Paging The Tooth Fairy!

Well, the last several days in American history have sucked donkey dick. I remembered all too well how shitty the period immediately following 9/11 was as I watched way too much cable "news" this week, saying things to myself like WTF? and "I really need to go for a run now" but somehow being unable to remove my ass from the sofa. But I do not wish to wallow in the suckitude here, because, I hope, life goes on. And thankfully, my kids' childhoods do not brake for national tragedies. Onward!

****
The silver lining capping off this week? My 5-year-old lost his very first baby tooth today. One of his front teeth!

It had been wiggling for the last two weeks, then he noticed some blood around it this morning and asked me (the queasier parent, natch) if he should try pulling it out. To which I said, "Uh, do whatever feels ok to do, I guess?" He decided to leave it alone.

Later, DH took him out for a doughnut and a playdate with a friend his age whose parents recently filed for divorce. I soon got the text: "1st tooth out!!" along with a picture of our little dude smiling proudly.

Having recently watched the movie "Rise of the Guardians" on family movie night, DS announced that  The Tooth Fairy would of course be dropping in tonight. He wasted no time placing his tooth under his pillow, hours before bedtime.

I'm told The Tooth Fairy sometimes leaves poems like the following (printed on paper cut into the shape of a tooth if the ol' Fairy is feeling crafty or is high on some of that childhood magic):

Dear Toothless Wonder,

While you lay sleeping, I came in the night.
Under your pillow was a marvelous sight -- your very first tooth!
It has come unstuck.
You're a big kid now.

Much love, and good luck!

--The Tooth Fairy


My kids are growing up faster than I can comprehend. Now the boy really looks old - and really nothing like a 5-year-old. But it's all good.

Raising "Digital Natives" with The Family iPad

Finally, a parenting piece in The Atlantic has validated my parenting choices, whoo hoo! There's a great article in the April issue by Hanna Rosin (having typed that, I'm pretty sure hell might have just frozen over) that just arrived in the mail but I can't seem to find a link to anywhere online, called "The Touch-Screen Generation." Reads like a very well-intentioned parenting blog post, like a more in-depth, reporty version of something straight out of Ask Moxie. But, of course, the cover photo is creepy - and, um, it happens to looks just like my kid, complete with the iPad covering up her face (I mean, it's The Atlantic, what else did I expect?)

In it, I learned some new-to-me terms: Digital Natives - they are the first generations of children growing up fluent in the language of computers, video games, and other technologies. Everybody else are Digital Immigrants, just struggling to understand. Of course, we all know exceptions, but from where I set these monikers generally fit.

The Hush family is the proud owner of one sole, cherished, iPad. It gets a lot of use by all of us, preschoolers and adults alike. For now, we have just the one in our house. Kind of like there was just "The Phone" singular, or "The TV" singular when I was growing up in the 1980s. My parents and I often had to wait our turn to use it. (I'm thinking of that Louis C.K. bit about having only one of something in the house growing up, and how awesome things are now by comparison.)

We let the kids play educational apps on the iPad at home pretty much whenever the mood strikes them (except bedtime, when we all take a tech time out - on the presumption it might inhibit sleep, but I wonder about that). More on those specific apps after the jump. We each happen to use the family iPad somewhat differently.

I use it only to watch The Walking Dead on Netflix while I run on the treadmill (and let me tell you, there's nothing like zombies to encourage you to pick up your pace.) DH uses it for sales pitches at work, and to do his online shopping. Funny, we also have a desktop iMac in my office, but I'm pretty much the only one who ever uses it. We rarely allow the kids to touch our phones - DH has an iPhone, and I have a Droid but I now wish I could travel back in time to 2011 and pick an iPhone instead. Oh well, my decision made sense at the time. Compared to my peers, I hardly ever upgrade my cell phones, and I have only had a lifetime total of 3 cell phones since I was forced (as in, personally called in to the boss' office and told to pick one up ASAP) to get my first, for work, in 2004 - and by then I was super late to that party.

Anyway, our youngest was born in the fall of 2009. The iPad came out in April 2010. We got ours sometime in 2011, and it is hard to remember life as a parent without it.

These days, you'll pry our family iPad out of our cold, dead hands!! I know, I know. But isn't this just another iteration of that dreaded "screen time" the APA urges us to limit because it rewires children's brains? My luddite friend who is training to be a Waldorf teacher thinks we're doing our children irreparable harm. I think she means well, but she's drinking the Kool-Aid and does not have children of her own yet. I, too, was an awesome parent before I had kids.


I absolutely love the ("educational"? yes, yes, absolutely) apps our kids use. Our three-year-old loves the Starfall ABCs app, Memory Train, and Montessori Crosswords.  Our five-year-old is currently fond of Stack the States, (and Stack the Countries), Star Walk, and Slice It!.  Let's just say I'm utterly convinced my kids are benefitting from having these apps occupy some space in their childhoods. I might not feel that way if they were on the iPad each and everyday, but they're not. They use it with about the same frequency as they use any other "toy" or activity at our house. Sometimes they go way more than a week without asking for it.  Should we as parents be treating the iPad any differently than we treat, say, books, art supplies, Montessori works, TV, or sports equipment? What role does screen time generally have in your family life?



And I'm always on the lookout for more app recommendations, so if you've got them, please leave them in the comments.

So Long, Cherished Public Schooling Ideals

I'm mourning the loss of the cherished ideals I once held so close - that it was a good and honorable thing to send one's kids to public schools. "I mean, of course I'll send my kids to public school someday," said my naive 21-year-old self, who would not actually become a parent for at least another decade. When my DH and I were dating, I even asked him (no, TOLD him) "Hey, my future kids are going to public schools, got a problem with that?" (not on the first date of course - I'm not that much of a level-jumper).

I used to judge the last couple of US presidents for sending their kids to places like Sidwell Friends instead of to the local public school nearest to the White House - imagine how that school would have benefitted with the First Daughter(s) there, in theory... I used to judge my old bosses who volunteered on public school-reform boards and projects, while sending their own kids to the best private schools in town, because "I think their peer group really matters most."

Back in the day, I took a lot of ed policy classes, back when the small schools movement was all the rage. I was so optimistic - because there was so much innovation going on, such an array of choices, I thought it meant our schools would have to get better. Wrong. I used to think homeschoolers were cray cray - now I completely and totally get it.

These days, I'm often reminded of what a former prof of mine used to say "If education were such an easy problem to fix, don't you think we would have fixed it by now?" Now I know that context matters - are we talking about big cities, suburbs, or rural areas (like where I live)? Three vastly different scenarios with totally different resources, and different needs.

