fun in threes, sometimes fours
g
The pictures are from yesterday, but today was the same. We wander about the backyard, cross over to our neighbors' yard, all the while pretending we're exploring the Amazon rainforest. We've discovered snakes that can look like trees, leaves that can come alive, rocks that can attack. And a swing.
Maybe head to the smooth, newly-paved road that T-intersects ours right across from our house. Maybe ride on into the grass.
Two afternoons, almost identical. Yet different in every way.
One day, Henry was feeling playful. He met Emily as she chugged along, but he was going in the opposite direction on the same track. Emily braked hard and managed to stop just in time.
"Henry, what are you doing?!" she cried.
Instead of answering, Henry began pushing Emily.
"You've heard of Tug of War, haven't you?" laughed Henry. "This is Chug of War!" He pushed with all his steam as Emily, who was not laughing, chugged just as hard against him.
"Henry, will you stop it? We're going to get carried away and derail ourselves!"
But Henry was having too much fun. He chugged, and chugged, and chugged until there was a great clatter of and screech as Emily and all her cars crashed to the side of the tracks.
"Now you've done it!" shouted Emily as she struggled to right herself. "You're going to be in so much trouble!"
Henry, trying the help, suddenly jerked backwards only to find himself off the tracks as well.
Henry felt bad. He never meant to hurt Emily. He really liked Emily. They'd always had good times together, but this time, he'd just gone too far.
He knew he was going to be in trouble. He could just imagine Sir Topham Hatt's face, but he didn't have to imagine. Sir Topham Hatt came down as soon as he heard about the terrible accident.
"Oh, Sir Topham Hatt, I didn't mean to. I mean. It's just that..."
"Well, Henry, you've gone too far this time," Sir Topham Hatt interrupted. "You'll see just how serious this is in just a moment."
Sure enough, Henry saw just how serious it was when Sheriff from Cars showed up.
"Well," said Sheriff, "the first thing we need to do is get these trains back on the tracks."
Sir Topham Hatt called Kevin and Harvey to put the trains both back on the tracks.
Just as Henry was about to chug away, the Sheriff called after him. "Henry, you will be coming with me, I'm afraid.
"I really didn't mean to hurt anyone," Henry said as he chugged beside Sheriff. "I just wanted to have a bit of fun. Emily likes to have fun."
"Henry, did she say to stop?" Sheriff asked.
"Well," began Henry.
"When trains ask you not to do something, you should stop. That means it's not fun for them," Sheriff explained.
"I know you didn't mean it, but there still are consequences for our actions," Sheriff explained.
"What?"
"Time out."
Just after Sheriff left, Toby and James chugged past.
"Oh, Henry, what happened? Why are you in time out?" asked Toby.
"I did something... something..." Henry stammered.
"Not useful?" Toby suggested.
"That's it exactly. And Sheriff traveled back in time, crossed the Atlantic ocean, and left his movie to come into our story just to take me to time out!"
"Oh no!"
"And that's not what's the worst part of it! The worst part is that I didn't mean to do any of it!"
Toby and James felt bad for Henry. They knew what it was like to get in trouble for something you don't really mean to do. They were afraid all the other trains would be angry at Henry so they chugged off to the Tidmouth Sheds to explain to the other the other engines what happened. As they were explaining, Sheriff rolled up.
"Did you talk to Henry?" he asked.
"Yes, we. I mean, no. I mean," stammered Toby.
"Yes, we talked to Henry," James said sadly.
"While he was in time out?"
James and Toby exchanged guilty glances before admitting the truth.
"We knew we weren't supposed to, but..."
Sheriff didn't even wait.
"Off you go to time out as well!"
Such was our morning play.
When I first arrived in Lipnica Wielka, I was shocked one morning at the small grocer's in front of the teachers' housing to see how much bread the women in front of me were buying. It solved a mystery, though. I'd discovered that if I arrived too late, sometimes simply in the mid-morning hours, there was no bread to be found.
"Nie ma" was the curt reply.
Standing in line that morning, though, seeing woman after woman buy two, three, sometimes four loaves of bread, I understood why. It wasn't until I saw the same woman buy the same amount the next day that I realized her family ate that much bread in a single day.
