Taking stock
I want to thank you all for the support and help around the Montessori decision. Today I worked from home, as my car is still in the shop (see below; the story is starting to reach amusing proportions) and I listened to Noah and V. playing, and Noah played school with her. In the play, they had to work on the mat, sing and fall down, and give hugs. This was very reassuring.
I finished off my list for the day after a really good happy conference call and decided to knock off a bit early and send V. home, and then Noah and I played on the porch while it rained lightly, and then went for a walk to explore the worms and so on. He told me he was going to school and ran down the sidewalk gleefully. I think he is becoming happy there. We’ll still be very careful about it, for, oh, ever. But I feel that we made the right decision in waiting to see.
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It has really shocked me how much happier I am at my present job. Part of it is that my old job really had become oppressive and letting go of that and still being employable was really empowering. Also, I suppose I am still in a bit of a honeymoon period, but I really do feel like this new job is a great match. There have been some bumps and will be more but it just feels pretty right.
I am surprised at the exponential improvement in my happiness levels though. I had always thought that a working at home part time lifestyle would be a great compromise for the system and a good way to raise children, and that it didn’t work for me (at least that configuration) continues to kind of amaze me - like I gave up the dream, somehow. I keep wondering why I need the external reward of people who say things like “this is a great plan.”
But I am just magnitudes happier. I’ve even started working on that everlasting novel again, in my ten free minutes a week.
Lyria continues to have a hard time, but we seem to be working it out. Today was a good example: I might have worked through to the end of the day, but she said it was silly (it would have been much more show than substance, that last hour) and off we went to gaze at the rain with Noah. She is incredibly relieved that there is still time and space for those moments… and I agree with her that they’re essential. Getting the gold star for perfect virtual office attendence was not worth the trade-off today.
Also we have mostly still had good food and so on. Although that teacher night we did resort to drive-through… hopefully for the last time, as Noah learned the fast-food logo, and that just shows he’s too aware for us to pull that crap. :)
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The ironic part of the whole thing, though, is that Noah is suddenly so interesting. He is talking a blue streak - mostly still one and two words, if they can get it across, but where they don’t he can build more complete sentences. Sometimes he comes out with full phrases that just blow me away. Today he said ”now we go home all the way over there” which just about had me collapsed on the sidewalk. All the way over there, really? He also suddenly mostly knows his colours and can rote-count to ten, although he doesn’t know what the numbers mean, except that he has known for a while that two is better than one. When it comes to cookies. And legs. And minutes left at the park. (”One more minute Noah!” “No, TWO minute.”)
And the songs, they are bursting out all over. All those mother goose programmes and of course it’s now, when I go to work, that the boy wants to sing and dance. The “hoke poke” and Ring Around the Rosie (ah the plague lives on) and tonight he started spontaneously singing ee-i-ee-i-o, so of course we had a rousing round of Old MacDonald. When he brings a new song home he is incredibly proud and delighted that I know them, and claps for me as if it’s a little parlour trick I have demonstrated.
This is kind of the phase that I, personally, waited for, and now I get it in small doses throughout the week and a whack on weekends. And that is hard. I think both quantity and quality time are important and we have compromised on some of the quantity.
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The car is pretty funny at this point. I met the tow truck driver at the car on Thursday morning and he insisted that boosting it would work (no, it’s not the battery, but, whatever). So I said “okay, but you wait to see what happens.” Sure enough, he boosted it, it started, we revved it a bit and then when I went to drive it - it stopped. So then he kind of sulkily towed it and I went home.
Then my dealer called with the news that the tow driver, who was the service centre’s pick and presumably tows Volvos all the time, put his hook through my oil pan. And that the parts centre was closed for inventory. And that they won’t even look at the other problem until that’s fixed. So now it will be Monday before the oil pan is fixed and probably Tues or Wed before they may condescend to take my concern seriously. Because I have been telling them that the problems they were fixing were not matching the symptoms. At least now the car is so undriveable there is no arguing that there’s a continued problem.
Not too happy with Volvo service right now, no. I should have bought a new Mazda 5, but no, I had to go for the used wagon. I do love to drive it, when it’s working. But for a 2001, it is having a lot of issues, and the repair guys do not seem to be actually using their thinking caps. My theory is that they have computer guys who just run standard tests and tell you what the tests say you have to fix. And then if that doesn’t work they get the real mechanics to… you know… pop the hood.
Because as I have mentioned and shown, under my hood, there is a big fat wire going to the battery that looks to me as though it has been melting/corroding and shorting out. But, you know, the computer says otherwise. I was willing to play this game to a point but now my patience is shot. And not very amusingly, the service reception/cs guy told me breezily that I could roll the remaining few thousand dollars over onto a 2007 model at 0.8 financing. Yah, ’cause I want to owe more than a car is worth, have it depreciate the moment I drive it off the lot, and still be dealing with you. Read my lips: Mazda. Honda. Toyota.
But then, this is Ford now right?
By the way, our Civic has more mileage on it (kilometreage?) and is a 2000… and one plate has come loose. Once. I think it cost $125 to fix but I’m not sure ’cause it did that during Emily’s life and my dad just took it and got it fixed and come to think of it I’m not sure we even have paid him back. (Oops.) But really.
Of course no one ever put their hook through the oil pan either.
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