Like the mother I met the other day who moved here recently from suburban California, where the academically-rigorous public schools were "a total pressure cooker" for her 9-year-old son, who could not keep up with some of his more gifted peers. He's loving it here in No-Academic-Expectations-Having-Land, in fact he's thrilled to be the smartest kid in class (yes, his teacher actually called him "smart," presumably thinking that a beneficial label). But I can't help wonder if they'll feel differently about it when he never quite grasps algebra. Will they even see the lost opportunities in terms of entire career fields that will be pretty much forever closed off to him if he can't grasp algebra? (Forever? Yes, I'm saying forever.)

So, here we are. We've registered our 5-year-old for first grade in a mixed age classroom at the new private Montessori elementary school. This means he's skipping Kindergarten, and will be the youngest student in the school by at least 7 weeks. We had him tested through the school district, and re-tested through a private firm (best $40 we ever spent.) Both tests concurred: he definitely belongs in first grade this fall. We read "A Nation Deceived" which help put our fears to rest about grade-skipping. Off the record, one tester said "I did a double take on his birthdate - looking at him and talking to him I thought he was born in 2005." and "No way should you enroll him in public school around here." Case closed.

Great news, yes. I finally feel really good about DS's educational future.

Staying Another Year At Montessori Preschool Instead of Public Kindergarten?

Two more public school visits to go. Had to postpone one visit because I've been sick lately with the cold from hell. Why is it my kids can get over a cold in 48 hours but it takes me at least a week? Bleh.

I've been thinking that the path of least resistance might be to simply have DS stay another year in the excellent, small bilingual Montessori preschool for kids ages 3-6 he currently attends. The pros/cons to staying where he is look like this--

The Pros:

• He's been so happy there for a year and a half now - it's a known quantity.
• We all love it. (And I'm a tough critic, so that's saying a lot.)
• The curriculum is challenging enough for him.
• He's never bored there because they're always looking for signs of disengagement and then immediately taking action.
• Easiest logistics in terms of kids attending one school, with workable drop off/pick up times.
• It's affordable.
• This will be his final chance to get a Montessori education locally.
• Another lice-free year for our family. There's a good chance my kids will eventually get lice in public school because pretty much everyone here does at some point (not judging, just stating the facts ma'am). But then again, he could get something preventable like Pertussis, of course! And not that there's anything wrong with getting lice except it is a huge pain in the arse to treat it, and I suspect I will bear the brunt of it because my office is at my house.
• No bullies/abuse.
• Can keep learning Spanish.
• Can continue to learn at own pace and love learning.

The Cons:

• DS will probably be the oldest kid in the school next year (which is what happens when a kid has an Oct birthday, with an Aug 31 school cut off)
• In the absence of older kids, I have a nagging feeling he'll be missing out on building some social skills - though I can't quite articulate what specific skills I'm thinking of... hmm...
• He naturally clicks with kids who are 2 years older than him, and he's the same size as most 7-year-olds even though he's 5. So he'll really look bigger than the other kids, but will he care?
• There's the notion folks around here believe that Montessori sometimes "ruins kids for public school" - as if they are so thrilled about learning and are curious and ahead of grade level that they simply can't fit in when it's time for public school. Quite an indictment of our local public schools if you ask me. Eventually, there's nowhere else for kids to get educated locally except public school or homeschool (or a combo of the 2). Yes, there are religious schools but trust me, they are out of the question, and anyway they are no good academically (unlike parochial schools in bigger cities).
• The Spanish learning at Montessori is not immersion, meaning his spoken Spanish probably won't develop as quickly as it would if he were to attend the Spanish-literacy public K, we think (hard to assess).
• Possible harder transition to public first grade as a 6.5 year old?

Your thoughts?

Foster Kid

Legally, I am not permitted to say much (even in this space, which I hope? remains an anonymous blog) but I'd just like to share that we've recently made a wonderful temporary addition to our home. We've become a first-time foster family.

Foster Kid is about 15-months younger than our 3-year-old DD. FK is a sleeper, and is one of the most easy-going, laid back children I have ever met. Hallelujah! DS and DD are absolutely over the moon about FK.

I can't say much more than that. We hope FK stays with us for awhile, but I'm guessing FK's young parents will be ready to resume full residential custody of FK again pretty soon.

It's been quite a journey.

The Disney Princess Obsession

Lately my 5-year-old son has been asking us to get him books about princesses, particularly the Disney princesses. Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of overexposing my kids to the Disney Princess Marketing Machine, for all of the usual learned helplessness/lack of agency criticisms you so often hear. Yet, now that he's old enough to choose his own library books I feel like I just need to let him explore his own interests, and this is where he is. (I've offered him my own favorite awesome princess book ever, "The Paper Bag Princess" but sadly, he's not all that excited about it. Darn.)

He spent 2 hours the other day reading all about Beauty and the Beast, and asking tons of questions. Last night, he showed me a picture in an encyclopedia of Disney princesses and told me that Prince Eric is the one he really wants to marry someday, and that he predicts his little sister will marry Prince Naveen. (Does he finally know what the word "marry" means? Yes, we think so.)


Yes, I occasionally wonder about DS's sexual orientation. Whatever his eventual preferences may be, it really does not change anything about the way I choose to parent. "You kids can grow up and marry either a man or a woman-- whomever you like" is a constant refrain at Casa Hush. We're all about "free to be you and me" here. Yes, boys can play with dolls and princesses! Yes, girls can play with trucks and baseball bats! That's the beauty of having one kid of each sex - they get easy access to the full array of toys out there. They get to share and trade the various gender-stereotyped toys their great aunt sent them for Xmas.


It makes me a little sad that DS refuses to bring any of his beloved princess books into preschool - as if he clearly knows he could be teased for being seen with them. He knows his superhero books are the so-called "right" socially-appropriate ones for him to be seen with at school, and he brings those all the time. It breaks my heart that he doesn't feel safe to share his princess-loving side at school, even though the teachers would be beyond totally accepting of him. How quickly kids pick up on the unspoken, but very rigid social gender norms out there.


The kids have been begging us to rent some Disney princess movies. I give up. "The Princess and the Frog" is on the books for this weekend. At least Tiana seems like a princess with some entrepreneurial moxie.

The Great Kindergarten Search: School Visit 1 of 3

Back in October, I blogged about the Dreaded School Choice first world Problem my family is currently experiencing. As the public school choice decision deadline looms, we're doing school and classroom visits to help us finally come to a decision.

