Development of an Idea (or My Brain Won't Ever Shut Up)

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING! PROJECT APPROACH! UNSCHOOLING! I can't send my kids to a crappy school while immersing myself in these amazing educational ideas here at home. Can I even go work for a school district again, when I'm rapidly losing faith in the model?

I will homeschool. I guess I'll continue to provide childcare to earn a living?

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. Or ... I could open a preschool, right here in my house! REGGIO EMILIA and MONTESSORI inspired for early childhood education!

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. YOU CAN START YOUR OWN CHARTER SCHOOL IN NYS???

How do you open a school for unschooling?

Public school for unschooling? Look no further! THEY'RE ALREADY DOING IT! With locations in Western New York!

Oh. It's for high school. I want to do elementary school.

I need a network of people.

I hate developing networks of people. I like ideas. I want to be the idea person. I want someone else to be the people person.

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. YOU CAN GET PAID FOR BEING THE IDEA PERSON!? *SWOON*

Okay, I want to be an infopreneur. My idea is to take unschooling principles and make them work in elementary school. This could happen in one of two ways: we can take what they're doing in high schools like these ones, and bring them down to the elementary school level, OR we can take the approaches used in early childhood education, like these, and bring them up to the elementary school level.

So: homeschooler-->infopreneur-->open a charter school. Then who knows, because I would send my kids to this school, and then I'll either have to get a job there, or figure out a new life plan. :)

Assuming I don't have a WHOLE NEW idea next week, how the hell do I go about making THIS happen?

25 Thoughts Today

Because a list is all I can manage.

1. I was complaining to my husband tonight that with all my years of yoga, I still somehow ended up with bum knees, a jacked-up shoulder, and -most recently- a bad lower back! WTF?
2. I picked up my 3 year old 2 days after turning 36 and threw my back out. Niiiiiiiice. That will have been 3 weeks ago this Friday. Mother Effer!
3. It's actually almost better, I think, though. Which I owe mostly to yoga. But I still wish it had prevented the injury rather than help heal it!
4. Spring Break: my husband was off a week. I had kids all 5 days. I had a week off; he was back at work. Blah! I like our vacations to align, please, universe! For the next time, then.
5. Today was the first day all 4 kids were back together after the week off.
6. It. Was Seriously. Adorable.
7. It was in the high 70s and we spent all day outside together.
8. I feel as if I'm finally finding the spot where I'm figuring out exactly how to DO this job REALLY well with the kids. And that makes me love it more and more.
9. Maria Montessori: how do I know so little about her when I've been studying early childhood ed for so long? I don't know, but a wonderful old friend of mine has been sending me info, and I love it! I want to know more, more, more!!!
10. That same dear friend might be moving to Austin, TX. My father-in-law lives in San Antonio. I so want to sit with her and talk about Montessori for hours!!!
11. When I first started thinking about homeschooling, I felt it was really what I had to do for my kids. I hated all the other options, more than I loved homeschooling.
12. But I seem to have turned a corner, where now I'm really looking forward to it for myself!
13. I have a goal, for my professional self.
14. I want to master teaching.
15. By teaching, I mean that I want to master the art of facilitating people to be in flow.
16. I haven't figured out yet how to get anyone to pay me for this pursuit, but that will come in time, I guess!
17. Actually, speaking of flow and money, I think I have a blockage somewhere.
18. It's in my mind, and here's what it says: how much is the minimum I need to make to survive and do what I want to do?
19. And so I only ever make the minimum I need to survive and do what I want to do. Because that's the question I ask.
20. I think somewhere inside me, I believe that I am buying my freedom.
21. With all the money I'm not earning, I am buying those hours back to do what I wish with them. The freedom to exist without the structures, demands, the shape of lucrative employment.
22. Do I believe there can be both money and freedom?
23. That's a good question. 
24. I'd like to say yes. To embrace abundance of money the way I embrace abundance of choices, of ideas, of possibilities, of ways to be right, and ways to be beautiful.
25. But I don't know if I'm there yet.

