matching tracksuits

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Tuesday 06 September 2016

I arrived home today to find both kids with eyes closed tightly. Afternoon naps are always a little problematic because neither one of them really wants to get up. The Boy resorts to fussing; the Girl just steadfastly refuses. It doesn't matter what's for dinner; it doesn't matter who's just arrived; it doesn't matter period. Neither wants to get up.

"How long will the grilling take?" K asked as the dinner hour approached.

"About twenty minutes."

"I'll start waking them up in ten, then." And even then, by the time dinner was on the table, they were both still virtually asleep.

1-DSCF0434 — After-dinner game of "Mushroom Picking" -- sort of a Polish Candyland.

Then, as the sun closes up shop for the day, the second half of the trouble begins: neither of them is especially tired.

We do what we can to tire them beforehand. I took the kids on the trampoline for a while and then played soccer with the Boy as the Girl skated about the driveway.

Still, when it came time to go to sleep, E was just jabbering away.

Jumping

Monday 05 September 2016

Sunday

Sunday 04 September 2016

After Mass during the school year, there are a few obligatories: a fresh pot of coffee and something sweet. Feed the soul, then feed the spirit. Something like that. Perhaps accompany it with something to read, maybe a game of chess. But eventually, it’s time for the trial and treasure, for it’s something K loves and loathes doing. Polish lessons.

The love is easy: it’s her language, her culture, that she’s sharing with her beloved daughter. The loathe comes from the frustration that sometimes accompanies it. Perhaps “loathe” is not the right word — perhaps it was just too alliterative to pass up. “It’s something that K loves and that frustrates her” doesn’t quite make it. Always searching for the right word, never able to find it, which is what makes the Polish lessons so frustrating for the Girl. Her passive vocabulary, like everyone’s, is much larger than her active vocabulary. She can understand more than she can say, like me in Polish.

E, on the other hand, has of late only a passive vocabulary for the most part. The production has ceased. However, we’re seeing that language and such is perhaps just not his strength. He can watch a cartoon about how airplanes fly and remember it long afterward. (Language, though? K was trying to teach him a Polish prayer the other evening, and he replied, “You must be kidding me! I can’t remember that!”)

In the evening, it’s time to feed the soul once again — a quiet bonfire in the backyard. The temperatures have cooled, the mosquitoes have disappeared, and we’ve entered our favorite time of the year.

We’ve been waiting all summer for this. The kitchen is mostly done, our routines have returned, the weather has cooled, and it’s time to start everything again. So what better way to end than with a song by Antoine Dufour, a Quebecois guitarist, who wrote a song for his yet-unborn son, a song about waiting, a song I’ve listened to at least a dozen times this weekend. Perhaps the most beautiful acoustic guitar song I’ve ever heard.

Pierogi Party

Saturday 03 September 2016

Part of being Polish in America is sharing that culture -- with your family, with friends, and even with strangers, which is why you might spend the afternoon making literally hundreds of pierogi.

The Boy, ever willing and thrilled to help, makes a mess in the interest of helping. Afterward, he will come outside and help me in the yard.

Lost and Found

Friday 02 September 2016

K has been spending her afternoons after returning from work cleaning up the mess we still have in the house from the renovation -- books in bags under beds and such. She found some of the Boy's long-lost cars.

And Then Went Back Again

Thursday 01 September 2016

The Boy woke last night, plodded to our bedroom door, stood in thought,

Third Bed

Wednesday 31 August 2016

The Boy got a third bed last night, though he hasn’t used it yet. His first bed is of course the only one he really needs: the one in his room. It’s big and spacious, and while it doesn’t have a particularly boy-ish bed spread, it’s still acceptable for a little fellow like him. He hasn’t complained about it, anyway.

His second bed is our bed, between the two of us. He wakes up in the middle of the night for the last several weeks and, scared to be alone, comes to our bed. We’ve tried to figure out how to deal with it but nothing’s worked. Last night, K discovered an idea: make a bed on the floor for him and tell him that if he’s going to sleep in our room, he’s going to sleep on the floor.

Last night, he woke up at about two and came trundling to our bed. I took him back to his bed, and, remembering K’s discovery, I went downstairs to get a couple of sleeping pads and threw them on the floor with a blanket.

“If you come back to our room, you’ll have to sleep on the floor,” I told him. Quickly enough, though, he fell back asleep and that was that.

Tonight, I mentioned the bed to him again.

“I know,” he said matter-of-factly. “I saw it. It looks really good. I think it will be very comfortable. So if I come to your room tonight, I’ll just go to that bed.”

Not what I was aiming for.

Barszcz Bowl

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Saying Goodbye

Monday 29 August 2016

We’ve had that table for ten years. Before that, my parents had it for at least twenty. My uncle made it; I refinished it. Yesterday, we said goodbye.