Yesterday I introduced CeCe to a "first" that I would rather have not: her first fall. And it doesn't matter that there was no blood and no cuts, no bruises or broken bones, or that it was only from the height of the couch. It's the fact that it was my fault that haunts me. I propped her up in a really stupid way too close to the edge, and then went to my office. I intended to only be away for a second, checking for E-mails -- ironically, messages from potential care-takers from CeCe -- when a loud thud could be heard. Both Rich & I ran to the play area, and sure as shit, she'd rolled off. In the aftermath, only a slight red mark was on her head; I think it came not from the floor, but from this plastic lap-desk that I had on the floor next to the couch. A slight red mark, and then a red-faced CeCe, who rightfully screamed at me and cried... What the fuck was I doing, leaving her sit like that? And what if I had left a drinking glass there, she could've smashed it and lost an eye! And ___! and ___! And ... And someone tell me why am I allowed to continue to have this uterus, when it should be stripped from me so that I cannot curse another hapless living creature into my care?!
And the added insult of this incident is that it didn't need to happen, if only I'd not made a previous bungle of trying to switch up meeting times with the interviewees. Earlier in the day, before the fall, I met with the first candidate at Wegmans. She was very sweet and quite nice but it turned out that it just wasn't helpful to be outside of the regular environment. I couldn't show her what the pocket-style cloth diapers were like, and I couldn't tell if our level of lifestyle messiness would gross her out or not. CeCe sat with her and didn't really seem to mind, but again, we weren't in the regular environment; CeCe may have been too distracted to be her normal self. After considering this, I contacted the remaining candidates to instead come to my house. But because I did this switcheroo in what really was super-short notice (it was Saturday for fuxsakes, not all people check their e-mail a ridiculous amount of times in an hour like I do), I frantically was checking E-mail to see if the next set of candidates got the message in time. Hence me running back to the office & CeCe's ensuing fall off the couch.
I then started condemning myself for being overly paranoid & scheduling the meetings outside the house to begin with. What the hell do I have worth stealing? If I really didn't trust them enough to meet in my home, why was I doing this in the first place? Then Rich started in on me, "The next time we do this, just pick one person at a time. Don't waste peoples' time like this." (But they were the ones who'd contacted ME first, I didn't solicit them!) So overall, I started feeling like a dumbass for how I'd handled this entire process from the get-go.
CeCe's fall was in the 2.5 hour gap between the first and second candidate. We headed back to Wegmans, this time all 3 of us. Rich had gone off to get us coffee, and when he made it back, he spilled one right on me. For a few seconds my right thigh was burning with cream and 4 sugars. Only a little got on CeCe, who I'd like to think karmically caused this spill to happen to Bad Mommy. And after 40 minutes of waiting, we headed home and candidate #2 was a no-show. It later turned out that she had E-mailed me somewhere in the hubbub to retract her interest (due to the distance between our homes) and I didn't get notification of it til I got home. I totally understood her reasons, but this bummed us out: she was our only bilingual candidate and it would've been nice if CeCe had exposure to Spanish. We were actually going to if she'd mind speaking ONLY Spanish to CeCe, too.
After meeting the remaining two candidates, we have decided to go with the first one I met after all -- which just reinforced that if I'd only gone with the one-at-a-time method like Rich had said, this all could've been avoided. ALL OF IT.
...Does anyone have a "Kick Me" sign I could borrow?
The third candidate was really quite nice as well. She even has experience with special-needs children, which translates to me that she's a very patient and caring person. But the first candidate seemed equally sweet and caring, is currently helping out with her sister's baby (5 months old), and she lives within walking distance. CeCe was napping while the interview was going on and I didn't want to wake her after the way the day had been going, so I didn't get to see how she was with Candidate #3.
...the fourth candidate wore too much perfume and said that her 3 kids were living with her mother down in Florida still, "for the school that they go to." Something about that, about leaving your 3 kids, but looking after mine, does not ring right with me... I did not let her hold CeCe at all.
