the girl | matching tracksuits

Still

Saturday 18 October 2014 | 0 Comments

Most of the day has been in a blur. Everyone moving, though E starts with a bit of reading.

No time until it's evening, when K makes a deal with me: "Look after the kids now, and I'll get dinner ready." The Boy was already swinging, so I just kept up the rhythm, adding our little distinctives.

For example, the swing likes to break, it seems. At the top of the arc, it just stops, gets hung up on something. I push, I tug, and finally when I give it a bump, it gives way and continues on its way.

Another little trick: the foot grab. It's a delicate little move because the Boy's head seems like it could just pop back and crack the top of the swing seat if I'm not careful. It's the kind of move we do once or twice during a session, then I instantly regret it, because the Boy just wants more.

And of course the Girl's insistence that it's her turn causes more worries than a broken swing ever could: the Boy knows the broken swing is just a silly game, whereas the Girl's turn is not.

Rainy Autumn Day

Sunday 12 October 2014 | 0 Comments

Rain, rain, rain. It poured, then drizzled, then paused, then repeated. All day.

"I guess we have a lazy day," K laughed as we realized our original after-lunch, after-nap plans of going to a local pumpkin patch were not going to happen. We watched a movie, played games, did school work, chatted on the phone, took a nap (at least one of us), and finally, in the late afternoon or early evening, decided enough was enough. The advantage of having a park nearby.

Today’s Story

Sunday 05 October 2014 | 0 Comments

He squirmed out of my arms, twisting to the floor and then placing his hands on both knees before looking me straight in the eye.

"Daddy, I'll be a good boy," he pleadingly whispered. The fussing, playing, and general chaos around us in the crying room made it difficult actually to hear him, but he was only repeating what he'd been saying for the last several minutes. "Daddy? Daddy? I'll be a good boy."

We'd returned to the crying room after trying to sit as a family in the church proper for the first time. Last week, during Polish Mass, when E and I sit alone, he'd managed it perfectly. He had motivation: Mama was singing in the choir, and he simply wanted to be able to see her clearly. "If you fuss at all, if you get up and try to wander around," I'd warned, "we'll go right back to the crying room." And he'd been golden.

"Maybe we can start sitting together again," K had suggested after Mass.

It's been a long time since we all sat together. K tends to take the Boy to the crying room to avoid any unpleasantness for our pew-mates; I take the Girl to the nave (if it could be called a nave in a church of such semi-circular modernity). I offer to switch off with her, but K always insists on taking the Boy to the crying room.

Today, then, we tried it. The processional was fine. We made it through the first reading with few problems. But by the time we'd reaching the Gospel reading, it had become too much, and so I took our sweet boy to the crying room and found a seat in the back corner.

"You didn't behave very well."

"I didn't behave well?" He always takes a statement and turns it into a question.

"No, you were squirming, rustling papers, distracting others." He looked at me. "You have to be a good boy to sit stay there." He climbed into my lap.

"A good boy?"

"Yes, a good boy. We'll try again next week, but for today, we're staying in here?"

"Staying in here?"

"Yes, staying in here."

He put his head down on my shoulder for a moment, then began.

"I'll be a good boy, Daddy."

I explained it again. He accepted it. And again he stated, "I'll be a good boy, Daddy."

Yet he usually is. And the Girl is usually a good girl. Certainly I could complain about this or that: the Boy can be horridly stubborn, and the Girl can be achingly hyper. There's more, and while I feel at times -- and K concurs -- that I focus on the negative with our children more than the positive, if I'm honest with myself, they're good kids.

So why did this "I'll be a good boy, Daddy" stick with me all day? Perhaps it was the tragic echoes of what that could imply: visions of abuse and children blaming themselves for their father's evil behavior -- perhaps it was the shudder that went through me when I imagined our children facing something like that. Maybe it was just the plaintiveness of his repetition, the seeming hopelessness in his voice at times. Whatever it was, felt more drawn to him, and to our daughter, than usual, because I think I heard another echo in that: "I'll be a good Daddy, boy."

Autumn Saturday

Saturday 04 October 2014 | 0 Comments

Forward and Backward

Thursday 02 October 2014 | 0 Comments

There is no corner to turn. To admit that to myself, to get myself to see that clearly and accept the implications of it as a teacher -- that was the trick. One good day does not a corner make; one week of good days do not a corner make. When dealing with a class filled with troubled kids, there's no six steps forward; there's no question of three steps forward. Ever bit of forward momentum comes with drag. The drag of habit. The drag of need. The drag of peers.

And so just because one day is almost blindingly good, with 96% of recorded behaviors being positive, doesn't mean that the next day can't be a dismal failure, relatively speaking.

That only makes coming home all the sweeter. Though we take steps forward and stumble backward occasionally, I know there's someone standing behind to catch the stumbles, to encourage, to accept. When the Boy has several accidents in daycare, the family is there to encourage him to do better.

When he comes home wearing the same thing he wore as he walked out the door that morning, it a cause for celebration, and we celebrate.

That's not to say that my students at school don't have support somewhere. It's not to say their parents are somehow inferior. But the facts remain: some of the at-risk students I teach experience a daily school life that is so different from that of our daughter's that it's positively foreign.

What explanation fits? There are those with horrible parents who don't support them, but I haven't met many. No, scratch that. I haven't met any, because they don't come to the school. Most of the parents, though, seem caring, seem supportive. Who am I to judge, to suggest that their behavior is somehow different in private?

It's the wrong question, though, because the cause, whatever it is, is something outside my control. What is in my control is how I treat them. And more importantly, what is in my control is how I treat my family.

Polish Mass Sunday

Sunday 28 September 2014 | 0 Comments

Nearly-Autumn Saturday

Saturday 20 September 2014 | 0 Comments

Friends from Asheville came down today. Friends? Well, almost family it seems. After all, M is E's godmother, and that, according to M's daughters, make them at least half cousins with L. We headed downtown for some ice cream at Marble Slab (where else?) and a walk around Falls Park, which included wading in the Reedy. There was also some duck feeding, but that nearly turned into disaster as the ducks grew braver and decided to go after E's cookie as well as the crumbs we were tossing.

Back home, a first: Nana and Papa gave us a campfire ring some weeks (or was it months?) ago, and we finally put it to use, building a small fire in the backyard in our heretofore-unrealized holidy-motif fire ring.

It just seemed right to have our inaugural bonfire with a group of Poles.

Fast Forward

Thursday 18 September 2014 | 1 Comment

Sometimes it seems life with the Boy and the Girl is on fast forward. This is especially true of the Boy, now that he’s talking and giving us more than the mere glimpses we used to get into his developing intelligence and personality. This morning, as I was preparing coffee to take to work, I hear,

“Daddy, can I try it?”

It’s a common refrain: the Boy wants to try everything. In that sense, he’s the polar opposite of L, who hates to try anything new.

“No, little man, this is coffee. It’s hot, and it’s got caffeine. You’re too young to drink it.”

He thought for a little while, then asked hesitatingly, as he often does when he’s turning something over in his thoughts as he speak, “But when I’m bigger?”

Fast forward to the post-dinner cleanup. K was talking to the Boy and for some reason — some of those little conversations start so harmlessly insignificantly that it’s difficult to recreate them in the evening — said something like “B, as in bottle, as in big, as in…” At which point the Boy took over, with boy, baby, and a few others.

Everyone Gets a Turn

Tuesday 09 September 2014 | 0 Comments

In the backyard, everyone gets a turn on the swing, even if they don't fit. Everyone gets a chance to chase the cat, even if there's no hope of catching her. Everyone gets a moment to cry, even though only a few want to.