From bad to worse

I had a baaad day today. Actually, it started with last night when Ed's Up wasn't on. But that's a minor detail.

I'm half Irish. I've always had a bit of a temper, but I have also generally been able to keep it under control thanks to a remarkable dose of diplomacy, particularly in work, school or other such situations.

Apparently daycare is not a "such situation."

My kids' daycare drives me crazy. While I think they generally receive good care, the institution itself is woefully mismanaged. And among my long list of complaints about them is the fact that they call to have the kids picked up for no good reason.

This morning, I dropped off perfectly healthy kids at daycare.

Then I sat in traffic and a snowstorm for nearly an hour and a half. I walked into a minor crisis at work, and was just getting my head wrapped around it when, about 5 minutes after I arrived, daycare called to tell me my two-year-old had a goopy eye, told them it hurt when they touched it (well, how could it not hurt after they poked her in the eye?!?!) and that she needed to be picked up immediately and that she would need a doctor's note to reintegrate daycare.

I warned them that I'd ask my parents if they were available to pick her up, and that otherwise it would take at least a couple of hours for me to be able to get there given the road conditions and this little situation I was trying to deal with.

My parents picked her up and took her home. And promptly called me to tell me her eyes are fine. Couldn't tell which one would have been "goopy." Neither were red. She wasn't complaining of any pain.

And I lost it a bit. This is not the first time it happens. So I called, and warned the person who called me that in the future, I want to be called for good reason. That I will ask them to watch my child before calling, or at least before I run and pick her up (or have her picked up) because this is getting ridiculous. And while I am blessed to have my retired parents five minutes away, I should have to depend on them for non-emergencies. And I told them that there's no way I'm taking a perfectly healthy child to the doctor just to get a note that confirms she's perfectly healthy.

I didn't yell. Or swear. But I hate being curt with people. I hate being put in a situation where I have to get angry and critical for such a common sense issue. And I hate having a negative relationship with the people who care for my children. I find it counterproductive. I just feel like I have so many plates to spin as is on any given day, I don't need to add useless conflict or anything else I need to worry about.

I've been looking for a new challenge, and I think this is it:

10. Better dealing with conflict.

Unlike the other challenges I've given myself, I'm not sure how I'll tackle this one. My problem with conflict is two-fold: I hate when it happens and tend to shy away from it rather than address it head on... Yet when something happens to really tick me off, I do get angry - then don't really know how to handle it. So more on this challenge over the next few days, weeks or months, as I figure out what I'm supposed to do with it.