Parenting Check In

Jazibel

Good Morning Everyone.

Tell us about your LO(s).  How was your weekend?  Any new developments, challenges and/or successes? 

QOTD:  What are your thoughts on Education?  Do you plan on public school, private school and alternative option?  Are there things you loved or hated about your educational experience you hope to pass on (or avoid) for your LO(s)?  

JGY

Our weekend was pretty good.  We got out of the house some, which was great.  Stayed in some, which was also good.  We had a craptastic sleep weekend, but that's becoming pretty normal.

QOTD: I went to some pretty fabulous private schools (not religiously affiliated) and I am keenly aware of lucky I am to have been given that gift.  Public school was not a safe option for us at that time, so my parents did not have much of a choice, but that didn't make it easy.

I live in a different city now, and we have open enrollment here with a number of decent public school options.  I think our biggest question to begin with is if we want to continue Gabe's bilingual education (he's in a bilingual daycare) and send him to the Spanish immersion elementary school.  Or at least do we want to prioritize that over other things.  We have a few different friends with kids currently enrolled there and they all seem happy.  But we have a lot of research to do.  I'm not even going to THINK about high school for a good long while.

BONUS: JGY's morning from hell ...

... so I came home one day last week giddy as hell because of the amount of milk I'd been able to pump.  Woke up the next morning shattered to see I had failed to move said milk from the cooler to the freezer.  Well, I stuck it in the freezer anyway because I just couldn't stomach throwing it out yet, but made a mental note to be sure to check that stash when I got to it to be used.  That was this morning.  I thawed a bag, smelled it, was undecided, and threw it into Gabe's bag.  Then reconsidered, figured I'd better taste it, and did so.  Not joking around, it was like 1/4 teaspoon and I immediately threw up.  Nice.  4 bags into the garbage.

THEN I was wrangling a whiney 1 year old and bent down to pick him up only to see that the (unusually) yowly furball cat had pooped under 1 of the dining room chairs!  Unfortunately, the dog discovered this at the same time that I did, and since I was tripping over Gabe, Duncan got to the poop before I could and gobbled it up.  Double-yuck.  Not sure what's going on with the cat, but I certainly hope he's okay and I'm a little worried that he's going to start pooping in our closets.  That's just what we need.

Anyway, I hope that gives you all a good laugh.  Sometimes Mondays should just be skipped, and we should go right to Tuesday. 

 

trisholio

We had an ok weekend.  Baby K has decided sleeping thru the night is for the birds, so she is up 2-3 times a night now.  On a positive note, she has started crawling!  It was super exciting to see her little scoot/army crawl on Saturday.  

My wife and I got into a little tiff last night.  It was brewing for a few days (mostly on my part) and it all just came to a head.  Not a huge deal.  I just have little patience these days and need more help from her.  I think it is an issue that most couples have, and we are doing much better now.  But I spent most of the weekend tired and irritated :-(  I felt better after we talked

My sister and I had a joint birthday party yesterday with our family.  It was nice to spend time with my family and the girls had a blast.  I am so lucky that my family has embraced them so quickly and love them as if they had always been around.  

QOTD:I went to public school until high school and then went to a very religious private school (my own choice) and I wouldn't change it for the world.  Though I don't want to send our kids to a religious school, I would like to look into private school.  Realistically they will go to public school unless my wife starts making a lot more money.  But we have good schools in this area, I am not too concerned until they get into high school. 

2brides

QOTD: L went to public and I went to private (2nd-12th.) The boys went to PK3 in one place and then we moved them to another place for PK4 (both private since in our state, public PK is income/disability based.) We'd heard not so great things about the neighborhood public elementary school and the test scores were pretty poor - and we really liked their school, so we stayed for K. Around this time, the neighborhood school was turning around, but not wonderful, and we still liked their school, so we've stayed through 2nd. This year they started building a new public charter school for our neighborhood that sounds amazing. Both kids have gotten in and will be going next year.  It is important to us that they have a foundation to love learning and ask questions (the new school has an inquiry based philosophy and is an IB school.) We'd love a Montessori school, but that wasn't in the financial cards.

It is going to be an adjustment from a very small family owned/operated school (they have 9 kids in their class) and everyone knows everyone else to a larger public school (they will have 23 kids in their class.) But I think that they will thrive (and the tuition break will be much appreciated. I figured that since they have been born we've paid over $225k on daycare/tuition. So we need the break to be able to save for college!

EllieTheGiraffe

We had a pretty mixed weekend. My BIL, his daughter and his girlfriend (who is also our Surro) came to visit which was great, since my niece and Tilde are pretty much best friends and it got Tilde to stop cramming and stressing for two minutes, and BIL and his girlfriend babysat Nova on Saturday night so DW and I could have a date for the first time in months, but Surro was really grating on my nerves.

