Back in session…

29 August 2012 By 1 Comment

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a post going up this week about how their kids went back to school, as it’s that time again. The time when some kids are excited, some cry, where some parents cry and some get excited. Me, I’m in the “skip on the way to the car” camp when school starts. Not that I won’t miss my little turkeys, I will. But school seems to start back right around the time when we’re all getting sick of each other and need a break. School provides a routine, a rhythm that doesn’t live in the summer months. And it gives me an easy answer five days a week when I get asked “Where are we going today?”

Back in session...Mr. B started First Grade. And I think he was pretty excited about going to a new school. The day before, he tried on his dress code clothes, and seeing him there in his belt and blinding-white sneakers, I almost lost it. First of all, this is the first time I’ve seen him in a belt. Poor kid weighs about 37 pounds on a good day before pooping, so we usually stick to elastic pants if we can. He had his shirt tucked in, also a first. And he’d gone to great lengths to comb his hair and style it to the side. But it wasn’t just what he was wearing on his body. It was that proud, handsome smile he adorned that melted my heart. A look that seemed to say “I’m a big kid now.”

Back in session...I was glad to see that my little Peanut is not a wee person in a room full of giants, but that he seems to fit right in. There seems to be a calmness in the room when we go in in the mornings, as all the students who have arrived are already busy doing their Morning Work. It’s an energy unfamiliar to Mr. B, and I’m not sure if he knows what to do with it. He’s an active, squirmy kid, full of enthusiasm and energy. And this, being First Grade and all, is more serious than he’s used to. A part of me worries that it will be too structured, that his spirit will get broken. Only time will tell…

He’s telling us that recess is his favorite part of the day, so at least he’s consistent with last year’s favorites. This is the first time he’s eating lunch in a cafeteria where he gets to pick his own food, and he did open up and tell us that the lunch was “really good.” So we asked him what he had for lunch. “Chicken.” (not bad, I think) “oh, and a bagel…and some crackers…and some croutons. They have the best croutons.” That’s my little carbohdyrate!

Back in session... Back in session...Miss P also started Preschool five mornings a week. We ponied up the extra cash to let her stay for lunch, which she was excited about. The school had a few opportunities for her to go in before school started to check out the room and meet her teachers. The first day was a “soft start,” meaning the parents would hang out with the kids for an hour, then we’d take them home and release the hounds fully the next day. But Miss P? She didn’t want us to stick around. Miss Independent. Sure, I wanted to pull my hair out when she was an infant and displayed super-early separation anxiety, but my pediatrician gave me hope that she’d grow out of it sooner than most kids. Boy was he right. Her first day of school, she took off like a rocket, plunging herself in to the room and getting right to work on the wooden kitchen. I still can’t tell how she likes it or what she’s doing, as every question asked to her in the afternoon about her day gets met with a “I don’t know.” So far, she hasn’t asked NOT to go, so I’ll take that as a sign that things are going well.

The hardest change has been the mornings. Last year we lived 5 minutes from school that started at 9am. This year, we’re a good 30min drive with morning traffic to get there at 8am. That means leaving at 7:30, getting the kids up at 6:30 (and for me, getting up at 6am). Considering that towards the end of summer, we were waking up for the day at 7:30, it’s been rough. The kids are used to lazy, leisurely mornings where they eat a long breakfast, lounge in their pajamas and play for a while before having to get ready to leave. Now we’re speeding things along a bit.

And one thing I’m not a fan of? The drive. I have one drop-off and two, TWO pick-ups. Which means I’m in the car for 3 hours a day. After a day or so of this, the kids got sick of listening to music and begged for my iPhone or something. So we made a compromise and checked out some books-on-tape from the library. Surprisingly, it’s been a big hit! We’re already through two books and on to another.

This idea should tide us over until I hit the lottery and can hire a chauffeur.

Filed Under: school

Adventures in babysitters…

20 August 2012 By 14 Comments

Lately, we’ve had a number of activities that have required us to dive in blindly and find good babysitters to watch the kids. By asking the neighbors who they use, we got the numbers of a few high school students in the neighborhood. So far, they’ve worked out well, no 911 calls had to be made, and the kids don’t run and hide when they show up at our doorstep. Success is measured in small steps these days…

As I’m writing their checks, I’m struck by the fact that I’ve hired someone not old enough to vote and legitimately young enough to be my child, to watch my children.

