We got a hammock the other day. Not really sure why. L wanted it; K thought it was a fun idea. So now we have one.
Which thrills L to no end. The Boy is less sure of it, but he might warm up to it.
The Girl’s hair definitely gives it a thumbs up, to mix metaphors.
Blue skies in the morning, and there’s only one thing to do: take a walk. It’s been almost two years now since I was taking daily walks with the Boy in the summer mornings. School was just out; the Boy was able to do little more than open his eyes and look straight ahead. On this lazy Sunday morning, with Polish Mass in the afternoon (the last Sunday of the month comes around with surprising suddenness), we have the time for such a trip back through time.
The difference, of course, is in the air, in the trees, in the flowerbeds. The walks two years ago with the Boy were in the summer, when the temperature could rise to the mid-80’s by late morning; today, there’s a cold breeze that reminds us it’s still March.
During the summer walks of two years ago, the shade of trees brought relief; today, the trees are still almost completely bare, and shade only makes us feel the chill more acutely.
Then, the flowerbeds were not nearly as colorful as the beds today.
Then was a beginning, with E just a little bump in the stroller; today is a beginning, with the buds opening and the Boy kicking his feet on the wheels of the stroller and doing his best to chat with me about everything he sees.
“You really want to talk, don’t you?” I ask as we turn to head home.
“Taaaak!”
Sun comes up, it’s Saturday morning, and the gray sky suggests that we won’t be doing much more than sitting at home — as if gray skies mean such a thing. Just because we’re rained in doesn’t mean that we can’t find work to do. Two kids, a house, one parent a teacher — there’s always something to do, something to fix, something to begin, something to complete.
I make the coffee and think of a song, an album I hadn’t listened to in ages. Cowboy Junkies. Somehow the perfect group for this morning. Calm, somewhat monotonous, almost boring in the perfect way something could be boring.
The kids and I get ready to go out shopping — a quick trip that serves two purposes. We get the things we need, like sundried tomatoes for the coming week’s salads, and we leave K alone in the house to clean.
“I like it. It’s calming, almost a meditation.”
Must be a Polish thing.
We arrive home, entertain the kids, force some Polish down L’s gullet — those Polish lessons are getting harder and harder, K swears — and eat some lunch, and then the sun comes out. Followed by me. I have ten cubic yards of dirt to compact at the end of the driveway to prepare our latest blueberry patch. And a yard to mow. And a million other things that I can’t quite get to. The Girl goes to a friend’s house to play, then brings him back to play some more. K brings the fed and napped Boy outside while she cleans the van we’ll soon be selling — hopefully — and suddenly it’s evening. I stand at the grill, turn the chicken, turn the corn, and watch the sun on buds in the tree tops turn golden as Nana and Papa entertain the kids and vice versa.
Eight fifteen. “What do you say I go upstairs and draw the bath?” I whisper in K’s ear as she finishes up dinner dishes.
“Sounds good.”
And tonight, all dive in.
All. Including our brave, curious, playful kitten.
Much to everyone’s delight.
Soon enough, kids are out, and I’m making the Boy’s bottle, then playing guitar for him as he drifts off to sleep. I sit on the bed, then lie on the bed, suddenly to be awakened.
“Who fell asleep first?” K laughs.
Hard to tell.
“Movie?”
“Are you kidding?”
Not really, but I know that there’s not much point even starting it. She’ll fall asleep within the first half hour, and by then, I might be interested enough not to want to stop.
“You’re probably right,” I say.
“Coming to bed?”
“No, I’ve got one more thing to do.”
When The Day After aired in 1983, I so wanted to watch it. It promised to be the television event of year. My parents, probably wisely, didn’t allow me to watch it, though, and it was probably a good thing: Mr. Rogers dedicated several episodes to calming children who had seen the film.
Now, over thirty years later, I discover it on YouTube.
The fear of the Cold War was so much more focused than the fears we face today. At least then, there was one enemy, and we could hope, along with Sting, that the Russians loved their children, too — and of course they did. Now, with the primary threat of nuclear explosions coming from terrorism, there’s the wild card element of religious fanaticism and the certainty that drives it.
I prefer the Cold War, if I had to choose. But I’d rather not have to choose — as if we can choose such things…
We do love K’s żurek.
