All that Valentine's Day Flap

One thing you tend to hear a lot about this time of year is what a racket Valentine’s Day. The camps are split and it seems like nearly an equal divide (completely unscientific assessment) on what I am seeing among friends regarding Valentine’s Day.

The “anti” camp in past years has seemed to be made up mostly of those who unfortunately don’t have a significant other at the time and may sport a little bitterness, which sucks and is understandable. This I buy and I understand.

But lately, ok, the last decade or so it is also made up a lot more of people in relationships. One sentiment that seems to be embraced by this “anti” camp is that it is retail driven and they refuse to celebrate their love because the retail industry tells them to. Is this really the point? I have to admit that this week when I have seen this on Facebook - yes all.over.Facebook - that I roll my eyes.

When I hear this I always wonder if those same people celebrate Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the like. Ok, so Christmas and Easter are religious holidays and aren't really comparable. And I do agree that Christmas is really over commercialized and I see a backlash against this and I applaud the more creative gifting (homemade gifts) and charitable donations as gifts.

But what about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? If anything, these holidays are less rooted in tradition as Valentine’s Day, which was actually established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD.

Mother’s Day is actually only about 100 years old in the United States and was created to honor mothers and family relationships. Mother’s Day is, according to the National Restaurant Association, the most popular day of the year to dine out, also the day with the largest volume of phone calls placed and the busiest single day for florists. Obviously people are celebrating Mother’s Day! Assumably these people who boycott Valentine's Day are celebrating family love on other days.

I am not one of those die-hard Valentine’s Day nuts. I don’t plan a date usually since I hate trying to eat out or go out when there are crowds, or the fight to secure a babysitter. This year AB is getting a book and a box of candy (don’t worry, he never reads my blog). The kids got little boxes of chocolates and each a little something – Starbucks travel cups for their coveted hot cocoas, Leif got a Lego set and Skadi got the second Tinkerbell DVD. Honestly I wouldn’t have gone with the toys, but I had the DVD leftover from Christmas that I didn’t give her then as she had a large excess over Leif. So I decided it was time to dole that out and to make it fair, Leif got two new Star Wars Lego kits.

I don’t need much and AB tends to overdo Valentine’s Day with flowers AND top of the line chocolates. But who am I to complain?

On Valentine’s Day we will recognize the love between my husband and I, the love we share for our children and for our parents and grandparents.

Remember Valentine's Day when you were a kid? I loved decorating my shoe box and reading way more into the Valentine's from the boys in my class gave out. It wasn't my favorite party day at school, but it was fun!

My kids received a Valentine’s Day package from grandma and grandpa yesterday and could hardly wait to get into it. Leif got a card and two games (and then he stomped us at Trouble last night). Skadi got a card and a skirt and leggings set that she wore all evening and then to school today with her kitty cat rain boots.

Leif sat down to finish off his Valentine’s last night and I was happy I had bought a box of them for Skadi too. She wanted to send hers out. Her first plan was to send one entire stack to grandma and grandpa. I reminded her we had sent them cards and artwork earlier in the week, but I would be happy to send more Valentines too! Uncle Andy and baby Annika topped Skadi's must send list - but it quickly changed to her classmates as she listed off all but one classmate (yes, I walked into the classroom this morning and said, "darn it"). ;-)

Sunday we will enjoy a homemade turkey pot pie and then I am attempting chocolate melting cakes. All food made with love, like every other single meal (even frozen pizza night).

No, I don’t need a retail industry to tell me to celebrate the great loves of my life either. Neither does my husband, I feel loved on the other 364 days of the year. But as with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, why not celebrate your love and do something fun (and eat some chocolate)?

Best friends 4-year-old style

I asked Leif in the car on the way home who his best friends are.

"N and C," he replies without missing a step.

I knew this. But I have been probing trying to figure out the friendship dynamics going on when he had a bad day the other day and was in tears regarding friends. Seems that he told on his closest friend, B, in class the other day. B got in trouble and told Leif he was not his friend anymore and was never going to play with him ever again. This broke Leif's heart.

Leif is a stickler for rules and making sure everyone follows them. He doesn't understand that this type of thing also won't make him the most popular kid in the class... We have been working on explaining this to him and asking him to be patient with B and give him space and he will probably come around.

Maybe someday.

But not today.

"So who is your best friend in your class?" I asked him.

"Well Zoe is," he says.

I was surprised. "Zoe, really?" I asked.

"Yes, she told me that if I let her cut in line she would be my best friend," he announced.

