Morning inside; afternoon, once he's feeling better, outside.
Sick Day
g
Hanging Out with Scouts
Two Concerts
The Girl sang in her school's talent show this morning. She sang "Dziś idę walczyć, Mamo!" which is a song about the Warsaw Uprising. She's been practicing it for weeks. I've found myself humming it as I walk down the corridor at school. E sings snippets of it every now and then. K sings it as she's working around the house. It's infected our whole family, but what a wonderful infection.
After dinner, we got another concert, a performance of a music that's thousands and thousands of years old, a music that both calms and excites.
The owls have nested in our neighbors' backyard, and they came down for a visit today. The would sing and hoot, caterwaul and even almost purr. It was hypnotic.
First Communion
L's First Communion was two years ago. So quickly have those two years melted away than I still find it somewhat surprising when I see L lining up for communion. It's one of those milestones in life -- your own and your children's -- that we all remember it.
The Boy still has three years to go. When he first lines up in the communion line, L will be at the tail end of her seventh-grade year.
And at that point, I'll likely be writing about how it's incredible that it's been five years since L's First Communion.
Mother’s Day Early
Saturday is always busy. This time of year, the lawn always needs a trim, and hedges often need their season's taming. Tomato plants are starting to blossom, literally and figuratively, so it's time to stake them. All fairly common late-spring Saturday work. Today, though, was a little different because of timing: tomorrow we will be going to a friend's First Communion, so the Mother's Day celebration had to be rescheduled.
Since I've neglected K's vehicle the last few weeks, the Boy and I decided it was time to clean Mama's car -- well, that's not exactly how it happened, but it sounds better that way. So the first thing we tackled today was the interior of the car. Every surface was exposed to an area of low pressure -- e.g., vacuumed -- and then wiped down. The Boy to the windshield rag and wiped down the parts of the exterior that, concealed by closed doors, never really get clean from normal washing. And of course, with the two of us involved, there was a bit of playing as well.
Afterward, the lawn got its weekly trim and the Girl prepared her Mother's Day present for Nana.
Our Mother's Day celebration isn't the only thing tomorrow's First Communion throws off, though. Tomorrow is the Boy's birthday. "I'll be a five-year-old tomorrow," was a common refrain today.
So after dinner came presents. It's a sign of his growing maturity that only a couple of the presents was a toy: a small jeep and trailer set that he took to bed with him and a Lego set that he will put together with Papa on Monday. The rest of the gifts were practical, useful even. A backpack -- an appropriate, camouflaged design -- will get its first test in a month when we head off to Poland. "And I'll use it in K5 for all those big books!" he explained excitedly. A new cycling helmet to match his new bike. A flashlight so he doesn't have to keep borrowing mine. "Daddy, I just need to..." So perhaps more than a couple of toys.
I sit writing this and glance down at the clock: five years ago, we would be leaving for the hospital in about an hour. It was Sunday night, and I was just about to drift off to sleep, some time around eleven, when K woke me and said we had to get to the hospital. A couple of hours later, we were holding the Boy in our arms. And now, in a few hours, he'll be the same age -- year-wise -- as L was when he was born.
In another five years? The Girl will be almost old enough to begin learning to drive. She'll be in her second year of high school. Entirely new worries, concerns that are now non-existent, will likely consume me. Boys will no longer be icky. A moment of inattention could result in more than just a broken glass. Her grades in school will no longer be of little consequence.
Five years used to seem like such a long time...
Thursday Evening
We get our shoes on and head down to the swing. Mama has kicked us out: she can only do two things at a time, and she's currently baking and helping L with something, so we're on our own.
We play around a bit, here and there, but a hard-workin' fella can play only so long before he grows restless. He'll pick up any sort of tool he can find and get to work, because what's the point of doing otherwise?
You might protest and suggest, "You're just a kid. Take it easy!" But you'll get a protest in return.
Eventually, I manage to get the hard worker to take a break and play a little bit. We go exploring, looking for more honeysuckle. It's all dried up. We head to our favorite spot in the creek. But nothing's really satisfying.
We head to our hideout to spy on our neighbors, but they leave soon and we sit there.
"What do you want to do?" I ask.
"I don't know. What do you want to do?" he responds.
"Whatever you want to do. I just want you to be happy."
"I just want you to be happy."
What makes us both happy for a time is to carry on with such silliness, but it's getting late, and soon, the Boy will need a bath. Tugging off his shoes, he notices how dirty his ankles are at the sock line. Smiling, he repeats his favorite saying: "It was a good day."
K is still baking when we get back in the house. The cake didn't turn out as she wished, so she's doing it again. She's like that. A perfectionist. I'd probably just go buy something, but not our K.
In the house, the Girl is being silly. I take the camera and snap some closeups. Instantly, the silly faces appear.
A satisfying Thursday evening.
Jumping
Lens Correction
Not so much…
Spring Concert
Fishing
"Do you think I'll catch a Clownfish?"
We were eating breakfast when this question came up. A typical Sunday morning: breakfast around half-past eight. The Girl off to choir practice at quarter past nine. The boys off to Mass about an hour later. That morning promised to be our normal, comfortable ritual. The afternoon, though, promised adventure.
"No, son. Clownfish live in the ocean. They're salt water fish."
"Plus," added L, "they live in reefs."
It only took him a few minutes to get the hang of it, and for a while, he was casting beside the Girl as she practiced with her new archery set.
A few bites later, he had another thought. "What if I catch a shark? I'll have to be strong if I catch a shark."
"I don't think you'll catch a shark."
"Oh, right. It lives in the ocean." He thought about things for a few more moments, then added, "All the fish I know are salt water fish."
Planning for the afternoon fishing trip really began on Christmas Eve, when our children following Polish tradition were opening their presents. Our neighbor, who goes fishing often, had bought the Boy a beginner's rod and reel set, complete with a small tackle box. He was thrilled, and he was even more excited when I found a casting weight in my old tackle box downstairs and explained that he'd be able to practice casting in the backyard.
A few days ago, when our neighbor was packing up his gear and hitching his boat to the truck for a morning fishing trip, the Boy informed K that his rod and reel were, in fact, for nothing. "They're not for decoration," he explained. And so she told me when I got back home that afternoon, "You must take him fishing this weekend."
I haven't been fishing in probably close to thirty years. I can't remember ever going fishing with my father -- not because I asked and he refused. Fishing was simply not something we did in my family. My mother's brother was very much a fisherman, and during one visit, he gave me a handmade graphite rod with a very sturdy reel with a tackle box filled with every imaginable worm-like, grub-like, and fish-like lure one could imagine. I was twelve, I think. I probably used it no more than half a dozen times, if that many.
In thinking about taking my own son fishing, I had a whole list of concerns. Some were reasonable: what's the best type of bait to use at this lake when fishing from the shore. Some weren't: what if I can't remember how to tie a hook? But with muscle memory, that latter worry disappeared. But the bait? When I saw the lake, I realized that it really didn't matter: we weren't going to go onto one of the fishing piers because the Boy, having no practice casting with an actual hook, might cause disaster. (In fact, he caught my shirt once, but fortunately only my shirt.) Since the lake was so shallow with a gentle slope out to the deeper water, I knew he'd never cast far enough from the short to catch anything, so we tried a number of lures.
He caught nothing but my shirt. But he begged to go back tomorrow after school.