Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Initiation into The Carpool Club

Last spring, when moms of the preschoolers in my 4-year-old twins' class began talking about what next year's class would be like, some of them mentioned carpools as a way to make things a bit easier. I nodded along, but thought to myself "Would that really and truly help? Ugh. Another thing to juggle. What a hassle! I don't even live very nearby to anyone in our class. How's that going to work? This is so not green." I congratulated myself as I decided to bike with the kids the 3 miles or so to school each day, instead of driving and being a part of a carpool. Oh, I was going to be so green and cool...and get exercise too! Carpool, schmarpool.

Day 1 of the biking - very windy. Uphill more than I remembered too. Pulling about 100 pounds of kids in the bike trailer was definitely a work out. And it took 30 minutes extra transport time on either end. But ok, this will work. Day 2 of the biking - got a flat tire in the bike trailer. Emergency scramble to get a ride. "Daddy? (My daddy, not their daddy. He lives 2 minutes away.) Help me, please?" Well...the bike trailer hasn't exactly been fixed since then (going on 2 weeks now). And me? Well, I humbly called up the very nice mom who had offered the carpool last spring and begged her to take me back into the club. She very graciously said yes, I could come back. And here is what I have learned this week in the carpool club:

Slowing down as we head back to (co-op) school

Often I hear about summer ending, school starting again and moms having more time to themselves as a result, since their kids having been home all summer long. Well...that isn't going to be the case for our family. For us, it is kind of the opposite situation. This summer, the kids have been home all summer long. But, while they have gone to the beach with their grandparents and to the park with their babysitter, I have been working. While I don't work full-time (I own a business and try to work part-time only...*try* being the operative word here!), I still feel like I have missed out on summer. Sure, we have taken some fun weekend vacations and we were gone for a week to Washington DC for a family wedding, but I usually end up taking my laptop with me (ugh). My part-time work has become more and more full-time. I am not complaining about the work, because I love what I do. But...the long days of summer just feel...well, long. Instead of long, I could use a little *lazy* right about now. I long for those long, lazy days of summer everyone talks about and that I remember having once upon a time - you know, reading a book in the hammock. Or heading to the beach for the day. Or just hanging out with the kids at home, playing, cooking, whatever. Or...how about...doing nothing!

Thanks goodness, I have school to look forward to. You see, my kids......

Left Behind

While many mothers across Silicon Valley prepare for their babies to start Kindergarten on Tuesday (if they haven’t started already), I’ve been facing this week with dread.  I don’t have a Kindergartner.  I have a preschooler.  One that gets left behind. 

While Jack, Nicolas, Lily, and Aiken go off to experience the first milestone of being a BIG KID, I’ll be drying the tears of my four year old.  At my son’s preschool, he was the youngest in his class.  He’s not old enough to go to Kindergarten even if he feels he JUST LIKE his older friends. 

Google Behaving Badly

Given that Google is chalk full of Googlaires – the employees that struck it rich when the company when public – perhaps co-founder Sergey Brin thinks it’s time to take back some of the employees cold hard cash.  Google is increasing their onsite daycare costs by 75%.  Employees who were paying $1400 a month in infant care will now pay almost $2500 a month; well over what is considered the market rate.

Perhaps Brin is testing out the economic theory of supply and demand that he learned while studying at Stanford.  Increase the cost to elitist proportions and see how the demand changes.  And it sounds like Google parents are deciding that onsite daycare is no longer a benefit but a burden.  The wait list at the Kinderplex has already dropped by more than 50%. 

A gift for your child at the end of the school year

The preschool my kids go to is great. Really. I love it. They love it. There are many, many things that the kids and the parents are able to do that I would honestly never think of as possibilities. It is a co-op, also know as a parent participation school, so there is a certain level of effort involved for the parents that doesn't exist in a drop off preschool situations (which we have done in the past). There are parent education classes, classroom working time, maintenance days, fundraising minimums, and more that is mandatory (in that, if you don't fulfill your requirement, you will be fined or "written up" to the board and may not be able to come back to the school the next year). Then there is the optional stuff - potluck parties seemingly every other week, memory books, pet babysitting on the weekend, and so on and so forth. Sometimes it does seem like there is "just one more tiny thing" to do and it all adds up to be overwhelming at times. Having twins, running my own business and being involved with other great things as well, it is difficult for me at times to manage the obligations, but I do my best and feel pretty great at the end of the day that I am very involved with the preschool lives.  It all builds a great community and is truly an amazing result - the saying "you get out of it what you put into it" really is true here.

