Dreams of Orange Chicken

Man, I'm slacking on my posts lately.

I have about five more pounds to go on this diet (and then I will have the perfect body I've always wanted, right? Haha, only if my stomach suddenly becomes flat and my hips and butt fall off). But all I can think about is food...
...Chipotle chips and guacamole
...Panda Express orange chicken
...El Pollo Loco twice grilled burrito

I'm hungry, and I'm tired of eating healthy "filling foods" like lettuce and baby carrots. And I know that I'll stick with it, because jeez, I'm so close already. And tomorrow is my weigh-in day, and then the weekend, when I allow myself to use a few extra "splurge" points. So, I'll make it work, but man am I irritable right now. It's a good thing that Jake and Chris aren't around for me to snap at them (sorry, Brody, you're stuck with me). I think it's time to leave the house and go for a walk. Maybe to the grocery store, where I can drool over ice cream.

If you think touring, applying, and interviewing at schools is hard, just wait until you get accepted...

Okay, time for another long one...

We got accepted to our first choice school! Yep, one of the private schools that originally wait-listed us called while we were on vacation. They even hand-delivered the enrollment packet to our house so that it would be waiting for us when we returned. And thus began three of the most stressful days of my life.

Day One: I called, and said that the offer did not mention anything about our financial aid application, and the contract deadline is tomorrow. Can we have more time to think about this and figure out our finances? Their answer: We can give you a (relatively small) tuition discount and 'til the end of the week. I said I needed to think about it, and they called back at 7:30pm to ask what kind of discount we would need to make it work. Wow, I wasn't expecting that! So I told them I would call back tomorrow. The idea of trying to negotiate the cost for my son's future made me kind of sick to my stomach, but I needed to talk to Chris to figure out what we could really afford.

Day Two: I called, and told them the amount that we were requesting. I did not expect them to grant it, considering it was four times their original offer. They told me that I needed to give some more info to their financial aid department and they would get back to me. They called back near the end of the day with their answer: YES! Oh my god, I was giddy. I never thought they would say yes, but they took into account the fact that I am not really working right now due to almost all of my hours being cut, and were willing to give us a really great tuition discount. Well, giddy, but also nauseous. I mean, it was a great offer, but it was still a significant amount of money that we would be paying. With no guarantee that we would be able to secure the same kind of discount in future years. Not to mention that it wouldn't really leave room in our finances to eventually send Brody to preschool, or private elementary school after that. But, we got what we asked for, and we told them we were ready to commit. They emailed me the written agreement that evening.

But when I looked at the new contract that night, it wasn't what I was expecting. Yes, the discount we talked about was on there, but so were some new fees that weren't included in the original contract. The New Family Enrollment fee and the Extended Payment Service Charge stated "Waived" on the first contract, but were added back in on the new amendment. And these weren't small fees; they amounted to more than 11% of the total tuition and fees. Convinced that they made a clerical error that would easily be corrected, I sent an email with a copy of the original contract attached, and told them I would await their response.

Day Three (note that this back-and-forth happened over the course of the entire day):
Their response: Oops we sent the wrong contract initially. You were given the sibling enrollment contract, but should have gotten the new family contract. Those fees should never have been waived.
My response: I understand, but we were not anticipating those fees when we told you what we would need to make it work.
Their response: We can't waive those fees because it wouldn't be fair to the other families.  You can restructure your payments to pay more upfront, and lower your monthly payments. Besides, they are just one-time fees, and you won't pay them again in future years.
My response: If you can't waive those fees, can we revisit the tuition discount that we discussed? And, you originally told us we have until the end of the week, but this amendment says tomorrow.
Their response: Our last offer is the best that we can do. And part of that offer included us requiring an earlier response, which is why the deadline was changed. We are also talking with other families, and if you do not accept the offer, we need to call the next person on the waitlist ASAP.
My response: I see. I will need to discuss this with Chris because it was not what we were expecting. I will call you tomorrow.
Their response: I was really hoping for an answer today.
My response: WHAT THE F***!?!

