I sewed! It's a miracle!

While cleaning out a closet in the midst of the current series of snowstorms, I came across some felted wool that I cut out to make a little person as my last project in last year's Waldorf school Parent-Child class. Now, I might have made my son a Halloween costume, but I'm not one of those crafty mamas in general, and I was downright pathetic by Waldorf school standards. I was in near tears trying to learn to knit, and the stitches on the mouse, snail and gnome I made in class are not exactly going to win any awards.

But there is part of me that really wants to model for my son making things with one's hands.

(Besides food, that is. Today when I was saying that his dad was better at some things and I was better at others, and E said of my top skills, "Like chopping vegetables?")

And there are so many times when he asks to do something we've been saying we were going to do for a long time and I just never get to it. (Including the fact that in all these days at home, I still haven't made homemade ketchup or mustard as planned).

So, since Daddy was on a conference call and it was way too windy and cold to go out today until after 4 when it finally stopped snowing, I said okay. I used all the thread I had on the pants and quadrupled some regular thread for the rest. The doll is not going to be a prototype for a new Etsy business or anything, but my boy enjoyed making the little guy walk and play, and he said multiple times, "I love him," though the little fellow still ended up face-down on the floor later. Old habits die hard.

It struck me how much easier it was for my son to amuse himself and to be patient while I created this real thing than it is for him to deal with me working on the computer. Shouldn't be a surprise, but it was still worth remarking.

I do hope this snow shut-in comes to an end next week, but I'm also worried that, in all my trying to clean out and purge and not get further behind on work-related stuff, that I won't have amassed enough moments like this one when this period is finally over.

Not exactly living in the moment. Maybe racking up some points? And does it make up for the fact that I never got dressed today?

TV-Free Month

After a summer of moving and letting the light box run for way too long so I could make food or unpack something or wait on hold on my cellphone trying to get our phone and internet connected, I was really hoping to cut the cord to the TV once school started. For crying out loud, the kid is at a Waldorf school where media is strongly discouraged, the idea being that it as stifles rather than inspires kids' imaginations. I was not looking forward to being outed by my son singing "Bob the Builder!" in the school sandbox when he's supposed to be decorating mud pies with leaves.

But more importantly, I just like him better when he's not been a couch potato. And I think he likes himself better, too. If he's going to be gone 8:30-3:00 for three days in a row, can't I fill the rest of the time with wholesome activities?

Indeed, I could, and I did. After a calming afternoon in the small aftercare program, my little boy has mostly been a dream in the afternoon. At first I planned things for the afternoon to keep us away from the living room. Now I know it will go okay, and I don't fear lacking the willpower to keep the TV off. I've usually had a good bit of productivity and can wait until he's in bed to do anything besides cook (which I often start before he gets home anyway).

Some days, when I'm behind on dinner or it's raining and we decide to bake, we just hang out in the kitchen. He finds all sorts of stuff to play with on his own and enjoys helping me for real, too.

Other days we do an errand or go meet a friend or just walk down to the park. As long as I get food on the table by 5:30 (not always easier, but I'm improving), my son generally stays happy doing whatever and is asleep by 7:15. So I'm trying to just be present most of those four hours together.

As for the mornings, he wanted to watch TV before breakfast the first few days of the school routine, but I managed to weasel out of that, and now it just doesn't come up. We also had the luck -- and the misfortune -- to lose a library DVD. When we returned that last yellow "Bob," we fessed up to the missing "Cuentos Y Mas" bilingual librarian program and were told, "It's a max $10 fine if you return it and $20 if you lose it. Why don't you just keep looking?" We have, to no avail, but now I have my reason for not getting any more library DVDs. And if he remembered a week or two that we actually turned on the television and watched PBS, he's since forgotten that was an option.

I am not a purist, though. The TV is still in the house, and it has football on over the weekends. And last week, I really needed to edit a piece of writing, so he watched an episode of "Martha Speaks" on the computer, on my lap. Keep the connection, I thought. Don't let him zone out of the human world. A few days later we put on Yoga Kids (an old favorite) so that I could get a practice in. He did a few poses but mostly watched me and the screen from the couch. And the other day, when I had a slew of emails to read, he watched part of a that dry British "Kipper" that a friend had lent to us.

So I'm hoping that something like moderation does exist. I'm thrilled we made it a full month with no kid programming (outside of seeing Steve Songs at the National Book Festival, which is live and fun, and the guy is super nice). I really think my boy is a more grounded kid without the media. We still have our episodes of whining, but they are all about irrational things that seem life-shattering to a three-year-old, like there being no more grapefruit. That's just how it is for him at this stage, I think; life has to feel like it sucks one minute and is peachy the next.

