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Giving

Wednesday 05 December 2012 | 0 Comments

The Girl has surprised us of late with her generosity, spending her own money to by a copy of her favorite non-fiction book — she’s always keen to point out that it’s non-fiction — for her friend. She continued today, buying presents for a handful of friends and family from the school Gingerbread House Gift Shop (I guess a Christmas time fundraiser).

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When we returned home, she was eager to dig out the wrapping paper and begin layering sheet after sheet on the gifts.

The Boy, on the other hand, is still exploring the more basic giving: the gift of joy.

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Attention

Tuesday 04 December 2012 | 1 Comment

The Boy now focuses his attention, follows objects of interest, and consequently loses interest. Unless it’s food.

Where's My Lunch?

The other day, I was getting ready to feed him his soup. It was still a bit too hot, though, so I set it to the side of his chair and turned my attention to the tea bag that was making my cup of tea a dangerously unsavory mess. The Boy, not to be distracted, followed his food. And stared for a good long time.

Preparation

Monday 03 December 2012 | 2 Comments

Advent is a time of preparation, and if there happens to be any Polish genes in your immediate family, that's likely a domestic and culinary as well as spiritual process. There's all the cleaning that should be done -- not quite spring cleaning, but awfully close -- but it pales compared to the amount of cooking.

We've taken to starting early as a result. So early that it's almost an exaggeration. Until you think about the other preparation that awaits. Add to it the coming baptism for the Boy -- itself an event for Poles -- and it's no wonder that we've begun cooking Christmas Eve dinner already.

Dough, Dear

The dumplings for the barszcz and the second-course pierogi are ready. They'll sit in the freezer for the next few weeks while we begin fermenting the beets for barszcz, smoking the tenderloin for Christmas-season gifts and treats, cleaning this, washing that -- at least in the old days. With a six-month-old, who knows how much of the scrubbing will get done. But there are non-negotiables, and the food is among them.

Parade of Princesses

Sunday 02 December 2012 | 0 Comments

Hoards of little girls in their Sunday best roaming about downtown on a Sunday afternoon could mean only one thing: the Nutcracker is in town. The Girl and I had a father-daughter day out, and what an outing: a professional ballet company performing the Christmas classic. We sat in the center of the third row, and L sat on the edge of her seat for most of the performance — until the end, when she fell asleep.

Maybe next year…

Beginnings

Saturday 01 December 2012 | 1 Comment

Warm

Advent 2012

Anticipation

Christmas Eve Mushrooms

First Tooth

Surely you can piece together the day from the pictures and the tags.

The Privilege of Teaching

Friday 30 November 2012 | 0 Comments

“You’re raising our daughter! She spends more time with teachers than with her parents,” a parent once told me regarding a student.

It was the first time anyone had said aloud what I’ve thought often enough. Such notions most forcefully — and most obsessively — worked their way into my thinking when we began leaving our daughter with “strangers” at day care. It was a stab of guilt, feeling K and I were somehow neglecting our responsibilities as parents, letting someone do the majority of our childrearing for us.

The irony of being a teacher myself didn’t go unnoticed. I thought of a film — I can’t remember the title — that had a scene in which a young girl drops off her child for day care then heads uptown to her job as a nanny.

I see into parts of their lives no one else sees. A young man writes, “I ask my mom [to play chess with me]. ‘I’m too busy at the moment. How about later?’ Knowing that later will be near 7 PM, I slither back to my room.” It’s a vivid flash of what his evening is like, of what he might be experiencing at the very moment I’m reading his paper. It’s a window few look through.

First, Last, and Only

Thursday 29 November 2012 | 0 Comments

A local priest, when discussing the Liturgy of the Eucharist -- which never changes, from day to day, week to week, year to year; in other words, something repeated hundreds and then thousands of times -- discussed how it might be easy simply to drift into auto-pilot (auto-priest?) and run through the liturgy without thinking, without really being there. He told us his secret for preventing such rote recitation is a prayer in which he asks for the grace to say the Mass as if it were his first Mass, his last Mass, his only Mass.

