Well Water...Part Five

Chris finished making the morning coffee. A full pot was called for these days as Shonda’s mother, Ranae, had taken up residence with them for an indefinite amount of time. She had asked her mother to come for a couple of reasons. Mainly, because Shonda actually wanted to spend a summer taking the children to various summer time activities; swimming, bible camp, tutoring sessions, etc. She had never before been able to do this because she was always running the daycare. Also, Ranae’s life had recently taken a downward turn. She was currently without a “fixed” residence and called the inside of her van home. She also got by from her friends and neighbors giving her some couch time as well as the use of a hot shower and television. But all in all she was actually quite content to live in a van down by the river, so to speak. Shonda, not wanting to see her mother resort to homeless status, offered her room and board in exchange for helping out with the daycare. She agreed and had been living with them for that last few months.

As he was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, Bit came up and started to ask for something to eat in a very whiney voice the grated on Chris’ last nerve. In order to stop the steam kettle crescendo of high pitched squeal that was about to happen, he grabbed a bag of marshmallows from the pantry and handed him a couple. He knew it probably wasn’t the best of breakfasts, but with the sugar content of cereal these days, Chris figured he could have done much worse. Plus Nicholas would have all of the evidence consumed before Shonda made her way out of the bathroom. As Bit made his way back to the escapades of Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda, the final gurgling sputter that came from the Mr. Coffee announced that its task was complete.

Chris proceeded to make Shonda’s coffee exactly the way she liked it: two fingers of French vanilla creamer and top it off with Joe. He then walked down the hallway to the bathroom to make his morning delivery. It didn’t seem like much, Chris knew, but he had been taking Shonda her morning cup of coffee since forever and a day. It was a little thing, but it was a very important part of his morning ritual and he knew that he would probably be bringing her that cup until they were both wearing Depends and didn’t have any of their original teeth left. He slid up behind her, sat the cup down on the sink and softly kissed the back of her neck.

At about the time he was making his way back into the kitchen, their oldest son, Noah, was making his way downstairs. Noah’s morning ritual was very basic but consisted of three utterly necessary components; his Batman blanket, his Sponge Bob pillow and his chocolate milk. As he stumbled through the kitchen with the first two of these three essentials, his first words (as they always were) were “Chocolate milk?” Chris’ oldest boy was a choco-holic to the nth degree. It was the first thing he asked for in the morning and one of the last things that he asked for at night. And if he didn’t get it soon, real soon, he would let you know it. Chris always thought that he should just start making it the night before, ready for the exact moment that it was asked for. But this morning exchange had become just as much a part of Chris’ morning ritual as any of the other steps. He was quick on the draw and had a sippy cup full of the chocolate beverage ready in no time, and Noah was on his way into the living room.

Shonda had finished with her make up and was on her way into the living room to sit for a few brief moments before the first kids arrived for the day. Chris let the dog, Bella, down in the basement so that she would wake up Ranae (who had been sleeping on the couch) and be let outside. A few minutes later, the first children showed up and Savannah was on her way into the living room with a serious case of bed head. All appeared right with the world, or at least as right as it could be for a Tuesday, so Chris decided it was time for him to make the trek to work.

Hey Dale...

Can you say "Eminent Domain"? I knew you could

Sometimes I wish people would just call a spade a spade. For example, all of this bailout money that’s being floated around out there has to have a spending deadline, right? Funds that have been earmarked for specific states must be used or allotted to projects before certain dates or else the state will lose that money, right? Keeping that in mind, let me tell you a little story.

Shonda and I decided on the home we live in now for a few very specific reasons. First, it was the size we needed. With three growing children we needed at least a four bedroom home.

Second, the layout of our home is exactly what we needed for Shonda’s home daycare. There was a finished walkout basement and a huge backyard, which meant getting her state daycare license would be a cinch.