Immediately I was ticked off at that little chicky. Who does she think she is? And is my boy really going to follow for such female trickery?

I probed Leif for a minute about this. "You didn't let her, did you?" I asked. Leif wouldn't fall for that trick.

"Yes, I let her cut," he said.

"And are you her best friend now? Is she treating you nicely and playing with you on the playground???" I am insisting.

"Well but I am only kinda her best friend now she told me," he says.

I am huffing to myself. That little...

Then Leif goes on, "but that's ok because she is only kinda my best friend too," he assures me.

A day

AB convinced me to take the day off. Take the day off and drop the kids at daycare/preschool.

He did great at convincing me, I cleared my schedule. Then *I* dictated the task list.

Paint. We painted and painted.

AB went and picked up paint this morning after dropping the kids (while I ran on the treadmill - love that thing - and then started taping off the bathroom). After the drop off he went to Home Depot and came home with paint AND a power roller. Figuring that at minimum we have the Master Bath to paint, our hallway to the garage and *maybe* (if you talk to AB) but *certainly* (if you talk to me) the Master Bedroom, and more likely we will be painting the interior of a new home eventually.

We worked our tail off in the bathroom and got a good amount done, probably 2/3's done?

Leif thinks we just started destroying the room for some reason and hopes we might plan to put it back together someday so he can take a "Big Bath".

After we were completely sick of painting we cleaned up and AB kept his promise to take me out to lunch.

Lunch ended up being about 3:30pm and we were a touch crunched for time to get the kids. Tagaris has a freaky limited menu between lunch and dinner and so we ventured to Bookwalter and drank wine and ordered plates after plates of tapa style and antipasto plates.

We were starved.

And we never go out just the two of us anymore. We had to live it up.

And their wines were quite tastey.

It was a good day off, well worth my 8 hour expenditure.

Gluttons for punishment?

One thing I am trying to convey with Leif is that he does not need to play with kids who aren't nice to him.

There are two little boys in his former classroom who he clashes with big time. Big time. I get to hear about all the bad stuff they do to him at recess on the drive home and when I pick him up and he is on the playground, they come running to me to tell me every transgression of Leif's. I am blowing it off right now because I know that his new teachers ARE dealing with it.

What is killing me though is conveying to Leif that he does not have to be friends with these boys.

I fear he has a little of me in him here. A resistance to let go of someone despite being practically pushed out the door.

When I ask him who he wants to invite to his birthday party - and despite the fact that neither boy invited him to their parties - their names are on the top of the list. He is still only turning four and I have ultimate say on the guest list. Therefore they will not be invited. AB balked a little saying if Leif wanted them there, they should be invited. I reminded him that his party should be fun and not full of interactions that are going to hurt his feelings and he quickly saw the light.

Though they clash - I can still hear the admiration in his voice for them. I can see him looking up to them, longing to play with them.

Are we just gluttons for punishment? We know that we are being pushed away but we still reach out, grasping, despite the pain that rejection brings?

AB is much more matter of fact about it all. "Well if someone doesn't want to include us then do we really want to be included?" It was a refrain his parents said to him many times and one we will say to Leif many times. I am trying to tell myself the answer is a no brainer.

And I see it in Leif's eyes too. The pain of wanting to be included with those boys - the pain of wanting to hear "you are my friend" (which is a major deal to a four year old in declaring that level of commitment) from them. And I stand here thinking to myself that he isn't going to hear it and frankly - I don't want him to hear it from them.

Friendships - even for a four year old they are complicated!

Weekend recap

This morning I grabbed my bill for Leif's preschool out of my mail envelope. I glanced at the total a little shocked. They usually don't make mistakes. In fact, I am usually shocked at how precise they get the bills.

Why then was my bill $400 more than I was anticipating?

I sat in the car going over it with a fine toothed comb until I came to the offending charge.

Nevermind I thought.

Skadi, June 16th-30th.

YAY! My daughter is really starting soon! They expect me to pay them!

Not only that but I revelled a little in the 10% sibling discount that each child received.

Last Friday I stopped by the director's office to remind her that we would only be at Skadi's current daycare for another two weeks.

"I know," she sighed, "though I don't think we are going to let this happen. [Her teacher] and I have agreed that we don't think you can take her away from us,"

The director is good at putting on a front. She is a super nice woman, but I am not kidding myself that they aren't counting the days as well. From the number of times I walk into her office complaining about little things, to Skadi screaming at the teachers most days. They aren't going to miss us. I don't expect there to be tears shed over our departure this time around.

