are things complicated yet?

About the news today

It's not that I think his death means an end to terror (impossible) or that it's justice well-served (how could the death of one person possibly deliver that?) or that it means the end of an era (there will always be a bad guy out there).

I'm not sure that his death has as much actual meaning as it does symbolic, particularly for Americans but also for his followers and anyone else that ever heard his name.

I think it's a milestone. I think the world is better off without his hate and hypnotizing personality that convinced so many people that what he was speaking was the truth. I think he was a modern-day Hitler and capable of a much grander campaign than he had time to accomplish. I think lives have been saved.

...

I have written about living in Kenya before, but all you need to know for today is that my family lived there 1996-1998 and left the country just weeks before the August, 1998 Embassy bombings.  While Bin Laden and his team were planning the bombings, my father worked in that embassy.

What I find myself thinking today is that I am relieved, so incredibly RELIEVED, that a dangerous man who very likely saw my father's name in print as a part of the planning, perhaps said it out loud and maybe even saw a surveillance photo of his face as he walked into and out of the Embassy, is dead.

This man who performed such incredible acts of violence and hate to nameless people? I am pretty sure he once knew my father's name. Because of his role and responsibilities, I think he probably followed him and he knew which office was his in the American Embassy in Nairobi. I think he took his photograph.  I think he didn't give a second thought to the idea of extinguishing his specific, named life when plans were finally made. The idea that he saw his name in print or said it out loud makes my chest tighten up.

Individually assessed, targeted and discarded (along with other key personnel). My God.

It's beyond unsettling to think that a person capable of such violence has probably individually targeted and surveilled someone you love most in the world. Even though he carried out his attack with a great deal of success and there's no reason to think that he ever thought of my father again, it's still creepy to have someone so crazy and irrational walking around with your father's name tucked deep into the folds of his brain somwehere.

It is even more unsettling to think about what might have been and what did eventually, tragically, happen to other people at his direction, both before and after the embassy bombings in 1998.

It is personal, but I know that I am lucky to have had a distant-yet-personal brush with an insane man and escape relatively unscathed. I hope you don't think I'm telling a story for attention's sake or trying to draw my own, more than ten-years-old experience back to present day for any reason because really, I have long-since buried it and gotten over it and there are thousands of actual experiences that ended far more badly than mine.

It's just that last night's news made me inhale deeply and sigh with a kind of tangible, legitimate relief that I wasn't even aware I had been waiting for. That's all.

Minor annoyances

Dear hostess at Bayona restaurant in the French Quarter,

When I call to say that opentable.com just ate my 7pm reservation and I'd like you to make the reservation for me offline, and then you take a high and mighty tone and tell me that you've been booked at 7 pm for this Saturday for MONTHS and all you can possibly offer me is a 930, I will not only not believe you, I will hang up on you mid-sentence and call another restaurant.

Sincerely,

A couple with perfectly good American dollars to spend on overpriced shrimp

***

Dear billing lady at my midwife's office,

You can hardly expect me to believe you when you say that you sent me an invoice yet you cannot actually produce said invoice for review now that I'm right in front of you and giving you a stern lecture on the topic. It's especially unbelieveable since you can produce every other piece of corespondence that you've sent to my house except for this one, KEY invoice that I am telling you that I never recieved.

Wait, what's that? It cannot possibly be a clerical error as I have gently suggested?! Well then, IT MUST BE AN ACT OF GOD. God smote the invoice. This is the only possible conclusion since you refuse to accept responsibility for what is obviously all your fault.

Regards,

A pissed off patient

***

Dear Girl Scout Troop whatever is local to me,

Oh man, I really DO want to buy some cookies from you today, but I have already been through THREE boxes of those suckers in less than a week and I really CAN'T buy any more cookies. I can't! Even though Claire really likes them and she helps me eat them and oh crap, now she's noticed that you're selling cookies and she's asking me about them and...we have to go. WE HAVE TO LEAVE THE PREMISES RIGHT NOW.

(I'll take one box of Thin Mints.)

Kindly,

The pregnant lady looking at you with indecision in her eyes

***

Dear Home Warranty People,

Thank you for giving us a free hot water heater this week when ours bit the dust, just one month before our home warranty that the sellers bought for us expires. Wow, that was awesome not to have to pony up $1,100 for a hot water heater this week.

What was not awesome is that you still made us pay for the service call (and did not even show up until 72 hours after the first call), the city permit to install it, the haul-away fee on the old one and materials required to install the new hot water heater, which I would think are all a part of the replacement costs.

Warranties are such bullshit.

Best,

A pair of homeowners who will complain about anything.

Changing definitions

It took 18 cycles to get pregnant that first time, and when I finally did it was because I had been seeing a talented RE and I'd spent a lot of money on drugs and learned how to inject them into my midsection. I was initially pregnant with twins and after seeing a pair of fluttery heartbeats and celebrating our good fortune, one of the babies died three weeks later. Many months after that, Claire was born to two of the most grateful and thankful people to ever to walk this planet.

