Archive for the 'Kids' Category

January 8th, 2009 - Walked to work!

Due to over 2″ of snow yesterday (light snow ALL day long), I was able to walk to work this morning. It was lovely to get back to that and I only slipped once (no fall, thank goodness for YakTrax).

Speaking of YakTrax, Maggie is big on noting things that we adults do and stating that when she gets bigger she will do the same thing. When she sees me put on my YakTrak, she announces, “When I get bigger, I’m going to have YakTrak just like you. Princess YakTrax!” Unfortunately for her, they only come in adult sizes, and only in black. (I’m pretty sure she believes princess stuff only is pink or purple.)

Another good one: Yesterday, she was talking to me about how she’ll go to work when she gets bigger. She wondered where she would work, and I said it all depended on where she found a job. So she let me know that her Dad and I would help her find her way to her job when she was an adult. She has such confidence in us…and that she’ll still be living with us when she’s an adult. LOL

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December 17th, 2008 - Foster care beginnings

Just a quick note to let folks know that we’re about to officially begin the work to become a foster family. Our first appointment is Friday, at our house, with the licensing social workers. (Two because one’s in training.)

Plan: We’ll start in the spring doing respite care–temporary care for parents and foster parents who need a break or are going on vacation and can’t take the foster kids along. Sometimes it’s just because they need a break, other times because they are going out of state and can’t take the kids along, or want to go on a couples-only weekend (my in laws always went away for their anniversary weekend [they did foster care for over 37 years]), or having surgery, or a business trip, or whathaveyou. Could be overnight or for a couple weeks at a time. We’ll have a choice of when and what kid(s) we’re willing to take in.

Then, when Maggie goes off to 4K in September, we intend to become full time foster parents. We’re intending to only take kids younger than Maggie. And, if possible, only girls (or baby boys) so that they can share the bedroom. Otherwise, we have to move Maggie to the guest room–there’s no heating vent in there (just like our bedroom), and that’s not legal for foster kids. Some day, we intend to put in heating. So maybe we’ll do that this summer anyway and then it can be the foster kids room if we have boys. (Girls would share a bedroom–we fully support the idea of kids sharing bedrooms. Plus, I like my guest room!)

Process: Much like adopting, we have to go through a homestudy and make sure all sorts of things are okay with the house. (More intense than adopting a baby as they can’t get into stuff that an older kid can so we have to lock up medications, for instance. You have to have a certain amount of space per kid, so they check out the bedrooms. And all sorts of stuff.) There are also training seminars (some before we become licensed and a whole bunch more afterward). So some of it should be fairly easy since we’ve done the homestudy thing before. Some will be harder and may be expensive–at the very least we want to get a loft or bunk bed for the bedroom.

Cost: Theoretically, it costs nothing to become foster parents. Realistically, we will have to buy stuff to prepare for more kids. For respite, not as much as they should come with everything they need, except a bed. And we have a double bed that can come in the room and a crib and a pack n play. We’ve already bought extra waterproof mattress pads (white sale before Christmas!). We might buy more baby toys and a Boppy if we’ll have infants. And we got rid of our swing, trike, and highchair (to another foster family!) which may prove useful. For full time care, these and many more things will be necessary. Especially since I gave away so much stuff last spring when we said no more kids. (I thought we wouldn’t do foster care for at least 3 more years. If then.) We’ll also have to get a babysitter for Maggie for the training seminars (nights; maybe a friend will do it for free–but it’s a total of at least 30 hours).

