Happy Summer

We are starting to enjoy the lovely summer weather. We had a very busy 4th of July weekend -- a visit with the grandparents, a visit to the vacation home of friends outside of Cle Elum, then a trip to Bainbridge Island to see the parade and take part in the festivities there.

As usual, I didn't bring my camera to any of these events. Luckily I have a phone that can occasionally take mediocre pictures. We went to Bainbridge with our neighbors who are Jack's favorite people in the world. They both got their faces painted but Jack declined.

Jack riding a pony. He really wanted to do this so I paid 6$!! to participate in what seems like a very sad activity that for some reason children love. When it was Jack's turn, he insisted he did not want to go but I told him it was too late because I had already paid. He went, reluctantly.

He loved the park and played with kids of all ages. Here they are on the tire swing.

In June, we took an all-school trip to Carkeek park to celebrate the end of the year. Jack loved the trains that ran right next to the park.

Our lovely, but sadly, temporary, nanny Sarah took Jack and Sonia to the zoo to see the dinosaurs during the weeks when June turned to February.

All is going much, much better since I withdrew from school. I feel great. I am happy to be with the kids, and feel very clear that it's what I want to do right now. School will have to wait.

Setback

At the beginning of March, I started PA school. I knew it would be challenging but I thought I was prepared. Two weeks into school, I started having trouble sleeping.. something that's never happened to me before. Then two weeks later, I went to bed one night and didn't sleep at all. I had no idea what was going on. Then I didn't sleep the following night. For the next 6 weeks I slept only 3-4 hours a night at best and basically, I slowly went crazy from sleep deprivation. I had to withdraw from school as I could not keep up with the workload. Finally, I found a great doctor and got the help I needed.

Those 6 weeks were easily the worst of my life. I never expected such a thing to happen to me. Everyone around me was shocked.. especially me.

In retrospect, I suppose that attempting to go to a graduate program that requires 70-80 hours a week of work while having 2 small kids was possibly unwise. As one nurse put it 'now you know you have limits.' The funny things about it is that I honestly didn't know that. I thought I could do anything. Don't people go to medical school with small kids? There was only one woman in the PA program with kids my age -- and she was already a doctor (from India) whose mother lived with her and her husband.

Now I am re-evaluating everything. Everything. I'd like to find a career in the health care field. I want to work. But I have to find a program that fits into my life. I have to be able to breathe while in school. I have to have some flexibility to care for my kids and spend time with Ryan. I have to be able to care for myself as well.. something I have definitely not been doing much of these last 4.5 years.

So, for the next year, I'll be home figuring out my next step.. taking care of the kids.. finishing the house remodel... and recovering from a really awful experience with insomnia. Now that I have my health again I realize it is the only thing that matters. Truly.

Pre-PA school. Lily visited us:

During PA school. Kids not happy

During PA school. I took the kids to my moms. They had a blast.

Post-withdrawal from school. I finally started sleeping and we are all happier. I lost 10 pounds during the 6 weeks I didn't sleep but I have gained it all back and more! I have never been so happy about weight gain.

Your successful preschooler

There is a book titled 'Your Successful Preschooler.' Here is the link: http://lp.wileypub.com/YourSuccessfullPrescooler/

It promises instruction on how to mold your child to be .. successful.

I think publicists all over the world noticed the success of Amy Chua's memoir and will be certain to follow the example of her brilliant publicist. Making people feel insecure will help sell any product. Anyone who has seen any advertisement knows this. The make-up industry is amazing at the 'you are not good enough message' just to name one. I still find this idea exhausting when it is aimed at me. I fall for it every time. I read the tiger mom book. It's not really as advertised. It's light and funny. The author was humbled by her parenting mistakes and I feel that she is lucky she had girls. Part of her epiphany about her parenting style came from her parents who felt her parenting style was not working with her younger daughter. They reminded Chua that her father hated his parents for treating him that way. She writes he was relieved when they died.

