Transitions are Hard

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how Joshua started school and how it wasn't too hard on him or me. After that first day, though, I went through a little bit of a depression.  This month, Joshua seems to be growing up all at once – switching to a regular bed, dropping a nap on most days, starting school, turning 3, and starting to potty train with more intensity.  I’m grateful for how well all of this has gone (with the exception of potty training, which is going to be a slow process).  But it’s also making me feel a little sad, lonely, useless, and off-kilter.  Lonely because I like having Joshua around – he brings a real sense of life and joy to the household, and it’s so quiet when he’s not around.  Sad because I know as life goes on, he will become increasingly independent – spending more time at school and with friends, needing and wanting my help and attention less, etc.  I need to remember that this is a GOOD thing for at least two reasons:  1)  It’s a great blessing that Joshua is moving towards independence; and 2)  As the kids grow up, it means I get back some of my own independence, which I can use for other things – getting back to work, giving more attention to Kenny, having quiet times, exercising, doing service work, etc.  But you spend those first three years adjusting to the fact that your baby is utterly dependent on you at all hours of the day for his most basic needs – and then just as you’ve adjusted to that reality, it starts to go away.  Joshua is still needy most hours of the day, but now his teachers are giving him the help he needs 15 hours a week.  They are providing a lot of the therapy and language work he needs, the social interaction, at least one of his snacks, and some of the encouragement and love.  Of course they can’t replace his family and home life, but they’ve got a big chunk of his time and attention now, and it can be hard to share.  (There's also the issue, underlined by the sad news of the school shooting in Sparks this week, that when he's out of my physical care, I can't physically protect him.  Of course that day has to come eventually, but it's hard to physically hand him over to someone else when he's only three years old.) 

I was feeling off-kilter because I always have a hard time with transitions, and this is a big one in the life of a stay at home mom.  The last 3 years, and particularly the last year, I’ve gotten used to filling every minute from 6 am to 8 pm with tasks.  If there’s a spare minute, I spend it on Facebook, but that’s usually while also keeping one eye on the kids or trying to grab a meal or singing Wheels on the Bus.  Now, all of a sudden, I've got some quiet time in my week.  It’s hard to remember how to slow down and use the quiet well.  There are all sorts of things I would like to be doing more of:  reading the Bible and praying; exercising; keeping a cleaner house; reading and writing.  I just need to figure out how to integrate them more smoothly into the daily routine.  One thing that makes this tricky is that the quiet time I’m referring to is when Zoey lays down for a nap while Joshua is at preschool.  This doesn’t happen every day, and someday soon she’s going to switch to an afternoon nap only, so I’m hesitant to grow reliant on quiet time in the morning when it’s soon going to disappear.  I feel a little weird feeling “useless” when I’m still caring for Zoey around the clock, but the truth is that it’s much easier than it was caring for Joshua at her age (because no therapy appts or developmental stuff to work on or meds / tube feeds to administer) and it’s also much easier than caring for both kids at once.  So even when she’s awake and we’re hanging out together, it feels less purposeful because it’s not like there’s a bunch of specific goals and objectives I need to accomplish with Zoey, nor are there a million tasks to get done in between making sure she and Joshua don’t hurt themselves or each other.  I need to learn to just enjoy Zoey without also trying to accomplish a to-do list of tasks as if she is a project to be worked on.  

I think I also feel sad because Zoey is possibly our last kid.  That means that my time with the kids at home is drawing to a close.  Not in the next five minutes or anything – probably not even in the next three or four years – but it’s on the horizon now.  There are many things about this phase that are hard work and drudgery, but there are also things about it that are unbelievably sweet, and it’s sad to think that might be drawing to a close forever.  (Not to be overly dramatic – Kenny and I both agree that the kids get more and more enjoyable as they get older.  The best is yet to come, as they say.)  

