Three Down, Four to Go

I am still still exhausted, but more due to today being extremely productive day than the kids running me ragged.  Although the kids did put me through my paces.

Megan slept in my bed last night.  When she came out of her room three and a half minutes after I left, telling me that she had had another bad dream, I decided to skip the next 20 minutes of her popping out of bed with various excuses and the possibility of another 3 am visit.  Instead I asked her where she wanted to sleep and when she said, "Your bed."  I said, "OK"  I knew I would cave eventually and I just didn't have the energy to put up a fight.  This evening we didn't even go through the pretense of putting her to bed in her own room.  She started out in my bed to begin with.

I mention it only as context for being tired.  As I have written before,  Megan is an awful bed companion.  Sharing a bed with her reminds be of the days when I had to share a bed with my sister.  Eileen was so awful to sleep with (she sprawled and rolled and kicked) that I eventually ceded the bed to her and slept on the floor in a closet.  I wonder if I will be just sleeping on the couch by the end of the week.

But back to productive.  I got Riley signed up for daycare today.  They had a spot for him at Megan's old preschool.  And I am blown away at how easily that came together.  I figured that it would take weeks for a spot to be available.  He will start on Monday, provided that I can finish the giant stack of admission paperwork.

I still have to find after school care for Megan.  They have an after school program where Riley will be, but they are currently full.  But last year after parent-teacher conferences, four kids dropped out.  So I'm hoping something similar happens this year.

And speaking of parent-teacher conferences, it seemed like all the parents I know had their conferences today.  I watched my friend Shannon's kids (Allison and Kirsten) and another little boy (Rashaun)  from Megan's class so they could go to their conferences.  So for about two hours today, I have five (5!) kids running around the house.  It was chaos. At the end of the day, Shannon stayed with my kids (and her kids) while I went to Megan's conference.

It was a good conference.  Megan is doing well in school.  She apparently listens to and respects her teacher, she contributes to class discussion, she can recognize all 54 letter types (26 upper, 26 lower, and the serif a and g).  I found out that Megan's teacher didn't know that Megan knows how to read (reading assessments are slotted for December).  So she that she has a better idea of Megan's skills, she going to bump up Megan's reading assessment to this month so that she can start to work with Megan on reading in school.

We also talked about an issue that Megan was having with one of her classmates.  I've been hearing stories about the boy she sits next to for table work, and the terrible things that he does (like knocking Megan's place card off the table, hogging the pencils, eating babies, you know how it goes) and I needed to get a reality check from a more impartial observer.  The teacher said that there were a few too many strong personalities at that table and she will be separating Megan and her nemesis.

So it was a long day, but a good one.  It is interesting to me how much better my mood is when I managed to accomplish something rather than marking time.