Pre-school

Emily won't be starting pre-school until fall of 2018, but I've decided to start researching the ones in the area to see which ones we want to visit in a year when the open houses start.  Oye, I had no idea pre-school was so expensive.  We had already decided to do just one year of pre-school.  I know school and education is important, but I just feel like, once she starts school, that starts off an entire lifetime of have-tos.  Have to go to school, have to get a job, have to pay bills.  Especially with almost all kindergartens being all day now, I figure why send her off to pre-school 3 mornings a week a year before she really has to.  But now I am really glad we decided to only do one year after seeing the cost.  Yikes!

And it's not like she is getting nothing.  I am a firm believer in educating at home.  I don't understand these parents that send their kid off to kindergarten not knowing their ABC's or colors or numbers.  I get a kick out of teaching Emily stuff and watching her little brain absorb it and use things correctly.  I found an alphabet border at the dollar store so I hung it up on the inside of her closet doors so we can quiz her on the letters.  She can sing it perfectly fine (except she gets hung up on L, M, N, O, P, but what kid doesn't?) and she can point out, and recognize a lot of letters, but not all.  I'd like to find her a numbers one too, and maybe I'll make her a day of the week chart.

I know she is pretty smart for her age, she began talking pretty early and has always had a large vocabulary but I was shocked when she had her 3 year old check up last month.  So, she can solidly count to 15, she can make it to 20 but she stumbles a bit.  Like I said she knows her whole alphabet song and knows every color you throw at her.  The doctor was quizing me on what she knows and can do to make sure she is where she should be.  She asked if she can count to at least 3, if she at least knows A, B, and C and if she can identify two or more colors.  Wow.  I have to say, I am always slightly nervous for doctor appointments.  Nobody wants to find out their kid isn't performing at the level they should be.  It made me a nervous wreck that she didn't walk till she was 18 months.  But I was really blown away that those were the minimum requirements for a 3 year old and she can do so much more.  Proud mommy moment.

Today she successfully identified whether several family members are boys or girls....except she kept insisting that aunt Sasa is a boy.  Sorry Sasa, nothing personal I am sure.  Em is nuts for her Uncle Joe Joe (my brother) and she loves Sasa too (my sister-in-law in case that wasn't obvious) but for a long time when she was younger she tended to just call them both Joe Joe, and would accept whichever one responded.  Even now, she almost always calls her Sasa, but occasionally will say Joe Joe and will be talking to her, so I think that might be where some of the boy/girl confusion comes from regarding them.  But a few weeks ago she really wasn't always sure on anybody so she's come a long way.  Now watch, the whole "is so and so a boy or girl" thing will suddenly become a no no because we are "assuming one's gender".

So I think I have it narrowed down to two co-op preschools.  They are the most affordable and the closest ones.  I of course don't want to drive her all over town to go, but I am hoping if she goes to a pre-school nearby, some of her friends that she makes will also be going to the same elementary school and be in class together.  Not much chance of that if she goes to pre-school 5 miles away.  So anyway, she is getting some learning and social interaction by going to the daycare at our gym.  We went today and I just love how we can walk in, she says hi and goes and gets the toys she wants and I just say love you, see you later and she says ok bye, love you.  I am so proud of her for being so ok with me leaving her.  She can be pretty shy, and I myself often cried when my mom dropped me off for pre-school.  Lately I haven't been showering at the gym, because despite taking an almost ice cold shower and choosing the shower stall under the air vent, I am sweating again by the time I am doing my hair because it is always so hot in there.  Doesn't make sense to bother showering there when I don't leave feeling any cleaner than if I hadn't showered.  But even when I don't shower, she still gets a little over an hour to play, and I'm trying to make a real effort to go 3 days a week.  So far it's mostly only 2, and lately just 1, but I am trying.

So, I figure between working with her at home and going to the gym daycare, she should be good to just go for one year of pre-school.  So, once I swallowed the high cost, I can get on board with the co-ops but I am still floored at the cost of the non co-ops.  Yeah it does sound tempting to send her somewhere that I don't have to do a damn thing, just drop her off and pick her up.  Especially since I will be using her time at school to work and get things done.  But, I do like the idea of being involved in her school, and spending time with her there and getting to see how she interacts and stuff, getting to know her teachers and other parents.  Plus the requirements aren't THAT bad.  Volunteer in the classroom 1-2 days a month, participate in a couple fundraisers, be assigned a classroom job (I'm gunning for laundry....I don't particularily like laundry, but it's sounds like the easiest and least time consuming) and go to monthly meetings.  Not too bad.  Plus I will occasionally delegate some of that to Ryan....if we have to volunteer twice a month, I think he should do one of them.

