(My twins have been in kindergarten for three months, and we are very happy with the place. The carers are great and our twins’ “trust-person” is such a joyful lady; we like her and so do the kids. There is just one older, slightly grumpy carer, who always takes some little thing to berate us about, mostly suggesting we keep the kids at home whenever something is slightly out of order. My husband works full-time, and I do three days a week. The other two days, the kids usually still go, but mostly because they have more fun there than with me at home, doing laundry and such. One day, the daycare is scheduled to close an hour earlier. As I am working, my parents-in-law are picking up the kids as usual and they have been informed about the earlier pick-up multiple times. Four minutes past the time the kids should have been picked up, I get a call at work.)
Old Lady Carer: “Mrs. [My Name], you know that the kids need to be picked up an hour earlier today.”
(Of course, I fear the grandparents forgot, excuse myself a million times, and end the call to start the emergency phone marathon.)
Old Lady Carer: “You do that. [Twins] are sitting here and are waiting.”
(I feel so bad about this. My head is full of pictures of them sitting in the empty kindergarten hallway, with their little backpacks on their knees, lonely and forgotten. Possibly crying. I call the grandparents’ mobile but no one answers. Then, I call their landline — no answer. I call my husband and tell him his parents are not there and he tries to reach them again. Meanwhile, I call my mum, who lives near the kindergarten, but only has a bike and no car. She agrees that she could be there in about thirty minutes. I tell her to get ready and I will call my husband again to see if he has reached his parents. He has not and is reasonably worried. His parents are seventy and you never know. As we both work in different places than our hometown, my mum would be the fastest to reach the kids. I call her and she tells me she will get going right away! I try to call back the kindergarten. It is now twenty past. Nobody answers. I try twice more before reading texts from my husband telling me that his parents’ mobile phone is still not being answered. I try the daycare again, and finally, someone picks up.)
Different Care Person: “[Kindergarten], [Care Person] speaking.”
Me: “I tried to reach the grandparents, but they aren’t answering the phone. I could be there in an hour, but as we don’t want the twins to wait any longer than necessary, my mother is on her way on her bike and will be there in about twenty minutes, I guess. We are quite worried that the grandparents are not answering any calls and we hope it’s nothing serious…“
Different Care Person: “Wait, wait, wait. What’s up? What are you talking about? I don’t know what you mean.”
Me: “Aren’t you already closed? And [Twins] have not been picked up?”
Different Care Person: “[Twins]? No, they have been picked up already. The grandparents arrived extra early, and we just forgot the time chatting until now, I guess. And the twins have been playing so happily all this time.”
Me: “But [Older Care Lady] called me to tell me they were sitting there alone and waiting.“
Different Care Person: “She probably did not see us chatting outside; that’s the only explanation I can think of. Everything is absolutely fine; don’t worry!”
Me: “Well, I’m glad about that. But that was really unnecessary.“
(She apologised again, but I told her it was fine as long as the kids were fine. I then called my mum, who was pedaling as fast as a sixty-year-old lady can, to make her turn around. She was relieved, too, but peeved, as expected. My husband texted me, meanwhile, that he’d reached his parents’ mobile in the end; they just had left it in the car while chatting in the daycare’s playground while the kids were still running around happily. All is well that ends well, but maaan, that was an annoying hour.)
