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Boxing Day 2019

Thursday 26 December 2019

I’ve never really been a fan of Monopoly. After about the age of ten or eleven, I determine that there was too much chance involved, and I just found it frustrating. I never played it after that.

As an adult, though, I’ve come to recognize that there is a fair amount of chance in life that just sucks money from one’s bank account. Medical emergencies, car repairs, accidents, home issues, and the like — all unplanned, all expenses.

When the Girl got Monopoly for Christmas this year, I knew I’d end up playing it with the kids. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be as an adult who can simply look at it as a game that is a fairly accurate reflection of the frustrations of adulthood and, more importantly, as a game that can provide lessons to kids and time together as a family.

We played twice today. The first time, it was just the kids and I. It only took a moment for me to realize the value for a seven-year-old. He had to read, to count money, and occasionally make change.

L dominated us, and the Boy was hemorrhaging cash to a degree that he declared he was going to quit. We talked him down, but then K returned home and we set about to preparing and eating dinner.

Afterward, the kids wanted to play again, so we sat down as a family and began. I had a little strategy in mind that I wanted to test: quality, not quantity. I bought a bunch of properties quickly, then traded at exorbitant cost to myself three or four properties for the final street to make the orange set:

New York Avenue
Tennessee Avenue
St. James Place

I then set about to building them up to two houses each as quickly as possible. The result: I was getting a couple of hundred bucks every few cycles of the board.

The Boy took a similar route: he ended up with all the railroads and soon was rolling in money.

Poor K was getting hit left and right: bad luck with Community Chest/Chance cards, bad luck with the dice (she must have landed on the luxury tax four or five times), and soon she was down to little cash and few unmortgaged properties.

Then I bought one more house for each of my properties and drawing $550-$600 from every poor player who landed on one of them. K finally landed on one, and it just about wiped her out.

Her reaction: she laughed. Our reaction: we laughed with her.

On our walk this evening, then, we were able to help E see that the most important thing in a game like that is just to have fun. “It’s just a game!”

The Card and the Project

Tuesday 10 December 2019

The Boy loves Pokemon cards. We play sometimes, but I'm not sure he understands quite how to play because the way he taught me seems a little overly simplistic. But we still have fun.

For some time now he's been participating at the card trading table the teachers have set up for kids in after school. Every day he tells me about who wanted to trade what with whom, and sometimes he's frustrated because someone didn't want to make a given trade with him and other times he's upset because he didn't want to make a trade with someone -- rarely are all parties happy, I fear.

During all this trading, he's had a single-minded goal: to get some super-mega-ultra card with some ungodly number of damage points and virtual immortality. At least that what it sounds like in all his almost-hyperventilating hyperbolic descriptions.

Today, he finally managed to make that trade.

In the evening he had to work on a project that we somehow didn't realize was a project and got swallowed up in the chaos that is our family life. He got another copy of the project and began working on it tonight.

As a teacher, I always view these things a little differently than K. I find myself sometimes judging work, thinking, "How useful is this really?" And other times I find myself thinking, "That's a great idea. I'd use that if I were an elementary school teacher." (God forbid!)

I also find myself a little less worried about our children's grades. "This might drop your grade significantly!" K fussed at the Boy this weekend when we realized what had happened. My response: "Yes, and?" Grades in elementary school are not something I worry too much about. More importantly: did we make sure the Boy learned some kind of lesson about communication and organization with this adventure? Did we learn anything?

Volleyball Practice

Thursday 05 December 2019

I swear, it looked better on the phone…

Kolejka

Sunday 01 December 2019

The reality of life in Poland in the 80s was the line. The queue. People stood in line for everything. People stood in line not knowing why they were standing in line. A friend once told me, that she often ended up standing in the line just because there was a line. “If there was a line there must be something she reasoned and no matter what that something was it was something that her family could use or trade with someone else.”

Kinga told us of a story about waiting in line for shoes. “We didn’t even know what kind of shoes they were,” she said, “but they were shoes and we needed shoes.”

I had my own experiences waiting in lines in Poland in the mid-90s, but they were not due to the lack of goods. I mostly waited in line for bureaucratic reasons. When I would go to Krakow training my Visa, I would arrive at the office in question an hour or more before it opened to find the line already stretched halfway down the block.

What better thing to do then some 30 years after communism ended in Poland than to play a game based on this reality. That’s exactly what the game Kolejka is all about: all the frustration of communist Poland in your living room.

