Duchess walks herself home from school every day now, and is home alone for 90 minutes or so. While this is in line with the Surgeon General's Call to Action, what it really gets us is a lot of time. Duchess has time to walk home (often walking most of the way in the company of O Blond, likely being loud and ridiculous the whole time), unpack and put away her stuff, practice flute (fifth-grade band!), do her homework (every night!), AND read or listen to podcasts or play Minecraft for quite a while before I get home. It's luxurious. No more evening scramble to finish stuff, no whining about not having enough time to read, chores getting done without complaint. Fabulous.

Unfortunately, Skipper is not allowed to walk herself home yet, so she goes to aftercare at 2:15 and gets home around 6, which leaves her a scant two hours before bedtime to unpack, repack, eat dinner, do her homework,* and practice piano. Not to mention any extra time to read or play alone or with Duchess. So she's feeling, understandably, pretty jealous of Duchess. The poor kid needs her downtime, and she's not getting it. I'm not sure how we're going to get it for her.

Also, as Duchess prepares for a 48-hour camping adventure (the packing list for which included army surplus woolen pants, large and terrifying knives, fingerless wool gloves, and sharpening tools for the aforementioned large and terrifying knives), I must remember that it will make her a better person.


* Skipper's school is not messing around. She has Japanese homework three times a week, due the day after it's assigned, and a packet of English homework assigned once a week, due the following week. I can't remember how much homework Duchess had in first grade, but there was definitely a lot less of it. And this is the first year of Duchess's entire school career that she has EVER had to return homework more often than once a week.

Dirt vs Snow

Today was my last day of work, and I shuttled the kids to their various jury-rigged childcare setups. Skipper went to the home of her preschool teacher, who was holding a "camp" for a few kids from the class, and we dropped Duchess off at the home of a friend with whom she was attending Zoo Camp* on our way. It was raining when we left the house, and was snowing pretty hard by the time we got to the friend's house. While we were waiting for the bus, Skipper watched the snow with interest.

Skipper: Is the snow falling everywhere?
Me: Around here, yup.
Skipper: Is it falling on dead people?
Me: No. Dead people are underground, or have already fallen apart and turned into dirt.
Skipper: Can they feel the snow?
Me: Dead people don't feel anything.
Skipper: Will I turn into dirt?
Me (possibly more emphatically than necessary): Yes. But not for a really long time.

I'm going to try posting more often over my break, since waiting a long time between posts doesn't actually seem to yield any interesting content. So you can look forward to many more transcriptions!

*They saw the controversial new baby elephant. There was uncontroversial delight.

Holidays

So! The kids are on break, officially. And I am leaving my job after this Tuesday. THIS TUESDAY. So I will also be on break, indefinitely. I feel great about this, in many ways, enormously relieved. In other ways, I'm feeling terrified. My biggest immediate issue is that I really, really, really don't want to take the kids out of childcare, because if I then get a job, they won't be able to get back in to their programs. Skipper confessed the other day that she likes everything about her preschool, except for one kid who hits her. I don't want to take her out of there. Duchess loves kung fu more than anything else in her day (and she loves pretty much everything in her days), and I don't want to take her out of there, either. We'll go on as we are for a little while, and then retrench. Essentially, I need a job in order to keep my kids in childcare.

My biggest long-term issue is my deep fear that I will never find another job. I'm going to try to ignore that for a few weeks, long enough to eat a lot of cookies, watch the kids revel in Christmas, and enjoy the tremendous pleasure of listening to Cook and Duchess play holiday songs on the piano. Life is sweet.

Bad babysitter

Today I'm off work, and in charge of Duchess, Spruce, and O Blond. They're happily playing Playmobil in the basement (thanks again for the loan, Rock Star Uncle!), and I'm catching up on lots of minor things I have to and want to do. I've been reading the NY Times, for one thing, and look! I found an article that gave me a new way to think about the "skills gap" and labor, employment, education, and job training in the United States!

Yesterday Duchess attended a "winter survival, stealth, and archery" camp. They were outdoors most of the time, and it rained relentlessly the entire time, but apparently she had fun,* and she's very excited about archery now and wants to do the "Archery Apprenticeship" program they offer

*While I can't think of a single time that Duchess has not enjoyed a day camp or class of any kind, I was concerned that the weather, and the jury-rigged weather-appropriate outfit we put together for her, might make for a milestone disappointment. It didn't. It might actually take adolescence to kill Duchess's joy in stuff like that.

