Preschool Plans

11.23.06

I did it.  After months of talking about it, thinking about it, and knowing it needed to be done… I finally enrolled my kid in preschool.  I procrastinated a long time on this simple little task, for a variety of reasons.  One of them was summertime. There was a whole lot of beach and about a million parks to explore when we got on each others’ nerves.  And then she wasn’t quite potty trained and I wasn’t exactly sure what the pre-school guidelines were about that, but I suspected it was a prerequisite.  Third, and maybe the biggest reason for procrastination, was that the only pre-school I was familiar with was the Head Start program, and I just haven’t been up to the complete and total invasion of financial privacy required to enroll my Little Miss. 

 

We’re the working poor.  I know this, and I have certainly come to understand the implications.  It means we don’t qualify for daycare assistance but we can’t afford daycare.  We don’t receive any welfare benefits so our child doesn’t qualify for free Head Start, but you can be sure after baring our financial souls to some government employee we’d still end up at the top of any sliding fee scale they devised.  The other thing I “heard” was that if you have to pay for Head Start in Wisconsin there’s a waiting list (but if you receive welfare benefits there isn’t).  Do I need this?  I don’t have the energy to jump through these particular hoops.

 

So here’s what I did.  I opened the Yellow Pages to “Schools.”  There were several listings under “preschool and kindergarten services.”  I called them.  One was the YMCA.  A very helpful person answered and invited us to come for a tour. 

 

I asked my Little Miss if she wanted to go to school.  She didn’t.  There are a couple of unresolved #2 potty training issues and, as incentive, I have suggested to her that she can’t go to school until she gets a handle on this.  So she was a little freaked out about going to school, but when I said, “We’ll just go check it out,” she got into the spirit of things.  I think she said, “Mom, we’re just going to check things out at school today,” a hundred times during the 5 minute drive to school.  I laughed the whole way, because this summer we had a bear digging in our garbage cans and for weeks afterward Little Miss would open the back door, hang her head outside, and say, “I’m just checking things out, Mom.”

 

When we got there she was, of course, enthralled. 

 

Oddly enough for a high-energy kid she doesn’t jump right into things.  She hangs back and takes it all in, keeping to herself for a bit.  Even so, she thought their toys were pretty darn cool.  And when all the kids sat down at atable for lunch there was longing to join them written all over her little girl face. 

 

The gal giving the tour was full of great information.  My girl could come for preschool only, or we could sign up for a combination of preschool and daycare.

 

Which leads to the last reason I had put off the whole preschool thing.

 

My work schedule is random.  The only thing I always know for sure is that I will work every other weekend and have opposite weekends off.  I never know anything else until the schedule comes out.  So any ½ day preschool program would be a nightmare of transportation logistics. Sometimes I’d be scheduled off.  But sometimes I’d be working.

 

No problem at YMCA.  The pre-school hours are built right into their daycare day.  I can drop her off early if I have a day shift.  I can pick her up and take her to grandma’s if I work evenings.  And if I’m off, well, then I get the whole day all to myself (!).  Yay for that!

 

In the car after our tour Little Miss said, “Can I go to that school, Mom?  I wanted to sit at the table with those kids, but there wasn’t a place for me.”

 

“Next time there will be,” I toldher, relived to have it settled.  Kids, teachers, stuff to learn, and room to run 2 days a week.  How perfect is that?  And every once in a while (or more often) a day to myself.  Oh yeah.  Let’s do it.

Hotel Bliss

11.09.06

A week in a hotel room by myself, with maid service and in-room coffee.  Can anyone say bliss?  Of course it would follow that before the week was done I’d come down with a cold.   At home  I’m surrounded by lots of potential germ-carriers and don’t get sick very often, but I suppose hotel rooms are cesspools of disgusting germs.

