*I have no idea of the origins of this image, as it came via a forwarded email with no attribution so I can’t take the credit. But I sure as hell think whoever she/he was, they had me in mind.

WELL, that was a really long explanation (excuse?) for my anemic writing efforts lately. I REALLY do have to get cracking on that kindergarten post, or before we know it, she’ll be off to college! Oh well. On to the good stuff!

So over the last few months, the little genius has naturally undergone a bit of a circadian rhythm shift…fortunately for us this has been fairly concordant with the onslaught of a very demanding school schedule. It has, however, altered our family weekend rhythm a bit, because she has been getting up earlier than her poor tired parents typically do. I needsssss my weekend R&R, people!

Fortunately, we gradually devised a natural solution to the issue by embracing our slacker parenting skillz, and empowering the little genius to self-serve her early morning needs while we continue peacefully snoozing. She was already good on getting herself dressed (check), and recently learned how to master the DVR system to load up her fave recordings if desired (check), often prefers to play with her downstairs toys in the morning anyway (check), and she loves to periodically graze rather than eat specifically scheduled meals (double-check!). So all that was really necessary to put these components together was to gently urge her to go free-range in the mornings and ensure that she could access appropriate (and at least semi-healthy) snacks and beverages. Voila!!!

So far, this has worked out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. Often she will let us sleep an extra 60-90 minutes, and I have completely refused to allow even a smidge of guilt to disturb my conscience, because I have been hard selling myself on the idea that we are “encouraging a healthy level of independence”. Muahahahaha, who’s the evil genius NOW?!

However, we have run into a few small pitfalls that required adjustment. Such as the morning when she felt it appropriate to snack on about half a jar of peanut butter, spoonful by spoonful. Apparently generalizing portion size for most types of foods did not click in her brain when it came to jar and spoon. Go figure. And then one morning she was breakfasting on grapes, and felt compelled to come in our bedroom and give me a play-by-play on every grape (look Mom, a TEENY TINY one!)

So, all of that background to give context for today’s experience: K got up as normal and went off to do her thing. About an hour and a half later, she came in to talk to me just as I was getting up, and so I gave her a hug and asked her if she had already eaten anything for breakfast. She responded “oh yes Mom, I had a slice of cold pizza.”

It took a few seconds for my barely awake brain to let THAT sink in…my first thought being something like, “oh god, she’s already turning into a college student!”. All I could think to reply at that moment was a shocked, “you ate cold pizza for breakfast?”

To which she elaborated, “well, yes, I got the pizza slice out of the fridge and I ate MOST of it, but not the crust part. I went back to the fridge to put it back in the box but it was too hard to get in there so I decided to throw the crust away in the trash. Is that OK?”

If I hadn’t still been mentally asleep at that point, I might have laughed hysterically at her explanation, but as it was, I was still more dumbfounded than anything else.

Well, ultimately I guess this is proof that she really IS taking that independence thing to heart, because this is the kid who wouldn’t even skip wearing socks to bed without asking for ‘permission’ first! And lest anyone wonder, I solemnly swear we are not uptight control freaks….the kid has always been extraordinarily attuned to routines, norms, rules and very precisely observes such behavior systems. She has an incredibly analytical mind for such things and any deviation will prompt countless questions until her need to understand is satisfied.

But apparently, eating cold pizza for breakfast was just the thing to inspire her burgeoning independence!

I’m not sure if this should make me proud, or horrified.

So, how about a 1 minute family update to keep us all engaged? Ready, set, GO:

Little genius started kindergarten on August 1st. After some heinous mental/emotional breakdowns (on my part), her launch seems to be fairly successful so far. And wouldn’t you know it, the hippie school called YESTERDAY to offer us a spot. Sigh.

My brains are burnt out on work craziness, summer hell temperatures, and the hunt for some sidebar contract work to supplement our income. Right now, I live for the occasional Antiques Roadshow episode and/or even rarer late afternoon nap.

FF is suffering through a bout of bronchitis, courtesy of the little genius bringing home a cold bug from school within the first 2 weeks of the semester. Awesome.

Well, that’s about it for the 1 minute update. MORE SOON!

So apparently no good deed goes unpunished, because as you will shortly see, despite the best of intentions I (inadvertently) discovered my inner super-villain.

Cue the other night, at that magical time known as “impending bedtime for all cranky little geniuses”, whereupon I informed my dear child that it was time to get in the bath. However, at that particular moment, her father was still occupying the master bathroom, which is usually where the little genius takes her bath because the tub is larger and deeper than hers. At that point, frazzled after a long day of pretending to be a beaver mother/gaseous horse/lonely rooster/hungry penguin, I suggested she go ahead and use the smaller tub in the hopes that we could MOVE ALONG WITH BEDTIME ALREADY.

Fortunately, she was amenable and got settled in her bath, whereupon she rediscovered a long-neglected basket of bath toys, including a handful of soft plastic foam alphabet letters and numbers which stick to wet tub walls. Being an avid pre-reading little genius, she of course wanted to Build! Some! Words!  I figured the appropriate parental response would be to nurture and encourage each baby step of her literary infancy, so I improvised a game around creating rhyming words by substituting consonants around a central vowel.