We are going to reduce our charitable giving by one third (it was 3% of our income, down to 2%) since our lives will become full time giving. That 1% will instead become our foster care prep fund. And in the future, our foster care fund. In case you have heard that foster parents do it for the money, in WI, we have one of the lowest foster payments, around $350/month (for the least needy and youngest children). That’s right: about $10/day for 24 hour care. (If Eric and I both worked outside the home, the child could be put in day care for around $800-$1000/month paid by the state, and we’d be paid the same $350 for the rest of the day. But since we have a full time parent at home, we get $350 for 24 hours.) Anyway, just saying it’s not for the money and we should expect to spend more than that 1% (budget will be adjusted once we have kids in the house and some ideas of the extra expenses). [The highest paying states are in the $800-900 range, so don’t think that they do it for the money, either. A research project earlier this year estimated that the average cost of a foster child to the family was something like $800/month. Only a couple states paid that much.]

As it relates to living simply/frugally, I am likely to discuss foster care here. I don’t expect this to become a foster care blog but who knows? If it does, it will of necessity be vague as confidentiality is of great importance. If you have questions, let me know, happy to talk about how it all works here in WI. Some I already know and can answer, some will come with experience of course!

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December 15th, 2008 - Giving shoes away

Yesterday, I told Maggie she could wear her brown boots (not really winter boots, more dressy boots. Or winter boots if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line I guess) with her dress, instead of sneakers. She declined, telling me “I never wear those boots. I don’t like them. We can give them away to the other kids.”

That’s right: At 4, my daughter has already learned that if you don’t use something or don’t want it anymore, the appropriate thing to do is give it away!

If only she did this with things I didn’t care about. These are her only dress shoes for the winter, so she needs to wear them to the preschool winter program Thursday and her child dedication ceremony at church Sunday. I guess we can donate them on Monday. LOL

And, in the interest of complete honesty, I do not know if she really knows that anything we “give away to other kids” disappears from the house and thus she cannot use that item again. We’ll see. We’ve been working on going through her toys lately and the box will disappear as soon as we go through the toys in the living room….

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August 25th, 2008 - Go outside and play

Thanks to my brother for sharing “Remember ‘go outside and play?’” from the LA Times. This is our philosophy for Maggie–she’s already doing it this summer at just 3.5. The only precautions are an adult has to let her out (the doors are kept secure due to the animals–if we had none, we’d probably let her go out on her own) and the gates are secured (one is locked, the other one she’s not strong enough to open). The article mentions a new blog, Free Range Kids that I think I will love! Maggie can play outside for an hour at a time or even longer. Sometimes she wanders in to tell us something or use the toilet or ask a question, then she heads right back out. Since neither of us are particularly into hanging around in the backyard, we love that she’s independent!

I wish she could range the neighborhood…maybe when she’s 5 or 6. I don’t really like that our neighbor girls (18 months and 7) do–it just seems too dangerous for the younger one and the older one shouldn’t be in charge of her kid sister at that young of an age. At this point, Maggie doesn’t know enough about safety to not have an adult with her outside the backyard. For instance, she doesn’t understand looking for cars before crossing the street. No way will we let her roam before she understands that one! (The 18 month old, for instance, doesn’t get that one either to our occasional horror. Luckily so far her sister has been vigilant.)

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August 8th, 2008 - Our little carnivore

Despite my desire for her to be a vegetarian, Maggie prefers to be a carnivore. Which is why she doesn’t eat a lot of food perhaps since we rarely serve meat. When she does get meat, it’s all she wants to eat. But, since I will eat only organic meat (preferable grass-fed and free range) and Eric agrees that’s a good idea for her as well, and it’s rather expensive, we simply don’t have meat around much. (Eric is a different story–he will eat cheap meat from the grocery store.) (Relatedly, I just read Granny Miller’s post about why she raises her own meat animals and she nicely explains why I try to eat only organic/pasture raised meat. )

Since she likes to eat meat, we want to be sure she knows where it comes from. Although she is rather doubtful of it, she does know that burgers come from cows. (She’s a bit confused on this point, as she also thinks that our veggie burgers come from cows.)

This weekend, we’re going to the county fair. Part of it is a petting zoo of farm animals. Eric told her about it today. They went through a number of the animals each of us would get to pet such as a pig and a chicken. Then she says, “And I will say thank you to the cows.”

