I'm stuck on this one right now. This is the family that sent a sick child twice in one week and it seems like they were snowing me.

The first time, I found out from older dcg that younger dcb had been given meds to help him sleep the night before. When I txted mom and dad I got two differing answers from them.

A few days later, dcb was dropped off sick again. He was pale, tired, and couging like crazy. When DCD picked up, he told me the mom "didn't intend" to send him sick.

But mom is a nurse. I find it very hard to believe that I could tell so easily that he was sick, but dcm was unable to tell.

Mom was involved in some extra (completely optional) activities at the time, and I'm guessing that what happened was that she over-scheduled herself and decided to land it on me coz she was running into trouble with her work or maybe finances coz she'd missed work. Idk.

Mom only works one and a half days a week. She has promised me many times that it's no problem for her to trade shifts at the hospital. But she sent dcb very sick last winter too, and because it was just a coughing illness, I didn't pick up on it right away and DD caught it--but three times worse. Once again, she's a nurse...

Also, I would have to say that 3.5 yo dcb is not getting what he needs in the way of guidance at home. He is very naughty with rules and barely ever minds. The plans they have going involve long term rewards, whereas this kid lives in the moment.

So I'm wondering if I warn or term.

My warning would be that I never, ever want to see those kids sick again. Ever. No symptoms. Either it really is easy for mom to trade shifts at work or it isn't. If it isn't, we are not a good fit. At 1.5 days a week, I don't see how mom and dad can't work out sick care between them, even though dad does travel some.

I've never had to term anyone before. I've had two families leave in a bad way due to me telling them "no" on some stuff then they got offended. But this family will probably never do that, because they only want 1.5 days a week usually, and the .5 day is like 3:30 til 6pm. I only charge a low hourly rate for them, and I let them pick up at 6:15 if traffic is bad or whatever. I'm pretty sure that almost no one else would be willing to do what I do for them.

But I'm a bit worried about terming. Next week, it could be a different family having some kind of stress or conflict in their lives and dumping on me. Idk. Maybe the difference is that with this family it's not stress...it's self created. Mom just wanted to go off and have a good time and didn't care about dumping all her inconvenience on me and then deceiving me.

Having a bit of a hard time here...

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