The Longest Day: A Rebuttal

I’m a huge fan of Mad Men. Although I’ve never had any real desire to work in an agency, and I pride myself on my contrarian nature as regards to marketing, I have to hand it to Matthew Weiner and his writers. I have a feeling that Rahm Emmanuel is a fan as well. After all, he’s done such a brilliant job of changing the conversation in Chicago education politics away from the inarguable (lack of funding) to the arguable (length of the day). If you don’t like what they are saying, change the conversation.

Bravo, Mr. Emmanuel!

My perspective is completely different. My children attend a school that is utterly unlike 99 percent of the elementary schools in the Chicago Public Schools’ portfolio. I’m not sure why that is – after all, parents at Disney II are no more involved and their children no smarter than the populations of many other schools, including those behind the 6.5 to Thrive movement: Burley, Blaine, Coonley, Bell, Mt. Greenwood, Drummond, Inter-American, and others. Disney II is a magnet school, so it’s got a wee funding advantage, but no more so than most of the schools listed above. Nor is it any better funded than my neighborhood school, John B. Murphy, whose 85 percent free and reduced lunch population (not to mention a fully populated school of PK-8), gives it a funding bump that is not replicated at Disney II.

As a parent of children who have attended a school that has had the longest school day within CPS since its inception in September 2008, I’d like to address some of the arguments I’ve heard and seen about the longer/full school day:

Advocate what is best for your child.

This seems like a no-brainer advice for a generation of parents on the heels of those who regularly call up their adult children’s bosses to advocate on their behalf. But at the same time, I question the wisdom of basing the second largest school system on the welfare of a few. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but should it in a system that serves not only the children of tax-paying and resourceful citizens, but also those children whose parents are too busy or too distracted to decipher the messages coming from both CPS and its critics? There’s a very good reason that businesspeople have historically not been in charge of public services.  

6.5-hour CPS schools outperform 7.5-hour charter schools.

Although CPS likes to tell the story that charter schools are part of a public school portfolio, charter schools are not, in fact, the same thing as public schools. Do these 6.5-hour schools have the same populations as 7.5-hour charters? And how did 6.5 to Thrive reach this conclusion?

6.5-hour schools outperform 5.75-hour schools.

Pick an argument here. The idea that 6.5-hour schools outperform 5.75-hour schools within the same portfolio begs the question: Is it because of the extra time or in spite of it? What accounts for the difference between the performances of children in these schools? More resources? More highly involved parents? Smarter kids?

As 6.5 to Thrive states, kids at these schools get recess and extracurricular activities, not simply more time to plug away at math and literacy. Maybe its poor reasoning skills, but I don’t understand this argument. First, neither a 6.5-hour day nor a 7.5-hour day has been proven (by anything but anecdotal evidence) within CPS. The vast majority of CPS schools provide just 5.75 hours of instruction (whether they are open campus with a recess or not). Second, if a 6.5-hour day is better, a 7.5-hour day must be an improvement, no? If some is good, more must make it better. If that is true, why isn't 6.5 pushing for a longer day?

There’s no scientific data about a 7.5-hour day.

That’s the thing about being a pioneer: no one comes before you and there’s no way to measure to your success. It’s kind of a leap of faith. It seems strange to me that a group of parents are willing to take the leap by putting their kids into the system in the first place, yet unwilling to trust that the educators who both administer and teach in the system have all of our children’s best interests at heart and top of mind.

I’m not discounting the possibility that the longer day could be yet another failed experiment in the failures of the district. But is it at all possible that the Chicago could be in the verge of greatness in moving to this model? Could a 7.5-hour day be used to address achievement gaps in those who lack early childhood education, a parent available for homework after school, an hour not spent on the street deflecting rocks?

Kids need a school-life balance and the AAP recommends unstructured play time.

As anyone following politics in the last century knows, cherry-picking data is nothing new. Apparently, it’s also not limited to CPS. What the AAP actually said is that unstructured playtime is more valuable for young children than screen time. The research was published in a November 2011 report about toddlers. The same report also recommended that “young children learn best from—and need—interaction with humans.” And in its 2006 study on children’s activities, the AAP suggested that it’s parents who over-schedule their children. I feel compelled to note that the AAP deals with children’s medicine, not children’s education.

A longer school day doesn’t mean a better quality school day.

