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February 5, 2003
Last week I worked myself into a full blown stress headache panic over picking Brandan's school. Way back when we had a year before Brandan would even start kindergarten, we started talking about it. We had decided to put our kids in public elementary school based on a few considerations; location, given that the private schools are way out of the way and with the two other babies and difficult commutes, we'd be making ourselves mental. Cost definitely factored in, then when I actually looked into it I discovered the one private school we'd most seriously considered, actually suffers from overcrowding. In grade one alone, there was a 32 children average in the classroom, where the public school had 26. In elementary, we can be very actively, passionately involved in their education. We can volunteer at the school, we can participate in extra-curricular programs. Though I'll do what I can to stay on the in with coaching them through high school, they'll be teenagers and having a mom and dad hovering near around may just about kill them. We decided the kids will go to private high school (grades 7-11) if it's at all within our and their means. It seemed so cut and dried.
When I started asking about the different elementary schools, I did some comparison shopping. In Quebec, there are two options to consider, the English school board or the French one. Because I didn't go to school here, my children technically would have to go to the French one, but because Remo attended English school, we have English eligibility. That affords us two options; Brandan can attend a bilingual program with 50% of his instruction in French, 50% in English (the good thing in this is math is taught in English), OR he'll attend a French immersion program with 85% of his instruction in French, just 15% in English. Bilingual: Windermere School, French Immersion: St. Paul's.
Windermere school offered something different as well, something I was a little intrigued by initially, it's an open school concept. Basically the kindergarteners are in classrooms. Grades one and two are separated into classrooms but within one great, no walls room. Grades three and four are combined in another great room and so are the fives and sixes. Now the environment of this school is very appealing. Tennis courts, skating rink, great playground, soccer field, pool, a forest of trees. St. Paul's had none of that and my first impression from the outside was rundown, even the blinds in the windows were all shmucked up. Then someone told me the one piece of advice I gave too much basis to, when you get there it'll just feel right. Mistake #1, everytime we drove by Windermere, we'd hype up Brandan, "there's your big-boy school!".
On the subject of language, I had a few concerns. Brandan still doesn't annunciate English like a pro, he has a tough time with a couple letters, though he knows the difference by ear. We've been working for quite a while with him on his prekindergarten workbooks and I know the point where he starts to get antsy, where his focus shoots out the window and he could literally jiggle his seat right out the room. His logic is incredible, his coordination and dexterity impressive, but I worried tremendously about his language skills. If we're teaching him some French vocabulary (we shoot for a couple words a day), he hits that third word and says he doesn't want to talk about it anymore, then he closes shop. We're very careful not to overwhelm him and in fairness, my aunt deserves huge credit because she's way better at this than me. Knowing full well that kids are sponges and he should easily suck it all in, I fretted a bit for my little guy, imagining him in this whole new scary environment, where less than 15% of his day would be in the only language he really knows. The 50-50 program would for sure be less overwhelming, wouldn't it help make his English stronger? In French immersion, wasn't it possible that he might not come out of it a strong in either language?
In thinking some more, I rationalized one thing. English is a much easier language to learn, there's no question French is more difficult and harder with age to master. So while the mother in me wants only to make life as easy as possible for my son right now, today, I need to look down the road. I likened it to the soother. When Kaillan was suction cupped to the thing, I couldn't bare to wrestle it away. I couldn't imagine her going to sleep without it. Getting rid of it earlier was hard because technically she wasn't too old, but it would only get harder the bigger she got. So though I felt like the biggest creep in the world, we stopped it, and she flipped her lid and we worked through it, easier than I ever imagined.
So off Remo and Kaillan and I went to the open houses at both schools. It had to be the day that Kaillan had her stomach flu so I spent half the time I should have been concentrating, listening for a heave and praying it wouldn't happen. Not there. At St. Paul's we squished in the library that was squished in a classroom. As we did a tour of the school, all the kids were nearly breaking their necks to see what we were doing out in the hallway. Kaillan was breaking my neck hanging from me. One thing I have to say, the gym was fantastic and I fell instantly in love with the gym teacher. On the kindergarten side of things, as we were going into the classrooms, I smelled mold. Anyone who knows me by now will know that for me, the tour was over. Off we went to Windermere, where parents of the students escorted us to one of the music rooms with a table of cakes and refreshments. One of the cakes actually made my heart soar, had they had the registration forms right there, Brandan would be in. The grandmotherly principal came in and talked about what a tight family the school is and pizza lunches and theme days and I knew Brandan would love it there. We did the tour and I have one thing to say about the open concept. When I first heard about all the classes being together, I wondered about the distractions, how could they concentrate? But as we walked through the great rooms, those kids never even noticed us tromping through and more surprisingly, it wasn't noisy at all. But way deep down I started to doubt. How would these kids do when they got to classrooms in high school? How come it didn't feel like real school? I left there more confused than ever because somehow, neither school felt right.
