Being one of some 1500 traditional food enthusiasts here at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference is humbling and exhilarating. So many people have regained health or healed their children through real food. The stories at the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS diet) lecture alone were amazing. It’s easy in mainstream circles to feel like an outcast, a weirdo. When your diet is so restricted, you just smile and nod when others wink and nod about chocolate, or wine, or even about fruit or raw veggies, which I still can’t tolerate after nine months on the GAPS diet.

Real Food blogger panel at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference

But here, as I listen to people who’ve put their whole family or hundreds of their patients on the GAPS diet and who, unlike me, actually render their own goose and duck fat, I feel like I’m getting off kind of easy, doing okay after nine months on the grain-free, starch-free, sugar-free diet.

And yet, listening to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride talk about the physiology of damaged guts with damaged gut flora, I’m ever more determined to get well. As long as I continue to suffer from psoriasis, I will know that things are not okay in my body. Even if it goes away in a few months, as it did after my first child started sleeping (rather than nursing!) through the night at age two, I know I need to be very careful about what I eat. Forever. Not just in terms of no dairy or gluten but in terms of blood sugar fluctuations (which happen with a vengeance even just upon consuming fruit).

And the lifestyle component. Sigh. I need to give something up to simplify, but I just don’t know what that is. I need to make relaxation a priority or I won’t do it. I need to commit not to just taking care of pain and digestive distress but to the whole of my body. And not just to promoting and cooking real food and being an active volunteer in school and community but also to the whole of my home and family.

Tonight my husband spent almost two hours in the car – including a bathroom and sushi stop at  Kroger – to bring me my baby to nurse and my son to see after I’d been at the conference all day, some 15 miles away. In the grand scheme of things, this is not the end of the world. The kids were both fine and happy during dinner, but I’m sure it sucked to be stuck in Dallas traffic for so long. My husband was pretty blitzed.

Other dads attend this conference with the whole family. Still other dads might go to McDonald’s rather than care about where their food comes from, much less want to spend money to sit in a hotel all day to listen to people talk about food. Mine is somewhere in between – supportive and on board but not an advocate or anything close to a purist. I don’t get criticized, but I don’t much get thanked, either. And I definitely get the sense that I kind of make things hard. Maybe I do.

I believe that my children and my husband benefit from all I learn — and practice — about health and wellbeing. Sometimes that seems to get lost in my pursuit of something like a writing and editing career (and the hope of a future career). And lost in my desire to spread the word about all the things that have made such a difference for me. It’s not just enough to live it; my life and my telling about it have to be meaningful.

So it can feel like an indulgence to go to lengths to have great experiences like coming to this conference. But then I meet someone

Annette Fischer of Wilderness Family Naturals and daughter Logan sell oils, nuts and other snacks at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference

like Annette Fischer, who founded Wilderness Family Naturals with her husband in 2000. They were living in the wilderness with no electricity and no water, with seven children who were born at home, and they wanted to share information about living naturally through herbs. So they put up information (most of which had to be taken down due to pressure from the FDA), and now they sell the highest quality products they can find. I’ve been a happy customer for years, since I first learned about WFN from an employee at MOMs Organic Market. Now that I’ve met the co-owner and her eldest daughter of nine, aged 10 to 24 (they now have another two children who they adopted from Haiti), I feel like my passion and my family should not be at odds.

And I’ve just now heard Kristen of FoodRenegade.com talk about earning more money than her husband through her blog, with the biggest source of income coming from her own products: e-books and e-courses. She quit doing copywriting work – which allowed her to stay home with her kids – when a conflict of interest surfaced with a client, and now, three years after she started blogging, is performing such a service and earning a living to boot. While homeschooling three kids under the age of seven!

I can’t not write. It’s just not an option. And I can’t watch important things happen and not have a say. I think of my children’s future health and freedom to eat real food, but I’d also like to earn some green to go toward that food we buy.

Time to sign-off before I get picked up to head back to my father-in-law’s where I expect to be coaxed away about every two hours by a baby who wants to nurse. Before I leave again in the morning to learn some more.

How do you balance passion, work, and non-work?

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Check out this post on my Washington Times Communities column — a quickie first-day update from the conference.

A few months before my daughter was born, in my sleep, a vision came into my head of a child with a crowded mouth of ill-fitting teeth. Then I heard the words, “She has Down’s.”

My eyes popped open. It was the middle of the night, and my 4-year-old son lay sleeping next to me, with my husband on the other side, oblivious to the pronouncement I’d just heard in my head.

Oh my God. I asked my baby — using the name we had recently warmed to  — “Does that mean you? Do you have special needs?”

Previously asleep, she started moving right away. And she replied: “We will be fine, Mommy. I am the perfect child for you to have. We will be fine.”

At first I remained concerned and wide-eyed, my heart racing. But I kept listening. What should I do? “Trust. Love. Breathe.”

Um, okay. Pretty wise for a 28-week-old fetus. But then again, who knows how long that soul has been around. It would appear that it has an edge on mine!

