K wouldn’t let me publish it until we had sent out some of the cards.
the boy
Winter Exploring
It’s been a while since the Boy and I went exploring behind our house. I can’t recall the last time — I don’t know that we did much exploring during the summer if any.
When we got to the place we first cross the creek, we discovered that our normal method was impossible: the bricks and stones we’d set up to step across were gone, washed away by one storm or another. We had to improvise. We had to make a plan. We had to find materials and rig everything together.
“You’re a scout — this is just up your alley!” I suggested.
In the end, we pulled several sticks together to spread our weight out and used another stick for balance. It gave us both a little sense of accomplishment, but I was just enjoying spending time with him.
When we got to the spot we have to cross for the second time, we discovered it too had washed away. Fortunately, there was a log nearby, and we simply had to put it in place.
At the end of our route, where we always exited the sewer easement (that’s essentially where we explore) into an empty lot, we saw that the house begun earlier this year is nearing completion, which means we might not be able to do this much more — at least exit onto the street and walk back via streets.
In the evening, some cards with K.
Code
The Boy has become interested in ciphers and codes. They learned about them in school this week and so he wants to learn about more of them. Tonight, he and I were writing things back and forth in pig pen cipher:
It’s a simple replacement cipher, but the Boy loves it.
During our evening walk, I mentioned to him that Papa knew a real code: Morse Code.
“Really?!”
I thought Papa had mentioned that so many times, doing his “da-dit-dit” routine to spell various words out in code, that no one could have forgotten about that. Apparently, E had.
“I wish Papa was still here.”
We’ll be having those moments for some time to come, I think.
Hanging the Lights
It's been a few years since we put up any lights for Christmas. I really can't remember the last time we did it -- three years ago? Four?
We put the lights around the crape myrtles a couple of years ago, but that was a bad idea -- we never took them down, and the year's worth of sun and heat and rain predictably destroyed them.
I think last year we just kept putting it off, and before we knew it, it was too close to Christmas to make it worth our time.
But this year we got the tree up earlier than ever, so what were we to do on a cloudy Sunday afternoon?
Of course, the Boy was eager to help. He loves going into the crawl space with me, but the roof?
Are you kidding? What more could a nine-year-old boy want than to spend some time on the roof?
And a little bit of football time with Mama to boot? What a perfect afternoon!
Friday Game Night
Decorations
Our three teams on the eighth-grade hall are having a contest to see who can decorate their portion of the hallway the most elaborately -- which means simply quantity. Our team took matters into their own hands today, or rather on their own shoulders.
Coincidentally, the scouts today also did some decorating -- after they got the badges and pins. The decoration pictures are still on the phone, which is still upstairs. So we'll have to settle for our imagination on that one.
Reading
The Boy claims he hates — hates — reading. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. It’s boring. Yet there are some strange quirks about him.
For example, he loves reading — if someone else is doing it. He will sit for hours and listen to you read a book to him. One of his favorite things to listen to is an audiobook.
He also enjoys certain books. The Dog Man series is an eternal favorite for him.
Most strikingly, he scores very high on his standardized reading tests — in the 90th percentile as I best recall, which means he’s very good at reading for his age.
But we still have to force him to get his nightly twenty minutes of reading in. Yet he was so engrossed that he didn’t even notice I’d snapped this picture.
Monday After
Our first day back after the break, and we had quite a change: for the first time since March 2020 we ate lunch in the cafeteria. By “we” I mean our team, which constitutes one-third of the eighth-grade students. And it’s a one-day-a-week gig only: we can’t get everyone in there and maintain social distance, so we get Mondays.
Such a strange thing to return to what was a taken-for-granted reality for so long after such an extended break.
Back home, though, it was a return to familiar routines that paused a little during the extended break: a small dinner (barszcz ukrainski — the first time in ages that we’ve had that wonder of the culinary world), a bit of reading, an early bedtime.
Final Game Night
We played Ticket to Ride tonight — a favorite game for all of us. L and K enjoy it because they actually play to win; E and I love it because we play to stop them from winning. Not to win ourselves — just to get in their way. It means there’s a lot of laughs, a bit of frustration from time to time, and lots of memories.
I’ve always associated games with the extended Thanksgiving break. When we went to Nashville to visit Nana’s brother for Thanksgiving, one of the highlights for me was digging through their game closet. They had everything — games we had of course like Scrabble but also games I’d always wanted to play but never owned like Life and Battleship. And of course Monopoly. I loved it as at E’s age just as much as he loves it, and I’m sure everyone else put up with it just like we put up with it.
Thanksgiving 2021
Thanksgiving for fifteen years always included Nana and Papa. We went to Nashville to visit Nana's brother our first Thanksgiving back in the States in 2005. Less than a year later, he'd passed away. We haven't been back to Nashville since.
From that point, we went to Papa's side of the family every year. There were various cousins, aunts, and uncles there -- never the same group -- but there were always two that never changed: Nana and Papa.
During our first Thanksgiving without Nana in 2019, we all went for a portrait and took Nana with us -- the wound was still raw for everyone, but especially Papa. His first Thanksgiving without Nana in forever.
This is our first Thanksgiving without either of them. The plan to go visit Aunt D, who helped take care of Nana when she first came back from rehab, fell through as did our plan to visit with cousins. Our Polish family from North Carolina -- family in all ways that count, at any rate -- had other plans for Thanksgiving, so we spent it just the four of us. Without turkey.
But with games. What's Thanksgiving without games?
Previous Years
Thanksgiving 2020
Thanksgiving 2019
Thanksgiving 2018
Thanksgiving 2017
Thanksgiving 2016
Thanksgiving 2015
Thanksgiving 2013
Thanksgiving 2012
Thanksgiving 2011
Family and Food: Thanksgiving 2010
Interrupted
Fourth Thursday
Thanksgiving Games
Thanksgiving 2006
Thanksgiving 2005