As it was with soccer yesterday, so it was with scouts today.
growing
What I Learned
Today, at E's first soccer game of the season, a certain little boy managed to break from the pack of children that attempt to herd the ball in one direction or another, and he dribbled the ball down half the field and blasted a devastating shot at the opposing team's unprepared goalie. A few moments late, in a move reminiscent of German's complete destruction of Brazil in the 2014 World Cup semi-finals, broke away again and scored a second time in as many minutes. That little boy was a hero all around. That little boy was not the Boy. He spent most of his time lingering around at the edges of the hive of children always swirling around the ball, never charging in and begin aggressive as he does here. He almost shot a goal, but truth be told, it was because he just happened to be where a deflected ball just happened to land. Yet he was so very proud of that.
"I'm going to tell Mommy I almost got a goal," he told me several times on the way home, as if to make sure I understood that he was going to tell her. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
I've mentioned before that the Boy is not overly aggressive, and I even mentioned it in the context of soccer.
I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with him shooting an own-goal (as he did last year) or only barely missing a goal because an ironic combination of luck and misfortune. I don't have a problem with him wandering around the edges of anything, looking in, unsure and unwilling to commit himself until he is. I don't have a problem with him giving up on any and all sports.
That is what I learned about myself and my son today.
What I learned about my daughter will have to wait until I have to fix what I learned about myself at the same time.
Sunday
It's been a week of firsts and almost-firsts for the Boy. Yesterday, it was soccer. He did not want to play, pure and simple. He was fine with the races, the drills, the silly games. But when it was time to scrimmage, he panicked. Eventually, he got up his courage and went into the game, but there was a long period of waiting, watching, and fussing -- just a bit.
Today, it was Cub Scouts. "We'll start by making some slime while we wait for everyone to get here and settle in," the den leader said. No go. He absolutely did not want to do anything but bury his face in my belly. He finally joined in, but as with soccer, there was a moment of hesitation.
Back home, we were in the familiar territory -- swinging, bouncing on the trampoline, playing with the dog.
A spendid Sunday, like so many others.
Polish Mass Sunday
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2016/04/24/36890/
Sunday
Sunday Lazy Sunday
First Day 2017
The Boy started kindergarten today. It was for him a big adventure, to say the least, but we really didn’t realize the extent of it until it was time to start getting ready for bed. The thought of going back to school tomorrow sent him into a tear-filled panic. We couldn’t figure out what it could be. At one point he talked about how long the day was. At another point, he explained that the teacher won’t let him run his hand along the wall as he walks down the hall.
“She said there might be staples sticking out!” he sobbed. “I like touching the wall.”
So all in all, I think it was just the overwhelming nature of starting a new school with new kids and a new teacher.
For the Girl, the change came after school. She’s a part of the school safety patrol, which is really a great honor for her because no one applies for the positions: it’s simply through teacher recommendation. Since she has chorus and news crew in the morning before school, she had to sign up for the afternoon crew. And anyone who’s ever worked in public education knows what dismissal looks like on that first day. My first day at my middle school over ten years ago now, dismissal lasted until five in the evening because of assorted bus problems. For the Girl, it wasn’t nearly so ridiculous: she was there for forty-five minutes. Still, it must have been tiring.
Tomorrow we do it all again, but everyone is so tired from this first day that I’m surprised anyone is still up.
Treats
The Girl made treats for everyone today, with some help from K.
The Boy was especially excited.
Infinity
Driving home from Mass today, the Boy and I somehow got into a discussion about infinity. I can’t remember how it came up or even who brought it up, but there we were, discussing one of the great paradoxes of life and math.
To try to explain it to him, I talked about numbers: “You can count on and on and on and on,” I said. But this didn’t seem to support what I said earlier, about infinity having no beginning or ending.
“But it does have a beginning,” he protested from the back. “When I count, I say, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5.’ You start at one.”
I tried dipping into the topic of negative numbers to show him that we really could start anywhere.
“Negative numbers? Like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1?”
Throwing Away
It's much simpler to dump now and then sort later. Much later. That is what E has been doing with his toys -- cars, action figures, blocks, and the like -- for some time now, until all four of his main toy bins are hopelessly mixed. Last night, we decided that we had to get things under control, organized. I suggested it while putting the Boy to bed; he readily agreed.
This morning, then, we got to work by dumping all the bins into a pile.
"That sure is a lot of toys!" said the Boy.
"Perhaps too many," I suggested.
"Yeah, maybe too many."
We began sorting, making little piles of action figures, cars, train tracks, blocks, and more, and I suggested that we might want to get rid of some of the toys.
"Yeah, maybe the broken ones."
We made a deal with the cars: for every one car he gets rid of, he gets to keep three cars. That of course means he cuts his cars by twenty-five percent, which would be significant. I didn't think he'd agree. I thought he'd fuss about the suggestion, but instead, he went along with it quite willingly. He selected trailers for which there were no longer trucks, cars that were, in his words, for babies, and a few cars that just looked like they'd seen their best days. He was thoughtful as he culled his toys and surprisingly mature about the whole process.
Perhaps not so surprisingly: he's always imitating L, K, or me, always trying to be older than he is, always talking so seriously about such things as he sees K and me discussing important matters. He wants to grow up. He wants to be a man. The worst insult I can give him is to suggest, when he's fussing and crying over some trifle or other, that he's acting like a baby.
"I'm not a baby!" he protests.
"Then why are you fussing like one?"
The answer is always the same: "I don't know."
In the end, we got rid of two bags of toys. Broken cars, trailers with cars missing, mysteries (What is that? And what did it go to?) all got dumped into the trash bin. The rest we took to Goodwill.
It was a proud little moment for K and me, to see our little man realizing that he'd outgrown some toys, that he had more than he really needed, that he could live without them.
Changing
The Girl has a love/hate attitude toward her hair. She loves it because, well, she just does. I say she hates it because she really doesn’t take care of it. On our days off, if K or I didn’t remind her to brush her hair, she wouldn’t. At all. And yet it literally took us years to talk her into cutting her hair the first time.
This time, she went even further — just to the shoulders. Her concern: can I still put it in a ponytail? Our concern? Will it be easier to brush out tangles?
The unexpected side effect: a hair style that almost perfectly reflects her personality: a bit silly, a lot of fun, and simply, sweetly alluring.
Clover Growing
Support
They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but more obvious is the fact that there are no strangers in foxholes. I’ve read that in high-tension battle situations, soldiers are not fighting for any sort of grand patriotic notion but simply to protect the men beside them. Challenges bring people together, in short.
I saw that myself a week or so ago when L and I together went through the toughest course at the local line park. We bonded in a way we hadn’t ever really done before.
Today, though, instead of experiencing it, I witnessed it. We went back to the line park with S, L’s and K’s cousin, who was a little hesitant at first about the whole idea. S is not really like L, who will dive into some things without thinking. S is a bit more hesitant. So when I suggested this morning that we might go to a line park after lunch -- if it stopped raining -- her first reaction, other than, “What’s a line park,” was hesitant. When L and I explained what it was, her reached changed just a little -- up went the eyebrows.
“Maybe…” was all we got.
In the end, she agreed, and in the end, she loved it. And in the final count of things, she agreed that it would be fun to try it again.
The Boy, though, is not big enough to go on any of the courses except the "Junior Course."
But there were a couple of things that everyone was eligible to do.
