Welcome to the May 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting With or Without Extended Family

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 relatives help or hinder their parenting. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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This post would be awesome if I had family that lived nearby.

The topic of this month’s Carnival of Natural Parenting is exactly what I lamented over two years ago in a post I wrote for DC Metro Moms. It is hard to do this parenting gig without help, and when there is no family, and your friends are as busy as you are, well, for me that means that every slice of babysitting I need requires scheduling. And that means time, texts, and changed plans when the sitter’s kid gets sick.

As a stay-at-home mom with a few hours a week of tutoring and freelance work and multiple random hours of volunteer stuff, in addition to my current role as interior designer/realtor for our house renovation and sale, I rely on sitters who don’t always come through. I often feel like I can’t count on much. And that drives me batty. If my folks were in good health and lived in town, that would be a game-changer.

But they don’t want to leave Michigan, and I don’t want to go back. I like living near DC. And they’re not of the persuasion or stamina to take the kids for more than an hour or two anyway. My husband’s parents would not be options for extended or regular help either, though I can leave the kids for a few hours with their grandma when we visit her and when she visits us, each once or maybe twice a year.

Part of me wishes that the kids knew their grandparents more and that we could just drop in whenever and that they could come help out whenever. But since health and age and inclination don’t point in that direction, I’m okay with it being special to have visits with them.

What has been great has been help from my sisters and their kids, as I first wrote over two years ago. A community of youngsters is a place for my gregarious son to thrive. Now 6, he’d have felt so much more comfortable as a baby and toddler, I think, if he weren’t the oldest and if we had more familiar folks around all the time. I can see the difference in my similar temperament toddler daughter who has no problem with a new sitter or an unfamiliar situation if her brother is around.

We’re in the middle of a house renovation that has taken all my time and energy, and then some. The actual move, I’m sure, will take weeks, if not months to crawl out from under. When a friend moved a few years ago, she said she didn’t even unpack; her parents did it all. Then they painted her basement one weekend. That is not the kind of support I could ever expect. If I need help packing, I either need to ask a friend, which I’m generally not comfortable doing since she’s likely to be as maxed out as I am, or I have to pay someone to watch my kids and/or help me.

Last week, after the sitter got my daughter to sleep easier (and then longer) than I ever can, she helped me move around furniture in the house so that I could stage it for photos. This week the sitter has been sick, and man, it takes a lot longer. And if the baby won’t sleep, forget the bigger sorting and packing. She’ll undo whatever I did in a heartbeat. So I stay up late, and my health suffers.

So yes, it would be nice if I could send her and her brother to grandma’s. I even tend to cop a righteous attitude at times that people with family nearby simply do not understand what it means to parent in the same way that I do. Oh, woe is me, she who has to pay people to keep her sane! But seriously, it just ain’t the same as people who use their parents for childcare or as my friend who lives with her folks.

And yet, I know we are lucky to have this choice to make. A lot of the people in the recent NPR Family Matters series would opt not to live under one roof if they didn’t have to, and my friend, a mom of two who owes more on her home than it’s worth, would probably rather her family be on its own. But she also admits that it works well to live with her folks. She can go out whenever she needs to, go back to work without needing to bundle her baby to a daycare, or wake early without wondering if someone is going to have texted her a cancellation and change the entire look of her day.

With my health issues and especially with the current house project — doing renovations on the new one and prepping this one to sell — and with my husband’s schedule not putting him home before 6 p.m., I couldn’t get by without some help. I know other people who do it, people whose husbands travel out of town for days or even weeks at a time. If that were the case here, I’d need to get a full-time nanny. As much as I don’t love the stress of doing too many things, I also know I cannot take care of myself and my kids being a full-time mom without taking time to cook what will sustain me and eat it without interruption at least some days, and without pursuing things I’m passionate about. If I didn’t have a partner coming home each night, I’d set out to earn enough to pay someone to help enough that I could get all my needs met.

Do I wish that person were a family member? That the time my kids spend with another adult be with someone who shares their DNA and can tell them stories that have ancestral import? Sure. Am I jealous of people for whom this has worked out? Yes. Does my parents’ age and health today give me pause when I think about having children past 36, the age they were when I was born? Yep. Would I advise young folks considering parenthood to live close to family if that’s at all an option? Absolutely.

But I do appreciate the fact that my parents and my in-laws love us and our kids, that they respect our wishes, support our choices. There are plenty of ugly situations out there, and it means a lot my kids know that they have generous and loving grandparents. Even if they do live hours — and hours — away.

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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:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon May 8 with all the carnival links.)

