Turkey Triage

Some excerpts from the past week:

Gemma and Joshua wrapped up their swim lessons for November.  Gemma now knows the 4 major strokes, though they are far from perfected.  She seems not to know that swimming lengths of the pool is "work."  It's all one giant, fun time for her.

Josh, too.  Though he has not been told to swim lengths yet.  Because of his age, he "should" have been placed in the pre-levels.  But because of his progress this summer, I signed him up for the Big Kid league.  They didn't ask for his birthday, and I didn't tell.  I was walking by him at one point and tried to catch his eye just so I could wave.  He, instead, was fascinating by something in the water (perhaps on the pool floor?) and after a few seconds of staring, just stuck his whole face in to get a better look, as though the water were no barrier at all. 

So fun to see.  I'm still not as comfortable as that.  But my technique must be improving because I can swim longer now.

***

Gemma was the Special Student at her program at school (where she goes for one full day a week--it is called the Home School Academy and she loves being part of her K-1 class of 10 students). 

Being the Special Student required that she make a poster about herself and present it to the class.  The temptation to intervene and "improve" her poster was great.  But I held off.  I really did.  My only contribution was getting her the photographs and supplies she wanted and making sure she had spelled everything correctly.

Her teacher told me she did a great job, and that she now knew "everything" there was to know about Sparks.  (This is Gemma's AWANA club.)  This I found heartening.  Her scripture-memory club was the one thing she was most excited about sharing!

She also included a pink ribbon and told, so she told me, the class that her mom is a "breast cancer champion."  Interesting. Of all things to say about me. . . 

***

Joshua does not know his ABC's. He can't identify most of the letters. He has no interest in learning.

This does not worry me.  You don't need to write in words of comfort and assurance about how he is a boy and how boys develop verbal skills later et al.  Truly:  I am not worried.  If he ends up being one of these kids who does not read until he is 12 years old, that's fine.  That's one of the advantages of home schooling.  He (and Gemma, for that matter) are not on any institution's time table.

But I still try.  I surround him with all the same tools of literacy I surrounded Gemma with.  When his letter-switch flips on, there will be letters available to him.

So, the other day, when he finished up his table work during our "school" time, and asked to play a game out of my home school cabinet, I pulled out one he had not yet seen.  The Leap Frog Fridge Phonics game. 

It was inside a non-descript box, waiting for him.  This game is clever.  It includes one big piece that plays the ABC song and 26 additional letter pieces. You put one into the big piece, and a song plays that is specific to each letter and the sound(s) it makes.  Genius!

I told Josh, "This is a special game you haven't seen yet.  But it's noisy."  He grinned.  "So you can't play it down here while we are still working.  You can wait until we go upstairs together, or you can go upstairs to discover by yourself right now."

He took the box and was off.

Clump clunk, up the stairs.  Rustle bang.  Music plays.  Rustle bang.  A little more music.  Rustle clunk. Then clum clunk, back down the stairs.

He appeared with a scowl.  A piercing scowl, that is, aimed straight at me as though I were guilty of a trick that was very much unappreciated.  "This," he announced, plunking the box on the table, "Is the ABC's!"

Can't blame a Mom for trying.

***

We spent Thanksgiving in Hastings, Nebraska, with my brother and his family.  Bryan baked pumpkin pies the few days before.  He makes his own crusts, and culls his own pumpkin mush from his own garden pumpkins.  So this pie-making evolution is one that spans a few months.

He finished late Tuesday night and gave me some directions as he came to bed, for what he needed me to do the next morning with the pies. 

The conversation that night went something like this:

(I was already reading my book.  Bryan enters.)

B:  Can you do something for me tomorrow?

A!: Uh huh.

