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Wondering

Tuesday 29 July 2014

I’m out mowing, mid-morning. The Girl, who is taking care of E, sticks her head out the door and says, “E was wondering if we could have some of those peanut butter-filled pretzels.”

Sure.

I can just see our two-year-old son sitting on the couch, watching his favorite cartoon, The Littlest Pet Shop (no coercion there), and turning to L to say, “You know, I’m just a little hungry. Know what I’d like? Some of those peanut-butter-filled pretzel thingies. And you know, Daddy’s just right outside there, mowing the front yard. Maybe you could just, I don’t know, stick your head out the door and ask him. I mean, we could try to get it ourselves, but I think we’d probably be better off if we ask permission.”

Yes, that’s probably how it happened.

Sunday in the Park

Sunday 20 July 2014

L has had the same best friend, E (for the sake of simplicity, Big-E), for five years now. They met at preschool, thus bringing our families into a closer orbit than would have otherwise naturally occurred: play-dates became dinner with both families, or even a short vacation together.

Five years, for seven-year-olds, is virtually eternity. It stretches even longer than the endless nights of childhood when we simply can’t wait until morning.

“How long until morning?” we as mom, and the resulting answer might as well be expressed in scientific notation.

So every now and then, the two families get together for an afternoon at the pool, dinner, or perhaps an afternoon at the park. The five kids have great fun together, the parents chat and take turns tag-teaming with each others’ kids (“E, slow down!” “Big-E, you interrupted her!”), and in the end, we all return home satisfied. What’s not to love about an outing that gives the kids great joy while simultaneously exhausting them?

Over the past year, though, a second connection has developed. E has been in the same preschool class as E (gosh — this is getting confusing: three kids with the initial initial “E.” Let’s just call her “Lady-E”), and when we asked E if he was excited about seeing Lady-E today, he smiled hugely and said, “Taaaaak!” (The question was posed in Polish: he’s much better about answer in the same language than L is at this point.)

So L and Big-E zoomed ahead on a scooter and bike respectively while E and Lady-E tended to hang back on their less speedy models. And I (initial for the middle child, not me) sort of hung in the middle, like a middle child would.

We saw some lovely views, including a beaver dam,

had fun pulling our vehicle when we got too tired to ride it,

and had a nice picnic to fill the bellies and stop the complaining.

E and Lady-E are now the same ages (roughly: Lady-E is about a year older) as L and Big-E were when they met. And while five years have passed in the interim, none of us could have possibly believed how quickly it would have gone. Five years for a seven-year-old — forget about it. You might as well be talking the age of the universe.

Five years for any of us? It’s a flash, a blink, a second degree, a mere half-a-decade.

It’s absolutely nothing. Indeed, for us, the passage of twenty years has become nothing. I see on social media that a twenty-year-old beauty contestant boldly wore an insulin pump with her bikini (never mind the ethics of judging someone’s worth or beauty — oh, never mind), and I think, “Twenty years. That makes it 1994. I was starting my senior year of college.”

These kids are still learning how to control their arms and legs: college seems like an impossibly distant reality for them, but for us, it will just be a blip. A few birthdays, a Christmas or two, and suddenly this child or that is packing up to head to this or that college.

I keep writing about this because it keeps becoming more and more obvious. “Hold on to these moments as they pass,” sings Adam Duritz in “Long December,” and the older I get, the more that rings true.

Saturday in July

Saturday 5 July 2014

A little bit of tickling: the Girl loves to be tickled (within reason, for she is very ticklish), but she’s only recently learned the difference between tickling and gouging. As far as the ticklishness goes, though, she clearly gets it from her mother.

A little bit of chess: the Girl is learning how to play, and the Boy is fascinated with the pieces.

And a little growing: another moment where we can see just a glimpse of what L might look like in five or so years.

Practice

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Lessons

Monday 30 June 2014

First, piano lessons — first time I’ve taught someone piano. Should be fun.

Next, swim lessons — we’re paying someone to do this, but I could probably teach her as well.

Next, ice skating lessons — no way I could teach her how to do this.

Finally, some badminton practice.

Pickles and Picnics

Friday 20 June 2014

The Boy has some strange tastes, some strange favorites: pickle juice is a favorite drink. Finish off a bottle of pickles — the American, vinegary type — and he’ll jump on that bottle immediately.

