366 of 2012 - Day 48

366 of 2012 - Day 48. Picaboo has challenged us to do self portraits, this week. The shot for today is of me and my daughter. I don't much care for the photo. I like the two of us, but I don't like the colors or the background and I couldn't manage to fix it to a point where I liked it. But Weeb and Wonko both like the shot, so here it is (like the rabbit ears the kid is trying to add to my head?).

Taken with my Canon PowerShot G12, f/3.5, 1/30 sec., ISO-320, 6 mm focal length, max aperture 2.96875, pattern metering, no flash, white balance auto. I applied a slight Unsharp Mask adjustment and fiddled with Exposure a bit in Photoshop.

MOTHER'S DAY TEA 2011

On Mother's Day, Weeb and I had tea with Grandma. We had REAL tea and posh little cucumber sandwiches, which Grandma prepared especially for Weeb. Weeb had wanted to have a REAL princess tea with Grandma for Mother's Day, you see (complete with her princess tea set). And Grandma is pretty awesome about hosting awesome teas, even when they are in her honor.

REAL tea, princess tea (water, which Willow poured, repeatedly, and we drank, repeatedly), cucumber sandwiches with carrot garnish and grape tomatoes.

Tiny little cucumber sandwiches, fit for a princess. Posh or what, eh?

SELF PORTRAIT W/TIMER

Wonko got me a little desk tripod that we tried out today. I also tried out the timer on my camera (Canon PowerShot SD1000). Not the best shot as I'm not wearing make up, my hair is a mess and Weeb is making an odd face, but it's a cute picture of us, all the same. I'm going to have to keep playing with the timer.

KINDERGARTEN WEEB

Weeb started Kindergarten September 7th. The first two weeks was a crazy schedule of school starting at various times, for various lengths of time. It was chaotic to say the very least. Wonko and I either took vacation time or worked from home to be with Weeb. It was wonderful and hectic, at the same time.

After a week and a bit, the kids were assigned their teacher. Weeb got Mrs. E, who has a split Kindergarten / Grade 1 class. A lot of mothers hoped their kid wouldn't be in the split class, but Weeb is advanced academically and used to being in a 50+ kid preschool so I figured it was a good spot for her.

On the Thursday of the second week, Weeb had her first full day of school. I realized when I picked her up that she had no idea where the bathrooms were. She SAID she did, but since she couldn't show them to me, I was onto the fact that she had not gone to the bathroom at school in the two weeks she'd been there. So we asked the teacher where they were and off we went.

The bathrooms are down the hall from Weeb's classroom. They are big and have an echo and Weeb was freaked. She didn't like that anyone could come in at any time. She didn't like locking herself into a stall. She didn't like the sound of the bathroom. She freaked out at the idea of flushing. She insisted she would go when we got home, but I am a stubborn momma and insisted we weren't going anywhere until she went pee and flushed. My poor girl, she was not happy with me. But she did it! We went back to her classroom and let her teacher know that she was a bit nervous about the bathrooms and she suggested Weeb bring a buddy with her the next day.

Friday when I asked Weeb if she went to the bathroom she said yes, she'd gone with a buddy. Then I learned that they didn't go pee, they just went down there and washed their hands. Okay, it's a start. So I dragged her back to the bathroom and she went. Then I made her flush. She was not happy with me again. After she flushed she decided it wasn't a big deal. She managed to go to the bathroom all week, this week. She doesn't love the bathrooms, but she's not terrified, so that's good for now.

This week they had a fire drill. In the morning their teacher advised them that they would be having a fire drill and a loud bell would sound. Weeb was not happy about this. She doesn't like the school bells as they are quite loud and make a little girl who is very involved with whatever she is daydreaming about or playing with JUMP! She managed to get so anxious knowing that the fire drill was coming that she cried for a good deal of the morning. She was happy again at lunch but was back to loud sobbing after lunch was over. Finally they had the fire drill and she shrugged it off and said, "We did the same thing at my preschool." Ah, anticipation anxiety! My poor girl is just a bit too much like her mother!

I think most of the kids in Weeb's class have older siblings so they are used to being in the school environment. Weeb's older siblings are in another province so this whole big school thing is new to her (and me!) and is a bit daunting. It seems as though she's adjusting well now.

We have our first Pro-D Day today. It's just as well since the landlord is here fixing up some stuff in the house and we have a contractor from the strata coming to deal with a leaky pipe in our kitchen ceiling. Hopefully that won't take too long to sort out. Oh and I seem to have a cold. It's not terrible, but it's sucking enough that I'm glad nobody was available to watch Weeb this morning so I had the perfect excuse to take the day off.