Finally: a valid point. But this is where we should, as parents, focus our energies. Although it’s slow in coming, I think CPS is going to put real meaning around what, exactly, a longer, high-quality school day looks like. My feeling is that the longer day is coming, whether we like it or not, and we’d do better to focus our efforts on how we can shape that day and, most importantly, how CPS plans to fund it.

Breaking the Clique

I've "heard" that there is a perception among the parents at The Boy's and The Girl's school that the existing parent groups are "exclusive" and "cliquey." I can understand that; after all, the same 20+ people often show up to everything. I am happy and grateful to those volunteers (like myself) who want to be really involved or really informed. But: why aren't more people involved? How can we create a warm and inclusive parent community/culture? How to create more opportunities for involvement? And a confession: I often feel that I am on the outside of the circle.

In talking to other parents at other schools, this feeling of exclusion is common--even parents like myself who are what my friend Ami would call Super Volunteers. Last week, during a community-building session at Nettelhorst's CPS Symposium, one parent, Patricia O'Keefe of Friends of Alcott, shared what she had done to "break the clique" at Alcott, creating a community culture that really, truly values parent volunteers. It's simple, really, but so smart:

Everyone who wants to be a room parent, can be a room parent.

I know what you're thinking: well, how does that work? Basically, at Alcott, they broke up all the tasks associated with classroom activities and made it more manageable for everyone to get involved:

#1 Teacher Contact. This person fulfills the normally associated duties of room parent, meeting with the teacher as-needed, assessing classroom needs, and communicating with the teacher and the rest of the room parents about what is needed. Teacher preference goes.

#2 Communications. This person does everything associated with communications: putting together a class list, helping with the directory, sending out emails to parents, etc. Some teachers at Alcott even have the communications room parent help or do their weekly newsletter.

#3 Social Butterfly. This person coordinates social time for kids, parents, moms, dads, etc. outside of the classroom: pizza parties, MNO, DNO, parent socials, etc.

#4 Volunteers. This person coordinates volunteers needed for classroom events, putting together a schedule, getting the information on classroom volunteers from the teacher contact, etc.

#5 LSC/PTA/FO Contact. This person is the liaison between the classroom and these organizations. If a classroom project needs to be done for an auction or other event, this is the person who works it out.

#6+ Ad Hoc Time. This person or people may have 4 hours/week or 1/2 an hour a year to support the classroom. They'll work with the classroom volunteers person to make sure that the teacher has all of her bases covered in and outside of the classroom, lending a hand here and there as needed.

No to 37

How many kids is too many in a classroom? How many can one teacher handle? Shouldn't the focus of a teacher's attention be on teaching his or her students over merely handling them? 

If we thought the threat to PFA last year was bad, this is a million times worse. Thanks to Blago, and before him George Ryan and Jim Edgar, the Illinois budget is a mess.  And if our politicians don't approve a new budget that keeps education funding at its current level before Friday, we are going to be in trouble.  

But: Illinoisians are speaking up and speaking out via NOto37.org. CPS parents are speaking up via the Raise Your Hand coalition.

CPS Obsessed

Unlike this lady, I'm not really obsessed with CPS in general -- just with what's going in with my children's school, and how the wider CPS policy and culture, and indeed, wider Education news and policy, affect it. So it was with great interest that I read yesterday's Chicago Tribune front-page article on the early success (or not, as it turns out) of the Renaissance 2010 schools.

For those of you who don't know, Renaissance 2010 (and its main funding organization, the Renaissance Schools Fund) came out of the civic committee of the Chicago Commercial Club and Mayor Daley. It is a plan to turn around Chicago's failing educational system by replicating existing successful schools within CPS. Disney II is a modified replication of the Walt Disney Magnet School. Walt Disney Magnet School opened in 1972 (I believe), the first magnet school in the city of Chicago.

Parents of children at CPS (at least all the ones I know and talk to) are already in a tailspin after the Consent Decree was overturned in September and the new magnet/siblings-admission policy. Can any good come out of the Trib's indictment of the Ren10 schools? What do you think of the news?

PFA Redux

I sighed in relief in August, when Springfield's budgetary wrangling saved PFA. But the question remains: what will happen to PFA next year and beyond?

Cookies!

The second annual Chicago Mama cookie-decorating party was this afternoon. Because we know so many little kids and have such a small house, I had to keep the number of invitees down. A few people could not make it, so we ended up with 11 little munchkins (including The Girl, The Boy, and The Tot) to decorate homemade sugar cookies with brightly colored royal icing and sprinkles, non-pareils, and more.  