The loaves themselves looked like nothing I'd ever seen for sale in grocery stores. I knew you could get stuff like that -- hard and crusty on the outside, thick and hearty on the inside -- at bakeries and such specialty stores, but in a regular Food Lion or Kroger?
When K and I first moved to the States, finding a good source for good bread was of primary grocery-shopping importance. Who knew we had a source right there?
After dinner, we dance.
Sort of.
The day obviously starts in the kitchen. But it’s more than food and preparation for the day. The Boy has a favorite book lately — Hot Rod Hamster — and on a whim, the Girl decides to read it to him. I read it to him last night; K read it to him the night before. But that’s not enough: he could listen to that book every single day, most likely because of the basic interactivity of it. Hot Rod Hamster, you see, has to choose the parts of his car, and the author often asks the reader, “Which would you choose?” By now everyone in the family knows which one he would choose, but that’s not the point.
The day also ends in the kitchen, with play. The office chair in which I now sit is a favorite toy, for it swivels in endless circles.
To the delight of both kids.
Kwasnica.
My favorite Polish soup by far: traditional kwasnica, made from smoked ribs, sauerkraut, a hunk of pork, bacon, and love.
We played hide and seek for a bit this evening -- historically a simple game with the Girl. Always so easily frightened, she would hide in the same places, places that felt safe and relatively near people, again and again, and it was never really all that difficult to find her. It was even easier when she was a toddler and would reply to the standard "Ready or not, here I come!" with a confirmation: "I'm ready!"
Today, playing with the Boy, we couldn't find her. I directed the Boy to look in all the usual places, but she was in none of the usual places.
"Could she have dared to go downstairs?" I asked the Boy rhetorically, for his standard answer these days is "Yep."
But we kept looking, adding a few new places. In her closet. Under K's and my bed. Under the Boy's bed. Finally, it was time for dinner, and we gave up. But I knew one trick to get her out: turn off all the upstairs lights.
And as I headed downstairs, there she was, in the hall closet, where she'd never hidden before. Where I would have never thought to look because imagining her closing herself in a tight dark space was simply unimaginable.
An eight-year-old is braver than a seven-year-old, it seems. A second-grader is able to keep quiet for a lot longer than a first-grader, it seems.
Though I don't do it daily, I should. It's probably one of the best things converting to Catholicism has done for me -- the daily examen. The form I use comes from St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises and has some simple steps:
As part of L's widening spiritual education, she and I have begun doing this together. We've been using a podcast to help us out, and we sit in her room and reflect on our day using the podcast labeled "examen for children." It could really work for anyone, though. It boils everything down to a few ideas.
Tonight, we shared with each other our joyful moments. It was fairly simple, and we had the same moment: when she and I with E played with Legos.
What an impressive array of equipment we now have, using the old Legos Nana saved from my childhood combined with the new sets the Girl has been collecting. We have a camper, a log cabin, a yacht, a space craft, an alien ship, an alien prison. We had fierce space battles in the morning and attacks on humans in the evening, with our brave defenders battling the Borg -- though I didn't explain the whole concept of "we will assimilate you!" as I attacked -- as they tried to snatch innocent campers from their weekend getaways. The Boy teamed up with me and we launched a fearsome, dual-pronged attack that resulted in the kidnapping of both astronauts and campers. But alas, L and her space cadets were too clever for us and managed to free everyone just in time for bed.
What joy, I thought as I did my own examen this evening. And what a shame that I don't do it more often. I let other things get in the way. I become selfish. I too often have different priorities. Not to say I neglect my children, but I think perhaps some days I don't do enough. And so I resolve to do better the next day, and some days I do, and some days I don't.
K, on the other hand, has always impressed me with her selflessness with the kids. That's a mother's gift, I suppose. No, it's not a gift. That takes it out of my control. It's a mother's choice. And that is another simple experience -- seeing such a wonderful mother in action -- to be thankful for during my examen.
What a pleasant feeling to have so much food in the house after a day of cooking. I smoked ribs, tenderloin, sausages, and chicken, then cooked a pot of chili and a smaller pot of dal makhani. In addition to other work around the house. And now I have little desire to do anything other than go to sleep.