Category Archives: Friends

Up to Eleven

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Nigel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty: I don’t know.

Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

From This is Spinal Tap

Wednesday and Thursday: Up to Eleven

The last night Noah was ten years old, we were busy with birthday preparations.  June had wanted to get him a book for his birthday and an attempt to find a suitable one at a local toy store earlier in the week had failed, so we needed to make an online purchase. I’d been dithering and hadn’t bought anything but the immediacy of the deadline focused my mind. I picked three titles and slightly after June’s bedtime she crawled into my lap as I sat at the computer and I showed her pictures of the covers and gave her a brief summary of each one.  “I’m going to stay up?” she said at first, and then, “I can’t believe you’re telling me about scary, big-kid books.” She was delighted, as if I was letting her in on a big secret by telling her that Something Upstairs is “about a boy who makes friends with a ghost.” That was the book she picked, incidentally.  So I printed out an image of the cover for her to give him in the morning and we were set.

Beth and Noah were making a batch of homemade chocolate chip ice cream for his party on Saturday—our ice cream maker produces fairly small batches and Noah wanted three so they were getting an early start.  They’d already made frosting for his school party the night before. (Noah and a classmate who shares his birthday had hatched a plan for her to bring in cookies and him to bring in frosting and have a frost-your-own-cookie party at school.) Beth helped Noah with his math while the ice cream churned. After he went to bed, I finished wrapping presents and listened to him toss and turn for longer than usual. It’s hard to fall asleep when you’re teetering on the verge of eleven.

Meanwhile, Beth retreated to the basement where she set to work assembling his drum set, his big present.  The drums are second-hand and when Beth got them out of the boxes she discovered several components were missing—the cymbals, the bass drum foot pedal and the snare drum stand.  The previous drummer had cut a hole in the drumhead of the bass drum and adorned it with stickers including one of a scantily clad woman posing with a gas pump nozzle.  Still, it was a real drum kit. I thought he’d like it.

We had Noah open his presents that morning before school.  He got two games from Grandmom and Pop, two t-shirts (the numeral eleven shirt and one from my sister with the symbol for pi, made up of the numerals of pi), a pair of summer pajamas, and a half a dozen books (including June’s promise of a book to come).  He wanted to linger, reading the backs of books, inspecting the numbers of the pi shirt, but Beth was concerned about getting out the door on time and she kept saying, “Next present!” and handing them to June to give to him.  When the presents were all unwrapped Beth said she thought there was something else she’d left in the basement, and we all trooped down there.  She pulled the old bed sheets off the drums and for a moment all Noah could say was “Whoa! Whoa!”

June hopped up on the stool, or “throne” as it’s called, and started to play the drums with her hands like bongo drums while Beth explained how she was writing to the store to see what had become of the missing parts and told him we could get the drumhead replaced unless he liked the sound of the cut one (some drummers do cut them intentionally, which is no doubt what happened to this one). Beth told June to give Noah a turn on his own drums and he ran upstairs to get his sticks and then started to play the drums, looking quite serious as he did so.

As it turned out, Beth and Noah didn’t have time to walk to his bus stop so they were waiting to catch a Ride-On when I came back from June’s bus stop. “Do you have the frosting?” I asked and he dashed back into the house.

That afternoon Noah considered practicing on the new drums but decided the missing snare drum stand would not allow him to practice his snare part for the upcoming band concert well enough so he used his old set-up in the study instead.  He brought the throne upstairs to sit on, though.

He didn’t have much homework, so after he finished it and practiced percussion, he had time to experiment with dying baking soda red before dinner.  Why did he need red baking soda, you might ask?  Noah had another mystery party, his third consecutive one.  He keeps doing it over and over again because although his guests have fun and he seems to be having fun as well, when the parties are over he always stews about how it didn’t go precisely as he planned so he keeps trying to get it exactly right.

This year he decided on several key changes.  He would have a smaller guest list—just four boys— and he’d assign them characters instead of having it be more of a free-for-all scavenger hunt.  He had two detectives, a cartographer and a villain.  Sasha was the villain, and as such, Noah thought he ought to help devise the story and the clues, so last weekend he invited him over to work on it.  While Sasha was uncharacteristically hesitant and deferential (I think he was unsure what Noah wanted from him), I see his influence.  Noah has stuck to theft as the crime in his mysteries to date, but this one’s a murder mystery.  The red powder was for a trail of bloody flour to be left on the sidewalk. (The murder victims were all bakers.)

I made Noah a birthday dinner of egg noodles with broccoli, carrots, butter and Parmesan cheese.  Afterward we had fancy pastries from Takoma Bistro since there wouldn’t be cake until his party. Noah chose the chocolate Napoleon of the four pastries I’d selected while the kids were at school. Beth brought YaYa’s present home from work, where it had been shipped.  It’s a Perplexus ball, a 3-D marble maze enclosed in a clear plastic sphere.

After June was in bed, Beth and Noah worked on another batch of ice cream for the party, and experimented with audio effects for the party. In between Beth talked to someone from the music store about getting the missing pieces of the kit shipped to us and Noah did a math worksheet he thought he’d left at school and discovered fifteen minutes before bedtime. And then he climbed into bed, wearing his “Rock Legend” pajamas ten minutes after bedtime on his first night as an eleven year old.

“Did you have a good birthday?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said earnestly, but then he added that it didn’t have the same “jibe” as it used to, though.  “Probably because I’ve done it ten times before.”  So I said a fond goodnight to my jaded tween and left his bedroom.

Saturday and Sunday: That Extra Push off the Cliff

The party was not until five in the afternoon because we needed to accommodate a baseball game and weekend full of Boy Scout activities for all his guests to be able to attend.  This gave us plenty of time to clean the house and work on party preparations.  I cleaned the dining room, living room, and study and swept and mopped the front porch and mowed part of the lawn. Noah vacuumed and helped me move the porch furniture onto the lawn in preparation for cleaning the porch floor.  Beth cleaned the bathroom, took June to Kung Fu and the library, ran errands (many of them party-related) and made the cake.  It was simple, as Noah’s birthday cakes go, a rectangular cake with white frosting, decorative black stripes down the sides and thirteen red dots on top, meant to evoke drops of blood. (There were thirteen murder victims—a baker’s dozen, get it?)

Noah kept saying he didn’t feel very stressed about the party.  A little more stress earlier in the day might not have been a bad thing because at 4:55 he was completely unprepared.  He’d staggered the guests’ arrival times so he could have time to give them individual instructions, but when the twins arrived, he wasn’t ready for them and they had to play by themselves in the yard and wait for him. When Elias got there Noah had only just started to brief one twin and the other was still waiting.  Fortunately, Sasha didn’t need any instructions as he’d written most of the clues and knew what was going on.  He was sent to wait in the bathroom to be found.  It’s a good thing Beth cleaned it because the party unfolded largely outside and that was the only room where anyone spent any time. In fact, Sasha spent a good deal of the party waiting in the bathroom. I felt sorry for him, but he had co-written the clues that were giving everyone so much trouble, and Noah keeps a lot of books and magazines in there and there were even burning candles for atmosphere, so I hope it wasn’t too boring for him.  At any rate, he didn’t complain.  He’s a good friend.

Outside, thing were not unfolding as seamlessly as Noah had hoped.  At his two previous mystery parties, there had been problems locating the clues—they went missing, or were discovered out of order or by the wrong team one year when there were teams.  Noah managed to avoid that kind of logistical problem this year. He’d even done a dry run with Beth on Friday evening to help everything proceed smoothly.  This year the problem seemed to be that the guests couldn’t figure out the clues. And once they got discouraged, only David was really giving it his all.  Richard was more interested in playing the slingshot he’d been issued and spraying Noah with the garden hose. Noah was visibly frustrated and not as polite as he could have been. He gave them hints that helped move the search along, but he wasn’t gracious about it and a on a few occasions he berated his guests. I think being flustered and rushed at the beginning of the party made it hard for him to keep his composure. He’d also scraped his knee and shin badly when he fell down on the sidewalk right before the party and he was in too much of rush to let me clean it.

Finally, and with a good deal of help, the detectives found the murderer, and the party improved from there. Over pizza and cake and ice cream, Noah and Sasha squabbled, in a good-natured way, over whose fault the difficult clues were (Noah had added some false leads without Sasha knowing it).  The other guests pitched in with suggestions for next year, implying that they expect him to throw a mystery party again and that they intend to come to it, so clearly wasn’t a complete disaster.  When the boys were finished eating some of them started playing baseball with a plastic bat and an inflatable Tinkerbell ball, and some of them played a game on Beth’s iPad until their parents came for them.

After the party, Noah opened his presents—a Titanic-themed Wii game, a set of night goggles, a hatch-your-own alien kit, and Lego model of the Eiffel Tower.  We discussed whether it was time to start celebrating his birthdays in a different way—a movie or dinner with a close friend or two perhaps?  We almost took this direction this year, but in the end he’d wanted another shot at the mystery party.

