Missing My Angel

It's my first weekend without Emily as she's gone to her Dad's for the next two nights. I have just realised that all my friends are either married and/or have children so distracting myself with dinner and drinks is not going to work.


Instead I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop, nursing a pretty bad chest infection (thanks for passing that on Em), and watching Masterchef. I'd be sipping some red wine too except for the heavy dose of anti-biotics I just took.....


On the one hand I'm really disappointed that I've no-one to hang out with this weekend, but on the other hand it'll be a nice break to be able to catch up on much needed sleep and get some work for the new shop done.


I'm missing Emily like crazy and every where I look there are reminders of her. The slippers she left in the middle of the lounge this morning when we were running out the door to childcare, the doll house she got for her birthday last weekend that still hasn't made it's way to her bedroom and the baby doll that she's been busy trying to change nappies with lying on one of the chairs.


Life will never bee the same now. Every second weekend I'll be missing my little girl. Every second weekend I'll be trying to fill my time with things to distract me.

But I'll adapt, and I'll get on with it because that's what I do.

Who else can rock red and purple together??

My Little Angel.....or should I say devil?

How did my perfect little sleeper turn into such a rat bag??

Today when I picked up Emily from Day Care her carer pulled me aside to inform me my darling daughter had not only not slept all day and was completely hyper, but she had to be removed from the room for being disruptive to the rest of the toddlers trying to sleep.

Surely they had gotten her mixed up with someone else? Emily has always been a great day sleeper and mostly a good night sleeper. But this is the third time in a week she's refused a day sleep.

Apparently she was fine all afternoon but getting her home tonight she was exhausted and miserable. And naughty! I keep telling her no and she just laughs at me and does it anyway.

Since when do almost 2 year olds get the upper hand?!

My little angel NOT climbing on her Daddy's office chair and playing with his new computer that he loves more than me!

I'm determined to get on top of this behavioural problem before it gets too out of hand. If anyone has any tips I'd love to hear them. We're heading to Ireland in less than three weeks now and I have to work out a way of calming her before we get there and her Nana discovers how loud her voice is! 

TFIF!

What a massive day......or not really.

It started with a semi successful drop off of Emily to her new day care center. All was going well until I put her bag in her pigeon hole and she realised Mummy was leaving. There were tears and the poor childcare lady could barely pry her arms from around my neck. I sat in the car, told myself to get it together and took off for work. I hate leaving her like that.

Coffee in hand I was determined to get a heap of pricing done today and was also hoping my three boxes of winter Eternal Creation clothing would finally turn up. After the morning rush of sales (yay! I love meeting my target by 11am) I received a much awaited package from one of my organic clothing suppliers. I won't name and shame......you can figure it out by yourself. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I had to return some stock from this supplier due to imperfections and marks. There were about a dozen pieces and one in particular looked like it had been dragged across the factory floor before being packaged and sent to me. So when I received my replacements I expected to find perfect pieces all ready to hang.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I think they just re-packed the pieces I returned and sent them back to me! A pair of pink footed tights for a newborn had dirty marks on one of the feet and all the cream tops had small red marks. Two of the items were listed as no longer available but there was no credit on the invoice. I was slightly fuming.

OK, stay calm I thought. I filled out new return forms and repacked the stock to return for the second time. Then I called my agent to tell her that for a second time I'm returning faulty or marked stock. When she called me back she was apologising profusely and also wanted to let me know the Production Manager wanted to call me personally to apologise. Quite frankly, having come from a manufacturing and logistics background I understand that the owners and reps are not responsible for this kind of thing and as much as they try, it's the guys on the ground who make it happen. Unfortunately the guys on the ground are in China and their Quality Control sucked. I also wrote a long winded email (well they did ask for my complaint in writing) expressing my "disappointment" at the lack of attention to detail and difference in quality from last year.

The fact is this brand is extremely good and apart from one line everything else is perfect and my sales reflect how good they are. So I'm not going to hold it against them, but I'm allowed to be pissed off that I wasted an entire morning and half the afternoon sorting it out and I only got one tub of stock priced for the shelf tomorrow.

Hubby was home sick today and apparently too sick to pick up Emily from childcare so at 5pm I rushed out the door, stopped by the butchers on the way to the car park, picked up some stir fry and raced to pick her up before they closed at 5:30pm.

