the boy | matching tracksuits

First Game

Saturday 10 September 2016 | 2 Comments

The Boy is not an overly aggressive little fellow. He likes to play by the rules. At preschool, he got upset last year when other children took off their shoes because it was against fire code. I suppose the teacher mentioned that, and he just remembered it. So the idea of stealing the ball, of going into the herd of four-year-olds that chase the soccer ball around the field and do much of anything -- that's not his style.

Much of the time he was in, the poor fellow was frustrated. He'd insisted on wearing an undershirt, and in the heat of the morning, it had become terribly uncomfortable. Then there was the fact that he didn't quite even know what to do -- I'll take partial blame for that, as we really didn't do much more this week than practice taking the ball from each other in an effort to overcome the inevitable timidness that all four-year-olds face when playing soccer.

The real heartbreak occurred when, in an effort to defend, after he'd gotten his fortitude up and was engaging with the other players, he accidentally defended the ball right into his team's goal. I've mixed feelings about games with four-year-olds counting self-goals. On the one hand, it's the game. Learn the game at a young age. On the other hand, it was my son. Naturally, no one said anything, and I'm not even sure his own teammates realized what happened. And fortunately, a young man on E's team was a real master (for four-year-olds) and scored two goals to make the first game end in a tie.

After the game, though, everyone was tuckered out. Well, almost everyone.

Closed

Tuesday 06 September 2016 | 0 Comments

I arrived home today to find both kids with eyes closed tightly. Afternoon naps are always a little problematic because neither one of them really wants to get up. The Boy resorts to fussing; the Girl just steadfastly refuses. It doesn't matter what's for dinner; it doesn't matter who's just arrived; it doesn't matter period. Neither wants to get up.

"How long will the grilling take?" K asked as the dinner hour approached.

"About twenty minutes."

"I'll start waking them up in ten, then." And even then, by the time dinner was on the table, they were both still virtually asleep.

1-DSCF0434 — After-dinner game of "Mushroom Picking" -- sort of a Polish Candyland.

Then, as the sun closes up shop for the day, the second half of the trouble begins: neither of them is especially tired.

We do what we can to tire them beforehand. I took the kids on the trampoline for a while and then played soccer with the Boy as the Girl skated about the driveway.

Still, when it came time to go to sleep, E was just jabbering away.

Jumping

Monday 05 September 2016 | 0 Comments

Sunday

Sunday 04 September 2016 | 0 Comments

After Mass during the school year, there are a few obligatories: a fresh pot of coffee and something sweet. Feed the soul, then feed the spirit. Something like that. Perhaps accompany it with something to read, maybe a game of chess. But eventually, it’s time for the trial and treasure, for it’s something K loves and loathes doing. Polish lessons.

The love is easy: it’s her language, her culture, that she’s sharing with her beloved daughter. The loathe comes from the frustration that sometimes accompanies it. Perhaps “loathe” is not the right word — perhaps it was just too alliterative to pass up. “It’s something that K loves and that frustrates her” doesn’t quite make it. Always searching for the right word, never able to find it, which is what makes the Polish lessons so frustrating for the Girl. Her passive vocabulary, like everyone’s, is much larger than her active vocabulary. She can understand more than she can say, like me in Polish.

E, on the other hand, has of late only a passive vocabulary for the most part. The production has ceased. However, we’re seeing that language and such is perhaps just not his strength. He can watch a cartoon about how airplanes fly and remember it long afterward. (Language, though? K was trying to teach him a Polish prayer the other evening, and he replied, “You must be kidding me! I can’t remember that!”)

In the evening, it’s time to feed the soul once again — a quiet bonfire in the backyard. The temperatures have cooled, the mosquitoes have disappeared, and we’ve entered our favorite time of the year.

We’ve been waiting all summer for this. The kitchen is mostly done, our routines have returned, the weather has cooled, and it’s time to start everything again. So what better way to end than with a song by Antoine Dufour, a Quebecois guitarist, who wrote a song for his yet-unborn son, a song about waiting, a song I’ve listened to at least a dozen times this weekend. Perhaps the most beautiful acoustic guitar song I’ve ever heard.