QOTW: We don't really have anything other than public schools in Norway, and they are all pretty excellent. Both Tilde and Nova love school. I left school at the first chance I got, and ended up going back to college (which isn't the same as the USA version of college, by the way, it's more like High School) so that I could go to University, which meant i wasted the three years in between High School and College. So I'd like for both of the girls to stick in a school so that they get whatever grades they need, even if they do decide to have a gap year or two. 

Jazibel

We had a great weekend. Saturday we had lunch with friends in Marin (I miss Marin & Sonoma county - it's sad that living there isn't an option since it's do far from EVs work). On the way home we took Kaden to Super Franks an indoor play place with scooters and jumpy houses, etc. he had a blast and I ended up chatting with a mom who I'm meeting at the park today (hopefully since it's scheduled to rain).

Sunday we ran errands and completed a bunch of projects around the house, and in the late afternoon made popcorn and watched Frozen.

Kaden is using mini sentences now like "see car","along gone" and "let's go". So cute. I love hearing new words too like "more". Before he signed but we're trying to get him to verbalize more.

Sharing is not going well, we babysat a little girl (2.5 y/o) last Wednesday and Kaden screamed and cried whenever she went to play with one of his toys. Ugh, I know it can take a year or more until he fully grasps that concept...

QOTD: EV and I spent quite a but of time talking about this on our drive out on Saturday. We currently live where there are some great public schools - but we'd also love to be able to offer our kids a more alternative education too (Montessori or Waldorf). We'll likely not live in this town forever - great place but fairly conservative. I'd love to live somewhere a little more diverse if possible. If we do I'm not sure we'll go the public school route (unless there are great schools in the area). It's a mixed bag in certain places in the SF East Bay. Then again private schools cost sooo much. We'll have to see. Either way we definitely plan in supplementing their education with field trips, projects and our own little at home learning sessions.

CageyMack

Hi Everyone!  Sorry I'm late; I blame my timezone.

We are okay here.  Baby W has a fever, so I've put him back to bed.  Everyone else is okay.

QOTW: We have done public schools for the last 3 years.  Big Kid went to Montessori for a year at about 3, then went to a great university-based child development center that was fee-based.  It was stunning with a 6:1 ratio.  She went to public schools in Portland.  When we moved to Hawaii it was a huge challenge to figure out what to do.  We aren't really willing to spent $18k a year for elementary ed.  We just don't believe in it, though we understand why people do.  We are so happy that she was admitted to a fantastic charter school for next year, so that is a wonderful relief.

clairmeij

I'm very late too! Baby A has a tooth!! I am really glad that the super crank was caused by teething and isn't just his new personality. He's loving his solids, and I am supplementing more and more with formula as my milk supply dwindles. I'm importing a formula from england and he seems to be doing well with it. It hurts a lot less to throw away formula when he doesn't finish a bottle than it does when it's breast milk. Keeping him on a completely organic diet is a challenge since the daycare kids like to share...and he's developed a taste for cheerios. I'm not too worried, and I now keep some at home for him, we've discovered that cheerios cure everything. At our 9 month appt it turned out that he was only in the 10th percentile for weight

JGY

@clairmeij, glad you chimed in!  Selfishly, it makes me feel better to know that others have had to supplement with formula.  I wish none of us did, but at least it's available.

Agreed on the Cheerios.  I was anti Cheerio until I realized that the organic rice puffs aren't great either due to the arsenic in the rice.  And he really does love the Cheerios.  Plus we can use them as a training treat for our dog who can't handle anything high protein.  Between those two, we have stepped on more Cheerios in the last few months than I've ever bought previously in my entire life!

Because I'm a masochist, how is little A sleeping?  @cageymack, how about you guys?  How is W sleeping these days?

 

clairmeij

A is sleeping pretty well @JGY‌ , although the teething has meant that sleeping through the night is a rare thing again. I don't have the heart to sleep train him either. I feel that he sleeps when he feels ok. For second or third timers, am I setting myself up for a nightmare? I can't help but feel that he will be a baby for such a short time and that we should be there when he needs us. (I know that that makes me sound like a pushover, I'm not though). I was also anti cheerios to start with, but the new non gmo version helps me feel better about it. We are also stepping on a lot of them lately! V was walking barefoot yesterday and started literally growling add she crunched past little A in his highchair. Our dog loves it though :-)
I've edited this about twenty times ;-) I feel the same way about formula supplementation. I don't like it, I wish I could go back in time and pump lots at the beginning and have over supply. I am grateful for it though and it does ear my mummy guilt when I realize am decidedly not alone.