Thursday, October 12, 2006

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving day. I bought a turkey breast to celebrate. (Some of my favorite people are Canadian - Hi Sara!) It was frozen, so I thought I had put it in the downstairs refrigerator. Wednesday I found it on top of said appliance. Good news - the cat hadn't found it. Bad news - we couldn't have it for dinner. I think sometimes I might have too much on my plate.

This has been a week of extremes. It snowed today. The snow is sticking - covering the lawn, the leaves, the house. My son A was upset because I wouldn't get out the sleds. (Mean momma - I told him it had to snow 3 inches before I got the sleds out.) Monday it was beautiful, in the upper 60s. Sun shining. Who knew we'd get snow? Really, truly snow. It's OCTOBER. Last year on Halloween we had a neighborhood cookout at 10 p.m. - it was too warm for A to wear his Tigger costume.

My emotions have been extreme too. I was ebullient on Monday - excited about starting to gather information for the middle school, starting the online class (on Montessori Leadership), I had the laundry under control, menus planned, the first floor was almost clean. Today, laundry is NOT under control, we had fast food twice this week, I am depressed about how much work it will take to create a middle school, I haven't done any homework for my class. What's up with all that?

My son L is one of four boys in his class. Next year two of the boys will be going to other schools, and the third boy probably will be gone as well. So L will be the only 4th grade boy. I asked him if he wanted to go to the local school instead but he said no, he'd rather be in Montessori. The 3rd boy's mom said she was worried about the small class size, she felt that her son needed a larger group. So here I am again, wondering why that doesn't concern me. Am I missing an important Parenting gene?

And then, after posing the above dilemma to my husband, I have more questions. When will be the best time to move him? Can I have him in only one year of the three year cycle? Montessori works in 3 year cycles, so if I can't commit to the entire three years, I shouldn't really put him in one. I guess I'll have to go visit the local school and see what the options are. He won't be happy about it (my son, my husband will be happy). Switching L would be the best thing because then we can afford to put M in Montessori. I have HUGE guilt issues just for thinking about switching him. But then, I REALLY want M to go to Montessori school. It is just tough with the first kid, I guess, cuz he's got to do everything first.

OK, one more thing about that missing Parenting Gene. This week I told M to get dressed several times and she wouldn't. I finally said "fine, you'll go to school in what you're wearing." We were just going to pick up the boys. M looked at me and said "Yipee!" (She was just wearing a diaper.) So, I put her in the carseat, gave her a blanket and we left. (I did have clothes for her in the car.) When we got to school another mother said "is she naked?" and I told the story. The other mother was horrified - well, at least her expression was.

Books read over the past week: Sharon Shinn's Heart of Gold - yummy science fiction with a bit of race relations. I loved it. Meg Cabot's Size 12 is Not Fat. Also good, in a different way. Think Bridget Jones.

1 comment:

normanack said...

I'm with ya on the clothes thing. Why be horrified? Was M on the way to a fashion show?

I remember several times when my kids ended up in the car in pajamas because they didn't get changed in time. Somehow they managed to take off their jammies and put their clothes on in their car seats before we got to school while their seat belts were on.

And once I sent Madaleine into class with her jammies on. I had called ahead so the teacher knew what to expect. The teacher was great -- she greeted my daughter normally, and offered her clothes if she wanted to change.

Let's not sweat the laundry either, eh? I have several mountains of it to process, plus bedding. I bet if we'd gone to the laundromat today we could have monopolized at least half the machines!

Have a great weekend!