The mini-muffins had their second change in child care arrangements in 2 months. Our fabulously energetic and unbelievably cheap child care provider (who just happened to live right across the street from us) decided to accept an offer to make personal training DVDs which have the potential to go nationwide via the backing of the Trump Corporation. I'm not sure why she chose that over our 2 wonderful boys....it's really a brain bender....
Anyhoo......now they are going 5 mornings a week to a NAEYC accredited child care/pre-school center. I had put their names on the waiting list over a year ago and the spots came open not long after we had hired an in-home provider for a lot more money and with much less energy than our aforementioned provider. Needless to say, I jumped at this opportunity. I figured, if I'm going to be paying through the nose, it's gotta be worth it.
So, after three weeks, we had all settled into the new routine....mostly....which was no small feat, considering the mini-muffins had been pretty insulated from the wider world until now. And I had gotten quite spoiled with lounging around in my "lounge" clothes until around 10 am 2-3 days a week.
It was pretty miserable the first couple of weeks. There was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth -- and you should have heard the kids! Seriously, it was exhausting to manage two tantrums AND get to the office and compose myself before my first client every single morning, but I hung in there because I knew it would get better. And it did.
Then came the predictable day care induced illness fall-out. During the next 3 weeks we went through two rounds of colds, one much worse than the other. We're all STILL coughing two weeks from the onset. Again, I'm hanging in there because I'm told that the illnesses now will build stronger immunity in the future.
Brennan still asks why he has to go to school "so much," and I tell him because his dad and I have to work "so much." I'm helping him put together the idea that going to work means we have money to pay for things, like his Lightning McQueen wardrobe and chocolate milk habit. He now understands this idea so well that frequently when I pick him up he asks what I bought today. Thank you, Capitalism!!
That takes care of the little ones. Now for the big ones:
The studly muffin, being a 16 year boy, has been busy keeping us on our toes with a variety of 16 year old boy-type behavior -- most of them extremely stress producing for parents. As much as I'd LOVE to go into details, I won't. For one, it's too painful to have to tell the stuff over and over, and two, I guess I don't want to embarrass the kid too much.
ONO called this phase of parenting the "limbo phase" because you can't really do any "hands-on" parenting, but they're not old enough to send out into the world with a friendly swat (or swift kick, depending on the kid) on the butt. So you just try to continue to offer support and empathy when they fall flat on their faces, try not to take too much of it personally, and believe that they'll be ok in about 5-10 years.
Hmmmm. That sounds a little like a prison sentence.
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