Lastly, the area was perfect for us. It was a very nice neighborhood, actually part of an association (we’d never been part of an association before) with trustees and officers and common grounds and a community club house. The neighborhood was flush with trees and neatly trimmed yards with a plethora of flower gardens and fancy shrubs. One of the best features that we loved about our property, was that the back yard butted right up to some woods that ended up in a bluff overlooking a valley with a river. Granted, it was a river in the middle of St. Louis County, but it was still a picturesque view. That is until now.



That’s an aerial view of my neck of the woods. Inside that red circle is our home. That red line with the arrow pointing at it is the fence line of our back yard. That giant mauve-colored thing is a proposed highway extension. Pretty, isn’t it?

Of course there’s a whole drama going on between our neighborhood association, us, our immediate neighbors and the county regarding what’s going to happen when and who can do what now. There’s even been police reports regarding trespassing county and state workers and some are even trying to determine the validity of certain claims about “home of an endangered animal” and “Indian burial ground”. Ultimately, however, I feel that we’ll stall and kick and scream and cry foul, but the government will ultimately do what it wants to. Or in this case what it needs to in order to make sure they don’t lose their Obama Dollars.

I wonder if they’ll build me my own on-ramp so I can get to work that much quicker in the morning?

911 Emergency…How May I Assist You?

Do anyone else’s children get hurt as much as mine do? I realize that my children are ages 4, 6 and 8 and that they’re very active, but seriously though. They get hurt on such a regular basis that we don’t even get excited unless the bleeding doesn’t stop. And that came about for purely financial reasons. Please allow me to explain…

A few years ago, Bit was riding a little tricycle in our living room. Our living room is rather large and we have a fireplace in which the brick hearth runs the entire length of one wall. The brick is raised up about a foot and a half and the edges are exposed. We’ve tried to cover the edges with that soft padding material that’s specifically designed for these situations, but it either a) never stays on by itself or b) our children rip it off to play with.

As Nicholas was riding his toy, he got close to the brick. The moment I told him to be careful, he leaned back and the tricycle shot out from under him. He fell backwards and his head hit the very hard corner of the brick hearth. I rushed to him only to see exactly what I dreaded seeing: his bleach blonde hair was becoming soaked with blood. I frantically investigated the wound which was a gigantic gash. I grabbed a towel and picked up the screaming boy and called his mother. She was at a hair appointment with our only vehicle. I made her come home immediately because I was absolutely certain that Bit was going to need stitches. She rushed home and we put him in his car seat, laying a towel behind his head to keep blood from getting everywhere. By the time Shonda arrived at the ER, the towel was soaked through. She hurried through the doors with our screaming and crying little boy. People took one look at the child and the blood soaked towel and immediately gave her the right of way. A short while later, the doctor said it wasn’t that big of a cut and all they could do was clean it out. He didn’t even get one stitch! I realize that it’s better to be safe than sorry, but that trip cost us a $100 co-pay. So now, with the bumps and bruises and cuts and gashes, we are a little bit more patient before we make any trips anywhere.

And it’s not just Nicholas. When Savannah was four, she was walking up the stairs with a towel wrapped around her after a bath. She stepped on the towel and it caused her to fall face first into one of the steps. This broke her two front teeth and we had to make an emergency trip to the dentist the next day. Also, you’ve seen what happens to Noah from an earlier post. I know my boys are rough with each other and luckily, Noah hasn’t had to make any trips to the ER. Oh wait…yes he has.

When Noah was born, he had a small cyst on his Johnson. He was also in need of a chordee repair. What this meant was that he could not get a circumcision while he was still in the hospital after being born. We actually had to wait for quite a while (about 18 months) before we could have this done. When the time came, he had his procedure and everything went just fine. The only evidence was a single stitch and some gauze wrapped around his “peanut”. A few days later, he and Savannah were playing and she accidentally fell right on top of him. He began to cry and scream uncontrollably, so we immediately knew that he was really hurt. I asked him what happened as I frantically examined him. I could find no injury at all until it dawned on me to look in his shorts. I held my breath as I took a peak and found that the worst had happened. His Johnson was covered in blood and the sight of it almost made me pass out. I could have sworn he popped his stitch out and was going to have to have an emergency procedure to correct it. About six hours later his mother returned from the ER only to tell me that they just cleaned it up and put a band aid on it. Again, that cost us another $100 ER co-pay.