Updated: Sunday Morning with the Toddler and William Carlos Williams

so many possibilities
splashed

in wet morning
sunlight

against bright white
snow

under a dripping
gutter.

My Son, the Preschool Dropout

Remember my pro-preschool spiel? Soon after I wrote that, my son -after a series of conversations about preschool- asked me if he could go to a preschool for 3 year olds. After making some calls and observing at a nearby school, I signed him up.

Funny side story: So during this series of conversations, I am -of course- espousing all the benefits of preschool: It's so much fun! You're going to get to make art projects, and play with other kids! You'll learn new songs, and listen to stories! Oh, you're going to LOVE it! Rapturous me, with my love for preschool.

When the time comes to sign him up, his dad comes home from work, and I say: So I've been talking with him all day about preschool because it's time to turn in the paperwork if we're going to sign him up. We've been talking about what it will be like!

My husband turns to our son and says: So, what it will be like is that Mommy will drop you off there. And then she will leave you. She. Will. Leave. You. She won't stay. She won't be back for hours and hours! You'll be there all by yourself with a bunch of people you don't even know. This is what you want to do, Bubs? You understand? You want Mommy to leave you? That's what it is. She'll just leave you there.

He turns to look at me, and my jaw is on the floor! I said: Hon, you're kind of scaring ME, and I love preschool! He looked a little sheepish, and then said: Oh yeah, I guess I was kind of emphasizing the bad part, huh? Yeah, ya think? Our boy did decide to give it a try, but (to return to our original point) ...

He never, ever wants to go. We spend every Tuesday and Thursday morning talking about how he doesn't want to go in the afternoon. He separates from me without any problem when I drop him off, and his teachers tell me he's doing fine, and fits in well with the group. But he tells me it's too busy there (there are 3 classes of 10 kids each in adjoining classrooms, so it is pretty busy). He says that we have all the same toys at home (also true for the most part). And he keeps reiterating that he prefers to play with his smaller group of friends at home.

I'm finding it hard to argue with any of that.

Since I've been working evenings at the gym, he also attends childcare twice a week there. So he's getting socialization with a wide range of kids, and the childcare provider at the gym is a certified teacher who does planned activities with the kids. He loves going there, and said he wants to quit preschool and only attend the sessions at the gym.

Also, because I'm providing childcare full-time for March and April, it's a real pain to transport to and from school. I have to keep 2 little ones awake late to drop him off, rush them home for nap, and then wake them up early for pick-up. If he loved it, I'd do it without complaint, but the fact that we've spent all morning discussing how he doesn't want to go makes the inconvenience more annoying than it would otherwise be.

I told him he has to go for the month of March because we already paid for it, and I wanted to give him a chance to get acclimated before he chooses, and that he can decide about signing up for April. Often, when I give him choices, I phrase it: yay or nay? Like: Do you want chocolate milk? Yay or nay? Every time I tell him he'll have a choice come April he tells me: I say NAY, Mommy! I say NAY today, and I will say NAY in April! He has said NAY all month long, so I'm not inclined to fight it.

I told the director today that next week will be his last week. I made something up about picking up another child care client (they see me dragging two tiny ones along with him at drop-off and pick-up, where we have to walk through a parking lot, up a sidewalk, through a hallway, and up and down a flight of stairs) because I didn't want to tell them he just doesn't like it there. I don't think they're doing anything wrong; it seems like a perfectly lovely little place. But just because I love preschool doesn't mean he does.

So my firstborn? My almost-four? He's already dropped out of school.

If any of you see him smoking behind the bleachers, you'd better call me.

A Perfect Misfit

I've decided I like the rugs anyway. Things that fit just right into the spaces we already have are overrated. Things that make us smile, even -or maybe especially- when they leave pockets for mud and rain and mess to enter into our lives, are worthwhile. I smile every morning when the sun streams in through the door and window and hits the kitchen floor.