The Girl has always had some strange tastes, too. It’s only been in the last year that she’s even ventured to try that favorite of American kids from coast to coast, the humble (and not-so-good-for-you) hot dog.

What to make to make of this? Nothing more than the obvious: kids too are individuals, and their tastes grow and change with time. For now, we’re happy the Girl loves so many Polish soups and the Boy just loves everything. Likely to change, but for now, it’s good.

Cycles

Sunday 15 June 2014

When the Girl was little, Big Wolf was a popular guy who helped us pass a lot of hours.

“Shhh!” L would exclaim. “Big Wolf coming!” We would dive under whatever cover we could find and count down so that together we might sit up and command, “Big Wolf! Walk away!”

One day in the zoo, we found a plush wolf and knew what we had to do. It remains a highlight for us, a story K and I can retell with a smile, making L smile now too.

Time passed, though, and L grew, and the things that once thrilled her no longer did so. Big Wolf soon became one of many plush toys packed into a net hanging in the corner of her room. Forgotten? Not quite. But almost.

In recent days, the Boy and I have begun playing “Big Wolf” again. He holds his index finger to his lips, shushes us, and proclaims, “Oh! Big Wolf!”

We most often do it in the hammock, a recent discovery for us both. Three days in a row now we’ve gone down the the blue hammock in our wooded backyard and lay there as the evening sun sets all the leaves above us aglow. Just as with L, we play that we must pretend to be asleep in order to keep from provoking Big Wolf. The Girl has brought E her wolf plush toy, and now the Boy must have Big Wolf in the crib at all times, nap and evening rest.

The Girl in the meantime continues to create new cycles for the Boy and me to repeat later. Trips to the pool become lessons in sitting on the bottom of the pool, managing to touch the bottom at the deep end, and holding one’s breath for extended periods. Just as E is now, L was once terrified to put her face in the water, horrified at the thought of getting a droplet of water in her eye, and completely frightened of the deep end. Sooner than we realize, the Boy too will put away Big Wolf, take up his goggles, and tell me, “Tata, teach me a new pool trick.”

Another Day, Another Park

Friday 13 June 2014

“I don’t want to go to the park! We went to the park yesterday. We went to the park the day before yesterday. I’m tired of the park. I’m sick, sick, sick of the park.”

Thus we began our morning. Breakfast, a bit of My Little Pony on Netflix, some freshly picked raspberries and blackberries — none of these things, which some might be tempted, incorrectly I might add, to call bribes, worked. On the way to the car, it was the same.

“I’m taking my Pokemon handbook,” she huffed. “I don’t want to play.”

Of course by the time we got to the park, she’d reconsidered and thought she’d just give the playground a try.

“If not, I’ll go get my book.”

Naturally, she never went to get her book. How could she when the Boy was on such a roll: afraid of nothing, he even went down the big slide — and I mean big slide — all by himself. He panicked a bit on the way down, which is why he burned his forearm on the smooth plastic and probably explained that wide-eyed look he had, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from trying again.

Eating Meatballs

Tuesday 3 June 2014

We were heading out to check the mail this afternoon, L riding her scooter and E in my arms, when a old, loud pickup truck roared up the street. The Boy waved furious and shouted, “Hi Truck! We going to eat meatballs!”

In short, the Boy gets excited about the prospect of Swedish meatballs.

Morning Rituals

Thursday 17 April 2014

The day should begin like this. Every single day. Of course, it’s April, which, according to the cliche, brings showers, indicating gray skies. Still, such an April is rare here in our part of the South.

Breakfast each day should be leisurely enough to include play.

If it’s raisin bread on the menu, there should be plenty of time to load a truck with raisin bread and unload it.

Again, and again, and again.

Of course, the same goes for Cheerios, should that appear on the menu.

And there should be enough time after breakfast to play with trucks in the warm morning sun wearing your favorite shirt.

Spring Tuesday Afternoon

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Everything is finally waking up. Almost all of the raspberry canes now have leaves on them, and buds are poking out of our single blackberry cane. The irises are resurrecting themselves, and the grass has turned a dark green.

“It’s about time!” is just about what all of us would say. I’m not sure I recall being so glad to see winter go in years. The winter months in South Carolina are usually so very mild that I feel we really haven’t had a winter at all, but this year, there’s no doubting it: we had winter. And it hung on for a while. And kept coming back even after we thought it was gone.

