ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

Man, I need to vent a little about the Pre-K situation (although I think I did a bit upthread). This is life under DiBlasio's wonderful "universal" Pre-K regime:

1) At private locations that offer a UPK (i.e. free pre-K funded by the city), kids who are already in the location's preschool get priority. Our daughter's preschool isn't going to have a UPK, as we just found out (they told us they probably would, that they were applying). We also didn't realize this preference existed when we chose our preschool.
2) At public school locations, siblings get priority. This apparently fills most or all of the slots at the good public schools.

This basically means that any good private or public school pre-K is going to be filled by kids who either are already at the school or are siblings of kids at the school. This means we are stuck with the leftovers, and possibly not even a school close to us. I guess it's still a year of free preschool, but it kind of sucks. Also means we probably have to take K and put her in a totally different place with totally different kids for ONE YEAR, then move her again for Kindergarten, which I feel really bad about. Makes me want to just throw my hands up and leave the city.

would it make you feel better if I told you how expensive pre-K has been for my two kids, who do not get free pre-K funded by our city

the SF program is for 4yo only, and the date cutoffs presented a huge hassle for us so we opted for the co-op route which, tbh, is probably better for both the kids and for us as parents - we've definitely forged a lot of relationships w other parents and kids through the co-ops

Yeah, that's why I keep reminding myself "it's free pre-K" -- and I also haven't completely ruled out just paying for one more year of preschool and keeping her where she is, just to avoid the disruption and probable quality drop. It's a lot of money but I'm not going to just, like, warehouse my daughter for a year.

Neighborhood elementary schools are also very overcrowded, and there are possible K waitlists, so we have considered moving eventually anyway.

a common urban parent lament - we lucked out with our lottery system and got the neighborhood school we wanted (actually the second time we were ridiculously fortunate with a city-run lottery system), so we're staying put.

Yeah, school construction/expansion process is just gruelingly slow to catch up to the growth in demand in certain neighborhoods.

Keeps tactfully quiet about being in australia, having our choice of multiple totally free kindergartens in the area

sounds like a socialist nightmare

There is definitely something uniquely American about the way universal pre-k has played out in new york, where the deblasio admin insisted on creating it now, but couldn't (for reasons not entirely its own fault) actually build the capacity for it, so instead we rely on this unholy public-private hybrid system that kind of sucks but is better than nothing at all. In a way it's a bit like obamacare, though not as complex.

also gonna keep quiet about our French socialist nightmare, with free schools starting at age 2

I know this is probably weird, but I'm kind of looking forward to trying to sort out the whole school mess here. It will certainly be challenging. I don't know what we'll do for pre-K, but right now the plan for K through high school is to live within the attendance boundaries of the schools we want her to go to. Easier since we rent.

That's weird as heck but I'm glad!!!

xp it's just not that simple here. Pre-k is t a purely zoned thing. K-5 is but the schools are overcrowded and there's a risk
You can get bumped to another school even if you're within the zone.

Are there any other step-parents here on the borad? I feel like I need some advice/braindumping. I love my partner to bits but I'm worried I dont always agree with his parenting style - he's very hands-off, "my kids are my friends", and i'm more inclined to think they could use a little more discipline, with things like what they eat and how often theyre on the computers.

The oldest (11) has just been given an old (locked to no data) iphone and key to the house, and now hes taken to pulling shit like Vibering his dad "get me some food" from the other room,wtf. TBF dad is ignoring this idiocy but I see a kid starting to really push his boundaries and I dont know how my role fits into all this. Ugh.

sounds frustrating. I have no advice whatsoever but been reading a couple of books more about toddler/young kids 'discipline' and the thing that made me make sense of it was explaining WHY they need boundaries. I'm paraphrasing badly but if they know the parent is going to make the (consistent) decisions, tell them what's ok and what's not, it actually takes a lot of pressure off the kid trying to make those decisions themselves.

would your partner appreciate you discussing it with him or would it get his back up? Do they see their mum and what's her parenting style like?

