the ongoingness

Our library book reservations shifted from mason bees to mushrooms to leather crafts.

I try to support these random bursts of enthusiasm for bizarre activities, and the best way I know how is to lug home stacks of reference material, to disinfect resources and pile them in places I think the boys might sit down.

I mean, it's all better than the blender of current events, fungus foraging and leather-smithing over omicron and supreme court nonsense, for sure.

We work pretty hard to help the boys learn. The small things, like saying thanks and holding doors, admitting mistakes and acquiring permission and arriving on time (haha). And the bigger things, too.

Plus, the things they're interested in. 

For example, Hank's fascination for architecture evolved, and now he's illustrating pages and pages of elaborate perfume designs, free to access my very limited stock of "fancy" bottles for inspiration. Tolliver's leather interest stems from stories about a great grandfather's skill plus a bag of scraps from Goodwill. And Tucker has been tediously creating tiny flip books, making incremental changes to each backlit small sheet, commandeering the therapy lamp for his own purposes albeit way too late at night.

With new interests though, can come feelings of inadequacy. It's hard to be a beginner, to proceed to suck. Andy tells the boys on a regular basis that it's okay to make mistakes (just maybe not the same one over and over). He encourages them to keep self-forgiveness handy, like throat lozenges or a pocket knife.

We both want the boys to notice the radical delight in doing something without real purpose. To embrace the mediocrity, to celebrate the small improvements. Failing is not shameful or scary, getting it wrong does not cancel a person's entire existence. Trying something new is never not a good use of time.

We certainly do not believe that it is our job is to soften every edge, though we desperately wish gentle, joyful lives for the boys. May confidence and curiosity, may courage and humility, be part of their inheritance.