• Dealing With Unsupportive Grandparents — In a guest post at Natural Parents Network, The Pistachio Project tells what to do when your child’s grandparents are less than thrilled about your parenting choices.
• Parenting With Extended Family — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares the pros and cons of parenting with extended family…
• Parental Support for an AP Mama — Meegs at A New Day talks about the invaluable support of her parents in her journey to be an AP mama.
• Priceless Grandparents — That Mama Gretchen reflects on her relationship with her priceless Grammy while sharing ways to help children preserve memories of their own special grandparents.
• Routines Are Meant To Be Broken — Olga at Around The Birthing Ball urges us to see Extended Family as a crucial and necessary link between what children are used to at home and the world at large.
• It Helps To Have A Village – Even A Small One — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama discusses how she has flourished as a mother due to the support of her parents.
• The Orange Week — Erika at Cinco de Mommy lets go of some rules when her family finally visits extended family in San Diego.
• One Size Doesn’t Fit All — Kellie at Our Mindful Life realizes that when it comes to family, some like it bigger and some like it smaller.
• It Takes a Family — Alicia at What’s Next can’t imagine raising a child without the help of her family.
• A new foray into family — As someone who never experienced close extended family, Lauren at Hobo Mama wrestles with how to raise her kids — and herself — to restart that type of community.
• My Mama Rocks! — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment is one lucky Mama to have the support and presence of her own awesome Mama.
• Embracing Our Extended Family — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares 7 ideas for nurturing relationships with extended family members.
• Doing Things Differently — Valerie at Momma in Progress shares how parenting her children far away from extended family improved her confidence in her choices.
• Snapshots of love — Caroline at stoneageparent describes the joys of sharing her young son’s life with her own parents.
• Parenting with Relies – A mixed bag — Ursula Ciller shares some of her viewpoints on the pros and cons of parenting with relatives and extended family.
• Tante and Uncles — How a great adult sibling relationship begets a great relationship with aunt and uncles from Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy.
• Tips for Traveling With Twins — Megan at the Boho Mama shares some tips for traveling with infant twins (or two or more babies!).
• Parenting passed through the generations — Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes talks about the incredible parenting resource that is her found family, and how she hopes to continue the trend.
• My Family and My Kids — Jorje of Momma Jorje ponders whether she distrusts her family or if she is simply a control freak.
• Parenting with a Hero — Rachel at Lautaret Bohemiet reminisces about the relationship she shared with her younger brother, and how he now shares that closeness in a relationship with her son.
• Text/ended Family — Kenna of A Million Tiny Things wishes her family was around for the Easter egg hunt… until she remembers what it’s actually like having her family around.
• Two Kinds of Families — Adrienne at Mommying My Way writes about how her extended family is just as valuable to her mommying as her church family.
• My ‘high-needs’ child and ’strangers’ — With a ‘high-needs’ daughter, aNonyMous at Radical Ramblings has had to manage without the help of family or friends, adapting to her daughter’s extreme shyness and allowing her to socialise on her own terms.
• Our Summer Tribe — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger shares a love of her family’s summer reunion, her secret to getting the wisdom of the “village” even as she lives 1,000 miles away.
• My Life Boat {Well, One of Them} — What good is a life boat if you don’t get it? Grandparents are a life boat MomeeeZen loves!
• Dear Children — In an open letter to her children, Laura at Pug in the Kitchen promises to support them as needed in her early days of parenting.
• Yearning for Tribal Times — Ever had one of those days where everything seems to keep going wrong? Amy at Anktangle recounts one such day and how it inspired her to think about what life must’ve been like when we lived together in large family units.
• I don’t have a village — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama wishes she had family nearby but appreciates their support and respect.
• Trouble With MILs– Ourselves? — Jaye Anne at Wide Awake Half Asleep explains how her arguments with her mother-in-law may have something to do with herself.
• A Family Apart — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings writes about the challenges, and the benefits, of building a family apart from relatives.
• First Do No Harm — Zoie at TouchstoneZ asks: How do you write about making different parenting choices than your own family experience without criticizing your parents?
• Military Family Separation — Amy Willa shares her feelings about being separated from extended family during her military family journey.
• Forging A Village In The Absence Of One — Luschka from Diary of a First Child writes about the importance of creating a support network, a village, when family isn’t an option.
• Respecting My Sister’s Parenting Decisions — Dionna at Code Name: Mama’s sister is guest posting on the many roles she has as an aunt. The most important? She is the named guardian, and she takes that role seriously.
• Multi-Generational Living: An Exercise in Love, Patience, and Co-Parenting — Boomerang Mama at The Other Baby Book shares her experience of moving back in with Mom and Dad for 7 months, and the unexpected connection that followed.
• A Heartfelt Letter to Family: Yes, We’re Weird, but Please Respect Us Anyway — Sheila of A Living Family sincerely expresses ways she would appreciate her extended family’s support for her and her children, despite their “weird” parenting choices.
• The nuclear family is insane! — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle is grateful for family support, wishes her Mum lived closer, and feels an intentional community would be the ideal way to raise her children.

Eighty degrees in March, and nothing is at rest.

The flowers are up, stretching their arms after nary a winter’s nap. The magnolia has exploded into blossom way before its time, dropping its once-precious petals onto the ground where they turn slipper and slimy like a million mini banana peels. After she sat down on our front steps, the petals left a smear of brown on my the puffy cloth-diapered bum of toddler daughter’s pale pink linen — in March! — pants.

