With temperatures what they are, the new will have to wait. Exploring this or that place with a sweaty infant does not in the least sound entertaining. For anyone.
So a third afternoon out of four at the pool seems the only logical response.
The New
the girl
Perfect Days
Some days are simply perfect.
Some days are filled with just enough of the adventure of the new and the comfort of the known to keep your eyes open but your spirit relaxed.
Such days are filled with napping and affection.
Such days have just enough hint of gray
that we appreciate the smiles that follow.
Some days are filled with friends and family, smiles and conversation, and the comfort of knowing that you belong just where you are.
These days have a hint of belle epoque and impressionism.
And they smell like dogs.
Friends and Fiends
There’s only one letter difference between them, but perhaps that’s on purpose. At five, best friends can turn into worst enemies and back to bosom buddies again in the space of seconds.
Yet things can be complicated further, for little brothers cause trouble, and L’s best friend has a little brother.
Little brothers get frustrated with big brothers and their friends do things that purposely irritate or exclude them. They are likely to destroy totally big brother’s blanket tent if big brother doesn’t allow him to join in the fun. Little brothers are for teaching patience and sharing.
So get ready, L.
Thematic
Today the theme was simple and prophetic. Again and again, the Girl performed the simple act that we have been raising her to do, the act we’ve been fearing for her to begin, the act we’re always excited to watch.
Forward momentum with a temporary moment of uncertainty.
Knowing and not knowing what the next second holds.
Having a certain faith that whatever happens next, it will be for the best.
Going for it.
Taking risks that might ultimately sink her.
Today, the Girl jumped, in more senses than one.
Recital 2012
The Boy’s first outing back in late May was to the Girl’s ballet recital.
Trails
This summer vacation provides me with the first real opportunity in a long time to spend a great deal of daily time with the Girl. As such, I try to do something out of the ordinary with her every chance I get. It’s a good reminder for her of her continued importance in our family despite our shift in attention during the last eight weeks.
Today, we try a new path at a park fairly new to us. We’d explored the north side of the park’s trails; today, we hit the south side, sounding out signs as we marched.
It’s an odd trail. To the right we see a lake and accompanying wetlands — a vision of nature’s riches.
To the left, a view of humanity’s poverty: trailers and virtual shanties. It’s an odd combination, made even stranger by the fact that one of the old homes has a BMW in the driveway. Perhaps a question of priorities: one’s peers don’t have to see one’s house, but one’s car is always on show.
At the end of our walk, an observation point that juts out into the wetland area made even wetter by the copious rainfall of the last few days.
We sit for a while, sharing a pack of crackers and sipping on water, careful not to litter (“The wind could blow the plastic away!” someone explains) and commenting on the various blooms reeds.
During our hike out, with the Girl clasping her hands behind her back, there’s only one thing to do: let her lead.
Tools of the Trades
We saw them in the morning as we were heading to summer ballet: a company from Georgia was digging up portions of the street and shoulder to lay pipe. There were various vehicles for digging, grading, and flattening, and I proposed, “After ballet we could walk up here and watch them use those big machines.”
We decided it might be a good photo opportunity, so I took our big camera and L took our small camera, telling jokes on the walk to the top of our street where we’d seen them working. I hoped it might inspire the Girl to take pictures of something other than the ground, her favorite subject.
When we arrived, though, the workers had already left. Their various tractors stood idle, some of their cabs enclosed in pad-locked sheets of metal. “Perhaps they begin early in the morning to avoid the heat,” I suggested. Still, we decided to look around, first examining an old Ford tractor’s street brush attachment.
“Know what this is for?” I asked.
“It’s wire!” was the answer.
“Yes, but what do you think they use it for?”
A shrug. “Dunno.” (Where did that come from? Where does she pick up all these things? Is she a sponge?)
“They use use it to clean the street.” I paused. “Funny, huh?”
Giggles for a moment, then she exclaimed, “I need to take a picture of that.” She took two, both of them fairly well composed for the Girl’s thrust-camera-forward-and-click photo composition method.
And of course, being the photo-geek I am, I had to take a picture of her taking pictures.
“Why is it blue?” she asked.
“Because they wanted to make it your favorite color” I replied. She gave me that look she’s now mastered that says clearly, “There’s no way I believe that.”
She clarified: “But why isn’t it all blue?”
“I don’t know,” I responded, hoping that would be the end of it. Accepting the limits of my knowledge is something that takes time for the Girl. Later in life, we refer to this as the realization of one’s father’s mortality; for now, it’s simply impossible that Tata doesn’t know everything.
