Saturday Morning
playing
Monday
When I got home from work, I asked the Boy if he wanted to go play outside -- to go exploring or something similar. With the coming cold spell, we have to make the most of the relative warmth while we have it. He was eager to go, and he was eager for L to join us.
He's always talking about doing things as a family. "When can we go on a family bike ride?" "When can we watch a family movie?" "Can we go on a family walk?"
L, now twelve, is starting to show typical teenager behavior, like a reluctance to hang out as a family all the time. She enjoys it, but she also loves "alone time" as she calls it.
Today, though, we were able to talk L into going exploring with us. The Boy, utterly thrilled, took the lead and instructed L how to cross the creek, how to scale the bank (of course she found her own way), how to navigate the thorny places.
Tough
No doubt about it -- this has been a tough week. Probably the worst week we've had in memory, K suggested. A good friend died on Monday; our cat died on Wednesday; Thursday saw two funerals (the friend and the cat, obviously) and a visit to the emergency room with Papa; and Nana still in rehab this whole week. The kids are likely feeling neglected but are showing great patience with everything. The parents are feeling exhausted. And, well, the kids, too.
Breakfast this morning started with a little nap at the table. After breakfast, we went our separate ways: the kids with K to church; I went to spend the morning with Nana.
When we came back, the clear skies, after weeks, months, no years of cloudy, rainy weather, called us outside. First things first: I finally finished up Bida's grave. We've been afraid that the dog might be too curious and tempted by the freshly dug earth despite the fact that we put a large stone to mark and protect the spot.
So today, I spread the best dog-digging-deterrent we've found al around: straw. K thinks it's because the straw gets in the dog's nose as she's sniffing around, which would cause a fair amount of pain, I suppose, if the strand of straw got jammed in a dog's nose just right. Or it could be that it hides odors, because the digging always starts with sniffing. Whatever the cause, we feel better about Bida's grave now, though we don't feel so much better about her absence. It's amazing how much a little old gray grumpy cat adds to the family dynamic.
Next, we went down for some swinging, jumping, and Clover-entertaining.
Next, a little homework. We're trying to get everyone back into a normal schedule, which includes daily reading and writing, especially for the Boy. The Girl takes her own initiative with the homework. The Boy -- not so much.
So we sat on the deck, and between yogurt breaks and tossing the ball for Clover, we finally finished the homework. The Boy was trying his best to make the process more difficult than it needed to be, and I just wanted to get through it all, because I knew what we were planning next:
Today's task: find a way to cross the creek. We found one, made another. Something tells me we'll be spending more and more time out there as the weather warms.
Finally, a small dinner with Aunt D, who's come to stay with her big brother and help out with everything.
First Day 2019
With unseasonably warm weather following several rainy days, we spend the afternoon outside. The Boy and I explore, expand our island, and have a generally great afternoon. K reads, talks to her family on Skype, talks to her best friend in Poland on Skype, and has a generally great afternoon.
Previous Years
Hel
New Year’s 2014
New Year’s 2016
New Year’s Eve
Poor Bida
We have a cat who's so old now that I'm a little surprised she's still walking about let alone jumping on tables and the like. She's a rescue cat we got at least ten years ago, and at the time, the vet said she was four to six years old, which makes her fourteen to sixteen years old. She was rough to begin with, hence the name: "Bida" means "poor little thing" in Polish. With cats having an average lifespan of 16 years, this puts her right at upper limit.
She's completely deaf now. When she's on any surface that largely absorbs vibrations, you can sneak right up on her without even trying to do so. She has no idea what's going on around her, and I think it's only through the vibrations through our hardwood floors that she anticipates anything that she can't see.
She's lost all of her teeth except the small incisors at the front of her mouth. This makes for a pathetic moment when she gets angry -- say, when you're trying to get one of her many, seemingly endless clumps of matted hair out -- and she tries to bite you. Without her canines, there's simply nothing there that can actually do any damage or cause any pain.
Her claws are brittle and largely dull. She can't do much of anything with them but get them stuck in something she's trying to scratch.
Her body is withering away, and she's literally a sack of bones now. And since she's developed arthritis over the last few years, they are knobby and protruding hideously. Running your hands along her back, you feel each and ever vertebrae clearly.
She no longer grooms herself very much. This means her hair gets matted easily and thoroughly, and I've quite honestly given up on trying to get them all out. The only option is the nuclear option: shave her completely, especially her belly. We don't have the heart do that, so we do what we can. The other side of this is the odor that emanates from her: a long-haired cat who doesn't groom herself simply stinks for reasons that don't need further explanation. This is why we give her a bath on a fairly regular basis.
