So that's what hindsight is...

I arrived at my daycare provider's house on Thursday of last week, to find that her house had been burglarized. Or not so much burgled, but emptied.

Okay that sounds far more dramatic that it should - but all the pictures were taken down, the curtains at her front door were missing and there seemed to be an empty room where the tv room/kids play room was before.

As I stood and goggled thinking, w.t.f., she told me she had "news".

I asked if her news involved being burgled.

Apparently not.

Instead, her news was that they were moving and that she was going to be shutting down. At the end of July. She had been accepted to Teacher's College and was going to be attending in September. She was sorry for the unceremonious drop of the announcement, but it had all happened so quickly and she never expected to get in from a late admission, and yada-yada-yada-shutupcakes.

In the rush of these explanations, my head just kept looking back behind me - as if trying to see where the hell the 'for sale' sign was on the lawn, how I didn't see this coming, and why the hell had she packed up her playroom already.

I mean - she runs a daycare.

Again, with the w.t.f.

So it doesn't take a fancy-smart-person to realize that I'm pissed.

I'm annoyed that she's closing at all. I'm annoyed that she's closing just a month after I'm due to give birth to our 2nd child. I'm puzzled (and also annoyed - perhaps because that's the feeling of the moment) as to the early packing when she says she'll still be around until end of July - especially when all I see that is packed are some wall hangings and all the toys from the playroom.

And to top it all off, I'm annoyed that I was annoyed enough with her back in January, to go and search out other daycare options, only to decide, in the end, that it would be too much upheaval in Maddie's life when so much was going to be changed. And if she liked going there, who should I judge. Isn't that one of the more important points, if your kid likes your daycare solution, don't eff with it?

So I didn't. At the time I thought I was perhaps being too picky about menu options, about the insane bratty-ness of the daycare provider's 5 year old son. Who judges a 5 year old? Me, apparently. I figured since we'd be cutting down to part-time by the end of the summer, it wasn't such a big deal. And I could always move Maddie to the local nursery school instead of doing the part-time thing ... but for now let's not rock the boat. Let's not make changes.

Only to have change foisted upon me.

And so... I'm pissed.

And I'd love to be all philosophical and funny and witty about the whole thing. But I can't be. I'm irritated that I had a plan in my head that Madds would be in daycare full-time for the first couple of months of my impending mat leave. So that I would have one-on-one time with Sproggy #2. Sleepy time. Nap time. Non-insane-toddler-demanding-time. And that would make me a better mother. For baby and for toddler. I'd be refreshed at the end of the day - looking forward to my Maddie-Time. Baby and I would do the walk to the daycare pick up everyday and I would magically lose all my baby weight and everyone would be happy.

See how effing perfect it was going to be?

Now I have a month to figure out if I'm going to just uproot Maddie into a new option asap. Or try to find a part-time stop-gap apres the July 31st deadline. Or (shudder) have a toddler home with me full-time while I navigate the ways of a newborn.

And if this sounds whiny and irritating and you've already stopped reading? Well, I don't blame you. Because I would be reading this, thinking, wow. Poor you. Probably shoulda listened to your gut in the first place. That'll learn ya. Moving on...

Have I mentioned that I'm annoyed?

xxoo.S