Every day there is a new blossom or bird or piece of our house renovation next door to be the target of her chubby index finger and her catch-all “Whoa!” exclamation. If the warmth and too-early springing into green weren’t enough to rev us up, Daylight Savings Time’s extra hour has shifted our reality into a new gear, one that makes bed before 8 a near impossibility.

Leading up to last Saturday, when we lost that hour, I had managed to get little A to nap twice with help from the car on cooler days before the hammering began next door and then, by napping with her. After my doctor told me “I think you need three hours of rest a day,” I decided that I should just give up on productivity during at-home naps and rest my weary body instead.

That felt good, losing track of time and waking with a new lease on the day. The trick was to start early enough that I didn’t risk sleeping through my son’s afternoon bus pickup time. As long as it was cool, I found I could even get to sleep again in the evening. Finally, my cup was filling with rest. But it was not to last.

All that week, I tried to find slivers of time to fit in my homework for my Mother’s Self-Renewal class, reading and journaling. I’d already missed one of the classes, wallowing in self-pity at all the responsibilities pulling me in so many directions I felt I’d tear apart and lose my stuffing. This time would be different, I’d promised myself.

The plan was that my husband would take my son to gardening day at his school that Saturday morning. I’d have an hour or so of relative quiet in the house to make myself some grain-free “bread” and then nap with my daughter, say 11 to 1, have lunch and leave, fully rested, at 2:15 to enjoy listening to Studio 360 on NPR en route to Tenleytown for the 3:00 class. Also in the plan was for me to come home bursting with energy and joy, or maybe just be pleasantly calm that happiness and parenting and house renovation were not all mutually exclusive.

Then our fridge broke. Or at least got testy. We spent part of the morning moving important things into the new fridge in the shed, purchased on Black Friday for the home we’ll move into this summer. My husband searched around for a fridge that would fit our current smaller space. It ended up that I took the kids — both of them — to gardening day and he used my Sears card to schedule a Monday delivery for a new stainless number to chill our chow.

My son mostly just played with his friends while his sister, after an initial excursion across a muddy field, happily sat and dug at dirt while I weeded. It was a lovely spring morning, still chill enough to feel like the right season. But by the time I’d changed a diaper and nursed in the library, it was past lunchtime and I was tired.

So was the baby, but she was having none of nap. I thought she might fall asleep on the way home. No such luck. Then I tried laying her down, but she preferred instead to cry or crawl over me and push her chubby hand into my flabby belly or neck. I started to see my chances at “self-renewal” crumble.

Off I huffed to drive her to sleep. My husband didn’t stop me with any protestations about my not having the time to do that and go to my class, too. And I didn’t beg. My hopes were already dim.

By the time I pulled back into the driveway with a zonked-out toddler in the back seat, I was too hungry and too tired to drive 45 minutes for a class that I wasn’t very prepared for. I texted the teacher something terse about not being able to finish the session and came inside where my husband was holding the key to the other car so that I could ostensibly turn around and go to class. Points for trying, I guess.

But he doesn’t get that it’s just not that easy. Not for me. I had no snacks, there was no plan for dinner, and I hadn’t rested. I’d been out all morning and used up all my energy cards. This healing business means business.

So what did I do? I didn’t mope as long as I did the previous time I missed class. I resolved to make something out of the day; I took a few drops of Premier Research Labs vitamin B and set about to clean the house enough that it wouldn’t drive me crazy anymore.

The supplement and the sorting seemed to have a positive effect on me, but between the B and the late nap, the baby acted like I’d given her a triple espresso. Back when I was first trying to heal from adrenal fatigue in 2004, I did a couple of vitamin B IVs and National Integrated Health Associates. It’s quite a buzz, like liquid sunshine, warming and energizing you from the inside out. I’d venture to say that this is what my daughter was feeling from my souped-up milk.

At 8:14 p.m., when she should have been asleep, she was giddy and ready to party. The phone rang, and my friend Sarah was ready to talk with me about her journey through adrenal fatigue and the GAPS diet.

Little Miss Alert played with Daddy for a while as I took notes, and then I just nursed her through the rest of the conversation, which was a real turning point for me. To say I am grateful for Sarah sharing is like saying this winter has been on the mild side. Gross understatements. I know lots of people who’ve had lots of health issues, but where I am right now, hearing about Sarah’s journey and healing was nothing short of inspirational. She’s due to have her second child soon, and we talked about birth and recovery along with hard-core gut stuff. It was powerful to hear people on the GAPS diet talk about their experiences at the Weston A. Price Foundation conference and it’s educational to read the many wonderful posts on blogs like Cheeseslave, where author Ann Marie has answered my question about SIgA today. But still, just talking with someone who I’ve known go from sickness to health was so soothing and buoying.

