The school year begins!

After a week or two about worrying that my overtired, non-napping son would freak out in a class (even though a Waldorf class) of 12 boys and 2 girls, or that he'd melt during the transition to the afternoon program where there would be none of the aforementioned 13 other young children (and only a handful of older ones), I have to say I'm breathing easier after the first day of school.

I guess I got to feeling better after talking with his teacher on Saturday and after deciding that my angst was only going to negatively affect my son.

It's after 10 now, so I'm breaking my own new rule of reading in bed by 9:30 and lights out by 10 or 10:30 at the latest. But I am happy about a lot of parts of today that I had control over (as opposed to the fabulous weather, which was simply a gift).
- I snuggled my son in bed (he came in around 5:30) and gave him a mini massage, including effleurage. (I used to give him infant massage every morning! Let us retreat to those connected days!)
- I got out our yoga mats and had us do a few poses together, holding firm that it would not be accompanied by watching Yoga Kids
-(related happy point -- no video media today except me taping him on the camera. And the CD in the car was soporific "Duerme, Pequenitos" to which he sounds ridiculous trying to sing along)
- I ate with him instead of after. He ate a huge breakfast and I knew went off with a happy belly
- His lunch was all packed last night (in these new LunchBots containers that I love)
- He got through the transition from the morning class to the afternoon program well and did rest quietly, even if he didn't nap.
-I agreed to his suggestion to go to a particular park after school, and he had a good time (in fabulous weather) even playing with bigger kids who had just gotten out of school there and left without a serenade of "why" or "but I want to stay..."
-Dinner was leftovers as planned but we also managed to make some extra veggies and "sushi." I couldn't find the sushi rice but found 3 bags of millet and decided that was probably better anyway. We toasted the grains for a few minutes and then cooked them with new bone broth/homemade stock for millet sushi (a new invention) and also cooked butternut squash and green beans in stock, which he loved with the sushi (and ate the whole messy not-holding-together role). So later I made more (better) for tomorrow's lunch.
-During all this dinner prep, he happily hung in the kitchen, trying to do random stuff like grind nuts in a flour sifter and singing "The Noble Duke of York" and "Deedle Deedle Dumpling My Son John" from class. No real bursts of whining, no asking for TV. No asking me to play but instead just playing alongside me
-He was in bed at 6:57, though it took close to 20 min for him to fall asleep. I'm not so psyched that the last thing he was muttering was "Clifford is a big red dog." But what can you do?
-The kitchen was cleaned and the next day's lunch made by 8:45 p.m.

Apparently I can remain relatively happy and not upset as long as I have a big chunk of time alone. It would be nice if my husband could get home to put the boy to bed, as was our usual routine before work got so busy, but everything seems so much more doable when I haven't been with the little dude for 13 hours straight.

And this is why I say yay to Waldorf preschool!

Sleep + run - child = better mood

My poor kid. He can't do anything right these days as far as I'm concerned. I have been working with a very short wick, even though I'm sure it's completely developmentally appropriate that he whine all the time, fall into tears when the mango isn't ready and rush to assure me "I'm not tired anymore" when I suggest rest to his whine of "I'm tired!" (Just in case it's a bigger issue, I got him a craniosacral session yesterday.)

I just can't put up with all this 3.5-year stuff very well because I just cannot get a break from him. Days that start at 6:30 and end at 7:30 with no nap or other help are just too much for this partially-introverted and wanna-be working-at-home mama.

Waldorf school starts next week. I'm counting the minutes. That sounds terrible, but with each passing day I feel more and more secure that I could never handle it as a homeschooler. I really hope it all goes well and that he transitions without incident from the big morning program to the small afternoon program where, I hope, he might actually learn to rest and recharge, which he has clearly not learned from me.

Thankfully, today I have him with a sitter so I can address some Holistic Moms work and so many other things I haven't been able to get to unless I use the dreaded TV (which I think is awful for his brain, but clearly is not the reason he stopped napping a year ago because he didn't even know TV existed back then. I cannot believe it has been a year since I could not count on naps. No wonder I'm fried).

Last night, my husband had to work late again, so I was on bedtime duty, which is normally a daddy thing. I had a flashback to earlier days: I fell asleep while putting my son to bed. I woke up at 7:40 in a pretty grumpy mood, not at all geared up for the chat my husband and I had actually (amazingly!) scheduled to talk about marriage stuff. So I called my husband, who was still 15 min. away and told him I was going to bed. Before 8:00.

I didn't drift off immediately, but close enough. I slept through the night, and you'd think I'd have popped up at 5 a.m. But instead I was still wanting to doze when little E crawled into our bed and started trying to feel me up. Without my post-bed checking in on work and friends the previous night, I felt like in fact I'd had no break from my son.

But the sleep did do me a lot of good, and it worked out that my husband could drive the boy to the babysitter for my one day of help (watch the minutes tick by while I write!). With the extra time, I felt like I could really go running. On a cool fall morning. It was fabulous. Then I came home and juiced and meditated. What a day before 10 a.m.

Now it's time to head back to other pressing matters on the computer, but I feel a lot better and hope that after a day with other kids (and quiet time, if we're lucky) my son will be happy and refreshed ... and that after a day without him, I'll be able to handle it even if he's not.

Who's Buying Now? Welcome to Consumer Parenting, Daddy!

