Ramona and me

I've been reading the Ramona books to Helen, and other than the pleasure of remembering scenes and phrases I've been turning over in my head for over thirty years and a slight irritation with how long the chapters are, what keeps gobsmacking me every time I turn the page is how free ranging these kids are. Okay, yes, it was the fifties, and yes, I get it, it's fiction--no one evvver exaggerates in fiction--but still. Nine-year-old Beezus looks forward to her Saturday art class, when she can leave preschool-aged Ramona to play by herself in the sand pile at the playground while she goes in and paints. Meanwhile their mother is--what? Learning to dance the mambo, presumably, or working on her novel, or running a political campaign out of her home--I mean, the mind boggles! What couldn't be accomplished, if your kids were free to just go ahead and take care of their own needs, unattended by you?

It hit especially hard, since while we read Beezus and Ramona I was trying to firm up summer plans and furtively googling latchkey kids and legal age home alone. (Spoiler: the law in Colorado still trusts parental judgment on this one, thank god. Unlike Illinois, where it is apparently the law that no one under the age of 14 can be left home alone--I mean, can you imagine? What the hell? There are states where you can get married at age 14.) I wanted to be able to drag the book out as a kind of living proof that kids used to be thought more capable than they are now- how once upon a time we parents weren't expected to be in constant doting attendance on our offspring. And how that offspring had a chance to develop on its own as a result. Kids used to be able figure out how the world worked on their own, I argued to imaginary juries. Or imaginary authority figures. Or imaginary other parents. I'm not sure whom I was arguing against, here, and frankly, the range of what parents are able to tolerate in other parents in this corner of the world, separate from Internet Crazytown, seems pretty reasonable.

In any case, I happen to disagree with my argumentative self on the last point, anyway. I think kids still independently figure out how the world works. The most helicoptered kids in the world still come to an independent assessment of cause and effect, and it's probably one over which their parents have little knowledge or control. Sigh. Which is the other reason I love reading the Ramona books. They give a little insight into what's happening behind the scenes when you ask, "So, how was school today?" and they answer "Fine" or "Good I guess" or my particular favorite, "I don't remember."

Even in Ramona, though, no one ever sends kids off on the bus to baseball tournaments alone (well, nobody HAS baseball tournaments. Still. If they had them, kids would be driven en famille. Probably.) Which is what I'm thinking about this weekend as I juggle 2 kids, 3 baseball games, a birthday party, a swim meet, an overnight, and a playdate as a solo parent, as M's in Utah for work. I'm getting by with a little help from some friends--not my friends, since I don't really have any in this set--but my kids' friends. It's quietly insane.

For what ultimate purpose? I don't even know, but we seem pretty committed to it, whatever it is. Must be good.

Children of empire

Helen's swim team had their team photo shoot Monday morning, which involved 40 or 50 well-fed children standing around nearly naked in the morning chill, jumping up and down and squabbling manfully as their well-dressed parents looked on. The team pool is at the heart of a wealthy housing development, and its infrastructure has a Grecian/ Roman element in its architecture, which may or may not have prompted my sense that we were taking part in some sort of bracing childhood initiation rite, in which the privileged children are ritually mistreated, a la British public school, in order to strengthen the ruling class's hold on power.

Or perhaps I hadn't had enough coffee and was a little irritated that on this, the first day of the first full week of summer, my carefully balanced house-of-cards daycare arrangements were already getting scrambled by team photos and breakfast in lieu of, and two hours earlier than, usual team practice. I mean, come on, people! Some of us have jobs to get to! We don't have time for this!

In any case, it fit in with reflections I've had lately as I rushed around from kid event to kid event, irritated, harrassed, burdened, and more than a little proud. I grew up thinking of American culture as the bubblegum-and-grease dregs of the civilized world. I was very Humbert Humbert in my snobberies, and while I don't still think that my prejudices were fully justified at the time (although it WAS the 80s), I think to dismiss American culture as slick and shallow and brainless is even more incorrect today. These kids, they're professionals in training. Right up until the moment they fall on the floor and refuse to do one single thing more, of course. Or right up until the moment their parents declare bankruptcy. These kids born into the culture of power, or even on the margins of it, they get a lot thrown their way. Toys, training, classes, attention, angst, electronics, and while on some level it all seems to be the same thing--iphone 4 with the deluxe monthly data plan or four solid months of strength training workouts, daily practices and weekly tournaments--you have to admit that the training element is impressive. Even if it is merely bestowed upon the passive vessels of the next generation, it still demands quite a lot of them. It surely says something about our culture's expectations for itself, even if I'm not quite sure what.