B: Can you ________(insert white noise here because, come on, after 11 years of marriage, doesn't he kind of know that once I'm reading in bed, I am no longer listening to anyone else?  I'm done.  Done with the day.  Done being nice to other people.  Done practicing good manners.  I am now in the "going to sleep" process, which, for me, includes at least a solid 45 minutes of reading before the light goes out.  I'm not going to apologize for that.  Bryan has his own "going to sleep" process, too.  His only lasts about 16 seconds from the time he gets into bed to the moment he is asleep, but it's still a process.  And I don't interrupt it with lengthy instructions for the next day's details.)______ for me?

A!: Yeah.

The next morning, I came downstairs to find pies scattered all over the counter tops, island, and inside the fridge. 

I called him at work.  "Good morning, Baby Duck," I began.  "Uh. . .what am I supposed to do with these pies, again?" 

Wrap them, now that they've cooled.  Freeze several in the outside deep freeze.  Prepare some to be brought to Hastings.  "And those little ones," he said -- oh yes, the little ones, because he has several individual, personal-size pie tins -- "I thought we could bring with us on the road."

"On the road?"  I asked.

"Yeah," he clarified, "As little pie snacks." 

Pie snack.   This phrase tickles me.  Pie snack. I couldn't get over it.  I still can't. 

Later that afternoon, as we loaded into our sedan for the 7 hour drive, Joshua saw the pie snacks going into the cooler.  "Is that a snack for us?" he asked, with great optimism.

"Yes," his father replied.  "It is an exquisitely delicious pie snack for us." 

And this was funny, too.  That word exquisite.  Have you ever heard it used naturally in a real-life context that does NOT include a reference to fine jewelry or art?

Exquisite.

Go ahead.  Try to use that word today in normal conversation and see if the person you speak it to doesn't trip over it. 

***

Thanksgiving was a delight.  John had cooked the turkey the day before, and he and Bryan prepared all the side dishes the day of, so it was a logistically relaxed kitchen.  The kids played together all day.  Adults chatted and caught up with each other around tasty appetizers and wine and, frankly, too many cups of iced coffee rounded off by Caribbean Cinnamon creamer.  I may be brunette, by I like my coffee blond. . .

Are there certain people in your life you like to make laugh?  In some crowds, I don't try for too much humor.  Maybe these are crowds that have already demonstrated an unwillingness to laugh (at me, anyway) or they are crowds that already have a very funny person in them and I like to be among those laughing.  I realize that I really like to laugh with my brother and sister-in-law and to make them laugh, too. 

If you are this type of personality, you'll know that it's not anything you try for.  Trying is the surest way to be not funny.  There is just a certain chemistry in the air that encourages you to say stuff.  Stuff you might not say if you were to think it through first.

Like, when we were sitting around at dessert time having a lively discussion with family and a few others guests who had dropped by and, suddenly, the door was opened to another guest: Fr. Walsh.  And I said to my brother, with a fake scowl, "Hey!  Who ordered the priest?" 

Not that the priest heard me. 

Later that night, after the guests had gone, 6 of us remained around the kitchen table to play a family favorite: The Questions Game.  I won't describe it for you. . . but it requires only pen, paper, and people and I have never not had a great time playing it. 

Part of the fun is that people can either go for the laugh or go for the win (sometimes they can do both. . .) and that night, John went for the humor.  I laughed so hard, again and again--the put your head on the table, shoulder-shaking, tear-streaming, gut-busting laughter that can never be foreseen.  It just shows up.  When we're lucky. 

The next day, the upper part of my abs ached.  It was an exquisite pain. 

***

One guest there was an old lady.  (Am I supposed to say "older"?  Of course she was "older."  50 is "older" to me.  This lady was old.  In anybody's book.)

She was a former student of John's, from his memoir writing class.  Over a year ago, through a tragic yet petty set of mis-steps, a stack of her writing at least 6 inches thick got thrown away.  She had no copies of it. 

Somehow, this got mentioned to someone who mentioned it to Susan who told John and though he had thrown away the final projects of all his others students (as all teachers do--what?  are we supposed to hang on to everyone else's work???) he had saved this woman's. 

This Thanksgiving, she and her husband came by to say "hello" and to collect an inch of her work back from what she had lost. 