Our first visit was to the Away District Bilingual school. Here's The Good and The Bad points that we had identified about this school prior to our visit (I've blogged about this before - so skip my next 2 paragraphs if you've already read my old post linked to above):

The Good = "Since none of the schools in this district are winning any awards, we figure at least our kids will come out knowing Spanish."[Also, we think a lot of the families there would be a great fit for us socially, i.e. a lot of former big city liberals now living in Podunkville send their kids there. "If this school were in a big city, there'd be a lottery for it and we'd never get in."] From the daughter of a bilingual teacher: "I'm amazed at how beautifully her accent is coming along when she speaks Spanish. The opportunities to learn Spanish are awesome."

The Bad = "It all depends on which teacher team your kid gets assigned to - there are some great teachers you will want to request, and then pray your kid doesn't end up with one of the crappy ones. The principal is a nice guy but he's not a good leader and there's no cooperation between the Bilingual teacher teams and the English-only teacher teams." Also - "My son acts out because he's bored. His teacher says he's so gifted it's like he's special needs, but instead of challenging him more in school they encourage him to attend a half hour math enrichment after school as if that solves the problem - so, what's the point of him sitting in class all day? We have to do a lot of extra work at home to meet his needs." And "My daughter went there K through 5th and afterwards we took her to Mexico to visit her grandparents, and it turns out she does not even understand a word of Spanish. We should have never trusted that school." "We didn't know our son got in until my wife finally called the school 3 days before school started and demanded to know." "We didn't find out which teacher my daughter was assigned to until literally the day before school started - she had been asking us all summer long. Frustrating." [Also, due to budget cuts, in this district there is no school on Monday mornings, and that lost time is never made up.]

.....

My perspective on this school has changed slightly, and in a good way, since visiting five Kindergarten and first grade classes there, and talking with the principal for half an hour. I also recently ran into a mom I know who actually teaches bilingual Kindergarten, and her son, who was at my kids' bilingual Montessori preschool last year, is enrolled in the Spanish immersion Kindergarten at this very school, and he is positively thriving there. Given her own profession, she's a tough critic, and I take her words as very high praise. The school started him out in the English immersion section, but once they realized he was already reading, they asked her if they could move him into Spanish immersion. That's great - I love it when I hear about a school proactively accelerating a kid when they've identified a need.

After the visit, I could now see sending my son to this school for Kindergarten - but he would need to be in the full Spanish immersion class, that is, the one that is intended for Native Spanish speaking kids.  He already understands Spanish (but is basically in silent mode still, refusing to speak it unless he can speak it perfectly - gah!), and so the language would not be a problem. If he were to be put in the English immersion class, however, it would be a complete, total, and unmitigated disaster. He already reads proficiently in English, but I worry about how he will actually test in reading - he is a perfectionist and will try to give up when he feels pressure.

We have two more visits in early Feb, so I will post about those in a few weeks.  As usual, your thoughts and perspective are always appreciated!

The Unvaccinated Child with Pertussis in My Kids' Preschool

Last week, I got a mass email from the Board of my kids' preschool that hit me like a ton of bricks.

The email from the school informed us that there is a child in my kids' class who has been sick for the last two weeks with Pertussis (aka Whooping Cough). The email shared the child's name.

Given that this is such a tiny community, and a school of < 20 kids, we all know of the little girl and her parents, and word about these matters spreads so quickly (even when you've given up gossip entirely) so I don't see the sharing of her name as the privacy violation I would have seen it as when I used to live in a large city. But still.

Coincidentally, our DD had experienced some severe unexplained coughing symptoms recently, so we had a bit of a freak out once we heard the dreaded word "pertussis." You may have heard there was a pertussis outbreak in my state (WA) last year, due to vaccine-denier parents who had refused to get their children vaccinated.

The pediatrician thinks she has the asthma that runs in DH's family, and possibly some allergies. Anyway, the nebulizer he prescribed seems to be working. All is well for now.

This whole episode really has me thinking. While on the one hand, I'm not terribly sympathetic to parents who by choice have never had their children vaccinated against the preventable, devastating diseases of childhood - to be honest, I really question their intelligence, on the other hand, I tend to see this as one of the costs of living in a free society. Maybe there's a benefit to living amongst the occasional free rider in our democracy.

Your thoughts?

Why Our Children Have Never Met Their Grandparents

Our children have never met my husband's parents, and this is by choice. Five years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child, my husband wisely decided to end our relationships with both of his parents. We're so grateful they will not be able to hurt our children, but at the same time, it's a loss. As much as we hate to admit it, yes, it's a loss.

When some people find this out about our family, it's like their heads explode. Clearly, many folks have never had the experience of being related to a person with a truly toxic personality, and I think until they encounter one firsthand (perhaps when their own children marry into a family that has one) they'll never quite grasp the horror of it.

There's the dominant social narrative reflected in the adage "blood is thicker than water" - we should all spend time with our families no matter what; we should just grin and bear it if they hurt or annoy us because they're family, etc. I find this view to be terribly naive. Once a dynamic gets bad enough, I think it actually makes the choice to cut people out reactively easy to make, but not painless.

The first question people have for us - what on earth did DH's parents do to make you want to get them out of your lives?

Let's just say his parents' behavior could fill all of the DSM-IV and then some. The answer is a rather long story. I'll try to be brief. His parents divorced years ago, and are both remarried and each live both far away from us and each other. To me, that makes the fact that they are both now out of our lives even more telling, because we made two independent choices to no longer speak to them.

His father has PTSD from serving in the army in Vietnam, and from all of the many horrible things I'd imagine that entails. He's grappled with alcoholism, and was fired from his final job for berating and assaulting a female coworker when he got angry with her and lost control. Now he lives on disability. None of his three living siblings want anything to do with him. He tells the most obvious, outrageous lies about his ex-wife - to the point it is downright offensive. He's the more obviously toxic one.

We strongly believe his mother suffers from Munchausen Syndrome - she always speaks in a whisper (until she gets angry, then she yells in a normal voice) and despite going to several doctors, none could find anything medically wrong with her. After her sister was legitimately diagnosed with MS, she began claiming to have lupus. Whenever she would visit us (before we had kids), she would claim to be sick and would spend most of the visit in bed, or in the bathroom for hours. But she never wanted us to take her to the ER, nor were there any measurable signs her health was in jeopardy. There was also the time when her 2nd husband called to ask us what her real date of birth was - when they started dating she had claimed to be 35, but she was actually 50. (That's kind of awesomely bad, actually.) Finally, we figured it out.

Years ago, and before his parents' divorce, his mother opened credit cards in both DH and his brother's SS#s and names without their knowledge, then racked up a bunch of charges for what she later claimed were for Christmas presents for them when they were kids. DH did not learn of all the debt she had racked up until college. It was a nightmare trying to restore his credit.

