The post where my hormones make me way too philosophical about something relatively minor.

First Day of "Real" Preschool (2005)

First Day 2006

First Day 2007

Kai has been a part of this great church preschool/daycare since she was 8 months old. I remember the first day I dropped her off there. She was so little and her teacher took her out of my arms and assured me she'd only cry for a little while. I stood outside the tinted window in her classroom watching her for a few moments before reluctantly heading to work.

And she did get used to the environment there. And she grew to love it. And the teachers became family and we trusted these people to take care of our most precious baby.

Each year she moved into a new classroom. Each classroom became more grown-up than the one before. And she grew from a baby to a little girl.

But, tomorrow Kai will be walking through the doors to this school for her last time as a student there. She will leave behind friends she's known since the age of 8 months to come home for homeschool Kindergarten.

And I am absolutely positively terrified that I am making the wrong decision for her. Because this, I am realizing, is where parenting gets hard.

Knowing what to do when your baby has an ear infection, or a stomach bug, or painful teething is easy. There are concrete and unchanging answers to these problems. Knowing how to potty train, or wean from the bottle, or pick developmentally appropriate toys is something we can all figure out how to do with a little help from Google and our friends.

But these big decisions, the ones where we make choices that affect the emotional, spiritual, and educational lives of our children, the ones where there are no answers to be Googled, no concrete and definitive truth, these are the decisions that define us as parents. And these are the decisions that tear our hearts out every time we make them.

As I sit here, crying on the sofa remembering all of the ways my girl has grown these past 4 years and wondering if we're going to damage that growth with this choice, I know that we are entering into a new phase of parenting. A place where there are no certainties and no absolutes and no way to know whether we're doing the right thing until we're in the thick of it.

I realize that this is the beginning of a thousand difficult decisions to come. I know they are only going to get harder. But, I am thankful that I am blessed with the opportunity to make them. Because these decisions mean we are all growing. They define the direction of my life as much as my children. And I am anxious to see where these decisions take us all...

Simple solution.

About a week ago I posted a blog about my daughters' playroom. More specifically what it was about it that was causing them to avoid it like the plague. I took it down not long after posting it 'cause I started to suspect what the problem might be. Some google-fu soon confirmed my suspicions.

My kids had way too many toys. In my attempts to keep them occupied at all times, I had overstimulated their senses and created a room that was too much for them. They couldn't play in there because they were too busy tearing the place apart. So, this past weekend I did what is absolutely the most counterintuitive thing for a mom who is desperate to have her kids happy and entertained. I cleaned out the playroom and I got rid of toys. I got rid of bags and bags of toys. I eliminated whole bookshelves of toys and activities. I left them with simply dolls and a doll bed, dress up clothes, a kitchen and food, and a dollhouse. That is all. And I added a new element. Play silks.

I read alot about Waldorf education and the theory that children need to use their imaginations more and rely on "entertaining" toys less. It made total sense. So, for Easter the girls got play silks. They're basically just 34" x"36" satin fabrics in various colors. So far they've become dresses for the girls. Blankets for the babies. The blue one has become a swimming pool. They have been super hero capes. They have been table cloths. They have built tents. They have been anything the girls can imagine.

I love to go in the room and see them sitting beside a blue piece of satin on the ground with sunglasses on and their baby dolls beside them with them telling me they are at the pool with the kids. I love seeing them put the babies on the fabric and teach them how to swim. I love seeing them absorbed in a make-believe world for hours. It is teaching them to use their imagination and see things that could be instead of things that are. I think that is what we all need to do from time to time.

Since the transformation of our playroom the girls have played in their room nonstop. Where before I couldn't even get them to go in there, now they ask me nicely to go read in another room so they can play alone in there. I feel transformed. And I am excited to continue to apply the theories of Waldorf education in our home and see the difference it makes to my girls.

It occurs to me, too, that perhaps I should apply this same theory to my own life. Simplicity is never a bad thing, is it? Maybe I should go through and throw out some of my own toys.