school

Drop Off

Image | | patmcg

This is a picture of the start of a typical day for Molly.  Molly has a nice, set routine each school morning.  I won’t got into the all the details of the routine (although I have done that before), but here are a few highlights of how Molly likes her morning to go…

  • Molly always has Cheerios for breakfast but doesn’t finish them and asks for a “to go” for the car.
  • After dropping Claire off at school, and on the drive to Molly’s school, Molly usually initiates some sort of creative activity with me.  It’s anything from “What do you want me to draw?” to “Tell me everything you see that starts with letter S” or an “I’m thinking of something that…” game.  “I’m thinking of something that grows on fences.”, which is flowers, for example.  She always has something to offer.
  • On a related note, the drives home in the evening are less creative and more grumpy.  A favorite question of Molly’s is a whiney “Why do you always have to cook dinner at home?” (I actually pick up food on the way home really often).
  • Once we’re at Molly’s pre-school, we can either take the stairs or the elevator upstairs to her classroom.  Molly always gets to pick.  Lately Molly’s trick is to stand at the hallway between the stairs and the elevator and say out loud, “Hmm…which way?”  And then she’ll suddenly sprint towards the elevator, giggling loudly, trying to get away from me.  She always looks back to make sure I’m chasing her.  It is hilarious to see Molly tear down the hall in a dress and shiny shoes.
  • Once at the elevator, the next game is for Molly to press the “up” button before I can do it, and then to press the “3” button once inside before I can get to it.  It makes Molly giggle even more when I just barely lose to her every time.  By the time we get to Molly’s classroom, she is panting and laughing.
  • Then Molly suddenly gets real quiet when we actually enter her classroom.  It is hard to get a even one word out of her.  Sometimes she gets a little excited to give an extra toilet paper cardboard roll from home to Turbo the Gerbil, but that’s about it.  Normally it’s the quiet little girl you see in the picture above, at least until the afternoon grumps.

Where Did My 3:00 to 6:00 Go?

| patmcg

Okay, this is one of those posts where I just gripe and moan.

I try not to complain in this blog very much.  But griping may be more interesting than all the nice, fun stuff anyways.  I adore the kids and don’t want to complain.  But really, this post is about me more than the kids.  I want to capture this moment so I can remember later just how difficult this period could be.  But it is only tough in a slow, grinding, unrelenting kind of way, not a “You’re pants are on fire!” kind of way.

This post covers the most horrifying part of the day: the late afternoon / early evening.  Below is my late afternoon schedule.  Notice how actual working time magically shrinks to nearly nothing before your eyes.

  • I leave the house to meet Claire at the bus at 2:55 pm, no matter what was going on at work.
    • This is a nice part of the day, and I always look forward to it.  But it is tough on the work schedule.  I avoid 3:00 meetings and sometimes have to take them on the cell phone at the bus stop.
  • After walking back with Claire and setting her up with a snack, I return to work around 3:30.
    • Another great part of the day — probably the best — but again tough on the work schedule.
  • I re-settle into work.  Usually it takes about 15 minutes to really get back fully engaged in work, so now it’s 3:45.  Wow, it’s been nearly an hour since I went to get Claire.
  • Claire needs some help focusing on her homework.  Some days are good, but many are not.  We have to start on homework by 4:15 to make sure we get it done in time to pick up Molly.  Usually that is tight, and sometimes we run over.
  • By 5:15 or 5:30, Claire and I head off to pick up Molly.
  • We are back by 6:00, thanks to the close proximity of Molly’s new school.
    • This is a major improvement over Molly’s old school, which often took nearly an hour round trip despite being only two miles away — freakin’ traffic!
  • Did you notice how much work time there was after 2:55 this afternoon?  Yes, 30 minutes.  How did that happen again?

This leaves me behind at work, automatically, every day.  I have to make up for it at night, every night.

Just to complete the exercise, the day rounds out like this:

  • Dinner, additional homework, and the kids’ bath and bedtime puts us at 8:30 or 9:00, always a little frazzled at this point.
  • Wake up time for school is 6:30 am for school, so there are only a couple of hours left tonight to finish what was left behind when I went to Claire’s bus stop earlier this afternoon.
  • This is also the time to go to the grocery store, handle the mail, do the laundry, plan a birthday party, and so on.  Exercise is also a good idea, and often worth trading for some sleep.
  • The 9:00 to 11:00 “golden hour” is so critical that I just can’t absorb any bedtime problems from the kids.

We tried an after-school nanny, but she did not work out.  She only showed up half the time and wasn’t very engaged when she was here.

