Sewing

Sorry I haven't been blogging much this year, I've been a bit busy.

My brother got married in March, and to help I made some of the outfits for the reception.

I made Aurora's dress and shrug. The other polka dot dress that my niece (one of the other babies) is wearing. Cinderella's shrug. My skirt, and my sister one of my sister's skirts.
Then I also made another shrug for Aurora, while I was trying to figure out the pattern before working on the satin.

I also made one other shrug for Aurora, and one for Cinderella in my practice run. Those ones however didn't match the dresses. Well at least not Aurora's. So I felt compelled to make them Easter dresses that matched those shrugs as well.


That wouldn't be that much sewing for some people. But I haven't really done that much sewing in that short a time before. And for me, it was a big task. I'm pleased with the job I did. And it didn't really stress me, that much. But it did keep me away from the computer.

Schools

Cinderella will be going in to Kindergarten next year. Up until a few months ago, I didn't realize all of my options. I knew I could home school, but personally I don't know if I have the stamina to do that for my kids. I knew I could send them to a private school, but that seems to be too expensive for me. And then there is the standard district public school. Right?

Well a few months ago, I was out to lunch with a few other women who live in my neighborhood, and one of them started telling me about the charter school she sends her kids to. This was the first time I had ever heard of charter school. She had lots of praise to say about it, and because it is a public charter school it is as free as the district public school is. So I started giving it some thought.

I asked people that I knew what they thought of charter schools. I people had both good and bad to say, but most people were a little wary. Here are a few examples of the cautionary reviews I got.

• "If they aren't under a district, who knows what they could be teaching your kids."

• "Not all charter schools in this state higher certified teachers. You need to check and see if they are certified."

• "I don't know that it really matters that much where you send your kids to school, in elementary."

Then the school had an open house. My husband and I went and visited and talked to people at the school. Of course it was a night that was geared to convince people to send their kids there, so everything I heard was good. I asked about some of the negative things I had heard about charter schools in general, and I was happy with the answers that I got.

• They have really good curriculum, and have to meet guidelines imposed by the state. They teach the kids on a higher level than what you find in most district schools. For example, in kindergarten the children aren't just taught the alphabet, but are also taught how to read basic words. In math they learn basic addition and subtraction.
  
• They require all of their teachers to be certified in this state.
• The school offers really awesome extra curricular programs for the older elementary students (3rd through 6th grade). They have a drama club, ballroom, chess, choirs and orchestra, a homework club, a Korean club, a Spanish club and a science club.

My husband and I left that night, feeling like enrolling our daughter there would be a good choice.

The school has you enter your child's name in a drawing, and they pick who gets to attend. Children who's parents were the founders of the school, or have siblings there are given first priority, then after that it is luck of the draw. So I entered Cinderella's name. Now I knew that it was possible that she wouldn't be drawn, but that she could be. So I continued to research my options.

From my perspective, the only thing that the district school had over the charter school is location. Our local district elementary is only .8 miles from my house, and the charter school is 3.2 miles. OK so 3.2 still isn't that far away, but compared to .8 which is close enough that we can walk there in good weather, plus when you take in account the time that it takes to wait in the pick up/drop off line, and possibly stop lights, it could take an hour out of my day just to take her to school, and pick her up. That is a lot of time in the car.

So I had pretty much decided that we would go with the district school.

Then in February, it came time for Kindergarten registration. Accept I never found out about it, until a few days after. Now I know it isn't that big a deal, and I can take her in at any time during school hours and register her, if I have healthy kids and remember. Which unfortunately hasn't happened to coincide since then yet. So I still haven't registered her. "No problem. I'll still do it." I think.

Then yesterday, I happened to be looking at the blog of my neighbor who's children attend the charter school. They had had a ballroom competition, and the mother had taken some pictures. This reminded me of the extra curricular options. The school district that my parents live in, has had some problems lately due to a split in the district. The split caused a major deficit. To make up for this deficit the district has been cutting a lot of things. Many employees, teachers and others and loosing their jobs. They are doing away with a lot of the extra curricular activities the students could participate in. I also am aware that in our current economy there just aren't as much funds to go around and a lot of state programs are getting a cut in their finances as well, and there is talk of cutting funding for schools state wide. Now I know that this will affect state charter schools as well, but this particular charter school, at least in the past, has tried to balance it's budget in other ways than cutting programs. In our district the schools don't do field trips anymore, because of lack of funding. But the charter school, at least of this school year, is still doing field trips.

