feels that $11/hour is a super-low wage so her compromise is to get us to pay her consistently whether she’s here or not.

I’m really, really not feeling it. I was in tears this afternoon. Mr. W is increasingly not happy with the arrangement the more time he has to think of it and its ramifications, as well. Taxes, etc. make her even more expensive as we finish the trial period.

Mr. W met up with his renter after work today. The renter is saying stuff like he’s not able to pay like he’d expected once again, and that maybe Mr. W would want to think about putting someone else in the property who could make the regular monthly payments, and meanwhile the renter will move his family out to someplace cheaper and still try to pay back what he owes to Mr. W. This is a scary thought — the implications are that the renters are admitting defeat in getting caught up. Mr. W explained about how it’s going to be very tough for us from now on covering for that mortgage without getting rental income for it because of what we’re going to have to pay for a nanny. When the two left each other, Mr. W got a phone call from the renter with a business proposition. The renter’s wife was a nurse. She’s also a mother of two girls, same ages as Laura’s girls. The renters offered to have the wife nanny for us for free, to sort of “work off” their debt, and that would help us by letting us save on childcare costs. I’m not sure how ideal this is, because I no longer have time to do another transition week with someone else. Plus, I don’t have the heart or the energy for it. I’m so stressed at it is doing it for Laura. I feel like the renter’s wife is in the same boat where she’s also going to be rusty with infant care, so I’m really trading one for the same person, with the exception being that one of the women is free. Also, can I do this without screwing over Laura, given that she appears to have chosen this as her job for the next couple years? Maybe I should talk to her tomorrow about keeping her options open and not writing off the church or the school district job, yet. But would that screw me over as I have to turn Allie over to another stranger?

Watching Allie wake up and toss in her bed earlier, having this discussion with Mr. W, I was ready to hurl.

Nanny Laura came over yesterday and spent half the day with us. She does seem to adore Allie and was trying to get the feel for our routine so far. When Allie went down for her nap, we talked about the terms of her employment. There were several points we had to negotiate and I think we’ve reached a compromise on all of them.
* She wants her average day’s pay (which includes any overtime) on holidays that she’s getting off. We asked to just pay her base time. We ended up agreeing to her request.
* She wants 10 days of vacation a year, to start accruing immediately, and wants to be able to use them immediately. We wanted to abide by the typical rule of her being able to use 10 days vacation a year starting with her 2nd year of employment. The compromise: she starts accruing immediately and can use those days immediately, but if she takes a 5 day vacation in the summer (like she wants) but has only 2 days accrued, she’s not getting paid for the other 3. But then she suggested getting paid as an “advance” on her vacation days, and Mr. W agreed. So pretty much she’s getting what she asked.
* She wants health insurance, but it’s expensive at $400/month from her estimate. The compromise: She pays for it on her own, but once Mr. W’s renters start paying their rent regularly, knowing it could take 6-8 months, we pitch in for half. This was her idea of a compromise, and we agreed. She felt bad that Mr. W is 5 figures in the hole from lack of rent collected but still paying mortgage on the place.
* On days when we don’t need her (such as when we have vacation or are home for a day to take Allie to a doctor’s appointment) but that she’s able to work, she wants full pay, including any overtime she would’ve worked had we needed her. We offered her half. She said she needed regular income for her financial stability and refused to take any cut due to our not needing her. This was troublesome, considering we used to take 4 weeks of vacation a year, so including holidays and her own 2 weeks of paid vacation, we’re basically paying her for something like 2+ months when she’s not even here. So my offer of compromise, which everyone agreed to, was that on days when we don’t need her but that she’s willing and able to work (not including her vacation or holidays), we can “bank” it as “credit” with her. She gets paid for these days with the understanding that on an agreed-upon Saturday or a holiday that she otherwise would’ve had off, she’d come and take Allie for some time without charging extra, so Mr. W and I can have a date, or go see a movie, or go have a meal, go to the gym, etc. That way, she would roughly be working the same number of hours annually that we’re willing to pay her for, but with the days rearranged.

Rebecca has said that she’s very professional, and I’ve found that to be true in her requested work benefits. Most nannies don’t make all these requests, and health care? Really? We’re not corporate employers. So I feel a little disgruntled that she has so many demands that are out of the ordinary for nannies, altho I also feel that her demands are not unreasonable for someone taking employment. She’s never done the nanny thing before so she’s treating this as she would a regular corporate job, altho she makes allowances keeping in mind that it’s not a matter of bargaining with a company, we’re people who are still trying to survive and we have physical limits on what we are ABLE to pay her, it’s not a matter of what we’re WILLING to pay her.

