Washable Workwear Wednesday: Mock Neck Blouse

My cousin has 18 mo old twins who were born 4 weeks premature and have some developmental delays. They aren’t talking yet and one of them still isn’t walking. I know this is within the higher end of the “normal” range. Is this typical for babies born prematurely? They are now receiving early intervention services to help families address developmental delays in children under 3. Can interventions help them reach developmental milestones, or will they always be behind in these areas compared to their peers? This family is low-income and has had several awful things happen to them lately and I am hoping for them that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Vent. After three and half years of dual WFH, I’m over it. I am likely to be WFH for the rest of my career because my entire field was headed in that direction before 2020 and the pandemic just pushed it over the edge. My husband’s company sent everyone home in March of 2020 and then decided to move and retrofit a new building, which now won’t be ready until the middle of next year. The togetherness is driving me absolutely bonkers. 90% of my husband’s day is meetings, during which he mainly yells business catchphrases so loudly that I can hear him through two closed doors. During the rare times when he doesn’t have meetings, he doesn’t know what to do with himself and comes to talk to me. He always wants to have lunch together and tell me about his company, his projects, and his many co-workers in minute, irrelevant detail. I recently stepped back to a job with irregular part-time hours and feel like he’s constantly watching how much I work or do housework. I can’t run errands or deal with packages or do paperwork or cook without feeling guilty for not billing or worrying that he’s going to barge in and ask annoying questions. I have tried using this opportunity to show him how much time and mental energy I use managing the household and the kid stuff, but whenever I mention anything about a kid issue he tells me I’m stressing him out and he has to focus on work. Is it too much to ask to have the house to myself during school hours so I can work or do housework in peace?!? If I go back full time, will he leave me alone to work and let me hire a housekeeping service? (No, because that didn’t happen when I was full-time and is a big part of why I went part-time). I am desperate for him to go back to the office, but on the other hand the new office is open-plan and he refuses to wear a mask so we will be sick all the time. Arrrrgh.

Does anyone else have advice from coping with a kid getting in trouble in preschool? I posted last week about my sons preschool saying he will have to find a new program starting in January if his aggressive behavior doesn’t improve. We’ve had a few good days since but I am just constantly holding my breath and feel so anxious about all this because I’m worried he’s going to struggle in school and I’m not sure how to best help him. He is great at home or in small groups, but the class is also filled with a bunch of boys that are always touching and roughhousing. For example, I observed through a window (where he couldn’t see me) on Monday and there were multiple kids just walking around touching other kids etc during circle time and depending on the day, my son is doing that too. They said that’s not cause for explusion though and it’s the aggressiveness/maliciousness that would get him removed. He hangs out with the handful of boys that are the touching/rough housing type, so while he has those tendencies, I feel like they are amplified in this environment, but isn’t that just school? There will always be these types of boys?

I hate to switch him for 6 months before public kinder, but would you switch him if you were me? He loves his school and is learning a lot. I wrote that it was academically rigorous last week, but in the sense that they teach phonics and math but in a very “fun” way i.e. sing songs, do hands on activities etc. They do a single 5 min worksheet a day, so it’s not at all the sit at a desk and do worksheets type program, but it is far more structured than the Montessori program our daughter went to. I felt like she wasn’t as prepared for kindergarten in our “high achieving” suburb in that program because i don’t think she was picking work that was challenging and that’s why we switched him to a more structured environment.

Hey. I appreciate all the support last week. We live in Indianapolis and my friends and neighbors have really been amazing, but all my family lives in IL, so that’s tough. His family went home over the weekend, my mom will be here until Friday, and then I guess we just kind of…start doing things on our own. I quit my job a couple years ago when my oldest started K and money isn’t a huge concern, but I’ll likely need/want to work again at some point. I don’t know. It’s hard. I’m sad for myself and sad for my kids and so incredibly sad that my husband won’t get to see the kids grow up.