Matching Tracksuits

Month: April 2019

End of April

Tuesday 30 April 2019

It’s difficult to believe that April is over, and when I look at my school calendar for May, I realize that the year is, for all intents and purposes, over. We have no single week of school remaining that is a regular, five-day, testing-free week, except for the last week, which consists of three half days.

April in a way flew by, but it also crawled. We’re still not done with the renovation: “Two more weeks” has been the eternal refrain. We’re so close now it’s ridiculous: the walls and ceilings primed, ready for painting tomorrow; tiles in the bathroom and shower installed, ready for grout; hardwood floor installed in the bedroom, read to be sanded and finished next Monday. It feels like forever and no time at the same time.

Spring Monday

Monday 29 April 2019

I was worried that this would be the first of several very difficult days. With no one here to help with the kids (read: E) in the morning, it’s difficult for me to get out of the house very early. This week, however, is my duty week: I get to spend thirty minutes before my contracted arrival time supervising kids on the eighth-grade hallway. It’s loads of fun, but the downside is that I have to leave much earlier than usual. Which created a dilemma: what to do with the Boy. Two options: ride with the neighbor or leave without breakfast and have it at school.

At around 6:15 this morning, the Boy toddled downstairs, still rubbing his eyes, and presented a third option: “I’m just going to eat breakfast now.”

“Are you sure? You could still sleep another half hour.”

“Nah, I’ll stay up.”

And so the Boy proved once again that life is like calculus: there’s often more than one (or even two) solutions to a given problem.

Once at school, the usually peaceful morning duty transformed temporarily into one of those moments when, as a teacher, I see a student’s future and think, “Wow, if this kid doesn’t make some serious changes, do some serious maturing, she’s in for a long, tough life.” And much of that, in most cases, is due to environment: they’re not choosing necessarily to be a disrespectful kid. It’s something that works on the streets and/or at home, and they just bring it into the school as well.

That particular exchange foreshadowed the discussion I was to have with my honors English kids, who read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” last week as their article of the week. We began with a review via video:

Then the kids went through a few discussion questions:

  1. To what extent do you find Socrates’s point about the human tendency to confuse “shadows” with “reality” relevant today?
  2. What could be the elements that prevent people from seeing the truth, or regarding “shadow” as the “truth”?
  3. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

The common theme that came through in all of these discussions was the role social media plays in creating false realities, in preventing people from seeing truth, in shackling the mind. It’s ironic: I see so many of these kids buried in their phones before and after school, yet they’re strangely aware of the negative effects.

After school, I hopped out of the car thinking, “So far, other than the little issue in the morning during hall duty, this supposedly tough day is surprisingly enjoyable. After dinner, it was even more so: one of E’s choices in his literacy log is to find a pleasant place to sit outside and read for a while.

And after that, a little project: a bird house. Where did this idea come from? I don’t know. The Boy simply talked K into buy him a piece of pressure-treated 1 x 6, and although he originally planned on building a tree house from that single plank, he was flexible enough to realize that a bird house was probably more in the scope of that single plank. So he found instructions on YouTube, gathered tools, and together we built a little bird house.

“Once you’re done, I want to help with the painting,” the Girl declared, and so with twenty minutes to go before the start of E’s evening ritual, they began working.

“Let’s decorate it with birds,” the Girl suggested. They began drawing various silhouettes of birds while I got the dog’s dinner ready, only to discover we were out of dog food.

“Alright kids, you’ll have to do the actual painting tomorrow. E, you’ll have to go with me to the store to buy some food for Clover.” I was expecting a small fit, some protesting at the very least, and I was reluctant to stop the work in progress: it’s so rare that they find something that really engages them both.

Still, the Boy was surprisingly mature. “Okay,” was all he said, and off we went to get some kibble for the pup.

And so at the close of this surprisingly pleasant day that was supposed to be the first of several tough ones, I find myself realizing anew that “tough days” and “bad days” and “rough days” depend more on our perception than anything else, just like Plato’s shadows suggest.

Soccer Sunday

Sunday 28 April 2019

This afternoon we had the annual kids/parents soccer game to wrap up another season of soccer.

“Are you going to play?” the Boy asked.

“Of course!” Though “playing” might be somewhat hyperbolic. I have no skills to speak of, and I have no fitness to make up for it either. But I did play at the game.

I learned two things: first, I’m terribly out of shape. Since K has been staying with Nana and Papa to take care of them (alternating weeks since February, then about four or five weeks ago, every week), I don’t get out to exercise that much. I use the excuse of not wanting to leave the kids in the house alone, but that’s really just an excuse, I think.

The second was something that followed off of the first: when you’re in such bad shape and have no skills, if you’re playing kids, you can pass it off by playing like all the other parents did when we were up X-0 (can’t remember the actual score): just letting the kids win…

Afterward, off to Nana’s and Papa’s for dinner. There won’t be too many more times that we do that, though. The addition is nearing completion. “Two more weeks,” we say, but we’ve been saying that for a month already. But still, we only have a few more times.