She looked very relieved when she left and gave me a hug, and I’ll type up the agreement at some point (I gave her a copy of our notes and terms). But we still have the understanding that the first few weeks are “trial;” if she finds she can’t survive on what she says is a paycut from what she’s used to, or we find that we can’t afford to pay what we’d agreed upon thus far, we’ll have to figure something else out. I’m thinking the “something else” is going to be daycare. I’m just so sick of this, and I’m totally stressed over how we’re going to do the week she wants off in the summer so she could vacation with her kids. If there were someone out there who knows Allie’s routine who come stay with her for a week, we wouldn’t need a nanny to begin with. Maybe I could take a personal day, Mr. W could take another personal day, and my mom could take the other 3. But she’d have to be here at 6:30a and it’s a long drive. *sigh* I feel like I should be relieved with a nanny in place (like I was with Susanne, who in retrospect was giving us a hell of a deal), not more stressed, like I am. I’m hoping Laura “proves herself” in the next few days so that I’d feel more comfortable, because right now altho I feel like her heart is in the right place with baby care, she’s rusty. She did offer to take the sleep book (“Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Dr. Marc Weissbluth) and read it to understand my parenting/sleeping philosophy and to “brush up” on her infant knowledge. So far, my impression of her is that her priority is her kids and she’s willing to take a lot of time off to be with them, which is great as a parent, but I’m afraid it’ll screw us as her employers. She already asked for Wednesday afternoon off of this transition week so she could go with her daughter to see a church’s Easter exhibit and run a personal errand. True there’s some flexibility since I’m still on maternity leave, but I don’t feel like she’s that concerned with our needs as much as she is with her own leisure activities. Again, fine if you’re in a corporate job, the work can wait, but in this job, we’re dealing with a human baby and parents needing to feel like they’re leaving this human baby in competent and caring hands.

So yeah, after ironing out the details with Laura, I’m still not “feeling” like she’s a fixture. It could be just angst from my imminent return to work, as Mr. W suggests, or it could be intuition again.

Remember a couple of days ago when I didn’t know whether my feeling that Laura wasn’t going to stick around was intuition or paranoia? Turned out it was intuition.

She called me earlier. Her appointment this morning is to meet a plumber at the property she’s renting out, because her renters called over the weekend and reported a water heater leak. She said she took the liberty of arranging for a plumber today, so she’d get it taken care of earlier in the week rather than later, but wanted me to feel comfortable that if she had Allie full-time and I was back at work, then she would’ve rescheduled or done something else; she wouldn’t have flaked on Allie. So that’s fine. Her plumber window is between 12-2 this afternoon, so she’s going to come as soon as she can after that.

BUT…after I told her about my feelings that she’s holding back and that I had wanted to talk to her about it today to see why my gut was telling me this about her, she said that I am intuitively correct. She’s still having ongoing discussions with Saddleback Church, so she hadn’t written them off after they’d met last Monday. Also, prior to her emailing me about the nanny position, she’d taken a test with the Huntington Beach School District for an education-related job, and she’d said there was only 1 position open and there were so many people there that she left discouraged, feeling like she wouldn’t be able to beat everyone for that one spot. However, over the weekend, she received an email from them saying congratulations, she scored in the top 10 and they would like to set her up for an interview. So now she feels like whereas before, she had no doors open to her, now many doors are opening to her at the same time, and she’s torn about which to enter. She said she’s trying to figure out where God wants her to go. She wants to take the nanny position with us, but doesn’t want to make a mistake, or step into something unclear. She asked me to put the agreement terms for her employment together so that she could sign a contract with us, and that way, with all the details securely ironed out, she would refuse the school district’s interview and come onboard. I noticed she didn’t give such a resolution about Saddleback Church, however.

I had been wanting to iron out the details of our arrangement, also, but she didn’t make herself available last week or over the weekend, so I had been planning on negotiating all terms this week when I saw her. I also don’t want a situation where an unexpected sticking point blows the whole agreement up, so I’d rather handle the details sooner than later. I told her that even with an agreement in place, if it turns out some way we’re doing things isn’t working, I’m open to talking about and renegotiating the issue. She was happy and relieved.

