She's what the French call Les Incompetents

Yesterday was a huge setback. We were supposed to go meet with the potential daycare provider. The one we were supposed to go meet last week, until she called 20 minutes before the pre-arranged time and said that we shouldn't come (the excuse being sick kids in the house). Well, yesterday, after a morning of being out & about, then racing home to shovel some food down our throats and get bundled up and back out the door and over to her house on time... she wasn't home. I kid you not. I was completely dumbstruck. We spent ten minutes hanging out in her driveway before we dropped in to visit a friend who lives around the corner, and I called her from my friend's house, leaving a message that was polite but firm - i.e. it's 1:15 on Wednesday afternoon, we were supposed to meet at your house at 1:00, please call me back. As I left my friend's half an hour later, I drove past her street, and now her vehicle (which she had taken great pains to describe to me on the phone; it's an SUV, and she has enough car seats to be able to take the kids out & about to community programs - something I had seen as a real plus) was back in the driveway and she was home.

When I got home I expected there to be a message from her with some huge apology. And there wasn't. And then I thought, well, maybe she's busy looking after her charges (as she should be), she'll call back tonight. And she didn't. Not before dinner, she didn't call while I was out for a massage and some errand-running, and she didn't call by the time we went to bed at 10:30. Nothing.

I guess my instinct from last week that she is a bit of a flake was true. I also guess I am lucky that I found this out before entrusting her with Liam. But, it's still a huge disappointment. Our original phone conversation had left me really hopeful that she would be The One. Right now I am on two daycare waiting lists, and can be in at one place that currently has two openings, but only if she gains no new clients between now and the spring. Even then, I have not met with any of these people, so they are potential caregivers but have not been thoroughly checked out. I have no further leads. It's back to the drawing board.

As we were going to bed last night I remarked to Chad that I had been sure she would call us back - maybe not early in the evening, but for sure after her kids were in bed. I mean, why wouldn't she call us back? I could tell that Chad is starting to get into the holiday spirit when he simply offered up an explanation lifted from Home Alone: "I guess she's what the French call Les Incompetents."