fun in threes, sometimes fours
the boy
I usually end up dressing the Boy after a bath. Not always, but usually. It's one of the times he's most chatty, and his developing bilinguality shows often, as does the linguistically-hybrid nature of our family.
"Who's my misiek?" I ask after he's pointed to a teddy bear on his sleeper and proclaimed it to be a "misiek." He smiles. I ask again: "Are you my misiek?"
"Tak!" he joyously replies.
The morning begins with cartoons. There is always a rotating group of favorites, with Peep and the Big Wide World recently coming back into favor. I've liked that show from the first time I heard the theme song: any animated series that uses banjo in its theme song in a non-Beverly-Hillbillies, non-cliche fashion already has an advantage in my opinion
Of course, cartoons entertain only so long. One can only sit comfortably on a couch and watch cartoons for one half of an episode before the urge to build a fort arises. L has been building forts for some time, now, and while there was a blanket-and-chairs period, the living room couch has become the standard construction material.
The Boy has recently learned the joys of the living room fort, and L, being the sweet girl she can be is, devised a two-room fort. E loaded his room with cars, cars, cars -- such a typical boy.
The Girl loads her's with plush toys and books, taking a battery-powered camping lantern into the fort to provide adequate light for reading.
The real test comes with it's nap time for the Boy. The television might have been off for an hour or more, but the two of them continue playing in the fort. Coaxing the Boy out of the fort and getting the Girl to clean up the fort can be equally challenging.
As surely and completely as the snow fell on our small town, a spell floated down with the snow, and suddenly, we were outside the rhythms, sounds, and textures of our every-day life, outside our habits, outside time. The South was no longer the South, and time skipped the entire mid-week. The storm took and it gave. It stripped some every-day items that we use without thinking and replaced them with gifts that sent K and me back in time, gifts for almost all the senses.
It was more than just the free time provided by several days home from work and school. That's merely vacation, and the fact that we stayed home makes it similar to a fairly typical winter break. No, it was the unexpected nature of it: we'd heard about the coming storm for a week, but it still wasn't in our plans, which this time of year include the simple repetitiveness of daily and weekly life: morning rush, afternoon weariness, evening ballet, jazz, religious education, shopping, choir practice, and the thousand other things that make a routine. Suddenly, it was all in the air with the flakes, and as the snow fell, it became obvious that we were given a bit of breathing space. Still, it wasn't just time off. There was more to the spell.
The white of the snow transformed our surroundings into a lovely monochromatic landscape that paradoxically highlighted all the shades I'd never noticed. Giving everything a uniform background highlights the red of our neighbor's house's brick, the off-white of our tired shutters, the dark brown of the Sweet Gum seed balls that always litter our front yard.
The freezing temperatures were such a change from the sweater-weather weekend, so similar to the temperatures of southern Poland. Before our afternoon sledding expeditions and our evening walks, we slipped layers on everyone, bundled the family in mittens, scarves, and hats. The frigid temperatures inspired me: I pulled out old wool socks I hadn't worn in years, socks I'd bought back in the 90s before heading to Poland, then shoved my newly-bulky feet into boots I'd bought with the socks, boots I'd paid a fortune for but which now cost approximately fourteen dollars for the almost twenty years I've owned them.
Ironically, even when Pax -- what an odd name for a storm -- took, it gave something back, often of vastly greater value. The most obvious thing it ripped away from us was our cars. They sat idle for days, piled with snow -- even the minivan in the carport -- and we reverted to walking. Not that there was anywhere to go, but there was everywhere to go. Just to walk about in the snow was a treat in itself: we went out for a walk each night, thrilled with the crunch of snow underfoot and the yelling and whooping of L and her closest neighborhood friend, W, who spent almost every afternoon and evening with us. They threw snowballs at us, and we went back and forth with "remember when" moments. Remember walking back from ballroom dance classes to the bus station in Nowy Targ the winter before we married? Remember walking to midnight Mass Christmas Eve, the sound of ice underfoot like fingernails down a chalkboard? Remember walking down to Adam's for drinks and conversation with Johnny and friends? When it comes to walking in a snowy night in Lipnica, I could reminisce for days: the small radius of my daily life and the absence of a car filled me with innumerable such memories.
So waking today, we knew the end was nearing. The Boy still looked from the window, captivated, but K and I knew the forecast high would turn almost all the snow to slush.
"Bubbles!" the Boy continued squealing as he'd been doing for days. He was eager to get outside, and watching L and W sledding in the backyard simultaneously frustrated and excited him. But once the nap concluded and he finished his lunch, we all went outside to play in the slush.
We took an afternoon walk once Babcia took the Boy back inside. A last jaunt.The streets were covered in muddy slushies, and cars were slowly reappearing on the road, sending frigid spray from their tires as they passed.
There were still children playing outside, but conditions weren't optimal for much of anything: too wet for snowballs, too soggy for sledding. About the only thing to do was jump in slush and watch the spray fly as I'd done just before heading out.
Returning from the walk, the decay was evident everywhere. L's snowman had morphed into something almost unrecognizable, the fallen carrot the only sign of its past glory.
I stayed out, shoveling the slush off the drive so K could get out tomorrow for work -- the coming drop in temperature ensured by the cloudless sky threatened to turn the driveway into an ice block -- and that's when it really hit me.
The spell, the magic and all it contained, was over. K would return to work tomorrow, and L and I would venture out to do the week's shopping.
The white sheen was disappearing, the plain mud and grass underneath it reminding us that the only thing that makes such spells so magical is their temporary nature.
The falling snow, now turning to ice, pelts my face and creates a chaotic rhythm on my jacket.