By the time Jen Kogan, the teacher of the self-renewal class called to check up on me on Monday, I had made peace with the fact that this is just not the time for me to take it. The house renovation project needs my attention for the next three months, and my health has got to be the focus of whatever I have left (after, of course, taking care of my children and arranging for childcare and summer camp and whatever we need to keep us all sane and our hair intact). As much as I’ve been wanting to pursue career development, I have to accept that whatever writing I can get done for my own spirit has got to be enough for now.

The rest of week was a hot, sunny blur of contractor appointments and pollen. I felt like Vitamin B and Vitamin Sarah were still going strong well into Thursday night, when another friend at the Holistic Moms meeting told me she’d read my blog and that we had more in common than I’d known. “This is just the current season of our lives,” she reminded us both. When I got home, I was surprised by an email from a graduate school friend who has also gone grain-free after vegetarianism and is on her own journey to balance health and parenthood. To be thanked for my writing twice in one night was a gift.

It’s not lately been clear what literal season it is here, and I tend to want it to be everything all at once in my home life.

The season to mother well vs. to mother myself.

The time to embrace life as a stay-at-home mom vs. the time to publish, to volunteer, to network.

The time to just rest vs. to develop a serious yoga practice, or return to running.

The season to make all my food from scratch all the time and be strict enough to heal (necessary reality) vs. the season to be all done with that and ready to embrace and enjoy so many delicious things I haven’t had for so long, without fear of pain or illness.

I can’t tell winter to just chill out and be winter, and I can’t tell spring not to come. There is no use fighting whatever is. And even if I can’t figure out what today’s reality is going to be or predict tomorrow’s, I can choose to accept rather than fight.

The dirt doesn’t push back the flowers. Let the beauty reveal.

Stop and smell the hyacinths while they’re here. Whenever that is.

The instant I read the words, I regretted picking up my BlackBerry that one last time before going to bed. A well-meaning relative of mine had read my recent post about my health and my leaky gut problem and told me: “This is not the time to volunteer for things.” She intended to point out that there would be plenty of time later in life for me to pursue my interests when I didn’t have as many health challenges to face and when I wasn’t in such a busy time of motherhood with a kindergartener and opinionated non-verbal toddler.

I get her point. Really, I do. The problem is that her note assumes that volunteering is something that detracts from my well-being. Sure, it might have seemed that way in the post she read. I’d rushed to finish it and get it up rather than wait until who knows when I’d get a free moment to sit down again. I did, I realize, sound a little overwhelmed. And yes, balance is something I’m working on.

But I don’t regret my choices, and I don’t want them restricted. That wouldn’t help. If I weren’t busy with something that felt meaningful, that contributed to my priorities, that gave me joy, or that fueled me with passion, I would be, simply put, depressed. Staying busy and engaged in something bigger than myself is a necessity for me to stay mentally healthy without medication.

And staying off medication is something I feel is a physical necessity as well; I simply don’t think my body can handle being on anti-depressants. They made an amazing difference for two years, and then again for a year while I sought treatment for hyperthyroidism (Graves’ Disease).

But they are drugs. Even if I weren’t a true believer in the healing power of nutrition and energy work, my system has shown me it simply cannot handle anything artificial. As much as SSRIs helped, I’m also pretty convinced that they contributed to the mess I’m in now — a much smaller role than 30 years of eating gluten, probably, but a role nonetheless.

No amount of saying no to volunteer work is going to undo all the damage that was caused by decades of eating food my body couldn’t handle, to say nothing of mild but young substance abuse. What will help me heal is continuing to eat real food, pursuing what makes me happy, and cultivating a mindfulness practice. It takes a lot more time and energy than popping a pill, but I really don’t see that I have a choice if I have my long-term health in mind.

Until I got this late-night email, I was, I admit, stewing a little about the lack of time to do everything I cared about. But rather than push me to step aside, as was its intention, the note inspired me to remember why I have chosen what I’ve chosen to do and to be grateful that I have the opportunity to do it.

The fundraiser I was working on was a great success, both in money raised and in positive momentum and a spirit of community, which was probably even more valuable to this project about which I care deeply. Even as I wished for more hours in the day to proofread the program and organize the volunteer schedule, I remembered that I proposed this event because I believe in the cause and that I offered to head it up because it’s something I knew I could do well. I knew it could be a great thing, and I wanted to create that.

So I carried that purpose with me into the event and sincerely enjoyed it. I lapped up the kudos with nary a self-critical remark or “if only we could have” lament. It was just good, plain and simple. We can debrief and learn from it, sure, but the thing I am most proud of is just enjoying it.

And then, when I came home after being gone at the school 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and launched right back into domestic goddess mode, I took on that role without resentment. Sure, there was a smidge of “really?” in my brain when my husband said he was super tired, but rather than go to a place of bitterness, I just chalked it up to a confirmation that the job I usually do of managing house and home is, indeed, a tiring one!

I wanted the laundry and dishes dealt with, so I did them.

I wanted celery and other veggies for the next day and to not cook that night or ask my tired husband to rally, so I went out to the grocery store after picking up take-out.

