Preschool

Ms Thang started preschool yesterday. She alternated between being thrilled about going to her "happy school" and upset that I was making her go. We talked and talked about how much fun she would have and how she would get to ride the bike and listen to stories and sing songs and on and on. We pulled in the parking lot and she started to fuss and cry about not wanting to go. I tried to tell her it would be fun but she wasn't interested in hearing it. I finally said "Listen, you are going to preschool. You can go in there crying and upset or you can go in there in happy, ready to have a good time. How do you want it to be?" She promptly smiled and said "I want to have fun"



She was pleased to pose for a few pictures (only a few because when I tried to take one in front of the building, she told me NO WAY)



She was not pleased that Big S decided to share in her pictures though. They got over it and I found them playing together when I got there to pick her up.

The director said she did fine. She had a mild freak out, part way through the time. The teacher just told her that I was coming back soon and distracted her with something else and she was fine. She was happy to see us but has asked to go back again so hopefully that is a good sign for the future.

Issues issues everywhere

and every one stinks :(

I'm having some mis-givings about preschool. Not about the concept but about this particular program. Yesterday, when I dropped Lizzie off, she was crying and upset and finally I just had to leave her that way. One of the teachers picked her up and was trying to cuddle her and distract her and whatever (exactly what she should have been doing) when another one yelled at her "put her down, quit babying her. If you do that everytime she cries she'll never quit" Excuse me, pick the freaking crying kid up for Pete's sake. Then she came home yesterday afternoon with poop in her underwear where she didn't get wiped well. She is 3 (not even) and can't wipe herself. She tries but generally makes a bigger mess than anything else. She has pretty sensitive skin (she couldn't use disposable wipes when she was a baby because of it) and not getting wiped causes big problems. Today, she told me that one of the teachers told her to quit being a baby, which irks me beyond belief.

We got her hair cut today too. It was shaggy and not looking good. My mom asked her if she wanted it cut and she said yes and then changed her mind. I told her we would get it cleaned up but not really cut. The thing I wanted cut was the sides and the bangs more than anything else (although I wanted some of the tangly curls cut off in the back too). I kept telling the lady to cut the sides shorter shorter shorter and she was cutting it by tiny little fractions and Lizzie finally got tired of sitting there and I said it was fine, even though I wasn't happy with it. So I brought her home and tried to fix it myself. The left side it great. It is short, it tapers back, it is exactly like I want. The right side is a different story. I got a little crazy and cut it too short and too far back. Now it looks a little mullet-y on that side :( Evan wants me to make both sides look like that and I just can't do it because the left looks so cute. It will grow and it will be fine. Every kids needs to have a TERRIBLE hair cut at least once in their lives. Might as well do it to her while she is young instead of old enough to know that it looks bad. I'm just irritated that I spent $15 on a haircut that was cute, if not what I wanted and then botched it when I got home. I should have tried it first and then if it didn't work out, paid to have it fixed, instead of the other way around. :(

Finally, I need to get the heck out of this house. I posted a message to the playgroup (K, D? Wanna join me?) that I wanted to have some Mom time and I'm hoping a few people with join me. Other wise, I'll go and eat chocolate chip scones and drink coffee and read my book all alone.

Preschool and Mother's day

Lizzie started preschool today. It went well. She didn't cry when I left but she did cry when I picked her up and told me she had missed me. She is interested in going again tomorrow but whether will be another none event remains to be seen. I had 3 whole hours to myself this morning and didn't know how to fill the time. I ran all over town, running errands. I had to get new shorts (sadly, I couldn't find the ones I really wanted but I got something that will work), had to go to the meat store, had to get my fitness center pass, had to get my bus pass renewed (because I ride the bus so freaking much but I like to have it in case I want to ride the bus for whatever reason), had to do some mother's day shopping (my mom wanted plants for mother's day so I went and bought them). Tomorrow is an early out so I won't be doing much of anything. Just hanging around, killing time until the kids get out of school. Thursday will be getting pool passes and then going to work out.

My kids bought my Mother's day present over the weekend. I wanted some super wide headbands and couldn't find any. I finally found some at "Baubles" at the mall. C picked out a plain one that has some shiny fabric on it and Lizzie picked out one of the scarf headbands with black fabric with white skull and crossbones on it. I can't wait to wear them and they so reflect the personality of the child who picked them out. C's was $1, Lizzie was $2.75 :)

Doing the happy

In a change from the grumpy grumpies of the past week, I have a happy post.

First up, we figured out a work around for the scouting issue. There are 4-H groups in town and they have groups for kids starting at 5! We are going to our first meeting May 10th so YAY! Daddy is still taking C to the scout open house and he might end up doing both but being a former 4-Her myself, I'm way more inclined to lean in that direction. There are just so many options that have nothing to do with camping (I HATE camping) and when they do camp, it is in cabins, which still sucks but way less than being in a tent.

Next, I was griping about my "economic stimulus" rebate not being here yet because I seriously want to stimulate the economy in the worst way. I was also missing about $800 from my refund because a form didn't get sent in. I figure we won't get the rebate direct deposited because of the error on our return. We called and found out that they had processed the rest of our refund and are sending it and it should be here in 2-3 weeks, probably closer to 2. YAY!! That means I will have some money to take on vacation with us which is super! Then when I get the rebate, I can pay off my student loan and free up a little more money. Hooray!!