However, I quickly realized a flaw in my plan…namely: many of the alphabet letters had been lost over time and we were depressingly short on vowels. So I told her that I had a solution to the problem, and went out to retrieve my handy scissors. Upon returning, I tried to ham it up by telling her that I was Dr. Vowel, and that I had come to solve her vowel problems! She saw the scissors and began whimpering a little (that’s my nervous kid!) but I theatrically told her to relax! and trust Dr. Vowel!  I then grabbed one of the extraneous foam numerals, #7 to be exact, and carefully converted it to an “i”.  She looked up at me with her huge tremulous blue eyes, and then crumpled into a heap of wailing, heartbroken humanity.

“Mom! (sob) you RUINED my (sob) number 7! You shouldn’t have done (sob) that!” She was still sad, even after I demonstrated the “L”‘s amazing ability to go topsy-turvy and stand in for the dearly departed #7.

Talk about self-induced guilt.

And of course, she nailed the coffin shut when getting ready for bed and solemnly asked me “Mom, do you think maybe tomorrow we could go to the store and buy me a new number 7?”

Since relating this sad story to Uncle Bubba, he has taken to calling me Dr. Vowel  with an evil lilt to it. Thanks bro.

Mainly, I’ve been riding the wave of gleeful post-homework life and spending very little computer time doing anything that requires significant cognitive processing. Not to mention that the last few weeks at work have been tremendously busy, and insanely stressful what with top-down administrative reorganizations, severe budget cuts, and the like. So needless to say, I haven’t been in much of a bloggy frame of mind.

However, I feel the need to issue a report on our grand vacation in early June; a whirlwind trip that started with my #1 niece’s high school graduation and ended with a crazy 5-day stint in…..you guessed it…..Las Vegas. The Vegas leg of the trip was a long-awaited family celebratory extravaganza to ring in a host of decade-centric birthdays (ahem, yes, I wasn’t the only one with a milestone this year.) One of my nephews, my brother, and my dear hubby all hit “decade” birthdays between mid April and mid June. So naturally we all felt the need to hoop it up in sin city.

But before I get ahead of myself too far, let me reel back a bit and describe the first segment of the trip. My dear eldest niece, so lovely in body and spirit, was graduating with honors from a tremendously rigorous International Baccalaureate-affiliated school the first weekend of June. I was very excited to attend, particularly to hear her speak at the graduation ceremony. However, seeing as said ceremony was scheduled to begin quite early in the morning, at roughly a 2-hour drive from our house, we opted to drive up the Friday before and meet up with GMom to share a hotel room.

Considering that we also had to plan ahead/pack for the Vegas trip, get the pets settled, load the car, feed the kid, and a million other things after an already-long day of work, we didn’t get out of town until almost 8pm, which put our arrival into a rather late-ish timeframe. After unloading our overnight gear and securing a late night snack courtesy of the only open business in the area — Circle K — I started prepping the little genius for bed. I left her in the hotel bathroom to marinate in the shower for a few moments while I went to unpack her jammies and get the bed ready. Upon reaching for a pillow, what did I see but a tiny little bug on the pillow!

Now, not that I travel all that much, but you’d have to live in a deep cave anymore these days not to be aware of ye olde modern hotel bedbug epidemic. Being a bonafide bug-o-phobe already, of course my mind leapt to the possibility of bedbugs, although the little specimen was very tiny. I asked FF and Uncle Bubba (also sharing the room) to give it an eyeball, and in the course of examining that and other pillows, they located a much larger and more suspicious looking critter, which we caught in a plastic cup. At that point, with frantic smartphone image Googling underway, we felt rather alarmed and certain that we hit the unlucky jackpot of a bedbug-infested room.

And honestly, the front desk wasn’t all that much help…they offered to move us to a different room, but that wasn’t very reassuring considering that all of us had horrific images of bringing home our very own bedbug buddies to our respective domiciles, never to be pest-free again. This was particularly unsettling to FF and I, considering that a few years ago we suffered through an epic, almost yearlong flea war at our old crappy apartment. And believe me, we tried everything, to no avail. Moving out WAS the final solution.  So needless to say, we are pretty particularly picky when it comes to bug issues.

So our troops did a quick huddle and we decided to relocate to another hotel (by this time nearly 1am), yet unfortunately the only affordable place reasonably nearby was a 30 minute drive away. Ugh. However, despite our collective exhaustion, this seemed a better option than potentially offering ourselves up as blood donors to the native fauna. The little genius was taking everything in stride pretty well, despite some confusion and tiredness. We repacked our overnight gear and shuffled back down to the van.  Unfortunately however, during the baggage and kid-loading insanity, we managed to lock a) the kid b) all our stuff and c) the keys, snugly in the van.

Oh shit.

So yes, friends and neighbors, we stood outside a bedbug-ridden hotel in a sleepy small hamlet at 1am shouting instructions through a closed window to our frantically crying daughter on how to escape her snug, safe, 5-point carseat harness with the child-resistant latch so that she could unlock the van for us. Totally not one of my proudest moments. Fortunately the little genius is a trooper and she calmed down and persevered enough to get us out of the fiasco. After that, we hit the highway and about an hour later we all collapsed into an exhausted slumber.