Which brings me back to Greco-Roman-British rituals and how every culture has a constellation of daily practices and how, on one level, these practices reveal that culture's soul. The stiff-upper-lipped Brits of the Victorian empire, with their ice water baths and their full cream teas in mush tents all over the globe. Mid-century Germans and their master race stuff, the purification rituals, the cult of strength. Nineteenth-century American Yankees, with their can-do spirit and inventiveness and their tendency to look behind the curtain. The French and their Culture and their million and one cheeses.

What are our daily practices?

TV and frozen dinners, might have been the answer once. Cars, commercials and Big Gulps. McDonald's and Hollywood.

Wrong, wrong and wrong, I'd say from my own provincial experience. Our daily practices are swimming at ninety thirty and ten fifteen, followed by Lego camp (for a little subtle product placement) and then two hours at the batting cage. The daily practice of the people who live around me, and with whom I coordinate for playdates and volunteering, is nonstop activity, most of it physical, most of it structured, most of it involving shockingly expensive polyester uniforms and specially designed haul bags. Most of it requiring professional team photographs at some point, although not usually involving stripping in 50-degree weather.

And what does all this say about our soul?

We have activity, structure and lots of recording for posterity. Not brainless, not at all, although there is relatively little self-reflection or spiritual development, and a sort of bewildering disconnect between training and self motivation. There's a lot of exhortation to "have fun" and also to "kick it" and "be hungry for the win." A lot of talk about skill building; a lot of actual skill building, in fact, although many kids seem to arrive with their arms out, ready to have their skills built for them, if that's what you wish.

It's not exactly bubblegum and grease. But some of the kids, my own included, seem to be biding their time with this training stuff until they can get back to what they really want to do and not be bothered. And that, whatever it is, is where their soul lies. Is it bubblegum, in their bedrooms with the doors half closed and the lights dimmed? Maybe. I can't really see in there. All I can see into is my own confused soul, which longs with a fierce intensity for a summer of long lazy days spent poking through the woods or puttering around the house and then turns around and signs up for eighteen different educational and sporting activities in the suburbs. Maybe that's what we are: confused souls, all of us, wanting one thing and then rushing out and buying another.

What was my point, again? Oh, yes, the ritual mistreatment of treatment to consolidate the ruling class's hold on power. I actually don't think having to stand around in a swimsuit for fifteen minutes, even if it was below 70 degrees, counts as mistreatment, and furthermore, I think that most of the moms and dads at the pool that morning lack what is needed to carry through on ritual mistreatment. And yet nothing says power like a million-dollar house such as most of these folks live in. So I don't know what I think. Are we as a culture losing our hold on power? Probably. Is that really a bad thing? I kind of doubt it.

Endings

Si's last day of 5th grade was yesterday, and while I am making a determined effort not to get too wistful/ slide into a sea of despond, I must remind myself that it's okay to own my feelings on the subject. Which are:

1. Iiiii want to sleep in, tooooo.

2. What the--didn't we take photos of his first day of kindergarten/ first day of second grade (which is when he started his current school)? I could have sworn we did. Honestly. Who's the record keeper in this family, anyway? Where are they? WHO CAN I BLAME FOR THIS.

3. Ack! Summer's beginning, and here I am, still trudging off to work.

4. We forgot to get a teacher gift, didn't we? Losers, man.

5. Everything ennnnnddds.

First day of 3rd grade, which is apparently the best I can do on the memory comparison front.

Close to first day of kindergarten with bonus Viking chain mail.

Close to first day of second grade with bonus broken collar bone (Sand Dunes).

