Ugh...I do not know what to do about this babysitter...
She lost her own babysitter and so she has been
bringing her 1- and 2-year-old with her every day. I was home sick on
Monday, so I know that Laurel is definitely getting a less
attention as a result (for one thing, she spent the last half hour alone
in her wheelchair in another room while the sitter woke her kids up from
their naps, changed their diapers, got their coats on, etc.). Also,
Laurel's toys are getting lost and occasionally broken (I just spent the
last 45 minutes looking for things and still haven't found a bunch of
them), my dining room table and chairs are covered with Play-Doh, and I
know "normal" kids do that and I'll have to deal with it too
when we get Laurel's little sister, but darn it, I'm not paying this
girl $10/hour so I can have the pleasure of cleaning up after her kids!
I get the impression that there is no other babysitter in sight (she was
paying $75/week, and I don't guess there are too many people willing to
work for that). I do NOT want to fire her this month, I feel like I've
got enough on my plate between work and Mom moving (I have the task of
finding Mom's second cat a home and I'm having no luck at all), but
ultimately I have to decide - suck it up, because it beats finding
another babysitter? (I'm not sure - I really hate looking, but August is
feeling a long ways away right now.) Keep her but give her a cut in pay?
(It doesn't seem fair to me that she's pocketing an extra $75 a week for
giving Laurel less attention.) Tell her if she can find a babysitter for
the younger kid, that would be OK? (Bob is leaning that way - it does
seem like the 1-year-old is the bigger problem and he is less company
for Laurel than the 2-year-old girl, although on the other hand she's
the one who did the Play-Doh decorations and as I found on Monday, she
has some awful screaming tantrums.) Or just tell her that if she doesn't
find another sitter by the end of the month, she's out? She's been
really good with Laurel and Laurel really loves her, I think she might
stay till August (when Laurel starts kindergarten and goes into the
after-school program) if I don't fire her, and I hate looking for
sitters, but I'm just not sure this is the best situation. What would
you do? 
Well, now I'm *worried* about our babysitter. Her boyfriend's mother called at 9 AM on Sunday morning to say that her son/the babysitter's boyfriend (and father of her two kids) had been in a bad accident the night before and was going into surgery, and the babysitter would be out till further notice. I tried to get more details, since "going into surgery" could mean anything from a fractured arm to life and death, but all she did was repeat that he was going into surgery. So here it is Tuesday at 11:15 AM and we still haven't heard a thing, and we're thinking, it had to be a lot more than a fractured arm. If he were stable, she'd probably be back to work by now because she needs the money. I just tried calling her, but no answer so I'm guessing she's at the hospital (and she doesn't have an answering machine, so I can't leave a message for her to call me back). We're really worried for them. And of course, right now I'm not seriously considering firing her, although I'm still very frustrated (I spent a chunk of time Sunday night cleaning pen and crayon off our card table and folding chairs - thank heavens for modern cleaning products). That would just be too much to put her through right now, but I am starting to wonder if she'll be coming back.
Meanwhile, I'm home with Laurel all day today - we finally found out last night why she's been so totally miserable the last few days (the weekend was so not fun) - she has an ear infection! It's been a long time since she had one of those. I think the antibiotics are helping already, she took a big long nap this morning, so hopefully she'll be up to going back to school tomorrow.
Anyway, at this point I think some prayers for the babysitter and her boyfriend might be really appreciated! Thanks...
I feel so frustrated and so in limbo on so many fronts right now.
First off, still not a word from the babysitter.
Having been through a horrible "will he live or will he die"
week myself with my dad, I totally appreciate how stressful that sort of
situation can be and how impossible it is to do anything other than stay
at the hospital - but I do remember checking in with my boss a couple of
times that week just to give her a heads' up on what was going on, and I
wish the sitter would do the same! It would be lovely to have a clue.
Meanwhile, getting desperate to get more work done (my proposals are all
done, but I have a report due at the end of the month that I've done
some data collection but no actual writing for) I called our backup -
Laurel's original babysitter who used to watch Laurel in her home, but
she moved to the next county - but she only has openings on Tuesdays and
Thursdays right now. (I still took her up on that, better than nothing.)
Then there's the adoption, which we're waiting to submit our application
on till we get our IVF money back from the insurance (the agency will
want $2300 up front as soon as they approve our application) - and CIGNA
has sent our claim to an auditor! Oh, spiffy.
We're also holding on redoing Laurel's room until we actually have a
couple of weekends at home - not going to happen till March, since we're
going to Pittsburgh this weekend and NoVA for Laurel's therapy next
weekend.
And finally, there's this coming weekend hanging over my head. I'm
expecting it to be bad on many levels, from dealing with Mom's stuff and
Mom's cat (that's another thing that's hanging - I've found a home for
her second cat IF he passes the feline leukemia test and IF he deals
with her dogs OK) to dealing with Mom (who is momentarily dealing OK,
but I'm not sure how she'll be when things really start happening) and
my own grief.
