Steve and Aidan went to Long Island for a 24 hour visit that turned into a 48 hour visit and has now morphed into a three day visit (however many hours that is). A day to myself is a treat. Two days is surreal. I'm afraid three days is a bit depressing. I mean, my dog is gone. It's just baby and me.
The thing that is most awful is my diet. I don't have meals, I just eat when I am hungry. Or bored. Or sad. I've eaten most of some candies that I got for my birthday. My rationale is that I am saving Aidan from their evil seduction. I just threw away the last three in disgust. This morning I ate two bowls of cheerios with sugar. I had the same thing last night for dinner. I had tried to make myself some rice but I burned it horribly. The house still stinks from it.
Mostly I've been reading. I read all of Summerhill over the last two days. What a wonderful book. There is some weird dated stuff in it, but mostly I find it agreeable and inspiring. It almost felt like a spiritual book to me.
I keep having this back and forth about home schooling vs free schools. This is a luxury afforded me because there happens to be a free school in Albany. I had sort of a eureka moment while reading Summerhill that the component that I am yearning for in homeschooling is community - and free schools provide that. There is a big home schooling co-op here that may provide the community that I am seeking, but I don't think so. Time will tell.
I have spoken to a few people about Wes who agree that it sounds like he was poisoned, based on experiences they had or friends of theirs had. He probably ate a poisoned mouse. I happen to know that bait is set out for them in the house he was staying. Catching and eating mice is a trick that Roxy, our disappeared cat taught him. One person I know had a beagle that survived rat poison with immediate care. Based on how long Wes lasted, I suspect that he might have had a fighting chance if I had been quicker to arrange a visit to the vet, so I am kicking myself a bit. Other people have told me that there isn't much you can do and that the vet bill would have been huge. I'm not quite sure how to feel about that.
The whole thing has had the peculiar side effect of making me clutch at Will and Aidan (when he is here) a bit, grateful that some bizarre accident hasn't taken them from me.
Most people ask how Aidan is taking it. He cried when I first told him and wanted to leave Montauk with me, but I suspect that it was more that he missed his wooden trains than Wes. I think it is more about death in general for him. The night we got home he asked me about my dad, who died before he was born. Wes was really more my baby than Aidan's companion and there was almost a bit of sibling rivalry between them. When Aidan was a newborn, I remember sitting crosslegged on the floor with him in my lap and Wes trying to climb into my lap too and almost sitting on the baby. Wes was never particularly protective of Aidan though I think he was a bit with Will. When I would set Will outside while I hung laundry or dug around the yard, Wes would lie down next to him.
Will is the most fabulous baby. I pop him into the sling and go into a store and it's like a movie star walked in. He smiles this incredible engaging smile at everyone and pretty soon there is a little crowd around me marveling at this thing on my chest. I don't know whether to smile at people or just ignore them because it's not me that they are coming over to see.
He's asleep now, probably for the night. I'm going to try to have eggs and toast for breakfast tomorrow.
Comments
I love you! i wish I would have called you today while I was eating hamburgers and drinking miller lite at work today. I can't wait to see Will! and don't kid yourself, you're a bit of a rockstar yourself.
I read this entry after the original Wes entry. Yes, I think you are right that Wes was poisoned. In fact, when I read the Wes entry, that's what came to mind BECAUSE, my dog just last summer ate a poisoned dead mouse and had the exact same symptoms...deathly ill, vomiting every last ounce of liquid out of her, and just crashing on the ground, unable to get up and walk for quite some time. I had to practically carry her (65 pounds) to the car and to the doggy emergency where they told me they could do nothing for her (she had stopped vomiting by them, they said just keep giving her lots of water!), but that yes sounded like poisoning!!!! Miraculously, my doggy-love came came back from the poisoning. Your poor Wes must have gotten even more poison in him than my dog.
I'm glad you at least now have an answer. The not knowing adds another whole layer to the pain of the loss.
Christy,
While I was attending Putney School, I had a friend or two who had checked out Summerhill, and their experience was that the kids at Summerhill acted like a real bunch of assh...s. That has always colored my view of the book about Summerhill (and of the legends I have read...) I don't know if the newer edition of the book is less "through rose colored glasses" than the original.
I look forward to seeing you on the 14th! I'll bet Will has changed a lot, but Aidan not so much. With him, I hope to be remembered. But don't tutor him or anything, I hope to just be remembered intrinsically, that something about me had connected with this special four-year-old-kid...