Of course, it helps that I work from home;  I have NO idea how someone that works full time outside the home can do any of that.  I guess they have no choice but to pay the big bucks and not do co-op so they don't have to use a ton of vacation time to volunteer and spend more of their precious little free time on pre-school stuff.  Yeah Ryan sleeps during the day, but he CAN go to bed later so he could volunteer.  We are both in a pretty unique position of being available during the day to do these things.  So I guess the deciding factor between the two co-ops will just be the kind of reviews I can find, and the overall feeling I get from each open house.

So, I am sure most parents have seen those parenting memes/cartoons of the daddy duck and his baby ducks.  They are SOOO funny, I laugh out loud at them all the time.  There is this one that says "as a parent it is my job to make sure my child learns proper grammar and pronunciation of words" (or something like that) and then the baby duck holds up his foot and says, do you like my new boops and the dad says, Heck yeah I do!  That's how I feel about her "Minnie Pittow".  I want her to be well-educated and proper grammar and spelling is an obsession of mine (don't hold any typos in here against me, I try to catch any) but I love that she calls her pillow Minnie Pittow and I will be very sad the day she starts saying pillow.  Back when I first started letting her use a pillow in her crib, I bought her this butterfly shaped pillow that was smaller than a traditional one for her little head....plus it was cute.  She got a Minnie Mouse sleeping bag (she was obsessed with Minnie Mouse) and I planned to take it to our camper for her bed there, so I bought her this hot pink pillow with Minnie Mouse on it to match.

I forget how it happaned, but butterfly pillow is at the camper and Minnie Pittow came home with us and she has adored it ever since.  She does use it as a pillow, but it has also sort of become her wubbie.  She carries it around the house, she asks to take it with us in the car.  I won't let her carry it outside the car, like in a store, so I think she has a pretty healthy relationship with it as far as wubbies go. She allows me to wash it, she isn't joined at the hip with it, but it does bring her comfort.  It got taken away today though.  Lately she has been locking her car door once we get somewhere, so when I get out and go to get her out, her door is locked.  Not a biggie, I just unlock it with the fob...and I suppose if I somehow didn't have my keys, I have onstar on my phone.  But it gets annoying, and if it were raining or I was in a bad mood, her locked door isn't something I want to deal with.

So on the way to the gym today I told her not to do that anymore or she will get in trouble.  For the most part, I am very good at keeping my word.  I try very hard not to make threats that I don't plan on carrying out, and if I occasionally do, I make her earn her way out of the punishment rather than renig.  So when she did it again at the gym I said ok, I told you you're going to get in trouble, so that was your final warning.  If you do it again, I am taking Minnie pittow.  She got upset and said no, don't take it.  I said well don't make me take it.  Don't lock the door anymore and you won't have to worry about it.  Well she apparently didn't believe me, so when we got home she locked her door.  When I unlocked it I took Minnie Pittow from her.  She cried for a bit and said I want Minnie Pittow!  I said no, I told you what would happen and you did it anyway, so she is mine until your nap.

I am not brave enough to take it for the whole day because putting her down for nap would be hell without Minnie pittow, but if she does it yet again, I might have to, to get the point across.  Hopefully taking it for a couple hours today did the trick.

I felt so bad today, I was making dinner and left the sliding screen door open to take some trash out.  She saw me out on the deck and came running, saying I come I come....she must have thought the door was closed because she put her arms up like she was going to fall against the screen, and she literally just fell forward and face planted on the deck.  Poor baby.  Most people walk into sliding doors when they don't know they are closed, she falls out of one when she thinks it is closed.

Saturday we had to run a lot of errands so she didn't get a nap, and then when we got done we had to go to my brother's for dinner for his birthday.  Like I said, she is nuts about him so she played with him non-stop, and we didn't end up leaving till almost midnight.  I had no intention to stay so late, but she was having so much fun, I figured one night won't hurt.  I had her go potty and put a pull up on, but I hadn't brought PJ's because I truly did not think we would stay nearly as late as we did.  After she got her pull up on, she said no pants!  I said ok, but when we leave, you have to put pants on.  Lately she has a serious aversion to jeans, and that day she had on khaki type pants but they had an actual waistband and a button and zipper.  So, not jeans, but not comfy stretch pants either.  So finally I said come on, it's time to go and she ran into my arms crying and wailed, "I want soft pants"!!!  It was so cute but broke my heart at the same time.  I went out to the car and rummaged around, hoping by chance I had an extra pair of leggings for her but no.  Any other time half her closet is in the car, but that night, nothing.