Saturday we had the usual morning activities. Swimming and then a trip to Costco. Skadi loves her swimming class, far more than Leif did at this age. I can barely hold on to her when they release the balls all around her and her little body flails to grab balls and she climbs over the other babies to get to the basket to put them in. Her teacher did the ball routine four times as compared to the usual two only because Skadi was such a little riot to watch. She would be pleased to retrieve balls through the whole swim lesson.

We made a trip to Costco afterwards, pre-empting the planned trip to Farmer's Market when our friends told us it was a lot of fun if you want asparagus. We like asparagus... but there is only so much asparagus one family needs. Instead we went and spent way too much money at Costco.

After putting all the food away we decided on a new goal... aside from fresh fruits, veggies and milk, we are not buying anything at the grocery store. Our pantry and freezer have reached frightening stages. That stage where you just aren't even sure what is in there anymore so you just buy new. Yeah, that stage. The goal in the next three weeks is to empty it.

(Just glad I got two bags of my new favorite chips at Costco the other day!)

Saturday afternoon was a lot of playing in the backyard by Leif, a lot of cleaning and organizing the house by me, sleeping by Skadi, and working on stuff by AB. Then AB and Leif installed the new carseat in AB's car. That took a fair amount of time actually. The seat is a one size fits all type of thing that is substantially smaller than his Regent in my car. We bought it for AB's car so he can haul both kids on the rare occasion he does so, but mostly for travel because traveling with the Britax Regent might just be near impossible. We purchased a Graco Nautilus. I had intended to find and buy the seat a few months ago but apparently it is one of the hot new seats that everyone wants (goes from 30-100 lbs), and it was back ordered nearly everywhere.

Of course the installation of this seat prompted some lamenting from my husband that I have been fearing was coming.

"I need a new car, I cannot install these seats properly without LATCH," he said.

And no joke. We both worked on it with our little sidekick barking out commands on the side, "here let me sit in it and see if it works", "let's put a cup in the cup holder and see if it helps!" (You were right Pam, Leif loves the cup holder.)

We keep pushing back the actual purchase of a new car. We know what we want. My car is paid off this month. We can stick to our rule of not buying a new car until the other is paid off. But making that actual step is seeming painful right now.

I fear a minivan (Toyota Sienna) is in my future. I envision a love-hate relationship since I was one of those women who swore I would never own a minivan.

AB is looking over taking the reigns on my 4Runner. But I am not sure I am ready to surrender it. All over the news is talk about people scrambling to get rid of their SUVs thanks to high gas prices. I suppose maybe it's that I don't drive that much (I fill up every other week), or that I am lucky enough that while I don't like gas prices right now I can still afford them, or that I just plain like my 4Runner. More than like... I love my 4Runner.

Ah well... I am sure I will enjoy the amenities of a minivan as well.

Daycare Dramas

Those of you who know me, know that I am not overly prone to complaining about daycare. 99.9% of the time I am lucky to have superb daycare. We have had a few stumbles with Leif this past year in his first year of preschool, but we are on a good path with him. He will start in a new room on June 16th, again as a first year preschooler.

With his late summer birthday we don't expect to be putting him in kindergarten at age five. Of course it is all complicated given that we are in private preschool, he will do kindergarten at the private school and he will work at his own pace. So I guess I should be saying, we won't be putting him into 1st grade when he is 6. While I don't relish the thought of paying another year of tuition... and I still hold out hopes for another baby before I am 40 without having to pay three daycare/preschool tuitions, this is the best thing for him. And insuring his success in the future is the most important among those other things.

Then there is Skadi.

I left dropoff yesterday crying. I haven't cried dropping off a child at daycare since Leif's first day of daycare. I sat in my car and talked to AB on the phone contemplating going back in, retrieving my child, declaring myself on FMLA for the next three weeks and taking her home.

AB talked me down saying he would do some checking around and actually did end up with a few other options. I went to my office and waited the long 30 minutes before picking up the phone and calling her daycare to see if she had calmed down. She had. She said hi to me on the phone and was sitting at the table in Room Chaos eating crackers.

It is only three weeks until she starts at Leif's school. They thought of her having to transition twice to another intermediate temporary care before going to the other school kills me. She doesn't transition well at all. But it is an option. As is my taking 3 weeks off (without pay) to stay home with her.

She has two teachers right now. Quiet and Mean. Quiet is the head teacher who is always changing diapers. I mean when you have 14 toddlers in a room what else does one teacher do most of the time? Mean likes to sit there with her clipboard yelling and complaining.