By the time I got home I had a splitting headache and no motivation to cook a rousing stir fry and rice. It's Friday night for FFS! Pizza! So I called the new pizza delivery up the road while hubby lay moaning on the couch and Emily tugged and cried at my legs for a bottle of milk that we're desperately trying to wean her off. I swear you'd think she was coming of heroin the way she carries on.

The pizza was disgusting and hubby complained the whole time about it and how sick he felt. Emily finally went off to bed crying herself to sleep because she wanted a bottle and we're trying hard to stick to our decision to get her off them.

Then I sat down, opened my laptop, checked my Facebook and what do I see? Mrs Woog shared a picture of me in my short condom dress. You can see it here https://www.facebook.com/woogsworld. Thanks Mrs Woog, as one of my blogging hero's you made my day!

This is my little munchkin all ready for day care today. I think she thinks she's driving the Mazda.....

Who's your Blogging hero?

A Girl Needs Her Mummy - Even in Her 30's

Today was day two at the new Day Care centre. It is seriously amazing how much better I already feel about them looking after Miss E. OK so this morning wasn't the best drop I've ever done but at least when I picked her up this afternoon I got information I needed to help me cope with her when I got home.

Case in point..... Miss E only slept for 50 minutes today because she has a cough and it woke her up. As a result of not getting enough sleep she was grizzly and wanted lots of comforting this afternoon and because this centre had more staff than the government requires it means she actually got cuddles. In fact she was getting them when i turned up at 5pm to pick her up.

When I dropped Miss E off this morning she was distressed to say the least. She had her arms and legs wrapped firmly around me and was not letting go. I love that the girls help with things like this. I handed her over feeling guilty as hell that I was leaving her like this. I quickly escaped the center and jumped in the car. Breathing heavy and trying to hold back the tears i must have sat outside for at least a couple of minutes. The Director came running out and tapped on my window and told me not to worry, she had already calmed down and they were about to do some dancing which is one of her favourite things.

At the old centre none if this sort of thing happened. There was no information at the end of the day so you go home wondering why your child is clingy and cranky and climbing the walls. If there's a bump or bruise you have to ask, not be told or called and incident reports were always late.

My parents also returned from their holiday in NZ today. I can't believe I'm in my 30's and need them this much but I was so relieved they came home today. Miss E is spending all day with her "Mama" tomorrow and she's already excited. It's a relief for me too as I had no casual to work in the shop tomorrow and no childcare available.

Amazing also that all my anxiety over what was happening with the shop when we go to Ireland was releived by Mum offering to work there while I'm away so I don't have to pay wages (that i can't yet afford). Dad said he'd come in one night and put up the new fittings that I've had trouble getting to and i booked someone to train with me on Friday so I can have a regular Wednesday girl and not worry about Miss E being away from me 5 days a week again.

I know I'm in a blessed situation with my family support and not everyone has it like I do. So I thank the Gods, stars and higher beings for giving me this opportunity and now I just hope I can make them proud by making my business a big success.

Planes, Trains and Kids In Style

Friday morning I flew to Sydney for the Kids In Style expo. If you've never heard of it, imagine all the new and existing fashion labels, accessories, toys and loads more for kids under one roof. Retailers and industry folk go to look at what's coming up, find new and interesting products for their shops, pick up samples and order for next season.

So I thought I'd share a few pics of the trade fair so you can get an insiders view to the industry:

The entrance to Kids In Style

Skeanie and Uh-Oh! in the left corner had some amazing new styles

The board with the list of exhibitors.....totally mind boggling!

How cute are these dinasour badges for boys!

Colored jeans have made a come-back and these are sized 00. So cute!

I saw so many great products and kids clothing ranges and met some wonderful and talented designers. I've spent the last 24 hours going through the massive bag of price lists, catalogues and samples I bought home and I have to admit this has got to be the most fun part of my job. The hard part will be not buying everything and making sure what I do get fills a gap and compliments the rest of the shop.

I spent quite a lot of time talking to Natasha who owns Skeanie and Uh-Oh! It seems we have quite a bit in common having both previously worked in recruitment and both moving from Sydney to the country. We also both decided to start our own businesses once we had our first child and Natasha has done a brilliant job with hers. She's definitely someone I admire.

