Birthday Party
the girl
Seventh Birthday Party
The first party was such an event. Our first child's first birthday party was, in a word, a first. This is not to say that successive years the significance of birthday parties has diminished. But firsts are firsts. With practice we've gotten better at the parties. Practice makes perfect.
In short, though, we've found that it's simpler to pay other people to do the big stuff -- the food, the cake, the drinks -- while we focus on the fun. This year, an ice skating party. The Girl had a head-start, or perhaps foot-start, with all the roller skating she did this autumn on our fresh concrete drive. Her first ice adventure was halting, with complete reliance on the walker-like skating aid. This year, after a few minutes' instruction, she was ready to head off on her own.
In a sense, that's what birthday parties are all about, getting children ready to head off on their own. In her own time, in her own time, some might say. Still, even a seventh birthday is a suggestion of the development that is simultaneously distant and just around the bend.
I only have to look at E to be reminded how quickly it can pass.
Transformations
Today was a day of transformations. We put an entire chicken, a bit of beef with the bone, two stalks of celery, a few carrots, some fresh parsley, sage, and thyme into a pot with water and let heat and time transform it into a deceptively clear stock. It had a yellowish tint to it, and there were globules of grease floating on the time, but by the time we'd poured it through a fine sieve several times, it looked like it should have little to no taste. Warmed water. And yet...
In the afternoon, we took a plain Fraser fir and transformed it into the magic of the season. Lights, baubles, ornaments, angels.
Babcia, L, and K put on some carols -- Frank Sinatra to begin with -- and hung gingerbread houses and hearts, beads, and lights, and I piddled about the yard. Sort of sad: it's always a highlight for me to decorate the tree, and I regret missing out on it. I always feel like a kid hanging the ornaments, sipping on something warm.
And in a way, I am a kid at it: only in the last few years could I stop saying, "I've celebrated Christmas so few times I could count them on my fingers." Yet not having participated in the holiday growing up makes it all the more meaningful for me now.
Yet early celebrations with K always lacked a little something. For me as a non-believer, Christmas was a season of pleasantries and friends, but little else. "If only people would be this nice to each other throughout the entire year," I would say, and that was about the extent of the spirituality of Christmas for me: a longing for a kind of utopia that I thought briefly and imperfectly existed during the Christmas season.
Having converted to Catholicism, though, adds a new meaning to Christmas. Properly speaking and on a most basic level, it adds new vocabulary: Advent, St. Stephen's Day, Vigil Mass. Of course there's more to it than just vocabulary, but I'm still a bit ill-at-ease to discuss it further. Old faithless comforts (or in this case, lack of comfort) disappear slowly.
So that particular transformation is still incomplete. The water is still boiling around me, still drawing out the essences, purifying. It's one more thing I'm waiting on in Advent.
Christmas Tree Farm
Indoors and Out, Sort Of
The day began with Polish lessons, with Babcia taking over for this particular round. This has its advantages, to be sure, the main one being her inability to speak English. Since the Girl can't speak Russian, the only language Babcia and L have in common is Polish, so it forces the language out of L, squeezes it out of every little necessity.
Once that was out of the way, it was playtime. The Girl's favorite play location of late has been the livingroom couch, somewhat transformed.
"It's a fort! An E-proof fort!"
Something tells me that this will soon be a favorite of E, as well. He certainly stayed in the "fort" for a long time, and he seemed content the whole time, as did everyone else. The OCD version of Tata, though, was going just a little crazy with the mess. Good clean fun doesn't really exist with a six-year-old and a toddler.
In the evening, we decided it was time we finally went to Hollywild's famous Christmas light safari (their term, not mine). We'd tried some years ago, but we'd given up and turned around after wandering about in the middle seemingly of nowhere for long enough to drive me batty.
It's a strangely American concept: set up an incredible number of lights -- snow men, rocking horses, various Christmas scenes, various winter scenes -- and let people drive their cars around in the display.
"What a waste of gas!" some non-Americans (and likely some Americans as well) might suggest. "Why not get out and walk -- you missed a chance for good exercise."
And that's probably true, but this evening was particularly cold, and the Boy would not have fared well in such cold weather: he gets sick just thinking about getting sick. No, he gets sick with anyone around him thinking that he might get sick. It's suggestive illness.
And so we played along (as if we had a choice) and drive through the presentation, behaving perfectly cordially with all the other drivers (what a change) and patiently oohing and ahhing at all the right spots.
"Look at the reflection!" L pointed out, right before Babcia did the same in Polish. Or was it the reverse?
In the middle of the safari was the Enchanted Deer Forest, which was an odd term for the plot of muddied, treeless ground all the cars wandered about in as if they migrating animals, separated and lost from their herd.
The enchanted deer part, though, was easy to see. They clumped around cars and ate from people's hands, walking in front of slowly-moving cars without a care.
We tried to get a few to come to our car, but the closes we came was a short, semi-attentive stare.
To get really close to the animals, we had to get out of the car and into Santa's Village. Who knew Santa had camels and bison and strange cattle?
The Boy, though was strangely apathetic about the animals. He was much more interested in running, running, running. And falling. And running again,.
"We'll come back in a couple of years," K laughed as we headed back to the car, "When the Boy is interested in more than just running."
Polish Sunday
Babcia
has arrived.
Dac, Redux
When L began speaking Polish, we made a video of her saying her first word.
Now that the Boy is beginning to speak, we thought we’d do the same.
With the same word.
Autumnal Sunday with Friends
Old Friends, Old Zoo, New Experience
We've been to the zoo enough times that we have it memorized. Indeed, we've had it memorized for so long that we could probably give a tour to visitors blindfolded. Still, it's a new experience for the Boy, and that makes it a new experience for us all.
