Montessori momma

This is a story partly from December 2014 and partly from now.

In December, Max and I visited my brother Mick in Austin, Texas. We got a roundtrip ticket for $75 including luggage on Frontier and it was the weekend before Tom's once-a-decade board re-certification, so we went for five days with his blessing. 

Mostly, we ate really well because that's what you can do with a person who is three months old, you can time you meals around their naps.

But also, for the last year+, Mick has been a Guide at an Austin Montessori school. It's a classroom aide only more awesome. He works with 4-6 graders (there is alternate language to describe some of these ideas; it's not all 1:1 with the public school system). Max and I visited him at his school one day. It is a suburban block of about 12 houses that have been put together to form a campus by loving hearts and gardeners. Max and I got to spend about an hour with the early childhood specialist, Gwen. She had mobiles, she had wooden toys, she had Swedish glockenspiels, she had floor beds and nursing corners, and child-sized furniture. She was very encouraging. And I ate it up. I've been interested in what Mick describes (the Austin system is one of the best in the country) so this personal experience with it got me even more excited. 

I also sense this beginning of nurturing Max's mind and heart and body as a way I can connect with my mom. I don't know her familiarity with Dr. Montessori, but she loved to learn and worked hard to stay at the edge of new ideas - in rural Wyoming before the internet. I took Suzuki piano lessons in 1987.

In the subsequent weeks since our visit to Mick, I've been on Michael Olaf's website and read their newsletters. It was the Christmas season, so I made Max gift lists of wooden toys (too many wooden toys, really). I used his Christmas money to buy him the butterfly mobile he had loved in Gwen's classroom. We got Mandarin and Spanish CDs to listen to while we play. We have egg shakers. I try to ask him if he's ready to go on to the next thing, or at least tell him we're going onto the next thing. 

Max's butterflies sans Max

One night I was googling the certification and came across a blog dedicated to all things Montessori. It discussed weaning:

The sensitive period for weaning begins between 5 and 6 months of age....Weaning marks the beginning of a process of separation from the mother, as the child becomes aware of his independence and of his self as a separate entity....The need for the mother will naturally be replaced with the child’s desire for independence, if care is taken to support and nurture the child first steps towards autonomy. 

As I said before, I don't make enough milk to nurse exclusively, but this made me sad. We're at 4.5 months now, 5 and 6 months are so close. This sweet communion Max and I share is going to give way to his independent self? 

I don't have a slam-bang conclusion for my musings. At least I can imagine trading complete closeness with my baby to hold Max's hand as he discovers the world, Maria Montessori-style*.

*Don't hold me to this if I get on another kick in the future.