I mention all of this simply because I bathed her tonight and noticed, when she's completely wet, there's almost nothing there. She is literally nothing but a sack of bones, and I'm quite surprised she can survive like that.
"Has she not been eating?" I asked K, and apparently, she's turned up her nose at everything but human food. So I took her into the kitchen, still wrapped in towels from her bath, and made her one of her favorites: scrambled eggs. No salt, no pepper -- just a bit of butter and the eggs. She initially had some trouble finding it, but once she located the pile of eggs, she hunkered down for a long, slow meal. (With no teeth, it takes her a long time to eat anything.)
She's a fighter. Of our two cats, she's the one who's stood up to our dog from the time she was a puppy, and she's the one who, though defenseless, defends her territory fiercely while the younger, faster, stronger cat with deadly teeth and sharper claws runs. Bida knows she's a member of our family and refuses to let anyone forget it: she's always looking for a lap, always begging to be with someone.
"She'll outlive us all," K laughs on a regular basis, and she's probably right.
Three Boys, a Creek, and Pain
N and R came over for a little play time today after the Boy spent a couple of hours at their house this morning as K and I went to visit a dear friend who is in the final stages of a battle against cancer.
"The fight's gone. It's done," said our friend. And what a fight he'd put up: this summer I helped him with an addition to his home, and he worked with a chemo backpack on, pumping him full of pain to fight the ultimate pain.
Seeing the boys playing, with all their energy, excitement, and passion was jarring in juxtaposition. All three of those boys will, at some point, grow old and die, long after I've done the same thing.
That's what we all assume. We all wake up every day and work under that assumption without even thinking about it. We obviously can't paralyze ourselves thinking every day, "Something could happen this day that takes someone we love away from us," but a little reminder about our mortality is a good thing from time to time. It inspires us to do the little things that we might not have done because we're tired, we need to do something else, or we just have other priorities at that moment.
Perhaps that's what's just beyond the edges of the addiction to pain some athletes feel. I'm nowhere near that level, but three nights of running have left my muscles aching in a way that I almost look forward to the next run, the next shot I have at pushing through the pain, of bettering the pain, because I won't always be able to do that. There will come a time when I have to give up the fight, but each night I run, I can push against it.
Seeing that perseverance, limited though it might be, in my own children would be the purest blessing. One of the character traits I consistently see less and less frequently in my students is perseverance, or "grit" as edu-speak likes to call it these days. So many give up before even trying, convinced that they can't do it, persuaded before they even begin that there's no use in even trying.
It's a natural enough inclination, I think. I already see it in E: he sometimes gives up on something so quickly that K and I just look at each other, that concerned parent look on our faces simultaneously. So when E suggested tonight that he might want to join me on my run, it brought such a smile.
"But we'll run the whole time, Daddy," he said.
We did half a mile in just under seven minutes, with three short walking breaks and a lot of sweet, nonsensical chatter.
So I left for my solo run with a lighter step: the Boy took a little step toward becoming a fighter, toward realizing that that excitement in the creek with his friends can be found even in moments of pain.
Playing with The Boy
The Boy got several new toy trucks today, adding to his already-extensive collection of toy cars, trucks, bulldozers, tractors, and the like.
Only one thing to do after dinner...
First Clues
The Boy found an old SIM card the other day and was convinced it was some sort of memory device. I, of course, played along thinking it might be a good way to transition into an actual treasure hunt.
Last night, K told E it wasn't a memory card. "It's from T-Mobile," she explained. I'd explained that the "T" was for technology, perhaps.
"Why'd you tell him?"
"One day, he might take it to school and tell everyone it's a memory card and someone will laugh and him and say, 'It's just something from T-Mobile.'"
Still, I persisted. Today, I shared with him the message that was buried in the memory card.
I had in mind hiding something in his copy of Green Eggs and Ham with the final half of the clue, an allusion to the ending in which Sam-I-Am promises to leave the protagonist alone if he'll just try the green eggs and ham.
I hoped the clue I had the Girl plant while we were walking in the park would help solidify the connection: "Agent Rex, are you Sam?"
When we first arrived, E was terribly eager to look for clues; he looked in the unlikeliest of places, convinced that the Game Master would hide clues only in hard-to-find locations. I looked down at his shoes, though, and realized it woudn't be the adventure I'd initially planned.
"Why did you put sandals on?"
"Because I couldn't find my shoes."