Okay, of course that wasn't really my response, at least not aloud. But I have a feeling that she heard me, anyhow. Man, I NEVER thought that trying to enroll in a private elementary school would be such a stressful negotiation process.

So what did we do? We went back and forth about a dozen times:
+We love the school, and if the cost was the same for all of the schools we applied to, we wouldn't think twice about accepting.
-But the tuition would mean that I would definitely need to work, at least part-time. Maybe full time in the not-so-distant future, depending on what kind of financial aid they would offer in subsequent years.
+But we wouldn't have to worry about finding a middle school (even scarier than elementary options in the public school), since this one goes through 8th grade.
-But we would still have to figure out high school, which is even more expensive than elementary/middle schools if we go the private school route.
+But we wouldn't have to worry about all of those horrendous budget cuts that are seriously impacting all of our public schools, increasing elementary class sizes (some already at 26-30 kids with one teacher, no aides), cutting "extras" like P.E., music, arts, and even social studies.
-But how could we really afford it? I mean, even with this great discount they were offering us in tuition, if we stayed with this school all the way through 8th grade, for both of our kids (and there were never any tuition increases), we would be paying over $200,000! Not including the fundraising donations we would still be expected to give, fieldtrip fees, books, etc.

So, as you've probably guessed, we turned them down. And how do I feel? Disappointed. I really did think that the school would be a great match for our family, as their philosophy and values really seemed in sync with what we wanted. A little angry. They made a mistake, but decided not to honor what they originally wrote, and then added the extra pressure of making us decide sooner. A little worried. We still don't know for sure what our other options will be. But even more so, I feel kind of relieved. The monetary commitment was stressing me out. This leaves us a lot more flexibility to do different things with our life, like take a vacation or buy a new car. I still don't know for sure what's in store for us as far as schooling goes, but Jake is a bright kid, and he's going to be successful wherever we choose. Now, let's just hope we get in someplace good.

Thank you for being a friend...

"I'm addicted to your blog." Pretty much the nicest thing someone can say to me! Thanks everyone, for all of your support. It's nice to know that people can relate. I don't mean for every post to be a bitch-fest, but as I think everyone has already figured out, this is my own form of therapy. It helps me to process my way through some of the things that are taking up space in my thoughts, my worries. And it helps me to be honest with myself about what I'm really feeling and thinking.

Right now, I'm thinking that I still have 10 pounds to go to meet my weight loss goal, and I need to make a trip to the grocery store. Time to look around for some new healthy recipes! Send them this way if you haven't already.  :)

Yum, fried donuts covered in powdered sugar...

And I almost forgot, Happy Birthday to my husband! Chris turned 39 during our vacation. Holy cow, never thought we'd be getting this old (although I have a ways to go before I'm quite that old). When I asked Jake if he knew what comes after 39, he said, "I don't know, you die?" When I told him no, he said, "A googolplex?" So, here's my husband, enjoying his beignets, on the verge of turning a googolplex...

Post-Vacation Blues

Do I only write when I have something to complain about? Let's see if I can make this a little more positive...

We spent the last week in Orlando, Florida, enjoying lots and lots of time at Walt Disney World. Visited the four theme parks on four separate days (Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios). And in between, several trips to Downtown Disney and the Water Park at our reosrt (complete with water slides, kiddie pool play area and lazy river). Oh, and Chris visited the Kennedy Space Center. Pretty much the most exhausting vacation I can imagine, but we had so much fun. Jake loved playing with his cousins, Brody said "Wow!" at almost every new thing that he saw, Chris got to eat beignets, and we all got to spend cherished time with my family.

Speaking of beignets, spending a week on vacation (and eating food from theme parks) is not easily compatible with weight loss goals. But, I am content with the fact that I only gained back one of the ten pounds I had lost. Walking and pushing a stroller a thousand miles a day probably helps.

