Southern Dictionary

Southern Dictionary

Day Care....dum da dum dum DUUUUUUM

Well, our children started “School” this week…it’s basically a fancy pants Day Care center and I feel like the worst mother in the WORLD. I’ve always vowed never to put my kids in Day Care, but here I am…faced with no other choice but to, and so here it goes. I’ll give you the Pros and Cons of Day Care, as I see them, and then I’ll tell you our experience thus far :

PROS :
1. Kids Learn
2. Kids socialize
3. Kids get structure
4. Kids taken care of during the week so we can use grandmas on the weekends for babysitters

CONS:
1. EXPENSIVE (even the crappy ones are expensive…and they’re in a GOOD one, so you can imagine…)
2. Risk of kiddos getting sick (face it people, when your kids are around a bunch of strangers whose parents need their jobs as badly as you need yours your kids are bound to be exposed to sick kids)…and after all, a good dose of Tylenol and Sudafed before you drop your kids off is enough to “fool” the Day Care worker that your child isn’t sick and you get a few hours to make a good showing for your boss until the Center calls asking you to pick up your child because they’re sick…in the meantime, they’ve infected everyone else around them so the cycle never ends.
3. The kids are needier and clingier at night…and NOT in a “good” way. Daniel throws a fit every night after school and he’s at times inconsolable. It makes me feel like crap.
4. The stigma of “Day Care” and all that entails.
5. No control over what they’re exposed to day-to-day, and no disciplinary control either…

So here you go : 3 days (M, T, W) this week while I’m working 12 hours, and while Michael’s gone almost as long…the kids have been attending a State Accredited “Educational” Child Care Center. It’s costly, and we’ve yet to determine if it’s “worth it” because Daniel has been so weird lately.

If you read my blog on a regular basis, which I really hope you do, then you’ll know that he’s a really good kid and he minds really well. He’s polite, always saying “please” and “thank you” and he’s really awesome about sharing. So that’s why these last few days have been so strange. He ALWAYS minds, and he’s super potty trained now, so for him to have an accident is really weird…but he had TWO on Wednesday! One at School and one here at home, though the one here was less of an accident and more of an “on purpose” for goodness only knows why.

He tells me he doesn’t WANT to go to school at that School, he wants to go to Daddy’s School (he visited the Early Childhood Center at Oakridge last week) and he told me Oakridge is a better school…and every morning he asks me if that’s the school he’s going to and he looks like I’ve crushed him when I tell him no. I don’t know WHAT’S going on there…

But Zoe?? She’s awesome…she’s apparently loving every minute she’s at school, she never cries, she shares, she says “please” and “thank you” and she naps. She’s like the dream child for these educators, and I’m so thankful for that. Don’t get me wrong, Daniel is all those things for his teachers too, I mean if the worst complaint about him is that he’s “too affectionate” is that really a huge problem? We just need to work on “No means No” with him a little more!

Everyone says give it a few weeks…but a few weeks is almost a thousand dollars! EEK! Maybe it’d be better to cut our losses now and keep Zoe there, take Daniel out until the Fall, and figure something else out for him? I just don’t know.
What I DO know is this : if you’re going to put your children in any sort of child care, do it SOONER rather than LATER when they’ve set their own little social skills already. Poor Daniel, he’s so confused…

And we’re working on some speech issues he has too, he has trouble with certain “cl-“ words like “clothes,” “close,” “clay,” and the like. He says “plothes” and “plose” and “play” instead. But we’re working on it…just teaching him to slow down when he talks. Poor Baby. I really feel for him because he’s so emotional {he IS his mother’s son, in that respect} and he’s so sensitive…

Stay tuned, for these ARE the Days of Our Lives…

So...............

I'm just sitting here watching it rain, and thinking "gee my backyard sure is green." Most of it's weeds...YUCK but the bushes, shrubs, plants, and flowers are starting to green and bloom. So that's good.

