Why Even Offer??!!

Normally Livi goes to a babysitter during the week while G and I work. She's absolutely AWESOME. She is the mother of a friend and takes excellent care of Livi. A couple of weeks ago her husband had to have surgery for prostate cancer (he's doing great!!) so of course she needed a couple of weeks off to take care of him. I completely understand that and only pray that he has a fast recovery.

That being said, for the last few weeks I have been looking for someone to help me watch Livi. Now I will say I do work from home, which really helps as far as my flexibility goes but I also work specific hours and am expected to be working during those hours. Having Livi home with me and no one here to help is REALLY hard. Anyway, my younger SIL, S, offers to help or give us a night out and watch the kids ALL THE TIME. Oh and right now S is not employed. I am not exaggerating to say that every time I ask for help she is unable to do it. I thought "heck, I'll give it another try this time" and asked if she could help me out a few days these last two weeks. Of course the response was "well, I'm going to be busy and think I'll have interviews". That must be for the jobs she HASN'T APPLIED TO! To say I was peeved would be an understatement. If you have no intention of ever helping someone don't offer to do it! I will NOT be asking for her help again.

I then thought I would ask my other SIL, R, who is a stay at home mom but cleans a couple of houses a week. She has helped me out in the past and when I called she said she would definitely help me out a few times, she would just get back to me on the days that would work. Wanna guess how that worked out? Yeah, she didn't help me even one time.

Last week two girls from church watched Livi on Tuesday and then my aunt, C, watched Livi on Wednesday. C is employed full time and used her day off to help me and I am extremely grateful for that. I watched Livi the rest of the week and worked as much as possible, luckily things were a little slow so I wasn't missing too much when I had to take breaks.

I even went so far as to post on facebook that I was frustrated and still had no one to help with Livi this week. To that I got a response from a teenager at church that she could definitely help this week and I got a response from another woman from church that she would check her schedule and definitely help me on her days off. I was even offering to pay!! I wasn't asking for a hand out or free services. I paid the girls that helped me last week. I just needed help. Again, wanna guess how the two offers for help panned out?? Yep, that would be with NO help. I have had Livi with me all week while trying to work. Oh and did I mention that I don't get paid an hourly wage? Nope, I get paid by how much I produce. If I'm constantly interrupted and unable to work then I don't make any money.

So here's the part that I'm most frustrated about. If you can't help me I completely understand. People are busy or just plain have other things they would rather do than help with an almost 2-year-old. That is completely fine, that I understand. But do NOT offer to help and get someone's hopes up if you have no actual intention of doing so. It's just plain rude. And FRUSTRATING. And really, really lets a person down when she feels like no one actually cares enough to follow through.