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Well, there have been a few moments since January when I felt abstractly certain I’d never be able to get through this semester, or ever REALLY get to the end of this master’s program. But I have persevered, and despite an impressively messy house, sporadic stress-induced insomnia, and enough caffeine to jump start a truck, I am: nearly to the finish line! If I can maintain a moderately reasonable level of sanity and motivation for the next *10* days, I will pretty much be in the clear. Yes, I still have to mop up the rest of my soul-suckingly dull sociology course work, but the crux of the capstone experience will be over. Thank whatever powers that be, and their little dogs too.

And naturally, I have a whole long list of goals and tasks in mind once this ordeal is over and I can breathe again.

But anyhoo, enough of that tediousness. Mainly I wanted to touch again on the little genius school hunt chronicles.

So as mentioned before, during last year’s freakout, we narrowed the local options to two main contenders. We visited the first one in early February, and submitted the enrollment interest form. The meet-n-greet information session was OK, but somehow a bit underwhelming.  And then a couple weeks ago, we finally got to attend the tour/meet-n-greet for the other school, henceforth referred to as CharterB.

So, CharterB is based on a Waldorf curriculum system, but not what you might call cultishly adherent. I had some little familiarity with the precepts of Waldorf from talking to other parents who’d sent their kids to that type of school. I have to say that I am personally on board with the notions of a more holistic approach, at least for the foreseeable early education years, in which I think nurturing the creativity, discovery-learning, and play skills should be foremost priorities.  So I was pretty excited to see that there was a Waldorf charter school within a reasonable travel distance from our home.

Anyway, back to the meet-n-greet. We decided to make it a family affair, and let K skip a day of preschool to attend the tour with us. In retrospect, I probably should have prepared FF with a little background information on the nature and style of Waldorf educational environments. To be honest, yes, their campus is, in FF’s words, a total flaming hippie zone. But it is really quite charming and lovely, complete with organic garden, chickens, goats, beehives, mini-pond and lots of grass to roll in, and trees to climb (yes, they really do explicitly state in the tour that your children will be encouraged to climb trees.) It was like stepping into a total alternate dimension for a couple hours, albeit a charming and weirdly peaceful alternate dimension [must be all that rhythmic bong-hitting], in which academics are important of course, but only in relation to the whole of the experience. K, of course, was enchanted by the whole thing. She desperately wanted to bring home every chicken, leaf, rock, and interesting stick encountered throughout the entire tour. She, however, did NOT hear the bit about school recommendations to completely remove “media” from your young child’s life (that is: all TV, computer, video game, or mobile device activities). FF just about choked when he heard that tidbit. We’re both pretty sure the crazy-saavy little genius would not be easily parted completely from her beloved Hula people, Angry Birds, or Nina & Star.

On that day, I made the startling realization that without certain aspects of maturity that only parenting has granted me, I would have been weirded out beyond reckoning by the whole thing. But instead, I was amused and charmed in equal measures, and find myself still hoping that the little genius will be able to get a coveted spot on the enrollment list. FF was a little shellshocked by the whole thing, but still seems in agreement that a couple years there would be a nurturing and positive experience for the little genius. Especially as she is all nature-crazy these days (hopefully more about this in an upcoming post), and she’d probably spend every moment happily sowing and weeding their organic garden, if they’d let her.

Potentially not the kind of academic solution I’d choose beyond the first couple years, but I think perhaps just the thing for now. So we’ll see.

Maybe, just maybe, I won’t lose my mind after all.