flea

Dillo has had an ongoing issue with another kid in his class named Adam. Adam is about Dillo's age - I think a few months older - but he is a tiny guy. So, in classic Napoleon complex style, he's really aggressive and physical, and Dillo is often the recipient of his aggression. He also has an older brother, who maybe models this kind of behavior. On Monday Dillo came home saying, "Adam hit me 5 times today," and mr. flea has gotten to the point that he's encouraging Dillo to fight back. Not physically, but we suggested that he yell really loud, "ADAM STOP HITTING ME" whenever Adam hits him, which would have the dual effect of reacting strongly without hitting back, and notifying the teachers. One of the big issues is Dillo's main teacher is off at Montessori training for 6 weeks, so they have a new person who needs to get a handle on all the issues. I'm so disappointed that the main teacher is gone, right at the end of Dillo's time - like we needed a transition 2 months before the big transition to public school.

Casper, for her part, is back to last summer's anxiety about clothes at the YMCA. Yesterday she had a "topsy-turvy day" - got roughed up playing basketball at dropoff, in line, and then during some outside game. One of the coaches had a talk with her and she was able to pull herself together and not let it ruin her day. She told us all about it and was proud of herself at pickup. But then this morning she got all small and said she didn't want to go to camp because kids were telling her she looked like a boy because of her (really cool and awesome) skull sneakers (which are in fact boys'). When pressed she said this kind of comment happened from different kids, not specifically boys or girls, at different times of day. So I spoke to a coach this morning about it, and Casper wore her purple Lands End shoes (which she HATED last summer, geez.)

mr. flea is taking both situations hard partly because he was teased as a kid (at school, for his name, to which Casper said, "That's not a weird name!?!", and in the neighborhood because he was the youngest). So it's hard for him not to project.

So, we're limping along this week. And I've been up at 5am or before every day (thanks to Dillo the incredibly early waking boy).

I keep forgetting to mention, Dillo's 2 year molars are coming in. They don't seem to be hurting him, much - neither of my kids has been a painful teether at any phase - but he can definitely feel them and thinks they are weird. He puts his finger in his mouth to touch them a lot, and asks me to put my finger in and rub them.

In day care news, it occurred to me that even if the current day care moves to a new facility next July, they are planning to only have children up to age 3. And, of course, Dillo will be 3 next July. They would welcome him at Athens Montessori, but that is not a year round program. And I actually think McPhaul is not a year round program either; need to call them to be sure. Ten months of full-day care does not allow one to hold down a job, yo.

Aren't there any freakin' working two-career families in this town who aren't university professors with summers off? Honestly, I don't know any. And it would be nice to have someone to commiserate with.

http://www.athensparent.com/articles/featuregen/childcare.html

Child Care Resource and Referral Agency of Northeast Georgia at Athens at 2-1-1; 706-353-1313; or 800-924-5085.

UGA McPhaul Center - excellent, 1-3 year wait list. Only $20 to get on list - worth it as a long shot?

Waseca Montessori - good rep., but only school year (10 month)?? availability? location not great.

Champions for Children - wins award, big center, expanding to other locations. availability? has summer camp for rising first graders? location not good - far W outside loop.

Lots of places there's NO info on the web. Lots of places with web presence are church-affiliated and make much of their religious content.

Summer camps look really thin on the ground, too. There is a YMCA camp, with good hours and good prices, but they seem much more religious than in Durham.

Ugh. Meeting at current day care Thursday night to see what is up.

The big issue remains the children's sleep. We got Dillo to sleep yesterday afternoon by driving around in the car "exploring", and he made the transfer inside and slept for 4 hours. But then didn't get to bed until 9 and was up too many times in the night as usual, and up in the morning at 7. Casper didn't get to bed last night until 10 (was lying awake in her bed for at least the final hour) and slept in until 10am. She still looks awful (bags under the eyes and cough), and how we're going to be ready for a 7:45 start of school a week from today I have no idea. Dillo slept a little in the car late this afternoon (more "exploring") but woke up grumpy after 45 minutes and took a long time to regain his humanity. I've asked mr. flea to put him down tonight and there has been a lot of crying. I really need to get him nightweaned (first) and sleeping through (second) and he really doesn't want either. But my sanity is seriously going from the chronic exhaustion.

