B and M, 20 months, helping me cut carrots for our basil vegetable soup

It’s been 3 ½ months since I wrote my last blog. During that time, the girls and I moved to Denver CO where I completed my AMI 0-3 Montessori Training, moved back to NY, renovated our apartment, rented it out, moved to Baltimore where my husband started a new job and the girls started going to school. It’s been a very intense period of time. I think even bigger than all the moves and changes we’ve been going through is my own transformational journey as a Montessorian and mother. Writing 1000+ pages about children ages 0-3 and everything that will help them become a truly self-fulfilled human being, observing various children for 250 hours and documenting every detail I’ve observed, then passing a 6-hour written exam and 2-hour oral exam – that process changes you, as a human being, as a Montessorian, as a mother.

I started writing this blog because my mother was giving me so much good advice when my girls were first born that I felt I had to share it with more mothers. And then eventually I started writing because I was in awe of what children are capable of at such a young age when given the right environment. Now, I feel I want to write because I’m getting just how critical this age is for the rest of your child’s life and for the future of humanity. Children, from ages 0-6, are ABSORBING with their whole being everything you give them. If you give them a lot, they can be a lot, if you give them a little, they can only be a little. So at this age, it is critical to give them the best environment you possibly can. What they take in and absorb becomes a part of their flesh, part of their consciousness – all of it so deeply embedded that they will carry it with them forever. With all I’ve learned from my training, I have spent a lot of time choosing and designing what kind of environment I give my children. That’s why in the upcoming blogs, you will see why we ask them to set the table and clean up after they eat, why we teach them to use scissors, pit cherries, use knives, etc. It’s not so they can do circus tricks or so mom and dad can show off how great they are, it is because every one of these activities is designed to help them become a truly self-fulfilled human being. As a mother, that’s what I want for them.