the happy homewrecker

There is a child at Spencer's preschool who is dropped off and picked up mostly by a caregiver other than his parents---whether it's a relative or other babysitter or daycare person, I'm not sure. This caregiver also usually has two other children with her, both younger than preschool age. I've seen her leave both smaller children in the car alone while she walked the older child inside, which bothered me, but I'm most upset by the fact that the four year-old rides in the front passenger seat of the car. I'm pretty sure that by law, the child should be in a carseat, and whether or not it's actually a law in Ohio, there's no way he should be riding in the front of the car. I do know that the preschool handbook states that all children have to arrive at and leave school in carseats.

I'm not sure what to do. My instincts tell me that I should mention it to the school's director. On one hand, am I sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong? On the other hand, I'm genuinely concerned about the safety of this child (not to mention the other two, but I think that while leaving them alone in the car for several minutes might be foolish, it's not illegal), and if something happened to the child, I'd never forgive myself for not saying something. What do you think?

Thankfully, Spencer seems a lot better. He does have a lingering cough; the doctor told us not to wait until it was entirely gone before sending him to school, because we could be waiting for weeks for it to totally disappear. We've tried everything and I can't seem to find anything that will suppress it for three or four hours. We've tried the strips and the liquids and the chewables and nothing much seems to help except for the stuff that makes him really sleeeepy, and I don't want to give him that during the day. Our doctor also said that anything they could give us prescription-wise would likely have the same effectiveness as what we can get OTC. I hate to keep him home indefinitely when he's fine except for the cough, but I don't want him to have a huge coughing fit at school and have the teachers think I'm crazy for sending him. What would you do?

OK, so does anyone know how to keep a toddler from climbing up on chairs? Ginger is a regular monkey. She climbs up on anything that doesn't move (and some things that do. Like Mulder.), including the Lego table, the kitchen chairs, the dining room chairs, and the side of Spencer's bed. The day is not complete if she hasn't bumped her head at least a dozen times. Sometimes I find her on top of the Lego table, with one leg stuck down inside the little mesh bag that hangs from the center. Last week she climbed on top of the Mega Blok Fire Truck, got one leg stuck down inside it, and toppled over backwards, pulling the whole thing over and narrowly missing hitting her head on the glass sliding door.

But the worst is the kitchen and dining room chairs. Even when they're pushed all the way in, she slithers up onto the seat under the table, then inevitably raises her head too far and bumps it on the underside of the table. A few weeks ago she got up onto a chair and had one knee on the top of the table before I spotted her. Spencer was never a climber so I have no experience with this sudden detour into monkey-like territory. When I catch her, I say, "NO" very sternly, remove her from the chair and sit her down somewhere far from the chair, but methinks she doesn't really care that I disapprove. I'm stumped. Suggestions? (No spanking, please).

Parenting quote of the day:

"Before I was married I had six theories about childrearing, but no children. Now I have six children and no theories."

...John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Ain't that the truth!

My sister took Spencer back to her house for a long weekend. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to a one-child weekend. To be totally honest, though, it won't be that much less work; Spencer's pretty self-sufficient these days (and sometimes is a huge help), while Ginger is Little Miss High Maintenance. Oh for the day when they can both go stay somewhere for a weekend!

Spencer's going to have a busy busy weekend, visiting the winter carnival at Carrie's school, going to a birthday party (complete with pony rides!), and attending a Super Bowl party at my brother's house. I know he's going to have a fabulous time, but still, I miss him. I cried a little when he left and I know I'm going to be anxious to see him again on Monday; I need to try and relax and enjoy, as much as I can, parenting one instead of two for a few days.