I started getting advice from friends and coworkers and one thing seemed pretty clear. They were all adamant the French immersion program was crucial. Remo and I agreed in the long run, it really was best for Brandan. Then just because I naturally complicate every decision I need to make, we considered placing him in the fifteen minute farther away school my niece and nephew are in because it had a good reputation and passed my "like the environment" standards. I made a bunch of phone calls, really keen at first and then slowly I started wondering if all the extra rigamarole would be worth it in the end. I went back to St. Paul's on what happened to be a ped day, sat down with the secretary and expressed my concerns, concentrating very hard on not labelling my son as the kid with a mother who's a nut. We toured again the kindergarten area and it smelled fresh and clean, in fact the whole school smelled good. Where I had smelled mold was in fact the boot room and that day was packed full of gear. In all fairness, by end January, my own boots start smelling pretty potent.
We decided to enroll Brandan in the French immersion program at St. Paul's. The other two kids will be easy, they'll simply go where he went, but man alive, when you add on the rest of the dilemas, do we bus him or not, does he stay for the lunch program or not, does he need the before or after school day care program and you need to sign now on the dotted line and pay your deposits when everything is complicated by me being on maternity leave, it turned this whole endeavour into one huge saga. When I told Brandan he wasn't going to the school we've been pointed at for a year, instead we're going to the one that looks like "Arthur's" school, he was initially worried. But like always, he asked a couple questions and could've cared less anymore. Now had it been Kaillan, she'd still be flopped on the floor freaking out.
This last weekend we pulled out of the deepfreeze and went full force into celebrating winter. On Saturday after Brandan's swimming lesson, we got all decked out in layers and went tobogganing on a hill close to home. Seeing everyone squealing their faces off as they flew down the hill had me itching to go to so bad, but I don't think preggos should be flying down anything at out of control speeds and besides, someone had to stay with Kaillan. She was not interested in the whole scene, in fact, I dare say she stood there like a snob with attitude. Both Remo and Claudia took her down and she was furious. Later when they went skating, I put her on the swings and she could've happily stayed there for a day or two. As a matter of fact, she very nearly did because all those layers under her snow suit and then boots too, got her pretty seriously stuck in the chair.
On Sunday, we went with friends and Remo's brother's family to a winter carnival. Supposedly it was warmer (though my toes weren't buying it) and they had some fun activities for the kids, tobogganing, dog sled racing, horses pulling a wagon, rides. Because they had music blaring and who wouldn't bop to it, Kaillan had fun everywhere but the horse wagon. She's a window seat kind of gal and wanted off NOW. She's so headstrong, at one point Claudia brought her over to the baby husky dogs in a cage and she was enthralled. When a three year old girl came along and tried to pet the puppies too, Kaillan promptly took the girl's hand and moved it away. She was there first. The kids had a blast and afterwards we had races with the fathers pulling the kids in the toboggans. Nothing beats those rosy cheeks and eyes glowing, shiny wide with excitement. The kids had a blast and as we drove home, Remo said it should always be like that. Together. Fun. Forever.
Am I exaggerating if I say Kaillan must be picking up a hundred words a day? Well at least it has to be a lot. She could spend half the day fussing about with her babies, singing to them, kissing them or getting us to kiss them. Here I worry about having three, she has twenty babies to take care of. When Claudia brings Gabriel over, Kaillan is very good with him, gentle even. It's that other side of her that makes me sigh in relief. She's fiercely competitive with Brandan. Whatever he does, she needs to do it bigger. He just mastered a cartwheel, can even land on his feet, she does a spin of some sort and then expects us to clap till she completes her next one. Yesterday, my aunt brought him to his skating lesson and she said Brandan was very competitive in the class. When one of the teachers had them skate to the other side, Brandan had to get there first, half looking over his shoulder to see how close the rest of them were. When they were catching bubbles, he tried to get the most. A lot of Brandan's friends are older than him and I find more often than not, he runs the show. Given that it's somewhat natural and he's not actually bossy, he seems to "enthuse'his way, I'm not overly concerned. For now. I read once about leader kids and how they often do well in school. Though friends seem to flock to him, I still want to make sure he's reigned. Last night when he was going to bed we talked about how he can't always be number one, how there will always be someone better at something and if he's lucky enough to be really good at something then he should help whoever he's with be really good too. But he said he'd still like to skate like a Champion.
