would you believe ds (5) or the childminder? childminer took ds and the children elsewhere

[user1469643462]

It is the summer holidays so ds has to be with a childminer, for 3 days a week. I pay her for the actual care she provides, then i pay for any visits to places on top of that, they were supposed to be going to the zoo today and i had paid £21 for ds's zoo ticket and i know that isnt loads but tbh with the cost i had already paid for her to look after him it was almost today's wages! ds goes there with 2 boys and a little girl aswell all around the same age give or take. Ds got home and was telling me all about his trip to the local museum (which was free) i did not have a problem with that he seemed to have had a great time. I phoned up the childminder and asked if she could just paypal the money back over and she said that she had no idea what i was going on about and that she took them to the zoo I know children do love to use their imagination, so i was a bit undecided, ds kept going on about the objects he had seen and told me a story about a man showing them the kids bit. ds has never been to this museum and it was just odd how well he was explaining it. I would love to phone the other parents but tbh i dont actually know them! it's all very odd...

Well I think it is the Childminder that actually thinks a Zoo is a Museum and vice versa?

Not necessarily, Blondes - the coin-pressing is often very popular and it's quite possible that the CM didn't want to wait in a long queue for something she didn't consider to be the main point of the zoo! It was probably only in hindsight that she realised that out of all the day's activities, this was the one that the little boy had been most excited about. To her, at the time, it may also have been an extra expense she didn't want to incur as well as (probably) buying drinks, snacks or icecreams for the children. And remember - expenses are only "tax-allowable" if the childminder earns enough to be paying tax, which many are not.

Ask DS these 3 simple questions, and then you will know:

1. What did you do with the coins?
2. Which was the stinkiest animal house?
3. Which animals did the biggest poos? (there is a little stand by the elephants at the moment where one of the zookeepers lets you hold an actual elephant poo!) Any 5 year old worth their salt will have fully size-ordered the poos in their heads.

I'd also see if you can grab Wednesday boy and ask him about the zoo directly.

I'm with the pp who thinks she took Tues kids to the zoo and Weds kids to the museum, and was probably going to reverse at some point, so asked for all the money to make things easier, and then got herself in a muddle/caught out. Silly of her, but now she's dug a bit of a hole. And if this is the case the thing I'd be most cross about is her putting your DS on the spot and saying 'remember the zoo'.

Having said all of that, if you're in a pickle this summer with your DM/DMIL letting you down, and DS is having a nice time, I'd probably just suck it up for the remaining month, but not use her again.

I'm at the stage where even a receipt wouldn't satisfy me because it only shows she has been and doesn't show that OP's DS has been. Same for photos that are generic zoo photos and he isn't in them. I don't think I could have handled this in the way OP has - kudos to her for having been cool as a cucumber, I would have been on the phone to cm to get to the bottom of it and probably made myself look hysterical about rhinos.

amprev the receipt would be dated, so OP would know whether it was the right day, I'm struggle to imagine a scenario where a childminder - even a REALLY crap one, would send a 5yo child to a museum while she went to the zoo with the other children [sceptical]
OP update on receipt needed!

Ah, yes.

Place marking!

To zoo or not to zoo that is the question!

(Yep place marking)

Even if the childminder doesn't have to takes photos for evidence due to the child's age, surely any childminder worth their salt would take a couple anyway, at a big trip like the zoo?! That's the part I find the most unbelievable, actually. I do get that children can fixate on one thing/one element of the whole day which could explain the coin thing...

I don't find the non photo taking a big deal, unless it's a specified requirement. I'd prefer the childminder to be concentrating on the kids and talking to them about what they are seeing, than trying to take photos.
I just want a photo of the receipt!

Meh, this whole thread is just one big trolly advert for Chester Zoo...

I wanna go!!! I wanna see an ELEPHANT and press a coin and see the dinosaurs...

Of no help whatsoever to the OP (but then this is AIBU), but "I saw this, and thought of you"

www.theonion.com/article/dad-thought-he-could-make-it-out-of-zoo-without-bu-36319

CLEVELAND—Making his way toward the facility’s parking lot Thursday with nearly $40 in battery-operated purchases, local father Nick Kelsey conceded to reporters he was incorrect in his belief that he could make it out of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo without buying his kids any light-up shit. “I went in figuring I’d have to get them each a Chipwich and maybe a balloon animal, but definitely not any of that plastic light-up junk,” said Kelsey, 42, who explained he had envisioned himself and his family making it through the various animal enclosures and getting back to the car with at most a plush toy, not three glow necklaces and wands that flash multiple colors. “Boy, I was wrong on that one. Why do they even sell this light-up crap here? This is a zoo.” As of press time, every one of the light-up items was wedged underneath the Kelsey family car’s passenger seat.

So, did DS return with a light up "thing" ?

I've never felt so invested in the outcome of a thread before.

Come on OP, BTFU

Any 5 year old worth their salt will have fully size-ordered the poos in their heads.

Plenty of 5-year-olds would have boaked at that and run a million miles from anything poo-related. Not all kids are the same.

I took my nephews to the zoo earlier this year and didn't see anything poo-related.

Incidentally I do think the CM is probably not being honest, I just don't get all the "well ALL children are obsessed with animals/poo/make up stories/don't make up stories/react this exact way to things" posts.

You need new childcare.

It sounds like shes initially made an innocent enough mistake by charging you for a day out that your DS wasnt able to attend as it was not his day, but then weirdly tried to cover it up by taking him somewhere else, letting you believe that she had delivered her end of the arrangement. Really very odd.

Maybe she is just trying to dig her way out of the bizzare mess she's created by not just fessing up in the first place? Either way, I couldn't trust her judgement now after all this and would make other arrangements.

Yep, I think it's safe to say he didn't go to the zoo. I'll attach a pic in a sec, but out of curiosity, does anyone know what a Chester Zoo ticket looks like? She has given me a ticket but I do not believe for one moment that a zoo would give such a shitty paper ticket.

OMG she is really fobbing you off with a fake ticket?

Has this still not been settled yet?? Let's see the ticket then? Not that I would have any clue what it should look like.

I'm frantically googling, along with the rest of MN I imagine! I can tell you what the ticket looked like in 1997

I have followed this thread since it started. Now marking my place for outcome.