Possibly The Least Sentimental Post About Preschool You Will Ever Read

Posted on 10/6/2009 by cheesefairy

When I was a youngster, my mother became a preschool teacher. She was The Preschool Teacher in the neighbourhood for 18 or so years. All the kids knew her and their parents would corner her in the supermarket and ask her questions. Everyone came to our house at Halloween to show her their costumes. I got lots of babysitting jobs because being “good with kids” must run in the family.

Yes and no. I was a fine babysitter. But I was adamantly opposed to becoming a preschool teacher someday just like my mom. Partly because she was truly called to do that work. But mostly because people kept suggesting it and I have an allergic reaction to suggestions.

While I did not want to become a preschool teacher someday, I did learn a lot about preschools and how they run and who makes them run. I learned how to make playdough. I learned how to mix powdered paint. I helped cut out crafts on the weekend. I went in and helped in the school on my own school’s professional days; I learned the kids’ names too and how to play with them and how to not scare them.

I learned how important preschool is. How much kids can learn through play. How an environment that fosters cooperation and individuality and creativity can help a shy child blossom, help a boisterous child settle.

(What I have since learned is that preschool is a luxury, something that costs money and time and is not available to everyone. I have also learned that there are parents who think of preschool as a status symbol, as evidence of their ability to provide, like long fingernails mean you’re white collar. I do not think of preschool that way.)

I grew up in the preschool. It was a second home for me so when I went looking for a school for Trombone, I chose one that is not terribly close to our physical home but which is identical in feeling to the school where my mom taught. I walked in Trombone’s school for the first time, saw the poster on the wall that said, “But all those children do is play!” with its explanations of learning through play listed below and knew it was the right school for him.

Luckily he liked it too.

But with all my preschool knowledge, the one thing I never knew, of course, was how it feels on the other side. How it feels to be a parent, a parent of a three year old and a 17 month old, a parent who is more familiar with what the kids do AT school than she is with what the parents are supposed to be doing the rest of the time.

This morning, I spent 90 minutes subliminally advertising school to Trombone so he would calm down enough to get his pants on. There was a backlash last week, when he decided he didn’t like school and he wasn’t going anymore. This morning, he was screaming at me, screaming at Fresco, turning red from all the crying.

In the end, offering a coveted cereal bar for snacktime and the suggestion that his teacher might like to hear him sing “Barbara-Ann” got us there just in time. He didn’t even hug me goodbye, just walked right in. I witnessed several other kids walking in the same way and talking with the parents outside, discovered that many of them had spent the morning just as I had.

I feel like an idiot but I did not expect this. In my head it was going to go:

– a couple of days of being unsure
– see you later, mom; don’t the door hit you on the way out
– graduation.

He has not had an afternoon nap since school started. (His afternoon nap had been 2 hrs a day and yes I know I was very lucky but it was just YANKED away from me and now we do 1.5 hrs of “quiet time” which consists of me going up there to tell him to close his door approximately every 20 minutes and that is not relaxing for me, not at all.) Fresco has not had a morning nap since school started. The sibling rivalry that had died down to a dull-ish roar has come back, now that school has started. I have had a lingering cold/flu/who knows what since school started.

That last one is unrelated, I think, since the kids haven’t been sick, but it does shade my perspective here. I just feel like crap, mostly at night, but not enough to really complain.

In sum: Transitions are hard! I don’t have to make very many so it is surprising to me how hard. Especially if it is a transition for everyone in the house. Fresco is the clear winner here, since he still gets as many crackers as he can handle, plus the Totally Awesome < / sarcasm > one-on-one time with me.

Well Saint Aardvark is doing all right too. He’s blogging up a storm, anyway.

It was just always so much easier from (my child’s eye version of) my mom’s point of view. Kids came in, she learned their names, some of them cried and others peed their pants. And then, look, 15 boxes of Christmas chocolate! I think that’s it. I suspect no one is going to give me any chocolate.

