ABC, Twinkle Twinkle

David loves two songs- ABC and Twinkle Little Star. He sings them over and over, and wants us to keep singing them. He knows every word of both song. His teachers at school have graduated him to real underwear- YIKES! He is still going #2 not in the potty. We might have another daycare arrangement to try out soon. Things have not been good w/ D's school. His new room is better, but still every morning he says 'no school, stay home please, I no like school' then when we get to the gate (at the base) he starts crying. It's so sad, I really wish I could just stay home with him. Unfortunately that's not an option right now, so I've located a SAHM and I'm trying to work out an arrangement where he goes to a church preschool everyday from 9-12 then she picks him up and watches him the rest of the day. The downside would be, Z and I could no longer drive to work together because of not being able to drop him off earlier than 9. I would go to work at 7AM, Zach would drop David off and go to work at 9AM, and then I would be able to get off earlier than Zach to pick him up. The bad part is I won't be able to see him in the morning before he wakes up, but that will be the sacrafice I'll have to make to get him in a better childcare sitaution. I"m hoping we can get this worked out.

Daycare update and Consignment Sale

We haven't found a permanent solution for D's daycare yet, but we did get him placed in a different room at his current daycare which is better. We might have another alternative in the works. We're currently exploring this option.

I went to the Macon MOPS consignment sale this weekend and here is my loot. I got David a Mickey Mouse costume for Holloween. He LOVES Mickey Mouse, which is so funny because we don't know where this preference came from. We've since bought him a Mickey Mouse movie and he likes it. We only watch movies now that we cancelled cable.

Potty training is going well. He's pretty much doing all his pee in the potty and 50% of his #2's. I'll take it for a 2 year old. We don't give him m&m's all the time any more. Only occasionally when he asks or at the end of the day for a 'good day'. We are still using diapers at night time.

Potty Training and Daycare

Our family spent the 3 day weekend potty training! With a 2 year old? Crazy? Yes. Honestly, I thought he was too young, but he has far exceeded our expectations and is now diaper free except for naps and night time. He is in training pants during the day. He has about 2-3 accidents a day still. Sometimes we initiate the potty time and sometimes he does. He gets m&m's as a reward at home and stickers at school. The hardest part by far was the first day when he didn't really know yet what we were trying to get him to do.

In other news, we are looking for a new daycare. David moved to the 2 year old room and there have been numerous problems that I won't go into detail about. The gist of it is, his afternoon teacher is AWFUL. I literally almost punched her in the face today at the daycare. Zach had to pull me out of there. I complained to the director and she said 'well she came here 2 weeks ago and was very highly recommended by the teen center'. Hah, teens are totally different that 2 year olds! Please pray for us that we find him a new place. Poor David is having a hard time and this is causing us a lot of anxiety.

While I'm at it with the charts...

This chart shows what was stated in that video posted a while back. Adjusted for inflation, incomes are stagnent and dropping from the 70's to today. In spite of this, home prices have soared from the 1970's to today. What does this result in?
Affordability has worsened over the past 20-30 years for families trying to purchase a home because incomes have not kept up with rising housing prices. (this is why, ultimately, the result of the housing crisis is a good thing- lower home prices. The market is re-adjusting its prices to levels they should be at. It's correcting itself from prices that got way too high)



A recap of the long video I posted earlier:
Comparing the 1970's family with the 2009 family you would think that the 2009 family would be more wealthy with better savings and less debt because the wife now works and in the 70's she didn't. However, this is not the case. The family today actually spends less (inflation adjusted) on expendable goods such as clothing and food, and despite having more income (because of the mother working- dad's income has remained stagnent/even decreased some inflation adjusted), is more in the hole because of the huge cost of housing and healthcare (including premiums paid to your employer). The video ultimately got to the point that the middle class is shrinking and there will be no 'middle class' soon.

Ramblings of an Observer

Recently I have met a friend at work who is going through a divorce. Today I found out my dental assistant that does my teeth is getting divorced (and she is my age). And this brings me to the question that has been plaguing sociologists for years- the issue of high divorce rates. Since the 70's there has been an extremely high rate of divorce in our country. Also, in the last 30 years the rate of married women with children working full-time increased by 50%. Are these numbers related to each other? I think so. Now, the woman has two full-time jobs. Not only must she have her 'career' job, she has to manage the home full time. And, it's just not possible to 'have it all'. Even if the husband helps at home, the load is stressful for the couple. There is not only the stress of home life - raising kids, housework, meals, upkeep on the home - but there is the added stress of a two-working parent household: getting the kids to day care or school, getting them home and to their activities and practices, both parents having job-related stresses that carry over to their home life.

A lot of the men in my generation were raised with the mother handling the majority of the household duties, which wasn't a problem because they didn't have to work in industry. Now, the men expect the wives to do the same AND they expect them to work full-time, which just puts to much stress and strain on the wife and on the marital relationship, hence all of the divorces. This is my theory based off of what I've seen in the people I know who are divorcing.