new leaf

Stories on living in Vermont.

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My almost-5 year old.

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September 1st

Unlike many organized and goal oriented women I know, I did not plan my pregnancies. Let me rephrase that: I did make the conscious decision that I wanted to get pregnant and voila! - my e.p.t. was positive (with the help from my loving husband). However, I did not give one iota of thought as to when the best time would be to have a child and how that might affect, oh, the rest of my kid’s life. Case in point, I have two fall babies and in many places (in Vermont, anyway) this is right around the cut-off dates for school enrollment.

So here we are. It’s September1st and my daughter is back at pre-school for her final year. She’ll be five in October. Many of her friends have started kindergarten at their public or private schools. Could she have handled the 5 day a week, 6 hour a day schedule? Absolutely. I am convinced that my daughter is well above average (as are all of your children and children-to-be, I am sure)... she’s knows her numbers, her letters, is dying to read, focuses for long periods on activities, has a rich and spontaneous imagination, plays well with others and stopped whining when I dropped her off at school half-way through last school year - thank god. Plus, we have the added advantage that our rural town’s teeny weeny public school is anything but crowded and testing her in early for kindergarten was indeed a possibility.  

So why not, then? There are arguments on both sides of the issue. Redshirting, or holding a child back so that they have age advantage over their peers in academics and sports, has become a common practice among parents. These kids have an obvious developmental advantage. Conversely, studies out of Norway and Sweden point to the benefits of being the youngest in a class which influences children to work harder and strive more to compete with their peers. Later in life they are more likely to earn higher incomes and have higher IQ’s than their older counterparts. 

These are the issues that make my parental head-spin. What to do? I struggled with this dilemma quite a bit last spring, when I had to make the fateful decision. Was it worth testing my daughter in early so she had the young advantage? Or the alternative, have her be on the older side of her classmates?When I really thought about it, redshirting wasn’t something I was even considering. The fact that my daughter was born in October would put her on the older side of the spectrum just based on the standard cut-off date. There are plenty of other children with fall birthdays who’d be in the same boat as her. So why put her under the unnecessary pressure of testing in early? Why put that pressure on myself? Is the goal of education to make my kids strive more and do more and earn more money later in life? Or is it to be a happy well-adjusted human being who can take care of themselves and contribute to their community? I’m not sure starting school early or late guarantees any of this.

Part of the reason we moved out of NYC to Vermont was to try and extend childhood for our kids, not cut it short. This is what I want for them and as parents, my husband and I have the privilege of making these very critical decisions on behalf of our little ones. We’ll continue to be informed but also go with our gut. Truth be told, I’m the one who’s not ready for her to start kindergarten. Why rush it? After all, she’s only four... and three quarters. 

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NYC. My home for 13 years. Then on April 30th 2014, we - my husband, two kids, one dog and I - said good-bye. It wasn’t a particularly sweet parting. NYC pretty much chewed us up and spit us out that historic day, a.k.a. the rainiest day in Northeast history, or something ridiculous like that. My husband, as brilliant as he is, had the not-so-brilliant idea that we would save a little money by packing ourselves. He would have some buddies help him load a Budget truck for a few hundred bucks and then drive the furniture up himself. Meanwhile, I was to captain the Volvo ship, loaded with our precious cargo, the kids and the dog, for the 6 hour voyage north. It never sounded like a good idea to me but wanting to be a trooper as moving anxiety ratcheted up, I went with it. 

On the morning of our departure, rain was coming down in sheets. I left early with the kids and luckily happened to pack some paper towel rolls in the trunk which came in handy when my car-sick daughter vomited all over herself halfway through the drive. But that’s another story. White-knuckling down the thru-way, I had to remind myself to breathe and coached myself by repeating my personal mantra, “it can only get better.” We were starting a new chapter after all, a decision made, not for job convenience (Vermont is not known for it’s booming job market) but for a better quality of life. It was a risky move but we had to try.

Being a New York City mom wasn’t for me. I had always envied the parents who could manage it with grace, and style. But my personality and my kids’ temperaments weren’t conducive to urban child-rearing. When I said “stop”, they would go. When I said “don’t touch that nasty funkified garbage can”, they would embrace it like it was Elmo. My kids are delightfully mischievous and wild-at-heart but I continually felt like I had to squelch their spirits because we lived where we lived. I didn’t like the neurotic parent I was becoming. I was stressed over pre-school application deadlines and where my kids would attend kindergarten. Private school tuitions were not feesible and frankly, none of the public school options we were zoned for excited me. Nor did the idea of testing my kids for a “gifted and talented” program that would mercilessly load up 5 year olds with mounds of work .  Moreover, I was exhausted and I didn’t have any ounce of energy left for myself. It took everything I had to give my kids a “normal” existence in the city but I couldn’t do it without seriously compromising my own homeostasis. 

So the drive from hell would be worth what lay on the other side: contact with nature, the promise of a slower pace, and most importantly, space. My husband and I had purchased ten acres in the green mountain state five years prior. We were engaged on the land, had our wedding there, camped out during the summers on the property and dreamt up the house we would one day build. Then finally we built it. We weren’t just driving to a new home. We were driving to our home, one we had put a lot of time and energy into already. One we had created. The house itself isn’t large by any measure but 2300 square feet on ten acres felt like an embarrassment of riches compared to our 900 square foot one bedroom with a home office we were busting out of. My husband and I are tall, expressive people and we like to take up space. 

So when I finally pulled up to the house in the Volvo ship with our skittish dog, a cranky baby and a half naked toddler sitting in the residue of her own vomit, I nearly broke down with joy. I stopped myself, however. The family voyage was not yet complete. My husband was still in Brooklyn, only just then finishing up the packing, a task that took hours longer than expected due to the torrential rain. He didn’t make it to Vermont that night but pulled over just above the Bronx to rest his weary bones at a roadside motel before getting up at the crack of dawn to complete the exodus. When he did arrive, I had had a decent night’s sleep and decided to forgo my angst of World War III proportions over his decision not to hire movers. He clearly felt terrible about it anyway, and was spent emotionally and physically as a consequence. Poor guy. When he walked up to the front porch I greeted him with my best Elmo hug. We were home, safe and sound, in Vermont. Based on the way New York City said good-bye, moving definitely seemed like the right decision. We could only hope that our old friend would forgive us for leaving her, down the line. 

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Begin It Now

It’s a Goethe saying, I think. And it’s stuck with me. So here I am, one year and four months after moving from New York City to Vermont and I’m finally starting a blog. Here’s where I’ll attempt to chronicle what happens when city folk - a couple with two kids and a dog - decide to trade in their urban existence and move to ten acres in rural Vermont. It’s been a year and four months, don’t forget. The initial shock and rose colored glasses have fallen away. Now we are “in” it, trying to figure out life in the green mountain state, struggling some but having fun along the way. So there, Goethe. We have begun.