Black Friday Virgin

As a 38-year-old woman, one would generally assume I've experienced a few Black Friday shopping sales in my time. Ha! - but it's not so! Until today, I have never, ever been lulled out of bed at an ungodly hour just for the benefit of a sale.

There is simply no savings big enough to warrant getting up at 3 a.m., dodging the deer congregating on the side of the road, and waiting in line outside of Kohl's in the frigid November dark, so that I can save a few bucks on a set of holiday sheets. I will not risk life and limb and start my day out in a state of general frustration all in the name of saving a few bucks. I clip coupons. I am frugal to the nth degree. But I do pride myself on knowing where to draw the line.

And then I had kids. Who grew quickly out of the baby, doesn't-really-matter-what-you-get-them stage, into the I'm-going-to-study-the-target-holiday-catalog-and-tell-you-exactly-what-I-must-have stage.

Now, at five and almost four-years-old, my kids are still not too particular, but there are definitely a few must-have's on their lists. I'd already patted myself on the back for buying a whole buttload of gifts from K-mart, where they patiently wait for me to rescue them from layaway, and getting a very early jump on my shopping. But my oldest is in the market for a Razor scooter this year and they start at $28 - $32. So when the big red double dot ran an ad for a sale at $22, I was intrigued. Six - $10 is enough of a savings on something I specifically wanted, to consider venturing out. Besides, I figured with the economy in the toilet, the stores were bound to be less crowded than in years past. I was going to do it!!!

Still, I refused to get up at the crack of dawn, instead having a leisurely morning, complete with coffee and bagel, and finally headed out around 9:45 a.m.

As I approached the store, I began to feel anxious. What if it was a zoo in there, with people tugging and grabbing at the last scooter on the shelf? What if they were all out? What would the parking lot be like? I'd never done this before. I had nothing to go on.

I got to the parking lot. Not too bad - crowded, but I was still able to find a respectable spot close to the front. I parked and briskly walked to the doors, determined to get there before the other people who'd parked near me. I walked in, strolled past the carts ( I only wanted ONE thing. No carts for me!!!) and back to the bike section. No scooter of the brand and design that I wanted (read - the ones on sale). I asked a clerk, who said everything was out. A woman came up next to me and said she'd thought they were only $17 but I somberly informed her they were not, as I pulled out the flyer to prove it. The OTHER big box store had scooters, she said, but they were crazy crowded. I shrugged and decided maybe I'd try the other Target by the mall.

On the way out, I overheard conversations in which shoppers said they'd been shopping since 6 a.m. Crazy!

So I walked slowly out to my car and decided to try the other store. If they didn't have them there, I'd give it up.

Ten minutes later, I found myself driving past the mall, which was packed with cars, and on to Target. Somewhere along the way, my husband called wondering where I was. As I approached the store, I got anxious again, but again, the parking lot was not too bad. The store was crowded, but not annoyingly so. I race-walked to the back of the store.

Success! They had tons of scooters! I grabbed one, checked it thoroughly for any defects, and walked triumphantly to the personal care section in search of toothpaste, before paying and heading back out.

I was done. Black Friday conquered. Maybe next year, I'll try two different stores! Maybe I'll go out earlier! Maybe not.

Kindergarten, Part II

The first day has come to a close. I managed to busy myself and was waiting in the carpool line promptly at 3:30 p.m. And the verdict is ... M - had a great day! Hooray!

Now, as is par for the course with her, I didn't get a huge amount of information. They played on the playground, did a little work, had story time in the media center, had a nap. But she was excited, not as tired as I'd expected, and for me, that's good enough for now.

Kindergarten

The big day has finally arrived - our oldest daughter, M-, started kindergarten this morning. My feelings are ... mixed.

We did all we could to prepare - we attended the orientation, went to the Meet the Teacher event, studied the supply list and went on a mother-daughter shopping trip to find the perfect backpack. I tried to make the last few days uneventful, tried to make sure she was caught up on her sleep, tried to make sure she was ready, tried to make sure I was ready.

Despite all that, this morning went okay at best. M- didn't sleep much last night. She was too excited. Though she was in bed at 7:30, we found her still awake two hours later. She fell asleep shortly after, but was wide awake at 1 a.m. in the bathroom.

What can I do? It concerns me, of course. She's a kid who needs her sleep. I'm terribly worried that she'll be a blithering mess by lunchtime, that the first day assessments won't go well, and the counselors will think she's a remedial student at best because she won't be able to function enough to respond properly, and she will be subjected to an entire school career of not living up to her potential! (Okay, really, I know I'm being overdramatic here).

Then there was the whole school drop off thing. We were told not to make a big deal of the first day - to treat it as a normal day and get them used to their routine. They recommended not bringing the kids to their classroom so they wouldn't get upset. We decided on a happy medium - we would drop her off at the front of school so she could walk in herself (M-'s decision), and then we'd park and meet her in class.