Here's the calm before the storm:

I gave each child a holiday-themed tin, marked with his/her name, and pre-filled with 1/2 dozen sugar cookies. Note for next year: 1 dozen! Each child got to decorate his/her cookies and/or eat them. 

As everyone arrived, they split off into groups to play. The girls and The Girl got all dolled up from our dress-up bin, wearing fancy dresses + a pair of wings each. Some of them, like The Girl, kept this get-up on while they decorated cookies:

 

 

Afterwards, the boys went upstairs to play Lego and the girls and the tots stayed downstairs to watch 1969's Frosty the Snowman: 



For my part, I got to drink spiked coffee and chit-chat with the moms about school, books, Boden, and other topics of interest.

Queuing Up

From Blogger Photos

Yesterday, I had a completely new parenting experience: queuing up to get good seats at The Boy's and The Girl's holiday concert/show at school. The photo above shows the line stretching around the corner as we eager parents waited for 1/2 an hour or more in the 6-degree weather for a seat in the gymatorium. I don't think I've ever waited in such conditions for anything, having been blissfully unaware of the music scene until well into my college years, at which time ticket-by-phone was available. 

But: Elfis and the Sleigh Riders was well-worth the wait. My space in line gave me a seat in the third row, so I could see everyone fairly well. The Boy had a tiny speaking part, and both The Girl and The Boy sang one or more of the 5 songs in the set. It was very cute.

I took the day off of work to see the show, but I also got to have coffee with my friend Becky in the morning and take a long nap in the afternoon. The Girl was wiped from the show, so we all settled in for a long afternoon nap.

We'd Like to Thank You Rod Blagojevich

...for screwing up our state's budget. OK, it probably was already screwed up when you got it, but you did nothing to improve matters. And neither has your successor. I am thankful to you myself for creating a statewide program (preschool for all), upon which my family has come to depend, but which our state can no longer afford (assuming it ever could). The IL Board of Education announced earlier this week that the early childhood education budget took a 33% hit. What that means for The Girl (and me) remains to be seen. But I'm thinking that the program will probably get the axe at the 11th hour, leaving me and about 12,000 other parents citywide scrambling for alternate preschool for our children. That is, assuming we see the value in early childhood education and/or can afford it.

At this point, CPS has not disseminated any information to PFA parents about the near future of their children's education. I've got my ear to the ground on this issue and I still don't know a damn thing.

I talked to State rep Deb Mell last week, who first told me that I'd have to call the governor's office to find out what was happening with the education budget and PFA, and then asked me what people did for preschool before PFA. The Boy is 6 and The Girl is 4; I don't know what "people" did for preschool before PFA, I was not among them then. Presumably, they sent their children to daycare, private schools, parochial schools, or park district programs, at varying levels of affordability. The Boy spent a year in parochial preschool, an experience I do not care to repeat. I have no problem sending The Girl to the park district, but fear that the Web site will lock up at 9 a.m. on August 17th as thousands of parents attempt to register their children for the already limited spaces in these programs.

Today, I spoke to the lovely Mrs. Santiago at Disney II, who also had no news. At last week's IAC meeting, a member proposed a 1/2-day TBPK. However, besides being problematic in terms of tuition amounts and teacher fee structure, such a program would have to be administered by the school, which does not have the resources to support it. I wonder if D2 has enough interest to open a second TBPK classroom?

Scuttlebutt from CPS teachers, friends in-the-know and other interested parties suggests that I -- and any other would-be PFA parent -- would do well to have a back-up plan for preschooling our children. Where will your children attend preschool next year?

Musing on Motherhood

This morning, after dropping The Girl off at Kilbourn Park camp, I took The Tot and The Boy to our usual Monday morning playdate at the Disney II playground. The Boy played with his friends, and Grandma Texas and I talked with the moms. The organizer came in late, telling us that she's fed up with her children's seemingly endless bickering and ingratitude for all that she does for them. She pointed out that we do so much more to entertain our children than our mothers did when we were young.

And she's right. But how did we get from there to here? Although I don't think of myself as a constant entertainer for my children, I realized that in my own way -- taking them to the zoo, museums, farmer's markets, etc. -- I am guilty of entertaining my children, possibly of entertaining them too much. Are my friends and I raising another generation of spoiled brats? Will my children have the sense of entitlement that appears to have permeated the latter half of the Millennials?

