There was so much more -- so much more -- today that, at 11:59, I don't care to cover. But this was the most insignificant event of the day.
Wypasiona Dolina Plus
growing
Driver
The Girl got her restricted license today. This means that, once we have her covered on our insurance, she can drive alone during daylight hours.
It's not that big of a change, I guess. She's been driving for six months now. Ah, but it is a big change: she'll soon be doing it alone.
The Boy learned about the joys of putting together furniture.
The Girl
When I got my current job teaching eighth graders, Nana said to me, "I don't know how I survived your eighth-grade year. I wanted to strangle you every other day." I can't say that I've been as upset and frustrated with teaching eighth graders as Nana might have suggested. Indeed, I've come to love it, and I don't really have any desire to teach any other grade.
My own child, though, was a different story. I began to understand Nana's hyperbole. I haven't written much about the Girl here because it's been a typical period of growth, which means frustration for parents. What are we doing wrong? Why is she pushing us away? What can we do differently? We knew the answers to those questions (Nothing; Because she's thirteen/fourteen; Nothing -- just be there unconditionally), but that didn't make it any easier.
In the last few weeks (or even months), though, since she's started driving, since she went back to work, since she's made it through her first year of high school, it's like she's taken a deep breath and made peace with us and herself.
I knew it was coming: the transformation eighth graders go through is amazing, and I know it continues through ninth grade (until they're sophomores and temporarily revert because they're sophomores and know everything -- or is that just a cliche?), but to experience it has been refreshing. To begin seeing what kind of an adult she will be: a valiant defender of anyone facing injustice, a friend who sometimes lets her love for her friend overshadow reason (not always a good thing, not always a bad thing), self-reflective and self-aware -- to see this change really start to kick in just makes me smile.
Tonight, we finished watching Schindler's List. The reason (other than it's a moving film that everyone should see) is that L and I are planning on visiting Auschwitz while we're in Poland, and I wanted her to have an idea of what the scale of the Holocaust in real, human terms. Tomorrow, we will watch Conspiracy, a film about the Wannsee conference so she can get an idea of the "logic" that drove the Nazis.
That I am comfortable letting her watch such a film is a testament to her maturity.
The Boys in the Creek
E's best friend came over for the afternoon today. At first, they did what boys these days do: play video games. However, we have no gaming console in our house at all. No Xbox, no Play Station, no Nintendo Switch. In fact, I only know those things exist because I hear students and teachers talking about them at school. And of course, E brings them up occasionally.
And it's a little surprising, to be honest, how many adults with no children or with grown children still invest time and money into gaming systems. To each his own, I suppose, but I always thought there was a time when people outgrew video games.
Not having a gaming system has several advantages, not the least of which is the simple fact that since we don't buy games for our PC either, E's gaming options are severely curtailed. Which means he and his friend grow tired of them eventually and head outside to find other things to do.
Like catching minnows in the creek behind our house.
As for the Girl today, she was out of the house for most of the day: physical therapy, volleyball strength training, and driving instruction took almost all her day.
Working Girl
The Girl has her second job: this time, she's working at Dairy Queen. I guess there's a certain continuity with last summer's job at Culver's, but only vaguely.
When she was applying for the job, I suggested that she shouldn't leave the reference section empty.
"They're so desperate for workers," she explained, "that it doesn't matter." I recommended that she reconsidered; she didn't. She got the job.
It helped that she did have experience, though, that she could go straight to work, that she knew how to work a register. The first day on the job, they put her behind a register and got her working with almost no immediate training.
The other afternoon, our family friends went through the drive-thru to get a little snack. L didn't realize it was them until they pulled up.
This is now one of my favorite pictures of her.
Growth
It's that time of year: my students are writing their letters to next year's students. The English 8 kids wrote them last Friday; English I will be writing them in a couple of weeks.
The guidelines are simple:
- Provide advice for rising eight-graders
- Show off how well you can write now.
