Category: Mommying

Daycare Drama

I’m flummoxed. How do parents who work full time manage it? I work 24 hours a week. It’s not a lot, but it feels like full time – and there is always pressure to stay later, work more. And sometimes I do, because the current school/daycare setup that we’ve been lucky enough to work out allows for some flexibility. But we’re moving. I’ve got the kids enrolled in a school in our new home, BOTH at one place, which will be a nice change. BOTH on one schedule, which will be nice too (although, technically, neither of them has to be dropped off or picked up at any specific time here, which is really nice.)  Out there, they’ll be on a “school day” schedule – 8:30 to 2:30.  And it looks like I will be able to keep my job and work in the office out there. But I will have ZERO flexibility, since the new school has made it clear that there is no option for picking them up later or dropping them off much earlier. (Did I mention that this was the cheapest adequate option I could find and that it’s still gonna cost 50% more than what we pay here?)

I have friends who work full time… and I’m starting to wonder how they manage it (or afford it!!) And what happens when the kids are in “real” school, and they get out at like 2:30?  What do parents of school-aged kids do? And how will we get them to and from soccer/band/ piano/basketweaving classes after school?

And what do full time career parents do when schools, like Turbo’s fabulous Montessori program* decides that ohbytheway, the last week of school will be all half days.  That week will also be my last week at work (on this coast) and now I get to mention that ohbytheway BOSS, I’ll be taking half days my last week here. And burning my paid time off because I have no choice – thanks to Turbo’s school.

(*which I actually do love, but I still don’t get how they justify their scheduling…)

This is one of those things that I’m sure will work itself out (with a hell of a lot of footwork on my part), but it’s STRESSING me out. Because we’re trying to sell a house and move across the country and I don’t have enough to worry about. In fact, if there’s anything YOU are worried about, why don’t you tell me so I can help you by worrying about it too? I’m good at worrying. REALLY good.

I think I need a visit with my friend Riesling. What? it’s 10:30 am? Crap.

Giraffes and other signs

Turbo didn’t really talk until he was two and a half. We were actually getting kind of worried about it, but then he began spouting one and two words here and there, and before we knew it, he was into full blown sentence-long Turboisms that might or might not make sense. He often pops off with things like, “How many school days do I have, Mommy?” This question is evidently a complete thought because no amount of clarifying questioning gets any more detail out of it. The answer? I have no farking clue (what you are asking me). He seems okay with that answer.

Now Lunchbox (recently also dubbed “Tiny Whiny” thanks to some two year molar teething that has us all miserable) is beginning to try his hand at this English language thing that we all seem to think is so great. He’s just 18 months – I’m so proud. The Major thinks I’m on crack because I keep declaring new words that Lunchbox has said, although when he actually repeats them for The Major to hear they sound nothing like the actual word. I think that Mommy ears hear things more clearly (maybe this is why the shrieking and whining seem to drive me closer to the brink of utter desolation than they do him). Anyway, I know that Lunchbox says “shoes.” (He has some kind of weird fascination with shoes – he’s definitely my kid.) But when he says it, it sounds like “chewssss.” He definitely says “cracker” or some derivation thereof. And I also think he says “thank you,” though it sounds like “an choo.” When Turbo first worked on the politeness words, we used to mimic him to one another, “Shankoo.” “Y’elcome.”

In my mind (and remember, my experience is limited to mothering kids up to the ripe old age of almost four), this is the hardest stage of toddlerhood – that point where your baby realizes that all these noises you’ve been making were not actually just soothing sounds intended to entertain and encourage him. He realizes instead that all along you’ve been actually saying things, and that OTHER people, but not him, can SAY things back. I think this realization, at least in both of my boys, resulted in more than a little frustration.

A friend suggested that baby sign language might be a good way to head off this angst. Lunchbox has so far mastered “more.” The problem here is that he seems to be inherently lazy when it comes to signing. If it’s a two-handed sign, he’ll figure out a way to do it with just one hand. So basically he signs like he talks – half-assed. I’m working hard to get him to either say or sign “giraffe” because he has a deep and indefatigable love for a stuffed giraffe (there are actually three of them, intended as backup in case the first one ever gets lost, but he’s on to our game and now insists on having all three with him most of the time). The sign for giraffe, like the word, has two parts. When Lunchbox tries either, there is one part only. It’s either “raff,” or one hand shooting straight up in the air for an infinitesimal second. Oh well, any progress is good progress, right?

