Things cubby dwellers never have to worry about

July 29, 2004 | Category: On The Job

Talking on my speakerphone this afternoon:

J (My Vendor's Account Executive): Elizabeth, we can certainly have those reports for the meeting tomorrow. If you want the blah blah report, the data will be from Monday unless you want to wake up the guys in the UK to do another data dump for us...

A knock sounds at my office door, as it simultaneously opens. Bear leaps to my side, hugging me.

Bear: Hi! Hi! Phone!

J (Laughing): Hi!

Bear: Mommy you have beautiful breasties!!!

J: Pardon? Beasties? Are there beasties?

Me: Sorry, J - I'm just gonna mute this for a sec and...

Bear: NO! Breasties! Where she has baby milk! YUMYUM!

Child vs. Firefighter

July 26, 2004 | Category: Bear Stories

A couple of weekends ago, Bear and I went to a festival held in a local park. It looked interesting. There was an event where rubber ducks were pushed down a creek via the full blast of a fire hose.

No, I am not making this up.

The firefighters took aim from the center of a bridge and let 'er rip on the whistle. Ducks found themselves jet-propelled to the end of the creek. Yeah, I've got no clue on the point of this, other than the obvious phallic nature of the fire hose. (Oh, is that just me? Sorry.)

It also provided full seconds of joy to dozens of children. Afterwards, my Bear raced over to help the firefighters stomp the water out of the hose and roll it up.

Bear: Why are we doing this?

FireFighter: To get the water out.

B: Why?

FF: So we can roll it in a coil and carry it back to the truck

B: Where's the truck?

FF: Over there, see? That's my captain right beside it

B: What's your captain do?

FF: He gives the orders

B: Like Commander Waters and the Rescue Heroes?

FF: Yes. We have a Commander, too

B: Why aren't you wearing your hat?

FF: Because there's no fire. We wear those when there is a fire

B: Did you lose your hat?

FF: No. It's in the truck

B: Are you sure?

FF: Yes.

B: Do you want me to go check?

FF: No.

B: I could go check. I'm going to be a police officer.

FF: That's great.

B: What do you want to be?

FF: I AM a fire fighter.

B: You could be a police officer if you go to school.

FF: I already went to school. Hey, kid, where's your mom?

B: Right there. Where's yours?

Final Score: Bear 1, Firefighter 0.

Continue reading "Child vs. Firefighter"

The week from hell, part 2

July 20, 2004 | Category: Mother to the First Power

Until last week, my summer childcare consisted of a very flexible work schedule and a preschool day camp at the YMCA, overlapped with the services of the babysitter we've used to varying degrees since Bear was 8 months old.

So last Tuesday, Dee came over at lunch on a whim. Bear was at the camp, and she was looking to cheer me up because the day before we found out we weren't having another baby. Dee and I headed to the mall - got manicures and strolled around. Something I haven't done in... ack, I can't remember. Not this year.

We were heading home, feeling good, Dee asked if we could stop in and see Bear at his camp and say"Hi". She hadn't seen him in, like, a week. So we dropped in at the "Y" unannounced at about 1PM.

The preschooler camp room is at the front of "Y", attached to a little playground. We could see it was empty before we got there.

The "Preschool Camp Director" was sitting alone, in front of her computer. She didn't hear us approach and jumped when I called her name. "Hey, PCD, where's my son?" I asked. She told us that it was too hot for the kids to play outside so she'd sent them to let out some steam in the racquetball courts.

So Dee and I headed off to the racquetball courts at the back of the building. PCD quickly caught up with us, telling us that it was nice and cool in there yada yada yada.

We got to the racquetball court and peeked in the little window. The kids were not moving. They were quietly seated in little clusters in the corners. In the center of the room, a teen-aged boy was instructing one of the kids how to use a little toy basketball hoop.

Dee and I scanned the room. The were no adults. We watched for about 1 minute, watched my son yawn three times. The teen-aged "camp counselor" (He's maybe 15 or 16?) kept playing with the one kid. The other 21 kids, including Bear, sat. Drooped.

Sitting against the walls. Not allowed to talk with each other. With - did I mention this? - no ADULT in the soundproof, locked, racquetball court.

If ever there was a moment when I felt like all my standards as a parent had been failed, it was that one.

"Are you taking him home?" PCD asked me.

"YES" Dee and I answered in unison.

Dee was muttering under her breath "dumb dumb dumb dumb...."

When Bear saw us through the window, he came running. The teenager let him out of the room and Dee picked him up and we left.

I know what we saw wasn't torture. I'm not trying to make too much out of what was just a lapse in childcare standards and the care ratio.

But it could have been a disaster in one easy motion.

