I’m bewildered and upset right now.

About an hour ago, I checked my email, and found an astonishing message from Noah’s school. In a nutshell, it said that Ms L, the lead teacher in Noah’s classroom, would not be coming back to work there any more.

All the details that the email provided were:

Ms L has been a great teacher and cares for the children. However, we need
our staff to teach children while embracing the Montessori Principles,
including patience and respect.

We love your children and we want the best for them, so please trust us and work with us by showing your support.

Oh yeah, and the timestamp on the email was at most 10 minutes after I picked Noah up for his doctor’s appointment. I noticed that Ms L wasn’t in the room, but I figured she was on her break. No one said anything to suggest otherwise.

I know that for legal reasons they shouldn’t get into a lot of detail about why they fired her with no notice. Clearly, Something Happened. But FRIDAY is the last day of one of the other teachers in the classroom, and the third and final teacher only started full time during Noah’s first week! And Ms N, who leaves on Friday, is getting a photo album with notes from all the parents.

Noah loves Ms L.

She was the first person there in the morning, and probably 2 days/week, Noah had her all to himself for somewhere between 15-45 minutes. The other 3 days/week, he shared her attention with 1 other little boy during that time.

Almost every morning, she told me a cute story about what Noah did the day before. Maybe half the stories involved things like "he wouldn’t take his bottle from the other teachers and would only eat when I fed him" or "he saw me pick up another baby and he started to cry." I saw him give her the sweet drooly kisses he gives us, and he always got excited when she handed him a toy in the morning. "That’s his favorite."

I don’t want to micromanage the school’s personnel issues. I don’t.

I’m even almost willing to accept that whatever happened, firing Ms L on the spot was the only recourse the school felt like they had. But it seems insane and excessive in the vacuum of information that I have.

And the "please just trust & support us," from the email sounds too much like "trust me, I’m a doctor." I need more information. Why did 3 long-term staffers leave in less than 3 months? The one who left after Noah’s first week had worked there 11 years! What are we doing to address staff retention? Why can’t we even say goodbye?

WHO WILL BE TAKING CARE OF MY BABY TOMORROW FUCKING MORNING?

I trust(ed?) Ms L. I know that she cared for Noah, she knew him, his personality. And she’s been in training as a Montessori infant teacher for a number of years. The other teacher who has been there as long as Noah is a very nice woman. I know she cares about Noah and is sweet with him. But she doesn’t have the education and training that Ms L does. And I don’t know who is replacing Ms N.

My point is that we’re paying a premium for the quality of care promised by this school, and I’m afraid we’re not going to get it. Starting tomorrow. TOMORROW!!! If we’re getting "ordinary" care for Noah, I’d prefer to pay "ordinary" rates.

I also really fucking hate that we didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Shortly before we started going on all those long weekend trips, our homeowner’s association had it’s annual meeting.

Noah and I went, and at the very end, wound up chatting with a really cool straight couple who had a teeny tiny baby girl. I felt like we clicked, so I said "we should exchange numbers." They gave me theirs, I didn’t have a pen, and for the last 4 or 5 weeks, their number has been haunting me from the fridge, making me feel like a jerk for not calling yet.

Sunday I called. They were out, but I left a message. Leslie, the Mom, called back a few hours later, while Noah was melting down. I never called back, but was planning to eventually.

Tonight, Noah and I went to the local La Leche League meeting. The second mom to get there was a Mom I felt like I’d clicked with the last 2 meetings, who I’ve had a couple of email exchanges with this month. That mom, whose name is also Leslie, has a teeny tiny baby girl. (Bigger now!)

She sat down next to me and explained that although she looks like crap when she walks around the neighborhood, hadn’t we met at the neighborhood association meeting? Wasn’t my name Liza? And hadn’t I called her on Sunday?

Doh!

I feel silly, but I’m glad she put it all together. There’s a some good energy there, and we’re going to get together this weekend.

Let’s just hope she’s not going to tell me about how she’s moving far far away really horribly soon.