Skipper started at a new preschool today, again. It seems good. I'm reserving judgment. But I will say that the outdoor space is gorgeous, the indoor space is nice, the administration is organized (possibly too much, though the last place took disorganization to an impressive extreme, which is part of the reason why we left), the teachers are nice, the curriculum seems solid...  Skipper's teachers are ALL adorable. I want to take them all home with us. Skipper cried when Cook left her there, of course, but when I picked her up, she was downright cheerful, and one of the adorable teachers told me she'd had a good day. She brought home some herbs from their enormous garden where they grow half their food. When I brought her home, she insisted on doing some stuff by herself that she normally wants help for. I figure that's a good sign. Right?

Tomorrow is Duchess's first day of school, and I have to go back to work after two weeks off (which I really don't want to do). It's a big week for all of us.

Are you having pan-fried shredded brussels sprouts for lunch tomorrow?

This is Skipper's preschool menu:

Wednesday, 11/30

Breakfast: Banana Bread
Snack: Apples with Pumpkin Seeds
Lunch: Red Lentil Dip with Flour Tortillas, Pan-fried Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Shallots, Pickled Beets
Snack: Granola with Oranges

Friday, 12/2

Breakfast: Rice Pudding with Cranberries
Snack: Bananas with Pumpkin Seeds
Lunch: Gigante Lima Beans with Tomatoes, Kale and Quinoa
Snack: Cranberry Orange Bread

Monday, 12/5

Breakfast: Oatmeal with Raisins
Snack: Pita Chips with Pumpkin Seeds
Lunch: Pasta with Chickpeas, Tomatoes and Peas
Snack: Rice Pudding

Escape

Everybody has some preferred ways to escape reality. Some people choose healthy, constructive tools, like exercise, meditation, sewing, painting, music, etc. I go for food, trashy books, and mindless surfing of the internet. Cook likes frisbee and cheap video games, and Dutch reads fairy books. Skipper, apparently, sleeps.

I had to work on a Tuesday this week, a day when Skipper normally stays home with me, and so our new babysitter took care of Skipper all day. Skipper doesn't like being babysat, and when I left at 8:30 AM, she asked me (sobbing) to leave her in her bed. I did. At 12:30, the babysitter texted me that Skipper had been sleeping the entire time, and should she maybe wake her up?

Skipper has a long history of sleeping a LOT when she starts a new childcare situation. Every time, actually, except for one nannyshare with what I now think may have been an unusually gifted nanny. She definitely uses sleep as a way to avoid real life. It's like a weird sort of stress-induced narcolepsy, though it seems to be willed rather than inadvertent. I hope that she retains the ability to do this. When other teenagers are doing drugs and developing eating disorders, I want to see Skipper taking long, long naps.

Moving along

Skipper hates going to preschool. She doesn't actually hate preschool itself; she seems to like her teachers and classmates and the classroom and the yard and everything they do. But she loathes going to preschool.

In practice, this means that I spend about 45 minutes, three days a week, listening to her yell, over and over again, variations on the theme of "I really don't want to go to preschool! I REALLY don't want to go to preschool! I really DON'T WANT to go to PRESCHOOL!". She chants this while we get ready to leave, while we bike Dutch to school, while we're saying goodbye to Dutch, while we're biking to preschool, as we put away the trailer in the preschool's yard, as we go up the steps, as we open the door. It is very wearing on one's nerves, particularly when one's nerves are already frayed from the screaming match one had with one's older daughter, who has a precocious gift for really pissing one off.

Skipper is not fond of transitions, and never has been. She is suspicious about many things that adults and many other children take for granted, like permanence, safety, and the reappearance of parents. Apparently, she sternly told one of the preschool teachers "I go to preschool because I am a BIG kid. I will stay here, but I do NOT belong to you. I belong to my mama and my daddy and my Dutch. I DO NOT BELONG TO YOU."* And when they leave the little-kids house to cross the street to the big-kids house after lunch (the preschool owns two houses across the street from each other, and half the kids in each house leave after lunch, so they consolidate the rest of them in one house for the afternoon...), she's been completely freaking out, which they diagnosed is because she thought they were leaving this place for a whole OTHER PLACE and come ON, people, what the hell is going on!?