So the management did call and talk to Gmom the next day (she had made the reservation) and were properly apologetic and all that crap, issuing refunds and free night coupons ad nauseam. And a few days after that, they emailed a copy of their pest company report, predictably denying any bedbug issues but admitting the presence of some “carpet beetles”. Well, I appreciate them sharing the report and all but I gotta say that I’m still not convinced and I don’t think they actually examined the critter we captured and showed to the front desk staff.

SO, needless to say the next morning came very early and as for my little family pod, we reluctantly decided to skip the main ceremony and let the little genius continue to get some much-needed rest. We did attend the post-ceremony graduation party and it was a lot of fun, particularly when my niece “unwrapped” a very exciting present: a car! K thought that was just about the coolest and most exciting thing she’d ever heard of, and I’m pretty sure she will not forget it, and thus expectantly hold it over her parents’ heads until her own high school graduation. Sigh.

So with that dramatic report out of the way, I’m happy to say that the Vegas phase of the trip was tons of fun and very smooth sailing with no buggy or incompetent parenting episodes. We bowled, we saw movies, we gambled, we swam, we played a lot of cards in the sumptuous top-floor suite that K2 & family occupied, and generally a great time was had by all. The young guys (uncle bubba, my #1 nephew and #2 nephew) camped out in the 2nd suite bedroom and turned it into an X-box blazin’, Dr. Pepper guzzling, stinky man cave. They loved it.

FOUR LAYERS!

The guys went to see Cirque’s new Elvis show one night, and the next night the girls went to see Menopause: The Musical. Which was, um, quite an experience and has given me a slightly worried perspective on my future hormonal event horizon. (Is it too early to already be experiencing the whole brain collapse thing? ’cause lately….) Seriously though, the show was quite a laugh and a lot of fun to see with Gmom and Aunt D (K2′s mom).

Speaking of Gmom, she brought some serious magic to the table and managed to somehow make an amazingly elaborate cake in a hotel mini-kitchen for us birthday folks! Totally awesome. (and delicious!)

All in all, a trip (and birthday) to remember!

Conversational setting: comparing notes on the royal wedding.

Gmom: you know, I’ve watched those two boys grow up all these years throughout all the drama of their family and the loss of their mother, and when the news started pouring out about the wedding, I was surprised to realize how old Wills had gotten!

Me: Geez mom! he’s younger than I am!

Gmom: well dear, you ARE 30 now.

Me: thanks mom.

See, I have barely emerged from the cave-like existence of graduate school and it is taking some time for me to regain lost mental footing. These days, I struggle with remembering to eat breakfast let alone tackle mentally-intensive tasks like writing or website design.

Stating that I’m “relieved to be done” merely scratches the surface of where I’m at in my post-graduate cogitations, however I do find myself grappling a bit with the change in identity…can’t slap that “grad student” label around willy-nilly anymore. Which honestly feels a little strange. And maybe more than a smidge terrifying, when I think about student loan repayment schedules and whatnot (trying not to hyperventilate here).

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/123004/

But at the end of the day, it is a tremendous accomplishment and something that for a long time, I abstractly believed would never end. The forward momentum required to initiate this degree and stick out some of the tougher moments while simultaneously wading through full-time career work, the parental mysteries of toddlerhood and preschool, and periodic bouts of crippling insomnia and grief-related depression. Anyway, lest I begin to verge upon the sorry state of “wallowing”, the reality is that I am one of the lucky ones…I had a lot going for me such as work-related tuition reduction, a supportive immediate and extended family network, and fantabulous colleagues I could draw on for expertise and assistance.  Nor did I have to write a thesis, take advanced statistics, or wade through any disgusting math classes. So all in all, a smashing success, even if I am mentally toasted and emotionally wiped out.

Anyway, all the naval-gazing aside, last weekend we had a little family get together (with the generous help of Gmom and UB–many thanks!) at our house to celebrate graduation and also K’s first dance recital (another delightful future post in the barrel…stay tuned!). It had the positive side-effect of motivating us to clean the house to a semi-reasonable state and tackle some long-ignored projects (packing away 18 months worth of outgrown little-genius clothing, anyone?). The day was so lovely, filled with laughter, fun and a zillion kids running around like electrocuted cats [that is--noisily bouncing off the walls].  The weather was even “relatively” reasonable, at a mere 95° with a wispy periodic breeze. I’m more grateful than words can express for all the support and love.

So onward and upward…in the short term hopefully to some side-contracted instructional design work, or possibly some adjunct teaching; in the longer term hopefully a position upgrade with my current employer or barring that, a reasonably painless and successful job search.

Or there is always….

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

As your insane, nearly-graduated, slacker daughter par excellence, you have sadly not received any timely spring flowers nor pastel, earnest greeting card tasked with conveying all those deep mother-daughter sentiments which usually get obstinately stuck somewhere just below my larynx. I’m sorry to say that easy sentimentality and expressiveness just aren’t on my list of strengths.

Nonetheless, I do not want the occasion to pass without recognition of some sort, because while I AM bad at expressing such notions at times, the thoughts and feelings carry on. Thus, in lieu of overpriced/overcrowded brunches, flowers which die too quickly, or greeting cards which inadequately convey complex emotions, I decided to take a different tack and write a public blog post to revel in the happy fact that you are my mother. Hopefully, this doesn’t end up too weird for either one of us.