It's an interesting question to ponder, although even pondering it feels like yet another indulgence in the parenting-as-movement culture. Between celebrity babies and contemplative articles every week in The New York Times's culture section, The Atlantic Monthly, and other such cerebral pubs, not to mention the seemingly endless number of mom-blogs, it seems that the parenting culture is steeped in itself. Were our parents so deliberate in their parenting? Did they even have a "parenting philosophy?" And if they did (which I doubt), how did they overcome the isolation of parenting in the absence of e-mail, the Internet, mobile phones, and in the presence of a still-intact standard of socialization? Barriers may have been coming down in 1970, but no one was watching Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage unravel on national television.

In the circles I run in, it seems that modern mothers have benefitted from time, education, and wealth (which gives us time) to examine and re-examine our parenting. Are we overthinking things? Much has been made of parenting-by-instinct, but even in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder (we have been reading The Little House in the Big Woods before bed) and her Pa, a societal order was imposed on everyday interactions. And has "conventional parenting wisdom" embedded itself so deep in our collective parenting psyche that we're unable to discern instinct from CW? And even if we were, could we withstand the mommy drive-bys that would inevitably occur? My instinct is that it's OK if I leave The Tot and The Girl in my gated backyard to play while I am working just inside, but CW (and perhaps DCFS) would disagree with me. And thus, I have became an entertainer for my children.

Lazy Summer Day

Today marked the first real day of summer vacation. Thankfully, it was also a warm, sunny day so we could enjoy it.

We started the day by going to Disney II playground for a rising-1st-grader playdate. The Boy protested; he wanted to have a "regular summer day." Um, what? But The Girl really wanted to see her friends and I wanted to see mine, so we went to the park. The Boy spent the first 20 minutes yanking on the door handle of the car and crying, but eventually rallied to play with his friends and former-recent classmates.

We went home for lunch and lots of playing in the backyard. Our neighbor came by about 1/2 an hour before her nap and asked The Boy and The Girl to ride bikes in the front sidewalk while her babysitter watched. So they did that and I put The Tot down for a nap. When he woke up, we went to Baskin-Robbins (The Girl calls it "Justin Roberts") for ice creams. The Tot was quite possessive of his lopsided mint-chip cone, and refused to let me lick it evenly -- and the whole scoop toppled. Fortunately for me, he didn't seem to notice and was happy to crunch his remaining sugar cone. As seems to always be the case in this particular BR-DD, there were 2 police officers talking to a senior citizen at a nearby table and they seemed to find The Tot's incident amusing.

We ran to Target afterward, and I seem to be learning something after 6 years of parenting because it was a short trip for the 3 things on our list and little browsing as the kids were all pretty wired from the ice cream. When we got home, The Dad took everyone outside to play with the neighbors, ride bikes and play in the backyard. A very nice summer day.

Field Trip

Today, Grandma Naperville came in to care for The Girl and The Tot. And I took a field trip with The Boy's class to the Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview. 50 kids, 20 adults and way too many bagged lunches on a smelly yellow bus. As a child, I always lived within walking distance of school, so the thrills of the yellow school bus were reserved for the rare field trip. Fortunately for my children, the same is true for them. I managed to forget how ill a ride on the school bus can make you. Fortunately for me, I was in the first 3 rows and it was not hot.

The Kohl put on a good program. We got there, ate lunch in a program room, had an hour to explore in groups (I asked child in my group to pick one area that s/he really wanted to explore and we hit all 5 in our free time), had a 45-minute session with the museum-provided educator, and then had 1/2 hour of free time again. During our education session, the kids read a book about birds' nests, drew bird's nests and made bird's nests out of clay and bits of string, feathers, etc. They were totally grossed out by the clay; they should see me when I come home from pottery: I've usually got clay in my hair, on my face, all over my clothes, stuck to the bottom of my shoes. It was a fun day, but tiring.

Bolt

Tonight, I took The Boy and The Girl to the Disney II PTA's movie night at the gym at Disney II. The movie was Bolt, which was the national PTA's choice, not ours. It was a bit mature for the crowd of 3-8-year-olds. I was not a fan of the opening sequences, which were cartoon versions of heavy spy-action films. That said, the kids had a great time. There was lots of popcorn, running around (although I told The Boy and The Girl that if they wanted to do so, we'd go home), and general silliness. Some kids raptly watched the movie. I was amazed that they heard anything. The sound system, combined with the room's acoustics, were terrible. There are plenty of other complaints other parents have about their schools, so the sound system is of relatively minor concern. However, the movie night convinced me that we could really use the sound system that the Disney II PTA is hoping to buy with the proceeds from our spring auction and social.