How Many Bloggers Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

It's early in the morning. My kids are both still asleep, and the little guy that I'm watching full-time for March and April has just arrived. He grabs both remote controls, points them at the TV and says: music! every morning as soon as he gets here. I put a Common CD into the DVD player, turn on the TV and adjust the volume. He lets me choose the music, and I pick from the grown-up CDs on the top half of the shelf. I turned all the kiddie CDs over to my son after months of battling over scratches, and now they're all scratched beyond listening, but they belong to the kids, and I'm perfectly okay with that. It gives us an excuse to start the day with Common instead of The Wheels on the Bus. Little dude smiles at the start of the song and takes off into the train table corner. He likes to play independently when he arrives to a sleeping household. It's his only chance all day to be the boss of every toy! I pick up my laptop to start my story here.

I had been scrolling through facebook before little man arrived, and I clicked and opened the most recent post at The Not-Ever-Still Life. Robin wrote about taking up sewing, and a little bit about finally having the time and freedom to take up sewing now that her youngest is a toddler. Reminiscing about the start of her blog, and the name she chose, she wrote, "I was thinking of the whirlygig whirling dervish cyclone effect of it all, that there was always a baby to nurse or a diaper to change or two diapers to change and a milk to pour, or a diaper to change and a spill to clean and a hungry child screaming and a misplaced critical item and a mess just stepped in."

That description struck something inside me, as I read it. Like the peal of a bell. THAT's what I like about mothering -and teaching- young children. I LIKE the whirlygig, whirling dervish, cyclone effect of it all.

* * *

What's written above is as far as I got this morning, little dude playing peacefully with trains, before I heard my daughter wake up. We went to get her, and our busy day began. The housekeeper came back today, after a 2 week vacation that only served to remind me how very much I despise washing the floors. So I spent the first few hours of the day feeding the little ones and racing around, furiously tidying. We all got out of the house by 10am and went to a playground. We came home to a clean house (just in time to mess it up again!). I heated macaroni and meatballs for the little guy, stirred his daily medicine into his applesauce and served it. I heated gyro filling for my girl, topped it with tzatziki sauce, tore pita into pieces with my hands and set it out on the highchair tray for her. I bibbed them both, and filled sippy cups, and I asked my boy: are you sure you're not hungry yet, Bubs? about 3 times before I took his word for it. I hummed while I zipped here and there, kitchen to the dining room and back again, and then I diapered times two, and I lullaby-CD'd one, and I recliner-rocked the other, and then I had them down for nap.

So I was scrolling through facebook again, while my big boy played independently at the train table, and I clicked and opened the most recent post at Momastery. Glennon wrote about her need to write, and how her sister gifted her with a laptop that allowed her to do it. Thinking back to the early years of her children's lives, she wrote, "I know, because I hear from you regularly, that there are mamas out there that feel completely fulfilled and filled by mama-ing itty bitty ones. I used to be mad at you – and secretly believe you were lying – but I know better now. I’ve read so many of your stories that I realize you don’t feel this way just to spite me. It’s just that we’re all different, and that is a beautiful thing. It’s okay."

That's what it is! I thought. It DOES fill me up to do this work, and it fulfilled me long before I had babies of my own. Meeting with my college advisor, I told her I thought teaching was the field for me, and when she asked what age, I answered: the younger the better. That's the story of how I ended up studying early childhood education.

* * *

I think I tried to say it here, still home on maternity leave after the birth of my daughter, when I wrote, "...our day is both busy and mellow, ebbing and flowing from moment to moment. It's like a dance I have to perform. I know the basic steps but never the tune that will play from day to day. So I have to improvise. Sure, I trip sometimes, end up in a heap on the floor, both babies crying at the same time, one wailing and bobbing at the breast, the other climbing loudly onto my lap, competing for space and seemingly for volume with their sobs. But even this is part of the performance. Can I keep my cool? Can I breathe into my belly, straighten my spine, scoop my daughter to the side to make room for my son, spread my arms wide enough to embrace them both, set my voice to the most soothing of tones, and move us all from chaos to a carefully choreographed quiet?

