“Daddy, let’s play!” chirps the Boy with such excitement, such genuine joy and anticipation, that it’s difficult to say “No.” Sadly, I do have to say just that occasionally.
“I’m working in the yard,” I explain, and then he responds, “Oh, I’ll come help you.”
Another time: “I have to grade papers.” That’s really a misnomer because most of my students’ work is now online, which means I’m sitting at a computer when “grading papers.” And so comes the obvious: “Oh, I’ll just sit on your lap while you work.”
Every now and then, though, I’m able to beat him to the idea. Such was the case tonight. “E, let’s play.”
“Let’s play!” came the response.
So we headed up to his room, discussing our options as we went. Whatever else might be involved, cars are a prerequisite. Want to build something with Legos? Fine, as long as it’s a device to work on cars. Want to create something with wooden blocks? Great, as long as it’s a miasto — a city for his cars to drive around.
Today, though, I thought we might try something new: an obstacle course.
The ladies, in the meantime, were downstairs, struggling through Polish lessons. It can be a challenge. Part of it is the simple fact that it’s more schooling after a day of school. But more challenging, I think, is the Girl’s reluctance to make mistakes. She flies through work at school, catching on quickly and mastering skills without much effort, it seems. “Math is boring now,” she says. But Polish? It’s not so easy. It’s not mistake-free. And even though she has a linguistic master in the house, she hesitates.
Once she got the work done, though, she came up to join us.
And then disaster struck: “E, it’s time for a bath. Let’s clean up.” The fact that we could rebuild did nothing to comfort him. The fact that I promised we could rebuild tomorrow did nothing to soothe him. Now is now; tomorrow is unimaginable. “But Daddy,” he sobbed, “I have to get up, and go to school, and then we can build it.” I can understand that frustration. I experience it. I see it in my students. And I see how some of them deal with it. So when the Boy and I finished with the clean up, and he was still sniffing, I took him in my arms and said, “That was a very difficult thing to do. No one likes to do something they don’t really want to do.” Perhaps in destroying, we were able to build some character.
“Okay,” he said. And by bath time, five minutes later, it was completely forgotten.