The Winds are Changing

In the early evening yesterday, I popped my head out of my office and was surprised to find the house quiet. Jeff and the kids had taken a nap. I walked Roger around dusk. They were still asleep when I got back. Henry and Jeff got up some time after 7PM. Around 7:15PM, I decided to get Miss R up for dinner. Henry went into the pantry and handed me a toddler meal of spaghetti that he wanted for dinner. We rarely feed them the prepackaged meals, but that's what he wanted. Of course, once it was heated up and in a bowl, he no longer wanted it. Didn't touch it at all. Miss R had her serving and then ate Henry's. Henry had maybe a bite or two of chicken. That was about it for him. We watched some of The Jungle Book after bath time. Then, it was bedtime.

This morning, Henry and Jeff got up before Miss R and I did. Jeff roused us from bed around 7:45AM. In my defense, I had stayed up until 2AM working on data analysis.

While the kids were eating breakfast, we had a "straw that broke the camel's back" incident. Nothing that we haven't experienced before, but it was clear that we need to make some changes for our own sanity. Jeff has been working out of our garage seeking some solitude. And when a certain child (not Henry or Miss R) throws her temper tantrums (which are common and without provocation), they can be heard even from outside the house. Jeff came into my office at 8:15AM and asked me if I wanted to look at day cares. I jumped at the chance.

We got ready within a 1/2 hour and were headed out the door to look at the two schools on our list that we were interested in but hadn't yet visited. The first one was The Daisy School. The major advantage of it is that children from this preschool get priority into an excellent charter school called the Sonoran Science Academy. The preschool resides in a square building. The inside is fairly institutional looking. The staff were nice. The children were well-behaved. The play yard was... sad. Dirt. A couple toy buckets and trucks. And a slide. The curriculum was fine. We then swung by Children's Learning Adventure (formerly Tutor Time). This was the school that we had seen a couple weeks ago. We liked it. We hadn't considered it high on our list before visiting b/c it is a national chain and we suspected that we'd lean toward an independent type of school. We swung by b/c when we visited a couple weeks ago, it was right after nap time. We wanted to see what a morning looked like. The kids seemed happy. The facility was impeccably clean. And the play yard is neat. They have this one area covered in astroturf with misters shooting up clouds of spray. It looked like tons of fun. We then headed to the Catalina Methodist Day School. They don't advertise b/c they don't need to. Word of mouth keeps them full. They are popular with the university community. The buildings are older, but I liked the facility nevertheless. They have a wait list. They'd probably be able to take the kids by September or October. Jeff and I went to Borders for some coffee, sat down, and figured out what to do. There is one other school that comes highly recommended. They haven't returned my call yet, but I know that there will be a waiting list.

Across all of the schools, the curriculums are appropriate and not terribly different. The locations are decent for all three schools. Catalina Methodist is near the university. Daisy and Children's Learning Adventure are relatively near our house (we live in the boonies; they are among the closest we could find). We liked that Daisy provides a way into the Sonoran Science Academy. They also mentioned how they disinfect the toys each night and wash the sheets twice a week. We liked that some of the staff at Catalina Methodist have been there over 30 years, and the director's grandson attends the toddler room. We liked that the facility at Children's Learning Adventure is beautiful inside and out. They had the best security by far of any of the schools (closed circuit cameras monitoring the classrooms, plus one has to be buzzed into the building). We liked that they have a developmental coordinator who oversees the teachers and makes sure they follow the curriculum. We liked that the kids seemed calm and happy (both times, they waved and smiled at us through the windows).

So much to our surprise, we decided that Children's Learning Adventure would be the best fit for our needs. Jeff said that the first time we visited, he could see Henry there. Henry and Miss R will be in different class rooms. We haven't mentioned anything about Henry's preemie history to the school. For now, we are going to see how he does by his birth age. We could put him in the younger class so that he would be viewed as "advanced" for his adjusted age, but we'd rather put him in a class that will challenge him a bit. Our only concern about Miss R is that she is tiny for her age when it comes to height. Her bio parents aren't tall people. We just don't want her to get trounced. I think that she'll be able to hold her own. We made our decision and headed right back to Children's Learning Adventure and signed the kids up. It is settled. They will start on Monday.

In the afternoon, I called Miss R's CPS case worker. I asked her to call Children's Learning Adventure and let them know that Miss R is with DES. That gives us a substantially reduced weekly tuition fee to pay. I also asked her if we had her approval to take Miss R to Oregon in July. She said yes! I gave her the dates. She'll bring a letter with her at her next visit. It was nice calling her and getting to talk with her right away. She also let me know that Miss R's medical records arrived from her previous pediatrician. There were no red flags in the file. I left a message at Dr. Bianchi's office requesting a copy of Miss R's immunization records to take to Children's Learning Adventure. They called back within five minutes, saying that the records are ready for pick up. What a productive day on the home front!

This means that Jeff will be able to move his office back into the house and enjoy the swamp cooling. The garage is getting too hot for him and the box fan isn't cutting it.

Aunt Carolyn came over this afternoon. She and Jeff took the kids to the park. Henry had been requesting the "park" for over an hour. In fact, he brought me my shoes as to say "Let's get going, Mom." He was indignant that Jeff and I were not moving fast to keep up with his plan for the afternoon.