Out of the Loop- missing my baby

Wow, I feel like a stranger on my own blog! It seems like forever since I wrote anything or visited anyone else's blogs. Even as I write this I'm feeling like a "fish out of water". I miss seeing the inspiring activities and musings and the heartfelt words of other moms, Montessori or otherwise. I have to thank Jen from Montessori Beginnings for awarding me her giveaway, lucky number 7 did it! 1000 stickers of real life animals and objects, we will definitely have hundreds of hours of fun with that once I get my new business streamlined and A. can be home with me more! Turning over A-girl's Montessori education to a professional for the most part has been bitter-sweet. I know that she is progressing in so many areas, especially socially very quickly and that makes me very happy. However it's so strange to not know what my little girl is doing every moment of the day and how she is reacting and creating. I'm like an information addict when it comes to what she is doing while at Montessori preschool. I can't wait for the Teacher/parent meeting week after next! I sit here looking at her Montessori shelf in the living room and it seems like a ghost town. I feel like I'm failing her. I always said that I'd never put my child in daycare because I didn't want anyone else raising my baby. Now it's almost like that and the only thinly veiled excuse that makes me feel any better is that she's in a good Montessori school. Well, that and when she says to me "I had fun at school today!" or "I want to stay at school!" How often do you hear that from a public school child?! I'm betting not too often.

So busy so lots of practical life!

I started a new business! (more on that in the future once I get my website up; it's for toddlers!) so A. has had to amuse herself a little more than usual. She also gets to go to her Montessori preschool every weekday morning now that I am working ( Thank-you Canadian Government for paying for Montessori school!) I'm finding that now that I'm busy getting all of the work done in setting up my new endeavor and I'm not observing her at all times she does more activities! She has been helping me do many things around the house. I almost think she has intuited that I need the help now!? She just had to do the vacuuming on the hard floors because in her own words "because it makes it beautiful".

Then because the carpet attachment is too heavy for her to push she used her little carpet sweeper to do the carpet.

She later went upstairs and her Papa was mopping so she helped with that too. (no pic) What a sense of importance and accomplishment she had in helping her family clean the house! The next day A.-girl decided to unzip a "bean" bag pillow I have and to take a lot of the corn out of it. So of course I said "well you made the mess so you please clean it up". Her new word of choice right now is "OK!", which makes life so easy! Everything is Ok, OK affirmative and positive! Broom in hand, she swept it into a semblance of a pile and we picked it up together and put it back in the pillow. Phew!

I've of course been feeling guilty not spending as much time with A.-girl as we are used to. I'm trying to find activities that will still challenge her, make her feel a sense of accomplishment and make her and my life easier. What better ones than practical life which you can incorporate into the daily routine of what you need to do anyway. Case in point, cutting with a knife: at breakfast time instead of cutting up her cantaloupe for her, I cut it into long strips and asked her to get a fork and knife from her dish drawer. One presentation and she was happily focused creating nice little cantaloupe cubes.

I hope in a few weeks everything will get back to close to "normal" after the growing pains of starting a business subside. In the meantime we will be doing lots of practical life activities (as I write this A. is cleaning the chair I'm sitting in because "maybe it has bugs in it"!) and she will get to stay for some longer days at her preschool which are contributing to her increasing independence and social skills. I like to try to look at the positive side of things, however I miss my little girl and look forward to whipping up some great activities for her at home when my time frees up!