The Present and The Future

I feel, at the same time, a sense of stuck, of rigid, of all tensed up, and a sense of compassion that is the very opposite of stuck, rigid, or all tensed up. Compassion is like water; it flows and pours all over everything; it's lava, even, sometimes. It can melt things.

So I'm melty and I'm tense. That contradiction just sits in me all day, or it battles back and forth, like a fencing match taking place inside my heart, ribcage, and belly. All the places I breathe into. Yoga breathing keeps it at bay, but when the classes are over, and my verbal narration ceases, so does the sense of ... well, escape. Then the relentless drumbeat of my thoughts march back on to center stage.

I've been told I think too much my whole life, and I resented every motherfucker who ever said it to me. Maybe they had a point, but who asked 'em?

It's Tuesday, and my daughter won't nap. I rocked her, and I nursed her, and I filled her belly with homemade mac and cheese, and read her stories, and left her in the crib awhile, and it's just not happening. I feel a certain benign detachment from the whole thing. If she naps, she naps. If not, I just do the next thing to bring peace into the household. And so it goes.

Of course, that's why we're outside on the deck on a muggier day than I'd prefer, and my laptop is almost out of power. That's why I sat down to write at 11:30am and now it's 4:30pm and I'm only just beginning.

But then, the compassion rolls in. If I'm tired, how must she feel? And then the benign detachment: and who cares if we always nap? Let's eat strawberries and cheese, drink juice, and sit in the muggy air. Why not?

In the living room, I let the kids climb in and out of the big footstool that opens up for storage. Weeks worth of Sunday newspapers are sitting inside it, and I let them throw it around the living room, and stomp through. We knead basketballs out of sale ads and toss them into paper bag baskets for recycling. I keep picking things up and putting them on shelves. The kids keep taking them off and playing on the floor. I shrug. The stuck, rigid, all tensed up hasn't anything to do with them. It's inside me.

I can flow like compassion when I do what needs to be done next. I freeze when I look ten steps ahead.

But dammit, if I ain't always been just the type who can't help myself from looking ten steps ahead.

A Grumpy, Begrudging, Revealing Attempt at Prayer

I think about writing here, but I know it will end up, like, a to-do list with bullet points or something, and really? You had to go and get yourself a blog to make your to-do list? C'mon now.

So I've promised myself no bullet points.

I had a bad day. One of the boys is being rough, and I'm trying everything I can to teach him to be gentle, and he's gentle most of the time, but you never know when the rough will pop out and bam someone in the head with the wooden spoon he's supposed to be using on the djembe. Or throw a handful of sand in someone's eye. It's normal 2 year old stuff and it, too, will pass. But oh, it's a terrible feeling to know that someone might be getting popped -or worse!- any minute of the day and despite your constant vigilance, you might not be able to prevent it. Today I failed to prevent it. Twice. Bad day.

Then in yoga, near the end of class, a class I spent in tense negotiation with the frustration I carried in with me, I heard a voice. It very distinctly said: Change your reaction.

And I knew it didn't mean change the reaction I offered the child. It meant change how I feel about it. Which sucks because I felt rather entitled to my frustration.

Not that it's doing me any good.

So I'm working on that.

And it would be the simplest thing in the world to say: Hey God, will you help me be better at this, please? Thank you!

But it's like I don't even think to do that unless or until I feel I've done absolutely everything I can do to improve the situation myself, and what's more I feel as if I shouldn't ask God for any help unless or until I've done absolutely everything I can do to improve the situation myself.

I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding I have about God.

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.