The EOTS is simple – scam your kids into behaving for the entire month of December by telling them Santa’s elf is watching them and reporting back.  Every night he flies off to the North Pole, then returns and finds a different perch from which to spy.  It seemed like a delightful concept.  I read the kids the included book as a bedtime story, and the next morning Emmy burst out of her room yelling, “Mommy!  Did the elf come? Let’s go find him!”  Adorable…until Alex found the elf, took one look and skeptically proclaimed him “not real.”

The next morning I woke up in a blind panic at 4:30, having realized I forgot to move the elf.  Fearful of ruining the Christmas magic and cementing Alex’s theory that the elf was a fake, I tiptoed downstairs, relocated the elf, then stumbled back to bed.

That evening I remembered and perched him on top of a picture frame hanging above our couch.  Later the next morning, I heard thundering feet running, followed by panicked muttering coming from the playroom.  Investigation revealed that Emmy had ignored the rule of “don’t touch the elf” (not my rule, it’s in the book!) and tried to climb up the end table to get to the elf.  When he fell off and landed face first on the couch, she bolted, fearful that she’d killed him, or at the very least taken his magic.  When they weren’t looking, I shoved him in a drawer and told them he must have left to go try and get his magic back.

The next morning he reappeared, again when I remembered to move him at 5am.  (Sensing a pattern?)  Seeing as how I’m running out of places to put him that are both out-of-reach and not hazardous to climbers, I’m thinking this little game should have started around December 15 versus the day after Thanksgiving.

In a spirited frenzy of goodwill and this-is-the-most-fun-tradition-ever, I purchased EOTS for both my sisters-in-law on Black Friday.  I hope they still like me by the end of the month.  I suspect otherwise.

• Discover your almost-5-year-old hiding in the pantry scarfing Bunny Grahams like some bulimic cast member of The Hills and then carefully disposing of the evidence, flying the Flag of Fairness in your face after you refused him a snack on the grounds that he didn’t eat any of his dinner.
• Race frantically through the mall in the last 20 minutes before you have to leave for a meeting trying to find something…anything! for your kids to wear for school picture day – TOMORROW because, well you just forgot.  (And you are still trying to make up for spring picture day when the kids get to hold a real live bunny, in which older child is wearing a shirt with a red-eyed cobra on it that looks like it is about to attack the bunny.)
• Learn that your 3-year-old, upon being asked what she liked about herself in a discussion at school on why each child is “special” responds with “I like my BOOTY” as she jumps up and points to her butt. This is recorded for posterity on the preschool wall, next to other children’s comments about liking their hair or knees.
• Then think to yourself that it could be worse, you could be the mom of that kid who exclaimed “I like my privates!”

It’s happening.  The other day I was watching a girl feed her baby the same kind of organic baby food that I used to feed Em and I got a sweep of nostalgia.  Today as I looked through my list of categories over there I realized that I probably don’t need “baby stuff” or “baby firsts” anymore.

I swore this would never happen to me.

Last week, I came to home to a request. Alex would like TWO babies. We already have one, but he would really like two. Preferably another girl. Or boy, depending on when you ask.

I never finished or published that post.

Today:

Nevermind.  For all the nostalgia, I can’t forget pumping.

I was informed the other day at school conferences that Emmy and Alex are both delightful to have in class and that they should do really well when they transition next month.  I had to ask for clarification on that transition thing, and it turns out that Emmy - my youngest, my baby – will be transitioning into the class Alex is in now and he’ll transition to the pre-K class. 

Whoa.  For some reason, this news hit me like a ton of bricks.  I’ve always known that through a trick of  birthdays and September cut-off age for school that Emmy would be a grade behind Alex even though they are almost two years apart in age.  But for her to actually be in the class that he is in NOW, just seems so sudden, doesn’t it?  Like, why rush things?  And what happened to me going part-time and spending days creating crafts and doing memorable, childhood-defining activities with them? 