Carpool drop-off was sort of rushed. The carpool woman didn't really help guide her to where she needed to go and I unhappily watched from the back window as my daughter stood uncomfortably alone in front of the school trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. I should have told the woman it was her first day. I should have told M- to go to the front door and walk in.

We assumed there would be volunteers or teachers to guide the new students and there were. They just weren't there when M- came into the lobby (she did eventually make it inside the building). So when we got inside, there she was, all of four-years-old, wandering down the hallway amidst a group of first graders and not having a clue where she was supposed to be.

A counselor did finally find her, around the same time my husband saw her, and M- made it to her classroom, a little more disoriented than we'd hoped she'd be. Meanwhile I was still waiting in the office for my turn to register as a visitor.

I bit my tongue but politely let the office staff know I was unimpressed with their handling of the situation. I finally made it to her class, and she was doing fine, sitting by herself and drawing. My husband said she'd readily walked into the classroom and made herself at home.

We made sure the teacher knew she was excited, but likely tired, gave M- a big hug and told her to have a great day, and left.

On the way out, we spoke to the counselor again, found that she would be the one conducting the assessments, and let her know as well that M- hadn't slept well last night in hopes that she would keep that in mind. The office staff apologized when I went to check out, for the way things had gone.

We will think about M- often today, and wonder how she's doing, whether she's having fun. We wonder, my husband and I, where the time went - I swear it seems like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital - and how we got here and where we're going. I will try to make the transition easy for our youngest, who will miss her sister as the routine of school becomes more apparent, and she realizes her constant companion has moved on to bigger things. Most of all, I will just try to remember to enjoy my time with them, take a deep breath, and hope for the best.

Taking Care of Things

I got very upset with my three- and four-year-old daughters today, because they broke several toys. It's not the first time it's happened, and not the second or third time that I've tried to explain to them the value of things and why it's important to take care of their toys. And of course, it's a conversation that's totally lost on children so young. Or is it?

The toys were pieces of doll house furniture that their grandmother gave to them for Christmas. The pieces are not inexpensive, and they're delicate. Probably, in retrospect, way too delicate for children so young. Yet, when I saw their room, torn apart in general with things everywhere, and then the contents of the dollhouse strewn in a messy pile, heads were going to roll!

Taking are of things is a sticking point for me. I don't recall being destructive when I was little and prior to having children, my husband and I insisted we would teach our future kids to value things. We did not intend to end up with a house full of broken toys and knick knacks (like many of our friends and family members) We simply could not understand why you wouldn't teach your kids to take care of toys and possessions that cost money.

On top of that, is the pressure of my own parents who, like most people from an older generation, have a tendency to judge and to forget the reality of what life was like when they were raising kids of their own.

The problem is, in reality, at what age do children really get it? As my husband pointed out this evening when I rehashed the days events and my guilt over the matter and the punishment I handed down (more on that later), they can't always even recount what they did an hour ago. They have no sense of time, certainly no sense of money or the value of things.

That's what makes it so frustrating for me. HOW do I get through to them, in even some little way, that what they did was wrong? Shouldn't they feel at least a little remorseful, even if they don't exactly understand the issue, since I'm obviously upset by it?

Initially, I put them both kids in time out, and then planned to remove all of the toys from their room with the understanding that they would get their things back eventually.

Harsh? Yes. Knee jerk reaction? Yes, yes. Effective? I just don't know. My oldest would understand why I took the things away, but my youngest would not.

I wonder if they just have too much given to them and don't appreciate their things as a result. While we have far fewer things than some people I know, we certainly have more than I did when I was growing up.

At the same time, I think I ought to give them a lot more slack because of the age that they are. They're good girls, and our oldest is, after all, beginning to understand. She's so much better now about picking up her toys, as I mentioned before, than she was just six months ago. So I should know that eventually they'll both get it. And the things is, they didn't really even realize what they were doing. They were pretending the dollhouse was on fire and the fireman had moved all the things out to save them. I'm quite sure the last thing on their minds was being careful about the furniture.

Which leads me to the "duh" moment of the whole thing, the utter lack of common sense that finally makes itself obvious to me, which is "Gee, maybe I ought to just put the dollhouse away for a few years until they're both old enough to play with the delicate pieces."

And that is exactly what I plan to do. The other toys will probably go back in a day or two -- long enough so they know I'm not a pushover because, overreaction or not, now I have to stick to my guns or risk losing my street cred.

And I will try harder to think things through the next time, and make sure the punishment fits not only the crime, but the age as well.

Parenting is Hard!

Before my husband and I became parents, we spent endless hours picking apart our friends and family members for how they dealt with their kids. We smugly said things like, "Can you believe their kid did acted like that? What a brat!" and "I can't believe they don't put their kids to bed earlier," and "I would never allow my child to interrupt me all the time like they do. Why can't they teach him better?"