When we told her we were expecting, she asked for our baby's SS# so she could allegedly open a college savings account for him. When we explained that that information was not available until after a baby was born, and would not at all be necessary, she demanded mine. Obviously, I refused to give it to her. Then she threw a fit about us not finding out the baby's sex until birth, and not sharing the names we picked out - a cascade of classic boundary issues. DH tried to reason with her, she was abusive. Eventually it came to this.

The reactions of his parents' families of origin have been very validating to us. His mother's sister made a point to tell us that no one in the family was in any way judging us for cutting his mother out of our lives - they have known her since she was a child, and they understand what a difficult person she is, perhaps due to some unknown psychological illness. His father's SIL said similar things about his dad's condition - they all get it - and we appreciate that they make an effort to stay in touch.

We're also grateful to my parents, who are much better grandparents than they ever were as parents (and BTW, they weren't bad parents by any stretch of the imagination). They want to see our kids and babysit them so we can take trips together. They ask permission before giving them things we might not approve of - they respect our authority as parents. So wonderful. Our kids have never felt that they're missing out on grandparental love.

I'm sure our choices strike some people as cruel-hearted. In fact, some we've told have felt the need to project their own wishes - "Maybe you'll just decide one day to call them up and forgive them, before it's too late." Well, it's a two-way street, isn't it? This experience has definitely given me a lot more empathy for people who don't have happy, intact families - trust me, they have their reasons.

Wake me up when September ends

Crazy, full, active, wonderful month here at Casa Hush, hence the lack of blogging.

I'm training for a 5k that will take place at Thanksgiving time, trying to beat my PR of 25 minutes. (Anyone want to virtually join me? I double dog dare you to sign up for a local "Turkey Trot" where you live.) I run to help keep my blood pressure within the normal range. My family history of heart disease sucks. I recently invested in an at-home blood pressure monitor that I like - the Omron 7 Series Plus. It was about $50 at Costco.

Both of my kids are at the same Montessori this year. It rocks. They love it. They are speaking a ton of Mexican Spanish, and have even started using some funny slang that I don't always understand. Like "chongo" (translation: a hair thingy). Awesome.

Over the weekend, we went swimming outdoors for what was probably the last time this year. This was the summer that DS finally learned to swim independently and in the deep end. He loves to show off by doing back flips off the diving board. DD is not far behind. If only she were a bit taller, she'd be able to touch the bottom in the shallow end and would have a lot more confidence. I think it helped that we never put them in "floaties" or life jackets (unless we're on a boat, of course.)

Fall is closing in. I went for a run in the crisp, cool air this morning. Work has finally gotten a lot less busy this week, so I suddenly have more time to play, instead of needing to be at my computer and phone at the butt crack of dawn.

Some friends came to visit last week. They're expecting their first baby in January. They kept asking us for advice. "Trust your instincts" was the basic summation of all I could come up with. Apparently, I am only able to give real advice anonymously and online.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. ;)

The Childcare Swap

My best parenting "hack" is the Childcare Swap. Why this idea hasn't caught on with people like me who don't live around (helpful) family and who don't have a money tree in their yard is a total mystery, because I think it is genius.

We used to have the common problem of not having enough uninterrupted couple time, plus not having enough time alone in our home without the kids. Turns out the Childcare Swap is the free solution to these problems. Love it!

Here's how it works. You find another family nearby, preferably with the same number of kids and with similarly-aged kids as your own. You agree to take care of all the kids at your house for a day, and they agree to take care all of the kids at their house some other day. Simple.

Here's how we arrange it. The family we Childcare Swap with has 2 kids; our boys are 10 months apart, and our girls are 3 weeks apart. Neither family has any helpful relatives nearby. We started doing this last year when our kids were 3.5 and 1.5. When we first proposed the idea, the other family jumped at it.

We watch all the kids at our house once a quarter, usually on a Sunday at the beginning of the quarter. Then, several weeks, later the other family reciprocates. Bizarrely, we've noticed that taking care of all 4 kids is so much easier than just taking care of our own 2 kids - because they are totally entertained by each other all day long. The kids absolutely love it and beg us to put more dates on our calendars.

Today is one of the happy days that the other family will watch our kids at their house, so DH and I are off to have a free, day-long date. Ta ta!

Try it, you'll like it!

A Happy, State Dept Parent's Response to Slaughter

Came across this great Slaughter response from Dana Shell Smith, a globetrotting bigwig in Foreign Service at the US State Department, titled "How to Have an Insanely Demanding Job and 2 Happy Children."

And what I want to say is A-fucking-men, sister. Tell it!

To me, Shell Smith's Both/And message of "With a lot of ingenuity and hard work, it can be done and your family can be happy" rings a whole hell of a lot truer than Slaughter's Either/Or message of "Despite my wealth, my family wouldn't make the arrangements that are necessary to have this particular job and make us all happy, so therefore no one else in the whole wide world can either."

Not to worry, Shell Smith's piece is much shorter than Slaughter's - in fact, you can read it in under 5 minutes. Dare I say, it is even almost as good as what most of my regular commenters could have written while half-asleep. ;) Yes, Atlantic editors, that's me taking a shot at you again.

Here's a flavor of the raison d'être for Shell Smith's response:

In conversation after conversation, my colleagues and I puzzled over why Dr. Slaughter's experience had so contrasted with ours. Was it because she had tasted another life, that of an academic who had a level of control over her schedule that we could not even imagine? Was it because she tried out government work while living in a different city from her family?

Regardless of why our experiences differed so greatly, I was left thinking not only about my own experience, but about the responsibility we women have to create change by introducing a different environment for the younger, more junior officers -- both male and female -- whether in government or elsewhere. After a stream of officers in the bureau I lead stopped in to tell me that they wished I would weigh in, I decided to add some of my thoughts and experiences to the conversation.

Bingo.

One thing about the reaction to this piece has struck me. That Shell Smith and her husband haven't seen a non-animated movie in the theatre in the last 10 years has apparently managed to make some people on the internets sad. But I say to each their own (obviously.)

Look folks, whether we choose to admit it or not, most (but certainly not all, insert privilege disclaimer here) of us are actually making time for the things that are truly the most important things to us. How do you spend most of your time? Then that's your actual priority right there. Ok, now consider my already dead horse yet again beaten. Honestly, what's so "sad" about a couple's filmgoing hobby taking a backseat to their family and careers for awhile? I'm sure they'll once again throw away their hard-earned cash at the cineplex when the kids are older! Can anyone ever win on the internets? Sheesh.

What I'm trying to say here is that Shell Smith's perspective is shared across many industries. My friend the successful surgeon and mother could have written this. And in my old corporate line of work, this is how the higher ups all make it work. Work and family are the top priorities. Friendships, hobbies, perhaps they're not as much of a priority, but they are also not entirely absent either. Take exercise for example - it often gets a lot of short shrift amongst this set. There's a reason you hear about people hitting the gym at 4:30am if fitness is a true priority.