There. That wasn't so hard to say, was it?

It becomes easier to tell people in real life, the more distance I put between now and then. Then, and for a long time afterward, I seemed to be so defined by my experience with infertility. It slapped me in the face everywhere I looked. It taunted me and tortured every conscious moment. Even after I got pregnant and had a baby and then got pregnant again, it seemed to put a stinging spin on an endless series of mundane conversations and thoughts.

It's not that I was embarrassed by it, it just felt like the kind of topic that wasn't meant for dinner party conversation. It felt like something so intensely personal that it was inappropriate to talk about out loud. Talking about an inability to create life seemed just as depressing and awkward as talking about death: nobody knows what to say, the air gets thick and people shift their eyes upward. It was so private and felt so obviously public: the married couple with no baby.

As more time passes, I'm less defined by it and simply see it as one of the hard times in our life that we overcame. I'm defined today by different experiences and circumstances. Infertility, with all of its labels and notions and stigma, is something that I went through a long time ago. It's not who I am any more and it doesn't color my daily thoughts. It's not holding me back or ruining my life or making me cry every night. Not any more and probably not ever again. It is such a relief to know this truth.

After almost five years, I am over it. I'm over the feelings of failure and guilt and depression and frustration. I'll always be sensitive on the topic but I'm just DONE feeling negatively about it. I am not defined by this shitty THING any more. I even feel mildy triumphant on the topic these days: I beat it and kicked it to the curb and even though it will always be a part of me, I WIN.

I can finally talk about it in an even and neutral tone with zero risk of bursting into tears. The words flow effortlessly from my mouth, like I'm talking about my favorite recipe for pasta. If you had told me in 2006 that I'd be talking this way, I would have smacked you.

The reason I wrote all of this, beside wanting to talk about it for advocacy and awareness reasons, was to say that if anyone ever wants to talk about pasta, now or many years from now, I'm here if you need someone to listen.

There. Something positive that came from something negative. That wasn't so hard to do, was it?

About that midwife we're seeing...

Several people have asked me what is UP with this whole seeing a midwife thing.

As Chris told me early on, "It wouldn't be so weird if the word 'midwife' wasn't so...renaissance-sounding."  He's totally right. A midwife sounds like someone you fetch to your farm in the middle of the night, pay three silver coins to and hope she keeps your wife alive as well as the baby, so she can help work in the field next week. Harvest is a'comin!

But the modern truth is that nurse-midwives provide excellent care for women with uncomplicated pregnancies and refer out women WITH complications. They're thoroughly responsible, well-educated and licensed and they don't take silver coins for payment.  They take insurance and FSA accounts and they deliver in hospitals or medical centers as well as homes and birth centers.

They way we ended up with our midwife is a long story and I originally wasn't even going to tell it here because it's so ranty and angsty, but I think it's important.  I think a lot of women feel they don't have options when it comes to choosing care (OB or a super granola home birth and there's no in-between, which isn't true) and that they can't say no (sure you can!) and I think it results in a rash of bad care that has the wrong motivations behind it. The 2007 c-section rate in this country was 31.8% and that is too high. Ridiculously high, actually.

Look, it's no secret that healthcare in general is sort of MESSY in the United States. But the field of obstetrics is, to me, a particularly screwed up specialty.

***

I couldn't go see my old obstetrician because of a really ugly situation, that happened after Claire was born, with a good friend of mine. The obstetrician I had decided on, the one I had decided on WEEKS ago and was scheduled to see after our trip to Maui when I was 13 weeks, that practice is being sued by the state Attorney General for purchasing AND USING WITHOUT PATIENT CONSENT products not approved by the FDA.

They were buying IUDs from a Canadian pharmacy because they cost less. They didn't tell patients that before inserting them. IUDs from Canada are not FDA-approved. I could probably end up agreeing with them that Canadian IUDs are identical, but I cannot agree with their opinion that they are above the law. I don't care that the FDA are stupid sometimes, they are the law and you obey the law. Period. The woman who spoke on behalf of the practice (the clinic's President!) was defiant and showed absolutely no remorse. The tone was definitely, "I'd do it again."

Well. Well, well, well. What else are you doing that's illegal? How else are you trying to make more money off of patients and their insurance, illegally? If you have such little disregard for the law and such little respect for your patients that you don't even inform them that you're putting unapproved and, in fact, illegal items into their bodies, then wow. Just, WOW. I cannot be a patient at this practice.

I focused on female DOs after that and found two that looked promising. I called the one with a website because I figured that was at least a step in the right direction towards the kind of doctor I want. (That should have been telling, right?)