My husband was always the one complaining about "stuff" -- toys I got even for free were too much, and every time a package came even from Nova Naturals or A Toy Garden, I was contributing to an evil culture of consumerism. I agree that we don't "need" a lot of what we have, but I also feel pretty okay about most of it. And I was pretty sure that, although I thought my son would enjoy the opportunity to play with trains at home, we didn't need set with a name brand or a hefty price tag. So together we went to IKEA to get a simple, nondescript (and inexpensive) train set.

But the next weekend, I went away on my first-ever (and the world's shortest) overnight away from my boys. And what did they do? Go to Kinderhaus Toys and spend an hour at the Thomas table. All week, my son kept asking to back to the toy store near Whole Foods where he went with Daddy. Maybe it had even been my suggestion once upon a time, but now I long for the days when he was blissfully ignorant of such a fantasy land.

Oh, and did I mention they came home with a train set? And that my husband is beaming proud of it, as though he just peed his own name -- and our son's name -- in the snow.

Sure, the set is nice, and the kid is spending a lot more time with the trains now (though we're still fighting the TV battle that is of my own making). But I really didn't think we were going to buy that packaged stuff.

And I cannot believe that my husband agreed to buy the Musical Caboose, which they got the following weekend at the grand reopening of Doodlehopper, another toy store, while I was at a time management (!) workshop. The activity itself was okay -- I might have even recommended it so that he get the (chemical-free) drycleaning nearby and so that he could pick up a gift for a friend's child (he forgot).

But it's what they brought home that has me shaking my head. LJ has always turned his nose and musical toys unless the person holding the toy is the one who makes the sound, and I agree. But now we have our little boy "singing" along to a toy he loves to put up to his ear. He pushes the button over and over. At least there are no annoying kid voices or words. But still, the Waldorf school teacher is coming over next week for a home visit! And I'm pretty sure she's not hoping to see character-driven or noisy toys. Hide, everybody!

LJ wonders about the price tag for the Waldorf school, but it's always seemed like he easily fell in line with a lot of the school's practices and beliefs. I used to think that if I were working and LJ was a stay-at-home dad, we'd have a very sparse home with only sticks and twigs and a few balls for toys. Now I'm not so sure!

A playspace of one's own

It's a miracle. My son is playing on his own with his wooden kitchen and fake food. And for a while before that he was playing with a ping pong ball. Before that he was vacuuming our new family room cork floor. I'm in heaven. How joyous the sound of miniature pots and pans!

Since we moved three weeks ago, E has been really tough to be around, which has resulted in me giving in to his desire to watch TV. Now that we finally got all the ripped up carpet out of the family room (used Craigslist "free stuff" to successfully give it away, to someone who left us home grown veggies, no less!) and laid down our lovely cork floor (also found on Craigslist), little E has been much more imaginative and self-entertaining.

Not sure how long it will last, but this is what I'd hoped for. This is part of why we moved.

Now if I can just find some furniture for my office so I can actually unpack all my books and files and do my own kind of play (and work)...

Yoga in the trees

So it's been 8 days since we moved and probably 8 weeks since I really paid much attention to my body, exercise-wise. All week I've been trying to unpack around a roving three-year-old and struggling with various frustrations (check out my complaint about my phone service at "Life without internet" on DC Metro Moms today).

This morning, the heat and humidity had broken. While breakfast cooked under the eye of my husband and my son nibbled on fruit and listened to a CD, I did yoga out on our back deck looking out the new sun peeking through the tall, thickly leaved trees in the woods behind our house.

Talk about ahhh.

Moving pains

We are all a bunch of giant mood swings around here. Remember that neighbor's great big tire swing you always wished was in your yard? Imagine it's in your hands. Now yank it, fling it, and watch it hit someone else in the head.

Yes, it's ouchy. Yes, life has to go on.

We will be moved in less than 72 hours. I hope eventually the swing just snaps and we can toss it into the woods and all just sit together under the tree.

My poor little dude

My son is having such a rough time. Even before this weekend, he was already chewing on his hands and having a tough time with all the transitions going on, what with all the stress of the impending move. I've been sitting him with pillows all around when we read books, and I do think this helps him feel safe and secure.

But it's not enough to weather the tornado swirling around him. After our travel to Michigan this past weekend, resulting in a big sleep deficit, he got thrown further off kilter by the weird schedule in general and in particular by some chocolate and a little gluten at the grandparents' 50th anniversary party. He whined and cried during Sunday night's flight home, he was really tough to be around on Monday, and on Tuesday, he apparently pushed all the kids in Spanish class. The teacher said she didn't recognize him; he's usually so gentle and loving.

I took him today to a previously scheduled craniosacral therapy appointment. In the midst of our crazy move (contractors here this week, we move this weekend ourselves and next week with a company doing the furniture), I wanted to scrap the appt., which was a 30-minute drive away (this time an hour on the Beltway in rush hour to get home). But clearly it was needed. The dr. (Ron) said that E's sagittal suture was pretty stuck and that that connected to closedness in his back. Ron worked on that section last time, but he also said this time that cabin pressure from the flight might have caused a problem.

After 25-30 min. Ron felt fine letting E play (which he did happily) and then working on me. He worked a lot on my gut and then on my head just a bit, but enough to totally erase the headache I walked in with.

Let's hope we all wake up in a decent mood tomorrow. Oops. It's already tomorrow. And I still don't know what color paint to tell the contractor to get. If I have to drag that kid back to the paint store one more time, I don't know what he'll try to get me to buy. I think this calls for Shopping While the Kid is in Childcare. Assuming I don't get a call to come pick up my little brute.