They're happy to live like this. Really and truly. They're also telling the truth.

We all need to accept that not everyone shares our personality type. Not everyone likes the same things you do. We all define the term "priority" so very differently. The popularity of Ugg boots and the Kardashians are living proofs of that one for me. But I don't go around getting sad that not everyone is prioritizing downhill skiing and reading like my family does.

Hit me with your best shot...

Yesterday I Held A Newborn Baby

My local friend, Stitch, gave birth yesterday to her third child. She texted me the baby's name and nice healthy measurements, along with a picture of her and her 3 kids sitting on their hospital bed. (Yep, most people seem to text and FB their birth announcements these days instead of making phone calls and then sending formal paper cards.)

Interestingly, I could not immediately tell from the names nor from the picture whether Stitch's new baby was a girl or boy. I was pretty delighted about that fact, actually, because I knew I would get to walk into the room and receive the news right there, in person. Of course, Stitch had no idea that she has herself a gender ambiguously-named baby. And I'll take my hatred of her name choices to my grave. Let me assure you, it's the names themselves I can't abide, not the fact of their gender ambiguity.

I walked in thinking to myself this baby is probably a boy, but no - she's a girl! And she's just perfect. And very fun to hold. And for the first time I can remember, I am not possessed of a single shred of womb wistfulness. I was pretty sure (95%-ish) before, but now I'm positive: I don't want any more babies of my own. Sometimes life has a funny way of making us certain of things.

Are Your Kids Introverts, Extroverts, or Somewhere Inbetween-ers?

I love me some Myers-Briggs personality types. INFJ here. (Possibly the rarest type in the US, which may explain a lot.) I'm really looking forward to seeing what types my kids are someday.

While I'm technically an introvert, I can also pass for extrovert - if I don't have to spend gobs of time interacting. Clocking in over 3 hours with someone, they might catch on. Somehow I even managed to be popular in high school, though I didn't feel like it at the time. As one of the "intellectuals" in my school, I often felt lumped in socially with the kids who were decidedly un-popular and who I clicked with. But I also played sports (extremely well), so the "jocks" loved me, and perhaps not coincidentally, I was one of those kids who had friends in every clique. Where am I going with this walk down memory lane? I've noticed I am actively socializing my kids to behave in a more extroverted way ("go over and introduce yourself to the kid playing over there"). So much so that yesterday after school DS demanded I take him to a park so he could meet a friend. And, lo and behold, he did. And mama got a crapload of work done before we had to get home.

DS's Montessori teacher (a proud introvert himself) and I were chatting after class, and he mentioned how he is usually able to pick out the kids who are more extroverted, the kids who are more introverted, and everyone in between. But DS is throwing him for a loop. After 6 months of interactions, he still can't tell which one DS is. DS almost always prefers to work alone, but when it is play time he is extremely social.

We both agreed that's a really good thing. He's about letting kids be who they are. He feels introverts tend to get a bad name in America today, because we live in such an extrovert-oriented society. He shared with me how the public schools he used to teach in eventually started moving from an introvert-friendly orientation (more individual work, at single desks) towards the current extrovert-friendly orientation, featuring working interpersonally (collaborative problem solving, sitting at shared tables). Perhaps he's speaking from his own place of introversion when he said often the extroverts get mistakenly identified as the most intelligent ones in the group because they talk so much, often before they've thought deeply on a subject.

What do you think? Are you persuaded by Myers-Briggs Type Indicators? Which type are you? Your kids? Is there a mismatch in your family?

BLOG CARNIVAL - How I Get It All Done (and Am Fabulous)

Happy International Women's Day! This post answers the call of the wonderful Blog Carnival Hostess With the Mostess - @feMOMhist.

Listen up youngish (or oldish) women, here's where I inspire you to decide for yourselves what you want out of life and encourage you to believe you can have it.

Here's my recipe for work/marriage/parenting/living life fabulously. I've got 6 touchstones about that, then I'll share my day to day logistics (I think ours are probably pretty rare for Americans today).

Who Am I? Four years ago, I was a former academic turned VP at a BigName company making bank. Then I got pregnant, and had a nice long mat leave, came back, and was at the lowest point of my life ever, my marriage sucked, I had no social life, I was out of shape, and I had an epiphany. When my first child was 8 months old, one day I just knew I had to leave BigName because I had to travel all the time and I never saw my baby or my husband. (No really, I never saw my baby or my husband.) And though it paid quite well, I didn't love the work and how it drained all my time and energy. I felt trapped by the hours the job required.

We solved the problem in an odd way - by moving far away to a much smaller town where we could pursue our passion for skiing, spend more time as a family, and get the hell out of the stressful BigCity corporate rat race. It was the right decision. People thought we were nuts for leaving. There were haters, but the haters were wrong. (In fact, one hater still living our old life came to visit us recently and confessed that he envies our current life.) Best decision ever, second only to marrying DH.

Now I'm the owner of 2 profitable businesses (providing almost as much income as I made at BigName - quel surprise), the mother of two kids, ages 4 and 2, and the wife to Mr. Perfect who works one 9-5ish M-F job where he's the owner and the boss, but unlike most Americans he has 12 weeks of vacation. We ski a lot because now the mountain is only 30 minutes from our door. We are happy.

My Six Touchstones for how I manage to get it all done:

1. Marry Well or Not At All - Doubt means don't. I've seen too many careers derailed because someone married an asshole, and then had to deal with more weird passive aggressive shizz than could fill an entire episode of shitty Dr. Phil. My husband rocks, and does more around the house than I do. We have had rough patches in our marriage due to kid stress, but we've worked though them. (Thank you Harville Hendrix and John Gottman, et. al.) We schedule the time for dates and having fun and sex together - I guess that's our secret. My old male mentor once advised me, "If you and your equally ambitious spouse want to run with the big dogs, carry the leash in your mouth, and have children - live near the office, get the help you need on childcare, and you will have more flexible time and more total time to spend with your children." Amen!

2. Be Ferociously Organized - this is a personality thing, I think. I came out of my mama's womb knowing how to organize, write everything down, and remember the details. I'm a planner by nature, and I'm excellent at time management. If you're not, may I suggest "Getting Things Done" is a cult book for a reason.

3. Know When To Let Shit Go - Our home life is at times a controlled chaos. It will never be camera-ready 100% of the time when our kids are little. There is often a dog turd lurking somewhere. We just roll with it. We still have people over once a week. This provides the incentive we need to tidy up. I let go of the need to have a perfectly manicured home. It is at a Good Enough level of clean most days.

