Happenings

I think I've used this completely unimaginative title before.



At any rate, there's really not a better way to sum up what's been going on around here, other than to say that there's been a lot happening!



First, there have been some pretty significant milestones reached in the last six weeks. We had a weaning, and I wasn't going to say who it was that accomplished this, but I think I will. We didn't widely publish the fact that we had a nursing preschooler, but it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of it now that he's done, so I'll admit that yes, Ryan was still nursing up until a few weeks ago. I know that some of you may be shocked to know this (while you fellow "unconventional" parents aren't in the least), but we didn't consider this out of the ordinary in the grand scheme of things. At the time of his weaning, he was almost off the charts of the American cultural weaning age range, but quite in the middle of the "normal" age range for the human race, when factors of history, culture, and biology are taken into consideration. So this is my opportunity to say that Ryan's experience is actually more normal than that of most of his peers, as well as a chance to say how much I cherished that experience, and everything it meant - ok, well sometimes I was far ahead of his readiness to wean, and would have been happy if he had decided to do so earlier. But Ryan is a sensitive little soul, one we try to handle very carefully. Intelligent and perceptive, he often requires "more" - if you have one of these kind of children, you don't need any more explanation - and we try to let him take things at his own pace, because to rush him is to risk more than his own unhappiness but often ours as well. His weaning process, therefore, was very, very slow and gradual. By this summer, we had managed to get him back to weekend bedtime nursing sessions only, and when soccer season I signed him up for approached, I told him that maybe soccer players were grown up enough to say good-bye to nursing. He agreed, and he made his final nursing session into a rather big production, which was cut short when I noticed he didn't seem to be into it, and I explained that he didn't have to nurse for the length of a song if he didn't want to. He seemed relieved, and made some comment about something else entirely - and that was that.


His younger brother is "still" nursing - although there are times I have thought he might actually wean before Ryan - but he reached his own milestone when he potty-trained himself recently. I think almost all of my readers have done this already, but if you haven't attempted potty-training a little one before, letting them do it themselves is far and away the best tactic. I'm sorry to say I really bungled the job with my oldest, and only did slightly less horrible with the next one, until finally figuring it out with the last tw0, who enjoyed the uninhibited freedom of running around clad in only a t-shirt on warm days when their respective times came. Minus all the cajoling, bribing, fretting, fussing, the task was therefore accomplished in very short order For Ryan it was sometime after he turned three, which was fine, but we were hopeful that Chase, who already has a decided preference for going naked, would be diaper-free this year. Sure enough, one weekend he just decided that diapers were history for him, and he began using the appropriate facilities. Usually he is intensely private about this, but for some reason he likes to display his new skills in a very public way at times - such as at soccer practice, or, like yesterday, in the church parking lot right as soon as church was out. I can only guess it's some kind of male territory-marking thing, but who knows!

Both of these happy and important events took place at the start of probably the busiest school year we've every had. In addition to the usual school load, we have Girl Scouts, 4th-grade girls' club, and American Girl club for Aimee, 2nd-grade boys' club, soccer, and chess club for Drew, and soccer for Ryan, all of which started up in this past month. Then of course we still have the usual rotation of church (except I've also accepted a position on the church board - a little intimidating and humbling), La Leche League meetings, playgroup, horse riding lessons, etc, etc. My house bears evidence that all this has kept us more than busy, and in fact, I've had moments in which I've held down the panic as I've wondered how on earth we're supposed to get everything done. Now, I should say that it could be this a normal kind of schedule for many people, but for me, with a tendency toward hermiting, this is rather new. It was the reprieve from many of my anxiety issues (mentioned in previous posts) that enabled me to sign up for everything, and that allows me now to take everyone all over town, so that's a good thing, certainly - now I just have to be sure we don't get overwhelmed and burned out!

It was also at the start of all this that Dave hurt his knee at work, sending us into a flurry of trying to figure out if he could work, and how much he could work, and how long he might be out, or not be out at all, and how in the world would the bills get paid, and oh yes, thank you, Lord, for being faithful and steady even when we allow ourselves to be tossed around by the wind. I admit I don't handle these things with the kind of faith I would so love to have, but I'm thankful that God never fails. At any rate, Dave finally had the necessary surgery last Friday, and it looks like he will be back to normal relatively soon (not the months of recovery we anticipated).

So that's where I've been and what's been going on. Oh, I forgot to mention a lovely week at Edisto Island in the middle of everything, and that turned out to be an indispensable time of refreshment. I don't know if I'll have a chance to post pictures here, but they'll be on Facebook. For now, I'm off to start another busy week!