I wanted to do yoga before eating in peace and quiet, so I waited until after the family meal and bedtime to get on my mat and then eat my own safe food.

Somehow, that email sparked — or stoked — a fire. What started as angry turned cozy and glowing. The email inspired me, in part, to take the Mother’s Self-Renewal workshop to explore issues of balance and honoring our many selves. That first session then gave me the sense that I am both not alone in my dilemmas about time and also that my process is one to honor. It is part of my mothering to model not perfection but an embracing of personal growth and inquiry.

So thank you, dear relative, even if noting you wish you’d gotten advice from your elders still doesn’t convince me that you weren’t being more judgmental than supportive. Regardless of their intent, your words helped me see through the messiness of internal conflict and to look toward something varied and beautiful.

Fall’s draperies have fallen and are mulching on the ground. The woods behind our house are quieter, the tall trees naked of leaves even as deer nibble the green undergrowth.

I am astounded by the light.

It pours in now, like sleepy eyes that have just awakened. It comes at funny times and at new angles, finding new crevices to creep into and casting tricks of shadows on the plainest of surfaces.

We are moving.

Moving into winter. Moving into a new season of emptiness ready for the filling. Moving out of babyhood toward opinionation. Moving out of little boyhood into large hands and strong muscles.

Moving, literally, next door.

Having accepted the rare gift of an opportunity to renovate a home at a cost we just might manage, my family is on the verge of beginning a renovation of the house next to ours, a nearly identical Cape in origin but one in need of much love and tenderness.

I intend to infuse it with beauty.

And intention.

As we embark on a new season of our family lives, we pore over design books and muse about forts and gardens in the bigger lot, I may heed the call to draw inward. While I remain committed to feeding myself and my family nourishing, real food, it may be time to break from following the news toward a time of looking at the light and seeing where we live within it.

If I am quiet, it is to think and imagine. To conjure home. This may take me toward other writing, toward writing about green in building more than the green in my morning juice.

Like everything else, it’s a work in progress.

But let the work be play.

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.

I did not get a post written in time to participate in the November Blog Carnival of Natural Parenting in part because I feel like I no longer do such a great job at getting “kids in the kitchen,” this month’s theme. We were great at it when my son was two and three, and now — at age 5.5 and tired after a long day at public kindergarten — he doesn’t feel like helping out as much. It’s all I can do to keep the baby out of harm’s way and get a meal (all from scratch, by necessity!) made before dark.

But then the boy decided he wanted to make a concoction in the Vita-Mix the other day. He whipped up kale, red pepper, salt, basil, olive oil and water. I was skeptical but figured we could try this raw “soup.”

Color me surprised that it was delicious!

We used it like a dip or sauce, and my son happily gobbled up the salmon and veggies he poured it on. He’s never been a fan of pesto (unlike his baby sister), but he loved this, sans garlic. I am still not clear on how much raw kale I should have with my thyroid disorder, but it sure tasted fresh. I added some to my raw juice the next morning and felt the chlorophyll boost!

He had a great time while I worked on other dinner prep, we enjoyed something new and healthful, and I got out of my comfort zone. Couldn’t have planned it, can’t count on when it will happen again, but what a delight!

Oh, and now I know that sorting lettuce will keep his sister occupied for a good long time. Especially if it goes on the floor and we start the rinse & spin cycle all over.

I wasn’t part of the carnival, but here is some link love for the participants!

