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the boy

Snot

Thursday 09 May 2013 | 0 Comments

Apparently, there are four sinus cavities.

And while that's three more than I was aware of, they are obviously of a limited volume. Today, though, with the Boy sneezing constantly, they seem more like they're portals to dimensions in which mucus is the dominant substance. In that dimension, scientists are trying to understand the ever-expanding nature of mucus, its uncanny ability to reproduce seemingly ex nihilo.

Fortunately, Babies 'R' Us provides the solution: a small battery-powered vacuum with nostril-sized tip and lovely clear reservoir that sucks. Literally. Graco, the manufacturer, was also kind enough to design in a little electronic distraction: the push of a second button turns the little snot sucker into a music ~~box~~ vacuum.

And so we fall into a routine:

Sneeze
Grimace at the strands of snot hanging from the nose
Grimace at the approaching Snot Sucker
Realize what the Snot Sucker is doing
Relax

And of course repeat...

Photos by the Girl

Wednesday 08 May 2013 | 1 Comment

The Girl took a few shots during our afternoon walk.

Caught

Tuesday 07 May 2013 | 0 Comments

The Boy is sick -- trapped in the house, in short. Two ears, both infected. Talk of tubes. Worries about effects. We're all caught, I guess. Home from the doctor this morning, though, there was only one thing catching E: sleep.

After a fitful night, I was surprised at how long he lasted before the fists began digging in the eyes, before the fussing began, before the first yawn. When he's sick and fussy, the first morning nap is always a blessing: some coffee, a bit of news on the internet, a chance to catch a moment of calm. But the calm never lasts: I look around and see what a mess a little boy can make in only a couple of hours, and I begin cleaning.

Soon, I'm interrupted: a terrible squawking and fluttering just outside the kitchen door tells me that we have our first victim of the season in our raspberry bush netting. No matter how carefully I hang the netting, with such deliberate overlaps that I then secure with various extemporaneous methods, it never fails: the birds somehow get in and then, unable to get back out, just about destroy the netting in their panic.

Last year, I tried various methods, including going into the netting myself with a tennis racket and herding the bird down to a corner where I can then pick it up and carry it out. (I quit doing that soon after an unexpected turn from a bird resulting in a fluttering pile of feathers beneath the berry vines. I suppose I didn't think things through all that carefully with that method.)

Eventually, this one finds its way out.

Not unlike the Boy's dreams: he is desperate to head out after so much time inside. At dinner, he sees his jacket I left hanging on the back of a chair when we returned from the doctor's office. He grabs it, smiles at us, and begins waving bye-bye.

Whispers of Summer

Tuesday 30 April 2013 | 1 Comment

A rough few months: someone always missing. Papa, K and the Boy -- the family always seems divided.

Now, having them all together again, it's a lovely way to welcome the coming summer.

In a way, it's a whisper of what's coming for L and me: the cool evening today, the local libation, the soft sunset all are similar to summer in Poland, where L and I will be spending several weeks once school releases. We won't all be there: there will be someone missing from both sides, and that will cast a hue of hollowness at times. But only at times, for when we let it, joy can almost always overcome sadness.

Reunited

Monday 29 April 2013 | 0 Comments

"Tomorrow, we go to pick up Mama and E from the airport," the Girl virtually squealed last night as she got ready for bed. It was one of a long line of such excited proclamations: as we made breakfast; before lunch; when we finished watching a movie together; before brushing teeth; while brushing teeth; after brushing teeth. It was, in short, L's mantra.

Of course that meant a day of waiting. A day of "How long" questions. How long until we leave? How long until we get there? How long until Mama's plane lands? How long until Mama comes? How long until we get home?

How long until you realize that how long doesn't help things go any faster?

The last time K returned from Poland, by the time we walked back upstairs at the airport to double check the arrival time at the Lufthansa desk and made our way back to the international arrival hall, K was standing, waiting. Today, we arrived when the plan was scheduled to land only to discover it was to land now a half an hour later. Add to it that K's baggage was the last to make a circuit around the luggage carousel and that customs picked her for a "open your baggage and take everything out" inspection (I guess travelling with an exhausted toddler is a fairly common scheme among international smugglers), and it was past five, almost two hours after our arrival, when K and the Boy appeared at the far end of the arrival hall. Disregarding all "No Entry!" signs, L and I virtually sprinted to her. Hugs. Tears. An emotional return to the States after an emotional time in Poland.

On arriving, K disappeared and we soon heard the sound of water running. She came out of the bathroom with wet hair and in pajamas, smiling at me exhaustedly and explaining sweetly that the children were all my responsibility.

A quick bath, a quick bit of fruit and cereal for the Boy, and before we know it, everyone is asleep.

If only.

The Boy, not used to falling asleep with me, was soon fussing, then crying, then outright panicking. It was not the right shoulder, not the right voice, not the right pulse, not the right surroundings. It will take some time for us all to get back to the right everything.

Funeral

Tuesday 23 April 2013 | 0 Comments

Just the Two of Us

Monday 08 April 2013 | 0 Comments

A Sunday morning that begins like this is likely to end as a somewhat sad Sunday. Not enough baggage for the whole family. Someone's staying. In this case, the Girl and I as K and the Boy head to Poland.

We try to make the best of the morning. There's more tadpoling -- it's a new term for us -- and some experimentation.

We try our hand at making a dam, but it is only moderately successful. The child in me begins scheming how we could reinforce the dam, make it more nearly water tight, soon enough the Girl loses interest and we begin looking for flowers.