Where are the books titled "How to make sure your children aren't relieved when you die?" or "How to get your kids to want to spend time with you when they are adults"? I am in this for the relationship. But I struggle mightily (obviously) with these parental pressures. I hate the word "playdate" but I organize them. I think it's ridiculous that people think there is a relationship between Jack being able to identify the alphabet or correctly use scissors and his intelligence WHEN HE IS 4. Yet, I taught him how to identify the alphabet and how to use scissors just so people will leave me alone about that. I am not good at being counter-cultural. ANd I don't want Jack to suffer.

This is a self-portrait Jack took when he figured out how to launch the photo-booth feature on my computer:

Birthday Parties

Now that we are at the fun preschool, we go to birthday parties all the time. There seems to be an unwritten rule that all kids in the class are invited. I think that's nice but also exhausting for everyone. Jack loves these parties.. the toys, the cake, the games, the gifts. He now has the idea that when it's someone else's birthday, he also gets a gift. The parents of these kids are so organized they give gift bags away at the end of the party. One mom had made sandwiches for the kids to eat on the way home. THese are A list stay-at-home moms. I am on the C list for sure. I am trying to be a better SAHM. I volunteered to make sugar cookies for the valentine's day party. Of course, I have never made sugar cookies before. 10pm the night before half of the cookies broke because they were stuck to the cookie sheet. I had to wake up at 6 am the next day to make another batch. I learned how to make the cookies though.


End of a party:



The dinosaur cake:



Early morning sugar cookies:

The other day Jack asked me 'How do they steer the space shuttle? Does it have a steering wheel?' We learned the shuttle does not have a steering wheel .. as steering in space is impossible. We learn a lot from the random questions Jack asks about airplanes, space shuttles, and lately, domes. As in the dome on top of the cathedral in Florence and the Holy Names Academy. After the space-shuttle-steering question, Ryan was annoyed. He said, 'see? Jack isn't dumb.' This is a reference to the student teacher conference we had in November. That conversation still comes up and even though Ryan wasn't as affected by it as I was, it still bugs him. On good days I have sympathy for the woman who had the conversation with us. She believed Jack was suffering developmental delays and felt we needed to be made aware of that fact. I wonder why she thought we would not notice something so dramatic. Her follow up email to us seemed to indicate she thought he was autistic. Only time will tell who Jack will become but I am embittered by the fact that in our age of specialization the definition of a normal child has become more narrow. I imagine in the old days children with undiagnosed disabilities suffered for lack of help and special education. But now, it seems every other kid has a diagnosis. The new normal I suppose.

Jack, like many adults, is fascinated by all things technological (our phones and camera especially). He started taking his own pictures. I didn't realize until I uploaded them that he had taken 210 photos in one session. Yay for digital. From Jack:









Lately, we are just hanging out.. taking it easy. After many, many years of preparation 2 events are starting in the next two weeks: our house remodel and my graduate school. Grad school makes the house remodel look like a hawaiian vacation. It will certainly be a difficult 2.5 years.. but I think we'll be ok. I am getting as organized as I can. We'll just do our best. Some hanging out pictures:



J imitating dad:







Making cookies with heather:

The Instigator and the Aggravated

Since Sonia has been mobile, Jack seems to see her as a nuisance. It used to be that if she had a toy, he would take it from her and there wasn't much she could do about it. She didn't seem to care. Now if Jack is playing with something, Sonia will take it. Always. Then she runs away. Jack tries to fight with her for the thing but she hangs on. If he is successful, she is relentless, she will try to take it again. Usually in the struggle Jack hits her. He doesn't usually hit her hard and in the past, she didn't seem to notice. Now if he does anything she finds aggressive, she screams very loudly. I would say that Sonia seems to have a strong personality .. but one could make the argument that all of this behavior is just learned. Maybe Jack would have been exactly the same with an older sibling?

Needless to say, they don't get along right now. I am hopeful that one day they'll get along. I don't intervene that much in their conflicts. I know that soon Sonia is going to start hitting back and then I'll have bigger problems to solve.