To achieve the second goal, I only allow students one class period to write the letters. The results could theoretically be a little better for the English 8 students if I gave them more time, but part of the charm in the whole exercise is watching next year's students' shock when I tell them at the letters they're reading are in fact first and only drafts.
One young lady's letter demonstrated so wonderfully how much she'd grown as a person from the beginning of the year. J, at the start of the year, was one of the most worrying students: her behavior was often disruptive; she was often disrespectful when teachers called her on her behavior; she rarely did any work, and what she did was not turned in or handed in still incomplete.
Yet over the course of the school year, she's calmed down, learned that butting heads with teachers is counterproductive, and begun doing her work (then doing her best). Her grade has gone from a 62 (just barely passing) to a 84, just six points shy of an A.
One paragraph of her letter reads:
How to stay out of trouble in the 8th grade? Staying out of trouble in the 8th grade is probably one of the most important things you can do. One thing you can do to prevent getting in trouble is to minimize your circle and stop posting things on social media. People take a lot of things to social media and the drama leads into school so now it’s the school’s problem and once you post something on social media there’s literally no going back. It's there forever. Having a lot of friends can cause you to get into a lot of stuff because once one of your friends is beefing with one another they are going to bring you into it because they want you to choose one or the other. My advice to you as a 8th grader right now is to never trust a soul, follow the right path and take it slow, that's how you can be successful in the 8th grade.
There's a certain cynicism in that conclusion, but perhaps it's not entirely awful advice.
Putting Him to Bed
“Will you come check on me?”
For a few years now, that’s been one of the last things E has said to me or K. We put him in bed; we snuggle with him; we grow sleepy; we realize we can’t fall asleep; we get up and leave. He hears us.
“Will you come check on me?”
Gradually, it’s become a little different: “Will someone come check on me?”
The answer has gradually changed, too.
“Sure.” And then we wait for a while, doing something in the kitchen or reading at the dining room table. “Will someone come and check on me?” comes a voice from upstairs.
Eventually, “sure” because “probably.” The response initially is, “No, I need you to check on me!”
Eventually, he comes to accept that, and usually, someone goes to check on him. Usually. But not always.
“Probably” becomes “maybe.” “Maybe” eventually becomes “I hope so.” And “I hope so” remains for a while with an occasional, “No. I have too much to do tonight.”
This process has taken a couple of years. And now he’s nearly ten years old. And I come to realize that putting him to bed is almost done. For good. It was about this age that L began putting herself to bed, and the Boy already does it occasionally. So the end is near. And so the answers start backing up. “No” disappears, as does “I hope so.” “Probably” appears occasionally, but simple “yes” makes its return. For a while.
Untitled Composition
Pinewood Derby 2022
For this year's car, we decided to get a little silly.
"I can't believe we didn't make a single cut on the car this year!" was the Boy's refrain.
We drilled a couple of holes to put in some weight; we sanded a lot; and we painted a bit. However, not a single cut.
We haven't had a lot of success in the pinewood derby. I don't think the Boy has even placed in his den let alone the pack.
Still, we kept trying. Last year, we employed a number of tricks:
- polishing the axels;
- bending the axles to make the wheels point outward at the bottom to minimize friction;
- mounting one front wheel high so that it didn't touch the track;
- making sure we'd put the weight in the perfect location relative to the car's center of gravity.
None of that really helped.
I think this year we were both hopeful that if we didn't place in the actual race we might get some recognition for originality. After all, we entered a stick of butter.
"I can't believe we didn't make a single cut on the car this year!"
It did about as well as our fine-tuned, finely-balanced car from last year in the race. And in the superlatives?
The Boy's expression says it all.
"I was hoping to win something today," he said quietly afterward.
Lost Photos
I never published these photos, to my knowledge — I don’t know how that happened. They’re so old that it’s almost funny: L and her friend E are now in high school, as tall or taller than their parents, learning to drive, alternatively annoying and charming adults.
Little I no longer is little. He’s in middle school now.
And our little man E and E’s and I’s little sister E? Not even a thought in their head.