Some day. Some day, we'll build that dam.

Old Ball Game

Wednesday 03 April 2013 | 0 Comments

I never really played baseball as a kid. Due to various other commitments, Little League in all its guises was always out. Except for softball for the men, the church league in which I often participated didn't really offer ball/stick sports.

Riding a bike -- I did a lot of that. I lost a lot of skin in various wrecks and came to accept the fact that strawberries are always in season. The Girl, bless her heart, has not yet come to accept the fact that skinned knees are a part of the bike riding experience. The dreaded turn at the park notwithstanding, there really have been few occasions for the Girl to get bloodied up. In a sense, I'm thankful for that. Still, a bit pain, some skin left on the pavement -- what doesn't kill us and all that.

The Boy gets a hefty dose of pain on a daily basis, with slips and bonks, miscalculated head motions, blind ignorance. It all comes with the job of being a normal ten-month-old. His pain is a little more difficult to deal with as a parent: we can't simply explain, "Rub it out -- it will make you stronger. Just tough it out." In fact, we might not even always be sure what is causing the pain.

Pain and baseball (finally) don't often together either. Unless you count frustration -- the steep learning curve that's necessary for even simple catch. Though I biked more than I baseballed, I always enjoyed a game with kids of the neighborhood. Some of them played real ball -- and were good -- and I often felt a bit out of the loop. If we were picking teams, I was almost always selected last, for I was as ignorant of the concept of a strike zone, swinging at most anything, as I still am about the infield fly rule. But I enjoyed playing catch with Dad, and I enjoyed play baseball well into the late darkness of a summer night, with both teams taking occasional timeouts to catch new fireflies to smear the ball withÂ florescence.

Now I'm on the other end of things, the teacher, not quite sure if I can really teach something I don't know how to do well myself. I can at least teach the Girl to throw overhanded, to snatch a ground ball, and to pound her fist into her pink and purple "Girlz Rule" mitt.

And we can share the evolving joy of a game of catch after dinner.

Balance

Tuesday 02 April 2013 | 0 Comments

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.
Thomas Merton

For the first few months of our lives, it's our goal, our solitary goal, though we're not even aware of it. Trying to calm that sloshing inner ear so we can crawl, stand, walk, run -- it's all we struggle for during our first months. In truth, it's what we struggle with our whole lives, always upping the challenge, always looking back at our earlier miracles of balance as if they were simple magic shop card tricks all nine-year-olds revel in. They are miracles because all motion, not just walking, is controlled falling. Coordinated near-disaster.

The Boy, lately a master of scooting who is graduating slowly to crawling, nonetheless likes to press his luck and try the stairs. It strikes him suddenly, this urge that, like Everest to George Herbert Leigh Mallory, inspires him to climb simply "because it was there." Often he's on the other side of the room when he realizes he hasn't ascended the stairs in some time -- usually a few minutes -- and with a shout of recognition, flings his entire body forward, catching his whole upper weight with his chubby arms, lowering himself into position, then crawling like some new army recruit scooting under the barbed wire of an obstacle course. There's not much question of balance in this scooting, but the force with which he throws himself forward from a sitting position to all fours rivals an Olympic tumbler's dismount of the high bar: a loud thud after moments of seeming almost to hover in the air, most of us holding our breaths even though we know, most likely, he will make it.

The slick torture of our hardwood floors (with the old linoleum of the kitchen) has made crawling an exceptional challenge. Knees slip out from under the Boy faster than he can cope with, and after a few feet of crawling, he usually resorts to his scooting. Balance.

For her part, the Girl has taken on new challenges of the inner ear. Ballet would be the epitome of these new contests between self-control and inner ear, but it's only weekly. Limited. But never mind: she finds new tests of balance daily, like twirling seemingly endlessly to transform all possible potential bubbles to kinetic bubbles. Her ability to turn in circles, evidenced by so many pieces of playground equipment, makes most sane adults dizzy at even the thought. Yet there she is, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning.

Her latest balance challenge: roller skates. They might more aptly be named "roller walks" or "roller slips," but that's the nature of learning to keep ever-moving feet, unpredictably moving feet, under us. She hangs on with white knuckles to the stroller, demanding that we come to a full stop before she'll even consider --Â consider -- letting go.

It's been so long since I had anything with small wheels under my feet that I can't remember what to do, what knees, arms, thighs, arms, waist, or anything else should be doing, but I'm pretty sure that those locked knees are disaster in the offing.

"Bend your knees," I suggest. "Bend your knees a bit. Don't keep them so straight, so locked." She bends her knees to approximately 110 degree angles and promptly flops backward. She looks up at me with a hint of a glare, a hint of frustration, a hint even of betrayal.

"Not so much," I smile reassuringly, remembering that each question of balance consists of yet more, seemingly smaller mysteries of the inner ear.

Park and Ride

Monday 01 April 2013 | 0 Comments

It’s the second day of Easter, and if we were still in Polska, everyone would have the day off. As it is, the twist of luck that gives L and me the day off due to spring break isn’t nearly so kind to K: she heads off to work while I stay behind with the kids.

The clouds subside by the time E goes down for his first nap — easy, gently, for he’s so tired that he doesn’t even have the energy to fuss. After lunch for us all, we head to the park.

The Boy gets on his four wheeler and sits and inspects the playground. The kids at the swings are out of control; those darting around the jungle gym are perhaps worse.