Kyleigh's Story - Day X at the Day Care: Furious Again

Ok I lost count on which day this is since Kyleigh started going to this day care, but it doesn't matter. They got me furious again today.

Yesterday I stopped by unannounced during lunch time, trying to peek and see if Kyleigh was eating ok. It looked like she was (although I wasn't 100% sure), so I chatted with the day care owner a little bit.

She invited me to come to a music class with Kyleigh tomorrow (today). It was a new class they were going to roll-out, and it was a $20 extra charge per month. She said she was holding a "preview" session for all parents to see what they would do, so we could determine whether we wanted to enroll the kids in this extra class. She said it would be at 3:30 PM, and I even repeated this a few times before I left.

So today I managed to got out of the office at 3:15 PM and arrived just before 3:30 PM. I was surprised to see Kyleigh with one of the teachers in the infant room. I asked what was going on. The teacher told me that the other kids were attending the music class, and since Kyleigh "was not on the list", she had to stay in the infant room.

The owner was not there so I found the manager. The manager said the owner never told her Kyleigh should be in there. It was rediculous because I was given a flyer saying that they were having this "free" session. They never mentioned you had to be on a "list".

Regardless, I brought Kyleigh back to the classroom. I was trying to get Kyleigh to participate. But after 2 short songs, the new music teacher was wrapping up. It turned out that she had started at 3 PM, and not 3:30 PM. There was only one other parent in the classroom. The new music teacher asked for our feedback. I told her I was very unhappy because of the timing mess-up. I said I knew it was not her fault, but I really didn't see much of the class to evaluate it.

As we adults were talking, the classroom was like a mad house. They combined the kids from the infant room and the toddler room, but there was only one teacher (not counting the new music teacher). The kids were all over the place. One kid fell down flat on the floor and landed on the back of her head (and that's the day care owner's daughter). A kid hit his right ear on the toy closet. I saw blood under his right eye but I couldn't tell if that was from the hit or if he already had other injuries. Both were screaming and crying.

Kyleigh couldn't avoid another accident either. A kid picked up a hard plastic toy guitar and smacked Kyleigh's head. When that happened, Kyleigh was still sitting on my laps! I was very upset about myself for not being able to protect her when I was right there. Kyleigh was of course very upset and couldn't stop crying. I thought about taking her back to my office but I didn't, and I should have.

We had just started to feel comfortable with this day care because we felt that they were really doing things to accommodate us and ease our concerns. But now this happened. It is really frustrating. I am going to talk to the owner tomorrow morning, and see how she feels when she hears that her own daughter fell under the teacher's watch.