I am hopeful the worst is over, that the short term pain is making way for that elusive long term gain. Already, the kids are (suspiciously) making friends with each other and the teachers were awestruck by Trombone’s rendition of Barbara-Ann, which is gratifying for him, as it is his favourite song to perform. Today was the first full two-hour class so Fresco and I went to the park and ate crackers and were quiet (! I KNOW!) together.

Like that, a month has passed. Slowly we stumble toward the new normal.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Typing Till The Children Wake Up

Posted on 9/27/2009 by cheesefairy

Sweet Tea Reminds Me of Airplane Travel

Our new coffee grinder stopped grinding on Friday, so this morning I am drinking hot tea with just a bit of brown sugar and just a bit of milk. I am fickle with my tea in a way I am not with coffee. Coffee I drink with milk. Just enough to make it look lighter, not drowning in milk, but without that sharp coffee edge. When I was first dating Saint Aardvark, I drank my coffee black because he did and there was never anything milk-like in his fridge. But all that stopped when we moved in together and I started helping buy groceries.

Coffee has rules. Arwen posted about this the other week. Things I had not considered but which made sense. Tea can be re-heated at any time during the day, she said. Coffee has to be consumed upon brewing or it is,
well,
bad.

In a word.

Tea I drink: sometimes with milk. Sometimes with milk and sugar. Sometimes with lemon. Sometimes with lemon and honey. Sometimes with nothing at all.

Herbal tea: nothing at all. Favourite herbal tea: peppermint.

Green tea: nothing at all. Favourite green tea: jasmine. So fragrant and makes me feel like I am drinking the air of a Chinatown kitchen shop, those ones with the baskets hanging from the ceiling and the rows upon rows of chopsticks and the small, nodding, waving cats that bring luck.

Speaking of Acidity in Your Gut…

I went to my doctor the other day, the doctor I don’t like, because she had the results from my abdominal ultrasound, the one the walk in clinic doctor ordered after my several days of nausea 6 weeks ago. Which days of nausea have not returned, by the way. The visit took 4 minutes. There is nothing wrong with me.

Except: my liver is larger than normal but according to her, the doctor I don’t like, it’s a normal variance.

But now I am curious about all of my internal organs. I already knew I had a huge bladder, because of it stopping my contractions when I was in labour with Trombone. And also because I can go a long time without peeing. When she told me I had a big liver, my first thought was oh no, I drink too much! but my second thought was are ALL my internal organs supersized? Am I actually HULK? Am I going to explode?

My third thought was, wouldn’t it be sarc-awesome-astic if my doctor sees it as a natural variance but really it’s Something Awful that Dr. House Would Diagnose on the Spot.

I swear I am not a hypochondriac. I don’t even watch House anymore because it is the same show every time.

However I do have a new family doctor to go see so I won’t be visiting Ms. “It was probably stomach flu” again anyway.

The Children

Fresco just turned 17 months old and now has five teeth.

Trombone started preschool this month and has turned in to that first year university student who knows everything and thinks you, the parent, are an idiot for reading the newspaper / holding on to an irrational love of ’70s music / believing you have a scrap of knowledge in your head that he, the university, sorry, University, Student hasn’t already learned in his first week of classes.

In a word,
headdesk.

And he is starting to scare me with his guitar obsession. For example: we were at the library yesterday. We chose some books to carry to the corner to read. I carried mine and he held his against his chest and strummed his as he walked. And sang, “Badum dum dum waiiiiiiiiiii nai nai nai daddddummmmmweeeeeeeeeooooooO!” That’s my guitar solo, he said.

These are things that become wonderful anecdotes but in the moment, make me a little nuts.

Wow, They Are All Still Sleeping So I Get More Time

I started running two weeks ago. I went out on a Tuesday evening after putting Fresco to bed. It was fantastic. Early fall evenings are perfect for running. I put on my running shoes and my ugly orange running watch and my music player and it was sweet. I started slow – running 1 minute and walking 4 minutes until I got to 30 minutes. I went again two nights later. But it was getting pretty dark when I was coming home and I’m just not comfortable in this neighbourhood in the dark, alone. Part of the neighbourhood is very busy roads. Part of it is old, residential streets that don’t all have streetlights.

