Transitions

Sorry for the hiatus, but resuming work has been a bit of a transition. I think I have the kinks worked out now, at least for the next couple of weeks, after which I'll have another transition as I return to the office.

The first week back was pretty rough, but not for the reasons I expected. Dean and Matthew handled being on their own just fine, and being able to nurse him throughout the day really made me feel connected. It was the actual WORK that was tough -- within an hour of starting work, I had three projects from three different bosses and everyone needed everything ASAP. With only six scheduled working hours a day on my proposed new part-time gig, I was really under the gun. I ended up having a migraine for three days in a row. Once I got everything done, however, things slowed down, and this last week was a more typical, manageable pace.

The other thing that made last week difficult was that Matthew had so many things going on. May is a really busy wedding month for him -- everyone wants their bridal portraits and engagement sessions done when the weather is nice, and of course they also book more weddings then. Last week he had a session -- either a portrait, or in one case, an actual weeknight wedding -- almost every single night of the week, in addition to his regularly scheduled Saturday wedding gig. So that meant right when I finished working, I had to switch into single-mom mode, all with a migraine or the effects of medication resulting therefrom. There was one afternoon in particular when the nitty-gritty of motherhood really hit me in the face. Ultimately, the kids have to eat, and at that moment there was only one person who could feed them, headache or no headache.

But all's well that ends well and this week was pretty good. No migraines, no evening portraits, I got my work done, and we even bought a new car. Yep, we traded in the Jetta station wagon for a six-person Mazda 5. It was a little sentimental letting the Jetta go. It was our first new car ever, and we bought it when I was pregnant with Henry. We brought him home from the hospital in that car, and it's been pretty good to us ever since. But now we have two kids, which means two car seats. And more and more often we were finding ourselves in a bind because we couldn't fit a third -- carpooling would mean Matthew couldn't bring Dean, and that would pretty unworkable once I'm back at the office. Plus, Henry actually has a social life now, yet we could never bring any of his friends anywhere if Dean was going, too, not unless we took two cars. Matthew was adamantly against getting a minivan, and we're not really SUV people, plus they tend to cost more than we wanted to spend. So we ended up with a silver Mazda 5. It's pretty cool, actually. I am most excited about the ipod jack. I realize this is de rigeur on most new cars these days, but the Jetta and the Versa don't have them, so I'm psyched.

Mother's Day was a long day, but a good one. It started with my sleeping in (after a early morning nursing session), followed by a lovely brunch Matthew cooked up, with my Mom bringing over the champagne for Mimosas. Then we spent the day cleaning the yard and the porch and bought some kiddie pools -- one small one to cool our feet on the porch, and another big one for Henry in the yard. It was a low key day, but I still ended up utterly exhausted by the evening, mostly because of issues with Henry. My dear sweet boy is turning into a bit of a behavioral challenge. The sweetness is still there, but there are equal doses of obstinance, flippancy, and sass. Plus, he seems to have inherited Matthew's absentmindedness. Even when he wants to do the right thing, he is easily distracted and often sluggish. He's also been getting "timeouts" at school. It turns out they use these more as cooling off periods for the kids and it isn't always necessarily a punishment, but apparently there are times when he simply will not obey his teacher. Earlier this week she called us to say he had thrown his work on the floor. Matthew and I ended up having a sort of intervention with him when he got home. Usually, he doesn't like to talk about his day right when he walks in from school, though I can often coax details out of him later at bathtime or when we're reading books. But this day we told him no TV (punishment you would think was akin to cutting off his toes), and we were going to talk. It was a revealing conversation, but we are still unsure of the solutions.

I am worried that the Montessori environment is not quite right for him. I thought at first it would be great because he could work independently and at his own pace. But over the past six months, he has gone from being a shy kid to being very outgoing -- he seems to really like group activities and he certainly has no shortage of energy. I think maybe having to sit in one place and do work all day without a lot of interaction with other kids is a bit much for him (you can usually hear a pin drop in his classroom). He also seems to be frustrated by some of his work, and I have to confess I myself can't imagine enjoying the repetitive nature of it, either. As I understand the Montessori philosophy, the kids learn component skills -- fine motor skills, abstract mathematic concepts, phonetic sounds -- before they learn how to integrate these. I know all parents think their kids are brilliant, and I certainly don't want to excuse garden variety bad behavior as being a result of my child's supposed exceptionality, but the fact is Henry tested with a very high IQ when he was evaluated for gifted. I am convinced he would be reading more now (though he's made great leaps in the past month) if he was given a chance to memorize words, rather than just learn phonetic sounds. And I am certain he would like math if he could see the point of it -- he has a very mathematical mind (Spoon in my head) but it seems to me like the work he's doing at school doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that we have concerns. We're taking the usual steps to address them -- staying in touch with his teachers, doing some behavior modification at home, trying to give him creative outlets like acting class (which he adores), and considering other possibilities for next year and beyond -- but in general it is just unsettling to feel like my little guy is not shining like I believe he could. The teacher sometimes complains that Henry is just "too silly." I can understand her impatience, but his innocent goofiness is one of the things I cherish about him. He is growing up so fast; there is plenty of time to be serious.