This morning, still thinking about next year, he admitted he wanted to let go of the mystery idea, but he couldn’t seem to do it. I told him how mysteries are inherently chaotic, how many real crimes go unsolved and others are solved only through coincidence and dumb luck.  The only really controlled mystery is a mystery story because the author is in control, I said.  And then I suggested he write a mystery story over the summer if he wanted to have that experience.  June piped up that they should do it together and now, so before breakfast they wrote a page of their mystery story. I don’t know if needing to compromise with a co-author will present him with the same challenges he’s been facing with improvisational actors, but so far it seems to be going well.  I hope it helps him move through this, because there are good ways to go over the cliff, and not so good ones.

Crouching Kitty, Hidden Frog

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June’s been busy the past few days. She had a four-day weekend so we filled the time with play dates, three in all, two of which featured tea parties, and she also had a birthday party to attend. But what I want to write about is her first experience with public speaking and her new Kung Fu class.

Kindergarten Roundtable: Thursday

There was no kindergarten at June’s school Thursday and Friday of last week so next year’s kindergarten students could tour their classrooms and meet their future teachers.  June and Maggie had a six-hour play date on Thursday that began at our house and ended at Maggie’s– the idea was that Maggie’s work-at-home dad and I could both squeeze a little work into the day. After they played here and before they played at Maggie’s, I took the girls to the Purple School where they and Gabriella gave a presentation to the current Tracks class about what to expect from kindergarten.  June was looking forward to the talk. She and Maggie compared notes on what they might say beforehand and they both seemed excited to go back to preschool and be the experts. When we got to school Lesley and Andrea and P.J., the teacher’s aide, all greeted her warmly.

It was only about two minutes before she was to go on that June got cold feet.  She held tightly to my hand as she waited to begin.  Lesley arranged the three kindergarteners on chairs in front of the Tracks, who sat on the bench built into the wall and on the floor.  June spoke so softly at first that her answers were inaudible.  One of the Tracks complained that he couldn’t hear her.  Lesley asked what we do when someone speaks softly.  Be quiet and listen closely someone answered.  I suspect there’s a very quiet child in the class, because the answer sounded rehearsed. After a couple questions, however, June began to relax and speak in her normal voice and soon all three girls were answering questions and volunteering information about how they got to school, where they ate lunch and went to the bathroom, what their favorite part of school was.  June said hers was listening to the teacher read stories and doing her work.  “That’s a new one,” Lesley commented. Apparently gym, art and recess are popular answers.

It was nice to be back in the cozy atmosphere of the Purple School and to see the teachers and some familiar parents– Maggie’s dad and Gabriella’s dad of course, but also some Tracks parents I know.  The Eastern Fence Lizard (whom June met at camp last summer) was happy to see June, insisting she come back in to say goodbye to him once she had left the building.

Kung Fu Kitty: Saturday

“Look at what I’m wearing,” June said to Beth, who was in the shower. I’d advised June to wear something that would allow her to move easily because in the morning she had her first Kung Fu lesson and in the afternoon one of the Purple Pandas was having a basketball-themed birthday party. As it was being held in a church gym, I suspected they would actually play basketball at the party.

Beth peeked out of the shower to see June in her pink Hello Kitty pants and t-shirt.  This was not much of a surprise. Ever since her birthday, she wears this outfit (with or without a long-sleeved tee underneath) pretty much whenever it’s clean.

“You’re a Kung Fu kitty,” Beth exclaimed and June laughed.

June is allowed two activities per season and spring will be a science class and Kung Fu. She’s taking science because I let her choose one of several after-school activities at her school and a lot of her friends have been in the science class so she wanted to try it.  The same group that teaches it has a summer camp at the community college she might try that out next summer if she likes it.  (Noah went to that camp for years and loved it.)  Kung Fu, though, was entirely her idea.  She said she wanted to take karate and this was the closet thing I could find that was offered at a convenient time and place.

The Kung Fu class meets in the dance studio of the community center. It’s a room with a full-wall mirror, which is handy for watching your moves.  We were early and then the class was locked out of the room for a while so we were all waiting for a bit before class started.  The group consisted of eight kids, three girls and five boys, ranging in age from four or five years old to maybe nine or ten. At least three of the kids were returning students.

Once we were inside the room the teacher started off right away, without much in the way of introduction; he wove his comments throughout the class instead.  He taught them how to bow and had them pledge not to use what they learned in class against siblings or classmates, and never to harm any living thing except in the defense of other living things. He explained how you have to be calm to do Kung Fu– it was not all crazy kicks like they might have seen on television. Also, this would be Jamaican-style Kung Fu, he told them, not Chinese.  The instructor learned from his uncle, a Jamaican Kung Fu master, he said. I had no idea there was such a thing as Jamaican-style Kung Fu— but you learn something new every day.

The three returning students, two of whom are about to take their gold belt test, demonstrated their skills. Then everyone practiced some poses and moves. The teacher was a stern sort of character; two students had to sit out part of class for being too wiggly in the case of one girl, or for putting his hands in his pockets then rolling his eyes when asked to remove them in the case of one of the older boys. (That boy was out for the rest of class.)  It might not have been a good class for Noah when he was six and wiggly, but June excels at paying close attention and following directions. The teacher noticed this and said she was “a wise little one.” She’s also strong and flexible, so soon the teacher was saying she was “a natural” and asking if she’d ever taken a martial art before.  I said no, but that she’s had yoga.  And ballet, though I didn’t think to mention that at the time. I think both those activities probably helped her get off to a good start.

They had to try an exercise next, squatting like a frog and then lifting their feet off the floor and balancing on their palms.  One of the experienced students managed twenty seconds in this pose. Some kids couldn’t do it at all.  (I doubt I could.) June’s bare feet cleared the floor for a few seconds.  Later she said that was her favorite part.  They did some somersaults and practiced bowing again and class was over.  June was quite satisfied with her first day of Kung Fu.

She has more to anticipate, however.  After-school science starts next week.  The theme is forensics.  She is very excited to learn how to solve crimes and as always, I’m excited for her as she tries something new. I love to see her finding her voice and finding her strength.

Cherry Blossom Baby

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On Thursday morning I put June on the school bus with the instructions, “Have a good last day of school as a five year old,” and she flashed me a brilliant smile.

June is six now.  She was born right before the cherries bloomed on the Tidal Basin. She was six weeks early, and developed a bad case of jaundice so she had to stay at the hospital three days after I was released.  I hated being separated from her, even for those three days. We were constantly shuttling back and forth between the hospital and home, with bottles of pumped milk in tow.

The hospital was just around the corner from the Tidal Basin so one day either on the way to the hospital or on the way home, we made a drive-by visit. Beth dropped me and Noah and YaYa off to walk around a bit while she circled in the car (parking is often impossible when the cherries are in bloom).  We were just a little too early, but we found a couple of blooming trees for a quick photo-op and then we hopped back in the car.

The trees bloomed in earnest soon after and I wanted to go back, but once we got June home, she had to be wrapped in a phototherapy blanket round the clock, allowed out only to nurse, and we just couldn’t make it. Even though we didn’t take her that first year, I still associate the cherry blossoms with the surprising, chaotic days after her birth. We call her our cherry blossom baby, just as Noah is our iris baby.

At 6:35 a.m. on Friday the phone rang.  I wondered if it was a wrong number or an early-rising relative wishing June a happy birthday.  Instead it was Baskin-Robbins, seeking advice of the frosting color of the ice-cream cake we’d ordered for June’s party. The whole cake-buying experience was bizarre.  June had fallen in love with this cake because it had real half-sized ice cream cones on top but Beth had customer service challenges placing and picking up the order and in the end we got a cake that said “Happy June Birthday” instead of “Happy Birthday, June.”  So, just a word of warning if you’re local and you don’t like receiving business calls before dawn or scrambled messages in icing–consider another vendor.

After Beth confirmed that pink frosting was fine, we all went to the living room where June’s wrapped presents were arrayed around her new two-wheeler.  “A bike,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I like the bike.” Then she tore into the other presents.  We got her a cat-themed math game, Rat-a-Tat Cat, partly because her party theme was cats and partly because it looked fun.  Noah got her a bell for her bike and a pair of headphones (she uses headphones to watch television or play on the computer while he’s doing homework and he thought she’d like her own pair). Everything else was clothes.  My aunt Peggy sent Hello Kitty pants, we got her a Hello Kitty t-shirt, a numeral six t-shirt and other summer clothes and pajamas. There were clothes from YaYa, too, including a pair of ladybug rain boots.  It was only after all the presents were opened that June really focused on the bike and decided she wanted to ride it right then.  I told her she needed to eat breakfast and get dressed and ready for school first.  In the end, she had about five minutes practice in the driveway before I put her, clad in her number six t-shirt and new leggings, on the school bus.  “Have a good day, six year old,” I told her. Again, she grinned at me.

