Firsts

Conor, in his school uniform, on his first day of school.

Bridget on her first day of daycare.

Christopher on his first day of daycare.

Things are going well. Conor learned the French ABCs today and has been practicing saying Bonjour to all of us. We are still working out his bus issues, but it will be fixed soon.

Bridget and Christopher are having a rough time in daycare. Bridget is miserable there and perfectly fine at home. Christopher is ok there, and clingy to the extreme at home. He's actually really mad at me when I come to pick him up and, honestly, he melts into tears from the time I arrive until we get in the car. I think that's when he realizes I'm not leaving him. Their teachers are WONDERFUL and, as we asked, they are holding Bridget pretty much all day long. Things are actually getting better for her, and hopefully, they'll get better for Christopher soon.

It's all good. It's all the right things. And I'm having a lot of fun at work making progress on research projects and projects outside of the university. Work=fun is amazing.

9:30 and time for bed. We're back on marathon training schedule to get the kids to school. We're just not running now.

Kindergarten

Conor starts kindergarten on Tuesday. We thought he was starting last Wednesday with the rest of the Charlotte Mecklenburg system. We thought wrong.

Apparently, here at CMS, they have a staggered system. We thought (along with many other first time parents) that meant that not all the schools start at the same time in the morning. While that is true, it also means that kindergarteners get a "trial" day the first 5 days of school; that is, they only go one of the first 5 days of school. So some kids had their trial day on Wednesday and then start kindergarten for real the NEXT Wednesday, we have our trial day on Tuesday and then start for real on Wednesday.

So, um, yeah. That's actually fine. Conor starts kindergarten in two days. And actually, the twins start daycare tomorrow.

Halle-effin-lujah. We had two great nannies. Two women who were fantastic with the twins. But I am going to be so glad to the twins back to our regular daycare where I don't have to worry about what to tell someone to fix them for lunch, if I have the food I want them to have for lunch, if there is enough food for the nanny to eat something for lunch, does the nanny know how to prepare what they should have for lunch, and then to repeat the whole thing again for snack. Seriously. We loved the nannies, but I am so glad to be sending them to daycare.

Of course, the panic attacks in the middle of the night of how we're going to do all this have been a lot of fun. First, we cannot afford after-care for Conor. We were going to send him to an aftercare program at our church, but we honestly and truthfully do not have the money. How is that possible? Due to an amazingly low fixed rate mortgage we are not paying any more for that. And we were fine when it was just Conor is daycare, so what the heck?

I'll tell you the heck. It's doubling the daycare payments AND the new car payment. We had paid off both cars a while back so we didn't have a car payment. But the twins can't fit in a jetta, much less the twins, Conor, Dave, me and sometimes a dog. Here's a number that made Dave and me slack jawed in pain and anticipation: in 4 years when the twins enter kindergarten and we pay off the car, we'll have $2,000 more tax free dollars per month to, I don't know, to do what? That is so much money right now, we could use it for toilet paper and still end up ahead.

So that's been part of the panic attack--we have no money, we can't afford for Conor to be in after school care, but I, um, kind of have to work! But then we got some good news and some kind of bad news that helped solve the after school dilemma. Basically, if Conor rides the bus and I take him to the bus stop, I will have plenty of hours to get my work done during the day and Conor will not be in after school care. That's the good news. The bad news is that it will be a long-ish day for Conor--although not really longer than daycare. But it will start early. REALLY early. The twins' time in daycare will be about the same as Conor's has been these last 5 years, but not worse.

So that's where we are. I think it's sort of funny that people think I'm having a hard time with the twins going to daycare. But I don't. I'm more worried about Conor. I want him to have enough free time during the day--that doesn't involve sitting on a bus. I know it's going to work out. It always has. But the transition is going to be a little crazy and that's a little bit overwhelming right now.

Southern and Parents

As Dave and I ate this amazing gumbo that a friend brought by tonight, he decided that there are four groups of Southern food:

1) Cook the hooey out of it (i.e., any vegetable made in the south)

2) Add Bacon

3) Fried

4) Gravy

All I can say to that is: YUMMMMY!

