matching tracksuits

It’s a nightly occurrence: a few minutes after we put the Girl to bed, she calls one of us. It’s usually “Mama!”

We take turns answering the call, and L doesn’t seem to matter who responds.

“Yes, sweetheart,” I say as I open the door, and I immediately one of several possible answers. Sometimes it’s just a fragment of a story she remembered; sometimes it’s something straight from her imagination. It could be that she needs juice or that she wants to rock with me in the rocking chair for a moment. Occasionally she’s not pleased with the sleeping music.

“Yes, L,” I say tonight as I enter her room.

“We didn’t rock,” she replies calmly.

I take her out of her bed and sit with her own my lap. Usually she’s a little squirmy. Tonight she’s too tired to squirm.

Out of the blue, she opens the age-old conversation: “Tata, I don’t want to grow up.”

“You don’t have a choice. None of us do.” I think this, but I certainly don’t say it. Instead, I simply ask her if she likes being three.

“Yes,” she says quietly. She snuggles a little closer, pauses, and leaves me speechless, whispering, “Three’s easy.”

While Babcia was here, she kept busy. Luckily for us (or should I say “Luckily for L”), the way she usually keeps busy is through crotchet. Her visit gave Babcia just enough time to make a dress and cap for the girl.

March is a month for kite flying. Though I rarely flew kites, it was always a favorite pastime for me as a kid. Perhaps it’s the indirect flying. We introduced kite flying to the Girl this weekend, much to her excitement.

When shopping for our kite, there was only one criterion: there must be a princess on it.

“I’m not a _____! I’m a princess!” L is fond of saying these days. In the blank can be just about anything, even “little girl” (or “big girl” for that matter). Once the princess kite was assembled

and launched, L was fascinated.

For about three minutes.

Much more inviting were the rocks and twigs scattered about.

Almost all children adore animals. Kids are attracted to the novel, and what could be more novel than another living creature?

L’s love of animals borders on obsessive, and like many obsessions, hers leads to behaviors that seem counterproductive: she loves are cat almost literally to death (at least that’s certainly the cat’s point of view). And so a visit to a farm is simply perfect for L: she gets to experience animals up close, yet the familiarity that leads L to take so many liberties with our cat  is missing.

Over the weekend, we went to a birthday party held at a local stable and farm — brilliant idea. We petted chickens and fed goats.

The highlight, of course, was in the barn.

Like all good riders, the children got a chance to do a little horse grooming, learning how to brush the horses with the various brushes then applying their new knowledge.

L is a curious mix of excitement and conscientiousness. She was eager to try the various brushes and wanted to use them correctly, but she never really took the time to try to remember — to allow others to remind her — how to the various brushes.

She’s a little like me, I guess: she dives in, fairly confident that she’ll get it right soon enough that any mistakes made along the way won’t be significantly problematic.

Fortunately, the conscientious side of her took control when she was on the horse. She listened carefully and didn’t deviate from instructions even slightly.

Once it was all over, the swings outside the barn beckoned. L had had fun the entire day, but she seem a little relieved to be doing something she knew how to do. Novel is good, in small doses.

The Girl enjoys playing with the chess set I brought back from Poland. (If I remember correctly, a gift from Nana and Papa, when they came for our wedding.) She has invented her own little version that involves us using single pieces to push our opponent’s single piece around the board for a few moments. She loves the game, but I’ve yet to discern the sublime objective.

Occasionally she just gets all the pieces out and puts them on the board. There’s usually a pattern: black pieces on black squares; white pieces on white squares.

A perfectly impossible position, but notice: the white king is in check, forking the queen.

It’s another example of the similarities between toddlers and older children with autism: pattern, pattern, pattern. Everything has its place, and to disturb that order is to invite chaos, in more ways that one.

We’re more like that than we’d like to admit. A colleague once commented that we’re all on the autism spectrum; it’s just that some of us have very mild cases. Mine manifests itself in my obsession with seeing patterns in floor tiles and then feeling a compulsion to walk in accordance with said patterns.