We could leave Claire in Extend-a-Care after school.  Maybe that would be fine, but she would only have about an hour a day at home, if even that, aside from going to bed or getting up.

I could let Claire walk home from the bus stop by herself and ignore her once she got here.  But the bus driver made it clear that Claire should not be walking home alone.  In fact, he won’t drop her off if I’m not there.  Besides, I can’t just ignore Claire — sweet, funny Claire.  But she can do her homework alone as far as I am concerned.  🙂

T is for Tiara

Image | | patmcg

The letter of the week for Molly’s class was T, so for Show and Share on Friday, Molly brought in a tiara from her dress up collection.  Molly had let the tiara idea leak the day before.  Her friend Joycie showed up on Friday with a tiara too.  They had a good giggle over the whole thing.

Second Grade Thanksgiving Musical

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Claire on stage.

The second grade put on a fabulous Thanksgiving show today.  They played a half-hour musical to a cafeteria packed with parents.    The performance involved a Thanksgiving crisis as the turkeys decided to go on strike this year.  The arbiters and mediators tried to hammer out a solution.  The cranberries and squash fought for a new place in the middle of the table.  In the end, they kids all sang “It’s not about turkey, it’s not about Thursday, it’s not about the big game.  We call it Thanksgiving because it’s thanks that we’re giving…”  It was a great message and extremely cute.

Claire was cast as “a public”.  So she got to dress as an adult and sing as part of the general public.  She was a little bummed about the less-than-glamorous role, but she did get to appear and sing a little.  The next day, Claire asked me what my second favorite part of the play was.  Obviously my favorite part was Claire’s bit, but what did I like after that?  I told her it was the singing cranberries.  Claire said she liked them too.

If there is anything more adorable than a second grade Thanksgiving musical, then I can’t think of it, not even a cute little baby.  Babies drool and puke.  Second graders sing their hearts out and try to make you smile.

Nanny High Rollers

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Today I got a call that we had a special delivery.  Would I be home between 12:00 and 12:15 to collect it?  At first, I thought this was a trick or a joke.  But I said yes and prepared myself for anything.  I mean, normally you don’t have to be there to receive a normal package. UPS or FedEx don’t call ahead to let you know they’re on the way.

So at 12:15 I found myself signing for a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven.  They turned out to be from our nanny agency.  We had hired so many babysitters over the summer that they thought it necessary to thank us by having a batch of homemade cookies delivered.  Sure, it was nice to get the very, very yummy cookies.  But it was a shock.  I can honestly say this is the first time I have been treated like a “high roller”, with unexplained gifts of appreciation like this.  Of course it makes sense now that babysitters would be what pushed us over.

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Had we really been using that many babysitters?

Yes.  Yes, we had.  With Claire out of school and in lots of half-day camps, we had been burning through the sitters and camps.  It is nice (on the wallet) to have the kids back in school!

But Claire loved some of her sitters.  She would just play Legos with the best of them for hours, literally like 4 hours of straight Legos.  Lots of the sitters were  interesting people, too.  There were a couple of real musicians who had shows that night.  There was a screenwriter.  A police trainee.  Even some career sitters.  In the end, some great afternoons for Claire and some warm cookies just might be worth the small fortune we paid for then.

 

Summer Break 2013

| patmcg

A few quick notes from summer 2013.

This was Claire’s break between first and second grades.  Only Claire’s schedule changes for the summer so far.  Molly does not have a summer break, being a full time pre-school student.

We decided to try out several different camps this summer for Claire to see what worked best.  Some full day camps, some half day with a sitter the rest of the day, some in between.  We basically have to experiment since up until now we mostly just used the good ol’ day care.

Over the summer, Claire’s weeks were split up like this:

  • Four full day camps
  • Four half-day camps, usually morning with a sitter after lunch
  • Most of the camps were art-oriented, at Claire’s request, with a week of gymnastics, a week of cooking, and  a week of science.
  • Two weeks of vacation with the family to see family in “both Washington’s” — Washington DC and Washington state

To be honest, I think the summer was a little tough on Claire, who went from camp to camp on an irregular schedule and did not get to see a lot of her friends, some of whom were out of town for cooler climates or otherwise out of touch.

I know the summer was tough on me.  The camps all started at 9:00 or 9:30, while my daily call for work was at 9:00 am.  So I would  drop Claire off an immediately get on a meeting on my cell phone for the drive home to work.  And I would have to pick Claire up at odd times in the middle of the day (12:00, 1:00, 3:00, whatever).  This is on top of Molly’s pick up and drop off at different times and places.  This got old week after week.

