fun in threes, sometimes fours
the boy
The Boy finally found his shark teeth. We went back to the beach famed for its shark teeth and within seconds, he'd found his first. It wasn't his last.
"Once I found one, I was in my prime!" he declared shortly before asking, "Daddy, what does it mean to be 'in my prime'?"
"I love when you use words you don't really know!" I laughed.
"What?! It was on Cupcake and Dino. I'm just not sure what it means."
I explained. It pleased him that he'd used it correctly.
"Daddy, I have one dream for this trip," the Boy has been saying since we arrived. "I want to go shark tooth hunting." We watched a couple of videos on how to do it, and it seemed entirely possible that the Boy could find a number of them during an hour or so of searching.
After a little hunting, we asked someone who seemed to know what he's doing. "You just have to look for black triangles," he explained, shaking out of a small bottle the small black fossilized teeth he'd found during the morning. "Like that one," he continued, reaching down and plucking up a small tooth that he'd just discovered.
If it was that easy to find, we all thought it would be a simple enough matter for the Boy to discover one.
"It's my dream to find a shark tooth," E reiterated. Multiple times.
Soon enough, L found one. Then K found one. Then L found another. But E found nothing.
"Maybe we can come back later today and look again," E suggested. It was, after all, not quite low tide yet.
We headed off to the historic district of Beaufort for a little lunch and exploring. We found a charming church with an old cemetery that had a few graves from Revolutionary War soldiers. E was impressed with the age of the graves, impressed with the size of the church, but still thinking about that shark tooth he still hadn't found.
We finished up our time in Beaufort with a walk along the waterfront where marveled at the homes of the rich, large mansions that spoke of fortunes beyond our own considerations and imagination. (We got echoes of that in the evening when we watched Pride and Prejudice.)
Finally, we found a good spot for a few portraits.
Then we headed back to the beach where we'd started the morning searching for shark teeth.
The tide had risen, and the search was all the more difficult for it. Everyone searched for teeth; everyone found shark teeth. Everyone except the Boy.
It crushed him.
The whole way back to the car, he was on the verge of tears. "Everyone found a tooth! Everyone! Even L found a tooth, and she was not even interested in it until this morning!"
When we got back to the place we're renting through AirBnB, he threw himself into the corner of the couch and fought back the tears. "It was my dream to find a shark tooth!" he whimpered. "My dream!"
Earlier in the day, in a gift shop, we'd bought a small bag of shark teeth. He bought them because they were cool; I encouraged him because I knew after that morning that finding a tooth is not a guaranteed adventure. I used this to try to reason with him: "Look, you wanted to look for shark teeth. You wanted to find a shark tooth. And you wanted to go back home with a shark tooth. You're accomplishing two of your three desires."
I knew it was a long shot, and he saw right through it. "But I wanted to find a tooth!" If he'd managed that one simple feat, the other two would have automatically been fulfilled. My cleverness might have soothed a younger boy, but not an eight-year-old E.
These are the silly things that happen in the course of parenting that seem both highly significant and completely trivial. His pain and frustration were highly significant: I recall wanting something so badly at that age, how I used to get my heart so set on it that if it didn't come to fruition, I might as well have died, so bleak seemed my prospects afterward. Yet it was at the same time so trivial: he's going home with thirty to forty shark teeth in his bag. In a few weeks or a few months at most, this will be an almost-disappeared memory. It will be a foggy memory he recalls as his own son deals with similar frustration.
My first wigilia was in 1996. I'd been in Poland for only five months at that point, and I celebrated it with the family in Radom with whom I stayed when we Peace Corps volunteers first arrived in Poland. The fact that I first went to Poland in the Peace Corps says a lot about how much the country has changed. We were there to teach English and help NGOs catch their balance, and we spent twelve weeks in Radom beginning to learn Polish and starting to get an understanding of Polish culture. A few months later, my host family invited me back to Radom to spend Christmas with them. That it was the last time I ever saw them is evidence of how close we were. I don't remember much about that first wigilia other than the fact that I was always a little uncomfortable. My host-brother and I never quite got along (I believe he questioned my intelligence, for he often behaved that way), so that first wigilia would certainly not be the standard by which to judge the tradition.
My second wigilia celebration was with the family that lived across the river from me in Lipnica, the family that became so much like family that I found myself thinking, "So this would have been what it was like to have a relationship with my host family like others had with theirs." It was everything wigilia should have been the year before. Afterward, we all walked down to babcia's house had continued the celebration with the extended family.
My third wigilia, in 1999, I was in Berlin with a friend. We didn't have much of a wigilia.
Wigilias four and five really didn't happen. I was back in America and not really close to anyone who celebrated it. Besides, it's a time for family: one doesn't invite mere close friends.
Since 2001, though, I've been involved in wigilia celebrations yearly. I spent 2001 with the family from wigilia two. I was at that time renting a room from them, and it just seemed logical. And there was no one else I would or could have celebrated it with.
