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Last Friday I was compelled to pull my two youngest kids out of the preschool there were enrolled in. If you’re a super-paranoid working mom overwhelmed by the guilt of leaving your kids in the care of others, then maybe you’ll want to skip for the reason why I suddenly took them out. Or maybe you’ll want to read on so that you’ll stop ignoring that tiny little voice of intuition (or God for some of you) that’s been nagging you everytime you drop your kids off before work.

So, I’m like most of you reading this blog. I work…basically full-time, but I work for myself so my hours are fairly flexible between 4 am and 11 pm seven days a week. Nonetheless, my kids are not with me while I work so if they’re not sleeping, then one is in a full-day Kindergarten program and the two youngest go to preschool.

Anyway…long story, short…I ignored that funky feeling you sometimes get when you leave your kids to head to the office.

Then one day, I decided to drop in just a half-hour early to pick them up. Thank goodness I did. My son was having his diaper changed by a teacher and when she handed him to me his back was wet. Ew-w-w-w! I asked the teacher why he was wet. We both looked down at the changing table and to my horror I saw it was covered in pee! I looked at her with a crazed look and she flippantly said, “Oh yea, he peed while I was changing him.” Ok…that’s sick.

Annoyed I grabbed his things and stormed over to my daughter’s classroom. After a few moments, I realized that there wasn’t an adult teacher in a room full of 12 three-year-olds. I scanned the room and caught the eye of an eight-year-old boy (the preschool has an after-school program for elementary kids) and asked him where the teacher was. He smiled proudly, “Oh yea, she had to go take care of something and I told her I’d watch the kids for her.” What the @$#%?!?!?!

The next day, I spoke with the center director and pulled our kids out. Scary to think what else was happening there.

(If you’re wondering why I waited until the next day, you don’t know me that well. I needed the time to cool off, otherwise I might be blogging from jail.)

Anyway, all that “drama” last week means I have a totally unplanned “vacation” from work while I take the time to search for a new preschool. Ultimately, it’s hard to really know what’s happening when you’re not there, but this time I’m armed with a battery of questions that I never thought to ask before like:

• What do you do to keep your [often underpaid] teachers motivated to go the extra mile for my kid?
• Tell me how you keep staffing numbers and classroom ratios in check in the event of an unplanned emergency.
• If I were to ask your teachers what bothers them the most about working here, what would they tell me?

Plus, I will be making a conscious effort to do periodic, surprise visits.

So, I found a terrific place. You’ll recognize the name, Kindercare. My big sis recommended them (thanks girl!) and I was really impressed by the staff and facility. And on a more practical matter, since my sister referred me to them she gets a free week of tuition and so do I — woo-hoo!

The bottom-line…trust your gut, especially when it comes to your kids. In my last recent little fiasco, I choose to ignore some pretty clear signals that thing weren’t right, like:

• My daughter coming home with new and defiant behavior,
• My daughter crying every morning I dropped her off,
• My son coming home with a bruiser on his eye (they said he fell on a toy),
• My son coming home with his shirt soaked from drool (even when he had fresh clothes to put on in his cubby)

When you’re consumed by the need to get to work on time, it’s easy to ignore these clues. You may think, It’s no big deal or Kids will be kids! The pressure to be at work sometimes overrides the necessity to be a mom. I urge you to STOP, step back and look at the situation as it really may be — a diaster.

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