Everything Eileen (almost...)

Been running so hard - what I need is to unwind...

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:35:30 -0400

Today started out a great day. The Boy didn't sleep well last night (he boycotted dinner and probably kept waking with a grumbly tummy), but he still woke me at 6, just after Chris left for work. It wasn't too terrible; I managed to pull it together and get him fed (almost 7 ounces of peaches, 3 ounces of yogurt, and about 3 ounces of milk), dressed, and both of us out the door just after 7:30. (That's a record, by the way.) This week I'm reviewing the month of May, you see, and I knew I needed a head-start at work.

And that's when the great day evaporated. I logged onto my e-mail to find urgent messages from our CMO and VP of Finance looking to resurrect a project I thought we had already killed. So I scrambled to update the data and form new conclusions, then painstakingly reviewed them with our department head before I could meet with the cafe analyst to review my assumptions and conclusions with him.

(I still haven't met with him, BTW. It's month end for all of us, and Mondays are always pretty manic around here.)

So, while he's at lunch and I'm waiting for him to materialize at my desk (or give me a call - I'm not very picky), I start my other end of month reporting. Only something's screwy with one of the data warehouses and the dollar values are way off. Never mind that we've notified IT about this almost three months ago. It's completely screwed up, and that means one of my selling reports (thank goodness it's only one of three) is totally wrong. At least it's a semi-easy fix - it will just require a bunch of matching to get it right. Thank God for VLookups.

I feel like beating my head against a wall.

Today I sent The Boy to school with a banana and a small container of peaches for snack. (They were having animal crackers this morning, and I prefer bringing his snacks instead of letting him eat animal crackers because I'm not sure of their ingredients.) Last week, I got into a bit of trouble with his teachers because I only provided a banana, and he got very angry when he finished it and there was no more to eat. So I've learned my lesson and realize now that I need to provide extra food for him - just in case.

Tomorrow I have my first Parent-Teacher conference. It's really just an opportunity to sit down with his head teacher and go over his development and progression. I can't imagine it would be much more involved than that; it's not like she's going to tell me The Boy is doing poorly in Science or needs to stay focused while studying History.

And next week marks the start of "Water Days". I'm not totally sure what it entails, but I know that I have to send The Boy to school on Fridays with swimming trunks, swimming diapers, water shoes, and a towel. At yesterday's Target excursion, I contemplated getting him his own beach towel until I remembered that a bath towel is plenty big for his little body. Silly Mommy.

I've had enough of the day. I think I'm going to head home. After all, I can review weeks of supply tomorrow. It's not like it's going to change overnight.

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Such an unhappy boy!

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:01:46 -0400

I dropped off a very unhappy little boy this morning. In fact, as soon as we got into the classroom, he started to scream in terror and cling to me for dear life. He settled down a bit while I was signing the roster sheet (still holding him, mind you), only to freak out again when one of the teachers reached out to take him from me.

I have my suspicions of the cause of this, aside from the common separation anxiety. Lack of Mommy-time combined with a little cold and generally not feeling too great equals an unhappy baby.

Yesterday, I left work early after vomiting in the bathroom. Thankfully, I made it to the bathroom in order to do it. I cleared off my desk, told my boss I just threw up and needed to go home, and rushed home to my bed (which is not too far from the bathroom, thankfully). I don't know how many times I puked; I just know it wasn't a good scene.

I took The Boy to the doctor yesterday afternoon, and Dr W took a look at me, too. The Boy and I both have colds, and he's getting over the stomach bug that he just gave me. Oh joy, joy, joy. After the appointment, I drove home, called my husband to come out of the house and collect The Boy from my car, and rushed to the bathroom before going to bed. So The Boy did not have any Mommy-time last night (and the fact that I heard my husband tell him "Mommy doesn't want you in there" probably didn't help matters much).

We were fine this morning at the house. He woke up (on his own - I was in no rush to get out of bed this morning), and we cuddled and chatted for a little while before I changed his diaper (poopy - no diarrhea - but still a bad diaper rash) and dressed him in his clothes for school. Before breakfast, we played for a bit (his new favorite toy is an empty paper towel tube), I tried to teach him the word "egg", and he took out all his books from his bookcase. (I was in no shape to try and stop him.) Then, after a hearty breakfast of yogurt, Pirate Booty (because he has suddenly decided not to eat bananas), and a few sips of milk, we piled into the car and were on our way.

He was in such good spirits during the ride over. He pointed out the window and chatted about the things he saw (none of which I, of course, understood), and was otherwise in a great mood. He protested when I tried to clean his face before taking him out of the car, but even when we were on our way to the classroom, he seemed perfectly content.