The first framing of my thoughts starts with a simple but profound realization: I have always taken your presence in my life for granted. I began to understand this most acutely after becoming a mother myself, but as time goes by the fact stares me in the face with greater frequency. This is not necessarily about the things you do or have done, or even the unique person that you are, but basically a burgeoning awareness of the gentle, invisible cocooning that those of us lucky enough to have great moms carry with us at all times. As Meghan O’Rourke observes:

A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.

So I suppose this is the actual ideal order of things; for our children to have such magical and positive parental relationships that they are able to take them for granted. But especially as I mature as a parent, I want you to know that I do recognize and value your presence (and comforting cocooning when called for) in my life. So much of what I know and who I am today was shaped and impacted by you; always for the better.

I believe some of this is best observed in the ways in which we are different; in the ways that, even within our adult relationship, we totally mystify (and yes, sometimes admittedly annoy!) each other at times. Amazingly, this does not dominate or negate the broader picture of our relationship. What a rare thing, to have someone in your corner that respects and embraces your fundamental differences as much as your similarities!

I guess the only thing left is to try and convey how much your endless cheerleading, affirmations, positivism, listening, support, and amazing mom-ness has always meant to me, and always will. There really aren’t sufficient words to adequately describe this…whether stuck below my larynx or floating in cyberspace, so hopefully you are able to use your awesome motherly powers to just understand what I mean.

Happy Mother’s Day….I love you always!

Easter 2006

WhatCHU lookin' at? Haven't you ever seen a kid with pink satin ears?

Ok, enough with the props, Mom

Why yes, I believe I will gnaw on this basket now, thank you

Easter 2007

Cute as a bug, but slightly confused by the whole basket situation.

You may force me to wear this sun hat, but you will never take my yellow pretties! (CACKLE)

Easter 2008

I have no idea why we barely got any pictures in 2008...

Easter 2009

Cutest. Easter. Dress. EVER. (she got the worst sunburn of her young life that day, sigh.)

Easter 2010

Her patented "I Just Got Out of Bed" look

She had WAY too much fun painting eggs...

Awesome bunny balloon courtesy of GMOM...this thing was kicking around our house for MONTHS after Easter!

Easter 2011

Another "I Just Got Out of Bed" moment

She found a ladybug and it was hands-down the biggest rockstar of the day!

Just...hold....still!!!

Anyway, back to the point. Today when I got home from work, the little genius ran out to greet me, as she often does. She was very excited and told me that she had a surprise for me, and commanded me to close my eyes and follow her. Being led blind through our obstacle course of a garage was a little dicey, but she managed to keep me alive and when I arrived in the kitchen I was greeted by the sight of a lovely vase full of flowers. She was so sweet and excited, and told me that she bought them for me “even though it wasn’t my birthday anymore”. A loving and delightful surprise, and well-timed as it had been a long and somber day, with the sad news of the passing of a coworker’s mother.

The best part of the surprise though, was getting “the rest of the story” from FF. Apparently when they stopped at the store for bananas and milk after school, she of course went to do her usual flower inspection, and then asked if she could buy some flowers for me. She also informed her father that she had five dollars at home, so she negotiated for him to buy the flowers and promised to pay him back when they got home. FF, simply thinking she still had tooth fairy money left over, didn’t think much of it and bought the flowers.

Upon arriving home, she scampered off to her treasure box and proudly returned to hand over her flower money….

all eleven cents of it. 

Sweetest girl in the world.

Anyway, due to ongoing time constraints, this post is relegated to a pathetic “I’m still alive” three minute update, and a commitment in writing to get back on track blogwise in the coming weeks. Now, on to the good stuff.

• The powers that be at my graduate program have decided to LET ME OUT! I got notification last night (late last night, otherwise I probably would have gone out for celebratory bar-hopping…) that my applied project received a PASS, which right now to me feels exactly like a parole order from prison. I am not DONE with the semester yet; I still have two weeks of zombie-like sociology coursework to complete, but all the hard stuff is behind me.
• After some recent serious brain-frying cogitation, I decided for a variety of reasons not to walk in the graduation ceremony. I still feel vaguely guilty about this decision even though ultimately I’m the only one who might conceivably have any future regret about it. Honestly, I skipped my undergrad ceremony too and never thought about it twice, so this really isn’t a big deal. The accomplishment remains.
• …HOWEVER, the “now what?” interrogations are just starting. And the fact that I don’t really have any specific answers right now makes this more than a touch irritating; not towards the inquiring parties, but rather more inwardly-focused. I’ve been so utterly driven to finish over the last whatever semesters that the means haven’t begun to connect to the ends yet, in my mind.  Oh shit.
• I should take this moment to thank Björn, ABBA, Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried and all their buddies for getting me through many a difficult homework night, most especially (repetitively) in recent weeks. Without the focusing force of Pierce Brosnan’s eye-twitchy singing performances, I might never have graduated.
• It’s official; I have joined the 30 club. I have a lot of thoughts about this, and have started writing a naval-gazing reflective post. I know you are excited, so stay tuned.
• A few days ago, I broke my cardinal rule about not trimming my daughter’s hair myself. I could not stand her shaggy-dog look anymore; had no time to make a trip to Supercuts; and she wouldn’t let me otherwise constrain it with clips, bands, bows, ties, clasps, barrettes, or hats. The results aren’t terrible, but they aren’t fashion-mag cover material either. I solemnly swear I will take my poor abused child to a proper salon to get further tidied up before her big upcoming dance recital.
• We have infected her entertainment life with Fern Gully. Anyone of a Certain Age remembers this movie with some amount of amusement and horror for its absurd stench of the 90s. Naturally, my daughter loves it, and spends a great deal of time now pretending to be, in fact, a forest fairy.
• Speaking of the little genius, guess what? She is going to be graduating too! And it makes me want to cry! Oh wait, I probably WILL cry on the big day. And we still have no firm answer on which school she’ll be attending in the fall yet. Sigh.
• And for a final thought, all she (desperately) wants from the Easter Bunny this year is a Live! Butterfly! Garden! Ummm, ok, bug-phobic child. And thank you, TV infomercials.

