Yes, Officer, Striped Pajamas

This has happened to every parent. It even happened to me once before. Charlie (5.5) and Atticus (4) wanted to go outside and draw on the driveway with chalk, so I sent them on their way. Then I heard Max (2) yelling that he was finished with his nap. I went upstairs, got Max out of his crib, changed his diaper, and carried him downstairs, as he was saying, in the cute way only a 2-year-old can "outside, outside" meaning he wanted to go outside and play with his brothers. When I stepped out the back door I didn't see the brothers.

"Charlie," I called. Nothing.

They must have gone into the garage, so I walked out there.

"Charlie," I called again. Nothing.

Maybe they were on the second floor of the garage.

"Charlie," a little bit louder this time. Nothing.

Back into the house. "Charlie!" Nothing.

By now I am screaming. All over the house and the grounds. Around front, I look up and down the busy street. Nothing. Then I start to think "What were they wearing?" in case I have to tell the police. Charlie was wearing a blue spiderman t-shirt, blue sweats and red Crocs. Atticus had refused to get dressed for the babysitter this morning, and by the time I got home at noon, I felt like it was a lost cause. So I had images, not only of having an Amber Alert out for my kids, but the media relaying that, indeed, one of the children was wearing striped pajamas and silver Crocs at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

I snatched up Max from the back porch and ran into the house, screaming desperately "CHARLIE!!!" This time I hear a feeble "Yes, Mommy" from the basement.

I am sure the swat on the butt hurt more through the pajama bottoms than it would have had Atticus just gotten dressed.

We're Moving

We're moving. More accurately, we're trying to sell our house. It breaks our hearts since we have lovingly restored this old mansion from top to bottom, and planned to live here for many years. What changed our minds? Read on.

We live in the midtown area of Columbus, Ohio. Our neighborhood has a very urban feel to it, and we live on a main street, so you really get the city feel here with the bums peeing in the bushes, buses tearing by, and fire truck sirens at all hours to the day. The other city "perk" we get here is Columbus City Schools. When we moved here in 1999, we knew we would eventually have kids. We thought the diversity in this neighborhood would be good for kids, and as for the busy street, no problem. Kids in NYC simply learn to stay away from the street, right? Anyway, one of the best Catholic schools in the city is right across the street, and since my husband came up through Catholic schools, it was assumed that any kid we had would as well. Well, that was before Charlie.

If you read this blog, you already know that over the past year we have had some behavioral problems with Charlie both at school and at home. He is currently in Pre-K at a local pre-school. After taking him to see a child psychologist, we decided the best thing for Charlie would NOT be cookie-cutter, rote-style Catholic school. Coming to that conclusion meant one of two things: we either send him to city schools or we move to the suburbs.

Well, as a long-term plan city schools are out of the question. As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, the district as well as over half the schools in the district are in "academic emergency." That means if your neighborhood school is in academic emergency, you get first priority to lottery in to any other city school. Our neighborhood school is one of two schools people try to lottery in to. That's really here nor there, but our issue is this... if the district itself is in academic emergency, then how good could the very best school in the district really be? So... we decided to move.

Now, the housing market in any upper middle class suburb of the city is quite a bit more expensive than our current situation. Since we are moving solely for schools, we decided to base our choice solely on schools. Through my research I narrowed it down to a suburb southwest of the city (UA), and one north of the city, where, ironically, I began my career of raging against the cliche (where I went to high school), which I will call W.

We started looking for houses in W. There are plenty of nice houses there, but one problem. I had a miserable childhood, so we couldn't move into the neighborhood I grew up in. But as we drove through other neighborhoods, we discovered "there is where my friend Callie crashed her car, there is where my x-boyfriend Carl lived" etc. Uh, not going to work.

So presently we are looking for a house in the much more expensive UA. I am starting to get nervous about selling our house (who wants a big ole house on a busy street?). We already made an offer on one house, but they wouldn't accept a contingency to sell this one, so here we sit, waiting. We have to have proof of residency to sign Charlie up for school in UA, so if we don't have that in time, our back-up plan is the city school. Heck, one year of school amongst the sons and daughters of crack dealers may be an educational experience.