Dillo went on a visit to his new daycare this morning and it was a success. mr. flea was able to leave him for 45 minutes while he filled out paperwork and talked to the director. He hugged me tightly when he got home but was able to tell me about the visit (Jenny and Terry are the teachers; he played on the playground; he ate raisins for snack). He might be better cared for by them, at this point; at least they could probably get him to nap. I'm honestly considering sending him even before we need to. We're paying for all of August anyway and the structure would be better for him than the mess we have going on here. They even have home-cooked vegetarian meals, whereas here we eat hot dogs and tater tots.

We don't need to send Dillo to day care soon any more because mr. flea was unable to get his "I finished my dissertation" letter in time to be processed to start work on Monday, so now he can't start work until the 18th. I'm not happy about this; the whole reason we had the clusterfuck of dissertation defense + move two days apart was to make the August 4 start date. We could have had a much easier time of things if we'd known. It's like the fucking dissertation has to come around and bite me in the ass one last time. (The letter was delayed because mr. flea's revisions needed revisions, due to formatting issues, and the office that checks in dissertations was moving this week.) So, we had recriminations and defensiveness while we drove around "exploring" this afternoon. That was fun.

In good news, our social whirl continues; we've been invited to a party tomorrow night. It's at 7:30 pm and no kids, so if we make it it will probably be as a tag-team, since even if we could find a babysitter at this date I would hesitate to inflict our overtired and ill-behaved children on some innocent teenager, at bedtime. The family has a daughter Casper's age with the same name. The other good news is we found mr. flea's bicycle helmet (which was missing in NC) and the power cord to my computer, which somehow got packed in a box marked "Christmas lights."

Casper's first day the the Y went well. They played outside; it was warm. mr. flea found that the coffee shop he'd intended to camp at near the Y was closed, but he ended up at Foster's and thinks it will make a good base. He's trying to save a trip. Foster's lacks wifi but 2 hours a day of imposed writing is a good thing, IMO.

It's Montessori Week at Casper's school, and today is Flower Arranging Day, which means I was in the frat boys' front yard stealing their daffs at 6:15. I feel a little bad about it - if we had anything in bloom I'd certainly use our own - but not only are the frat boys, I suspect, not avid gardeners, the particular daffs I stole were blooming between a large bush and the foundation, so not even really giving a show to the street. So really, I'm increasing the world's beauty by my theft. Now if only I can keep the cat from them.

mr. flea read the first chapter of Homer Price to Casper last night, which meant that as part of her bedtime procrastination routine she called, "I need to wash my hands! I fed a skunk today, and they are smelly!" While I helped her with the faucet, she earnestly explained about how Mrs. B had brough a skunk to school today. Ah, truth and the 4 year old mind...

Dillo had his 18 month checkup today, and it was a festival of tears. He started crying the minute the nurse walked us back to the exam room, whimpered while I undressed him, screamed and flailed while he was weighed and measured, cried for a long time back in the room while we waited for Dr. Betty, cried at the stethoscope, cried at the otoscope. During almost all of this he was in my arms (except on the scale). There weren't any shots, but I suspect he remembered that there have been in the past.

He's still running 50%ile, 32 and 1/4 inches, 26 lb 3 oz. Healthy and fine. (Shorter and heavier than Casper was, which you can tell just by looking.)

Then we dropped him at daycare and he cried and cried there, too. Sophie was giving him a zillion hugs and he just clung to me and cried.

So now I'm back at work, not working, sad. mr. flea is also having a down day and that rubbed off on me.

First, it is my birthday, but I'm sort of over it already. I've got a lot going on today (must do all homework for the week, and pack, since we're driving to visit friends in VA right after work tomorrow). I accidentally opened my (very nice) present from my mother, though I asked mr. flea to wrap it since Casper thinks "birthday = opening presents." Not sure what/if he got me anything. Don't expect much else; I bought myself some Dansko Roxys in purple suede off ebay (finally! only $51 including shipping!) but they won't come for a while yet.