Last day of 5th grade. You'd hire this guy, right?

Gribbons

Well, that was May. It kind of just... evaporated. Personally, I blame aliens, or maybe the Management. There really is no excuse for this sort of time removal. I need to make a ribbon, or a twibbon, or perhaps a gribbon (awareness ribbons on loud monkeys).

Alternatively, I could blame Camp, the search for and/or the lack of satisfactory alternatives thereof. Do you like camp? Did you like camp, as a wee thing? I did, once, like it, mostly, but I also hated its lunchbox smell and the way I'd be thrown in for a week or a half-week or a week of half-days into a pool of strangers. Which is why every time I would comb the Denver Post camp directory and make a conscientious list of all the awesome camp possibilities for kids 7 to 10 and narrow it down to two or three that might really interest the kids, weren't an hour's drive away at rush hour, and were within at least a zip code or two of affordability, I dithered, and minimized the screen, and vowed to come back later, and then never did. Until last week, when in a fit of panic I bought, like, three camps, and also subscribed to a babysitting service. Augh.

My real problem with summer activities is that I want to be home with the kids. I want two and a half months of healthy discipline (daily swim team, mathbooks, reading), fun adventures, popsicles, playdates and hikes. Only I work, so that's not really possible. I can hire someone to be my proxy, but I have to admit that this is what I'm doing.

Two weeks ago I finally articulated this and felt very relieved and like my summer camp block had finally been lifted. Then I spent two weeks procrastinating. Now I lack both relief and any and all excuses.

The sunburn he came home with is spectacular. We need to work on sunscreening skills.

But! we now have camps. And babysitters. And grandma days. And season passes to Elitches (for days with Aunt and Cousin). And I still have my job, which I'm grateful for, especially as all this Proxying is not exactly free.

On the plus side, I have been writing a lot. So that's good. See here. And here (paywalled, for the time being).

May Craze

Is it--can it--how is it possible that today is May 18? And I see I haven't posted since April. Nice.

What can I say, except that it's been busy? It's been busy. The boring truth. And yet in all of that busy time I have not yet managed to plan REALLY AT ALL for that thing which happens in two and a half brief, brief weeks, which is the end of school. Silas will escort Helen to swim practice every morning: that's about as far as we've gotten. In theory there will be a babysitter afterwards. That will require hiring a babysitter, however, and that...hasn't quite happened yet.

The kids are not too worried.

An ambulance? I'm not too sure of the significance of this event.

By not posting I managed to bloggily ignore the most boring of all holidays to write about, Mother's Day, which involved the kids actually making me breakfast (the oatmeal they made was in fact creamier and more delicious than that which I usually make for myself), and, more to the point, cooperating and not yelling at each other, which I weepily told them was the most wonderful gift of all. I also got a hat, and M. went and rented a rototiller and ripped up half the back yard. This is one of those household projects that was technically owned by me but which I'd figured out some time ago was not something I could actually accomplish by myself, and would in fact be better done entirely by the strong-armed family member, and thus had been a hopeful topic of discussions like this -

Me: "So I'm hoping to rototill the yard today. It really needs to be done this weekend. Do you think you can--"
M.: "I'm scorekeeping [at Si's baseball game]. It can't happen this weekend."
Me, unrealistically: "So maybe you can drive the Subaru and I can take the truck over to Home Depot-"
M.: "Do we know where the cable line is buried?"
Me: "No, but--"
M.: "I'm scorekeeping."

So that was the second most wonderful gift of all. Now I have been running home from work every day to gaze at the bare dirt for signs of grass seed sprouting (so far, nothing. At this point I always wonder if the seed thing is just going to not work, and all those other times seeds were planted and watered and then sprouted were just a fluke.)

Bye bye, 5th grade!

Also like tests.

Si is readying for middle school. The part he's looking forward to the most? The food. ("They sell donuts! And the cafeteria smells like real food." I didn't disabuse him of this fantasy, even though, kiddo, I'm sorry, but it all comes from the same warehouse.) He's also looking forward to the math, which is elaborate and extensive and also, apparently, extremely accountable, as in, they test these kids to within an inch of their lives. In April, the 5th graders took a test, on which he did well enough to receive a letter that said, in part, "Congratulations! Now you've qualified to take another test. Depending on the results of this test, you may be able to take another test at a later date." Apparently he did, and yesterday he got to go to the middle school and take it. I think he may get to take another one before he's done. And maybe one after that.

