fun in threes, sometimes fours
the boy
We are aware of what the kids watch, and we’ve cut a few shows from L’s media diet because of concerns about values and behaviors exhibited and hence promoted.
But what about shows I just personally find annoying? Pokemon is a prime example. L loves it; E enjoys it — I think it’s the most irritating thing on earth. But is that any reason to ban it? Certainly not. But it’s plenty of reason to tell them, “Turn it down. Way down.”
G. K. Chesterton wrote,
A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough . . . It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again,' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again,' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
Which explains why the Boy, when given the chance to go outside today -- an opportunity we'll take every chance we can get for the next several weeks -- he wanted to explore. Just as we did Saturday. Just as we did yesterday evening. And in exploring, go to all the same places we always go.
"Do it again, Daddy."
In the meantime, the Girl made a discovery:
It's possible to run up a tree.
A warm day in early March makes us all think that perhaps we've turned the corner, that maybe we'll leave behind all the cold and dark of winter for the year now and begin thawing.
Granted, as someone in South Carolina, I can hardly complain about the cold, about true cold, but this year, we've had a few doses of true cold, of temperatures in the single digits, and we're all tired of it.
And so today, we got out as often as we could. Before the Boy's nap, we headed out to play Red Light, Green Light, one of the Boy's favorites, even if he doesn't quite understand it. Call "Red light!" and he trots up beside whoever his opponent is and only then stops, most often with a smile.
Afterward, we head to the backyard for some exploring. That usually, no always, means wandering and wondering about the two backyards, ours and our absent neighbor's, going to all the same places we always go -- our little hideouts, our little lookouts.
The trees, we discover during our walk, are eager for spring as well.
After the exploring, it's time to swing. Those two activities are the staples of our backyard adventures, with the order changing. Yet there has been a change in the last year: the Girl has taken over our role of pushing the Boy. But in true Girl fashion, she turns it into a game in and of itself. When the Boy accidentally kicks her, she moves into position to let him do it again -- after she fusses just a few moments -- and then begins performing. Only a slideshow can do the performance justice.
After a few minutes, it's time to switch. And that reveals another change: the Girl is far more patient these days than she was a year ago, a month ago. Well about some things.
"Is it my turn, Daddy?" she asks.
"No, let him swing a little longer," I reply, and she does. But eventually, it's time to be fair. She gets in the swing, her legs flopping over the edge, and the Boy heads off to find things to toss into the drainage ditch we call our stream.
He prefers sticks, but I collect them all to divide between our fire ring and our smoker, the better going to the latter.
By and large, I manage to convince him that spiky balls -- Sweetgum seed pods -- are far better for tossing. They carry farther, and the far more numerous.
The Girl, though, takes out her Explorer's Notebook, which is also her Drawing Notebook, and begins making notes of all the "extraordinary" (a new favorite word) discoveries we made, all the poisonous trees and plans, the Wild Cat, the imaginary creatures -- all our near-misses.
After the Boy's nap, we head to a local park. We were going to go to the small park by the small local airport, but the Girl was eager to go exploring more, somewhere new, and the Boy, to our surprise, was eager to change our plans.
We head out for a walk, making our way to the observation deck.
And back.
We end with some time on the playground.
Some things just don't change.
Tonight, the Boy and the Girl both showed just how well they can adapt to new situations and learn from them. The Boy wanted marshmallows. He knew where they were, but at not even three years old, he was knew he was far too little to reach them. Without assistance. He also knew that he would never get us to help him -- he knows when sweets are allowed and when they're not an option -- and so he figured, "Who needs help for any of it?"
The Girl, on the other hand, has been complaining that school is boring because it's too easy. "All we do is go over stuff I already know." Perhaps that's why her teacher gave her her new assignment, or perhaps it was just coincidence. At any rate, this evening she was complaining that the new work was way too hard. "It's third-grade work, at least!" I took a look at it and realized the work would require a rudimentary understanding of long division. And so I sat down with her and showed her how to do it. With the help of several examples, a multiplication table, and consistent help ("No, now you have to subtract."), she got it.
It's cold. It's raining. And we've been inside for what seems like forever. What to do? Go to the children's museum.
We haven't take the Boy, and the Girl, while she went with her class last year, went with us when she was only a little older the Boy. And the result? What fun!
The Boy was a little sad today that the snow man is disappearing...
Tuesday we had a snow day. The Boy was so thrilled at the prospect of playing in the snow that it really didn't matter that there was no snow to speak of. All Monday evening he was talking about getting to play in the snow, getting to make a snow man, throw snowballs, shovel snow with his backhoe.
I knew that there was little chance of snowball fights, snowmen, or much else. But I'd also known that a bigger storm was coming later in the week. A real storm. So I reassured the Boy that we would have plenty of snow to play in come Thursday.
The Boy didn't mind the small amount of snow, though. Snow is snow, and as long as it was something he could shove around with his toys, he was thrilled.
We were all excited about Wednesday's storm, though. They kept shifting the start time, further and further back, from late afternoon to early evening, but the intensity only grew. Three to five inches eventually became a possibility up to ten inches -- a real snow storm.
Wednesday during class when students asked when certain assignments were due, I kept saying things like, "If this storm is anything like they're saying it will be, we won't be coming back until Monday, so we'll make it due then."
Finally the snow began, and it looked so promising, falling so thick and hard that it was possible even to capture it in a picture. I thought of the few great snow storms of my youth in southwest Virginia, where it rarely snowed but every few years would let loose a great storm that piled drifts three or more feet deep. Snow so deep that one had to pack it down before sledding was even a remote possibility. Snow that turned everything into a white blanket. Of course there's no comparing that to the seven winters I spent in southern Poland, the winters that were the norm of K's youth, where there was so much snow that even I got sick of it.
The governor had already declared a state of emergency, and all the reporters, after literally reporting on half an inch of snow Tuesday with giddy delight, were all probably flushed with anticipation. The school district canceled school before we'd even completed Wednesday's schedule, and friends posted pictures on social media of virtually empty bread aisles in local supermarkets.
But when we woke up this morning, expectant, we found a repeat of Tuesday, a thin layer of slush that seemed destined to melt shortly after lunch.
Local news web sites quickly offered stories explaining what happened. "The moisture was there," meteorologists explained, "but the temperature just popped up two degrees and that changed everything." Our official total, as opposed to five or more inches, was 0.8 inches. Further north there were totals more like what we were promised, but nothing really that impressive. Headlines developed through the day: "National Weather Service stands by Upstate snow forecast." It seemed everyone was disappointed on one level or another.
Still, we had enough slush on the ground to roll a small snowman, enough slush to get in boots and make the Girl complain, enough slush to get the Boy cold in a few minutes and whining to go inside.
But not enough snow even to get all the ground damp.
We in the South take what we can get when it comes to snow, though. Supposedly areas of Alabama and Mississippi got close to ten inches, so perhaps by the time it got here -- well, who knows. We had slush, we built a slushman, and headed in late morning knowing perfectly well that we would be going to school tomorrow.
It's been chilly in the house due to some heating problems -- zoning system again. The kids have been sleeping together as a result.