Another thing I’d felt over the weekend intuitively was that her daughters were a huge concern to her and that she may be “flakey” based upon their needs. If she quits it’d be because she decided to spend more time with them at home. That turned out to be pretty right on, also, because Laura said the reason she’s less inclined toward the school district job is because it would take an hour each way to commute there, and then working all day, that would make her unavailable to her children at a time when she believed, from hearing a Christian radio show discuss this early on, was the most important for a mother to be around her children — their teenage years. I don’t disagree with her, because I get that peer influence is at an all-time high at that age. The kids need to know that a parent is available and will be there to hold them accountable for their actions. That alone prevented me from doing a lot of bad stuff when I was a teen (“my mom would KILL me!” was a very common thought). I asked her if the long hours working for us would give her the same concern. She said no, because we’re close to her home, AND because I’d already said that her kids are welcome in our house when she’s here working. I confirmed that. She said her teen had already said, “Oh, then I can go over and do homework.” I’m all for kids doing homework at our house, as long as they aren’t too noisy. Besides, her mom will be here the whole time supervising. I don’t expect a teenager is going to be distracting Laura from caring for Allie. Another toddler, that’s a different story.

Intuitively, I feel somewhat a sense of relief, like a heaviness lifted partially. So I know I’m on the right track. It’s not completely lifted, yet, but it’s nowhere near as heavy as it had felt this weekend. This weekend, it was almost like Laura was nonexistent in our future when I tried to project forward. I’m so tired of this, though. I think if Nanny Laura doesn’t work out, I’m ready to turn to daycare. My cousin Jennifer’s having a great experience with her baby Alexis in daycare right now, and the people I know who’ve placed their infants in have only positive things to say. I’d just prefer that Allie be a little older, but it may not work out that way. At least she’s getting MUCH better with the noise issue, just like the pediatrician said she would. She slept through neighbors’ gardeners today (she moved and turned her head a couple of times, but settled back down without really waking up), and other outside noises over the weekend.

Laura just called; she’s on her way. I have the points of our agreement written down as notes and we can talk about other points and then fashion it into an agreement.

Another problem, one that I didn’t see coming… I was about to scoop out the pee clumps in Dodo’s litterbox this morning when I noticed raisin-sized blood stains in the center of each of the 2 pee clumps. I’ve put a call into the vet. 🙁 It looks like the pee stream ended with some blood coming out of my kitty. He’s doing better with the overnight yowling; he pretty much only does it early evening, and/or early morning (5am), so I figured he’s feeling better. The vet called back and left a voicemail when I was putting Allie down for her morning nap. I tried to call back after I put Allie down for her noon nap, but the doctor was with a patient. So we’re still playing phone tag.

Childhood friend (and my current dentist) Andy and his wife Jenny came by to visit yesterday afternoon. We’d been trying to hang out in South OC for years, since they’re in the area almost every weekend, but somehow could never get it to work. This time it worked. They arrived during Allie’s nap, which allowed us some time to visit without having to worry about the baby getting impatient. When Allie woke up and we introduced her to Andy and Jenny, I found out just now much a baby person Jenny is. She adored Allie! Andy said that kids and babies always love Jenny. Allie certainly seemed to appreciate all of Jenny’s attention lavished on her, and kept smiling and looking at Jenny. These two guests are the first ones whose first impression is that Allie looks like Mr. W. Everyone else says the baby looks like me. “That’s because you’ve got biased friends and relatives saying that,” Mr. W joked.

Since Allie now skips her 4th nap and is awake from 4p-ish to bedtime (7:30p-ish), we all went to have some omakase sushi on the lake. It was a really nice visit with grownup conversation about foods, travels, yuzu, family. I didn’t know that childhood friend Sandy, Andy’s younger sister, was so mean to her brother when they were young kids! I never saw it even tho I’ve known them since Sandy and I were 6, and Andy was 7, but apparently the examples of violence done to Andy by Sandy predated that. Hilarious stories, which I’ll keep private. 🙂 Jenny and Mr. W told Andy to “get over it, it’s been 35 years!” and be nicer to his sister now. Haha! I look forward to having more time to socialize with them in the future.

Today, Mr. W took baby duty so that I could attend Lily’s no-children baby shower in Long Beach. The drive to Mimi’s Cafe there was about 45 minutes, and it was a 10:30a brunch with games, and a 45 minute drive back. I left the house at 9:45a, which means I missed the 10a feeding (and didn’t pump since I was driving), and brunch took longer than I thought, so I skipped out early so as not to miss the 1:30p feeding. I was afraid my body would go, “Hmm…she fed last night at 7:15pm, then her next feeding was 12 hours later at 7am, then no feeding for the next 7 hours…I think I’ll stop making milk now.” Even given that I left the restaurant early and skipped the last game, the cake, the present-opening and the socializing at Lily’s house and was home just in time when Allie woke up at 1:40p to feed her, this was still the longest I’d been away from the baby since she was born. I’m embarrassed to say how many times I checked the baby monitor on my cell phone. Mr. W put her to sleep for her morning and noon naps and said he didn’t have a problem, so that’s good. It makes me feel better that she doesn’t have to have me do it.

