Mama Mama Quite Contrary

Today I am home.  Alone. The girls started school on Tuesday so that makes today the second day this week that I have been wandering the hallowed halls of Chez Mama Mama by myself. And it feels so good. I thought I would be really sad to send Vivi off to first grade and my wee Turtles off to nursery school but I am not.  Vivi was thrilled to go back and  I got to have a good solid week with just her before school started.  We went to the movies, cleaned out her clothes and did school shopping, took the train to Boston and visited the science museum, and had an all-around fantastic time.  It was a great way to end the summer. Jude and Elie got their share of camp and adventures this summer too.  We made bubbles and sidewalk paint. We had picnics at the park and worked in our garden.  We went to the beach.  We saw fireworks and decorated our shed with colored shaving cream. We did a lot and for the most part we enjoyed it a...

Am I the only one who thinks the holidays come and go in one big blur?  It seems like it was just the beginning of December and we were all worked up about choosing our tree.   My husband had the brilliant idea that we should tag a tree after Thanksgiving before all the good ones are scooped up.  (Apparently our Charlie Brown trees of yore were haunting my poor Jewish spouse.)  Well, he and the girls did a good job this year.  Take a look: I also spent a fair amount of time at the sewing machine this December.  I made those big cushions on the left hand side of the tree-- complete with piping.  (That's unchartered territory for me!)  Jude and Elie love them and, as I suspected, they work beautifully for story time or as implements of destruction. Speaking of Jude and Elie, they had quite an accidental meeting with "Santa Claus" in the YMCA parking lot a few weeks ago.  There is an older man who works out when I do.  He has long white...

As we were walking out of our parent/teacher conference today, my husband and I were remarking how wonderful it is to see Vivi thriving in public school.  We had our concerns-- the lack of recess, the strong focus on academics, the homework-- but it has become very clear to us that we made the right choice to send her to public school.  Vivi's teacher is phenomenal and we have no doubt that she is just as good or better than any private school teacher.  Plus, she really impressed us today when she showed us Vivi's special folder.   Because Vivi often gets her work done before her classmates, her teacher made her a special book full of puzzles and enrichment activities that she can do while she waits for others to finish.  It really struck us that in a time of bare-bones funding, classrooms full of children living in poverty, and teachers forced to do paperwork upon paperwork all in the name of "documenting progress" that Vivi's teacher went out of her way to ma...

I thought I would be a lady of leisure with Vivi in school full-time but I guess Jude and Ellie did not get the memo. So for the past month, we have been pretty busy.  Vivi lost her second tooth on the second day of kindergarten.  She ran home from the bus stop, locked herself in the bathroom, and came out a few minutes later looking like this: A few days after Vivi started school, I had a birthday and celebrated my official "advanced maternal age" milestone.  I welcomed my free-falling fertility with open arms.  I also welcomed the cake.  It turns out Ellie is a bit of a rogue candle extinguisher so Vivi is doing her best to protect my opportunity to make a birthday wish.  (See note above about free falling fertility.) Perhaps because I love cake, my husband got me twelve sessions with the personal trainer at the gym for my birthday.  After the first session, the words "you only look like you are in terrible shape" kept running through my hea...

Despite the look on our little kindergartener's face: and her refusal to let me take a decent picture: and her anxious thumb-sucking: Vivi declares kindergarten to be pretty good.  When I asked her the best part of her day, she told me it was recess because playing on the "spinning wheel [merry-go-round] was awesome."  When I asked what was the worst part of her day was she told me, "Nothing, mama.  Everything is the best.  Well, except in the morning when they were going over the rules.  That was boring." Personally, I declare kindergarten to be a little overwhelming.  I cried as I was leaving her at school and then again when I got to the YMCA and then again while the Turtles were napping and the house was quiet.    I almost cried for a fourth time when I went to pick her up and saw that she wasn't in line with her classmates.  (She was put on the bus to go home instead of in the pick-up line but a teacher went and found her before...