The fenced-in drainage basin mystery at the top of the hill

After dinner, we had a little boys’ time, as E called it. We decided to do our normal exploring around the drainage basin at the northeastern corner of Nana’s and Papa’s development’s property. It was a little overgrown as spring takes hold, but nothing like I was expecting. Perhaps the last time we go there? Who knows.

Last Saturday Soccer

Saturday 27 April 2019

A brilliant morning — sunlight everywhere.

Last soccer game of the year. The Boy was excited about it — not because he was excited to play, but because he was excited to be done.

“Do I have to go?” has become something of a refrain before soccer practice and before games.

“You committed to it,” I always explain, “so you’re going to see it through to the end. We keep our word; we finish what we start.”

When I watch his play, I understand why he’s not crazy about soccer: he’s among the youngest in his age group, and he’s lacking some of the confidence that other players on his team have. He prefers playing defense for this reason: all he has to do is stop someone, which means just kicking the ball away from them (in his mind). That’s easier than attacking, when two or three are on you trying to get the ball from you — not to mention your team mates who, despite calls from the coach to realize that they’re “same team!” and instructions to “spread out,” are swarming all around you as well.

So after today, a break. Until L’s volleyball season starts up again…

Friday

Friday 26 April 2019

A little flower planting and exploring after dinner. The Boy had to help.

“E, slow down! You’re destroying the plant!” was K’s common refrain — a bit too eager in his help…

Crash

Thursday 25 April 2019

Our swing broke. K was swinging; the kids were playing; I sat down in the swing to join her.

We were soon on the ground. Thus ends “The New Swing.”

The New Swing

Photo Request

Tuesday 23 April 2019

The Girl uses K’s Instagram account as a work-around for our reluctance to let her have one of her own. It works out the same, but we have a little sense of added security. Today, she asked me to take some pictures for her Instagram feed.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand that obsession kids these days have with posting photographs of themselves…

Easter 2019

Sunday 21 April 2019

I started the title for this and typed “Easter 2016.” Not sure where that came from — a typo or a slip of the memory. Easter in 2016 looked like this:

It was rainy, cold. The Easter egg hunt was amusing, to say the least. Still, there was continuity with every other Easter: the same friends were there, probably the same food was there, and I had drinks and cigars with one of the fellows in the carport.

This year, the carport is gone — still in the midst of its transformation, it’s really nothing. Not a carport; not a bedroom.

The same friends are in the area, but new family obligations made it impossible to have our traditional Easter party. We had a little egg hunt yesterday,

and had a little mini-pre-Easter party:

Things change, and sometimes so unexpectedly and suddenly that it’s not until days, weeks, or even months have passed that the contours of that change, the depth of the the change, is clear. A moment lacking in lucidity, a trip to the hospital, and almost five months later, the magnitude of the change — for everyone, for some more than others — becomes clear.

Easter Breakfast for lunch

Who knew how much things would change over this winter? Looking back, as we near the end of this first stage, it seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago when it all started; looking back, as the end of this first stage seems eternally out of our grasp, it seems like it was a couple of years ago.

Today, we went to the park. The depth of that change — a walk in the park Easter afternoon compared to what Easter has always been for us — is a metaphor for the change itself. Was it better than what we usually do? Not really. Was it worse? Not really. Just different.

Spring Break 2019 Day 1

Monday 15 April 2019

The first day of spring break, and I spent the morning in the attic, putting additional insulation to compensate for the fact that the insulation we blew in eleven years ago has settled significantly: all the rafters, once hidden beneath several inches of insulation were once again visible.

This time, though, I decided simply to buy some R19 batts and hope for a little longer break than eleven years before I need to do it again. Part of this is due to the fact that to get to the attic above the upper part of the house, we have to take everything — absolutely everything — out of L’s closet. That in itself will be a task. Today, though, I just focused on the lower part of the house.

While all that went on, our regular construction guys worked on our new windows in the basement and the siding for the closed-in bedroom/bathroom we’re building for Nana and Papa.

Additionally, two other fellows came in to start putting up the drywall and eventually finish the bathroom.

During all of this, the kids took care of themselves. The Boy spent the day playing with neighborhood kids, an activity that included me at least once saying, “Where’s E?” and having to go look for him. He was right where I thought he would be, but we’ll to establish some new protocols with him now that his independence is steadily increasing.

Palm Sunday 2019

Sunday 14 April 2019

The day started with Mass — sort of. I went to Mass at our usual church in order to photograph the Palm Sunday liturgy, the procession and all that. It’s a lovely liturgy, and to be honest, I just enjoy photographing the Mass more than simply sitting through it.

I was alone because the rest of the family was planning on going to Polish Mass in the afternoon. Palm Sunday is always a Polish Mass day, and there’s always a potluck and small get-together afterward. There’s always a contests for the best babka, a contest for the most beautifully-decorated palm, and some performance or another.

Then again, get more than a couple of Poles together and you’ll end up having one of two things: speeches or songs. Or perhaps you’ll have both.

When the call went out for anyone who wanted to perform, it didn’t take too much asking to get the Girl up to sing. She sang a verse from “Stabat Mater” — in Latin. From memory.

Back at home, we had some fun with Clover and bubbles.