 Next year, it will be too late – kindergarten is all-day.  There will be no random visits to  Grandma and Grandpa whenever we feel like it.  There will be no crowd-avoiding- family trip to Disney when all the other kids are in school unless we do it THIS YEAR.  (Which is completely irrelevant, as I 1) have little desire to go to Disney and 2) have it on good authority that I am almost guaranteed to come back exhausted and in need of a spa retreat.)  All of a sudden my work and life will be defined by a school calendar.

Now I see.  I see the need for three.  Not that I’m going there.  But I get it.

Obviously I didn’t willingly sit back and let things happen, but not being able to talk my way out of my speeding ticket or express my EXTREME displeasure at yet another extension for the kicked-out kid at daycare turned out to be a fine way of being forced to learn something.  My tendency to obsess over and constantly talk about whatever happened to me really just prolongs the agony and annoyance.  It’s now been over a week since I lost my voice and I still can’t talk normally.  Trying to “save” the voice I have left forces me to choose my words carefully, to be discretionary when yelling at the kids, and to think about whether some things really need to be said at all.

With that in mind, the 24-hour change in Alex is remarkable now that this other child is no longer at daycare.  A bully since he was old enough to walk, this boy kept the other kids constantly on the lookout for sneaky pushes and pokes, and delivered Emily Kate’s first and only smack to the face when she was only 10 months old.  When he wasn’t picking at the other kids, he was screaming his head off about something or other, refusing to follow directions and loudly expressing displeasure over everything he was asked to do.  I know this not only from observation, but because my kids started to bring it home over the last few months, reacting as if I’d told them I was going to chop off a toe when I would offer a snack they didn’t like.

I realized last night how much the situation was wearing on me, on all of us, when I thought back to those mornings when I couldn’t wait to get back to my car and away from this child.  Just 10 minutes with him was a horrible way to start my morning, and here I was dropping off my kids to spend the next 8 hours with him.  Then they would come home defensive and cranky and I would wonder why, and even worse get mad at them for behavior that was pretty much inevitable given what they were exposed to all day. 

Last night and this morning, Alex in particular was a different child – sweet, helpful, polite, playful.  It’s as if he understands that the situation is finally remedied and he doesn’t have to be defensive anymore.  He nicely told me he didn’t like his dinner and wasn’t going to eat it, rather than whining and getting angry.  He gave happy hugs goodbye this morning and at lunch Miss S texted me to tell me what a great day he was having, participating in lessons and songs when often he is withdrawn and quiet.

I feel so incredibly lucky today that a situation I had a hand in causing (by referring the parents there in the first place) is finally done.  I’m not living in a dream world, I know my kids will still act out and act up and argue, and that’s fine.  Because rather than coming from a place of defensiveness, it’s learning and exploring who they are within boundaries set by discipline and rules that will eventually make them productive members of our family and society.

(The speeding ticket parallel is not lost on me with that last statement by the way.  But I would still like to point out that everyone around me was going as fast or faster, and the radar was definitely faulty, and I couldn’t see the sign because trees were in the way.  Ahem. )

Today I picked Em up from daycare at lunch, skivving off work for most of the afternoon for an early dive into fun. Which means she took a three hour nap, while I puttered around fretting about various work and life-related things, getting it out of my system like I do every Friday. When she woke up we went to early dinner, then to Rita’s for Italian Ice where we ran into some old friends, then came back home just in time for a bath and bed.

As I look ahead to the weekend, most of it is centered around eating and sleeping, which is totally how it should be. I’m debating taking a boot camp class on Sunday morning, debating partly because I’m a little scared of the guy that teaches it but also because I’m a lot scared of the diseased hellions running around the gym daycare. We’ll have to see about that one. Maybe we could go for pancakes instead.

In other great news, the child at daycare that was the cause of so many angst-y posts in the past year has been given the boot. Hooray! Next week is his last week. There are some mornings when I drop off the kids that this other child is yelling and behaving so badly that I can’t stand to be around him for 10 minutes, so I don’t know how this has lasted as long as it did. I’m just thankful that he’ll soon be somewhere else.

Time for me to go watch my new obsession…Cake Boss.  Happy weekend!