So, why the post-vacation blues? Could be that we didn't get home until almost 11pm on Saturday (2am Orlando time), and Jake has not slept well since getting back. (Brody also continues to wake up during the night, but that's nothing unusual for him.) Could be that Jake vomitted all over the bathroom Sunday morning, although he doesn't seem sick other than that and general crankiness. And today was a very rare moment when he said he didn't want to go to school, but I think that's just his own reluctance to leave vacation behind. He even labeled Saturday as "Sad Sadurday" because he didn't want to go back home. Or, more likely, my own blues come from the messy house, piles of laundry, bills to pay, etc. And this is after we spent most of yesterday unpacking and trying to clean up. Yep, it's just Mondays that stink, with the long list of things that need to be done and the next weekend so far away... When's my next vacation?

Magnets and Charters and Immersion, Oh My!

This fall, Jake will start kindergarten. Yep, he's turning five this summer and is so ready. And I'm so ready for him to go (although I'm sure I'll cry like a baby on the day that it actually happens). So, how does this work? I mean, I just walk right up to my local neighborhood school and sign him up, right? Hahaha, not in Los Angeles. Here we have intradistrict permits, interdistrict permits, magnets, charters, and private schools to choose between. It's a lot to navigate.

I suppose there are a few lucky people that actually like their neighborhood school, and would feel comfortable sending their child there. Even some people that live in the Los Angeles Unified School School District. I am not one of them. I tried to give our school the benefit of the doubt, I really did. I had heard rumors about problems with our schools in Westchester, including bullying and even gangs. And I knew that our local "neighborhood" school is a Title I school, meaning that a large percentage of the children come from low-income families. 56%qualify for free or reduced lunch- and the assumption goes, the less monetary resources parents have, the less likely they are to be involved in their child's school. And I knew that the population of students at our school is mostly Black or Hispanic, with only 11% Caucasian students (which is not respresentative of Los Angeles as a whole, or our neighborhood in particular, meaning that kids are being bused in). And of course, I looked up the school's test scores, and noted an Academic Performance Index (API) of 795 out of 1000, making it the lowest of the five elementary schools in my immediate area (although better than our future middle school with an API of 743, and high school at 629). But I didn't want to make any assumptions. After all, being a Title I school means that you qualify for additional federal funding. And with the budget crisis in California, any school could benefit from some extra funds.

So, I toured the school. And everyone was nice, but I was so disappointed. The school did in fact receive additional funds, which they used to build a computer room for parents of the enrolled kids. Although, my tour guide told me, it wasn't well-used. A nice try, maybe, but I would have preferred something from which my child would directly benefit. And they were very proud that they had received a grant to start a gardening program at the school, which set aside a small plot for each classroom. I am all for teaching my child about nutrition, and the life cycle of plants, etc., but noticed that most of the plots were empty. My tour guide's response was something along the line that some of the teachers weren't ready for the extra work of integrating that into the curriculum. But, she said, there were a few teachers that were so into it, that they "borrowed" plots from the others that weren't using theirs. Which meant that even fewer teachers were taking advantage of this learning opportunity than it originally appeared. When I asked about parent involvement, I was told that they welcome parent volunteers, but that most parents don't really have the time. I think that was what sealed it for me; it was time to move on.

Since then, I've toured numerous other schools, most of them with Chris. We've seen public school options in our district. We've seen charters and magnets. We've checked out the language immersion programs in nearby districts. And we've toured private schools. And I learned quite a few things. I learned that most of the public schools in local school districts use what I consider a "traditional" educational approach. What I mean is, the focus is highly academic and behavioral, with teacher-led instruction, textbooks, cookie-cutter projects, and worksheets with "right or wrong" answers. And I'm not saying that's all bad, and actually I know that was how school was taught when I went. But I also saw the other side of what's out there. We found private schools (and a few public schools with lotteries to get in) that used an alternative approach, with a student-centered, hands-on, experiential, project-based learning. And it just made much more sense to me.