Problem is I’m building to something, to the 30 minutes of straight running. I don’t want to push too hard, I already have a sore ankle and a clicking knee from yesterday morning. So I need to spend three sessions a week. Mornings are impossible and as dark as the evenings. I may just run once a week, on the weekend, and go to the fitness centre to run on the False Sidewalk (treadmill) with the other zombies. At least you can watch people swim, because the treadmills overlook the pool. It would be kind of like running along the beach.

Also, I am Growing My Hair

And it’s a good thing I have a hundred head scarves from my last head scarf obsessive phase, oh, 10 years ago.

Date Related News

There are two exciting events on today in Vancouver; Portobello West where the very talented Hudsonny will be selling her work and the Word on the Street festival, which is chock full of my favourite things like books and writers and words. I will not be attending either event because I am going to visit with family who is in town for one day only. But I wish I was going to the other events too, in that way you wish there could be five of you so each could go, do stuff, buy stuff, come back, discuss it.

Also, I believe this weekend marks 19 years since Sarah, Monkeypants and I met at UBC’s Arts One Camp and formed the Naturally Curly Hair Club. And also rolled down hills and mourned the passing of Dr. Seuss and shared a pair of shorts for the first of many times to come. (NB: I think that was just Sarah and me, MP. I don’t believe I have ever shared shorts with you.)

That just sounds like a euphemism waiting to happen, doesn’t it. “Sharing shorts.”

Happy Sunday, all.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Women = People. Cougars = Animals.

Posted on 9/22/2009 by cheesefairy

I had blocked out of my head the fact that there is a TV comedy called “Cougar Town” premiering tonight. I am sure it will be hi-fucking-larious. Then this afternoon it was brought to my attention that Jian Gomeshi was talking today on his radio show about the term “cougar.” I didn’t listen to the show because I was busy walking 8 kms in the blazing Fall sunshine to get to and from preschool.

I like cougars, the big cat kind. I think they are very powerful looking and often their velvety smooth noses invite me to pat them. Luckily I have never encountered a real cougar or I would be one handed, if alive.

I dislike the term “cougar” when used to describe a woman over 40 who dates a man who is significantly younger than her.

Part of me, as in all things, says live and let live. If I don’t care for the term cougar then all I have to do is not use it. And kneecap anyone who uses it in my presence…oh wait, no.

The other part of me, as in all things, spends time wondering why I am bothered by it. Why, if I am 35, married to someone who is 37, it matters what a bunch of women Not Of My Circle Anyway are called/calling themselves.

Because:

It is a defense disguised as empowerment. It is a solution to a problem that does not exist.

Women who define themselves as cougars say they are empowered by the term. They are making decisions for themselves, they are choosing which hot man to take home, they are not limited by their own age group, they have the confidence in themselves to pick the most attractive guy to them and proposition him.

All of which is great. Knock yourself out.

But if it’s so empowering to be a woman over 40 who knows what she wants, why are you making an excuse for yourself? Why not just say, I am a 42 year old woman and I like that dude in the mesh shirt and I’m gonna go grab him and ask if he wants to have the sex with me. Why do you have to form an informal “club” and label who you are and have a website where you can be the real you?

It might not be an excuse. It sounds like one. It sounds like this to me, “I’m over 40 BUT I still got it.”

Like MILF (“I’m a mom but I’m still hot enough to fuck”, yes, that’s what the F stands for) and Yummy Mummy (“I’m a mom but I’m still tasty delicious, nowhere near my sell-by date,”) Cougar is a defense against those critics who would look at your relationship or your appearance and declare it inappropriate. (Isn’t that just so kind of them?)

But here’s the thing: unless you are committing a criminal offense in your personal relationships, NO ONE gets to tell you who you can or cannot date. NO ONE gets to say You’re too old to date that person / you’re too flabby to go out without lipstick / you’re too procreative to wear those pants / you’re too ANYTHING to do ANYTHING.

