matching tracksuits

fun in threes, sometimes fours

the boy

Children’s Museum

Sunday 29 July 2012 | 0 Comments

Our trips to Rock Hill are almost always the same: we go to visit family. It's a rhythm, as predictable as the beat of a Sousa march. That's not meant to be a complaint: there's comfort in ritual.

Yet sometimes, it's good to change the beat a little. K, with her adventuring spirit, is always a catalyst for those changes.

DSC_1539

"Did you know there's a children's museum in Rock Hill?" she asked earlier this week. "Maybe we could go on Sunday, after we meet with family." I did not know, but after a lazy morning, we head out for Main Street in downtown Rock Hill.

DSC_1542

The museum is small -- minuscule, in fact, compared to the Children's Museum of the Upstate here in Greenville, which is three stories of adventure. Yet L doesn't complain. She takes off exploring immediately.

DSC_1565

Papa doesn't complain either. He gets the Boy, who at eleven weeks looks and feels (he weighs over sixteen pounds already and is already wearing clothes for babies six to nine months old) much older than he is.

DSC_1567

The Girl, though, has no time to sit for pictures with Papa, or anyone else for that matter. There is a pulley systems to explore.

DSC_1585

And a scale with a barrel of bean bags beside it.

"Which do you think weighs more? A round one or a square one?" I ask. We perform an impromptu experiment to determine that square ones weigh a touch more.

DSC_1602

But what happens if we put them all in? Every last bean bag?

DSC_1608

And what happens if we put everything in sight into the sale?

DSC_1612

Soon, she's creating magnet art with K, exploring the dress up room (located inside a vault -- the building used to house a bank), and returning to her favorite stations.

DSC_1622

In the end, she finds perfection: a small kitchen with two buckets of bean bags. She spreads them all over the floor, then takes the broom and sweeps them into piles before collecting them in small wooden buckets she later dumps into the barrels.

DSC_1643

"Daddy, I'm Cinderella," she begins, and I know the rest: "And you're the evil step-mother." I tell her how awfully she's cleaning, then kiss her and remind her, "We're just playing, remember? I don't really think you're doing an awful job."

"Oh, I know."

Meet the Boy

Saturday 28 July 2012 | 0 Comments

"Everyone wants to meet the Boy," Nana explained a few weeks ago, and so we take a trip to Rock Hill to see the aunts, uncles, and cousins.

A trip to Rock Hill means a trip to one of the best hosts we know -- my aunt. She'll suggest a get together, say she wants to cook as little as possible, then bring out half a dozen different dishes. We arrive early to help out a bit. I cut some squash; K makes herself busy with melons; and soon, we have too many cooks in the kitchen.

When the rest of the family arrives and adds their food, we we end up with a bar covered with salads alone. "If anyone leaves hungry," Nana often laughs, "It's his own fault."

Yet tasty as it is, the food is not the reason for the visit. Family, family, family -- and this is only the smallest portion of the smallest percent of our huge family. Had all the cousins and their children come, we would have easily had forty or fifty people in the house.

Yet enough cousins came to make a party for the kids as well.

I watch the kids -- who can even count them all? -- playing and screaming, and I think, "This must be what it's like to be the Brady Bunch."

Not a bad thought, indeed.

This was written on the 28th but not uploaded due to a lack of internet access. Plus, I have to keep my once-a-day record up for July, hence the cheating back-dating.

From Dawn to Dusk

Friday 27 July 2012 | 2 Comments

Breakfast

Breakfast should have been a hint of the day to come. While at Aldi yesterday, we found a real deal on small fillets, so we had steak (one fillet shared between the two of us) and eggs for breakfast.

DSC_1501

The Girl entertained the Boy while we finished up breakfast, and I joked, “This is the kind of breakfast that sticks with you until dinner.”

