Hurdles and Hassles

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Sewing Cards
• Dressing Busy Board
• Transferring
• Weaving Paper
• Cutting

This is my third attempt at blogging today. Our internet has been insanely slow for the past several days, such that blogger.com wouldn't even load the first two times I sat down to write this post. Now I'm sitting on the floor, Indian-style, with my laptop on the couch so that I can use our pathetically short ethernet cord to connect directly to the router, which sits on the window ledge behind the couch. So far bypassing the wifi is working marginally better; Safari connected to Blogger at least, though it took three minutes for the freaking "New Post" page to load. Sometimes I close my eyes and dream about the oh-so-wonderful super-fast wifi at my dad's house. What I would give to to have Safari pages load in literally the blink of an eye, to be able to watch videos on YouTube and Hulu, to download hour-long podcasts in less than five minutes! Someday, I will attain the Nirvana that is high-speed internet in my own home.

Stultifyingly slow internet wasn't the only hassle of the day. Though I really try to be patient and to keep the big picture in mind, sometimes it's hard not to focus on all the little hurdles Life throws in front of you throughout the course of any given day. This morning I wanted prepare the materials for another practical life activity my son and I had yet to try, weaving paper. (Since weaving paper involves an under-and-over action, the activity is supposed to be a good introduction to sewing. I suppose it could also serve as an introduction to making lattice tops for pies. And to making baskets or hats out of banana leaves, like people do here in the Caribbean.) You're supposed to use stiff paper, like poster board, to make the weaving materials, but I completely forgot to buy some yesterday so used construction paper instead. I was doing just fine, measuring out the 3/4" strips and using my Exacto knife to carefully cut them out, until drops of sweat started dripping down off my head onto the thin construction paper, rendering it unusable. Tarnation! I hadn't realized that wearing a sweat band is necessary if you want to do craftwork in the Caribbean.

After I finally finished preparing the weaving materials (it took awhile because I don't own a sweat band so I had to keep stopping to wipe my brow whenever I felt a sweat droplet start to roll down my face), I put together another set of school shelves. Because repetition is such an important part of learning--and centers prominently in the Montessori educational philosophy--it's important that my son have the chance to revisit any activity he chooses during each and every school session. The problem (hurdle? hassle?) is that we haven't even begun to do sensorial activities yet, and already we have too many school supplies to fit on one set of shelves. Space is obviously going to be an issue. Eventually, I'll be able to "retire" those materials that my son has outgrown, but for now he needs to have access to everything. It looks like we'll soon have to take another trip to good ol' Home Depot and buy some more shelves, though (as I've said before) our apartment is teeny-tiny, so where I will put another set of shelves is beyond me. The closet (where I store the (now two) sets of shelves when school's not in session) is full.

Parker is really digging the dressing busy board. He seems intent on figuring each component out, but in a slow and steady kind of way. On Monday, he focused on the buckle; on Tuesday, he focused on the zippers; today, he focused on the buttons. He'd attempted the buttons before and, frustrated, had quickly given up. Today, he stuck with them and eventually was able to say, "Look, Mommy! I can do buttons now!" It's really awesome to see your kid feeling proud of himself; way better than telling your kid how proud of him you are. The weaving activity wasn't a great success--Parker almost immediately got discouraged and accidentally ripped one of the strips of paper--but hopefully he'll feel like trying it again tomorrow or another day. Cutting is also a practical life activity. The aim is to try to cut long, straight lines, as close together as possible. Parker received a couple pairs of scissors this past Christmas and he LOVES using them. He has trouble holding them properly, though, and I'm not sure whether this is because his hands are too small or because he's a leftie (like his dad and his grandma before him). It's probably a combination of the two. Regardless, his solution to this problem is to have me hold the paper and then use two hands to work the scissors. I encouraged Parker to try holding the paper himself when he started cutting in school today, but he wasn't very jazzed about the idea. Oh well.

Postscript: Due to the aforementioned internet issues, I couldn't complete composing this blog before my son awoke from his nap. Therefore, I had to finish writing while my son was awake; in other words, while actively parenting. I apologize if it's seems disjointed. It's hard to complete a thought, let alone a paragraph, while interacting with a three-year-old.

The sweat stains.