Happy Birthday, Samuel!

My baby is two years old today! I can't imagine life without him. What a joy he's been so far, and I look forward to all the years to come!

just an update

Allright, so I've been horrible about blogging. But I realized that it is the only way of keeping up with some of my out-of-town friends, and I want them to feel connected to me like I do to them when I read their blog posts. So, even if I don't write anything profound, I figure I should still say something on here occassionally.

So far, I think I am really going to like doing day care. I only have two full-time day care kids right now, an almost one year old baby girl and a 32 month old little boy. But I also have the neighbor boys, almost 5 and 7, here every other day and will soon have a 2 and 3 year old who are here every other day (maybe opposite days from the neighbor boys? don't know for sure yet).

Each child has a unique way of speaking that I have to get used to. The 2.5 year old full-time little boy doesn't speak very clearly yet, though he does talk quite a bit. So it's always a guessing game. It seems like something about the dog is usually a safe guess. He follows the dog around and even has him in his bed to nap. Then, the younger neighbor boy, who I've been around quite a bit, has a unique way of talking that I am still not quite accustomed to.

A:"Look." [holding a book about sharks]

me:(excitedly)"Sharks!"

A:"They bite you?"

me:(soberly)"Yes. They bite you. But lucky for us, they are mostly way out in the ocean where we will never see them."

A:"What about a yellow duck?"

me:"A yellow duck?"

A:"Yeah, they bite you."

me:(reassuringly)"No, yellow ducks don't bite."

A:"What about a white duck?"

me:"No, they don't bite either."

A:"No, I'm saying a WHITE duck bite you."

me:"White ducks don't bite either."

A:"No, I'm saying they do bite."

me:"Uhhh.... Well, I think they just have bills. No teeth."

A:(insistent)"No, they bite."

me:(acting surprised)"They do? Who told you that?"

A:"At the zoo. We saw ducks and I put down my hand and it bite me!"

me:"Oh! Do you think he thought your hand was a piece of bread?"

A:(looking at hand)"But I don't have no bread."

me:"No, you didn't, did you? But maybe he thought you did?"

A:"Yeah."

me:(reassuring)"But ducks don't try to eat you. Sharks try to eat you, but ducks might just think you had a piece of bread."

A:"Yeah." [wanders off to play]

This was one of our more successful conversations. In the past I have sometimes abandoned the conversations and just nodded and agreed because of the sense that we were not communicating with each other.

I am very pleased that the 2.5 year old full-time boy has had no trouble napping and has seemed happy and adjusted here. The almost 1 year old baby girl requires a lot more attention, of course - still needing to be spoon fed, fighting taking naps, and simply being fussy and wanting to be held more. But she's so cute and really is sweet - it's just normal stuff for her age. I think she'll not fuss to be held a lot and not cry at nap time as she gets older and more used to our routine.

The first week that Jacob was out of school was crazy. I thought I would have to send Jacob and Ethan to a different day care while I did my own day care! Their behavior, and specifically the way they set off and intensified each other's spells of misbehavior, was just miserable. I realized that that is exactly the sort of thing that makes me feel incompetent, out of control, incapable... you get the idea. This was contrary to the way I had been feeling lately about doing day care and, in general, about parenting. I had felt like this new venture was suited to me and would allow me to feel productive and effective and competent. But if this is how my own boys were going to act..! I looked into summer day camps, but none took 5 year olds, so it would only be an option for Jacob, and all but one were quite expensive! And then, this weekend, they got Daddy day camp - which had as its main feature no screen time, the very thing they were nagging me to death over and the source of many fights. Interestingly, they have been much more manageable, even enjoyable at times, during day care hours this week. (Huge sigh of relief.) Granted, part of it was probably the need to adjust, for Jacob, to a different environment, and for Ethan, to having Jacob home full-time again. But I was worried for a minute there. I'm hoping the rest of the summer will be smooth sailing.

Yesterday, for some reason, was an incredibly busy day care day - I felt like I was on my feet continuously doing something from 6 am to 6:30 pm (although I wasn't actually). I told Heath I hadn't worked that hard since I waitressed - and not the piddly waitressing I did in GC; but the kick my butt cause me to lose weight when I was already skinny waitressing I did in Wichita and Manhattan. Isn't it ironic how food service jobs pay so pathetically when they work you so hard? It is the same kind of labor intensive work that I was dealing with yesterday, too - cleaning things to certain standards. I have to continuously have my dishes done, which is fine, since I should have been doing that for the last 12 years, really. But there are other things that were not previously part of my routine - like cleaning the changing pad with a bleach solution after each time we use it, and washing not just my hands, but the baby's hands each time they are changed. Enforcing that each child washes their hands with soap before and after each meal and after each potty break. It takes much longer with 7 kids than with 3! And the regulation says it has to be soap and water - not hand sanitizer or a wet washcloth like we have often used to quickly clean our own kids' hands. Hand sanitizer is only supposed to be used when soap and water are unavailable. Toys are to be sanitized once a week, and each child is to have individual bedding that is washed once a week. I also try to sanitize the tile floors once a week, and I need to sweep almost every day (depending on how much we were inside and whether we had any snacks downstairs). I have to ensure that meals include milk, meat, bread, fruit, and vegetable - even if I know the children won't eat it. I guess studies have shown that a child may need to be offered a food 8 or 10 times or something like that before they will eat it. So we throw away a lot more this way, but it is probably the right thing to do to keep them healthy long term - to give them a taste for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and the perspective that fruits and vegetables are a necessary accompaniment to every meal.

At any rate, the detail of the regulations reminds me of side work in waitressing. Are the salt and pepper shakers filled almost to the brim, but not so full that it is hard to get out? Do you have twelve of each of the varieties of sweetener, and are they positioned in the right order in the container? Did you wipe down the legs and backs of the chairs and the ledges and decorations in your section? Did you refill every container in your assigned section of the back of the house, wipe down every horizontal and vertical surface, sweep, mop, clean the microwave, fill the ice? All at $2.13 an hour after you're cut from the floor (not taking tables anymore). The requirements for day care are a lot easier to stomach since it is readily apparent why they are my responsibility rather than anyone else's and how they relate to my prosperity, versus the restaurant owner's.