4. Show Them The A.F.C. = Actual Fucking Cash. That's how you get promoted in a company or survive as a business owner. You have to produce revenue. You have to convince the people with P&L responsibility that you're the reason for all of the A.F.C. coming in to your area, so therefore you're valuable and deserve more. People seem to forget that. As Tina Fey said "Everyone is your competition." Learn how to compete. Once you consistently show them the A.F.C. then you'll free to do more of what you want to do, such as showing up to work at 10am, or being a royal beeyatch when the mood strikes. Read "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office" if you want a shitty-titled but accurate how-to.

5. Pay A Professional - Delegate. Outsource. We have a gardener. We have a handy person who comes quarterly to tackle our running list of things I can't fix in 5 minutes time. We would have a housekeeper if we could find one locally who could actually complete the job right. (Still searching). We have 2 regular babysitters. We would use daycare, which is more reliable, but there are no good daycares where we live. It saves us time to have the sitters come to our home and let themselves in. Our regular daytime sitter also does light housework. We pay her well and worship the ground she walks on.

6. You Make Time For Things That Are Important to You - I need me time. I need to ski a lot. I need time to go see a movie in the middle of the day if I feel like it. I need local friends. I need our dinner group, our wine group, and my two book clubs. Even though they're often not perfect, they're working for me now. Life is too short to let your time get away from you. So I re-arranged my life so that we have the kind of time for these pursuits. I don't have to go to an office everyday. We have no real commute. We have plenty of vacation time. In a few years we'll take the kids out of school for weeks on end and go on a big international trip. These tradeoffs make living in Podunkville worth it.

Now, our day to day logistics.

Most Weekdays:

I wake up at 5am, work out, and shower. Start working at my computer at 6am.

Kids wake up at 7:15am or later. I eat breakfast with the kids. Spanish-speaking Babysitter arrives at 7:30am. DH takes DS to Bilingual Montessori.

I work at home from 8am-3:30pm. I can come and go as I please, and run errands or have me time if it's a slow work day. Either DH or I will pick DS up from Montessori and noon and meet up for lunch. Babysitter leaves at 3:30pm.

I play with my kids from 3:30-6pm. But if I didn't finish my work (happens very rarely), and it's winter, I'll take them to the local McDonald's with a play area and I'll work on my laptop. If the weather is good though, I'll send them out in the backyard to play. Or put on a movie for the kids if that fails.

One day a week DS has karate from 4-4:45pm - DH often takes him. DH comes home anywhere from 4-6. DH cooks dinner every night. We sit down together as a family and have a routine of each taking a turn talking about our day. Even the 2-year-old, which is hilarious. I do the dishes while he plays with kids.

At 7:30ish we start the bedtime story routine. If DD has not napped at all, they'll both be asleep by 8:30pm. DH and I have sex and/or read and watch TV in bed. I do one last work email check to make sure I have no fires to put out. We're all asleep by 9:30-10pm.

Weekday Exceptions:

I'm home all day with the kids one day a week (DS is at half day Montessori, and I attend morning co-op preschool with DD).

If it is Thanksgiving-Easter I'm skiing one day a week with DH, while our sitter cares for our kids at home.

We have Date Night one weeknight a week, and we have a regular sitter come from 5-9:30pm.

DH and I are also in book clubs and on local boards that might meet the occasional M, T, or Th night every 6 weeks, so we roll with that.

Most Weekends:

We have Date Night every Saturday from 5-10pm, when we sometimes meet with our Dinner Group of 3 other couples, or our Wine Group of 4 other couples. Regular sitter watches the kids.

Sunday am is ski school for DS, so DH and I get a half day of skiing in, while a sitter watches DD. We could take her skiing with us if the sitter calls in sick, but it is a lot more fun to ski sans kids. She'll start ski school when she's 4. Eventually we'll all have blissful, full days of skiing.

Other than that, we don't have much scheduled on the weekends. And we like it that way!

What works well about our daily logistics:

We don't have our kids in activities that take up much time. There's skiing (which we also get to do while DS is doing it), spanish (in our home), karate. They don't have a choice at this age. Swimming happens during the summer when karate is over. Very rarely we'll do a one-off soccer or art camp that is short and ends soon. Our daytime babysitter teaches them Spanish, and she tidies up the house - lots of drive time saved there. It might start to suck when they're older and ask to do more activities. To which we'll start off saying no...

We are not bound to an office schedule. I work from home. DH works out of an office but is an owner and sets his own hours. We can take vacation pretty much whenever, but we will lose some income. Living in a small town, there's no traffic, and no commute stress. Win-win-win-lose as to the lack of ethnic food.

There you have it. Thanks for reading! Feel free to share yours.

"Reporting" not "Tattling"

Our 4-year-old's teacher "reported" to us today that all of a sudden this week our son has started talking a lot more at Montessori. (He had been relatively quiet since starting there in September. Guess he's finally comfortable enough now to finally be his true, vocal self!). He's suddenly asking lots of questions at school and is very curious. Which is wonderful, according to the teacher, who labeled him a "rule-follower" in a good way, but...

Teacher has a problem now that DS has started "tattling" on other students whenever they break the rules. As in "So-and-so is out in the hallway and she's not supposed to be!" etc etc. The teacher has asked DH and me to talk with DS about "tattling" and to coach him on how to problem solve independently. Very important life skill, that.

Whenever I'm faced with a parenting issue I can't immediately sort though, one of the first things I do is to check out the archives at Ask Moxie.

Naturally, that's where I found the perfect resource for tackling our problem - a brilliant post on tattling !!

From which I gleaned these gems -

From @Julie:

"tattling": What you do when you want to get someone else in trouble.
"reporting": What you do to keep someone you care about (or yourself) safe.
Kids absolutely know the difference, from a very early age (I'm talking 3-4 years old)

Tattling is exhausting. My usual response to that is, "What could you have done/said to help xyz make a better choice?" which frustrates the tattler because their goal of getting xyz in trouble has been thwarted and they must think about how they could have helped instead - SO LAME!

...

In my observations of the students I have worked with for over 15 years, the students who tattle do so for a very specific reason - the most common ones are:
-to seize some power over someone they feel has power over them
-to retaliate against a perceived injustice
-to gain some favor with an adult, usually to compensate for emotional needs they themselves might be harboring.

