In addition to my life sort of entirely falling apart this past summer, some other things happened too:  Felix turned a year old and started to roam.  Treva had her third birthday.  And now Horus will be turning five years old in about a week.

Officially, Horus is of kindergarten age this year, and I was surprised that, despite my well-known and public ideas about institutional education, we received our share of pressure from family and friends to send him off to school.

Apart from my philosophical objections to institutionalizing children at a young age (or ever), I also know that Horus does not [yet?] possess even remotely the attitude or constitution or personality that would make public school bearable or survivable for him, his classmates or the poor teacher.  Horus is fantastic one-on-one.  Group settings are not his forte.  There were moments during the past few months that I wanted nothing more than to put Horus on a yellow bus every morning and have him carted away to a brick building for 8 hours so I just don’t have to deal with the kid.  Which underlines exactly why I can’t do that.  There are issues here, both nature and nurture.

I have, at points, wondered why, considering his beautiful birth, and perfect breastfeeding, and attachment everything…why is he so *awful*.  Or rather, why is he so awful precisely when I am out in public and trying to impress people with my sweet little family?

I have a deeply unattractive tendency to blame Lee for Horus’ bad behaviour.