I'm going to do what now?!?!?!?

Some of us moms from our local homeschooling group are putting together co-op classes. Parents and/or kids will teach classes that other kids and/or parents can take. I am very jazzed about this idea. It is the sort of thing that has rattled around in my head, but I've always put off thinking about until the kids were older. But now here it is, and someone else is taking on most of the responsibility!

I have signed up to "facilitate" (that's "teach" in the vernacular) sixteen classes! These are one-time classes, not weekly meetings, so that isn't as busy as it sounds. Mostly I am sticking with the preschool set, as that is what I am used to with my own kids, but I am venturing into the older kids territory for a couple of classes. Let's see, I'm teaching cooking, yoga, beading, painting, theater, bug hunting, closed-form poetry, and a whole bunch more!

It is, I have to admit, very exciting, but also more than a little terrifying! What do I know about teaching (or facilitating) a group of little kids to do anything? I can barely get my two little ones to do anything! I am a shy, mousy little person! I am not someone who teaches yoga classes to preschoolers! Speaking of yoga, perhaps it is time to take a deep, cleansing breath! Ahhhhhhhhhh.

So here is the plan. I am going to do a lot of planning. I am going to have a very clear idea of what should happen in the classroom. But, I still want to be flexible. Kids are great at throwing surprises your way! I am going to have to rehearse acting like a confident "good" teacher-type person. It is sort of like pretending to be someone I'm not, but not exactly. I will actually be pretending to be someone I'm not-very-often.

Wish me luck!

Solitude

You hear a lot about how much stay-at-home moms miss the adult interaction of the workplace. I don't. Or very rarely, anyway. Mostly what I miss is solitude.

My last job before I became a mama was very close to the perfect job for me. I had a cubicle. Two computers. A phone (could have happily done without the phone). A window with a pleasant view. In a given week I interacted with lots of folks. I was in meetings, went to lunch with my fellow analysts, met with project managers and various other people.

But, it was very common for me to have days where I would come in, sit down in my cubicle, and not speak to another soul for eight hours. Those were ususally days when I was completely immersed in solving some tricky problem. Too immersed to wander over to the break room for a soda and a chat. That uninterrupted focus just isn't possible these days. Hell, I'm lucky if I can remember why I am walking across the room. I'm certain that every other parent on the planet understands what I mean.

Yesterday I was missing my solitude more than usual. It made me want to draw into my own head and away from Katie and Tom. When that happens they feel it and respond by fighting with each other, making more noise than usual, and generally getting into more trouble than usual. Basically they try anything to get my focus back on them. At the same time, spending the day all up in my own head left me feeling adrift, disconnected from the world around me, and especially from my family. I don't like that feeling.

Today I plugged back in. I made an effort to be more present, more in tune. It was a pretty good day. I was happier. The kids were happier. It seems to be a lesson I need to learn over and over.

I do miss my solitude. Not so much that I would trade what I have, though. And, I suppose I shall have solitude again one day. When the kids are grown, I may have more solitude than I want.

Hobbits Don't Juggle

Tom is stuffing beanbags into his rollerskates. He is doing this so the beanbags can be the fur on top of his Hobbit-feet. He is making a Pippin costume. Or maybe Merry. He looks up at me and says in a very matter-of-fact tone, "There were no beanbags in Middle Earth."

"No?" I ask.

"No, because Hobbits don't juggle." Pause. "Neither Gandalf."

Hmm. How does he know?

Yesterday was a bad day

The day started with Tom getting stung by a wasp. On the lip. He was standing on the crossbar of the swingset and talking into the pipe that runs across the top. Turns out there is a wasps' nest in there. He didn't even know what had happened. Neither did I for the longest time. He started crying and trying to climb down from his perch. I could tell from his tears that he was really hurt, and I assumed he had hit his mouth on the pipe. When I examined his face, I fully expected to see a missing tooth, or at the very least, lots of blood. But there was nothing but a little red spot just under his lower lip. I asked if he bumped his mouth. No. Did he bite his lip? No. What happened? I don't know! After a minute or so his lip started to swell like you wouldn't believe. It just blew up like a balloon! Who knew skin can stretch so far. That's when I realized he must have been stung by something. Luckily it only took half an hour for the swelling to go back down. Some Tylenol and he was pretty much over it.

The rest of the day was not nearly so dramatic. The biggest problem was that the kids were being wild and uncontrollable . . . well . . . brats! They would not cooperate with anything I wanted them to do. They were constantly making as much noise as they could, and fighting with each other. To make matters worse, I agreed to let the neighbor-girl come over. Not a good plan on a bad day. She read Katie's diary, which upset Katie no end. The diary has been violated and isn't really a diary anymore and now she needs a new one. She tore pages out of Tom's beloved notepad. Mind you, the notepad was not beloved until after the desecration occurred. Still, not the best playdate.

As suppertime approached the day took a turn for the worse. We had plans to go out to eat. The kids had some free meal coupons they got from the library, and with Matt out of town, I thought we could redeem a couple of those and only have to buy one adult meal (what a cheapskate I've become). As I was trying to get the kids ready to go, I realized that I was asking for a meal from hell to take these guys into a restaurant. I threatened that if they didn't calm down we wouldn't go. Tom answered my threat by kicking Katie in the head. I had no choice but to cancel the outing. Everyone (Mama too) was bummed.