Sunday

Sunday 27 October 2019

The Boy had been waiting to work on his project.

We'd been waiting for the tree to fall.

Tossing with Papa

Saturday 19 October 2019

Family Sunday

Sunday 13 October 2019

It was a dreary, rainy day today, but none of the adults were complaining. Far from it: it’s been so long since we’ve had any rain that I wouldn’t have minded if it rained all day long. But E was sad: we’d planned on going to the zoo since the morning because, according to the forecast, the rain was supposed to stop after lunch. It didn’t, so we didn’t.

Instead, we stayed inside and played Peanut Butter and X — can’t remember the other half. Maybe cabbage? It’s basically the card game BS. It’s a silly game that a seven-year-old can understand, though he doesn’t understand the nuance.

“Now I have to lie!” he proclaimed at one point.

“Now we know that you don’t have what you’re going to say you have,” L laughed.

“Now don’t give him a hard time,” I chided.

“Now I don’t want to play!” E fussed.

We talked him down from his frustration and continued, even managing to make it fun again.

Afterward, I decided it was about time to teach L how to play hearts. We played an open hand with three people so I could show them how to play, but I was doubtful from the outset that the Boy would be able to keep up.

In the evening, we expanded our circle, playing a full game (i.e., four people) by adding K and Papa to the mix. After four hands, we were all virtually tied. Probably the perfect way to end.

So Mean

Wednesday 09 October 2019

Conversation One

"He knocked me down, and I stayed calm. I didn't even say, 'Why do you have to be so mean?'"

The Boy and I were on our way back home, and he was explaining some adventure or other that he'd had during recess. He's taken to playing soccer then, and he's often telling me about what happened during the game.

"Why would you have said, 'Why do you have to be so mean?'" I asked.

"Well, I didn't say it."

"But why would you have said it? Why are you specifically pointing out to me why you didn't say it?" I suspected it was because someone had said that to him at some point.

"Well, I was playing soccer the other day with X" (I can't remember the name) "and I tried to sweep the ball away from him. I didn't mean to, but I knocked him down. He just jumped up and screamed, 'Why do you have to be so mean!?'"

It's usually the Boy on the receiving end of such things, and I'm always trying to help him see the other point of view: perhaps it was an accident. "Oh, no, Daddy, it wasn't an accident," he usually insists. So I asked him, "Did you tell him you didn't mean to?"

"I tried to," he explained with a frustrated edge in his voice. "I said, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to knock you down,' but he just walked away from me and ignored me."

Sometimes, I feel like the Boy can't win: even when he's the (accidental) aggressor, it somehow ends with him feeling like a victim.

Conversation Two

On the way to soccer practice the evening, the Boy brought up Frida Kahlo. One of his multi-age class groups (they're called "houses") is named after her. "Do you know who she was?" he asked.

"Was she the Mexican painter?" I asked, thinking of the uni-brow painter who did so many self-portraits.

"Mexican? I thought she was German," he replied quizzically.

I'm not up on painters, so I just suggested that perhaps I was thinking of someone else. "Was she friends with Trotsky?" I asked, knowing the response.

"Who was Trotsky?"

Who indeed.

"A generally bad man," I said.

"Why?"

"Because he was responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people."

He thought about it for a moment then asked, "Were they innocent or did they deserve to be shot?" He paused, thought some more, then corrected himself. "Well, I don't mean deserved to be shot. They were just bad. Were they bad?"

From there, the conversation devolved: "Oh like Hitler?" "Who killed more?" "Who's Stalin?" "Did anyone kill more than him?" "Mao what?"

Then I got to wondering: on the playground were these men the aggressors or the aggrieved? And how in the hell did that conversation end up there?

Big Monday

Monday 22 July 2019

The first order of the day: get the front end alignment done on the Paddy Wagon (or minivan as others might call it). The Boy, learning that I was going to take the car and ride my bike back, insisted on going with me.

Second, later in the day, a playdate with D, his best friend in kindergarten who changed schools for first grade. D's mother, R, was a Spanish teacher at my school, and it just so happened that our boys were in the same class, and it just so happened that they became great friends, independent of any intervention from parents. The playdate included almost everything the Boy loves, namely Legos and swimming.

Later, eat an enormous dinner: salmon, potatoes, and one of his absolute favorites, asparagus. (How many seven-year-olds love asparagus, mushrooms, and blood sausage?)