Preschool Insanity

I have spent close to $500 on preschool application and wait list fees over the past 12 months. I say this both to confess my sin and to publicly shame myself into stopping the insanity. And the hours I have spent researching online and visiting God only knows how many schools? I don’t even want to think about it. After all of that, I hired a college girl to come to our house three mornings a week through the summer.

Now her last day with us is looming large, and I’m back to the same quandary that pushed me to hire her in the first place: I can’t find my perfect preschool home. The places I do manage to kind of like are either for older preschoolers or have a wait list I should have gotten on when I was pregnant. On top of that, I can’t decide what I want education wise (Traditional? Montessori? Waldorf? Parochial?) or schedule wise (Full time? Mother’s day out? Full days 2 or 3 days a week? Mornings only but every day?). The options are endless. So I put myself on the wait list at every place I kind of like, and continue on with my research, my visits, and my filling out of wait list forms.

The search should be over at this point. We are in a good position on the wait list at a preschool I immediately liked very much, where the girls can go next fall. I have already paid the hefty registration fee for a two-mornings-a-week Mother’s Day Out program at a nearby church, which starts August 25. Yet I spent the better part of the last hour researching a couple of other places – this one is on acres of land with a horse stable attached! That one has the children gardening and hiking and sewing and caring for a variety of farm animals every day!! Why would I put them in city preschools with pea-gravel and plastic playgrounds when they could be learning to live off the land!!!

I didn’t think much about any of these things while I was pregnant because I used to know that the best indicator for a child’s success is having involved, well-informed parent advocates. But having the luxury of choice and an insane variety of opportunities has turned me into a lunatic. Yesterday I was walking through Sears and I saw a girls' dorm room display. I smiled as I glimpsed ahead to the day I’d be helping my girls get their dorm rooms ready. Then I immediately began to panic – college applications, campus visits (in-state? out-of-state? private? public?), application consultants, SAT prep courses? I think I better start saving now for the pre-college exploration fund I'll most certainly need. . .

How to Make a Toddler Happy

I’ve learned the secret to making my toddlers happy: I do what they want. Turtle insists on a “geen” plate, dumping her blue plate full of food directly on the floor with a scream. “No problem,” I say with a smile. I pick up the food from the floor, put it on the green plate, and put it back on her tray. She eats. Peace is restored. I hand her a cup of milk with a yellow lid. She throws it on the floor, crying for “pur pu.” I pick up the cup, put on a purple lid, and hand it back to her. She drinks. I await the next command.

Monkey doesn’t care about her eating implements. However. Her feet must not touch the ground outside of our home. If we step through the front or back door, she throws up her arms, begins to whine, and won’t move her feet. “Do you want to walk?” I ask when I open the car door at our destination, knowing the answer. If I even think about refusing, she’ll throw herself on the ground, wherever we are, and scream. This is generally frowned on by People, so I carry her. A lot.

The demands change frequently and randomly, but I manage to keep the daily OCD matrix organized: which “blankie” is used for stargazing in the nursery, and which side must face up; which doll each girl is mothering that day; the fact that Monkey does not allow her baby to have a pacifier while Turtle insists hers must have a pacifier; which foods, books, toys, clothes are in favor and which are currently despised (this week, bananas are absolutely OUT).

I think it was The Happiest Toddler on the Block that advised me to push to get my way for the important 10% and to let my toddlers got their way the other 90% of the time. I think that’s pretty good advice. I may be a little indulgent, but I look at it this way: It’s the only time in my life I’ll be able to so easily make people so happy. I spent a decade working in fields where I negotiated for clients day in and day out, and in many cases it took days or weeks of long, drawn out, emotionally exhausting discussions to help a person arrive at a point where they were satisfied with their outcome, and occasionally happy with it. The instant gratification of turning a crying toddler into a happy toddler is a high I can’t get enough of.

And when the girls get older, sitting Mr. Lovey in the high chair with his own piece of pizza won’t be enough to make Turtle happy. I won’t be able force the mean girl at the playground to take back what she said to Turtle, or force the right boy to ask Monkey to the school dance. They’ll roll their eyes when I tell them how I used to juggle purple lids and green plates in one hand while holding Monkey in the other. So as long as they look to me as the center of the universe, I’m very happy to play the all-powerful wizard, making their every wish come true. Soon enough, the girls will pull back the curtain and see that I’m a mere mortal. I dread that day.

Poems

Please excuse my long absence, dear reader. Twin Daddy had a ruptured appendix removed July 2 and since then I have had barely a moment to hold a thought in my head that wasn't related to the feeding or care of my three dependents. He is on the steady road to recovery, so I'm ready to get back to my favorite hobby.

I wrote these poems in June. They spilled out of my brain quickly and all at once, and while I thought this must mean they were without substance and specific to the facts of my day, I have found myself pondering the words and the various meanings they hold for me ever since. I humbly share them with you.

June 2009-1
I love
That my cell phone rarely rings
And that I don’t get much email
That I don’t know
What is going on in Iran
Or what 107 feels like
Because I stay inside
Sheltered
With my babies

June 2009-2
Sometimes I can run fast.
Sometimes I have to go slow,
and take deep breaths.
Either way
I reach the finish line.