My fingers are crossed. We have chosen a new preschool for Lucas and he’s scheduled to start on Tuesday of this week. This one’s called Hidden Treasure and it’s the one farthest from our house, in Carmichael. Miss Jennifer will be his teacher. It’s another in-home program and Lucas will be her eighth child.

I must admit, I’m torn between raving about how cool this new school and teacher seem, and being cynical. Once bit, twice shy. Twice bit, three times bitter and untrusting.

OK, for all our sake’s, I’ll look on the bright side and rave a bit.

Jennifer has a huge, beautiful yard in Carmichael. She has three children, two of whom go to the Waldorf school. The youngest is home with her preschool group. The children and Miss Jennifer all spend the majority of their time outside in the yard. They garden, dig in the sand, and walk on a balance beam made out of a springy 2×12. She has a walk-in rabbit hutch with eight bunnies, some of which are really friendly and let the children play with and pet them. The kids have a small water fountain to splash in.

The inside of Jennifer’s home is lovely too, although there’s far more space outside than inside. She has beautiful, hand-made toys. She and the children have baking day, soup day, art day, and gardening day. They go on long walks to Ancil Hoffman park, which is just down the street.

When we visited, Lucas managed to play with just about everything. He spent his time exploring all that the place had to offer, especially the rope swing outside and the balance beam.

Today at 3:30, Jennifer is going to come over so we can do the paperwork and so she can be with Lucas in his own home. I think the theory is that it will put him at ease to get to know her a little better in his own home territory. For some reason I cannot explain, I’m really nervous about my house and whether we will measure up as a proper Waldorfian family. (I’d better go clean something.)

At lunch time today, we told Lucas he will be going to Miss Jennifer’s school. He didn’t say much, but neither did he scream and cry. We told him that the change has to happen because of grown-up reasons and that it’s not his fault and he’s not being punished. He’ll make lots of new friends and get to play with the bunnies and walk (and jump off) the balance beam.

Like I said, I’m holding my breath and crossing my fingers.

This happened a few days ago. It was evening and we offered Lucas a choice between taking a bath or having a shower with mama. He chose the shower. We were stripping down and I gave him one of those delicious, naked skin hugs and covered his face with kisses. He laughed and I called him my baby son. I set him down to stand on the bathroom floor facing me. Lucas smiled and put his arms straight out to his sides with his fingers spread. He smiled and rocked straight-legged from one foot to the other.

“I’m a baby sun shining in the sky!” he said, and my heart melted.

“You’re the mommy sun,” he said. I called for Ian so he could hear and see how cute Lucas was.

“Is daddy the daddy sun?” I asked.

“No, daddy is the little dark rain cloud. I’m going to chase him away.”

It’s probably pretentious to quote myself, but of all the things I said aloud today, this is my favorite:

Don’t put your penis inside the pretzel.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Scaling back. Getting my life in order. Doing what really matters. Quality time.

When I first quit my job in 2003, I thought I’d freelance and earn a proper living doing it. I knew it was the right thing to do for my son, who was a little over a year old then.

I thought I’d would be able to take him to the park, have picnic lunches in the back yard, keep him on a reasonable sleep/wake schedule, have time for myself to read, work-out, be happy. I fantasized about writing–maybe knocking out that novel that’s been running around in the back of my head. I had plans to take some art classes at the junior college. I fantasized about having a clean house. Sure, it would probably still have kid clutter everywhere, but grime and dust would no longer muck up my home, I reasoned.

So, how am I doing?
Well some of what I thought would happen did happen. I did spread out the picnic blanket on the lawn a few times. I’ve been here for my son … well, way more than I would have been if I were still working 50 hours per week in Roseville. I’m (theoretically) able to put him in the kind of day care that I approve of.

The flip side: I work nearly every night, often till 11 or 12. I ignore my husband when I have a deadline. I “scale back” and sacrifice order in my home for my clients and this place starts looking like a bomb went off in here. When I’m on my computer, Lucas sometimes plays nicely and sometimes runs completely amok. Yesterday I found him with marker pen all up and down his left arm and both sides of his hand because I was on the phone doing corrections with an author and designer. The day before, he ate who knows how much play dough when I wasn’t looking.

It’s probably the time of year—or it’s partly the time of year—But I’m feeling pretty beat down. I have a project that won’t die. I have a project that’s going to be late because of the project that won’t die. I’m pretty much ignoring both Lucas and Ian. I shove my kid out the door everyday and hope for the best. (At least he’s with friends today.)

I’m just plain tired. And I’ve even turned down something like 5 projects in the last two weeks. I just can’t manage any more.

So, do I have any time for myself? No, not a drop. Not a whit. I’m doing great on days when I get to shower. I’m off my eating plan because I don’t have time to go to the grocery store. I haven’t exercised in months and months. I don’t read. I’m stealing time just to write this complaint right now.

So does anybody who (amazingly) has managed to read this far know of a housekeeper who might clean out a mucky fridge?