Mean walked in with us this morning. She immediately hit the roof when she saw one of the children on the little kid size sink.

After she screamed at him she went off talking to me. "I don't know who the hell thought that a sink in this room was appropriate, but it isn't. That is THE stupidest idea ever." (Was not thrilled about her saying "hell" and "stupid" in front of the kids, but that is just something to add to my list.)

I said nothing.

See at the school Skadi will go to they also have a sink. And they have a stool. And they teach the kids in this age group how to use the stool to climb up, wash their hands, get a drink of water, turn the water on and off and to use the sink one at a time. And yes... they can play in it too.

Because it is JUST water.

My mantra is three weeks. Just three more weeks.

What is this object?

At Leif's parent teacher conference last week I was told that he knew his numbers, colors and shapes... all but one.

What is this?



Well if you are my son, you are adamantly insistent that it is an "Eskimo".

His lead teacher quizzed him three times, two other teachers asked him as well (being that it was funny and all). He got tired of their prodding and finally proclaimed, "it's an Eskimo, why don't you know this?"

I tested him at home too. Drew a heart and asked him what it was.

"An Eskimo," he stated matter of factly at dinner.

I suppose we should be correcting him. But part of me would rather just start calling hearts "Eskimos" myself.

Love and marriage preschool style

So the little chicky who proposed to my son and is probably still waiting for his answer via phone call, latched onto me today. Ok, not latched. As a nursing mom, "latch" means something that I am not trying to convey here. I got a HUGE hug from her.

I hugged her back as icily as I could - in typical mother-in-law-in-practice fashion (though my MIL doesn't hug with ice, she is a good hugger). I wanted to whisper in little chicky's ear not to be expecting an answer from Leif anytime soon, he can't read and there is no democracy in our house, it is a dictatorship and I control what he reads. But I didn't. I just thanked her for the hug, but I see through her tactics...

Love and marriage is in the air at preschool though. One of the other moms who I am friends with told me her son was trying to decide which of two girls he was going to marry at recess tomorrow since she had told him he could not marry his sister.

And then the other day on the way home from school Leif blurted out that he was going to marry me. I was flattered, but told him I didn't think Daddy would like that too much since he is already married to me. He proposed a three-way marriage, but I reinforced the one man, one woman thing. (I accept homosexuality and I am pro gay marriage - but my three year old doesn't need to start thinking about that anytime in the near future.)

I told Leif that he was going to need to pick out someone else to marry, and he did. Our friend's daughter and not terribly surprising.

I want to think of Leif as being immune to the advances of girls everywhere - but I know him too well. Everyone gets a hug in our house, and kisses get doled out too and not just for the girls either.

He and one of his male friends always kiss as they depart from a playdate. Not surprising since on New Years Eve at their house I was kissed hello and goodbye by nearly everyone there and very few of them I had met previously. (A little weird... but whatever.) But at their house, Leif gloms onto this practice. Kisses all around!

Then there are the two girls we are closest friends with, it is hard to pull Leif off them... I have a Christmas eve picture I could post of a "Leif sandwich" with the two of them - it is apparent he was enjoying a little slice of heaven there... There are usually threats of dad's needing to become involved - though Leif doesn't pay them much heed. N has proved to be her own woman though as she puts up with his advances for about three seconds and then shoves him off saying, "no kissies Leif". C, on the other hand, eats it up and we have questions of "when do we force them to stop this" with regards to the present as well as future timeline with respect to age.

So while I want to think that my son is an innocent bystander not provoking any of this attention... I fear that he is an active participant in garnering this attention.

A whole new scary phase

Today as I was picking Leif up and cleaning out his box, I happened upon a note in his box.

I am used to notes - usually instructing me to bring extra clothes in or go see the director. But this note was different.

It was in a child's handwriting. And since Leif only makes four various lines and curves to represent his name in some vaguely semi-recognizable fashion, I knew it wasn't his.

Yet it had his name on it.

And a big heart.

I opened it cautiously where I saw it said "mary me (heart heart heart) E----".

Oh and she didn't stop there... she gave him her phone number too.

Somehow I had hoped I would have time to prepare myself for this eventuality that would likely happen in 25 or so years...

However, the little chicky needs to wisen up if she wants my son. Because she has a big barrier between herself and my little boy... ME!

Shepherd... bumble bee... same diff

At Leif's school they were reenacting the nativity. I only know this as it popped out at me on his monthly newsletter. Since we are hoping to instill a little bit more about Christmas into this holiday than just Santa, I was anxious for this to happen and talk about it with Leif.

Finally the nativity day came.