Most times during my pregnancy when I woke at this time of night — without any alarming warning, just with alertness — I had to get up. There’s just no use staying in bed. I make a snack or do a little yoga, or read, or all three. But this night I could tell my baby just wanted me to rest.

So I did. And I thought about her words. I fell back asleep.

The next day, I wasn’t shaken or upset. I felt peaceful. Accepting. It’s not up to me what child is going to come into our lives. There is no script of how things should be unless I make it up in my head and cling to it, which does no one any good.

After that, for a while I was less anxious or worried (or avoidingly distant) than I’ve been much of this pregnancy and more of the mind that whatever is the right experience for me to have will be the one I will have.

Whatever life looks like, however hard the challenges we face, we can always choose to believe that things are, in fact, fine.

False ending.

The above came from a blog post back in 2010. Shortly after I wrote it, I did finally read Expecting Adam by Martha Beck. I found it beautiful and inspiring.

And then later I found out she got divorced, and that made me sad.

And then later, I gave birth to my baby in a pool of water in my living room, just 4.5 hours after my water had broken and about 3 hours after I started wanting to push. And I got scared.

I was tired at the end. The contractions were petering out just when they needed to be rumbling through. My daughter’s head hung out a little too long before I could release the rest of her body. When I pulled her out of the water, she was a little purple. And quiet. And limp.

But the first thing I thought was that her eyes were set wide apart. They were puffy little slits. She looked funny, nothing like my son who was born via c-section and stared wide at us immediately. Or at least at the doctor; I had to wait a few minutes to have him brought to me. Maybe that is why I was so clueless what to do with a natural-birthed baby.

I didn’t know how to sit in the middle of the tub with her head out of the water since her cord was too short to raise her all up with her still connected to me.

I didn’t know how to act.

I didn’t know if she was okay.

I was a jumble of confusion, but I also know that I was worried that she might have Down syndrome.

Within a minute, her Apgar was up to 9 (from 5), but I remained worried that perhaps we should have done some prenatal testing. I trusted that voice months earlier, but here I was, moments after a successful HBAC, and I questioned what kind of future I was going to have.

She’s only 15 months old, but she appears to have no known health issues. I can’t exactly say the same for me. This summer was rough with a thyroid crash worse than the one I experience after my son was born in 2006. I felt horrid and depressed. My gut is so sensitive I’ve been off of all starches and even most fruit since February. My skin is once again freaking out with a rough case of psoriasis that I expect won’t go away as long as I’m nursing through the night. A friend recently suggested that I sound like her before Lyme disease caused her to have multiple organ failure and a stroke! So maybe I will finally get tested and see if that bull’s eye we treated with mainstream antibiotics back in 2002 has been part of all these issues. We probably will not have more children.

If my body hasn’t regained fertility by the time I’m 40 + 3 months in June 2013, I’m calling it quits for sure.

I have my doubts that my body could handle another postpartum period, even if I had another easy pregnancy. And I  have my doubts that I could figure out a way to mother another child in a mindful way, even if the child knew how to sleep, didn’t have separation anxiety and were free of genetic disorders or other challenging conditions.

Sometimes I wonder if the universe will hand me a special needs child just to slow me down and make me seriously prioritize. If we did get pregnant, I would do prenatal testing so that I’d have the best shot of knowing what was to come.

No one ever has control. Nothing is ever predictable. But I wish my first look at my baby had been one of joy and ecstasy instead of concern and worry. I know most people do prenatal tests and don’t feel guilty about it. It’s just part of their pregnancy.

I want to have faith that things will be exactly as they are meant to be, however difficult that may be. If I did get a tough diagnosis and continue the pregnancy, I doubt I would get the negativity today as Martha Beck did almost two decades ago. But I do think I would benefit from having the time and space to be ready to welcome my baby with all the love he or she deserved.

Being pregnant while in graduate school is no piece of cake and even more stressful to learn your unborn child had Down syndrome. In her memoir Expecting Adam, Martha Beck battled almost everyone over her decision to continue her pregnancy. Join From Left to Write on November 10 as we discuss Expecting Adam. We’ll also be chatting live with Martha Beck at 1PM Eastern on November 10 on From Left to Write.

As a member of From Left to Write, I had the chance to receive a free copy of this book but, as noted above, I had already read it… and lent it to a friend who, after two miscarriages, had her second baby at age 40 and then lost her father suddenly three months later, the day after her older son turned four. She proclaimed Expecting Adam her favorite read of the year.

Hop on over to TheDCMoms.com to see my Green post today on making thoughtful plans as you head into holiday hosting. Let’s see if I can take my own advice this time.

A tale of two conferences

I’ve had a split personality this weekend.

Much of my time has been spent at the wonderful blogging conference, Blogalicious. Since I first arrived at the conference Friday morning, I’ve met great people, caught up with friends, and learned a ton about social media and media resources in general. A favorite session so far was a panel on finding “balance” led by Jessica Smith and Jeannette Kaplun. I’ll do more of a recap later this week for TheDCMoms.com.

Most of the Blogalicious attendees are staying on site at National Harbor, but I still have a baby who nurses through the night, and I live only nine miles away. I also have an extremely restricted diet and feel a whole lot better if I cook my own food. So I’ve spent mornings and evenings here at home with my family.

