Go AWAY QA!!

QA is coming !

That's "Quality Assurance" though family daycare, for all of you who don't have to live through this particular brand of hell. And hell on earth it is. Really.

Isn't this a sweet little grouping? A patient and caring carer and her lovely, sweet, clean, well-behaved children.

Learning and sharing is so much fun, isn't it?

And this?

This is reality.

This is MY reality anyway. They don't send me the the quiet kids.

Nope, they don't.

Do I get the tidy kids or the kids who just love to cooperate and share with others?

Nope... THIS is what I get.

It's so unfair.

QA.....They come out to your home, observe your daycare practices, check through all your paperwork and generally disrupt the entire day. And you know kids.

If a child is gonna act up, they'll always do it when a stranger is sitting around asking questions and observing our every move... so I'm dreading it. I'm dreading it bad !! That kid up above? That was one of my kids last year. Well, no it actually wasn't, but if I admitted that my kids were fairly good well-behaved little darlin's, no one would feel the least bit sorry for me. And sympathy is the emotion I'm goin' for here...

See, with QA... they get to choose several carers a day for a week, and if you get the dreaded phone call first thing in the morning, you better be ready. Which I am.

I just don't wanna do it.

And I'm not going to do it.

So I'm not answering my phone or door today. I may not answer it for the rest of the week either... maybe even for the rest of my life.

For goodness sakes, I have an answering machine for a reason, don't I?

The kids and I will be out the back where we can't hear the door and we'll be doin' kid stuff. Isn't that what the parents want their children to be doing? Acting like happy rambunctious kids and learning to play together? Learning, sharing, experiencing?

I mean, for Pete's sakes... what do you do when you're in the middle of a nappy/diaper change and the phone rings? When you're serving snacks or meals and have only served 2 children so far? Or you have a 3 year old going to the toilet on her own, but she needs a little help? Or 3 rambunctious boys running around the backyard who are dying to try out their latest kick-boxing moves on the cat?

Do I run and answer the phone or doorbell, like I'm really expecting that the lottery people are calling or showing up with that giant cardboard check, to tell me I've won 16 billion dollars? Yeah....as IF!

Hellloooo office staff and QA people... Are you there and can you hear me? I have a job here. I CARE for other people's children for a living, as you very well know...

And if any of you have munchkins of your own, you know that time is never, ever your own when you have a houseful of kids. Never.

If it was, I would get to sit in the toilet for more than 30 seconds at a time, without someone knocking and saying "Tater? Tater, what are you doin' in there Tater?

Can we come in and see what you're doin???"

Or "Tater? I gotta peeeeeeeeee, right noooowww !"

I would be able to sit and drink a cup of coffee without it going all cold and yucky and skim-y on me. Which is a dream of mine. One of those fairy tale happy ever after dreams... just involving coffee.

I would sit on my lovely, soft, squishy lounge chair in the lounge room and not have to worry about boogers getting stuck on the seat of my pants or a kung-fu fighting figure getting stuck up my errmmm....(cough cough) bottom - and I'd watch that hunky spunky Dr. Phil , instead of The Wiggles and Playschool.

I have no life. And that's because everything is all about routine here... so where do they get off coming in here and intruding on my routine? The children are my priority. They always have been and they always will be.

QA

QA

Go away ...

Come again another day.