I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry. Soon he’ll be spouting some of the gems that Turbo has recently shared with me. Favorites include:

“Pass the green beans, Turdwaffle.”
“Get out of the way, idiot.”
“I’m going to cut off your head and throw it in the yarden.” (He hasn’t quite distinguished between garden and yard – I rather like that word…)
And my personal favorite (in an alternate universe where I think it’s cool for my three year old to order me around like an egomaniacal dictator on coke): “You get my hot chocolate RIGHT NOW MOMMY. You DO IT. RIGHT. NOW.” This is usually repeated vehemently, though the last part is often muffled because his face is planted in my chest as I carry him up the stairs and deposit him firmly in his room where he can order around whoever he wants to without having to worry about getting smacked by an infuriated mommy monster and then removed by child protective services.

And though I’ve made Turbo sound like a mean little dude, he also frequently says things like, “Mommy, you’re my favorite.” And I suppose that makes me glad that we taught him to talk after all.

Defining “Dependents”

I had big (huge) plans for a witty and heartfelt post this morning about…something. Something you’d be SO excited to read. Okay, not really. And that’s why when I found this post at the great military spouse blog “They Call Me Dependent,” it just seemed the perfect solution to the lazy blogger’s conundrum. It isn’t that there’s nothing going on at our house — on the contrary, we have scheduled our pack out dates and I’m basically looking at two months of homelessness prior to actually GOING to our new destination — more on all that later. Turbo believes that we are moving because he will soon turn 4 — or at least the two things always come up in the same sentence for him: “I’m going to be 4 so we’re getting a new house.”  Ah… to be that self-centered! 🙂 

Anyway, among all the other things I’m forced to be on a daily basis, the reality is that I am a military spouse under (above?) all else — this one definition of me determines pretty much everything else that I am, since it mandates when we move, where we live, how long we’re there, where my kids go to school and pretty much everything else in our lives that other people can decide for themselves. SO, please take a moment to read today’s post at “Anything but Dependent.” And cheers to some great writing by another military spouse!

Stark Survival

I want to be a calm nice loving mommy.  I want to be the kind of mommy who spends countless hours having quality time with my children.  Instead, four days every week, I am the mommy who picks my kids up from preschool at 3:30pm when I finish work (I work 24/hours a week, which seems like nothing if you’re putting in 40 – and holy crap if you are doing that and taking care of little monsters at home too – but somehow 24 hours ends up being more like 28 when it’s said and done and I still have time for almost nothing else.  That’s another post.)  So I pick the monsters up and they fight and scream in the car.  Usually Turbo has something interesting in his hands in the back seat that Lunchbox tries desperately to grab but can’t, so he ends up screaming. Or Lunchbox didn’t take a good nap at school and is generally just feeling like a tiny douchbag and so screams all the way home.  Or Turbo feels like a douchebag so he does something purposely to make Lunchbox scream all the way home.  In other words, by the time we get home, I usually have a headache and then get to play the “What the hell’s for dinner?” game.  Sometimes I plan ahead.  Like the third Thursday of every month that ends in “h.”  But only in leap years.  So usually I’m screwed.

Given that I need about 20 minutes to work my special brand of culinary magic, it seems like it’d be easy enough to set the kids up with a drink and a snack and some Backyardigans and get to it.  But instead, this is the time of day when my children are at their most monsterly (especially Lunchbox, who was once my jolly happy baby and is now my whiny, grumpy little wordless wonder.  The Major has taken to calling him “Tiny Whiney.”)

Today, as I created a new taco-type dinner food with ground turkey, canned diced tomatoes and a lot of cheese, I thought I’d scored a minor victory since the boys both went outside to play.  But I was wrong.  Instead, I proved yet again that I am not a very good mommy sometimes. I was emptying the dishwasher, watching the boys play around the slide and playhouse out the kitchen window.  Lunchbox decided to climb the ladder up to the slide. He has only done this with supervision previously, but he appeared quite confident today. Until he got to the top rung, when he slipped through the ladder, hitting his chin on the top rung just before he crashed down to the bottom of the playhouse. I think I flew out the door screaming, “oh no, oh no…” He was fine because, evidently, he is made of rubber.

Once the Major was home, I was trying to deny further responsibility for the monsters, and was sitting at the table pretending that I was reading a magazine when a commotion on the stairs raised my attention.  But not soon enough.  This time Lunchbox came skidding down the entire length of the stairs riding atop Turbo’s bike helmet.  My heart was in my mouth and I yelled things that were not as PC as “oh no” while I raced to see if he was breathing or bleeding or broken.  Again, rubber.

Lunchbox is finally in his crib, fast asleep, and I feel like the worst mother in the world. I get only a few hours to spend with these guys on the days that I work, and I spend a lot of that time just trying to survive them (and hoping that they’ll survive.) We can deny it all we want and sing the praises of work/life balance, but I think that GUILT is truly the anthem of the working mother.