Take Back Your Health Conference expo hall

But the split doesn’t stop there. This weekend is also the inaugural Take Back Your Health Conference right in my backyard in Arlington, Virginia. Organized by an amazing young woman who was so sick she had to leave college but then found healing through diet and lifestyle changes, the conference has a great line-up of giants in the field of holistic health. So I spent some of today there, too.

It’s been interesting to be at the blogging conference thinking about my priorities and passions and then to see so many people engaged in those passions at the health conference. And then to come home and live some of those passions — at least attachment parenting and healthful eating, anyway. A few other aspects of healthy living are taking a back seat with so much shuttling around.

Think I’ll go have a mindful moment with my partner now!

That is, if my daughter doesn’t wake up first.

My son doesn’t yet know any more contemporary tunes than I do, I’m so out of it. He’s only five and a half and privy to the whims of his dad who controls our SqueezeBox with jazz, David Bowie, and whatever else he happens onto. Sometimes that’s an album I listened too way too much as a dark-minded teen — like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, or something by the Cure, music he eschewed in his own high school days.

We both came of age in college at the time of Nirvana’s first album, which is getting all sorts of press lately as we mark 20 years since its release. By the time Nevermind came out, I had moved more into academics and away from following the music scene. Just a few years earlier, I’d spent Sunday mornings poring over Rolling Stone and setting the VCR timer to record 120 Minutes, MTV’s two hours of focus on “alternative music.”

When I began reading Carry Yourself Back To Me, I was struck at how clueless I was about the real songs and bands the protagonist, a fictional singer-songwriter, references. But it’s so different today to be able to track down anything — tunes, lyrics, details about the musicians. It used to be that you either had liner notes with lyrics or you played a tape over and over to try to figure out what they were saying. I can still recall my husband’s best friend wondering about Nirvana lyrics in a letter he sent from study abroad in Japan in 1992.

Now, everything is at our fingertips. Will music retain the same kind of place- and time-specific identity? Will certain songs be associated with certain years the way they used to be? Since  listen only to NPR, WPFW and kid CDs in the car, never pop radio, and since everyone can make their own playlist with a few clicks instead of real shiny brown audio tape or silver CDs, it’s hard for me to believe that songs and time periods can be as tied together in the common memory.

But I bet that my distance from the world of “this is so last summer!” is just another marker of my old age. Teen spirit still has a smell, right? And a relationship to the music of the time.

I’m so behind, I don’t even whine about wanting to get an iPod. Ever since I left off teaching high school, I’ve been woefully sheltered. So far, the only pop culture references my son brings to the table are related to shows and characters other kids talk about at his new public school.

I may have to wait for him to start seriously consuming media before I will get back in the game of possibly knowing what is hip.

Welcome to the August Carnival of Natural Parenting: Creating With Kids

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared how they make messes and masterpieces with children. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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I’m not the mom who knits during parent meetings or makes her children little felt figurines all the time. The latter I’ve done twice, practically under duress. Knitting makes me cry. Someday it won’t, but I can’t predict when that will stop.

Likewise, I stand in awe of people who actually make clothing their children wear in regular life, like this mom from my son’s preschool. Getting my children dressed in relatively clean clothes is enough of a victory for me; I doubt I will ever celebrate much in the way of self-styled schoolwear.

But Halloween costumes? Those are a project I will not outsource. Mine were almost always homemade, and while my mom was a superb seamstress the likes of which my kids will never see from me, I am proud to throw off my perfectionism when it comes to forcing a needle and thread into a costume.

My son’s first getup at age seven months was inspired by a friend’s adorable gift of a knitted acorn hat. I found him some brown pants at Old Navy and a green onesie at a consignment store onto which I sewed felt leaves. Volia, a tree! Daddy and I got craft store fake leaves glued onto craft store green tees, so we were a whole family tree, a bi-arboreal Maple-Oak mix.

My son’s second year I let him lead with his hair, an orange mullet

Halloween 2007 - Clown

Halloween 2008 - Leopard

perfect for a Bozo look, and his third year he got to wear the homemade leopard costume I’d worn as a child. So those were quiet years for craftiness.

But when he said he wanted to be a frog at age three, I took up the challenge. I found green pants he could wear again and paired them with a green shirt onto which I glued and then sewed brown swatches in a froggy design. Styrofoam eyes got sewn into green felt that got sewn onto a green hat, and the look was topped off with green gloves that got worn by yours truly later in the winter. Decidedly homemade, clearly not fancy or perfect, but thoroughly fun for him and full of heart.

Halloween 2009 - Frog

This past year, the boy got in his head that he wanted to be a scarlet macaw when it was still summer. Apparently this is the real name of the bird always just called “parrot.” It has a lot of colors. And wings. With my newborn in my arms, I told him that was fine if he still felt that way closer to Halloween. He did.

So I cast around on a local moms list for a red shirt and red felt, and I scored. One mom even left her castoff on my porch for me, and the other pickup we made on the way to preschool. My husband scoffed at first at my efforts but then joined in a late-night feather gluing session with supplemental store-bought felt.