 

Maybe the spotty internet connection at the hotel lowered my resistance to bugs.  Yeah, that’s it.  The cold symptoms are actually signs of www.withdrawal.  I wonder if there are any studies out about this?  Maybe I could be the first research subject.  Watch my blood pressure rise and my patience drop every time the disembodied computer voice says, “Goodbye,” and the box pops up that says, “You have lost your connection to the internet.”    This wasn’t happening every half an hour.  It was happening every 2 – 3 minutes.  It is an extraordinarily cumbersome way to check email, let me tell you.

 

Thank goodness I had a contingency plan.  I’ve never had real good luck with hotel wireless access to the internet, so as annoying as it was I had planned for such a horror by bringing a mess of scrapbooking supplies, downloading the podcasts of my favorite radio program from www.bobandsheri.com, and made dinner plans with a couple of different people.  So I wasn’t stuck moping alone in my hotel room all week.  I actually got a lot done.  Well, except for that one night I ordered room service and found Miami Ink on TLC.  That night was a waste.  This is why I rarely turn on the television.  I get sucked in and my day is done.

 

I suppose I could have socialized more with the people from my conference.  But you know, I’m pretty darn anti-social, and I don’t know from hanging out in class with people if I want to hang out with them outside of class.  What if I naively got sucked into an unhealthy or irritating friendship?  Better to stay in my room sorting and gluing pictures to paper than to invite an emotional vampire into my life.  There’s always that risk with strangers. 

 

There was a guy in my class who stood 6 feet 9 inches.  Do you know that’s 21 inches taller than me?  Oh my god.  We went to lunch once, and he’d have liked me to stop off somewhere for a beer with him after class, but I didn’t think it was a great idea.  He told me he’s heading for the big D, and he didn’t mean Dallas.  Umm… Detroit?  Dog-pound?  I know one thing for sure;  I don’t have the patience or emotional resources to provide healthy emotional support to someone I barely know going through a nasty divorce.  How about we just not go there?  Great class, good job, congratulations you got your certification.  Now have a nice life.  There’s really no need to keep in touch.  Do I even need to mention that it’s difficult for me to have a conversation with someone 21 inches taller than me?  It’s a neck strain.

 

By Wednesday night I had the sniffles and my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.  Thursday I was a miserable lump of humanity sitting in class feeling sorry for myself.  Until my cold medicine kicked in, and then I was a hyperactive lunatic, which was a good thing because I was learning all about non-violent physical crisis intervention, and it was a “get up and move” kind of day.

 

Anyway, I survived the week that wasn’t exactly utter bliss.  I don’t think my child missed me very much.  But the dog did, so there is that.  Instead of coming home rested and relaxed I came home sick and crabby.  Daddy and Daughter claim they had a wonderful week together.  And judging from the state of the house I’d say they are absolutely telling the truth.  All play and no work makes a big mess for Mommy.  I don’t even know where to start.  Maybe with the laundry.  Or the garbage can that’s overflowing. 

 

The best laid plans and all that.  Sometimes bliss leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Let's get political

11.02.06

So my editor said he wanted us to write about politics, this being election week and all, and I said, “Guh?  You’ve got to be kidding!”

 

You have to understand… I don’t watch television because it all seems more or less pointless.  And I don’t read any newspaper regularly (except the Reader Weekly, of course) because there’s hardly any good news to be found there.  So pretty much the only news I’m subjected to is that provided by the AOL welcome screen.  How scary is that?

 

So I’m sitting here eating Cheetoh’s puffs in a fancy hotel that’s way out of my league, trying to think politics.  Haha.  Yeah, I’m a bit off balance tonight.  Ah well.  We’ll figure something out. But it’s going to have to be quick because I have in-room coffee and I need to go find a gas station for some creamer.  What?  You think I’m going to ask the snobs at the desk for milk?  Ha!  You should have seen the looks on their faces when I wanted to pay cash for the room but didn’t have an extra $200 for a deposit.  They’d probably charge me $8 for a lunchbox size carton of milk.  And $3 service/inconvenience fee on top of it.  No thanks.

 

Anyway.