What I can remember is that for the second week this month, (I mean last month) I spent the better part of a week in bed, sicker than I’ve ever been. Well except for two weeks ago when I had the worst stomach flu I’ve ever had.  This time I had the worst sinus infection I’ve ever had, with so much pressure in my face I’m surprised it didn’t puff up like a blowfish before exploding.  I finally gave in to the headaches and succumbed to fever on Sunday, when I decided I was still going to be stubborn and refuse to go to the doctor until Monday since I knew I’d just get antibiotics except on Sunday they would cost me $60 more because I’d have to co-pay at a clinic instead of my doc.

Today was the first day I’ve felt less like death and well enough to discover I’ve apparently developed some sort of weird intolerance for amox!cillian since I had it the last time.  I had to actually get dressed and go to the office to give a brief, and lo and behold on the way there discovered that not only am I dizzy and spacy but that I ITCH.  EVERYWHERE.  And am also having inappropriate emotional responses…like crying because Trader Joe’s carries all natural jelly beans.  I’m sucking it up for now because I’m guessing another antibiotic won’t be any better and I’m almost half done anyway.  And the brief?  Let’s just say not the best one I’ve ever given.  Mainly because I made the poor decision while I was still spaced out to not bring any water in with me and my mouth got so dry I might as well have stuffed a slice of bread in there.

Last night, Brett and I were snorting our way through Modern Family when Alex started crying a weird, sad little cry that warranted immediate response, as this was no Mommy-I-dropped-my-book kind of cry.  I came upstairs after first responder Brett ominously yelled down the stairs, “Honey, you better come up here!” to find Alex sitting up in bed with a sleep sack hanging off his face and immediately fell down laughing. That was before I realized that he hadn’t gotten his lip stuck in the zipper, but that he’d actually gotten the zipper pull stuck between his teeth.

I sent Brett downstairs for bolt cutters and he, wisely, came back with a flashlight.  Strapping on his engineering boots, he calculated the precise angle and insertion point and was able to maneuver it back out with a minimum of pain.  As opposed to my method which was to give a little tug and be moderately surprised when it didn’t pop loose.  After administering some cold water and a gentle admonishment not to chew on zippers anymore, we snuck back downstairs and proceeded to laugh ourselves silly for about ten more minutes.

In other Alex news, he ate a cheeseburger for dinner tonight.  This HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, as indicated by the all-caps-headline-nature of the post title.  He also cleaned his plate of sweet potato fries, oranges, asked for yogurt and a cheese stick; and also a cookie.    Yay for all the comments telling me kids go through eating phases!  And also, umm…yay growth spurt?  Here I was thinking that last year’s shorts might actually work for another season instead of looking like Daisy Dukes.

Mother Nature has forced me to take a day tomorrow because because the military base where I work is flooded and closed.  The irony of working feverishly on a continuity of operations and disaster recovery plan from home because the base infrastructure is flooded is not lost on me.

Today I picked up the kids a few hours early and we came home and napped and snuggled and watched Madagascar, and it was warm and relaxing and cuddly just like this kind of day should be.  We danced to the “Move It” song at the end and laughed hysterically.  I made homemade mac n’ cheese for dinner and it was delicious.

At bathtime I noticed the wind picking up and turned on the news to find it wasn’t my imagination – we were filelding 70 mile/hour gusts.  Because we have an older house with lots of old, gigantic trees the kids are camping in the downstairs playroom tonight so that I’ll actually be able to sleep instead of jolting awake with every gust.

Tomorrow I think we’ll do lots of home-y things like bake cookies and have pancakes for breakfast and get messy painting.

This, right here, is the sweet spot – where the free pass from work and school is festive and fun.  The sweet spot is just down the road from edgy boredom and an ache to return to normalcy, the routine and the structure. 

But for now we enjoy it.  Sweet.

Today I would like to re-affirm my belief that there is very little useful information on television and state that parents who take their kids to Chuck E Cheese are morons. 

