Category: Victoria

It’s time to think about pre-schools for Victoria. The challenges are a bit different this time around, but no less daunting.

To recap, for those who haven’t read this blog for years, or those with non-elephantine memories:

We are not zoned for a great school in Brooklyn. With Danielle we worked really hard to get her into a good pre-school that feeds into a school that goes through high school. There are three such schools in our neighborhood.

1. Packer: Hyper competitive, excellent academics. When we went for a preschool interview they had third graders in blazers acting as perfect ushers. It was both impressive and a bit spooky.
2. Brooklyn Friends: A Quaker school (you don’t have to be Quaker to attend) that emphasizes community (‘cause their Quakers). Not as good academics as Packer, but very warm and good.
3. St. Ann’s: This is the more artsy, innovative one. You get some famous Manhattan folk’s kids here.

They are all hard to get into. It took two tries, but Danielle got accepted to Brooklyn Friends. Packer was my wife’s first choice, but I’ve grown really fond of Brooklyn Friends and I think it’s an excellent fit for Danielle.

Now that Victoria is ready for preschool, to some extent the pressure is off. As a sibling she can get into Brooklyn Friends.

The issue right now is whether we can afford two kids in Brooklyn Friends. Three day preschool starts at $15K, five days is $19K. Danielle in first grade costs $28K. It’s ridiculous.

It makes the suburbs look attractive. Sure, in a good Westchester suburb with nice schools we’d pay $20-25K in property taxes. But that would cover both kids in school.

We’ve just started a business so things are tight. So our decision for next fall was easy. Victoria can go to the public pre-school. It’s a pretty good pre-school, though the later grades get dicey. We know we can get Victoria in Brooklyn Friends for kindergarten or first grade so we can wait to see if we can afford it. Paying $19K for pre-school is just ridiculous.

The added complication is that our nanny, Maggie, brings her daughter, Mia, to work with her. Mia is also ready for preschool. Ideally they would go to preschool together. So public preschool makes sense there. The only tricky thing is that Maggie lives in Queens, not Brooklyn. So I had to write a letter saying that she works at our address with her daughter and needs Mia to attend school in Brooklyn. I had to have the letter notarized and sent to the Board of Education along with Mia’s preschool application. We’ll know in about a month if that worked.

In an ideal world, business picks up. Starting in fall of 2011 Victoria moves to Brooklyn Friends. My wife quits her job. Maggie no longer works for us (that will be a sad day, they are like family, but with both kids in school there’s no need for a full time nanny).

In a less than ideal world, business does not pick up. We cannot have Danielle in private school and Victoria in public school. That is wrong on so many levels. So then we have the big decision. We either move to the suburbs (we’re city people) or we play tricks to get into a better public school so Danielle and Victoria can go to the same school.

My wife’s best friend lives a block and a half away and is zoned for a different and better school. She lives in both floors of a duplex. She has offered to put my wife’s name on one of the leases and a utility bill. That would let up apply to the better school by claiming to live there. I love where we live, so that’s my preferred option right now.

These are the sorts of things you think about living in the city with kids…

Watching Victoria grow up has been fascinating on many levels, but probably the most interesting thing is how different she is from Danielle.

For the most part, Danielle and Victoria follow the classic first and second child model. As the first child, Danielle got focused attention in the early years. We were over-protective. We tried every stupid thing that claimed to help your child learn faster (remember when Baby Einstein first came out?).

As the second child, Victoria never got the same focused attention, because it wasn’t possible. We had seen the stupid things we obsessed about with Danielle and we relaxed with Victoria. But there was one area where Tori got special focus. Because she was behind developmentally when we got her, she had therapy four times a week for six months. The physical therapy was hard. At first she cried trying to do things, but by the end she would see Essy (her PT person) and come running to her. I think that made her a fighter.

And of course, there are the first seven months of Tori’s life where we have no idea how much attention she got. We suspect she spent a lot of time in the crib with the TV on, but we just don’t know.