I, myself, was hired out as a babysitter in high school and made quite a nice earning from watching little kids so the parents could get out. As a bonus, I scored some time watching cable channels we didn’t have at home and rummaged through their pantry (ALWAYS keeping in mind the Cardinal Rule of babysitting - never open anything in the pantry and never finish anything).

In Denver, we found some fantastic babysitters through Craigslist, of all places. They were usually college or grad school students, working on some kind of Early Childhood Education degree.

Our last babysitter, Amie, was a true gem. I hired her when it was time to get back to rehearsal after I had Miss P, and I was desperate but apprehensive. Miss P wasn’t colicky, but she was an intense baby with really early separation anxiety, could scream bloody murder at the drop of a hat and continue for a good solid half an hour. At times, I had to put her in her crib and walk out to the backyard to collect myself.

So I was terrified to hire some youngin’ who couldn’t handle the stress. Shaken Baby Syndrome anyone? Then came Amie to the rescue. She was kind, gentle, patient, engaged, and the kids adored her.

Amie had to head to Germany for four months about a year after we hired her, and I once again found myself on the hunt for a temporary babysitter. I did the usual search, narrowed things down to two folks, called their references, ran a background check (both came back fine) and decided to go with the one who seemed a bit more spunky and energetic. We hired her before the winter break, as she was heading back home to the northeast, and she started the first week in January.

I should have known something was off.

After receiving her first check, she called and told me she had problems cashing it and wanted to ask for her pay in cash. Oh, and could I also pay her in advance for the next week since she needed the money to put a deposit on an apartment? I compromised and told her she had until the end of the month to figure out how to deposit our checks, and that this was the only time I’d advance her salary. I would love to say this was the only thing that made me cautious, but it was just the beginning.

Little things started happening that didn’t make sense. I came home one day to find that she had showered. Showered. In our house. On duty.

Huh? Her excuse was that she had started her period and bled through her clothes. Yet she just happened to have a change of clothes AND a towel in her car. For crying out loud, was she homeless??

Then she started eating us out of house and home. I’d come home to warm up leftovers for dinner, only to find that they had all been eaten. Or I’d look for that box of crackers and they were gone. Or that a frozen dinner had turned missing. Again, I jumped to homelessness. What the hell was going on? The kids never really said anything bad about her, so I didn’t give it too much thought.

Then about 5 weeks after she’d been with us, I don’t know what made me do it. But I Googled her. Yes, that’s right, I used Google as a detective tool. And you wanna know what the first thing was that popped up on her? Are you sitting down for this?

Erica was ARRESTED. On CHRISTMAS DAY of all things. For…are you ready?…

Narcotics possession.

After my shocked silence wore off, I lost my shit. Are you f’ing kidding me? What do you have to do to get ARRESTED on Christmas Day??

I had hired someone with a drug record to drive my precious cargo around.

I was livid. Of course, she never divulged any of this to me. And it happened after I had done all my safety nets.

But looking back, everything suddenly made sense! Of course she needed cash instead of a check. And no wonder she ate everything in sight - she had the munchies! It might also explain the mid-day shower.

Scenarios started running through my head of her getting pulled over, searched and arrested with my kids in the car. Horrifying.

So, I did what any good parent would do. I Nanny-cammed her. Well, not exactly. I knew she used my computer, so I left an audio recording software running one day and left my laptop open.

That night, armed with a bottle of wine, I listened to all 5 hours of it with my jaw dropped open. She was okay with the kids…just okay. No real engagement, but no abuse either.

After she had taken Mr. B to school and put Miss P down for a nap, the audio file got real interesting. She spent the next two hours on the phone to her friends while eating not one, but two separate lunches. In those phone calls, she explained to her friends how great the pot was out in Colorado, how she’s figured out how to smoke weed just enough so that she’s not baked all day, and then some stories about her court date that would have her leaving Colorado a good 2 months earlier than our agreed upon date.

Then she went outside for about ten minutes. God only knows what she was doing.

A quick search on my computer showed that she had been looking for jobs at a marijuana dispensary in her spare time. Clearly this wasn’t the occasional party toker, this was someone who used pot as a way of living. Say what you will about legalization and all, I could care less. What you do in your spare time is your business, but if that’s your lifestyle choice, I don’t want you watching my children.

I was sweaty, panicked, betrayed, angry…you name it. How dare this woman lie to me, take care of my children, and try to weasel her way around things.

