Swing and Dinner
the boy
Comfort
The Boy and I were playing just before bedtime. The miasteczko that T and he made during their visit this weekend is still up, so we decided to make use of it. As often happens when playing, the Boy decided to pontificate a bit. Picking up a convertible, he began explaining, "This is a big car. It can hold a lot. I think maybe 38 gallons." He handed me the car upside down and asked me to read what kind of car it was.
"It's a 38 Gallon Cruiser," I said. He beamed.
"I said that!"
I was expecting such a response, hoping for it at the very least. I like when something I say, something K does, something L makes him, gives him a certain kind of comfortable joy. It was the same with L when she was his age, still working out how everything worked, still not quite sure she had a handle on some of the basics. Of course, I look at her now and think, "You still don't have a handle on some of the basics," and I look in the mirror shaving and think, "You still don't have a handle on some of the basics."
K has a handle on the basics though. She knows what brings a smile to everyone's face: homemade rosół. The Boy leaves his bowl empty; the Girl goes back for seconds; even the older cat is happy to get the dregs in E's bowl.
The basics.
Monday Chills
When I got home today, everyone was in the back yard. The Boy was swinging, the Girl, wrestling with Polish lessons.
Rainy Sunday
"We can't stay for choir practice because we have family visiting," K explained to the choir director this morning after Mass. As the dedication of the new church is only weeks away now, after-Mass choir practice has really ramped up. But today, we decided L could miss it. Because of family.
Of course, M and her daughters are not related to us in any other sense beyond her being E's godmother and sharing the same adventure as K of being a Pole in America. But they're still family. We spend holidays together; we know (or rather, K and M know) rather intimate details about each others' lives; we've shared the same struggles at times.
You choose your friends; you don't choose your family. It's a truism that gets both sides of the equation right and wrong: because you don't choose your family, it can be more difficult to love them and more important. (Note: such is not the case here.) Because you choose your friends, the relationships are more valuable and more fragile. That's why close friends and family blurry the lines: these relationships have both elements.
So time with this kind of family is precious: E gains two more sisters for a weekend, and L gains siblings more her age. And because they're more like family than friends, there's no compunction in telling L that she's being a pain in the back side (which she can be) or telling E that he's got to share his new siblings (which is is reluctant to do).
Fall Saturday
Today was one of those days that suggests that fall might finally be here. I wore long sleeves all day, and in the evening, when outside, I was just a bit chilly.
We wake up with K heading off to work for the morning and us staying behind. I spend some time in the morning working on some side projects and the kids entertain themselves. It’s a good thing, a good skill, to be able to pass a lazy morning without turning on the television.
Mid-morning, I come up, and we get to cleaning. I do the vacuuming while the Boy sorts silverware from the dishwasher, the Girl uses our lovely Shark cleaner to wet-clean the hardwood
When K gets home, she and the Boy get to baking. The Girl is upset that the Boy has horned in on the action. It’s one of those times that K just lets her be.
Evening, friends that are almost family arrive for a short weekend visit. E’s favorite near-cousin sits with him and makes a miasteczko.
Soup with Papa
The best way to get the kids to eat certain foods is to hide them. No, that’s not quite right. E will try just about anything. He might not like it (as when he commented that a butternut squash soup tasted more like “sea turtle soup”), but he’ll try it. No, it’s just L that we have to deceive. So K puts a lot of onion in a lot of soup, but it’s always turned to a paste that simply adds flavor and thickens the soup. Tonight’s soup: pea soup.
“What kind of soup is this?” she asked.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t want to know.”
Decision
The morning: the kids entertain themselves while I do some school work. They play school, help make mac and cheese, and watch a bit of television.
Afternoon, we head out to the backyard to swing and jump on the trampoline.
Evening, games.
The rest of the country, most people thought it was possibly the end of the world if the opponent won.
The Weekend
Game 7
Sleepy
Two things conspired against the Boy this afternoon. The first was a late night with lots of excitement last night, which meant that he was unable to go to sleep immediately last night and then difficult to wake up this morning. We let the kids sleep in a bit this morning, but it was no help: he just didn’t want to get up.
The second thing that conspired against him was the rash that’s developed on his belly. It hasn’t really gone away in a few days, so K gave him some Benadryl this afternoon to try to calm down that reaction. Not having had Benadryl in at least two years, the Boy was not really prepared for how hard it would hit him — neither was K. And so he fell asleep while playing on the couch.
Once he goes to sleep late in the afternoon like that, though, he’s an absolutely nightmare to wake up. Today was no exception. I got to work on him a full fifteen minutes before dinner was ready, but he still needed a bit more time. And in the end, when I got him into the kitchen, he only ended up lying back down on the hardwood.