I thought this was funny…
One of their guests is a coworker/superior who had introduced the two. They call her their “matchmaker.” She’s a doctor, like Lily and her husband, and pretty smart. One of the games they played was to have the guests guess Lily’s stomach circumference by cutting a length of plastic ribbon that’s supposed to go around her middle just right. When the roll of ribbon got to the matchmaker, instead of just unrolling it to a length she thought would go around Lily’s middle, she pulled out a calculator and started tapping away. “What are you doing? Are you cheating?” another guest asked her. She said she had a dress made when she was approximately Lily’s size and she knew her waist measurement then, but that was in centimeters and the ribbon’s printed with inches, so she was trying to figure out a conversion.
“You’re supposed to EYEBALL it! No algorithms!” another guest said in protest.
What a group of overachievers. Haha!
Anyway, I asked this matchmaker doctor to take a photo of me with the parents-to-be right before I left, and just because someone is smart in their field doesn’t mean they could take brilliant photos, because this is how she chose to frame the photo of us commemorating a pregnancy:

Hahaha! Oh, well.

So this afternoon, Allie made a conscious decision to have a tantrum. And she willfully carried it out with a screaming crying fit for 45 minutes in protest to taking a nap. It wasn’t that she wasn’t tired; she just FELT like having the tantrum. She could be easily distracted from it and would stop crying immediately if something amusing or different caught her eye, and she’d be quick to smile at it, or babble, but then she’d remember, “Oh yeah, I’m having a fit,” and go right back to it, and add some good yells for dramatics. She had two solid naps beforehand, both about an hour and 45+ minutes, so it wasn’t a HUGE deal she protested her third and last nap of the day, but I was pissed at her, and she knew it. She had her fit whether I was carrying her, or she was in her crib left alone to settle. And continued when I went back up to make another attempt at soothing. Her dad came up to her room after the battle of wills raged on for 45 minutes and took her downstairs back to my parents and his social activities in the living room, and placed her in the swing. Of course the moment she got her way she stopped crying, altho she was clearly sleepy. I was annoyed enough to go take a nap in our bedroom, and eventually, after Allie stayed up to when she ought to be getting her next feeding, she consented to a nap in her crib that lasted for a measly half an hour.

And then suddenly I sat up with a jolt. Given the fight that lasted from 2:45 to 3:30p, I completely forgot that I had to take Dodo in to get his blood pressure rechecked at 3p. It was 5pm when I realized this, and ran downstairs to grab my cell and call the vet. They said if I can get him in within the next 15 minutes, they’d still take him. At this point, Allie woke up from that half-hour nap, of course. And since she was already late for her feeding, she needed to be fed immediately so that she’d be hungry enough to eat for her bedtime feeding. I again had to be at two places at the same time, tending to either my boy or my girl. Mr. W took Dodo to the vet; I changed and fed Allie. Mr. W returned quickly from the vet and said that Dodo’s blood pressure has gone from 220 a couple of weeks ago to 180, so the medication is working, but the blood pressure is still too high. The vet’s instructions are to give the same dosage twice a day instead of just the once. Good thing that liquid’s tuna flavored.

Allie knew I was annoyed at her. She kissed butt and smiled and tried to amuse everyone with her tongue tricks until we (my parents and the three of us) went to our local neighborhood Greek place for dinner. My parents were very happy and laughed and laughed at the slitherly snake tongue trick that Mr. W taught her the other day, at her tongue out and sputtery “pttthhhh” he’d taught her a few days ago, and at just the simple tongue out “nyah” my dad had taught her last week. The proud grandparents even took video. Then at the restaurant, as it got close to her natural bedtime, she got fussy and wouldn’t let us eat. Someone had to be holding her and walking her around for about a half hour until she got agreeable enough to sit in her carrier and hang out like a civilized baby.

My parents think she understands us, now. They said Allie was fine until someone said, “Let’s take her to bed now,” then she suddenly had a protesting fit again. I talk to her all day long, so I’m not surprised she understands a few words, and I feel like she’s suddenly very cognitive because you can see her doing things to make people laugh, watching our reactions and studying us carefully, and basically instead of adults teasing the baby, it’s often the baby teasing the adults. She enjoys the reactions she gets. And I’m suddenly able to “read” her intuitively. I guess it’s time to start spelling things we don’t want her to understand.