The weather is definitely telling us that Autumn is here. It's colder and rainy. I have great plans to get this house as uncluttered as possible as the mess is making me insane! Our new routines are falling into place and I am going to attempt to get back to my writing. We shall see. Maybe another week or two into this Kindergarten thing and we'll all be feeling 'normal' again. Well, until the next thing comes up and throws us off. Bring it Universe - we got our kid successfully into Kindergarten without breaking her, we can do ANYTHING!

And now a picture of rocks and pebbles (what is the difference between a rock and a pebble?) that I likely got off the internet at some point. Why have I posted a picture of rocks / pebbles? Because Weeb digs collecting rocks and pebbles. I direct you back to the comment that my kid is a lot like me. Sometimes that's NOT a bad thing.

Edit to add: A rock has a rough surface, a pebble has a smooth surface. You'll have to sort out your opinion on the picture above for yourself. I'm going to call them rockles. The Kindergarten Kid concurs.

MONSTERS UNDER WEEB'S BED

I'm writing a story for Weeb about the Monsters under her bed.

I thought when I told her the beginning of the story that she'd be entranced by the tale and fall into the 'other world' with a terrific sense of wonder.

What happened is that she spent the next three nights having nightmares about monsters under her bed.

I am the Mother of the Year. Again.

So I decided to ask my brother, who has amazed me with his drawings since childhood, to whip up a picture of Weeb and one of the monsters. I described the monster as: a large dust bunny with a toothy grin and large sneakers.

In minutes my brother had the above picture drawn. The monster looks slightly more meatbally-ish than dustbunny-ish but I think it's awesome. So does Weeb. And now she's bugging me to keep writing the story.

MOTHER OF THE YEAR

I consider myself to be a smart woman. Usually. I consider myself to be a user of common sense. Usually. I consider myself to be an above average mother. Usually.

Upon our return home from getting groceries this morning, Wonko set one of our two green plastic totes on the stove, in our much too tiny kitchen, then went back to the car to get the rest of the groceries. Weeb went to the bathroom and I popped out, for just a moment, to help get the rest of the stuff in the trunk of the car.

Back we go into the kitchen and Weeb and I are talking about stickers for her calendar and how she gets four today because she - but then Wonko was yelling. Something was on fire. Um... FIRE!

Wonko moves the green tote to the sink and yells a variety of four letter words. I see flames on the stove, notice our offspring is frozen in the hallway and I put the sticker box on the floor (I don't remember doing this) and grab the fire extinguisher.

Now, let me explain something about my reaction to fire. Have you ever seen a deer in headlights? Yeah, that's me and fire. Since a rather nasty apartment fire in my 20's (not my fault!), I have not coped well with fire. My husband, on the other hand, is something of an expert, having started and then put out an evil curry fire in our kitchen a couple of years ago, marking the moment on our linoleum kitchen floor with a ring in the same shape as our once loved curry pot.

I will say that I tease my husband about the curry fire (I was not in the house with our then infant, at the time, so I cannot comment too much on this actual event), but HE knows what to do in these cases, as opposed to my typical response of... well a deer in headlights. He grabbed a large pot lid and put it over the element now decorated in burning plastic.

And I will also say that either one of us could have been responsible for this fire today. Both of us put those totes on the stove and could have, at any time, bumped the dial, turning it on. Which is what happened today. The element came on, got hot (while Weeb was in the house alone), the green tote started to melt on the hot element and with our return to the kitchen, smoke alerted Wonko that there was a problem. He lifted the tote, there was flame and that's when the four letter words started.

With the fire out, Wonko starts putting the unharmed groceries away. Weeb and I go outside and I cry and hug her and we talk about fire and I think about what a horrible mother I am and how could I have possibly left her in that house alone and I'm so thankful that the timing was what it was and the flames didn't start while we were outside. A million what ifs now spring into my head and I'll keep it all short by saying I have sworn never to leave my child alone in the house again. Ever.

So we go out for Slurpees, as we are apt to do on a Saturday afternoon. Later, Slurpees in hand, we pull into our spot in the parking lot and my daughter, the same one I left alone in the house with the fire in the kitchen earlier today, informs me that her seat-belt wasn't on the entire way home.

What?

Seriously?

Do I really suck that much as a parent?

Apparently.

I KNOW I buckled my child into her booster seat, as I always do, and then tightened the belt, as I always do. Upon our return home, she went to undo the seat-belt and found it already undone. So I obviously did not do things as I always do, unless I always fail at seat-belt fastening.

I suppose I'll spend the rest of the day beating myself up for my demonstrations of failure to be an awesome parent today. I think maybe I'll just chalk it up to reminders regarding safety and lessons learned then thank my lucky stars that no offspring were hurt in my vast stupidity today.

