Completely and Utterly Blogworthy

Whoa. Solstice came and went. Now we are near the end of February and we have placed our Fedco seed order in ravenous anticipation of fecundity and sunlight.

Tonight I registered my daughter for Kindergarten.

The ease with which I type these words does not begin to reflect the YEARS of anguish over this moment. Yet, about two months ago I had a mama awakening and it was beatific indeed.

I have always known that my little buddy was "A Number One Homeschool Poster Child". You know the drill -- cosleeping, nursing, and so on. She has never had childcare/preschool and indeed is only away from my side when I work my library gig on nights and Saturdays. Suffice it to say that we are a package deal. I was in gut-roiling torment ( and I do not say this lightly) about what would happen when years down the road she was of age for Kindergarten. I thought that I could just gently give positive school vibes while staying somehow non chalant about the inner monologue of dread. I didn't want to pawn all my public school baggage onto her and color her genuine experience as a separate entity.

But as time passed my sweetest buddy was so articulate and so grounded in her feelings about homeschooling( Laura Ingalls Wilder actually introduced the phrase to her) that we started a serious two way street conversation about the topic and I am planning to homeschool as long as she wants to , while taking advantage of the great Union School programming as we choose..

My beatific mama moment came when I called the school principal to discuss this. I was 100% ready to take it to the mat. I was going in swinging, ready to deflect all anti-homeschool sentiment, fight for my parental rights, and whip out my proposed curricula pronto. I was amped to rave about five full days of school per week for a five year old as totally insane and dig my heels in. Imagine my surprise, my sheer disbelief when the principal congratulated me on the choices I have made and said that we could certainly work together somehow. Then in investigating the homeschooling laws for Vermont I discovered that children do not have to be enrolling in a course of study until they are SIX years old!

And so I walked into the school office and filled in line by line name , address, and phone over and over. I stood in a kind of profound posture of peace. And I remembered saying to Sophia, went the word school made her dissolve into bitter tears the other day, that she has her whole life to learn wonderful things. And that's so frigin true.