(Gabriel is carrying his new favorite book, "The Winn Rosch Hardware Bible" about IBM PC hardware -- he's back on his electronics kick.)
So funny the difference between preschool and school-age care. I brought some extra shorts and underpants because of her "leaking" issue (which has been much better the past 2 weeks). At preschool, it's: "OK! Put it in her marked cubby!" At school-age care it's an apprehensive, "uhh....why don't you stash that in her brother's knapsack so it doesn't get lost," and a deserved 'oh brother' look. School-age camps are way past potty-training. Fair enough.
Julian went to a different CDC today!
He said it was "1/4 bad and 3/4 good," because kids were "tricking" him about computer games (~irritation~ about computer games at daycamp), but he ran into some friends he knew too. Julian is the only child we have out of the 3 who truly seems to care about these things. He had a good time though.
Most importantly, picking them up today was easy because of the lack of reports of behavior problems, spending playtime in the office reading, interventions, letters of apologies to teachers, lengthy discussions about how to keep troublesome boys apart...ahhhh. Everyone is loving the boys' separation so much that I'm actually starting to dread them being all together in August for 2 weeks before school starts (ick!).
Collins CDC has "culinary" and "performing arts" camp, and since I didn't cotton on to the different specialty camps this year, I didn't sign Katrina up for either camp. Somehow she got put into "performing arts" by default, which would be singing today, so I told the P.A. teacher, "Er, you might want to move her to Culinary...." -- which apparently happened quickly.
How is it that our nearest CDC ended up being Culinary and Performing Arts all summer?! Hello CDC, we working parents choose you based on location, not specialty camp! I wish they'd go back to their most excellent week-by-week themes. Our closest CDC happens to run the Culinary and Performing Arts specialty camps, neither of our top choices.
Next summer, I'll have to rethink daycamps. But next summer is a world away.
Right now, I'm keenly aware of how little and young Katrina seems, though she wasted no time this morning at CDC finding a bucket of dinosaurs and making up games with them. She's not a super-sensitive child, but I'm surprised at how aware I am that she's not even 5 yet and still a very very little girl. Emotionally it involves some letting-go that I didn't have to do with her 5-1/2yo brothers; objectively I know that if any 4-3/4yo can take being plopped into a new big-kid situation, it's Katrina.
Being back at work today should have been a fun catching-up with coworkers, plowing through hundreds of emails, and gradually transitioning back into Work Mode after 10 days away. But instead it was a stressful slam back into the dysfunctional world working under the Taliban mentality. I learned today that "respect" is an important quality for Silicon Valley engineers -- silly me, I thought things like resourcefulness, tenacity, thoroughness and problem-solving were the tops.
What would I say if I were asked if I "respect" my Director? I act respectful, I don't say or do anything unprofessional or inappropriate, that's just wrong and unnecessary and falls outside what I believe to be correct professional decorum. But if I were asked point-blank if I respect him in my heart, I would be compelled to state the truth: No.
Katrina said tonight, "Tomorrow is my SECOND day at CDC, then another day, then another, then I'll go to COLLEGE!!!" Reminds me of my all-time favorite academic geek cartoon with Step 2 saying "Then a miracle occurs...
I could use a miracle!
7/5/2011
1 comment:
kathryn was the queen of designing the themed weeks. too bad the team is no more. -phill.
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