Her husband explained that she liked to write, that she specialized in capturing all her family and personal stories for posterity, but that without a class that demanded homework, she would never sit down and actually do it. 

I could relate.  (Though I'll tell you: What does this woman have going on in her life that she can't "make time" to write?  Geez.  I implore all of you to remind me once my nest is empty: Amy!  Get to work!)  So I shared with them how I keep this blog, how there are a few people who e-mail me to tell me I'm a lazy slacker if and when I miss my Sunday deadline, how this keeps me honest.  More honest than I'd be otherwise, that is.

They both looked at me blankly.  "We don't do computers," the husband said.  I'd gathered this.  The woman's final project was all hand-written. 

Still.  Blogspot is very easy technology. . .

He also commented that at my young age, I'm "just at the beginning," and "what do you even have to write about?" 

Ah, I smiled.  You have a point there, sir. . .


***

Gemma turned 7 last Tuesday.  We gave her a birthday present and we ate at IHOP and her friend next door gave her a book titled Gemma the Gymnastics Fairy, which of course shocked us all because Gemma is not a popular name in America.  But other than this, we delayed our celebration so we could spend it with her cousins in Hastings. 

For the occasion, Gemma, Josh and I made a pinata.  In the shape of a turkey.  Long time readers know already that I love pinatas.  Love to make 'em.  Love to watch kids beat them.  Love the sense of occasion they bring to any celebration. 

Instead of loading it with candy, Gemma prepared a goody bag for each person who would be there.  She did this all on her own, using the cards she had made in her Home School Academy art class, and some of her own stickers, and some of her own Halloween candy. 

We used a big balloon for the turkey's body, a small one for the head with a cone of paper for the beak and a loose, pink balloon for the waddle.  I attached the head to the body by means of a toilet paper roll and then cut two wings out of a cereal box.  It was brilliant, really.

We paper mached that sucker periodically over two days.  On Wednesday morning, hours before we were due to leave, we painted it.

Then, in an inexplicable moment of exquisite stupidity, I lifted that bird up by the head and cracked the neck clean off.  

DOH!!!!

What to do what to do what to do what to do?????  The kids looked at me with great concern.  Gemma's suggestion, "We can duct tape it." 

While I applauded her willingness to find a solution and her faith in the when-all-else-fails duct tape strategy, I announced, "Turkey triage!!!" 

I mixed the paint into the bit of paper mache paste I had left and used paper towels to re-paste the neck into place.  Joshua stood watch with the space heater, moving it in stages around the wound to dry it faster.  And it worked.  Disaster averted. 

Gemma beamed at me as I worked quickly.  She beamed when she saw that the neck was fixed.  She beamed when I packed it, our bottles of wine and their puffy winter coats into a laundry basket for safe transport.

Her celebration on Friday was perfect.  John and Susan got their chocolate fountain going and we stuck Gemma's candles into a piece of the pound cake that would later be used for dipping. 

Joshua thought this fountain was a wonder.  He dipped some stuff, took his plate to his seat, climbed onto the chair and surveyed his goodies.  He spied a strawberry that, somehow, had no chocolate on it and said, "What's that for?"

Then we whacked open the pinata outside.  By the time we got back in, it was already 3:00.  We'd planned to come back to the Springs after the party.  But, eh, 3:00 is late in winter time.  And we were having such a nice day, we stayed one more night and shoved off first thing Saturday morning.

I asked Gemma if she'd had a good time.  She had a great time.   Did she like her little party?  Did she like the pinata?  Did she like spending 2 whole days with her cousins?  Yes, yes, and yes again.  She liked it all very much. 

We listened to the remainder of The Railway Children on the way home.  (An audio book we'd been enjoying since last week.)  And we listened to all of Charlotte's Web, too.  She loves audio books. 

This is a 7th birthday she will remember fondly.  There is no colored ribbon for a mother and father who would champion it for her as we have done.  Just thanksgiving.  One day.