Halloween 2010 - Scarlet Macaw

It might have been the day of the neighborhood parade that I sewed the eyes and red head onto one of three faded U of M baseball caps my husband had littered around the house and that I sewed the feather panel onto the red shirt. But whether at the last day, hour or minute, it all came together in a fashion that seemed to impress the parents at the park. Little do they know this is the only sewing I do all year.

Almost three months now before Halloween, my son is asking to be a firefighter, and I haven’t gotten any lightbulbs of inspiration for the baby, who just turned one. So if you check back in November, I can’t promise exactly how much of a Jessica original or two I’ll have to show for myself. But I do know that I will make a good faith effort to show my kids once again that the process of creating a look is part of the whole fun. And I do hope that I can keep up a tradition of keeping my sewing needle from getting rusty by at least putting it to some use when the leaves start to fall.

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• Family Draw Time Art Show — Kate Wicker shares art (and inspiration!) from her family’s cherished tradition of family draw time.
• The Rules of Creativity: Learning to Create with the “Non-Creative” — Zoe at Give an Earthly shares how she learned to accept her “non-creative” child and claims that anyone, child or adult, can be creative given the right handling and environment.
• Creating With Kids: 4 Ways That Work For Us — See how Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings nurtures creativity with her kids through craft projects, outdoor creative play, celebrating the creative process, and setting up “little spaces of beauty.”
• Creating memories, not things — Mrs. Green from Little Green Blog reflects on life with a ten year old and how ‘creating together’ has evolved from ‘things’ to memories.
• The Gift of Creation — It may be hot, but Kellie at Our Mindful Life is already thinking about winter.
• Hidden Talents — Sylvia at MaMammalia describes how providing the opportunity for creativity sometimes means learning to look for hidden talents in unusual places.
• Creating Joy — CatholicMommy at Working to be Worthy shares how she and her one year-old son create joy for their community.
• How to do Crafts with Kids — Gaby from Tmuffin guest posts at Natural Parents Network and describes how to keep things simple when doing crafts with kids for magical (easy-to-clean, and tantrum-free) results.
• Sugar & Spice & Baking on the Kitchen Floor — Carrie at Love Notes Mama enjoys making a mess in the kitchen with her daughter.
• Young Scientist Makes Purple Potion — Hannah at Wild Parenting loves being a lab assistant for the young scientist in her life.
• Making a butterfly house — Lauren at Hobo Mama demonstrates the proper way to build a wooden butterfly house with a preschooler.
• Nurturing Creativity — Amyables at Toddler In Tow shares the enjoyment she feels in nurturing the creativity of her children.
• Home School Music – Sparking A New Generation Of Musicians — Based on her musical background, Chante at My Natural Motherhood Journey talks about how she creates with and teaches music to her children.
• Creating (im)perfectly Together — Mudpiemama shares some of the highlights of a summer spent building everything from ships to hoops but most of a lesson on letting go of perfection.
• Family Soccer Kick Around — When her children wanted to play soccer, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children helped organize something that would work for her family.
• Creating Memories Together on Skype — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now tells how you can create memories online with adult children or anyone who lives in another city or country.
• We’ll always have Halloween: Creating costumes for kids — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is not the craftiest mom on the block, but she does make a mean homemade Halloween costume.
• Let’s Make Juice! — Wendylori at High Needs Attachment shares about the benefits of juicing with kids, as well as a quick recipe.
• Everything’s Better When It’s Homemade — Amanda at Let’s Take the Metro praises the art of homemade goods.
• Creating the Opportunity for Art — Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction shares how her family has created an environment conducive to art.
• 10 Easy and Functional Crafts Preschoolers Can Do with Minimal Assistance — Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers ten easy crafts preschoolers can do while sitting near parents — but they don’t need a lot of parental help. Added bonus: all of these ten ideas double as something functional (gifts, decor, educational).
• Creating with Kids: Singing Together — Ana at Pandamoly details the important role music takes in her household and provides a quick (and easy!) tutorial for creating fun songs to sing together!
• Create This — jessica at instead of institutions considers different aspects of creativity including those without an end product.
• Make Your Own Pocket Bib — A tutorial from Amy at Anktangle on how to make two simple and quick bibs to keep your little one clean at the table.
• Creating Together in the Kitchen — Despite not feeling “crafty,” Momma Jorje finds a way to create and connect with her toddler.
• An Artist-Mama’s Perspective — In this post, Shannon at The Artful Mama discusses the differences between her choice of artistic outlet and her son’s, and how they embrace those differences together.
• Heart of the Home — Jona at Life, Intertwined shares some highlights of cooking with kids.
• Getting creative with kids — Isil at Smiling like Sunshine shares how much she enjoys watching her daughter getting creative.
• Creating with Children – The Nature/Seasonal Table — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama celebrates the rhythm of the natural world with her toddler through the creation of a seasonal nature table.
• How Involving My Kid Saves My Sanity — The Happy Hippie Homemaker explains how involving her toddler in projects allows her to get more done, while providing valuable opportunities to teach and to bond (added bonus: amazing oatmeal raisin cookie recipe!).
• In the Kitchen with Kids — Cooking with Real and Pretend Food — Terri from Child of the Nature Isle engages her kids in the kitchen with culinary creations of both real and pretend food.