When she got off the bus, she was holding a cardboard crown.  Her teacher does not allow birthday treats to be sent in from home, but birthday celebrants get a crown and everyone sings “Feliz cumpleaños” to them.  I’m used to more elaborate school celebrations, both at preschool and in elementary school, but June seemed satisfied.  She wanted to practice riding her bike again–she’d do it three times before the day was out and she got a little better every time.  (By Saturday morning she could pedal up a slight incline and her turns were impeccable.) She said she thought we could take the training wheels off. I counseled her to wait.

My mom arrived for a weekend visit around 4:15, and there were more presents to open.  A pair of summer pajamas with cats on them had arrived during the day (“The cat’s pajamas” I told Beth—how could I resist that joke?), as had a rubber bracelet from Auntie Sara.  It has holes in it and it has letters you can fit into the holes to spell words.  It came bearing the words Junie Dell. (Dell is June’s middle name, and mine, too. I used to call her Junie Dell when she was a baby.  It was one of those baby nicknames that didn’t stick except with Sara, but I like that Sara has a special nickname for her.)  The next day, June changed the words to “I love you.”  Mom brought all kinds of presents—a giant wooden Pinocchio marionette, a tiny vase with a purple ceramic cat attached to it, a paint-your-own tea set kit, and of course, clothes.  June selected the belt from one outfit and decided to wear it with the other outfit (a hot pink t-shirt and leggings to go under a blue sundress with pink flowers) at her party the next day.

I gave June an early bath because we were going out for pizza at Roscoe’s and I wasn’t sure what time we’d be home. It was a warm evening so we sat on the patio, eating wild mushroom crostini, marinated olives (I let June go over her olive quota for the day), salad and pizza.  They were out of gelato because their freezer was broken, so we headed over to Capital City Cheesecake for cheesecake and cannoli.  When we got home, it was June’s bedtime and her big day was over.

But the next day was probably just as exciting because it was her birthday party.  We spent the morning and early afternoon running birthday errands, cleaning the house, assembling gift bags and getting the porch ready for the pin-the-tail-on-the-cat game and the piñata. I’d originally envisioned these as front and back yard games, but rain was predicted, and sure enough it started drizzling around 11:30. Beth and June went out to pick up the “Happy June Birthday” cake and to buy yellow roses and six balloons in varying designs. One has a cat wearing a birthday hat and sunglasses.  Another is the exact Dora balloon June got for her birthday last year. When you tap it, Dora sings “Happy Birthday” in English and Spanish. The sound of the song was still etched deeply into my brain, and Beth’s, too, so she set some strict ground rules about under what circumstances one might tap the balloon to hear the pint-sized bilingual songstress go at it.

The party was at 3:00 and her friends arrived between 2:50 and 3:15.  Maggie, who is June’s only friend who attended both her preschool and her elementary school, made introductions, while the girls selected instruments from the bin and there was an impromptu concert (most of June’s parties seem to start this way).  Once everyone had arrived, we gathered the guests onto the carpet to listen as Mom read them a story The Leprechaun Under the Bed. June remembered Mom reading at her party last year and wanted her to do it again. I’d suggested The Cat in the Hat, but she knew as soon as we checked this book out of the library and read it the first time that it was the one she wanted read at her party. (Spoiler: the leprechaun turns into a cat at the end of the story.)

Next we moved out to the porch for pin-the-tail-on-the-cat.  Last spring June attended a classmate’s birthday party that had classic games as the theme–pin-the-tail-on-the donkey, sack races, etc, and it occurred to me that though you don’t see kids play them much any more, these games are classics for a reason. It was a really fun party.  So I tucked that idea away in the back of my mind, and when June came up with the cat theme for her party I was all ready with pin-the-tail-on-the-cat. June was all over it, especially since she could make the cat and the tails herself.  One by one, I blindfolded the guests and gently spun them around six times each and let them go, sometimes with a subtle correction if they left my hands going in the wrong direction.  The kids laughed hysterically as the tails went onto the cat’s face or the air above its body.  A couple of them got the tail on or pretty close to the cat’s rump—I think Talia’s was the best placed.

Back inside, it was time for games.  We had two and let the girls divide into groups and choose which one they wanted to play.  The first one was The Cat in the Hat, I Can Do That.  In this game, you lay cards together to form instructions for a task to perform with props from the story and you get points if you complete it. June got this game for Christmas and was more interested in playing her new game and most of her guests followed her lead, but I supervised a game between Talia and Megan and then started another round with Talia, when Megan had lost interest and Talia wanted to keep playing.  Beth says she wished she’d thought to get a picture of me trying to wriggle my way under a low foam arch, while balancing the fishbowl in one hand.

Mom and Noah had played Rat-a-Tat Cat with June earlier the in day so they could get the hang of the rules, and Emelia already knew them because she had the same game at home, so the card game went smoothly. Beth said they all seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly and enjoyed it.  When the games were over, we set everyone up with paper and crayons and asked them to draw cats, as a souvenir.  Some of them drew the Cat in the Hat, others drew Hello Kitty and others went with non-branded felines.  Keller divided her paper into three sections and did one of each.

We had cake next.  The kids thought “Happy June Birthday” was hilarious, an improvement on “Happy Birthday June” really, and as Beth divvied up the little cones they were agreeable about not all getting their first choices in ice cream (each cone was a different flavor).  As we ate cake, Mom sat on the couch with Morgan’s mom and baby brother and got acquainted with her, finding out she went to Oberlin—Beth’s and my alma mater. She even lived in Noah Hall, the dorm where Beth and I met, and after which we named Noah.

I gathered up the goody bags so the guests could stash their piñata booty in them and we headed back out to the porch to smash it.  All the kids had at least two turns.  When a hole opened but no candy fell out, Megan tried to tilt the piñata (or maybe enlarge the hole) by poking her stick in the hole.  It was Noah who finally sent the candy cascading to the floor with some mighty whacks.  Morgan’s mom commented that older brothers have their uses.

June wanted to know if we could have some music while we waited for parents to come collect the guests.  When Beth put on Blue Moo, June asked Talia quite formally, “Talia, will you dance with me?” and Talia did. They danced joyfully around the living room as June’s birthday party wound down to a close. It was cute to watch, especially since I am so very fond of Talia, whom I’ve known since she was not quite two.

After the guests left, June opened her presents–a book, three stuffed animals (including a cat of course), a mermaid magnet set, and a Lego café kit.  June wanted to assemble the café right away, but we went out for Indian first, and then she set to work on it. It was hard to tear her away to go to bed. She finished it the next afternoon, following all thirty-three diagrams–less than twenty-four hours after receiving it, and impressing Mom with her small motor skills and her tenacity.

The final adventure of June’s birthday weekend was an expedition to the cherry blossoms and the new MLK memorial.  The peak bloom period is short and notoriously difficult to predict.  Mom has never caught it, though she often visits us around June’s birthday.  For awhile the predicted four-day peak period spanned the weekend and we thought luck was with us, but then a few eighty-plus-degree days accelerated the blooming and the peak period moved back, ending Friday.  I thought if we went Friday it would be too hard to get back by bedtime, and going on Saturday before the party would make for a stressfully jam-packed day, so we waited until Sunday.

Now I will say that given the choice between a few days before the peak period and a few days after I would choose after every time. There are drifts of petals on the ground and blizzards of them in the air with every breeze; there are petals in muddy puddles and on the rippling water of the Tidal Basin, and there are damp petals stuck to every horizontal and vertical surface.  In its way, it’s almost as magic as the classic picture postcard puffy pink and white blooms.  It looks like confetti strewn on the street after a particularly wild party.  So in a way it was a fitting end to June’s birthday celebration, an after party of sorts. She got to christen her new boots in the puddles, eat hot edamame from a stand, admire the trees (solemnly telling us “all trees are beautiful”), run through the paths between the tulip beds at the Floral Library, take pictures with Beth’s phone, joke with her brother, give her grandmother countless hugs, hold hands with everyone and seize the joy and the beauty of the moment and of being six.

Better Than That

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This morning, shortly before 9 a.m., I got a sheet of notebook paper and wrote “Noah’s Favorite Thing: a To-Do List!” across the top. This was a bit of teasing on my part.  He does not particularly like it when I make to-do lists for him, but it was the last day of a three-day weekend and I wanted to make sure he got all his homework and chores done so we didn’t have any unpleasant surprises at bedtime or tomorrow morning. The kids always get a day off between the quarters so teachers can prepare report cards. Between Martin Luther King Day always being on a Monday and New Year’s Day falling on a Monday this year, it’s as if our school system has just given up on Mondays this month.

I didn’t really mind an extra day home with the kids, though.  I’d worked several hours on Saturday and Sunday so I didn’t have anything urgent to do, and thanks to a well-timed play date with Riana (formerly known as the Ghost Crab), I was going to have the morning alone with Noah, which is a rare treat.  Accordingly, the first two items on his list read:

Read—Extra!
Go to Starbucks w/ Mommy (Shhh)

I didn’t want June to be jealous and I thought if we brought her home a treat she wouldn’t mind finding out that we’d gone without her after the fact.  We set out right after Riana’s mom picked up June.  It was a soggy sort of day.  We got an inch of ice and snow on Friday night and this was our first day since then with temperatures above 40 degrees, so everything was wet.  Water dripped from downspouts and little pieces of ice and snow fell from tree branches and rooftops as we walked.  The sidewalks were clear but we both wore boots for splashing in puddles.