Anyway, best get Miss E's bag ready for her first day at the new daycare centre tomorrow. It's looking to be a huge day of pricing, hanging and new window display at the shop as well as trying to ensure Miss E transitions well to the new center. But this is the life of a Mum running her own business........

The Follow Up

Well I wish I could say today went well but I was left feeling so frustrated. You see having your own business and raising a child comes at a price. Had I had the choice I would have pulled Miss E out of daycare today but I can't just close the shop or I loose customers and I'm still trying to build my business. My husband works in health care and he was flat out all day, but managed to pick her up a bit earlier than usual.

At least I can be happy that her two usual carers were back today and she seemed to be happy when we picked up and there were no further scratches or incidents.

What I was so frustrated at was the Director of the centre calling me to explain what happened. She said she had conflicting stories from the casuals and permanent staff that were on yesterday, that it appears there were two separate incidents resulting in the injuries and that the casual looking after Miss E couldn't write well enough to fill out an incident report form on her own so she was waiting to fill it out with one of the permanent staff.

Infuriating! I lost it. And I have to say I think I did well to not swear once.

I told her that the center was her responsibility and the quality of care given at the centre fell directly on her shoulders. It was her job to ensure policies and procedures are being followed, to hire qualified staff and make sure carer to child ratios are adhered to. I told her that after five separate incidents where procedures weren't followed, ratio's weren't adhered to and my child was injured in all of these, she was clearly not doing her job properly. She muttered something about continuing her investigation and hung up.

I rang DOCS and waited on hold for 45 minutes before hanging up because I had customers. No wonder so many child abuse cases don't get reported.

I called the Head Office of the center in Sydney and was put on hold before getting a recorded message asking me to leave my name, number and center I was calling about and they would call me back.

I called my hubby who said he would go get her and see if he can take her to work for a while tomorrow and do some work from home so she didn't have to go back.

Tomorrow I go to Sydney for my first ever kids fashion trade show. I've been looking forward to it since halfway through last year. I'm so frustrated with Miss E's childcare that instead of thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow I became consumed with the childcare issue.

How hubby makes sure our baby is being well looked after........

This is what I know. Tomorrow she'll be fine because she'll either be with her Daddy or with her usual carer and the Director is probably shitting (oops) her pants by now so they won't want to make another error like Wednesday. Next week she does orientation at her new daycare and I hope she'll love it there.

Tomorrow I'm off to Sydney and I've booked an apartment in the city with a spa and I intend to make good use of the relaxation and good nights sleep I'll get.

Tonight I better get my butt in bed..........

A Very Angry Mum!

Tonight I'm seething! I picked up Miss E from childcare today and her face was grazed, small cut above her right eye, bruising and both knees grazed. Now I know accidents happen, toddlers run and fall, but no one can actually tell me what happened ad there was no incident report for me to sign. To top it off it's clearly a head injury and regardless of how minor it is, legally they are required to call me and report it.

About two months after we put Miss E into this childcare center I began to think it wasn't the best place. I don't know why, maybe it was other Mums telling me of the problems they were having, maybe it was the center director running around like she had ADD and making all her employees nervous wrecks, maybe it was because aftyer 2 months Miss E still cried and clung to me every time i tried to drop and run.

Childcare spaces are limited in my town so I put her on a waiting list for one a block from the shop and on meeting with the director and doing a tour, one I felt immediately comfortable with.

We have had several incidents in the past 3 months with our current provider. Actually I can count them, five to be exact. In each occurrence the she had scratches, cuts, bruising or head injuries severe enough to contact me however the call wasn't made. In each case the incident report couldn't be provided at the time because the casual who was supervising the children had gone home and didn't fill it out. Each time I could seriously question the amount of supervision given because of things like Miss E was eating strawberries from the garden and no one realised till they saw the white shirt she was wearing had red juice down the front. Come on!

So this is my baby after I picked her up today. She was very grumpy and the bottle was the only way to keep her settled. It's a pretty bad photo and you can't see the grazing that well. It's not even the severity of the injury, it's the balls they have in blatantly breaking policy and the law!

Anyway, I'm happy to say we've been accepted to the new childcare center and she starts next Friday. Tomorrow morning I am definitely going to make a huge complaint to the director, and then I'm making a complaint to the Departments of Community Services. Five times in three months is way too much.

Have you ever experienced anything like this and what did you do about it?