Back to School, Back to Work

Sadik began on Monday; today was the end of week 1 following summer vacation 2009. And they went back not a day too soon.

Not that I'm really seriously complaining, and I realize that surviving a 1 month break is nothing compared to steering an older, more bore-able kid through a typical American summer. (Although, on the plus side, I imagine there are all sorts of interesting activities to keep one busy through the summer in US school districts that we are lacking here.)

It was fun to spend a bunch more time with Anya, apart from the fact that during the latter three weeks of July she apparently lost all interest in the potty training we had done so well on from March to June. (Amazing! In June she makes it through multiple long road trip days in the car without an accident, and by late July we are struggling to keep our wet-undie count under 5 per day?!)

And apart from the fact that Anya somehow found her inner whiner, and that some little (yes, truly little, but feisty!) protest demon sprouted inside of her, too.

I don't know whether it was "just a stage" that happened to coincide with summer vacation, but remarkably all of that protest crying and angry refusal to go to bed on time really seem to have vanished just in this first week back. She starts each morning saying "it's not time for sadik," but she clearly is having a ball back with her friends and some new kids who've joined our little group this season.

For me, though, the fact that I've gained time to direct my attention elsewhere hasn't yet really translated into getting much of what I want to get done done. Unfortunately the organizer of our little informal preschool decided spontaneously (and partially due to a grave misunderstanding that I was unable, despite strenuous attempts, to disabuse her of) to give up her role as Dear Leader, which meant that I, as her helper and the mother of what appears to have been the only sadik family remaining in Dushanbe at the time, was left holding the bag.

I'm hoping that my time spent this week on sadik bookkeeping, new student recruitment, and house-hunting (on top of everything, preschool's homeless as of Aug. 30) won't repeat itself anytime soon -- that this is just me on the up-slope of the learning curve and investing some time up front in solving problems that, once out of the way, shouldn't deserve attention again for a while. And I damn well intend to gather all my fellow parents very soon to let them know that I'm not going to be the sole organizer -- that's not what I bargained for! Recalling how ready parents were last year to even attend a meeting, let alone take on small administrative tasks, I know this is going to be an uphill battle. But I'm hoping we can come to some sort of solution that takes the full burden off of me, since putting Anya in daycare only to have all of my "me" time sucked up by volunteer work to keep that daycare running isn't my idea of a fair trade!