In case you are wondering, the parents in our neighborhood whose children are starting kindergarten this year are obsessed with where their children are going to school. The vast majority of the conversations Dave and I have right now are where to send Conor to school. To give you some perspective, the debates are like CIO vs AP parenting....only worse.

Actually, I take that back. For my friends at least, we seem to be supportive of each other's kindergarten choices. And just before I started this blog entry, Dave and I realized that NONE of our friends are making the same choice! Not a single one. So from our perspective: none of our friends have looked at the same schools and all agreed on the same school.

What I appreciate the most about our friends is that we all seem to be supportive of each other. This weekend, a good friend and I had a cleaning party at the new house and could truly support that a school we didn't choose was indeed a good school and a good choice for each other's family. Dave and my impression thus far is that all the schools we've seen are "over the bar" in that they would be good educational choices. I don't think any of the magnet schools we've seen are bad.

NONETHELESS, today a friend explained to me how "parents she knew, parents whose parenting styles she respected, had chosen a particular school (<--the school she mistakenly thought we are choosing), but it simply was not a good fit for her child." Now, being the psychologist interested in communication that I am, let's parse that statement. If that statement had been "That's a good school, but not a good fit for my child or my family", I would think that was a fine, non-judgmental statement. Indeed, I think all of our choices are based our family's beliefs about what makes good education (pedagogy or pedagogical philosophy if you want to sound fancy; I have had to submit my personal pedagogy at every job appointment or review I've had as a professor). Some are more traditional than others. Some are less traditional than others. There you go. That's fine.

But that's not what this woman said. She had to justify her statement by talking about the families who have chosen this particular school by saying she "still" thought they were good parents. Implying, of course, that they had chosen the WRONG school, but she wanted me to think she respected their (clearly poor?) parenting style. Let me translate, "GOOD Lord, they don't seem like wackadoodle parents but that school sucks!!!" She even continued on trying to convince me that this school had poor resources and weak parental involvement until I finally got her to understand we were talking about another school--although, ironically, I know people who go to the school she was referring to and they love it. Good parents, too.

Have we not been through all this before? here's a clue: see CIO vs. AP above. I'm over it.

It recently occurred to me that we don't tell each other how to be married, do we? We don't say to each other: in order to have a good marriage, you must have sex X amount of times in Y amount of ways; you must split (or not) your finances in this way; you much divide house chores this way; you must live in this house with this many children and this many pets; you must do everything I've done exactly the way I've done it or your marriage is bad and wrong.

Somebody might try to tell you (or me) that, but my response is simply: Bite me. Marriages and other long term relationships are unique. No one expects that all marriages are the same. Why then do we expect other family choices, like um, parenting, should be the same, too? Insecurity is the answer. And I am too dadgummed tired to be insecure about that.

I think it's time for me to go fix me some fried bacon gravy and cook the hooey out of it.

The Language Academy

This morning, I went to the public K-8 language academy open house. I know I've mentioned it before, but to repeat myself, our local elementary school is one of the worst in the county. WOOHOO! The middle school after it is pretty bad, too. And the high school after that is not known for being the top in the county.

So we're looking. Today was the first open house and I was pretty impressed. The building itself is nothing to get excited over (which is important to many folks around here). It's 50 years old. But it has some of the highest test scores in the county and, well, I don't know, the kids learn another language.

And I don't mean "learn" another language like I learned French in high school. I mean starting the first moment of the first day of kindergarten, they are immersed in their language track. Even on the first day, the teachers speak no English but they do a lot of pantomiming.

We toured a kindergarten class in each of the four languages: Chinese, Japanese, French and German. Holy Freaking Cow. These children were exposed to the language for the first time at the end of August. And maybe it's because I could understand enough of the German and French, but the Chinese and Japanese classes blew me (and the other parents) out of the water. Kids in all the classes were completely understanding and responding to the teacher in their language track. They were all doing math, singing, spelling, just doing all this amazing kindergarten stuff....in another language. Wow. Seriously, the students in the Chinese class were doing something with math that just made my jaw drop. I know I'm hormonal, but it was amazing.

