What goes around comes around

I do not know where to start and how to share the story as simple as it can be ;)

This will be a long post, please bear with me.

Due to the fact Faliela was only 6 weeks old when we had to send her to a daycare, the choice was very limited. A lot of daycare centres would not accept infant that young and those who do are either too expensive or they have no opening. We chose Faliela's former daycare (let's named the person as K) since it was licensed and her rate for part-time care was not that expensive. At that time, Jai was working from late afternoon til night.

 The problems started when she moved to her new house.

Almost once in a week, we had to wait for 10-15 mins at her door because she could not hear us knocking (more like, banging) the door, she was still sleeping or she was out running errands. I even asked her whether we could help her install a new doorbell or fix the old one, rupa2nye doorbell tuh function je tapi dia cakap tak dengar kalau dia duduk dalam bilik. Whatever her excuses are, if she said her daycare operates from 7.30-5.30pm, she must be at home no matter what. Kitorang bukan hantar awal pun, 9.30 pagi pun dia tak bangun tido lagi boleh?

She does not want to listen to what we instructed her to do. She lets dogs into her house (yeah, she does petsitting job too). First time kena tuh siap jilat2 faliela lagi, habis anak aku kena mandi air tanah. Then, last few weeks she had another dog in her house. Dia cakap yang nih tak jilat orang. Duhhh, habis tuh Faliela tak pergi main2 dengan dia ke? Rocky pun Faliela habis kejar satu rumah sekarang ni. Bab diaper rash pun satu hal. I counted the diapers we supplied for her, she only changed Faliela once the entire day from 9.30am-5.30pm. Ada sekali tuh melecet sampai ada scar. The breaking point was when she did not want to accept Faliela into her daycare when Faliela has actually recovered from fever. She did not even want to hold Faliela on that day, takut contagious la konon kena anak dia. It was weird to think she is a veterinarian but failed to think like one. Kalau takut sangat, basuhla tangan. Even HIV won't spread with touching. I had to show her few websites on roseola, about how it is no longer contagious once the fever went away even when there are rashes. Still tak nak percaya jugak. I had to skip work on that day then I had to request a doctor's letter so that K won't turned us down the following day. It was just frustrating to deal with someone like her ;)

 So, we decided to switch daycare. We were actually scouting for one since January tapi selalu tukar fikiran sebab K is a single mom with a 2-year old toddler, working at night as a vet nurse (she is a vet graduated from her home country but she can't practised without a board exam), then now the other kid switched from full-time to part time, so she is left with only us for full-time. To cut the story short, we found a daycare/home preschool which happened to have a Muslim assistant. Mula2 we had to turn her down since we can not afford her rates but then she agreed to give us $150 discount dengan syarat start dalam masa seminggu. Baik okay mummy G, terharu ;)

The next day, I talked to K and informed her that we are giving her 2 weeks notice sebab konon Jai dapat kerja malam, so tak yah antar Faliela dah. Tak nak bagitau tukar daycare sebab nanti panjang cerita pulak. She was okay with it at first, siap sembang pasal birthday Faliela etc. Then, when I was about to leave, she informed me that in the contract I signed with her, it was 4 weeks notice. I was confused since she requested for a 2-week deposit when we signed the contract, so I assumed it was actually 2-week notice. Pastuh, balik rumah carik contract tak jumpa plak. Jai was in Los Angeles at that time, so he asked me to negotiate with K if she can give us 2 weeks notice. Aku bab negotiate dengan perempuan ni memang malas sebab dah geram gile dengan dia. So, the following day, terpaksalah pegi nego. She was really angry when I tried to negotiate with her. At one point, I gave up and asked her to talk with Jai when he comes back. Then she said 'I have a good heart, but I could not believe you guys will do this to me'. I was like, WTH? Seriously? That sentence really pissed me off man.

I grabbed Faliela's thing and said to her "It's okay if you don't want to take care of Faliela. I can bring her home". 

She toned down her voice and said 'No, leave her here. It's my job to take care of her'.

Me: I don't know what are you going to do with her since you are angry with me.

K: Oh my god, you don't trust me.

Confirmla aku tak percaya kau.
 

Aku malas nak bercakaran dengan dia, terus kuar bawak Faliela balik rumah nangis2. I had an experiment to do that day unfortunately. Tapi tak kan nak tinggal Faliela kat dia. Luckily, Tee (a visiting lecturer from UPM) was free so she took care of Faliela almost the entire day. Kesian datang sabbatical tapi tolong jaga anak aku kan. Haha. Sampai lab, I made a call to child care licensing office and asked for an access to K's daycare complaint file. I just wanna confirm my suspicion. To my horror, the officer was saying K's daycare is no longer licensed since September last year. Plus, with no license, you should not be taking care children from more than one family at a time.


Checkmate!

 My instinct was right. I knew something was wrong with her business since she was being so ignorant to our complaints,instructions and such. After being advised by the officer, we gave her a termination letter and we asked a full refund of our security deposit. Dari kita nak bagi dia  2 weeks pay of $400, now dia kena bagi kitorang $200. Orang tamak selalu rugi. Kalau pikir-pikirkan balik, we were being cheated by her, paying full time licensed daycare rate, tuh belum masuk Faliela sakit and kitorang gi vacation pun kena bayar. That's the norm rules for a licensed daycare. Takpelah, kitorang halalkan je since she took care of Faliela for almost one year. Hope she learned her lesson.

Faliela is still adapting with the new daycare, still crying when we have to leave her. But without doubt, this daycare is absolutely better than the old ones. Mahal sikit lah dari K's daycare but we do not mind paying more for Faliela's well being. Faliela has 7-8 English-speaking friends and they did various activities together-singing,learning ABC etc. At her former daycare, bekas makanan Faliela sebelum ni tak pernah dibasuh, breastmilk selalu bagi 12 oz selalu tak cukup and K always had to thaw the frozen one I kept in her fridge for emergency which now we think sebenarnye 12 oz tuh cukup but dia tak monitor Faliela when she drinks, end up tumpah atas baju and Faliela selalu balik dengan baju masam susu. Yelah, that was her first and only daycare, manelah tau nak compare.

We learned our lesson too ie: do not ignore our instinct as parents ;)