 

Politics.  Elections next week.

 

Get out there and VOTE.

 

The end.

 

PS:  Think about the cost of war and the cost of fuel (heating your house will surely bankrupt you this winter – well, it will me, anyway) and the supercilious smirk of our President that basically seems to say, “Wow, I’m the leader of a bunch of dimwits,” or “I don’t care what you think, I’m right.”  And don’t vote Republican.

 

I guess you can if you really want to, but I wouldn’t.

 

Here’s my plan:  I’m going to research the Democratic and Independent candidates for my local district and then I’m going to vote as hard Left as I can.

 

I would have never believed this country could go to hell in just two Presidential terms, but now I know better.  And this is what I know… Americans have opinions, and values, and believe in fairness and justice and the (old) American Way.  Liberty and Justice for All.  Damn straight.  We believe in a government held accountable by a system of checks and balances.  We believe in Habeas Corpus.  We believe in our Constitutional right to free speech, and that right absolutely includes the right to speak out against our Government.  It includes the right to criticize our President and his decisions.  It includes our right to question the cost of war, and to question the strategy and goals of that war.  It includes our RIGHT to wear a t-shirt depicting the current American death toll in Iraq.  Come on, folks, can a t-shirt possibly be a threat to Homeland Security?   Sure, it can be offensive, insulting, or even supercilious.  Might even embarrass someone.  But can it possibly be a crime?

 

Think before you vote.  Think about the things you believe in.  Take a couple hours to research the candidates of your district so you know not only who you’re voting for, but what they stand for.  And then VOTE.

 

The problem I see is that we’re working hard to survive from day to day in America.  It takes two incomes to support a family, and between working, carting our kids from place to place, and trying to keep our house in order, nobody has energy for activism anymore.  Do you think that’s an accident on the part of our government?  Do you really? 

 

But you can vote.  Even when you hate everyone and everything you can still vote for the candidate you think is the least bad.  So get out there and do it.

The (bedtime) battle continues

10.26.06

Although I truly love her with all my heart, I am desperate for time away from my child.  How desperate?  Let me tell you… I have installed a hook and eye style lock on the OUTSIDE of her bedroom door.  I know she’s safe because I am sitting on the other side of  that door writing this. 

 

Thank goodness for laptops and wireless internet.  My conscience is clear. 

 

Every 2 minutes she yells, “Mommy, I need you!” and I yell back, “Go to bed!”

 

Here’s the problem:  she has decided not to sleep anymore.

 

I was 32 years old when I gave birth to this incredible human being.  So I am dead honest when I say that 6 hours of “alone” time per day is not too much for me.  Actually, as a writer it’s not nearly enough.  And if I continue to get zero hours of alone time I will go mad.

 

We’ve reached a point where I am desperate to win.  I can picture some parents I’ve known who have given up the battle.  The child clearly runs the household and the parent miserably does what she is told.  These adults seem to live to appease their children, and the children tend to be, in my opinion, completely out of control.

 

This can’t happen to me.  It just can’t.  So at naptime and bedtime Little Miss needs to stay in her room whether she sleeps or not.  Until now this has been accomplished with a gate across her bedroom doorway, and she’s been content enough to play on her own when there is no other option.  But  this week she figured out how to climb over the gate.  She is over that gate and down the stairs every 2 minutes, and then needs to be “tucked in” 30 times an hour.

 

This isn’t working for me.

 

She is… busy and intelligent and determined and good humored.  She manages to make a game out of every type of discipline and consequence I can think of.  To put her on time-out is to hold her fighting on my lap until I am exhausted.  I came up with one consequence that I thought was brilliant –  “Every time I have to tell you to go to bed I will take one of your toys and put it in the shed outside.  You may earn them back by staying in your room at naptime and bedtime.”