But the moment we set foot into the room, he burst into tears. I felt so bad.

Even worse is that I'll need to stay late tonight to finish up month-end reporting. I only hope he'll forgive me in the morning!

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"He really likes food, doesn't he?"

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:08:04 -0400

After dropping The Boy off at his regular classroom, I went across the building to see his new teacher and check on how he did the previous day.

"He did great!" she told me. "And he's such a good eater! He really likes food, doesn't he?"

I had to laugh inwardly. He does, indeed, like food - as long as it's food he likes. Last night's steamed zucchini, for example, was not a favorite of his. Neither was the vegetable medley with pasta that came out of a jar. But give him food he likes, and he's happy to eat his weight and then some.

Anyway, it appears yesterday went fairly smoothly. He sat quietly during Circle Time. He willingly sat at the table to eat his lunch (including second helpings). He awoke from his nap crying (I forgot to tell them this child does not do well waking under the best circumstances), but settled down after a good amount of cuddling, and then he played by himself for a while until the some other kids awoke. And he drank from the sippy cups there with no problems!

The only thing to which I'll need to adjust is how much more he is drinking (and thus peeing)! If I didn't have him in a cloth diaper last night - with a doubler insert to boot - I am certain he would have needed a diaper change every two hours, and probably would have leaked through each of those.

But it appears he will make the transition just fine. It's going to be much more difficult for me, I know. I really like his current teachers a lot, and I'll probably make a point (for a little while, at least) of going over there once a week to see them.

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The letter from school

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:16:49 -0400

We got a letter in the mail last night from The Boy's school. It was a congratulatory letter, letting us know that he is progressing very well and will be transitioning to the Toddler classroom on May 5.

No more baby. He's a full-fledged toddler.

This morning, I visited what will be his new classroom, and I spoke with one of the teachers. I had already met her when she was visiting some of the children in the Infant Wing, so I was familiar enough with her. We talked very briefly about what The Boy will be doing and what I can expect, and I was relieved to know that he won't need to fully transition to the hard-spout sippy cups for a few more weeks after transitioning. It was also nice to see a little girl in this new class who transitioned out of The Boy's current class about six months ago; he'll at least see a somewhat familiar face.

One thing I know is that I'll need to be a bit more vigilant about his diet when he gets to the new classroom. He still has problems with oats, and most of the morning and afternoon snacks they offer have oats in the ingredients. And since I'd really rather he eat more fruits and vegetables throughout the day (instead of only at lunch), I'll happily provide bananas and the like for him to eat. Plus, his doctor recommended holding off on even watered-down juice until he's at least two to ward off a sweet tooth and ensure he gets adequate fiber in his diet. Oh, and Dr. W also advised keeping him away from seafood for another couple of years because of my own allergy to shellfish. When I was a wee girl, I would have violent allergic reactions to any kind of seafood, and I'd rather not go through something similar with The Boy.

So, the gradual transition process begins next week, and he'll be there full-time beginning May 5. (Happy Cinco de Mayo! I wonder if they'll serve margaritas...) They do a gradual transition so it's not such a shock for the kids, and for that I'm grateful. I know that some of the other kids have cried and cried during the transition process, and I'm seriously hoping that The Boy will be okay. When I took him into the Toddler class this morning, he was very interested in looking at the kids and seeing what they were doing, but, of course, I was there and holding him the whole time, so it's not like he was on his own.

He'll also be going out to the playground twice a day every day, which will mean daily sunscreen application and daily baths. At least he likes taking baths, so that won't be an ordeal. Sitting still for sunscreen, though, is an entirely different story. He'll be allowed one nap per day at a pre-determined time (just after lunch, I think), but I didn't find out if they limit his napping time. Sometimes he'll nap for 15 minutes, but he might also stay asleep for three hours. It depends on what he feels like doing.

Oh, I have a strong feeling this transition process will be much tougher on me that it will be on The Boy.

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Transition Woes

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:03:42 -0400

I feel like the worst mother in the world. But I know that I'm not.

As of Wednesday, Baby C is now 11 months old. This means, at school, that he will begin the transitioning process to the Yearling (Toddler) class in two weeks.

Here's the list of things he needs to have accomplished before they can accept him in the Toddler class:

Must be able to feed himself
Must be able to walk well
Must be able to understand directions
Must be able to drink from sippy cup
Must be able to eat table food

The first, he can do... sort of. He's not fond of utensils, save for throwing them and banging them on the table or high chair tray. But he's a pro at feeding himself rice cakes, oyster crackers, Chex cereal, and other small bits of food.

Check.

