Help Wanted

As some of you know I was on the hunt for a babysitter. We just moved here and have no one to watch our kids and with Phil having a more normal job that has Christmas parties and such, it became a necessity to find someone. Plus I won't lie, it's nice to go out without the kids every once and a while.

I signed up for this website sittercity and found a girl who was near by. She came over and met the kids they seemed to hit it off so we hired her. The first night I put Ethan done to sleep before we left so she just had to deal with Emma who would only be up for about an hour until she had to go to bed herself.

First night, no problems everything was great.

We asked her to come over again.

This time we had to leave earlier so Ethan was awake. I set out their pajamas showed her where they were and laid out 5 diapers so she could change him etc. (not that she would need 5 diapers but you get the point.)
When we got home she said all went well but something weird had happened. Ethan had puked. She said she didn't even realize he had puked Emma told her.

This isn't unusual for Ethan because he gets in these coughing fits and they get out of hand and if you don't stop him he does indeed puke.

I thought this is what happened. I apologized for not telling her that he does that sometimes, paid her and she left.

The next morning Ethan woke up crying. He literally had pee from his pillow all the way down to his feet. I went to check the stack of diapers I had left...and wouldn't you know it there were still 5 diapers there. She never changed him. We left at 5:30 and his diaper had last been changed at about 3 so that means the poor kids went about 17 hours with the same diaper on. I was pissed. But then I thought well maybe she just forgot because he was sleeping last time. But then I thought about it again....he puked and needed his pajama's changed. Not only that but she put on his first set of pajama's. 2 opportunities where the diaper was staring her right in the face and she didn't change it. NOT ACCEPTABLE!

I casually said to Emma..."so Ethan puked last night huh?" not digging for into but who cares if I was...these are my kids I have a right to ask. She said "yes". Then she says "Is Ethan allowed to have mints?" I thought this was a weird question. Maybe she had given him a tic tac after he puked cause it breath smelled or something. "What kind of mints Emma? Show me." She pulls out the bag of Starlight mints we had. You know what kind I am talking about right....the ones that are red and white like candy canes and they are hard and shaped like a life saver without the hole. YAH those HARD candy mints! "The babysitter gave Ethan one and that is what he was choking on when he threw up." WHAT!!!!!! Then I start prodding. Emma tells me that Ethan saw them there and asked C for one. She said yes. Emma and Ethan were sitting at the computer playing a game while C ate dinner. Ethan swallowed the mint and starting coughing and choking. Instead of getting up to see what was going on C continued to eat and was telling Ethan to stop coughing. Then he puked so she had to get up.

First of all, you don't give hard candy mints to a 2 yr old. Quite honestly, I don't give them to my 6 yr old. It's not something they need and I have swallowed one to many in my childhood to know its not a pleasant experience at all. So my kids don't get them.
Secondly you don't put two and two together? You just gave a BABY a hard candy and a few mins later he begins to cough and choke. You don't get off your ass to see what's going on? I'm sorry but this really irritates me. He could have stopped breathing, he could have died. Thank God he didn't.

That day she was in class all day and I wanted an explanation. I wrote her a very nice email putting some of the blame on myself to see what she would say. I didn't want to attack her so as you will see I posted a lot of it on me just to see what happened. Also this is while we were still thinking of giving her a second chance.

Here is a copy of that:

Hey C,

Thanks again for watching the kids last night! They really like you.

Ethan woke up this morning and he was soaked from head to toe including all his bedding. I am not sure if you had changed his diaper right before bed, but if not could you do that next time? With all the milk he drinks before bed he tends to pee a lot and he has sensitive skin so he gets rashes pretty easy. I don't think I mentioned that it should be done when you put him to bed so you probably assumed he was all set. No big deal, just want to make sure you knew for next time : )

Also Emma was saying that Ethan had some hard candy and he was choking on that and that's what made him throw up. We usually don't give him things like that. I am not sure if he told you he could have it or not (it wouldn't surprise me....kids try to get away with everything when mom and dad aren't around) but again just so you know for next time we usually don't give him stuff like that. He gags enough on his own! lol! We just recently allowed him to start eating chips again. He usually threw up every time he ate those because he didn't chew them well enough. If you aren't sure if they can have it or not feel free to call, or just say no. He may pitch a fit, but in the long run it would save some hassle on your part (cleaning up puke) and hopefully prevent him from puking/choking all together. Just for future reference the candy he can have are plain M&M's, gummy bears, Hershey bar basically things that are soft.

Her response:

Andi,
I appreciated both of your emails so much! i'm too lucky to sit for such
a nice family, i really mean that.
i'm so sorry that you had to change all of ethan's bedding yesterday! i
promise to make sure that doesn't happen again. the first time i came
over, you had put him to bed already and so i guess this time i just
didn't think that there might be more to it. i'm sorry!
and about the candy.. you were right the first time thinking i gave it
to him. i didn't realize that was what caused him to cough- in
retrospect, i feel so stupid! he's just so tall, i tend to forget he's
only 2! and i also remembered when i came over to meet you, he was
allowed some halloween candy so i guess that's what i was thinking about
when i let him have the mint. i'm not trying to make excuses but just
explaining my thought process i guess.
stuff like this never happens to me, i feel so bad, so thank you for
being so understanding. nothing like this will happen again, i promise!
they're both such great kids, we have fun together :-) classes start
again monday, november 30th, so whatever day you and phil want to go out
again, just let me know! i can't believe you're pretty much done with
christmas shopping, i'm impressed haha. oh, and my test went alright..
not the greatest but i'm just glad it's done! thanks for asking, and
again i'm sorry about all the mess-ups! tell emma and ethan i say hi,
see you soon :-)
happy (early) thanksgiving!
c

It was nice of her to apologize and I accept that but as for her sitting for us again....I don't think so. It concerns me that when watching a 2 yr old whom you change clothing totally that night and it doesn't occur to you that there's diaper to change even when I specifically showed you the diapers.

Or that you gave a mint to a kid. First why do kids need mints? They are for bad breath...a child doesn't need it. And I never mentioned anything in my email about him being 2 yrs old. If she remembered it in the email why didn't she remember it then? Also she said that night she didn't know what happened when he puked.....I just get this feeling she did and she thought she would get away with it. People make mistakes but there are my kids here. If she had gotten up to see what was wrong with him when he was coughing then maybe I could cut some slack, but instead she hollered from the other room to stop coughing.

So my search continues...and....she's fired!