Which brings up the other fascinating thing about watching Tori develop. With Danielle, you know the gene pool. I watch her do math problems with ease and see myself. I look at her face and see my wife. With Tori we have so little information. We know nothing about her biological father. We know that her birth mother was 5’ 0”, from Guatemala City and we’ve seen a photocopy of her identification card. That’s about it.

So I watch her develop and look for clues. Will she be smart? I think in terms of learning numbers and letters she’s a bit behind Danielle. Is that just due to our hyper focus on Danielle? Hard to say. She learned her colors very slowly (for a while we thought she might be color blind). But she figures other things out very quickly.

The personalities are classic first and second children. Danielle tends to be well behaved. We got to parent/teacher conferences and get to hear how wonderful she is in school. Which always makes us ask, “why isn’t she like that at home?”, but for the most part she is a very good girl. She is also very much daddy’s girl. She is shy and not that independent. She likes to have me around even when she doesn’t need me.

Tori is the complete opposite. She is anything but shy. She will go off with anyone. She is not a particularly well behaved girl. We have this ritual in the morning. I make her breakfast. She refuses to eat breakfast. I give her a timeout. She eats her breakfast.

Every. Single. Day.

Honestly, you’d think she would have this figured out. But I think it is just her way of trying to assert control. She is a stubborn girl. And very independent. Where Danielle likes to have me around, Tori wants to do things herself. She’ll go to the bathroom and I’ll go to help her (sometimes she needs the help) and she’ll say “papi, you get outta here”.

She can be a pain in the butt, but she also has a huge personality and a big laugh. That’s her endearing trait. She laughs so much. But man, does she get into trouble. With Danielle we mainly just threatened time outs. The threat was enough. Tori is very well acquainted with the time out chair.

And since she’s adopted, all of this is a big nature vs. nurture experiment. Is she like this because she’s the second child? Was her birth father stubborn and independent? Will she be short like her birth mother? Her mother was most likely poor so her height, or lack thereof, might be more based on nutrition than genetics. Tori has actually shot up, when we got her she was around the 10th percentile for height, now she’s exactly average.

There are a million things you wonder about. When Danielle sneezes in the spring, I’m pretty sure it’s tree allergies because I have tree allergies. We’re paying attention to her eyesight because both me and my wife had glasses (and later Lasik – best thing ever). With Tori, who knows?

One thing that is clear is that an adopted child feels just like a biological one. While there have been clear differences in how we raised Victoria, it’s because she was second. In some ways she gets more love than Danielle did, because Danielle loves her too.

The two of them are good together. Mostly. Tori copies her big sister in all ways (good and bad). I find myself pointing out to Danielle a minor bad habit and saying, “if you do it, Tori’s going to do it”. Danielle loves being the big sister and is turning into a very good one. That’s another thing that is fun to watch.

It’s a big roller coaster ride with an unknown destination. I think Victoria is going to be a lot of fun. And a lot of work…

A bit late, sure, but I’ve been busy.

On New Year’s Eve I was thinking about 2009 and 2010. Of course I was amused by the all the articles written in my youth expecting flying cars, etc. by 2010. But mostly I was thinking about 2009.

Was it a good year or a lousy year?

This, of course, depends on who you are. If you won the lottery in 2009, it was probably a great year. For me I tend to lump the year into four categories, world, sports, work, family.

The world is mainly stuck in a lousy economy so overall I’d have to say not a great year. Sure, the economy is improving, but pretty slowly. And nothing particularly great happened in 2009 in the world. I suppose nothing horribly bad happened either, but that’s not a glowing recommendation. We have a historic new president but it’s too early to say how that will turn out. Overall my rating here is moderately blah.

For sports it’s easy. The Yankees won the World Series. It was a great year. A+.