Next up, I toured the preschool that I think we are going to send Lizzie to. It was a little chaotic and kind of crowded, but she seemed to LOVE it. It is at the local high school and it has a head teacher and a bunch of high school students working with the kids. It ends up being 1 or 2 big kids to each little kid so there is a ton of supervision (although, while I observed, I could definately tell who was there for easy credits and who really wanted to work with kids). the first words out of the teacher's mouth were "I don't believe in paper and pencil preschool. Kids this age need to play" and I nearly hugged her! That is so nice to hear. She told me that they go through May 22nd and if Lizzie wants to join them for the next couple of weeks, she can. I'm seriously thinking about doing it. That way, I can see if she likes it and if she does, she will have something to look forward to in the fall. Plus having a few hours a week to do things would be SUPER!

If she does that, I'm having dh join the gym at work and I'm going to get serious about getting in shape since I would be able to run over there for an hour while she is in school and still have time to shower and pick her up before lunch. The only problem is going to be having such a late nap. I'll have to have food in the car for her when I pick her so she can eat on the way home and still get down at a reasonable time.

Finally, I had a dream the other night that K and Looseyfur and I were all in high school together. It was a pretty standard "teen comedy" scenerio where we got up to all kinds of hi-jinks before learning some valuable lesson in the end. Nevermind the fact that we are fairly different ages and wouldn't have been in school at the same time, even if we were from the same place :)

PTC with the teacher

I had my meeting with C's actual teacher today. As her first point, she mentioned that he is behind in reading. So it is an all around perception. I was really disappointed to hear that. He actually seems a little behind in nearly everything. They have a number based report card and 3s are grade level. He got mostly 2s, which is working towards grade level. So we are going to start pushing hard and doing more (we already probably do as much or more than most parents) and really get him where he needs to be by the end of the second quarter.

He also has impulse control problems because he is a 6 year old BOY, for crying out loud. And she said as much and pointed out that at various points in the day all the kids have impulse control problems. She did confirm that she thinks he knows a lot more than he lets on, now to get him to show what he knows.

Something that made me feel a little better (I feel like a crap mom because he is behind) was his teacher saying that he is doing great in some areas and she can tell that is because he has so much support at home. Then I emailed his reading teacher and asked for the letter list to work on and what his goals are for sight words (I did them with him and even for me, he only knew half of them and had to be prompted on half of those). She emailed me back and told me that she would get that for me on Monday and then thanked me for being so involved. So I'm happy about that.

I also got reports from art, math and PE and he is doing well in all those classes. In fact, surprisingly, he exceeds standards in PE, which really surprises me. He is graceful and strong (TKD and gymnastics are good choices for activities for him) but rather uncoordinated. He doesn't kick, catch or throw well, yet he exceeds expectations in PE! Must be some low expectations :)

In other news, I moved my whole house around. The kids always want to play in the art center and the kitchen, which are closest to Evan's room. It is a pain to constantly be having to say no or telling them to be quite while they are playing there. I spent the better part of the afternoon moving all my centers around, sweeping under the furniture, hauling toys out of my living room (anything that doesn't go with a center gets stuck in the toy boxes, which I only allow one to be open at a time)and stashing the extras under the stairs.

Next weekend, I'm taking the janky cabinet out of the laundry room and putting our dressers in there. Then I'm hanging up a rod to hang clothes on and a shelf to store soap and things that sit on the janky cabinet. I'm also getting a shelf to go near the new are center to store extra paint brushes, craft items, etc. I'm also going to work on getting some kind of storage at the bottom of the stairs. There isn't a lot of room so I can't have things that stick out too far. I'm thinking about hanging up some bags or something where I can stash stuff that needs to go upstairs. As opposed to the current situation where we lay stuff on the stairs and try not to kill ourselves on it.

Preschool and preschool at home

I've done more research on preschools and unless I get the principal of a local high school to call me back, I think I have figured out what we want to do. I'm fairly certain we are going to end up going with the park district preschool program. Unfortunately, a lot of the others I looked at were religious based (which is fine, but having taught in that environment, I don't think I want that again also I have this huge post about religion composed in my head but I know that it will piss off and alienate most of my friends so I'm hesitate to actually put the thoughts out there), super expensive (when did $160 become the going rate for 2 days a week of preschool?), or don't offer a 2 day option for 3 year olds. I just don't think that 3 day a week is the best choice for someone who is barely 3. I'm going to call them and see about a visit in the next couple of months and then enrollment is in April. I'm still debating if I want to go with the 3 year old classes or if I want to hold off until 4 but touring won't hurt in either case. I toured C's school probably 5 times before I settled on it. :)

Some of you may remember that I set up my house to resemble a preschool, with centers and everything. At last posting, my centers were complete except math and science. Well it still isn't complete, but at least I've started on it. I started making discovery bottles tonight. Click here for several ideas Over all they are pretty easy, although I've only made a few. Basically, you just need empty water bottles and the stuff to put in them. So far, all I've done are the liquid bottles. We did an ocean bottle, which turned out great. Two glitter bottles, which are ok. If you do these (from the above link) don't put food coloring in the water. It just makes the glitter hard to see. So we did oen with red food coloring and red glitter and on with just red glitter. I also made a quite bottle (which Lizzie is currently sleeping with LOL)that didn't turn out so great. I don't know if it was because they syrup I used was at least 2 years old or if it was because it was light syrup or if it was because I put the wrong stuff in it but in any case, instead of remaining suspended in the liquid like it is supposed to, it all floats to the top. I can make it move by flipping the bottle endlessly end over end, but it takes a while and is a pain.

I have most of my file folder games colored and ready to be cut out and glued, I just need to get on it and get it done. Of course, we have the counting bears and the unifix cubes and I need something to store the magnifying glasses in. I need to get a couple of other discovery bottles done. I'm thinking the magnetic bottle, I just need to find the stuff to put in it and get some magnets. I also want to buy magnet balls and wands and a balance scale but that will have to wait until I have more money.