SwedeGirl's Year at
The Waldorf School

SwedeGirl has had a great year in her little school, LilleBo, which means little home. There are three teachers, each with a group of four kids. The three groups have their own room where they start the day and have lunch, but the groups mingle for snacks, singing, and outdoor play. The children are ages 18 months to 4 years old. In Sweden we have 25 hours a week of free daycare since I do not work. Generally children come to school everyday from 8 until 2. This is common for all Swedes to have their small children in Dagis during these hours. We choose to use our time on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays from 8 to 4 instead of going five days a week. I like having a few home only days with no school, and the slow mornings that go with that. Many of the children go to Dagis fulltime when the parents are working. We like our Swedish Waldorf school, which I can describe as anthrosophic in intention, but moderate and balanced in the execution. Waldorf education is based on the philosophy called anthrosophy that was developed from the thinking of Rudolph Steiner. Waldorf education seeks to protect the spiritual nature of children, so they can remain in touch with themselves so as to develop into balanced and spiritually self aware adults. Waldorf classrooms for young children are structured to look like homes. The teachers model normal domestic life like cooking, cleaning, and gardening so the children can learn by imitation. The classrooms have only open ended toys that allow for this imitation, attention is paid to surrounding the children with quality, natural materials, and the class emphasizes daily and seasonal rhythms. I find Waldorf schools can get a bit dogmatic, and that instead of focusing on the heart of things, they get too caught up in the specifics of the "Waldorf Way". It can start to feel like there is only one right way to do things. I just met a german midwife from a village Rudolph Steiner lived in who told me a story that is a perfect example of this thinking. Waldorf schools have this big thing about hats, that the children always need hats. She was discussing the orgin of this, that once Steiner said a certain child needed a hat for it's particular constitution, and then he said don't go making this a rule or anything, this is just for this one child! But sure enough, after he died someone went and said "All children need hats!" and it became dogma. You can get fundamentalist about anything, I guess. Especially when implementing a philosophy developed by a charismatic and visionary leader. The whole point of anthrosophy is that you have the information you need to be self realized with in yourself, so of course it makes sense to be your own guide.

Our school is warm, cozy, and flexible. We have enjoyed the peaceful environment, the organic vegetarian lunches, the space for a child to be a child.

Even when Swedegirl went on a disney princess streak it was fine for her to bring her princess-y backpack along to school, and she carries her lunch for the outings (utflick) in a princessy lunch box. If you know Waldorf philosophy, it discourages characters strongly. I think this is a good thought. But it was nice that when the Swedegirl became interested in all things DISNEY princess-y (she was very funny about this, I will have to post the story) we did not feel like we had to completely put a stop to it for the sake of the school. Like Ani Difranco notes in one of her songs- 'buildings and bridges are made to bend with the wind, because what doesn't bend breaks". It's nice to have the benefits of the Waldorf environment with out a sense of religious fervor about how we adhere to the concepts in our life. We are grown ups, and can make the choices for ourselves how we wish to incorporate the Waldorf concepts in our life, and its nice to be at a school that supports that moderate approach.

Next year she will head to the bigger school, BackeBo, or hilltop school. The teacher there brought this lamb to school this Spring. It was such a pity they have no Swedish version of "Mary had a Little Lamb" because "it made the children laugh and play to see a lamb at school!"
As the school year ends, we had a few events. A few weeks ago there was a Spring time clean up in the yard at school, and the parents came out and helped tidy up the yard for the new Spring season.

And last weekend the school had a picnic in the woods. It was lovely to be together with all the families on a hot, sunny Swedish day. The children played in the pond, flew kites, and sheep grazed nearby under the shade of the trees!

The Swedish Beach We got a phone call from the mama over at Liquid Visionary as she was headed to the beach in Florida to meet up with our friends. It made us miss home, and pine for a coastal view. So we headed out to the coast to check things out at our Swedish beach last Friday Night. We got a sunset sky, if no view of the setting sun, and the expansive feeling being near the sea brings. This will be a good day time spot this summer... A forested playground, a beach, and a restaurant.

The water is a bit brrrrr, but that's Sweden for you. Even this sign says "Grunt!" at the thought of diving in!

