Spring Season Practice
the boy
Valentines 2025
Health and Exercise
The Boy and I have endeavored once again to get into shape. That’s such a relative thing, I’m not even really sure what that means for the two of us. For him, it means putting on some muscle and losing the last of his baby fat. The pediatrician told us for years not to worry about his baby rolls. He’ll stretch out we were assured. They’ll disappear, and by and large, they have.
For me, that means just maintaining. As I’m getting older, mysterious new ailments appear. Recently, for example, the fingertips of my left hand have started tingling every now and then. It’s usually on my arm is bent, and it usually goes away as soon as I straighten it out: some kind of nerve interruption. I’m not too terribly concerned about it, but I’ll definitely talk to my primary care physician about it when I see him later this year. And of course, I’ll make an appointment sooner if it worsens. I’ve been hoping that perhaps the swimming that I’ve been trying to do would make that better. It seems like there’s just something catching in my elbow that’s making this happen, and I thought that perhaps a bit of increased mobility would stretch things back out and get everything flowing correctly. But I swim, and it persists, and I worry about it a little.
It seems every year, some new little thing crops up. My knees started giving me fits last year, and I really had to stop running altogether because I couldn’t make it more than about a half a mile before everything started hurting. My vision while reading has done the predictable: I have surrendered and bought reading glasses.
All this I suppose is somewhat predictable, and I guess it will only get worse. But I can fight it, and a bit of exercise every day should help. But I’m under the illusion that I’ll ever get back to the shape that I was in 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.
I do hope I can encourage the Boy to remember that what he’s creating for himself now, the body that he is making, will go away and eventually be replaced by something older slower, less agile. I regret not holding onto my health and fitness that I experience that I had in high school. I regret losing the health and fitness. I developed cycling so much in Poland. It’s gone, and it seems like it will never come back even in the slightest bit.
Sassafras Mountain
Polska 2011 Revisited
Friday Evening Walk
Heading Out for a Walk
The Boy and I headed out for a walk after dinner. We took the dog, we chatted about school, keyboards (as in computer keyboards — a recent interest of the Boy’s), district band tryouts (tomorrow evening), and random topics (as if that list weren’t random enough). It was another of those “how many more times do we do this?” moments. The Girl didn’t go with us because she had gone to her boyfriend’s house to watch a movie with him.
Everyone’s role slowly shifts.
Soccer Sunday
Walk
K and I went for a quick walk this afternoon around 2:30. We had to be back by 4:00 — it was non-negotiable — so we rushed to our favorite park to do a quick loop.
Why the rush home?
We had pierogi to make for one thing. We’re still working on that. One hundred and sixty five today — most of them frozen for quick dinners throughout the next few months. They’re a good backup plan: when we are in a rush and just don’t have the time to cook, we have pierogi.
But that wasn’t the real reason for the rush home. The Boy had a friend coming to hangout, and she was scheduled to arrive at four.
Watching our children develop new interests has always been one of the most exciting — and sometimes stressful — elements of parenting.
End of Break Saturday
Today was the day everything went back to normal. The Christmas lights came down (though the tree is still up — whatever K wants to do is fine with me in that regard). The Boy’s 5v5 soccer season resumed: E’s team won 4:3, with the Boy scoring the winning goal.
But some things were still holiday-esque: I made farsz for pierogi again. And this time, I remembered how much grease the sautéed mushrooms spit out as they go through the grinder.
“Do we a fartuszek of any kind I can use?” I asked K.
“But of course…”
2025 Day 1
We always like to begin the new year with something outside. Last year, we were at Hilton Head with Babcia; the year before, we were hiking somewhere — can’t remember the name. This year, with L still recovering (though she’s mostly fine now) and the Boy feeling a bit reluctant, K and I went for a short walk at our favorite park, just the two of us. And the dog.
And a lot more people than usual. But can you blame them? A beautiful New Year’s Day with temperatures in the mid fifties and a blue sky — of course, you’re going outside.
In the evening, we decided on a family movie — a classic. Well, not quite. But the kids had never seen Titanic, and it’s such a 90s film that both K and I have memories of and — well, okay. There’s no reason to watch that film except for the sinking scene.
The Boy watched about half an hour; we made it to the halfway mark. We’ll finish it Friday or Saturday — tomorrow is a sleepover for the Boy. We’ll have a house filled with kids.
Boys. Twelve-year-olds…
Wigilia 2024
Going into Wigilia sick is no fun. K was ill during the 2011 Wigilia, and I had to make the barszcz as a result. It was probably not as good as K’s.
Still worse than heading into Wigilia sick is going into it after an operation. The Girl’s last Wigilia here as a full-time resident of our house and it was a struggle for her — the whole day.
She stayed in her room for most of the day. “I’m saving my energy for tonight,” she explained.
Evening came and she put some nice clothes on, came down stairs, and had dinner with us. After soup, she took a break in the living room, but she came back for the fish.
When it came time for the gifts, she lay on the couch and smiled as E passed out all the gifts she’d bought for everyone.
That was a bit of a role change: she’s always been so thrilled to get the gifts (what kid isn’t?), but tonight, she was more enjoying watching everyone else open her gifts.
The Girl is growing up. In fact, how long can we continue calling her “the Girl”? Isn’t she legally an adult now? A woman?
But some things never change. Wigilia never changes. The same food every year. Perhaps a different fish — trout this year. Or did we have trout last year as well?
And the same faces around the table, with one exception — a new guest this year.
So if some things don’t always change, if some things just stay the same seemingly forever, I guess the Girl can remain the Girl in our eyes indefinitely.