When I called, the nurse sort of gave me a tone about how I was 14 weeks and hadn't seen an official OB yet (though I had seen another physican, but not an OB, which I guess isn't good enough). Then she tried to sort of shame me because of the timing. Why haven't I seen someone before now? Well, I've been busy. "You've been.........busy." And I could tell she thought I was some sort of crack addict who doesn't care about her baby enough to get proper prenatal care. But the fact is, I know that I haven't missed any key windows for testing and all I've missed out on as far as they're concerned are two billing cycles. And I knew that my due date was accurate so really, there was NOTHING to be done prior to now. Remember, this job is largely JUST OBSERVING.

She told me that I'd missed the mark for the visit to the perinatologist (in a very "tsk tsk" way). I interrupted her and said, "I'm declining the nuchal screen; I know what it is." When she started up again about other testing I interrupted again and told her that I was declining the quad panel as well. I could feel her judging me through the phone and I hated it. I hated being treated like I'm an idiot or that I'm not very smart at all or even like I don't have an internet connection and access to those asinine "Your pregnancy this week!" and "Your baby is the size of a kiwi!" emails. I even told her that it was my second pregnancy, which I was hoping would bring SOME sort of street cred to me as a patient.

I knew that it wasn't personal, that she was reading her script and parroting what she's been told and trained to say but that's exactly what was killing me: it seems like nobody I encounter in this profession's administration can think for themselves. Instead of saying that I missed a deadline she should let the doctor discuss that with me. Not everyone wants that test, you moron! It felt like she wanted me to have those tests so they could scoop up the billings. If your insurance pays for it, why not? UGH. (Why did we decline those tests?  Because they have a high false-positive rate and they weren't going to tell us anything that would lead us to termination. Why bother?)

I hated knowing that I would have to go to this appointment and have a conversation that starts out with,

I am looking for a physician that enthusiastically agrees that the Cesarean rate in the United States is astronomically high.

I am looking for a physician that will report to me her personal rate and back it up, proudly and happily, with documentation.

I am looking for a physician that will treat me like I'm an intelligent person.

I am looking for a physician that respects my time.

I am looking for a physician that does not practice litigious medicine.

I am looking for a physician that will not try to schedule my birth for when it's convenient for HER.

I came to the really frustrating realization that I'm not going to find it. There is no physician like this. I will have to play the stupid game and over-advocate for myself and just thinking about it was exhausting.

What is boils down to for me is this is not patient-centered care. This is monetary-centered care, designed to get as much as they can, as legally as they can, while minimizing the risk of litigation at all costs (including the cost of what's best for the patient). It's all on the doctor's terms with almost no allowance being given to the patient. We wait 30 minutes after our appointments are supposed to start before a doctor traipses in without an apology, they want us to pay for the delivery up-front, they won't give us our records for free unless they're sending them to another doctor (which makes absolutely no sense). It's ridiculous and the ultimate power struggle that preys on our worst nightmares and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I hate it! HATE IT! It filled me with indescribable rage that I had to play this hokey game and run around town to find someone halfway normal to do a job that is largely JUST OBSERVING. As someone smart once asked me, "Do you go to the hospital and pay this much money to do ALL THE WORK YOURSELF for any other procedure? No, you do not."  The same person also told me that the premise of "there's something wrong with you that we need to treat" is equally infuriating.  There's nothing wrong with me! I don't need fixing! There is a very high probability that my body is going to do this JUST RIGHT all on its own, without any help.

I hated having to waste so much of my time and energy and mental agility trying to second guess everything from "Why am I still waiting after twenty minutes?" to "No, I will not allow you to pre-bill me for services you will not perform until next APRIL."

What really bothers me is that they do not understand that this is a CUSTOMER SERVICE business. If they were trying to earn me as a client none of this hootenanny would happen in the first place. You don't treat new business like she's stupid. Do you think I'm going to walk in here and just hand over $10,000 worth of new business to you without you EARNING it? Really?? You think can treat your customers like morons and they'll just take it?? The relationship is not peer to peer as it should be, it's more like teacher-student and that's wrong. It's just WRONG.

A CPA never makes you feel guilty about what you choose to do with your money. A CPA doesn't pressure you into doing something becuase it's convenient for him (such as, making sure to write that IRA contribution check before Thursday at 4 because he's going out of town and it would really be easier to send it in with all the others). But this is exactly what an OB does.

An OB judges you and pressures you in a way that nobody else you PAY for their professional services does. A professional is supposed to offer their educated, licensed-by-the-state opinion and let you make a decision. But I find that OBs often use fear (the baby's going to die/have birth defects/you'll die) to get what they want (convenience and inflated billings) and this infuriates me.

There's even a small, highly feminist part of me that is mad at all of the women in America who do walk in with their fat slice of business (pregnancy and childbirth is often the most expensive medical event in a woman's lifetime!) and take this kind of treatment and just HAND OVER the money and insurance card without a second thought. It's that behavior that allows the specialty to be so one-sided in the United States. If every woman was as demanding about her care I wouldn't be in this one-sided argument where I seem to be the only person who speaks up about my time being wasted or being horrified about convenience as a primary objective. I'm not wrong to want to be treated well.

