Preschool Freak Out. For the Third Year in a Row.

Unlike Harry who spent his time over the last week lounging around and reading toy catalogues so he could begin his epic birthday wish list, I have been FREAKING THE FREAK OUT (more than usual, even) over preschool admission season. Every year for the past 3 years, I have freaked out over preschool admission. When Harry was still a baby, the other Little Gym moms looked at my like I had 2 heads when I said he wasn't on any waitlists. (and I made myself feel better by saying that exclusive preschool were stupid, but actually? I coveted admission into one of them.) We ended up lucking out and finding a once-a-week program at a place near our house that we all fell in love with.

Despite our great school and the option to increase his enrollment for this current school year, I still freaked the freak out last year about this year's enrollment. Ultimately, we went with the place he already went to, but when a spot opened up at the teeny, tiny school we were wait listed at, we went there, too. In the end, Harry went 5 days a week, and the only school we didn't attend that we really loved after eleventy billion tours was the fine arts preschool I mentioned in the freak out post I just linked to.

Jack started the once-a-week program at Harry's current school, and we signed both kids up for school next year at the teeny, tiny school Harry also attends. Problem solved, right?

Clearly, you are overestimating my love of the preschool freak out, my friends. We applied to the art school this year, too, for next year, and we have been on pins and needles waiting to hear if we got in. WE DID!!!

I am so excited!!! There are not enough exclamation points in the woooorld to express my excitement!!!!

Harry and Jack can both go the same days and the same times, and they can go to school while I am on campus, which is genius because our beloved Jamie is leaving town to attend whichever fabulous graduate school she chooses to get advanced degrees in chemistry (and she has her pick of the top programs in the nation because she got in everywhere, and we are so proud of her!)

My snack rant from the other day? A totally moot point because this school has its own chef who makes all the snacks from scratch! No wonder it always smells like baking bread in there. (But, on the subject of snacks, I am so jealous of the place Kim sends her kids. She sent me a snack list form her center, and OMG. They have the most amazing food rules. No juice! Only hormone-free milk! No processed food or food with a high sugar content! I was in love, and I brought it to my conference. The teachers were very receptive, but they do not see themselves changing the current snack policy to include dairy, which is kind of a bummer).

Also a bummer? That Harry is leaving the school he's attended for the past 2 years. He really loves it there and has thrived there. His new school has some advantages: a huge playground, an art studio with degreed art teachers, a music room. But his old school has a swimming pool/ swim lesson program, and a huge gym. Harry has been taking a once-a-week Spanish class all year, but at his new school, he'll be in a Spanish immersion classroom with bilingual teachers, which is pretty darn cool.

If I sound like I am trying to convince myself, I am a little. Harry's teachers really seem to like him a lot, and we have been happy with every aspect of the program-- except snack. We've both made friends. Jack loves it, too.

And then there's Jack, who will be attending a lot of school for a little kid. I feel bad about that, too. This new school is not a daycare center; it is a licensed preschool. Still, it caters to 2-parent working families and offers long hours and flexible schedules, making it perfect for us, but also meaning that Jack is going to school 3 days a week, 3 full days. I'm a little worried about the little guy, even though I know that the days we spend at home will not be nearly as enriching.

We got the news of our acceptance in time to enjoy V-day (which was good because Ben was going to kill me if I said anything about preschool again in this lifetime)

Here are Harry and Jack working on their V-Day paintings for Ben. Courtney has posted pics of her kids painting on canvases, and we thought we'd give it a try.




Valentine Eve, Ben and I drank a bottle of Moet and passed out in a puddle of couch drool watching Couples Retreat because we are glamorous and romantic like that.

The next morning, the kids ate their weight in Russel Stover, which is always my favorite way to spend the morning.


Hope you had a good Vday and that preschool admission season finds you well.

Camp In

My schedule this semester is-- so far, knock wood, etc-- amazing. Last semester, I worked at least part of everyday (I know-- you are totally rolling your eyes at me and saying yeah like a real live grown up or something), and even though I had lots of time with the boys, it was time I spent frantically folding laundry and shoving clothes on my body so I could go to work in the afternoon. I mostly interacted with them to fill snack bowls and rotate DVDs (not really, but not totally not really, either). This semester, I have dedicated work days and dedicated kid days, and I am in love with how I spend my time. Our week starts busy; then I get a break in the middle, and then we finish up with one long work day and one part work day where sometimes I have all of my office-centric work done and get to grade papers or work on a few research projects at a coffee shop just like I used to back in the day when I was writing my dissertation (which? last year, so really not as far away as this sentence makes it sound).