And naturally, I have a whole long list of goals and tasks in mind once this ordeal is over and I can breathe again.

But anyhoo, enough of that tediousness. Mainly I wanted to touch again on the little genius school hunt chronicles.

So as mentioned before, during last year’s freakout, we narrowed the local options to two main contenders. We visited the first one in early February, and submitted the enrollment interest form. The meet-n-greet information session was OK, but somehow a bit underwhelming.  And then a couple weeks ago, we finally got to attend the tour/meet-n-greet for the other school, henceforth referred to as CharterB.

So, CharterB is based on a Waldorf curriculum system, but not what you might call cultishly adherent. I had some little familiarity with the precepts of Waldorf from talking to other parents who’d sent their kids to that type of school. I have to say that I am personally on board with the notions of a more holistic approach, at least for the foreseeable early education years, in which I think nurturing the creativity, discovery-learning, and play skills should be foremost priorities.  So I was pretty excited to see that there was a Waldorf charter school within a reasonable travel distance from our home.

Anyway, back to the meet-n-greet. We decided to make it a family affair, and let K skip a day of preschool to attend the tour with us. In retrospect, I probably should have prepared FF with a little background information on the nature and style of Waldorf educational environments. To be honest, yes, their campus is, in FF’s words, a total flaming hippie zone. But it is really quite charming and lovely, complete with organic garden, chickens, goats, beehives, mini-pond and lots of grass to roll in, and trees to climb (yes, they really do explicitly state in the tour that your children will be encouraged to climb trees.) It was like stepping into a total alternate dimension for a couple hours, albeit a charming and weirdly peaceful alternate dimension [must be all that rhythmic bong-hitting], in which academics are important of course, but only in relation to the whole of the experience. K, of course, was enchanted by the whole thing. She desperately wanted to bring home every chicken, leaf, rock, and interesting stick encountered throughout the entire tour. She, however, did NOT hear the bit about school recommendations to completely remove “media” from your young child’s life (that is: all TV, computer, video game, or mobile device activities). FF just about choked when he heard that tidbit. We’re both pretty sure the crazy-saavy little genius would not be easily parted completely from her beloved Hula people, Angry Birds, or Nina & Star.

On that day, I made the startling realization that without certain aspects of maturity that only parenting has granted me, I would have been weirded out beyond reckoning by the whole thing. But instead, I was amused and charmed in equal measures, and find myself still hoping that the little genius will be able to get a coveted spot on the enrollment list. FF was a little shellshocked by the whole thing, but still seems in agreement that a couple years there would be a nurturing and positive experience for the little genius. Especially as she is all nature-crazy these days (hopefully more about this in an upcoming post), and she’d probably spend every moment happily sowing and weeding their organic garden, if they’d let her.

Potentially not the kind of academic solution I’d choose beyond the first couple years, but I think perhaps just the thing for now. So we’ll see.

Maybe, just maybe, I won’t lose my mind after all.

From Financial Times, via Slate:

It seems to be a challenge in this season for even the more sensible parents among us, even those who really have better things to do, not to fall prey to the prevailing fantasy that if your child is rejected from one of these desirable and enlightened places, he or she will be destined for a life of drug addiction, grand theft auto, or general exile.

It’s a lovely feeling, to have your craziness validated in such an eloquent way.

And no, this post isn’t about my own personal academic endeavors, obnoxious as they are right now. No, this is an issue that has broader long-term implications, IE the rest of my daughter’s LIFE. You see, she has been happily cruising along the last 2 years in preschool without a care in the world, but it is inevitable that those people would eventually notice she is 5 and plan to so-called “graduate” her. Ugh. And actually, to give myself some credit, I really did begin researching this situation about a year ago, so I’m not going in completely blind but this issue is definitely a good representation of a Classic Cluelessmom Cluster.

The first problem is that I have an intense and soul-searing terror that if I make a single misstep in handling her academic career, I will ruin her life. Seriously. Yeah, I know that sounds pretty melodramatic but I’m telling you, I have a lot of ISSUES related to this issue. No Tiger Mom here, by any means. I was very fortunate to be able to attend a small private school for my K-12 career and received a really excellent education and a positive social experience. I would hope for something similar for my child, but I also hold the realistic view that she is very much her own person and might thrive in a different kind of environment, and that a lot of success factors really come down to the individual teacher level. But how to maximize the chances of finding the right school solution for her???

