pour your heart out

their last day

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Well, this has been kinda tough so far.  By kinda, I mean I’ve cried over this dumb mess more than I ever imagined possible or reasonable.  It’s odd and interesting, the things that become important and stressful once you become a parent that you never DREAMED would be such a big deal. It’s been heart-wrenching at times and I have to admit that I’ve probably shed more tears over this than anything since my dad died.  Well, I’m skipping over the hormonal crying related to newborn baby sleep deprivation and/or pregnancy.  While it doesn’t exactly feel like someone died, the finality has hit me hard that this desirable situation has come to an end and an uncertain future is upon us.

Last Friday was the boys’ last day with their first and beloved lady.  They have always spoken so highly of her and have looked forward to going to her home.  The Saturday before last, I took them to JoAnn Fabrics and told them they could pick out any gift to make for her.  Theo was drawn towards the birdhouses so they both spent some time picking their houses, changing their minds, and changing their minds again until they both picked the perfect gifts.  Picking out their paint colors was much easier.  Green and red.

They really were not interested in putting clothes back on after painting in the (almost) nude.  So they played while their projects dried.  I worked on them a little bit each night leading up to their last day.  Thursday night we put the boys’ handprints on the bottoms of their birdhouses and I sealed them with clearcoat.  

As I was painting them and realizing that this was it, this was really the last night before the last morning that they’d wake up and go to her house, I lost it.  There were lots of tears.  It’s just hard as a mom, going from something that you take comfort in to something that feels so completely uncomfortable.  I’ve grieved for my relationship with this woman, who has become a friend. I’ve grieved for the kids’ relationship with her. For the kids’ relationship with her son. Her husband.  They have been so much a part of our family for the last 3 years.  The boys have spent so many hours in her arms, home, and in her care.  It’s hard to let go. And while I realize that we can and will remain in contact, it will never be the same.

The last pick-up.
There were lots of hugs during that hard good-bye but somehow I kept it together until we closed the door for the last time.  I looked behind me as we crossed the yard to the car and Theo had stopped about 20 feet back.  He was standing still with his bottom lip sticking out.  I said “Theo, come on honey.  Let’s go.”  He remained still and I asked him what was wrong.  He suddenly ran to me and I swooped him up and held him tight.  He said “I’m sad” and started to cry.  That’s when my tears began to flow as well.  We just stood there, hugging and crying in the yard for a couple of minutes.  I was crying because he was crying. Because he was smart enough to know that something had changed but I was also crying because I knew he didn’t fully understand. He sucked his thumb and stared out the window on the way home.
Friday night we distracted ourselves with a fun baseball game.  The boys were tired by the 5th inning and some nasty looking clouds were heading our way so we left. 

Coming up next — the first day(s) at the new sitter.
xo,
~C~

we have a plan

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

First, I must say WOW to the last 5 days.  Three friends have had babies and I’m over the moon with excitement for them.  Two in-real-life friends and one of my favorite blogger pals, Mindi, gave birth in the past week.  Congrats to these ladies and their already beautiful, perfect families.

So, we have a plan.

We went a total of about 10 places and out of those 10, I have to say there was only 1 that gave us that “there’s-no-way-in-hell” kind of feeling.  Which was good, I guess, but not so good because we had a hard decision to make. While only one of the places was an absolute “no way,” most of the remaining places left us longing for a little more. Until last Tuesday.  We checked out a Montessori school and at that moment, it’s like everything just clicked into place.  Are you familiar with the Montessori method? One of our nephews has been going to a Montessori school for a few years and my sister-in-law loves it.  Initially, we thought we’d send Theo 5 days a week, which made us both a little sad to think about him and Dexter being separated so much.

When we read through all the info from the school, we realized that Theo would have 2 weeks for fall break, 2 weeks for winter break, and 2 weeks for spring break.  Not to mention 10 weeks of summer break, none of which are included in the cost of tuition. Because, you know.  You’re paying for the education piece, not the childcare piece.  There are camps when school’s out but the cost is additional.  Last Tuesday night, we met a friend’s babysitter (actually one of the mamas I mentioned at the beginning of this post) who is licensed and works out of her home.  She’s been in business for 8 yrs, has a full-time employee, and has a beautiful home.  It’s like we met her on the same day we toured the Montessori school for a reason.  All the pieces of the puzzle came together.  That night, we sat at the table for 2 hours figuring out our finances and how we could do this or that, compared various options, and finalized our plan.

I stole all the pictures for this post from our sitter’s fb page!

