I am speaking of our experiment of having Amy's mom stay with us to help out after Devlin was born. Before digging too deep into this, please allow me a moment to provide some crucial details by way of background.....
For some months prior to Devlin's arrival, we had been speaking to Amy's mom about coming out (she lives in Florida, staying with Amy's grandmother). The original deal (henceforth referred to as "The Plan") struck was thus: Candy (Amy's mom) would come out and be here for the birth, would stay with us at the house, would make herself available to help Amy out when I couldn't because of my work schedule. The understanding was thus: Amy should not have to "do" anything other than take care of herself and take care of Devlin. No domestic chores, just focus on Lil D. Come October, we were going to examine our daycare needs and the subject of having Candy handle weekly daycare - at least until the first of the new year. Candy would stay in our office - which I spent considerable time converting for her use - and would actually even have a car available to her (when we bought the RAV4, we decided to keep the Cavalier in anticipating of gradually fixing it up to hand over to Sloan when she was ready to drive). This was the original plan.....
Now stay with me, because this gets really convoluted really fast. The first wrench in The Plan was Candy coming to the conclusion that she needed to retain her insurance through IKEA (she was working there in Florida), so she explored her options of transferring to a store out here. That worked out for her and she had a position waiting for her at the Palo Alto location before she even came out. How this became problematic to our own needs was that she arrived on a Tuesday or Wednesday and started working on Friday; she was unavailable, really, on the level we had discussed and needed. Now, we can totally understand and accept that she needed to retain her insurance. And she has always claimed that "whatever you guys need comes first". However, I became annoyed with this because it was obvious from the get-go that "whatever you guys need comes first" was not really anything more than mere lip service. On my end, I simply shut up and focused on D's arrival into the world......
As most great plans go, this one started off ok at best. That first wrench was understandable and we worked it out as much as we could. But Candy is not one to typically "do" anything on her own that much. In the time frame she has been staying with us, she has cooked a handful (or less) of time, done dishes here and there. She has helped to clean house perhaps once, and that was after Amy relayed my orders that the house needed tidying up. This was all a gradual progression. Add to this the fact that after she says "goodnight" in the evening, she is then up and about, wandering the house for a variety of reasons a minimum of 5 or 6 times....highly annoying.
The worst incident that really pushed our opinions downhill was when Candy took some pain meds (she had had hip surgery a couple of months prior to coming out) one afternoon. From the afternoon until late in the evening, Candy could barely speak, let alone really function, and yet she continued to get up and wander around, once mistaking Sloan's room for the hall bathroom (thankfully, not seriously so...we were able to get her to where she needed to be....), and generally just out of it. Now, as a parent - new or otherwise - would this inspire any amount of confidence in you to see your potential daycare provider whacked out of her fucking mind on pain meds and barely able to stand up? It didn't with us either and we - Amy moreso than me at first - decided we could not trust her enough to leave Devlin in her care. What if she was in pain and stumbled while carrying him? What if she takes a pain med after we leave and is barely able to function on her own let alone and take care of a crying baby? Not gonna happen. Another aspect to note - which I have not really commented on - is that Candy is an alcoholic supposedly working through recovery, although it should be noted that she has never gone into rehab and - to the best of my own knowledge - had yet to accept and admit she has a problem. However, due to this, I was forced to essentially hide all of my alcohol when she came out. This irked me as well; I am the one who has to change MY fucking life because this supposed adult doesn't know how to control herself? See where my patience level is going here?
Oh! And to top most of this off, Candy smokes. Or at least she did and claimed to stop before she came out. However, Amy noted one time that the Cavalier was starting to smell of smoke and her mom was going for walks periosically. Amy read her the riot act - we are non-smokers and will not tolerate anyone smoking on any level around us and then handling Devlin; cigarette smoke clings to all surfaces and stays on clothes and smoke - second-hand, first-hand, or lingering on surfaces - has been proven to contribute to developing allergies and illness is children.
These things as well as her own smaller foibles (asking us if we "need" anything literally every ten minutes as she enters a room, crying openly about her own personal financial issues, etc.), have driven a wedge between us. Sloan, for her part, is much more tolerent (although it should be noted she does not know all of the details anyway) but has lost some respect for Candy in having to witness her on pain meds. What is truly amusing - on some bizarre level - is that last week Candy sent Amy an email (yes, she sends text messages and emails even when we are sitting right in the next room....its her way of avoiding confrontation) asking to "talk" because she is unhappy and has sensed we are not happy either. Her email veers into actually blaming us for how she feels and for not really needing her. To top all of this off, she came home yesterday from IKEA, locked herself into her room, obviously took more pain meds, tried to sneak out to smoke - eliciting a hardcore scolding from Amy and forcing her back into her room - tried to speak to me at one point but not having the ability to actually formulate a sentence, and then proceeded to wander around the house after hours making noise at every turn - which then pused me beyond my limits of patience and forcing me to order her back to bed. Basically, everything that has drievn Amy and myself to become annoyed with her, she pulled out in one night and simply drove the final nail into her coffin as far as I am concerned. And Amy agrees.
So, thats where we stand. I had to vent and get this out. This has been a little piece of Hell. Amy said it best when she said, "We not only have a newborn in the house, but also a teenager; we do not fucking need another kid to take of right now, especially when they were supposed to be actually helping US out!" That said, it looks like she should be headed back to Florida sometime around the end of next week. Or, at least, one can only hope.....
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