Alexa
A friend was telling me about a book that she is reading that talks about how when kids go to school, they often replace their primary relationship with their parents with a peer relationship. This can result in all kinds of dysfunctional stuff, especially if both parents are working and the child thus has an even weaker primary caregiver relationship. The peer relationship can never really live up to the (ideal) parental adult relationship (unconditional love, mature judgement) and it becomes sort of frenzied and obsessive. I just read a book about homeschooling written by a teacher that postulated something similar based on his experiences working with high school kids. I would imagine that this phenomenon would be amplified at a boarding school.
What I like about Summerhill is the parenting philosophy. If you want to express love to children, you don't hit them, you do your best to understand them, you don't restrict things unless it involves health or safety, you trust that kids can be wonderful people without meddling in all of the little details of their lives, you teach by example. It describes how I try to parent Aidan and I think it works pretty well for us.
The only part about it that I think I can't provide in my own home is the democratic community.
I don't know if the book is so rose colored - he doesn't say that the kids are all nice. He describes some pretty awful behavior along with where he thinks that behavior came from. He's not really insisting that Summerhill produces nice kids, but rather that it produces confident, creative kids who have a strong sense of who they are because noone (at least at their school) has been trying to mold them.
The copy of Summerhill that I read is from the 1960s, but there is a newer edition - I'd be interested in seeing how it's different.
I'm the same way with food when home alone C - a cookie here, a piece of toast there, something to drink whenever I get around to it. Ah well... Hugs! And I hope y'all had a good homecoming when "the boys" got back
Comments
I love you! i wish I would have called you today while I was eating hamburgers and drinking miller lite at work today. I can't wait to see Will! and don't kid yourself, you're a bit of a rockstar yourself.
I read this entry after the original Wes entry. Yes, I think you are right that Wes was poisoned. In fact, when I read the Wes entry, that's what came to mind BECAUSE, my dog just last summer ate a poisoned dead mouse and had the exact same symptoms...deathly ill, vomiting every last ounce of liquid out of her, and just crashing on the ground, unable to get up and walk for quite some time. I had to practically carry her (65 pounds) to the car and to the doggy emergency where they told me they could do nothing for her (she had stopped vomiting by them, they said just keep giving her lots of water!), but that yes sounded like poisoning!!!! Miraculously, my doggy-love came came back from the poisoning. Your poor Wes must have gotten even more poison in him than my dog.
I'm glad you at least now have an answer. The not knowing adds another whole layer to the pain of the loss.
Christy,
While I was attending Putney School, I had a friend or two who had checked out Summerhill, and their experience was that the kids at Summerhill acted like a real bunch of assh...s. That has always colored my view of the book about Summerhill (and of the legends I have read...) I don't know if the newer edition of the book is less "through rose colored glasses" than the original.
I look forward to seeing you on the 14th! I'll bet Will has changed a lot, but Aidan not so much. With him, I hope to be remembered. But don't tutor him or anything, I hope to just be remembered intrinsically, that something about me had connected with this special four-year-old-kid...
Alexa
A friend was telling me about a book that she is reading that talks about how when kids go to school, they often replace their primary relationship with their parents with a peer relationship. This can result in all kinds of dysfunctional stuff, especially if both parents are working and the child thus has an even weaker primary caregiver relationship. The peer relationship can never really live up to the (ideal) parental adult relationship (unconditional love, mature judgement) and it becomes sort of frenzied and obsessive. I just read a book about homeschooling written by a teacher that postulated something similar based on his experiences working with high school kids. I would imagine that this phenomenon would be amplified at a boarding school.
What I like about Summerhill is the parenting philosophy. If you want to express love to children, you don't hit them, you do your best to understand them, you don't restrict things unless it involves health or safety, you trust that kids can be wonderful people without meddling in all of the little details of their lives, you teach by example. It describes how I try to parent Aidan and I think it works pretty well for us.
The only part about it that I think I can't provide in my own home is the democratic community.
I don't know if the book is so rose colored - he doesn't say that the kids are all nice. He describes some pretty awful behavior along with where he thinks that behavior came from. He's not really insisting that Summerhill produces nice kids, but rather that it produces confident, creative kids who have a strong sense of who they are because noone (at least at their school) has been trying to mold them.
The copy of Summerhill that I read is from the 1960s, but there is a newer edition - I'd be interested in seeing how it's different.
I'm the same way with food when home alone C - a cookie here, a piece of toast there, something to drink whenever I get around to it. Ah well... Hugs! And I hope y'all had a good homecoming when "the boys" got back