With the arrival of spring, though, come new chores, chief among them watering our new blueberry bushes, six here, six there.

In typical fashion, the Boy watches and then quickly imitates. It’s as if he’s constantly thinking, “Oh, so that’s how you do it. I’ll have to give that a try.” He remembers details from previous days, little touches that I’m surprised an almost-two-year-old sees.

Some of it has been simply funny. A few times I gave him his bottle when he was younger, I held it as if I were a sommelier at some fine restaurant; he soon began doing his best imitation just before lifting the bottle to his mouth.

Yesterday, he watched me try to jump-start K’s car. “Try” only because the battery was too dead and my small, thin cables didn’t have the capacity to deliver that amount of power — too much lost in route due to the inefficiencies inherent in current.

And so when he finds the jumper cables sitting out, he does the logical thing: he tries to attach them to his toy fire truck.

The Girl has her own concerns, though, like a budding reading obsession, that leads her to stumble and fall as she walks and reads. Or was that just the dramatic, theatrical part of her personality, pretending?

“She did that on purpose,” K laughs as I snap pictures. Still, the end result is amusing, even if faked.

Later, in the hammock, she reads aloud to me. She stumbles over a few words, proper names mainly, like Ester, but by and large, I just sit and listen.

Words like “gracefully” gracefully fall from her mouth as if she’s merely telling the story herself, from memory, with the inflections and drama of a professional storyteller. Well, almost.

Morning Walk

Sunday 30 March 2014

Blue skies in the morning, and there’s only one thing to do: take a walk. It’s been almost two years now since I was taking daily walks with the Boy in the summer mornings. School was just out; the Boy was able to do little more than open his eyes and look straight ahead. On this lazy Sunday morning, with Polish Mass in the afternoon (the last Sunday of the month comes around with surprising suddenness), we have the time for such a trip back through time.

The difference, of course, is in the air, in the trees, in the flowerbeds. The walks two years ago with the Boy were in the summer, when the temperature could rise to the mid-80’s by late morning; today, there’s a cold breeze that reminds us it’s still March.

During the summer walks of two years ago, the shade of trees brought relief; today, the trees are still almost completely bare, and shade only makes us feel the chill more acutely.

Then, the flowerbeds were not nearly as colorful as the beds today.

Then was a beginning, with E just a little bump in the stroller; today is a beginning, with the buds opening and the Boy kicking his feet on the wheels of the stroller and doing his best to chat with me about everything he sees.

“You really want to talk, don’t you?” I ask as we turn to head home.

“Taaaak!”

Stretching into the Future

Wednesday 26 March 2014

It was time for the Girl to go to bed; it was time for Elsa to play. These two events cannot happen simultaneously: several nights, L has come downstairs, kitten in hand, tearfully explaining that “Elsa is jumping on me and biting on me and won’t let me sleep!” Taking all that into consideration, I explained to L that she would have to go to bed without Elsa, which brought on panicked hysteria. “I can’t sleep without Elsa!” I calmed her down, explaining that I would bring the kitten up to her room once she had tired herself out.

For an hour, the cat played with a green bean that had fallen when K was cooking for tomorrow night.

As promised, I took the cat back up to L’s room, nestling her into the crook of L’s neck. And as I walked out, I, the pessimist, the cynic that I am, had the most macabre thought: If they’re this close now, if L is this attached so quickly, what will it be like when Elsa dies? I pictured a teenager, perhaps nearing the end of her high school adventures. Maybe it would happen around prom time, devastating the Girl and running her prom. Silly thoughts, but I mentioned them to K.

“Well, if Elsa dies a natural death, L will be an adult then.”

I’d forgotten L is already seven years old. I’d forgotten how long cats can live. Or more precisely, I’d forgotten that things won’t always be as they are now. That’s why the passage of time catches us so unexpectedly. The changes creep by, day by day, and we think it’s always been as it is. E has always been just on the verge of talking. The Girl has always been able to read, stumbling over only the most troubling words. Except all those always’s can’t always be, not even for a moment. But oh how we sometimes want them to…

Tears to Mama’s Eyes

Tuesday 25 March 2014

By the doors to the restrooms in E’s daycare room there is a small chair, blue with yellow legs and arms. With its slightly reclined back and arched seat, it looks almost like an Adirondack chair. It would seem likely the teachers put the chair there to provide children waiting for the restroom a place to sit until one realizes that the name of the group is “Toddler 2,” which means every child in the room is around two years old: not many children that age likely are using the restroom by themselves. Perhaps it’s a timeout chair.