What it really came down to for me is that I feel like I've been pretty well traumatized with the whole obstetrician thing from the doctor who delivered Claire being involved in the situation with my friend, to the other doctor I had all picked out being sued by the state Attorney General. It left me at 15 weeks pregnant with no OB or nurse-midwife through no fault of my own and because I can't ever get an appointment same-week at ANY office, I have to wait two weeks to meet a new doctor and I just...I just couldn't seem to win.

And then when I was walking into Walmart one day, being all rage-y and pissy and cranky about being taken advantage of against my will and being forced to submit to this ridiculous system of false health care, it hit me: I want a midwife. What I want is a midwife that shares my point of view. I want someone I don't have to fight with. I want someone who views my care as holistically as I do.

I did a simple search for a nurse-midwife covered by my insurance and I found one that I love. But I will tell you about her later because dudes, I'm lucky if anyone is still actually reading this 1,900-word post.  GOOD NIGHT.

Two girls

Two girls that started out looking just alike on a grainy, black-and-white ultrasound screen. Two girls that will be unique in every way imaginable, no matter whose hair or nose she has.

Two girls to share clothes and hand-me-downs. Two chances to get my $35 out of that 6-12 month Hanna Andersson holiday dress.

Two little voices asking for us in the middle of the night. Two whispers snickering together while they're supposed to be sleeping. Two comrades plotting against us. Two friends to keep each other company.

Two mops of hair to tame every morning with ribbons or clips. Two Easter dresses and two Christmas dresses every year. Maybe one day, two flower girls.

Two girls to teach how to not throw like a girl. Two ponytails in baseball caps.

Two girls to talk to about puberty, which isn't such a big deal, it's more the idea of two teenage girls at the same time for many, many years that's a bit intimidating.

Two girls to set rules about piercing ears and painting nails and dating and shaving legs. 

Two girls and one chance to make sure I give them the proper environment and philosophy that allows them to have a healthy body image.

Two girls to take to the makeup counter so they can learn proper application technique and not look like hookers who learned everything they know about eyeliner from the woman at the 24-hour Walgreen's.

Two girls to take for proper bra fittings because you'd better believe I won't let them start out wearing an ill-fitting bra, which is one of the worst things a woman can unwittingly do to herself.

Two smallish sedans parked outside the house in 2027, with two new drivers with nearly zero experience behind the wheel and...actually, maybe I'll just make them walk everywhere.

Two girls to set curfews for. One girl to explain how she is two years younger than the other and thus curfew is not the same time. 

Two girls to tell to "Put a sweater on over that!" or "Young lady, you are NOT leaving the house in that outfit."

Two girls that will exclaim about and steal from my now-vintage wardrobe by the time they're teenagers. (Mom! These skinny jeans are SO RETRO!)

Two girls to teach how to protect themselves in dark parking lots at night. Two girls to worry about. Two girls to be proud of.

Two girls to pass my jewelry on to. Two girls to tell stories to about their great-great-grandmother and what a classy lady she was.

Two beautiful smiles in our Christmas cards, that will turn from the toothy grins of children to confident smiles of young women far sooner than anyone expects (or is ready for) them to.

I'll be the mother of two brides. Chris will have two father-daughter dances.

Two girls to take care of us when we're older.

Girls. Our girls.

It's perfect for me

Every morning I get dressed, make lunches, locate shoes, drop her off at school and go to work.  I come home after a day at my desk, tired and hungry because I forgot to eat lunch again and I've been talking talking typing reading thinking for hours and all I want to do in the whole wide world is sit quietly for ten minutes with my eyes closed and not read email, not converse, not dial the phone, not think, not anything. 

But I can't.  My second career for the day has started.  It's time to play with blocks and ride the bicycle (tricycle) and get cereal bars from the pantry.  It's time to defrost some chicken for dinner and unload the dishwasher, sort the mail, start some laundry.  I am asked to turn on Elmo, Nemo, Elmo, Nemo, ELMO!  I run and I jump and I play and I dance and I hide and I seek on command.  I give her crayons and paper and warn her about the walls.  I fill the tub with warm bubbly water and watch her make maw-ga-weetas with a plastic cup that she shakes high above her head and I smother her with kisses and books before tucking her into bed with her favorite stuffed monkey.  I always wonder if it was enough.  Did I do a good job at this today?  I think so.

Then I take on my third role for the day.  I sit and talk, really talk, with my husband and 3 nights out of 5 I wait to make our dinner until after she's gone to bed so we can eat it in peace with giant glasses of wine that we savor in the dim twilight of a lingering summer.  We talk about the news and the stupid politicians and this funny thing someone said on Twitter.  We talk about people we know and things we want to buy when we have limitless stores of cash.  We watch Netflix and television on the sofa, me curled up next to him, the dog at my feet.