As we walked Noah told me about his day with Sasha yesterday.  They’d had a marathon play date that started at 1:30 with two hours of sledding near the creek, progressed to Sasha’s house for a snack of banana, flatbread and chocolate tea, and then moved to our house where they spent hours playing B’loons Tower Defense V.  Sasha stayed for dinner (Beth made baked ziti) and then they played more B’loons until Beth drove Sasha home at 7:20. Mostly what Noah wanted to tell me about was the sledding, how they had pretended they were bobsledding in the Olympics, and how they’d invented some new Olympic sports, how the best sledding trail, the one that’s “really fast and dangerous” didn’t have enough snow for sledding so they had to content themselves with the other one, which was also pretty muddy, and how the more liquid mud splashed up when their sleds went over it and how when that happened they sometimes “caught some air.”  He was joyful recalling all this.

Once we got to Starbucks Noah asked hopefully if he could get a 16-ounce vanilla steamer instead of his normal 12-ounce one.  I was feeling indulgent, plus it was extra milk in addition to extra sugar, so I said yes.  He got a blueberry strudel muffin to go with it. I was restrained and had a latte with no sugar or syrup or pastry.  We sat at the bar and watched a man in a cherry picker try to repair a light in the shopping center parking lot. (It was such a dark morning they were still lit.)  Noah thought it looked like a mythical being with a long neck.  He still says things like that, and when he does it seems hard to believe he will be in middle school next year.  But he will– we find out in a couple weeks whether or not he got into either of the magnets where he applied.  I told him when he’s in middle and high school he will appreciate getting this day off more than ever because he will just have finished taking midterms. Then I explained midterms and he said after all that he might want more than a one-day break. I tried to imagine him taking midterms and glanced down at my coffee cup and then the days when I used to push him in the stroller to the Starbucks in Dupont Circle and feed him the foam off my lattes did not seem very far away, even if he does stand as taller than my chin now.

When we got home we read for over an hour from Forge, a historical novel about an escaped slave who fights with the American soldiers at Valley Forge.  It’s the sequel to Chains, which Noah read for school this year.  The protagonist is fifteen — many of the soldiers in the book are teenage boys and the drummer boys are even younger. I knew this about the American Revolution, of course, but it strikes you differently when you have a ten-year-old boy, a drummer no less.  I have to say I am happy he does his drumming in our study or at school, and no one shoots at him while he does it.

We quit reading just before June was due back home so he could vacuum the living and dining room floors I’d cleared of toys before June covered them up again.  June actually returned before he’d finished.  She’d already had lunch at Riana’s house, so I escorted her to her room for an early Quiet Time before her afternoon play date with Merichel.

When June came out of her room forty minutes later she had a stack of Dora books she wanted me to read to her and even though Dora is not my idea of quality children’s literature, the idea of cuddling up in bed and having some one-on-one time with my younger child in between her many social engagements seemed appealing.  Before I read to her I reminded Noah of the items left on his list (homework, percussion practice, typing practice) and I made him lunch. I fixed him some leftover ziti with butter and grated parmesan and a bowl of applesauce with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

“Ziti with parmesan and butter. What could be better than that?” Noah said with satisfaction as I placed his lunch in front of him.

“A castle with princesses and ponies,” June piped up.

You’re going to eat princesses and ponies for lunch?” I said in mock surprise and soon she was over at the toy castle, pretending to be a dragon munching on the royals.  But I was thinking silently that I know something much better than noodles or princesses: a morning with my firstborn as he stands on the threshold of midterms and whatever else middle school has to offer.

Hoop Dreams

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Friday morning at breakfast I told June that she would have an unusual afternoon. After playing outside and watching television (these are the usual parts of her after-school routine) she’d have a bath and we’d have an early dinner because we were leaving for basketball practice at 5:40 and we wouldn’t get back until bedtime.  June perked up on hearing this. She loves starting new things, which is why she’s already starting her third team sport a few months before her sixth birthday.  She’s allowed up to two extracurricular activities at a time. Fall was soccer and ballet.  Winter is basketball and yoga. Yoga will be an after-school class on Tuesdays, which I think will make things easier in terms of weekend scheduling because basketball actually meets twice a week—Friday evening practices and Saturday morning or afternoon games.

That afternoon she came home, played in the yard while I took clothes off the clothesline, watched Maya and Miguel and Arthur, her current favorites, took a quick bath and then got changed into a t-shirt and bike shorts underneath sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. I ordered pizza and the kids and I were eating before 5:00 p.m.  After dinner I pulled her still damp hair into pigtails and we were on the porch waiting for our ride at 5:40. It had been a stunningly beautiful sunny day after a four-day-long cold snap and it was still quite warm, if dark, so June was happy to climb on the porch walls and jump over the row of candy cane lights that still adorn our yard.

June’s team is an all-girl, mostly kindergarten team being coached by Maggie’s dad Mike, who was giving us a ride because Beth is not home early enough. In the min-van along with Maggie, Mike, June and me, was another player (the youngest one, who’s still in preschool) and her older sister, a middle-schooler, who’s serving as Mike’s assistant coach.  We drove to the elementary school where practice is held.  The gym was packed. All the kindergarten teams were there and there were probably at least fifty kids, plus parents and coaches. Among the kids on other teams we saw two of June’s classmates, including Malachi, and a former nursery school classmate.

Some of the time all the teams practiced together—watching fifty five and six year olds all running around the gym and dribbling was particularly impressive—but mostly they were split into their teams.  Mike obviously put a lot of thought into the games and activities he designed, and he followed Maggie’s interests.  There was a game called “Protect the Princess,” in which laminated printouts of Disney and Star Wars heroines and villains were scattered on the floor.  The girls had to try to dribble the basketballs on the villains while avoiding the princesses. The game I played with them was “Magic Rock.”  The girls were fairies passing each other a magic rock (i.e. basketball) while a witch (me) or troll (Mike) tried to block them.  If they could complete six passes before the witch/troll intercepted the ball, the villain fell asleep and the fairies won.  There was another game called “Loose Ball.” All the players except one had to stand facing the wall while the other one tossed the ball into the air as high as she could and yelled “Loose ball!” at which point they’d all turn around and scramble to catch it. During the course of this game one the girls made a basket, completely by accident. I wondered if we’d found our center because those baskets are eight feet off the ground and the average girl on the team might be over four feet tall if she stood on tiptoe.  (June’s not even three and a half feet tall.) I wondered if any of them would ever score in a real game.

During the team meeting Mike produced the team shirts, purple much to June’s delight, and the girls voted on a team name from a list Maggie had brainstormed ahead of time (though there were a couple more candidates added).  The Purple Pandas won, with the Purple Penguins a close second.  (One girl suggested the Purple Grapes because her soccer team was called the Orange Oranges.)  Mike talked about being a team and being a good sport and solicited opinions about what that might mean, then he asked them to each name something for which they were thankful. June said that trees made oxygen for people to breathe, but the gym was too loud for me to hear most of the other girls’ responses.

In the van on the way home, Mike asked the girls what they liked about practice. June wasn’t specific– she just said, “I loved it!”  Later she said she liked dribbling the ball and the “Protect the Princess” game.

This morning June wanted some temporary tattoos applied and Beth replied in an off-hand way that it was a good idea because basketball players have a lot of tattoos.  Well, that settled it. June selected a butterfly and an assortment of suns and moons, including a band of them that went around her leg just above the ankle.  She had one on every arm and leg by the time Beth had finished to her satisfaction.

This afternoon’s game was in a different elementary school gym, this one at June’s school.  When we got there the 12:00 teams were still finishing up and the 1:00 teams were drifting in so it was a bit chaotic. We saw a boy who used to attend June’s preschool leaving. When the teams were sorted out there were two kindergarten teams and two second-grade teams.  There was a half-hour practice period before the game, much of which was shooting practice.  I’d thought the fact that all the kids are so far from the basket might eliminate June’s height disadvantage but she never made a basket during the practice time (none of her shots even reached the bottom of the net), even though a few of her team-mates did. The youngest player, the one still in preschool, actually made the most.

The Purple Pandas were playing an all-boy team in green t-shirts.  Malachi and one of June’s former preschool classmates were playing on that team and they both got baskets.  (Ram also got a “bleedy nose,” as June put it later.  I didn’t see how it happened but I saw him crying and comforted by several adults and later I saw someone come to clean the blood up off the court.) Actually Malachi didn’t just get a basket, he got the majority of his team’s baskets.  I knew he liked sports and now I know why.  The kid’s got game.  The green team shut out the Purple Pandas, who often looked shocked when the green players knocked the ball out of their hands, despite having been warned by Mike both Friday and today that this would happen, that it wasn’t rude or mean, it was just part of the game.  As the game progressed the girls got better at running to defend their basket when they lost control of the ball, instead of just standing there looking shocked. So that was progress.  A few of them, including Sally (formerly known as the Raccoon) and her first-grade sister showed some hustle by the end of the game.

