Again!

A couple of evenings this week, my friend K and her family have had supper at my house.  Their own kitchen is being renovated while K is 8 months pregnant and their toddler is busy being a two year old.  Supper seemed like the least I could do to help out.  I’ve enjoyed having them.  

The fact is, I am utterly charmed by two year old D.  She is every inch the two year old and I had forgotten just how much joy and wonder is part of a two year old’s existence.  On Wednesday, D had a fidget toy that made a quirky sound and she was enchanted and excited by it, handing me the toy and waiting with joyful anticipation for me to stretch it out to make its sound, at which point she would laugh and laugh and then demand, “again!”  We played the game again and again because that level of delight in such a small act is not be taken lightly.  It’s a lesson in what matters, taught by a two year old who seemed to instinctively know what my sometimes weary and anxious 56 year old soul needed.  

We should all be so lucky.

April Book Report: Ferrol Sams’ When All the World Was Young

This novel is the third in a pleasing trilogy about a boy growing up in rural Georgia in the interwar period.  Published in 1991, When All the World Was Young is the third and final novel in Sams’ series about Porter Osbourne, Junior, the only son of a Southern family.

I first read these semi-autobiographical novels almost 30 years ago, when I was living in Nashville.  I loved these stories then, both for the vivid details of Southern life in the interwar period and for the splendid writing.  Sams was a physician by training but he was also a lover of literature and poetry, an affection that shows in the novels.  There is humor to spare, joy in family, and a keen sense of the fleeting feel of childhood.  I read them well before I had JT and have read them since then.

These books were among those I thought of and re-read when I became the parent of a boy.  This fall, as that boy headed off to college, I picked up the series again, finishing When All the World Was Young just a few weeks before JT comes home from his first year of college.  

This third novel begins just as WWII has broken out and Porter, a precocious young man who completed college at the age of 20, enrolls in medical school and contemplates his future.  School is a challenge, but not nearly the challenge of Porter’s desire to do his part on behalf of the war.  Ultimately, medical school is placed on hold and Porter joins the army.  He dreams of being a brave paratrooper but instead serves as a medic, ultimately working in hospitals along the front line in Normandy and Germany at the close of the European front.

I enjoyed the read, as I have done before, and was struck again by how splendidly Sams writes. He invokes a place and time so thoroughly that the reader is immersed in them.  The character of Porter is alive in all the complexities of youth, filled with certainty in one moment and adrift in the next.  When I put the book down at the end of the day, I found myself thinking about Porter and his family.  I expect that feeling will linger well after I’ve turned the last page.  To me, that's the power of a good book.  And this was a terrifically good book.

Exotic Fairy Lifestyle

I grew up in California and for most of my time in the state I lived in a region that was growing quickly..  That meant housing developments with new houses were everywhere.  My sister and I spent plenty of weekend hours with our parents visiting the model homes in these new neighborhoods.   We loved it, which likely explains my on-going fascination with episodes of House Hunters on HGTV.

KO and I always picked our favorite house in the developments and if there was a two-story house, that was my mine  California is a land of space (not to mention earthquakes) and so the vast majority of the homes I saw and knew were single story houses.  Two story houses seemed exotic to me.  I don’t know what I imagined families would do in these homes, but I expected it was somehow different.  Non-Californians understand that two story house are much more often the norm in the nation (though perhaps not in hell-hot Arizona), but to me they still seem exotic.  

In the Miss Read books that I love so much, she describes thatched-roof homes in the English countryside.  When I saw one for my fairies, I was delighted.  It’s called Briar Thatch Cottage and it’s the third in my neighborhood.

The neighborhood is really coming along.

The Challenge in the Middle

If there is one truism in my world, it’s people who regard working with Middle School-aged students as a sort of unmitigated horror.  In fact, when I first accepted my job in the middle school, one of my colleagues told me, ‘I’d rather be homeless than teach middle school.”  “Well, okay,” I thought, “better me than you.”  One of the reasons I made the decision to give working in a middle school a try is that children this age can always use an extra ally; someone who believes in them and can help both middle schoolers and their parents to navigate the churning waters of adolescence.  They can be a challenge; kids often are.  But spending time with them is rewarding in equal measure.