So I was constantly telling him to stay away from the remnants of snow, carrying him over spots where a puddle covered the entire path, and asking him, "Are your toes cold?"
When he finally reached the tree to which L had pinned the clue, he completely missed it because it just above his eye level.
When he finally found it and read it, he was perplexed. I knew I'd have to guide him toward Green Eggs and Ham, and I thought he could figure it out if we steered him that way deliberately.
We didn't succeed.
And then K came home and the Boy explained everything to her.
"Oh, like Sam-I-Am."
I'd considered texting her the details so she could respond just like that, but it was apparently not necessary.
Soon enough, the Boy was in possession of his third clue of the day:
Agent Rex, your mother doesn't have an agent name. I can't communicate with you until she has a name. When she does, send me a message in a manner I will explain at a later date. Until then, be brave, Agent Rex!
By now, though, the novelty of it was wearing off.
"This isn't a treasure hunt," he lamented. "It's a clue hunt."
True enough: Axel's dad has set up all sorts of treasures along the way; I'm just winging it with clues I write in Evernote so I can keep track of everything I've said for the simple reason that I'm still not sure where we're going.
"Maybe the Game Master will have us looking for stuff in Poland!" the Boy had said in anticipation of this summer's trip.
"Maybe!" I replied, wondering if I could string him along for that long. The answer came today: not with clues alone, silly amateur, not with clues alone.
Still, it was great fun, not only because the Boy had fun (at first) but because the Girl enjoyed being in on the secret.
Pig Reef
The day began as yesterday began: outside.
The Boy has for some months been obsessed with The Axel Show, and lately, they've been going on an extended treasure hunt, set up by the Game Master and continually disrupted by imposter Game Masters who steal clues and create chaos. E desperately wants to have his own treasure hunt adventure, so we set off today to have one. No one's hidden any treasure anywhere, but as with many things in life, it's the process -- the journey, the adventure -- that matters.
When we got back home, we did some cleaning, ran some errands, then played Scrabble with the Girl. We've played Scrabble Jr. together before, but as we were cleaning, L discovered real Scrabble and knew we had to play today.
The Boy began and with some help from L, played "pit." A simple start that didn't offer a lot of options for continued play, but I had u, r, t, and s, so I played "trust," which eventually led to "tug," "rug," "roar" and "diver," but the Boy's next play was to add "ig" to his first word and create "pig." A few plays later, he took four letters from his holder and suggested adding them to "pig." The letters: f, r and two e's.
"You know, like a 'pig reef,'" he explained.
The Girl and I decided it was the best play of the whole game.
A quick search on the internet revealed, much to our surprise, that there really is such a thing as a pigreef.
Snow
A snowy Sunday morning really has to start with bacon, eggs, and a couple of cinnamon buns. The long-awaited snow arrived, beginning last night, and we were all excited to see white outside in the morning.
As is the case more often than not when we finally do get snow, there was not much of it to speak of. Wet and heavy, it sat on the yard with blades of grass sticking up almost everywhere.
The kids were eager to get out as soon as possible, especially E.
"Let's make a snow fort!" he squealed.
"I don't think it's good snow for that," K tried to explain. "It's too wet. Wet, wet, wet," she said, but E wasn't convinced. What six-year-old living in South Carolina would be? Snow is snow is snow.
We had similar a year ago:
Slush
Heading out, we discovered the freezing mix that followed it had coated most everything with a layer of ice, leaving K to worry if her rosemary bush, which seems indestructible, might indeed finally die. But there were more important things, like a dog that was thrilled to be in the snow and two kids almost as excited.
We decided to head out and see what the neighborhood looked like. Part of that was to gauge how K might make it to work tomorrow and part of it was to estimate whether we'd be heading back to school on Wednesday or Thursday.
Monday and Tuesday, we knew, would be a wash. The temperature is supposed to drop Monday night, leaving everything an even slicker mess, and even if it didn't, our county is huge, running up into the foothills up north. Even if it's passable here, it's not there.
Our exploring showed us that we weren't the only ones out: there were a few tracks left behind by brave souls -- tongue in cheek there -- who went out in the snow (which was more slush than anything on the road and entirely drive-able), and we encountered a couple returning home with staples in hand -- beer and chips.
The Boy, golf club in hand, enjoyed exploring all the places the slush looked like ice. He slapped and swung at every slushy puddle he saw.
The Girl was thrilled to have the dog in tow.
In the evening, K made the pierogi and uszka we'll be having Christmas Eve. The Boy got to play with some dough, and I was given the boot since I don't work well with perogi, K in formed me.