The Things We Do for Our Kids

It has been a whirlwind of a week. Not so much for me - I'm having a pretty good time. But for the kids, this week has been a doozy.

After spending 2 weeks with my parents and without Dave in St. Louis, we drove all weekend and arrived in the apartment on Sunday night. We've enrolled Sophia in a fabulous Montessori school which kept her smiling all through the visit this morning. We've nearly enrolled Lilly in the local public school. We've been to the local library, Target and McDonalds. We've checked out the nearest playground to the right. Plans for tomorrow include checking out the nearest playground to the left. We've been reunited with our toys from China, and we've played with good friends from Shanghai. We have plans with the girls' second cousins this weekend - also girls, and nearly the same age.

And we have seen some truly atrocious behavior.

This is more than simple stress. We are seeing Lilly regularly lose control and receive severe punishments for what began as very small crimes. Sophia claims to hate everything around her, and cries "not fair!" at the drop of a hat. I worry that my kids are missing their routine. They say that kids crave structure, and I've always hoped its not true because I really don't crave structure or routine at all. I'm pretty happy to plan my day one hour at a time, and that's about what this week has looked like.

Maybe the rest of the week needs to look more like this.

8am - Mom wakes up
8:30am - Girls begin to wake up
9:30am - Everyone out the door
Noon - Everyone back in the door for lunch
1:00 - Annika begins her nap, and older girls begin quiet time
3:00 - Annika finishes her nap, and we all head to the playground
5:00 - Back in for free play while Mom begins making dinner

Sounds boring - especially when you layer in the mounds of laundry, dishwashing and iron I now have to do myself. But if this makes us through the next few weeks, I should be happy. Especially because in about 2 weeks, we learn where and when we move out of this apartment. Another layer of stress and change to add to these poor little girls' lives. I had been rooting for a D.C. post, allowing us to live in town for another year and a half or so. Both girls could stay in the same school for more than one full school year - a record for either child. But then I looked up housing in this school district. Holy crap! Should we stay in DC, we'll have to answer which would be better for the girls - the same school for Lilly and cramming our growing family into a tiny apartment, or moving to a new school (again) further out and still spending too much money every month, but at least having a reasonable amount of space.