Anyway all of this was tumbling around in my brain suggesting that maybe I should give the charter school idea some more thought.

And then I read a different friends blog, about trying to make the choice about sending her son to a charter school. A lot of her friends had some good arguments that I hadn't thought of before.

One is that you can start the year off at the charter school, but if you decide it isn't what you want to do after all, you can change your child's school to the district one. But if you start in the district one, you may never have another opportunity to get into the charter school.

Another is the sibling preference thing. If I put Cinderella in the charter school right now, when Guy gets to be school age, I will have an easier time getting him in the charter school, if that is what I want.

Also because the charter school moves at a faster pace then the district ones, the child won't have as hard a time trying to keep up, if they start in Kindergarten instead of a later grade.

So today I heard from the charter school. Cinderella was accepted. So now I have to figure out which is really the most important to me. And get her registered, for one of the schools. And I only have 2 weeks to decide.


I hope this post made sense and isn't just a bunch of ramblings. But if it confuses you, sorry.

When do you keep a kid home from school?

So as the winter season has been coming to an end, my kids have been hit hard by all the illnesses that are going around. And there have been times that I have wondered if I should send Cinderella to preschool or not.

For me there are some givens. If they are running a fever, have no energy, have a highly contagious disease like "pink eye" (had that one last week), are so sick they are spending the day in the bathroom. That kind of thing. I keep them home.

But if the kid just has a cough, maybe a little runny nose? You know regular cold symptoms. They are still "sick" they could infect others. They aren't acting sick. Do you send them or keep them home?

Children on average have around 9 cold per year. Each cold can last 4-10 days. If I keep my kid home from school when ever they have a cold they could miss up to 72 days a year just for the cold.

Cinderella has asthma, and so she sometimes has a cough when that is the ONLY thing wrong with her. So do I keep her home when she is coughing?

Our elementary school has the policy that kids need to be in school unless they have a "verifiable illness or family emergency." OK so that makes sense, but what is a "verifiable illness"?

I don't want to get other kids sick, but I don't want my kid to miss the whole school year either.

So, when do you keep your kids home sick?

Silly Guy

I love watching my kids grow up. Guy is at a fun talking stage right now, and it is fun to see how his mind works right now.

One day he came up to his Daddy and me and said, "I don't have lots of thumbs on my hands." His dad replied "You don't?" "No, I have lots of fingers."

Guy also pronounces magnets as maggots. So he will ask if he can play with the "maggot" car. My husband one time was telling this to someone he was talking to on the phone. He then said, "I wonder if he will ask to play with Grandma's maggots when we go to her house." Guy heard this and replied, "Grandma doesn't have maggots!" I'll bet Grandma is glad she doesn't.

Aurora has started saying Uh Oh! lately. This has prompted Guy to also say it. Only instead of pronouncing it Uh Oh, he pronounces it, Oh Ko!

Guy has picked up an interest in dinosaurs lately. I purchased a little set of about ten dinosaur figurines, and they have become a favorite toy. These dinosaur's range in size from about an inch to maybe 5 inches high. Well this last week we borrowed a toy dinosaur from Grandma's house. This one is quite a bit larger than the others. One day Guy was looking for the largest of the small dinosaurs, and asked me, "Where is the big, huge, little dinosaur?"

My husband has been pruning our fruit trees lately, and one day when he was heading outside to do so, Guy looked at him and asked him if he was going to go break the trees.

This morning I told Guy we needed to do his hair. His response was, "I have a head because I am a boy." I think this means he doesn't have long hair. Well I told him, that yes he had a head, and it had hair on it.

Later we were sitting at the table and Cinderella started getting mad at her head for thinking about something she didn't want to think about. Guy then wrapped his arms around his head and said, "stop head, stop thinking of that!" Which was a repeat of his sisters comment. Cinderella then asked him what he was thinking of. His reply was, "I am thinking about....... my head. I have a head on my hair, because I'm a boy."

