the pieces of my life

Sh*t!! The dentist’s office is not closed. And because I completely forgot the last one, I can’t cancel this one. Oh well. My showing up with Doodles and Pie will be enough payback to them for not closing. After this appointment, bet they’ll close next time!

Okay, in all fairness, I did prepare for today. I went to the library yesterday and checked out a zillion space and train books. Went to the video store and rented things for both kids. Made sure we had everything in the house to make muffins. Crayons are stockpiled. So why is it the house is already torn apart and kids are clamoring outside my office door? Hmmm. Wondering if those chocolate hearts for Valentine’s breakfast were a mistake…

Note to self: When using whole wheat flour, it takes A LOT of food coloring to get a tint and even then your son will whine, “But I wanted it all red!”

Also: When making heart-shaped pancakes using a condiment bottle to squeeze out the shape, skip the oatmeal in the pancakes. It clogs it all up nicely even after you hack open a bigger hole with a kitchen knife.

Let me give you some background on Snow Day 2007. It’s a day when the world conspired with me. Why? Because next week is February vacation week, which means I get nary a work day. And this week? This week my charming husband decided to desert me for a conference in London. All week. All friggin’ week long. 4:30 a.m. wake ups all week long. 5 p.m. meltdowns all week long. That all week long. And my mom had meetings and my sister’s teaching a class and my dad’s in Florida so there was no one to come help. So I have the kids all week long. With a snow day. And, I have to say the forecasters were correct, it is coming down. I’m going to have to suit up and do a little shoveling soon. The normal rule in our house is no TV till 5 p.m. Today we may alter that rule to 5 a.m.

Doodles is practicing his alphabet as we watch the school closures on the news. Okay, there are the H schools. We’re up to the L schools. Wait for it, wait for it… yep, there it is. Doodles preschool closed! Pie’s day care closed! I’m looking out the window and even for this Miami Beach gal it doesn’t look that bad. But it is still coming down steadily and they’ve given it such a nice name: the Valentine Nor’Easter. Okay, not the most clever, but it does the trick.

Breaking with normal blog tradition I will today give you updates on how I survive Snow Day 2007.

That girl has got the rhythm, which is somewhat shocking given the gene pool she descends from. The second she hears a beat or a note, Pie’s tush starts to groove. Last Saturday we attended a bris. The congregation began to sing “Hinei Ma Tov,” which for those in the know, is not exactly a rockin’ tune. Didn’t matter to Pie. Her little butt couldn’t stop from shaking. On Sunday morning I was waiting for a response from Adam to a question and he was taking a long time, so I started humming the theme from Jeopardy. Pie stopped what she was doing, threw her arms in the air and began wiggling her hips. When her brother “plays” the horribly out of tune guitar, she gets jiggy. My favorite thing is when she hears music in her head. Sometimes she’ll be doing something and all of a sudden it’s like melodies are playing in her head because out of nowhere she’ll start to dance. I’ve decided I’ve got to find a movement class for that girl, get her some dedicated groovin’ time. Because God knows she’s not going to get any coordinated moves at home!

This post probably isn’t of interest to, oh, anyone, but it’s what’s been occupying my brain, so I’m going to try and work it out here:

I sent my child to day care today despite the gushing nose. In all fairness to me, I did take her to the doctor this morning, who gave her the all clear and said she was definitely fine for school. But now I’m feeling lots of mom-angst, because here it is, 12:30, and I’ve actually completed everything that needs to be done. In anticipation of keeping her home from school, I stayed up late last night working and worked a whole bunch in the wee hours of this morning so it wouldn’t be a disaster if I couldn’t work today. Oh, don’t get me wrong–I have a freelance proofreading job beckoning me from my desk, but it’s not due for three weeks, which is an eternity for me, so there’s no urgency there.

I don’t write about work, because I think it’s unprofessional to do so, no matter how juicy a tidbit I want to share. But lately I’ve been having more aggravation about what I’m doing as I try to figure out what the kids are going to do next fall. Doodles’s preschool is a three-day-a-week affair right now. Two of the days he goes, he’s in extended day until 3:30 and on those days Pie is in day care till 4. But next year, it’s five days a week for Doodles.

The thing is, it’s been a really rough transition for Doodles from day care to preschool. While he seems to like the school itself, he’s definitely not a fan of extended day. He says frequently that he misses his old school, but when pressed, all he’ll say is he misses the bikes and the toys. He rarely asks for his old friends and often when I suggest a playdate with one of them, he says he doesn’t want to and then suggests someone else to play with. In fact, when I asked if he wanted to make a playdate with someone from his new school, he instantly and excitedly named his teacher. When I explained that wasn’t going to happen, he easily named someone else, a girl, and all day he couldn’t wait for her to come over.

So, the dilemma: the program just this year started a two-day-a-week toddler program for two year olds. Which means I can send Pie there in the fall. However they will not have extended day for toddlers. Which means that I would have two three-hour work blocks (less when you count travel time to and from school). Pie does fine in her day care and I truly think it’s an excellent day care. But I prefer the preschool because of its curriculum (it’s a Jewish preschool) and I like the atmosphere.

A minor, but possibly relevant, digression: I was absolutely FLOORED the other day when Pie’s teacher mentioned how shy and quiet she is in class. My Pie? My fiesty show-off-her-belly-button, gotta boogie Pie is shy? Looking around, I realized that she’s the ONLY girl in her class on Mondays and there’s only one other girl in there on Wednesdays. Not that I think that the gender of the other kids is the issue, but it made me a little wary, my lone little girl in this sea of boys. Could that be part of the shyness?

Back on topic: If I transfer Pie in the fall, I think it would make the transition much smoother. Let’s face it: At two, the kids are friends with the people we tell them they’re friends with. “Oh, Pie, look! It’s your friend Gracie!” At three, they actually have friends who they like and could miss. Not only that, by moving Pie in the fall, she’d be in the same school as her brother, which I think would also make things easier for her (and for me–one drop-off and pick-up).

The day care has said they’re willing to break their two-day-a-week minimum policy if I want to send Pie there just one day, but they strongly recommend against it because it’s rough on both the kid and the teacher. I see their point and I’ve already decided against that option. I think it would be too confusing for her to be at preschool two mornings and day care one day. The other option I’ve been thinking abou t is sending Pie and then hiring a babysitter to come to the house on Wednesdays to babysit and then I’d only need to send Doodles to extended day at preschool that one day. But how hard will it be to find a babysitter to work one full day a week?

Of course, I could just completely back off of work for the one school year (the summer after that she’s old enough for extended day). My income is superfluous; so as long as I did the minimal amount of work possible to maintain my working contacts, I could easily just work less, although it would mean more working in evenings and weekends. Doodles would be happy–no extended day. Pie would most likely be happy. I could work those two mornings and if–somehow, by some miracle–I could convince Doodles to play on his own while Pie naps, I could work then as well, which would be another ten hours a week (two hours a day), which would actually make it doable. But that’s a big fat if.

Or I could just leave things as is, keep her in day care two days a week, have Doodles do extended day two days a week and keep working as usual. However the more I think about it, the more committed I am to sending her to a traditional preschool program as opposed to a day care.

Or the final option–which of course would be my preference–is finish my novel, sell it, and then not worry about my contacts because I’ll be able to devote all my working time to simply writing novels. Works for me!

What do other moms and dads do? Adam is no help here, because it’s my career on the line, not his. Argggg!