Christmas December 10 - 30, 2005 Pre-school wanted - gifts own and natural - how to escape a rainy valley to a sunny beach - a hope of a climbing recovery

	Lisa uses her expression to demonstrate her usual attitude towards our family

Given a crisis development in our family and regarding my mental health, I devoted my pre-Christmas time to looking for a pre-school for Tom. Just like every other ingenious plan, this one, too, had its little flaws. Approximately half of American mothers with little children keep their jobs -- there are many day care facilities (I know of four just in our block) and pre-schools, but of course I had to come up with something special.

A day care is a child storage. There are large ones and there are "home" types of day care, and they differ in number of penned kids and their options, but they mostly don't correspond with my ideas. A day care is open since early morning (about 6:30 am) till night (about 6:00 pm), allowing you to drop off and collect your kid whenever it suits you, but it also means that a day care cannot have any consistent program. It is be hard to focus children onto some project, if you know that they would trickle in like cockroaches smelling beer. Furthermore, California legislates that there may be up to 12 children per one adult -- which means with two-year old munchkins that the "teacher" manages to keep the scene from becoming bloody, but there's no space for education. Then there's the issue of sick children -- full-time employed mothers put kids on antibiotics to school and trot off to work. All that results in my position that a day care does not fit my plans. I don't need to get rid of Tom, I just want to make him busy for two or tree mornings in a week, hopefully in a place that would offer him some positives and where he can learn something. He can run around or be bored just as well with me at home -- I don't have to pay somebody for it.

	A tree us selected and the saw is ready; now Sid is to cut it, under the expert supervision.

Pre-schools are closer to my idea of "kindergarten" -- a structured program, fixed attendance hours, a smaller kid/teacher ratio. For some reason, pre-schools offer programs only for children three years old and up. I had no choice than to engage in complicated tactics and try to find a school where they'd take my two years old Tommy for a few hours weekly, and where they'd have a program that I like. The whole affair will cost us horrendous sums of money (all being private), and so let it at least be something that suits us.

	Presents almost did not fit under our tree

I started to visit various schools and check out what I can have for some $400 - 500 monthly (yes, that's a real price for 2 x 3-4 hours a week). I did not have much expectations from the first one, which according to their ad seemed to me a do-it-yourself at home thing, but I wanted to get a baseline. In the end I was pleasantly surprised. The place included a small gym, a room with linoleum floor for arts, and another one designated as playroom. A bathroom with miniature toilets led to a yard (so kids can easily reach it from the class or when they play outside). There was a jungle gym in the yard, swings, but also paved paths that the little ones rode on in their tricycles and cars. A fenced little garden with patches caught my fancy -- obviously someone took the pain to let the children seed a few plants and watch them grow. Tom rushed to the nearest car and when he could not unwrap himself from its cabin, a teacher noticed and showed him, how to open a door. Impressed by an approximately five years old boy, Tom attempted to walk up a slide -- it surprised me that the big boy reached out his hand and helped Tommy up. We showed up at the end of the afternoon outdoors time -- kids and teachers were cleaning up toys, and the teacher gathered the kids with a little bell. Tommy, overwhelmed by a herd instinct, fell into the column and would have let them take him into the afternoon class. Unfortunately, my later check showed that this school would have no room for Tom.

Two days later I visited a school that boasts with their successes. This huge institution extends over a standard school campus with an adjacent yard, everything is professional an very shiny. Yet in the classes, I noticed minimum toys -- a few cars, some books -- but no bricks, blocks, or puzzles. I had seen the classes during their arts education, but I found the teacher puddling something with one child, while the rest of the inmates were loitering around the class. Two boys were beating each other over their heads with large toy trucks. One can often encounter such conflict of interests with two year olds, but the teacher's reaction was startling - she was not moved at all, much less was she going to tell them something or somehow intercept their anger. Tom brought along a small toy bus, which he has gotten on St. Nicholas. While we were checking the class out, he had put it down, and the bus got snatched by one of the boys. When we were leaving, I had pointed out that we would need to get the bus back, and the teacher failed to react, again -- I had to go and, while wearing Lisa in a carrier on my belly, to bend down and negotiate with the local boy. Fortunately he showed more reason than the teacher and we avoided a scene -- still I would have expected the teacher to get involved somehow. My question about a daily program was answered briskly -- from ten the kids are out in the yard, they have a snack, followed by free run in the class, they have lunch, and then they go home. As you can see, when two do the same, for the same money, it does not have to BE the same.

	Lizzy's most favorite present: a golden band.

I had visited one more school, which I kind of liked, but they were moving into a building closer to where we live, and so I left that one open -- I want to see, how their new location would look like. My further search has been interrupted by Christmas holidays, though I shall continue. We would least of all want to make a hasty decision, while there's still time. Tommy would start there in March -- we want to go to Czech Republic in the first half of February. Then I would like to leave two weeks for settling down with all the time differences. March should also take us beyond flu season, so that Tom might endure it health-wise. I wish the school to become an extension of his program, not a boring, hated routine.

	This year, motorbikes on a trailer had won as the best present

We also began to teach Lizzy to be more self-sufficient. Naturally, we do not release her into the clutches of collectivist educational system, but we had moved her out of our bedroom. Like Tommy at this age, Lisa began to complain to us at night that we wake her. Our original plan counted on letting her first sleep unattended and regularly all through the night, and then she would move to Tommy's room. Well, Lisa had not met such criterion, and so we moved her to granny's room. The advantage is, if I must run to nurse her by morning, I can take Lizzy and lay down on granny's bed, and I don't need to move on again. Furthermore, we installed a toddler-resistant knob on the room's door, and Tommy after waking up can rouse Sid in the master bedroom, but not us.