I have been all aflutter with preparation for kindergarten. I've purchased an ungodly amount of supplies and snacks, filled out a pile of papers, attended an orientation and a kindergarten playdate, and sewn a super-duper fancy pencil case.  I thought I was doing all this to prepare my first-born for kindergarten.  What I realized this morning is that I did all that to prepare myself. Kindergarten is the place where Vivi will really begin to understand that she has autonomy.  Family will fade into the background of her school life and time with her friends will become her priority.  There will be rules and expectations from other people besides her parents.  School isn't about play anymore. As much as she is ready, Vivi is doing this on her own. Mommy and Daddy won't be in the classroom.  She will choose her friends and they won't necessarily be the children of Mommy's friends.  She is beginning the process of letting us go. The question is can I do...

I really enjoyed doing my Me Challenge Giveaway last month.  It was nice to be able to offer a surprise to a reader who took the time to validate my existence with a comment. Plus, I got the added bonus of reading about all the interesting places you have traveled.  (Who knew there was actually a World's Largest Frying Pan ?! ) Since that was a lot of fun, I thought it was time for another giveaway!  Most of you know that Vivi is heading to her local public kindergarten at the end of the month.  Given my recent gripes about the supply list , it is clear that our schools need a lot of help.  That's why I have decided to give away: Two $25 gift certificates to Donor's Choose . Here are the rules: To enter, please leave a comment telling me your favorite children's book and why you love it. Because Donor's Choose is for US based schools, this giveaway is only open to residents of the United States. The winners will be chosen at random on Monday, August...

We recently received an invitation for Vivi to attend a Kindergarten orientation and play date at her new school.  She will get to tour the classrooms, meet her teachers, and say hello to the principal.  I think this is a great thing and we are all looking forward to it. But....   I am a bit perplexed by the supply list for kindergarten which was on the back of the invitation.  I am supposed to send my child to school with the following: 1 large bottle of hand sanitizer 2 boxes of crayons- one with 8 large primary colors and one with 16 colors 2 rolls of paper towels 1 pair of small child-size scissors 1 eraser 1 box of markers 1 box of colored pencils 2 packages of #2 pencils, sharpened 1 package EXPO dry-erase markers 4 folders with double pockets on the bottom (2 with 3 fasteners on the inside and 2 without) 4 large glue sticks 2 boxes of tissues 1 art sketch book with blank pages 1 package small drinking cups 1 container of disinfectant wipes Geesh.  I re...

Soon after we decided to send Vivi to kindergarten at our neighborhood public school, we learned that the school was offering a four-week summer camp.  We figured this would be a great opportunity for her to make some new friends, get used to the building, and have some fun.  Plus, at $50 a week for full-day camp, we couldn't exactly scoff at the price.  In fact, I believe my exact words were, "You're going to take my kid for eight hours a day, five days a week, and charge me $50.  Are you shitting me?" Anyway, do you want to know what Vivi learned at camp yesterday? Sure you do. She learned about George Washington. She learned how to fly a kite.  (Literally-- not the figurative way I taught her.) She learned that cacti live in the desert in the Southwestern United States.  And... she learned the word pussy.  (I'm not talking about cats here.) I guess you get what you pay for. 

Hello Internet!  I am back from the abyss of home improvement, rainy days, my cleanse, various outings and disasters, as well as Vivi's last day of nursery school.  I survived it all and now we have this fancy thing on which I can relax: Of course, I am not the only one who uses our new deck.  How could you not spend a lot of time out there when you have a twin sister and conjoined adirondack chairs? And snacks.  Must not forget the snacks. It wasn't long after the deck was finished and the rain broke, that my husband decided we needed a little family outing.  So we drove to southern Rhode Island, slapped some numbers on our kids, enticed them with Pirate's Booty (or "Judy Moody" as Ellie calls it), and told them to run their little hearts out.   Which they did for a half mile.  Well, Jude and Vivi did.  Ellie stayed at the starting line with her snacks.  Are you sensing a theme here? "I'm taking you down, Mama."   Vivi did gr...

As many of you know, my husband and I have been struggling with our decision about where to send Vivi for kindergarten. Providence public schools are strapped for money and all of the teachers were issued pink slips several months ago.  The city is planning on closing some schools and spreading the students from those schools to the ones that will remain open.  Our neighborhood school will remain open but with twenty-eight kids in a class already, many from highly impoverished homes, I have a hard time envisioning how this will work. On the contrary, there is a lovely private school walking distance from our house where Vivi was admitted.  The kindergarten is play-oriented with lots of recess, the curriculum is progressive, the classrooms are small, and there is dual education in English and Hebrew.  It is expensive, of course, but the school gave us a generous financial aid package. So it's a simple decision, right?  Unfortunately, no. When we began the proc...