NM: "Leif what were you in the nativity today?"

Leif: "A bumble bee."

NM: "Are you sure? I didn't know there was a bumble bee in the nativity."

Leif: "Yes, and the baby layed in the grass and the bumble bee buzzed around. BUZZZZZ"

NM: (Thinking...) "Were you the baby Jesus?"

Leif: "No mommy, the baby layed in the grass and I was a bumble bee. BUZZZZZ..."

Ok, fine. So he was a bumble bee in the nativity. Maybe they had so many kids they made up parts.

The next day I went in and asked the teacher how the nativity went.

Teacher: "Great, Leif was a shepherd."

(And apparently one of the little boys in the class was adament he was going to be Mary, which miffed a few of the girls.)

Leif and other miscellaneous

NM: "AB, who is going to write the Christmas letter this year?"

Leif: "I am mommy!"

All of you will have to just wait for it to arrive in your mailboxes. (And I will post it here later.)

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Singing Leif's current favorite song before bed...

NM: "Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree."

Leif: "Mommy can we say, 'four calling Leif birds' for the rest of the song."

NM: "Umm ok. On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, five gold rings, four calling Leif birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree."

Leif: (Eruption of giggles.) "Four calling Leif birds!!"

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Yesterday I arrived to pick up Leif at school and his main teacher, also the director followed me into class.

Teacher: "I wanted to talk to you about Leif."

NM: (Here we go again, what has he done now. Nothing has been good lately when these words come out of her mouth.) "Ok, what's going on."

Teacher: "Well today he was really interested in the walking sticks,"

NM: (Oh goodness, what did he accidentally do to the walking sticks - because I KNOW Leif would never do anything intentional to them, he loves animals and bugs.)

Teacher: "one of the other older girls was holding one for just a second,"

NM: (Oh no, what did he do to the little girl???)

Teacher: "he wanted to hold one SO badly. He begged and begged and so finally I relented because he is always so fascinated by them. I figured 'well, we will probably end up with two dead walking sticks, oh well', it will be a lesson on the fragile nature of life."

NM: (Does he need to know the fragile nature of life? I didn't say this, instead) "Yes, he loves bugs, insects and all animals so much."

Teacher: "Yes he does. And for over an hour, he walked around holding two walking sticks, taking care of them, talking to them, touching them,"

NM: (Ok, what did one of the OTHER kids do... smash one in his hand?)

Teacher: "He walked around for over an hour and then came back to me and very politely said, 'Ms K, I am ready to put them back now'. And do you know that after all that time they were still alive and he was more gentle than the boys TWICE his age are and for such a LONG time! He just really amazed me with the love in his eyes for the creatures."

NM: (Forcing back the tears!)

I just had to include this because everything lately has been about turkey behavior at daycare. Things that have prompted AB and I to start discussing if we can swing me working 75% time and thereby have a little more time at home with him.

She made my day.

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Kitty plans have been postponed. Just a week. The coworker "miscalculated" how old the kitty's are by a week and they are just 7 weeks and not 8 weeks. So she called (last night at about 9pm, after we had gone to Petsmart and talked with Leif about it finally being "only one sleep till kitties") and told us it would be another week.

I explained to Leif this morning that the kitty's mommy wants to keep it and feed it some more, but we will get one in another week. So far, he has taken it well. Not sure he really understands... but no meltdowns yet.

The girl did call Hans today and apologize and say she realized how hard that could be on a three year old and so if we wanted to pick the kitty up tonight, she does have "kitty formula" that we can administer the kittens.

Yeah no. I don't think so, but thanks. I have one small being to feed every few hours and I don't need two.

And anyways, breast is best.

We will deal and wait for a week.

Maybe just a little obsessive

I had a rare glimpse into my son's daily grind the other day. I arrived 5 minutes early to chaperone the pumpkin patch field trip. The bus was then 20 minutes late. So I stood off to the side to observe the kids (really though, mostly my son).

My son's "work" he was doing was a tracing activity. He had various templates and colored pencils and squares of paper and was tracing them. It took him awhile to do one, but he was excited by this.

Very excited apparently.

Has got to be excited everyday about this.

Because his little folder where he puts his tracings after he finishes with them was THICK. The other kids had 4-5 in their work folder. Leif's was bulging. 30-40 in his case.

And note to self... really do encourage the picking up at home. When finished he put every single thing away. He CAN do this.

Oh and next the amazing thing... getting 19 children to all go potty, wash hands and get coats on in the 10 minutes before the bus came. I just stood and watched in amazement.