Surprised, Eric queries her, “Why?”

“Because they make hamburgers!”

Wondering if she’s thinking that cows sit around making burgers with their hands, he says, “Maggie, hamburgers are made OUT OF cows.”

“I know. They are made out of little pieces of cows!”

“OK. And yes, you can say thank you to the cows at the fair.”

So she both knows where her meat comes from AND she wants to properly thank the cows for providing us the food. I love her!

We need to take her to Cattleana Ranch again so she can see the cows we actually eat. (And are eating for dinner tonight. Eric picked up burgers at the Red Radish.)

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June 16th, 2008 - I want to be Patti

I hope I can be the wonderful Mom Patti is. And that Maggie has the imagination and vision her daughter Tessie has.

We’re working on it. This weekend, she wanted to play with a walking toy for babies just learning to walk. We let her. She tried to turn it into a stroller for Baby Meg, which didn’t work at all. So I brought up the stroller we bought (and only used 3 times, in the basement, during tornado warnings, as a chair for her). She LOVED it and had all sorts of adventures with Baby Meg, including going to work, going to preschool, and the baby getting sick.

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May 19th, 2008 - Toys don’t come from Target, they come from garage sales!

Maggie likes to play “going bye-bye.” She’ll pick up a backpack, purse, or bag and tell us she’s going someplace, usually work. However, she just told me, “I’m going bye-bye to buy new toys at the Target.”

My response, “Oh, no! We don’t buy new toys at Target! We buy used toys at garage sales!”

Then we had to have a bit of a conversation about why. I don’t think she quite gets it yet…. I’m also surprised at her plan to buy toys at Target, as I don’t believe we’ve ever bought toys at Target for her. Or for anyone else while she was with me.

I think I need to start taking her to the sales. On the other hand, Saturday’s my day off, and it’s such a hassle having a 3 year old to get in and out of the car seat at every stop. But heaven forbid a child of mine things toys come from Target! LOL

Posted in Kids, garage sales and thrift stores | 2 Comments »

May 9th, 2008 - Three beads and a baby

My brother sent me a blog post from an old friend from high school last week (if you followed the track-back: Hi, W! Other readers: Yes, we called him W. Or Dub or Dubbie. I hope he doesn’t mind me bringing up those old names.). Talk about a blast from the past. Except the post isn’t really even about him, it’s about baby toys: Three beads and a baby compares the expensive crib mobile he just set up with a baby toy his grandfather played with.

I agree that his grandfather’s was a better toy.

Relatedly, over the weekend, I went through Maggie’s toys again. The primary impetus was the trashed room that appeared after she began sleeping in the big girl bed (she stays in bed 95% of the time now, or at least has for the two weeks since we got home). But I also wanted to get rid of plastic toys if I could. I filled on paper box with toys to save–mostly books and puzzles she’s outgrown–for the next kid. Goodwill is going to get some of the plastic toys and stuffed animals she doesn’t need or I don’t want around. Her toy area is much simpler now, and even if she does pull everything out, it will be easy to return it. It’s mostly books!

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April 8th, 2008 - The bagel bed

Last Thursday, Maggie switched to sleeping in a bed–a big girl bed, which when said by a 3 year old sounds an awful lot like bagel bed. This is NOT simple living. Simple was Maggie safely inside a crib with blankets and a few stuffed animals. (Until a month ago, only one plus sometimes a doll, neither of which she played with much anyway.) Occasionally through the years, we learned to not keep things close to the crib as she’d happily pull them inside and tear them apart (the diaper was a big mess!).

But we were lucky. She never tried to climb out and so we could peacefully continue on with her in an enclosed space. Till last Wednesday when Eric went in to say good night after getting home about 10 minutes after she went to bed. He found her sitting on the crib rail swinging her feet. (Reminds me of something I did when I was 16, but that was on a tennis net and Maggie never fell backwards.) Since the bed wasn’t ready and it was late and she was scared enough by Daddy’s reaction, we left her in the crib for night–with lots of pillows on the floor.

