Carter and My Extra Day

Wednesday after school I was just winding down, talking with my co-teacher, and finishing up some work so I could head out to get Carter.  As I walked into my classroom I just barely missed a phone call.  I walked up to my desk and the phone rang again.  I answered and was greeted with an unknown woman's voice saying, "I'm calling about picking up your son today."  And I instantly panicked.  Like heart down in my stomach, tears in my eyes type of panic.  Who was this lady and why did she think she was picking up my son.  She went on to call Carter by name which freaked me out even more and said the daycare's name wrong.  Finally I had to ask her to start all over because I was so panicked I had no idea what she was saying or what was going on.

Once I had calmed down she explained a fire alarm had gone off at Carter's daycare and they had evacuated all of the children to a different building.  She was simply calling to let me know I needed to pick Carter up at a different building.  Wow, okay lady, you definitely need to work on how you start that conversation.

On the drive to pick Carter up I started thinking more about what had happened.  Thank goodness they had an evacuation plan, but I was scared to death.  Something horrible like a fire could happen at Carter's daycare and I wouldn't be there to help him, take care of him, and make sure he was safe.  It was the worst feeling in the world.  I was near tears by the time I picked him up, but still thought to ask what the plan was for the following day.  I was told if they had to relocate to another building they would have someone directing us where to go as we arrived to drop off.  Sounded fine to me.  I was emotionally drained when we got home and all I wanted to do was snuggle little man and thank my lucky stars he was safe, so we skipped our run.

The next morning I pulled into the daycare and noticed lots of vans and the absence of other parents.  No one was around directing parents where to go.  I hopped out of the car and walked up to the door to read a sign taped to the glass.  The sign said the daycare was closed.  Weird.  I had gotten no notification whatsoever.  A man working there stopped to help me and called around.  He said the daycare was closed and they weren't using a separate building.  Awesome, it was 8:00 am, school starts in 45 minutes and I have no sub and no one to watch Carter.

I drove to school, took Carter inside, and immediately went to talk with our administrative assistant.  She got the ball rolling to get a sub and I went down to my classroom to get things ready for a sub.  I put Carter on the floor with some toys and got busy on my plans.  Students started arriving and heading to their morning rotation.  They were peeking in and I could hear them talking excitedly that Carter was in the classroom.

One little boy came in to talk to me and when he saw Carter told me he'd like to stay in the classroom to help me with Carter rather than go to his morning rotation.  He was so sweet, getting me a Kleenex to clean snot from Carter's nose and giving me updates on what he was doing.  I knew with the late notice the sub would most likely be late, so when the bell rang to start class, I went ahead and got the kids started on their morning work.  I overheard the little boy tell some classmates that he got to stay in the classroom to watch Carter while I did my work.  It was so sweet!

A sweet card one of the students wrote me the next day!

After morning work I brought the students to the carpet and took their picture with Carter.  I wish I could post it here, it was so cute!  Finally after an hour and a half of teaching while carrying Carter around the room I called down to the office to let them know a sub had yet to arrive.  They sent a teaching assistant down to cover the class and we headed out.   The students loved getting to see Carter and even asked where he was the next day and why he couldn't be with us every day.

The day started off really stressful and I hadn't planned to take the day off, but it was really nice to have an extra day home with Carter.  Even though it was inconvenient how it went down, it's comforting to know the safety of the children is more important to the daycare than dealing with upset parents.

Enjoying his play day with mommy.

Ty, being the detective he is, finally got to the bottom of what happened.  There was an electrical fire somewhere in the building.  Before bringing the children back in an air quality test had to be done and the results take 24 hours to process.  I didn't get a phone call telling me the daycare was closed because they couldn't make long distance calls (I'm still on my parents' plan because it's cheaper to pay them $40 a month than have a plan of my own).  I was a little peeved they didn't send an e-mail or try to contact me another way, but I just let that one go.  My Carter boy is safe and that's all that matters!

Eating lunch.  He didn't eat it all, I saved some for dinner.