It was much like wigilia two: warm and friendly, like with family.
It was with my fourth real wigilia, in 2002, that wigilia became a true wigilia. K and I were by then dating. Our future seemed to be coming into focus as a future together. L and E weren't even thoughts in our minds but we were starting to feel like a family.
Wigilia 2003 was much the same as 2002 but with one difference: K and I were engaged. L and E were thoughts in our minds, inevitable joys that we had not yet named or met but were certainties in some sense.
Since then, wigilia has been the same wigilia that everyone else has celebrated: a time with family. Our last wigilia in Poland, in 2004, was our first as a married couple. K's brother came with his wife and son -- now eighteen -- and we celebrated as all Polish families celebrate.
Moving to America, we celebrated every wigilia with one constant: Nana and Papa. Other friends joined from time to time. Some friends in the passing of years become more than just friends. Then we added L. Then E. And things went along like that for several years, until we lost Nana. So while there's always been a certain continuity from wigilia to wigilia, from year to year, we have made adjustments along the way.
K has made adjustments in how she makes the zakwas for the barszcz. This year, instead of the ceramic container with a slice of bread on top, she left the beets and garlic in water and garlic alone, only much longer than the normal four days. It was a recipe she found online, I believe. The result: zakwas so good that she said she could drink it by itself. It was good, I thought, but not so good that I'd consume it as a refreshing beverage.
We've made adjustments in the gifts we arrange for Santa to give the kids. This year, we made sure Santa brought mainly art supplies for the Boy and money for the Girl.
So we've made adjustments significant and less so, but the constants threaded through it all are simple enough.
Wigilia 2001
Wigilia 2002
Wigilia 2003
Wigilia 2004
Wigilia 2005
Wigilia 2006
Wigilia 2007
Wigilia 2008
Wigilia 2009
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/
Wigilia 2011
Wigilia 2012
Wigilia 2013
Wigilia 2014
Wigilia 2015
Wigilia 2016
Wigilia 2017
Wigilia 2018
Wigilia 2019
There are sounds and smells that are only associated with the Christmas season. A mixer running through the morning and then again through the evening is one of those sounds. First, in the morning, we run the mushrooms and cabbage through the grinder attachment to create two different pastes that will fill uszka and pierogi.
“I love uszka!” exclaims the Boy time and time again. Every time we have barszcz through the year, E asks if it’s going to be barszcz z uszkami.
“No, honey, that’s just Christmas Eve,” K responds patiently.
“Why?”
“Too much work.”
Once a year, though, it’s not too much work. It’s just enough work. After a couple of weekends of cleaning and several dishes to prepare over the coming days, a day making pierogi and uszka seems relatively insignificant.
But it is a lot of work. First, we saute the onions and the mushrooms while the sauerkraut bubbles away. It all gets strained and then _____ed. Then comes the tedious work: dumpling after dumpling, filled, folded, and pinched closed. More dough cut from the ever-dwindling ball, rolled flat, cut into circles, then again -- filed, folded, and pinched. Filled, folded, pinched.
I head over and get a pinch of the mushroom/kraut miracle.
“G, you’re in my way,” K scolds.
The cleaning piles up during all that. A mountain of dishes that then gets leveled and remounded again and again.
Cycles within cycles. That’s what makes life comforting, its predictability at times. We spend so much of our time worrying about what’s coming that we long for those moments when what’s coming is what’s always come before.
Today’s task with the Boy — make some serious improvements in his room. Specifically, in its cleanliness. This meant, in part, going through toys and throwing out things that were broken, packing away to Goodwill things he no longer played with, and generally taking stock of the toys he has and what he needs.
We took out three garbage bags of stuff from his room, including probably 40 cars. We dumped all his cars out into a pile and ran the wheel test: if all four wheels roll, it’s a keeper; if not, toss it.
He was at times somewhat reluctant to give up this or that car. But we tried to be brutal. Heartless. “It’s broken, buddy,” I said I don’t know how many times. “You can’t play with it. You can’t do anything with it…”
“Yeah, but…”
Next, we cleaned out under his bed. Once we got everything taken care of, he decided he wanted to be the monster under the bed. That’s an improvement.
And toward the middle of the afternoon, L made her way into E’s room to clean the windows. K has hired her to do a lot of the Christmas cleaning because she’s saving up for a phone. That’s right. We’ve finally given in. The Girl, at age fourteen, is getting her first phone.
And, in truth, she does need one at times. She called me from volleyball practice once because they’d ended early. “Let’s go ahead and delete that number from the history…” I suggested, handing her the phone when we got in the car.
In the afternoon, after school and a little break, we had some trampoline time as well as some exhaust-the-dog-kicking-her-ball-for-her-to-chase time.
