Hunting Unicorns

It's easy when they walk right into your dining room. I didn't even need to feed this one - not that I'd begin to know what unicorns eat, mind you.

Battle of the Go-Go's

Two has come to love these little toys, so they were (of course) the main feature on his note to Santa this year. I like them, too, even though they do make Husband sing "We Got the Beat" every time he sees them. One is willing to play these with his brother at home, although I think he would draw the line at bringing them to school, as Two loves to do. Here the two of them are, enjoying Christmas vacation with small, brightly-colored plastic objects.

Two's Debut

He talked me into posting his Harry Potter Lego video. Help me.

Why I'm Not Worried

Two is my media consumer. He would watch movies, play video games and surf the Internet all day if I'd let him. He's never met a screen he didn't like. We've have to step in and make a host of rules about the time he spends with his two best friends, the TV and the computer (we've banned gaming systems altogether out of an abundance of caution), but strangely enough he doesn't object. I think he knows his habits are a little excessive and he welcomes the chance to take a break and try something different. To be honest, as much as I've griped about his media addiction over the years, I have to say it doesn't have me that worried. Because what he uses all that screen time for is insipration more than anything else.

These are two creations that he invented today:

Harry Potter's Potions Cabinet: Harry has no hair and an angry face because the potion he concocted made him bald.

Some Kind of Spaceship: Cobbled together from four or five Star Wars kits. The propeller at the back makes me think it floats, too. This might have been inspired in part by The Incredibles.

If this is why he loves movies so much, then I love them, too.

Heard Around the House

One to his Dad while wrestling: "Hey, a little higher and you can kiss those grandchildren goodbye. Watch it."

One on buying a llama at Heifer International: "It's not every day you can buy someone an animal that can spit from 15 feet with pinpoint accuracy."

Two on the llama purchase: "But how are we going to pick who gets the llama?"

Me, at 9:45pm: "Hurry up - it's past your bedtime." One: "What is our bedtime, anyway?" Me: "8pm - has been since you were a litte boy." One: "So that's always been just a goal for you, I take it?"

Either child, when I get near the bathroom door they have left ajar while showering/dressing: "DON'T LOOK!" Yes, as I said, the door is always ajar. And this comes from the same two monkeys who continue to talk to me through the bathroom door every time I take a potty break.

Belief

Two still believes in Santa as fervently as he ever has and none of us - not even One - has the heart to tell him the truth. When his friends tell him Santa is really just mom and dad he denounces them as heartless liars and goes along his merry, believing way.


God how I love this child!

Boys' Dreams

On Veterans' Day this year I'm thinking of my boys, and how they, like all boys, dream of being soldiers one day. It occupies so much of their imagination for such a long part of their childhood, even if it is not a dream that will ever come true for them. This year I would like to say thank you to all veterans:

• for the dreams your service inspires in boys like mine,
• for your honor, because it gives meaning to such dreams, and
• for your brave and selfless service, without which none of these boys would be free to dream at all.

God bless you.

Ahoy, Matey!

This morning the boys watched this:

Which, of course, led to this:

Having boys is THE BEST THING, ever.

I'm Living on a Pirate Ship

Or that's how Two sees things, anyway, since he's the one who planted this in the front yard today. Thankfully I long-ago stopped wondering what the neighbors will think.

Stickers

I just received an email from One's football coach about this week's practices and Saturday's game, and in it he talks about the handing out of stickers tonight. Be on time to practice, we're handing out helmet stickers: stickers are important.

And they are, aren't they? I thought we were done with stickers, but apparently we're not. All of us handed them out - Dora or Thomas, depending on gender - when we potty trained our children. Then from pre-school on, teachers put stickers on our children's work. Smiley faces, "Good Job!", "Way to Go!" - all the little marks of encouragement that have meaning to our kids.

Finally just when you think they've outgrown the need for such things, someone comes along a puts a sticker on your son's football helmet for a win. Or for a touchdown, or a tackle, or for whatever he's done that we're proud of. You know he wants that sticker more than anything, even if he tells you otherwise. He wants tangible evidence of this good thing he's done, something to show the world, something that can never be taken off, never taken away from him. He did it, he was a part of it. He owns this good thing.

And so we clumsy adults resort again to stickers. Because they say tangibly those words I hope we utter but sometimes we forget: "I'm proud of you son. You did a good job out there today."

One, you did a good job out there on Saturday, and we're proud of you. I'm proud of you every day, actually. I don't think they make a sticker for that, but it's true just the same. Every day you put on your game face and go out and get it done - at school, at football, at life. No mom could be prouder than me if she tried. Good job, young man. Good job.