Thursday, we dressed the bed. (Okay, for anyone not in my family of origin, that means we put sheets and blankets on the bed.) Everything was pretty peachy until yesterday. She did fall out once, but onto the pillows and apparently never woke up and she seemed quite surprised when Eric got her up in the morning to find herself on the floor.

Then yesterday came. And she figured out that we wouldn’t magically appear if she got out of bed. Most of her toys are on the floor (at least somewhat contained in that corner, but it’s now across 1/4 of the room instead of about 1/8). Many of her diapers, training pants, and wipes were no longer in their containers. (After she went to bed, I discovered why her sweater front was damp. She’d also stuffed a handful of wipes into her front pocket, after apparently using some as tissues.) She also got dressed: over her PJs, she’d put on a turtleneck, sweater, and training pants. I think she tried to put her pants on, but discarded them as they were in the middle of the floor. (Plus she had a shirt on under the PJs. She must have roasted!)

The diapers and such are now in the crib instead of her! Hopefully she can’t reach them, but I’m not convinced. We should probably put them in a box in the crib.

The toys are still strewn about. I had already been thinking that we needed to get rid of more toys and books, and now I’m certain of it. But it’s getting hard to do. It’s not that she’s gotten a lot since the last time I went through them, but since I go through them so often, I’m down to mostly good toys or ones with attachments (such as from Grandma J. or Uncle Monkey). So I’ll probably just box things up this time. Especially some of the younger toys–and get them back out in a couple years. And she has so many books that I can easily box up half and no one will even notice. She doesn’t need board books (although she still enjoys them) so I might put most of those away. Then it will be easier to find the longer books to read to her. She really enjoys some of the early reader books (in particular, her aunt Karen and cousin Summer gave her a number of Henry and Mudge books [We don’t have the one that’s linked, but that’s the first one.]). And I find them easy to read to her. I don’t get bored as quickly with them like I do with board books. (I’m not one of those parents who can read the same board book over and over and over and over. Even the H&M books I have to switch around from one to another.) I’m going to wait till we get back from vacation before tackling it. I have plenty of other things to take care of before we leave.

If we weren’t planning on another baby, I could get rid of the crib, but we’ll just leave it up even if it takes a couple years. Why bother with the work when we can use it for storage? She doesn’t play much in her room (well, not during the day at least!) so it’s not like she needs the space.

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January 5th, 2008 - What to do with the kids

Although I strongly resisted watching it in the first place, I ended up really liking the movie Shrek. One of these days, I’ll watch the second one. Meanwhile, I’m going to try to win the third one. Home Ec 101 is running a quick contest to win the DVD!

The question is: What do you do to keep the kids busy when you need to get things done?

* First and foremost, my best solution is to involve Maggie in what I’m doing. Easier said than done, of course. But I’ve talked a lot about teaching children to help with chores, even at quite young ages (Maggie’s been helping with the laundry since she could walk. Maybe even before.)
* But sometimes, you’re too busy or harried or it’s dangerous, so the second option is: Get Eric to do something with her. Really, having your husband or wife or an older child keep the child busy is a great idea and an oft-overlooked one.
* Maybe this should have been the first one: Teach the child to keep herself occupied. Maggie is only just 3 and she doesn’t need 100% supervision. From the beginning, we’ve played a lot with her AND taught her to play by herself. We strongly encourage self-sufficiency. Lately, she’s been doing a lot of “I can’t!” on things she quite obviously could figure out in another 30 seconds. Instead of doing it for her, we tell her to take care of it herself. Sure, when she wrapped the sticker around her finger last night and couldn’t get it off, it would have taken me only 10 seconds to remove it. Instead, I put up with 2 minutes of her standing there, asking me to help, my telling her to take care of it herself, her trying, taking it mostly off, putting it back on, asking me again, repeating myself, her taking it mostly off and tearing it, my helping her by holding on to the bits and pieces and she slowly but surely got it all off. Yes, it took longer, but in the end, I’m helping her understand that she is a competent kid who can do things by herself.
* No bonus points: Maggie is never babysat by the TV. She rarely even watches it with us. I want the movie for myself! LOL