Maybe I should have been paying better attention, because now that my kids have been EXPOSED to H one n1, I cannot find answers to any of the questions that are racing through my brain.

For example, can I take a blunt object to parents who send thier kids to daycare sick?  (Recall my trauma from the summer also known as the BIGGEST MISTAKE I’VE MADE SO FAR…and yeah.  It’s them.  Of course it’s them, who else would it be?)

And once we’re exposed, is there like, a morning after pill or something that we can use to head it off?  And if not, why the hell not?

Why can’t my kid get tested for it before a fever develops?  Wouldn’t it be better to start treating it early, instead of sitting around waiting for him to get sicker and sicer then turn blue?

Why do we have to have the flu 4 days before Alex’s birthday, when not only did we score much coveted tickets to see the Imagination Movers live in concert which were NOT CHEAP, but we have grandparents visiting and plans to go to the pumpkin farm and bake a fancy cake all of which will not be the same if we have to do it another weekend?

Dang it, Doctor Lady on the Today show who’s name I can’t ever remember – DON’T TELL ME TO WASH MY FREAKING HANDS - IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT!

Emily Kate and I so far are doing just fine.  I think because she had a flu version at the end of August, and I had the same miserable-ness Labor Day weekend.  If that was it, it sucked.  And if it wasn’t it, well then that is really unfair.  Poor Alex though, is just…gooey.  Drippy sneezes, icky coughs, stuffy nose…

But seriously, time is a wastin’ here – it is 48 hours to the Movers concert, 62 hours to grandparent arrival and 3 days to birthday.  Not to mention that work is so busy right now that I’m close to panic attack mode most days and CANNOT FATHOM how I will take off the time required to nurse a sick kid back to health, which is leading to all kinds of fun fights with Brett over whose job is more important.

When I picked up Emily Kate today I was discussing with Miss S how kids who go to a small daycare with only 3 other kids get exposed to this flu and the conversation went something like this:

me: I wonder where he would have picked it up?  I can see if he was at regular school or daycare at the gym or something but…

her: I think they take him to…whispers… Chuck E Cheese (shudders)!

me: Wow they are even bigger morons than I thought.

So yeah.  We’re sitting around.  Waiting.

I spent the summer reading parenting books and researching chemical sensitivities and food allergies – anything to find an explanation for behavior that I was sure couldn’t possibly be normal, because otherwise no one in their right mind would voluntarily sign up for this.  I cut out any food with artificial colors or flavors, started buying more organic, and behavior-wise tried following the “1-2-3 Magic” method. 

After a rough couple weeks, in which the response to everything I said was, “No, YOU say please” or No YOU stop banging” or No Don’t WANNA go live with gypsies!” Alex has come out nicely on the other side and has reached new heights of big kid-dom.  Yesterday for the first time ever, he tried a kiwi and lo and behold decided it was the best thing he’d ever tasted and proceeded to eat three of them.  Since it was green and that makes it one step away from a vegetable I kept peeling and slicing until all the kiwi was gone.

There hasn’t been one big thing, but it feels 180 degrees away from where we were a month ago, when everything led to a meltdown, when I tread lightly because just saying “no” to watching a TV program could lead to a 45-minute screamfest complete with tears and hysterics, until he would finally collapse exhausted on the floor. 

His language has always been a little behind other kids his age, and when we had him evaluated they didn’t think it was that he couldn’t talk, he just wasn’t inclined to do so.  Now for the first time, he’s starting to use complete sentences and verbalize original thoughts, instead of parrotting back whatever we tell him.  He has a shyness that I recognize, because that was and still is sometimes me…it’s a shyness that comes off as cold or disinterested but isn’t really, it’s just a way of handling a crowd of unknown people or an uncertainty about how to react in certain situations.

In fact, the very things that frustrate me about Alex are usually the same traits I share.  He will do a time-out for 45 minutes because he refuses to apologize.  He will do something specifically because he is told not to, he panics at any daycare other than his regular daily place, he will hang back rather than join the other kids at gym class.  He gets irrationally pissed off when his daily routine is disrupted – one day a few months ago, he refused to eat his lunch because Miss S forgot to ask him to get out cups for the other kids, which he does every day without fail.