One of the highlights of our week last week was the CityDance performance at the Backyard Theater for Children at Strathmore.

What a lively performance! It makes me feel good that my son got to see the beauty and athleticism of dance as expressed by children and adults, including male dancers. And who doesn’t love the beats of Bollywood!

Below is the write-up I did for my column at the Washington Times Communities Family Today: “Reading Ingredients: Tales of a Health-Conscious Mom.”

Speaking of health, Crunchy-Chewy Mama has been dealing with her own health issues of late (hello, thyroid disorder: welcome back!), so I’m late in posting this, but Strathmore is generously giving away a family pack of up to four tickets for the last in its July Thursday series. This week is Barynya of Russia. Here is the promo info:

“If your kids haven’t shouted yet in glee over their first Cossack sighting, you are in store for a special treat. Barynya has plenty of dancing Cossacks – plus Gypsies and other Eastern European folk icons with authentic, colorful music, dance, costumes and plenty of high flying … and low, low kicking!”

To enter to win tickets for the 9:30 or 11:30 show on Thursday, July 28, just post a comment below by 11 p.m. Tuesday, July 26. Tell me why you’d like to attend or just share what you love about live dance. Winner will be chosen at random and notified Wednesday morning.

Good luck!

Here’s my post from last week: “Parents avoid outdoors amid air quality warnings”

NORTH BETHESDA, Maryland, July 21, 2011 – On a day like today, just breathing is a potentially toxic experience. Here in the D.C. area, our air quality status rivals that of homeland security: Code Orange means no little person with young lungs should be out playing in air that is decidedly not fresh.

In this heat, I was worried about us melting under a tent at an outdoor dance performance, even though I was looking forward to the act. When my son started coughing yesterday and the news reports warned that persons with respiratory issues should stay inside on this scorcher, it looked like we’d have to scrap the dance and move to plan B.

But then the Backyard Theater for Children at Strathmore announced on its Facebook page that it would move its performance inside because of the heat. So we plugged back into our destination for the morning.

And what a destination it was! We were transported to India thanks to CityDance’s performance of The Warrior Princess of Manipur. Both my boy and my baby grooved to the beats of Bollywood; they were in good company amid a packed and pleased crowd.

Although Strathmore staff said they moved today’s event only out of concern for the dancers and that they prefer to keep performances outside, my family thoroughly enjoyed the indoor venue. And the air conditioning!

The high ceilings of the many-windowed Music Center at Strathmore provided a feeling of being outdoors without having to suffer the consequences of the heat and humidity.

Today is an impossible day to keep cool, and a tough day to feel healthy. Not only was my baby’s head sticky with sweat when we got out of our air conditioned car, but the time I’ve had the babysitter run my son around outside on these hot, smoggy days has clearly compromised his lungs. They sound sick. Even though we live near a woods, the D.C. area is just too full of too many people and their cars to keep pollution under control.  Break out the cough drops; it’s Christmas in July!

Tomorrow has an even scarier forecast: Code Red air.

This column tends to focus on what goes into our bodies through our mouths – as in, by eating. And while many respiratory issues can be linked to food allergies, what we breathe and what we put on our skin are just as important. These substances become part of our bodies, too. Call me crazy, but I don’t consider carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide part of a nutritious breakfast.

So if you want your kids to be healthy, keep them inside on air quality alert days when crud in the atmosphere is at a high. Just try not to stick them under a moldy air conditioning unit like the one we need to get rid of. Or at least to clean.

And, if it cools down and clears out enough for Strathmore to hold its July 28 Russian Dance performance outside and they offer you a free snow cone, remember this column on artificial colors and flavors. Be prepared and bring your own organic and natural syrup, or some fruit juice, or better yet, just go for the ice!

In air and in water, clear is the healthiest color of all.

The Washington, D.C. area was treated to some glorious weather this past weekend, and audience members for the final SteveSongs performance of the week at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts soaked it up! The Children’s Theatre-in-the-Woods was the perfect place to be Saturday morning to listen to stories with storyteller Baba Jamal Koram and to sing along with SteveSongs.

Earlier this year I shared an interview with songwriter — and father of two! — Steve Roslonek. Check it out here to learn more about the man behind (or, rather, inside) the red shirt!

If you’ve never been to Wolf Trap’s Children’s Theatre-in-the-Woods, see how cool it is on this video on YouTube. This year, theatre has introduced day pass tickets that are good for both the 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. shows. They are a true bargain at just $8.

To enter to win a four-ticket pass, post a comment below by 5 p.m. Friday, July 22. Tickets are good for performances July 26-30 with the Maryland Youth Ballet and the Monumental Brass Quintet or for August 2-6 to see Secret Agent 23 Skidoo and the Wolf Trap Opera Company. Let me know in your comment which week you’d like tickets for and why. I will use a winner at random.