CBA

Yesterday, I had a craving for a really good, but somewhat inexpensive, lunch. I also had a bunch of little errands to run at destinations within close proximity of each other, but nowhere near our neighborhood. I picked up The Girl from preschool, and we headed southeast to Lincoln Park. The Tot fell asleep in the car on the way to pick up The Girl, so I was able to run a quick in-and-out errand on the way to lunch.

We had lunch at CBA on Armitage. This is probably not a destination for anyone not immediately in the neighborhood or as a post-class lunch spot after Wiggleworms class, but the pull of The Wrigley Fielder draws me in a couple of times each year. The Girl wanted something with salami on it (she's a weird kid), so she got the E-Town Express, which she loved. The Tot commandeered half my Wrigley Fielder. Total for 2 bagel sandwiches, 2 chips and a bottle of Nantucket Nectar was about $15.

After lunch, we ran errands: Gap Kids for returns, next door to the busiest CVS I've ever seen for postage stamps, back into the car to the Carter's Outlet off Clybourn and next door to Sur la Table for Mother's Day treats. We got back home about 2 p.m. and left the TV off, making chocolate chip-M&M cookies instead.

The ballet-soccer Monday Mania wasn't as bad as it has been, although I made the mistake of walking to ARCC, over to school to watch The Boy's soccer practice, and then back home again, so The Boy and The Girl were pretty much exhausted.

What Makes a School Good?

Disney II's first academic year is only 6 weeks away from its conclusion. Acceptance letters have gone out for next year's class of kindergarteners, and I find myself fielding questions about what the school is like by their parents, when I happen to meet them at neighborhood events or via Facebook connections. Is it a good school? What makes a school good? What makes a school bad, or just adequate? These are hard questions for me to answer. I don't yet have the perspective of time and experience to make a good judge. In addition, Disney II is my first real experience as a parent with a CPS school, so I have nothing to which I can compare. And, I've already invested a significant amount of time into Disney II, with plans to do more, so I am biased in terms of its virtues.

What I really want out of any school The Boy attends, and what, in my Philistinistic opinion, makes a school good is its ability to foster its students' love of learning. I don't know that Disney II has done that yet, but The Boy told me about 2 weeks ago that he loves school. I'll take what I can get out of a child who cried every morning at drop-off for the first month of kindergarten.

From talking to friends with children at other up-and-coming CPS schools (Skinner, Nettlehorst, Ravenswood, to name a few), it would seem that the universal standard that CPS seeks to attain in kindergarteners is to get them reading-ready, if not actually reading by the end of that first year of elementary school. As this author points out, the kindergarten of my youth, which involved learning learning not to eat the paste* and introduced the idea of children-in-groups to my only-child (at the time) personality, disappeared somewhere in the 1990s. Although some relics of Kindergarten Past remain (shoe-tying is a progress-report item on The Boy's list; my mother-in-law remembers that she received low marks in skipping in kindergarten), the emphasis of kindergarten at most northside CPS elementary schools, including Disney II, is on literacy.

As an avid reader and formerly "gifted" child myself, I struggle with the early-reading component. I did not learn to read well, by which I mean I was in the high/advanced reading groups, until I was in 3rd grade -- and even then, I had problems with reading comprehension in some areas (my strong aversion to Greek myths persists 20+ years after Miss Commandella's unit on the subject) in 5th grade. And yet, I am living proof that early reading can mean very little in terms of future success: by trade, I am a reader and a writer. These activities are my passion in life; I would and, indeed do, practice them even in the absence of payment.

At the end of the day, I can say with confidence that The Boy likes Disney II and is doing well there. His progress is on-par with those of his peers, and despite the pressure I feel for him to be reading already, I'm confident that he will read (and tie his shoes!) on his own, internal development barometer. He likes the school, he likes his classmates, he likes his teacher. He is exposed to music, art, and technology. He gets to run around every day, and I reserve time for him at the end of the school day for more open/free play. In today's society, with our economic means, that is the best that we can achieve for/with him.

* For the record, I've never tried it.