Also means we probably have to take K and put her in a totally different place with totally different kids for ONE YEAR, then move her again for Kindergarten

this is NBD imo

Trayce, how long have you been their step-parent and how well established is your relationship with them. You're probably right that they could use more discipline, but at the same time I could see that not working well coming from the step-parent where the parent is the lenient one. I find it hard enough to discipline kids as their parent.

I actually remember being happier as a kid at the times when my parents had more rules about stuff like TV, snacks, when I did my homework, than when they got more laxed -- it gives a feeling of security and order.

I personally think you need to have the discussion with your partner. Obviously the child is his responsibility but also when he's visiting he's in your space as well as his dad's. I'd find out whether your partner has researched parenting and based his parenting methods on this or if he's just winging it/going for an easy life. It's a balancing act that your partner has to manage - the needs of his kid and your needs, and you obviously want to be able to have a decent relationship with the kid without him ruining your life whenever he's round.

Thanks for the replies all :) I should be clear this guy parented the 2 kids solo their first 5-6 years and has done a very good job, they're smart and well behaved. I guess it's just my role I'm feeling unsure of. he knows this, we've had chats about it, it's just such new ground for me (and as many of you prob know I never ever wanted kids - the bf knows this too and we manage that accordingly, if that makes sense?) they spend 50% of time with mum and that works fine, tho neither me nor bf agree with
some of her ... ideas.. (anti vax, anti wifi/phones, sigh). I'm not even sure my point now lol sorry.

I've been part of the scene for about a year now ( living with them for about 8 months?)

Ha ok I backtrack a little on what I said earlier - just heard dad tell 8 yo "this isnt a restaurant! I'm not your waiter! Get your own grapes from the fridge!" hehe :D

ruh-ruh!
sorry, that's my little one's word for grapes. and blueberries and Cheerios. small and round things, I guess...

Both of us had horrifying shitting-and-puking stomach flu and succeeded in keeping a perfectly healthy and incredibly active toddler alive, fed, and cleaned for the past 36 hours, though a blow-out shit diaper really tested our limits.

that's the worst. We had that once and thankfully were able to get her to daycare so we could suffer through it without having to care for anyone.

Yikes. Made me feel a little hesitant to even post near you.

The time H and I got horrifying stomach flu at the same time, we wound up going to the hospital, in part just because we were afraid we would get too weak to take care of K. It was the absolute worst stomach bug I had ever had though, like painful, violent puking until there was not a speck left in my stomach.

Yeah we never would have made it without daycare yesterday, it was hard enough just to get him there. I spent most of that time asleep to make up for all the time I spent semi-conscious in the fetal position on the bathroom floor the night before.

i dont want to jinx ourselves but somehow we have never had a serious stomach thing since having our first kid 3 years ago, kind of a miracle

i mean he's only thrown up twice maybe in his whole life

he's in preschool now though so i can only imagine what is in our future

yeah once they start hanging around other kids a lot ... hoo boy

Our house has been thankfully free of serious illness all winter, but I just got a facebook flashback from our bout with stomach flu two years ago. Described it as "like that episode of Battlestar Galactica where the fleet has to keep making hyperspace jumps to get away from the Cylons, but somehow the Cylons keep finding them EXACTLY 33 minutes later, and everybody is awake staring at the clock for days on end because they are trying to escape. But with puking children."

In our time of stomach flu, I stopped at a Walgreens on the way back from taking Ivy to daycare to get some Gatorade and had to rest on the chairs in the pharmacy, and I looked so ill that the pharmacist came out and offered to call 911 for me. That was a rough bus ride home...

My K turned four today. When she woke up in the morning she sort of gestured to her body and said "Look, I'm four!" She later expressed confusion that she wasn't "big." So cute.

happy birthday to her!

Happy Birthday!

We are currently having massive issues with throwing/spitting food. Both will decide to start flinging food they don't feel like eating at that particular moment at the floor/each other/us and D particularly will fill his mouth with food and then attempt to spit it as far across the kitchen as he can. They also like to throw their sippy cups around or pour them out onto the floor/their trays/their hands (which they then pretend to wash).

Yesterday got so bad that I ended up putting them in bed over an hour early. I also slapped the back of a high chair and yelled "STOP IT" at one point; which did at least coerce them into eating for about five minutes.