When I do find the rhythm? When I manage to dance through the day with something resembling grace? To keep balanced both babies, my husband and my house and a small space for myself, just enough to catch my breath and stretch, to catch the beat and ready my feet for the next number?

It's exhilarating."

* * *

It's not just that it's exhilarating, or fulfilling, or that I simply like a little chaos in my day (although all of those are probably true). There's something in it -for me- that I think maybe other people find in prayer or in yoga, in meditation or in climbing mountains. There's a sense that I'm just a vessel, with grace flowing through me. That if I get out of the way and let it flow, nothing I do can be wrong. My feet won't stumble or step the wrong way. My arms will always be big enough. My voice will forever be calming and melodious. I can create calm out of chaos just by being. By suspending my own will, tossing it off to the side like the temporary cloak that it is, and letting this other thing take over and move through me, I become the calm. I carry it with me because it is me for that little while.

I find this center of perfect zen stillness in the hurricane's eye of unending needs that little children exhale like carbon dioxide, and then I counter their exhalations by breathing calm all over the place, and I watch it take over, taming everything in it's path. And I feel absolutely delighted that it traveled through me to get here.

That's the closest I come to finding God, and it's why instead of going to church, I care for young children.

Underwater

On Friday, I got ready to jog. I made and drank my coffee in the late afternoon. I got my running sneakers and socks, dressed in layers, filled my water bottle. I babysit until 5:00 and then I leave, just as my husband arrives home, walking steep up the hills of my neighborhood to the reservoir. I run around it .8 miles plus .8 miles, 3 or 4 or 5 times in a row, until it's time to walk back home and have dinner with my family.

My husband was late coming home. We always eat pizza on Fridays, usually homemade, but we'd decided to grill burgers instead because the weather was supposed to be nice. So we didn't pull the frozen dough down to thaw. We didn't have burgers either, but he was going to stop and pick them up on the way home. That's not why he was late, though.

He had to drop artwork for a show in a small town, miles and miles north of where he works. We're south. I had 4 kids under 4, and we were texting sporadically to talk about all of this, but it was tough to keep up, what with me watching the little ones and him driving, and unloading photography, drawing, painting and sculpture from the back of his car.

The last boy's mom came to get him right at 5:00. I had just sent my husband a text after an hour or so without hearing anything, realizing all of a sudden how late it was. That we had no dinner. That I was ready to run, but the rest of the regular plan wasn't in place. As the mom walked toward the gate to go home, my daughter began to follow. Her son came running up behind, an open, happy look on his face. His arms shot out in front of him and he shoved my baby girl through the air. Her face hit a metal bicycle as she landed; the skin on her cheek broke open along with her wail. The mom came running, and picked her up; I raced across the yard; we both began to check and comfort her. My son began to yell at his friend: NO! No, no, no! You do NOT hurt my sister! You are in BIG trouble!

I don't think he meant to hurt her. His face was just so open and happy as it happened. I don't think he knew what he was doing. He does push sometimes, usually if someone is taking a toy from his hands. But this was so different; she wasn't even in his way. I took her into my arms, and tried to calm my angry boy: brother defending his sister. The little boy's mom gathered him sternly and took him to the car. I could tell she felt just terrible.

As I walked to the house with my sobbing daughter on my hip, and my angry son ranting beside me all the way, so wounded was his heart to see his sister hurt, I realized they both needed dinner. Like, now. I checked my phone. My husband had responded and was still an hour away. I called in the pizza order before I told him not to bother with the burgers. My son was so disappointed we weren't grilling burgers that I ordered chicken fingers and french fries too, just to placate him. My husband wouldn't even make it home on time to pick up the food, so I'd have to do that with both of the kids.

