Wilderness!

It’s that time of year when I start obsessively checking the mountain snow forecast. When I was driving Wilder to school the other morning, I asked him if he knew what these dark, wet and cold mornings mean. Without hesitation, he threw his hands up in the air and yelled, “Snowboarding! And skiing!!”  That’s my boy.

Wilder started at a new school this fall and we’ve been adjusting to an earlier morning schedule (hence the cold, dark mornings). Circle Time starts at 9am and we’ve managed maybe a 50% success rate of actually making it to school before they finish taking attendance. Wilder is now being woken at a certain time by an alarm clock and having the experience of rushing out the door before we might otherwise feel ready in order to be someplace at the moment designated as “on time”. This indoctrination into factory life has been a bit rough but has definitely made for easier bedtimes in the evening.

Actually, I’m not sure if the smoother bedtimes are due to the earlier wake up routine or the excessive amount of running and playing he seems to do at this new place. Or perhaps it’s the mental fatigue of negotiating an entirely new social scene. I’ve been watching Wilder go through the process of choosing and making friends and figuring out all the rules and expectations of his new environment with a mix of pride, fascination and anxiety. He seems happy (or perhaps just unfazed) being one of the youngest kids in a classroom full of hardened 4 year olds. But part of me feels like we’ve thrown him to the wolves and that maybe it is too early for him to be learning some of the childhood lessons I expect he’ll encounter in the anarchistic Wild West of preschool and can’t we just keep him sweet and innocent for a little bit longer?

Strange maternal protectiveness aside, the transition from small, in-home daycare to big, preschool-style facility has been hugely positive. Wilder had a lot of his own anxiety leading up to the move but was hooked after the first day. There are more kids to play with, a huge outdoor playground area, an indoor gym, an awesome male teacher in his classroom, lots of projects and fieldtrips, fewer rules and restrictions, no time-outs, and generally more freedom to be an active, exploring, young person.  

On maybe his third or fourth morning, he started pleading with me to stay home for the day. “I just want to stay home and take a break today. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” I reminded him that the previous evening when I picked him up, he had wanted to stay at school and not go home. “Oh, yeah,” he said. And then after a pause, “I forget that I like school now.”

Here’s a report from his first day, courtesy Teacher Tom (click to see full size):

For the first time in a long time, Wilder is having a really rough bed-time right now. Matthew and I would like to go to bed ourselves but Wilder’s in full conniption mode and we’re trading off turns putting him back in his room and in bed ever 3 minutes or so. I’m not sure he’s even fully awake anymore but that’s not stopping him from staggering out into the hallway to wail and sob about needing water or being scared or wanting the dog. We’ve been on the escalation path since about 9:30 (it’s now 11:15). He’s going to be one pooped kid in the morning.

The past few months have been equally rough and wonderful. Wilder continues to grow into the most amazing kid ever. Matthew and I are constantly remarking to each other about how grown up and competent he’s becoming. And then there have been a lot of moments like tonight where we witness the emotional toll Wilder takes from all that growing and reaching and pushing. At least that’s my theory. Every growth spurt (physical or developmental) seems to be accompanied by an equivalent jag of bad behavior.

In addition to normally going to bed by himself (a HUGE deal for this hugely attached kid), he’s been sleeping through the night without wetting the bed, dressing himself most mornings, acquiring tons of new vocabulary and phrases, doing mazes and dot-to-dot puzzles, reading numbers and letters, and getting ever faster and more proficient on two wheels.

He’s also been extremely interested in babies and how they are made and when Matthew and I are going to make another one. His best friend is now a big brother and Wilder is extremely jealous even though I’ve explained at length that babies are a big pain in the butt and will steal all the attention. Here’s a conversation from the other night…

Wilder: Mom, when are then… what are those swimmy things called?

Chantrelle: Sperm?

Wilder: When are the sperm going to swim up your vagina and make a baby?

Chantrelle: Well, when daddy and I decide to put them there.

Wilder: Where are they now?

Chantrelle: Inside daddy.

W: Put them there now!

C: No, not yet.

W: Why not???

C: I’m just not quite ready to have another baby yet.

W: Well, I know! I have a great idea!! When you are quite ready, you can make a little baby and I can share my room with him. He can sleep with me in my room!

C: What if it’s a little girl?

W: Yeah, she can too.

C: Well, you know babies wake up a lot at night. You sure you want a baby in your room that cries all night?

W: I know! If she wakes up at night and cries, I’ll get up and say “shhhhh, it's okay, go back to sleep, baby.” And I’ll rock her for a little bit and then get back in my own bed.