The work evaluation is trickier. I had a lot of fun working this year. Money was a bit tight though. I’m very happy with where our product ended up after a year. But I expected more clients by this point. But the overall reaction to our product has been very positive. I think I have to grade 2009 as an Incomplete. We’ll know if 2009 was worth it depending on how 2010 goes.

So that leaves family. A mixed bag here. I lost my mother this summer, though she had been battling Alzheimer’s so it was partly a blessing. My wife had a lousy stressful year working at Marsh and the relative uncertainty of Origami Risk didn’t help our family stress levels.

But our girls are great. Tori is a total piece of work at 3. She gets into everything. She will quietly disappear somewhere in our apartment. To the question, “Tori, what are you doing?”, she will answer, “Nothing”. It is never nothing. She can drive you crazy, totally not listening, grabbing everything that doesn’t belong to her and getting upset when you don’t let her use the screwdriver by herself. But she captures your heart with her laugh and smile. She laughs all the time. And she already has the tilt her head, bat her eyes and smile look down pat. She will clearly be dangerous.

Danielle is just  turning into a tall beautiful girl. She’s the more responsible older sister, but hugely creative, constantly drawing and building things. And totally daddy’s girl.

So was 2009 a good year? I have a great family, so every year is a good year.

and Danielle is turning into a big girl at 7.

Under the assumption that between now and Christmas I’m unlike to post anything, I’d like to wish everyone Happy Holidays and if it applies, a very merry Christmas.

Sometimes in the stress of the season, we forget what it’s all about…

I’m a bit late with my vacation update. We got back a week ago but the last week was without child care so we’ve all been a bit busy.

Our vacation was in Cape Cod at the same beach house we rented last year. We shared it with the same couple and Danielle’s best friend joined us as well. With the kids all a year older it was much better. We had:

• Danielle (6 1/2)
• McKenzie (Danielle’s best friend) (6)
• Cooper and Mariee (our friends’ twins) (4 1/2)
• Victoria (2 1/2)

McKenzie’s family was also staying nearby. McKenzie stayed with us four nights and Danielle stayed with them one night. The kids got along great and the weather was spectacular.

We did the usual. Lots of beach. Catching hermit crabs and minnows. Collecting shells. And with the kids a year older, there were are few new items. We did several nice bike rides. And best of all, we had babysitters two nights. Actual adult dinners. Awesome.

So here are the obligatory pictures.

Danielle, Mariee, Cooper and Victoria.

There was lots of dancing on our deck…

Danielle and McKenzie

McKenzie, Mariee, Danielle and Cooper.

Victoria, ready to catch hermit crabs.

At low tide, there’s a lot of beach to cover…

 Like I said, they got along…

Maybe next year…

Of course there were lobsters…

The obligatory sunset picture.

 

Everyone had a great time…

Victoria has been getting the typical second child short end of the stick in terms of early swimming. It’s much harder to take both of them, especially if it is just me, so Tori hasn’t been in the pool as much as Danielle had at this age.

Turns out it didn’t really matter.

It started in Milwaukee when we were there for my Mom’s memorial service. I spent a little extra to stay in a hotel with a roof deck pool. I figured the girls would need entertainment and I’d need the distraction. It was a good call. Tori has a swim suit with a floaty built in and she quickly figured out that she could float and move around by herself. So she did. At 2 1/2 Danielle spent most of her pool time with her arms around my neck. Tori would just take off by herself.

Last Saturday the three of us went to our local YMCA which has a very nice pool. Danielle has become such a good swimmer that it’s not as hard for me to watch them both. I can focus on Tori while Danielle happily swims around.

At the YMCA they have those backpack style floaties that just clip around your belly. It took a while to convince Tori to wear one. But she eventually figured out what it’s for and she was off.

She would go to the deep end and just jump in. Didn’t need me to catch her. Went underwater and just popped up happily, swam back to the ladder and did it again. I don’t think Danielle would jump in the pool without me catching her until she was 5.

We’ll be going to the pool a lot…