Sometimes I go to the gym or I plan birthday parties.  I make grocery lists, I fold laundry or I sit upstairs and watch 4 episodes of True Blood because he doesn't like it and I love it. I get a pedicure with my friend down the street because out here in the suburbs people I know actually live close to me.  I talk to my friends in the computer and I troll the unlimited content of my reader.  I putter.  I sit and I finally get my quiet time.  Sometimes.

It is tough and grinding and exhausting, this daily juggle of wants and needs.  It is constant prioritization, sacrifice and muscle.  It is weighing This versus That a thousand times for a variety of people.  Some days, it seems like either everyone is happy or nobody is happy and there is no in-between.  I fight with my roles and pit them against each another, calm with the knowledge that I'll never, ever achieve the perfect version of a stupid notion called balance. (I'd like to smack the person who came up with THAT idea.)  I tell myself that my life isn't complex, but as I go through the motions of each day I'm always shown that it actually is.  Admitting that things are complicated isn't a weakness.  It's just a fact.

I wish there were more hours in the day to get everything neat and tidy for the next one. I wish I had more time with her and with him and for me. It is wonderful and at times it can be horrible, but this life is all mine.  We are lucky to have opportunities to push and pull the mechanisms that impact our day-to-day.  It's these opportunities to control our own destiny that remind me we're living a quintessential American story. 

It's not a perfect life.  Not a magazine or television life.  Hell, it's not even good enough for a post on a shelter or design blog (just look at the three half-eaten containers of yogurt that have been on the kitchen countertop all day).  Even though it's messy and I'm guaranteed hard work in every day, it's my life and I'm fortunate that it's entirely up to me to make it as good or as bad as I want. 

I deeply value my freedom to make my own decisions.  There's nobody but myself to say I can't do something.  I live with my successes and I live with my failures.

It's kind of kick-ass to have that kind of power. A lot of people worldwide don't. I can do or be or change whatever I want.

I'm thinking about making myself a cape.  It'll make the drudgery of laundry a little more exciting, don't you think?

Preschool, Part 2: I have had so many confrontational conversations in the past week, even I can't believe it.

We ended up moving Claire to the fancypants preschool on Monday, and it's been going okay.  We are thrilled with the place but Claire is going to require a bit more...persuasion.

At first she was excited, but then she figured out that we intended to LEAVE her and, well, it's been rough what with the daily tantrums at drop-off and overly-grateful face I see when I pick her up in the afternoon.  I mean really, Claire.  It's not like Mommy dropped you off at a Turkish prison for the day.  They have a baby grand piano here. It's the height of suburban snobbery.

We didn't come to this decision lightly, and your thoughts were so helpful, but I just kept thinking about what the objectives were and how her current school wasn't meeting any of them.  The old school got a big fat F on all three. 

Ideal Preschool/Daycare Objectives

1. Close to house

2. Feeds children decent food

3. Has intelligent staff

When I looked at it on paper, practically and rationally, it was no contest.  I had looked for other solutions nearby and this was really the best fit.  Talking to some of you really made me see that the cost isn't SO exorbitant.  Childcare is just really expensive and it's absolutely the sort of thing that, to me, is worth paying more to get exactly what I want.  We ponied up the cash and enrolled her.We felt good about it

And then last Thursday, I had a conversation with the director at the old school that was so validating and made me feel GREAT about moving her. 

A'Dell: Hi, Friday will be Claire's last day here. Do you need me to fill out a form or anything for that?

Director: Oh. Her last day?  So...you've already given us two weeks' notice? (Superior tone, pointed look.)

A: Um, no.  Her last day is tomorrow. (Firm, not taking the bait.)

D: Well, in the handbook it DOES state that you need to give us two weeks notice. (Very haughty now.)

A: Or else...what?  What happens if you don't get two weeks notice? (I know full well that the answer is NOTHING since there's no deposit.)

D: (Realizing she has screwed up, sounding a bit more kind.) Well, it's really just a courtesy notice.

A: Well, I'm not giving it to you.  Her last day is tomorrow.

D: Oh.  Okay.  Did...did something happen?

A: Well, I haven't been happy with the facility for a long time and we've found another solution.

D: (Barely audible) Oh. Okay.

AND THAT WAS IT.  She didn't say anything else.  She refused to make eye contact with me for the entire conversation and even after I said I wasn't happy with the facility she didn't even bother to ask me WHY.  It was like we were in high school and I was dumping her. 

***

The new place is good but I'm finding that I seem to have a very adversarial attitude toward her care providers and it doesn't seem to matter WHO they are - new place or old.  It's a weird blend of privacy rights and parental rights with a sprinkling of practical and rational thinking. I think I would have these issues with any place.

For example, when they tell me that binkies aren't allowed it makes me challenge that on a rational level.  Like, WHY aren't they allowed?  I get that some people think they're undesirable but I'm not bringing in a binky for EVERY KID.  Why can't my kid have one?  Don't I get to make the decision on when she's through with it?  What makes you think that you get to make this decision?  I really, really hate rules just for the sake of rules.