For example, if Jenny tattles on Gloria about talking on the rug, Jenny is most likely feeling that Gloria has been mean to her in the past and wishes to "get back at" her (power), or that Gloria ALWAYS seems to get away with stuff, while Jenny NEVER seems to get away with anything and always gets caught (injustice), or that Jenny wants to gain favor with the teacher, to feel *she* is the teacher's helper/friend/confidante etc. (compensation in relationships)

It's usually never *just* about getting someone in trouble, though there is a very powerful rush that some kids get in doing so if they meet the above criteria. Children are inherently kind, and only through continuous bullying, perceived injustices caused by other kids or adults, or emotional voids in their own life, do they feel the need to get another child into trouble... Tattling *just* for the sake of getting someone into trouble is a pretty shallow definition, and I think the people who struggle with the no tattling rule understand that the purpose for tattling can be much deeper and should be addressed rather than just saying "don't tattle, that's our rule."

And another pithy gem from @Sharon Silver:

Sometimes, especially at age 3 or 3.5 children "tattle" because they want you to know that they know the rules. They come to you and tattle as if to say, "See I've been listening. I saw it done wrong, and I'm coming to tattle so you know that I understand the right way." Asking a child if that's what they're doing, announcing the right way, by calling attention to the wrong way, is a good way to begin the conversation. You can even compliment them on knowing the rules.

Yep. I think we now have the basic framework for working with DS on this issue. Anyone been there, done that and got anything else to add here? ("Tattling" - grrr I hate that word. "Reporting" is probably a better word, but then it might take a minute for the listener to connect "reporting" in this sense with "oh, they mean kids tattling.")

Feedback for a Rule-Obsessed Kid

Our local friends have a 10-year-old son, S, and an 8-year-old daughter, I, who are these amazingly delightful young people. So naturally, we are always hitting our friends up for real life parenting advice. They are often reluctant to give it; and they insist they make a lot of mistakes - great parents and they're very humble, too.

They had us over for dinner last night and this anecdote came up about E, their 10-year-old son S's friend and classmate. (E's little sister happens to be in DS's preschool class at Montessori; small world this Podunkville.) Anyway, they mentioned that E has kind of slowly become this mini Persona Non Grata in S's little 5th grade boys friend clique, because whenever the boys play any sort of game with rules, E freaks out about everyone exactly following them and gets kind of yelly, and not so very fun to be around. Subsequently, S did not want to initially invite E to his recent birthday party, but then S later felt bad about leaving E out ( S = an emotionally intelligent kid with a conscience), thought better of it, and invited E all on his own with no prompting from any of the parents. (Gold star for you, S).

At the party, all of the boys played with Nerf guns around these huge dirt mounds where new homes were being built. It was a great time for all, until E started to loudly disagree about the vaunted rules being broken... blah blah blah bottom line: no one wants to play with E anymore, but no one has yet to actually say anything to E or E's parents about why E isn't quite meshing with the other boys, and why more invites probably won't be forthcoming. Which got me thinking about the giving and the getting of feedback in general.

I wonder if E's parents mistakenly think E's being left out is the result of some kind of quasi-bullying.

If E were my kid, I'd like to think I'd appreciate some honest, caring feedback about E's rule-obsessed behavior at play, and how it's making his friends feel and then respond. That being said, imagine being on the receiving end of that kind of a phone conversation. "Hi, your kid doesn't play well with the others." Ouch, but again, stuff I'd theoretically want to hear.

It sounds to (touchy feely, therapy-lovin') me like E could certainly benefit from a couple of sessions of play therapy that would give him a safe space to test out his ideas about rules. Of course, I'd never have the balls to recommend such a thing. Which is a shame, really. E might never get the constructive feedback that could bring him closer to his peers who actually do like him.

Your thoughts?

On Hiatus

This will be my last blog post of 2012. I'll try not to disappoint. But I warn you I'm kind of not in a great head space. Lately I haven't really been feeling the blogging bug; I'm going to chalk that up to how much I kind of don't like this time of year. Thank you, shitty-ish childhood Xmas memories of my parents fighting. They should have gone to counseling like us. Bah humbug. Sometimes it is hard to get over childhood pain. I should be thankful I suppose that mine is relatively minor, yet it still casts a pallor over this season for me.

Our holiday cards are all in the mail. We've started getting a few, too. The husband's name has appeared first in about 90% of them. Sigh... (Inside I'm screaming go read your ETIQUETTE!)

I recently had a stomach bug and lost a little bit of weight due to some gross GI tract issues. The result? I officially lost count of all of the "You look so great!" comments I've been getting this week. Sad commentary on the society we live in, eh? Where sickly whittled down = better looking in the eyes of many.

We're off to my parents' house 2 time zones away for a long winter break starting later this week. I seriously can't wait. I love how we get to pretty much stop being a mom and dad when we visit there - once we walk in the door the kids suddenly start to look to my parents for every need. That right there is the best Xmas present ever.

In other news, some members of my Pretty Good book club have decided to have a discussion about changing the way we choose books. The current book selection method is as follows: each of the 12 members is asked to host one monthly meeting anywhere they like, and choose the month's book, and reserve copies for the rest of the group at the local library. The problem giving rise to the need for the "discussion" is that 2 of the members have been waiting until the last minute to choose a book from the long library list - leaving us with some truly horrid book choices. Instead of talking to the offenders directly, it looks like we are all going to choose as a group the books we'll read each year - there will be no individual choices anymore. Hmm. I guess that will help raise the overall quality. Yet there have been a handful of times when the assigned book an individual selected was a little more esoteric, or funky, or a classic, or great stuff that book clubs don't typically read. I fear we're going to lose that, and we'll migrate into Traditional Book Club fare. And I reeeally don't want to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns." No offense.

In merrier news, my kids are awesome. DD met Santa the other day and told him to fuck off. "No Santa, Don't Hold Me! Go Away, Santa!" Awesome. Her brother, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the big red man. While on his lap, DS took the opportunity to question Santa about how he is able to fit all of the toys for all of the world's children in his small sleigh. Santa was stumped. He muttered something about his elves working overtime and making multiple trips, and carrying a lot of toys in his bag, too. At this rate, my guess is we'll have a believer for about 1 more Christmas season, tops.

Have a great rest of the year, all! What's happening at your house these days?

Assorted Updates for My Long-time Readers

This post just might read like a series of very random thoughts. I want to share some updates about some of the people and issues I've posted about in recent and not so recent months.

Remember my son's play-dough obsession at Montessori? I met with DS's teacher. It was my first parent-teacher-student conference, which is kind of a funny thing to call it considering DS just turned 4. What a great meeting. I walked away feeling so impressed with the program there, and so proud of the person my son is and is becoming. When I originally posted, my dear commenters were unanimously adamant that there is nothing "wrong" with a 4-year-old having a healthy obsession with play dough. Turns out the teacher agreed with all of you completely! He wanted to meet with me to let me know that this is what DS had been choosing to spend his time on at school, but soon moved on to other "works" and showed me what he's been drawn to. He assured me this is all well and good and as it should be, and he wanted to get from me a sense of what DS's passions are (that question is a real stumper, actually. DS is kind of a learning omnivore. He's as passionate about jigsaw puzzles as he is about the song "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele. Good luck finding an overarching theme there.)