Maybe I should clarify. I think I'm a pretty intelligent, successful person. So apparently, a traditional educational approach worked well for me. And actually, I think Jake would be very successful in this type of program as well; he's a lot like me. But like every parent, I have much higher hopes for him; I think he can do better than me. I believe in the theory of multiple intelligences: that people can be "intelligent" in other areas besides just the traditionally measured skills of reading/writing and mathematics. Some people demonstrate strong visual-spatial skills, physical abilities, music/rhythm, interpersonal or intrapersonal skills. People may be born with strengths in a certain area, but that doesn't mean that such "intelligences" can't be developed, similar to how verbal-linguistic or logical-mathematical skills are taught in school. That is, maybe they can be taught in school, if you use a non-traditional approach. I think that Jake already demonstrates strong interpersonal skills, and frequently working in small classroom groups on various projects would continue to develop those skills. Jake enjoys the artistic projects that he completes in preschool; why can't those continue to be embedded in the curriculum, instead of just a weekly art lesson (at best) by a teacher that comes in for one hour and then leaves?

Here's something that I saw in every one of the "traditional" public schools that I toured: some kind of behavioral chart posted inside the classroom. One was a chart with each child's name, and popsicle sticks next to the names. If the child was "caught" doing something good, then he would get a stick. After a certain number, he could redeem them for a prize of some sort. For example, if the teacher saw him helping a friend on the playground, he would get a popsicle stick. So, wait, his motivation for helping people is to earn popsicle sticks? And this is only useful to do when an adult is watching? What happened to developing intrinsic motivation, or just feeling good about helping someone else to feel good? My "favorite" behavioral tool was a pocket chart that I saw in one classroom, labeled, "How am I doing today?" Each child's name was labeled below one of the pockets, and in each pocket, there were four cards: green, yellow, orange and red. Honestly, I may have forgotten the colors and their exact meaning, but depending on which color was showing, that was the indicator of how the child was behaving. Green: Good job. Yellow: Warning, watch your behavior. Orange: Needs to change. Red: A note is going home to your parents. Seriously, it was like terrorist alert levels, orange=high alert!

Last week, private school acceptance letters were mailed. Yep, we applied to three private schools. Yes, we pay ridiculous taxes here in California, some of which go to our public schools, and yet we're still considering spending over $20,000 per year to send our son to private school. Seriously. Actually, the most expensive one that we applied to would run us about $25,000 for a year of kindergarten. And that's not even including before/after school care, field trips, summer school, or the numerous fundraising efforts throughout the year. So, we also applied for financial aid. Because who can really afford that? I heard somewhere that if you have two or more kids and make less than $200,000 per year, you may qualify for financial aid. So we applied, and you know what we found out? It turns out that if you make a decent amount of money (not necessarily enough to be able to manage private school tuition), but you live within your means, you don't qualify for financial aid. What I'm wondering is, if we lived like many do in Los Angeles, in a house we can't really afford, with credit card debt and car payments due on our BMWs, then would we have qualified for financial aid? Or who does? Do I sound bitter? I don't mean to imply that there aren't people that genuinely deserve financial aid. And if the private schools really wanted to have the multicultural community that they all claim to strive for, then they would recruit children from different socioeconomic statuses, but I didn't see evidence of that.

Okay, maybe I am bitter. Our letters came. One acceptance. Two wait lists. Not a rejection per se, but more like, "You're not our first choice." After all of those tours, applications, interviews, screenings, open houses, etc. How could they not want us? It can't be Jake; he's a genius. No really, maybe genius is a bit strong, but he did great at the kindergarten screenings, at least at the two that we were allowed to observe. All the schools really did stress their goals of "diversity"; Chris says maybe we were waitlisted because he's a white male. But they had to admit some white males. Just not ours. At least, not in the first round.

So, here's my current situation. We have an acceptance from one school, no financial aid. And the only way we could afford to send Jake there would be for me to go back to work full-time. Which is not what I had planned to do at this stage in my children's lives. I want to be able to spend time at home with Brody while he's still little. I want to be able to volunteer time in Jake's classroom once he starts kindergarten. But I also don't know what our other options are at this point, because we most likely won't hear from our public school options until after the $2500 non-refundable private school tuition deposit is due.