Or, the form I filled out that had some confusing instructions on it.  I gently and kindly suggested they change the language in the interest of clarity.  I was told that they CAN'T change the language because it's a state form.  (It was not a state form.)  They kept parroting back STATE! FORM! STATE! FORM! like it was so holy and untouchable. 

It was a Word Document with their letterhead on it. 

It might be INFORMATION the state requires you gather, but lady, it is not a state form. If it was, it would have the seal of the State of Texas on it and letterhead from the Department of Family and Protective Services.  This isn't a state form and don't tell me that just to shut me up.  Tell me that you'll talk to someone about it or you don't know how to edit it but you'll check it out.  But don't lie.  Don't blame it on the government.  I'M SMART.  I SEE THROUGH YOU. If you don't know the answer, just freaking say so.

Then there was also the registration form that wanted to know where both Chris and I worked.  There was a blank for "employer" and I thought, "Why do they need this information?  Why is this vital/crucial to the service they're providing me?"  So, I left it blank.  Same when they requested Claire's Social Security Number - I opted to leave that blank too. (Let's try to keep identity theft a low risk for her until she's at least say, 13.)

***

I think my quick-to-anger tendency on the topic has to do with the fact that I'm a pretty laid back parent.  I have discovered that my "Parenting Style" (what an awful phrase) is pretty laissez-faire and that surprises me. 

As confrontational as I am, I fail to see the practical reason to put both Claire and I through the misery of taking her binky away, cold turkey, the same week she starts a new school.  I just....think that's stupid.  (Apparently, I only enjoy confrontations with purpose.) Why make everyone miserable for the sake of a perceived societal norm that really isn't the norm? I know plenty of three-year-olds with binkys.  It's...not really a big deal.  This rule is kind of dumb and not based on anything practical.

I don't want to create a situation where I'm THAT parent that fights with the director all the time but it's hard to strike a balance between what I want as the parent and what they need to make sure the classroom is normal all day. 

I think I'm extra sensitive on the topic because on some level I feel like sending her there is a choice, when it's really not.  Like, I CHOOSE to send you to this preschool even though I don't really want to because since I'm the Mommy I should want to stay at home with you all day because...that's what all of the "best" Mommies are supposed to do?  That makes everyone at preschool an enemy that I pick apart and make sure is up to my sky-high standards. 

And that's so dumb because it's not even true.  It's not really a choice, it's The Way Things Are.  These people are helping me.  Unless we suddenly came into Rockefeller-type money (HA HA HA), I can't see myself ever not working.  And even if I wasn't working in a traditional sense, I would still need childcare to pursue projects on my own.

There are definitely moments that I think, "I should just let that go," but there are so many others that make me want to stop and point fingers and say, "This is kind of stupid, right?"

So that's where we are with preschool now.  Still a little angsty, but heading in the right direction.

Ending on a high note, look at this fantastic backpack and lunch bag that I got from Land's End. Claire has been wearing the backpack around the house and insisted on carrying her lunch bag by herself this morning.  They're a hit.

You'd think this is a no-brainer, but lying to Congress usually doesn't turn out well

This is Ben Baldanza.  He's the CEO of Spirit Airlines.

Ben's airline charges a lot of fees (including a particularly grating $45 fee for a carry-on bag; bags under the seat in front of you are free) and while they are irksome to the max, Ben can do that.  He's operating within the law and this is how Ben chooses to run his business.  He's allowed to make money.  Making money isn't a sin in America. (Even though it feels that way sometimes.)

Ben was pretty stupid yesterday.  Ben told Congress that he thinks luggage isn't essential when traveling for a vacation.  He told this to an already-agitated panel of lawmakers. 

Oh, Ben.

It was the same in-your-face move that the auto CEOs made last year when they flew on their hoity-toity private jets all the way to DC, to ask Congress for money "because we're so broke, obvs." 

You don't need luggage to go on vacation?  BEN.  AMERICANS NEED LUGGAGE TO GO ON VACATION. AMERICA IS VERY MATERIALISTIC.

I mean look, Ben.  House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello thinks you're trying to hornswaggle him.  If there's one thing ranking members of Congress hate?  It's having a CEO try to hornswaggle them.  They're Congress.  They make the laws Ben.  Respect the intelligence of Congress.

Jerry's not very happy.  (Neither is Tom Petri from Wisconsin.)

This kind of waaaaay out of touch with reality comment is just HILARIOUS to me.  Ben, you are the CEO of a private company.  You can get away with a lot of boneheaded stuff.  But one thing you don't want to do is piss off Congress.  DO NOT PISS OFF CONGRESS! How is this ever going to turn out well?

Ben is also in the rare category of business that needs permission from the government to operate.  He needs a FAA Part 121 certificate to operate scheduled air service in the United States.  It is up for renewal every 24 months.  If someone decides that he's not serving the American people with integrity?  He might not get it renewed.