Then I realized that we were out of cat food, and so we had to go to the grocery store or our cat would turn ugly and start stalking us for his supper (he is very food-oriented). It was, like 95 degrees out. Everyone was feeling miserable. No one wanted to go. But cat food wasn't all we were out of We went. To Aldi.

At Aldi you have to be with it. You have to be prepared. You have to have a quarter to get a cart. I didn't have one. We went inside and got change. Back outside to get the cart. Back inside. We got about three steps into the store when Tom announced he had to potty. We worked our way through the maze of the store to the restrooms. Then back through the maze to the cart. Then I realized that I did not have my list. Nor did I have much money. At Aldi you pay with cash or a debit card. We have a debit card. Somewhere. I think. So, not only did I not know what exactly I needed to buy, but I knew I couldn't buy very much of it.

As I was realizing that I really wasn't prepared to be in Aldi, Tom started pulling crackers off the shelf, while Katie was singing at the top of her lungs. Then it struck me. All day I had been the victim of my own bad parenting. Through sheer laziness I had drifted into a pattern that goes a little like this: Kid misbehaves. "Please don't do that" Kid does it again. "Hey, I said stop that." Again. "I mean it now. Stop." Once more. "Do you hear me? Don't do that!" Ten more times. "That's it! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! (long tirade) You sit in the chair right now!" This happens to me when my attention isn't really on the children and the whole interaction is almost below the conscious level until I am really steamed and yelling.

Feeling like someone turned the lights on in my head, I made a choice, right there in Aldi to grow up, calm down and take control. Can't you just hear the inspirational music swelling in the background? Acting up meant time in the cart (my kids hate to be confined in the cart when we are somewhere as exciting as the grocery store). No second chances! I know. It sounds harsh. Cruel, perhaps. But everyone was cheerfully getting along by the time we paid.

Then we drove home and ate cereal for supper. Cereal because the kids wanted to make their own supper. It was the best cereal I've ever eaten.

Learning from my mistakes

Is it Thursday? Let's call this a 13 for Thursday, then.

Thirteen garden lessons I must not forget:
1. Keep the garden small - every square inch you till is a square inch that needs to be weeded
2. Water every day - our soil is mostly sand and it is impossible to overdo it - very possible to underdo it
3. Pull weeds when they are tiny and every day if possible. As Shakespeare put it, "Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste."
4. Trellis everything that sprawls (item #1)
5. Inspect plants regularly for pests - check the internet to identify unknown insects.
6. When a pest is discovered, kill it - squishing with the thumb and forefinger works well.
7. Mulch is not essential after all, but it is very helpful.
8. Don't put out dry straw (at $4.50 a bale) on the garden on a windy day - better to use half-rotted, wet straw
9. Sink a fence around the garden for gophers (or are they moles) to bump their little pointy heads on before they eat the roots out from under everything
10. Don't expect the kids to want to help. At least not for more than 30 seconds.
11. Do expect the kids to help when they can do the most damage. Make sure the hose is not on full blast when the kids are around the tiny, tender seedlings.
12. Only grow what everyone wants to eat, not what you know you can grow easily - nothing like an unwanted harvest of turnips (although we did discover a fondness for turnip greens in salads).
13. If I don't want Matt to mow it down, it must be surrounded by bricks or cinder blocks or paving stones or something.

Gardening is also hard, damnit!

I like to garden. It is something I enjoy doing and wish I had more time (and money) for. I like getting my hands in the dirt. Digging. Planting little seeds. Pulling weeds. I LOVE pulling weeds.

Let me clarify here. I do not love being out in the heat with the sun beating down on the back of my neck while I tackle a vegetable bed that is really just a mass of overgrown weeds. That sucks. What I love is sitting on my knees next to the garden on a cool morning, listening to the birds sing and feeling the breeze on my skin. I love to examine the garden closely to see each of the tiny little weeds that have just started to grow, then plucking each one out of the dirt. There is something very satisfying about feeling that little root release from the dirt and come up out of the ground.

I have to admit, though, that I'm not a very good gardener. When I get busy going places with the kids, days go by without a visit to the garden. And I do stupid stuff. I noticed insect eggs on my pumpkin leaves and did nothing except admire them (they were an amazing vivid red). I trellised watermelons this year (small ones). I knew I needed to support the developing fruit in mesh bags, but put it off until my prize melon was just big enough to bring a whole vine crashing down.

I tell myself that the way I will become good at gardening is to keep doing it year after year, and try to learn from my many mistakes. It is hard, though. Back when I was a student and back when I was working, I was always good at what I did. I made mistakes, but not too many (although I did agonize over every one). To put it another way, I have a long history of avoiding things that don't come easy to me. Anything I struggled with was discarded (like my short-lived career as a hairstylist).

My first real break with that pattern was to become a mother. Suddenly I did not feel competent at what I was doing. And just when I would start to get into the swing of things my kids would grow and change and leave me at the bottom of the learning curve again. I still struggle with feeling like I'm not good enough at the mama-gig. Like I should handle a day with preschoolers as handily as I handled a busy pharmacy or a bunch of broken SAS code.

And now I am branching out into new interests. Gardening. Arts. Crafts. Writing. Home improvement. All things I want to do and do well, but none that I have a natural flair for. I have gone from being very good at one or two things, to being not great at many different things. I think this is better.