Speaking of problems solved, Jack really digs his new school. I like it too. He seems to fit right in. The teachers are nice and the classroom is very laid-back. No strange montessori rules. They also do fun things like build Christmas trees out of green frosting and ice cream cones and decorate them with gum drops. They also mention the words Christmas, Hanukah and even Halloween and Valentine's day (all taboo in our montessori school). No one has strange food allergies so I can pack anything I want to for Jack's lunch. All very exciting. Every allergy was represented at the other place. Seems to be working out well. I feel fortunate that I was able to change schools mid-year.

Lastly, Sonia has developed a new love for reading. We always read to Jack but Sonia hasn't seemed that interested. Now (maybe because she is fighting to be the focus of attention) she picks out a book, brings it to one of us, and (if we are seated) she will hand us the book then turn around and back up into our lap. It's really cute. If she tries to hand you a book and you tell her you can't read it, she gets VERY upset. She screams and sometimes she bangs her head on the floor in case you weren't sure which emotion she was feeling.

I try not to compare them but it's hard not to notice how different they are. Jack was mellow. Sonia is not.

Example of Sonia wanting to be where Jack is .. after we took this picture, she sat on the book Ryan was reading.




Jack enjoying a hot chocolate at the coffee shop with mom

Family photos

We had professional pictures taken this year. We had them done two years ago, and I imagine this will be our last opportunity for at least another two years. We used a white backdrop and I've learned I really prefer a natural setting. Must remember that next time...

Here comes Santa Claus

This is the first year that Jack gets the Christmas idea. I haven't introduced the religious part (sorry mom) but I have started to explain the Santa idea. Understandably, Jack finds it a little suspicious. He comes into our house? He lives at the North Pole but he is also at the U Village? Other people have to fly to the North Pole but he takes a sleigh? Why do we leave him cookies? He is not questioning the leaving presents part. I don't remember questioning any of it. I just thought 'cool. presents.'

We visited the Fairmont last week where they had lots of Christmas trees and a suite decorated with teddy bears, presents and candy canes, and this week, we attended the Reindeer Festival at the Cougar mountain zoo.






Jack wasn't really into the reindeer noting that they smelled bad. He did like the sleigh.

You made me play second base!*

This whole thing with Jack's preschool has been enormously stressful. I have thought of almost nothing else. I wonder why I chose a montessori program when now it seems so obvious that it wasn't going to work for him.. or me. I am looking at another school but wonder if it's wise to change schools in the middle of the year. I think a lot about kindergarten (yes, it's two years away). I think I probably need to send Jack to private school (20K a year) because our public school has 27 kids in the kindergarten. Will that be too much? Will he learn anything? Will he just drift though our sad public school system.. unmotivated.. uninspired... lost. Or go to private school with the ultra-privileged only to become an insufferable, ungrateful ass who votes republican and doesn't take care of his impoverished parents?

In parenting, do small decisions matter? or big ones? do all the decisions matter? none? some? I don't know. I'll never know. I am writing this post to remind my future self that I thought a great deal about every decision I have made for Jack. However it turns out, I am doing the best I can... it's just that when it's your first kid your best feels like a stab in the dark.



Also, it snowed.




*only my brother and sister will get the title joke. it's from the movie parenthood -- steve martin's character makes his son play second base -- he then has two fantasies about how the decision will affect his son's future-- his son either graduates from harvard or goes on a shooting spree and while shooting yells to his dad "you made me play second base!"

From the fall

It seems like winter now so I thought I should post some pictures of the fall. We went to a lovely pumpkin patch / fall carnival. Jack loved it. When I am out at these events, I just enjoy them and now when I want to post pictures from them I think, why don't I make more of an effort to take pictures?! I don't think this will change.

So here is Jack in the cow car which he loved. We went with our friends and neighbors who are pictured behind us. Their dad is a privacy lawyer at msft and probably wouldn't want me to put their names anywhere on the blog...




My neighbor Kate (mom of above mentioned children -- not a privacy lawyer so I can use her name) and I took our kids (5 of them) to Vancouver Canada for 2 days and 1 night. It was insane. Not a moment of peace. However, it was a fun adventure we will never forget. It was a beautiful sunny day. We drove to Stanley park and hung out there almost all day. We went to the aquarium and the playground. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant that caters to kids called the white spot. We did priceline for a cheap hotel then onto Granville Island in the morning. Chaotic but lovely.

outside the aquarium (amazing place btw)


Sonia at stanley park


Jack mesmerized by the gears


Granville island - we took a ride on a little commuter ferry



For halloween Jack was the space needle (per his request of course) and sonia was a lion. we were in Arizona that weekend and had to fly during the prime trick or treating hours sadly.