Generally when faced with such fears and insecurities, my first plan of attack is research, research, research. I started from a couple basic premises: a) FF and I are united on the priority of finding a non-public-school solution and b) we can’t really afford a private school. So logically that leaves charter schools, of which there are numerous options in our general metro area. From there, I started looking around online at potential options, and trying to figure out the various locations, admissions, curriculums, etc. However, this is a case in which my reliance on research has generally made my anxiety a hell of a lot WORSE. See, it used to be in the good old days (so I hear) that parents would pass along word of mouth about various schools and so you could generally talk to your social community to figure out where to send your kid. NOW, the whole internet is your community and boy, do they have a lot to say! Logically I guess most of the people who bother to post reviews are the squeaky wheels, but still.  And have you ever seen that commercial greatschools.org site? HOLY information overload, batman.

When I started looking into this last year, my initial reaction was essentially a big panic attack, at the prospect that I’d ever be able to sort out such a mess and find a positive solution for our family in such a way that wouldn’t, you know, ruin my daughter’s life. (Yes, it keeps coming back to this.) In the end, it became apparent that she wouldn’t be able to get admitted into a program until after her 5th birthday (in November) and most of the schools we looked at did not admit new students in January. So that was actually like a surprise dose of Prozac to my overheated brain…”YAY I get to file her back into preschool for another whole year with no guilt!” Even though the process really did freak me out, I felt like something productive came from it because at least I was able to narrow down two potential school choices for the next year that I felt pretty good about. Which I hoped would alleviate the upcoming freak-out when it was actually time to enroll.

And now it’s that time. And I find myself second-guessing those choices again, and reviewing all the information again, and freaking out a little bit that I’m going to send her into a bad situation which does not nurture her personally, academically, or both. And if that should actually occur, I feel like it’s an all-in poker bet and we’ll never be able to recover from the misstep. We went to a public information session last week at one of the schools, and it left me feeling a little underwhelmed. It didn’t exactly turn me off to the school in general, but neither did it really give a lot of affirmation or excitement. (Mainly, we just left with a tired, crying little genius who didn’t understand why ALL the kids didn’t win door prizes…)

Why is this so complicated?

So right now the plan of action is to carry through with investigating the two schools we narrowed down and hope that she will find a spot in one or the other, and that it turns out to be a reasonably positive experience. I keep trying to focus on the fact that even if the situation proves less than ideal, it is not a locked door. But at what cost to the little genius if we ultimately have to shift around a few times to find the best school available to us? How to balance the factors of quality, affordability, safe/positive environment, location, parent/community involvement and whatever else I haven’t thought of yet? How to know when to draw the line on a poor academic fit for your child based on personal characteristics or because the curriculum/environment just isn’t working for them?

And ultimately, how to shake the feeling that if we fail to find excellent educational solutions for the little genius in these crucial formative years, it will ruin her life?

I’m going to lose my mind.

Cool/cold showers are HORRIBLE!

TO:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

How I Regained Some Perspective by Having the Shit Scared Out of Me

So, let me tell you about last week. 

Tuesday night, I was burning the midnight oil (again) trying to finish up my apocalyptic capstone proposal paper. And still moping about the whole capstone-requirement-program change thing. I never feel very adult or proud when I find myself moping, but there you go. At any rate, around 2am as I was furiously typing away by the glow of my desk lamp, and plugged into iTunes via earbuds, I heard a strange sound, like a barking dog. SO I took out an earbud and realized that the little genius was awake, and coming over to my desk while doing some kind of schnauzer impression. I couldn’t figure out what kind of subversive midnight game she had in mind, but as she got closer it became apparent that it was no game — the poor kid was coughing in a way I’d never heard before. It truly sounded like a barking dog, but she didn’t seem very bothered by it…just tired, so I sent her to my room so she could snuggle with an already-snoring FF. By the time I joined them at 4am or so, it was apparent she had a fever and was very restless, so I got her some acetaminophen and changed her out of her sweaty PJs. And of course, we kept her home from school on Wednesday.

Wednesday, she was chipper and playful most of the day, albeit still running a fever of about 100° and coughing a little bit here and there. We, the parental units, basically wrote it off as another minor cold and didn’t think much about it. Prior to bedtime on Wednesday, we gave her some ibuprofen and she went to sleep with nary a whimper. About an hour later, I heard her crying over the baby monitor, which is unusual because 95% of the time when she wakes up at night, she pops out of her room to get us / lay down with us / get a drink /whatever – no drama involved. So I ran in there to check on her, to find her cough-barking, gagging, choking, heaving, spitting, and otherwise having a major freak-out. I grabbed a nearby towel and did the best I could to help her calm down and get past the coughing/gagging fit, but it was difficult because she was absolutely panicked and in between barking fits kept repeating over and over “Mommy, help me! help me!”. Just recalling her sheer terror and typing about it makes my stomach and toes do a little trauma-induced tango.

