It turns out the Boy is quite ticklish.
the boy
Saturday Break
We woke up to rain today. "We probably won't be going for soccer," I think as I poured my first cup of coffee. And the thought didn't break my heart. Still, knowing the Girl had the second game of the day, I decided to drive over to the field, only four or five miles from out house, to see if there were indeed games. I'd heard somewhere that the general rule for determining whether or not to play a soccer game is if the ball bounces when dropped from the waist. If it bounces, the game begins. But I wasn't sure what it would be like for four- and five-year-olds. I arrived at the field in a drizzle to find everyone playing as if nothing were happening. Still, the Girl has a way of getting a nasty cough very easily, so K and I decided it would be best not to go.
We were fairly certain the Girl would be a little disappointed. I saw the patch of dry pavement on the road and thought L would surely see that and certainly use that as justification. "See? It's drying." And so I was a little surprised when the reaction to "Sweetie, we're not going to be able to go play soccer today" was "Yippeee!"
We ended up staying home most of the morning, with Nana and Papa coming for a visit and then L going to spend the afternoon at their place -- after a math lesson in the kitchen.
For E, there were very few changes in the routine. Eating, giggling, pooping, sleeping. Repeat.
After some weeks, such a Saturday is just fine.
Over the Shoulder
It used to be something of an obsession. “What was I doing around this time X years ago?” I’d ask before opening up my journal for that month some years earlier and reading to see what happened. Yet what if I’d had a way to thumb through pictures the way I thumbed through my journal entries? For most of my life, I had about as much interest in photography as I had in basket weaving. Then I moved to Poland. And a couple of years after returning to the States, I moved back to Poland, then armed with a digital camera. And so I can open up a photo viewer and easily look over my shoulder.
September 2001: I’d just moved back, and I was still taking daily walks in the fields behind the house where I rented a room. Such pictures now seem almost unreal: did I really live there?
September 2002: The fascination remained. I was still talking almost daily walks in the fields, heading up to a small patch of trees known to locals as “Cats’ Castle”, watching the sunset from various locations, impressed that the church was visible from almost every point in the central part of the village.
And then an empty year. Did my computer crash? Did I not take many pictures? Whatever the cause, September 2003 is void of pictures.
September 2004: K and I had just gotten married. We’d brought all our lovely wedding gifts — the glass paintings and various prints — to my apartment which was then our apartment. We looked through pictures of our wedding and spent lovely afternoons creating photo albums.
September 2005: Back to the States, to Asheville. “This is where I want to live,” K said the moment she saw the small town surrounded by mountains. It was understandable: it looked so much like her own home. And have a few lovely parks about didn’t hurt either.
September 2006: The Girl was just a few months away. We’d heard all the stories, but who can really prepare for how a child is going to change one’s life?
September 2007: The Girl was with us, and already showing her precocious nature. She sat only to roll; she crawled only to crash; she lived only to giggle and fuss.
September 2008: L, able to walk, began asserting her independence. The innocence would surely linger?
September 2009: Independence increased.
September 2010: We learned quickly that owning a house is owning a project. A never-ending, always-bank-account-draining, eternally-exhausting project.
September 2011: Where did that baby go? Certainly she’s somewhere around here?
September 2012: If I could have glanced forward in time from 2001, surely a wife, two children, a house, and a cat on a tired Wednesday night would seem just as unrealistic as the fields of Lipnica Wielka seem to me now?
Down
Routine is everything. Naps come like the tide: they're regular and predictable, and there's no stopping them. We come home for the day, and fairly soon, the fussing starts. The tired fussing.
And soon enough...
Autumn Sunday
The sky always seems somehow a little richer, a little deeper blue in autumn. I suppose it has to do with angles and refraction as the Earth tilts the northern hemisphere away from the sun and the southern hemisphere toward it.
Somehow, though, the light just feels more relaxed.
We in the south finally begin coming out to play at this point in the year. Triple digit heat indexes don’t do much to encourage the average South Carolinian to spend time in the park, kicking a soccer ball around or playing on the jungle gym. (And even if one wanted to, the equipment would be much to hot to touch, and forget about the sliding board.)
So today, with temperatures only in the mid-seventies, the four of us went to a favorite park for some swinging, sliding, and soccer practice.
The Boy sat briefly in a swing for the first time. The seat seemed still to swallow him, and his general inability to support himself combined with his love of peering forward made the prospect short-term at best.
But there was always the grass. Fascinatingly green, unfamiliarly scratchy, generally puzzling for the Boy. He’d likely have put some in his mouth if he’d realized how easily it could be done. The whole world would go in his mouth if it could fit, piece my piece, chunk by chunk.
L and I, though, were ready for some practice. With her speed, she can easily outrun most of the players on the field in her Saturday soccer games, so we worked on a new tactic: running as fast as possible while still kicking the ball.
“Just kick it out in front as far as you can,” I explained, “then run — run as fast as possible. You’ll beat everyone to the ball. Then just do it again.”
We also worked a bit on defense.
And the Boy finally got a closer look at that grass.
