This Is Me Maria

Our nanny IM’s me through out the day and tells me interesting things the kids have said or done. It is nice because I feel like I know more about what is going on in their day. I get to laugh a lot too.

Boobs

• “When I grow up I am going to feed my baby from my boob.”   -Madison (age 5)

The nanny has a wee little baby that nurses. The kids are very interested in this concept.

Poop

• They take bets on how much poop will be in a given a diaper. They are very interested in the baby poop and have to be around to witness the changing of the diapers. Whoever guesses the correct amount of poop (not sure how this is measured) gets bragging rights.

Shopping

• “I want to buy beautiful things. You know make up and stuff.”  -Madison

Dirt

• While packing up for a weekend at the cabin, she sent them outside to play for 15 minutes to run off some energy. In 15 minutes they dug a 2 foot hole in the backyard and rubbed dirt all over themselves.

Cody (age 7) is a good little worker and probably dug most of the hole himself. Madison probably stood close by singing and rubbing dirt into her skin.

My kids are funny, good spirited, little people. I’m so lucky.

Well we finished our first week with the nanny. Just as with everything new, there is an adjustment period. The kids are not used to being in the house all day, but we are working on finding other things for them to do.

It is so nice to know the kids are well cared for in the safety of our home while we are away at work.

This once again traumatic summer childcare experience has caused me to seriously consider staying at home but I haven’t made a decision yet.

The other option I’ve considered is keeping our nanny on through the school year to clean and manage our household and be with the children after school, again I haven’t made a decision about that yet.

(Read: Don’t know if I can afford it.)

I am still eager for the school year to start, so that we can fall into our familiar routine once again.

Today was the first day with the new nanny. Even though I was a bit nervous, I felt much better knowing they were safe at home with our nanny than at the horrid childcare.

To end the afternoon I got a phone call letting me know I would get all of my money back other than the fees for the week the kids were there. Over $600 in fees and tuition I am getting back thankfully.

Now if I can just focus long enough to start studying for the math test I have tomorrow night…

I am still so upset I can barely type this. I should preface this post by stating that this is my fault, I should have checked out the childcare facility in advance and gotten more details. I should not assume that every childcare is as wonderful as our school year one.

As I mentioned before I don’t like summer too much. My children have to go to a different childcare during the summer. Last year we had an incident at the summer childcare through the school district - combined with other things that did and did not happen, we looked for a different solution for this summer. I was extremely unhappy with the things that occurred last summer.

This past Monday the kids attended their first day at the new childcare.

I was so upset at the situation that I cried when I left. They are in the basement of a facility that apparently does not have AC. They spend the majority of the day in this large room with few toys with kids that are much older than their age range. Today they didn’t even split up into the younger kid rooms and were just forced outside. The room doesn’t feel clean, the toys are clearly not sanitized. There are broken toys in broken unsanitized bins.

It is just kind of a place to stash the children when they aren’t taking their turn to go on a field trip to places like a dirty public beach to play in the freezing Puget Sound with a total of 60 kids in tow.

The first day that my husband picked them up, the door between the childcare and the pool was wide open as were every other door in the facility. The person inside didn’t know where our children were. My husband had to wander from room to room and then outside to locate them.

There are a few other “minor” things that all add up to one big failure. Tomorrow I am bringing them with me to the office for a little bit and then taking the rest of the day off to interview nannies. I pray that we find one right away. Please pray for us. I cannot and will not continue to send them to this childcare facility.

Tomorrow I have to call the grandparents and ask someone to watch them for Thursday and Friday. I can’t drop off my daughter there even one more morning. This morning when I dropped them off I was equally disgusted and upset with the facility, the staff, the situation, everything.

Summer sucks. I wish we lived in Europe or where ever it is that the kids go to school all year long with a few 3 week vacations through out the year.

Summer sucks because I don’t like being too hot. Even though I have AC in my house and car, it has been too hot to be outside a lot the last few summers.

Summer sucks because all my kid’s friends with SAHMs ask to do play dates in the middle of a week day. Unless it is a national holiday - assume that I am at work and my children are unavailable for play dates.

Summer sucks because it is the busy season for my husband’s company so vacation is rarely possible. I do not vacation with kids and with out my husband. I did it once… never again.

Summer sucks because my kids have to go to a new childcare for the summer and make yet another transition.

Summer sucks because I still have the expectation on myself to some how magically be with the kids and entertain more like I did when I stayed at home.

Luckily both the preschool and 1st grade are sending home stacks of homework for the kids to do over the summer so that they don’t forget everything.

Luckily we have grass covering 90% of our backyard this year and can spend even more time back there.

Luckily oil is more expensive. We are forced to be more frugal but also more creative. We are finding that with careful planning and creativity out lifestyle is not impeded upon at all. In fact it is not so careless, it is meticulously planned, it is more green. Challenge of this nature squeezes out excess. It is interesting to change and evolve. I will miss my luxurious van but either make small uncomfortable adjustments now or big painful ones later.

Luckily there are many sports available for the kids to enjoy all summer long since I do not permit week day sports during the school year yet.

Luckily I am an expert popsicle creator.

Luckily life goes by at the perfect speed.

My kids love popsicles and truth be told, we really enjoy them on hot days. However I am hesitant to purchase any popsicles because they are so full of sugar.

A great alternative that I have enjoyed since childhood is to make my own popsicles from pureed fruit. In fact, I still have the Tupperware popsicle molds that my mom used when I was kid.

If you don’t have any popsicle molds, fill your ice cube trays with popsicle mix, cover in foil and then poke a popsicle stick into each one cube. You can also fill small paper cups, cover those with foil and then poke popsicle sticks or plastic spoons into them as well.

Here are some of our favorite fruitsicles.

• Watermelon popsicles; just puree watermelon chunks and pour into your popsicle molds. You’ll want to either use seedless watermelon, puree really well or just make sure to pick out all of the seeds. You could also run your puree through a strainer to make sure you got out all of the seeds.

• Avocado pops are a surprisingly filing and delicious snack. Puree avocado with milk, ice and a bit of sugar as if you are making a smoothie and then pour into your popsicle molds.

• A little bit of water or 100% natural juice mixed with blueberries, strawberries and raspberries makes a colorful and tasty popsicle.

• If you have a juice maker, just toss in your favorite mixture of fruit and maybe even a few rich veggies and you’ll have the perfect mix of fruit to pour into your popsicle molds.

• For older children you can even put little pieces of fruit or grapes into your popsicles for a chunkier popsicle with fruit surprises. I like to put little pieces of fruit into ice cubes too, they add nice little bit of flavor to all of the water being consumed this time of year.

Here is a link to some popsicle molds I found on Amazon. I recommend a sturdy plastic because the softer plastics will warp and become difficult to use eventually.