The second, he's not so proficient at doing. Let's face it: the kid just started crawling a month ago. He's very good at crawling and is quite mobile, but aside from his attempts at cruising (he does very well until he wants to grab a hold of something else), he's not a walker. Yet.

So, no check... yet.

The third, he can do, though he doesn't always obey. The other day, his teachers were telling him to be nice and give me a hug (he was very mad at me; I had attacked him that morning with the saline spray and the evil green suction bulb), and rather than going to me, he stood (sat) his ground and started to cry out of frustration instead.

So, check.

The fourth, I've been working with him on this since December. Let's face it: he's not overly crazy about sippy cups. This morning, though, he successfully drank four ounces of milk from his sippy cup (he had a very dry breakfast of Rice Chex), so we might be making progress there.

So, no check... yet.

As for the fifth, I'm happy to report that he had his very first completely grown-up meal yesterday: half of a quesadilla (courtesy of Dad), green beans, a little water (from a sippy cup), and milk (okay, the milk wasn't exactly grown-up food). More importantly, he fed himself the quesadilla, though I had to help him with the green beans. The thing is, I took a copy of the school lunch menu, and there are a number of things on the menu that simply aren't in his diet yet. Fish sticks? No. Salad? No. Beef stew? No. Tater tots or mashed potatoes? Fine, if you can get him to eat them - but he hates potatoes, so, no. Vanilla wafers and animal crackers? Definitely not.

So, while, yes, he can eat table food, I don't like the table food they're going to give him. But I'll happily pack a cold/room temperature lunch for him each day. Does this mean he doesn't get a check on this?

The worst part, though, is that one of the directors spoke with me at length yesterday about these benchmarks, and I felt this small after our talk. (Oh, and I was really late getting to work, too.) It's not like I'm doing anything to impede his development - that's the very last thing I would want to do! He needs to grow and learn and develop at his own pace, and if it means he's not walking for another two or three months, so be it. (Though, I have a feeling that within a week after discovering he can walk, Baby C will figure out how to run.)

Starting next week, he'll strictly be on a sippy cup at school (though I'll provide empty bottles in case he's completely refusing them - there's no use in letting him get dehydrated), and I'm already scouring my cookbooks for table foods that I can make for him to eat. That's the most I can do to help him transition. The rest is up to him.

And at this age, no amount of coaxing, begging, or bribing can make him do anything sooner than he's ready to do. In another year, however...

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Biggest slacker ever

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:40:46 -0400

I just overnighted a package to my niece's school.

Why?

Because I kept putting off working on my Flat Stanley letter to her, and the project is due tomorrow.

Now, I'm well aware that it's going directly to the teacher and that she will use it, with all the letters my niece's classmates receive, to craft a geography lesson (though, with mine, she will likely need to craft a music history lesson, too). And I'm also well aware that there are probably plenty of others who may well miss this deadline. However, I don't want to be one of them.

And I don't want my sister to get a phone call from the teacher asking her to please call me and have me mail Flat Stanley back to the school!

So, I'm the biggest slacker ever. Let this be a warning to you all.

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Letter a Week: "A 'C' is not a grade - it's a body of water!"

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:05:34 -0500

I'm going to do my best to specifically write about myself when I do my Letter a Week posts. I've found that I write way too much about my son and motherhood and not nearly enough about myself.

So this leads us to this week's letter: C.

There are so many things I could have chosen for this letter. My husband's first name starts with C. My son's name starts with C. My maiden name starts with C. My married name starts with C. And one of my favorite foods in the whole wide world (cookies) starts with C. Wait. So does creme brulee. And cheesecake. And chips! Hmmm...

Okay, I'm getting off subject.

My parents are two incredibly intelligent people who wanted my sister and me to be the very best at whatever it was we chose to do. They are supportive, loving, generous, and were, at times, demanding. Actually, I don't think I would say that they were demanding. I would say that they had incredibly high expectations of us, and we were heavily encouraged to live up to these expectations.

I hated getting report cards in school. Not because I ever had really bad grades (I graduated from high school with a respectable 3.5 GPA), but because I felt so much pressure. My sister, you have to understand, ~~was~~ is the perfect daughter in many ways. I won't go into her current life, but I can touch upon history. She graduated from elementary school as the class valedictorian, and if it weren't for one guy in her graduating class at our alma mater (which also begins with a 'C'!), she would have graduated from junior high and high school as the valedictorian, as well. I think she only got one B on a report card, and I clearly remember my parents flipping out. It wasn't even a semesteral report card (the ones that count), but one of the progress reports.

But, again, I digress.