My current obsession is this: http://www.flickr.com/groups/theworkingcloset/pool/ A blog I read has people posting what they wear to work every day for the month of September. It's mostly mothers - working at work, working from home, working as a mother. Well, it's keeping me off the streets, anyway.

The new routine has begun, mostly: I am working 8-4:30. mr. flea does the morning domestic shift, getting Dillo to daycare at around 8:30 and Casper to school by 9. At 3:30, Beth picks up Casper and Emmett at school. Yesterday they went to the library. I leave work at 4:30, get Dillo and am usually home by about 5. I have been carrying him from the bus in my arms, but today I'm trying the big Kelty backpack. We switch to the double jogger and walk up to pick up Casper from Emmett's house - about 12 minutes. Then home. So, with all swiftness, it's about 5:30 by the time we are all home, and I'm all sweaty (at least when it's 95 degrees). So I'm going to have to work on pre-prepping meals, weekend cooking, that sort of thing, which we've done before. I got spoiled over the summer when mr. flea picked us all up at 4. This way he will get more work done, though.

Thursday morning Dillo was in bed with us at 6 am or so, and we were all sort of struggling to wake up for the day and lying around. (Aside: he's been sleeping really well, several nights with only one wakeup at 12 or 1, and then sleeping through until 6 or 6:30! Go Team!) He was putting his mouth on my bare belly and managed to zerbert me, and I laughed and so he tried again, and every time he succeeded we both giggled like crazy. He is such a sweet darling boy.

The other thing he's done several times lately is stick his finger in his own belly button, sort of as a self-calming thing, when he's in bed. This hits my giggle spot too.

I hope today is a better day in the toddler room. Miss Apryl said he didn't cry after mr. flea left (mr. flea stayed for 20 minutes to try and get him adjusted) but he was sort of withdrawn and kept to himself. And then very happy to be back in his old room in the afternoon, where Ayden put a bucket on his head and laughed uproariously, and Myles (who is 10 months and a total butterball) actually made some effort at being mobile for a change.

I am helping out on a field trip for Casper's school next week. The woman who is organizing it, one of the parents, sent out the email asking for volunteers to the list for the class - which is both parents of every single kid. Note that this is a full-time, pricey day care, so in the vast majority of families both parents work full-time.

All of the (7) volunteers are mothers, except for the Looniversity VP of HR, who apparently is the grandfather of one of the kids in the class. (Which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, as my parents' advocacy group sent him a letter that seems to have gone off like a bomb over there in the admin building...)

But, NO dads? I was going to make mr. flea volunteer, but he's flying to Tampa that day.

Sigh.

In Casper's new class at school, the teachers send home a daily summary of the class activities, a weekly lesson plan, and a weekly note specifically about Casper, all by email. I like this method a lot, and I always try to make a point to talk to Casper about a specific book I know they read that morning.

Today I got an email from a woman who was a teacher in Casper's old class, and has just moved to her new class. She commented on the fact that this new class has brought out a lot of new things in Casper - a greater degree of independence, more willingness to talk to the other students. We were just talking about this at home, how Casper seems more mature now and also how happy she is to be in this class. Part of it is her favorite friends, the twins, are in it, but I think it's mostly that the vibe is where she's ready to be - she was ready to move up from the younger class some time before there was an opening.

One thing about this day care that makes me astonished is the poor level of literacy of the vast majority of the teachers she (and Dillo) have had. All of them are high school graduates, and many of them have Associate's degrees (generally 2 year degrees in childhood development from a community college.) I am so used to communicating on the internet (at work, and in my social life) with highly literate, highly verbal people. We even tend to use grammar and punctuation, and many of us spellcheck obsessively!

I don't think it's bad for the kids that their providers are not Word People, but it does make it hard to feel like I'm clearly communicating with them. This, more than anything to do with race (most of them are not white) or class (most of them are not paid much less than me, although I am much better educated, so it depends how you define class) makes me feel different from them.