Ritual
It is late, and K is trying to get the Boy to sleep. He tosses and moans, turns and groans, rolls over -- his newest trick -- and seems reluctant to cooperate.
"If I feed him one more time," she asks, "will you be able to hold him?"I stop grading papers.
"Of course," I say.
Soon after, I'm making laps, walking a now-well-worn path through our living room, past our front door, through our kitchen, past the carport door, and looping back into living room. Repeat.
The Boy's head rests on my shoulder. His arms dangle to the side. When the Boy was a newborn, K or I walked this lap every night, every morning. Eleven PM. One AM. Sometimes three AM. Five AM. Still shuttered in sleep, our consciousness had difficulty doing little more than counting the steps in the hopes that we could ultimately transform the exercise into a variant of sleepwalking. It has grown easier though he has grown heavier: the body grows accustomed to less sleep with time.
Now, all nineteen pounds rest in the crook of my left arm while my right hand holds an iPod into which I whisper this evening's post. These solitary laps in near-darkness with a sleeping child on my shoulder lead to contemplation unlike anything else I know.
The floor creaks at a certain point and as the summer as progressed, the area which creeks seems to have expanded deeper and deeper into the living room. Every night when I make my rounds, I think to myself, "I need to look on the internet how to fix a creaking floor," but I'm afraid the job will require more work and time than I am able to devote to it now. And so I simply keep walking, listening to the creak grow quieter, counting the steps it takes to reach silence, wondering if I'll ever be able to fix it, doubting that the time will ever come. It's just one of the countless projects that hangs over my head like Damacles' sword. I know I must get there are some point. I know that while I'm building up the life of my son, I'm allowing other parts of life deteriorate. But it's easier to fix a squeaking floor that has overtaken the entire downstairs area.
On the kitchen side of the round, where the floor doesn't squeak and squak, E's shallow, slow breathing marks a counterpoint to the padding of my feet. Perhaps we are establishing a rhythm between us, the rhythm of all fathers and sons: never quite in synch but like counterpoint, ultimately complementary.
Sitting
The Boy so wants to sit. If only he could keep his balance.
Future Food
It must be boring to eat the same thing, meal after meal, day after day. I can't imagine I'd like it very much. K and I used to eat oatmeal most mornings for breakfast, and then it became an everyday thing. It soon became clear to me that I must stop eating so much oatmeal or I'd never be able to look at a Quaker Oat's box again without having a fit of some sort.
Yet that is precisely what E does, only it's not a question of X or Y for breakfast or lunch every day. It's a question of X for every meal, every single day.
Still, it won't last long. He's almost four months old. We've begun giving him rice cereal and grated apple. At the same time, it's mixed with milk, so it probably tastes just about the same as every other meal -- the consistency alone might be a little different.
But that doesn't keep him from dreaming of the not-too-distant future.
A Nearly-Perfect Saturday
The Boy was merciful to us -- kind, even -- this morning, willing to trade another hour's or so sleep for a spot in our bed. L, too, enjoyed a pleasantly late morning, so the sun was bright by the time I was grinding coffee and K giving the Boy his breakfast.
With a start like that, what else is left to do to make the perfect morning but go for a walk. The Girl picked out a dress -- always a dress -- and the three of us took off, leaving K behind to have some ever-rare alone time. "She'll probably just spend it doing chores," I thought as we strolled down the driveway and onto our quiet street, but then I recalled how some chores give K a certain domestic peace. It must be the Polish blood.
Our route took us by the once-proud, neglected home in our neighborhood that once set itself as the envy of all. The brick work around the place alone cost a fortune, and the addition brought the square footage probably over 4k mark. Now its brick privacy walls, overgrown with everything imaginable, are crumbling and yellow "Condemned" stickers decorate the doors like sad wreaths.
I walk by this house often. It gives me a bit of comfort. Something of a nemesis, something of an inspiration, something of a warning, it teaches me to be content with what I have by reminding me that more stuff only amounts eventually to more dilapidation.
Today, however, it just reminded me of the amount of yard work that awaited me at home. As fall approaches and the sun lowers, the yard work always becomes more pleasant. There's a different feel to the air, even if the temperature reaches the low 90s like today.
After I'd mowed, trimmed, carted, raked, and disposed, there was only one logical conclusion to the day: the pool.
With Nana and Papa looking after the Boy -- just try to tell them that's work -- the three of us flopped about in the pool.
Sometimes more deeply than I would have ever expected from our once-terrified-to-get-her-face-wet daughter.
First Day 2012
Who knows how many times I’ve done it. If I had to count, I probably could count how many “first days” at school I’ve experienced. With time on both sides of the desk, I suppose I’d have to be now nearing thirty first days.
But I still remember my first first day. Some degree of nervousness, some level of excitement, some small amount of disappointment mixed with a great deal of joy.
I would like to think the Girl will remember her first first day. That she will remember how the night before her worries and fears melted in the morning to a smile and a paradoxically calm excitement.
That she will remember her idea to have a desert picnic after dinner. That she will recall her planning and packing for the picnic.
That she will linger over the memory of cuddling up to her mother, snuggling with her baby brother.
And that she’ll think of that first day every time she sees an ice cream truck.