(The FAA does not mess around with people they think aren't trustworthy.)

So, it's with this context that I can't understand why he said that, with a straight face, and expected Congress to, I don't know, HAVE SYMPATHY for him?  Or something?  What was the intended result here?

Why didn't he just say, "This is how we are running our business," or "We're getting really good feedback from some people," or "This is more transparent than our competitors and we believe it's more honest."  He did say those things, but then he muddied it up with the whole "you don't need luggage" part.  He threw a bomb on all of his rational points with this totally made-up reason.

Basically, he lied to Congress.  He made something up, that isn't true, and he told Congress they don't need to pack swim trunks when they take vacations to Turks and Caicos with their favorite lobbyists. 

Um, Ben?  Jerry looks like the kind of guy that might like to take several pair of swim trunks with him. Jerry needs a suitcase and so does Jerry's wife Georgia, their three kids and seven grandchildren.  Jerry knows about packing for a family vacation, trust me.   He has to cram all that shit in the car before they leave every summer. 

Jerry is looking at you, right now, and thinking, "This guy is lying to me."

America is tired, SO TIRED, of CEOs that lie.  And really, I think this is what annoys me (and everyone else) most about this offhand remark.  It's the idea that this guy must think he's really powerful if he thinks he can lie to Congress, on live television, on the record, and get away with it.

I don't fly commercial much any more these days, but even if Spirit had the cheaper price overall, I don't think I'll ever choose to patronize Ben's business.  I respect his ingenuity in pricing model and I admire the fact that he's unapologetic about what his business costs to run, but I hate being lied to. 

I hope Congress feels the same way.

If the cost of preschool shocks me, I don't even want to know what college is going to cost in 2028. DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME.

Let's talk daycare and preschool for a little bit, shall we?  Claire has been in the same daycare since she was 3 months old. 

The facility is across the street from my office, offers a discount because of where I work and is unbelievably convenient for me to pick up and drop off.  Our old house was on that side of town and it was also on the way to work for Chris. It was a great first daycare for Claire AND us.

And yet.

There were always THINGS about the facility that irked me.  The director always seemed more interested in pacifying me rather than giving me a solid, actionable answer.  She and her staff seemed to alternately panic about illness ("Your kid is kind of hot. AIEEE! Take her home!") or be completely nonplussed ("Swine Flu? Yeah, we plan to...sanitize toys? If someone gets it?  It's just the flu -- no big deal!").  The name of the school had a misspelled word in it, I think to make them "unique," but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was an error I was giving them too much credit for.

Their policies and procedures seemed contrived at times.  After one year you get 5 days of "vacation" free.  I asked for it and was told I had to give 30 days notice and take it all in the same calendar week. Really?

They give the kids crap for snacks and encourage parents to bring in all kinds of HFCS-laced monstrosities for birthdays (every week it seems). The "teachers" are kind, but too-young and sometimes a bit flip for me. They don't really seem on the up-and-up.  They told me she was behind on her vaccinations but failed to understand that combination vaccines take care of more than one disease. 

Keep in mind that I collected all of these anecdotes over 18 months; one offense last year wasn't enough for me to leave, but now? Ugh, now I'm annoyed and I feel like I have to double check them constantly on administrative topics.

As an infant it was an ideal place for her. But as a toddler, my viewpoint changed dramatically.  I didn't want her eating CHEETOS for afternoon snack when I'd packed blueberries.  And yet, there she was, with fake powdered cheese all over her face one day.  I cringed when I saw the garish cupcakes and store-bought brick of fake rice-krispie treats another parent had brought in for a birthday.  

When the receptionist told me that she had hand foot and mouth disease (Oh? You're a doctor AND a receptionist? That's incredible!) and that I needed to keep her home for DAYS, even though CDC policy on the virus in a group childcare setting said she absolutely DID NOT, I was annoyed for days. 

She even had the gall to say, "CDC?"

I literally said, in my most "holy crap, you are an idiot" voice,

"THE UNITED STATES CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL?  SURELY YOU HAVE HEARD OF IT AND ARE FAMILIAR WITH THEIR POLICIES ON THE TOPIC SINCE THAT IS YOUR MOTHER FUCKING JOB."

(Okay, maybe I didn't say "mother fucking".  But I was thinking it and my tone said it for me.)

I thought about, and shopped for, another solution many times.  In the end I always came back to the killer rate, the location close to my office, the fact that I seemed to be able to mitigate the unhealthy snacks most days (I know that I can't shield her from Cheetos and crappy baked good forever) and even though the director might be kind of dim, it isn't hurting Claire, it was just annoying the crap out of me.  She isn't being HARMED by staying there during the day.  On the contrary, many days she REFUSED TO LEAVE and Tantrum Claire greeted me with "NO, NO, NO! NO GO HOME! WANT TO PLAY!"

