Nanny

We had a bit of a gap in coverage in Star's childcare schedule last week.  Star's old preschool had ended, we had returned from our New Year's trip to Atlanta and her new school wasn't set to start until the following Monday.  So, we needed coverage over the first Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of January.

My mom, our usual backup childcare provider, would be with my nephew visiting from Los Angeles, so she wasn't an option.  I couldn't think of any creative options, so we had to hire a nanny.

I emailed about 20 nannies who had posted on Berkeley Parents Network.  Of those, about half weren't available during the time period I was looking for.  I email screened about 10 of them and had in person interviews with 2.

We liked both of the people who interviewed for the position.  We asked Star for her opinion, and she said that she wanted to play with both of them again, but she didn't think that candidate #2 was feasible.  Candidate #1 was feasible, in Star's opinion, so we hired her.

Jen started on Monday.  Let me stop to say that she is not a professional nanny.  She has nannied and babysat in the past, but she has another career that is her main focus.  She's not full time with the other career yet, so she's filling in her employment schedule by doing some nannying. 

She is amazing.  When I get home, they've put away all their toys, and Jen has somehow managed to do all the dishes - including the ones that Scott and I used for breakfast before Jen even arrived for the day.  It doesn't seem like she puts anything in the dishwasher.  She also makes Star's bed after nap time.

Jen asks smart questions.  "Do you compost?"  "How do you approach discipline?"  I was able to definitively answer the first question, but I somehow wiggled my way out of specifically answering the second question.

"We are having a great time!  We made a lion.  ;)  "

Throughout the day, she texted Scott and I pictures of Star with descriptions of what they are doing.  On day 1, when I returned home from work, Jen and Star were doing yoga.  Jen had tied Star's hair back into a ponytail (which Star generally won't let me do), and Star happily demonstrated to me various yoga poses which she had been doing.

"We made doggies with playdough!"

On day 2, Jen somehow got Star to nap in her bed for 2 hours.  I can't do that.  I generally resort to driving her around until she falls asleep or pushing her in the stroller.  I'm not proud to admit this, but I believe that sleep is a good thing, and I'm willing to help Star sleep however possible.

"We made a caterpillar and a rainbow tunnel!"

On day 3, they made their most impressive creation - a caterpillar going through a rainbow tunnel.  They also walked to the library and picked out a book on a caterpillar - it was a whole lesson plan!  Star napped again for 2 hours in her own bed.

Star was happy.  So, Scott and I were happy.  Generally, I prefer some sort of "school" environment over nannies so Star gets to play with multiple caregivers and multiple kids, but this nanny experiment has been a good one!  And, we've learned to trust Star's opinion more - Jen turned out to be way more feasible than the other nanny option.

Preschool Quilt

My daughter is starting at a new preschool on Monday.  The head teacher told us that we need to bring a blanket for our daughter to have during nap times.  I'm guessing that most parents pick a blanket that they already have at home, or went out and bought a blanket just for school.  Some days, I wish I was that kind of parent.

I made a modern quilt - building on my recent quilting success.   The front has 2 strips - a scrappy paper pieced hexagon strip and a scrappy pink strip.  The back is a flannel star pattern.  Have I mentioned that my daughter's name is Star?

The Top

A Peak at the Back

Close up of the scrappy hexis

The Binding

2013 New Year's Resolutions

Ah, New Year's Resolutions.  I like the opportunity to look at my life - figure out what is working and what isn't and try to make some changes.  Instead of a list, this year I created a visual showing 3 areas of my life, each with 4 goals.   Expect some follow up posts on this.

Top 12 of 2012

2012 is coming to a close, and with it comes best of lists. So, without further ado, and in randomly numbered order, here are 12 of my favorite things that happened in 2012.  Predictably, many of these things have to do with my daughter. 