As for SteveSongs, he continues to be just about the nicest guy you might ever see on stage … or after the show. The man seems to have undying patience for signing CDs and DVDs, not to mention the fact that his on-stage jokes engage the parents as much as the kiddos. During a song about grumpy boys, girls, dads and moms, he joked that it was impossible to imagine that any dads might possibly want to be anywhere else on a Saturday than at a kids’ music show.

But honestly, though I was worried that going to the concert would cause our trip to look at kitchen counter options to be truncated in such a way as to draw the ire of my spouse, it truly was a lovely way to spend the morning. Last year I was 8.5 months pregnant and it was about 20 degrees hotter with no breeze. This year, we enjoyed a picnic in the shade and throwing the Frisbee in the field while waiting to talk to Steve, who always has a smile for everyone.

Steve was traveling this time without his family, which welcomed a baby daughter about six months ago. He said being away was both easy and hard. It feels good to be happy for the success of a fellow parent who is so entertaining and talented. Thanks to Wolf Trap for putting on such a great show and for letting us come back this year, our third in a row!

I’m pleased to announce that I made it into the Top 25 Mental Wellness blogs at Circle of Moms. Thanks to everyone who voted. More details to come!

Just how many different people can I be in my head in one day? Well, at least two solid positions are staking claim to my mental landscape. One is incredibly sad that yesterday was my son’s last day at his Waldorf school, and the other is very excited for our family to become part of the local public school community.

So why the ambivalence?

E’s Waldorf school — where he spent a year in parent-child, a year in the three-day “kindergarten,” and this year, what is designed to be the first of two years in five-day “Oak Tree Kindergarten” — is a beautiful place. I love that he has been able to unfold, as they say, free of expectations to “achieve” or perform in any particular way.

The boat my son loved making at his Waldorf school, and his book of colorings. His symbol this year was a seashell.

Yesterday, after we admired the boat he made (and loved making!), we looked through his book of coloring from the whole year. I was in tears seeing how he’s gone from abstract scribbles to intricate drawings with clear storylines all on his own, with no direction or suggestions. At this school, he truly is learning for the love of the experience, not on anyone else’s timeline or following anyone else’s agenda. What a gift.

Waldorf education has a reverence for nature and a foundation of being in tune with the seasons. He starts the morning outside, playing for almost an hour no matter what the weather. If he’s staying until 3:00 (as opposed to noon, when the regular 5-day program ends), he plays outside again before lunch and for another 20 minutes or so before pick-up time. The playground is small, but it’s lovingly tended, and the children make use of logs and wood chips and the sandbox — and their imaginations — rather than relying on a lot of equipment, other than a small slide and a climbing wall.

Beyond questions of space and “curriculum,” it is just so clear that he is loved at this school. His teachers are so kind and thoughtful about their interactions, and he knows his place in the community. The class has 16 children, each of whom has a symbol and an “acorn child” likeness doll. He was so excited to report to me over the course of the fall whose child appeared and when, and wearing what clothing.

On the last day of school, his teacher gave each child a small book with their symbol on the front and a simple series of four pictures inside. It is such a quiet expression of love, of celebrating the simple wonder of something like flying a kite and the child’s discovery of the joy therein.

His teacher also gave the children “gems” on the last day and gave a special one to my son to remind him to take a nice rest every day. The teacher knows E stopped napping at age 2.5 (he is now 5.25) and that I fear the summer with a boy who won’t nap and a baby who has become increasingly resistant to going down for a nap unless she’s driven. (Let’s hope it a phase.) I’m grateful to the teacher for this gift and for all he and his assistants have given us this year.

I am in tears. How can I take my son away from this beautiful environment to a bigger class where academic expectations might trump magic and beauty? My heart breaks every time he talks about how he’s going to be a Tall Oak next year (when he turns six), and how he’ll get to make a sword. This year, he loved sanding his little boat and was apparently quite taken with the process, I’m told by teacher and son alike. He was the first one to finish his boat, something he seems to take great pride in. I feel awful for keeping him from more memories like this in the beautiful spaces that are his classroom and school.

But, he is not my only child, and mother is not my only role. Sometimes I wish I could approach it that way, but I know it’s no use trying to push a square peg into a round hole. I need to pursue writing and to put a significant amount of time into my health and wellbeing in order to be the best possible — and most sane — mom I can. This means I need some amount of childcare, and I need to prioritize expenses.

His school is a large expense. We’ve had him in three days of the school’s 12-3 p.m. Afternoon Program for the past two years, and while the hourly breakdown is comparable to babysitting, it adds up to a whole lot of extra money for time with just one child. I now have two. I think the program has served him well with its calm routine, and I don’t relish long summer days that depend on my willpower and energy in the face of not having any control over whether the baby will cooperate with a nap or scream unless I put her on my back.

However, we would not be able to rationalize the expense of the Afternoon Program next year and also pay for the regular tuition and for some childcare for the baby so that I can do a little work, exercise, and get to appointments. Without the Afternoon Program, my son would be home every day at noon, which means my daughter and I would have less than three hours each morning together and that her nap would probably have to once again revolve around her brother’s schedule. That, or (and/or?) her brother’s afternoon schedule might need to revolve around his sister’s need to nap. And in the middle, I will have next to zero time to do much for me, let alone house chores or preparing food for my high-maintenance diet. I expect we’d devolve into my staying up late and stressing my adrenals ever further.

