literally cooking

 

We had several parent teacher conferences this week, enough to fill a spreadsheet, and kindness came up in nearly every conversation - He works well with peers in all sorts of group settings. I knew he'd be the one to pull to partner with the new kid. He always checks in at the end of the day to see how he can help.

There were comments about effort and potential too, and I'm afraid I'm still looking for some kind of optimal high care / low control parenting, but I will say this, even without reinforcement of the notion from their teachers, I know it's true. The boys are nice. As for matters of character and consideration of the needs of others, I have no doubt. And isn't that what we need more of in the world?

Hank asked Andy recently What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of the future?
Retirement, Andy responded.

No, I mean what the future will be like! Hank insisted.

How many of us are allowed to be indignant at a time?

I worry about the future. Specific things and everything. How is a human supposed to metabolize the news otherwise? The oceans are basically boiling, which makes us a bunch of frogs in a giant pot of water. There are so many scalding accusations. Is not everyone angry with themselves, too? How are we complicit in the problems? How long can hope be deferred?

No longer foregrounded in dealings with Duplo architecture or coerced vegetable consumption, I find myself wrangling our kids less and our calendar more. I swallow down vitamins and judgmental thoughts, welcome advice and an occasional yoga class. As a mother who does not work except ridiculously hard to keep catastrophe at bay, I mostly split my time between the grocery store and the baseball field. 

In the shower Hank wondered whether to say absently-minded or absent-mindedly. I wondered if he'd been watching the news too. It was ironic, though, that he asked while lathering the soap because there is not a location in the world where Hank becomes more spaced out. He broke his own reverie with a request to estimate how much soap goes through his body in a year. Like maybe a whole bar? In through my eyes and nose and ears? 

When I am not attempting to solve hypothetical bar soap equations or parenting via food, I am trying to tamp down the temptation to nag, to snuff out the bonfire of curiosity, to recalibrate my role to casually chop lettuce while sending quiet signals of I'm here. If you need your humanity seen or you'd like to chat about the girl who's been texting or you're hoping to order new shorts for winter, I'm here.

The part I do serve with dinner, do say out loud:

You are the wisest, kindest, most brave-hearted boys I know.

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” 

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

trying not to sweat all the fall stuff

May my reaction to each situation be based on the most generous interpretation...

Tucker has a choir concert tonight. It starts at 8pm, basically bedtime. I think that adjustment is related to an athletic event. This is why we live here, I remind myself, so that every student can be involved. And there is something about listening to kids sing, the way it flushes out every bit of anything that is not love.

Tolliver's last baseball game of the season ended 6 to 7 -- with him safely stealing third base, poised to tie the game plus a bizzare call for out due to batter interference or something? But his team lost graciously and he went to the movies with RoRo and hasn't looked back. He wore "double drip" for good luck, and because he did make all three outs in one inning, the necklaces will return with spring ball.

On Sunday Hank noticed that dinner looked like a rainbow, except maybe we should have added blueberries - yellow rice, orange and green stir fry vegetables, pink salmon... After a second helping, and plenty of space to pause for a big, happy sigh, there was not a single color left on the table. Between bites, Hank had asked Tucker to explain what "advocate" means. Tucker did a lovely job defining the word and sharing an example via politics. There was one other word Hank asked for clarification around but I won't type it here. Andy did a nice job handling it. Thank goodness the boys know that everything is mentionable at our house!

Hank finished knitting a water bottle holder (his own design) at art club after school last Friday, but when he got home and tried to remove it from the loom it literally unraveled. He handled that giant disappointment with remarkable calmness. After help untangling the yarn, Hank has already knitted a new one and carried it to school this morning. He got to work on his Halloween costume over the weekend too. I did overhear Hank trying to explain JoAnn Fabric store to his brother: It's like the hardware store but for grandmas.

I mean, that's a generous interpretation, isn't it?