E was born the day after Mother's Day in 2012. This year, his birthday falls on the exact same day, the day after we celebrate K and Nana. So it was a long but wonderful day.
Mother’s Day 2018
Saturday in the Yard
The bushes in front of the house had just gotten out of hand: they shaded almost 3/4 of the height of the windows in E's and L's rooms. Every time I trimmed them, K suggested that I didn't do enough, so today was the day: the bushes were getting violently trimmed.
That was to take only a couple of hours. I'd planned on mowing the backyard, trimming the bushes, mowing the front, and finishing before four. Two things slowed me down: E and the difficulty of radically trimming the bushes.
The Boy always loves helping me mow, which usually entails slipping between me and the upper bar of the lawnmower, resulting in an awkward position for me and generally slow mowing. Today it struck me: our lawnmower has rear-wheel drive, and so theoretically, the Boy could mow all by himself, with me just walking along beside to help control it.
When we got to the flattest portions of the front yard, I let him mow without my hand on the bar to guide it.
"I'll just let you mow," I said, "and then the spots you miss, you'll have to go back and get."
He loved the idea and promptly went zig-zagging across the yard. He tended to pull to the left, so he made strange arching patterns instead of the regular straight lines I obsessively put into our yard.
The period of time between the first bit of mowing and the second bit (the "flattest portions of the front yard" mentioned above) was approximately six hours, evidenced by the changing shadows in the pictures above.
In the intervening hours, we worked on the bushes. I trimmed; he loaded the cuttings into the wheelbarrow.
When we started, the foliage was so dense that it blocked most of the light and all of the sky.
When we finished, nothing was really blocked. I worried as I cut back the branches that it might be too late for such work, that I might damage the bushes by doing this. In the end, I thought that that might, in fact, be a blessing.
In between the first and the second bushes -- lunch and a concert.
K and L spent most of the day inside, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Cleaning clothes, floors, bathrooms, and anything else that would sit still long enough. In the end, though, K had to come out: her garden beckoned.
"When will we ever have a relaxed Saturday?" K asked as we sat on the front steps watching the kids, who still had energy, play in the front yard.
"A relaxed Saturday? What's that?"
Jumping
Dinner
Spent
After-Dinner Play
After dinner, everyone went out to practice sports.
The Girl finished her second day of tryouts today, and she came home feeling pessimistic about her chances of making the team. But did she give up? No way. On the way home, she and K stopped by the Y and signed her up for youth volleyball. And after dinner, she was out practicing an overhand serve as well as her underhand serve.
“You really should master the underhand first,” I suggested.
“I know, but this is what we were working on during tryouts today,” she replied.
The Boy finished soccer this weekend, but he’s still keen on practicing. For a while there, I was tossing the ball to L for her to practice passing and trying to kick the ball back to the Boy.
Occasionally, the two activities almost collided.
Finally, the Boy, exhausted, took a break
and then gave me some tree-climbing lessons.
Monday
A few Two random thoughts from the day:
The Girl is trying out for volleyball. She started working on her skills Saturday after having bought a ball that morning.
"How did it go?" I asked when I got home.
"I was the worst one there," came the simple reply.
It turned out that it was a two-day tryout session, and so I immediately wondered if she'd be discouraged from her first experience and say, "I don't have a chance of making the team. I don't want to go to the second day." And I was wondering how I might handle that. Is it something I should make her do in the interest of building character -- following through on what you set out to do and all that? Or should we just let it go?
Turns out, the dilemma never presented itself: after gymnastics, she asked if we could go practice volleyball for a few minutes.
Second thought: While the Girl was in volleyball, I did some shopping, and I went through the self-checkout lane when I was done. If they'd had these things in Poland twenty years ago, I might not have stayed. It was tough, those first weeks; it was especially tough making friends when I didn't speak the language. The store saved me. No self-service there: no, just a counter and a packed shelf behind it, with a sales clerk between you and your merchandise. So I had to ask for every single item. Which led to funny mistakes and misunderstandings. Which led to laughter. Which led to friendships.
Chasing a Stork
End of Spring 2018 Soccer
The Boy finished his second season of soccer. It was a successful season, no doubt. Talking to the coach during Monday's practice, I heard the kind of praise about one's child that parents dream of. "He's really got something," he said. "He plays thoughtfully. He watches. He thinks. He doesn't just barge in. He waits for a moment." This jives with E's own description of his strategy: "I just run around the edge [of the pack of children all trying to gain access to the ball] and wait for a good moment."