That makes Nora's habit of pushing food onto the floor when she's done seem much more bearable.

Em and I both had stomach bugs at the same time in December; I escaped vomitting, but it was pretty horrific. There was a day or two when I wasn't too bad so looked after Nora, but eventually Em's mum had to come and take her because we were just wiped out. So sympathies to anyone ever going through any variation of that.

we had the sickening too, one after the other 'luckily' and the baby didn't get it. Was grim though even for those couple of days.
J shoves food on the floor, it can be completely infuriating but I try not to react too much. He's usually too much of a food fiend to chuck it unless he's full, but when teething or not well he goes off his food and then everything ends up on the floor. He chucks his sippy cup too and always wants to play with packets/vitamin bottles etc which all end up on the flood too! He definitely does the thing where he dangles it over the edge and then looks at you...

pp and I got food poisoning back when I was about 6 months pregs with Henry and Beeps had just turned 2. She was a total champ though.

J shoves food on the floor, it can be completely infuriating but I try not to react too much. He's usually too much of a food fiend to chuck it unless he's full, but when teething or not well he goes off his food and then everything ends up on the floor.

it took awhile for us to learn this, too. went out and bought a good deal of blueberries when she took a shine to them and some 4-5 days later would just throw them or attempt to feed them to our cats in defiance.

I wish our kid would feed the cat, one less chore I'd have to do.

Ugh, I made my daughter cry during playtime last night guys. I feel like total shit. We were doing a familiar game where the kid hides and the dad pretends to not be able to find them. "Well what happened to A____? I wonder where she went..." And usually after a bit of this, I'll see her poke her head out and go "ohhhhh, there she is". Or she'll get tired of waiting and jump out and yell "BOO!"

But this time she wasn't popping her head out and I got carried away in my spiel, my voice growing more and more dramatic: "A____, she has left us. She has run off to sail the seven seas. Wandering the open road where the stars shall be her guide, among the wolves and the coyotes*. Oh, how we'll miss her! WHYYYYY?"

She staggered out of her hiding place, curled up on my lap and started bawling uncontrollably for about half an hour, all the way until she fell asleep.

We play together a lot. Sometimes though, it can be very difficult for me to get into the right headspace for imaginative play. Like, yes I know you want to pretend we are building a snowman, but I have to do the dishes and rotate the laundry. So I try as much as I can to make sure that I'm fully engaged. I become the little plastic unicorn that's in my hand, or whatever.

I guess I overinvested in my character last night and took it down the wrong path. In all my years of parenting, I've never had playtime end up this badly. I think she really wanted a beat where I pretended to discover her instead of waiting for her to jump out. Anyway, I'm just gutted about it and hope to make it up to her with some less distressing playing tonight.

*These are her favorite animals. I don't want you to think that I was telling a story in which I left her to predators.

aw. She was probably just tired? I raised my voice at J when he was really little (actually it was telling him NO a little too firmly not to chuck his food off the highchair) and he cried and I felt like absolute shit, like the one person who's meant to take care of him was scaring him.

I can't remember the circumstances but I did similar a couple of weeks ago. Plus, y'know, who hasn't dropped their own baby.

Oh, she's cried plenty when I've had to correct her behavior. Or when I've inadvertently hurt her (slammed her finger in the trunk of my car two days after Christmas - dear GOD that was a nightmare). But this time I feel like I guided her emotionally to a place of loneliness. It wasn't my intent, but it felt like I'd placed a dangerous hypnotic suggestion. Or like, a creepy guided meditation from a manipulative cult leader.

I'm sure it's not that bad.

lol @ you putting it all on yourself. she probably did get a bit scared but it was with you, and it was imaginary so quite probably HEALTHY in the end.

I let E roll off the bed a couple weeks ago -- very low bed, carpeted surface, but she fell head/face first. She got freaked out and then fell asleep, woke up seeming totally happy and fine. Then the next day we found fucking dried BLOOD in her ear. For about ten minutes I wanted to not exist anymore. Then we realized there was no blood inside her ear and that it appeared to be from a scratch, almost certainly unrelated to the fall. Yikes.

my 4-y-o gets epic bloody noses in the night, wakes up looking like a horror movie