Uck. I think I just want it to be March! 
So Bob finally got hold of the sitter this morning. Turns out they just got back from the hospital late last night. What happened was, her idiot boyfriend was out driving in the snow Saturday night without a seatbelt and got into an accident. He dislocated his shoulder, got a compound fracture in his lower leg, and completely severed the tendon connecting his knee to his lower leg. Then the truck caught fire. He managed to escape, but probably didn't improve his injuries any. The ambulance took both him and the sitter (the kids were with his mom), not to one of the hospitals here, but to the one in the town about an hour north (they actually live sort of between the two, but I still think it was a strange choice - not theirs - the sitter told the driver to take him to the major hospital that's closer to here). She was meanwhile stuck up there, not having any way to get home, and not calling because it was long distance and she doesn't have a cell phone (we'd have been fine with a collect call, but I guess she didn't know).
The upshot is, he's got a full-leg cast for the next four weeks, and
he can't use crutches or anything because of the dislocated shoulder.
And it will be months after that before he can go back to work. The
sitter is expecting to have to stay home constantly and take care of him
for at least the next four weeks and probably beyond. As much as we
appreciate that he's probably in a lot of pain right now, Bob and I
think he's being a baby because he's got her afraid to leave the house
to so much as go to the store for fear he'll get out of bed and hurt
himself. At any rate, she said that as much as she doesn't want to quit,
she figures she has to, so it looks like we're in the market for another
sitter. I'm going to go ahead and submit an ad for the weekly paper that
comes out Tuesday, but since we'll be gone Sunday and Monday, we'll hold
off on the Sunday paper till next week. Joy, joy...BOY I hope this is
the last time we have to do this before Laurel goes to kindergarten (and
the after-school program) in August... 
I'm SO tired I'm almost non-functional today. I'm right now waiting for a cup of coffee to cool down and hoping that it'll help me out, although sometimes when I'm this tired, it doesn't.
The weekend went as well as could be expected. Marie and I got what
we needed to get done before the movers came to pack on Monday, and the
cat passed his feline leukemia/AIDS test and was successfully handed off
to his new owner (who seemed very nice) Monday morning as well. Now as
long as he deals OK with her dogs, I think we're set. I've been thinking
about him and wondering how he's doing (if I haven't heard in a few days
I'll probably write and ask). Anyway, thing was that we worked till
midnight Saturday night and 3 AM Sunday (well, Monday), then Laurel
slept terribly Sunday night and I had to be back up at 8 AM to meet the
person who was getting the cat. I think it's been a LONG time since I
was as tired as I was yesterday and I passed out in the car for a couple
of hours. I was glad to have Bob to drive, although there were about
three points during the weekend when I could have pretty much killed
him. I still don't think I've forgiven him for telling me that the
reason I don't get as worked up as he does when she's upset and pushing
(when she's upset she gets stiff and pushes very hard, and she was doing
that when this came up - he was dealing badly and I offered to take her)
is because I don't care about her. WTF, how can he say such a thing? 
I brought it up again later because it really upset me and he changed
the subject. I can't tell if it was because he always thinks I should
just deal with any mean thing he says to me when he's tired or in pain
or whatever (don't get me wrong, he's a wonderful guy most of the time -
but if he's running on empty he can be a real bastard), or because he
really thinks that and doesn't want to confront me.
Anyway, we're back now from that marathon and here to face the child care marathon. Things did not start out too smoothly this morning - after I spent 45 minutes cleaning poop and pee from a leaked diaper off our recliner I called the sitter who was supposed to take Laurel today and Thursday, only to get no answer. When I finally left I drove out there and it turned out her phone's not working, so I called Bob and told him to bring Laurel on over - but at the same time she told me that Bob had told her (Thursday when he picked Laurel up, before he knew) that he didn't think we'd need her this week because surely our sitter would turn up so she told another mom whose kids usually aren't there on Thursday that it would be OK if she brought them. So now, today is the only day this week we have child care. (As it happens, the babysitter's uncle died last night and she thinks there's a good chance she won't be around on Thursday anyway.) The ad came out in the weekly paper today and we've had one call so far, but her grasp of English and her experience with children both seemed pretty limited so hopefully there will be others.
The one piece of good news from this morning is that our claim for the IVF is now showing up on the CIGNA website as being paid. We'll get $5000 of the $6300 - $300 was decided to be above "reasonable and customary," $2000 was decided to be lab fees and paid at 100%, and the other $4000 was decided not to be (I don't know how they decided this, the bill looked like all lab fees to me, and the doctor billed separately and has already been paid) so paid at 75%. We could argue the $300 but it would be a long shot and I don't think I have the energy. Anyway, it's been my experience that things show up in the mail pretty quickly after showing up on the website, so it's probably OK to send in the adoption application now (in my copious spare time!). Now if I only knew where the rest of Laurel's furniture is - we've still only gotten the dresser.