Little did we know how busy we would be

  1. Applying another coat of Thompson’s on the deck (it didn’t make sense to leave a touch in one can) while K took care of the kids and did laundry;
  2. Mowing in 95 degree pure sun as K took care of the kids and cooked barszcz;
  3. Cleaning the house while K took care of the kids and did more laundry (The Boy goes through so much laundry that it’s a miracle there’s still water left in the county);
  4. Taking the Girl for a promised swim as K took care of the Boy;

It looks like such a short, innocuous list, but between steps three and four, K and I fell asleep while the Girl watched an episode of Martha Speaks and the Boy took a post-meal snooze.

And nature provided the first test of four mornings’ of waterproofing

Resistance

Portraits

Wednesday 25 July 2012 | 0 Comments

K heads upstairs with the Boy and the camera. "We haven't done any portraits in a while," she says, "and the light is good in the bedroom.

1-DSC_1432

With a two-month-old, frequent portraits reveal the cumulative daily changes that seem to slip by almost unnoticed.

1-DSC_1442

Like toenails that need trimming.

1-DSC_1458

Cleaning

Monday 23 July 2012 | 0 Comments

It's a time of recycling. All the infant toys that have sat in storage for literally years are now out, dumped in the bathroom sink for a good scrubbing before handing them off to the Boy.

VIV_1397

The Girl's constant refrain -- "Can I help?" -- receives an enthusiastic "Yes."

The New

Sunday 22 July 2012 | 1 Comment

With temperatures what they are, the new will have to wait. Exploring this or that place with a sweaty infant does not in the least sound entertaining. For anyone.

DSC_1424

So a third afternoon out of four at the pool seems the only logical response.

Point of View

Saturday 21 July 2012 | 0 Comments

The Boy likes his bassinet. He giggles to his bears, squeals when they start swinging, and fusses when they calm down. His cow can hold undivided attention for whole, long stretches. The newest addition — the plastic chain — is of little interest now, but perhaps that will change when his still-shaky emerging hand-eye coordination improves. It does beg to be grasped at.

DSC_1398

Sometimes, something will catch his eye — something outside the bassinet — and he’ll look, seemingly unblinkingly, for several minutes. Other times, he’ll simply lie quietly, looking up at his bears.

Still, it must be something like a prison. Walls on the sides, a covering, and a restricted coordinated movement hamper his ability to look at what he wishes, to explore, to see anything more than bears and faces.

DSC_1401

 

Perfect Days

Thursday 19 July 2012 | 0 Comments

Some days are simply perfect.

Some days are filled with just enough of the adventure of the new and the comfort of the known to keep your eyes open but your spirit relaxed.

Such days are filled with napping and affection.

Such days have just enough hint of gray

that we appreciate the smiles that follow.

Some days are filled with friends and family, smiles and conversation, and the comfort of knowing that you belong just where you are.

These days have a hint of belle epoque and impressionism.

And they smell like dogs.

Papa’s Boy

Thursday 12 July 2012 | 1 Comment

When Papa is around and the topic is politics (or religion or history or sports or any number of things), it can be hard to get a word in. When Papa is around with the Boy, it's easy to get a word in, but it's hard to pry the Boy out of Papa's arms.

From the beginning of any visit, Nana just waits patiently, often pretending to be content to look on as Papa burps, rocks, cuddles, and coos with the Boy. When Nana finally gets to hold him, Papa is eager to "help" by taking him back. Let Nana sit just so and pinch a nerve or find her leg slightly uncomfortable and make any kind of sound that even vaguely hints at discomfort, and Papa is ready.

"You okay? You want me to take him?"

He's like a kid with a new toy. An expensive new toy. That cries. And passes gas. And gets fussy for no apparent reason. And then coos to sooth everyone's nerves.

"If I'd known being a grandfather was so much fun..." he often begins the now-familiar joke.

Fascination

Friday 06 July 2012 | 0 Comments

The Boy has become fascinated with a small cow, a singing, vibrating cow that includes a soundtrack of children giggling to the silly song.

Afternoon Relax

It’s tempting to say, “It’s just his tendency to look to the right.” Yet the fact that it calms him almost instantaneously indicates there’s something more to it.