• Baking & letting go — Cooking with kids can be a mess. Nadia at Red White & GREEN Mom is learning to relax, be patient, and have fun with the process.
• Family feeding in Child of Mine — Lauren at Hobo Mama reviews Ellyn Satter’s suggestions for appropriate feeding and points out where her family has problems following through.
• Children with Knives! (And other Kitchen Tools) — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy teaches her children how to safely use knives.
• “Mommy, Can I Help?” — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment writes about how she lets her kiddos help out with cooking, despite her {sometimes} lack of patience!
• Solids the Second Time Around — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes recounts her experiences introducing solids to her second child.
• The Adventure of Toddler Tastebuds — The Accidental Natural Mama shares a few things that helped her daughter develop an adventurous palate.
• A Tradition of Love — Kelly at Becoming Crunchy looks forward to sharing the kitchen traditions passed on from her mom and has already found several ways to involve baby in the kitchen.
• The Very Best Classroom — Alicia C. at McCrenshaw’s Newest Thoughts reveals how her kitchen is more than a place to make food – it’s a classroom!
• Raising Little Chefs — Chef Mike guest posts on Natural Parents Network about how he went from a guy who couldn’t cook to a chef who wanted to teach his boys to know how the food we love is made.
• In the Kitchen with my kids — Isil at Smiling like Sunshine shares a delicious soup recipe that her kids love.
• Papa, the Pancake Artist — Papa’s making an incredible breakfast over at Our Mindful Life.
• Kids won’t eat salad? Try this one! — Tat at Mum in Search is sharing her children’s favourite salad recipe.
• Recipe For a Great Relationship — Cooking with kids is about feeding hearts as well as bellies, writes Hannah at Wild Parenting.
• The Ritual of Mealtimes — Syenna at Gently Parenting Twins writes about the significance of mealtimes in her family’s daily rhythm.
• Kid, Meet Food. Food, Kid. — Alburnet at What’s Next? panicks about passing on her food “issues” to her offspring.
• Growing Up in the Kitchen — Cassie at There’s a Pickle in My Life shares how her son is growing up in the kitchen.
• Harvesting Corn and History — From Kenna at School Garden Year: The kids in the school garden harvest their corn and learn how much history grows in their food.
• My Guiding Principles for Teaching my Child about Food — Tree at Mom Grooves uses these guiding principles to give her daughter a love of good food and an understanding of nutrition as well as to empower her to make the best choices for her body.
• Kitchen Control — Amanda at Let’s Take the Metro writes about her struggles to relinquish control in the kitchen to her children.
• Food — Emma at Your Fonder Heart lets her seven month old teach her how to feed a baby.
• Kitchen Fun? — Adrienne at Mommying My Way questions how much fun she can have in a non-functional kitchen, while trying to remain positive about the blessings of cooking for her family.
• Kitchen Adventures — Erica at ChildOrganics shares fun ways to connect with your kids in the kitchen.
• Kids in the Kitchen: Finding the Right Tools — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings shares some of her favorite child-sized kitchen gadgets and where to find them.
• The Kitchen Classroom — Laura at Authentic Parenting knows that everything your kids want to learn is at the end of the ladle.
• Kids in the Kitchen — Luschka from Diary of a First Child talks about the role of the kitchen in family communication and shares fun kitchen activities for the under two.
• Our Kitchen is an Unschooling Classroom. — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle explores the many ways her kitchen has become a rich environment for learning.
• Montessori-Inspired Food Preparation for Preschoolers — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares lots of resources for using Montessori food preparation activities for young children in the kitchen.
• My Little Healthy Eater — Christine at African Babies Don’t Cry shares her research on what is the best first food for babies, and includes a healthy and yummy breakfast recipe.
• Two Boys and Papa in the Kitchen: Recipe for Disaster? — MudpieMama shares all about her fears, joys and discoveries when the boys and handsome hubby took over the kitchen.
• Food choices, Food treats — Henrietta at Angel Wings and Herb Tea shares her family’s relationship with food.
• learning to eat — Catherine at learner mummy reflects on little M’s first adventures with food.

• The Night My 7-Year-Old Made Dinner — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! shares how her 7-year-old daughter surprised everyone by turning what started as an idea to play restaurant into pulling off making supper for her family.
• Cooking With a High-Needs Toddler — Sylvia at MaMammalia describes how Montessori-inspired activities and a bit of acceptance have helped her overcome hurdles in cooking while caring for a “high-needs” child.
• Kids in the Kitchen – teaching healthy food choices — Brenna at Almost All The Truth shares her belief in the importance of getting kids into the kitchen using her favorite cookbook for kids to develop healthy food choices now and hopefully into the future.
• Make Milk, Not War — Tamara at Tea for Three remembers the daily food fights as she struggled to feed a picky eater.
• teaching baby birds about good food. — Sarah at Small Bird on Fire writes about the ways in which her family chooses to gently teach their son how to make wise food decisions.
• 5 Ways to Enhance Your Baby or Young Toddler’s Relationship with Food — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama shares simple ways to give your child a healthy beginning to her lifelong relationship with food.
• Toddler at the Table: 10 Creative Solutions — Moorea at Mamalady shares tips for preventing meal-time power struggles.
• How My Child Takes Responsibility During His Mealtime… — Jenny @ I’m a full-time mummy shares how she teaches and encourages her 32 months old son on adopting good manners and responsibilities during his mealtimes…
• Kids in the Kitchen: 6 Tips Plus a Recipe — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings shares six tips for overcoming some of the the difficulties of cooking with multiple young sous chefs, and a recipe they all can agree on!
• How BLW has made me a better parent — Zoe at Mummykins shares how baby-led weaning has changed her approach to parenting.
• My Budding Chef — Jenny at Chronicles of a Nursing Mom is no cook but is happy that her daughter has shown an inclination and manages to whip up yummy goodies for their family.
• Kids in the Kitchen: An Activity for Every Age — Gaby from Tmuffin describes how she keeps her kids busy in the kitchen, whether they are one week old or two years old.
• The Phantastically Mutlipurposed Phyllo — Ana at Pandamoly shares how Phyllo is used to create enticing dishes at home! Anything can be made into a Struedel!
• Kitchen Kids — Laura from A Pug in the Kitchen shares her children’s most favorite recipe to make, experience and eat.
• Independence vs. Connection in the Kitchen: won’t you please get yourself your own snack already? — Lisa at Organic Baby Atlanta wishes her daughter would just go make a mess in the kitchen. But her daughter only wants to do it together.
• Grandma Rose’s Kitchen — Abbie at Farmer’s Daughter reminisces about her childhood and dreams of filling her kitchen with people, love, noise, and messes.
• Healthy Food Choices for Kids — Jorje offers one way to encourage children to make their own healthy food choices at MommaJorje.com.
• Cooking food to thrive rather than survive — Phoebe at Little Tinker Tales is trying to foster a lifetime of good food habits by teaching her children about the importance of avoiding junk, cooking healthy meals, and learning about the whole food process.
• Evolution of a self-led eater — Sheila at A Gift Universe shares the story of how her son grew from nursing around the clock to eating everything in sight, without her having to push.
• 10 Ways Tiny Helps In The Kitchen — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama explores the ways in which her toddler actively participates in kitchen-related activities.
• The Complexity of Feeding a Child — Feeding children a healthy diet is no straight-forward task, but Lisa at My World Edenwild shares some general guidelines to help your child thrive.
• Lactation Cookies — That Mama Gretchen shares a fun recipe that will benefit both mamas and babies!
• 50 of the Best Books, Websites, & Resources to Inspire Kids in the Kitchen — Need inspiration to get your kids in the kitchen? Dionna at Code Name: Mama rounds up some of the best books and websites that can serve as a source for ideas, recipes, and cooking with littles fun.
• A 4-year-old’s smoothie recipe — Jen at Grow With Graces and her son set out to make a smoothie without the usual ingredients. She let him improvise. See how it turned out.
• Independent Food Preparation (My Toddler Can Do That?) — Megan at Montessori Moments shares simple ways for children to prepare their own healthy snacks.
• Follow Your Gut — Amy at Anktangle shares her philosophy about intuitive eating, and how she’s trying to foster her son’s trust in his own inner wisdom when he feels hungry.
• A TODDLER-STYLE LUNCH + RECIPE — Manic Mrs. Stone photographs how to have messy fun during lunchtime with a helpful toddler.

