Month: July 2014
The Girl likes blue. When we told her that we would be moving her into the computer room, which is just a touch smaller than her room, she was distraught — until we told her we would repaint it and she could choose the color.
Monday we worked on the trim. Yesterday, I roughed in the walls, painting the edges so I could attack it today with just a roller.
Of course there was a temptation, and I did succumb to said temptation…
I’m out mowing, mid-morning. The Girl, who is taking care of E, sticks her head out the door and says, “E was wondering if we could have some of those peanut butter-filled pretzels.”
Sure.
I can just see our two-year-old son sitting on the couch, watching his favorite cartoon, The Littlest Pet Shop (no coercion there), and turning to L to say, “You know, I’m just a little hungry. Know what I’d like? Some of those peanut-butter-filled pretzel thingies. And you know, Daddy’s just right outside there, mowing the front yard. Maybe you could just, I don’t know, stick your head out the door and ask him. I mean, we could try to get it ourselves, but I think we’d probably be better off if we ask permission.”
Yes, that’s probably how it happened.
Today we embarked on the most time-consuming aspect of our little house project: painting. As we always do, we misjudged — or rather I misjudged — just how much more work we had to do before we could begin painting, and I was confident we would end the day with the first coat on both the trim and the walls.
First and hopefully last, for we bought paint that the clerk swore required only one coat, and no primer necessary even when changing a wall from a dark earth tone to a light blue. Still, I was hoping that even if we had to use a second coat, we could have the first one on today.
By the time we took a watermelon break in the late morning, we still hadn’t cracked open a paint can. By the time we do get painting, the Boy is in bed, the sun is high and hot, and the prospect of painting glossy white paint in blinding sun necessitated not only a hat for the head but sunglasses to protect the eyes. And since I’m not sure about the quality of L’s (which is a shame to admit), I gave her a pair of my old sunglasses and my hat — and suddenly she looked older.
As with yesterday’s helping, the Girl’s help in turn required some help. Still, fewer runs than the deck painting session.
Back inside, K and I worked to finish all the white in the house. I know this is the second photograph I’ve taking of K in this very position, but I was unable to find the first. Were we painting the living room? Repainting the living room? Painting the study-soon-to-be-L’s-room? They all seem strong possibilities, reminding me once again of the cyclical nature of working about the house.
Some of my earliest memories, when I was just a toddler, involve helping my father. The first house I lived in with my family was a brick ranch with a sizable lot behind it that was mostly overgrown and wild. At some point my father decided that leaving it fallow was a waste and that he must put the land to work. If I recall, the plan was to plant peanuts. But that involved clearing the land, and lacking any heavy machinery for the job, he did it by hand, with me “helping.” My helping is not such a clear memory, but I’d bet it was mostly getting in the way. I know I was most effective as a messenger, asking my mother to prepare a cup of coffee for Dad as well as a cup of “coffee milk” for me. Or maybe I just remember that because I heard my parents tell the story so many times. Such are first memories.
A few weeks ago, it was the Girl’s turn to help. She was actually quite helpful. Sure, I had to go back and correct some places where she’d put too much stain on and created runs, but that was easier than doing all the work myself, and the joy she got from helping was all the more priceless.
Today, as I got material ready for L’s big room change, the Boy comes down the stairs with his careful step, sitting on the bottom and watching me for a moment before rising and asking the question of the day.
“Help you, Daddy?”
What can a two-year-old do that’s truly helpful? Nothing. What can I do to help him feel helpful? Everything.
I give him a sealed bag and ask him to open it. He struggles for a while before asking, “Help me Daddy?”
In the end, I find some extra parts and a pair of needle nose pliers and ask him if he can pick up the spare parts with the pliers.
It keeps him occupied and filled with joy for at least twenty minutes.
"My turn! My turn!"
Or perhaps the solution is to double up?
My mother sometimes would be telling someone stories of her youth and mention her best friend, S, and how they could get together after not having seen each other in years and it would suddenly be as if they were back in school together.
"Years melt away" is the cliche, I suppose.
Old friends,
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends.
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the 'round toes
On the high shoes
Of the old friends.
Or old friends hang out in the driveway, taking turns playing badminton with the Girl.
While the Boy watches intently
Occasionally Mama gets into the game, and then we're all in trouble.
Meanwhile, the Old Friend calmly entertains everyone.
Especially the Boy.
L has had the same best friend, E (for the sake of simplicity, Big-E), for five years now. They met at preschool, thus bringing our families into a closer orbit than would have otherwise naturally occurred: play-dates became dinner with both families, or even a short vacation together.
Five years, for seven-year-olds, is virtually eternity. It stretches even longer than the endless nights of childhood when we simply can't wait until morning.
"How long until morning?" we as mom, and the resulting answer might as well be expressed in scientific notation.
So every now and then, the two families get together for an afternoon at the pool, dinner, or perhaps an afternoon at the park. The five kids have great fun together, the parents chat and take turns tag-teaming with each others' kids ("E, slow down!" "Big-E, you interrupted her!"), and in the end, we all return home satisfied. What's not to love about an outing that gives the kids great joy while simultaneously exhausting them?
Over the past year, though, a second connection has developed. E has been in the same preschool class as E (gosh -- this is getting confusing: three kids with the initial initial "E." Let's just call her "Lady-E"), and when we asked E if he was excited about seeing Lady-E today, he smiled hugely and said, "Taaaaak!" (The question was posed in Polish: he's much better about answer in the same language than L is at this point.)
So L and Big-E zoomed ahead on a scooter and bike respectively while E and Lady-E tended to hang back on their less speedy models. And I (initial for the middle child, not me) sort of hung in the middle, like a middle child would.
We saw some lovely views, including a beaver dam,
had fun pulling our vehicle when we got too tired to ride it,
and had a nice picnic to fill the bellies and stop the complaining.
E and Lady-E are now the same ages (roughly: Lady-E is about a year older) as L and Big-E were when they met. And while five years have passed in the interim, none of us could have possibly believed how quickly it would have gone. Five years for a seven-year-old -- forget about it. You might as well be talking the age of the universe.
Five years for any of us? It's a flash, a blink, a second degree, a mere half-a-decade.
It's absolutely nothing. Indeed, for us, the passage of twenty years has become nothing. I see on social media that a twenty-year-old beauty contestant boldly wore an insulin pump with her bikini (never mind the ethics of judging someone's worth or beauty -- oh, never mind), and I think, "Twenty years. That makes it 1994. I was starting my senior year of college."
These kids are still learning how to control their arms and legs: college seems like an impossibly distant reality for them, but for us, it will just be a blip. A few birthdays, a Christmas or two, and suddenly this child or that is packing up to head to this or that college.
I keep writing about this because it keeps becoming more and more obvious. "Hold on to these moments as they pass," sings Adam Duritz in "Long December," and the older I get, the more that rings true.