Seriously. It is nobody’s business but yours. And maybe your mother’s if she’s around but actually no. Just yours.

So a defense is created against an offense that should not exist in the first place. A solution to a problem that just got invented, just like my terrible tongue bacteria (tongue scrubber,) my shameful period (crinkle-free pad wrappers,) my wrinkled eye skin (pick a skin care regime, any skin care regime. How about the fact that it’s called a skin care regime?)

Where it concerns older women dating younger men, there is no problem. No problem? We don’t need a solution.

You don’t have to be An Older Woman. You don’t have to be A Younger Man. You don’t have to be defined against an artificial, societally constructed baseline. You just be. You just are.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Longest Lead Up To Cute Kid Video Ever Tires Mother, Causes Wine Drinking Instead of Editing

Posted on 9/16/2009 by cheesefairy

“Tell me more things I said when I was a baby,” he says. We are walking home from the park, just before lunchtime.

“Hm,” I say. “Well, you said “coke” instead of “milk” for the longest time…”

He bursts into peals of laughter. Holds his sides, snorts. His eyes water.

“Tell me MORE things,” he says, when he is done laughing, wiping the tears from his face.

“Well,” I say, trying desperately to remember, wishing I had this blog in front of me to search. “Um.”

“Tell me MORE things, mummy,” he says again.

“Guck!” I remember, at last, “You said GUCK. Guck guck guck. You know how Fresco says “dat”? You said “guck.”

More uproar. More tears. Fresco laughs along with us, his over-pronounced “ha ha ha” an odd complement.

In the afternoon we watched a bunch of videos from Trombone’s early years. My favourite, the one from just before Christmas when he was almost 18 months old, transfixes him. Here is this blond toddler, the same age as his younger brother is now, trotting around the room, pointing at things, naming them. “Ba!” says the young Trombone about the bread his father is making. “Ca-coo!” he says about the cookies in the oven. “Mama!” he says as he tackles me, as I hold the camera just out of reach, grab him with my free arm.

We have watched these videos before and Trombone’s gradual acceptance that this baby, this crawling, babbling, toddling, walking, singing baby is him, has been interesting to watch. I can’t imagine how odd it must be to have only the slightest grasp on past, present and future and to have a younger brother who is a baby and then to see all these films of a baby who looks like your brother but whom your mother insists is you; dancing, singing off key, saying “Gagoo!” for baby, shuffling around in your slippers with a round, baby face and wispy, baby hair.

I looked at Trombone looking at himself on the screen. Trombone, whose hair is overgrown right now but is still nothing like his baby hair. Whose face has angles, whose eyes have expression and depth and knowledge behind them. Who never stops talking, asking me why, pretending, running, jumping, rationalizing, arguing. At every stage of his development he has been a genius to me but whenever I sit next him he is the most genius he has ever been. I can already see myself in 20 years watching these videos, as unable as he was today to connect the baby-him with the real-him.

As of now, Fresco has fewer words than Trombone had at this age. He has been far more concerned with honing his comedic stylings, his barbaric YAWP and his hoofed-animal-like climbing ability. That is where the conversation about first words with Trombone came from; me saying to Fresco for the hundredth time, “What are you saying to me?” and Trombone explaining, “Mummy he doesn’t speak very many words yet. I think he wants more popsicle.”

Reminding me: this preschooler who speaks in paragraphs was not built in a day.

It’s starting. The famed sibling bond, where one looks out for the other, where they play together without bloodshed for hours, well, OK, minutes at a time. Let the record show that at 3 years 2 months and almost 17 months, respectively, my children are becoming friends, a front united, a force unreckoned, a linked-arm-chain against this insurgent mother.

The relief this causes me is enough to make me lie down and kick my feet in the air like a toppled beetle while I hold my sides and laugh. And laugh. And cry. It’s all coming together, after so long feeling like it was coming apart.

(Here, you need a laugh too?)

