Matching Tracksuits

Last week was Polish Mass, so it was a lazy morning. This week, no such luck. With Mass beginning at nine, we have to wake up early; with L singing in the children’s choir — which is, on most Sundays, the primary choir for the morning Mass — she as to be there thirty minutes earlier, which means an even earlier start. Today, with K still coughing, we decided just L and I would go. The Boy woke up at seven with us anyway, and insisted, as he often does, on helping with breakfast.

With the new church our newly adopted parish is building soon to be completed, the choir is rehearsing for the dedication Mass in November, which means an hour-and-fifteen-minute practice after Mass with the adult choir. So it was a little after twelve when we made it back home for rosół and a bit of relaxation.

Of course, the Boy was busy when we arrived. He’d decided that he wanted to build the ultimate train track, a track that began in his room and ran down the entire hallway. It was a challenge due to the lack of straight pieces in his collection, but he managed to find a way.

“It’s a crazy, curvy track,” he explained. And as I watched, I saw that he was very deliberate his his placement, always making sure that each piece turned the opposite way as the previous to make a drunken, crazy track in between the straight spots. He wanted to turn it around and head back down the hall, but he didn’t have enough pieces.

When it came time to clean up, though, we had an issue. “I need help cleaning up!” was the fussy cry coming from the hall. “You didn’t need help making the mess. You can do it!” was the choral response. But he couldn’t clean it up the way he wanted to clean it up. He was stacking piece after piece and then trying to pick it all up at once. When the pieces of track tumbled over, his frustration exploded.

L was the same way. It’s only recently that she began to see that she doesn’t have to solve problems using the first solution that comes to mind. She’s realized that she can make multiple trips from the car to the house instead of precariously carrying every single thing at once, to use a fairly common example.

The Boy, though, was insistent. It was only with a threat — stop fussing and just clean it up or lose it — that he finally relented and gave in on his original plan. Was that wrong? Should I have helped him realize it for himself? Should I have helped him realize his plan? At the time, I didn’t give it much thought — the soup was almost ready and everyone was terribly hungry. Perhaps I could have done a better job. Maybe next time.

After lunch and a coffee, I took the Boy exploring. I finally managed to ask our relatively new neighbor if he minded us traipsing about his backyard, and his response was at once predictable and surprising: “No, I don’t mind at all. But I really appreciate you asking. I really appreciate that.” What was I going to do? It’s not our property.

I tried explaining all this to the Boy as we returned to our favorite little spot by the creek in our backyard (or perhaps “backyards”).

“We always ask before we use something that’s not ours.”

“This is not ours?”

Last Sunday I’d taken to the street opposite our little hiding place, hoping he’d make a mental map of where he was and figure it all out. I pointed it out to him today, but he didn’t see what I was talking about, literally or figuratively.

After we’d had enough of our favorite place, we went to our newest hiding place, which also is not on our property. I haven’t asked those neighbors if they mind, though, mainly because there are no neighbors. The elderly couple that lived there no longer do: the husband died, collapsing in the backyard for us to see from our backyard (what a traumatic event that was), and I’m assuming the grown children moved their mother into other arrangements. The house has been empty for a couple of years now, if not more. So the little spot that we carved out of the weeds and brush on their side of the creek might be a problem if someone lived there, but it’s so deep in the brush that they likely wouldn’t even notice it if they lived there.

E asked a couple of times if it was our property where we were hiding and if we had permission to be there. I thought about trying to explain it, but in the end, I just said, “It’s fine.” A lie? Yes and no.

And after that hiding place, why not go to our final hiding place, behind the shrubs in the front of our house.

Hiding, hiding, hiding. What is it about kids and hiding places? They love building “forts” on the couch, and I remember how much I enjoyed a good hiding place as a kid. Perhaps it’s the bit of independence it implies, even when you’re hiding with your daddy. Or perhaps it’s the shared secret in such situations.

As with last week, the Girl decided not to join us. She was working on a school project on the computer and then taking care of the tadpole — Squirmy — that she’s been keeping in a plastic bin for a couple of weeks now. As she grows older, her independence obviously increases. I try to respect that, but sometimes I feel like it’s neglect: she wants to be alone sometimes, and then when she wants to be with me, I’m busy grading papers or something similar — or even something less significant.

This increasing independence also somewhat explains the decreasing number of pictures of her here. “Daddy, you aren’t going to put that on MTS, are you?” she sometimes asks, and so I try to respect her growing sense of privacy. What happens when the Boy starts asking the same thing?

The final picture of the day mirrored the first: the Boy helping with dinner — leftover crepes (or naleśniki as we refer to them) that we fill with leftover chicken from the rosół and some mushrooms we sauted for pierogis later this week.

A perfect day, in short.