the girl | matching tracksuits

Soccer

Saturday 27 August 2016

We chatted about practice during breakfast. He was excited about the prospect of doing what we did yesterday with a lot of kids. All the running and kicking yesterday resulted in a lot of laughing, and that undoubtedly fueled his enthusiasm for today. I was a little worried that, as he’s done other times, the Boy might start having second thoughts as the moment approached, but there was none of that. We put his shoes on sans shin guards, which were too small we decided, and headed to the field.

We met the coach, and E began following the other children’s example and kicking goals. His first shots were comparatively strong, hard shots. The coach’s daughter, who was a couple of years older than the players, was standing in as goalie and E’s shot flew right by her into the back of the net. I remembered how relatively tentatively L would shoot goals at the beginning and thought this might be a good sign.

Practice shifted and the coach explained to the little ones what dribbling is and set them off toward the mid-field. Some children set off at a light jog, kicking the ball a few feet in front of them and running to catch up. Others kicked it with all their might and ran to the ball. E and a few others delicately pushed the ball with each foot as he stepped forward, a slow and deliberate journey to the mid-field. Yesterday, it was the opposite: wild abandon, kicking the ball and running as fast as he could. Such a change today. “He’s not doing it like we practiced yesterday,” I thought, wondering why he was being so very careful. It might have been tempting to compare his journey to other children’s, but to what end? He is who he is, and he was doing the exercise the way he felt comfortable doing it. I was thankful for that.

The Girl spent the first half of practice reading. She finished her book and began again with a shrug. She’s got some books that she’s read so many times that she must have them virtually memorized. The second half of practice she headed to a playground down at the edge of the fields and made a few new friends with other older sisters. What did they talk about? I so rarely see E with other girls — our neighborhood is simply filled with boys — that I can’t imagine. That shift must slowly be starting, mustn’t it? Surely they’re not talking about which Barbies they have (L hasn’t had any in years) and similar topics. Fingernail polish? School?

While I wasn’t able to watch and listen to the Girl’s interactions with her new friends, I was able watch the Boy interact with adults without my mediation. He listened well, remember later in practice the earlier instruction to stand with one foot on the ball when the coach is teaching a new skill. He did the best he could, but as a four-year-old will always do, he regularly checked to see where I was, making sure I was still on the sideline. The Girl became so absorbed in her activities that we could have easily left her behind — she never would have noticed until the other girls left.

That independence is growing and will only increase, I know. Are we ready for it? Ready or not, it’s coming.

Meeting Family Twenty Years Ago

Tuesday 23 August 2016

It was twenty years ago today that I arrived in Lipnica Wielka, my home in southern Poland for seven years. Upon arriving, I wrote in my journal:

It has taken so much time to reach this point. I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, sitting in my apartment at my site, Lipnica Wielka. In a way I want to cry – not from happiness or sadness. It’s just from relief. I finally made it.

At the time, I was so strung out and excited that I didn’t even realize that it was also my mother’s birthday. And today, thinking about the fact that it’s Nana’s birthday, I had no idea that it was also the twentieth anniversary of my arrival in Poland. One eclipsed the other, and then they changed roles and did it again.

The seeds of my own family start on that day as well. I didn’t meet K immediately, but it was only a matter of weeks after that I met K in a small bar that served as a dance hall — a disco as it was called — on Saturday evenings for local youngsters (at least that’s how I view the 18-25 bracket now). Twenty years later, we’ve started a new branch of our family trees.

1-DSCF0205 — The Girl picking pictures for a class project

The final connection for today: out of the blue, I decided to tinker the other day with the family tree I’d started creating on Ancestry.com. The site offered me a two-week trial subscription, which would allow me to delve into the records of the site rather than just use the site as a record-keeping mechanism. A few hours of research later and I have several generations of the family in America, back to the late eighteenth-century. Or do I? There’s really no way of knowing whether or not the Robert Divenny (1773-1852) is my paternal grandfather’s mother’s grandfather or just some Divenny that seems to match enough of the criteria — birth period and general location. And of course I don’t know anything about the family tree going forward. Still, somehow have a potential name makes it all the more real.

Afternoon at the Lake

Saturday 20 August 2016

I wouldn’t know about them but for the Olympics, which have put in us in front of the television more than usual lately, but State Farm has been apparently hiring known musicians to embed their “Like a good neighbor” in one of their stylized creations. Clever, I guess, but it’s a meaningless ad if you don’t have good neighbors. We have great neighbors, and we spent the afternoon at the lake with them today.

E has been eyeing our neighbor’s boat for years, and Mr. F has been promising to take him out on the boat for ages. Today was the day. Mrs. P, who works at E’s preschool, told us that he’s been talking about today’s outing for the whole week. “Everyone knows he’s going out on the boat with Mr. F,” she laughed.

When we arrived, everyone went straight into the water while Mr. F went to put the boat in the water. The plan was simple: swim, lunch, boat ride.

The first part of it went fine. They even managed to slip a short boat ride in just before lunch.

But then the rain began and intensified and it was fairly clear fairly quickly that we weren’t going on another boat ride. The thunder began and it became clear that we weren’t even going back into the water.

So it’s a good thing the kids got the short boat ride in before lunch.

I was talking to the Boy about it, wondering how he’d take it. I tried to set things up to ease the reality of going home sooner than expected.

“But we’re big boys and not really upset about it, right?”

“Yep.”

“Because we can’t control the weather, right?”

“Nope, can’t control the weather.”

If only all disasters were so easily averted.

Dozen

Sunday 14 August 2016

A dozen years ago K and I wore these clothes to make a commitment to each other in front of our friends and family.

These pictures represent what that commitment was all about.