Yet I do know how to operate a camera, and lately L has become more aware of being the object of photos, and so it was today. Pictures were posing events.
New locations, new shots. New questions, new fears overcome. Each day with the Girl can be filled with surprises.
And there was even a bit of role playing.
Snakes Alive!
Mention “snake” or “reptile” and a lot of people have very negative reactions, from shudders to shouts and just about everything in between. Snakes are probably one of the most feared animals in existence, but it’s an odd reality: most are relatively harmless.
Yet it’s really a taught fear, in some cases on purpose. It makes sense in a way: most people can’t tell the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes, so it’s only natural to teach a child to stay away from all snakes at all costs.
Fortunately, I’ve never really had a fear of snakes. Indeed, they’ve always fascinated me. I’d like my children to have the same attitude I have: a healthy respect for snakes in the wild (i.e., never touch them) and an understanding that snakes in captivity are another question altogether. If, for example, a lecturer comes with dozens of snakes and lizards and offers the children an opportunity to touch and even, with adult help, to hold the snakes, I’d take the gentleman up on his offer, which is just what happened today.
Ron Cromer, with his Snakes Alive program, came to a local library as a reward for kids participating in the summer reading program. According to the program’s web site,
Many people who enjoy nature become profoundly distressed upon encountering a snake. Some folks feel that the only good snake is a dead snake. Learning about snakes provides an opportunity to replace fear and misconception with knowledge. It is our goal to provide knowledge and a safe opportunity to meet these reptiles in hopes of alleviating some fear.
Kids learned about how to distinguish venomous and non-venomous snakes in the area and had a chance to replace some of the old myths (snakes are slimy, cold, dangerous) with some new-found realities. To that end and with adult help, seventy or so kids got the chance to touch snakes and even hold them if they were willing.
I volunteered with the other adults to help out with the snakes, thinking it would be a great chance to help the Girl develop a healthy attitude about snakes. She was willing to touch but was not interested in holding.
And this was certainly the case with the star of the show, Rosie, an enormous python that Cromer, by law, has to keep doubly contained, in a duffle bag that’s pad-locked in a wooden trunk.
The routine was to be simple: eight adults would initially hold Rosie while providing kids with the opportunity to touch her and even help hold her. But first, we had to get her out,
which was a multi-step process
that seemed never-ending
as we pulled and added person after person,
until finally, we had the whole, enormous Rosie out. Once we were all solidly in possession of our bit of snake (“Have some snake,” Cromer said has he guided us in Rosie’s extraction), our host informed us that we were in fact to lift the snake above our heads for full effect.
I thought he was joking.
He wasn’t.
The Girl, by this time, had fled to the “Snake-free Zone” Cromer had set up for kids and adults (mainly the latter) who didn’t really feel comfortable being near snakes. It wasn’t so much the snakes that drove her there as the crowd: a large group of people means almost instant uneasiness for her. And if that’s what she takes away from the day, that people are much more threatening than snakes, then it was definitely a success.
Photos with me in them were taken by a neighbor who met us there.
Fright
We spent the evening with adult friends, which means the Girl got to watch more television than she normally does. In a string of semi-guided clicks and choices, she ended up watching a made-for-TV “family” movie, Princess: A Modern Fairy Tale. It was a typical modern story, with a couple of lines of almost-sexual innuendo that I decided I would sit with the Girl and watch a fairly simplistic story about a “princess” (I never quite understood why she had to be a modern-day “princess” in an American urban center other than the fact that it allowed others to think her a freak.) who in fact is the healer for all the mythical creatures that in fact aren’t: in other words, unicorns, mermaids, and fairies actually exist but a handful of people are aware of the simple fact.
At one point, there was a scene with a hydra-like creature attacking an unbeliever (who quickly came to believe in hydras, unicorns and such), and as quickly as one could imagine, the Girl was in my arms.
“I’m scared,” she said.
I went through the usual statements of fact — “It’s just a movie” and the like — but I knew what was coming at bed time.
“Daddy, I think I need someone to sleep with me,” she said in all earnestness. I comforted her, assured her of the safety of our home, and a thousand other things. She calmed down, but a few minutes later she called me back, in tears. After repeating the process, I returned a few minutes later to find her sound asleep. I wondered briefly at the fears she had held at bay long enough to drift to sleep, and I realized what a brave girl she can be.