However, the preschool puts up a blog post** every day with photos and news, so I can see for myself that she does eventually stop crying and howling, and has some fun.


* I particularly like the suggestion that my shaggy, grubby child, in stained pants and a soggy diaper, worn out after singing the I-Don't-Want-To-Go-To-Preschool song for nearly an hour, thinks that she's a very appealing adoption/theft prospect.
**The blog should be titled "A Day in the Life of Privileged White Children With Yuppie Names". And all the kids seem to be wearing exactly the sort of gorgeous, eccentric, ridiculously expensive clothes I always hope to find really cheap on ebay and never do. It's a really nice preschool, and it attracts people who have money and who value thoughtful care and organic food, like, you know, me. It's  just so... I don't know. Precious.  I feel a little icky about that. But mostly I just want those clothes. I'm going to pick the best-dressed kid I can find who's a few inches taller than Skipper, and make friends with her parents.

Another first day

Maybe you remember your recent first days. First day at a new job, first day in a new home, first day in school... I just hope that you looked this good on your first day.

No? Well, that's because you weren't wearing socks with turtles on them AND shoes with lemurs on them. Maybe next time.

 Today was Skipper's first day of preschool. Dutch had to get in on the posing, too.

Skipper did okay. There was crying, but she survived, with help from the lemurs and turtles. (And Dutch, in case you wanted to know, had a fabulous second day of first grade.)

What we eat for dinner:

Vegetables. Piles of them. Our CSA share has started yielding in earnest. Tonight? Green salad, potato salad, and coleslaw. Skipper ate the potato salad, which was carefully designed to have no green in it, and she triumphantly announced "I ate vegetables! I am BIG now!"

Dutch, on the other hand, is starting to claim tastes that at least seem like mature palate preferences.* She doesn't like mayonnaise. She likes mustard greens. She likes pickles. She doesn't much care for chocolate, though she'll eat it if it's the only sweet on offer (but she prefers dark over milk). She prefers almond butter to peanut butter. She's going to have to learn to cook pretty soon, I think.

Also, Skipper is starting yet another childcare arrangement in September, at a preschool so awesome that the cook keeps a blog documenting the gorgeous, healthy food she prepares for the precious little ones. I really hope we can keep her there for the next three years, since the poor kid has gone through an awful lot of childcare arrangements for somebody who would really prefer no change at all. And if they can't get her to eat vegetables, nobody can.

* By which I mean "preferences that don't seem to be based on a toddler-like insistence on non-green foods, a common behavior that is probably the result of natural selection of kids who don't eat random plants they find on the savannah, but is still incredibly frustrating in spite of being perfectly rational and normal"

Commuting

Today Dutch went to a childcare program about a mile away. Cook dropped her off and picked her up by bike, and she was delighted to join him for part of his commute. This is their homecoming today.

Today

I have things to say about today. I'll save some for later (reserve time to read my rant about How It Feels To Be Unemployable - it should be really really interesting and not at all narcissistic or irritating.

First, work is not working for me. Car-free living is excellent in many ways, but it is NOT a good fit with irregular work and no regular daycare. Today I attended an Important Meeting. This entailed arranging childcare for both children. I woke Skipper up at noon, before she was done with her nap, and we bussed downtown to Cook's office, where I left Skipper while I went off to my meeting. After my meeting,* I went back downtown, collected Skipper from Cook,** and went to the home of one of Dutch's friends, where a babysitter was watching her and several other kids.*** We arrived home at 4:30.**** The kids were tired and cranky, and I had several pressing home-buying issues that had bubbled up over phone and email that I had to address IMMEDIATELY. I yelled at the kids. Both of them cried and screamed a lot. It was cruddy.

Second, Skipper. I've been having a pretty good time being stay-at-home-parent with her. She's a lot of fun, and is also currently oozing with cuteness. After I picked her up from Cook, she insisted on walking from his cubicle to the bus stop,doing her crazy bob-trot, with waving arms and wobbling head, and beaming smiles, and every single person we passed (except for a handful of people who were surely near-sighted, drunk, or totally hard-hearted) smiled at her. Many of them spoke to her. She started waving ebulliently at strangers, completely confident that she is loved by all. That must feel pretty great.

