Field Trip Day

Yesterday could have been a scheduling nightmare, but ended up a really nice day. I wanted to attend the monthly meeting of the Saratoga Integrative Practitioners Network, which takes place at the Saratoga Springs Public Library, in the morning. My son, Tristan had rock climbing team practice at Rocksport in Glens Falls in the evening. The two things were 20 minutes away from each other, but both over 45 minutes from here. No way I was doing that trip twice in one day.

Thanks to a suggestion from the brilliant Annie Gregson, we had a wonderful, although long, day in the Glens Falls area. We put Tristan in the expansive children's area in the library, where he used the computers to work on his lessons, read for awhile, then entertained himself by riding up and down in the elevator, pushing the floor buttons for people like an old-time lift man. At least he was contained.

We spent the afternoon at the World Awareness Children's Museum in Glens Falls. Annie knows the creator  and wanted to see it. It was worth the trip. They have art, textiles, toys and other things from cultures around the world. The art is all created by children. The best thing is it's almost all there to be touched, tried on and played with. Tristan had a great time sitting on a cushion in the Japanese Room playing with chopsticks.

He banged the drum, then pretended to paddle the Dragon Boat.

He put on a puppet show with puppets from China.

He tried on clothes from the Middle East, Africa and Japan. His favorite exhibit was the Nigerian Marketplace, where he filled market baskets with food (and Annie played right along with him).

The museum is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. I can imagine a group of kids playing creatively for hours.

Inspired by the Japanese Room, Tristan consumed two tuna rolls at a sushi restaurant, then we took him to climbing practice. Last night, I put a pretty exhausted kid to bed. That is a successful day.

Homeschool 101

School in the top of the Goodnow firetower

Today is the first day of school in our district, but my son is happily sleeping in. We started our homeschool experiment three weeks ago and we are settling into a routine. He'll get out of bed soon and join me for a few yoga poses, write in his journal while I take a shower, then we'll have breakfast. During the week, when dad's at work and I have morning yoga classes, he'll bring his books to the yoga studio. He'll read for hours flopped on pillows in the meditation room and he's been quiet as a mouse.

At home, he's working on the fourth grade curriculum from Time4Learning. The lessons are all online and look like a computer game, which appeals to the geek genes he inherited from his programmer/network administrator father. To keep him from going completely over to the dark side, we're supplementing with Kamana for Kids, a home-study naturalist course for children from the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State. And lots of hiking and just being outside, of course.

Music was my son's least favorite class in school, so I figured we try something different than the typical music curriculum. Luckily we have a very talented singer/songwriter in town and he agreed to give my son guitar lessons. I hope they all go as well as the first one. Rather than jumping in with lots of things to practice, they started the lesson by changing the strings on the kid-sized guitar. This involved lots of holding the strings and using tools and my son was very happy. When they started to play, my son was given permission to make any noises he wanted with the guitar, as long as he agreed to learn the basic stuff too. They're planning to listen to lots of music together, from classical to jazz and rock. This morning my son asked to play Guitar Hero on the Wii, so I think music might have moved up a notch or two.

All in all, my son is doing well with the new routine. I wish I could say the same for me. I'm still adjusting to my daughter being at college and I catch myself taking an extra plate out of the cabinet when I set the table. I can't seem to get to bed at a decent hour and it's throwing off my mornings. Transitions are never easy and I try to remember to be gentle with myself. Change, while scary, is often good, and compared to some changes in my life, this is nothing.

A Change of Plans

It's an ill plan that cannot be changed.

-Latin proverb

Supermoon over our house May 5, 2012

Seven days ago I would not have written this post. Actually, seven days ago I couldn't find an uncluttered horizontal surface on which to put my laptop, so I couldn't have written this post even if I'd had a mind to. Which just goes to show how much can happen in a week.

Something's been wrong for awhile. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but I've had the overwhelming desire to hide under a blanket in a dark room. Physically, I'd recovered from the flu except for a lingering cough, but my neck and shoulder had seized up for no apparent reason and my cervical vertebrae were painfully out of alignment. Plans for the yoga studio came together, and then fell apart, then came together again. My father was hospitalized briefly. The house fell into disarray. I napped. I blew off almost all my triathlon training but daily played with the training plan in my calendar trying to find a way to fit 4 hour bike rides in between the other things I wanted to do this summer.

Then, this week, the universe sent the perfect storm of self-care. I had an incredible first experience with acupuncture at the Acupuncture Studio in Glens Fall, New York. The physical release enabled my chiropractor to do a really good adjustment a couple of days later and I am now almost pain-free. That, plus a Reiki session, followed by a Reiki share with a great group of practitioners at the studio, created a big energetic shift. I feel like I can think clearly for the first time in months.

The storm kept building. I finished the inspiring book Wild by Cheryl Strayed, a Women's Adventure Magazine book club suggestion. I watched the equally inspiring movie The Way with Martin Sheen. I had a great talk with my life coach. I cleaned the house. And, last night, I stood outside at 11:30 pm while my husband tried to get a perfect picture of the big full moon, soaking in all the energy flowing down.

When I came inside I laid my moonstone pendant on the windowsill to absorb some of that energy - the pendant I had been wearing when I labored and gave birth to my son - and as I held it I realized that the training required to complete a 70.3 mile triathlon conflicted with other things I valued: freedom, adventure and time with my boy. By the time I woke up this morning the decision was made: I would switch to the Olympic-distance triathlon and enjoy my summer.

A huge weight lifted off of me. I shed a few tears for a dream that I was letting go. I felt like a quitter, briefly, but when I made the plan to do that race at the beginning of the year I didn't know what was coming: changes to the yoga studio's business plan and a flurry of activity around that, weeks of illness and injury, a new venture, and, most recently, the decision to homeschool my son beginning in September and the preparation that would require.

The Yoga Sutras tell us that we must practice compassion toward the suffering (1:33) and I often remind my yoga students that we must begin with compassion towards ourselves. I've been forgetting to apply that to my own life lately. Dropping the race is the most compassionate thing I could do for myself right now, even if it means feeling a bit foolish because I told so many people I was doing it.

Oh well. Sometimes the best plans are plans that change.