 

I explained this while I was taking her collapsible dollhouse outside, and she cried.  “A-ha!” I thought to myself, “this is going to work.”  Yet in less than 10 minutes she was gleefully pulling toys out of the closet, “Put this in the shed, Mom!  Now put my trains in the shed.  And my horses!”  This is the child who, when I yell in the Mommy’s-had-absolutely-enough voice “GO TO BED,” responds by placing her hands on her hips and saying, “It’s not polite to yell, Mom.”

 

I am confounded.  What on earth am I going to do with this child? 

 

Well this week I’m going to try the hook-lock.  I can use the computer or work on her scrapbook just as well upstairs as down, so I’m really not losing any Mommy Time.  And once she falls asleep I’ll unhook it.  What I’m hoping for, I think, is to get her accustomed to at least staying in her room when she’s supposed to be sleeping.  Heck, I don’t even care if she sleeps.  That’s not an issue for me whatsoever.  But for a couple of hours a day I need her to leave me alone. 

 

Yeah, okay, what I’m really hoping for is to finally win a round. 

 

She challenges me in a lot of ways.  But she is also my joy.  She has beautiful manners, both at home and in public.  She’s having fewer tantrums.  She’s mostly potty trained.  And she’s getting better about sharing and playing with others.  Well, sort of, a little bit.  She can learn to go to sleep before I totally blow my top.  I know she can.

 

Sometimes tough love is in order.  And locked doors.  Cross your fingers for me.

Imaginary delusions?

10.19.06

So my kid makes it through 2 and a half minutes of Story Time at the library before she starts jumping off furniture trying to catch the Halloween decorations hanging from the ceiling.  The other little kids her age are sitting quietly and paying attention to the librarian.  Mine is distracting everyone by literally climbing the walls.  So I pull her out.

 

It occurs to me that I have the “disruptive” kid.  The one that doesn’t sit still, that flits from one activity to another, has lots of energy and very little ability to focus.  Oh dear.  I’d like to get her into preschool pretty soon, but I have to wonder if they’ll even take her.

 

While I look picture books I can read to her without being bored to death, she climbs on top of the wooden book bins and walks from one to another.  I tell her to get down, but her channel is set to “Mommy Ignore.”  When I physically pull her down she climbs back up the moment I’m not looking.  I wonder how much of this behavior is acceptable and how long it will be before we’re asked to leave?

 

When I look for books for myself she literally scales the shelves.  I am mortified.  I end up grabbing a handful of books fromthe paperback racks and head for the checkout.

 

“We are leaving now because you are being naughty.  And we’re not coming next week.”

 

“No!” she shrieks, “I’ll be good!  I promise!”

 

“Too late.  You’ve already been rotten.  You don’t listen to me and you are climbing everything like a monkey.”

 

She cries and carries on until we get to the car.  And then another shriek, “My Panda!  I left Panda in the library!” She’s on her way to total meltdown.  But here’s what I know about Panda.  Panda is a girl.  Her name is Matilda.  She is big enough to dress herself and use the potty by herself.  And last, but certainly most important… Panda is invisible.  So it seems both ludicrous and fruitless to attempt to find Panda in the library.  Besides, if you have an imaginary friend, then can’t it imaginarily appear right beside you?  So this is what I say, “Oh, look!  Here’s Panda!  She followed us outside, and now she needs a hug from you because she thinks we forgot her.”  Whew, meltdown averted.

 

As I drive home I work myself damn near into a panic attack thinking, “Oh my god, I have the disruptive kid.”  I have the kid that’s so wound up she ruins everything for all the other kids.  She climbs the walls, destroys the room, standing, running, yelling, singing.  Egads.

 

At home I do a web search on 3 year olds whose behavior is disruptive.  Now anyone who’s ever done this sort of research knows it’s not very reassuring.  I find all kinds of freaky stories about hyperactivity, ADD, ADHD… the whole gamut.  I read the blog of a woman who’s 3 year old is on an unbelievable regimen of anti-psychotic drugs.  Are you kidding me?  These are major drugs we’re talking here, not baby aspirin. 