I remain so impressed that the teacher cares so much, and keeps the class small despite a long wait list so that he can devote a lot of attention to the needs of each kid. He shared with me the story of his own daughter's experience at a different local Montessori where there was no communication at all with parents about their children's experiences there everyday. Turned out, his daughter spent an entire year coloring at Montessori, and no one there even noticed. Ultimately he felt this failed to prepare her for K, and in his own school he has vowed to keep notes on the kids and keep parents in the loop by having mandatory conferences periodically, and by sharing videos and photos of what's going on in class. I don't know that this high-level of communication is typical for "Montessori" schools, but we are absolutely loving it. And DS got rave reviews - he really is a sweet, caring kid who is a "calming influence" on some of the older, wilder girls and boys. Man, they are so different at school than they are at home!

Remember when our sitter suddenly needed to take time off because her daughter cried a lot about having to go to Kindergarten? Her daughter is enjoying school now. And apparently eating the 'good enough' lunch already. Sitter's back to working for us as regularly scheduled, so my work is no longer suffering, thank you baby jeebus! The recent debacle prompted a long term plans discussion, and it looks like we can count on Sitter being with us until at least March 1, so the search is on for her replacement. Appreciated the ample notice, Sitter. I also have secured a spot for DD at Montessori next fall, so really the only potential child care gap will be March 1-mid June. Once summer hits, we can easily find a college student.

The couple that moved to Podunkville recently with the wife who makes shitty comparisons? No, we're definitely not going to be BFF's. Not at all. Though I've been trying to be gracious. Like inviting them to trick-or-treat with us. Hanging out every few weeks is about all I can stomach. My kids apparently agree. Her DD, same age as mine, has a hitting issue that my kids can't stand. And her son is turning out to be a bit of a problem child at school, but is an angel at home so that is throwing them for a loop it seems. Trying hard not to have any Schadenfreude-ish moments nor place any unfair labels on what I'm seeing. la la la! I've tried introducing her to nice people, including my sweet friend C, but it turns out perhaps not shockingly C isn't much of a fan of hers either. I'm glad I'm not actively being mean about it. Except behind her back on the internets, of course, of course... Thanks, I had to get that off my chest!

Continuing on in the "shitty female acquaintances you just can't seem to shake department," my ex-friend, M, the lying liar who lies to get out of paying her share of a hotel bill has been successfully demoted to casual acquaintance. I'll see her in groups every couple of months, otherwise I'm remaining Perpetually Busy. She sent me these odd texts recently about getting together for coffee or a walk, then wishing me a good trip when I wasn't going on one, and now I really think there is a dementia diagnosis in her future, unfortunately. Perhaps she really did "forget" she agreed to a hotel stay on her trip. At this point though, it certainly no longer matters. Sad.

And in ancient history (not really) update news - anyone remember local yokels Bill Clinton and his now-ex-wife Skeletor? Those are some not very nice names I gave them, I know. Do they deserve them though? Hells yes. I mention them now because Bill Clinton is the first real life person I've ever known to actually personify that old-fashioned, Don Draper-ish stereotype of the middle-aged divorced guy who suddenly starts dating his much younger secretary. Can you say "Walking Stereotype?" The new girlfriend is a 22-year-old subordinate who DH says is not too bright. Bill Clinton's oldest child is 10-years-old. You do the math, people! Skeletor has also moved on, and she too is dating a 20-something dimwit who reportedly dyed their daughter's hair jet black and gave it a severe crop, taking her from Marcia Brady to Coraline. How the mighty have fallen. Two short years ago, they were in the running for America's Preppiest Family. Oh, and the kids recently contracted lice, too. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that the old them would not have been having any of that. And Daddy who has primary custody hasn't been following the treatment protocol, so everyone in my Shitty Book Club is really mad at him right now. It's a real shitshow. One of those cases that makes you question that almost-always valid presumption that it's better to divorce and get the kids far away from the parents' toxicity. I guess in some rare cases like this, sometimes each of the parents go on to find themselves in a whole new set of toxicities. Gah.

End update rant.

Two October Birthdays, One October Anniversary

October is a very big month here at Casa hush. First comes DD's birthday, followed a week later by our wedding anniversary (7 Year Itch, anyone?), then DS's birthday, then Halloween.

If we had known then that we'd be so fertile around Christmastime, we probably would have re-thought the whole fall wedding idea. That said, I remain a huge fan of fall weddings. We got married in a large-ish Midwestern city, on one of those unseasonably warm, sunny October Saturdays. It was something like 70 degrees outside. We were such lucky bastards.

Every year on our anniversary we break out the photo album. This was the first year the kids really noticed the photos, and seemed to enjoy looking at them. I have to pat myself on the back a little bit: my wedding gown has aged really well. It was a form-fitting, lace-embellished gown, in the style of Monique Lhuillier. I think some of our guests thought it looked very conservative and maybe even a bit grannyish back in 2004, but it would fit right in with today's bridal fashions. Of all people, it was my mother who convinced me that it was, in fact, The Dress. She urged me not to go with the type of strapless, poufy skirt number that was all the rage circa 2001-2005. That was the first and only piece of fashion advice my mother ever gave me. And 7 years later, I still have to say: Hey thanks, mom. You were right.

So, DD is now 2 and DS is now 4. We no longer have any children in diapers, nor drinking from bottles, nor sleeping in cribs. Mostly we all sleep fine at night - if they wake up and get lonely, the kids just crawl into our ginormous bed. We seriously thought this time would never come. It is so good.

Halloween is the last of our Big 4 October events. We have 2 parties to go to this weekend, and on Monday we'll do some trick-or-treating in our friends' neighborhood. We live too far out in the country to ever get any trick-or-treaters ourselves. DS wants to dress up as either Iron Man or Captain America. Bummer. The days of my son in cute, cuddly Halloween attire are apparently over. DD is going as a bumble bee. I know it won't be long before she asks to be a frickin' princess. Gah. My friend who is Halloween-obsessed and also has a 4-year-old, was lamenting the fact that her daughter chose a "racy kitten" costume this year. Major bummer.

In other news, there is an older girl at DS's school who has a major crush on him. She keeps drawing him notes with stories and pictures depicting their future together. It is really too funny. The girl's mom approached me after class yesterday and joked about how we're going to be future in-laws. DS seems oblivious to it, and simply says "yeah, she's my friend." I think it's his utter nonchalance that keeps her coming back for more.