In many ways he is the sweetest, most helpful child – eager to please, hopeful, and funny – quieter than his sister. but more observant.  I constantly wonder if I’m being too hard on him, or if I’m fairly dividing my time and attention between the two of them.  Usually Alex answers for me – if my attention is too long on Emily Kate I’ll hear him say, “Hi Mommy!” which is a sure sign he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, like standing on a chair or playing with my work laptop or trying to pour his own glass of juice.

He is just a few weeks shy of three.  Amazing.

From 2009_09_13

From 2009_09_13

You have friends that you will drop because of the way they parent.

At first it’s sub-concious, maybe you aren’t even sure why you turn down invites to get together.  Or why you dread spending time with them, with or without thier kids.  Then you slowly start to realize it’s because you do one thing, and they do another.  It makes no sense whatsoever to me to observe someone yell at a child for hitting, then spank them as punishment.  I cannot comprehend a parent who has a child that continues misbehaving but will not remove them from the situation, thus making everyone else miserable.  Nor can I understand someone who is off work for the summer leaving a child in daycare all day every day.  Those people are the ones you slowly lose touch with because it becomes more of an effort than a joy to spend time with them and understand their motives.

Back before I knew this, a couple we knew asked us for a daycare recommendation.  We weren’t good friends but didn’t have any issues with them per se, and we were thrilled to share what a great person we had found.

If there is one thing in the past three years I could take back, it would be sharing the name of our daycare provider.  Because for the last 15 months, that couple’s baby (who is now two) has bullied, smacked, bit, disrupted, and generally harrassed and hassled my kids and the other kids in daycare.  He tackles them, pinches, does things specifically to make other kids cry.  Which should be no surprise because he’s exactly like his dad, who reminds me of a 30-year old frat boy.

This morning that kid smacked Emily Kate, who was just sitting there smiling at him like she smiles at everyone and I have not stopped crying since.  The look on her face has haunted me all day, her innocent belief that everyone she meets will smile at her and love her was destroyed.  Something we all need to learn eventually, but not before our first goddamn birthday.

I knew it was coming.  Why should she be any different?  Every kid there has been bitten or hit at least once and now I have a choice.  Do I provide an ultimatum – my kids or this one?  Do I let it go and trust that the situation will right itself despite all evidence to the contrary?   Should I be more direct in my displeasure at the situation?  Because despite the fact that it’s a business – this woman has cared for my children for nearly three years.  I’ve asked her to love them and care for them while I work and she has and I know she wants to do the right thing.  She feels sorry for this little boy because he isn’t getting the discipline and loving attention he should be at home.  I constantly wonder if Alex acting out is a direct result of what he’s seeing – that the way to get attention is to misbehave.

Everything I wanted in a daycare – a family home, educational curriculum, loving provider, small group – all those things are still there.  Just less so, because so much time and energy is spent on corralling ONE CHILD.  And the fact that his mother is home for the summer yet still leaves him every day for longer than my kids are there makes me sick. 

I wonder what his mom would say if I confronted her and asked her what the hell she is doing.  Because it’s easy to tell yourself that you want your child to keep to a routine, and that it’s better for them to be around other kids.  You can say it out loud and people will nod and agree, but what if just once, someone didn’t nod and agree with you?  What if someone called bullshit and made you face the fact that you just don’t want to deal with the monster you’ve created? 

Judgemental?  Hell yes.  Do I know the entire story?  Probably not.  You never really can, and you have to call what you see and what I see is my kids being exposed to things that I don’t want them to be exposed to yet and an eviction process that is taking entirely TOO LONG.  For pete’s sake telling a parent they need to find another method of care for their child doesn’t need to be like firing a government employee.

Just when I thought I’d gotten past my working mother guilt, I’m reminded that the choices I’ve made in one area take things out of my hands in another.  And for the millionth time I question and revisit and beat myself up over those choices.  All because I gave a referral.