So confident were we that parenting would be a cake walk, that we would show everyone how it should really be done, that we jumped right in and had two kids of our own. And then, reality set in.

The fact of the matter is, parenting is hard. Really hard. For starters, there's no written manual that tells you how to do it right. At the same time, there are no shortage of opinions on the right way, the wrong way, and the upside down way to do things. And finally, every kid and every situation is different, and so trying to arrive at the exact right solution that will work for your kid is like trying to solve the expert level soduko puzzle in the Sunday paper.

I have two daughters, age three and four-and-a-half. They are 16 months apart in age, so they are very close -- not as close as twins, but close enough. The thing is, up until my oldest turned three, I thought the parenting thing was a breeze. Get the kids on a solid, set schedule - check. Get them sleeping through the night and avoid any mistakes that will have them turning up in our bedroom night after night for the next ten years - check. Wean them from the bottle at exactly one year - check. Teach them to drink from a regular cup, thus avoiding sippy's - check. Potty trained by two-years-old - check.

Those things - the cut and dried things - are the easy part of being a parent, as far as I'm concerned. It's the stuff that comes afterward, when they start thinking for themselves and talking, that's thrown me for a huge loop. Like how to find the appropriate punishment for a younger daughter who seems unfazed by all of the traditional options, like time-out. How to teach two kids, who care about nothing more than playing for as many of their awake hours as possible, to be good citizens, to take care of their things, to be polite, to take care of my things.

I spent half of the month of December trying to figure out what in the heck was wrong with my younger daughter, who suddenly was having major MAJOR temper tantrums every five minutes over things like having to wear socks, having her chair pushed in too far at the table, having to wear pants. I spent the other half of that same month trying to figure out how to deal with these out-of-control screaming fests, how to not have it affect everyone else in the house as well.

I spent January agonizing over whether to start my oldest in kindergarten next year (see my previous post). I spend every day trying to figure out how to teach my children why they need to pick up their toys and why they need to take care of their things. I spend every waking hour trying to figure out how to make my youngest daughter listen to me, wondering how much time in time out is too much. Trying to figure out why I feel like I'm the Peanuts adult after eight hours a day alone with my kids - MWHA mwha mwha MWAH mwha.

I lose my temper occasionally, overreact, say things I don't mean, make totally unreasonable punishment threats in the heat of the moment, knowing full well I will never act on them, and end up losing all credibility in the eyes of my kids when it comes to discipline.

I routinely feel guilty, ineffective, and helpless and am only occasionally encouraged by my children's moments of brilliant behavior (which is fewer and farther between nowadays, as the girls get older and have learned exactly what grand playmates they really are for each other, no matter the place, no matter the time).

The last four years have been a major reality check. Kids are, well, kids. They aren't adults, and I constantly have to remind myself of this fact. While I'm learning to embrace their unique approach to life, it's hard to accept that it doesn't fit neatly into my well-organized adult life.

There is no real reasoning with a three-year-old. You may THINK you've gotten somewhere with them, and then they skip off to play, write on your car windows with crayons, open your nail polish and spill it all over your bathroom floor. They don't understand the concept of money - how can they understand the value of taking care of things? They don't understand the concept of time - why should they rush out the door just because YOU'RE late when they can dawdle instead?

I can only hope that my currently kid-less friends may read this post and cut me a break the next time they spend a few hours with me and my kids. And hold of on the criticism until we're well out the door. Because some day, most of them will have kids, too and then they'll see - parenting is HARD!

Kindergarten Readiness

Once upon a time, a child turned five years old somewhere on or before their school system's mandatory cut-off date, the parent enrolled them in the kindergarten near their home, and when September rolled around, they boarded the bus for their first half day of organized academia. End of story.

Well let me tell you, folks, those times are apparently long gone.

Nowadays, a kids school career begins at two, or maybe three-years-old, with half-day preschool several days a week. Kindergarten is all day, five days a week. Neighborhood schools are a luxury, lost to well-meaning but ultimately ill-conceived diversity efforts. Traditional summers are fading away, being replaced by year-round calendars that allow for more students, and supposedly better information retention by students. There are private schools, magnet schools, Montessori schools, and traditional public schools, all competing for students, all boasting their own accelerated academic program. Meeting and exceeding academic standards is in the back of every administrators mind, and parents worry from their children's birth about college admissions officers.

No wonder then, that kindergarten readiness is the new buzz word, at least among the parents of four-to-five year old set.

Kindergarten readiness. Had I known what a headache that catch phrase would become, I would have planned more, tried harder, not to have a late summer or early fall baby!

But being that rare breed of parent who did not have a college savings plan started in advance of conception, I had no clue whatsoever to the roller coaster ride that marks the beginning of a child's academic career.