Which brings me to our latest fiasco. I was sitting in our living room the other day and I heard a crash come from the bathroom. We hear crashes all the time so I was waiting for delayed crying or screaming to see if anyone was hurt. Unfortunately, Bit came running out of the bathroom screaming, “I fell off the toilet….I fell off the toilet!”

I took me a moment, but I noticed that his upper lip was bleeding and was starting to puff up quite rapidly. I picked him up and sat him on the counter to investigate. By now, I’ve learned to not freak out when something like this happens, so upon further examination I realized that while it was quite the ordeal for Nicholas to be going through, it was just a minor bloody lip and the bleeding stopped almost immediately.

I then went into the bathroom to find out what had happened. For some reason, both of my boys sit on the toilet seat when going to the bathroom (something that I know (hope) they’ll grow out of when they get older). But they don’t sit normally. They squat over the bowl with both feet on the seat. Using my superior CSI skills, I determined what happened to Nicholas. As he was squatting, one of the hinges on the seat broke. And as he shift his weight the entire seat slid off and he busted his mouth right on the floor. If you think about this visual imagine I’m sure that at some point you’ll see the humor in it.

Luckily, I didn’t need to take him to the emergency room. I’ll be using what I would have spent on a co-pay to go by a new toilet seat instead.

Well Water...Part Four

When their oldest child, Savannah, was born, Shonda was employed as an assistant manager at Walgreen’s pharmacy. When she came off of maternity leave and went back to work, she just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her baby girl with some stranger. It wasn’t a so much a case of separation anxiety, as it was that she just didn’t want to work at a job where the hours weren’t consistent. (okay, okay, maybe it was a mild case of anxiety). Along with her initial reservations about going back to work, Shonda and Chris had decided to find an at-home daycare provider so that Savannah could spend her days in a familiar setting instead of the typical, and unfriendly, confines of a “center” type facility.

What they settled on, was a younger woman, not much older than they were, who also had children of her own. In retrospect, their internal warning systems should have gone off when they found out that this would be her very first “student”. But she seemed nice and trustworthy and so they decided to give her a shot. Little did they know that Savannah would cry so much during the day that this woman made quite a deal about it on the first day when they came to pick her up. As Chris pulled up in the driveway, the woman practically ran out the door with the baby already in the pumpkin seat, ready to go. Chris assured her that when Savannah had grown accustomed to her that she would settle down. She made some wisecrack about Savannah “driving her to drink” but Chris thought nothing of it. In fact, the only thing he considered on the way home, was that he thought it strange that she made such a big deal about a baby crying. She was a home daycare provider, right?

Without dwelling on it too much, aside from telling Shonda when he got home, Chris took Savannah back the next morning and proceeded to work. Later on that day, Shonda called him and said that the lady was complaining, again, about Savannah’s crying and that she wasn’t sure if she could continue. Chris finished his day at the office and made the trek through rush hour traffic. This was another sore spot for this woman; even though Chris and Shonda both explained to her that he would not be able to be there any sooner than about 5:45 or 6:00 pm to pick her up, she made a huge ordeal when he got stuck in traffic the first day. Chris sighed because he was running late again. He spent the majority of his drive time by mentally preparing himself for another scolding from someone he barely knew.

On that second day, when Chris pulled up in the driveway, he was not met by the woman. He actually had a chance to walk up to the door and knock. When she opened the door, Chris was already prepared for the “you’re late” talk, but he was completely unprepared for what he saw. As the door opened, he saw that Savannah was already in her pumpkin seat. As the woman was bitching again about him being late and about how much the baby cried, he barely noticed a man sitting in the woman’s kitchen. As he turned his attention back toward the woman, something that he had just noticed began to nag at him. He looked back into the kitchen, this time being more observant. He noticed that the trash can was one of those that had the swivel type of lid. He also noticed that there were several beer cans that were keeping it from shutting all the way. He also noticed that there were four or five beer cans on the kitchen table, and that the man he presumed to be “husband” or “boyfriend” was busy finishing one off.