The good news is that after a week, I was able to snap out of my funk.  (It helped that the week long monsoon that coincided with Joshua's first week of school finally stopped.)  I'm learning to enjoy my quiet alone time and my one-on-one time with Zoey.  The other thing that helps enormously is that Joshua seems to love school.  He's only attended for two weeks and we can already see a big difference in his speech.  He enjoys playing basketball in the school gym and doing arts and crafts projects (something this mama is NOT good at facilitating at home) and he's made some friends.  I really like both of his teachers and I think it's a very good situation.  So things are looking up!  I just wanted to share my feelings because I know many of you have sent kids off to school, or will soon be doing so, and can probably relate.

Pumpkin and White Bean Soup Recipe

Taken (and slightly adapted) from the New England Soup Factory Cookbook:

Ingredients:
1 big can of pureed pumpkin (or 2.5 pounds fresh pumpkin, cubed and roasted)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tspn black pepper
4 Tblspns. butter
4 whole cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 ribs celery, diced
5 carrots, peeled and sliced
10 cups chicken stock
1/2 tspn sage
1/2 tspn nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups cannellini beans
1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves, for garnish

Directions:
Melt the butter in a stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add garlic, onion, celery, and carrots.  Saute for 10 minutes.  Add pumpkin, stock, sage, and nutmeg.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pot, and simmer for 35 minutes.  Remove from the heat and add the brown sugar and cheese.  (Optional:  puree the soup in the pot at this point.  I don't puree because I like my soup chunkier.)  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the cannellini beans.  Stir well.  Serve with basil leaves.

First Day of School

Joshua had his first day of school today.  We've been doing meetings and evaluations and paperwork in preparation for school since April, but I'm still kind of in shock now that the day has arrived.  He's attending a developmental preschool, which meets 5 days a week for 3 hours a day.  It's a language intensive program and his only significant developmental delay is speech, so we are hoping that this will be a good fit and a positive experience for him.

Developmental preschool is offered through the public school system, so this meant that drop off was at the local elementary school.  I had pictured this very emotional scene - both Joshua and I in tears, not quite ready to take this big step - but the reality was (fortunately) very different.  His classroom is all the way at the end of the hall, so we navigated our little crew (me, Josh, and Zoey in the stroller) through the crowd of kids unloading off the buses and teachers directing them to the appropriate classrooms.  When we got to the right class, Josh had a brief moment of hesitation, but his teacher took his hand and showed him where to put his backpack and lunchbox, and that was enough distraction to avoid any tears.

I was feeling a little sad as we said our goodbye, but kept it together as we had to walk back through the long hall of teachers and kids, then had to meet with the school nurse to talk about G-button issues.  While we were meeting with the nurse, they did the morning announcements, which included the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, and a moment of silence.  My mind wandered back to my Constitutional Law class and the lawsuits that have been filed about what those two minutes (of pledge / anthem / moment of silence) should be like and whether they should happen at all.  During the Pledge and national anthem, the nurse stood up and I followed her lead, but neither of us said anything and it was all pretty awkward.  Then the announcer moved on to the school menu, and we continued with our meeting.

I have heard from fellow parents of children with feeding tubes that school districts tend to be overzealous or underzealous when it comes to dealing with feeding tubes.  Our school district is definitely of the more low key variety.  I had to sign 3 forms during school registration in case Joshua gets photographed or filmed, but zero forms in regard to his feeding tube.  We wrote a medical plan in case the tube comes out and included it in the IEP, but that was only because I requested it.  They let me bring a spare G-button and replacement materials to the school, but again, this was only because I requested it.  It's nice that there's not a bunch of loopholes to jump through, but I'm kind of amazed that they don't have a more formalized system in place, as there must be other kids in the school district who have a G-button.

We picked Joshua up around lunch time and his teachers reported that he did great.  It will be interesting to see how he does at drop off tomorrow, now that he knows what this whole school thing is all about, and I don't think we'll have a true sense of how he likes it and what an average school day is like for him until we have completed a full week or two.  But we both made it through the first day, so cheers to that!

I have been very anxious leading up to this day, but I'm feeling a lot better now that school is actually underway.  It's nice to have a few quiet hours in the morning and a chance to give Zoey some one-on-one attention.  It's bittersweet to watch Joshua take the first small step towards independence, but I'm relieved that he handled it well and incredibly grateful that he's doing so well overall.