What a gift we feel we could give Conor, even if he does not choose to use it in a career. How amazing to be completely fluent in another language. At this point, we're debating between French and German. I speak some French and I think that if our children knew French and English, they could go anywhere in this world. However, we have good friends in Germany and we will likely visit with them and hopefully vacation with them (in Spain! long story). In addition, there is a German family right across the street from us.

In all honesty, I would be thrilled if the kids started in one of these languages and then picked up the other in the 5th grade (also an option). Seriously. WOW. This is a free option for us here in Charlotte, NC. Pretty dang cool.

That said, we are also going to see an International Baccalaureate, a Montessori, and a traditional elementary school. But this was amazing.

Oh, and thanks for yesterday's comments and friendings (speaking of France), :-) . Like Carter, my identities bleed on each other. And I appreciate Matt's thoughts about posting links. Now that I've fixed my FB problems, I can do that with interesting stuff. But do I friend our Dean on FB? I'd love to, but I think she'd think I was a wingnut.

Back to the subject, are your schools as whacked as this? Do you have to search for a school or can you just go to the one closest to you?

Choices

First, an update on the twins' development. We went for their 4 month old check up yesterday. Christopher is one ounce less than Conor was at 4 months. One ounce and 6 weeks preemie. Who wants to vote on who'll be the taller brother? Conor's at 99th percentile. How much taller can Christopher be?

Bridget is at 10th percentile weight but 40th percentile height! That explains why she continues to look so skinny while Christopher looks so pudgy. The boy has man boobs. The only thing we worry about with Bridget is that she's going to go to high school in 0-3 infant size clothing.

Best news of all: the twins have caught up with their chronological age developmentally, and may even be ahead in some areas. Preemies! Caught up and ahead at 4 months!!! We're just relieved and feel like we can stop worrying. Mostly. I don't think either is really at their "genetic height or weight". That may take a bit longer.

Okay, so what is the big stuff about choices? The real stuff on our mind is figuring out the twins daycare while we also decide on Conor's kindergarten options. ((((sigh)))) This is just something you don't think about before you have kids and don't stop thinking about after they are born. Well, maybe the Kindergarten thing is specific to living in a big city. In a "transitional neighborhood" in a bad city. With the worst elementary school in the county as your home school. Woohooo!!!

So we, along with all our other neighbors whose children may be going to Kindergarten are freaking out. Registration for next year's school year started this week. And we're all also starting to figure out which magnet program we're going to. And yes, the first open house for schools is next Tuesday. That's right!! On this Tuesday, we have to visit a school which may be where we send Conor NEXT YEAR!!

There are only two or three options we are seriously considering for Conor: 1) a traditional school in a better school district, 2) an elementary international baccalaureate school or 3) the language academy. In all honesty, we're leaning towards the language academy. (These are all free public options, btw). We're thinking either French, Chinese, or German in that order. What a gift to give a child the ability to be completely fluent in another language before the age of 12 (when the brain stops being able to easily acquire language or musical skills). And yes, Spanish is important, but the academy doesn't do Spanish and moving from French to Spanish in High school and being trilingual is not the worse thing ever.

Nonetheless, we have to visit several of the schools and figure out which is the best match for Conor and for our family. Other issues include: how far away the school is, what middle and high school does it feed into, the hours, is there a bus to it?, etc., etc.

For the twins, we're looking into daycare options for when I go back to school. The price of two children at daycare makes having a nanny somewhat reasonable. The problem is that we LOVE our daycare. But we might be able to save anywhere from $4K to $6K a year depending on a whole excel spreadsheet's worth of options and variables. Over 4 to 5 years, that's a little bit of money. I think for sure in the spring, we're going to have a nanny, one reason being that our daycare may not have space for both twins. For next fall, we just don't know.

Oh, and yeah. In the spring--we'll be paying for all three children in daycare. That's going to be about the same amount of money per month as our mortgage. Double your mortgage and then figure out how you're going to pay for everything else. Then send us that secret along with a check for $100. :-) That should help out with the groceries, at least!

Christopher calls. The butterfly toy has lost its appeal.