It was time for the Girl to go to bed; it was time for Elsa to play. These two events cannot happen simultaneously: several nights, L has come downstairs, kitten in hand, tearfully explaining that “Elsa is jumping on me and biting on me and won’t let me sleep!” Taking all that into consideration, I explained to L that she would have to go to bed without Elsa, which brought on panicked hysteria. “I can’t sleep without Elsa!” I calmed her down, explaining that I would bring the kitten up to her room once she had tired herself out.
For an hour, the cat played with a green bean that had fallen when K was cooking for tomorrow night.
As promised, I took the cat back up to L’s room, nestling her into the crook of L’s neck. And as I walked out, I, the pessimist, the cynic that I am, had the most macabre thought: If they’re this close now, if L is this attached so quickly, what will it be like when Elsa dies? I pictured a teenager, perhaps nearing the end of her high school adventures. Maybe it would happen around prom time, devastating the Girl and running her prom. Silly thoughts, but I mentioned them to K.
“Well, if Elsa dies a natural death, L will be an adult then.”
I’d forgotten L is already seven years old. I’d forgotten how long cats can live. Or more precisely, I’d forgotten that things won’t always be as they are now. That’s why the passage of time catches us so unexpectedly. The changes creep by, day by day, and we think it’s always been as it is. E has always been just on the verge of talking. The Girl has always been able to read, stumbling over only the most troubling words. Except all those always’s can’t always be, not even for a moment. But oh how we sometimes want them to…
By the doors to the restrooms in E’s daycare room there is a small chair, blue with yellow legs and arms. With its slightly reclined back and arched seat, it looks almost like an Adirondack chair. It would seem likely the teachers put the chair there to provide children waiting for the restroom a place to sit until one realizes that the name of the group is “Toddler 2,” which means every child in the room is around two years old: not many children that age likely are using the restroom by themselves. Perhaps it’s a timeout chair.
The Boy, however, made his own unique use of it last week, his first week in daycare. Because we wanted to slip him into the new routine gently, K took him to the facility in the morning then came during her lunch break to take E back to the house and Babcia, where he napped, lunched, and played until I returned. K’s arrival always coincided with the preparation time for the children’s nap. As the children pulled their mats into place and arranged their blankets, all with the teachers’ help, E sat in the yellow and blue chair and waited for K.
This week, however, he’s been going full days. Two days down, and things could be going better. What a stressful experience for a little kid, and K and I both feel a little guilty for putting him through it. We justify it to ourselves: he’ll be stronger for it; he has to go through this at some point; he’ll soon be enjoying it. We justify, but that doesn’t do much when the teacher tells us that every day at nap time, E still trundles over to the yellow and blue chair, sits down, and waits for K.
He toddled to the wood pile, on which rests the small box of sidewalk chalk, and tried to climb.
“Do you want chalk?” I asked.
“Taaaaaaaaaak!” he affirmed.
He took the chalk, bounced over to his ride-able toy firetruck, which has a small storage compartment, opened said compartment, and dropped the chalk in. He pushed it out of the carport then up half of the driveway, where he stopped and emptied his cargo onto the pavement. Taking the fat cylinder of chalk in his hand, he scratched enthusiastically at the pavement, just as L had done so many years ago.
Having multiple children is a constant reminder of the cyclical nature of almost all we do. E is now fascinated with chalk for drawing on the driveway — large, fat chalk that leaves pink and red and blue marks on the black pavement.
“Koło!” he cried as he made yet another circle.
“Tata, when are we going to have another Tata-L day?” the Girl occasionally asks. It’s our nickname for a little bit of time together, just the two of us. It might be a bit of bike riding together, or it might just be a few errands with a milkshake treat to finish up the outing. Until recently, though, the Boy has really been too small for a Tata-E day.
Today was just such a day
The girls were on their way to the airport for Babcia’s return flight, with a planned stop at Ikea to begin planning a room renovation for the Girl’s bedroom. It was the perfect opportunity for a bit of little-man-alone-with-Tata time: walking, climbing, falling, looking, exploring.
Some songs send you back into the past in an almost palpable way.
“Oh, look!” Babcia exclaimed, “they’re x’s!” I can’t recall the Polish name she called the little weeds growing in our front yard, and I don’t have a clue what they’re called in English. I call them weeds. She calls them flowers.
They have blossoms, so they’re flowers; they’re unwanted, so they’re weeds.
Which means just about anything could be a weed for someone.
When it’s this warm, after days of rain, after days of winter’s last stand, a warm and sunny day demands us, commands us, compels us outside. The yellow bells have been blooming for a week, and the green underneath will soon overwhelm the yellow much like the heat of the coming summer will overwhelm the beauty of merely warm days like today.