(I'm happy to see you too, Claire.)

When we moved last March, the location was no longer desirable, so they only had the rate working for them at this point.  I was the only one who could pick up/drop off.  While this hasn't been SO difficult (after all, I do go to work every day) it would be better if she was closer to the house so we could have more flexibility.

I wondered if I was being too picky about the whole thing.  Too snobby?  Unrealistic, perhaps? Eh, maybe.  My threshold for stupid is low.  But it doesn't change the fact that I want what I want. 

I started shopping the preschools and daycare facilities near the new house.  To my absolute HORROR, they all cost at least 20% more.  ALL OF THEM, without exception, with plenty costing 30% and 40% more.  Moving 20 miles to a legit suburb with a grocery store down the street means that daycare costs an ASTRONOMICAL amount here.

I was not prepared for that.  I reconsidered the situation.  Two months went by.  I continued to be alternately annoyed and fine. They introduced Claire to Froot Loops.  I made a face.

And that brings us to last week when I was doing some casual Googling with a new set of keywords.  I found what looked like a promising place, just around the corner.  We took a tour and it was HEAVEN.  Just like the Belinda Carlisle song: HEAVEN ON EARTH. It was that amazing.

The lunches are catered in by a local company, locally sourced and nothing is fried.  They'll allow me to pack a lunch for her. (Weirdly enough, that has been a challenge to find; a lot of places are playing the Allergy Card and telling me that it's too risky to allow parents to bring in lunch because of The Kids With Peanut and Wheat and Egg and Milk Allergies.  I understand that, but, uh, what you're feeding them is not healthy, you idiots.  It's basically school lunch from the Sysco truck and we know how messed up THAT is.  I was tempted to tell them that my child is allergic to HFCS and corn products in general, and see what they did what that information.) 

The school we looked at has a blanket no-sugary snacks policy.  There's a library with a ton of books and tiny sofas with wee ottomans.  There's an indoor gym with a parachute, hula hoops and a PE teacher. There's a music room that has a Julliard graduate teaching kids how to, I don't know, ding a triangle or something while she plays the BABY GRAND PIANO.  (I wonder if she thinks this is a good use of her education?) 

The kids take Spanish and Mandarin Chinese language lessons twice a week.  (This is hysterical to me since it's the dictionary definition of a Snobtastic Preschool. It's something you'd read in The Nanny Diaries. Chinese and Spanish for a 21-month-old! Heeeee!)  There's a garden outside that the kids dig around in.  They have extra classes that rotate every few weeks; dance, karate, origami (no, wait, I made that last one up -- but you believed it, DIDN'T YOU?!).  They do BABY YOGA every day at 3p, which makes me laugh because it's so obviously stupid and a parent marketing trick and yet I'm strangely attracted to it.

BABY YOGA!  YES!  I AM INTERESTED!  SIGN US UP!

It's bright, cheery and happy and less than one mile from our house. The director claims to be a germaphobe and I love that.

BUT. There is a huge BUT. (You knew that was coming, right?)

It's a full 33% more expensive than where she is now.  A THIRD. How is this even possible?!?!  It was nice, but the kids weren't like, eating off of solid gold plates or anything. (Maybe they're paying that music teacher more than I think.)

It's also a Montessori school, and I'm not quite sure what I think about that.  I'm still forming an opinion and I'd love yours if you have one. (Either way, good or bad, please pipe up if you have thoughts.)

So, I'm back where I started.  Again.  I like the piano-yoga-chinese-origami school but it's too expensive.  I'm more okay with the price at more run-of-the-mill facilities in the area (even though they're 20% more) but I have really, really strong feelings about that food they give them. I hate it.  I think it's unhealthy.  I don't want her to eat that every day.

*SIGH*

Preschool.  Nobody told me it would be so full of drama.

Independence Day, by the numbers

Wagons, bikes or strollers decorated: 0

Parades seen/participated in: 0

Fireworks witnessed: 0

Cute red/white/blue outfits/accessories Claire wore: 0

Parental Fails: 4 really colossal ones

***

Houseguests: 2

Pounds of ribs and brisket smoked: 23

Bacon-wrapped jalapenos: 36

Rounds of Margaritas made: 4

Bottles of Grand Marnier emptied: 1

Margaritas I drank: 0 (Not sure how this happened; everyone was awfully thirsty while I made dinner and then, all of a sudden, the Grand Marnier was in the trash.  WAH.)

Batches of chocolate chip cookies: 2

Birthdays: 1

Movies watched: 2 (Edge of Darkness, Brewster's Millions)

Episodes of "Whale Wars" watched (and made fun of, my GOD what a bunch of stupid hippies): 2

Trips to the pool: 2

Jaguars seen: 1 (Oddly enough, the Dallas AQUARIUM has a Jaguar.)

Times I unloaded the dishwasher and loaded it again: TOO MANY TO COUNT

Parental and General Wins: A million.