They all seemed happy after the game and when I asked June if she had fun, she gave me a smile and a nod.  I don’t think it’s realistic to expect basketball will be June’s sport in the long term. Gymnastics is probably more like it, based on her small size and wiry strength (not to mention her performance on the monkey bars on the school playground after the game, but I think she’ll enjoy the next two months of practices and games, and who knows, maybe one day she’ll even toss that ball in the air and see it sail through the hoop—nothing but net.

A New One Just Begun

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And so this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

From “Happy Christmas/War is Over” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

The kids go back to school tomorrow.  We split their winter break in half so we had five days at Mom’s and five days at home. This was a very satisfactory arrangement. It felt like a substantial visit with the extended family and a nice block of time for nuclear family togetherness as well.  We didn’t do everything we considered—Beth decided against going into her office to straighten it up and do some filing, and we never got organized enough to go to see the U.S. Botanic Garden’s holiday exhibit, but we had a long outing and a short one, we had family friends over on New Year’s Eve Day, and Noah played with three school friends and June with two, and we (mostly Beth) did a lot of cleaning and straightening and hanging pictures and fixing things around the house, so I think our time was well spent.

Thursday: Sentimental Journey

There’s a Degas exhibit at the Phillips Collection that’s been there since October.  We tried organizing a three-ballerina expedition with Talia’s and Gabriella’s families in the fall but we could never find a date that worked so we decided to go and see it ourselves before it leaves town.  The Phillips is in Dupont Circle, the D.C. neighborhood of our childless (and Noah’s babyhood) days so it’s full of sentimental appeal.  We visited a few of our old stomping grounds, including Café Luna, where we ate lunch (pointing out to Noah the Thai restaurant next door where we ate dinner the night before he was born) and Kramerbooks a combination bookstore/restaurant where we had desert after the exhibit and bought books.  I got my next two book club books (Catch-22 and Les Miserables) and June picked out a couple of Dora books, including one in Spanish.  I find it satisfying to buy books in a store these days as bookstores are disappearing rapidly in our area (and probably yours too). I like to support them when I get the chance, in hopes they will not go completely extinct.

In between, we visited the museum.  June enjoyed the ballerina paintings (and looking at herself in the mirrored wall with a barre) but she went through the exhibit at her usual brisk pace, which meant we could not linger as long as the adults might have liked.  Noah liked the sculptures best and was also interested in the computer images of what lies under the visible layer of paint.  When we finished with Degas, we visited some other parts of the museum.  We went into the Rothko room, much to the alarm of the guards, who insisted that June’s hand be held at all times.  (The paintings in that room are not under glass.) June gave the guard an exasperated look when she heard this.  Clearly he did not know how well behaved she is and how many tiger paws she has (twenty-three, third place in her class- not that she’s keeping track).  For a while the kids played a game of Noah’s invention called “Guess the Medium,” in which he’d have June guess whether a piece of art was done in paint, chalk, water color, etc. I caught a glimpse of them spontaneously holding hands in front of a painting (though later Noah claimed he’d done no such thing).  It was a lovely, lovely day, just like old times, except completely different.

Friday and Saturday: New Year’s Eve

We didn’t do much on Friday. Noah went over to Sasha’s and the rest of us hung around the house and June played with new Christmas toys while Beth and I cleaned in anticipation of our New Year’s Eve Day guests.  Saturday morning we cleaned some more and made peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses baked into them and I set out our spread of sparkling juice, fruit, crackers and fancy cheeses, cookies and candy.  Noah helped by making little labels for the cheeses, which he stuck into them with toothpicks. They looked like little flags.

Joyce, her husband Smitty and their nine-year-old daughter Gwen came for lunch.  Joyce and I once shared a tiny, windowless, computerless office–which we affectionately called The Shoebox–with five other adjuncts and teaching assistants at George Washington University, when she was a graduate student there and I was an adjunct, back before our kids were born. We reminisced about that and caught each other up on our current lives (she’s an English professor at Ball State University now) and we ate a lot of cheese while the kids made videos on the computer.  I always enjoy seeing Joyce, even though her visits are far between now that she lives in Indiana.

We listened to Christmas music all through the visit and into the evening.  After our guests left we watched our last Christmas movie Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, before declaring ourselves done with Christmas (okay, we will finish the sweets). We didn’t stay up to welcome in the New Year.  Beth and I were in bed before ten p.m., but we had a very pleasant New Year’s Eve nonetheless.

Sunday: New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day was another quiet day, full of grocery shopping and little home improvement projects. Noah and Beth took turns showing me how to use various functions of my new iPod so now I can listen to music, the radio and podcasts, if I remember their instructions.  I made black-eyed peas for good luck in the coming year and I finally made good on a resolution to get June some play dates already. She hasn’t had one in months and she’s been asking for ages to have someone come play.  She and her friend played instruments and danced and played Chutes and Ladders and had an earnest conversation about how no one should make fun of Rapunzel because of her long hair.

Monday: The Last Hurrah

Monday was the last day of the kids’ break.  We drove all the way out to Bethesda to have breakfast at Cosi because Noah was in the mood for square bagels.  There’s a Barnes and Noble nearby and Noah was also wanting a couple more 39 Clues books he didn’t get for Christmas, so he bought them himself.  June picked up a discounted Bambi book for herself as well, also using saved allowance.  I was feeling positively virtuous for having patronized two bookstores in five days, even if one was a big chain.

I snuck in a short editing job while June watched television and after lunch, Beth went out for coffee with Lesley and the kids had a play date extravaganza.  June had another friend over and Noah’s twin friends came over, too.  The big kids played with hexbugs and huddled together on our bed playing a game on Noah’s iPod.  The little kids played Chutes and Ladders and staged a medieval lesbian wedding between two of the Playmobile castle women, witnessed by reindeer and snowmen figurines. Later they ran around in the back yard, jumped on the mini-trampoline, played the Cat in the Hat game and made masks from June’s mask kit.  Everyone played so well together I was able to read a longish Margaret Atwood story from The New Yorker in relative peace.

The whole five days felt relaxed and fun and productive at the same time.  The house looks better than usual, as Beth did some deep cleaning and I feel ready to return to work tomorrow (that is if the snow flurries we had this afternoon don’t turn into something serious enough to cancel school).

Sara asked me over Christmas if I’m happy and I gave her a mixed report, but on consideration, I think I really am a lot happier than I was a year ago when I could see June’s preschool years drawing to a close but I had no idea what that would mean for me (see my 1/9/11 post).  Even though Noah will start middle school in 2012 and it’s bound to be an interesting year politically, I feel that the big changes for me have already happened with my transition from stay-at-home mom to part-time work-at-home mom.  The New Year’s just begun– we’re two days in and I’m ready to see what the rest of it holds.

Soon It Will Be Christmas Day

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I’ve had an unusual amount of work in the past few weeks: I’ve written a booklet about ten herbs, a brochure for a calcium supplement and right now I’m in the middle of another brochure about a digestive aide. Plus, I edited a short academic paper. We also had a houseguest, a college friend who was in town to sing in a concert (the Bill of Rights set to music!) and we had a brief but fun visit with him. So it would have been easier to skip the Holiday Sing at June’s school on Friday morning, but I went anyway. Part of how I justify working part-time at home is that it makes me available for this sort of thing, so it seems I ought to go in the busy weeks as well as the not so busy ones. Plus I love this event. I went every year Noah attended this school.

The first year I went it was not really what I was expecting. No real information was sent home other than the date and time. I knew Noah had been practicing songs in music class for a few weeks so I expected all the kids to get up on stage or bleachers or something, though I wasn’t sure how so many kids would fit because the whole school is there in two shifts and some kids go twice, as I will explain. But in fact only the fourth and fifth graders perform in a visible way. Back in Noah’s day it used to be the choir, but sadly, the choir fell victim to an expanding school population with no money for an extra music teacher, and it is no more.

The program now starts with the advanced strings and wind sections of the school band. Then all the kids in the fourth and fifth grade are divided into three groups of a few classes each and they either play the recorder or sing for the rest of the first half of the program. Meanwhile the younger kids sit on the floor facing the stage while parents sit on folding chairs at the back of the room. In the second half of the program, the younger kids on the floor sing the songs they’ve practiced in music class along with the older kids up on stage. (In a way it’s nice because it’s more inclusive than the old way of doing it, but knowing how important being in the band is to Noah, I’m sad the more talented singers at June’s school don’t have that creative outlet any more.)

The room was festive. There was a fifteen-foot high inflatable Santa with a spinning present on one hand on one side of the stage and a Nutcracker on the other side. Paper snowflakes decorated the walls near the stage and more hung from the ceiling of the stage. I caught sight of June as her class filed in but she didn’t see me. Her blonde pigtails and red Nordic pattern sweater made her easy to find in the crowd. (It was the same sweater Noah wore to the Holiday Sing when he was in kindergarten. Don’t ask me why I remember. I just do and the idea of having June wear it appealed to me. It was surprisingly easy to convince her. I just suggested it and she said yes.)

