Letter from Lucas’s teachers:

We are enjoying the rainy weather, thanks to our waterproof gear. Inside we are learning to sew, finger knit, knead our bread and chop the vegetables for our Friday soup. Many boats are being created for the “Little Ones” to go on an adventures. The children have grown kinder and gentler with one another and everyone has become friends.

 Soon it will be Valentine’s Day. There is no need for you and your child to make 24 Valentines for the other children. I have found this can be overwhelming. Instead we will be making Valentines for you at school, having fun while practicing our cutting and gluing.

 Our school auction is on Saturday, March 15. This is a lively event with many treasures to be purchased to help support our school. You are invited to a delicious dinner, a silent auction and a live auction. There is also an opportunity to attend as a volunteer. Each class gives a gift and our kindergarten has traditionally given a set of puppets. We decided to make a countryside set with a farmer, his wife, children, animals, etc. Please join us on February 6 and 13 for an evening of conversation, sewing and fun.  We will gather all the supplies, This is an opportunity to learn to sew, and to make a puppet which each of the older children in the kindergarten will be making after the spring break. We are asking for a $5.00 donation for the supplies. This can be put in the envelope on the shelf by the classroom door. We use the lids of frozen juice or spaghetti sauce for the bottoms of the puppets so if you have any of these we would appreciate it.

I remembered some more stuff I want to say about Asher and who he is right now.

The pottying thing (EC) has suffered a lot since Asher learned to crawl. It is MUCH harder to guage when he needs to pee now, and he is so busy exploring the house and everything in it he doesn’t really signal that he has to go. So we have had a lot more diapers to wash since about mid November than we had for the 5 months prior to that. That nifty thing he used to do—waking me up in the night to tell me he had to pee—doesn’t happen anymore. Now he wakes up once or twice a night to complain because he has peed and he’s uncomfortable. Still, we manage to get him to the potty in time sometimes, which makes me happy because I just want him to be used to going there. It may be time to consult the book again in search of more EC tips.

Self-feeding is pretty cool! Asher got really picky over the last few days, refusing to eat even the mushy foods that he has always enjoyed. It appears that he would like to do more self-feeding, so I’m trying to figure out little, soft foods that he can pick up and eat. He doesn’t have many teeth (no molars at all), so it has to be food that he can mash. The bananas aren’t recognized as food by him, although they’re great for squishing in his hands. Other no-gos include: tofu most of the time, corn kernels, and steamed apples. The cheese tortellini cut in half and covered in pesto sauce have been a hit, though (see today's other post). At Christmas dinner, he loved the mashed potatoes. 

Asher now claps his hands when he is happy, especially if we say “Yay!” and clap about something he has done, like signing appropriately. His little chubby face lights up when he claps. It’s gorgeous. It’s clear that he understands many words that we say. 

It’s completely adorable when Asher crawls into the bathroom while Lucas is in the tub. Asher pulls himself up against the side of the bathtub to peer in and watch Lucas. So far, they get along beautifully, except when Asher knocks down Lucas’s block cities. I have to remind Lucas not to yell at his little brother. Asher laughs and laughs at Lucas’s weird antics and funny voices. Lately, Lucas has been playing chipmunks. (My parents let Lucas watch a few Chip and Dale cartoons, and ever since, he’s been fascinated with the stories.) Anyway, Lucas is Chip and Asher is Dale. Lucas talks in a thoroughly obnoxious, high, squeaky voice and Asher eats it up.

When Asher gets really excited and he’s sitting on the ground, he starts bouncing. He can actually travel forward by bouncing on his bottom! I suppose this is the natural evolution of the arm flapping that he used to do when he was younger.

Tomorrow, Asher and I start attending a Mommy and Baby class that will be held one morning a week at Lucas’s Waldorf school. It’s not because Asher needs to go to school to learn how to be a baby. And I don’t need classes on how to be a mommy (maybe I could use classes on how to be a better mommy). But it sounds like it will be fun and we’ll get to socialize with others. The teacher asked me on the phone why I want to come to the class. I told her it was because I need to learn some new songs. I’m sick to death of the songs that I know and I’d like to learn new ones to sing to my kids. I don’t sight read music all that well: I have to hear it first. She thought that was funny.

Last year, I managed to throw together a tiny Solstice celebration. At the last minute, I invited Theresa and Greg and Phoebe over for dinner. I decorated the table with a gold lamé and served only yellow foods (butternut squash soup, oranges, summer squashes cut into disks and sautéed, chicken with a lemon sauce, sparkling cider, and probably other stuff I don’t remember). We had a lovely, silly time, subtly worshipping the sun and its return.

Today I don’t have any such thing planned, but maybe I’ll go to the grocery store for some oranges or something.

Over the course of this month, we’ve been observing Advent, à la Waldorf schools and Anthroposophists rather than Catholics/Christians. The difference is slight, however. We have an Advent Wreath (a real evergreen wreath) and in the center we placed a Celtic-style candleholder that was a gift from Flonkbob (and Chilipantz?) many years ago. Although the candleholder is not a ring, per se, it features three outer candles with a place for one elevated candle in the center. It’s beautiful and works nicely as the symbolic equivalent of the four weeks leading up to Solstice/Christmas, with the fourth being the prominent one signifying the birth of the Sun/Christ. (The Advent wreath we had when I was growing up was a ring, but in the Catholic tradition, we used 3 purple candles and 1 pink candle signifying the climax. Pink/purple are the traditional colors of Advent in the church.) This year, I’ve stuffed it with golden beeswax candles made by lovely dakini_grl.

Each night, we’ve been reciting the following poem, which I believe is traditional for the Anthroposophists:

The first light of Advent,
It is the light of Stones,
Stones that live in crystals, seashells,
And our bones.

The second light of Advent
It is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun,
And in the breezes dance.

The third light of Advent,
It is the light of Beasts,
The light of hope that we may see
In greatest and in least

The fourth light of Advent,
It is the light of man,
The light of love, the light of thought,
To give and understand.

I like this verse because it’s earth- and human-centered. It’s pagan-sounding to me. But that pagan stuff isn’t quite so important to me as it used to be. I’ve become like Joseph Campbell in my old age. I’ve been meditating on the meaning of Christmas to me and how well I see the lines that connect this holiday with other, older holidays. My need to step apart and define myself as a pagan, as something entirely other than a Christian, is much diminished. I’m finding that this is making me really happy, and is allowing me to enjoy all the religiosity of the season more. Somehow there’s less of a reason to be uptight.

ASIDE:
At one point last year sometime, Ian’s mother expressed concern that Lucas must be educated about the Christian faith so that he can live in our God-fearing, Christian society.  I hardly fear that Lucas will somehow escape learning a basic knowledge of Christianity, just because we don’t define ourselves as Christians. She worried because we were attending the Unitarian Universalist Society services: “Do they even talk about Christ?!”

Anyway, we have been singing the Advent song that mentions the Christ child along with our candle-lighting ritual. Lucas’s face always lights up when we sing “Then comes the Christ child at the door.” I think that he is really captivated by the image of a child being the inspiration of the season.

The other morning, all by myself, I sat down on the couch in my living room with some Christmas carol sheet music and sang my wondering Christian heart out.