God forbid if something had happened - a fire, the counselor getting hurt, whatever. What would have happened to those kids? How would they be heard? How would they get out?

*grrr*

Mostly? I'm just pissed with myself - my gut told me long ago that Bear wasn't getting good care there, that PCD was lazy and untrained (constantly yelling across the classroom - "those are MY toys and I'm not going to let you play with them if you don't do as I say!") and I didn't do anything.

So I called and eventually had a meeting with the executive director of the Y.

I outlined my concerns and disappointment. He told me that all legal standards and insurance requirements were being met. I snorted, like a horse. He agreed the lack of supervision, if true, would have been a bad thing.

He was going to "look into it".

I'm pointed out that I was going to need a refund. To help pay the gap childcare I need to dig up.

Which is probably why PCD then called me to "sort this out" and beg Bear to return (oh yes, yes she did).

I told her; he's not coming back. You're just lucky that I KNOW I'm an overly sensitive mother.

Sure, it was a small careless unthinking moment. Send the big kid and the 21 little kids (some who really should still be in diapers) to go sit in the racquetball court with nothing really to do while the only real adult surfed the 'net in peace.

But my bottom line? She f*cked with my kid. And there is no measure to the level of fury a parent can unleash. *ahem*

So, anyway, that's why I suddenly don't have enough child care.

posted by Elizabeth at 8:52:56 AM

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Continue reading " The week from hell, part 2"

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels

July 13, 2004 | Category: Mother to the First Power

I was dreaming about you in 1988.

That's when you started to become real, when I knew in my heart that I would see you soon. You'd be the first of many; a loud, chaotic, affectionate bunch that I was in training to manage. Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians were singing "What I Am" on the radio as I made vanilla potpourri or some other homey craft and fantasized about non-alliterative family-friendly furniture that wasn't criminally ugly.

I was dreaming about you in 1991.

The cats and I moved into Chicago so I could go back to college. That summer, I was cleaning homes for cash and living in an empty, gusty apartment. I would sit on the fire escape with my dinner and watch the alley in the twilight.

I would sleep under the window: the bedroom always smelled like peaches and there was a little breeze. I had to get used to the occasional wail of sirens as I laid quietly, rubbing my belly and feeling you slipping farther away from being real.

I stopped dreaming about you in 1993.

Curled up in a bunk, clutching a plane ticket, and mourning. You already know that I don't cry pretty. My eyes turn red, my nose runs, and my face creases.

Oh, honey. It was like I couldn't wash that sweaty sad hospital scent off me. No one could help and it was such aloneness. Alone, as it slipped away. And then, I slipped away, too.

It was over a year before I exhaled and came home. It was a long time before you were dreamed of again.

I dreamed of you again in 1997.

Music by Goo Goo dolls and Savage Garden and Sugar Ray on the radio. A new job with Mega Corp. A new love, with your Dad. And suddenly, you were there again.

Clear in my dreams and my waking hours. You and your siblings, and a home for us all. I walked in sunshine, chewing peppermint gum and grinning like I had the secret of life.

You were real in 2000.

We'd joked about a millennium baby and then, suddenly, we had one.

Bright coppery tufts of hair and clear curious eyes. I was singing Joni Mitchell to you in my arms, feeling "The dizzy dancing way you feel, When every fairy tale comes real."

We whispered, the three of us deep in the night, about all our dreams.

There would be sandy summer days with relatives. Wind chimes and dragon tales and soccer balls. There would be homework and snowball fights and band-aids.

We designed tree forts, planned car trips, and imagined big Sunday dinners and holiday traditions that we would invent and carry into the future. I wanted you to be able to share all this - your childhood - with other children. Siblings to grow up with and against, challenge and enjoy, hate and love.

In my dreams of you, there were always more.

But it doesn't seem like it will be a blessing we'll have. And I'm sorry.

I've thought about this so much over the last few weeks and you should know, it isn't for lack of wanting or trying. I'm not normally a quitter. But the miracle of you took the dedication of an entire group of doctors, the bedrest of your stir-crazy mom, and the bedrock belief of your dad.

Somehow, now, I feel it in my bones. Lightning is only going to strike this particular spot once.

It is what it is.

For all the lonely times you may have in the years ahead, know we will be doing everything we can to saturate your life with the camaraderie of others.

For the times when there will only be your parents on the other side of the dinner table, know that we will do everything in our power to expand your view of your world.

No, this wasn't the original plan. But that doesn't mean that the reality will be any less amazing. If ever there was a child who was dreamed of, and then came true - it was you.

You are loved, you are enough, we are enough. We are a family.

Continue reading " Moons and Junes and ferris wheels"