Anywho, not only did I prep 2 dinners and cook one for yesterday (simultaneously-- it was kind of intense) and treat the bathrooms to a special midweek wipe down, but Harry, Jack, and I enjoyed a camp-in after Harry's nursery school morning. Jack and I put the finishing touches on the scene before we picked Harry up from school

Harry came right in and sat down in his chair. He said he was pretending to watch the fire, which made me totally excited because I built a fire pit with brick blocks, and I didn't think anybody but me would know it was a fire pit, and then Harry TOTALLY DID.

They thought eating lunch at the train table was like totally the coolest thing ever. Especially Jack, who ate his food

and Harry's

and his plate. Yep. Those are Jack's Santa (yeah, we still listen to Christmas music in the car, too) socks on the table. I can only say "No feet where we eat" so many times before I'm like screw it, man. And before you know it, they are only fit for Denny's.

When Jack went down for his nap, Harry and I got to work on Project Preschool Valentine, which was a giant pain in the ass because Harry has 2 separate classes of 14, and Jack has a teeny little class of 8 (although Jack's class is learning about hearts next week, they aren't actually celebrating Vday b/c they only meet once a week, but I am sending little toddler Valentines anyway.)

Harry patiently colored on each card

He clearly did not write his own name. He cannot write his own name at all. AT ALL. So now, I am all paranoid because he's 3.5, and shouldn't he be able to write his name and what if he NEVER LEARNS TO READ?? I live my life at the precipice of a fallacious slippery slope.

Then I drove myself batshit crazy punching out Toy Story tattoos and slipping them in the little slits on each card (and ripping a bunch of cards, so I'd have to call Harry over from his super hero action figure reverie and make him scribble on a fresh card) and Harry took six million years to close each card with a sticker.

Then we did the treat bags.

Oh the treat bags. One class got little bags of conversation hearts tied with leftover red Christmas ribbon to their Valentines. The other class got Toy Story bags with Toy Story fruit snacks, Dum-Dums, and Starburst (peanut free candy pickings are pretty slim). All of those things, in case you are wondering, contain HFCS and terrible dyes. And you know what? I don't give a shit because they are CANDY, and candy is not supposed to be good for you (and is supposed to be eaten in moderation). As long as my normal foods are preservative-free and not processed, I am all about giving candy as a treat.
I never, ever let the kids eat fruit snacks b/c they are awful for your teeth and have terrible chemical ingredients, but I am fine with giving them as candy, and Harry was like beyond excited to see them in his home. "Fruit flavored snacks?" he asked. "For me??" Poor kid-- I am making him into the little boy in About a Boy, aren't I?

Jack's funny Valentines

Conversation hearts and Dum-Dums, two things that no baby in his class-- including Jack-- can probably eat.

Our Valentine assembly line took up Jack's entire naptime. Harry and I had just put our stuff away, grabbed some Pirate Booty to counteract our teeth-itching sugar high (we had to try all the candy, duh), jumped in the Toy Story sleeping bags, and collapsed in the tent to watch Little Bear when Jack awoke and turned our cozy scene upside down. Literally.

And then we went outside and played, which was way more fun and magical in November when snow was a much anticipated miracle. Now I can't wait until May-ish when it finally all melts.

Finally, we went inside and started sending Ben increasing irate and totally ignored texts because dude? Looooooong (but fun!) day.

I am in such a bad mood today. TURN BACK NOW!

When I filled out Harry's midterm course evaluations at preschool, I went off on a rant about the snack list they sent home. Because of allergies, we can ONLY buy items on the list, and all of the items (except, of course, for the fresh fruits and veggies, which I send every time it is my turn for snack, along with other junk that Harry begs for because he wants to pass it out to the class like his friends do) contain some combination of red dye, yellow dye, HFCS, and partially hydrogenated oils. Everything has to be milk, egg, peanut, and tree nut free (which? I totally understand and have no problem with, especially the nut thing). The thing is, small organic companies and places like Trader Joe's that feature healthier processed snacks are rarely nut-free because their equipment processes food with nuts and because these companies are small, they don't have separate nut-free equipment/facilities. I HATE that 3 times a week, he is eating processed crap and that this chemical-filled garbage disguised as food is on a list of "healthy" snack ideas. HATE it.

The reason I am writing about this now is that my parent-teacher conference is coming up, and I am afraid they'll ask me about my snack rant, and I don't know what to say. There isn't a good solution. Except, MAYBE, making sure everything is entirely nut-free but having kids bring in their own snacks? Then the kids who need milk and egg free stuff will have it, and other kids can maybe eat some milk or egg products as an alternative to dyes, oils, and HFCS? (stuff like yogurt and string cheese is a more "whole food" alternative to some of the processed garbage on the list). I don't know. I just hate that I'll ask him what he had for snack and he'll say bologna and fruit snacks. Yuck. I know that things are okay in moderation, and I know that we don't eat like this all the time. I just don't like being encouraged to buy stuff I wouldn't normally feed my kids.