There were Kwanzaa songs and Christmas songs and Hanukah songs. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was the crowd favorite, but I walked home with “Feliz Navidad” and “In the Window,” a very pretty Hanukah song in my head. Also this one, which the kids didn’t sing: “War is over/If you want it/War is over now” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Xmas_(War_Is_Over)) because as strange as it seems, the war in Iraq is over, our part in it anyway. This is more a solemn than a joyous thing to contemplate, but it’s a good thing nonetheless.

When the songs were over, the kids on the floor were allowed to get up and turn around and wave at their parents. June saw me and beamed and I smiled and waved back and then slipped out of the room to hurry back to home and work.

The next day was Saturday. I worked a little and June had her last ballet class (they danced to some songs from The Nutcracker) and she and Talia and Gabriella followed it up with a free tap/jazz class because the first ballet class of the year had been cancelled and the students were allowed to make up the missed class by attending another one. Afterward all three ballerinas went to lunch at Eggspectations (http://www.eggspectations.com/usa/index.html) with assorted parents and siblings to celebrate the end of class.

That night Beth and I went to a birthday party for Lesley. It was a surprise party, made surprising, I think, by the fact that she’d already had a party two weeks earlier. (We went to that one, too.) When a preschool teacher as beloved as Lesley turns fifty, people go all out. One party is not enough. The parties were thrown by different people, with different guest lists, so we got to see a lot of people, including several parents from Noah’s class we hadn’t seen years and Becky, the nursery school music teacher, whom we miss a lot. It was a fun evening.

Sunday I worked some more and in the afternoon we went to see The Nutcracker at Onley Theatre (http://www.olneytheatre.org/). Before the show I bought June a little nutcracker figure (given that she broke, not one, but two Nutcracker snow globes last year it seemed like a better bet than another snow globe). June tested how wide each nutcracker could open its mouth before settling on one in a white and gold outfit. She angled for a second souvenir (a book with a CD) and I considered it, but it was a bit pricy. The sales clerk warned her to be careful with the little wooden doll because it was really a decoration and not a toy.

The theater space was medium-sized and kind of rustic, with wooden beams decorated with evergreen garlands and big ribbons. We piled up all our coats on June’s seat so she’d been tall enough to see, and it worked, but only because there was a child in front on her and a child in front of that child. June perched on her elevated seat and watched the first act with close attention. She applauded a lot and every so often put her arms up in the air in the same poses as the ballerinas. Noah paid close attention and applauded a lot, too. It was a nice production, somewhat more elaborate than the one we saw last year, though not a really fancy one. (I do hope to splurge on a top-notch one some day. My kids have never seen a version where all the children coming running out from under the giant mother’s skirts in the second act. That was my favorite part when I was a kid.)

At intermission, Beth and June went to the bathroom while I went in search of snacks, since June said she was hungry. By the time we found each other she only had time to eat a few of the pretzels I bought before it was time to go back to the theater, so she was still hungry. She was also tired and kind of antsy by this point. The people in front of us had re-grouped so three out of the four seats in front of us had adults in them and June’s view was now blocked. Rather than ask Noah to take an obstructed view, I moved June onto my lap, which meant I needed to crane my neck to see around her. Sometimes she sat up straight, sometimes she slumped against me, sometimes she stood in front of my seat, a few times she slid to the floor and sat there. I think she actually paid better attention last year when she was four, but this might have been a longer production. She was watching when Clara appears back in her living room at the very end. “It was all a dream,” June announced loudly. She seemed happy to have figured this out on her own. (I’d read her the synopsis of the first act before it started, but the lights went down before I could finish reading the synopsis of the second act so she was on her own piecing together the action.)

As we walked back to overflow parking lot, the kids argued over the remaining pretzels and Beth said anyone who continued arguing would not get anything at Starbucks, and lo there was peace. The sword had already broken off June’s nutcracker, but we decided this was appropriate because the nutcracker gets broken in the ballet, too. Also, Beth promised to glue it back together once we got home.

We came home. Noah and I bagged three bags of leaves I’d raked earlier and Beth made Vietnamese spring rolls for dinner. We ate in front of the television, something we hardly ever do, so we could watch The Year Without a Santa Claus before it was time to put our sleepy daughter to bed.

The new week has started and I am knee-deep in things to do, but I am wondering if I can somehow manage to make gingerbread cookie dough to take to my mom’s house to bake there. It will be a hectic week, but soon it will be Christmas day and I want to arrive with something sweet for the many relatives who will be there.

A Half Older

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It’s just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead.

From “The End of the Summer” by Dar Williams

Sunday: A Different Ball Game

On a cool, cloudy afternoon, the third Sunday in September, Beth, June and I stood on the playing field of the same middle school that hosts the folk festival. This time we weren’t there to hear a bluegrass band, however. We were there for June’s first-ever soccer scrimmage. She played soccer the fall she was three and a half and again the spring she was four, but she’d lost interest and skipped a year before deciding to give it another try. Kindergarten soccer is different than preschool soccer. There are games against other teams, like in t-ball, and this appealed to June. Also, she wants another medal to hang from the beams of the lower bunk bed.

Four or five of June’s preschool classmates are playing on a Saturday morning team but she wanted to do ballet this fall, too, and that conflicted with that team’s practice time, so we signed her up for a Sunday team. I think I was more disappointed about her not being on a team with friends than she was. It felt like all her friends being in the other kindergarten class all over again, like a missed opportunity. It’s sad to see them go their separate ways, knowing how easy it is for kids to drift apart and forget each other. Noah barely remembers any of his preschool classmates who didn’t go to elementary school with him.

But June was not indulging in any melancholy thoughts on the soccer field. She was happy and excited and ready to play. It took a while for us to locate the maroon team, but once we did the coach handed out their t-shirts and sat them down in a circle to talk about what was going to happen and then got them doing drills right away.

Beth and I watched from the sidelines. When the coach said they were going to play sharks and minnows, Beth said, “I hope she’s not still afraid of this.” June hated sharks and minnows in preschool soccer. The sight of the coach and other players pretending to be menacing sharks was just too much for her. This is how it works: All the players have a soccer ball they dribble around the field. The coach, who’s the original shark, tries to take their balls. Once a player’s ball is taken from him or her, the player becomes a shark too and goes after other kids’ balls, until all balls are out of play and everyone is a shark. June showed no signs of ever having been afraid of this game, but she did forget the rules. When a fellow player kicked her ball away from her, she said indignantly, “That’s mine!” and the coach had to come over and explain the game to her again. Once she understood she was right out there trying to kick other kids’ balls away from them.

For the next drill, the coach balanced a soccer ball on a cone and arranged the players in a circle around it. They were to kick their balls at it all at once and try to knock it down. On the first try no-one’s ball went anywhere near the cone, but on the second try one of the taller boys knocked it down. He knew it was his ball that did it, too, because he pumped his fist in the air.

After almost an hour of practice, it was time for the game. June’s team divided and half their players went over to play another team while half of the yellow team came over to our part of the field. The yellow Cheetahs looked a little more organized than our team. They had appeared to be well into practice before our team had even assembled and they had their names and numbers written in marker on the backs of their shirts. The coach was also more intent on diving them into offensive and defensive lines that ours was. “They’re going to get slaughtered,” I predicted to Beth.

But they didn’t. The Maroon Pumas won the match, 3-1. This was mainly because of the boy who knocked the soccer ball off the cone during practice. This kid has moves. He scored two out of the three goals, and made a few good saves when they ball was near our team’s goal, too. (There are no goalies at this level.)

Considering she was the second smallest kid on her team and has had no soccer instruction in the past year and a half, June did great. She had no fear of getting into the mix, ran after the ball, and usually remembered which direction to kick it when she got the chance. (This is a big issue with five and six-year-old players. At halftime our coach’s whole message was which direction to kick the ball.) She even kept control of the ball and moved it toward the right goal for at least five yards at one point.

Beth kept yelling, “Go, Junie!” whenever June had the ball and then said to me, “I really shouldn’t be so into this.” I was quieter but I was keeping score in my head. Even though I thought I’d keep score at June’s t-ball games, I never did. I don’t think anyone did. Because every player swung until he or she got a hit and the inning ended after everyone had a turn, and fielding was such that almost everyone advanced a base whenever anyone hit the ball, scores were high and kind of meaningless. This was a different ball game, however. And I saw in a way I never really had before why soccer is the game of choice for elementary-school age kids all over suburban America as well as much of the world. There aren’t as many rules to master and five-year-olds can play something more closely resembling the real thing. Play was unpredictable and fun to watch.

By the end of the game, June was flagging. She’d been running around for an hour and half and she was ready to be done. Every time play slowed or stopped, she plopped down on the grass and started to pick blades of it. She’d jump up every time the ball started to move again, though. When the game was over she was excited. “We scored a goal!” she said. I informed her they’d scored three. She was surprised. She’d missed that. She’d heard the other team cheering when they scored and thought maybe the Yellow Cheetahs had won. No, I told her, her team won. Even when she thought they’d lost, she was pleased with her performance, “It was like my brain just remembered—this is how you play soccer!” she said, all smiles.