Lost and Found

Friday 02 September 2016 | 0 Comments

K has been spending her afternoons after returning from work cleaning up the mess we still have in the house from the renovation -- books in bags under beds and such. She found some of the Boy's long-lost cars.

And Then Went Back Again

Thursday 01 September 2016 | 0 Comments

The Boy woke last night, plodded to our bedroom door, stood in thought,

Third Bed

Wednesday 31 August 2016 | 0 Comments

The Boy got a third bed last night, though he hasn’t used it yet. His first bed is of course the only one he really needs: the one in his room. It’s big and spacious, and while it doesn’t have a particularly boy-ish bed spread, it’s still acceptable for a little fellow like him. He hasn’t complained about it, anyway.

His second bed is our bed, between the two of us. He wakes up in the middle of the night for the last several weeks and, scared to be alone, comes to our bed. We’ve tried to figure out how to deal with it but nothing’s worked. Last night, K discovered an idea: make a bed on the floor for him and tell him that if he’s going to sleep in our room, he’s going to sleep on the floor.

Last night, he woke up at about two and came trundling to our bed. I took him back to his bed, and, remembering K’s discovery, I went downstairs to get a couple of sleeping pads and threw them on the floor with a blanket.

“If you come back to our room, you’ll have to sleep on the floor,” I told him. Quickly enough, though, he fell back asleep and that was that.

Tonight, I mentioned the bed to him again.

“I know,” he said matter-of-factly. “I saw it. It looks really good. I think it will be very comfortable. So if I come to your room tonight, I’ll just go to that bed.”

Not what I was aiming for.

Sunday

Sunday 28 August 2016 | 0 Comments

Soccer

Saturday 27 August 2016 | 0 Comments

We chatted about practice during breakfast. He was excited about the prospect of doing what we did yesterday with a lot of kids. All the running and kicking yesterday resulted in a lot of laughing, and that undoubtedly fueled his enthusiasm for today. I was a little worried that, as he’s done other times, the Boy might start having second thoughts as the moment approached, but there was none of that. We put his shoes on sans shin guards, which were too small we decided, and headed to the field.

We met the coach, and E began following the other children’s example and kicking goals. His first shots were comparatively strong, hard shots. The coach’s daughter, who was a couple of years older than the players, was standing in as goalie and E’s shot flew right by her into the back of the net. I remembered how relatively tentatively L would shoot goals at the beginning and thought this might be a good sign.

Practice shifted and the coach explained to the little ones what dribbling is and set them off toward the mid-field. Some children set off at a light jog, kicking the ball a few feet in front of them and running to catch up. Others kicked it with all their might and ran to the ball. E and a few others delicately pushed the ball with each foot as he stepped forward, a slow and deliberate journey to the mid-field. Yesterday, it was the opposite: wild abandon, kicking the ball and running as fast as he could. Such a change today. “He’s not doing it like we practiced yesterday,” I thought, wondering why he was being so very careful. It might have been tempting to compare his journey to other children’s, but to what end? He is who he is, and he was doing the exercise the way he felt comfortable doing it. I was thankful for that.

The Girl spent the first half of practice reading. She finished her book and began again with a shrug. She’s got some books that she’s read so many times that she must have them virtually memorized. The second half of practice she headed to a playground down at the edge of the fields and made a few new friends with other older sisters. What did they talk about? I so rarely see E with other girls — our neighborhood is simply filled with boys — that I can’t imagine. That shift must slowly be starting, mustn’t it? Surely they’re not talking about which Barbies they have (L hasn’t had any in years) and similar topics. Fingernail polish? School?

While I wasn’t able to watch and listen to the Girl’s interactions with her new friends, I was able watch the Boy interact with adults without my mediation. He listened well, remember later in practice the earlier instruction to stand with one foot on the ball when the coach is teaching a new skill. He did the best he could, but as a four-year-old will always do, he regularly checked to see where I was, making sure I was still on the sideline. The Girl became so absorbed in her activities that we could have easily left her behind — she never would have noticed until the other girls left.