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January 4th, 2008 - Pumpkin Pete

The other night, while cuddling as a family before Maggie went to bed, Maggie poked Daddy in the eye. It appeared intentional and she got a reprimand. Whimpering, she said, “I say Pumpkin Pete.” Huh? Huh? After she said it two more times, I said, “Okay, Maggie, say Pumpkin Pete.” She reached over, tapped my nose, said “Beep!” then squeezed it and said “Honk!”

Heaven’s sakes! It wasn’t Pumpkin Pete! It was “Honk and beep!” We’ve played this with her before, but it didn’t have a name. And while she says honk and beep pretty clearly on their own, together, it really does sound like Pumpkin Pete. (And the poke in the eye *was* accidental. She was trying to honk/beep Daddy.)

I tend to avoid writing about cute things Maggie does as I try to focus on simple living. But while a lot of that has to do with saving money, I really do need to focus on the SIMPLE part of it. Spending 20 minutes hanging out with Maggie and Eric each evening is certainly a nice, simple, family activity. We’re able to do it because we don’t have a bunch of activities every night. And it can really help keep things calm: last night, I was all frustrated about TurboTax Online and didn’t even want to come up. But I did. After chatting with Maggie for 15 minutes, I wasn’t at all stressed out and was able to put the problem aside!

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December 20th, 2007 - 12 ways to make your kids financially savvy

12 ways to make your kids financially savvy is an excellent article from a Wall Street Journal writer.

Note, however, that the author has quite a bit of money. Or at least has chosen to spend a lot on his kids, including retirement funds (invested amount unlisted), $5000 for a wedding, $5000 for finishing college, fully paying for their undergraduate education, $15,000 towards a house…and that’s per kid. Sorry Maggie, but I don’t plan to do any of that. I don’t personally believe parents should pay for college education beyond what the FFASFA (or whatever it’s called) says they can afford nor assisting with retirement or house purchase. And no way is she getting a $5000 college graduation gift.

But his (other) ideas are still valuable

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December 7th, 2007 - Maggie’s lead levels are down!

Since I’ve talked about the lead paint abatement we had to do, I have to share our wonderful news as well:

Maggie’s lead levels are down to 6.3! 10.0 is the trigger that requires abatement and monitoring of the child. So we’re in the clear! Of course, we hope they fall further, but we don’t have to have anyone watching us anymore. ::whew::

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December 7th, 2007 - Leaves in boxes

You know something you bought from a company has been packed by hand when you find a LEAF in the box. No industrial, high-tech facilities at Paulmba (link takes you to Maggie’s Solstice gift).

Why a Solstice gift? Because I want to stretch out her plethora of presents this year. As I wrote a few days ago, I’m feeling kind of bad that after deciding as usual to not buy her anything, I ended up with three gifts!

Oh, and an update to that post, Meghan shared a list of four gifts she’d seen:

Something you want
something you need
something to play with
something to read

I should start a Holidays category.

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December 3rd, 2007 - a BIG Christmas

I can’t get this family out of my mind. Last year, Six they gave their kids 40-50 gifts EACH for Christmas. It’s really, really, really hard for me to reconcile that with being frugal. And oh yes, her personal description starts out “A frugal mom of four….”

But, every time I’m aghast, I remind myself of something very important: People are frugal for different reasons:

to have a stay at home parent
to be able to travel widely
to retire early
to have a job they love even if it doesn’t pay well
to live in the country or a particular home or a particular city
to have certain luxuries, whether that’s a big screen tv, new computers, or a big blow out Christmas!