Friday: The Half-Birthday Girl

June climbed into our bed at 6:50 on Friday morning. “It’s Friday!” she announced. She’d been looking forward to a classmate’s birthday party that afternoon all week. It felt funny, thinking about sending her to this party because I barely know the girl, having met her once at the Open House but I know she and June have been playing together and sitting with each other on the bus. June’s never been on a play date or to a party at the house of a kid I don’t know, but I guess there’s a lot of that in her future now that she’s in a big public elementary school and not a small co-operative preschool. I learned last weekend when we were all having pizza at Sasha’s house that June’s new friend lives next door to Sasha’s family. Somehow this made it a little easier to think about leaving her there.

“It’s also your half-birthday,” Beth reminded June and told her she’d picked up the cupcakes at the grocery store the night before, while June was in bed. June had selected them ahead of time. They were patriotic, with red and blue sprinkles on white frosting and topped with plastic flags and statutes of Liberty. They were in the frozen section so they might have been left over from September 11. (Would anyone buy or sell patriotic cupcakes for September 11? I’m really not sure, but I don’t want to think they’re left over from the Fourth of July.)

June wanted to go see them immediately. She thought she remembered there was only one with a flag. “And do you know who gets it when there’s only one?” she asked.

“The half-birthday girl,” Beth surmised, correctly.

Then June realized it was also the first day of fall. “I’ve waited so long for this day,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

Because after fall comes winter and then spring, she answered, and she can go sledding in winter and her real birthday is in the spring. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,” Beth sang. June is always looking several months ahead, wanting whatever it is that comes next. She is good at beginnings, pushing herself into new things. She loves kindergarten and gets on the bus each morning without a backward glance, even as I linger to watch her walk up the steps.

It was an odd afternoon and evening. A power line went down near our house and the power went out three times, staying out for all but an hour between 2:30 and 8:30. Later I joked on Facebook that the alternation between light and dark was an equinox-themed performance art piece by the power company. Our street was blocked off, too, so June’s bus was forty minutes late. I thought she’d be rattled because she was the last time the bus was (much less) late but she seemed to shrug it off. She now knows the bus is sometimes late. When she got home we had to hurry to the party, taking the long way because our most direct route was blocked to pedestrians as well as traffic.

She did balk a little at being left at Keller’s house. There was only one other guest she knew; the rest were Keller’s preschool friends. So I stayed until she felt comfortable and then left her with the rest of the cape and tiara-wearing five and six year olds. (It was a She-Ra themed party.) There was no power at Keller’s house either. I approved of her parents’ spirit of adventure in continuing with the party.

After I fetched June there was just enough time to heat up dinner from cans (luckily we have a gas stove) and to eat her half-birthday cupcakes before I put her to bed. She fell asleep by the light of the camping lantern in the hall, soon after commenting, “I’m a half older now.”

Saturday: Tiny Dancer

On the sidewalk outside the dance studio, June had a flash of nerves. Beth scooped her up into her arms and reminded her she often felt a little nervous before starting something new but it usually passed quickly. I wondered if it was just too many new things and too many new people in a short period of time. June’s friend Gabriella (a.k.a the Ground Beetle) is enrolled in the ballet class but was spending the weekend with her grandparents so she had to miss the first session.

“How old are you?” The receptionist wanted to know, as we were checking June in and ordering her ballet uniform.

“Five and a half,” June answered, after a pause.

The receptionist wanted to know why she had to think about it and we explained she had only been five and a half for a day.

Soon after this exchange, Talia (whom I will always secretly think of as the Mallard Duck) and her father and brother walked in the door. I knew her mom was thinking of signing her up for this ballet class but I hadn’t wanted to get June’s hopes up so I had not mentioned it to her. June was delighted. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” she exclaimed. And like that, all nervousness was gone.

Parents watched the lesson through a large window in the studio wall. We could see but not hear, so we had to guess what the teacher might be asking them as they sat in a circle and raised their hands in different combinations. Beth said it was like watching a silent movie, and Talia’s dad, Tom, laughed. We watched as the eight girls, mostly in pale pink or black leotards stood in a circle holding hands and standing on their toes and as they stood with their feet flat on the ground and bent their knees deeply. They walked in a line, watching themselves in the mirrored wall and mimicking the movements of the teacher. They practiced at the barre. June stood for an astonishingly long time on the toes of one foot with her other leg extended behind her. She only quit after her leg started to tremble visibly. A couple of the girls had trouble paying attention and wandered around the room instead, but June was all focus, sometimes smiling, but more often looking dead serious.

At one point I thought I heard the music to the Mexican Hat Dance but I wasn’t sure if it was coming from June’s studio or one of the other rooms. The two-to-four year old class was practicing nearby. June told me later they danced to a song from The Lion King and to “Penny Lane,” one of the few Beatles songs she can identify. When class was over, the girls got their hands stamped and then lined up to take a running leap toward the door.

June was not as elated as she was after the soccer game, but she was quietly satisfied. As we were on our way out, the receptionist asked her how it went and she gave her a thumbs up. “So you’ll be back next week?” she asked.

“Yeah,” June said in a matter-of-fact voice.

And she will be back, back to school, back to soccer, back to ballet. It should all be routine now that she’s gotten the last of the beginnings under her belt. After all, it’s just that time of year and she’s a half older.

Simple Gifts

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‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right

“Simple Gifts” by Elder Joseph Brackett

It took me a couple weeks of emailing people to find a new date for June’s rain-delayed back-to-school party that worked for almost everyone we had invited, but eventually we settled on Saturday afternoon. It was not clear that the weather was going to co-operate, however. The party that had been postponed by Hurricane Irene was now being threatened by the torrential rain associated with Tropical Storm Lee. All week it rained (a small section of our basement flooded on Thursday and I spent much of the day mopping up water and laundering towels) but then early Friday afternoon the sun broke through the clouds. Sunlight can be so startling and invigorating when you see it for the first time in several days. I remember that from my college days in Northern Ohio. I took Noah out on the porch to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after school and as I read I enjoyed the sun that fell on my forearm and one bare foot.

There was a chance of showers on Saturday, but the morning was sunny and as it progressed, it seemed less and less compelling to try to clean the house to party standards, which was a good thing because there was almost no chance of me actually achieving that if we had to move the event from the playground to the house. I would have moved it to the messy house if I’d needed to, though. We weren’t canceling again.

As we walked to the playground, twice I thought I felt a drop of rain. I did not mention it to anyone. It seemed like bad luck. As we draped the tablecloth over the table and set out the cake, juice, plates, forks and cups, I noticed part of the sky clouding over. We were finished well before party time and sat, waiting, watching the sky and the paths to the playground for approaching guests, hoping the guests would come before the rain.

Everyone who RSVPed came, and it didn’t rain. That’s really all I need to say to let you know the party was a success. All through the preparations I had visions of the sky opening up and onto the cake and the lyrics to “MacArthur Park” ran relentlessly through my head. But they came. First Malachi and his mother, then Maggie (formerly known as the White-Tailed Deer) and her mother, and then Dominik (formerly known as the Field Cricket) and his mother and toddler sister—they all came. The kids played in the creek and on the playground equipment and ate cake and drank juice and played some more. Maggie’s mom led the kids in a couple rounds of “Mother May I?”

The grownups talked, about kindergarten of course, but also about our older kids. The mom with a third-grader wanted to ask me about the application procedure for the Highly Gifted Center, and both of us with fifth-graders talked to the middle school teacher about middle school options. It was hot and humid, but it was good to be out in the sun anyway and it was good to be seeing friends whose kids we’ve known since they were babies or two or three years old as we celebrate their entry into elementary school. Noah went home on his own shortly after the cake (he’d been moody all afternoon) but Beth and June stayed at the playground to play after the party was over and the guests had all gone home.

As June might say, we won the party.

Sunday was the Takoma Park Folk Festival, a long-standing annual affair held on the second Sunday of September inside and on the playing fields of a local middle school. It was also the tenth anniversary of September 11, so the theme of the festival was “Peace and Reconciliation.”

We arrived around 11:15 and decided to buy lunch and take it to the stage where our chosen twelve o’ clock band was playing. We knew it would take a long while to assess our culinary options, stand in line and purchase food. The two orders of falafel and veggies, one order of lo mein with eggroll, one plate of freshly cooked potato chips, one lemonade, two limeades and a mango smoothie was more than we could carry in one trip, too, so we had to ferry the food to the field in shifts. Finally we were settled on our blanket listening to the eleven o’ clock band finish up. Noah was listening more carefully than I was, but from what he reported it sounded like they might be 9/11 conspiracy theorists. I decided to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather and the delicious food, rather than try to make out the lyrics.