Yes, we applied to several public schools. Eight, to be exact. Sounds excessive? Well, they're all lotteries, and our chances of getting accepted depend on the number of applications. We're only allowed to apply to one magnet school, and the one that we chose had 767 applications last year for 125 spots. That's a 16% chance of acceptance (or an 84% chance of rejection for one less optimistic than me). Actually, less than that since some people are almost automatically accepted because of sibling preferences. So, I figure, if we applied to eight public schools, that gives us 128% chance of being accepted somewhere. What, now you're questioning my mathematical skills? Must be that damned traditional public-school education that I received!

Some people would say, save your money for college, when it's really important where he goes to school. Or, Jake's a bright kid from a good family, don't worry. But I do worry. I worry about the safety and emotional well-being of my sweet, sensitive boy, especially with every report of school violence or bullying. I worry about him not enjoying school or not being challenged adequately in order to develop self-initiated, life-long learning skills. And I worry about not tapping into all of those things that he could have really excelled at, if only he was in the right environment with the right teachers and tools. And I worry about making the wrong decision, when there are so many choices and possibilities.

I don't know what the answer is. But for now, I wait to at least figure out our options.

Sleep is for the Weak

"People who say that they sleep like a baby usually don't have one."

Why is it that everyone else's kids seem to sleep better than mine? Wait, let me amend that, I should say everyone else's babies. My four year-old goes to bed just fine and generally sleeps through the night without an issue. Sure, he's always asking for an extra bedtime story, would prefer to skip naps entirely and would love for daddy to be in the room until he falls asleep, but still, he can do it. But it wasn't always this way...

When Jake was a baby, I read all of the books about sleep that I could get my hands on. I generally spent about 12 hours a day with him attached to my breast, so reading was one of the things I could do meanwhile. (Actually, I eventually became pretty good at doing lots of things while he was nursing; I would be at work, typing on the computer, answering phone calls, etc. with him attached to my boob. The joys of motherhood.) With every book about sleep that I read, I'd feel inspired, and think yes, this is finally what is going to work to help him (and me) get the sleep that we both need.

Jake slept in a bassinette for the first seven weeks of his life. Well, if you call a string of napping stretches lasting about an hour on average "sleep", that is. I distinctly remember it was seven weeks, because at that point is when I had the thought, It's been 49 days since I last got more than two hours of sleep in a row. It was killing me. I am not a person that functions well without at least seven and a half hours of nighttime sleep in a row. I get cranky, irritable, bitchy even. So, at seven weeks, I decided that instead of waking up every one to two hours to nurse him (which seemed to be absolutely the only way to get him back to sleep), I would just pull him into bed with me and he could nurse while I slept. And it worked, sort of. I mean, I don't really believe anyone that says that they can co-sleep and they sleep right through the baby's nighttime nursings. Really, you don't notice when someone attaches himself to your nipple and starts sucking? I definitely noticed. I still woke up each time he woke up, but at least I could stick him on my breast without much effort and doze off while he was still nursing. I really think co-sleeping with my first child saved my life and my marriage, because there was no way I could have continued to function on so little sleep.

"May sleep envelop you as a bed sheet floating gently down, tickling your skin and removing every worry. Reminding you to consider only this moment."

So then, fast-forward to when Jake was about 11 months old. Have I mentioned that he was still attached to my breast? So attached that he absolutely wouldn't take a bottle, or a sippy cup, or anything else? He was eating solids well by then, but still liked to nurse every few hours, and that meant that I could never be away for him for more than a few hours. And 99% of the time, that was okay, since my job was flexible enough that he could come to work with me. But going out to dinner and a movie with my husband? It meant the baby was going to cry like he was being tortured, while some poor soul was babysitting. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but I did feel guilty anytime I was away for more than a couple of hours.