Lastly, here is a picture of jack with a couple of his friends at his birthday party. We had a very simple neighborhood gallery. We had a "fishing pond" where kids could fish for prizes. I made the fishing poles out of curtain rods, yarn and clothes pins. very lowtech

Happy Birthday Jack!

Jack is 4 today. I woke up at 430 this morning (I went to bed at 830). Sonia was coughing and I couldn't go back to sleep. I started thinking about what I was doing at 430 in the morning 4 years ago -- trying to push Jack out into the world. So Jack has been in the world for 4 years and 9 minutes as of right now.

I've had such an educational 10 days. A week and a half ago, we had a parent teacher conference (my first but I really wish it had been my last). It was awful. The teacher at Jack's montessori school seems to think he is delayed, atypical, slow and possibly, deaf. I was VERY upset when I walked out. I consulted with Jack's doctor (per the teacher's insistence since he clearly needed to be evaluated) and then with a friend who has a doctorate in educational psychology and three young sons. It turns out the teacher is FOS. I am really angry that I went through two days panicking about Jack's dim future. However, I was reminded that no one knows Jack better than I do at this point. And no one can advocate for him as well as I can. Also, there is certainly a lot of pressure to have a "normal" child. How many normal adults do you know? We all have different talents and weaknesses. News flash: kids are like this as well.

I am trying to find a different school for Jack although he doesn't seem unhappy there. He seems to roll with things... much better than I do.

Ryan was also with me during our parent teacher conference. Ryan was completely unfazed and uninterested in what the teacher had to say. When we left he said, 'there is nothing wrong with jack. he's great!' Ryan is much better at ignoring authority figures ( jack seems to have picked up this talent).

Parenting is such a profound experience -- and experience is always the best teacher. I think if I had to summarize the lesson I've learned this week it would be one that a yoga teacher of mine repeats frequently -- she says 'we are perfect and whole as we are.. there is nothing wrong with us'

viva mexico

Jack took his second international trip last week. We went to Mexico for my brother's wedding in Rocky Point -- about 60 miles south of the AZ border. There are no airports in rocky point so one must drive across the border. I was reluctant to do this with a child due to the large war going on between mexican drug cartels and all people in mexico. I knew Jack would love the beach, the pools and the adventure so the two of us went. Jack was so excited to get on an airplane. When I woke him up at 530am to go, he wouldn't get up until I said, it's time to go to the airplane. He shot up like a cannon. He was a great traveler. We had to fly then drive for 4 hours to rocky point. He patiently sat through the parties (at least for a while). He was so happy to be outside in the water.

We have gotten into our fall routine. Jack started going to preschool three days a week. It's a longer day for him. He seemed to adjust to the new schedule without any problem. I have noticed changes in his personality. He goes to a montessori school which encourages independence. He is more interested in doing things for himself. He has also become increasingly uninterested in following instructions I give him. For example, whenever we need to either leave the house (or any location) he refuses. Unfortunately, these stand-offs end with me carrying him to or away from whereever we are while he screams. When I carry him, he says, "I wasn't listening?" So he seems to get it and doesn't like the consequence but doesn't want to change his behavior. I am not sure what to do. Friends bribe their children with food or others threaten punishment or time-outs. None of these things modify J's behavior in any way. Hmm.

While the days Jack doesn't have school are harder, I enjoy them more. When it's just me and Sonia, we play a little, she naps, and I usually run errands or do housework. Jack makes everything more exciting.. for better and worse.


We went to a farm a few weeks ago for the rides and pumpkins. Here we try to get J to pose for a picture. Per usual, he refuses. I am laughing here but I do that less these days..



Sonia is moving to one nap a day so we can hit the parks more often. However, she still eats the bark which makes the experience much less fun.



One lovely fall day we went on a canoe ride with our neighbor.