I love to read. And I'm a fairly smart person. I also loved being the center of attention and was the family Drama Queen until my older niece usurped my title several years ago. But I simply lacked the long-term commitment to focus on one thing and do that one thing very well.

So, I got a few Cs on my progress reports, which is why I always hated bringing them home. My father used to tell me that the only acceptable Cs on my report card were in my name, and that there should only be those two on any report card, semesteral or otherwise. After all, "A 'C' is a body of water - it's not a grade!"

Ironically, I always got Cs in math and science. It's the strangest thing. When I entered seventh grade, my entrance exam scores were so high that the administration placed me in an advanced math class. It didn't click until eight grade when I got a good math teacher, but once I went to high school (and had crappy math teachers), it all went downhill. Science was very similar. I think if someone had explained that an understanding of chemistry was necessary to understand baking, it would have clicked sooner. But I had this weird mental block. Even weirder was that I was almost always selected to represent the school at some scientific festival of some sort. I went to some Amateur Radio Convention thing my senior year as a representative of the Physics Club - and I wasn't even in the Physics Club!

So, I grew up believing that Cs are bad grades. It's not a bad belief, if you think about it. I mean, getting a C means that your performance in the class or on a project or on a paper is average. And, really, who truly wants to be average?

Am I going to instill in my own son this same notion that Cs are unacceptable? Possibly. Oh, fine - probably. After all, it was that kind of disdain for Cs as grades that led to one of my mantras: "Good enough isn't." No one looks at your report card once you enter the real world. Nobody cares if you graduated with a 4.0 from college or a 2.5, as long as you graduated and have some experience and smarts to back up that diploma. But the desire to push yourself beyond average, to never settle for "okay" - that's something cultivated over years of striving for that perfect score.

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Preschool Admissions: At least there isn't an exam...

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:17:20 -0400

Two weeks ago, I called my first pick for Baby C's preschool to have them send me a brochure and application, Now,when I initially called before the baby was born, the Adnissions Director told me that I could submit an application for him at that moment. I digested that piece of information and filed it away for future knowledge. Sure enough, when I called, she had already received a number of applications for his class (mind you, he won't start preschool until the 2010/2011 school year),

So, with the new school year upon us, I figure I need to get to work on Baby C's application for enrollment, which includes an essay to be completed by yours truly. Thank God they're not asking Baby C to write it. As prolific a writer as I like to say he is to those who look at his baby books, he truthfully hasn't really mastered the whole word-formation concept yet. Shocking, I know.

The topic of my essay is quite simple: Tell us what you want a college preparatory education to offer your child. But my hang up right now, as it almost always is when writing papers or essays, is where to begin. (A list! Lists are always great for essays!) And, of course, this is a very important essay, as I've determined that it's easier to get into college than into a private preschool.

No pressure, or anything.

Baby C won't need to take a test to get into Pre-K3 at this school, but he'll need to take tests at the end of each school year to matriculate to the next grade. So, I told my husband, once we get him into the school, he's guaranteed a spot through his Senior year of high school unless he gets kicked out.

I'm watching him sleep, sprawled out in my arms, and I'm wondering if he will ever thank me for any of this. I hope so, even if it's not for another 30 years.

I don't think private school admissions were this grueling when I was a kid. Well, I know 7th grade was more difficult (we had to take a pretty rigorous entrance exam), and high school probably would have been, too, if I didn't start at the junior high level, but I don't remember my preschool being so impacted. I'll have to ask my mother about this. But, of course, private school wouldn't even be up for consideration if, like my sister's family, we lived in a county with awesome public schools. Granted, we'd pay for it in property taxes, but still.

At least my niece didn't have to write an essay to get into Kindergarten.

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Fire drill at school

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:15:48 -0400

Baby C had a fire drill at school this morning. I was there to witness it, as I was midway through my morning drop-off routine. It was really neat to watch; his teachers collected all the kids (6 total this morning), put them into 2 rolling cribs, then wheeled them out the fire-escape door. Within 30 seconds of the alarm going off (no kidding - I looked at the clock), all 6 kids were outside and all was well. It was pretty amazing, and I was assured that my baby is in good hands.

And my brave little boy wasn't fazed one bit. He just lay in the crib, taking it all in...

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Vox Hunt: I'm Saving Up For This

nobody@vox.com(Eileen) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:22:04 -0400

Show us something that you are saving or budgeting for.
Submitted by foxsydee.

This is the more immediate (within 3 years) need:

Baby Cs Prep School

This is the ultimate goal:

Baby Cs Future Alma Mater

The above photos illustrate where the bulk of my money is likely to be spent for the next 22 years.

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