*One is #44 is the second picture.

We Have A Winnah

Last year One won a prize for creative writing at our Diocese's yearly Parish Life Conference. This year it was Two's turn: he won third prize for his grade for Creative Arts with a drawing of the cross circled around with the words of the Lord's Prayer. Yesterday was the first day of Sunday School at church, and the awards were handed out before the priests blessed the children and teachers at the start of the new school year.

Here is the proud prize winner with his certificate:

Congratulations, sweet Two.

Soccer Boy

Two has taken up soccer this fall. He has never played before, but he was thrilled to try and so far absolutely loves going to practice. It will be a bit of a challenge when he plays his first game and people are (gasp!) watching and cheering, but with a bit of coaching from mom and dad we're pretty positive he'll make it through. No, I'm not being sarcastic here. Two hates being watched, especially by people he doesn't know in places he's not used to.

Here he is at his second practice. So far, you can see how much he likes it. And how much he likes his AC Milano jersey I bought him to practice in.

Football Practice

One's team had their last practice tonight before their first game this Saturday. Wheeee! The boys are really excited - at least, going by One's reaction, they all must be excited, because he is on the moon. I am the "official" team photographer, so last night while the boys were practicing I practiced too - with my camera. I've always used the idiot settings on it, and while they get good results in many situations they do not adequately cover motion shots, especially in lower light. I did some manual-reading and some googling about camera settings, and went out to play with ISO, f-stop and shutter speed for the first time. I think I had as much fun as the boys did - at least while the light held.

Huddling up:

I'm trying to see how much motion I can capture, so I take some of the drills at the beginning.


The light is starting to go, or at least my camera skills are failing me:

Aha! I open the apeture a little more and voila! More light! Just like the internet said there would be. Again, trying to see how much motion I can capture, and what looks blurry when I zoom in and what doesn't. So legs: not so bad. Feet: blurry.

Now they're getting into the drills One likes best: running into things.

Best of all: running into one another:

And now the light is really gone as it gets to be 8pm, so Two and I head home, leaving One to finish out practice and ride home with Dad. They always come in the front door laughing, so I think they like that arrangement most of all.

Let's hope I can pull it off on Saturday. I know the boys can. Go team!

Back to School

We've had two weeks of school now, and overall third and sixth grade each seem to be a rousing success. Two is, of course, still at the same school, so his adjustment time has been minimal. He should have increased work this year and a push towards more independence in getting his work done, organizing himself, and so on - which he needs and which I hope he is ready for. He's quite capable of being ready for such things if he cares to be; whether he will put in the effort to care is all that remains to be seen. He is thrilled to have a number of good friends in his class, and he seems very well-matched with his teacher. He's added art club at school to compensate for missing classes at Glassell this semester, and he's trying out soccer for the first time. Busy? Yes, he's busy. But so far he loves soccer and there's no way he'll have anything but a positive reaction to art club, since art has always been one of his favorite subjects. I think he's set to have a good year, and to grow even more independent as he navigates the school building without his brother there for the first time in a while.

One is having a typical tween's reaction to middle school. He loves it, it's wonderful, he loves his teachers, he wants to learn, everyone is nice. And then he stresses out: he knows his work will fall short of perfect, he's worried he's not making friends fast enough, what if he's tardy and gets a lunch detention, and so on and so forth... As I said: a perfect tween reaction to middle school. He started down the path this afternoon while finishing up his homework (which has been blessedly light for the first two weeks) by telling me "but when I get this done, there will just be more assigned tomorrow, and then the day after that, and every week there will be work, and I don't how I can make it all year long." Followed by a loud sob. And so I rubbed his back and told him gently that, yes, Virginia, there is a lifetime of work ahead of him, and then at 80 he will retire. And that no one in their right mind looks at all of it at once, dangling out there in the future, waiting. He needs to learn - he is learning - to focus on the task at hand and to take small bites of the work that is to come. He'll figure it out - but why I was surprised that he came to me with the "I'll work and never stop" idea so soon, I don't know. This is the child who kept me in his room for a full hour past bedtime when he was four: "I don't want to die! Death comes for everyone someday and it will come for me and I'm scared and I don't want to die." At four. My friend Jenny calls it "existential angst", and One has it in spades, unfortunately. But he also has a lot of resiliency, which is why (I guess) I haven't heard a whole lot about the fear of death in the past seven years. And so I tell myself: this too shall pass. And it shall, and hopefully the joy and optimism remain. They have before, and so they will again.