So, it was around that time that we really started to push the bottle. It took awhile; we tried various nipples, bottles shaped like breasts, daddy giving the bottle when mommy wasn't around, etc. But what seemed to eventually work was giving him the bottle while holding him, bouncing gently on an exercise ball.

Oh, the exercise ball. I have so much resentment built up for that stupid ball. By then, that's what we were using to get Jake to sleep at night, for naps, everything. Before the exercise ball, I would either nurse him to sleep, or if that didn't work, Chris and I would take turns holding him, while quickly bending our knees and then straightening back up, "bouncing" up and down until he fell asleep. Man, it was a workout. So when I finally realized that I could sit on an exercise ball and bounce him to sleep with a lot less work, we switched to that.

Once Jake started taking a bottle, he totally refused the breast. And I was pretty okay with that. We made it almost a year of breastfeeding, and it was nice to finally feel like he wasn't entirely dependent upon me (and me alone). And of course, I thought this would be the miracle that would stop him from waking up all night long. I mean, if we weren't nursing anymore, there would be no need for him to sleep right next to me and wake up all night long to latch on, right?

Ha ha, that's me, the eternal optimist. Of course he continued to wake up all night long, except now I had no way to soothe him anymore! A bottle just doesn't work the same way. So it was time to transition our co-sleeping baby into his crib, in his own room, full-time for sleeping. As you can imagine, he didn't like it. You know what saved my life and our marriage this time? My husband. Hey, if I had to take care of the baby and nurse him every night for the first year of his life, it was his turn to be in charge for the second year.

"Sleep... Oh, how I loathe those little slices of death."

Somehow, Jake eventually learned to fall asleep without us bouncing on the exercise ball. Not before it slowly destroyed my back, as I fully attribute my herniated disc to that ball. Then with the transition to the "big boy" bed, it meant that Chris started falling asleep in bed next to Jake every night, waking up around the time that I was ready to go to bed, and eventually going back into Jake's bed sometime during the night when Jake would call out to him. They were back to co-sleeping, just this time in Jake's bed instead of ours. I'm not sure if Jake was two or three years old before that finally stopped being a regular occurrence.

So, you can imagine why it took us three and a half years before we were "ready" for a second child, since we didn't get the sleep issues solved before then. Besides, there are less opportunities for baby-making when you're not sharing a bed with your spouse.

My biggest worry about having a second child was the sleep deprivation. Could my marriage survive another round? But, I figured it had to be better the second time around. First, Jake had to be an anomaly; there's no way that a second child would have the same resistance to sleep that he did. And second, we knew what we were doing this time, so we should be able to do it better the second time around. Right? We would make sure that this one took a pacifier, and a bottle when needed. We would set up a consistent bedtime routine from the beginning and give him a lovey so that he would learn to comfort himself. He would sleep in the crib in his own room from fairly early on, and we wouldn't bring him into bed with us. We would put him down in his crib, drowsy but awake, so that he could learn to go to sleep without us. And we would never, ever pull out that damn exercise ball.

So, here we are, Brody is a year old, and we stuck to all of our plans for making him a great sleeper. And did it work? Hell no! Last night I completely lost count of how many times he woke up. And no, he doesn't use his lovey, suck on his pacifier, listen to the white noise machine and drift off back to sleep on his own. Someone needs to be there to pat his bottom, rock him or give him a bottle.

But the worst part isn't even the frequent night wakings. It's the hell of trying to get him to sleep lately. He fights it, with every bit of his energy, and the more exhausted he is, the harder he fights. We've tried moving his bedtime earlier, rocking him (while he squirms and yells), or putting him in his crib and staying with him until he finally falls asleep. And it's been taking 45 minutes to an hour to get him to sleep at night. I just don't know what to do anymore. Let him cry it out? I end up crying even more than he does. Not because I don't think it's fair to him (although in principle, I don't, but when you're desperate, you'll try anything), but because I get so frustrated, and then angry at him for not being able to go to sleep. And all I want to do is yell and scream, and I hate that I feel this way.

"The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep."

Maybe I just need to sleep on it.