 

So I wonder what behavior is being medicated?  Is having an active imagination considered the same as being delusional?  Are imaginary friends now equal to visual and auditory hallucinations?

 

Maybe we’re in for trouble.  After all, there is a new imaginary friend around here every day.  It turns out we were only babysitting Panda, and now she’s gone home to her mommy.  Kitten takes her place.  Kitten is a special cat, one that doesn’t make Mommy sneeze (invisible cats are hypoallergenic, you know).  In a few days Kitten will move on and a new friend will take her place.

 

But maybe all will be well.  I found plenty of child development resources that claim a lot of 3 year olds are not ready to sit quietly in circle time, and that it certainly isn’t a sign of anything except being a normal, high-energy, inquisitive little kid.  I choose to believe the same about the presence of Panda and Kitten.  Besides, I’m not about to complain about new pets that require absolutely no maintenance.  Maybe we can practice sitting still and listening….?

 

Echo of the Sublime

10.12.06

It might be the last truly warm day of the year – although perhaps we’ll be wonderfully graced with another, or better yet, a few… but you never know in these here parts.  So my husband and the dog met my daughter and myself at the end of Wisconsin Point for one last wet sandy fling in the wind and the waves.  Today, no one got hurt.  Our previous trips to the beach have included a head injury, a toe injury, and a hospitalization for heat exhaustion or something else never exactly identified. 

 

It’s funny how it feels like the whole summer was a string of long lazy days basking in the heat with good friends and adorable children.  I think we actually only made it to this beach five times.  Yet in memory it feels like the heart of this summer.

 

Everything was new to my Little Miss this year.  The beach, the depot, the zoo, the boat tour on Lake Superior.  New and scary in that exciting kind of way.   I’m hoping I’ll get one more chance, next year, for it all to be new again.  Is it too much to hope that the things that were brand new to an almost 3 year old can be new again when she’s almost 4?  I don’t know.  She lists off the seasons… “Summer’s over, now it’s fall and I’m going to be a pirate for Halloween!  Winter comes next and snow and… Santa Claus comes and brings presents!”   I wasn’t sure she’d remember the Santa thing – shows what I know.  I guess we’ll wait and see what next summer brings for memories.

 

It’s driving home with a tired, quiet kid in the back seat, and a tired, wet dog in the pick-up truck a half mile behind that the sadness typical of summer’s end drifts over me like a cozy fall blanket. 

 

Time to hibernate, and soon.

 

The autumn leaves have formed an arch over the ruined but passable pavement on which I drive.  Warm sun leaks through the dappled canopy of dead and dying foliage to light the forest with a fragile glowing beauty.  For a moment my heart leaps to my throat and I know I will not visit this place again.  Not this year, at any rate.  Part of me wants to weep as I bid good-bye to the sublime summer.

 

It’s amazing how much can change in a year.

 

This time last year I was nearing the end of an incredibly long period of grief over the loss of a friend.  I could see the end of darkness and was running full-tilt towards light and laughter, yearning to feel joy again, to love and be loved.  I was ready to open my self and my heart to new people and new experiences, heady with the thrill of discovery, half-terrified I’d end up emotionally smashed to bits.  All the parts and pieces of widening my social circle beyond family and those few, but precious, friends I’ve known for a lifetime.  Stepping away from the safety inherent in isolation.

 

Here I am!

 

Today I have 4 friends I hold close in my heart who were strangers, or nearly so, just one year ago.  We start conversations that have no end.  We talk about the intricacies of marriage, partnership, dating, and parenting.  We share time and writing and laughter and love.  Some days I feel like my life is amazing – that I am the luckiest woman in the world.  And I have to say… it’s good to feel that way again.  I’ve been missing myself for an awful long time.

 

It’s human nature to reach your heart out, and human complexity is endlessly fascinating when you meet someone who draws out your truth, who seems to share theirs… when there appears to be no hidden agenda, no building to something more than this, no pressure and no consequence.  Moments of paranoia – “is it real?” are followed by moments of shrugged shoulders because if it’s real, it’s worth the risk that it isn’t.

