To Move or Not to Move...

So I sit here on a Sunday night. Watching tv with my son, getting ready to put him to bed, thinking about the day ahead of me at work tomorrow. Since both my husband and I work full time we have always had to send our children to a sitter during the day. I never wanted to put my kids into an institutional daycare, and I was fortunate enough to meet a parent who watches children in her home. I met her 6 years ago when I had her daughter in my class. She was my lead room parent and she was great. This was two years before I had my own kids, but I knew she would be the one I called when I got pregnant, and I did.

For the first three and a half years things were wonderful. She worked with us through some really difficult situations. My son was a biter and my daughter refused to take a bottle; and she handled these situations beautifully. She would have the kids dancing to music, completing art projects, reading books, and keeping the kids stimulated all day. But then things started to change.

The first thing was actually brought to my attention by my husband. When he dropped the kids off in the morning he noticed that she was standing out at the bus stop with her son, leaving a bunch of babies and toddlers inside by themselves. Hmmmm.. that was weird. But I let it go. Then she started redecorating her home, which in itself was not a big deal. Actually I thought it was a good thing, until she took all of the toys and books from her upstairs and moved everything into her unfinished basement. And had the kids down there instead of upstairs. Again, we had been with her for so long and the kids liked her so much, I overlooked it. But the last straw for me was when she moved pack and plays down there and started having the kids sleep there. And one day my daughter had a really weird poop that smelled like cigarette ash(no one smokes at my house, my sitters husband does), which to me says she probably ate something, which means she wasn't being watched as well as she should have been. Now I was upset and I called her about it. Of course she denied that she ate anything, but I know that couldn't be true.

I finally got up the courage to talk to another mom who also brought her kids there and upon some discussion, we realized that things hadn't been great for the last six months. I was really disappointed and upset, so we both decided to talk to her. We both laid everything out and needless to say she was really upset. She changed everything back. No more basement. No more bus stop. No more helping her kids with HW while the little ones were still there. But I couldn't help thinking she should have known better. And I should have known better than to overlook things. So in the mean time I started searching for another care giver. And I found one.

After a lot of thinking and discussion, we decided to move the kids to the new care giver. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. For some reason I am so incredibly sad. We had developed such a good relationship with our sitter. I had known her previously and the first three years were so great. And even though some weird stuff had happened, after I talked to her she made all kinds of changes. But in the end I just couldn't reconcile it with myself. I had to move my kids. So I made the call to her to let her know that my kids would no longer be coming to her. And it was AWFUL. She cried. I cried. And I feel completely drained. Just writing about it now is bringing tears to my eyes. And all I can think is why? Why am I so upset? I feel like I felt in HS when I had to break up with a boyfriend. I guess I keep thinking about all the years that we were there and happy. All the time she has spent with my kids. But were we friends?-no, not really. But yet I still have this awful feeling of sadness when I think about tomorrow and know that my kids are going somewhere new. Even though I know it is going to be SO much better.

So we made the move. This was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life. It was agonizing. But in the end, I had to put my feelings aside, the feelings of my old sitter and make sure that my kids are going to be in the best possible situation while I am at work. Has anyone out there ever had to make a decision like this one? How did you handle it? Was it as heart breaking for you as it was for me? Because when it comes down to it, this whole experience has been awful and I just hope we are doing the right thing.