The home babysitter is affordable enough that we are able to pay for Theo to go there full-time in order to secure his spot, send Dexter there full-time, and then send Theo to Montessori just 3 days a week.  This arrangement relieves a lot of my concerns about them being too young and too close to be separated 5 days a week.  They’ll still be together more often than not, but maybe the bit of separation will help each of them to grow and adapt.  Maybe Theo will thrive at the school but appreciate having a couple of down days to spend playing with his brother and other kids at the sitter’s home. The good thing about paying for Theo to go to this sitter full-time is that we won’t have to make any separate arrangements or pay extra during those 16 weeks per year that school is not in session.

I stole all the pictures for this post from our sitter’s fb page!

The school said we can bump up to full time at the beginning of any month.  The sitter said she is happy to watch Theo intermittently as long as she doesn’t go over her ratio (but if she does, that spells trouble and stress for us).  Ideally, I’d like to see Dexter go to Montessori at least part time when he’s 4 but it would be nice if he could start at 3 as well.  He’s just very different from Theo in a lot of ways that are hard to explain and I think Theo needs this now…would greatly benefit from this now.

A nice thing about our “plan” is that they will both go to the sitter for a little over a month before Theo starts school.  It will be plenty of time (I hope) for Dexter to get comfortable there and then when Theo transitions to school 3 days a week, maybe it will be easier on Dexter than if they just both started going somewhere new, apart, at the same time. It feels good.  It feels right.  I didn’t know if we would get to this point the first full week that we were searching.

I stole all the pictures for this post from our sitter’s fb page!

I’m still super sad about our sitter deciding to close, but we’ve communicated a great deal about it and plan to stay in close contact.  She’s become a part of our family, just as we have become a part of hers.  Theo knows a change is coming. We’ve been trying to talk to him about it without confusing him.  The first few days, he’d say “well, today was my last day.”  Now he isn’t saying that, but he’ll say “she’s not gonna babysit us anymore,” “she’s gonna do a different job,” “in [insert random number] days, it’s gonna be OVER!” (very dramatic, this kid), or he’ll say things about how he’s going to behave poorly at a new place (I guess to threaten us all with the consequences of this unfortunate scenario).  I really hope that’s not the case, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned.  I know Theo is smart, but I think he’s probably a lot smarter than even I realize.

If nothing else, it will be very interesting to see how all of this unfolds.  As of now though, we’ve got a plan…for what that’s worth.

xo,
~C~

facebook’s annoying, i’m baking, Cincinnati, and vacation

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Where’ve I been, you ask? Well, this past week Strep throat knocked me off my feet (literally) for about 3 days.  Wow – I have never had it before and I guess I just thought it was one of those things that people got or they didn’t get.  Well, I got it.  It was worse than I ever realized.  So not only did it knock me out of work for 2 days (I was able to work from home the 3rd day), it knocked me off track with Couch to 5K.  I’m planning on getting back on track (treadmill) tomorrow but I’m a little nervous.  My throat still hurts and otherwise I feel okay, but I don’t know if I’m really back up to full strength yet.

We went to Cincinnati to celebrate my nephew’s 8th birthday party yesterday and watch him shine at his Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby. It turned out to be a nice day.  I was glad we made the last minute decision to make it a day trip instead of a weekend trip. The boys needed the rest and so did I. It was nice having that unplanned day today to just relax and catch up things I was too sick to do last week.  As of this moment, I’m waiting for some cookie dough to chill in the fridge.  I’m making this:

Okay so that image is a little on the large side but you get the idea. S’mores cookies? Yes, please. If you’re thinking I’m strange for talking about diet & exercise in one paragraph and then S’mores cookies in the next, I guess you’re right. But I’m not giving up everything that I love. One word. Moderation. I wouldn’t last on any diet where I felt deprived. Moderation.

In other unrelated randomness, I am getting really super annoyed with Facebook. Too many links and quotes and pictures of the ocean that people didn’t take and drama and self-righteous people and on and on and on. Maybe people are annoyed with me for pretty much only posting links to my blog posts and pictures of my kids. I don’t care. They can delete me. I feel bad sometimes posting links to my blog but I don’t quite have a readership that warrants a fan page. I did recently surpass 50,000 page views however. That only took 2.5 years. 🙂

What else can we chat about? I am excited about plans and no plans. Lots of plans for May and but not much else planned this summer. Before we know it, it will be Disney time (October!). We did go ahead and purchase plane tickets. I toyed with the idea of driving, but eh. After an 8 hour trip home from Dollywood a couple weeks ago, I changed my mind. Theo started complaining 100 miles from home that his back hurt. He wasn’t injured so I can only imagine it was his position in his carseat. I hate sitting for that long too. Flying nonstop 2 hours will be a dream compared to a 16+ hour drive.

My dough’s chilled!

night,
~C~