Driving Beta

10.05.06

It’s 8:30 pm and it’s fully dark outside.  Part of me is really unhappy about this because I am a winter-hater and I can feel like it’s time to hibernate.  It would be nice to plan a trip to Mexico for next January or February.  So why am I planning one for New York City?  Oh, yeah, because I am a lunatic.  Sometimes I forget that.

 

There’s a mommy part of me is really happy that it’s dark at 8:30 pm.  Because I get to lie like a dog about the time and tell my kid, “Whoa!  Look!  The moon is shining in the black sky.  That means it’s waaaaay past your bedtime!”  For the past month my girl has been staying up until nearly 10:00 at night – which puts a HUGE damper on “mommy unwind time.”  No more.  8:30 last night, 8:15 tonight.  I’m doing the happy dance.  Somebody told me today, “You’re lucky that works.  Mine can tell time.”  Ha-ha, I say, I expect that when my kid can tell time she’ll also be able to read, so she can go to her room anyway.

 

The thing is, I can’t really blame her.  I hate to go to bed.  In an ideal life I’d work until 10 at night, then suck down a lot of coffee, write until 2 in the morning, and sleep in until 8 or 9.  Novels get written in the middle of the night around here.  Unfortunately I work more day shifts than afternoons, which means I have to force myself to go to bed early several times a week, and even when I manage to do it I’m exhausted all the next day.  Staying up late energizes me.  I recharge my batteries writing down all the crazy, silly, humorous, or melodramatic thoughts in my head.  Middle of the night-time is my creative time.

 

These last few days of working day shift have been insanely frustrating.  Oh, I’ve put myself to bed on time, and even managed to haul my butt out of bed on time… but my husband (a.k.a the Heat Miser) hasn’t approved use of the furnace yet.  So what happens when I crawl out of a warm toasty bed into a cold heat-less house is… I spend way too much time in the shower.  And standing under the soothing pound of scorching water daydreaming makes me late.

 

And because my imagination has been sparked, wound up, and set free, the daydream continues the moment I pull out of the driveway.

 

Driving while deeply immersed in beta brain waves is interesting.  Often I arrive at my destination with absolutely no recall of the trip.  Generally not a problem.  It’s early, there’s not a lot of traffic, I know where I’m going.  Whatever.

 

The trouble this weekend is that the exit to south 35 from the Blatnik Bridge is CLOSED.  So I have to grab the Garfield exit to get to grandma daycare.  And when I’m driving in beta I forget to do that, so I end up in Downtown Duluth which is totally NOT where I need to be.  When it happened the first time last week I said a really, really bad word.  Really loudly.  My daughter repeated the really bad word the next day.  I, in my infinite Mommy-wisdom, ignored it. 

 

It wasn’t missing the exit that made me say the really, really bad word, however, it was that I turned UP 5th Ave W from Michigan Street (by the library) and that street is actually a one way DOWN.  I got to the top and my brain said, “Umm, there’s a stop light here, but it’s not facing you.”  Hence the really, really bad word as I realized I had to back down the hill. 

 

This weekend I was already leaving the house later than I should, and I KNEW my exit was closed.  I knew it, yet because of long hot showers, daydreams, and “driving in beta,”  I managed TWO DAYS IN A ROW to forget to take the Garfield exit.  I might have said some bad words, but they were all muttered quietly under my breath, and I didn’t say the really, really bad one.  The worst part is this: when you’re having great beta brain activity and you’re jarred out of it suddenly you lose all those amazingly profound ideas.  So essentially, I’m pretty sure I completely missed out on writing two best-selling novels because of road construction.  Not to mention I was late for work twice.  And let’s not even get into how the parking ramp at work was closed.  I had a very real thought that if it’s this difficult to get to work maybe it’s not even worth it.

 

Sometimes you get to dream… but maybe it’s not such a good idea while driving, huh?