My, how things change

Just in the past year, things have shifted so much.  Today I took my first cold shower of the summer.  I don't remember ever feeling this hot in 89 degree, 64% humidity weather.  I also never lived where it got down to zero degrees, either.  The last truly cold shower I remember taking was at Camp when I was 12.  I guess I got used to the cold, fast.

I make fun of Eric a lot because he basically gets in his car in the garage, drives to work, parks in a garage, and works in 72 degree bliss all day long, gets back in his car in the garage, drives home, and parks in the garage.  Basically he doesn't have to deal with cold unless I haven't finished shoveling the driveway, or I need to come inside and Miles isn't ready to stop playing in the snow.

I, on the other hand, get three kids in the car, drive to school and drop off, and I prefer to walk Elle to the door, but don't always get to, so I usually get out of the car to say goodbye.  Then I drive to preschool, drop Justin off, drive to run errands, and yes grocery loading is a pain in freezing weather and so is pumping gas.  Then I pick Justin up, and so I don't use gas I park and walk to get Elle.  Then we spend time outside in the afternoon either walking in the snow, playing on the ice, or shoveling.


So when people ask me if I'm going to miss the snow (since now we're moving to Florida), the answer is yes.  Maybe not shoveling so much when there is a blizzard and you have to do it every few hours so you don't kill your back shoveling three or four feet at a time.  But all in all since I never had snow as a kid, shoveling is fun- it's the adult version of playing.  And snow angels, although wet and messy, are the coolest.

Also, sledding.  I really got to love sledding, even though Miles hated it and would rather play on the sides of the slope.  It's fun and it cracks your butt a little bit when you catch air going off a ramp and land on the ice.  That, though, is one of the most fun things you can do in the winter, and it sure beats staying inside all day.

I think that is partly why Eric and I want to move, after a few months of snow (which is beautiful but gets brown and messy after a while), we get tired of being inside.  Just the ability to go outside all day, every day is nice.  Being stuck inside means joining a health club in the winter.  People here swim in the winter, and I just can't get used to that.  And if we're tired of being inside, you can imagine how tired the kids are of being inside!!

Either way I am very sad to leave Iowa.  I've made some really good friends here.  Great friends, if you will.  I don't remember the last time I had a big group of girls to hang out with that I had so much in common with, maybe college.  And Iowa is so beautiful in the summertime.  Warm weather, low humidity (well to me anything below 100% is low in the summer!), and gorgeous green flowering plants and trees.

Honestly part of me doesn't want to leave at all.  It's the part of me that has finally come out, the one that's not afraid to speak her mind without retribution, the part that isn't getting beaten down and told to shut up all the time.  I think that's the other part of having "non-mainstream" friends, who get where I am coming from, and have made some of the same choices I have made.  And don't judge.

I cannot begin to describe how empowering it is to be surrounded by people who parent the same way, nurse their babies as long as they can, care about what they eat, and the ways they impact the Earth.  And talk about it all the time.  Having another mother who understands where you are coming from and lends a listening ear makes everything easier- so just imagine having eight of those women around you.

I know there were difficulties in the beginning with getting "in".  But the more we all started to talk about it, the more many of us admitted that we felt left out, and felt that other people were in when we weren't.  So that has changed, a lot, in a good way, and I'm very happy to see it turn around.

And that kind of leads me in a circumscribed way, to school.  Mainstream school is what it is, Elle is different, because of her diet.  She was picked on at first, but the other kids came around, or so I thought.  When we had her birthday party, all the little girls threw their cupcakes out at the first mention that they were gluten free, didn't matter that they had already been eating them and said how yummy they were.

In our mama circle, however, no one thinks twice about gluten free items.  If a kid is coming that is dairy free, we make sure that child has something to eat.  We don't ostracize or take pity on him, we simply provide an alternative, and treat it as part of everyday life.  Most of our parties and potlucks have at least one gluten and dairy free item, usually a lot more.  And no one thinks it is too much effort.

As my friend Jen says, mainstream people suck because they never think outside the box.  Maybe that is going a little far, I don't know.  All I know is that I've seen what mainstream school is, and I don't like what it did to my child or me.  First of all, it made me suddenly superfluous, just "some mom" who had a problem with this or that.  Not the person who has raised my child up until now, guided her and taught her most of what she knows about the world, and fed her curiosity.  I felt disrespected, and dismissed.

I have a real problem with being just "some mom".  A big problem with it.  If my job is to reinforce what is taught at school, why don't I have any time to do it?  Is seven hours of schooling really necessary in Kindergarten?  I refused to do math homework for a good part of the year, because my FIVE year old needed to decompress when she came home and play, not do more seat work.