Funny (to me, anyway) anecdote: about an hour after they left this morning, my sister called from the car and said that as she was scanning the radio stations in the car, the radio stopped briefly on some pop song, and Spencer yelled, "Stop! Turn it back! That's Rob Thomas!" Carrie has her head so far into the world of country  music that she had no idea who Rob Thomas was or why Spencer wanted to listen to him sing. For some reason, ever since about the time Spencer turned two, he's had an affinity for Rob Thomas songs. As I would browse through the stations set on my radio buttons, every time I hit a Rob Thomas number, without fail, he'd shout, "Leave it there, that's a good one!" And then boogy in his carseat. Recently he asked who it was singing, and I told him (several months ago) that the man's name was Rob Thomas. I told him once. And in that creepy way that preschoolers have, he filed the information away in his spongey little brain and whipped it out to impress his aunt.

And because I've babbled on about Spencer for so long, here's a photo of Ginger Belle just before Christmas. You probably can't see it, but her corduroy overalls had embroidered snowflakes and glitter on them, and her t-neck was covered with ice skates and mittens. Yay for cheap Gymboree clothes at rummage sales!

So, thinking about Ellen's comment below. I think it's true that I spend more time with Ginger than Spencer, but mostly out of necessity: she can't walk, she can't talk, it takes me more time to figure out what she wants . . . she's still almost completely dependent on me so I spend more time taking care of her. It is true that the worse Spencer's behavior gets, the less I want to spend time with him.

Which leads me to this question: if you have a preschooler, how much time do you spend playing with him or her? How many hours during a 12-hour day? It seems that the more time I try to spend with him, the more time he wants me to spend with him. Today I made a big effort to spend some special time with him this morning (we played Go Fish, did pages from his preschool workbook, etc.); after we'd done a bunch of things I explained to him that I had some household things I needed to get done and that he could play by himself for awhile. I started trying to clean up the kitchen, and he was there every thirty seconds or so asking me to come and play with him. I offered to let him help me, but he didn't want to. I tried explaining to him that I can't play with him all day long, that part of my job is taking care of the house, but it didn't fly. Am I supposed to be playing with him all day long? I feel like I'm his mom, not his playmate; part of my role as mother is to play with him, but I also have laundry to wash and dry and fold, bathrooms to clean, food to make and serve, dishes to wash, floors to sweep and clean, grocery lists to make . . . you all know what I mean. I'm not talking about keeping the house super-clean, I'm talking about reasonably clean and slightly cluttered. Is it unreasonable for me to expect him to entertain himself while I try to get some of these things done?

It's hard, at this stage, to play with both kids at the same time, which doesn't help. Spencer is totally uninterested in playing anything babyish and wants games, train tracks, puzzles, things with pieces that she grabs and scatters, making Spencer mad and forcing me to pay even more attention to her as I try to redirect her or keep her away. A lot of the time we wind up just having to stop what we're doing. We've tried doing things up on the table, but she just stood at my knee and sobbed because she couldn't be part of the action. I hope that as she gets older, it gets easier to spend time with the two of them together.

I used to think my mom was a little crazy, the way she would forget things and lose things and seem to be totally scatterbrained. She said that motherhood did it to her. And would roll my eyes and think that it would never happen to organized, got-it-all-together me.

Somewhere, last year or the year before, I saw a link to a page that discussed why you should keep your kids rear-facing in their carseats for as long as possible. I can't for the life of me find the page. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

Am I the only mother who has tired of constantly removing the potty ring and has taken to peeing while sitting on a cushioned Blue's Clues seat?

Yesterday was good. Spencer took a 2.5 hour nap; Ginger slept on and off from noon until five p.m.

Today, not so good. Spencer has cranked his whine meter up to a full 10 and it's taking all of my willpower not to lock him in the bedroom. I know that he's still adjusting to my not having as much time for him, but if he could only grasp the concept that if he'd be quiet and stay out of my way long enough for me to get the baby asleep, then I'd have more time to play with him. As it is, I've had her thisclose to napping half a dozen times today, and every single time he's woken her up by banging his shopping cart on the ground, running into the nursery and screaming, stomping around the kitchen purposely trying to be noisy, etc. I'd give him a time-out, but that would only result in yet more screaming and crying, which wouldn't help me in the sleeping baby department. Blech.