The best evening activity, pebble throwing! SwedeDaddy can really skip a rock! I got these photos of the baby, not in her most cute expression, she is looking more like- hey, what is that thing ?? It's a camera! Get used to it!!!

And yes, it's late May when we took these pictures, and we are at the beach in fleece! Not for long, it was 82 farhenheit one day this week! Thats 28 Celsius, and a day later it was 14, and then ten yesterday. I see why people go crazy for nice weather here!

It's like The Scream, somehow, but Peaceful and in Color

So yes, there are 490 pictures from May alone stuck in undownload-able limbo, it is confirmed, and we will wiggle around it somehow. But in the mean time, here is another just cool shot SwedeDaddy took when the SwedeBabe was newly born...The babe in our friend Jessi's maya wrap sling.

Gratuitous Baby Shots!
I have some good ones from yesterday evening's trip to the beach I promise to upload, but for now, I'll post these and hope to satisfy my poor mom who does not get to see the baby since we moved so far, far away! I promise to get more up soon! This pretty much sums up her life at 12 weeks though- sleep, nurse, lay around and bat at things, be held, and sleep some more.... I do wish I could get a decent video of her baby babble/ cooing. It's too cute. At least to me, her mom. And probably would be to her grandma, too.

I think her hairy ears are troll like and darling..

Weekend Project Two: Garden!

I used to think of myself as having a green thumb, due to one very successful plant I had in the second grade. One day a branch of our classroom plant fell off when it was being watered and Mrs. Risley selected me to be the lucky kid who got to take the branch home. With great importance, I rooted it in water, and transplanted it to soil, and it became the biggest lushest plant on our patio for the longest time. It was the only one of its type that ever flowered in our home. I am sure it was the love of a child that made that plant so happy. And I felt like a successful gardener! I want my daughter to know the magic of watching things grow. I want her to know food comes from the earth, and that even the tiniest seeds planted can turn into the most wonderful things.

I have been working on envisioning what we want in our dream life, and hoping to do what we can to make that a reality. In my dream life I am definitely a gardener. In real life, my gardening experience involves a lush veggie garden my father grew at our home in Kansas before we moved away to Florida when I was 4, then the meek little harvest of a few peas from the garden we planted when we moved to sandy acidic soil of Florida, in 4th grade I grew some teensy mangled dry sprouts from the radish seeds given out in science class for the county fair competition, and then my attempt at an herb garden with one thriving tarragon plant sticking up in my suburban lawn during high school. When in midwifery school, I did work for a while on an organic farm, and mostly seeded and thinned greens in the greenhouse. It gave me confidence I can indeed make things grow, but also made me aware of how much I do not know about soil and things like fish emulsion, and nitrogen balance. I have been looking into all this, and instead of getting too overwhelmed with how much I do not know about gardening, I decided to just start this season. Rather than await perfection, and do soil testing and make crop rotation plans and companion plant and create a virtula permaculture mini eco-system....well, you see my point....we decided to just get some plants in the ground. We will learn as we go along- we had to just make a move or the planting season was going to pass us by.

So we started with a raised bed, some sprouted plants, and a plan for a strawberry patch.

We have high hopes for our dream garden. And our dream life. We do need to get some deer fencing up pretty quick here, or these guys are going to munching on some very special salad greens at our expense.

So grow, little plants grow!!!

More Neighborhood Forest Walks My camera is still not uploading- thus the startling lack of new baby pictures in a home with a new baby- but I will play bloggie catch up and put up pictures from Swede Daddy's phone camera....we were playing with panorama to capture the canopy and height of the trees.

Weekend Project One: The New Swing Set

The weather is just great now, and so we are all looking for ways to spend more time outside.

So, this addition to the yard is big news in SwedeGirl's world. She had taken to telling everyone there was were "No KID's TOYs" in her yard, and so when we saw this swingset at a close out hardware store, it became the weekend project. The yard is fenced, so we are living the dream of sending the kid into the yard by herself to go play and not worrying where she will wander off.

She is often lucky enough to be joined by her cousin who lives three houses up, or her new little girl play buddy who lives right across the street and is her new favorite biking companion.

Hooray for Swedish Springtime!