Routine is everything. Naps come like the tide: they're regular and predictable, and there's no stopping them. We come home for the day, and fairly soon, the fussing starts. The tired fussing.
And soon enough...
Down
general
Homework with the Girl
She sits at the table — fewer distractions — and draws. “Draw three pictures each of things that begin with the letters P, Q, R, S, and T.” It’s getting close to the Girl’s bedtime, and as we know she is a perfectionist, we encourage her to choose examples that are easily drawn.
For “P” she settles on pot, pencil, and potato. “Q” seems tricky, but the Girl thinks of quilt, question mark, and Q-tip. “R” yields red (my own idea that got the Girl giggling), ring, and rain. For “S” she ends up with snake, sun, and star. At three objects per letter and twenty-six letters in the alphabet, we’re looking at more than seventy-five drawings over the next few days.
A bit much?
Autumn Sunday
The sky always seems somehow a little richer, a little deeper blue in autumn. I suppose it has to do with angles and refraction as the Earth tilts the northern hemisphere away from the sun and the southern hemisphere toward it.
Somehow, though, the light just feels more relaxed.
We in the south finally begin coming out to play at this point in the year. Triple digit heat indexes don’t do much to encourage the average South Carolinian to spend time in the park, kicking a soccer ball around or playing on the jungle gym. (And even if one wanted to, the equipment would be much to hot to touch, and forget about the sliding board.)
So today, with temperatures only in the mid-seventies, the four of us went to a favorite park for some swinging, sliding, and soccer practice.
The Boy sat briefly in a swing for the first time. The seat seemed still to swallow him, and his general inability to support himself combined with his love of peering forward made the prospect short-term at best.
But there was always the grass. Fascinatingly green, unfamiliarly scratchy, generally puzzling for the Boy. He’d likely have put some in his mouth if he’d realized how easily it could be done. The whole world would go in his mouth if it could fit, piece my piece, chunk by chunk.
L and I, though, were ready for some practice. With her speed, she can easily outrun most of the players on the field in her Saturday soccer games, so we worked on a new tactic: running as fast as possible while still kicking the ball.
“Just kick it out in front as far as you can,” I explained, “then run — run as fast as possible. You’ll beat everyone to the ball. Then just do it again.”
We also worked a bit on defense.
And the Boy finally got a closer look at that grass.
First Loss
It had to happen. And perhaps it was good that it did: L’s team lost their first match today, 8-2. With a point difference like that, it was a stinging first loss. Things just weren’t going as they usually do.
“That team was the best team we played,” L explained. Three young men in yellow managed consistently to stop red team’s offensive charges while also proving themselves to be exceptional ball handlers when on the attack.
“There were some boys on that team that were really good,” L explained later in the day. It gave her, I hope, a view of what’s possible.
Boosterthon
It’s half bet, half bribe. It’s a fundraiser, an exercise event, and certainly for some, a bit of a pain.
I suppose one might argue that it’s an exercise in school spirit and self-confidence. Elementary school activities, we’re finding, tend to combine several elements like that. Show, exercise, fundraising, dance party — I suppose it covers several state educational standards.
For “the biggest fundraiser for the year” at her school — so it was explained at a recent PTA meeting — L had to gather pledges for a run around a small, 1/16th of a mile route set up in the field behind the school. Nana and Papa pledged a significant amount per lap, adding a cap as assurance of not having to mortgage the house to pay their commitment.
Sure enough, when it came time to run — and hop, skip, walk, dance — through the boosterthon, the Girl did the maximum 35 laps.
Which amounts to just over two miles, which is fairly impressive for a five-year-old.
Ritual
It is late, and K is trying to get the Boy to sleep. He tosses and moans, turns and groans, rolls over -- his newest trick -- and seems reluctant to cooperate.
"If I feed him one more time," she asks, "will you be able to hold him?"I stop grading papers.
"Of course," I say.
Soon after, I'm making laps, walking a now-well-worn path through our living room, past our front door, through our kitchen, past the carport door, and looping back into living room. Repeat.
The Boy's head rests on my shoulder. His arms dangle to the side. When the Boy was a newborn, K or I walked this lap every night, every morning. Eleven PM. One AM. Sometimes three AM. Five AM. Still shuttered in sleep, our consciousness had difficulty doing little more than counting the steps in the hopes that we could ultimately transform the exercise into a variant of sleepwalking. It has grown easier though he has grown heavier: the body grows accustomed to less sleep with time.
Now, all nineteen pounds rest in the crook of my left arm while my right hand holds an iPod into which I whisper this evening's post. These solitary laps in near-darkness with a sleeping child on my shoulder lead to contemplation unlike anything else I know.