Third, I said I wasn't going to start watching any moreTV shows, because then I get hooked and have to keep watching until I give up because it's gotten so silly. But then we started a free trial of Netflix, and we just couldn't find any movies we wanted to see in the instant-gratification catalogue and look what happened to me! Damn you, Tina Fey!

*Total work hours: 1

** Total time spent by Cook: 2

***Total babysitting cost: $5

****Total time spent by me: 4.5 hours

We/re moving.

We're moving. On THURSDAY. We're pretty topsy-turvy.

This is what's going well in our life right now: Skipper can continue to attend daycare.* I got a call from the daycare office manager on Thursday while I was on the bus, and she told me that Skipper was excluded from daycare until August 16, because she wasn't immunized against chickenpox and one of her classmates has come down with it. This is the policy of the Multnomah County Health Department.** I completely freaked out and burst into tears and had to hang up on the nice lady, who felt really bad. I sobbed quietly to myself for a few minutes (this is okay to do on the bus) because HOLY SHIT our lives are so nutso right now and we're MOVING and we have NO MONEY to pay for a babysitter for three weeks and OH MY GOD what are we going to DO!? Then I calmed down and called back and talked to a different staffmember, and burst into tears all over again, and sobbed for a few more minutes. Then I called Cook who said "Oh my god. What are we going to do?" and then said "Wait a minute. Didn't I get Skipper vaccinated for chickenpox the last time I took the girls for shots?" "No," I scoffed, "why would you have done that?" (we both think the chickenpox vaccine is stupid, and Dutch only got it recently because she needs it for kindergarten). Then I freaked out some more. Then I called him again and he said "I'm pretty sure she got that shot."I called the doctor, just in case. And, yes, she's vaccinated. No problem. Cook recalls that he felt after the appointment that he'd been bullied into getting more vaccines than he felt comfortable doing. I am SO grateful that he got bullied into it.

Anyway, that's what our life is like right now. I had to call the daycare back and apologize to everybody I'd cried all over. They were very nice about it.

So that's the good news this week! Actually, we're also looking forward to living in our new apartment, which is just a 10-minute walk from Dutch's school and THREE frequent-service bus lines! Woohoo!

*At least until the end of August, when my student discount expires, and her tuition goes up to $1400/month. We're sad to be saying goodbye to the daycare, because it's been great, and Skipper has loved it (well, at least for the last 7 months), but sheesh. $1400 is a lot of money.

**Which has declined to hire me a number of times. Clearly, they have bad judgement all around.

Stuff I Like This Week

• Baking: From My Home to Yours* - I got this as a graduation present, and have already made three recipes.
• Brown sugar! See above.
  
• These shorts, which make Dutch look like a demented pirate, in a good way.
• Summer Reading at the library.
• My new wallet. See, it's a GOOD thing, losing your crappy old wallet.

But what I really like this week is the daycare where Dutch and Skipper both go. This week was "Staff Appreciation Week" and I was reminded how much I DO appreciate the staff there. Dutch has been fortunate this year to have two teachers whom I think are really gifted. I have never really clicked with either of them, personally, but I have been really impressed with their teaching. They seem to truly enjoy the company of the kids, and they work with them in a way that amazes me. The kids are interested in paleontology? Field trip to the science museum to see the T Rex!** The kids are interested in building things? Set up a workshop corner and have the kids build a shrinking machine! The kids enjoy singing? Have karaoke sessions at lunch! Dutch is sobbing desperately because she forgot it was Costume Day and has no costume? No problem! Wrap a headband in cloth and tape on some ears, find a feather boa, and pin it to her shirt for a tail!

Skipper's teachers aren't so obviously super- great, but they are consistent and warm, and that's pretty darn great. Yesterday when I picked her up, we ran into one of her teachers in the hall, and Skipper ran to her, beaming, and embraced her knees. I don't need any more endorsement than that.