Later in the afternoon, the Boy and I headed out to do some adventuring. We haven't done that in quite some time. I think we overdid it a bit and both got a little burned out. Today, though, we did our full adventuring circle, complete with cameras. The Boy hasn't edited his pictures yet, so I won't include theme here
In the evening, a walk. A great way to usher in winter break 2020.
Though technically not all the pictures are from Sunday...
My classes are growing. More specifically, they grew today — doubled, in fact. Today was the first day we had all students back at the same time. Sixth grade has been doing it for a couple of weeks now; seventh grade began last week; this week was eighth grade’s turn. So each class had 18-24 students in plexiglass-enclosed quad-desks, each six feet apart. “Remember,” I said countless times, “these plexiglass shields only serve as protection for you and your neighbor if you have your masks on.” This mean that it was the first day for everyone wearing masks all day.
How long will we stay like this? What effect will the Thanksgiving surge, now in full swing, have on it? I really don’t know.
As part of my promise to K about my beard (“I’ll get rid of it when we’re back in school 100%.”), I had the Boy shave me last night.
That was how we had some of our Daddy-E time. Tonight, it was writing: the Boy has discovered fountain pens,
and that discovery has inspired him to write short stories. We’re working on a tag-team zombie story now.
I texted a picture to K this morning: “This is what my classroom looks like now,” I said.
“Wow — no more rearranging rooms, I guess,” she replied.
I know a lot of teachers are concerned about the impact this will have on their teaching style, on the types of lessons they can do. I for one am not terribly worried about that because this year I’m teaching only honors classes, and most honors students are relatively mature and somewhat adaptable. There are some things that will take getting used to — not as much motion, more teacher-based lessons, etc. — but overall, I think they’ll do fine.
When I got home, I noticed a little paper with Shakespearean insults on the table. Remembering that L’s class has just started Romeo and Juliet, I thought it might have been from her, but the Boy filled me in when he got home from swimming lessons: “The kids in challenge today were working on Shakespearean insults,” he said. He told me about how funny it was when his friends who went to challenge shared it with him, and I’m assuming he got K to help him find a list of insults on the internet and print them out.
It was only then that I realized: E didn’t get an invitation to join challenge when he started this year. The invitations are based on standardized test scores from second grade, and I immediately thought that the Boy must feel a little left out, a little, well, stupid compared to the others.
K had the same concerns, and we talked about it in the evening when the Boy was sound asleep. “He wanted to know if we could sign him up,” she said forlornly, “and I had to tell him you don’t sign up for it; you get an invitation.”
I remember seeing the challenge kids leave — our district was a little worse in their naming: it was the “gifted and talented” group, which makes everyone else feel less gifted, less talented, and that’s exactly how I felt. I watched them troop out of the classroom in elementary school, wondering what they do there, wondering why I wasn’t a part of it.
I got an invitation at the end of fifth grade and spent sixth grade with the GT kids who’d been doing it for several years by that time. I didn’t feel any different, really, and I don’t really recall doing anything all that spectacular. Of course, that was over 35 years ago, so I can justifiably be a little fuzzy on the details, I’m sure.
Throughout high school, I was most decidedly average. I was in the “advanced” classes only insofar as I was not in remedial English or remedial math. I didn’t take algebra until ninth grade; I never took a single AP course; I had no “Honors” affixed to my class names; I didn’t graduate anywhere near the top 10, and I highly doubt I was even in the top 10%. And yet for high school superlatives (how I loath to this day that idea), my peers voted me “Most Intellectual.” (I was tempted to refuse the award during the senior luncheon, but my mother convinced me it would be rude to do so.) So the recognition for my academic achievement was a mixed bag — conflicting signals. In the end, I just didn’t put much stock into what people thought of my intellectual abilities.
But somehow, when it comes to my kids, I feel a little differently. I want them to be geniuses, above and beyond even those who are above and beyond. What parent doesn’t?
The Boy is starting to realize some people work faster than he does, maybe a little more accurately, K and I concluded. And that’s fine. We’re all different. We all have different gifts. But still, I felt the Boy’s sting just a bit, so I went back to his bedroom and cuddled with him a little more.
“You’re very gifted in many ways,” I told him.
“How?”
“You’re a very good reader. You’re an excellent drawer. And you’re very kind and sensitive to other people’s needs and emotions.”
A pause. “Thank you.” He snuggled in a little closer and went to sleep.
This morning, Elfie made his first appearance:
I was a little curious about E's reaction this year: at the end of last year, he figured it out. "You guys just put Elfie out there, don't you?"
"What makes you think that?"
And then he discovered where I'd hidden him the week after he disappeared last Christmas season.
"See! You did it!"
But this year, his class is doing Elf on the Shelf, so he either pretended to forget about it because of that, or he actually did forget about his conjectures last year.
Tonight, Elfie decided to do a little web browsing while he had the opportunity.
