Since we last left off, Edie has started to attend this Waldorf homeschool enrichment program on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's going along really sweet though the drive is pretty epic (thank goodness for podcasts!) and Kale sure misses his 'Didi Bird' on those days (they sure make up for it with the deep imaginative play when she is at home - usually involving Kale going to school and Edie being the teacher. Love it all until it comes to the recorder lessons part.)
The decision for us to homeschool, as is the case for a lot of families, is a multi-layered one. Many factors come in to play in ours; the temperment of our eldest, my leanings toward Steiner philosophy that make it hard for me to expose Edie, who's still such a dreamy child, quite yet to the somewhat more head-centred cirriculum at the public school, and loving the simplicity of the flow of our days.
But there is the other side of the coin as you can probably imagine.
Edie's now at an age where she is curious to be around kids her age more and is hungry to learn in a really structured setting. For now, this arrangement is fitting our needs and I have to say that this teacher is probably the best first grade teacher on the planet so, really, it was almost an impossible opportunity to pass up.
And let's be honost; there are two other, perhaps more Kwow-centred reasons I'm all over this new arrangement. First of all, I have such stellar plans for Bliss Beyond Naptime that involve me diving deeper and dirtier into its tagline: dreaming up soulful strategies for creative families. With me having all of Monday (well, from 8:30 to 2:30 while she's at school anyway) to myself, you can find me in the library in town working on this mission. Can you say bliss?
And second of all, I get to sew up some 'first day of school' type of dresses. I had her pick out a couple of patterns from my favourite Japanese pattern books. She chose two dresses from Carefree Clothes for Girls so far (the pink one's the Cinderella Dress and the blue one the Lace Doily one). She also picked out a skirt from Girly Style Wardrobe that I haven't started yet due to another, more subtle leftover bug that renedered me energy depeleted this weekend.
Yes! To tired to even sew! Scary, no? I'm much better now, though, thanks.
I love these books. The attention to detail is so inspiring. For instance in the Lace Doily dress they suggest to sew the collar with gold thread afterwards for embelishment and so I did because i wanted to be just as cute as the picture. But then that detail was so subtle that even when I was pointing it out to Edie, two inches from her nose, she was like, "where?"
And then the patchworkings on the pink dress? Edie was a little opposed to the idea. I did it anyway and told her I could rip it out if she still 'doesn't care for it' (the h-word has cropped up here lately and that's our newest distaste filler). Turns out I don't think she minds them so much. But of course she doesn't ~ they're cute!
So, I can cross off another of fantasy of mine materialized. Primarly the one of my daugther going to school and having her teacher say "isn't your mother clever." Oi! I just realized, after the realization my ego was talking there quite loudly for a second, that Edie's first grade teacher has an English accent just like mine did (we don't live in the UK to first time readers by the way)! Ah, the sewing circle of life.