*Thanks, Big Cooks!
** I'm extra impressed because the thought of taking a gang of four and five-year-olds out in public (on public transportation, no less) makes my knees quiver. I met up with the class on a field trip in the fall, and I told the lead teacher I was amazed by her ability to cope with chaos. She looked at me in puzzlement. "This isn't chaotic," she said.

Building competence

I love Dutch's daycare teachers. LOVE them. The kids are building a shrinking machine, and they're going to shrink the whole class to the size of mice.

Mundane miscellany

Yesterday we got the results of Dutch's school lottery - she didn't get into the two language immersion programs (which we really wanted), but she did get into another neighborhood school, and she's waitlisted for the Spanish immersion program there. This means that we don't have to move before school starts, which is a relief. She's pretty excited to have a place to pin her kindergarten dreams to.

Also, four kids in Skipper's daycare class have hand, foot, and mouth disease. Some other kids are out for other reasons, so Skipper was the only kid present yesterday. She had three teachers at her disposal. The teachers sent a handout home with us at the end of the day with information about HFM, including the helpful reassurance that it is NOT the same as mad cow disease. Phew.

Also, Skipper's walking a lot more, demanding to nurse every fourteen minutes, shrieking when thwarted, and hitting people* in the face. Toddlers are so adorable.

That's the news here. Strangely, the employers at the job I really really want have not yet contacted me to beg me to work for them. Maybe I'll get that call today.


*Mostly me, actually. She also specializes in grabbing glasses off people's faces.

Birthday girl

I forgot to mention that Skipper turned one. She's ONE! She's launched on her second year of life. I went through a few phases of feelings about this milestone. I briefly thought about the fourth day of her life, when we thought she wasn't going to make it to day five, let alone year two. I thought about how kids make you see the passage of time so clearly - I've scarcely changed at all over the last year, but Dutch and Skipper have changed drastically. But the real excitement around Skipper's birthday came from her daycare, because she was the last baby in the classroom to turn one. Now that she's hit that milestone, they were officially able to shift from every-hour diaper changes for all the babies to every-two-hour changes for all the babies. The teachers were VERY excited about this birthday.

Living

I just learned last week about the concept of a "housing wage," which is the monthly income that would allow a household to rent a 2-bedroom apartment at 40% of the median rent for the area. This measure is of limited utility, given that a "household" could be a single person or, say, a family of eight. Some people are advocating for looking instead at how much money is left over to spend on housing AFTER a family pays their other necessary expenses (like... oh... childcare!).

A "living wage" in Portland is apparently $27.30/hour for a family of two adults and two kids. I make $12/hour. Cook makes more, fortunately. But all our jobs are temporary, and I doubt we reached that threshold for the year in 2009.*

My goal for 2010 is to ensure that our family earns a living wage all year. My hopes, of course, are grander, but I think this is a nice solid goal.

Next week, my further adventures in downward mobility!

*Note to self: must do taxes.

2010

About 10 days ago, I wrote up the beginning of a post about what happened in 2009 ("I gave birth, and finally read The Brothers Karamazov," etc.). I just deleted it, though, because it was really boring. Apparently, 2009 was a pretty boring year. Also, I haven't yet finished The Brothers Karamazov, having gotten sidetracked by the rental of Project Runway, Season Five.

This weekend we've been cleaning, cooking, and finally doing long-neglected nesting things like hanging up pictures. Tomorrow we're all going back to work/school/daycare, and it feels like the real beginning of 2010. I think it'll be a good year. I plan to finish reading the damn book, at the very least.

Tomorrow, crack.

Yesterday Dutch asked Cook if he would please make a cake when they got home. Actually, could he just leave her in the kitchen with an open bag of sugar, please?

In further discussion, it emerged that one of her classmates had smuggled several small packets of sugar (the kind you get with your coffee) into the daycare. This is, of course, not allowed. So some of the kids, being old enough to understand the concept of Sneaking, hid behind a bush in the playground and furtively ate sugar. The sweetness and the thrill of getting away with such a taboo seem to have delighted Dutch. Not being old enough to understand the concept of Really Sneaking, she told us all about it, and then tried to recreate the sensation by conning us into leaving her in the kitchen with an open bag of sugar.

She's so open, still. She "sneaks," but then delightedly confesses all. But now I can see that the doors and windows are beginning to close...