We’re actually buying things for Maggie this year. It started with a lovely frog I bought this summer from Pleasant View Schoolhouse. I was just going to put it with her stocking. But then I bought a cat from Nepal at the fair trade fair here on campus. That’s going in the stocking. And we decided to buy a set of handmade in the USA wooden tools and toolbox for her. (To replace the Playskool plastic and painted wood ones I found at garage sales and am now scared to give her.)

Just because I can’t wrap my head around the idea of giving one person 40-50 gifts (much less four people), that doesn’t mean someone else is wrong for doing it. I still like the idea I heard long ago of 7 gifts for Christmas:

something for physical exercise, such as a ball or jumprope
something to play with others, such as a board game
a book
something to encourage artistic creativity such as paints, clay, etc.
???
???
???

The problem is that I can’t remember what they are anymore! I read about it in a book and it’s what the author and his/her spouse gave their children each year.

Posted in Kids, Holidays | 2 Comments »

November 30th, 2007 - Elementary school for Maggie

I know what school I want to send Maggie to: Appleton Public Montessori where the school motto is “Learn to love to learn.” I love the Montessori methods and every time I read or hear about them, I get excited because it seems so right to me.

However, the school is on the east side of Appleton, 23.4 miles away (about 40 minutes, up near our church). WI requires 175 days of school. That’s 16,380 miles (back and forth twice a day) not counting evening school events. That’s 819 gallons of gas at 20 mpg. $2457 at $3/gallon.

Well, it would certainly be an incentive to buy a hybrid sooner than we planned. (Actually, Maggie won’t go to 1st grade (following Montessori guidelines, they don’t have a kindergarten in the charter school since they would also have to have 3 and 4 year olds and 3 year olds are not provided free public schooling) until 2010. Our CR-V will be 7 years old then; I’d hoped to keep it 10 years. And it surely won’t get 20 mpg nor will gas cost only $3/gal by 2010. That much driving would certainly be an incentive to upgrade our vehicle.

That would more than double our yearly mileage. Right now, even with all the trips out east, we’ve averaged less than 9000 miles per year.

Is a fantastic school program worth the cost–both monetarily and to the environment?

The school encourages carpooling and we would expect that Eric would become the driver as a stay at home parent. Someone else may be in the same position. So the costs could be shared, but they would still be there to one extent or another. I think 3 hours a day of driving would also limit our ability to do foster care.

Neenah also has a charter school with some Montessori influence, Alliance Charter Elementary. From their website, they don’t appear to adhere very strongly, however. For instance, instead of 3-year groupings, they have K, 1-3 and 4-5. They also say something like “the best practices of Montessori and project-based learning” which makes it sounds pretty wishy-washy to me. On the other hand, it’s only 14.6 miles away (about 20 minutes). (Oddly, both of these schools are on Forest Ave, but in different cites.) That is far more palatable time, energy, and money wise, 10220 miles, 511 gallons, $1533.

Maybe we’ll get luck and a Montessori charter school will open in Oshkosh by then. If only we lived in Milwaukee; they even have a new Montessori International Baccalaureate High School. I’m also intrigues by IB schools; there was a small one in Appleton I heard about a few years ago but I can’t find it back so I guess it closed. And Green Lake is turning their entire school district to IB. They are 45 minutes away, however.

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November 20th, 2007 - Independent kid

Generally speaking, I feel lucky that we have a fairly independent kid. Remember, she’s not quite 3–she’s still 2 but for only 2 more days. I think this fits into the theme of this blog because the more independent she is, the more she is able to help us. The more she can help, the more we can get done. Also, the more independent she is, the more I can do without having to keep an eagle eye on her. Which again means the more I can get done.