I realize that there are things I can and perhaps ought to let go. However, one area I will not compromise on is food: there is no microwave in my kitchen, and very little that we eat that comes out of a container. We do not eat fast food, and we rarely go out to eat. (With the exception of a luncheon at the organic oasis of Restaurant Nora and a trip just tonight to Food Matters since it will be closing soon, I haven’t eaten at a restaurant since I started the GAPS diet at the beginning of February, over four months ago.)

My son always has — and will have — a healthy lunch, and until recently I made all the gluten-free substitutes I had to send for his school snack: bread on Tuesday and Wednesday and a muffin on Thursday. So even though his school serves only organic food, it doesn’t work well for us as celiacs.

At his new school, the day will start at 8:00 instead of 8:30, which might be a little hard at the outset, but the earlier start means his father will be able to take him to the bus, or, more likely, right to school (just two quick miles away through neighborhoods) before heading to work. This means I can continue to prepare a healthy breakfast and start to provide a calm morning environment since I will not need to get myself and the baby out of the door at the same time.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll pick E up from school at 2:41, carpool with a neighbor, or let him take the bus home, but he will be done at the same time every day, and it’s my hope that I can use some of the early afternoon time to prepare at least part of dinner so that I can be more present with him when he returns.

I hope this new schedule benefits my son, who will get time with a less harried mom and time with his dad in the morning. I hope it benefits my daughter, who will get to have a nap on her terms and (if she ever starts eating food) breakfast at home without being rushed. I hope it benefits my husband, who will get more QT with his son in the mornings and get out the door at a consistent time. And I hope it benefits me by letting me eat without stress and thus more fully digest my food and heal my gut, which I know is key to all my other health issues, physical and mental.

But it’s not just about schedules and distance from home, as compelling as those are. No, I would not entertain any of these logistical perks if there weren’t other reasons to feel good about this elementary school. But there are. A lot of them.

The school uses a portfolio-based assessment instead of grades. The curriculum is hands-on, an Expeditionary Learning approach that is patterned after Outward Bound. Students participate in multidisciplinary units that are several weeks long. The K-1 (multiage) classes have tables and centers but not desks. The school principal never once mentioned standardized tests on the tour I took, and during the open house my husband attended, she said something to the effect of test scores not being a reason to come to this school.

She refers often to the school as a “community,” and it’s clear from the beautiful grounds and the lively gardens that it’s not just talk.  Last year the school donated 100 pounds of lettuce to Arlington Food Assistance Center, and I’m told the children also enjoyed their harvest in salads at lunch, which is served in classrooms rather than a cafeteria. I know several people who send their children here and love it.

Everything the principal has said on tours and in conversation with me conveys an openness to seeing each child as an individual. The school utilizes the Responsive Classroom model that includes a community meeting at the beginning of every day. So much talk is not very Waldorf, but I do think it will serve my chatty son well.

The playground is large and open. There is a tricycle path, logs for climbing on, and, when I dropped off my son’s paperwork in April, I noticed a group of girls digging in the dirt with pails and shovels. The school sits next to a nature center with which there are ongoing talks about more collaboration and married landscape construction. (I understand these things don’t move like lightning, but at least the desire is there!)

All K-1 classrooms have doors to the outside, and children go out twice a day (or at least get to go to the gym in bad weather). I’m expecting that my husband will walk E to the school from down the street so that he will have exposure to the elements every day. Oh, and I think I will take E on Fridays so that I can attend the whole school community meeting. Maybe then I will take the baby to the nature center or for a walk on the nearby bike trail after that.

Assuming we are happy enough to keep him there, E will have the same teacher for grades two and three and then will loop again with the same teacher for fourth and fifth grade. The continuity is something I value. Teachers in Waldorf schools stay with the same group of children for years.

I also like that E will be getting music and Spanish in school, and the art in the hallways is beautiful. You can tell the children all had the same assignment, but they were given the freedom to find their own way into it. I didn’t see photocopies of the same sheet just colored differently.

But beyond all these assumed-to-be-great things about this particular school, I am also compelled to join the ranks of public schools because I think it’s important from a social justice perspective. I want to be an advocate for all children, to give them the opportunity to have healthy choices. Last night I attended the documentary What’s on Your Plate at Barcroft Elementary School as the culmination of the PTA-organized spring Farm to Table Week. It’s exciting to see people bringing awareness of healthy eating and sustainable farming to public schools, but it’s not going to happen without involved parents. I feel I ought to be one of them.

I also don’t want E insulated from the community in which he lives. He is certainly exposed to many cultures and languages at the Waldorf school, but it’s not the same as the rest of the county. Having taught high school nearby and having worked on issues of diversity in honors vs. regular classes, I feel it’s important for my son to get to know a wide variety of people and to learn from an early age that people don’t all think and talk the same.