One of the optional things to do is to create a gift for your child at the end of the school year - a "culmination" gift. It is meant to be something to

Trying out a pet...and...maybe not

We don't have any pets. I am a cat lover, had cats all my life. But my husband is allergic. He had dogs all his life. His mother currently breeds King Charles Cavalier spaniels (she sold a dog to Sly!). I am not a dog person - although I do like the Cavaliers...they are sort of like cats. Sometimes when we visit Nana or a friend who has pets, we get pleading looks from the kids. Not to mention outright serious suggestions - "Let's get a dog/cat!" At one point, we were talking seriously about getting a dog. That was about 2 years, 9 months ago. Oh, right when we got pregnant with our almost-2-year-old. That idea was ditched. After all, I am going to be the one taking care of the dog - even if my husband says he will be doing it (the poop, taking it for walks, finding a dog sitter when we go away for the weekend, etc., etc., etc.) Having 3 kids in diapers, plus a dog, wasn't going to happen.

But! We have pets at the kids' preschool. And this weekend, we took Snowball the Bunny home for a visit. The kids adored having her.

It was a bit of an adjustment for me...

I want to tell you about this great new preschool

The notices had gone out. Friends who had already received theirs had promptly filled in the dates of their calenders. I envisioned the bold, black ink scrawled across the month of July,

<-----S U M M E R  S C H O O L----->>

I glanced down at my Busy Body Book, turning to the page in which I'd hastily penciled in, "summer school?" The pages of summer were all so woefully blank. I reread the forwarded email from my friend, searching for my name.

"I didn't see your email address. Did you get this email?"

No, I didn't.

Parent Education IS The Big Picture

When I first signed up my four-year-old twins for co-op preschool at Explorer Parent Participation Preschool near Willow Glen in San Jose, I was a bit daunted by all of the parent requirements - would I be able to keep up with the required classroom time, maintenance days, fundraising, scrip purchases, and committee work? One thing that I never viewed as a burdensome requirement, but instead a great benefit, is the mandatory attendance of twice-monthly parent education classes ("PECs") put on by the school - once a month in the evening and once a month during the daytime while my kids are in their preschool class. Since being involved with my twins club, I had started to see what benefits regular parent education - in the form of professional speakers, materials and focused discussion - can bring. Information, preparation, tools, new ideas, a feeling of working together...and that you're not alone in your parenting struggles. Now I get this benefit at my kids' preschool from the very competent teachers as

Preschool Report Card

When signing Darius out of preschool a few weeks back, I noticed an envelope in his cubby.  His teacher had finished the mid-year assessment, a "performance review" of sorts for the three year old set.  Her assessment of my only child was in. 

Honestly, I find the whole thing a little over the top. I mean do three year olds really need to be assessed?  My kid seems fine.  He’s talkative, but has a few shy tendencies.  He loves to throw a baseball and play in the sandbox.  He’ll pass on coloring and art almost every day of the week.  He’s not that interested in eating.  And he won’t ever sing when he knows people are watching him.  Is all seems pretty typical to me. 

His teacher’s assessment of him was on par with what I know, as his mother, to be his strengths and weaknesses.  But the mere fact that someone other than me (or his father or doctor) got to make a formal assessment of him and have that go into his file and perhaps change perceptions of him, I don’t like it.  I’ll admit that I’m having a slight mama-bear reaction about the whole thing.

Discipline Diva, or Mrs. Diva to You

I am no stranger to public perception of parenting styles. I’ve been told my kid is a “brat,” and have been the recipient of plenty of unsolicited advice. Teachers and medical professionals question me slowly, “Have you considered getting him help?” even after I’ve told them repeatedly the run-down of what I have done.

Thankfully, those battles are primarily over. The Cat is a first grader and has gained more understanding about the issues that were so painful for us in the past. Of course there are moments of embarrassment, but that is true for any young child. No kid behaves perfectly all the time.

No, it is not the Cat, or autistic spectrum disorders, or the public perception of such things that is on my mind today. Rather, I have to admit that I am now on the other side of the battleground with my younger son’s friends: I find myself being the unfair judge.

“Kari, Spliggle is supposed to eat all his turkey.” one of his good friends told me haughtily. Her mother looked amused. “It is fine that she calls you Kari, right?” She gave me the look that essentially said that if I disagreed I would be causing a scene. I would be the one in the wrong.