We didn't even have her blanket we normally keep in the car.  It was like 50's out when we left, but chilly to not have pants on.  So we borrowed a blanket from them and I wrapped her up in it to carry her out.  Right when we get to the door to go out, she yells, where are my pants?!  I need to be covered up!  Lol, omg what a tool!  So Uncle Joe Joe carried her out and snuggled her to keep her warm.  So of course she fell asleep on the 25 minute drive home, but I can never get her out of her seat anymore without waking her up.  By the time we got inside and the dog was all in our faces, she was awake.  So I laid down with her and sang to her and she fell asleep.  I tried going into stealth mode to get off her bed, but she woke up, crying, begging me to stay with her.  So I stood there and sang some more, and she fell asleep again.  I tried to open the door to get out, but I banged the door a bit and she woke up again!  Ahhhh!  They need to somehow make completely silent doors for kids' bedrooms.  So I sang to her some more but finally I just had to leave and let her cry it out till she fell back to sleep.

So, no nap on Saturday and she didn't get to bed till about 1am that night.  For the first time in a very long time, we had to get up early, at 6:30 to go to one of Ryan's 5Ks.  So she only got about 5.5 hours sleep, when she normally gets 10-12.  When we got home from the race, we had about an hour before we had to leave for our niece's 8th birthday party, but we decided we had to skip it.  I hated to, her and Em love playing together and I felt bad missing her birthday, but it would mean yet another day with no nap for Em.  Yeah, she likely would have slept on the way, but sleeping in her carseat is never as good of a sleep as in her bed and it's only a 30 minute drive.  So we stayed home, I put her down for a nap....most days she naps 1.5 to 2 hours.  That day she slept for 3.5!  We also took naps because I was very tired as well.  She went to bed a bit later than usual that night, but even after napping all that time, she still went down pretty easily and fell asleep quickly.  I kept thinking we should have gone to the party, but missing even one nap turns her into a Gremlin, so no nap, two days in a row plus only 5.5 hours that night and inevitable sugar and excitement at the party.  She would have been like a Gremlin X6.  Speaking of, I had better get to bed before my inner Gremlin comes out.

Double dose

Emily apparently got a double dose of toddler today.  Whew!  It started with her doing something to get put in time-out, I forget what, and she peed on the couch.  She doesn't do it often, but she "rage pees" as I like to call it.  It's like the bodily fluids equivalent of holding your breath to get your way.  Our poor couch has been peed on so many times (haha, I guess we should reconsider where her time out spot is....perhaps a chair in the kitchen.  A wooden chair and ceramic tile is so much more conducive to cleaning up pee).

She was pretty good for the rest of the afternoon, and then I put her down for a nap.  Once she was asleep I got started on my shredding I had to do with my work files.  My filing cabinet was pretty full and I actually had time to do it today.  I was watching her on the monitor to make sure it didn't wake her up, but it never had in the past.  But then....she woke up!  Crap!  She had only been asleep for half an hour or less.  Sometimes if she wakes early like that she'll go right back to sleep, but nope.  After 5 or 10 minutes I could tell she wasn't going back to sleep, and I still had more shredding to do so I went in and got her.

She was good the rest of the afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs and she was very good about not touching the water or the glasses it was in since it was very hot water.  Then around 6, which I call Emily cranky o'clock, the terrible three's set in.  I was trying to get my office straightened up and she decided to bring all of the throw pillows in from the couch.  My office is small enough, I didn't need all this crap in there when I was trying to clean.  Then she tried grabbing the binder clip that keeps my phone charger from falling through the hole-thing in my desk.  I told her no three times and she was still trying to grab it, so I sent her to time out.  I heard her go in the living room and tell daddy, "mommy said no time out".  My husband was like um, ok.

Finally I yelled out to him that I sent her out there to go time out.  So he said to her, she did tell you to get in time out, so go.  So that kicked off a good 15 minutes of crying in time out.  Then she kept singing and talking way too loudly while we were trying to watch TV.  Oh, and earlier when I was cleaning my office, she came in to say, momma I peed.  It wasn't rage pee, but she peed on her bedroom floor.  I had just taken her to the potty not long before that, so I was annoyed that she had to go again and didn't tell us.  Most of the time she is so good, but then every once in a while I guess she gets too into what she is doing to stop and pee.

So after dinner I told her she had to pick up her toys tonight.  I know part of it is our fault because we are not consistent and don't make her clean up every night.  I just lose track of time, and before I know it we've barely finished dinner and it's already time for bed.  If I am going to get her tucked in and stories read and everything and get done in time to start working by 9 or 9:30, most nights we don't think to have her pick up her toys until it is bedtime right now, and we don't have time for the Sloth on Ambien to take an hour to pick up 10 things.  So, it doesn't get done, the living room always looks like a landfill, and she doesn't want to pick up her toys the few times we ask her to.

