OK, my perfect evening would probably involve Patriot's tickets on the first row and a hotel room, oh, and a few margaritas...but that's too much to hope for, so I'll settle for the next best thing: 

THE Daddy calls on Wednesday (not Friday) afternoon to say that he’s on his way home and will be there for dinner…AND he’s picking up Pad Thai along the way, YUM.

He comes home in time to eat and play with the kids for a bit before throwing them into the tub. The kids are SO excited to see him. Lots of giggling…the kind that they reserve only for THE Daddy…it melts my heart.

He snuggles with them until they fall asleep while I get a little extra work done. This eases the much-anticipated stress of not getting to work on Friday while I’m on an AppleCrest Farm Field Trip with Princess’ Kindergarten class.

BamBam yells out for “Daddy!” in the middle of the night…and Daddy is actually there, hears him,  AND beats me to him…all before Princess gets woken up.

THE Daddy remembers to turn off the 5:30am alarm on his cell phone…the one that has been waking me up by mistake on Saturday mornings.

I wake up before my alarm at 6:30am and get to take a shower before anyone else gets up.

THE Daddy offers to take the kids to school before heading back to work.

Does this sound too good to be true?! All of the above happened last night!

What a nice way to break up our week. It makes me realize, yet again, how incredibly difficult it is to have THE Daddy travel Mon-Friday. Only 4 more weeks until the new restaurant opens up in east-bum-nowhere Maine and he gets to sleep at home again. Praise be.

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

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That’s it. I’m finally going to post a “No Solicitors” sign on my front door. I don’t care how tacky or unsightly it might seem. I’ve had it.

Let me recap my night for you:

It was time to take a tub. Princess threw a fit because I wouldn’t let her sing ONE MORE SONG with her new Fisher Price Star Station Entertainment System. She is quite the little diva and loves singing while watching herself on our 42” plasma. I counted down the minutes and gave multiple warnings. I ended up turning the thing off and ripping the microphone out of her hands. BamBam hated seeing his sister so upset, so the instant I turned my back to go upstairs to get the tub ready, he took the microphone and gave it back to her, yelling “NO, MA, MA!” Love that he’s using words…remember Be Careful What You Wish For?! I was still pretty cool at this point…until he came up to me and hit me. (Note: Princess is still screaming in the background). While attempting to put him on the naughty seat, he started screaming and kicking. The dogs are very protective and got agitated at the sound of both kids screaming. They are both herding dogs and attempted to herd me away from BamBam…Jasper even started barking. My head wanted to explode.

I reached my boiling point, so I yelled over them, “That’s it! I’m tired of you guys screaming and not listening to me. You get yourselves ready for bed! Mommy quits!” I walked into the garage just off the kitchen and slammed the door behind me. I sat on the stairs and listened. Suddenly, it was silent. I decided to count to 100 to give us all time to cool off. Princess is pretty self-sufficient, but BamBam is only 2. I didn’t want to leave them alone for too long, even though I wanted to be anywhere but back in the house with them at that very moment.

I heard them quietly talking and then heard footsteps going upstairs. I heard a couple of drawers open and close and the water in the sink turn on. I took a deep breath and let myself back into the house. Upon my arrival upstairs, I saw that Princess had laid their pajamas out and was helping BamBam brush his teeth. They looked at me and said “Hi, Mama” as if nothing had happened.  How do they manage to switch from evil, head-spinning demons to the sweetest, cutest litte children in all of a couple of minutes?!

They took their tub with no major hoopla. They washed up and Princess even let me wash her hair without whining. That rarely happens lately. It was one of the only tubs lately that didn’t cause a flood in the bathroom. They even picked up their tub toys and put them back into the bag afterwards. I think they realized they were out of control and pushing me to the edge. I also forget sometimes that it’s hard on them as well when THE Daddy is away for work.  Sometimes they don't know how to process their frustration/anger and it gets directed at the person closest to them...ME.

It was 7:30pm and we were just about finished getting into pajamas. I put on sweatpants and one of my husband’s t-shirts. Yeah, I know, how cute…when he’s away I sometimes wear his shirts. He doesn’t need to know this though because if he knew how much I miss him when he’s traveling, which is all the time lately, he would feel guilty, which would turn into something more like him acting annoyed. When you only have about 48 hours with him a week, it’s not worth working through the issues. We just want to enjoy being together as a family. Plus, I don’t need to ruin the image he has of me as “Super Mom: the wife and mother who can do it all.” Not yet, at least. I'll retire my cape when he’s home again…in another 4 weeks.

SO, the doorbell rings. The dogs start barking and the kids yell “Daddy!” As if Daddy would ring the doorbell at his own house. I look for a sweatshirt to grab to put over the (mostly white) t-shirt I’m wearing with no bra, my d cups out there for anyone to see…nothing to be found. Whoever it is can see me up at the top of the stairs and knocks, so I think to myself, “It must be important if someone is at our door this time of night, I’ll just answer it”.

I go down and open the door. The dogs escape into the darkness. I feel real safe with these attack dogs looking out for us. I see two young guys standing at the doorstep…and one of them is holding a BIBLE…shit!

They can obviously see that NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME!! I’m standing with the door cracked open calling my dogs, arms crossed to cover my chest. The kids are still wet, peeking down from the top of the stairs.

They are Mormons. They start talking about how it is important to find Christ on earth as a family so that we can all be together for eternity in heaven. After the evening I’ve just had with the kids, the thought of spending an eternity with them…not so appealing!

I try to be polite and say “I’m trying to get my kids to bed. Now really isn’t a good time.”

Mormon #1: “When would be a good time to catch you?”