As he stood there, not really paying attention to the buzzing that was coming out of the woman’s mouth, he could feel the blood start rushing to his cheeks. All of a sudden, the woman’s off handed remark about “driving one to drink” became perfectly clear. He surmised that the woman had literally thought that getting drunk on beer would somehow make the day go by a little easier. To avoid a physical confrontation and a possible trip to the local precinct, Chris kept his mouth shut took out his check book. He wrote it out for the amount that they owed her, and then told her they wouldn’t be coming back. Then he picked up his baby girl and took her home.

Shonda was so enraged when she got home later that evening and Chris had informed her of what had happened that she started to pick up the phone give that chick a piece of her mind. He convinced her to just let it go and that they needed to figure out what they were going to do next. What Chris had expected her to say was “Honey, I’ll take a few days off from work and try to find a more qualified individual to care for our child during the day.” Instead, what she said was “Honey, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

“Thinking about what?” Chris asked.

She said, “Listen, before you freak out, I want you to know that I was researching this the entire time I was on maternity leave…”

“Researching what?” he asked as he was starting to get a little worried (and somewhat annoyed) that she was being very vague.

“…and I think that I can really do it and make something out of it.”

“Something out of what!” he said. At this point his irritation was starting to show.

“And, if we gave that stupid chick a chance, then think of how many people will come to us, because I know I can do a better job.” She concluded this last statement and just stood there looking at him.

“For the love of God! What are you talking about?” He was upset by now.

He was getting a little more than nervous about this exchange and he had good reason. Shonda had a slightly annoying habit of starting off conversations with statements like “Don’t be mad but…” or “Listen, I know you told me not to but…” And he never knew what earth shattering news was about to be delivered or what miniscule event had happened to warrant this type of opening. Usually, these beginning salvos were followed with “I flex paid a new digital camera from HSN and it’s only going to cost us fifty five dollars a month for the next twelve months.” Or “I know you told me to wait but I went ahead and rearranged the entire living room while you were gone.”

This time, it was a little more important. When she finally decided that she had tortured him enough, she went into detail about a plan she had recently devised. She explained to him that when she was searching for someone to take care of Savannah, she thought she had lucked out when they found this lady. Most of the in-home daycares that she had spoken to charged upwards of one hundred seventy five dollars a week to care for an infant. The lady she had found only charged seventy five dollars a week. At the time Shonda didn’t mind that this would be her first student, because she thought she was making out quite well at only three hundred a month for child care.

When she started to crunch some numbers, she realized that she could almost match her salary at the pharmacy if she were able to watch four kids at one hundred fifty a week. She also figured that by charging less than the average of what most other people were charging, she would be able to get four kids in no time.

“Not only that,” she continued, “we won’t have to spend money on child care ourselves. That alone is worth about eight grand a year right there. So when you really think about it, I’d be making the equivalent of almost forty thousand a year!” Shonda had started to get excited all over again about her idea. “And, as if that weren’t enough, I would be able to take care of Savannah myself, and not have to worry about sending her off to someone like that douche bag trailer whore.”

Chris just stood there staring at her with an open mouth. Equally stunned by how much research she had already put into this idea before springing it on him, as he was by the shock of hearing the words “douche bag trailer whore” come out of his lovely bride’s mouth.
“How are we supposed to get by on just my salary until you find four kids?” It was the only thing that he could think of to say. Inside, he was actually getting excited himself. What a completely beautiful and extremely intelligent creature he had had the luck of finding and getting her to say “I do”.

“It’s funny you should ask that” Shonda replied. “I’ve already put an ad in the local paper and a few people have already responded to it.”