Now, I'm no unschooler - you will pry my curriculum taught by professional teachers at a nonhome location from my cold, dead hands - but even this seems to grimly encapsulate the entire school experience. Sigh. At least at this juncture Si still finds the tests exciting - and he, like is parents, is blessed/cursed with being a "good test taker." Hopefully he will be better than his mother at "negotiating salary" and "understanding that bosses and professors are actually colleagues, not mistily distant authority figures."

Back from Duluth

 And busy as ever, of course. I've been absorbed in a project of which more at a later date (nothing life-changing, just absorbing) and the baseball tournaments continue unabated. Mostly without me, too, I am sorry to say. I am planning to attend a game today (but only one) and with the one I went on Friday that makes the most games of any one tournament I've attended this season. This makes me sad, less for the loss of all those games I could have been watching than for the way, when I show up, none of the other parents know me. Sigh. C'est la vie. Even if I attended every game and every practice, these parents live all over creation. Or the greater Denver metro area, anyway. It is not a situation conducive to grownup bond-forming.

These photos make it look so sunny and pleasant.

 But! Enough complaining. It was a hectic week, I spent much of it in airplanes/airports, and the second night I got home Silas's old long-suffering gerbil died (quietly in his sleep, I am relieved to report). Silas was distraught and felt that his grief required a day off of school (denied.) He also began researching replacement pets and was disappointed to find that the more playful an animal is, the less likely I am to approve it. (Ferrets? In your dreams, buddy.)

In fact, it was 33 degrees and snowing most of the time.

 The garden is growing in greenish bounds and could be using my constant attention (this is really what I want to be doing, rather than driving to baseball games/ soccer games/ birthday parties/ the store). I finished Undaunted Courage, felt bad for Lewis, and signed Helen up for swim team (since baseball is clearly NOT ENOUGH.) At least that's with friends and other neighbors, the same ones I am delighted to see and gossip with at soccer games. Yesterday, in fact, as I drove Helen from the soccer game to the American Girl Doll store to buy a present for the party she was going to later, and reflected pleasantly on the chats I'd had on the sidelines (these chats tend to rather overshadow the game, which is surely as it should be, unlike the tense silence at baseball games), I thought, Raising Arizona-style, of the distant gray-haired future, in which perhaps these women would be my actual friends with whom I would actually do things, like drive into the city and attend concerts and shows or drive into the mountains and drink beer in the sunset.

My annual Duluth run.

It could happen, I suppose. Or there will be others. I have to assume that there will be somebody, that once the hectic smash of the current nontimes have passed (and they will pass, that is certain, with the swiftness of a freight train), that we will actually pick ourselves up in the ensuing silence and go about having a life of our own again.

First tick of the season

When I started at my current workplace, I was a little annoyed that we got Good Friday off but not public school holidays like MLK day. I may have couched my annoyance in righteous indignation but it was really about finding daycare on one day and having this useless day off three months later.
 
Now I've realized it's not all bad, having a day off work when the kids are in school. A person could go for a hike, say, and celebrate spring by picking up the first tick of the season (a special kind of magic).
 

 

Great place for ticks.

From what I hear, the whole country has been having a weird warm winter, but our weird warmth didn't start until March. We didn't get a single flake of snow or drop of rain the whole month--usually that's our snowiest month. As a gardener, it's hard to know whether to rejoice, or play it cannily safe, or scream that the sky is falling.

I went with the first option and planted some tomato seedlings the last day of March. March! Usually I don't put out tomatoes until May.

Not visible: two tomato seedlings.

Otherwise, it's been a busy week. I've been preoccupied by a project, by work deadlines, and by camp strategy (and procrastination thereof.) Next week: just as busy.

Even Si did some planting in his personal garden plot (peas and carrots). Photo (and frame) courtesy Helen.