On the baby front, out of the blue, Brandan came up with two names. He said since I like Mackenzie so much (Kaillan's middle name), if we have a girl then I should just call her Mackenzie. Then for a boy, the best name would be Christopher Robin. Hmmm.
Now did we really decide to enroll him at St. Paul's? Five paragraphs later and I'm already changing our minds.
Saturday morning I needed five seconds without Kaillan demanding up, so I flicked on the TV to find her Dragon Tales. For the record, she doesn't have a five second television attention span, but the award winning mother in me tries over and over and over again. As soon as I saw the full screen with a bright blue sky and a streak of smoke, I knew something big had happened. NASA said they lost contact with space shuttle Columbia and when there was no question it was on fire and then breaking up, I foolishly hoped those astronauts were protected in a bubble somewhere. I know there are heros who lose their lives every day, but when it became very clear very quickly it was over, my heart broke for those seven people who were fifteen minutes from home when they took a detour and went to heaven. Imagine the devastation of their families? Listening to report after report about each of the astronauts, their dreams, their accomplishments and the mission they hoped to complete when they left this world on January 16th was incredibly humbling. I didn't even know they were up there. I had Brandan watch a little bit of the news coverage and then I carefully explained what happened on February 1st, 2003. As tragic as it is, as little as he is, there will come a time in his life when these events will be better explained. After considering the devastating personal loss, then the irreplaceable research and experiments, and the implications of the lost shuttle, my biggest hope is that it happened so fast, they didn't know and didn't hurt. And it wasn't something that could've been fixed before they turned around and came home.
I hate ending on a downer.
Big new thing developed all of a sudden with Brandan. We've never been particularly careful with changing in front of him because when it came to the boy-girl issues, he was completely out to lunch. Then a little while ago he started giving me a very different kiss: eyes closed and lips locked on mine for a good long time. Then he even moved his head back and forth a bit. I never made a big deal, though at first my eyes must have popped out of my head and he eventually dropped it. Last week we let him have a real shower in our bathroom and he was over the moon. All of sudden he wanted to have a shower after every meal and we were constantly telling him no, not today. One night, I told Remo I was going up to have a shower and I got up to discover Brandan buck naked, standing in front of the shower. When I told him he couldn't have another one, he opted to park himself right there and watch me have mine. I just knew things were different all of a sudden. When he asked me why I don't give milk to Kaillan anymore, I nearly up and died. Gulp. I think I handled it decently but holy smokes, did I need to read me some information. Lucy, I have some esplaining to do.
I think I mentioned last time Kaillan was all of a sudden freaked out about her baths, it took a few days of serious manipulation and coddling to get her back in. Round about the time Brandan started taking showers and getting all kinds of attention, she came up with her own little trick. Doing a number in the bathtub. Brandan noticed it first and let out a shriek of disgust? Excitement? Remo and I wrestled over who had to clean up after. I lost the first time but one swipe and I started hurling, it smelled a hundred times worse in water and travelled very quickly. It's a two person bath with jets plus the toys. Half an hour to clean a bath after a bath. She's now under special guard, probation if you will.
Good news? I'm at week 16 and finally feeling vibrant energy. Only the crazy prenatal vitamins make me physically ill and usually at one o'clock in the morning. I'm sure I feel the baby tossing and turning but no real kicks yet. I find this stage of the game tough because in between feeling deathly ill and counting movements you have to just trust all is well. I've been playing the what still fits game every morning when I get dressed and so far I'm holding up well. I sorta can't wait till I don't have to squeeze into things. I bet it comes sooner than later because all I do is think about what we're eating next. Cravings these days? Watermellon, blueberries and chicken noodle soup. I got off the pickles before I turned into one.
Ah, but duty has called and I have to haul myself out of here. Our Valentine's party is next weekend and everyone said yes so I had to drop the fondue plan. Welcome to Mexicali-Allie's. Tacos, chile, margaritas, and hey, does anyone know how to make sizzlin' fajitas sizzle? Plus I have 22 grownups, can anyone suggest a game or two with a Valentine's theme?
I'd be impossibly grateful.
Allisun
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