Matching Tracksuits

Outdoor living in South Carolina really only becomes comfortable around mid-September. Temperatures dip, the wind seems to blow more, and it feels less humid.

And so on a day like that -- the first day like that -- we decide we must take advantage of it. We head to our near-neighborhood favorite, less than five miles away. Lovely views, a flat paved path for the Girl to ride on: it's a perfect place to pass a couple of Sunday hours.

It's a great place for L to practice on her new bike: hand brakes and gears make for a stressed, confused girl sometimes, and so a gentle, flat path is what she needs more than anything to grow accustomed to new techniques. She still tries to brake by pedaling backwards, and the overly-sensitive gears on the bike sometimes wreck havoc on her confidence, not to mention her pedaling.

Still, she manages.

As we walk, the Boy, who spends much of the time in the stroller, finally reaches a breaking point. He must get out and walk. But he doesn't walk when he's outside. Ever. He runs. And falls. And he has eternal scabs on both is knees to prove it.

His teetering and tottering about add a new stress element for the Girl: she decides it's safest to ride far in front. Until she realizes she's far in front, then she stops and waits for us.

Those breaks, though, will come fewer and farther between as she grows older. She'll soon be seven, and that's so difficult to believe that I think I must be making that up.

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s only fifteen months old, I might think the Boy has some sort of obsession with filling and emptying things. Well, at least emptying things, for he’s doing it all the time: toy baskets, bowls, recycling bins, tumblers, clothes hampers, and likely trash cans if he had half the opportunity. In fact, if I’m honest about it, he really doesn’t much enjoy filling those things — it just sounded better. The only time he really enjoys filling is when he knows that emptying is just moments away, which explains why cleanup is such a difficult concept.

And it’s really not enough to empty the container; the contents must be spread about as chaotically and paradoxically thoroughly as possible. The most effective method to accomplish this is to wildly wave his arms about, catching what he can and sending it flying across the room. Left to his own devices, he would likely move from room to room in the house, emptying everything that had something in it, leaving the entirely floor throughout the house a puzzle of socks, cans, office supplies, pan holders, toys, books, underwear, and all the other little quaint items that constitute a thorough mess.

So we try to teach him a basic principle: only get out one thing at a time, and when you’re done with it, clean it up before getting the next item out. We try, but that involves some complicated concepts for a fifteen-month-old: sequence, completion, and at least theoretically, responsibility. So we try, and as often as not end up turning it into a game in which the parent cleans most of the mess and cheers E when he hands over a block and tosses a toy car into the bin.

The Girl, naturally, is a bit further down that road that leads to adult responsibility (though many adults seem to take detours somewhere along the way and never quite make it to the destination). She’s taken on responsibilities that are really out of her scope of influence. Chores, both planned and unplanned, in other words. Like emptying the dehumidifier in the basement, or taking care of the cat’s food, or cleaning up a mess the Boy made while one of us gets him ready for a Saturday afternoon nap. She’s working toward a goal, a December birthday/Christmas gift that in reality will only add more to her to do list. She insists she’s ready for the responsibility, and as if in an effort to prove it to us, she heads upstairs unexpectedly on a Saturday morning to work on her touch-typing skills.