putting this issue to rest

for a while now, i've been so back and forth in my head about sending harlan to preschool. big parts of me didn't see the point, large voices inside my head told me that he won't learn that way, and that being a stay at home mom, I could teach him these same things and in a more comfortable environment for him...but then, there was always the little voice, of doubt. the voice that whispers how i may be failing him on some level. they follow me around whenever i make any decision about harlan's future. preschool has become the standard for the northeast united states (as well as other places i'm sure). here, it seems, when your child is around the age of 2, you get the same look when you say you 'haven't picked out a preschool yet' as you get when your child is an infant and you tell people you didn't breastfeed. it's that look that moms give each other sometimes...that, "well, i guess everyone has their own way of raising their kids, but i think you're wrong" look (when really, they're doubting their own decisions too). it's good for their "social skills", everyone says, "even if they don't really learn anything". really? is it that good? can't i teach him social skills out in the real world, instead of having it taught to him in a classroom? riding the bus, going to museums, going to playgrounds, crafting at home, going to see music, looking at clouds, playing in the dirt...etc.etc....
i can imagine many situations where preschool would be beneficial for a child. i even agree with many of the preschool curriculums, like montessori, that focus more on creative play than on learning letters and numbers...but, for my own personal situation, i just don't see the need for it. and i don't want to rush harlan into learning things he's not ready to learn.
"Children must master the language of things, before they master the language of words" - Froebel, 1895

back and forth, back and forth. finally, after much research and painful self doubt, i feel i've come to a decision. as long as i am able to stay home during the day, harlan will not go to preschool.

there. i feel better. bring on puberty!

oh maine, i thought you were different

mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little wierd

i try not to blog all that much about parenting. i'm a parent, a stay at home parent, it's a big part of my life, but love him as i do, my child does not consume every detail of my being. the thing is, though, every single thing that happens with my child amazes me and astounds me. him, the way he is, the way his little friends are, the way other parents are, the way people without children react to him, the way i react to him, the way he reacts to me, to the world around him...it is all so completely fascinating to me. i'm sure that's why there are so many parenting blogs already. even though it is all nothing new, nothing our parents and their parents and plenty of parents before them haven't felt. yet, we are all so flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the very act of creating a real, live human being, and watching them create themselves.

so, if i may, just an instance from my day to day for your consideration.
we were recently at smolak farms in north andover, ma to visit their pumpkin patch and just do the things that new england families do in the fall (eat cider donuts, leaf peep, pay a stupid amount of money for a ridiculously large pumpkin). they had some things set up to keep the kids entertained, including a large, bouncy slide thing. it had a little bouncy stairway on one side, a bouncy slide on the other. the only way to the top was to climb up this little stairway (very much like this). harlan was super excited about the slide. so like the good parents we are, we paid the 4 dollars for him to climb up and slide down. he's 2 1/2, but he's pretty tough, pretty athletic, tall for his age. he was the youngest on the slide. most kids being 7, 8, 9 years old, well over twice his size. as soon as he got on the stairs, i could sense disaster. he was too slow to climb as fast as the older kids. the older kids (all boys), started climbing over him using his face and shoulders as stairs and knocking him to the bottom in the process. i could not get to him, and he was getting pummeled by these kids. now, here's the interesting part, there were at least 12-15 parents standing at the bottom of this thing watching this happen...watching their own kids use this 2 1/2 year old's face as a stepping stone, and not one of them said one thing to ANY of their kids. anyone reading this who is a mother knows that it doesn't take much for a mother hen to get her feathers ruffled. and my feathers were fucking ruffled. i did everything short of grabbing each and every one of those kids by their hoodies and yanking them over the side of that thing. i yelled, i ROARED at these kids. i put the fear of god into their tiny, greasy faces. and STILL, not ONE parent said one word to anyone. not one word. no one told me to stop yelling at their kid, no one told the kids to stop stepping on faces. i was on my own. standing back, it was an absolutely fascinating social commentary. amazed. and flabbergasted.
boys are aggressive, harlan picks on kids younger than him right now. they NEED guidance, they NEED discipline if they're going to be decent adults. this scenario was such a testament to the massive amount of assholes in this country. (especially the ones running this country) just step on the little guy, get to the top, have your fun, do it again...and no one will say a thing.

the most amazing thing, even with all of the feet in his face, harlan loved that slide with every fiber of his being, you could see it on his face. he couldn't stop smiling. it was heart breaking, it really was.

