Preschools, Minivans, and Other Mom Trademarks

Today was a crazy day of ups and downs for me personally. I think for the other members of the family (although I haven't heard about Matt's day yet), it was pretty even keel.

Karol was very excited today because Ms. Adria was coming. Ms. Adria is our new babysitter who we found through a somewhat expensive online babysitting service (this is how it's done when you live in NYC and know NO ONE) and she was scheduled to come for the first time today.

I prepped the kids by telling them that we were going to have a new friend come over and play. Karol was very excited about this. She's been missing her DC care takers and especially her home day care best bud.

I spent the morning getting the kids fed and presentable, and trying to make the apartment look less like a tornado hit it. The sitter got there a few minutes late, and that's when the roller coaster started rolling. I foolishly left only half an hour between sitter-arrival and the actual time of my appointment, so I started stressing myself out about it around 8:30 anyway.

So I had to rush out the door, and Patrick, of course, was not cool with me leaving anyway. I had to give him an extra hug and kiss goodbye. Karol, on the other hand was like "Hi! Come play with me, I'll show you my toys!" Totally apathetic to whether or not I was there.

Hailing a cab was more difficult than I anticipated. I had to get the hang of it through out the day. It took about 10 more minutes, but I finally got a cab and zoomed across Central Park to the doc's office. I was only 8 minutes late, so not too bad.

But bad enough, I'm afraid, to have to spend over an hour there. I don't know if that was my penance for my tardiness, or if the office is usually that slow, but I had a lot of time to worry about making my next appointment with the chiropractor.

While at the examining room waiting for the doc to appear, the phone rang. Since I didn't recognize the number, I just let it go. Then I thought "Maybe that was the sitter. Maybe something's wrong." And of course slowly started freaking out inside. I called the number right back, but it was busy.

So I did a reverse look-up on the number, and much to my surprise, it was Nazareth Nursery. You may remember that this is the school that Matt and I simply adored. We've been hoping and praying that Karol would get into the one spot that may or may not exist there, depending on this and that, since our visit in March.

As it turns out, Sister Lucy called Matt right after trying me (hence the busy signal) and so I shortly got a call from him telling me that she wanted me to bring Karol down to enroll at 10am tomorrow!!! "Bring her birth certificate, baptismal certificate, and your checkbook."

I was so thrilled at this news, nothing could ruin my mood, though a lot of things tried. I don't actually have a copy of Karol's baptismal certificate, so I needed to get it faxed to me. But our phone line is messed up. So I can't get a fax. Solution? 30-day free trial e-fax service - you can receive faxes as email attachments. Whew.

But then there's the thing I needed to fax. Here's where it gets complicated.

We bought a minivan. That's right. Minivan. I should say I bought it. It's in my name, and Matt doesn't want to be at all associated with a mom-mobile. It's a 2003 Toyota Sienna. So now we have 2 cars. In Manhattan. No, we're not crazy, we're just way too busy and haven't found time to sell the other one.

So we went to a dealership, very much on a whim, last Saturday to check out this minivan I'd found through USAA's car buying service (really great way to find a car, by the way). And a couple hours later, we're driving it home. The only hiccup was that we're new here, and nothing we have says we live where we live. So I need to fax them a lease. The lease was IN THE CAR when we were there, but we didn't realize that at the time, unfortunately. So now I still need to fax them this thing.

Through the e-fax thing, I can send attachments like a fax. But to do that I need to scan a pic of the lease. And our scanner won't work. After changing a couple of inks and looking up the error message online, I gave up. The car dealership will have to wait another day.

The fax issue took up the first half of naptime, but I was actually able to get a lot of address-changing done (banks, insurance, other random places) and get everything ready with AFLAC for Max's arrival.

After that, I hung out with my babes, played games, read books, and then bedtime arrived sooner than I expected. Matt had a networking event and so I'm home alone for a while. I'm hoping today is an easier day. We'll see.

Army Strong Mom turns Stay-at-Home Mom: Day 1

First day of (banker) school!

Day 1 being home alone with the kiddies was looong, but it went relatively smoothly. Matt and I woke up around 5:30 to get ready for the day, and Matt took off to take the train down to Wall Street at 6:50. I was hoping to have some time to myself to work on stuff before the kids started stirring, but I only managed about 25 minutes before Karol and Patrick were ready to start the day.

After rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, the kids spent some time looking out window and observing our new world. We talked about the garbage truck and buses that were going by, and did some people watching as well. We've bought a bird feeder and set it in this window, but have yet to see any birds eating from it.

Before changing clothes and really starting the day, we got a little puzzle action. Matt and I set up a really handy shelving set that covers most of one wall to store all of the kids more engaging toys in the main living space instead of in their room, and it's really proven to be a great tool. Everything is visible and accessible to the kids, and that makes it ten times easier for them to put things away on their own, too.

After a little play, it was breakfast time - yogurt and blueberries and Cheerios - then it was time for getting dressed and brushing teeth, always a fun adventure.

By a quarter to 9, the kids were clamoring for Caillou, and since we don't have cable TV and it doesn't come on PBS until 2, we had to watch Caillou on YouTube!

After about 25 minutes of Caillou, it was back to playing with toys.

By 10 am, the kids were deeply engrossed in play and I was on a babysitter search, since I have doctors appointments all over the city next week and no one to watch the kids yet! I also managed to fill out a voter registration form and do the dishes before snack time.

Carrots and string cheese! Mommy had some yogurt.

Around 11:30 we read a couple of Bible stories, then it was time to make lunch - PB&J's and apple slices. The babysitting service called me back as well during lunch and we (hopefully) will have some reliable help by next week.

After lunch, Patrick got to pick the pre-naptime DVD, and he chose Holy Baby. I don't know why, but these kids will sit and watch a DVD that repeats long Catholic prayers 7 times without flinching once. It's kind of creepy. Luckily, this gave me some time to do some clean up of lunch and other household chores. By ten to 1, they were ready to start the naptime routine.

We wrapped up naptime just in time for me to catch a phone call from Matt. Since he's starting a new job, and my health insurance runs out (unless we do the COBRA thing) two days after Max is supposed to be induced, we're anxious to get Matt's insurance info. So after talking to him, I got started on a bunch of admin work. I tried to get into the human resources website for Matt, but he's still not 'in the system' yet. I checked email, checked out the forms for AFLAC for Max's delivery, filled out the forms the babysitting service needed and sent them back, rescheduled my chiropractor appointment to follow directly after my OB check up next Tuesday (so we'd only need the sitter for that day), uploaded a bunch of new pictures to Facebook, and I even had a chance to vacuum the couch and rug in the living room, which was desperately needed, and broom-swept the hardwood floors in all but the kids' rooms.

Around 3, Patrick woke up but was clearly not really ready to be 'up.' So he and I laid down in mommy's room for an extra half hour. I'm kind of glad that we had that time, because I probably wouldn't have taken a break on my own!

I tried to convince Patrick that it was still naptime, but by 3:30 he was asking for 'Thomas' (the Tank Engine), so, in lieu of popping in the video, which I wanted to save for later, we printed out some Thomas coloring pages, and that seemed to do the trick. We had some strawberries for post-nap snack, and Karol was up and participating in the fun by 4.

This is Patrick's picture pose face. I love it.

Just as I was thinking I really needed to throw something together in the crockpot for dinner, Matt texted that he wouldn't be home until late. In a way, that saved me from putting together a crockpot experiment meal, but since our stove is broken (they're replacing it soon, hopefully), there weren't a whole lot of options for cooking outside of the microwave.

After coloring, we made paper airplanes which, between making, decorating, and flying, occupied them for an hour.

By then it was time to make dinner, so I gave in to the Thomas video requests. The no-stove solution? Cheesy scrambled eggs cooked in the microwave and corn and peas. I thought it was going to be a big flop, but the kids LOVED the cheesy eggs! I had to make a second batch and they literally ate about three eggs each, plus a decent helping of veggies. They both actually both ate very well all through out the day; I wonder if they're having growth spurts. During dinner I actually had a chance to read an article in the newspaper! It was the paper from the day before, but whatever.

After dinner, bath time. The kids soaked in the tub for about a half hour, brushed teeth, and put on pajamas.

I read about a million books for story time, and when all was said and done the kids were down and out by a quarter to 8. So, I ran some dishwater, put away the few things that were still out around the house, checked my email, then started this post.

Matt finally got home around 8:50 and we told each other all about the day.