(Click on the images for a larger view.)
After the game, spring planting. The Girl decided she wanted to help. Wanted to drive the stakes that will hold our simple borders in place. Wanted to rake the soil one last time. Wanted to put the young plants in the ground.
(Click on the images for a larger view.)
The Boy, just having woken up from a nap, had to fight for his right to drive a few stakes in...
Friday Afternoon and Evening
Returning to the Old
Looking at old photos.
Found a few that needed Lightroom attention.
Attention given.
Herding
We took Clover for her first intermediate-level training session tonight. I was a little worried about it: we've been neglecting her training, and I thought for the first few minutes that the Dog might not be up to par with the other students in terms of obedience. Once she calmed down a bit though -- she's always so excited around new dogs -- she did just fine.
The trainer, who was a different young lady from the trainer who led us through the beginner training, mentioned that she used to train Border Collies almost exclusively. K and I looked at each other, knowing exactly what the other was thinking.
After class, we asked her about some of Clover's issues, specifically her continued nipping. She explained that we needed to provide her with a way to exercise that instinct -- she is a herding breed, after all -- in play and not with us. She suggested using a yoga ball. "It's too big for her to get her mouth around, so she can't pop it. But it's big enough that she can nose it around, which is what she needs."
L just happens to have a yoga ball. It's now Clover's.
In short, she went wild. She pushed that silly ball all over the backyard, nipping at it, herding it.
Spring Evening
Sunday Evening Downtown
K and I left the kids with the grandparents and headed downtown for some dinner and a walk. It's one of those things that we keep putting off, and as soon as we do it, I find myself thinking, "Dang, we ought to do this more often." We could skip dinner for all I care and just have the walk and the chat.
Greenville has really grown in the last eleven years. The downtown park has expanded and what was once simply wild space next to the park has been incorporated and cultivated enough to make it look like a park but left wild enough to still make you think, "Is this really just a few hundred meters from the heart of downtown?"
With all the cold weather of late, I think everyone in the county was eager to get outside at some point this weekend, and what better time than the last few hours of the weekend?
This week we're staring down is the first of May, and May has always been a rough month for us. E's birthday, end-of-school activities at school, Memorial Day -- it all piles up.
Soccer and the New Garden
Every kid needs a break-out game, a moment when he shines like a professional player who hits the grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to overcome a three-run deficit or scores the winning goal in overtime. E had his today. The first half was relatively calm. No score, no real threats. The big scorer from a couple of weeks ago couldn't work his magic, and although E's team kept the ball in the opponent's half of the field most of the time, they'd been unable to convert anything to a goal.
In the beginning of the third quarter (little kids' soccer is divided into quarters, not halves), E broke out of the pack of kids that always hovers around the ball, drove down half the field, and scored. All the parents were cheering for him as he broke through, and I sat thinking, "Please, let him make this. It could change everything." It wasn't that I was thinking about winning the game. I just knew that such a spectacular play could really boost his confidence. Shortly after that, he did it again. High fives from everyone. A big smile from the Boy.
During the fourth quarter, the Boy initially sat. He was not at all upset about it: he was panting, sweaty, and positively glowing. A few minutes into the quarter, though, one of the boys on E's team wandered off the field and decided he didn't want to play anymore.
"E!" the coach called out. We found him practicing in the area by the field and sent him back in. "Come on, superstar," said our tough-love coach.
The fourth quarter saw a turnaround. Twice a player from the other team broke through; twice the Boy chased the opponent down and got in front of him/her to try to stop the goal; twice the opponent scored on the Boy. He'd been trying each time to get far enough ahead of the attacker to turn and defend like a goalie (we don't play with goalies at this level), and there was just not enough time for him to make the transition.
So instead of winning 2-0 it was a 2-2 tie. Perhaps that's better. The Boy was still the star and everyone went home happy.
No pictures, though, because I left the camera at home. "Ah, we have tons of pictures from this year," I mumbled as we walked out.
The rest of the day we spent at home. Tilling, raking, spreading manure, peat moss, and compost, tilling again. It was an exhausting but rewarding day.