As the top of the blog says: all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. Rinse. Repeat.

Doing What We Like Best

On the last afternoon before school starts.

Saturday in Pictures

One had football tryouts today in the stinking Texas heat at high noon. I can't even express what this feels like - to stand outside on a treeless field in the middle of the day and sweat as simply as you breathe. He was so thoroughly soaked by the end of it, the permanent Sharpie letters on his tee shirt (identifying him by last name and grade, of course) had run. This is what it all looked like; you won't know what it feels like unless you've done it yourself, once upon a time.


The coaches in their reviewing tents:

Jugs of life-giving elixir:



Some of us, however, stayed home today to watch TV, and so dressed accordingly:

Being 8 is so much easier than being 11, don't you think? And the wardrobe is so much more colorful ...

Despite the heat, One had as much fun today as his brother. He gets more excited about football with every practice, and can't wait for his team assignment. The only thing that would make him less than happy would be if he were put on the A&M team - but since I don't think Antonio Armstrong drafted him today, he's probably safe. For now I hope he keeps enjoying himself, and puts as much of himself into football as he always has into taekwondo. If he does that, he'll be fine.

In his Labor-o-to-ry

The wild scientist goes to work, enjoying the last week of summer vacation with nothing to do except exactly what we like.

The Boy Who Goes To Eleven

We went shopping today, and this is what we got:

I swear I gave birth to him six months ago. What happened? When did his shoe size become a 7 (yes, that's a men's 7). Where did this child go?

With all this evidence in front of me I can only come to one conclusion:

He's growing up.

Hating the Caravan

We returned this past Sunday from a week in Colorado, about which I will write in more detail soon. A short aside to a lovely long trip is all I have time for at the moment.

While in Colorado, Two discovered that motorhomes and campers weren't illegal. Or as he likes to refer to them: "caravans".

See, after watching more than his lifetime allowance of Top Gear, and hearing the three boys on it rant and rave about caravans and the blight they are to all decent people's lives, he naturally assumed something must have been done by now. Those caravan drivers must have been put off the roads for good, their caravans smashed, and law and order restored (along with a decent speed limit, I'm guessing).

Imagine his horror, then, when while driving down the mountain to go white water rafting one morning, Two discovered the road blocked by a large, ugly, white caravan. "Arrrrrrgh!" he howled. "What is that doing there? It's in our way. It's stopping Dad from driving fast. It's slow. It's horrible. Take. It. Away."

I don't think he'll ever live that reaction down. Then again, I don't think he'll rest until he's made the pesky things illegal, either. Wally Byams, watch out: my 8 year old is coming for you.

A Sense of Accomplishment

I wasn't blogging a whole lot at the beginning of the summer, so I missed writing about two very important events in the life of the Grass Widow household: One graduated from elementary school and both boys became black belts in taekwondo. All in one whirlwind week - it was quite a show. Watching both events filled me with pride and happiness. So much happiness that, in fact, toward the end of the graduation ceremony I realized my face hurt --- I'd been smiling non-stop the entire time. One was so handsome in his eagerly requested coat and tie, Two almost behaved himself, and the whole auditorium was filled with smiles and hugs and shouts of laughter. I thought it was amazing.

And then I watched my children work harder than I ever imagine they could, and achieve something that not many achieve. And my perspective on the two events changed a bit.

Because as happy as I was for One at that graduation, let's face it: everyone (in the first world, anyway) graduates from the 5th grade. Yes, he worked hard and had challenges, but it wasn't Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, for Heaven's sake. It was a happy, fun elementary school graduation, capped off by ice cream. It was a moment to savor and be proud of, but it wasn't truly an accomplishment.

I say that not to be mean, but to point out the difference between how we feel when we have to do something and how we feel when we choose to do something. You have to go to 5th grade, or the homeschool equivalent thereof. You don't have to play on an all-star baseball team, or dance on stage in a ballet in front of 100's of people, or earn a black belt in martial arts in less than 3 years. So when you do, it is sweet. It is a victory. And from a parent's perspective, it feels so much different from any other parenting experience I can hardly explain it. It's not just a sense of pride, of "hey, that's MY KID". It's more like you're impressed with them, because they are people in their own right who make sacrifices and work hard even when they don't want to and don't give up. They are people who make it. I was proud of the boys, but even more than that, they impressed me. Not in a shallow way, but in the sense that I was honored to have been a part of helping them get there - I was proud not because they were mine, but because I was theirs. They did the work, I didn't, but they let me share in the glory of it.

It's exhilarating stuff, this parent thing. Watch out, world: these boys are coming!