matching tracksuits

Jazz 2014 and Puppies

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Tonight was L's jazz concert. Greenville Ballet divides the two forms into separate lessons (unlike our former school, which had half an hour of ballet followed by half an hour of jazz), and this year they had two separate shows. If last night's performance was any sort of standard, it was certainly magnificent.

Meanwhile, at the house, the Boy and I had our own adventure: a walk to the drug store, some swinging time, some up-the-stairs, down-the-stairs time -- everything a boy and his father needed to make a perfect evening of it.

Bedtime presented its own challenges. As I was dressing the Boy for a hopefully-long, hopefully-restful evening, I slipped his puppy pajama bottoms on without thinking about the fact that the matching shirt was nowhere to be found. He was fine with it, but started asking a little later about the top: I'd laid him on the bed to slide him into his sleeping sack when he began asking, "Sapappies?"

"We don't have the top, E," I reassured him. "I don't know where it is."

Despite this reasoned explanation, the protests grew more frantic: "Sapappies! Sapappies!"

I tried explaining again, but it was not no avail: he slid off the bed, marched to his chest of drawers, and began opening them one by one. Look in, he'd exclaim, "No!" before slamming the draw closed (I could just hear the screams if he caught his finger in one) and opening the next. The third attempted was successful. "Tu! Tu!" he shouted ("Here! Here!" in English). He pulled out a pair of socks and cried, "Sapappies!"

(Note to non-Slavophiles: "socks" in Polish is "skarpetki," so in typical dual-language fashion, he applied a bilingual double-plural to it in addition to the ineffably charming pronunciation.)

Ballet Recital 2014

Monday 19 May 2014

We changed ballet schools at the beginning of this season: the last recital, rescheduled at the last minute to an old auditorium with no sound system and, worse, no air conditioning, all due to the costumes being ordered too late yet again -- it was just a nightmare. Everyone sweaty; no one able to hear; everyone miserable. We'd been having our doubts, but it was the last straw, so to speak.

So we began taking L to one of the two largest schools in the area. A school that stages a full Nutcracker every year. A school that divides the instruction up into ballet lessons (learning the basics, the positions, the movements) and performance lessons (learning a choreographed dance incorporating all the skills from ballet lessons). This is a school that has students from ages four to eighteen. It has a beginner pointe group, an intermediate pointe group, and advanced pointe instruction.

The difference was striking this evening.

The program was arranged so that we began with the pre-ballet kids (four- and five-year-olds) showing their basic moves to the cliche clunky piano music one always associates with basic lessons and ended with the advanced ballet group put on quite a show to a piece by Ravel.

DSCF4136 — Intermediate performance class

After the show, all smiles as usual.

Independence and Responsibility

Sunday 18 May 2014

The Delicacy of Sharing

Saturday 17 May 2014

Teaching our daughter to share has been a constant challenge, as I'm sure it has with most parents. L likes and even expects others to share with her, but getting her to return the favor -- that's always been a trick. A few events of the last few days, though, makes me think we've made real progress.

Friday, we were to meet a friend of hers from her first grade class at the end-of-the-year school party, a carnival with a few rides and some games scattered about the school ground.

"We're supposed to meet at six at the silly string!" she told us, countless times.

We arrived at the silly string area -- a roped off portion of the field where kids ran about spraying aerosol string on each other -- at the appointed time, but no friend. We got a ice treat, went on a few rides, and then suddenly discovered L's friend, also Lilly.

With her mother's blessing, Lilly went off with L and me, but before long, she'd run out of tickets.

"Daddy," L said with a grave expression. "Give me the rest of the tickets. I want to slip them with Lilly."

The second episode: today, during L's preparation time before ballet portraits, I sat with E at the table to do his albuterol breathing treatment, but he was having none of that.

"No! No! No!"

No amount of cajoling, explaining, or begging could help.

L came to the rescue, offering the Boy use of our family Nexus so he could play his favorite game, a vehicle-based shape-matching game.

He sat patiently for the treatment, playing his game and clapping furiously whenever he finished a round.

"Bravo!" he cried, as did I, though for both L and E.

Finally, in the evening, mowing the yard after almost two weeks' neglect, I came upon a patch of matted grass, so I headed in for the dethatching rake. As I returned, I noticed a curious patch of dry grass with bits of gray about it. I walked over, pulled the grass aside, and found a burrow of baby rabbits.

L came over to get a peek, and Papa brought the Boy over.

"What an odd place to burrow," I said. Indeed, for it will be a disaster if our cat finds it, which is not as likely as it might seem given her age and general laziness.

Still, I'm happy to share our yard -- for once, it's an animal that seems harmless.

I Rote A Poem

Friday 16 May 2014

Sick at Home, Tired at Rehearsal

Thursday 15 May 2014

The Boy, in one form or another, stays sick lately. Or so it seems. Today was my turn to watch him, to take him to the doctor, to help him with his newly-prescribed breathing treatment. We started the morning playing with cars on the sofa. It ended quickly.