By that time FF had arrived on the scene and was offering what support he could, all the while reflecting my own panic in his eyes. After a few minutes (but felt like an eternity) the worst of the coughing passed, her breathing improved, and she began to calm down a little. The fit was so intense that she broke dozens and dozens of tiny blood vessels (petechiae) across her face, giving her cherubic cheeks the impression of adorable freckles. It was also apparent that her fever was still quite high – between 102° and 103°, and so I turned to FF and said “I think we better make a trip to the ER tonight”, to which my poor daughter responded “MOM AM I GOING TO DIE?”. If that doesn’t break your heart, just about nothing will.

So this is the point where I wish I could say that we bundled her up, went to the ER, got her checked out, received a breathing treatment and reassurance, and we all went home to bed, happily ever after. But, not so much. See, even though there is a 24-hour pediatric urgent care fairly near our house, I reasoned it might be best to take her to the dedicated pediatric ER at the hospital where our pediatricians have physician privileges. This particular pediatric ER is also highly regarded in our city and I had every expectation for excellent care for our daughter.

We got there about 11:30pm, went through the check-in and paperwork process and were sent to the waiting room, where we discovered about 30 or so other families in various stages of waiting. I probably should have been more concerned about the crowded conditions, but I’ve been in busy ERs before and still received pretty efficient care, so again, didn’t think much of it. K, of course, simply wanted to introduce herself to all the other children and go check out the play area. (cringe.) She would not be dissuaded, and her breathing/coughing were fine at the moment, so we went exploring, and within moments managed to get chastised by the security guard for making too much noise in the play area (WTF – wasn’t this a pediatric ER?). After an hour or so, we finally got called back to triage and the nurse perfunctorily checked her oxygen levels, listened to her chest briefly, and inquired about her symptoms. She declared that it sounded like a classic case of croup and that the kiddo would probably need a breathing treatment and told us to go back to the waiting room, and to return to triage if she started any more coughing fits. Sounds reasonable, right? So yeah, that’s what we did. And it was rather difficult to contain the kid, strung out as she was on adrenaline and exhaustion and being in an area with lots of hyper children, but we did the best we could. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. I tried to track down a vending machine or cafeteria to get the poor kid some juice or milk, but none were available at that time of night, in that part of the hospital.

To make a long story short(ish), we waited over SIX hours. Fortunately she never had any more major coughing fits, and she made friends with a similarly strung-out 18 month old girl and they entertained each other for several hours. My daughter, of course, outlasted every other child in the hospital for sheer willpower to stay awake. One by one, starting around 3am, the kids and parents started falling asleep on benches, chairs, strollers, and in some cases, even the floor. Around 4am, I insisted that she lay down on a bench and try to rest a bit, snuggled up with her stuffed Valentine monkey, and her fuzzy purple bathrobe as pillow and blanket. After 45 minutes of wiggling, she finally dozed off. After another hour of waiting with no further communication about our likelihood of ever seeing a doctor, we finally reasoned that the poor kid would probably be better served resting at home for the mere 3 hours remaining until our regular pediatric office was open. So we checked ourselves out and went home.

The doctor’s office agreed by phone that it was croup and told us to bring her in if she had any more serious episodes or continued to have a fever beyond a week. The good news is that she is fine and never had any more major coughing/breathing episodes, although she did have a fever and continued to wake up 2-3 times a night with SOME coughing for another 5 days. Oh and she basically went on a food strike for about 10 days, subsisting only on water, juice, and the occasional cup of instant-breakfast-fortified chocolate milk. 

Now, I realize and respect that it is peak season for all things viral, and that the pediatric ER is very popular, and that there were probably many other children who were sicker and more urgently needed care than my daughter. What I AM still upset about is the basic lack of communication and measures taken to help people deal with the long wait. For example, when we checked in, there was no mention of the likely LONG wait. Nor did the triage nurse communicate this fact. Nor did anyone from the administrative staff even bother to check in with people who had been waiting 6, 7, 8 or more hours to convey the situation and offer alternatives. Further, if you are going to have dozens of families waiting overnight for care, would it be a significant financial burden to offer a pillow and blanket to the poor kids sleeping on the bare tile floor? Not to mention the overall messiness of the waiting area — no visible trash cans, with empty wrappers and coffee cups on every horizontal surface. And if you aren’t going to provide a 24 hour cafeteria, for the love of god, please provide a vending machine for desperate parents to buy graham crackers and juice.

So, all of this to say that we had a total and complete hospital FAIL and we won’t be going back to that particular location unless there were no alternatives.

What little good may have come of this…is that despite my internal second-guessing monologue (should we go to the hospital? should we go to urgent care? wait and see?) and fear that I would be perceived as a hysterical hypochondriac mom, I am pleased that I took action without delay or doubt. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is something I have worried about, dating back to those horrifying first days at home with the little genius and not knowing what to do about her incessant crying and/or if she was sick, dehydrated, part devil-spawn, whatever. I had this paralyzing fear that calling the doctor after hours, or going to the hospital, etc without serious and obvious need would make people think me an idiot, or hysterical, or both. I’ve slowly taught myself to reject those low-confidence gut reactions and let go of worrying about what others think, and I guess you could say this experience was a little test to see if I could walk the talk. 

I think I passed.

