Daycare Woes and Black Eyes

*This is me, putting a blanket over the entrance to my cubicle, declaring to the world to leave me the hell alone for a few minutes.*

For some reason, the stress of coming back to work this morning has been a little too much for me. Around 10:30, I was ready to be done for the day. I think it was a combination of stuff that's been going on at home and the fact that my boss and I have to take up the slack from the other employee in our department who was promoted out. That position has now been eliminated, and until the job duties get placed on someone else in the company who has a lighter workload, we're the ones doing the crap work.

What's most pressing on my mind is the childcare situation we're in. On Friday, I found out through the grapevine that the sister daycare center of the one that Ben attends is closing. They gave their parents notice that the 18th would be the last day of operation. The director of the centers spent most of her time over there, and now she'll be at ours. The problem is we really don't like her. She's not very warm and fuzzy, and we don't have a lot of respect for the way she runs things. While the care the children receive is good, the facility is ... well... dump-ish. And that annoys us.

Added to the director coming on over, one of the teachers in the baby room admitted that there will be changes coming down the line for our center as well. Specifically, they plan to reduce the number of children in the Under Two rooms from 19 (currently) to 8. That is a huge deal. We have no idea how they will decide which babies will have to go.

We do know that 1. they know that Ben would be leaving at the end of September, and 2. we get a group discount rate based on where we're employed. If I were the one making the choice from as cold-headed and hearted of a standpoint as the director, Ben would go buh-bye.

So where does that leave us right now? Well. We're going to wait for one of two things to happen. Either we'll get so disgusted with the new atmosphere that happens when the director comes over or we'll be asked to find a new placement for Ben.

I might start calling around this week to find out what's available. I feel horrible, though. I keep having flashbacks to what I went through when I was told that the little girl that I nannied for would be going to daycare full-time and my services were no longer required. Sure, the bond between Ben and his teachers isn't nearly as intense, but there is still a big attachment. And it breaks my heart to think that Ben might be sad about the transition. Yes, I'd be taking him out of there this fall anyway, but that's different. He would be home with Mommy.

In other news, Ben has his first black eye. It looks awful. He got in on Saturday, and I think it looks worse today than it did yesterday. It doesn't hurt him, he just looks awful, and we wince everytime we see him. How did he get it? He was being naughty, and he fell off of a shelf he had climbed up on. Poor widdle man.