Schooled

I signed Ava and I up for the ECFE classes yesterday. It turns out they did have a class for her age range but it seems like she's going to be one of the older babies in the class.

To pick the appropriate class, you use your child's age as of Sept. 1. Ava will still be 11 months old so she's in the "Up and At 'Em" class for babies 7-11 months old. I wanted her in the class for 12 months-17 months. We're going to be out of town for the first class anyway so I figured she'll be 1 when we start "school" so she should go to the older class. I spoke to the coordinator yesterday and apparently, that is not the case.

The coordinator explained to me that they are firm on the Sept. 1 age, since these are the kids Ava will be going to school with. You know, like in 4 years! The coordinator said that I could choose to put Ava in the older class, as long as there was an open spot once the year starts.

I did not realize that, as the mother of a not even one year old, that I would be making decisions regarding her education that would, on some level, effect her schooling for the next 18 years. These classes are no joke, apparently. For one thing, they last the entire school year! The class we signed up for runs through the end of May.

I was torn, honestly. The class for the older babies has a much better schedule. Right now, nap time is from about 8:30 until 10:30 (on a good day). Guess what time our class starts? 9 am. So I'm willingly disrupting her naps once a week. Of course, Ava's schedule will change soon and she may have dropped that morning nap by then (I hope not). And I've heard that you make a lot of friends through these classes and lord knows we could both use some playmates right now.

So in the end, we're doing the classes. I'm still apprehensive about them but I suppose we could always drop out of school if they don't work for us. Maybe there's like a GED program for pre-pre school.

What To Do?

Everyday I'm faced with the daunting task of figuring out what we will do today. I need to get out of the house at least once a day or else the day is sooo looong and boooring and drags oonnnn foreverrrr.

I have no idea what to do today. I would go for a walk but, um, I pulled a butt muscle playing Wii Sports Resort bowling.

It's supposed to be hot (-ish) today so maybe we'll try the pool later.

This is one of the things I miss most about Chicago. There was so much to do. We went to the park a lot. I had friends to meet up with. When we didn't have plans, we just went for walks to look in shops or just look at houses around us.

I don't have any of that here. I just looked into the city sponsored early childhood education classes for next month (which are supposed to be great) that meet once a week and of course, Ava is too old for the baby classes but too young for the toddler classes. Looks like we won't be doing that this year.

I never thought I would ever say this, but... I am so bored, I want to join a gym. At least then we'd have somewhere to go.

The Chair Fiasco

When we were looking at apartments and floor plans and picturing our furniture fitting in said apartments and floor plans, we decided we needed more furniture. Our living room in Chicago was pretty small and there was only room for a couch and a small chair. When we moved we decided that the small chair from the old living room would move to our bedroom and we would get a new living room chair. Actually, we had decided on a pair of chairs but when we actually got here, we realized the floor plan looked bigger than the living room actually was and so only one chair would fit. Since we were only getting one chair, we had enough Target gift cards (yup, I buy furniture at Target) to get the chair IMMEDIATELY and we wouldn't have to wait!

Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Someone...uh, me... was so excited about ordering the damn chair. I typed in the gift card numbers and accesses numbers so carefully and pressed the "submit order" button and was so psyched about my new chair.

Until the next day, when the order shipped email came and I notice that I sent it to the wrong address. Like, the apartment that I just vacated...in Chicago...when I now live in Minnesota. Ugh. The instant I realized my mistake, I called Target. I acknowledged that it was fully my fault and that I was an idiot and sent the chair to my old address. See, I'm an expert online shopper. I have shopped on Amazon/Target so many times that my info is stored. And while I was so careful to enter the gift card numbers carefully, I totally forgot that my shipping information, rather, my old shipping info, was stored.

By the way people, before I was a stay at home mom, I worked for a freight broker. You know, in SHIPPING. I think my former company should be glad I no longer work for them.

Anyway, the Target person told me to contact UPS and do a delivery intercept. I've seen the UPS commercials and remember this being the subject of one of their commercials. "Sweet", I thought, "This should be easy".

Ha ha, think again. I called UPS and was told they couldn't do anything for me until a tracking number was available. "Fine", I said, "I'll call you tomorrow".

I called the next day and was told that nothing could be done until a delivery attempt had been made and if the website shows delivered, then I would need to called the delivery terminal and they would send someone out to pick it back up.

The next day, the website showed a delivery attempt had been made and that the receiver no longer lived at that address. Um, duh, I've been telling you that for days. I called UPS AGAIN and was told the receiver can no longer do delivery intercepts, only the shipper can. And then I lost my shit.

Long story short, the chair ended up being sent back to Target! They sent me 2 gift cards for the exact amount for the chair. I received the second one today and ordered the chair again, except this time I ordered a different fabric.