RESCUE AT QUARTER TO TWO

Waking up at 1:45 in the morning to frightened cries of, “Mummy!” increases my heart rate and gets my adrenaline pumping like nothing else! There is no question of fight or flight, my baby is in trouble!

I’m pretty sure I can fly. I can’t imagine how else I get into her room so quickly after she calls for me. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I am in there before she finishes saying my name.

Usually. (But that’s another tale.)

“I had a bad dream,” my daughter explains with a sad little 4 year old face. I don’t even ask what it was about anymore. My task is simple, get her to the bathroom and get her back to sleep with as little fuss as possible. She is asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, if she was completely awake at all.

Next comes the attempt to slow my racing heart and figure out what to do with all the adrenaline. Vacuuming? To loud. Maybe this is a good time to do all that dusting that I’ve been putting off for so long. Too loud. No, really. No? It was worth a shot. I’m still not dusting my house. I’m just going to go back to bed.

Then I decide to write this article in my head, and I toy with the idea of writing down the perfectly crafted words going through my mind. I know these words of blinding brilliance will change the world! Then I decide, because I’m in such a logical state at 2AM, that I will clearly remember all the brilliance swirling in my brain come a more respectable hour.

Does this sound brilliant? No, I know, it’s lost something in the several hours between thinking and writing.

The good news is it only took me about 45 minutes to fall back to sleep as opposed to my usual hour. As far as I’m concerned, I’m 15 minutes ahead of the game!

DAYCARE, KINDERGARTEN AND SAHM ENVY

I am a mother who works full time. I went through the hell that most new moms go through when Maternity Leave is over and the idea of handing our kid/s off to strangers for the work day becomes a reality. We don't want to do it. Not many of us have a choice, these days.

We put our daughter into daycare two weeks before her first birthday. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. She stayed at that daycare facility until we were told we had to leave because the facility broke rules and had too many children under the age of two years old. We went through hell a second time to find another daycare that we could trust and now we had a bad experience under our belts. Luckily, we found another facility that we liked and, after several months, unfortunately had another bad experience. Looking for our third daycare, I think I would have done ANYTHING to be a stay at home mom, but it still was not an option and luckily, we found a spot in an amazing Montessori Child Care Centre for our daughter.

Several weeks ago, we registered our daughter for Kindergarten. After some governmental drama, we learned that our school had Full Day Kindergarten, which we had hoped for. Our daughter has been in daycare since she was a year old and been in a preschool environment for two years. The idea of two and a half hours for Kindergarten seems absurd to me. It's a hassle for working parents and if the child is in care, it's just rushing them off to yet another place during the day. And I won't lie, I was ecstatic at the idea of no longer paying such high child care costs!

Our family will be in a position, come September, where I can work part time. I am about to present an offer to my current employer, reducing my hours so I can pick my daughter up from school once Kindergarten starts. I am overjoyed at this idea. It means getting up earlier in the mornings and being out of the house before my husband and daughter wake up. It means we still need to find an hour or two of care for her in the mornings, before school starts. But it means I will be there for her, at the end of the day and end up having more time with her than I do now.

I'm greedy, I want to take my child to school AND be there to pick her up. Beyond the benefits to both her and my husband (who currently takes her to preschool in the mornings) the very thought of having time to clean my house (and do other chores) when my kid is at school, instead of the sad attempt to rush it into our lives on the weekend or after work, makes me a step away from giddy!

We've thought about me becoming a stay at home mom (SAHM). We could probably pull it off. We would be much tighter with money, but the family would, theoretically, be happier if I had more time to take care of them and take care of our home. I wonder if I am disciplined enough to actually do it though.

Everything is so rushed now. After working full time and picking up my daughter, and making dinner and cleaning up after dinner and spending a bit of time with my daughter and getting her to bed, I am pooped! And I have a wonderful partner who helps! Chores often fall to the bottom of the 'to do' list. Groceries are gathered at weekends. Bathrooms, vacuuming, mending, all chores are left to the weekend, which makes weekends very fast paced, especially if you add in any classes and visits with Grandma, Grandpa and cousins. And I'm lazy - I like movies and video games and time to myself. It's hard to manage a busy week and even harder to manage a busy weekend. Prioritizing is something I've become very good at, though the dust in my dining room might beg to differ.

As I sit at the computer on a Sunday afternoon, the laundry is tumbling in the washer, dinner is in the oven, and I contemplate the coming busy week. Maybe if I were a SAHM, I'd have time to properly clean this house and maybe write the novel that would make us rich. More than likely, I'd end up watching soaps and the potato chips in the cupboard would disappear.

At the moment, working vs. becoming a stay at home mom is still up in the air. It will sort itself out. It usually does.