I did not want to underestimate Christmas preparations this year. I shopped for presents early and gradually. With two kids, on can certainly not simply devote one day to rushing through as many stores as possible, and take care of everything in a couple of hours. On rainy days, I planned expeditions -- always with some entertainment for the kids included in our errand. For example, they load shopping cars for kids and hand out balloons in the nearest shopping center. Then there's a spot where a toddler can be shaken up on a toy car or helicopter for 50 cents (after our third visit to the center I learned its layout so that I managed to avoid the place in a large circle). In another center, a toy store sports a play corner with trains; the other day Tommy solicited a free balloon somewhere, and so on.

	The thing which makes so much noise, Tommy, is the Pacific Ocean.

Balloons have been our temporary curse. They ubiquitous presence at every holiday decoration makes Tommy always beg for one. Sometimes, shop clerks surrender and donate some half-deflated thing to our cute toddler, sometimes Tom manages to break our will. The balloon then, for the duration of its lifetime, becomes his favorite toy -- it must follow us on our walks and shopping trips, and Tom takes it to bed in the evening. Mornings are the worst, when Tommy attempts to convince the balloon to fly again, and is obviously sad when the piece of rubber won't leave the floor. So far mylar balloons brought us the best results -- they last over a week long and during this time become so common that Tom does not cry when they disappear.

	The Valley was cold and clammy on Christmas Day; good that an oak park lies nearby.

I'm digressing from my Christmas topic. Our presents long bought, we drove out for a tree to a farm like every year. This time we were greeted by a stereotypically winter weather; it was gloomy and frosty up in the mountains. I packed the kids in their cold time clothes, but naturally forgot to pack myself something warm. Still we took a little walk and eventually picked the tree. Tom was mostly interested in remnants of rails going around the farm (we had chosen it in good faith that a train might be riding there -- a closer look had revealed that the rails go from one end of nowhere to another, and are interrupted by fences).

Christmas Eve was ugly and hazy. We took no notice and drove out to the ocean. Right before Patcher Pass in Santa Cruz Mountains, a nice surprise awaited us -- suddenly we emerged out of the inversion and found ourselves in a beautiful, sunny day. Tom then marched along the beach in his rubber boots, which I soon began to envy. A sudden and icy wave splashed me up to my knees. I had to take off my wet and sanded shoes, and conquer the rest of our stroll barefoot. In the end it was not so bad -- would I ever, let's say twenty years ago, imagine that I shall walk in my advanced age, without shoes along a Pacific beach holding hands with a young man? Sid dragged Lisa, and so I could really feel unusually light and rejuvenated.

	Only in winter, when it rains, California's coastal cliffs sparkle with numerous waterfalls.

The actual Eve proceeded according to predictable schedule. Tommy was bad during dinner, in contrast to other times, when he eats nicely. When I had finally managed to smuggle presents under the tree and Sid released Tom to go "see the presents", junior passed the tree and headed straight for Lisa's bedroom. Of course he had long figured out where those interesting packages were stowed -- and I thought I was being quite clever. Eventually we aimed Tommy into the right room. He jumped for the first present that he saw. After we explained that this one was not for him but for daddy, and succeeded in ripping it out of his clutches, Tom had pragmatically exclaimed "vehveh" and went for the largest box that could be found under the tree. This one was luckily for him and contained a tractor trailer with two motorcycles on a flatbed, from granny. It was the end of Christmas for Tom -- he drove it around the house and did not get much disturbed by anything else happening around. On the good side, our Christmas therefore continued for the following six days, before we finished unwrapping and thoroughly playing with all the presents.

	A precious moment when our Squealer is not squealing.

Sid and I gave each other some simple items (books, clothing), but we must have also been very good, for we received two very great, unexpected presents. From our neighbors' granny Julie, a "ticket" to one night in January without kids (i.e. an offer to baby-sit), and from Martin a visit to a climbing gym -- also covered by a babysitter. We cashed in Martin's gift almost immediately. It had been a year since we last were in the gym -- first because of my pregnancy-induced uselessness and now because of the kids. After all, a climbing environment, where adults can be found flying damned low, is not quite safe for children, and we cannot leave them to toddle just like that. With adult supervision, however, it's quite different. Both children behaved superbly, Lisa (our mother-attachment) actually let Martin carry her -- naturally with the milk facility in plain sight, then she's the happiest baby under the sun.

My feelings were quite shaky. Climbing has been an important part of my life for too long. My love affair with childbirth did not lessen by former infatuation, but I was not sure how well would my good old lover handler my excess pounds and worn-out stature. My foot has flattened by a whole number and is so wide that I practically have been sentenced to a lifelong wear of men's shoes (I simply can't fit into women's numbers -- including extra wide ones). I used to buy climbing shoes at least on number smaller, and now I feel like an ugly sister trying on Cinderella's dancing shoe. I don't intend to chop off heels or toes, and so I had to rent a pair.

My worst nightmare had not materialized, though. True, I had been dragging excess weight around, and my physical condition had been poor, but climbing is a forgiving sport. It's mostly "participation" reward oriented -- if you have "acquired yards" and experience, then you can work out situations that a mere raw power won't. So in the end my greatest inhibitor is my reason -- since I don't wish to damage my tendons and joints, I need to stick to the easy routes and gradually build up my form. The only thing that worried me in that moment, was my bulging chest. My blimps of E-F size don't allow me to watch my feet -- perhaps with mirrors? I think we did not quite know how much we had missed climbing. Now only how to convince Martin that we would like to celebrate Christmas more often.

	PF 2006: may the desire to discover not shy from the width of your horizons.

Copyright © 2005-2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.