On the plus side, Claire and I had a little time together each morning after dropping off Molly and before her camp started.  We would get breakfast and do a little studying to help keep Claire sharp over the summer break.  We would have a Smoothie and a bagel at Panera and then have Claire read or do some writing.  That was pretty sweet.

Since most of the public pools are only open when school is out for summer, I resolved to take advantage of the limited swimming time we had available.  The plan was to take the girls swimming every Friday after school/work.  We always went to the little circular pool at West Austin Park.  We packed a picnic or picked up something from a drive through (not as much fun!) then swam for an hour or so before heading home to see Kit and go to bed.  This was a fun time for us all, except it got a little frustrating for Claire at times since I had to be 100% “on” Molly, who cannot swim, so I could not really play with Claire or even just swim with her.  I did not have any free hands or attention while trying to keep Molly alive and what not.  I basically stood there holding Molly while Claire entertained herself.  I think Claire liked the picnic best or those rare moments when I could actually play with her too.  Anyways, the goal was to do the swimming thing every Friday, which turned out to be 4 or 5 times total, with traveling, guests, other engagements, etc. often intervening.

So there you go — a sunny, fun-filled, stress-free summer!  Well, it was sunny anyways.  And intermittently fun and stress-free.

Throw Away Bottle

| patmcg

This terse note came home from school with Molly today. When asked about it, Molly offered only an earnest, “I dunno.” when prompted why she put her bottle in the trash.

Molly cup
“Molly threw her water bottle in the trash today. She said she did it on purpose.”

Tuesday: The Best Day of the Week

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Claire says that Tuesday is her favorite day of the week.  Yes, Tuesday.

First of all, Claire has “specials” in school on Tuesdays: either Spanish or computer, both of which she enjoys.  Then, Claire rides the bus home on Tuesdays (and Fridays) instead of staying at Extend-a-Care.  This is the schedule that Claire has requested.  Claire likes EaC, where she gets to play on the playground with her friends, do arts & crafts, etc.  But she also likes to come home early on the bus and  just relax.  On bus days, she’ll come home, have a snack, watch a little TV, and then get busy on a drawing project while I finish up work in my home office until about 5:00.  Usually Claire and I work in quiet peace, but occasionally there is some frustration on both sides about needing something / needing to focus on work.

A little after 5:00, it is off to pick up Molly at day care.  Then we all head over to Jason’s Deli, still the girls’ favorite place to eat.  While Molly enjoys cheese pizza, Claire enjoys a salad bar or hot dog, and I indulge in a Pollo Mexicano, Kit magically shows up.  It is just a built-in assumption now that we are eating at Jason’s on Tuesday evenings, and Kit heads straight over from work.

Then usually Claire and I head over to the swim school across the street while Kit (who arrived after us) and Molly (who eats slowly) finish up at Jason’s and head home for bed.  Claire is enrolled in a swimming class, but since she is the only one in the class right now,  she basically has private lessons with Mr. Andrew.  Claire and Andrew work hard and have lots of fun (jumping, throwing, plashing games between laps).  Claire has developed a really nice back stroke and is working on going straight.  Then it is straight home and off to bed.

Ah yes, Tuesdays… specials, bus, chilling at home, Jason’s, swimming.  It just can’t be beat!

Art champion!

| patmcg

First place picture

Claire entered her school’s optional art contest a few weeks ago.  The assignment for the art contest was to create a picture of the Austin skyline or a local landmark.  The contest started the week before Spring Break and was due the Thursday after Spring Break.  For her subject, Claire picked the University of Texas tower.  Claire kept wavering on actually doing the project.  She always had something else to do, and it was in danger of becoming another homework-type struggle if we pushed it too hard.  So we just gently reminded her about the contest every couple of days, even going so far as to say she could just skip it since it’s just for fun.  Over Spring Break, we sent Claire off to Corpus Christi with a photo of the UT tower and the official contest paper.  Claire came home with nothing.

Then, two nights before her art submission was due, Claire decided to focus on it.  She got far on her initial ideas but ran out of time the first night.  On the second — and last — night, Claire got into a really good groove after dinner.  She asked, “Does it have to look exactly like the tower?” to which we said no, you just have to be able to tell it is the tower.  Claire got excited and started adding bright new colors to the tower itself and imagined details around the base of the tower.  She worked hard on it up to and past bed time, giving up her nightly story time to finish the picture.  She got to bed 30 minutes late but with an awesome picture to take in the next day.

We found out today that her picture won first place for first grade!  Claire was so proud and excited.  As a prize from the school, she received a compact art kit, containing paint, colored pencils, oil pastels, and more.

Way to go, Claire!