one week in.

i'm trying hard to process through what is most important to me/our family when it comes to our kids. the easy answer is everything - i want everything for them. if i have to be away from them all day every day, i want them to be in an environment that nurtures them. i want them to have opportunities to learn at their own speed, in their own style. i want them to be inspired and filled with awe and wonder for learning and discovering. i want them to be with peers and caretakers who love and support them and make them feel free to be their authentic selves. it seems like a lot of that might be lofty or touchy-feely or whatever, but i think all of those things are important.

i also want them to learn practical life skills. it's one of the primary reasons we chose a montessori environment for them. i believe that my kids will learn to read, whether they're 4 or they're 7, but i think a foundation of grace and courtesy and independence are super important and need to be established really early on.

so. we're five days in to their new school, which is a "montessori" school, and the best way i can describe it is that it's not a montessori school, it's a daycare. and i don't mean that in a disparaging way, i'm just having a hard time.

there are a few tenets that we've established at our house that aren't overly rigid or crazy (i don't think), but that are pretty important to our family's values. we don't really watch tv during the week, as a general rule. emme didn't watch tv at all to speak of until she was two. it's harder with hollis, but there is very very limited screen time at our house. i just think my kids will eventually learn how to play on an ipad and they'll learn who elmo is and all of that regardless of anything else. so i don't make an active effort to expose them to those things; instead, we read lots of books, spend time outside, cook together, that sort of thing. as a working mom, i have a couple of hours with my kids on work days and that's IT. i don't want 30 minutes of it monopolized by dora the explorer. and again...i am not disparaging anyone whose kidlets watch tv nonstop. my working mom guilt is pretty intense and this is one way i assuage it.

another thing is a limit to treats. so, things like pizza, sweets, processed foods as much as possible, all of that...are limited at our house. there are still WAY more treats than i'd like to have in a perfect universe, but the point is that it's at my discretion.

anyway. a couple of things have gone down this week that have upset me and i'm just trying to keep a level head and not jump to any conclusions.

the first is that there's a tv in the classroom. in every classroom. including hollis's. this was something that wasn't indicated or mentioned during the school tour. i noticed emme's on day one and was told it was only used "10-15 minutes a day before nap while the area is being prepared for nap, and only educational programming". i bit my tongue even though i take issue with that on so many levels. on wednesday, i took hollis to his 18-month doctor's appointment. when i dropped him back off around 11:40, all the little 18-month to 2 year-olds were sitting on the floor staring up at a tv screen. um, what? even if i can bite my tongue about my 3.5 year old, the APA says no screens for kids under two, period. this should not be happening in a school or daycare environment, and especially not in a place touting a "montessori" title. i called the director and tried to nicely express my concern. i said i would much rather have my kids prepare the nap area (again with that whole practical life thing we're supposed to be jointly instilling) or be read to than have them stuck in front of a screen. the director said she would talk to the teachers, so i am just assuming nothing is happening.

the next thing is hollis. he's struggling SO much with this change. i honestly think he would be struggling with any change, but this is next level. i don't love his lead teacher - she is not warm or loving with him. the work in his classroom is crappy and not deliberate at all. another time i walked in, the teacher was sitting on a chair playing a CD for the kids. not singing or clapping or giving them instruments to work with or anything. just having them sit and be quiet and listen to a recorded song. she's made several unsavory comments about our cloth diapering and this morning she picked hollis (while he was crying) up by his forearms and moved his body. i don't love any of that.

there are some other minor things too that i won't get into right now because i have to stop overthinking everything. i don't know what i'm going to do, but i just wanted to record everything because that's what this whole blogging thing is for. sigh.

*i will say that emme is responding quite well, mainly because her class size is so much smaller. she was also in a situation at her old school where there was a lot of mean talk between the kids and she really internalized that stuff, so i think it's good for her to be away from that.

parenting is hard.