Fun Week With DH In DC Last Week ... Interesting Start To This Week

[MarinaVanessa]

A few weeks ago my DH complained about how I give him a list of things to do when he gets home and how I never have the dishes or dinner done. I straightened him out because a) he gets home at 4pm and I don't until 6pm b) I NEVER bother him until at least 1 hour after he gets home c) the things that I ask him to do that are so God awful are things such as keep OUR baby occupied so that I CAN get some of the clean-up done. So I told him to walk in my shoes to see how it felt ... and he actually did it. He took all last week off from work and by the end of the first day Monday he was so frazzled he called me crazy and asked me why I enjoyed self tourture ::. Mind you, all he did was watch and keep our baby occupied. On Tuesday he OFFERED to help out and we worked as a team. The rest of the week went by super quick and he actually enjoyed himself. He went back to work yesterday (Monday) and I got a call from his boss asking me what I did to him :confused:. A whole bunch of problems at work happened while DH was gone (DH is supervisor for IT department at the county) and they never fixed them, just left them for my DH to take care of and so apparently DH told his boss that he was going to focus on paying off our cars, our second mortgage (which we could do in 2 years) and that he was buying a bigger house and quitting his job to expand my DC and he would work as my assistant ::::::. I spoke to DH and DH is dead serious.

I am currently having issues with a DCM that is here drop-in and that's a long story in itself. She started FT wanted 4 days instead of 5 because she was going back to school and wanted drop-in daycare at FT daily rates: FT $160wk/5=$32 day VS drop-in $40 a day (FT is a flat weekly rate however). I needed her income and so we ended up renegotiating that I would divide the FT rate by 5 and charge her that rate for only 4 days but she HAD to come at least 4 days. I agreed that she could have any four days she wanted but that I needed to know in advance otherwise I would have the option to fill in a day. She never signed a new contract )I know, I know) but did give me a 2-week notice 2 weeks before summer break. She mentioned 2 weeks ago that she was having surgery today but never said that DCB would not be here. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to take on a drop-in for yesterday but wasn't sure if I'd have the room so I called DCM and heard nothing. Mondays are usually a day that her DCB comes so I declined the other drop-in. DCB was a no show. I called again and nothing. The drop-in was a cousin to a FT DCB that I have now and so this DCM asked for the day off to stay home to watch her son and her nephew (I got paid anyway for her this day). Not only could I have made extra money yesterday but because I had no room for this drop-in the other DCM stayed home so I had 2 spots. Yesterday evening another drop-in DCM asked if there was room today for her son so I gave the DCM a call a call one last time (blocked from my home phone) and she answered the phone. She said she had been busy trying to get everything together and that's why she didn't call me. I asked if DCB would be coming and she said no but that she may need me for Friday but that she was in the middle of dinner and that she would give me a call afterwards to talk about it. I was so PO that she had the nerve to say she was busy at the time and couldn't talk to me after knowing that I had tried to get a hold of her all weekend. I could be inconvenienced but she couldn't. All I said in response was for her to call me Friday morning to see if I had room and hung up. She never did call last night. Don't worry, I wrote up a drop-in contract specifically for her and I will expect her to sign it or no care.

On top of that I had an issue with a DCM that I signed on last month. DCG came for two-weeks and then fell off the face of the earth. I called DCM the first day DCG was absent but got a message that the caller wasn't accepting calls. I know from experience that this means it's a pre-paid phone and it has no minutes. I thought it was so inconsiderate to pull a no call/no show that I drew up a notice and mailed it. In the letter I just said that I needed her to call me and that if I had no contact from her by a certain date that their last day of care would be such-and-such. I never heard from DCM so I just used their deposit as payment for those two-weeks. Since then I've taken on a new drop-in client that has been able to fill pretty much all of gaps with 2 kids. At 7:15 this morning I was loading up the van to take my DD to school and as I was pulling out guess who runs up to my window. Yep, DCM. She starts by telling me that she's sorry that DCG didn't come to DC but that her dad had taken her on vacation. Um ... ok, so why no call. "Oh yeah. Sorry 'bout that" was all I got. She sort of stood there all akward and I told her I needed to take DD to school. She asked "What about DCG?". I asked her didn't she get the letter and she said she did so she wanted to sign a new contract and I just told her that I had already filled her spot and that I was full now and drove off. Really?