That’s probably why I looked at L’s work, smiled, and said proudly, “Very symmetrical. Well done.”

We’ve been teaching the Girl to share. With no siblings, she’s fairly accustomed to having all her toys all to herself. Yet sharing is not something you can force or even teach like tying a shoe. It’s something in which she needs to see the intrinsic value herself. And the only way to convey that — the joy of sharing, you could call it — is to model it.

“Here, Mama. Would you like some of my cake?” I ask K. She has a slice herself, but she gladly accepts. We smile, but they’re genuine smiles: it’s amusing, the whole process, and it’s difficult to do it with a straight face.

L is beginning to catch on. The other day, she brought me a bit of candy she’d tried, saying, ”Tata, I’m sharing this with you. I don’t like it.”

There’s a particular hat that is positively ubiquitous in southern Poland. Farmers, loggers, town drunks — any and all men can wear them, especially once they reach age forty.

I received one before I left Poland. Though I could never bring myself to wear it there, I wore it occasionally in the States.

The Girl recently discovered it.

It seems it’s no longer mine.

We’ve lived here long enough to learn through firsthand experience that the Greenville area doesn’t get snow; it gets ice. Still, the ground becomes white, and it’s inviting to a little girl.

The driveway became a skating rink. Or, more accurately, a slipping-and-sliding rink.

Photo by K

But L’s great dream was to make a snowball and throw it. She made a valiant effort, scraping the ice from the ground, forming it into a little ball

Photo by K

and giving it a toss.

Photo by K

I never really liked card games as a kid. I guess Uno was alright once in a while, but that doesn’t really count as a real card game. Since Windows hadn’t yet come out when I was a kid, I never learned to play Hearts. Spades was popular among some friends, as was — oddly enough — euchre, but I just didn’t get it. What was the point? (Bridge, of course, was out of the question then; now, it’s the only card game I truly enjoy.)

L learned a new game today — “learn” being used in a most generous way. She didn’t quite get the point; she couldn’t quite understand why Babcia took the upturned cards for herself sometimes and sometimes gave them to her.

I can’t remember what this particular game is called in English. In Polish, it’s “wojna” — war. Perhaps it’s the same in English. I can’t really recall. (Another one of those odd circumstances in which I know the Polish but am unsure of the English.)

Most importantly: the Girl enjoyed it (for a few minutes).

“Let’s play it again!” she chimed again and again.

Still in English, though…

A cloudy day. We’d been in the house all weekend, with the sole exception being a trip to the church on Christmas day. So after L woke up, we headed downtown.

Cloudy days are good for photographing moving water: slow shutter speeds.

0.4, f/22.0, 18 mm

One step over-exposure combined with a closed down lens meant I was able to get the shutter speeds I’d always wanted.

1/4, f/22.0, 70 mm

1/4, f/22.0, 52 mm

But L wasn’t interested in shutter speeds or f-stop values: we’d promised her chocolate milk once we got downtown, and that was her only interest.

Latte for K and me; hot chocolate for Babcia; and fruit juice for the Girl (unfortunately, no chocolate milk to be found) — we were ready for a walk down main street.

There were a few of us out for a walk. Most everyone else seemed to be huddled in the bars and restaurants that line Main Street. I guess with the bowl games and the southern love affair with football it’s logical.

Still, there were a few families out. A grandmother and granddaughter posed for pictures against a backdrop of traffic as we crossed the street to head back to our car. Just a few blocks down the street the view is much more striking, with the waterfall and bridge and lights. As we walked by, I idly wondered about their choice of location.

Being downtown always makes me a little frustrated that we don’t head there more often.

The winter answer to that question is obvious. After a couple of shots in front of the large city Christmas tree, we headed back to the car.

We parked within view of some of the most expensive condos in the area. Location, location, location. Their owners probably don’t complain about not going downtown often enough.