Around the holidays, I discovered a wonderful organization called Donor's Choose .  Through the website, public school teachers from around the country post project ideas and anyone can donate to them.  Once a project reaches its funding goal, Donor's Choose delivers the  materials to the school and you get e-mails and photos showing you how the money was spent. What makes this organization so wonderful is that you can give as little or as much as you want and really make a difference.  Last year I gave about $80 (most of which was sitting in a paypal account from random stuff I sold on Ebay) and I was able to complete the funding of four different projects. One of these projects provided garden tools for a garden club at an elementary school in a high poverty area of California.   From Donor's Choose Besides all the good feelings you get by giving, I got an added bonus.  While we were away in California, I received a package of handwritten notes from...

I need someone to talk me down.  I just returned from a tour of our neighborhood public school.  This is the school where Vivi will very likely attend kindergarten in the fall and I just don't think I can handle it. I walked out of the school near tears.  Part of my reaction, I think, is the emotion of sending my first-born off to school.  I find myself vacillating between the excitement of having her be someone else's problem for a few hours (hardy...har...har...) and the sadness that my little girl is no longer so little.  The other part of my reaction is that this school is just not what I want for her. One of the bees in my bonnet is that the school district only allows kids 15 minutes of recess a day.  Fifteen!  Like somehow if we just keep them in the classroom whilst driving information into their brains these children will score higher on standardized tests.  My daughter is still little enough to need time to run around. My husband and ...

Vivi goes to a small neighborhood cooperative nursery school a couple of mornings a week. It is a very laid back environment with two caring teachers. Not surprisingly, Vivi loves it there and we are pleased with its emphasis on play. All in all, it has been a nice transition to "school" for all of us. Last night, at the parents' meeting for the co-op, some people were talking about their experiences with local kindergartens. Vivi still has another year before we sign her up but given the notoriously bad reputation of the Providence public schools, I was curious to hear about our options. When I picked up a flyer from a celebrated local charter school, however, I was shocked to read the following: "...over the coming years, more and more time will be devoted to science and mathematics. Students applying to the ...school need to keep this in mind because we require 2-3 hours of homework each night by the time our students reach middle school." I believe the...

Is it a bad sign when last night at dinner I offered Vivi juice and she said, "I don't know, Mama. Does it have protein in it?" Is it also a bad sign when my husband greets the day by saying, "Only about 1000 more days until they [our girls] are all in school!"? Well, when you put it that way. At least one Turtle didn't seem to mind.

We seem to be on a six month cycle of change around here and we're about to enter a new phase. Six months ago the Turtles came into the world and everything that was normal at the time was quickly upended by the chaos that accompanies a new child... or two. We have settled into that chaos now and while it can still be maddening, it also feels comfortable and secure. On the rare occasion when I have found myself without my children, it is still next to impossible for me to accomplish anything. I run around the house, manically flitting from one task to the next, while seeing not one single thing to completion. That's my new reality and I'm surprised to say that I am finally comfortable with that. So as September draws to an end, we are closing the door on the new parents to three cycle. Vivi is happily enjoying her new identity as a preschooler and we are slowly accepting the fact that she now has a small part of her life that doesn't include us. She is growing in...

Vivi, in all her three year old charm, started school on Thursday. It was a big event around this place. Vivi was excited. Daddy was excited. Mama was REALLY excited. The Turtles even seemed excited. When Vivi awoke for school, she informed me that she wanted to wear a dress because she needed "to look stylish." I told her that it was probably a little chilly for a dress but she wasn't swayed. "I'll just wear my leg warmers then." And there you have it: So far, we have been pleased with the nursery school we have chosen for Vivi. It is a small, local cooperative where the teachers are progressive and the format is entirely "child-led." The community of parents seems happy and the work involved appears not to be too onerous. I think our whole family is going to get a lot out of it and I am really looking forward to that.