Not that it doesn’t take time to get to this point. Watching her try to open her bedroom door took a couple minutes the other night. It would have been far faster to simply open it for her. But tonight, she opened it on her own without me in the room. Which meant I did not have to quit getting ready for bed to open it for her. (She likes to close her bedroom door while we are getting ready for bed, then we have [in the past] had to go open it before she freaked out about being left apart.) Or shoes–she got a new pair of shoes tonight (Robeez). They are bigger than her previous pair, which she has never successful put on by herself, although I’ve tried to get her to do so. She was excited by them, and wanted to put them on. So I let her. She needed just a little bit of help at the end. Two minutes later, she took them off–something she hasn’t done with her other shoes except when told. So I told her to put them back on. It took another 2 minutes for her to get it done–but she did it. And we no longer have to worry about putting her shoes on! (Her sneakers are another story–we’re still working on them. And her new sneakers are have laces so she’s not able to put them on nor off without assistance. Now I get why velcro is so awesome! But we couldn’t find canvas or leather shoes for her with velcro. Actually, we couldn’t find leather sneakers period. Everything was fake materials, which I’m trying to avoid.)

It’s also be good preschool-wise. We left her there at 6:30am and didn’t pick her up until 3:45. She had a wonderful time and the teachers find her delightful. No problems or worries at all! (Except, as expected, she did not nap during nap time. I thought they made the kids lay down anyway for the 2 hours. But they have an “awake room” and after 10 minutes, she told the teacher, “Maggie awake! Maggie awake!” Oh well. :)

I can’t wait for her help in the garden next spring/summer. I think she will be more of an asset than a hindrance. And if it’s still the latter, at least I will be preparing her for her 4th summer when she definitely will be able to help!

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November 14th, 2007 - Maggie’s off to school!

Since she rarely sees other children, except at Sunday church preschool, we intended to sign Maggie up for the preschool here on campus come spring. They run only during the college semesters and take enrollments for spring semester.

When they have room. Which they don’t this spring.

So I scoped out other local preschools and given the prices, declined to pursue that avenue further. The least expensive was over $1000/school year. The Children’s Learning Center here on campus is only about $250 for 12 weeks. That was in our budget, $1000 wasn’t! Plus, none of them accepted kids except in September and they have to be potty trained.

We planned to sign Maggie and me up for a parent/child swim class through the rec department in the spring. So I looked through the booklet for other available morning activities. In doing so, I read the page of ads for local daycares. One of the places I was interested in is Arts for Kids! but they didn’t have a website and after finding out the prices elsewhere online, I didn’t bother making a phone call.

But now I did. What did I have to lose…plus we needed daycare all day this coming Tuesday and maybe they provided drop-in care. I called. They don’t actually have a preschool for 3 year olds–only the 4K program with the school district, which by the way is only THREE blocks away. (For those who know it–it’s on the grounds of the Paine, across the street from the back building.) But they do have children who attend part-time for the same reasons we are seeking.

They have a full time art teacher with a studio that the kids can go to at any time for as long as they want. Some kids spend hours every day in there! Of course, art activities also happen in the regular rooms. There are also teachers for dance/drama, music, environmental education, and Spanish, who come in once a week to each class. Unfortunately, the latter two right now are only in the afternoon. While we toured and talked with the director yesterday, Maggie stayed in the room. She brought home her first preschool art project already! She used glue (which she thinks is lotion–probably not a good connection there! But she’s never used glue at home before and adores lotion) and what I called “puffballs” to her (pompoms) and she proudly proclaimed that her paper had “footballs!”

And it is very affordable: even full time care (over 5 hours/day 5 days a week) is about $150/week for kids over 2 and not much more for infants/toddlers. That’s the least expensive I’ve seen, even less than the CLC here on campus. For hourly, which Maggie will be, it’s $6/hour. Eric chose 3 hours on Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday because she’ll get music class. And it includes lunch (which actually I’m not a fan of, since she’ll be eating meat, 1% non-organic milk, and who knows what else, but schedule-wise it makes sense to leave her there through lunch).

We specifically asked about diversity. There are only a few minority children (which is generally true of Oshkosh anyway) but they have a lot of diversity in income levels. They have a number of foster children, which we thought was neat. (The owner is a former foster Mom in fact.) They do accept children with special needs, as long as they can participate in a group environment.