It might not be a bad way to approach every task.

I think of the excitement I felt every single "first" day I have had in the classroom: the first day at a new school, the first day ever in front of the classroom, the first day of a new school year, the first day back from a long break. Each and every first day has its own unique excitement, but the fact that it is exciting is the common element. By day sixty-five, that excitement seems somehow to have vanished, or at least diminished. The result is sometimes drudgery.

I think of the excitement I felt the first time I held our daughter. Such a charge, such a responsibility, such a humbling moment. Yet as the years pass and the fussing and independence increase, that energy sometimes seems a little tired. The daily routine, with its predictability, numbs the sense of wonder if one is not careful. Children are blessings, but the sometimes simply wear one down, and while I feel like a "bad parent" for admitting it, I'm sure it will happen with our son as well. It's simply easier to focus on the now, which can be frustrating, than the thrill that still resonates but sometimes seems hushed.

I think of the heart-stopping moment when I asked K to marry me, and while I love her more now than I did then, and will love her more tomorrow -- more deeply, more maturely -- than I do today, there are moments when we grate on each other. It's only natural. Still, in those moments, for the briefest flicker of time, that thrill seems gone. I know it will return; I know it never left; but in my human weakness, I can still focus on that moment and wallow in it for a while.

So what if I could live every moment as if it were my first, last, and only in front of a classroom; my first, last and only with my children; my first, last, and only with my wife. What if I could simply remember to reach each second as if it were my first, last, and only? Could I stand the intensity? The joy?

More From Leaves

Wednesday 28 November 2012 | 0 Comments

VIV_6344

Guests

Tuesday 27 November 2012 | 0 Comments

Aunt L, passing through on her way back home in Tennessee, stopped by for a visit. It was the first time she’d met the Boy, but certainly not the first time she’d chatted with the Girl.

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This was quickly obvious as the Girl began monopolizing Aunt L’s attention. “Look at this!” became the common refrain, which I suppose is to be expected of a five-year-old.

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Papa, of course, was preoccupied with the Boy.

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Free Time

Monday 26 November 2012 | 0 Comments

Dear Terrence,

The other day was a teacher workday, which means we teachers are at school while you kids are free. I wonder what that freedom brings you.

I know you have more “freedom” than the average student because of all the out-of-school suspensions you’ve served. I’ve often wondered about the wisdom of that. I’ll bet in some ways, at least during some of the more tiring stretches of the school year, OSS seems more like a gift than a punishment. After all, there’s no one to make you do this or that. You get to choose who you spend your time with. You can pass that time however you please.

Or can you? Perhaps your mother makes you clean house while you’re serving OSS. Maybe she has a long list of tasks that she expects completed fully and well when she returns from work. Possibly, but somehow I doubt it. She might be struggling just to get enough money to keep a roof over your head and food on your table — she might not sweat the small stuff. Whatever it is you do during those OSS days, I’m fairly certain you prefer it to what you do at school.

And all of this makes me wonder about the wisdom of OSS. I’ve already mentioned to you that I think you would benefit from some direct instruction in how to learn, in how to be successful in school and life. Couldn’t we replace OSS (and ISS, for that matter) with something like that? It would be tricky, because we would have to find a teacher with a certain patience and dedication to young people because, let’s face it, you and your friends can be a real handful in the classroom. It seems possible and even desirable, but I somehow doubt it will ever happen. The American school system likes to think of itself as being cutting edge and progressive, but it’s still relatively set in its old ways in many regards, and how to help students like you is a perfect example.

So I don’t really know what you might be doing today during your day off. Whatever it is, I hope it’s not what I’ve heard in rumor among teachers: I hope you’re not spending all your time trying to impress the members of some gang — for all I know, your gang, for I hear, as the colloquial expression goes, that you “bang.” I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you on that as well, but for now, I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing on your day off.

With hope,
Your  Friend in Room 302