We started our oldest daughter in preschool at age three. I hadn't even considered preschool until our pediatrician, at my daughter's September two-year-old well-baby visit asked what my plans were. Preschool admissions took place, after all, in January for the following year. I had no idea, and no plans for that matter, to worry about preschool until she was four.

Unfortunately, what with the huge competition for preschool slots (parents at some schools actually form a line outside their school of choice in the early morning hours so as to be first to sign up for a coveted slot) I was advised to go ahead and enroll in the three-year-old program, since those students get first choice for the four-year-old class. In other words, if I wanted to wait until my child was four, I'd be last on the waiting list for an available slot.

So here I am, two years later, a little more educated in the competitive nature of preschool, and preschool moms, but still totally clueless, apparently, about the next step.

See, my daughter, as I mentioned before, has an early September birthday.

Now, in Wake County, NC, which is a huge school system that comprises Raleigh and many of its suburbs, the kindergarten cutoff date is currently sometime in mid-to late October, but that date will be changing to August 31st in 2009. Hooray! I thought. My daughter will be five in September of 2008, which means she won't have to wait a whole extra year to start school.

The idea to me that after two years of preschool, she might have to wait ANOTHER year to start kindergarten was absurd.

Silly me. I didn't know, had no way of knowing, how many people out there push for parents to wait that extra year anyway, so that the very youngest kids wouldn't struggle in class.

Apparently, kindergarten is so much more academically challenging now, and so many people are, in fact, holding their kids out an extra year to give them an edge, that educators are actually discouraging parents from starting their summer and fall birthday children at the age of five.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not faulting the educators at all. I think they're truly looking out for the best interest of the kids. But where is the sense of reason among the administrators of the school systems, and further up the food chain, the politicians, who are putting so much pressure on educators to get kids to pass those stupid end of grade tests mandated by No Child Left Behind.

Because that's really what's driving all of this nonsense. Educators need to have their students pass the EOG's in third grade, or they risk losing funding. So they push to teach kids more information at a younger grade, push them more, forgo the half-day kindergarten, push, push, push. As a result, parents, terrified their kids won't be able to handle the pressure, hold them off for another year.

As it happens, my daughter is fairly bright. She keeps up with the other kids academically, she communicates maturely, clearly. She does fine, socially. But, much to her teacher's concern, her attention span is a bit on the short side. Of course, she's four. Most four-year-olds have short attention spans. But this is not, apparently, a good sign when it comes to KINDERGARTEN READINESS.

During January parent teacher conferences, my daughter's teacher dropped the big bomb on my husband and me. She didn't feel that our daughter was ready for kindergarten. It seems that she has difficulty sitting still during circle time, occasionally getting up and wandering around the classroom. And at times, she was distracted during centers or playground.

I took issue with her characterization. Would she have felt the same way had my daughter had a June birthday? Were we dealing with a quiet discrimination against September? And further, my daughter had a good six months before she'd be starting school. Any parent with kids in that age range know how much they mature and change in a year's period of time. How could anyone possibly predict that she might or might not be ready in a few months?

We wondered, my husband and I, was our daughter bored? Was she wandering around during centers because she hadn't been told that it wasn't acceptable to do so? Was the teacher unfairly characterizing her? Was she misreading her? Or was she right?

So me being me, I Googled. I Yahooed. I talked to my mother, my sister, my friends, other moms. My husband and I visited some magnet schools and talked to the administrators and teachers there.

The thing is, opinions on this, as on everything, vary. Educators invariably told us to wait. Every single article on the subject was full of tales of parents whose kids did start early and ultimately struggled. They tended to be light on examples of kids who started early and thrived, even though I think any reasonable person knows there are plenty of those kids out there. Some people couldn't understand why we were so frustrated - it's just kindergarten, right?

And the thing is, I think what we ultimately found, is that it depends entirely on the individual child. And we eventually got a big grip on reality, took a deep breath, and realized that, yes, it is just kindergarten. In fact, most of the kindergarten classes I've visited look an awful lot like our daughter's preschool class. And one teacher did offer the encouraging fact that most kids coming into kindergarten are coming from many different backgrounds and experiences but they all come together to the same place at some point in the year. It was nice to hear.

Recently, the local paper published a column about kindergarten readiness. It cited maturity level and attention span as the most important factor, and my daughter's preschool teacher was sure to show it to me one morning when I dropped my daughter off at school.

I assured her I had read it already, and let her know we'd decided to enroll our daughter in kindergarten anyway. I think she'd be bored in transitional kindergarten, our alternate option to the tune of $300 a month. I think she'll really be fine making that next step.

If she struggles, so be it. Perhaps we'll repeat her if it's really not going well. I don't think she'll be emotionally scarred, at five-years-old, for having to repeat a grade. Perhaps I'll beat myself up for not making the right decision. Perhaps she'll thrive.

Time will tell.