C: That’s really sweet of you, Wilder. Why do you want a baby so bad? Is it because Gavin’s a big brother and you want to be like him?

W: Well, if I had a brother he could play cars with me, or puppet show, or Ninja Turtles or... anything. I like you guys a lot. Mom and dad are best. But I want a friend.

C: Wow, Wilder. You are really good at explaining how you feel! I'm really glad you told me all that so I know why it's important to you.

W: So, can you make that baby now?

Well, maybe not just now. I leave for Burning Man in 2 days, after all. Anyone who’s been keeping up with the photostream this summer knows we’ve been too busy for making babies. Those hoping for more grandkids or whatever better start hoping for a crappy snowboarding season this winter or something else to mess with this parents-of-a-big-kid lifestyle that I'm finding difficult to even think about giving up.

Ah. All seems to finally be quiet on the bedroom front. And its only 11:35pm!

I've started uploading our new photos to Flickr because it easier to manage and organize files and you'll have access to the full size files, rather than the compressed (degraded) fuzzy stuff available on the blogging site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chantrelle/

You can also order professional prints (and coffee mugs, etc.). I've put a quick link above the older photo albums so you can always find it from here. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for my photo stream (scroll to the bottom of the page) if you want to be notified when we upload something new.

Wilder and I will be sharing this particular photo stream so I'll try to keep making sets that are Wilder-focused. Or you can search my photo stream for the tag "Wilder Update" and find all the Wilder photos that way.

Wilder learned to ride a bicycle yesterday. After all this time on the rolly bike, it only took him about 10 minutes on a grassy slope to become a proficient pedal-er. Here he is at the park (out past his bedtime) showing off his new skills.

Last year when he learned to ride his rolly bike, we were in the midst of a full blown Harry Potter obsession. We haven’t heard much from Harry lately. He’s been more or less eclipsed by Spider Man and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, last night after we finally extracted Wilder from the park he ran around the house on his broom chasing an imaginary snitch and casting Patronus charms. It’s interesting and oddly appropriate that bike riding and magic are so closely mapped on his brain.

First, apologies for the long delay between updates… The skiing video was a tough act to follow but I feel these photos fit the bill. The letters on top are mine. Wilder copied them below and was understandably quite pleased with himself.

Wilder actually did another 3 ski lessons after that first one and finished out the season with a trip up an actual chair lift and down the Daisy run.  I spent the whole afternoon chasing his lesson around the mountain, trying to catch up with him so I could take photos but always arriving at the lift or the lodge just a few minutes too late to get any action shots.

February, March and now most of April have flown by in a complete blur.  I’ve already had a couple of work gigs this year, plus jury duty, plus the flu. 

I also managed to get out of town on my birthday weekend in February for skiing in Bend. I rode down with friends and so didn’t have any keys with me.  I spilled water all over my cell phone the week before and hadn’t yet gotten it replaced.  And Wilder stayed in Seattle with Matthew so I didn’t have a child to keep track of or any of his accoutrements to haul around.  It was liberating, disorienting and I spent much of the weekend feeling like I had surely misplaced something important.

Matthew has been steadfastly prepping for the MCAT which he takes tomorrow.  He has been juggling about 10 hours of class plus an additional 15 or so hours of homework on top of his regular 40 hour a week job for the past 3 months.  We had our friend Paul over for dinner some while ago and he brought along a friend of his. When this friend asked me what I did, Paul jumped in while I considered how to answer and said, “She picks up the slack.”  Suffice to say, we are all very much looking forward to the end of this particular phase of the application process.

My mom has thankfully come into town a couple of times to keep him entertained in the morning while we catch up on sleep and to help dig us out from under a small (or not so small) mountain of laundry.  I guess I only have been picking up so much slack after all.

Wilder has been weathering all this stress and pressure fairly well, all things considered. There’s been some kind of rough behavior, but its hard to tell how much is Wilder being his usual exuberant, challenging self and how much is a reaction to not seeing much of his dad and both of us being stressed out and worn down. I guess we’ll know next week.

I’m uploading 3 new photo albums; one for each month. 

In addition to becoming a proficient downhill skier, you will notice that Wilder has become quite the soux chef. We’ll set him up with a (not very sharp) knife, a cutting board and a head of broccoli and 10 minutes later the stems are in the compost bucket and the rest is ready to cook.  Most evenings he does the majority of veggie chopping for dinner. He also flips a mean French toast.

Miss you all!