around the house

End of Spring 2018 Soccer

Saturday 05 May 2018

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...

Soccer and the New Garden

Saturday 28 April 2018

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.

After School Friday

Friday 27 April 2018

I come home from school some Fridays, and I only want to do one thing: get the grading done for the weekend. Those Fridays are very few and infrequent. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. In fact, I’ve been leaving my weekend grading (articles of the week, anyway) at school to work through Monday and Tuesday.

Other Fridays, I come home and help K with the cleaning. She’s always trying to get the bathrooms done Friday afternoon because she has enough work in the house Saturday that any dint will help.

Sometimes, I come home to find everyone in the backyard. I make a cup of coffee and join them.

Today, I came home and mowed. With a soccer game tomorrow and plans to remake our garden, albeit, in a new location, I knew mowing might be tricky tomorrow, so I got the mower out while K made dinner, and much to my surprise, I got it all done before dinner. Well, the front yard, anyway.

After dinner, a quick trip to Home Depot to pick up a tiller to break the ground for our new garden. The Boy chatted up the sales clerk as he tried to show me how to operate the machine, and he was ready to load the thing himself until he heard how loud it was.

“Maybe I can get the first tilling done before we head to the game in the morning,” I’d said during dinner, but when the Boy and I got back and, with a bit of help from our neighbor, got the tiller unloaded, I decided, “Why wait?”

“Hey, E, want to do some tilling?”

He dropped what he was doing and ran for his work boots.

We walked up and down the stretch of lawn by our driveway — the sunniest place on our lot except for the front yard — several times, with a couple of breaks for the Boy to empty his boots.

Once we were all done, the Boy had one request, one simple desire: “Daddy, can I run in the dirt without shoes?”

And then he stepped on a rock…

Birthday Party

Saturday 21 April 2018

It started with that warm sunlight that is a sure harbinger of warmer weather. The young leaves diffuse the light, making everything glow. It's something I've tried to capture several times but have never really managed.

Perhaps I just haven't tried hard enough -- maybe I do that purposely to leave the mystery in place.

Soccer today was camera-less. I've taken probably a thousand pictures this season -- what could happen today that hasn't already happened this year? I cheered like a normal parent, sitting at the sidelines, not so worried about getting the shot as simply living in the moment. It made me think that I should leave it at home more often.

Today's game was a loss -- number two for the year. It wasn't a horrible score: 3-1. Last week we were on the other end of a complete overwhelming of the other team. It was something like eight or nine to zero. For the entire second half, I was hoping the other team would score something. So perhaps it was a sort of mild karma today. Over-winning is not a good thing, and I was actually pleased to see them lose.

While E was learning how to lose, K was cooking and baking, preparing for Papa's birthday party. On the way to Nana's and Papa's, K related an amusing story about E. He's been struggling with tying his shoes. When it came time for new shoes, he'd insisted on Under Armor shoes because Nikes are no longer fashionable. However, this meant laces. He's been trying to master the art of tying his shoes, but it's been slow going. The other day in car line, though, a little girl asked him to tie her shoes, and since then, he's been tying his own.

At Nana's and Papa's, we knew the aunties were waiting -- a surprise for Papa.

Back home after the celebration, we planted more, weeded more, pruned more -- squeezed a bit of a typical spring Saturday.

Spring Thursday

Thursday 19 April 2018

I know it's a coast-to-coast question, but still, it bears asking: when is spring going to get here and stay here? Sure, we don't have snow like Babcia has in Poland and folks here have up north. But still -- we haven't taken out our summer clothes because every time K thinks it's time, we get a drop in temperature.

So the kids wear shorts every day that it's feasible. The other day, it was 36 when we got up; the next day, it was 52. Tomorrow, back down to the low 40s.

All the flowers and berries are blooming, but if they had any kind of sentience, I would wonder if they really could make any more sense of it than we do.

Rainy Sunday

Sunday 15 April 2018

Soccer and the Yard

Saturday 14 April 2018

Planting

Saturday 07 April 2018

End of Spring Break 2018

Friday 06 April 2018

The guests have all returned home and we’re all getting ready to return to our normal schedules next week. That meant a bit of cleaning today — getting things back in some semblance of order after four days of fun in sixes as opposed to fun in fours. Fifty percent more people results in decidedly more than fifty percent more mess, but who’s complaining? It gave the kids a bit of a chance to build some character.

In the morning, the Boy and I finished off a little project we’d started the day before. The area in front of our new fence’s gate will never — never — see grass again due to the simple fact that the gate funnels foot traffic in a way that an open space never did. We dug down about four inches, added some landscaping timbers and two dozen bags of river rock and solved the problem.

We created a new one in the meantime. The Boy, as always, was keen to help. He wanted to help drive the spikes into the timbers.

“Be careful,” I said. “You can easily get hurt.” A little Boy slinging a two-pound hammer about could be a formula for a mini-disaster, and that’s exactly what happened. He was driving in the spike I’d started for him, holding the hammer with two hands as I’d instructed when he unexpectedly reached down and grabbed the spike with one hand just as he was dropping the hammer. The crying was as close to screaming as it could be: he struck a glancing blow that gouged out a little hunk of flesh.

He sat in my lap afterward for a long time as the cry died to a whimper and then finally stopped. It was another one of those little reminders about how being a parent is such a gift. There was only one person on the planet whom he ~~might have~~ would have picked over me to comfort him: K. It’s medicine for the soul to feel that needed.

In the afternoon, the family went to a local plant nursery to pick up the shrubs and trees we’re going to use to fill in the corner of the fence.

“I don’t want the first thing people see when they pull into our driveway to be that fence,” K said on more than one occasion. That fence — K has a love/hate relationship with it. She loves the sense of security it provides given the simple fact that one of our neighbors has a pit bull that has gotten out of its small fenced area a few times, but she hates the look.

We hope to finish the planting tomorrow — the above is a before shot as a point of reference prior to our initial planting today. The forecast doesn’t look cooperative, though. We’ll find something to do, though, no doubt.