The Daily Krier

Joshua in his classroom the first day of school

Joshua started 5K last week, with Connor entering 4K. Over the summer and especially in the weeks leading up to the start of school, Joshua was very excited. For the past 5 years, he’s gone to the same day care center so he knew all the teachers and had lots of friends there. This was a new adventure – a new school and he didn’t know anyone. Joshua is big on routine and schedules so I completely understood his hesitancy as, for the first time, he didn’t know what he’d be doing every day.

As we live three blocks from school, I have the opportunity to walk to and from school with him every day. I cherish these two small periods of time with him every day and was very excited to walk with him on his first day. The closer we got, the more apprehensive he became. And, of course, the first day of school is nothing short of chaotic which did not help matters. People wandering everywhere, lots of noise and very overwhelming to him.

After meeting his class in the multi-purpose room, we walked with him down to his new classroom. Out in the hallway were hooks with a child’s name above each one. Joshua found his, hung up his backpack and sat down to wait. Once we got inside the classroom, more chaos ensued. Needless to say, leaving him there that first morning was a tad traumatic. He cried and didn’t want to let go of me, and I managed to keep it together until I was out in the hallway. Then I cried as I walked the 3 blocks back home.

All day I counted the minutes until I could walk back over and pick him up. I restrained myself from walking past while they were out to recess or lunch, knowing that if he saw me, it would make things even worse. Finally, it was 5:00 and I went to pick him up. He was very happy to see me, but it was like pulling teeth to have him tell me about his day. He did talk excitedly about art class, but my heart broke when he told me that at recess time after lunch, he sat by himself and cried because he missed me. I still get teary thinking about it.

Now it’s a week later. He still doesn’t talk much about school and I have to ask a million questions to get just a few answers out of him, but he seems to really like school. He’s slowly getting to know his classmates and is making friends. It’s easier to drop him off, too – he’s satisfied with a hug, kiss and three squeezes of his hand (he knows that means “I love you”). I’m hoping he gets to the point that he was at day care – having so much fun that he doesn’t want to go home at the end of the day.

I can’t believe my oldest son, Joshua, starts 4K tomorrow! He’s so excited to take his school supplies which consists of 2 notebooks, 2 folders, 1 scissors, 1 pencil box, 1 bottle of glue, 2 glue sticks, 1 box of markers and 1 box of crayons. In addition he needs to bring a favorite family recipe and something special for show & tell the first day. He’s excited but not too nervous as the 4K program is at the daycare center he’s been attending since he was 3 months old. And his teacher, Ms. Nikki, is one he had about a year ago. Some of his friends, though, have switched out of the daycare center and are going to parochial schools so he’s sad about that.

I’m really looking forward to what he learns this year, what homework entails and figuring out what he likes and dislikes about school. I never minded school but my husband does not have fond memories, especially of his early years. I’m hoping Joshua does not follow in his dad’s footsteps but instead loves school. Time will tell. In the meantime, it’s off to bed as we have a busy and exciting day tomorrow!

As an avid user of social media, I look for all sorts of reasons to incorporate it into my everyday life.  In fact, while at a carnival at our daycare provider’s facility a week ago, I was checking in via Foursquare and the father of one of my son’s friends said, Read the rest of this entry »

About a month ago I started a new position with a company called ClearEdge Marketing, a marcomm agency based in Chicago that serves professional services and staffing firms. It’s a great organization with a very talented staff, and I’m thrilled to have joined the team to build their social media offering.  What might be interesting to some people is the fact that I found this new position through social media.  I know someone who works at CareerBuilder in Chicago (in fact, I met her through Twitter, I believe — we’ve never actually met in person).  She contacted me via email one day and her message was something along the lines of Read the rest of this entry »

Joshua has his first dentist appointment tomorrow morning and to say he’s nervous about it is an understatement.  We’ve  not made a big deal about going to the dentist and, in fact, a dentist visited his daycare class a few weeks ago (he’s the father of one Connor’s classmates).  Joshua was very excited and brought home a new toothbrush and some dental floss.  He’s great at brushing his teeth and does so without complaint morning and night.  So why the trepidation?  Fear of the unknown, of course.  He’s never been to the dentist and I think he assumes it’s like the doctor. And the last time he was at the doctor, he got shots.

So tonight as I was putting him to bed, he said to me “Mommy, I have a secret to tell you.”  I leaned over so he could whisper in my ear and here’s what he said, “I’m not going to the dentist tomorrow”, followed by a giggle.  We’ll see how this goes.

I started a bootcamp in January.  It’s 20 minutes of hard-core activity three times a week.  Plus it starts at 5:30 a.m.  This is huge for me. I am NOT a morning person. So the fact that I get up at 5 a.m. three times a week to go work out is amazing.  But anyway, in talking with the bootcamp instructor, we got on the topic of social media and he’s interested in hiring me to help him with his efforts to find new clients.  I initially found out about the class because they offered a one-month bootcamp for dirt cheap on Living Social. Anyway, now it’s just a matter of finding time to craft a strategy for him, then putting it into action. He’s tried Facebook advertising with limited success, but I haven’t looked to see what the ad consisted of.  He’s done the Living Social deals and people attend the bootcamps for a month but not many convert to longer-term enagements. 

As I think about it, I think it’s people like me he wants to reach. People who are busy but realize how important physical activity is for health (both mentally and physically); people who want to get exercise out of the way in the morning; people who need to change up their workout frequently; people who want a challenge.  So where are those people and how do we reach them via social media?  Food for thought, indeed. I’ll keep you posted.

I had the great opportunity to visit London for the first time last week. In addition to attending a conference and meeting a lot of great new friends, I took a little time to sightsee as well. Not one to be afraid of wandering about, I grabbed a map and set out. Across the street from my hotel was a lovely park and cutting through there led me directly to Buckingham Palace. Just down the road from there I found Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye and more. Such a fascinating city and such beautiful architecture! Tragically, I was only there for 4 days, so didn’t get in much more sightseeing. But I did manage to visit Harrods the day before I left and, wow, the selection in the food area! And I can’t forget to mention the delicious curry I ate while I was there, for more than one meal! Overall it was a great visit and I hope to be able to get back again in the future, next time when I have the ability to spend more time exploring that wonderful city.

I have to admit, once I tweeted my unhappiness with American Family, they jumped on it and the issue was resolved within 24 hours.  I received no fewer than 3 phone calls in 12 hours from both the adjuster and her supervisor, indicating they were issuing a check for the amount of the estimate and sending it out that day.  Plus they called Enterprise and arranged for a rental car for me. Sure enough, the check arrived Monday and the rental car was ready to go.  Hopefully by Friday my car is back to (almost) new and this whole issue will be behind me.  I loved seeing that American Family‘s social media presence is tied to tightly (and apparently has a good system in place as well) to their customer service group.  They took what was a highly frustrating experience and made it much more tolerable. Well done!

About a month ago I was involved in a car accident. I wasn’t at fault, another driver attempted to switch lanes but didn’t look before doing so and crashed into the passenger side of my car.  At first the damage didn’t seem to bad but I later realized I could not open the front passenger door of my car.  Finally got the claim going through the other driver’s insurance company, American Family Insurance, a week later and things started progressing quickly….at first.  The adjuster I spoke to on the phone dispatched another adjuster within 2 hours to come to my place of employment to look at the car and estimate the repairs ($2,600 worth, by the way).  And that’s where this story comes to a screeching halt. Read the rest of this entry »

While standing in line outside of Toys R Us Thanksgiving night, and trying to stay warm, one of my fellow shoppers received a call from one of her friends already in the store.  It turns out that the netbook that was on special was already sold out.  Another woman in line said, “Well, I’m leaving. That’s what I came here for so I might as well head home.”  We all wondered if the items we had shown up for were still available which led one woman to bring up this brilliant idea: Read the rest of this entry »