On a bad note : something is wrong with Daniel. He has become very belligerent and is refusing to mind....if you tell him to stand "I don't want to stand!" If you tell him to sit "I don't want to sit!" and talk about pitching a fit!! I don't know what to do, I thought it was because he started school this week and maybe it's thrown him for a loop...but I can't handle this much longer. He's a holy terror and I'm so concerned about it. I don't know what to do. I've tried being sweet, hugging him, and talking to him. I've tried time outs. I've tried it all........and nothing works. Taking things away works the best but then he screams and wakes up his little sister who was taking a nap.

ARGH.

Big Boys and Baby Girls

Daniel informed me today that because he can pee pee and poo poo on the potty EVERY TIME HE NEEDS TO GO that he is a big boy. And, because he's going to Oakridge next year he's "a man now." And he told me that because Zoe is still in diapers and because she is so little she's still a baby. He did tell her "it's OK sweetie girl, you'll be a big girl soon."

So that brings me to the point....he's potty trained. Completely 100% potty trained. He's not had an accident in over 2 weeks. He's awesome.

Here are some pictures from our last couple of weeks :

Feeding the ducks at Trinity Park

At the Zoo with Memaw

Close encounter of the birdie kind :

Zoe Pie with her "tenna"

At the Zoo with Memaw, a rare moment of being sweet to each other!!

The cutest kiddos in the universe!!

Kickin't it out Old School

I ran across our old (and apparently outdated) Canon Powershot this afternoon. My sweetheart friend bought me a kick booty new camera (it's RED!) for Christmas, and I haven't used this canon in a while. But I was shocked to see pictures on it!! So, here they are :

Zoe with the Christmas tree (obviously before our awesome TV and entertainment center!)

She was so thrilled with that tree!!

This is Daniel with our 12.5' snowman he named "Gordy." Gordy stayed at our house until well into 2007. He's back in the North Pole Now.

Stay tuned for another post with more pictures later!

:)

My job is amazing. Can I just say that? I love the people I work with, I love the people I take care of, and I love the way my working makes me feel. I'm happy at work now, and that's a HUGE deal. I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow, can you believe it?! Yeah. It's amazing.

God is a wonder.

Milestones....

Zoe is 17 months old, Daniel is 37 months old....and they're both starting school on the 26th for three days a week. And I've all but accepted a day position at work....so I don't waste two more days being exhausted and doing energy conservation before going to work at nights. We'll see.

I've got some pictures to post later from this week....since Michael's been off we've gone and fed the ducks, gone to the Museum, gone to the Zoo, and we've gone shopping. We even ate at Olive Garden!! (Surprise?? Nah...) This afternoon we're going to feed the ducks, and perhaps something more. Then we've got Church tonight at 5. Tomorrow I'm going to try to plant some flowers in the front flower bed, and around the tree. Memaw brought me some gloves and a little weed digger so I can get rid of all the stinging nettles in our front yard. I'm actually about to go do that in a little while. Yay. I actually love gardening when it's cool outside!

Well I'm loving my job. And I'll tell you more about that later....

Snow Patrol

Silversun Pickups, Ok Go, and Snow Patrol……..Overall concert? B+ (Silversun Pickups dragged it down!!)

Silversun Pickups : wow they were SO bad! I don’t know if they were really that bad, or if their mix was off, or what??? But they sucked. Bless their hearts. Their lead singer was appealing, but unfortunately they just weren’t very good. I couldn’t understand what they were singing and I just didn’t dig the music. They played a half hour. It was excruciating.

Ok Go : good show!! They had a very “British Invasion” feel to them, though they’re not British. They looked classy, they sounded good, and their music was good. I liked them! They made great use of a little projection screen and they were very amusing. During one of their songs they had everyone hold up their cell phones ala lighters from the olden days…it looked really cool! I thought they were fun, different, and talented.

