Suuummmmeeerrr

Summer is really a glorious time. Although 4 + weeks in, I'm still getting used to not getting up to go to work in the morning. Actually, that's not really it. After the first three days or so, my brain had totally adjusted to not getting up and going in to work in the morning. I went in the Tuesday after school let out to clean out my room, and that was that. I'm pretty sure that I left something big and important under a table, but can't think what it might be, so whatevs. Next year, I'm moving to a new school, a new grade, a new part-time schedule. It's all really good: the I'll be at my "home" school so I'll be close to home, and I'm hoping that there will continue to be a spot for me there so that I'll still be there in three years when Molly starts school. But even though it's exciting, it's also really weird. Especially the not-teaching-kindergarten part. I think I'm in denial right now. After I left, I think my brain shut off, because it's been very hard to remember that I ever WAS a teacher, much less what I might've actually taught anyone.

Weird, how quickly we readjust. Four weeks really isn't that long, yet it seems like forever since school ended. And at the same time, summer feels like it's flying. It's mid-July. So I keep reminding myself, "it's only July..." The upside of having a state government that's controlled by the bozos in the Wisconsin Dells, and who set the start of the school year for Sept. 1, meaning that the school year seems to last FOREVER (and those last few weeks really did seem to go on and on and on) is that we have ALL of August off, which is a psychological bonus right about now.

But the summer was accounted for before it started, and I have tons to do: About a million cleaning projects around the house, more every day as our cats have decided that every place EXCEPT the litter box is an appropriate place to pee. Work for KU. And now that all three kids are home all day, we have to organize excursions or we get a repeat of today: by noon, we were all home, done with errands and Sam's morning enrichment class, watching Demi Lovato on "Sonny with a Chance." I think my brain turned to pudding.

Oh, and I think I'm launching a new website for highschoolers. I'll keep you posted.

So in the meantime, we marked the second anniversary of bringing Molly home, which really deserves its own post, so I won't belabor it here. Emma's already been to DC with her eighth grade class. Sam's already finished his little league season. And Sammy and Em have already rehearsed and performed in their summer drama school production of "Annie!" which was honest-to-god-absolutely-phenomenal-and-I'm-not-just-saying-that-because-I'm-their-mother. I'm thrilled that the kids take after me with their affinity for drama and total lack of interest in team sports.

But that deserves its own post, too. So more later.

Molly and I have been hanging for the last month or so, and that's been really cool. She's exhausting, my little girl, but so smart and sweet, and especially when her brother and sister weren't around and she had me to herself, very fun and very dear. Molly has had no trouble adjusting to summer. Here's Molly, getting ready to head out to drop off Sam and Em and head to Whole Foods on a hazy, humid summer day in Madison:

Like Navin Johnson in The Jerk: "All I need is this lamp, and my thermos, and this pumpkin, and my dog..."

Ready for a summer outing in Wisconsin.

Molly loves the splash park and she rides her trike like Danica Patrick. We've also been watching "Cinderella" on an endless loop, along with many many episodes of "The Muppet Show" on DVD. And I say it again: the 70s were a very strange time.

Sleeping and Other Pipedreams

I've been putting off posting because the weekend before last we went with our lovely friends Will and Jennifer and their gorgeous children, Eli and Max, to an Ethiopian "culture camp" (which sounds somehow like an indoctrination facility and which I can't say or write without quotation marks) in Lake Geneva. I have many adorable pictures, mostly of Eli and Molly pulling around a rope. But I need to make room on my hard drive for the new pics, and since that day doesn't seem to be coming yet, I thought I'd post quickly (ha!) here.

Not much new, really. Sam has been free and easy since his drama camp ended a month ago. He's honing his mathematical and shopping skills simultaneously by obsessively watching "The Price Is Right" and toting up all the prizes he would have won if he'd been a contestant. Although Drew Carey is such a disappointment; his heart's just not in it when he weakly reminds us to "spay and neuter your pets--it's really important." Emma is babysitting like a babysitting fiend. Part of it is for her "mitzvah project" which is her "good works" project that she has to do as part of her Bat Mitzvah preparation. For that, she's volunteering over at Molly's old preschool and she comes home with many stories of the political machinations of three-year-old girls.

Speaking of which, I just checked my class list for the new school year and as of right now, I have 7 boys and ONE GIRL. That will change, for sure (for one thing, they wouldn't let me have a class with only 8 kids, they'll let me go and absorb my class first) and in our school, mobility is so high that the class list I see today may not bear any relationship with the one I find on the first day of school. But still. Last year, I had 9 girls and 5 (then 4) boys and it was a Mean Girls Fiesta. I felt like Tina Fey in a class full of Rachel McAdamses. I won't have that problem with 7 boys, they're just not mean and petty like that. But they do like to run around a lot and hit each other with blocks. Good times.

Molly's pottying proceeds apace, and I couldn't be prouder. She peed yesterday, pooped this morning. If I were home with her on a permanent basis I'd be tempted to just put her in underwear and upholster the house in plastic wrap. But since that's not the case, and since she's not yet 2, I figure we'll let it ride. I'm so proud of her; she's WAY ahead of Em and Sam at the same age.

Molly's latest trick is to take off running any chance she gets. But when she does, she announces it, yelling: "Running! Running!" She's pretty fast and I figure she's got a genetic predisposition to be an Olympic marathon superstar. I like to think of her at the 2028 Olympic Games, chugging down the road in wherever the hell the games will be, far ahead of her competitors, yelling, "Running! Running!"