The floor creaks at a certain point and as the summer as progressed, the area which creeks seems to have expanded deeper and deeper into the living room. Every night when I make my rounds, I think to myself, "I need to look on the internet how to fix a creaking floor," but I'm afraid the job will require more work and time than I am able to devote to it now. And so I simply keep walking, listening to the creak grow quieter, counting the steps it takes to reach silence, wondering if I'll ever be able to fix it, doubting that the time will ever come. It's just one of the countless projects that hangs over my head like Damacles' sword. I know I must get there are some point. I know that while I'm building up the life of my son, I'm allowing other parts of life deteriorate. But it's easier to fix a squeaking floor that has overtaken the entire downstairs area.
On the kitchen side of the round, where the floor doesn't squeak and squak, E's shallow, slow breathing marks a counterpoint to the padding of my feet. Perhaps we are establishing a rhythm between us, the rhythm of all fathers and sons: never quite in synch but like counterpoint, ultimately complementary.
Sitting
The Boy so wants to sit. If only he could keep his balance.
Goal! Again!
Game two. The Girl sits out the first quarter. After her adventures last game, perhaps that’s best — start slowly.
When she enters the game, she volunteers to be the goalie. It’s a potential disaster: I anticipate her frustration if she lets a ball get through. She’s doesn’t take mistakes very easily, and I know as goalie, she’s likely to experience them — especially with number five on the opposing team, who seems to steamroll through the defense like a panzer column.
Sure enough, within a few moments of the start of play, the Steamroller Five comes barreling at the Girl. She pulls up a little short and shoots; the ball approaches L with decreasing speed. She bends down; she’s in position.
And the ball rolls right through. Instant frustration; intense irritation. She begins marching to the coach, tugging at the goalie jersey the team shares, when I call her back.
“No, sweetie,” I begin. “You have to stay in. This is your position. We can’t substitute right now just because you’re a little frustrated. But don’t worry — it’s your first time out. You’ll get the hang of it quickly enough.”
And the next time Steamroller Five shoots, the Girl makes the save. She makes a few more as the game continues, but come the second half, she’s ready to go on the offensive.
Her first goal is an act of pure aggression. The goalie makes the mistake of not controlling the ball fully, only gently resting his hands on the ball. L simply takes the free kick.
Her second goal of the the day, though, is a beauty, a joy to watch. She emerges from a pack of defenders and faces off with Steamroller Five, who’s been playing masterful defense the whole game. Just before Five can reach her, the Girl lets loose on a cross-goal shot.
that blasts past the goalie — himself a wonder. He’s been stopping shots left and right, and he’s not afraid to dive
This time, though, he’s a little late. The ball squirts past; Steamroller Five looks on; L collides with a defender — it’s straight out of the World Cup.
The shot just catches the bottom corner of the goal, with the goalie still refusing to give up and the Girl realizing fully she’ll be on the ground momentarily.
So with two games down, we have the stats that might just encourage her to continue. She’d probably like it more if she could wear a tiara, though.
Sharing
"Name something you don't like to share."
Plinky
Shouldn't the selfless answer be something along the lines of "Absolutely nothing?" As a parent who is always working to teach my daughter (and soon, son) to share, I wonder if this isn't the perfect way to set an example. "Look, my child: there's absolutely nothing I would not share with you. I have my ice cream, but I'm only happy if it's our ice cream. In fact, it gives me more joy to give it all to you than simply to share it." Indeed, in such "sharing," I would certainly be getting the better end of the deal: ice cream melts, no matter what; joy lingers.
Yet isn't that also the reckless answer? As with most questions, the more one thinks about this, the broader the potential. Do I want to share my sorrows with my children? Do I want to share my pain?
And deeper still: if I don't want to share my sorrows with my children, why not? It would only be shielding them artificially from what they themselves would experience, and if I share my sorrow, I can control the dose. If I don't want to share my pain, then how can I expect them to share theirs with me, which is much more important?
Homework
The bane of most students and many teachers, too, homework seems in some ways to speak to the inadequacies of our educational system. Alfie Kohn and others certainly argue that, but they're certainly in the minority among educators. Most of us educators see homework as practice: just as a world-class gymnast or swimmer puts in extra time beyond formal coaching to improve his or her skills, so too young learners put in the extra time to master new skills.
For the Girl, it's turned into something of a rite of passage. "When will I have homework?" she used to moan when she found me going over student work. Now that she has homework -- of a sort -- she's thrilled. "Tata!" she squealed as she ran into the room the other day, "I love homework!"
And what's not to love about it if it's done right? It can be a moment of bonding between a parent (or grandparent) and a child, an intense social and intellectual engagement where the two engage in a task with a specific and common goal.