But then I thought about what we ate this weekend. OMG. McDonald's. Denny's. Starbucks. Donuts. Cupcakes. Pizza. Buffalo wings. So I guess I am just a big crabby hypocrite.

I know right? First we turn the car seat around, then we start shoving refined sugar and transfats in his pie hole.

Shut up. I am sure this Cheesecake Factory cupcake at B&N is totally organic.

Harry was a supah chatty coffee date. But he didn't object when I ate his entire giant cookie (can't eat cookies slowly when I am your date, dude), so all in all, it was a win.

We had an unbelievably glamorous Saturday night that included a trip to Super Target and a 4:30 dinner at Denny's. Harry fells asleep in the car on the way to Denny's and was in NO MOOD to have his picture taken.

I know-- Denny's is nasty (and most certainly not good for us in any way), but as you can see, Harry and Jack barely have the manners or social skills necessary for dinner in public-- any kind of public.

Jack did not want a doggy bag, but he did want to bring these two pancakes home for later.

Jack is yelling "Otter! Otter!" because the lazy otter was nowhere to be found. Harry is getting his Bangles on.

All of us by the missing otter.

Harry spent a long time "skating" on this slippery patch of sidewalk.

Jack and I did this.

A better mother would have broken up this ball pit fight.



I just wanted them to leave me alone so I could watch the Super Bowl commercials.

zOMG-- poor neglected Harry

This morning, Jack had school, but Harry did not because his teachers were doing conferences. After we dropped Jack off and came home, Harry looked around the empty living room and said, "Wow. Its just like I have no baby!" He gestured to the blow-up ball pit Jack got for his birthday that we inflated last night hoping they'd play with it so we could watch football. "It's just like I got this for MY birthday," he said.

"Harry," I asked. "Would you like it if you had no baby?"

"Yes," he replied. "Then I could show you all my tricks and you would watch them."

Here's one of Harry's recent tricks:

He's using the golf club as a walking stick because he is "Old Man Man the superhero." If you take away the golf club, Old Man Man says, "my cane," and crumples to the ground.

Antenna

Talking about the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad over here this morning.

What can I say? The kid loves to blend.

I know I have raved about them before, but now that my blender is up and running again, we are ALL ABOUT SMOOTHIES. They are a food and an activity in one, and you know how much I like to multitask. And they're easy. And healthy? Did I mention healthy? Ours are all organic, and we buy all the stuff at TJ's so it's not too expensive. We use various organic frozen fruit, organic yogurt (the kids like strawberry or banilla), organic fruit juice or honey, and organic milk. Also several bananas, depending how many we need to use up before they turn to mush. Today, Jamie mixed things up and used fresh apples and oranges, too. Even Ben has a smoothie in the morning before work. I am thinking of going all Jessica Seinfeld on my family, too, and sneaking in some wheat grass or protein powder or some other crap they should eat but don't. Spinach maybe? Or maybe I'll go Jeff Probst on them and throw in some squid or giant beetles or old socks or something. Yum.

This is the face he made when I asked him to smile

Smoothies make Harry excited. He's a hyper hypo.



Still working out the kinks with whole big boy cup thing.


PJ day at preschool! And why does my kid only want to wear his ratty jammies?
I

Borrowed; Blue

When a devotee of language-- a writer, a speaker, a communication scholar-- dies, the most fitting tribute is one made of words. Last night, Curt's friends, family, and BUST family paid lovely verbal homage to a singularly wonderful man.

Before I go any further, I need you to know that this grief I am carrying isn't really mine. It's borrowed, I guess from my friends and family members whose lives were touched more often by Curt. But that's not accurate, really, because this grief fits; I've already worn it, and I can't give it back to anyone. Everyone I know has more than enough of their own. So I guess it is mine.

Before I walked into the funeral home last night where ushers were bringing in maroon upholstered chair after maroon upholstered chair and setting up padded row after padded row for people who poured in thick and fast filling up the guest book before staff members could add more pages, I thought I was attending the service to support my little brother, who was eulogizing his childhood friend. I was there, too, to support my own friends from college and my brother's college friends who were on the Bradley University Speech team with Curt, who coached him, who lived with him, who loved him so much. I was there to support my brother and his cohort, who have grown from boys who wore suits to give speeches on the weekends into grown ups who shrug on the mantle of manhood with their jackets every morning and carry briefcases to work and haven't started to go bald yet and who will soon be the elders who tackle the problems of our nation-- these men who just a few years ago were boys with mops of hair and torn jeans who listened to shit like 311. And a few years before that these guys were kids who needed to be driven to each other's houses so they could play Mega Bomber Man and solve Zelda.