And what of the Boy this year? He retained his role as the gift distributor, but his voice is a little deeper now when he hands someone a gift.
But some things with the Boy don’t change: he’s still the most grateful gift-receiver.
Everyone, happy with their gifts, discussed whether to go to Mass tonight or tomorrow. They all decided on tomorrow, so we watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The girls’ pick. I hadn’t seen it since I watched it in the theater, I don’t think.
I checked the release date of the film: 1989. I was two years younger than the Girl is now. And like that, those thirty-five years disappeared.
The movie ended, and like that, yet another Wigilia was over. Everyone slowly went their own ways.
Another Wigilia.
Another little bit of perfection.
9 Years Ago
Probably my favorite video with the Boy…
Tenderfoot
2024 Christmas Concert
Monday Evening
Will we ever be done with pierogi? Saturday, Sunday, and Monday — three days of pierogi and uszki work. The upshot — we have an entire freezer of Polish dumplings.
Our last batch was a distinctly non-Polish varietal: we had left-over turkey (not from Thanksgiving!) that we ground and mixed with mushrooms. They’re good, just not very Polish. When we have them, I like to fry them just long enough to get a crispy finish and then make the lovely sauce you get with Chinese dumplings (soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil) and pretend we ordered out Chinese.
We closed the evening with a little math help. K does the math work with him; I do the English work.
Sunday Prep
We have spent most of the weekend getting ready for Christmas. The Boy, for example, has his first Christmas concert as a member of his school’s wind ensemble. They don’t wear the usual Maudlin Middle band outfits for that performance; the girls wear formal black dresses and the boys wear tuxedos. The Boy’s tux pants are too long, so K hemmed them this morning.
Yesterday, I made the farsz for the pierogi and uszki we’ll have during our Wigilia meal in a few weeks. Today, K made them. We have every cutting block and baking sheet covered in dumplings of various size in both freezers of the house.
How many times have we had these prep days? Well, truthfully, it’s something I could count. It seems timeless and endless, but that’s only a trick of the brain. We’ve been married twenty years now, so that seems to make counting simple. But of course, we spent Wigilia together several years before we were married. Twenty -two times now? Twenty-three?
Saturday
Elf
Elf has made his yearly appearance, but this year, he seems just to be hanging out in the living room.
“I know it’s you and mom!” the Boy explained last year. And the year before that.
“But still, it’s fun, isn’t it?”
But this year, there it sits. Not moving. Not hiding.
Another sign that everyone is growing up. The traditions of Christmas slowly fall away. The Girl used to write a letter to Santa and leave out a snack. I can’t remember the last time she did that. The Boy searched for Elf. I can remember the last time he did that, but it seems to be just that — the last time.
Should we resist this? Should we try to cling to these things even after the kids have outgrown them? I think not. It’s time to move on, to grow up, to pick up new traditions.
Decorating 2024
And so we enter the Christmas season, which this year promises to be unlike any Christmas we’ve shared. This is the last Christmas that L will still be living at home. It certainly won’t be the last Christmas we spend together, but it will most likely (excluding any unforeseen contingencies) be the last Christmas that she spends with us where the weeks leading up and the weeks trailing off see her still in her lovely room. “I guess I’ll head back now,” will be the phrase we’re dreading next year.
Last year, apparently, was a last for us — at least for a while. I am no longer in charge of the tree: this year, the Boy insisted on taking care of the tree. He unloaded it yesterday afternoon, suspended it under the deck to allow the branches to relax a bit, and carried into the house by himself — irritated that I wanted a picture as he did it.
“You’re like the paparazzi!” he declared.
This reticence to having his picture taken has been building, and it’s positively a thing now. L has gradually disappeared from the majority of the entries because of similar reasons. It’s understandable: teens are so very self-conscious of everything they do, of how everyone might look at them. I remember those anxieties myself. I would have felt even more aware of myself during this time of year: nothing stands out like not celebrating Christmas. At least when you’re the one not celebrating it. Like so many “distinctives” in our little sect, that one is more wide spread than I would have suspected as a seventh grader.
He did allow me to snap a shot of him putting the first ornament on the tree.
And as we were putting lights on the house, there was not much he could do to protest.
I don’t have nearly the number of photos from my own childhood as my children have of theirs. The reason, of course, is simple: digital is cheaper. We currently have 135,184 pictures in our Lightroom library, and that’s including scanned pictures back through the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties — well before the masses went digital. There was certainly something about the old film days that’s lacking now: that wait. You take a shot and you think you have a really great shot, but you’re not sure. So you send the pictures off for development (or do it yourself — I’m fortunate to have had a little darkroom for a few years), and there’s that excitement going through the pictures (or watching the developer bring the image out of nothing).
I still get that a little with digital, though. Snap a picture and a series of possible edits in Lightroom start running through my head. I’m no longer wondering if I got the shot, though. And that delayed gratification — it’s gone for good.
Finally, we get everything up and L asks, “Why is are the lights on the tree blue at the top and white at the bottom?” Because, to return to the opening thoughts, this Christmas will not be like others. Nana and Papa have been gone for years now: this will be our sixth Christmas without Nana and our fourth without Papa, true, but it still feels wrong.
It will also be our first Christmas without a long-anticipated Christmas party. Almost everyone we usually spend Christmas with decided to go back to Poland for this Christmas. (That’s why we all got together on Thanksgiving: the only difference was the food and the lack of carols, though everyone made up for it singing everything else they could think of.) I can’t blame them: Christmas in Poland is magical in a lot of ways. But it means things will be different around here.
Quieter, for one.
That’s almost always a good thing.