Anyway, apparently I may not be up for working but I'm doing a really good job of blithering. By now I've had part of the cup of coffee and may be functional for a while - now that I've only got about an hour and 20 minutes before I have to leave to go get Laurel...
I got a message from Bob saying that Laurel is having her foot
x-rayed right now. I was at a meeting away from my office this morning,
and Bob was working at home, when the teacher called and said that
Laurel was just screaming when they tried to put her right AFO (foot
brace) on. So Bob picked her up from school and took her to the doctor,
who sent her to get her foot x-rayed. Apparently it's very painful when
you bend her foot toward her leg. I can't think how anything could have
happened to cause it! But the doctor will read the x-ray on-line this
afternoon and let us know what he sees.
So the doctor called and said the x-ray was normal. He's baffled as to what caused the problem. Bob thinks probably Laurel's ankle got twisted somehow. Anyway, we're to keep her AFOs off for the rest of the week, give her Tylenol and/or Motrin as needed, and check back in on Monday if she doesn't seem any better. Thanks for the good thoughts!
And in completely different news, I DID IT! I mailed off our application to the adoption agency today! Last night I knew I should be working, but I was so tired I decided I'd just work on the application a bit during the boring parts of the Olympics. Well, it just wasn't that bad, and before I knew it I was done. I'd thought so much about the essay questions ("Why do you want to adopt?" and "Why do you want to adopt a child from China?") that even they didn't take that long. The only frustrating thing was it turned out we didn't have a single piece of clean white paper in the house (we usually print on the back of discards from work), so I had to sneak in printing the essays off at work today! (The application form itself had to be done by hand, and I'd printed it out a couple of weeks ago on what must have been about the last of the clean paper.)
I feel scared and elated, like "Wow, we're really doing it." I mean, we could tell people all we want that we are going to adopt from China, but it's one thing to say it and another thing to actually be doing something about it. The form says we should know within two weeks of their receiving it whether they will accept our application - which of course is just the first step in a long trail of things we'll need to do. But still, it's the first step.
2/22 - it seems significant somehow, I think because Laurel was born
on 11/11. I know it's silly and Bob's probably going to laugh at me. 
UGH - my mother called at 5 AM...
Bob was the one who picked up. She wanted to
warn us that there is a gun in her closet, so to be careful when we pull
the blankets down. As may be - my grandpa was a deputy sheriff and
collected guns, I thought Mom had sold them all off but his service
revolver (which we found when we were up there, it was in a cabinet in
the living room), but OK, maybe there is another one in the closet. At 5
AM I DON'T CARE! (I don't see us going back before April anyway.) Then
she asked Bob how we were doing and Bob said, "We're OK, but we're
sleepy - it's 5 AM here." At which point she said that she'd been
watching TV and lost track of the time and didn't realize it was that
late, and got off the phone. But the damage was done - Bob couldn't go
back to sleep, and then when he got up Laurel woke up, and at 6:15 when
her diaper leaked he got me up to clean up the mess. I fell back asleep
afterwards but wound up with a splitting headache. Then Bob picks this
morning to ask me if I can be the one to stay home and train the new
babysitter on Monday (usually he does it). Being 9.5 hours behind at
work already and nowhere near finishing the report I need to get done, I
responded less than enthusiastically to this idea and a fight ensued. At
which point I just said, "Can we not have this fight now? Neither
one of us are in any shape to discuss this, I really wish you hadn't
brought it up right now" and walked out of the room. He did say
goodbye before he left, but we are both now a lot more on the ragged
edge than we needed to be! As I told the backup babysitter (who it turns
out can't take Laurel today - and Thursday Laurel has a neuro appt
mid-afternoon so there wouldn't be much point), one more call in the
middle of the night and I'm going to start taking the phone off the hook
at night. I guess Mom didn't have much trouble getting adjusted to
California time, anyway. <snort>
Meanwhile, if you're wondering about the babysitter front, we had one
interview last Thursday, two last night, two scheduled for tonight and
one for tomorrow. We liked the two last night better than the one on
Thursday, and they both seem like they would be OK but I'm not
super-excited about either one. I have the highest hopes for the one
tomorrow night, who I just talked to this morning - she spent three
years caring for a girl who was tube-fed and non-verbal and sounds like
she has a real affinity for working with kids with special needs.
Anyway, everyone we've talked to so far can start immediately so
hopefully we will get somebody started on Monday and go back to
some semblance of a normal life - as long as Mom can get the time thing
straight... 