The first time I ordered:

This time I ordered:

What do you think? Our living is tan and our furniture is very tan. When I showed my husband the two, his reaction to the first one was, "That was the chair we ordered?".

Chair #2 is on it's way. I guess it worked out for the better, since I think I like the 2nd chair better anyhow.

**Sorry for the big ol' chunk of text. Blogger doesn't like my paragraphs**

Neighbors

We've been here a few weeks and I've gotten a decent look at a few of my neighbors. Everyone seems to keep to themselves here but I've spied a glimpse of my closest neighbors. And what a bunch they are.

The way this apartment "community" (I don't like saying complex, as I feel it doesn't accurately describe this place) is divided is into groupings of 3 town homes per building. We're on one end, which means in addition to our tiny, tiny, tiny back yard, we also have a decent side yard.

To our immediate right is a family. I haven't seem them too much but I know there is a budding guitarist in the family, a toddler (maybe also the guitarist?) and someone who showers at night. Hey, we share a wall and I go to bed early. I hear things.

On the other side of them is a family we call "The Pack Rats". Every weekend since we have been here, they have had their garage door open. It is packed with crap. Boxes and boxes stacked to the ceiling and old sleds and wire shelves and...just crap. At first we hoped they were moving but it seems like they were just moving stuff around. They've moved some stuff, like the sled and wire shelves, out to their side yard, where it has stayed for over a week. We do know that they drive an older Jeep Grand Cherokee. I know this because it is always parked in their driveway as there is no room for it in their garage. (On a side note, after seeing their garage, we vowed to keep our crap to a minimum so that we would always be able to park both cars indoors, in the garage, the way God and nature intended).

Across our side yard is a couple we now refer to as WT Haircut. WT is our code for "white trash". The hair cut is, well, because one night I looked outside and the couple was sitting out on their patio and the woman was giving the man a haircut. Outside. They may be the classiest, nicest couple in the world but they will always be WT Haircut to me.

Hornets Nest

I've been laughing all day about this which of course means, it's only funny to me.

The back story:

Yesterday I discovered a HUGE hornet's (or wasps or yellow jackets) nest. This thing is easily the size of a football. A picture would really do this story justice but it's dark and I'm scared of being stung. So anyway, I was outside with Ava and the dog yesterday, just killing time until Fredo got home, when I happened to look up and discover the reason we've had so many stingy things flying around our patio. I immediately went inside and called the management company to tell them we had a stingy thing nest on the side of our house. They said they would come out today to look at it.

This morning I got Ava up from her nap and was heading downstairs to give her lunch when I noticed 2 guys in the yard looking up into a tree. I went outside and asked if they were there to take care of the nest. I pointed them in the right direction and said I was going back in the house. As I was closing the door I hear, "Holy...".

Um... granted I didn't say "huge nest" when I called but... they showed up with a can of hornet spray each.

As I was getting Ava's lunch together and chuckling to myself at the thought of these two guys trying to take down that massive nest with 2 cans of spray, the doorbell rings. It was the maintenance guys to tell me that rather than spray the stuff and run (his words), pest control would be in this afternoon or tomorrow.

Classic.

First Week Done

So my internet has been out for the past few day. I know there once was a time when we were like "Inter-what?" but man, I've been like a junkie jonesing for a fix. I have an Iphone so I've been using that, but I missed me some internet.

Of course, since I was sans internet, I had an eloquent, thought provoking post all worked out in my head, just itching to put out there for all to read. Ha, just kidding. When have I ever posted anything eloquent or thought provoking here?

What I have been wanting to say is that I'm not having the smoothest of transitions to this new life of mine. It's been a HUGE adjustment not having my husband home everyday, for one. How I miss the day not too long ago that I could run out and get a pedicure, on a weekday, because my husband was home. I've been a very spoiled mommy. Now, it's all Ava, all the time. Which is great but would be better if I knew what to do with her all day. At home (yes, I'm still referring to Chicago as home), I could throw Ava in the stroller and take a walk. I didn't need a destination, I could just go walking. Here, the lack of sidewalks around our place makes that a bit difficult.

I'm also not used to driving everywhere. Now, unless I want to go somewhere within the apartment community, I'm getting in the car to do so. I know suburban life is different than city life but man, I miss living in the city.

I've been trying to make the best of it, I really have. It seems like everyday I wake up with the intentions of enjoying our new community and everyday something pisses me and I end up on the verge of tears, cursing the fact that we had to move here.

I'm not pretending I was super happy about moving to Chicago when I moved there either. It took time for me to love that city (well, I didn't dislike the city so much when I first moved there as I did the people I first met there, but that is another story for another day). I know it'll take some more time for us to get acclimated here and for me to meet some people. Right now I just have to be patient and give it time (and other stupide cliches like that, blah blah blah).

But that understanding and rational thinking hasn't stopped me from counting down the days until I'm in Chicago next. Eight more days!