By the time we got dinner it was an hour later than usual. I was too hungry to jog first, and too full to do it afterward. And then there was the bedtime routine, and it was too late. There's such a small window in there, where I can have that hour to myself. Anything out of the ordinary and it disappears *poof* into thin air. Like magic, except in reverse. Black magic, maybe.

I didn't get away at all on Saturday either. We had the Farmer's Market in the morning; I kept both kids and let my husband get that done on his own, to save time. Because this weekend was the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown, and we had to hurry through the morning to make it on time. We took the kids for a couple hours, but had to rush home so the little one could nap. Then we had the rest of the grocery shopping to get through, and of course there's always dinner, and bathtime, and bedtime again. By the end of the day on Saturday I was beginning to feel like a dishrag: wrung out, dirty, hung to dry too often, growing brittle and crusty. I drank a few beers and fell asleep on the couch just as Saturday Night Live was beginning.

I got up with the kids early this morning, and had 3 cups of coffee, determined to get out for a jog after my husband woke up. The weather was warm, and we filled the sandbox earlier this week. He had food for the grill and by all rights it should have worked out perfectly. But there was something growing inside me by the time he got up and I got my daughter down to nap: something ugly and spiteful, something determined to fail.

That's not quite right either; I'm not giving myself any mercy. It's just that I felt underwater. Like Friday I had my running sneakers on, and instead I fell into a creek, or a pond, or maybe it was even a lake or an ocean; I don't know. It's hard to look around for the perimeter or gauge the horizon when you're just trying not to drown. So I treaded water instead, with my sneakers on, and all my layers, holding my water bottle heavy in my hand. And then the kids jumped in and I had to catch them, and I kept on treading, but I was just getting so tired. My husband jumped in too, and he tried to help, but what I needed to do was swim away, swim far enough away that it was just me, surrounded by the cool, dark water, alone under the moonlight, sneakers and layers off, naked in the night. And I couldn't. I never got the chance to swim. I just kept treading, and treading, passing the kids back and forth and worrying about life jackets. None of us seemed to have them. By this morning I'd given up treading and was spending most of my time underwater, just holding up the feet of my children, darting up for quick breaths when I could, but it was never enough. Never enough air, and I couldn't get a deep enough breath to hold me when I had to keep darting down to grab their ankles and keep them up.

So when she went down for her nap, I didn't want to jog. I didn't want to swim. Coffee was swimming perfunctorily through my veins, 3 cups, but it just wasn't enough. I wanted to sink. Sink way down to the bottom, and just sleep. I didn't want to die; I'm not remotely suicidal; I'm just. so. tired. And I knew I had limited hours before she woke up, and I simply couldn't muster the energy to use it to jog 2.4 or 3.2 or 4 miles around and around the reservoir. I didn't have a reservoir of energy upon which to draw. I just couldn't. I just. Couldn't.

I stayed on the couch, and I cried a little bit. My husband and son tried to soothe me, but I didn't particularly want to be soothed. I saw some neighbors pulling away in a jeep with no roof, and I was filled with envy, and a desire to be irresponsible. Instead I just sat, and talked with my husband about how to best manage our (stupid, stupid) schedules. At one point, he said: it sounds like there's nothing we can do to fix this today. And I burst into tears anew and said: Yes! That's it EXACTLY and what a relief to hear it spoken aloud! He thought that was a disappointment, but I thought it was perfectly true, and high time we just said it, already.

After our daughter woke up, we all went to Target and Marshall's and bought shoes that people needed, a battery charger to replace the one that just broke, and new rugs for the kitchen floor. The kitchen is our entryway and the winter rugs have been through the wash one time too many and the backing is shredded and dissolving on the floor. We came home and I arranged and rearranged the new rugs on the floor.

I like them an awful lot, but no matter what I tried, they never did fit quite right into the space. We just did the best we can. Which is really all we can ever do.