“Besides,” she continued “if it doesn’t work out, I can always get my job back at Walgreen’s.” “In fact, I may even just tell them I need a few more weeks of time before I come back to work for good.”

Chris considered it for a moment. This would be the first most major decision that they would make. He knew she was probably right about Walgreen’s taking her back, but it was still a very scary proposition to think about her quitting. She made more money than he did and they already had trouble making ends meet as it was. But aside from the uncertainty of how long it would take before they found families to come to the daycare, he really couldn’t think of any reason not to at least give it a try. So against his better judgment, they dove in feet first.

That was several years, couple dozen daycare kids, two more of their own children, and three houses ago.

Well Water...Part Three

Chapter 2

Chris and Nicholas walked through the foyer of their modest two story home and passed by the downstairs bathroom. The door was closed and Chris could hear the exhaust fan running and he knew that Shonda was inside putting on her makeup, which was the final step of her morning ritual. They went through the kitchen, which opened up into the family room and Chris sat Bit down in front of the TV. Before he had even turned it on, Bit was asking for “Sponge Bob”. Only it sounded more like “punbob?” He settled for Fairly Odd Parents because it was only a little after seven a.m. and SpongeBob SquarePants didn’t come on until eight o’clock. Once he saw that he was sufficiently entertained, at least for the moment, Chris started for the kitchen to start the morning pot of coffee.

Over the years, Chris and Shonda had developed a very specific recipe for coffee. They only used whole beans that they ground themselves and they had a tightly controlled “scoop of beans/cups of water” ratio that was strictly adhered to. Their recipe varied when the amount of people drinking coffee changed, and who those people were. For example, if company was visiting and everyone was drinking java, then it was grind three scoops of whole beans and then fill the entire carafe to the top. If it was just Chris and Shonda, then it was two scoops of beans and fill the coffee maker up so that the water line was half way between the “6” and the “7” cup line. If Chris was just making coffee for Shonda, then he used one scoop and the water gets filled to the “4”.

He knew they would probably be considered anal for being so picky about coffee. But the one thing that Shonda enjoyed the most on a daily basis was her morning cup. It was her moment before the madness of the day ensued. The calm before the storm, so to speak. Those few moments of peace before the work day began. And what Shonda had chosen to do as a profession, which was born out of anxiety more so than necessity, was to run an in-home child daycare.

In all the time that she had been doing this, Chris could never understand exactly where she got the energy to cope with toddlers and babies all day long. He was astounded by the fact that she could take care of so many children all day, every day, including their own. He would challenge anyone who considered what Shonda did as “babysitting” to actually put on her shoes for one day and see if it was their cup of tea or not. Not only did she care for various toddlers and infants: morning and afternoon snack, lunch, naps, potty breaks, diaper changes etc., but she also had an actual curriculum that she followed. They partook in various activities that included arts and crafts as well as learning letters and numbers.

On the rare occasion that Chris took a day off while the day care was open, he was always surprised at how hectic and non-stop the daily pace was for her. In fact, the only break during the entire day came during nap time for the children. But did she sit back and enjoy the quiet time by dozing on the couch? No. Did she enjoy and uninterrupted viewing of that day’s episode of All My Children or the previous day’s Young and the Restless? No. Usually, she did housework of some sort. And on occasion, Chris had come home from work and an entire room had been edged and painted. Or the front flower garden had been planted and mulched. It was for these reasons that he literally would get offend when people called her a baby sitter. What she did was raise people’s children for them while they were busy making a living. “Babysitter” is a term for teenage girls who are watching your kids for a few hours while you go grab dinner and catch a flick.

And the daycare was quite lucrative. So lucrative in fact, that when things were going well she could almost triple what Chris made in a year. And this never bothered him in the least because he knew that she earned every penny of it. He thanked God on a consistent basis that she found something that she enjoyed to do and for the crazy circumstances that led her to choosing this as a career.