playing
Sunday afternoons have some standard events, and right in the center of those events is afternoon exploring. Today, though, we threw a wheelbarrow into the mix, and spent a bit of time collecting wood.
The wood? For the first bonfire of the year.
The Boy is a big train fan. Well, he’s a fan of just about anything that rolls, crawls, lifts, shovels, moves — machines. But trains are special, as they should be.
Every now and then, though, I get a little carried away when designing tracks.
It was just too sunny, too warm. It's the last Sunday of the month, which means Polish Mass Sunday, which means a free morning as Mass doesn't begin until three in the afternoon. But when E woke up from his nap, it was just too sunny, too warm to haul him off sit inside. Granted, there are spiritual benefits, but there are spiritual benefits of just hanging out together, father and son, as well. "Besides," I reasoned, "I have to go to confession anyway. Might as well have something more to confess."
There was of course swinging. What would a trip down to the lower part of the backyard -- the only flat part other than the area immediately around the house -- be without some swinging?
There was of course some playing in the water. More than a little. It was a pole for the afternoon, that and the swing. Swing a little, play with a stick in the water a little. Repeat.
Each time we returned to the swing, the shadows were a bit longer, the air a bit chillier, and my initial excitement somewhat dampened. After all, what is swinging for the pusher? Now that the Boy can carry on long conversations, it's so much more than it used to be, but it's still a little monotonous. Especially when the Boy gets hooked on a conversational topic, like this afternoon, when he was talking constantly about his blue snake.
"Mama loves my blue snake. L loves my blue snake. Papa loves my blue snake. Nana loves my blue snake."
"No, no, I assure you, Nana does not in any way care for your blue snake?"
"She doesn't like my blue snake?" he asked incredulously.
"She doesn't like any snake, regardless of the color or the owner."
But what was this blue snake? It was in the water, he claimed, in the trees he pointed out later. It was everywhere -- including in the swing when E hissed at me and then giggled -- everywhere and nowhere.
We went down to the water's edge at a new spot, more overgrown than the places we normally approach the drainage ditch we call the river when we're playing. It was there we saw the blue snake yet again, a bit of vine trailing into the water, swaying with the current. Decidedly not blue, but somewhat like a snake.
"There's my blue snake!"
But shortly after that, it was back in the yard before it mysteriously made its way back to his room.
As we explored, we saw that the wind and rain of earlier this week had knocked down some fairly substantial branches, and so we gathered them into a pile -- wood for our fire pit or, if the quality is there, for smoking some chunk of meat.
"I'm helping you!" the Boy exclaimed as he usually does, and this time, he was right. Though his help often ends up only causing more work, this time he indeed helped.
"Soon you'll help by mowing the lawn, cleaning up all of the branches, turning the compost -- lots of help" I could have said, but he would have only answered as he always does, repeating what I just said with his mildly incredulous tone: "I'll help you mow?"
By then it was time to head back down to the swing, though. The shadows were noticeably longer, and E put his hands in his jacket pocket, a real indication that it's about time to go in.
There was reticence, as always, but the promise of being able to do it all again tomorrow has more and more of an effect the older he gets.
E has wanted Mater from Cars for so long that he grew desperate: he began calling any of his cars that looked vaguely like a tow truck "Mater." And he found a car to substitute for Ramon as well.
But as of tonight, he no longer has to pretend. He's got the real thing. And when he received it, he showed once again a sweet peculiarity in his personality: no child I've ever seen shows joy and gratitude as unreservedly as the Boy.
"Oh thank you!" he gushed. "It's wonderful!"
The pictures are from yesterday, but today was the same. We wander about the backyard, cross over to our neighbors' yard, all the while pretending we're exploring the Amazon rainforest. We've discovered snakes that can look like trees, leaves that can come alive, rocks that can attack. And a swing.
Maybe head to the smooth, newly-paved road that T-intersects ours right across from our house. Maybe ride on into the grass.
Two afternoons, almost identical. Yet different in every way.
One day, Henry was feeling playful. He met Emily as she chugged along, but he was going in the opposite direction on the same track. Emily braked hard and managed to stop just in time.
"Henry, what are you doing?!" she cried.
Instead of answering, Henry began pushing Emily.
"You've heard of Tug of War, haven't you?" laughed Henry. "This is Chug of War!" He pushed with all his steam as Emily, who was not laughing, chugged just as hard against him.
"Henry, will you stop it? We're going to get carried away and derail ourselves!"