The rollercoaster of emotions is annoying, but I can handle that better than I can tolerate whining about watching more of something when the boy ought to be experiencing real life.

Homebody for a Day

I did not leave the house today except to pick up the newspaper from the sidewalk. And this is not because anyone was sick.

I had four hours of childcare and then an extended quiet time with my son (after lunch) of a puzzle and nursing followed by cooking and baking and him looking at photos on the computer while I answered some email. With the exception of the dependence on technology, I think this is something like what I envisioned of life as a SAHM. But it was only the dreary, cold weather that kept me from running to the grocery store or the library or taking the kid to the gym so I could go to yoga -- or from playing tag-team parent and leaving as soon as my husband got home to attend an International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) meeting (it's been a long time since I've gone, and my membership is overdue). Normally I feel like the kid and I both need to get out at least once a day. At least he'd had his friend and the sitter to play with.

But today it felt nice to just put on my fleece pants and settle into my home (especially since I used the first 40 minutes of the childcare to clean the main level so it's not quite so challenging to inhabit). Then, after my son went to bed (8:00; I'm sure it could have been earlier if we'd rushed through dinner or not all eaten together), I got today's roll recipe up on my other blog and then did some yoga while half-watching Tivo'd episodes of "The Office" from last month and a few minutes of American Idol. I don't like to waste a lot of time on TV, and we do have a Netflix of "Freaks and Geeks" to finish, but it was nice to not have a major agenda of meeting, tutoring, volunteer work, a home project or a Marriage Conversation to address. It seems like there's always something I want to accomplish and, while one could argue that I was multitasking all night until my husband went to bed (when I blogged about my day with my boy), there's something nice about just hanging out in your living room, especially when it's not because your kid won't sleep anywhere but on you.

So even though one energy worker told me recently that our new satellite dish and its electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are part of what caused my son to get ill (and I do intend to spend some serious research time on that soon), I went ahead and enjoyed the small window I have into mainstream America via NBC, and I even sat with my laptop on my lap.

I do have a headache, though. I'll do a little more yoga before I go to bed to detox.

"Add Image"

"We're going to get kicked out of the Waldorf school next year," I keep joking. My son knows way too much about technology, I fear. I have a lot to learn about Waldorf education, but I know that computer use before high school is discouraged (as is all electronic media throughout childhood). My son, at age two, loves the digital camera, and he knows how to use it. Whenever I take photos, he asks, "Can I see?" and gets mad if I explain to him that we're trying to enjoy the actual experience in front of us instead of the representation of it.

But I'm a documentarian at heart. I was the editor of my high school yearbook, resurrected my college yearbook, and, as a teacher, advised my school's literary/art/photography magazine. It's always bugged me that our photojournalistic wedding photographer didn't also get posed pictures of me and my husband. And I seem to be trying to make sure I never have that kind of regret with my son.

So now I have a kid who proclaims, "I wanna see pictures!" whenever we're in the basement where the bulk of our images are stored and who whines, "I want de video" if he's stuck on stills on the digital camera. I wonder how all this media is affecting the brains of kids who now repeatedly see visuals of experiences they might have otherwise only vaguely remembered. So far I only see the benefits in terms of vocabulary and connection to people, but what will it do further down the line?

I really liked the Reggio Emilia preschool I observed. The space was like an art studio where every object was held with reverence. I liked the idea of having kids reflect on what they did and be able to look back at their process through pictures and words. But at some point, I do feel like for all the intentionality of doing the art and being involved in the process, there's a higher value placed on showing what the process was. The physical product representing the meta-process is the thing that lasts.

Even if I'd gotten into the Reggio Emilia school, I think it's better for my temperament to find some balance through Waldorf education. I hope to learn a lot this fall in our parent-child class -- enough to decide if the fit feels right and is worth paying (for future years) about ten times what the low-key "learn through play" co-operative preschool we're already in costs.

Although I think I could temper my son's love affair with photos, I do like it when I capture something I didn't know was there or couldn't have shown him in the moment -- like the ripple above. When he was throwing so many rocks in the water, listening for the thunk and then looking for another, bigger rock to throw, we didn't have the chance to see the circles. In the dappled light, we were too busy exclaiming over the sound or the splash. And my son was too busy having fun to care that I had the camera clicking away. I have to give some credit to technology when a digital image can help me better appreciate the beauty of one moment that might have otherwise slipped through my fingers.