Today is my wonderful husband’s birthday. We met … 19 years ago. He says he fell in love with me when we first met. What I can say for sure is that I have never once regretted marrying him. He is my match, my partner, and my best friend.

Happy Birthday, Lover.

I’m sure there’s more of this type of thing coming: Fantasy vs. Reality. And sometimes it’s really tough to know how to respond. I want to banish Lucas’s fears and find myself telling him that certain things aren’t real: “Monsters aren’t real, so if you see a monster and it is bothering you, you can just tell him ‘Go away monster. You’re not real.'”

On the other hand, I don’t want to strip the otherworld away from him too soon, and leave him bereft of all the joy and creativity and peace and play it can offer. In Waldorf education, children are encouraged to believe in faeries, gnomes, nature spirits, etcetera, because it’s important to cultivate and validate the imagination. It’s thought that children come from this spirit world to the earth to live among humans and learn new things, and that it takes many years (7?) for the child’s spirit to incarnate fully. The early years are lived with one foot in heaven and one foot on earth. From what I’ve seen and experienced in Lucas’s life, I think I believe it.

Soooo, cute and happy creatures, noble and benevolent spirits are real. Mean, scary, and wicked things are not real. Hmm…

… Somehow, this feels like a lie. There is plenty of wickedness in the world. Monsters are real, and somehow we have to keep them away from our son, and teach him to recognize and discriminate between good and bad, helpful and harmful, loving and hating.

I guess I will do my best to tackle one monster at a time, and frequently invite the faeries to tea.

So, today, Lucas talked rather extensively about poop and dying. I understand that poop is a naturally fascinating subject for someone who has only recently mastered the toilet. Hearing him talk about dying and what happens when people die kind of threw me a little.

“What does ‘die’ mean?”
“Well… when a person’s body is too tired to live anymore, the body goes to sleep forever.”
“Do people who die zoom away?”
“Yes, I suppose they do. When the body goes to sleep, the spirit of the person lives on. Some people think the spirit goes up into the sky. I think the spirit of the person goes out of the body and goes into all the living things in the world.”

….later in the day….in a parking lot….

“Mom, is that girl dead?”
“What girl?”
“There,” pointing.
I looked around and didn’t see any girl.
“Where? I don’t see her.”
“Right there. I see her.”
“Oh….Um, I don’t know son.”

OK. I did not give that letter in my last entry to Keiko. I don’t know if I will. I wrote it when I was angry and wanted her to know it. But I don’t really know how much I want to punish her. I do and I don’t. Perhaps my higher self is tempering my anger now. I have not cried about it today. Yesterday I cried quite a lot.

Lucas knows nothing about the change. We are talking with other preschools and providers this week. Hopefully we will find a solution, and soon.

The weird and ironic part about all this is that Keiko thinks bad things are happening in her family because she said something “mean in a bad-energy tone” about our last teacher—to us. It happened when we were discussing the closure of our last school, and how little notice we received, how upsetting it was, and how we were looking for a reliable situation. What Keiko said was by my standards not mean, but honest. Yet she is blaming all of this on her one misstep.

Well, I can hardly believe this as I write it: Preschool number 2 has closed. That’s two in three weeks. That’s after Lucas has made new friends, after I came to believe that it would all work out.

Letter to Ex-Teacher #2:
Ex-Teacher #2,

We are very upset to hear your news. We chose your school in part because we felt you offered a stable, loving home-environment for our son, Lucas. I believe we have talked rather extensively about how he is still grieving over the closure of his last preschool, Little Gate Nursery School. He misses his old teacher every day.

And although we have assured Lucas repeatedly that his new preschool, Treasure Garden, is wonderful and that he will attend your school this whole year, we find ourselves in the sad position of having lied to him. I am disappointed to have provided him only a temporary “home” at Treasure Garden. I believe he is just beginning to settle into the new place and new routine.

I am upset that Lucas will not be able to enjoy a stable environment there and will have to face another transition and learn to trust a new teacher. He’s had enough upheaval for this short period of time, and we are eager to put an end to it.

I’m sure you understand that we will be withdrawing Lucas as soon as we have found a new school for him to attend, which we hope will be sometime before the end of October. I don’t like the idea of him getting more and more attached to you, Treasure Garden, and to the other children, only to have to say goodbye in the end anyway.

We will expect you to return any unused portions of our prepaid tuition and materials fee when we withdraw Lucas. We will need that money for our next school. We think this is fair, since we were mistakenly led to believe that your school would be a permanent, year-long situation.

I am sympathetic toward your mother’s condition, your father’s health, and the temporary splitting up of your family when you move to Japan. I’m sure that this is an awful position to be in, and this will be a difficult upheaval for your family as well.

However, we feel that the contract you had us sign was not written in good faith.

Sincerely,

Sara E. Wilson
Ian G. Wilson

Lucas is jumping on the bed in my office and dancing to Ian’s music–Ian’s playing a toy ukelele … badly. He’s singing about what’s for dinner and what happened at preschool today and making up lyics about the train museum and Lucas to the tune of “Stairway to Heaven.”

I love my life.