I came up with a story about how Miss P had suddenly gotten in to the daycare center we had her waitlisted on and that we were giving her half a week’s notice for termination. I never told her I knew all of this information, but it didn’t matter. I wanted her out of our lives for good.

Thankfully the other babysitter I had interviewed was still available and stepped in to help out and turned out to be fantastic. But I still feel a bit burned by that whole experience.

As parents, we put so much trust in to the people that look after our kids when we want/need to get away. But how do we know we’re putting that trust in the right hands?

Filed Under: babysitters

30 days…

14 August 2012 By 6 Comments

We’ve been in this house for almost a month now. The boxes have all been removed and carted away, and we are finally beginning to remember where we put things. Our living room furniture comes this afternoon, and it will feel good to have something fill up the giant hole that was our living room. Sure, it puts a damper on the kids huge wrestling area, but I’m sure they’ll manage to find somewhere else to get hurt and make some noise.

30 days...

As for how I’m doing? It’s been an adjustment. I haven’t danced in over a month, and it’s taken that long for me to actually miss it. But I’m not sure if I miss the moving around/artistic part, or if I really just missing having somewhere to go two days a week that satisfied me and only me. I have spent the last month organizing our home and making our family comfortable, finding things to do with the kids to make their bodies and minds active and engaged. Then there’s the hole day-to-day menu of things to do around the house: laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc., not to mention things we’re trying to do to improve our living situation (researching trees, organizing the basement, hanging photos and artwork, etc).

So, basically, for the first time since I’ve had children, I am a completely full-time Stay At Home Mom.

The title is freaking me out. Granted, I know that this time with my kids is fleeting and short, and soon they will want nothing to do with me, that in a blink of an eye they will be skipping off to college, blah blah blah. But I’m also feeling like I’m spending most of my day satisfying the needs of my family, and very little time taking care of myself. Furniture deliveries and the like have put a screeching halt to my trips to the gym, and given the fact that I’m drinking and eating my feelings, I’ve gained a Suburban Five Pounds in the last few weeks. I’m one step away from making sweats my Outfit d’Jour. And it needs to stop.

30 days...

As much as I hate the fact that it means an end to summer, I’m looking forward to the kids starting school next week. It means that for 3 hours in the morning, I will have time to focus on Gina. I plan on getting my ass to the gym, swallowing my pride and walking in to a dance class, and doing the hunt that will lead me back to something job-related. What that is, I don’t quite know yet. But I will have silence around me to think about it finally. And maybe, just maybe, for the first time in a long while, it will give me the time away from my kids to actually miss them.

Filed Under: SAHM

5 signs you might be an Olympics junkie…

6 August 2012 By 5 Comments
5 signs you might be an Olympics junkie...

I’ll go ahead and admit it…we’re slightly addicted to watching the Olympics in our house. It’s been on religiously every night for the past 10 days, keeping Jon and I up way too late as we get our athletic fix. We’ve moved past the first few “casual” stages of addiction and have seated ourselves right up next to the line of obsession. Luckily, we’ve dealt with this before and have been able to recognize the signs, but you may need help to determine if you, too, are an Olympics junkie:

5) Like a bleery-eyed newborn parent making coffee without even thinking in the morning, you reach for your gadget de jour as soon as your feet hit the floor, searching for the day’s newest results, perusing the agenda for the day’s events, and hoping to find out what kind of crazy sneakers Ryan Lotche is wearing today.

5 signs you might be an Olympics junkie...

4) Bedtime? What’s that? Despite knowing full well that those little alarm clocks called preschoolers will wake you up at 6am, you stay up way past midnight watching the day’s competitions. It’s easy to get sucked in. That little tease right before commercial…”Next up, Usain Bolt attempts to pick his nose while winning the 100m dash…” hooks you in, and before you know it, you’ve wasted away six hours of your night that should have been spent cleaning up dinner, “reconnecting” with your partner, or getting some sleep.

3) People avoid you all day because they know you constantly check your phone for the latest medal count. Everyone knows you, YOU, are The Spoiler Alert. In an effort to be the most up-to-date expert on what’s happening with the Olympics, you have ruined others’ efforts to avoid finding out what happened before they get home to watch the highlights in primetime. You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut about Gabby Douglas, could you? Jerk.