Anyway, I thought, bravely applying DiorShow Blackout instead of waterproof mascara, we came into to town to support these boys who had to figure out how to take the measure of the man they lost in a tragic, awful accident last week. An accident that could happen to anyone but was so unspeakable, I'm not sure it has ever happened before.

Then I walked into the place and saw his high school graduation gown with its Class President 2002 shawl. His Eagle Scout uniform. The laminated certificates proclaiming him the winner of the Pekin High All School Writing Contest and a valued member of the yearbook staff. His AFA and NFA trophies. Team pictures from when he competed in Odyssey of the Mind and his old OM teammates staring at these photos reflectively.

A slideshow of pictures played on a huge LCD screen on the wall. One of Curt as a fat little baby drinking a bottle in his mother's arms. And then there was his mother, shaking an endless line of hands in the front of the room, and she looked so much like her 1983 self, a little older, sure, but too young to stand crying next to all those pots of flowers. That picture faded into one of toddler Curt proudly smiling on a brown plaid sofa, his chubby legs sticking straight out in front of him. In his outstretched arms rested his tiny baby sister who was wearing a lacy little bonnet, and you could see his mom's arm in the picture, steadying the baby. On her arm was a hospital bracelet, as if the first thing she did upon arriving home was take a picture of her two children together, and I have that same picture of my arm with Harry and Jack taken in a similar moment of joyous homecoming. Curt, then, as a curly-haired preschooler, and a grade school boy whose teeth were too big for his smile. This was the kid who met my brother in 4th grade and roomed with him freshman year at Bradley and stayed his friend all through college and beyond. They were awkward middle-schoolers together and high school speech teammates after that.

I sobbed all over his sister in the receiving line, surprising myself and making her cry, too (nice of her, really, to cry over the grief of a stranger; how long before the grief of those you don't know overwhelms you, do you think?) because his death-- such a horrible accident-- could happen to anybody's brother.

7 people spoke about Curt last night, and after hearing all of these speeches, all accompanied by sniffles, sobs, and nose-blowing from the crowd (and what a crowd! At least 300 people from all over the country-- and those were just the people who stayed for the service. Many, many more streamed through the visitation, and more still are coming to Peoria tonight for a Bradley event in his honor), I think it is actually some kind of elitist bullshit that we preach against cliches to our public speaking students (we in the general sense, not indicting any tradition or school of thought). Many of the speakers last night had no more delicate instruments than cliches in their inventional toolbox and still their words brought comfort and tears to the assembled mourners.

His scoutmaster, so proud of his Eagle Scout brother, asked all the Eagle Scouts in the room to stand up, and the sight of these men in their work clothes sharing a moment in honor of one of their own made me cry harder than the pages of the scout diary written by a 16 year-old Curt that the scoutmaster read. His favorite high school English teacher shared a dark poem he wrote his senior year. His prom date reminded the audience that he spent his hard-earned money to buy her exactly the roses she wanted: white with red tips. A young local man spoke on behalf of all of his childhood friends and stood at the podium with a group of fidgeting guys behind him, all of whom wiped their cheeks and their noses on their sleeves. My brother remembered him as a hater of pimentos, a kid who was the first in fourth grade to sprout armpit hair, as an existentialist who left behind an ache and a void. His college roommate flew in from North Carolina and swore he would have been spending last night in Pekin even if had awoken that day in Singapore because he would never miss the chance to say goodbye to this friend. His (and my) college speech coach deftly fulfilled the generic conventions of a eulogy and offered lovely solace to his family. And a couple more college friends said some words, one of whom served as master of ceremonies. This guy was a gangly, rabble-rousing speech camper in 2000, when Curt and my brother were campers and Ben and I were staffers. I know that he is grown up now, married to his speech camp sweetheart, a lawyer, even. But I didn't realize that this guy-- all of those kids we used to know-- were really men until I saw them standing, suited and speaking controlled words of comfort. It's all right, their straight backs and shined shoes told us. We're taking care of everything.

Thank God for my old friend Chrys who walked up to me at the bar after the service and said "Oh my god. None of the speakers came to get their ballots after the round."

Thank goodness, also, that I am such a lightweight and could get drunk from one and a half Heinekens and could watch with a goofy grin as my little brother and his high school friends drank shots for their missing teammate and the large, loud BUST family hunkered over buckets of beer bottles and baskets of battered food and made the evening an all-smoke.

Gathered at the Pekin Goodfellas last night, we had no bagpipes, but we were, as a BUST alum and once-Pekinite said on Facebook "a makeshift redneck honor guard."