As I head down the driveway, I hear the familiar crunch of ice underfoot, and immediately I am again taken back to the streets of Nowy Targ, the alleyways of Krakow, the walkway to my school in Lipnica.
I head to the back door so I can leave all my wet clothes in the basement, kicking the snow off my boots just before entering.
Sounds I haven't heard in ages. Music that takes me back in time.
It was supposed to be a three-punch storm. The first swing was Monday afternoon: nothing spectacular. Some rain with ice in it, nothing much to be thrilled with. When we went to bed last night, I wasn’t expecting much. Officials had called off school, but they do that at the whisper of icy weather, so that meant little to me.
In the morning, the second part rolled through. It began accumulating quickly, in the front yard, on the back porch, and I thought, “Perhaps something will come of this.”
But as the snow continued falling, the accumulation actually decreased in the backyard. The snow on the deck slowly disappeared and the yard itself turned into a mud bank.
Of course that was not enough to keep us from diving into the white front yard, L eager to build a snowman (“Babciu, dasz mi marchewka?”) and the Boy running about screaming “Bubbles! Bubbles!” The Girl teamed with young W from up the street, and the two of them made a little snowdrawf. Or snowman-ish-blob, which intrigued the Boy. Seeing the small sticks for arms, he pulled one out and began yelling, “Tick! Tick!” It means both “stick” and “outside,” for he goes to the door, often enough with coat in hand, and proclaims “Tick! Tick!” whenever he wants to go outside.
L was initially upset with the Boy’s obsession: he pulled out the carrot nose, ripped out the snowman-ish-blob’s right arm, and knocked one or two Sweet-Gum-seed-ball teeth out.
“Tick! Tick!”
Soon, however, attention turned to snowballs, and the snowman-ish-blob suddenly was not nearly as intriguing.
Yet nothing can hold their attention forever, and the last attraction was the sled a neighbor kindly made for L. Anyone with any sledding experience would have been able to tell L that three inches — max — of slushy snow is just not enough for sledding. But it’s one of the many things one has to learn for oneself from experience. They tried a few different variations before realizing the futility of it.
“Maybe tomorrow, when there’s more snow.”
It is supposedly more than a possibility; it is a certainty. “A historical storm,” local weather forecasters have said. “Historic,” I’ve said under my breath, thinking, “It’s not historical until it’s history.”
“We’re going to be talking about this storm for years to come,” they say. Provided it’s the six to twelve inches, it will be great; if the ice comes along with it, well, let’s just hope it doesn’t happen.
One of the great aspects of WordPress is the fact that one can incorporate the work of others into one's own site through plugins, widgets, themes, and various hacks. One of my favorite additions is the "Time Machine" widget I have installed on the right toolbar, which draws posts from the current day of previous years.
The "Time Machine" widget shows me that Babcia was here during her first visit in 2007, and Dziadek was here in 2008 for his one and only visit to the States. Babcia is back with us now, her fourth or maybe even fifth visit to the States.
The "Time Machine" widget has also shown me that we had a snow day on exactly the same day several years apart.
It also let me know that we've now had a particular camera lens (that I'm thinking of selling) for five years now. I would have guessed three.
In a sense, that's what this blog is all about anyway: a time machine. I look at pictures of the Boy, pictures of the Girl and think, "That was last weekend, photos I put off because of Kamil's big win." And then that "last weekend" is "last month," "last year," "years ago."
And then I write about that continual surprise yet again.
The Boy is a good eater. To say that is perhaps the ultimate understatement of our family. Sure, the Girl is theatrical; K is dedicated; Tata plays chess -- all of these are understatements, but they are gross exaggerations in comparison to "the Boy is a good eater."
All families, I guess, have the good eaters and the bad eaters. L leans toward the latter. True, she likes things most kids her age wouldn't touch (beetroot soup comes to mind) but she detests things that most kids her age adore (hamburgers and hot dogs come to mind). The Boy, on the other hand, will eat just about anything he sees us eating, and his favorites are some of the very items that L detests, like broccoli. This is often advantageous to them both, for she'll leave her three spears of broccoli on the plate for the very last minute, and occasionally the Boy, long done with his own dinner, will hop about for a while, roll about on his little four-wheeler, then abruptly jump up, dash to the table, and steal a broccoli spear.
Tonight, though, the Girl was with Nana and Papa for dinner, and the Boy had all the broccoli he could eat. He sat, holding each spear as if it were a lollipop, munching it down to the end, then simultaneously grabbing another and pointing to K's pile of green. He ate all of his and half of hers.
For his encore later this evening, he pulled a chair over to the counter by the stove and clamored up to grab one of the remaining crab cakes we'd had for dinner. It took him half an hour of playing then eating, playing then eating, but he ate almost the whole thing. When offered the final bite, he stood thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah," he squeaked and ran to the living room to look for a mess to make.
So many changes since the last time we were here. The Girl was younger than the Boy, less than half his age, and the Boy, of course, was not even a thought yet -- at least not a thought in our minds.
The house of course hasn't changed.
It hasn't changed since before the Civil War, with wrought iron fencing surrounding two magnolias from the same era.
The magnolias certainly haven't grown as much in the intervening years as the Girl has grown. The last time we were here, with Dziadek, we took the Girl through the house tour in our arms.
Today, it's the Boy's turn, only he doesn't want to go on any quiet tours. He and I head out into the surrounding area, looking for sticks -- the Boy's newest obsession -- and pass the time while the girls explore the house.
After the tour, we take some portraits,
L and K dance a bit,
then L finds a tree to climb while the Boy continues looking for sticks.
Six years, many more changes. How different will we all be the next time we visit the plantation?
“Yes or no?” I ask the Boy.
“Tak,” he replies.