Soon I saw Lesley walking toward us. During the second half of the food run, Beth had dropped by the Purple School table to visit a friend who had a lunchtime shift, found Lesley there and directed her to our blanket. Lesley was full of hugs for everyone and questions about the first two weeks of school for both kids. Noah was chatty but June was a bit cool toward her (she was just the same way with Andrea when the Bugs class ended—I think she needs to detach in order to make transitions) but Lesley finally coaxed a little smile and a thumbs-up from June when she persisted with questions about school.

The noon hour band was Dirty River (http://www.dirtyriver.com/) a bluegrass band Noah had chosen. We were staying for three hours (Noah had a 3:30 play date with the twin brothers who seem to be his best friends at his new school) so the kids got to pick one hour’s entertainment each and Beth and I picked jointly picked the last one. Noah liked the band and asked if he could buy their CD. Beth and I pooled the money we had left after our frozen custard/Italian ice dessert and managed to scrape up the required funds. He took the money and went to buy the CD by himself, walking with the slight swagger he has whenever he’s feeling especially grown-up. But halfway through the set, he said he wished he hadn’t bought the CD because he didn’t like the band that much after all. He’d been the same way the day before, alternately complaining about being bored at June’s party and seeming happy and engaged, joining in their games and rough-housing with Malachi. He’s been like this more and more lately. Is it a tween thing?

Next up was the “Family Dance.” This was June’s pick and I must admit I was somewhat horrified at the idea of public dancing but kids push you out of your comfort zone all the time. This session was inside the school, in a gym. Beth and Noah settled into the bleachers to watch while June and I hit the dance floor. Once I realized this was going to be the kind of dancing with specific instructions and not free form, I was much more comfortable. It actually ended up being kind of fun. There were line dances and circle dances. June liked the “Highland Gates” dance in which some people stand in a circle and hold their hands up high so people inside can “run in and out the windows.” I glanced up more than once and saw Noah clapping to the tune of “The Rattlin’ Bog,” that old summer camp favorite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnv9GB8xvrw&feature=related). June was worn out before the hour was up so we went to sit with Beth and Noah and watch for a while. That was how we got to see the spiral of people curl and uncurl to the tune of “Simple Gifts.” It was like watching a living knot come untied, a very cool effect, and achieved with so few commands from the leader it was like a visual demonstration of the beauty of simplicity.

Our last session was Magpie (http://www.magpiemusic.com/biography.htm). Back in college, Beth and I used to listen to a Magpie cassette of songs about work and labor activism. We both thought it would be fun to see them in person. The kids were somewhat less enthusiastic about being in a room full of earnest, graying Takoma Park residents listening to earnest, graying musicians. Noah kept leaning over to check my watch. June was antsy until she fell asleep on my lap. She’s been doing pretty well going without her nap the past couple weeks, but she does occasionally crash on weekend afternoons. I enjoyed the set, though I came out of it realizing I am more cynical about politics and human nature than I was when I was twenty.

When Magpie finished, I woke June as gently as I could and carried her out of the school and we all got in the car to drive Noah to the twins’ house. Beth and I had busy late afternoons and evenings planned. She had to finish grocery shopping and cook dinner and clean the kitchen and the bathroom. I had six chapters of a book on copywriting to read in preparation for an assignment this week. I was pleased with our weekend, though, and with the simple gifts of a sunny afternoon in the park with old friends embarking on a new adventure, a surprise visit from a beloved teacher, music and dance and family time.

I don’t know what the ultimate lesson of September 11 was, but if it had anything to do with appreciating the simple things you have and holding close to those you cherish, it was a good way to commemorate the day.

Over the Hump

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“We’re over the hump,” I announced to Beth on Thursday morning as she arranged eggs and a slice of cheese on a tortilla for her breakfast. By that I meant we were more than halfway through the dreaded three-week camp desert.

This week did not get off to an auspicious start. On Monday it was already clear it was a no-sticker day by 1:20. Noah had kicked June in the bathroom around 7 a.m. because she wouldn’t get out of his way. On the way home from his educational testing that morning, they squished up against each other on the bench at the bus stop, each trying to get the coveted section in the middle, and then they bickered over who would pull the cord for our stop. These were minor flashpoints I was willing to overlook until we got home and June was trying to do a handstand on the couch and Noah was trying to eat a cereal bar on the same couch and it ended with him screaming at her and her crying.

I needed a break from them both so I napped during June’s Quiet Time (although she did not—she has almost completely stopped napping just this past week). That meant she was at large while I was trying to read Harry Potter to Noah and she made as much of a nuisance of herself as possible, squeezing in between us, climbing on us, etc.

By three o’clock, we were all pretty out of sorts with each other and the kids had no particular incentive to get along, having lost their afternoon sticker decisively during the couch incident. But, believe it or not I salvaged the day, through sheer determination, bubbles and a well-timed picnic.

The fact that it was the first day of August caused me to reflect on all the fun things I’d resolved to do with the kids at the beginning of the summer and how time really is running out. They’ll be back at school in just over three weeks. One of my resolutions was to bring out never-used or long-neglected toys. So I found the Extreme Bubble Kit Noah got for his ninth birthday. It’s a loop of rope attached to two sticks you dip in a bucket of bubble solution. It makes enormous bubbles. Noah loved it but he hadn’t played with it in over a year. I thought it might be a little tricky for June (she couldn’t do it last year) but she mastered it right away, actually before I could finish my explanation about how it might take her a while to get the hang of it. The kids made bubbles for over an hour and even managed to negotiate several changes in the pattern of turn taking on their own.

When it was time for dinner, I suggested a porch picnic. Earlier Noah had claimed it was Picnic Day and wanted a picnic. (Some Internet research confirmed this was true, in Australia, but whatever.) I was willing to go along, but dark clouds were gathering and thunder was rumbling, so I thought the porch would be safer, and quite pleasant if we got a good summer thunderstorm going.

There was trouble on the Metro and Beth didn’t get home until after 7:30, but the kids and I picnicked on the porch in the absence of rain, which seemed like it might not fall after all. Noah chalked the sidewalk with a Picnic day message, printed a sign with a checkerboard pattern and the words “Happy Picnic Day!” and June made flowers out of crepe paper and taped them to the walls of the house on either side of the front door in preparation. These kids don’t do things halfway, I tell you.

I had to put June to bed before Beth got home, but we left everything laid out on the porch for her and Noah and I kept her company while she ate, and the long-awaited rain fell. It was a short, gentle rain, rather than the soaking I’d hoped for, but it was nice in its own way.

Tuesday my strategy was play dates. The Toad came to play with June in the morning and the Eastern Fence Lizard came this afternoon and Noah had twin friends over at the same time, which means that afternoon there were five kids here, aged four to ten, four out of five boys. Some moments were as noisy as you might expect, but others were quite serene. At one point all five kids were on the living room floor, the three big ones playing Sleeping Queens while the two little ones, having abandoned the train tracks they were building, ate buttered whole-wheat tortillas and watched the card game.

It didn’t work perfectly. In the morning I had to remind Junes several times that the Toad was here to play with her, not to watch her argue with Noah over turns with the Extreme Bubbles wand. The Toad made a few bubbles but seemed more interested in pretending to be unicorns in peril with June. (You have no idea what dangerous lives unicorns lead: They have broken legs, wolves are approaching, “mad agents” are on the loose—you get the idea.) By the end of the afternoon play date with the Lizard, June, still not used to skipping her nap, was exhausted and ready for her guest to go about twenty minutes before it was time for him to leave. She asked if she could go to bed. I suggested reading a book to both of them instead and we settled in with Harold and the Purple Crayon.

The week went on. The kids’ behavior improved, maybe because we were busy. Wednesday, June and I attended one of Becky’s drop-in music classes and Noah had a drum lesson. On Thursday I took June to the library in the morning for Spanish Circle Time and the kids had pediatrician appointments in the afternoon.

Seeing that August page on the calendar also made me a little less laid back about how Noah spends his time. I switched over from occasionally suggesting he work on his summer math packet to requiring him to do a page a day before he can have any television or computer time. Thursday I actually made him a to-do list, something I haven’t done since the end of the school year. It consisted of exercise (a scooter ride), a page of math, a half hour of reading (his reading log is filling up more slowly than I thought it would), and practicing his drums (he didn’t practice at all between his last two lessons). Given the fact that we were out of the house from noon until four for the doctor’s appointment, the list was ambitious. By 6:15, when I called him to set the table and he hadn’t finished practicing his drums, he was upset and claimed there was too much to do and he’d never finish and he’d never have any media time again. But by seven, he’d finished eating dinner, helped me tidy the living room and he was watching Pink Panther cartoons on his iPod. By bedtime, he’d reached level 75 of Bloons Tower Defense IV, a balloon-popping game that he recently bought with birthday money and loves.

Friday he finished up his testing. June napped for the first time in a week so we had an extra-long Harry Potter reading (an hour and forty minutes) and then he practiced his drums. I agreed to let him skip his math since he’d been doing math at the testing and when Beth got home we went out for pizza and the good behavior ice cream. (After missing the first three, the kids got seven stickers in a row.)

It was a long week (I kept thinking it had to be a different, later, day than it was), but not a bad one, and I am doing some math in my own head: 7 days until the beach, 23 until school.