But anyway, none of that is the point of this post. See, as I was marinating in my frustrations last night, my awesome little bro (AKA Uncle Bubba) called me up with great excitement in his voice and said “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!!” And he then proceeded to tell me about a promotional bit he just saw on Food Network: an upcoming CHOPPED ALL STAR 5-PART BATTLE! Now, to those of you who are not Chopped aficionados (I can’t imagine why not), you might not realize that the mere announcement of this special series is enough to get excited about.  But wait, there’s MORE!!!

AWESOME

One day last June, UB and I were verbally dissecting the latest episode of Chopped, and we started talking about how AWESOME it would be if they had some kind of special all-star battle in which the chef judges came down from their lofty judging seats and competed themselves to donate the prize to their charity of choice.  The more we talked about this idea, the cooler it sounded and the more excited we got, and finally I decided, what the hell…I’m gonna go online and email the Food Network! AND I DID! And I got a lovely auto-response email back from my detailed idea submission. And lo and behold 9ish months later, I’ll be damned if this special series isn’t almost EXACTLY what I proposed in my email, except for the number of rounds and the inclusion of a few other celebrity chef contestants. So I don’t think I can take ALL the credit for this most exciting, awesome, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious TV development….but I’m sure as hell gonna stake my claim on a tiny little bit of it!

Take that, bad mood!

Anywho, I have to be honest and also say that lately my down time / entertainment mechanism has shifted away from favorite DVR’d shows due to waning interest on my part, the cancellation of a couple favorites (Medium, RIP. I may never recover from the trauma of your series finale episode. sob.), and of course general lack of time.  So, what other activity fills the late-night need to detox from textbooks, research designs, evaluation instruments, and pretend play with the five year old genius? Why yes, internet, I have resumed MMORPGing with FF on a limited basis. It’s brainless in real-world terms, but demands more immersion and interaction than TV, and diverts my brain from other stresses better than books.  And I go through books too quickly to keep enough new material around anyway. (One of my longtime fantasies is a deserted island with nice weather, a sturdy hammock, and a VIP comped Amazon account.)

So how to close a post with little to no substance or topical organization? Why, with pictures of course. Who doesn’t like fresh(ish) pictures?

A cute Vegas pic, post-M&M world visit. Everyone say hi to the random drunk people in the backdrop.

Beautiful ballerina! She loves getting all girl-ified for dance class. ONLY for dance class.

We scored the cutest baby penguin chick you ever saw at Target! The penguin family is happily expanding.

Barber shop time, Dad! The awesome irony is when you observe how horrifyingly messy her own head is.

She has been diligently trying to master the fine art of bubble blowing.

So all of this has kind of put me into full-blown freak-out mode the last couple weeks.  Uncle Bubba has been acting as my ad hoc unofficial therapist/sounding-board on the go (mostly because he is the one that is always available via phone/text/yahoo lately — sorry UB!).  Aside from the academic challenges, I am seriously worried about the reality of student loans pressing in upon me; my ability to find better-paying work one way or another; and getting our general current finances in some kind of order because quite frankly, 2009 and 10 kinda kicked our asses and the ducks are coming home to roost.  It’s all a mess right now, but operating under certain constraints makes it hard to plan for improvement.  I think this will all become a little clearer once I have escaped from grad school and can get my head screwed back on properly for other important life-details.

We did succumb to one little pre-semester fun hurrah; since we minimized Christmas expenses and whatnot this year…we took a little MLK weekend trip to Vegas, just the three of us.  It was actually quite a fun trip, althought very different from recent Vegas adventures because Gmom wasn’t there this time to offload some of the kid-duties.  So a lot less drinking/gambling/related shenanigans, but more family-based adventures.  K had a great time.

Have to put a shout-out to my awesome hubby for all his recent support, patience, and general steadiness in my life at a time when it feels like everything else is wobbling on its axis.  Over the last couple days he has been painstakingly working on our @#$)(#!& master shower, so that I can finally be reunited with blisteringly hot morning showers which have more water pressure than a dog peeing on a bush.  He also took on the Dad-ariffic task of taking the little genius out to buy her Long-Awaited-Tap-Shoes.  She is THRILLED and tomorrow’s dance class ought to be a TOTAL hoot.  Oh and he has lately been playing frequent victim customer to K’s “barber shop” ministrations.  All this during a week when his dear daughter jokingly suggested replacing him with 1) a puppet or 2) a robot. (!)

On the other family WIN front, we finally got the little genius in to see the dentist this week, which had been somewhat delayed for a variety of reasons.  As first dental visits go, it was pretty positive and she seemed to enjoy it overall.  For my peace of mind, I am so relieved to find out that the nightly teeth-grinding isn’t going to ruin her life, and her overall dental health is A-OK perfect right now.  Hooray!

OK as exciting as all that is — on to the mea culpa.  I had great intentions (and we ALL know where those are used for paving…) to get around to fixing the blog design layout and whatnot, and get some serious type-time in over the break, but somehow the allure of DVR and Wii frisbee golf and staying up all night doing nothing meaningful got the better of me. So.  Maybe not so much on the redesign and playing catch-up, given that my next three weeks of academic/work life are probably going to be sheer hell, BUT  I am planning to try to commit to one post a week this semester, because I feel a lot more sane and happy when I get some of the junk in my head OUT.  Fortunately (?) you all are along for the ride!

So, onward and upward; on the road again; ready-steady-GO; once more into the fray….yada, yada, yada.

Pizza’s here!