Category: Parenting

  • Returning to In-Person School for NYC

    Outside if NYC, I don’t know how many of you have heard, but today starts enrolment for remote students to return to blended in-person classes. As we are a remote learning family, we have from today to April 7th to decide if we will stay remote, or move over to in-person blended learning. Also, according to Department of Education, this is our last opportunity to make this change.

    What will we do?

    We have a great remote teacher for our daughter, and our teacher is actually one of the two main kindergarten teachers for the school we are in, or would be in if Covid hadn’t happened. So, we know that what she is teaching our daughter is in line with what is needed to move up to 1st Grade in that school, and the system at large in the whole school. Also, being that our kid is actually thriving in this not quite normal environment, makes us think she has the right teacher she needs.

    But, it is remote learning.

    And in remote learning, she is not getting the personal attention she needs from a teacher, nor is she getting any social interaction which is very necessary at this age.

    But, moving to blended in-person learning means that she would get another new teacher, which would be her third for the year. It would be another set of kids that she would be introduced to. And that change means that there will need to be another adjustment period, which could slow down her progress. And it still wouldn’t be five days a week classes, as it would be every other day. That doesn’t sound like that would be the best for her either.

    Yet, I had been hoping, really hoping, that the kid would start back to school so I could get a jump on all the things that I want to do, but can’t because, well, I spend all of my time with the kid when she is awake. I feel very selfish and guilty for saying this. I have enjoyed, and treasured this time that I get to spend with her, and I know that it has been a planet’s lining up fortuitus achievement that I have been able to help her learn how to read and write, which is something that would have never happened if not for Covid and getting laid off…

    But…

    I want to get a jump on my career again, but not at the expense of the kid.

    We’ve got two weeks to figure this out.

  • First Time at the Dentist

    Yesterday was the kid’s first experience with going to see a dentist. I know for some people going to the dentist is not an enjoyable experience, and looking at the websites for pediatric dentists, almost all of them have a page dedicated to calming your child’s fears of going to the dentist for the first time.

    My kid saw Little Shop of Horrors, so she didn’t have the healthiest appreciation of the dental profession.

    But I was committed to making sure that the kid would have no issues with going to see the dentist for the first time. I found lots of videos online about kids going to the dentist where they explained the tools, and the procedures. We watched them together, and she very quickly associated that dentists are just like any other doctor, as they are there to help and make you feel better.

    And the pediatric dental office we went to was great! This is what they do, but they were really great at making the kid feel special, and explaining everything to her, so she wasn’t afraid. I could even feel my anxiety rise as the cleaning started, and the kid let the assistant start touching her teeth, but she was fine. It was all fine, and the kid even said that she found the dentist fun!

    I told her how proud I was of her. Then we got home to tell mom all about the dentist, and I added how proud I was of the kid. After dinner, I reminded the kid of how brave she was at the dentist, and that made me proud. As we brushed our teeth before bed, I reminded her how proud I was how she handled the dentist. And then when I tucked her in, she told me to stop telling her how proud I was of her.

    I was laying it on rather thick.

    And I had committed the sin of trying to over parent my child to compensate for my perceived failings in my life. I was a nervous, anxiety riddled child. I worried so much about things, that I often made myself sick to my stomach to where I couldn’t get out of bed. I wish I wasn’t the worry-wart little kid, as it created self-doubt and fear in me, and I have had to work hard as an adult to overcome it. I just wanted to make sure the kid isn’t afraid of things like I was.

    This might be one of those life lessons where as I parent I need to set the example, rather than over praise.

  • Fixing Nightmares

    I’m just not feeling today. Part of it is that I didn’t sleep well last night, which was due to my mind not shut off. I was having a negative thought downward spiral, where I was listing everything that I was disappoint in about myself, as well as saying to myself over and over again that I will never succeed at anything I truly desire.

    Good times in the self-defeating department.

    And then at about 3 in the morning, the kid woke up from a bad dream, and wanted me to snuggle her back to sleep. That made things a little better. I didn’t ask her what the bad dream was about, as I have found that asking her to relive the nightmare sometimes makes things worse, as it just scares her all over again. What works better is to play a game of naming all the things that makes us happy. We go back and forth, I normally start, and we do this until she either feels better, or falls asleep.

    I start with an easy one;

    Me- Snuggles

    Her – My doll

    Me – Reading books

    Her – Drawing pictures

    Me – Pizza

    Her – Cheesy noodles

    Me – The dog

    Her – Friends at the park

    After a few back and forth’s, she is out. I hold on to her for a minute or two more just to make sure she’s asleep. Then I slow slink out of her room, with the job accomplished.

    Not that I got back to sleep right away, but I tried thinking about the things that keep me going, the goals I have. Generally, I keep it together, but there are those days when everything feels a million miles away, and nothing will change it.

    That is the Covid-isolation brain talking. I have been pretty much doing the same thing for a year now, and it just feels like nothing has changed. But feelings aren’t necessarily facts.

    I’m just tired.

  • Covid Guilt: I’m Doing What I Can

    I’m ran the kid through her reading drills, and now she is in her remote class, working on writing words and sentences.

    I guess this is now normal for her. I wonder what she will remember about all of this? At what age will she look back and say, this was a completely messed up time to be alive? I can hear her wonder aloud one day, “How did three people stuck in a tiny apartment in Upper Manhattan survive this? How did we not all go insane?”

    I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure if I will ever understand how to answer that.

    The other night the wife asked me if I had an exercise plan. My answer is that I’m not planning on working out until the kid gets back into school, and I’m not going to feel bad about that. I am the primary care giver for the kid; parent, teacher, partner in crime in playing around the apartment. It takes up just about all of my time. To carve out an hour a day, three to four times a week, is just about impossible. And I’m tired of beating myself up over it. I’m putting the kid’s wellbeing first, and that’s good enough.

    None of this is normal, but I keep fooling myself that I should be able to get it all done. Some days I can do it all, but most days I can’t. Just making it to tomorrow, happy and health is a victory.

  • Stay at Home Parent; Gotta Have Goals

    I have been doing the stay at home parent thing since June, which means that I have logged nearly nine months of this. Last night, the wife and I had a conversation about the next six months, and what that means for the kid’s schooling, home life, and our roles in it. The decision we made, even if the kid gets back into school full time, is that I will continue to be a stay at home parent, and not look for a job. Things may change in September, but for now, this will be my role for the family.

    I also know very well that planning in this pandemic is foolish, as there is a very high probability that what we are setting ourselves up for is disappointment. Hoping that the future will be better was the philosophical status quo a year ago, but now that thought seems fraught with disaster. I’m not ready to give up hope just yet, and I really don’t want to set that example for my daughter.

    My grandmother used to always say to us, “You gotta have goals.” I used to think that was something that people in retirement would say, to give their day purpose. Now I see that it is a mantra for mental survival. If you don’t have something to work towards, then it’s hard to get up in the morning.

    The wife will be the one who works, brings in our income, and provides our insurance. I will manage the home, the kid’s schooling, and all the other tasks in our daily life. That’s the deal. We will reexamine this situation when we hit June to make sure it still works for us.

    And there is one other thing; I need to stop calling this the “new normal” and just call it normal.