Of course, I was comforted by a lot of sameness at the Waldorf school. If you’re a parent who eschews most TV and electronic media, it’s great to know that other parents around you do, too. Being on the same page with people is great, and I honestly do think the world looks prettier without big plastic toys or cartoon characters on backpacks. My son is a sponge, and he does notice everything, and sometimes even the smallest exposure translates into wanting things I don’t want him to have or even know about.

But I can’t keep him in a bubble forever on that front, and I can make choices I feel good about at home. I just need to stick to them! And my hope is that our new schedule will make it more possible for me to interact with other Waldorf-inspired friends and homeschooling moms so that I can make my home environment more in line with my values. This is quite a learning curve!

On that topic, I should at least mention that it is not for lack of interest that I’m not homeschooling. Sometimes I think that would be ideal. I just don’t think it’s right for my family at this time, mostly because of my temperament and some because of my son’s super-social nature and his intense early attachment to me that seemed to call for interaction with other adults. I do feel that he benefits tremendously from interacting with other caring adults and with other children in an organized setting on a daily basis.

I still don’t think it would be the right dynamic for him and for me, and it would be hard for me to manage with the baby since I still don’t feel like I know a fraction of what I’d like to know about creating a home. However, if he struggles mightily with this transition or if I feel that public school is wringing out his sense of fantasy and magic, I will consider it until there’s a spot open at the Waldorf school or until we decide it’s time to try public again.

Although I do worry about him having sensory overload in the chaotic and cluttered public K-1 classrooms, E has been in plenty of mainstream settings with camps and other programs, and he always does fine. He usually asks to go back!

On Thursday, I kept him home from his penultimate day of school because he fell out of bed the previous night and split open his lip, which was still incredibly puffy in the  morning. I expected that I would skip visiting Barcroft that day even though I wanted to take photos to write an article about Farm to Table. Around 11:30, the baby had woken up and nursed, and I decided we’d just go ahead and go anyway.

On the way in, we saw our friend who works there part-time, which was a treat. In the cafeteria, E was happy to try snap peas with peanut sauce and yellow squash with a yogurt dip while I chatted up the guest chef and snapped photos (with the baby on my back). He stopped to admire student art in a case on the way out, and when we got home, he offered of his own volition that he had a really nice time and was glad we went.

I felt relieved that he was not freaked out by the setting — the bigger kids, the bright lights, the loud cafeteria — and that he actually felt quite comfortable. Later we picked peas from the garden made an accompanying peanut sauce (which he said tasted just like the one at the school even though I totally made up the recipe). And he was so excited to buy a “yellow cucumber” at the store later that day! I’ve promised to make yogurt dip tomorrow with the yogurt we got at the farmers market on the day Barcroft kicked off its week last Sunday.

While we were there, we saw the outgoing PTA president of the school he will be attending in the fall. E remembered her and her son from the open house he’d attended in February. I whispered to her that he would be going to the school but that we weren’t sure if we’d come to the picnic later this month since we haven’t told E yet. She offered that he would probably be excited to see the big playground. Of course, she also dropped as “carrots” face-painting and ice cream, which are the opposite of a draw for me! But Waldorf parents enjoy their sugar, too, so that’s not a new challenge.

The public school picnic will take place a week after his last day of Waldorf school and three days after the end-of-school picnic, which will be the last big time to see his Waldorf friends and teachers. Of course, we do plan to stay involved in the Waldorf community and to stay in touch with people through playdates. But I wonder if E will feel sad if he goes to the Waldorf picnic without knowing that this is goodbye to the school. His teachers suggested not to talk about next year until August, but I just don’t think that will work for E. He may play “in the moment,” but he also has one heck of a memory and at the same time is often thinking and planning for the future. He is his mother’s child.

We could wait to tell him after the Waldorf picnic but before the new school picnic. Or we could just let the new school picnic seem like another open house; I’ve already sort of mentioned it in that light after seeing the PTA parent. But another little boy down the street is going to the same school in the fall, which I think E will be very happy about, and I’m sure the other boy will probably talk about them going together. And I expect that the other people at the picnic might say things like, “Are you excited to come here next year?!”

So what do I say? How and when do I break the news? Should I skip the picnic and deal with it later, after we’ve gotten back from vacation and he’s settled into his summer camp? I don’t want someone else to tell him before we do, and some of his friends may have gotten the word by now or will soon.

I have wavered from confident to crying and back again many times writing this post. It is beyond long at over 3000 words, and I still haven’t found a place to say the things I blubber to my husband like, “How can he possibly be as loved by teachers who have over 20 students and who have to prepare kids for standardized tests?”

I started this post early this morning, over 16 hours ago, and my snippets of time to write have been brief. Since then, we’ve accommodated E’s request to go to Home Depot to buy some lumber. He suggested maybe it would be right for making a sword. I’m hopeful that we can make some decent efforts to offer him some of what he liked best about the Waldorf school, honor his emotions without mixing them with ours, and present to him a confident decision that the new school is the perfect place for him to go to kindergarten.

I welcome any and all advice on how best to serve his needs in this transition!

Thanks to my friend Elaine for her blog post on leaving the Waldorf school. The title — “Sailing on” — and the photo of her son’s boat have me bawling again!