So yes I've had an eventfull last week and it looks like this week is starting off just as interesting if not more .

[laundrymom]

Wow on all of it. Wow.

[SimpleMom]

Yep, that sure beat most of my weeks!! By the way, I LOVE the story about your husband working to get a bigger house so he could work WITH you! How awesome is that?!

[Sugar Magnolia]

Awesome!!!

Your hubby is the BOMB! Yah round of applause!!!! My husband and I are partners and it ROCKS!!! You SHOULD team up! You could be so awesome together! What a great opportunity!!! We run a small center (outside our home) and it is really succesful. You can do it! Go for it! Expand with your hubby! There's only one issue we have and that is sometimes we get sick of being together 24/7. And sometimes we bicker in the car on the way home. So I'd say make sure you allot yourself some time alone or with your girlfriends! Lol! I go to the beach ALONE every saturday, or I'd probably choke him! If you're ever interested, I can go on and on and on about the benefits though! I'm a super huge advocate of small, family-run centers and multi-age approach (essentially a large family daycare except we're licensed as a center and don't live there).

[MarinaVanessa]

Sugar and Simple: Yep that's what I'm most excited about. We've been saving up for a bigger house with an actual yard for a while now and we'd be expanding from a licensed small family daycare home (max 8 cap) to a large family daycare home (max 14 cap) so it's something to look forward to. So even though this week has started off a little rocky for me it doesn't even begin to dampen my mood. If anything it makes me want to work harder to expand. I've been doing pretty well lately with tightening the reins. I've let a family go that wasn't working well for me, the DCM that didn't want me driving decided that she liked my DC too much to make the move to a new DC and is letting me drive him now, and I've been making changes in the DC. I'm willing to work with families but only to a certain extent KWIM?

The DCM with DCG that fell off the face of the earth was another example of me just letting go. Usually I'd feel awful and want to help in any way possible but not anymore. Especially if you can't show me some common courtesy like a simple phone call.

As for the other DCM ... well that really gets my goat because I worked with her and negotiated the fee's. Our agreement was a compromise. She originally wanted to pay hourly based on the broken-down FT rate ($160/50 hours= $3.20 an hour), as in pay only for the hours that DCB was here so that if she found a last minute babysitter or if DCB's dad got out of work early or didn't have work that day she wouldn't have to pay for DC. but I told her that FT was a flat weekly rate and less expensive because of the fact that she was FT. PTers pay more than FT and Drop-ins pay more than PT when you break it down hourly. I did however negotiate it with her and we came to a mutual agreement that she would be a drop-in client and that I would charge her $32 a day instead of the $40 BUT that she had to come at least 4 days a week and it would be DAILY regardless of how many hours DCB came.

This week is her surgery week and she had no intentions of bringing DCB or calling me to tell me he would not be coming. I'm thinking that she thinks she has the upper hand because she is not on contract so I can't make her pay for this week (which is true) however she is not on contract and I can refuse service NOW. As in, find a DC today so that you can go back to your FT nursing program on Monday morning, no two-week notice, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I know she's having surgery and all and I'm sure some people are probably thinking I'm cruel to give her an ultumatum like this at this time but this is business and I have reason to believe that it's not a "serious" medical condition, just one of those "bad life choices" that has to be corrected if you KWIM so it's hard for me to sympathize. She makes her own choices in her life. I'm going to have to talk to her before Monday morning to just have her make a decision as to what exactly she wants to be considered and pay accordingly just like everybody else. I agreed to make an exception for her and she broke her end of the bargain and I can't work this way. She'll have to go on a contract just like everybody else or find another DC. I have a feeling when I tell her this that the &%$! will hit the fan. I've never really told her no before, she's in for a surprise ... and strangely I'm actually looking forward to it ::.