Snow Patrol : excellent!!!! Lead singer was excited to be performing, the bass player was playing with only 1 finger thanks to punching a bicycle (WTF??) the night before in Tulsa, and their music rules. My only weird thing for them was : he changed guitars about 50 times, and I couldn’t figure out why. They did something neat with the song they sing with Martha Wainwright : they had someone from the audience come sing it with them. I think they made that little girl’s LIFE. She was so cute up there singing with them…..completely tone deaf, and couldn’t sing, but at least she admitted it before! She was funny. The girl next to me was tone deaf too, but she thought she could sing….she was rockin out to everything, even if she didn’t really know the words. Bless her heart!

There were people behind us and to our left making the annoying bird sound “ooh ooh” and OMGosh I wanted to scream at them to shut up!! There are few more annoying sounds than that one, and it ruined a couple of moments in some songs for me. Jerks.

Our main amusement came from the couple in the level below and to our left…we affectionately dubbed them “The X Couple” because they HAD to be tripping on exstacy. They were “dancing” in bizarre ways and moving their arms and heads, and playing air guitar, gyrating about as though they were having seizures. It was ODD. But amusing!! We were sad when they got tired (or started coming down off their high) and sat down, though they did not disappoint – they continued to “hand dance” and gyrate with their heads. All very bizarre.

Snow Patrol gets an A+ from me. I thought they rocked.

Zoe's Favorite Game

She gets a big kick out of saying "Daddy" when you ask her to say "mama!" You can even hear her saying "No" sometimes when I ask her to say "Mama!" Silly girl!!

Daniel in the tub

Daniel loves to play in the tub and here he is telling me about the day he had while playing in the tub!

Pictures

Oh yeah....potty training.....WOO HOO!!

Daniel has really been kicking it into high gear....the promise of going to "big kids school" next year has him all sorts of excited about pottying on the potty. He's starting to grasp the pooping on the potty concept!!!!! I cannot TELL you how excited I am about that....in the last three days he's told us when he needed to poop!! He told Memaw on Tuesday and he told me yesterday! And guess what??? HE DID IT!!!! He still runs back to his room but if you catch him he tells you he "have ta poop!!!" So we tell him to hold it and we run into the bathroom and he goes on the potty! It's so incredible!

But about the peeing....he's amazing. He LOVES to stand and he's getting the idea! He tells me "first you have ta hold it then you make the bubbles then you shake it and you flush it away ok?" And he washes his hands, and he gets the idea of telling us that he has to go pee pee. Not quite sure where he got the information about holding it, shaking it, and the rest....but I am assuming that's from Daddy. What a big boy!

Speaking of boys pottying....they spray. And they spatter the seat with tinkle. When we're in public I ALWAYS wipe the seat because, I'm sorry, there is almost NOTHING more disgusting in a public toilet than having tinkle all over the seat. UGH. Makes me want to puke! It's almost as bad as the "floaters" people sometimes leave behind when they "forget to flush" after going number 2. We had such an experience with an inconsiderate potty training mommy at Target the other day. Daniel and I (and Zoe too, she was riding in the buggy seat) went into the bathroom and I took him in to a stall just left by another little boy and his mommy. I immediately turned around and took him next door. There was more tinkle on the seat than in the potty (which NO they did NOT flush!)!!!! So I had him do his business and he got some on the seat. I said "OK Daniel now we wipe up our tinkle so it's not on the seat for the next person to have to wipe up OK?" He said "OK mommy that'd be great!" And then I made a big deal out of flushing the potty and washing our hands and it was all just for show, because I never have to remind him of any of that. I was so grossed out! How can you NOT WIPE THE SEAT if you tinkle on it?!?!?!?!

"If you sprinkle
when you tinkle
Please be neat
And wipe the seat!"

Someone wrote that in a rest stop in Arizona and I saw it when I was about 9. Obviously it left an impression and it pops into my mind every time I see tinkle on a seat. And I wish I had a sharpie to write it when I leave. OK, not really....but you get the idea.

I'm teaching my son to wipe the seat.

I Love My Job

Yeah. It's amazing. I feel incredible, like I'm floating on a cloud!! Helping people rules.

Here are some pics of the kids from the last few days....I'll post a real post tomorrow. Tonight is SNOW PATROL, baby!! :) WOO HOO!!