“Oh, L!” is a common refrain.
parenting
Afternoon Play
Summer always had a dream-like feel to it when I was a young kid. Even though it seemed never to arrive, it had an aura of endlessness once it finally did. Two and a half months seem a lot longer when you’re five.
And waiting for summer vacation when the weather is already warm and everything around you is beginning to scream, “It’s summer!” (even though it’s technically spring) makes for itchy feet.
So we decided to get a jump on summer today, though, with some tag in the front yard. We ran around the yard, fell on each other, and rolled around in the grass, winded and sure that the moment would last for ever.
At least I was sure. The Girl, not so much. She was up again, ready to go.
“Come on, Tata! I’m it!”
Lent 2012: Day 31
Lent is about sacrifice, and a significant part of our everyday reality is sacrifice in the form of delayed gratification, when we sacrifice the immediate satisfaction of our desires for some further, greater good. For example, we could buy that new camera lens we want (and I have been drooling over Nikon's 17-55 2.8 for some time) on credit and have immediate gratification; delaying said gratification by saving for the lens (and at $1,500, that particular lens would take quite a bit of saving of my personal spending money) means not racking up unnecessary debt that could hurt us in the long run. So we delay gratification for a good that is even further in the distance, and in this case, hypothetical. But the immediate price is a sacrifice of potential joy.
The Girl has been saving for a Barbie camper for months now. Granted, it only began a little before Christmas, but five-year-old time is like dog-years: it's all relative. She gets a little cash here and there, from us and her grandparents, and this week, she made it: $70, the Wal-Mart website price.
So this evening, we went to Wally-world to buy it, only to find the price there was $94. I took it to customer service to inquire about the justification for the price difference. It turned out, they were aware of it -- and they did nothing about it.
"We'll price-match with a competitor..." began the customer service rep.
"But not with yourself," I finished.
"Right. Not even store to store."
I sensed a crisis brewing, but the Girl handled it marvelously: a few whimpers of disappointment but nothing significant.
Back home, we shopped around and found it on sale for $50. And now the Girl has a good start on her savings for a Barbie house -- and a lesson learned about delayed gratification.
The Bath
Tough Lessons
Because one of my plugins broke with the upgrade to WordPress 3.3, I have to click over to Flickr and manually grab the code for each image I want to insert. In some ways, it would be easier simply to upload them directly to this site, but we use Flickr as a mastery back-up for our best photos -- the ones we absolutely don't want to lose -- so in the long run, it's worth the extra step. But it does mean some clicking: Click on the picture. Click on the "Share" button. Select the text and copy. Click to the new window -- you get the point.
Still, as far as sharing goes, this is fairly painless, because one of the hardest things to learn is the gift of sharing. I say "gift of sharing" as if it's something easy for me to do. It's not. I doubt it's easy for anyone in all situations. We all have this or that which we hang on to with clinched fists even when we aren't aware of how are knuckles are turning white.
For the Girl, it's Wawel's candy, "Kasztanki." L is simply obsessed with them. This is partially because of their rarity: they're not readily available in the South. (One might find them in Polish stores up north, but not down here.) Babcia sends them to the Girl on a fairly regular basis, but from time to time, she does run out, and then it's a period of slow heartbreak.
Tonight, we suggested that L share her favorite candy with Nana and Papa so they could see what all the fuss was about. Judging from her expression, one would think we'd asked her to give up a kidney or sacrifice her life. Eventually she relented, though not without a bit of persuasion.
I suppose we all take some persuading to share some things.
Games
It’s a lifelong process, learning how to lose. I’m thirty-some years older than the Girl, but I still fight the frustration of loss just as much as she. I could contend that there is a difference: losing at games of chance doesn’t phase me because it’s a question of luck; losing at games of skill–read: chess–does bother me when I feel I made a stupid mistake. Such distinctions are lost on the Girl, though: losing is losing is losing. It all hurts.
We’ve been working with the learning how to lose (and to a lesser degree, how to win gracefully) with Candy Land for ages. We’ve seen some real improvement: the complete hysterical fits have disappeared, replaced by a temporarily pout and an extended lower lip. In fact, things are going so well that I’ve stopped my Machiavellian parenting technique of stacking the deck to make sure she loses at least once or, if needed, wins once.
Yet sometimes that dimension of untinkered-with chance provides some amusement: three candy cards within four turns for me resulted in some whiplash-inducing jumps around the board and laughs for the Girl — even when I was surging ahead. Perhaps she knew the next card would bring me back to Earth.
Polska Dziewczyna
Kotlet schabowy z ziemniakami. She loves the pork — though we sell it to her as chicken — but she has to give the potatoes a bit of thought.
Still, she’s a Polish girl, through and through. Her favorite meal, the thing she would eat daily, the dish that gets her squealing with delight when she learns it’s on the day’s dinner menu: barszcz.
The Artist
“I’m an artist,” L declares as she’s drawing on the driveway. “No one knows I’m an artist at school, and I have to keep it a secret,” she continues. “If anyone finds out, they’ll tell the teacher. Then the teacher will come to me and ask if I’m an artist.” She pauses for a moment, inspecting her work, then continues the creation and the explanation.
“If they ask that, I’ll have to tell them that I am but that it was supposed to be a secret.” She looks up, holds her hands out to her sides, palms up, lowers one eyebrow, and does her best to look adult: “That’s why I have to keep it a secret.”
Treasure
A four-year-old has treasure stored up in every corner of the house. There's the princess umbrella that sits in the toy basket downstairs, ready for deployment. There's the scooter downstairs, festooned with princess regalia, parked by the pink bike. There's a bookshelf packed with books, new and old, tall and short, thick and slim.
And then there's the jewelry.
All L's treasure had its own, proper, fitting place before today except for the jewelry.
A small but colorful cardboard from Ikea held L's beads and rings, her bracelets and necklaces, her charms and her gems. And so when she saw the jewelry box at Barnes and Noble this afternoon, there was no question. She'd come with money sent from Poland with the intention of buying a book.
She left with a new treasure,
to hold all her other treasures.
Studying
I'm taking two classes this semester, still working toward a Master's; I have to study.
K is taking a class this semester, beginning her course work toward an eventual professional license; K studies.
L, seeing the two of us, has decided she needs to study.