Me (trying to give them the hint): “Key word there is ‘catch’, we’re not home much”

Mornom #2: “Oh, my mother had 8 kids, I know what you’re talking about”

IF you truly knew what I was talking about, you would apologize for disrupting my evening and walk away. BUT NO…

Mormon #2 pulls out his calendar and says “We’ll come back Tuesday at 1pm, let me give you a card to remind you.”

I’m still looking for the dogs. Princess is on the stairs and says “Mommy, I love you.” They give me a look like she's the cutest thing on earth, which she is.  I look at him and lie say:

”She is attending a Catholic school and we’re pretty involved with the Catholic Church”.  The school part is true at least.

Mormon #1 gives me the card and says to call if something comes up.

Damn it! We already have the Jahovas regularly stop by with their flyers. I’ve gotten to like one of them, so I allow her to come. They’re so not pushy and she’s very sweet. I put the flyers in the bathroom. They make for a good read…when you need something to read in the bathroom. I don’t necessarily agree with their beliefs, but I don’t mind them. Now we have the Mormons competing to “save” us. I almost want to tell them, listen, we’re heathens…don’t waste your time please, but I’m afraid they’ll see that as a challenge.

It’s not just the bible thumpers who knock on our door. In the past year, we’ve gotten boy scouts, girl scouts, popcorn sales, kid’s books, flowers, pizza discounts…that’s just off the top of my head.

The "no solicitors" sign goes up this weekend. Think it will make them go away?

Even bigger question:
Do I actually call the Elders to cancel, or just screw out of here just before 1pm on Tuesday?

Get your own No Solicitors Sign, Pack of 10

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Princess started kindergarten a few weeks ago. Our public school has full-day, half-day AM and half-day PM. Sounds great, right? Not so much. They apparently do not have enough full-day spots for all the families who prefer full-day. Therefore, they do a “lottery” for their full-day spots. Unfortunately, we did not win the lottery and they only gave her a half-day in the morning from 8:30-11. Do the math, that’s only 2.5 hours. Once you throw in snack and recess, not a heck of a lot left for “school”. That might be fine when BamBam starts school. Princess has always been advanced for her age. She already is trying to read. She really needs a full-day curriculum to keep her interested.

SO, we decided to send her to a private, Catholic school. Their enrollment numbers have been down in recent years and they saw what was happening in town with kindergarten, so they jumped on the bandwagon and offered a full-day program. It’s actually the school that I went for 1st-8th grade, so you’d think it would have been an easier decision for me. I loved the school and it was definitely a better environment and stronger curriculum than the public school at that time. Times have changed a bit and they appear to be struggling. I’ll give them an “A” for environment still, but I’m not sure that they’re much stronger on the curriculum. Also, now that I’m the one paying the tuition, I hate fact that we pay through the nose in taxes (just over $5k a year) and I’m shelling out $4k just for my child to get a quality education.

After a summer filled with waiting for the lottery results and the indecision that followed, we committed to sending her to the private school. She was very excited because her “boyfriend” across the street is a big 1^st grader and attends that school as well. They held an Open House the night before school began…that’s when I saw the first red flag.

Apparently, they decided to mix the full-day and half-day students within the same classroom. The half-day kids are there from 8:20-11:45 (still better than the public school!). In order to make it work, they decided to only introduce new concepts in the morning when the entire class is there. Red Flag, but I thought “OK, perhaps they will be reinforcing concepts in the afternoons, not a big deal.”

The first few days I picked Princess up at school, she was so excited that she could barely remember anything that occurred throughout the day. Once she settled in, she was able to give me a complete play-by-play. The 5-year old version of what transpires from 11:45am until 3pm when I pick her up was this:

“Um, we ate lunch. And played outside for recess. Then we put our heads on our desks. Then we played in centers”

This became a recurring theme, so I started probing a little more.

Me: “Princess, what’s your teacher doing when you play in centers?”

Princess: “She works at her desk”.

Me: “What do you do at your centers?”

Princess: “I colored today”

Basically, for $1500 more for the year, I’m paying for my daughter to put her head down on her desk and color. This doesn’t fly for me. Perhaps there are other parents who work outside of the home and cannot have their kids in the afternoons, but I can do better than having her put her head on her desk and color. I work from home. I’m just on the computer. I never even have to make a phone call.  She can easily do some worksheets or play an educational game and get more out of it.

I didn’t want to be labeled a PIA, but I ended up sending the Principal an email and having a quick conversation with the teacher. I tried to be as nice and PC as possible. I stressed that I love the school and really like the teacher, but I wasn’t convinced that Princess was benefiting from a full-day program and we would like to explore options. They pretty much think I’m crazy. The teacher thinks it’s fabulous for the kids in the afternoon because “they get to listen to classic music” (ah, ha! They DO put their heads down on their desks!) and “they get to work independently in centers and are really starting to create imaginative things…and they’re starting to pick up after themselves.” REALLY…that is fabulous! My kids get to color at home all the time and have no choice but to pick up after themselves because we, as parents, require it!! The school even threw me the “I totally understand if it’s a financial decision” card…which kind of pissed me off. Sure, there is a price tag involved, however, I never even mentioned money being an issue. Red flag number two.

I sent in a letter to the Principal this morning, so I’m anticipating a phone call…and dreading the sound of the phone ringing. Starting next week, we decided to drop Princess to half-days on Mondays and Fridays. My gut tells me that we won’t be agonizing with indecision next summer. If I had to make a decision right now, she’ll be going to the public school for 1^st grade. We’ll see what the rest of the year brings.

What is kindergarten like in your town? Any stories you’d like to share? Please leave a comment.

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