This afternoon Guy was asking me where the big dinosaur is. I told him I didn't know, and asked him if he knew where it was. "In the potty room." "The potty room?" I asked, "in the bathtub room." he replied. I then asked what it was doing in there. His reply, "It's not doing anything."

Last but not least, Guy has been getting his star vitamins again lately. However this bottle has a few that are broken in it. One day at breakfast, Guy was given one that had one of the tips broken off the star. When he picked it up, he turned and glared at Daddy and said, "Daddy ate part of my star!"

What do you want to eat?

So lately my husband has been thinking a lot about planting a garden. He has been asking different members of the family what they want to plant this year. Last year Guy chose carrots, watermelon and squash, and would like to do the same this year. Cinderella chose pumpkins, and corn on the cob. I think she would also like a repeat.

Well today I was making a menu for next week. I asked Guy what he would like to eat next week. His reply was "carrots." I asked him what he wanted with his carrots. His reply was "watermelon and squash."

Wipes and locks

So I order my wipes from Amazon. I was a little late this time, and ran out of wipes before the others showed up. I knew they had been shipped, but didn't know when they were coming. So I logged onto my account to see when they were scheduled to be delivered, so I would know if I needed to go to the store and buy more wipes or if I could survive with just the ones in my diaper bag.

Well Amazon told me they had been delivered. So I looked on my porch and they weren't there. I decided to get my shoes on and walk around the house and see if I could find the box. I had seen a UPS truck on my street this morning, so I was hoping that was it, and I could find it somewhere. Nope. Not in my front yard. Then I noticed a box on the porch across the street. I went and looked and sure enough it had my name on it.

So I pick it up and carry it home. I get to my front door, try to open it, and it is locked. And no I don't have my keys on me. It is 35 degrees out side, and I am wearing short sleeves, and no coat. My kids are in the house, but they are doing quiet time and Cinderella is the only one who knows how to open the door. So I ring the bell and pray that she hears me. She did, after I rang it lots of times. She looked out the window saw it was me and came to open the door. Then she noticed that the dead bolt wasn't locked, and tried to tell me through the door that it wasn't locked and I was being silly. Finally she opened the door.

Hmm. I need to be more careful about making sure the door isn't locked when I go out it seems.

Attached

So years ago when I was going to college, I had to take a Child Development class. In this class one of the things we talked about is attachment.

The teacher told us there were 3 different kinds of attachment. 2 of which are unhealthy, and one that is healthy.

The first is under-attached. Mom can leave and the kid doesn't notice or care. Mom can come back and the kid doesn't notice or care.

The second is the healthy attachment, I don't remember the name. When mom leaves, the kid notices, but doesn't get too upset, and recovers easily. Has fun when mom is gone, but is glad to see her again when she comes back.

And the third is over-attached. Mom leaves and the child screams. The child refuses to be comforted while Mom is gone, and won't be happy until she comes back.

Now to a certain degree these are stereotypes, because there is no mold that really fits everyone.

The thing is, they didn't tell us what causes the different levels of attachment, or what to do about the unhealthy ones. I think with my kids I have dealt with all three kinds. Ironically in the same order. Cinderella could care less if I left, and HATED to have to leave when I got back. She still does.
Guy notices when I leave, but doesn't have a hard time with it, and is happy to come with me when I get back.
Aurora is way too over-attached. If I leave she screams. And refuses to be comforted. Most of the time. There have been a few times that she is OK, but those are very few. She is better for someone she is familiar with, like Daddy, but she still cries for him too. It is worse if she is hungry, tired or both.

The last 2 times we have left our kids with a baby sitter who wasn't family, we have come home to find the baby screaming, the baby sitter upset, and the sitters mom here. I don't mind that the sitter called her mom. But I feel bad that my baby screams so much that the sitters have a hard time. It makes me feel bad for even calling a sitter. But there are sometimes that I need one.

So what do you do?

Has anyone else dealt with a baby that screams without Mommy? How do you handle it? And how do you do baby sitters?