In less impressive news, my lovely youngest still will not go to sleep in her own bed. It's becoming a real problem. She's 20 months old. Because of her particular history, I have been even more reluctant than I was with Em and Sam to plunk her in her crib and close the door and let her cry it out, "SuperNanny-style." We tried to "Ferberize" Em and Sam this way, with less than stellar results. (I slept on Emma's floor for years.) In Molly's case, since she had so much early loss, it quite literally breaks my heart to let her cry in her room, as I did for a little while tonight until I couldn't take it anymore. Matt's solution to get her to sleep is to take her out in the car or the stroller until she falls asleep. I think it's sort of the ANWAR-drilling approach to baby sleeping: a quick fix but one that doesn't lead to long-term independence. Of course, I have no better options. Tonight she was quite simply exhausted, screeching, rubbing her eyes, whipping herself around, it was painful for me to watch how tired she was. She wouldn't settle on the couch, she wouldn't fall asleep in the mei tai, so I finally took her to her crib and put her in. And left the room. And she wailed pitifully for 2 minutes til I came back in. Thanks, Dr. Ferber. Then I tried one more time, with equally horrifying results. I couldn't take the crying and the "mamas" and "daddys" and finally the "all dones" coming from her room. So we came back downstairs and, finally, she settled on her couch with all her accessories: blanket and blue doggy toy, and finally finally fell asleep. But it was painful. And she still can't sleep alone. Apparently she falls asleep fine at preschool. I also know at preschool (because I've seen it) that even if she's crying pitifully when I leave, she stops within seconds of my being out of sight and is perfectly happy and content. So why is sleeping time so different?

At this rate, I'm not sure what we'll do. She goes into her crib generally when she's already asleep, wakes up halfway through the night, and comes into our bed, where usually she can sleep just fine. I worry that she not feel abandoned. This is actually my deepest fear for Molly, that she not feel abandoned. And so I'm inclined to let her keep up this ultimately unhealthy sleep pattern until she's old enough to sneak out after curfew.

It's 50 degrees outside, but we're thinkin' SUMMER

Taking a temporary break from table dancing

Blogging instead of doing Spanish homework. I gave myself a year and a half to do a semester's worth of Spanish and now I have 12 days left to get in 11 assignments and 2 tests. Can it happen? Probably not. So here I am. Vamanos!

Four more weeks before summer vaca, which is pretty fabulous. Less fabulous is our always-changing daycare situation. When I started teaching last fall, I was really worried about the whole daycare thing, what with Molly being home only 2 months. So we put her in a great preschool 3 days a week and sent her to work with daddy the other 2 days. Which sounded like a great idea (I took Sam and Em to work w/me when they were babies) esp. since Matt works for my mom and grandma's a very tolerant boss. But our sleepy 9 month old turned into a very active 10/11/12 month old and it quickly became an untenable situation for Matt. Never mind that she loved her daddy more than me because she spent all day with him. So after winter break, we regrouped. Very lucky for us, our friend Jennifer, with her own gorgeous little boy from ET, agreed to watch Molly on her non-preschool days. I don't know how Jennifer does it, but it's been fabulous for us, because Molly loves her playmate, their toys are way cooler than ours, and she generally has an awesome time over there.

So now we're looking to next fall, and our preschool only has the same 3 day a week spot (It's university affiliated--doesn't anyone take sabbaticals or transfer schools anymore?) So we're switching her to a new preschool. This makes me nervous because I truly love the place she is. I trust the teachers absolutely, they are well trained, have been there forever, are just all-around wonderful. The 2-year-old teacher has been there since Sam started there (she was his 1 year old teacher and then his 2 year old teacher) and he's STILL her favorite kid. So there. I'm frankly worried about starting all over again, and I have a lot less info on this new place. There are a couple of up sides, however. First, it's cheaper. Second, they have a Spanish program for the kids, which is pretty cool. Maybe Molly can practice with me. Third, they have great food! Not only do they feed the kids lunch and 2 snacks (so no more bringing our own cobbled-together lunches for M: A bag of grapes, some tomatoes, some cheese in a bag...). Not only do they have vegetarian options for lunch every day. But the food looks really GOOD. Like homemade orange scones and fresh fruit compote good. It smells really good in there. It's weird. I've never seen anything like it. Not that I'm complaining.

Most importantly, however, they've got a spot for us. Sort of. I heard from them last week and they said they can sign us up if we can start paying in July. This, of course, is problematic. I'm off til September, and I want to spend the time with Molly. Plus, I can think of a couple of other ways to spend a couple grand than in preschool when M can stay home with me. Hm. But we decided that bird in hand is the way to go, and otherwise, we'd be starting again from scratch. Plus, it's still cheaper than full-time at her current school, even w/the extra summer tuition. So Molly will start on a part time flexible basis in July. The bonus is that this will give her a chance to transition REAALLLLLY SLOWWWLLLLY to the new school, instead of being plunked in there 8 hours a day on Sept. 2. Also, as my mom likes to point out, it will give her a chance to play with kids instead of watching "Jon and Kate Plus 8" on TLC with me all summer. Thanks mom. Now we just have to come up w/$1400 in the next day or so. Huh.

Molly's favorite activity is table dancing (see above). With one sweep, she can clear away everything on our makeshift coffee table, push off our 20 pound cat, and climb on up. Then she stomps around to her inner music. She also enjoys dancing on the pole outside our favorite Indian restaurant. At this rate, maybe she'll be able to pay her own way through preschool.