2) You’ve gone beyond the realm of enthusiast and have created an alternate reality for yourself where You Are An Olympic Athlete! You can’t stop yourself from dismounting the bed/chairs/sofa/stairs without sticking the landing. Before you enter the shower, you flail your arms wildly, flapping your arms behind your back in that wild fashion only Michael Phelps can make look good. Playtime with your kids is tinged with competition, and your kids duck from your javelin-like throws. You’re stretching way too often, my friend. And the simple fact that you’ve shaved…everywhere? Yeah, no one needs to see that.

5 signs you might be an Olympics junkie...

1) That cauldron you’ve constructed in your backyard to house your very own Olympic Flame is a major fire hazard. If you’ve made it this far, you’ve gone over the edge. Get yourself an intervention. Take solace in the fact that this madness will come to an end this weekend and you’ll be forced to deal with your addiction cold turkey, or turn your attention elsewhere (like the kids? work? making a normal dinner? Rats.) Have no fear, Winter Olympics is but a mere 18-months away…

Filed Under: 2012 Olympics

Rockin’ the suburbs…

2 August 2012 By 4 Comments

If you’d asked me a decade ago if I’d ever move out to the suburbs, I would have grimaced, given you a “girl, please!” look and ended the conversation right then and there. I was a Big City Girl, living in New York City, reveling in all the urban glory and feeling as if there was no other place on earth I’d rather be.

Rockin the suburbs...
This? Not interested…

When we moved to Denver from Manhattan, I was pretty nervous about getting away from the concrete jungle and being swallowed up by suburban life. We were very precise about where we chose to live, picking an area of town that was still pretty hip and happening, yet not downtown, not out in the ‘burbs with cookie-cutter architecture. It was an adorable part of town (Washington Park, if you’re familiar with Denver ‘hoods), with lots of charm and homes a century old. However, we lived on a busy street, full of foot traffic, loud cars and motorcycles idling at our corner, and 8 foot privacy fences. We never let our kids play outside in the front yard without being out there with them, the kids never rode their bikes further than 10 feet without some kind of obstacle. Sure, the fence provided a boundary for the kids in the backyard, and we could let them run loose back there. But Mr. B couldn’t hit a baseball in the backyard without it jumping a fence and rolling into the alley. After 6+ years, we were finally ready for some space.

Rockin the suburbs...

Enter: our house here in Ohio. The antithesis of urban living. Not that where we live is entirely rural, but on the other side of the street that serves as the boundary for our subdivision? Farms. FARMS, y’all. We have seen deer in the empty lot across the street. There are hawks flying overhead (to which, when asked by the kids what they’re circling and looking for, I tell them “little children who misbehave and don’t listen to their parents.” Gives them nightmares, sure, but it also makes them deliciously quiet for a minute or two.)

Moving out here to the suburbs was a bit of a pill to swallow. So much so that when Mr. B told one of his teachers last year “We’re moving to the suburbs!”, his teacher exclaimed, “Wow, I can tell that’s a really big deal for your family.” Big deal, indeed. I think my fear was that we would move out here and find there was no diversity, no character. Everyone would be driving minivans and playing tennis and show up on our doorstep all fake smiles, stepfordish and all that. But so far, things haven’t been as vanilla as I’d feared. Our block actually has a diverse ethnic makeup, which is great. I haven’t seen too many houses that look the same. The neighbors have been warm and welcoming, even bringing over mass quantities of baked goods and offering advice for pediatricians and grocery stores. Our next-door neighbors even graciously invited us over to their home last week for dinner while we experienced our very first power outage, and appreciated the warm glow of lights and microwaveability from their generator. In Denver? Yeah, we’d be on our own in that scenario, toughing it out by ourselves as they other neighbors waited things out in their own homes. So, I guess there are some cons to living in the urban jungle after all.

Still, there are things I’m not quite accustomed to about this type of living. I’m still not comfortable leaving our doors unlocked. So much so that we got ourselves locked out of the house last week (but, hey, I now know the number of the nearest locksmith, so, BONUS!). Jon is fine leaving the garage door wide open as we take a walk around the neighborhood, and the city girl in me fights the urge to want to run back and lock things down. I still can’t seem to let the kids leave the confines of our house without me being on their heels. Perhaps someday soon I will be able to let go of all of my fear and pessimism and enjoy the security and openness that the suburbs promises.

What’s been your experience with the suburbs? Feel free to share you tips on surviving suburban life…

Filed Under: moving, suburbs