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.

It was a quietly successful day.

What does that mean?

I usually prefer to get up before everyone else so that I can have some quiet moments alone, even if it’s just to start the breakfast (which means start the broth and veggies cooking, and the eggs, and some kind of meat, and get out all the veggies for juicing). If I’m in the right head space, I’ll do some yoga or breathing before I hear any noise on the baby monitor. Things almost always go smoother on those days.

So it’s not my ideal choice to get up at 8:00 and come downstairs to see my son and husband eating non-soaked oatmeal and know that I still have to do everything to feed myself, and I haven’t gotten any solo time or laundry or email checking done yet.

But instead of grumbling about the loss of early morning, I stayed in bed nursing my congested baby and feeling warm and snuggly. I’d slept as soundly as one can when her daughter cries out for a breast and cries again after nursing before switching from near-wail to “hmph” to sleep. But I was still tired, and she was still tired, so I just stayed on my side until her whines turned to amused gurgles accompanied by bats at my nose.

Then I did all that kitchen stuff. Well, LJ made the eggs, but I fed them and everything else to the baby, started laundry and did a short yoga practice while everyone else ate. I got to actually read and digest after my own breakfast when they went out on some errands. The baby came home awake but fell asleep well, so, at 11:40 a.m. I finally took off my flannel pjs from a chilly night to head out into a now-toastier day for a short, gentle jog under cloudless skies. What a thrill to see the sun and feel its rays warm my skin.

Inside, though, sniffles abounded. The baby had woken and the boys didn’t look so great. The younger one wanted to go buy soccer ball. After some sitting on the front stoop and a fresh diaper, off they all went again. This time I had the luxury of putting away laundry while talking to my mom on the phone and making a little more progress in organizing the kitchen while they were gone and after they returned with a girl who didn’t fall asleep in the car.

She nursed, I read more of my novel. She snacked in her high chair, I folded cloth napkins. She needed to poop, I folded clothes.

Even though I’m not at the peak of physical fitness and wasn’t looking for more exercise, I still hadn’t changed clothes, so I put her in the stroller and headed out into the late afternoon sun to see if she’d snooze. She babbled the entire time.

Upon our return, I declared it time to clear out the garden. Our three tomato plants had taken it over in July and we gave up the fight. Until today, when we reclaimed it for some late attempts at seeding lettuce. We all pulled the vines until E wanted to kick his new soccer ball instead and the mosquitoes scared away his dad and sister.

Then the boys went out for tacos, and I had I think what was my first evening alone with my baby girl. She ate, I cleaned. I ate, she ate. I read, she played with her food. And ate some more.

Somehow, though we didn’t get to the beach, or to a pumpkin patch, or out camping or any of the other many things my son is always asking to do, and I didn’t get  hours of work done, he got his soccer ball, the car got an oil change, and our garden got a new start.

It felt like a good day.

It was a day when every hour looked like 5 p.m.

Grey. Rain. Then rainier, and windy.

My boys, on their way home through the hurricane. (Alternate title: A visual representation of the fog I've been feeling in my body and mind for weeks.)

So why am I feeling better than I’ve felt since, like, June?