  
1. My little girl turned 2.  Here's a picture of her at her birthday party wearing a dress sewed by me.  Yes, I'm proud of the dress.   Now, she's 2 and 8 months; she grows and learns every day.  She's a wonder to watch. 
2. We had a trip planned to Washington, DC.  Anticipating a meltdown or 2, I had knit a sock monkey to give to Star on the plane.  Just as a tantrum was developing and naptime was being resisted, I gave Star the sock monkey.  She immediately hugged sock monkey and loved it.  Then, she peacefully fell asleep on Daddy.
3. One of our neighbors was having her bat mitzvah and we were invited.  Star wanted to wear her sneakers, but I wanted her to wear fancy purple shoes.  She didn't want to wear the purple shoes.  I said, "but the purple shoes want to go to the bat mitzvah!"  She looked for a few seconds at the purple shoes, and then hugged them and said "OK, you can come."
4. One day, I was snuggling Star and I said, "Star, I love you."  She, very sweetly, replied "and I love daddy."
5. Potty training was both one of my most favorite and least favorite moments.  There were parts that were totally awful, but I'm so glad that it's over.  The environment has breathed a sigh of relief, and it's given my girl so much independence and made her very proud. 
6. Obama was re-elected for a 2nd term.
7. In my entrepreneurial life, I'm very proud of how I grew KinderCycle and then sold it.  Prior to KinderCycle, I had started 3 other businesses, but this was the only one that "succeeded" by many different definitions. 
8. I'm totally late to the party here, but in 2012 I became passionate about Pinterest.  Before I tried it, I didn't understand it, but now I don't know how I lived without it.  I can sort all my random craft projects and recipes without having to print them out and maintain some sort of paper organizational system.  I also "pin" non-crafty things that I want to remember - like, I have a "board" of after school programs that may be good for Star in a few years.
9. I switched to Kaiser.  I resisted for years.  I didn't want to give up "my doctors", and I thought that a PPO was way better than the Kaiser HMO system.  But, a few months ago, my employer made it fiscally irresponsible to stay on my PPO plan.  So, I did some investigation, and then switched over to Kaiser.  And, I love it.  I feel taken care of.  Their systems make sense and are relatively easy to navigate.  They have an online component that makes it easy to communicate with my doctors and track my appointments.  And, it's cheap!  They seem to have figured out that many people have similar medical issues, and they've figured out how to be efficient and deal with those issues.  Also, with Kaiser, they are both the insurance company and the provider, so it is in their interest to focus on the preventative side which I think is great for the consumer.  I am loving Kaiser and I'm beating myself up about all the money I wasted for years before I switched.  
10. I started the tattoo removal process on tattoo #1.  This is a long story which I may get into at another time, but I also may just leave it at this.
11. I got tattoo #2 which is the tattoo that I should have gotten in the first place. I totally LOVE tattoo #2. 
12. We started paying for a food delivery service.  Through the year, we moved through a few different services and over the past few months, we've settled on one that we're really happy with.  Seriously, this is a LIFE CHANGER for me.  Maybe I don't have the capacity that other moms have, but I can't work 5 days a week while commuting an hour each way, run a company on the side, then make dinner while being a pleasant mom and wife.  And, being a pleasant mom and wife is a goal of mine (which I sometimes achieve!)  So, getting dinners delivered is fabulous. 

Vacation Days = No Vacations

How do other families take real vacations?

At my job, I get 15 days of vacation each year, 12 sick days per year, 11 official holidays and 1 floating holiday.

This may sound like a lot, but let's break it down.

Floating Holiday

• I take my floating holiday for my birthday.  I hate working on my birthday.

Vacation Days

• I also take Scott's birthday as a vacation day and Star's birthday as a vacation day.  
• I generally have to take 2 vacation days to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
• I take 2 vacation days for my family's annual trip to Morro Bay.
• I take a few vacation days each year at some point for visits to see Scott's family (generally in Florida or DC) or to spend time with them when they come here.  Let's call this 4 days off.
• There are days when Star's school is off, but I don't have it as a holiday from work.  So, I either take that day as a a vacation day to spend with her or I hire a nanny for the day to be with her.

Sick Days

• There are some days that I'm sick so I stay home and use a sick day (there are plenty more days when I'm sick but don't stay home even though I should).  There are some days that Star is sick and I stay home with here.  And, there are days when I need a mental health day, so I count those as sick days.  That pretty much uses up all of my 12 sick days.

So, seriously, working moms, how are you taking trips where you don't visit family?  I need some tips.  

Letter to My Toddler

Dear Star,

Please don't break mommy's glasses anymore.  If heredity is a factor, then you will likely start wearing glasses and contacts in about 6 years, and you'll begin to understand that having broken glasses is really not a good thing. 

Much love,
your vision impaired mommy

Kitty Pillow

I blogged earlier about a quilt I recently finished.  I think the only fabric that I bought to make this quilt is the light pink that pops up throughout the quilt. Other than that, I used scraps that I already had in my collection from years of sewing and not-sewing.

Quilt makers know that when you make a quilt, you end up with scraps.

So, the scraps that I used to make this quilt created even smaller scraps.  What to do with all the scraps?  Some of them are usable; I'll talk about those in a future post.  There are also a bunch of un-usable scraps - threads and tiny little fabric pieces.

But, I felt like they would be good for something.  So, with Star "helping", we decided to sew a pillow for a kitty.  Star loves kitty cats.  The big front and back pieces came from my "stash" of large sized fabrics, and the stuffing is all these tiny unusable scraps, threads, and torn pieces of Star's old clothes.

Once the pillow was done, but still in the house, she would look at the pillow, snuggle on the pillow and think about the kitties who would sleep on the pillow.  She decided that 2 cats would share it - one of whom would be named Raincoat.  

This weekend, we brought the kitty pillow to the East Bay SPCA.  Star was so happy to meet the kitties who might sleep on the pillow.  Because of the SPCA's policies, the kitties couldn't get the pillow until after they washed it.  It's a good and logical rule, but it was sad to not get a picture of the kitties enjoying the pillow.  We asked, and there were no kitties named Raincoat.