That was the morning. Afternoon and evening were spent in an auditorium as the Girl prepared for her two (count them: two) dance recitals coming up, jazz and ballet. I took my little laptop along with the intention of returning to a recent writing idea that seems promising but got off to a wrong-footed start that I only really realized how wrong-footed 25,000 words into it. While writing, though, two random thoughts:

Random Thought One

The girls running across the stage, somewhat stumbling occasionally, reveal the irony of grace: in learning to be graceful, we're often anything but. We watch a professional company's performance of the Nutcracker, and the dancers seem positively to float across the stage. The lifts look more like the man his keeping the ballerina from soaring of into space rather than supporting her. These little girls look more like kids in the playground playing cowboys and Indians, galloping about like mad, than like ballerinas–when judged against that standard of near-perfection that professionals seem to achieve. But grace and elegance comes in many forms and is in itself somewhat relative. After seeing how spastic L can be, in the completely natural, seven-year-old way, it's an act of supreme grace just for her to tiptoe onto the stage, hands on her hips, and slide gently into first position.

Random Thought Two

I once made the analogy with a professor that for me, faith was like watching people dance from a sound-proof chamber. “I see the unity, the ritual, the sequence, but not hearing the music myself, I only suspect what is choreographing it all.” Dr. R said that was a very positive view, and perhaps he thought then what it took me almost twenty years to figure out for myself: my professed atheism might give way to something more musical.

During the last few months, I've experienced the opposite: while sitting in the Greenville Ballet and Jazz waiting room as L took her weekly lesson on Monday afternoons, I heard the same song over and over. A few moments here, then stop; a few more snippets of the song, then silence again. Muffed voices as the instructor presumably corrected this or that dancer, perhaps the group as a whole. I had no idea what the whole might look like. While waiting for L's group's performance, it finally all came together: an older group of girls, probably just a bit older than my students.

Back home, I check on the song, apparently a band called Capital Cities:

The Girl got a little snack while the Boy got a final breathing treatment.

Busy, random, odd day.

Second Time Around

Wednesday 14 May 2014

The Boy got cards, got ice cream -- birthday boy.

Home

Tuesday 13 May 2014

The Boy was not himself today. Slight fever, runny nose, rough cough, so we took him to Nana's and Papa's for the day. When I stopped by in the afternoon to pick him up, he jumped out of Nana's lap, squeaked, "Bye Nana!" as he waved, turned to me, and said with obvious relief in his voice, "Home." That's not to say he doesn't love being at Papa's and Nana's -- he certainly does. But Nana's and Papa's is Nana's and Papa's, and home is home.

He says the same thing when I pick him up from daycare every day. He's won the teachers' heart, with one writing in a thank you note (for cupcakes last week for the teachers -- what a mama!), "He really makes my day with his sweet hugs and sometimes unexpected kisses." Miss J seems to adore him, and he certainly is just a little crazy about her. Still, he sees me coming and says with obvious relief in his voice, "Home."

What could "home" mean for a two-year-old? We like to attach all these grandiose meanings to such a simple concept. A quick snapshot is all the explanation anyone really needs to such a question.

Monday Afternoon

Monday 12 May 2014

We take the Girl to jazz dance and return to play with the Boy's new toys.

Mother’s Day 2014 and Happy Happy!

Sunday 11 May 2014

"Today is a triple header," Father Boyle said today at Mass. "Mother's Day, Good Shepherd Sunday, and First Communion." He left out one thing: E's Happy Birthday.

First, food.

Grilled onions, hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled corn, Greek spinach salad, Black Forest cake, and fresh fruit.

With a beginning like that, what could go wrong? Sure, not everyone's crazy about hot dogs. Sure, the idea of grilled corn Indian style (i.e., smeared with lemon dipped in Cayenne pepper) sets some people on fire. Sure, not everyone likes strawberries. (Really? On what planet?) Still, food brings people together like few other things. Perhaps that's why the Lord's Supper is just that. Breaking bread together is truly an ancient tradition.

Perhaps not as ancient as some traditions, like motherhood. By now, it's almost cliche, but where would we be without mothers? Silly question; silly tradition. We shouldn't need a special day to honor our mothers. We should be doing it on a daily, no hourly basis.But we don't, so it's for the best that one day a year we decide deliberately to honor our mothers. Our fathers have to wait another month.

But E: he only had to wait for the cake.

And then came the fun. For E,Â the present selection process was simple: anything with wheels. Is it a cliche? Who cares -- he is simply obsessed with any and all vehicles, and knowing this simplified present choices for everyone.

But the real present of true he received long ago, when I was so blessed to marry the woman I married. L's best present, too. And mine.

Theoretically unnecessary or not (come on -- must we be reminded to be thankful for those who cleaned our backsides and spanked them too?), I'm still glad we have Mother's Day.

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