I tried to offer incentive....I gave her 15 minutes to get it cleaned up, and whatever time was left, she could play on my phone.  So if she got it done quickly, she'd have at least 10 minutes to play.  If she took too long, she got no time.  This has worked in the past, but tonight she wasn't having it.  She refused to even try picking them up, and kept telling me to do it.  I kept telling her she wouldn't get any time to play on my phone, and if she didn't do what I said, she wouldn't get bedtime stories either.  I felt bad about taking that away, last night we got home late from Grammy's and she hadn't had a nap, and I needed to work so I told her we were going to skip stories, and the next night not only would she get extra stories, but I would lay down with her for a while.  She always wants me to lay with her and sing to her, but most nights I can't because I have to work, so I said I would tonight since I don't work on Friday nights.

But, I just couldn't give her EXTRA stories and lay down with her like she likes, after she deliberately refused to do what she was told.  It would just feel like way too much of a reward for misbehaving.  So of course as soon as I told her to get to bed, she started crying and begged to play on my phone.  Then she asked, pick up toys?  I said no, you missed your chance.  I don't want her to think she can refuse to do what I say, and then still get the opportunity to behave and do what she is supposed to when I already told her she missed her chance and took away something good.  If I do that, she'll never do things the first time I ask her.  She did cry some when I tucked her in because of it all, but she actually took it pretty well.  Most of the time, even on a good night I'll say goodnight and she'll smile and say goodnight and I say I love you and she says I wuv you and I say sweet dreams and she tells me to have sweet dreams.  The second the door clicks closed, she starts wailing and crying.

This has been going on for about 2 or 3 months now.  I can tell when it's a serious cry and she needs something, and when she just doesn't want to go to bed.  Like when I put her down for nap, she insisted on taking her pillow case off her pillow and putting it on her legs like she was a mermaid.  I tucked her in, closed the door, and whaaaa.  But after a few minutes I could tell it was something more, so I went back in.  She decided she did not want to wear her pillow case, and wanted it back on her pillow.  But tonight, aside from a few tears when I told her no stories tonight, she did really well.  No crying or yelling once I closed the door.  I thought maybe it was because she was so tired and that she'd fall asleep quickly, but she was still awake for about an hour before she fell asleep.  Maybe she realized she deserved no stories and decided to take it easy on me tonight.  Haha, yeah right.

Tomorrow when she gets up from her nap we're going to take her to Baba's house for a sleepover.  We want to put a bathroom in the basement, and our first step is to get plumbers over to give us a quote for digging the shower, sink, and toilet lines, but the area that will be the bathroom is full of stuff.  Lately she loves coming downstairs with me to do laundry and scoop the litterbox, so I am sure she would want to be down there while we cleaned.  It's not an area I want her spending too much time in, there is stuff everywhere and I don't want her to come across something she shouldn't like a tool, or run into some furniture that's sticking out in her way.  Plus it will just be easier to clean without her underfoot.  So then we get a nice quiet evening and Baba and Grammy get the whole afternoon and night with her.  Then we'll go over there Sunday for Easter dinner.  I was a little bummed when I realized she won't be home to wake up and get her easter basket Sunday morning, but it's not as big of a deal as Christmas.  She can look for it when she gets home.  I think the easter bunny is going to hide it this year and make her play hot and cold to look for it.

So, after a few weeks of thinking about it, I've decided no on another baby.  I got all excited for a little bit at the idea of it, but in reality, there are still a million circumstances that would make another pregnancy and baby very difficult.  I know my friend loves her two boys to the moon and back, but she was very blunt with me, and said two is definitely a lot of work.  I am glad she was so honest, because most people say, yeah two is harder, but it's so fun to see them together and you get used to it and you'll be fine, just do it.  There are some days I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water with just one, plus the dog (whose like a damn baby herself) the house, work, and trying to be active and sometimes do things just for fun.  I am sure people with 3 or more kids would laugh at me, but maybe some people are just better suited with one child.  In a perfect world, another child would be nice.  But I don't NEED another child.  I needed A child.  I couldn't imagine my life without getting a tke home baby.  And I got that with Emily.  She is more than enough for me.  Is a part of me sad that I was dealt the hand I was and ended up with only one living child?  Yeah.  But there are definitely worse things than only having one sweet, precious, adorable child who gives hugs and will just randomly come up to me and say I wuv you mommy.  I'll be ok.