Open Letters

[librarychica]

Dear DD1,

I am so glad you're over the "trauma" of my girls weekend a few weeks ago. The bedtime stalling and general intensity was, well, getting intense.

Love you so much, but sheesh.

Dear DD2,

Thank you for being your sunny self, easily pleased and unworried. I laughed my head off when you mumbled "school pizza treat tomorrow" as I tucked you in. It's the little things, isn't it?

Love you so much too.

[thatsfancy]

mommyatty I think your DD has very good handwriting for her age! DS1 is 4.5 and his is nowhere near as good.

I can relate to the handwriting stress. DS1 had a teacher that would work on handwriting with him when he was 2.5. He did fairly well! When they picked it back up in his next classroom, about a year later, his writing was so much worse. I may or may not have obsessed over this for awhile...

[akafred]

Dear school owner,

Thank you thank you thank you for not only allowing us to bring DD today so she could (ironic mommyatty) attend OT today without us having to stay home, but also taking her to the pool after school today! That is incredibly awesome! It was water day so she had her swim suit. AND you gave her a shower after! I could kiss you!

LOVE,
Me

[traveltheworld]

mommyatty, I'd be thrilled with that. DS just turned 5 and could hardly write his name, and he was in 2 top Montessori programs in 2 different cities and both schools said that he is advanced academically and both schools suggested we have him tested to get into a gifted school. Granted, most of that was due to his advanced vocabulary and math but up until about 4 months ago, he couldn't even hold a pen properly. When I asked about that, his preschool teacher said that there's a big developmental leap in kindergarten, and if we don't see him writing better by the end of that year, we can look into it.

[sweetptater]

mommyatty that is so much more advanced than my 5 year old. I think that looks great!

[mustardseed2007]

mommyatty, I can't remember if you were one who had your kid evaluated? But when DS was evaluated the psych only expected him to be able to write his name. She did find it an issue that he did not write his name in a straight line to such an extent that he would sometimes write his name straight backwards or totally vertical when he didn't have a line to write on, but you're kid isn't doing that.

I mean tbh I think you're kid is advanced in letter writing!

[mommyatty]

Thanks, guys. The only evaluation we did was with the OT. I'm contemplating doing a more in-depth evaluation to share with the school. We love so much about the school, but this handwriting thing makes me question our choices.

[186momx]

mommyatty, I would love to see examples of handwriting from other kids in her class. That is similar to what most of the kids were doing in K last year. Can she color in the lines of a coloring book?

Dear Friend
You said it was okay for DD and your daughter to have a play date Monday and that your niece was watching your DD and said it was okay for her to have a friend over. No I didn't pay her Monday as I thought it was a play date not a paid babysitting gig. I will drop some cash off for your niece but no way are we going to do this again as your niece told me that DD made her job so easy as she just chilled all day while DD and your daughter played.
Frustrated Friend over a play date

[judyblume14]

186momx, that is super weird. Does your friend's niece usually watch her kid? Or was this a one-off for her?

[186momx]

judyblume14, Niece is watching her girls for the summer as she is a college student. DD's friend older 11 year old sister is off visiting grandma in CA which is why my friend though that a play date for the 6 year old would be fun as she doesn't have anyone to play with since sister is gone. The whole thing was weird. I'm going to have DD write a thank you note for the play date on Monday and put in 20 bucks for the niece and not do this again. Thing is niece invited DD back for more play dates this summer as it made things so much easier on her.

[mellym]

mommyatty, she was writing her name too slowly and she just turned 4. What an oxymoron! Just being able to write her name at 4 is a huge win. Her handwriting looks very similar to our just turned 5 year old. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[2chatter]

186momx - wow. That is crazy! When our sitters facilitate play dates we pay them BAU. I can't imagine asking another family to chip in! I do think money is weird - my niece nannied for us three summers ago and we shared her with another family at our house. They wouldn't talk money so they paid her and we paid her seperately. As I didn't know numbers we paid her more than half of standard, just to be safe.

I'd avoid the whole future play dates thing! That's wild! We don't share sitters with that family any more.

[xctsclrx]

186momx, That is really odd. When I used to babysit parents would ask if I cared about another kid being there. I didn't charge by kid though. If two families wanted to combine their kids for a night then that was fine by me, as long as they were close in age. I didn't want to take care of an infant and five year old with two different families. Normally when they did things like that my job was really easy so I didn't mind. I think if I was babysitting both families each family paid me a little more than half of my rate so I made out with more money. If the kids were just coming over to play then I didn't get anything extra.

There were definitely different ways of approaching the situation. If it was a play date the question be phrased " Can xyz come over to play with kid while we are out?" vs. " Can you watch both xyz and kid while we are out?"

I wonder how your friend pitched it to her niece vs how she pitched it to you.