Cat Toy
“I’m making a play area for the cat,” the Girl explains.
If only her idea of playing with the cat included gentleness: she might have more success.
The Helper
When we brought the Boy home, the Girl was eager to begin helping. Granted, she’s always interested in helping–in name, anyway–but a baby brother is especially tempting. So we did the logical: we put her on pacifier duty.
The Dress
Before our wedding, K and I took ballroom dancing course classes. We learned all sorts of moves we’ve now forgotten — rumba, English waltz, Foxtrot, cha-cha, tango, and a few others. We focused especially on the waltz, for newly wedded couples are expected to have the first dance at their wedding party, and it is always a waltz. We learned some fancy steps, some turns, twirls, and all sorts of things to make us look like we knew what we were doing.
And then K chose a dress that restricted her shoulder movement, allowing her to raise her hands to just below her shoulders. Out went all the fancy moves.
In, however, came the possibility of the smiles when K suggests to L that she try on the dress.
“Your wedding dress?” she asked incredulously.
In doing so, K created a new metric of growth and, if we remember, a new tradition.
“We can have you try this on every year to see how you grow,” K suggested.
Still, perhaps once is enough: seeing my little girl in a wedding dress, no matter how ill-fitting the dress and how innocent the poses, was a bit stressful to a father.
Double Duty
“Can you read to me?” is a common refrain.
With two now, that means doubling up sometimes.
Tummy Time
As parents, we sometimes deliberately subject our children to discomfort, frustration, and anger. For the Boy, that occurs several times daily, and the Girl has named this torture “Tummy Time.”
“You have to exercise those neck muscles,” she explains as we did so often before. For the Girl, though, it’s more than simple entertainment: it’s a brief glimpse into her own infancy.
Perhaps that’s why she’s so keen to watch each and every time. She comes running from wherever she might be when she hears, “Okay, little man, it’s Tummy Time.”
Photo Walk
After the Boy’s six o’clock feeding, nothing soothes his nerves (and K’s) like a walk. Without K. Or the Girl. So the three of us head out alone, I with the Boy, the Girl with our little point and shoot camera.
It’s a fairly standard route we take. Usually, the only question is direction, and in the late afternoon, the sun dictates counter-clockwise. And so we begin with the mysterious flowers that have been blooming for a week now and the daily request: “Daddy, can I pick a flower?” The bush hangs over an embankment, with thorns and danger swirling around it.
“How about a picture?” I suggest.
“Okay,” she chirps, then explains that today, she’s going to focus on pictures of nature.
Yet when we get home, we see that there was another motif that crept its way steadily into the eighty-some pictures she snapped along the half-hour walk: the road.
Endless pictures of the road. The road and the grass beside; the road and our feet; the road and her foot; the road with crumbling asphalt; the road with new asphalt; the road without lines; the road with lines.
“Why so many pictures of the road?” I want to ask, but I know the answer. “I don’t know.”
I remember taking pictures that way: not really sure why I was taking that particular picture, but somehow certain that the photo would reveal something not immediately observable in reality.
After all, isn’t that the motivation behind most modern art? If Marcel Duchamp can display a signed urinal as modern art, isn’t a food processor on the side of the road at least as deserving of artistic attention?
Surely, at the very least, a dog’s urinal is art.
Afternoon with Big Sister
I put the Boy on a small sleeping bag the Girl has spread out in front of her doll house. As often happens, things turn photogenic.
Waking Up
“Let’s go wake up Big Sister,” I say to the Boy as he fusses this morning.
Soon, everyone is smiling.
Knight Study
“Daddy, can we play chess?” the Girl asks almost daily now. She’s learning — slow steps — but her enjoyment of the game is most gratifying. Today: knight study.
“Put a pawn at each square this knight is attacking,” I say. She forms the circular pattern around the knight.
“Notice,” I continue, “that the knight is on a white square but is attacking all black squares.” I hope this will help her complete the exercise, but we end up getting pawns on random black squares in a few moments.
I suppose the next lesson — moving the knight to the edge of the board to show how its power is effectively halved in doing so, proving the old adage, “A knight on the rim is grim” — will have to wait.
Fascination
It’s a good sign: the Girl is utterly fascinated with the Boy. “I want to hold him!” is a common refrain. “That’s so cute!” is a frequent chorus.
The question is, how long will it last?
Swimming and Resting
We’ve come a long way in the last couple of years. The Girl swims; the Boy is; and I’m still expanding.