One guess is the yoga. I did about 20 minutes alone upstairs in my bedroom this morning, after 5 minutes using the chi machine. Post-juice, pre-breakfast. And pre-arrival of babysitter who was to spend four glorious hours keeping the kids entertained. The wash of ooh-ah-um after even a short bridge pose is amazing. The high is so obvious when you don’t do it for a while.

Yes, yoga probably helped. But what else?

Last night and this morning I used some Bach flower essences. Olive for exhaustion. Scleranthus for indecision. Elm and something else for responsibility/burden and blaming self. Or maybe I chose the one on forgiveness.

Speaking of forgiveness, last night I brought up an unresolved hurt from last weekend with my husband. I wouldn’t say I have zero fear of the same kind of thing happening again that I initially got upset about, but I did feel reasonably heard. So that probably helped. As did some Tivo’d Saturday Night Live we watched after clearing the air. (Thanks, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph for the opening monologue/duet on the Mother’s Day episode).

Reading about letting go and being mindful in Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children and Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life has probably helped my mood (and my willingness to drop last weekend’s scuffle once I’d had the chance to shout about it).

Though I find myself often slightly annoyed at the authors of these books — with a crabby, “Yes, I already know that’s how I should be. But how? Map it out for me in my actual life!” –  I also notice that just the act of reading about Zen makes me breathe more slowly and deliberately. Chew more. Pause. All important things. All possibly due some credit when it comes to my improved mood and energy.

On a more physical level, some changes might finally be taking effect. It’s Saturday night, four days since I saw a chiropractor/healer who adjusted me, muscle-tested me, gave me two doses of homeopathic remedies and loaded me up with supplements. I had so much going on, I sucked up my daughter’s appointment too, taking almost two full hours of this doctor’s time!

My thyroid is low, and my cholesterol super high. My adrenals are a wreck. I’ve felt not just depressed but fatigued beyond my years since early July.  Some bodywork a few weeks ago might have helped, but I was banking on a visit to this healer to get me on the road to recovery. Some Standard Process supplements and others should help with my fat metabolism problem, which is probably the cause of my high cholesterol and thanks to  my thyroid disorder, which is probably exacerbated by my adrenal fatigue, which probably also messes with my digestion and means I’m not absorbing nutrients. I’ve got supplements for all those issues, at least for a short time until I round a corner. Maybe the new pills I’m popping — or the extra food-based B vitamin with dinner — are starting to take effect.

Just before the earthquake started, the doctor was muscle-testing me about sleep, coming up with the prescription for 8-10 hours and a bedtime as close to 9:00 as possible. The rumble of the ground, I believe, was the universe hearing the doctor’s pronouncement and pounding exclamation marks over and over like a teenage girl’s note about a crush.

Okay, I get it. I need to sleep.

One of the tidbits of wisdom in the Buddhism for Mothers book was a quote from someone else to the effect of: it’s not at the gas pump that you actually use gas. Right. Store up the good to use later, or pay for it if you run on empty. I believe I’m now — one year postpartum — feeling the effects of doing too much after A’s birth, not napping with her at all (like I did daily with my son back in the day), and having even more interrupted nights very early on postpartum (thanks to my champion newborn night pooper!).

No wonder my digestion got so wonky. No wonder my skin is scaly and red. No wonder I bruise if you breathe on me.

And now the hair shedding has begun. And my belly has the look of an ad with the headline “Is your thyroid making you fat?” And since July, it’s been all I can do to walk around the block by myself, or up the stairs carrying the baby. Whose body is this?

Today, it feels a little more like mine.

Maybe the fact that my house is finally getting back in order after a kitchen remodel has helped. I can see the floor of my office again. Drywall dust has been wiped off the dining room table. The kitchen is usable enough to go from clean to messy to clean again several times a day, just like normal (except with more room, and prettier!) I got to inhabit my home all alone for a short time today, and it’s so much prettier and happier. Me too.

As Hurricane Irene pounds the coast and darkens our skies, there was nowhere to go this afternoon. Nothing to do, so we moved the couch and did yoga together. It was one of the rare times I’ve looked around and though simply, without any qualifiers, “This is my life.” And I smiled.

After my husband checked the gutters, we all went for a walk in the pouring rain, happy in hats and summer heat. Soaked enough to peel off everything upon our return. I washed my hair for possibly the first time this week.

Power may be lost soon, but for now we all have bellies full of delicious roasted chicken. Pathways have opened in my home.

Thanks be to my babysitter, who took kids outside before the rains came and to a rec center after they descended.

Thanks also to my husband for earning the money to build a kitchen I can love.  And to my doctor and everyone whose skill and hands have helped my weary bones.

Thanks to wise mama writers and wise-cracking mom actors for reminding me to smile.

And thanks to the threat of natural disasters for helping me see clearer priorities, for shining light on this darkest of summer days.

May the world look familiar tomorrow.

The sunflower that wasn't eaten by deer. Just appeared this week. Maybe I should give it some credit for the sun in my heart.

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!