The Boy, however, made his own unique use of it last week, his first week in daycare. Because we wanted to slip him into the new routine gently, K took him to the facility in the morning then came during her lunch break to take E back to the house and Babcia, where he napped, lunched, and played until I returned. K’s arrival always coincided with the preparation time for the children’s nap. As the children pulled their mats into place and arranged their blankets, all with the teachers’ help, E sat in the yellow and blue chair and waited for K.

This week, however, he’s been going full days. Two days down, and things could be going better. What a stressful experience for a little kid, and K and I both feel a little guilty for putting him through it. We justify it to ourselves: he’ll be stronger for it; he has to go through this at some point; he’ll soon be enjoying it. We justify, but that doesn’t do much when the teacher tells us that every day at nap time, E still trundles over to the yellow and blue chair, sits down, and waits for K.

Random Monday Thoughts

Monday 24 March 2014

He toddled to the wood pile, on which rests the small box of sidewalk chalk, and tried to climb.

“Do you want chalk?” I asked.

“Taaaaaaaaaak!” he affirmed.

He took the chalk, bounced over to his ride-able toy firetruck, which has a small storage compartment, opened said compartment, and dropped the chalk in. He pushed it out of the carport then up half of the driveway, where he stopped and emptied his cargo onto the pavement. Taking the fat cylinder of chalk in his hand, he scratched enthusiastically at the pavement, just as L had done so many years ago.

Having multiple children is a constant reminder of the cyclical nature of almost all we do. E is now fascinated with chalk for drawing on the driveway — large, fat chalk that leaves pink and red and blue marks on the black pavement.

“Koło!” he cried as he made yet another circle.

Paris Mountain

Sunday 23 March 2014

“Tata, when are we going to have another Tata-L day?” the Girl occasionally asks. It’s our nickname for a little bit of time together, just the two of us. It might be a bit of bike riding together, or it might just be a few errands with a milkshake treat to finish up the outing. Until recently, though, the Boy has really been too small for a Tata-E day.

Today was just such a day

The girls were on their way to the airport for Babcia’s return flight, with a planned stop at Ikea to begin planning a room renovation for the Girl’s bedroom. It was the perfect opportunity for a bit of little-man-alone-with-Tata time: walking, climbing, falling, looking, exploring.

Over the bridge — again, and again, and again.

Walking carefully so as not to fall through

Warmth in March

Thursday 20 March 2014

When it’s this warm, after days of rain, after days of winter’s last stand, a warm and sunny day demands us, commands us, compels us outside. The yellow bells have been blooming for a week, and the green underneath will soon overwhelm the yellow much like the heat of the coming summer will overwhelm the beauty of merely warm days like today.

The warmth of summer isn’t the only thing we catch a glimpse of today, though. The Boy glances at me when I call his name, and as I’ve managed to do several times with the Girl, I catch an instant in which we can see hints of what he’ll look like as he grows older.

It’s inevitable, of course, but sometimes, like all parents, we just want to keep him at this perfect little age. And keep L at her perfect little age. That’s one of the oddities of being a parent: when you’re that close to the growth, seeing it constantly, it’s easy to forget that a given child hasn’t always been this age, hasn’t always been just this charming in this particular way.

Hasn’t he always been eager to “help”? Hasn’t he always been madly repeating every single phrase he hears, with his bubbling, often-near-miss pronunciation? Won’t he always love to swing?

Sometimes, L gets an urge to play teacher.

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← Day 51: Seeing Anew Day 53: Changes →

Matching Tracksuits

Wondering

Sunday in the Park

Saturday in July

Practice

Lessons

Pickles and Picnics

Cycles

Another Day, Another Park

Eating Meatballs

Morning Rituals

Spring Tuesday Afternoon

Morning Walk

Stretching into the Future

Tears to Mama’s Eyes

Random Monday Thoughts

Paris Mountain

Warmth in March

Butelka

Master of Kittens

Teaching the Boy

Time Machine

Calendar

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Trips to Poland

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