But Henry was having too much fun. He chugged, and chugged, and chugged until there was a great clatter of and screech as Emily and all her cars crashed to the side of the tracks.
"Now you've done it!" shouted Emily as she struggled to right herself. "You're going to be in so much trouble!"
Henry, trying the help, suddenly jerked backwards only to find himself off the tracks as well.
Henry felt bad. He never meant to hurt Emily. He really liked Emily. They'd always had good times together, but this time, he'd just gone too far.
He knew he was going to be in trouble. He could just imagine Sir Topham Hatt's face, but he didn't have to imagine. Sir Topham Hatt came down as soon as he heard about the terrible accident.
"Oh, Sir Topham Hatt, I didn't mean to. I mean. It's just that..."
"Well, Henry, you've gone too far this time," Sir Topham Hatt interrupted. "You'll see just how serious this is in just a moment."
Sure enough, Henry saw just how serious it was when Sheriff from Cars showed up.
"Well," said Sheriff, "the first thing we need to do is get these trains back on the tracks."
Sir Topham Hatt called Kevin and Harvey to put the trains both back on the tracks.
Just as Henry was about to chug away, the Sheriff called after him. "Henry, you will be coming with me, I'm afraid.
"I really didn't mean to hurt anyone," Henry said as he chugged beside Sheriff. "I just wanted to have a bit of fun. Emily likes to have fun."
"Henry, did she say to stop?" Sheriff asked.
"Well," began Henry.
"When trains ask you not to do something, you should stop. That means it's not fun for them," Sheriff explained.
"I know you didn't mean it, but there still are consequences for our actions," Sheriff explained.
"What?"
"Time out."
Just after Sheriff left, Toby and James chugged past.
"Oh, Henry, what happened? Why are you in time out?" asked Toby.
"I did something... something..." Henry stammered.
"Not useful?" Toby suggested.
"That's it exactly. And Sheriff traveled back in time, crossed the Atlantic ocean, and left his movie to come into our story just to take me to time out!"
"Oh no!"
"And that's not what's the worst part of it! The worst part is that I didn't mean to do any of it!"
Toby and James felt bad for Henry. They knew what it was like to get in trouble for something you don't really mean to do. They were afraid all the other trains would be angry at Henry so they chugged off to the Tidmouth Sheds to explain to the other the other engines what happened. As they were explaining, Sheriff rolled up.
"Did you talk to Henry?" he asked.
"Yes, we. I mean, no. I mean," stammered Toby.
"Yes, we talked to Henry," James said sadly.
"While he was in time out?"
James and Toby exchanged guilty glances before admitting the truth.
"We knew we weren't supposed to, but..."
Sheriff didn't even wait.
"Off you go to time out as well!"
Such was our morning play.
After dinner, we dance.
Sort of.
The day obviously starts in the kitchen. But it’s more than food and preparation for the day. The Boy has a favorite book lately — Hot Rod Hamster — and on a whim, the Girl decides to read it to him. I read it to him last night; K read it to him the night before. But that’s not enough: he could listen to that book every single day, most likely because of the basic interactivity of it. Hot Rod Hamster, you see, has to choose the parts of his car, and the author often asks the reader, “Which would you choose?” By now everyone in the family knows which one he would choose, but that’s not the point.
The day also ends in the kitchen, with play. The office chair in which I now sit is a favorite toy, for it swivels in endless circles.
To the delight of both kids.
We played hide and seek for a bit this evening -- historically a simple game with the Girl. Always so easily frightened, she would hide in the same places, places that felt safe and relatively near people, again and again, and it was never really all that difficult to find her. It was even easier when she was a toddler and would reply to the standard "Ready or not, here I come!" with a confirmation: "I'm ready!"
Today, playing with the Boy, we couldn't find her. I directed the Boy to look in all the usual places, but she was in none of the usual places.
"Could she have dared to go downstairs?" I asked the Boy rhetorically, for his standard answer these days is "Yep."
But we kept looking, adding a few new places. In her closet. Under K's and my bed. Under the Boy's bed. Finally, it was time for dinner, and we gave up. But I knew one trick to get her out: turn off all the upstairs lights.
And as I headed downstairs, there she was, in the hall closet, where she'd never hidden before. Where I would have never thought to look because imagining her closing herself in a tight dark space was simply unimaginable.
An eight-year-old is braver than a seven-year-old, it seems. A second-grader is able to keep quiet for a lot longer than a first-grader, it seems.