Moving In

Saturday 6 August 2016

Three, maybe three and a half weeks ago, we reached a point in our kitchen remodel project that everything more or less looked like a kitchen. The counters and tops were in, and while the floor wasn’t finished yet, it was installed and looked like a floor. And yet there was so much to do — trim around the windows and doors, baseboard trim, final plumbing (including fixing problems the sewer line in the front yard and with the newly-installed gas line), lights, and the like. So it looked like we were almost there, but we were still so far away. All the changes from that point on were so small in comparison to ripping out a window and door to rebuild the header.

Finally, we’ve reached a point that we’re almost to the point that we can say, “We’re almost done.” “Almost done” because the under-the-cabinet lighting installation has been put off for some time, as has the final venting of the microwave through the room (right now, it’s just popped into the attic). So even when the back splash gets completed next week, and we finally move in the stove — the final appliance — we still won’t be complete done. And then there’s the new dining room furniture we’ve ordered so that every little thing in the kitchen, except for the coffee maker and toaster oven, will be new.

So today we made the final little adjustments and started moving in. L and I filled all the trim nail holes with spackling while E and K cleaned all the windows. Then I set out with the caulk gun to caulk the trim before it gets a coat of paint.

K, in the meantime, prepared all the new shelves with liners and began running all our dishes through the new dishwasher. We quickly discovered the enormous difference between the old dishwasher and the new: the old sometimes cleaned; the new is so powerful that it knocked the finish off a couple of items that we’d put in the bottom.

Tomorrow, the table migrates back to the dining area, where it will stay for a few weeks until the new furniture arrives, and we begin moving food to the kitchen, reverting our basement to just that. We’ll tear down the field kitchen in the backyard, move the grill back onto the deck, and begin to forget the work of the summer and just live.

This Week

Thursday 21 July 2016

Details

Thursday 7 July 2016

The kids stayed home today because of the simple reason that we’re doing work that allows them to stay. We don’t have to head out to get anything; we don’t have to do any serious heavy work. Door molding and electrical finishing. So the kids today began playing with the leftovers of the hardwood floor. E had watched the whole process, so he, like the workers Tuesday, began laying out the floor and banging it together with a rubber mallet.

As for the work itself, the room looks like a room. The door molding is in, and we’ve got outlets almost done as well. The range arrived today for fitting the cabinets and counter top next week. Soon it will not just look like a room but like a kitchen.

New

Tuesday 5 July 2016

The day began with a treat for the Boy: the flooring company installed our new hardwood, which has been sitting in the living room for close to a month, acclimating to our house’s moisture levels. E sat at the top of the basement stairs and watched as two men laid out the wood for the main part of the room while another worked on the small area in front of the basement door.

They took a smoke break after finishing the layout, then came back and finished the rest of the job in less than a couple of hours.

He of course chatted them up the entire time.

“Sorry about how shy my son is,” I laughed. The gentlemen found him generally amusing, though, and were very patient with his questions and own little explanations.

The afternoon, though, was all about the Girl: we bought her a new bike, a Trek FX, which is in fact a small adult bike. Lots of big changes for her: braking with her hands, shifting gears. Plus the size change — theoretically, this is a bike that can last her for ten years.

When K came home from work, she was happy to see the Girl’s bike (which we took out for an initial ride in the evening of 11 km), but was even more happy to see the floor.

It looks like a room again.

Independence Day 2016

Monday 4 July 2016

It had been a couple of years since we took the kids downtown for the Independence Day fireworks show, so we decided that this year, we’d go.

Everyone had a dandy time until it was time to try to leave the parking garage: we sat in unmoving traffic inside the garage for over 45 minutes.

Exploring

Friday 1 July 2016

We finally put water shoes, Crocs, and sandals on and went exploring in the creek behind our house.

Touching the Bottom

Thursday 30 June 2016

Weekend at the Lake

Sunday 19 June 2016

Returning

Friday 17 June 2016

You should always return borrowed items in better shape than you received them.

So the neighbor will receive his truck back a bit cleaner than he lent it and with a full tank of gas.

We’re done with the truck, which means we’ve hauled away the last of the old kitchen. Today we unloaded drywall, wood panelling, rotten subfloor, tired brick molding, and bits and pieces we’d accumulated. The kitchen is stripped and repaired, ready for the new starting Monday with electrical and plumbing. Out with the old. In with the mystery.

Sub

Thursday 16 June 2016

Two things got accomplished today: we got the window back in, which took most of the morning, and we got the subfloor fixed, which took most of the afternoon.

The evening was for family.

Monday Begins

Monday 6 June 2016

We’re making progress on our remodel — getting ready for the big demo day on Saturday. Before that, a day of working with the electrical system in the house, replace the load center so we’ll have room for all the lovely new breakers we’ll need for our kitchen. Most of the trim and crown molding are down, as well as a few other things. And so we have a rare opportunity to offer the kids: you can kick, mark, drill, beat, hammer, and abuse the walls and cabinets to your hearts’ content.

The Boy is especially taking us up on the offer. I give him a smaller drill with no bit and he runs around the kitchen, scuffing up the already scuffed cabinets and walls, explaining what he’s doing the whole time.

But there’s competition now, because now he’s mastered his bike — mastered in as much as a four-year-old can. Yesterday he did nine kilometers with the family in just over an hour; today he was waiting for someone to go to the quiet side street across from our house and watch him ride.

He wants so badly to join L and her friends in the neighborhood, but he just can’t keep up. And they really don’t make it easy for him all the time. K frets about this because E feels left out, but it’s part of growing up, I think.

Today begins my summer break, and a busy summer break it promises to be. With a kitchen remodel, a boy eager to ride more, and a girl just plain eager — busy indeed.