As I probably conveyed in my earlier posts, I have been elated over the new sitter who has been with us twice. Today she failed us. I had planned two meetings this afternoon specifically because we would have a sitter. The first was with my friend, Mark, who is serving as an editor of my journal and uploading it to my blog. The second was a meeting I had arranged three weeks ago with our accountant.
Kate was tired this morning. She got up and had some juice and went back to bed. When she was still sleeping at 10:00, I was not worried and decided to let her sleep as long as she wanted. By 11:00, I felt I had to wake her up in order to permit her time to get ready for lunch and for us to go to lunch before we came back to the house in time to meet the sitter at 1:00. I try not to rush Kate and have found that this prevents problems. I checked on Kate shortly after 11:30. She wasn’t ready and asked me not to rush her. I went back one more time which irritated her. We finally got to lunch at 12:15. We had our meal at 12:28. I had to rush her to eat, and we left for home at 12:50. We were home at 12:55.
The sitter had arrived on time on her previous two visits. Today she was late. When she hadn’t arrived by 1:15, I called the agency. They tried to reach her unsuccessfully. I told them I could easily cancel the first meeting but that I really need to make the second one. They arranged for a replacement who arrived about 2:20. That gave me a short time to brief her before I left.
Kate had gone directly outside after we returned home from lunch. When I saw her working in the driveway about the time the sitter was to arrive at 1:05, I asked her to move to another location because I didn’t want to risk the sitter’s driving in the driveway in a hurry and hit her. Kate decided to come inside and got in the bed. She was resting when the replacement arrived. After giving her a short briefing, I got Kate up and introduced them to each other. Kate was just a little big groggy and not as awake as I would have liked, but I had to go. Kate decided she would go outside and was headed there when I left.
When I returned close to 5:00, the sitter was in the family room. Kate was in our bedroom working on her iPad. I thought that was fine but was a little disappointed because she had remained in the family room with the previous sitter even though Kate was resting on the sofa. It made me think that she had not been enthusiastic about the new sitter. After the sitter left, I was eager to hear what Kate thought about her. I went back to the bedroom where she had picked up her iPad. I said, “She seems nice.” She said, “Very nice.” That was all we said, but that was enough. I had feared that she might have had a negative impression. Even if she was not as enthusiastic as I had hoped, it was a positive response and definitely not negative.
I actually like the new sitter. Her name is Mary, and she is older than the one she replaced. Her husband is retired from the UT Medical Center. She has a daughter in college and a daughter in high school. She has been working for the agency since 2004. She is scheduled to return on Friday, but she is not available on Mondays at all. That means we may end up with at least two different sitters, one for Monday and another for Wednesday and Friday.
I will call the agency in the morning to discuss where we go from here, but it was a great disappointment that the original sitter did not show up. The agency told me that they would have to let her go for that. I have mixed feelings about that because I really liked her, but I also understand that the agency cannot accept “no shows.” It is a good illustration of what happens when trust is broken. I hope we can soon work out the kinks we are running into.