The warmth of summer isn’t the only thing we catch a glimpse of today, though. The Boy glances at me when I call his name, and as I’ve managed to do several times with the Girl, I catch an instant in which we can see hints of what he’ll look like as he grows older.
It’s inevitable, of course, but sometimes, like all parents, we just want to keep him at this perfect little age. And keep L at her perfect little age. That’s one of the oddities of being a parent: when you’re that close to the growth, seeing it constantly, it’s easy to forget that a given child hasn’t always been this age, hasn’t always been just this charming in this particular way.
Hasn’t he always been eager to “help”? Hasn’t he always been madly repeating every single phrase he hears, with his bubbling, often-near-miss pronunciation? Won’t he always love to swing?
Dear Terrence,
When you walked into the classroom today, I knew things were going to be difficult for you. Your face was set in such anger: it looked as if you were about to explode. I’ve learned from experience that kids in a state like you were in are better off left alone, so I decided to let you sit there for as long as you needed, for until you become disruptive — always a possibility in such situations.
We began the lesson, things moved smoothly, and I kept my eye on you. You were unmoving for a good ten minutes. Then you loosened up a bit, but not much: your fists were still clinched, but not so tightly; your jaw was quivering with anger, but not so violently. I put the stack of papers to be passed out on the desk at the head of your row: when the stack arrived at your desk, you took one and passed the rest back. A positive step. Still, you weren’t in any place to begin work, so I let you sit. Finally, as we began marking the text, filling the pages with our scribblings and lines, our arrows and marginal notes, you raised your hand and asked for help catching up. I numbered the paragraphs, drew the lines between paragraphs for our text clusters, and handed the paper back.
“Thanks,” was all you said. And you slowly began working.
Let me tell you now: that behavior was not how a boy acts; it was how a man acts. It was impressive. It filled me with hope for your future. It reminded me again how much you’ve matured this year.
Now, the next step: set a goal to get to that point a bit faster. Then a bit faster. And before long, you’ll find yourself able to set aside even the most troubling situations long enough to deal with the responsibilities at hand. And that will be one of many signs that you’re a man.
Impressed and still smiling,
Your Teacher
“I will give each of you an answer document. Do not open it or mark on it until I tell you to do so. Be careful not to fold or bend your answer document.”
I say these words and begin passing out the answer documents for the 2014 SCPASS writing test, part of the required state testing for No Child Left Behind compliance. I look at each answer document, glance at the student in front of me to confirm that I’m about to hand the correct document to the correct person, and it hits me once again, the little miracle that of being a middle school teacher.
Just months ago, these faces were strangers, a room of twenty-nine kids that I knew virtually nothing about. Since they’re taking ninth grade English in the eighth grade, their intelligence and perseverance were an obvious-enough inference. Still, beyond that, there was nothing. Just faces. Now each of those faces tells a story. I’ve learned so much about these kids in these few months that I’m certain I know them in some ways better than their parents. Certainly I know a different side of them, and without a doubt I know them better than almost any other non-family adult. I know this one’s mother died just a little over a year ago yet he holds it together more bravely than I could imagine. I know that one feels tugged between divorced parents, and does that clever one in the corner. I know which have bad habits they’re trying to break, which kids have bad habits they’re letting linger, which kids feel terribly insecure and put a brave, almost aggressive face on as a defense. I know their dreams, their fears, their loves, and even some of them, I know their crushes and heartaches.
What other job lets you see so deeply into so many people’s hearts? Why would I want to do anything else?
I would bet that all those in Poland who’d opposed the placement of an American missile defense system in Poland are now having second, third, and fourth thoughts.
We have many, but two stood out tonight. First, the search for Elsa, our kitten. She’s still incredibly small, and she can fit into the must unimaginably tight spots. Under the sofa is a favorite place, even though there’s probably not much more than three inches of clearance there. A recent favorite was behind the baskets in which K stores our scarves and gloves in the winter, our hats and such in summer. Tonight, a new spot: my sock basket at the bottom of our bedroom closet.
The other ritual is reading. The Boy has his favorite books, and now that the Girl has progressed so in reading — still waiting that spring MAP score! — she often reads to him. His attention span is still not much longer than his nose, though, and tonight, the dust cover of the book was far more interesting.
As the Girl grows, she takes on more responsibility with her brother, as tonight shows. Best of all, she often relishes these responsibilities — for a short time. Still, it’s a start toward mature responsibility.