So suddenly my job went from being the sole provider for my daughter, to occasional classroom volunteer and provider of teacher supplies.  It really pissed me off when Elle fell apart because she missed her teacher.  I had to explain that no, the teacher is not her parent, and won't be coming to visit, and she'll get a new one next year.  But that Mommy is always here for you, no matter what.

I just wish those words were really true, though.  How can they be when my daughter spends most of her waking hours at school?  Going to recess on the last day of school just pissed me off.  Seventy-five Kindergarteners and three adults on a playground is not what I call safe.  Then you add in the other classes, usually 4th graders.  Not what I call a great environment, really just a free-for-all.  No wonder she came home every day loaded with questions about sex, and who's hot, and boobs, all from recess.

Secondly, her curiosity is gone, and I am having a heck of a time trying to get it back.  Yes, she learned to write, very well.  She learned to almost read.  But we're testing out studying at home, and she is bored, or wants a snack, or wants to go outside for "recess".  And we're studying subjects SHE wants to learn about.  What happened to her interest I don't know, but I certainly want it back.

I can see why people homeschool their kids.  They never get accustomed to the constant activity and bustle of school, and don't expect it at home.  They also don't befriend kids who aren't suited for them, or come over and do nothing but pick on their friend's younger siblings.  One of Elle's little friends came over and did nothing but that, pick on Justin.  As much as I tried to intervene, it only made things worse. The little girl had no idea how to socialize outside of her own age group.

That is one thing we have in our mama community that I enjoy, all of our kids playing together, all different ages, and getting along.  Sure there are arguments, but not anything close to what I saw out of this little girl.  I'm not going to go so far as to say she is a shit starter, but it was pretty damn close, and she is where all of the sex talk came from at school (she has a sister in 6th grade).

So why am I letting this bother me?  Because I know for a fact I can be a better guide for my child through this life than her school can.  The school obviously didn't do anything about guiding her friend into more appropriate conversations during school hours.  And I am told by my friends with 12-15 year olds that it only gets worse.  No one is paying attention, obviously.

I know I don't want to full time homeschool.  So I am left with Montessori, and a Christian school with part time classes and homeschooling, and pretty much nothing else.  Why don't we have more options?  Why does homeschooling have to have a Christian bent to it- at least for many fundamentalist groups?  I don't get it.

There are other reasons to homeschool.  Like I was describing, kids in a community act different from children that are only around their peers.  Separating children into peer groups may be advantageous for learning, but it stunts their development in other ways.  How do older kids learn to take care of toddlers and babies if they are never exposed to that age group?  How do teenagers learn to deal with five year olds if there aren't any in their families?

I see women all the time who have never held a newborn.  Haven't ever even seen a real baby in motion.  Sadly, this is what has happened to our society.  The community has broken down, the extended family has broken down, and there are career women with a million letters after their name who have no clue how to care for the most fragile and impressionable people in our society, babies.

So what do they do?  Practice cry it out.  Hand the baby off to someone more experienced when things get tough.  Feel relief when they get to go back to work and leave the care of the baby to someone else.  (Of course I'm not saying everyone, but I have seen this over and over again.)  They have no confidence in their own abilities to care for a baby, because they've never seen it done, and have never done it.

However- there are women who reclaim this right, and learn how, even though there are no guides and they have no real experience.  It is a real confidence booster to learn to care for and soothe and nurse your own baby.  These are the same women who reclaim their birth experience and refuse drugs or birth at home.  And then they move on, and reject processed and pesticide laden foods for their children, and many of them reject vaccinating blindly.  And then most of them choose alternatives to mainstream school, because they feel that there is a better way to educate their children.

I still can't figure out why these women are called crazy, and outside of the norm.  Stepping outside the box and making choices for your own children, because you care enough to swim against the current, is very brave and should be commended, not condemned.  If you ask me, the rest of the world is crazy, and completely removed from anything that resembles real experience, it's all just a facsimile of what could be.  I think we have it all wrong, and I guess that's another thing that has changed.

My stepfather says it's un-American to be anti-consumerist.  That's the direction we're going in, however.  Getting rid of all the junk and clutter, and only buying what we need, and shedding our old stuff we never use, has actually been really freeing.  When your house is free of the stuff you move around, and re-organize, and manage all the time, you end up having more time for what really matters.

To me right now, what really matters is making room for people that I want in my life, and spending time with those people.  It is hard to describe, but energy flows through our house and through us, and to the outside world, now that it's not all blocked up with old stuff, old emotions, and old ideas.  Once you make room, and decide what you want to do with that space, the answers come and it is very freeing.  I wish I could describe it better than that.  But that's the way it is, and it makes change so much simpler.