Day Care is pissing me off, man

The Man Cub is sick. Again.

This goddamn Day Care deal just isn’t working out the way I need it to. We threw a buttload of money at them for February, a short month to begin with, but if he’s attended even half the scheduled days I’d be surprised.

And what’s really pissing me off is the reason he’s not attending is that he’s always fucking sick! He was never sick before day care, and from our first experience on, it’s been nothing but varying levels of running noses, hacking coughs and lackluster cuteness.

They tell me (not the Day Care providers, “they” they) that this shit will build up his immune system in the long run and that that’s a good thing. I thought it was a pretty good goddamn thing when he wasn’t sick a day in his life before matriculating to Day Care.

When I picked him up (from the Day Care place) last time, one little girl in a high chair seemed to have her whole face smeared with equal parts whatever gruel she was eating and runny nose product. It was disgusting. The Man Cub was just on the rebound from the last virus he caught there, which had been preceded by an ear infection that first manifested at the Day Care center. Then there was the doctor-mandated follow-up visit that took him out of yet more Day Care.

For all of those times he’s had to be taken out, Mr. Mom has had to don his apron strings again. Is it a coincidence that I repeatedly make stupid, sloppy mistakes like fucking up folios on my various publications like I did this week, “Friday, February 28”? I think not. It’s pretty hard to concentrate on the job when you’ve always got at least one eye and ear out for your sick son at any given moment. Then I feel guilty I don’t have both eyes and ears on him...

And it’s not a reflection on The Missus that I’m doing most of the shlepping around – she’s got a cool new big-money job, according to Plan, and it’s important to make a good impression like for example by showing up reliably for the first few months of your employment. I’m the stay-at-home dad, and I always knew this sort of responsibility would fall mostly on me.

I just thought I’d be able to handle it better. Maybe more gracefully. Definitely with less petulance.

And tomorrow morning, I either have to take the boy back to the Day Care petri dish for another harrowing day of rolling around in other kids’ slimy germs and cut them another huge check because oh yeah, they don’t do make-up days: you pay for your month, hey, maybe we’ll give you five or six days, depending on how ill we make your child. You miss a day here and there, you miss a day. What choo gonna do? Or the poor little bastard will be too sick and I’ll either have to keep him home with me on a huge work day, or keep him home with me and run him to the doctor on a huge work day. Again.

I guess I’ll give it till after the cold and rainy season out here on Christmas Island, where every day is Christmas but not everyone gets a gift. Lots of adults I know who don’t have any contact with Day Care are sick, too. They just aren’t paying through the nose for the privilege. And none of those other sick motherfuckers is my son, either.

It sure was easier to know what to do when life was simple.