In that capacity, I’ve had plenty of conversations with parents about problems big and small.  I’ve learned anew a concept I think that I’ve always known: that when it’s your child, the problem is always big.  Whether it’s a 6 year old who can’t tie her shoes or a 15 year old making poor decisions, when you are the parent of a struggling or unhappy child, the problem looms large and overwhelming.  That doesn’t change when a child is middle school aged.  

Parents in these circumstances are not always rational.  They are anxious and afraid; defensive and angry; sometimes looking for someone to blame.  My job  then is to help everyone maintain perspective and identify active solutions.  Sometimes I want to point out that everyone’s child struggles, that such difficulties are an inevitable part of growing up. But misery doesn’t always love company and it doesn’t always ease your own troubles to know that they are neither unique nor unexpected.

I’ve heard it say that having a child is like letting your heart wonder about in the world, unprotected and vulnerable.  For so many of us, that is an apt description of being a parent.  But these children of ours are all meant to be independent, a road not easily navigated.  One of the blessings in my world is that neither child nor family need to do that alone.

On the Wonder of Grubby Hands

On Friday afternoon, I helped out a colleague by watching his children while he coached a tennis match.  I see these kids most everyday and enjoy their company.  It was the end of the first week of school and G and his sister P were ready for a little rest and relaxation.  G is a second grader and P is a 4 year old.  I love kids this age and had recently been feeling a little wistful that I no longer have a little one in my care.  I figured a few hours with G and P at the end of a tiring week would cure me of this desire.

No dice.

These two amused and engaged me and reminded me - again - that childhood is fleeting and wonderful.  We started our afternoon with a little ice cream and chatting about our day.  We tried nearly every bench at Sonic while Oreo Sonic blasts were consumed.  G told me that the best part of his day was earning two caught ya’ badges in the second grade (these are badges for good actions or behavior…..going beyond expectations) and they were a huge part of JT’s life when he was in second grade.  At one point that year, JT contemplated becoming a second grade teacher so that he could hand out caught ya’ badges himself.  Parker told me that the best part of her day was that I came to pick her up after school.

I was charmed, of course.

G asked me a lot of questions, including “how old are you?” and “why isn’t JT here?” At one point, he instructed me that we needed to do some more things that were fun. 

So we went to my house and checked out the backyard.  G and P visited my garden and when they asked, I let them pick a few tomatoes.

They liked the garden and stepped carefully through the plants, asking questions all the while.  Then P decided to eat the tomato she had just picked.

Oh.my.word.

For the rest of the afternoon, we petted the cats and played with some of JT’s old toys. We had some fun with the monkeys in a barrel game.   G designed a scavenger hunt and while he was hiding things, P and I sat in the rocking chair on the front porch and sang songs to one another.  I lost the scavenger hunt (G helped P and under such circumstances, she smoked me).  We had grilled cheese for supper and watched a Muppets movie, P curled up against me and resting her head on my shoulder.

I surely know as much as the next mama about how much work is involved in the daily care required by small children.  When JT was younger I had plenty of afternoons just like the one I spent with P and G.  At the time, such opportunities seemed endless.  There would be many more afternoons of wonder and smiles; questions both silly and serious; laughter and cuddling.  But childhood doesn’t last forever.  There is much to be said about the charms of a 15-year old (and heaven knows, I’ve written of them here).  But I miss having a grubby little hand to hold. 

On Peter Rabbit and Laughter

Last week, my friend E and her twins joined us for supper.  Aware that M liked red peppers, I sliced some up for her enjoyment.  She does like red peppers but she also had her way with the radishes.  When I expressed surprise, her mother explained that Peter Rabbit eats radishes.

That’s a girl after my own heart.

Her brother C was less interested in the veggies, though soon after this picture was made he discovered the spray bottle of water I use to keep the cats off the table.  He went to work on the task of squirting water with great concentration.

The twins are nearly three and their enjoyment and delight in the world is evident.  I love this age, a time when new discoveries are everywhere and laughter is frequent.  Toddlers don’t control the market on discoveries and laughter, but they yield to both far more often than stodgy grown ups manage.  We could learn a lesson or two from them.