And we can get additional hours when needed, so she’ll be able to be there all day Tuesday!

So why am I willing to pay for childcare 6 hours a week when we have a free stay at home Dad? Good question on a simple/frugal living blog of course. It’s mainly about socialization. Eric doesn’t want to participate in any parent/child activities–a Mom’s group or playgroups or such just aren’t his thing. So Maggie mostly sees the house, runs errands, and goes to church 3 times a month. Plus of course other odds n ends. But very few kids and few other adults are regularly in her life. A preschool gives her these things. I personally don’t feel it is terribly important to the average or above average preschooler to have these in their lives if their have enriching home lives, which I feel Maggie has. But Eric feels very strongly that she should. As does my favorite early childhood educator (a professor I work with weekly).

We can afford it. Eric will appreciate some time off. Maggie will ADORE this place, we’re sure. She loves art things, we just rarely do it at home. She loves music. It’s a casual place. It’s a bit busy–20 kids in her room and lots of things to do. Might be overwhelming but we’re hoping it encourages her to speak up (she’s been doing a lot of whispering lately) as well as improve her language skills (which are on the low end of average for an almost-3 year old). Last night when I went in before I went to bed to say goodnight to her, Maggie asked “Go downtown Daddy later?” Yeah, she’s already asking to go back to preschool!

Funny note: preschool is where she goes when we go to church. So she’s a bit confused now and thinks the new preschool is also called church. It’s actually in an old mall–the first indoor downtown mall in America.

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November 14th, 2007 - Warped sense of cost…or the right one?

Yesterday, Maggie wore her winter coat for the first time. Both Eric and another person had trouble getting it to zip, so we figured the zipper was broken and we’d have to buy another coat. My comment: “Shucks! I think that was a $5 coat!” (As opposed to say a $2 or $3 coat….)

And my plan for buying another one was to go to the consignment shop which is going out of business and finding one for the same price or less.

When we got home, I tried out the zipper and had no problems, so we haven’t bought another coat. Which is nice, since this is a size 4 and should fit her next winter, too!

My husband pointed out that I should be glad it wasn’t a store-bought coat that cost $25 and we laughed. We can afford to buy a second $5 coat. And I started thinking about something I could do to re-purpose it (I wasn’t about to put in a new zipper. I don’t do much sewing and zippers are beyond me).

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October 19th, 2007 - Teach ‘em young

Yesterday, when Eric and Maggie were getting ready to go out, Maggie made sure she had a canvas bag with her! She’s already learned to bring your own bag instead of choosing paper or plastic! woohoo!!!!

Actually, it’s probably more that she likes to carry things. On the other hand, she likes to copy what we do, and since I usually carry a bag, she like to carry a bag.

Either way, it’s getting through to her to reuse bags. And she’s not yet three!

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My Adventures in Simple Living

Archive for the 'Kids' Category

January 8th, 2009 - Walked to work!

December 17th, 2008 - Foster care beginnings

December 15th, 2008 - Giving shoes away

August 25th, 2008 - Go outside and play

August 8th, 2008 - Our little carnivore

June 16th, 2008 - I want to be Patti

May 19th, 2008 - Toys don’t come from Target, they come from garage sales!

May 9th, 2008 - Three beads and a baby

April 8th, 2008 - The bagel bed

January 5th, 2008 - What to do with the kids

January 4th, 2008 - Pumpkin Pete

December 20th, 2007 - 12 ways to make your kids financially savvy

December 7th, 2007 - Maggie’s lead levels are down!

December 7th, 2007 - Leaves in boxes

December 3rd, 2007 - a BIG Christmas

November 30th, 2007 - Elementary school for Maggie

November 20th, 2007 - Independent kid

November 14th, 2007 - Maggie’s off to school!

November 14th, 2007 - Warped sense of cost…or the right one?

October 19th, 2007 - Teach ‘em young

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