a dream and a heartbreak

my hubby is the sweetest man. he lets me sleep in most mornings until the absolute last minute when he has to leave for work. at 630am harlan wakes me up to cuddle, then gets up with hubby, then i fall back to sleep until 8am. it's a luxury that i do not take for granted.
but some mornings, in these in between sleeps, i dream. when the dreams are dark, the rest of the day is confusing. yesterday morning i dreamed about my younger brother...the brother in a prison in rural tennessee for a tragic crime i truly believe that he didn't commit.
the dream was set in a hill town, not sure why...looked like kentucky. i dreamed that nigel had been given the death penalty, but because of a paperwork mistake was able to walk right out of the courthouse without anyone noticing. he wasn't free, it would only be a matter of time before they were looking for him, but he was determined not to go back. he hid at our house (which was way up on top of a hill in the woods, a cabin, with a fireplace and lots of rugs, i remember vividly). at some point in the dream, i had to decide between the safety of my child and the safety of my brother...whether to turn him in or not. i woke up before the decision was made, but i woke up completely heartbroken just the same.
i realized throughout the day that i wasn't just heartbroken because of the dream...i was heartbroken because if nothing changes (appeal process fails), it will be 26 years before i see my brother again outside of a prison visiting room. 26 years before i get to see him paint again. 26 years before i get to share a meal with him. 26 years before i get to hear him play banjo again. 26 years before he has the freedom to walk into a room without being guided by a guard. he'll be in his fifties when he gets out, i'll be entering my sixties. the weight of the time is so intensely heavy.

for the entire rest of the day, i thought about him and felt completely helpless and heartbroken. i miss you nigel, i really do.

time for the round up...

once again, i present to you, my three loyal readers, things i've been doing instead of blogging:
*inciting facebook comment riots
*inciting in-law family conflicts
*knitting knitting knitting
*watching my child be beautiful (awww..mush mush)
*making a list of people i'd like to kick in the face
*picking lots of p.y.o berries, apples, etc and sitting them on the counter so they can rot and mock my laziness.
*ignoring phone calls (as usual)
*ranting against pre school, then deciding i'm all for it, then ranting against it again.
*more knitting
*whining about how fat i am, and how crappy i always feel (while eating burger king)
*lusting after don draper (but not jon hamm)
*lusting after january jones (but not betty draper)
*visiting alpaca farms and dreaming
*seriously contemplating dying a blue streak in my hair and joining a roller derby league
*more dreaming
*listening to massive amounts of gillian welch
*checking over my facebook status updates to see what i've been up to for the past few weeks
*falling more crazy in love with the husband and his manly, husbandly ways (more mush)
*not blogging

that's about it friends. maybe i'll have something to say soon...in the spirit of blogging, i'll write even if i don't.

out with the old, in with the partially illiterate

call me old fashioned, but i'm a big fan of books. i love the way they smell, i love the way they feel in my bag, the weight of them, i love to sit on the couch and flip the pages...i'm a bit of a bibliofile. which is why, it made me sad, almost sick to my stomach when i read this article:
Say Goodbye to the Books, Cushing Academy removes all books and library to be replaced with internet 'Learning Center'

granted, i've read lots of sad articles lately, what with the state of the american health care system, so many things are coming to the forefront that my brain is overrun with anger and sadness on a daily basis. but, this article, this one just made me sad for the state of our human condition. i love technology. i really do. i'm involved in all of the social networks (with the exception of twitter, and i'm sure it's just a matter of time). if it weren't for the internet, i would have been to the doctor every other day when harlan was first born...if it weren't for the internet, i would be so out of the loop when it comes to new music that used to take me hours of record store shopping, and rooting out the good from the bad (which i just don't have time for anymore, although i still enjoy doing it).
there are many many reasons why the internet and forward thinking technology is a good thing.
that being said, to have a prep school to get rid of it's library, is, i think the beginning of the end for our literary future as a whole. electronic books haven't been able to fully get off the ground for years now...people just don't want to read a book from a screen, big or small. a prep school is supposedly the place in our nation that houses the best and brightest of our youth, and they are teaching the next generation that books in paper form are a outdated and obsolete?
what will happen, unfortunately, is that kids will just stop reading. teachers will stop assigning books to be read. we will become a society of synopsis and wiki literature.
i know, i know, everything in this post makes 'me' sound outdated and obsolete. but, seriously, we've given up so much for technology, can't we just allow ourselves this one caveat? books. literature.
quote from the article:
“Books are not a waste of space, and they won’t be until a digital book can tolerate as much sand, survive a coffee spill, and have unlimited power. When that happens, there will be next to no difference between that and a book.’’
here, here!
in with the new, yes. but, out with the old? please no.

ADDENDUM:
*a letter from the headmaster at cushing academy regarding the library
*also an interview with him on NPR was really interesting and his reasons for making this decision made perfect sense (even if i'm still not in total agreement with him)...click on "technology in the classroom"

please enjoy the music while your blogger gathers her thoughts