Monday, January 25, 2010

Around and Around and Around We Go...

That seems to be how the Sammi’s Aide Dance goes. Ball of confusion? More like, twirl your partner, dosi-do… We’ve put in a request for a new aide for Samantha, as things just aren’t working out with the current one. I mean, how hard could this possibly be? All we want is someone who’s reliable, nurturing and responsible, who listens and supports the way we are raising our child, and…speaks English. Well. Since I’ve already emphasized it, I’ll go with my last point, to start, before any of you think we’re bad, closed-minded people for not wanting someone who’s foreign. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. We don’t care what ethnicity/nationality/religion an aide is. As a matter of fact, having someone foreign makes things interesting – Samantha could have the opportunity to learn bits of another language, being the little sponge that she is. Our first aide was a very, very sweet woman, but she a) let Samantha walk all over her (ummmm, I’m pretty sure that small children shouldn’t be allowed to try to walk up the stairs in their parents’ shoes, no matter what country you’re from. And, uh, I’m also pretty sure that small children shouldn’t be allowed to play with the cleaning supplies under the sink, even if said children act like they do that sort of thing every day.) and b) didn’t understand much of what we said and wasn’t able to tell us things we probably needed to know (we think she said that Sammi ate playdough, but we were never able to find out how much or if she was choking or any other details about the incident). However, before we could do anything about the work relationship, she announced that she was leaving to go to a different agency (one that had benefits and guaranteed pay). Our current aide (of a totally different nationality) is nice enough, but has a very strong personality. She interrupts us every time we try to give her some instruction about Samantha’s care, saying “I know, I know, I worked with children…blah, blah, blah…” She seriously does NOT listen, has the nerve to try to tell us how we should be doing things with our child, and argues with us when we try to emphasize our points and how we want Samantha to be cared for. Argues!!! Frankly (and understandably), this makes us extremely uncomfortable. And how many times can we instruct her not to feed Samantha anything other than the snacks we’ve left out for her, and only at the time we tell her to? (Er, did that just sound like instructions for Gremlins?) #1, we don’t want to spoil her appetite for dinner at 6pm. #2, we worry about Samantha’s weight. #3, the constipation issue seems to get worse when she eats too many goldfish, so we’ve seriously limited her intake of the yummy little swimmers. What do you mean, you gave her another yogurt? We can barely understand what she’s saying to us, and I’m certain that she doesn’t understand much of what we’re saying to her. Heck, if she can’t understand us, how can she understand what Samantha is saying to her? Steve spoke to her supervisors the other day, and they agreed that they wouldn’t talk to her about it until they have a replacement, since we’d be particularly uncomfortable with her taking care of Sammi in our absence if there was an elephant of that sort hanging over things (did I just mix metaphors?). In the meantime, she does really like Samantha, and the status quo is okay for the short term, but hopefully a new solution will arise soon.

4 comments:

evrfwd said...

oh gurl, how frustrating! sorry you have to go through that. when i read your story i felt bad thinking that our new respite provider wasn't doing enough...she may be shy but at least she doesn't argue with me. =(

Anonymous said...

wow- sounds like fun, not! We can hire our own respite workers and have had a great response from local university students- wish that was an option for you. And, i know this will sound crazy, but we've learned with Dom the easiest way to naturally combat the constipation is with a little dash of cinnamon every day (cinnamon toast, cinnamon rolls,etc)....seems to help equal out his digestion- might not work for your sweetpea but thought I'd share.....good luck with the aide issue!

Renee said...

Last summer I thought having someone come to my house to keep the kids while I worked would be so easy. The first college student was on Craig's list looking for an iPhone while my kids went through everything in my bathroom. I found all this out b/c Lydia smelled like my perfume and Wesley told me she squirted it all over herself

The second college student thought letting the kids jump on the furniture was a good idea. Seriously, she said that she saw nothing wrong with them jumping from the ottoman to the sofa.

A 17 year old girl helped me the month of august and she was wonderful

Hopefully the third time will be the charm for you too.

Lacey said...

Hoping you can find someone soon. Thats so frustrating. If someone argues with you, they need to go! Your the parents!