Rocking Out from tortured potato on Vimeo.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

I Know. I Should Swear Less Around the Children.

Posted on 9/10/2009 by cheesefairy

Once upon a time there was this grocery store clerk. She yakked at me one day, one very bad day 6 months ago, about having a third child. She told me her sons had been stolen by her daughters-in-law and that she was ever so grateful for her daughter because her daughter would never leave.

She has not really spoken to me since, not in so much detail, but has said hello and once or twice chatted with the boys about hockey or thieving girlfriends or whatever. But today. Another bad-ish day. She totally turned my frown upside down because nothing makes me happier than being able to refer to someone as “batshit crazy; as crazy as the shit of bats” as I walk down the street.

No really. That makes me happy.

I had my grocery items. I was checking through the self-check out, Fresco was eating a cracker in the back seat of the buggy and Trombone was drawing things in his “handy dandy notebook” with a marker.

– Trombone has started pretending his life is a giant “Blue’s Clues” episode, which involves hollering, “MOMMY THERE’S A CLUE ON THAT TREE!” from the back seat of the car or front seat of the buggy and then spending 15 minutes in relative silence while he attempts to draw the tree in his notebook. Had I not spent 5 years up in a tree pretending I was Harriet the Spy I might be concerned about this. Nah, who am I kidding. –

I was slightly aware of the Batshit Crazy self-check-out clerk talking to him but I wasn’t paying attention. Then, as I put the groceries in the underbuggy, I noticed he had coloured the back of his left hand with his orange marker, which explained the preceding 10 minutes of silence. (Which silence was totally worth it, by the way.) The clerk had kindly given him a piece of paper to draw on so I felt obliged to thank her and then ask him,

“Dude. Where’s your notebook?
“Over here,” he replied, patting his pocket, “but I’m drawing on my hand now.”

And here you will see a huge Shrug from me. I used to draw on myself with ballpoint pens and sometimes Sharpies. And I turned out fi – oh, wait.

“Oh but paper is better!” said the clerk, chirpily. “Isn’t paper better?”
Trombone cocked his head to look her in the eye. “Well actually this is a washable marker,” he explained, “so it’s OK.”

Right. See also: younger brother with orange, tattoo-like markings on his forehead, arms and feet because someone, I’m not saying who, keeps forgetting that the second child likes to wreck shit and cannot be left alone with markers.

See also: me not caring one whit because I choose my battles carefully. Fresco does many things in a day that endanger his life. Self-tattooing *with markers* is way down on the list with “eating Twizzlers.” (Now if he ever picks up an actual needle and starts asking to watch LA Ink, I’ll step in.)

“Well,” said our friend, guardian of the self-check out and those who pass through it, “your skin is an organ. It has to work hard to get rid of all that ink…”

We all nodded politely and gave not one single good goddamn between the three of us.

“..so maybe it would be better to put, you know, dots on your hand. Instead of colouring it in like that.”

I straightened up and slung my bag of groceries over my shoulder. Put the smile on my face that means goodbye to you and I will be ordering my groceries for delivery from now on. Prepared to push the buggy away.

And then! She said to me, “Did you take medical terminology?”
I said, “Pardon?”
She said, “In your classes? It’s fascinating!”
I said, “No I took mainly political science classes.”
She said, “Oh.” She gave me a dirty look. Like she knew I was being snotty but since I am the customer, etc. she would let it go.

No, lady, really, I have NO idea what you’re talking about. Do I look like someone who takes medical terminology classes? Does that have anything to do with washable markers? Are you HIGH?

I said, “OK well have a nice day now.”
She said, “Mmm hmm.” Went to help someone else.

So my question to you is: why has no one told me about these classes I can take! The skin is an ORGAN!

And also: did she maybe think I was a nanny? Do nannies take medical terminology courses?
And also: did she think I was someone else entirely?
And also: do you think the self-check-out machines emit dangerous waves that affect your head? There was a woman at work who kept trying to stop me to photocopy things when I was pregnant. Ah but that’s another story altogether.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments