I’m only home for a short bit between trips – the wife and I returned from the Dominican Republic last night, and I’m off to Minnesota today for the weekend – so I’ll keep it a little bit short and sweet.

I’ve mentioned in another post that we have a communication log for when the Monster’s at school.  Our communication system isn’t fantastic when it comes to how we handle things when we’re not around at home…

The kids love their sitter, and when we’re gone for more than the evening, she’s generally very good about writing to let us know what’s going on in general about things.  She’s told us about things like noticing a crack in my windshield (patched – we knew about it) or concerns about having triggered the alarm.

But there’s a lot we don’t hear from her.  Things like, what she’s feeding the kids.  If any notices are coming home from school, or paperwork, or the like.  What the kids are doing at school, if she knows, and if there are any things they’re doing in the evening, or new things they’re learning to do…

And part of me is just tempted to set up a checklist for us to receive when we’re out of town, though that somewhat smacks to me of being a helicopter parent (and that’s therefore to be avoided).

One of the positives now, though, is that R’s now old enough to tell us some of the things that are going on.  We got home from the DR on Wednesday night and had some questions about what happened (such as food)… and at least we could get the beginnings of answers from R, where the Monster somewhat’s unable to tell us anything meaningful.

But it is just the ‘beginning’ of answers.  Since, for instance, R can’t say anything about the Monster’s loose teeth…