Clean & Green

Although our participation in the official Clean & Green events in both Old Irving Park and Greater Independence Park was a bit of a bust, our family did manage to do a little gardening/improvement of our own today. We were hampered by the weather (on and off rain) as well as The Boy's Saturday morning soccer game, arriving at the GIPNA table too late to register or pick up trash bags. Our neighbors had come to similar fates, so we all cleaned the breezeways next to garages instead. I pulled out all the weeds, rocks, garbage and whatnot from the breezeway next to our garage, then installed our rain barrel on the alley side of the fence, leaving a good receptacle for rain runoff from the garage and giving us easy access to the spigot for gardening use when the weather dries up.

We went over to the OIPA potluck picnic about 12:30. My friend CD had asked me to have my bags available for green-minded folk, but when we arrived, the scant population was packing up to leave. So we went to lunch at Target. Despite the snags, it was a nice day.

Meeting Junkie

Since The Boy started kindergarten, I've become somewhat of a meeting junkie. If there is a meeting in the neighborhood, I'll probably attend. I'd like to claim that my motives are purely altruistic, a response to President Obama's call to volunteer, but that's only part of the picture. I often attend community meetings because I am curious. I want to know what is going on -- at school, in my neighborhood, at the parks, in adjacent neighborhoods, with my alderman, in city policy. I'm still trying to figure out specific ways that I can contribute to the actual organizing bit of community involvement, but attending meetings is a good way to determine what the group's actual needs are and how my talents fit in with those needs.

The ABCs

D is for Disney II PTA, E is for Entertainment, F is for Fun

Disney II PTA presents the ABCs: A is for Auction, B is for Benefit, C is for Community, on May 30th. It’s an evening you won’t want to miss! Dancing, cocktails, and an opportunity to mingle with Disney II teachers and staff are included in the $50 price of admission. Plus, I'm going.

It’s as easy as 1,2,3…Contact Stacey Nyman to buy your tickets today.

Spring!

I love spring in Chicago. It's fickle -- 72 degrees and sunny can turn into 45 and rainy in less than 12 hours and back on its head again soon after -- but after a long winter of snow, ice, salt spray and brown-yellow grass stubble, I'll take whatever I can get!

Today, The Boy went on a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, arriving back to school just before 4 p.m. We missed gymnastics, but ran around with the rest of our crew on the Disney II playground until we were all too thirsty and too tired to continue. At which point, we walked the 1/2 block up to Smoque BBQ for some pulled pork (me), fries (The Boy), brisket (The Tot) and mac & cheese (The Girl). Yum! What's better than a spring afternoon? A spring afternoon capped off with super yummy barbeque from the celebrated (it was featured in Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives) local spot.

After dinner, we returned to the playground, where I ran into Beth T. and her young'uns, letting the kids run off whatever steam they'd just built up at dinner.

Moms & Tots, Playdate

The Tot and I started our Moms, Pops, & Tots Interaction class today at Independence Park. I haven't taken the class since The Boy was a baby (it is for kids aged 18-36M) and Miss Julie (now Kilbourn Park's Supervisor) was its instructor. I still see a handful of people from that class, but I was surprised to know many more moms/kids and even nannies/kids in today's class. I guess that is just one advantage to living in the same neighborhood and attending neighborhood events for the past 6+ years: recognizing or knowing many of the people in your children's activities.

Miss Teagan is the new instructor for the class and she kept the class moving with 1/2 hour of free play/socializing (The Tot liked the mini Little Tykes slide), 1/2 hour of singing/dancing and 1/2 hour of art/craft activity and snack. The Tot, who is normally quite slow to warm up to things (as Julie of Jammin' fame can attest), had so much fun that he did not want to leave to pick up The Girl from school.

But we did make it out of there and on-time to retreive The Girl from preschool. Afterwards, because we hadn't managed to see anyone from playgroup over the break, we went over to Becky's house for lunch and catching-up. The Girl and F. played rather well together, although The Girl inexplicably (to me) wanted to leave after about an hour. The Tot was extremely interested in Baby G. (9 months), which amused him a bit and scared the baby a lot. I got to drink coffee and visit with Becky. And a good time was had by all.

Back to the Grind

Today was the first day back at school after our 2-week winter vacation. It was both good and bad to be back to it. The Girl was super excited to go back to preschool. The Boy was not so happy to go back to kindergarten.

The Tot and I puttered around at home and took The Dad to Urgent Care for staple removal. We also went to the Family Fruit Market for groceries (he made a beeline for the yogurt case, saying "Go! Go! Go!" [Go, Diego, Go]), and did a lot of running around between school, co-op and home. He had gotten used to having his big brother and sister around and seemed to miss them while they were at school.