We took Kyle to see his beloved teacher Miss Amanda. Meera and I took a little walk and threw rocks in the canal. Saturday mornings can be so right.
Today was K & O’s last swimming lesson of the 2010 season. This was their third summer in a row of “Calvin Days” (i.e., swimming lessons with Calvin). When we started this, K & O were 4 years old and Calvin was still at Lehigh, living relatively close by. Now the boys are 6 and Calvin is a PhD student in The Big Apple. We worked with his schedule and found a whole bunch of dates that would work. Not every week — but many a week — he has made the trip out here (3+ hours round-trip) for K & O. It is hard to write about Calvin. I mean, where do I even start? Do I talk about how it practically brings me to tears to think of his devotion to my boys and my boys’ adoration of him? Do I speak from the perspective of his old professor– so proud of his accomplishments, what he’s making of his life, and his commitment to being an outstanding role model for young black boys? Or do I write as his swim students’ mom– recording how far he’s brought K & O in their swimming abilities and how amazed he (and we) are in what they can do in the pool? The thing is, Calvin is just all-around-great. We are just lucky to have him in our lives. I don’t know how to write or talk about that without getting all sappy.
So, today we ended another summer of “Calvin Days” with a Thank-You Lunch for Calvin after the swim lesson. For the first time ever I gave Owen a good camera and let him do the honors of taking the photos. He did a good job. I picked three of the many photos that he took:
Calvin
Kyle digs in to a platter of panini sandwiches
for dessert we had K & O's new summer favorite -- blackberries & sweet cream
At the end of the swim lesson today, Braydon and I went down to the pool for a little demonstration of all that they’ve learned from Calvin this summer. They are doing all of the swimming strokes, diving really well, doing flip-turns, etc. The big thing they mastered this summer was treading water. Calvin makes them do it in the deep end for 30 second intervals. They do great at it. Calvin wants us to sign them up for competitive swimming this winter. We’ll see.
As we end this third year of swimming lessons with Calvin, I am left with the same feelings that I’ve had the other two summers: I don’t know which I’m more happy about– what Calvin is teaching them in the pool, or what Calvin is teaching them outside the pool. I’m glad I don’t have to choose just one, and I’m so grateful to Calvin for both.
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” ~Dolly Parton
Rainbows have been really big with us here this summer. Ever since the boys’ birthday we are all full-believers that K&O’s birthmother sends us the rainbows. Rainbows are special, always and for everyone (I assume), but in recent months –for us– they have become more special. We don’t get them very often, but when we do lately they seem pronounced and they seem to appear at the most profound moments.
The night before last, Meera was asking me to “draw rainbow!” “draw rainbow!” “draw rainbow!” I sat with her at her little table in the kitchen and obliged her commands for three rainbows in a row. I’d draw them with her pencil, then color them in with her crayons. She sat, enthralled, watching. She is heavy into drawing-coloring-etc. (and, in all truth, has probably already spent more time doing these activities –at age two– than her brothers have ever spent in their two entire lifetimes combined). After my third rainbow Meera moved on and started in with, “draw rainbow Ky Ky!” “draw rainbow Ky Ky!” “peeeeease draw rainbow Ky Ky!” Kyle, who probably can’t think of many things he’d rather less do than to draw rainbows, and who was playing basketball with his brother at the time, worked actively at fully ignoring her. Owen, who surely was just relieved that his sister wasn’t begging for him to “draw rainbow,” helped out his brother by keeping right on with the basketball game. Kyle and Owen basically hate drawing/coloring/anything-related-to-fine-motor-skills. While they can waterski, shoot hoops, hit a baseball, or do a backward flip into the swimming pool with the best of the best of ’em — writing, drawing, coloring, even buttoning a shirt, is a major challenge for them. And the honest-to-God truth is that some combination of them being ‘naturally’ (physiologically?) weak in this area, us not forcing them to do it much, and them simply hating it, has led to this result: now, at age 6, K&O are way below average in their developmental abilities to do anything related to fine motor skills. This is a tough one for me because while I am amazed and awed with their natural athletic ability (i.e., gross motor skills), I also have some heavily conflicted feelings (and just recently beginning to verge on worry) about their lack-of-ability and lack-of-interest in anything related to fine motor skills. Plus, I am a professor after all, and put no small value on capacities such as… ummmm…. writing (penmanship! etc!!). Their teachers tell us not to worry, and for the most part I don’t, but I do think about it. And as the years go by I think about it more. Aside from the obvious school-work-related issues that may crop up with this, I also think a lot about what the ramifications will be (both positive and negative) for my boys apparently fitting right into the mold of popular stereotypes about black boys (i.e., black boys are awesome athletes *and* black boys are awful students). I will leave it at that– but if you are reading, and if you know anything about any of this stuff, then surely you can imagine my trepidation. Anyway… so… back to Meera and the “peeeeease draw rainbow Ky Ky!”… most often I just let it slide, but I have been vowing to myself of late that I will begin in earnest to actively and in the most positive-upbeat-ways-possible encourage K&O to do more practicing in the fine motor skills department. So, I called out to Kyle and together with Meera, with a little wink in my eye to my sweet Kyle, I began in with the “oh peeease Ky Ky! draw your baby sister a rainbow!” “come on Ky Ky! she wants big brother to draw a rainbow!” He pretty quickly relented, and came over to the table– all sweaty and out of breath from his basketball game. The next TWENTY MINUTES were spent PAINFULLY (and I’m not sure for whom it was more painful– Kyle, or me) producing the above masterpiece. Meera lost interest after about two minutes and ran off to play with Owen. Kyle desperately wanted to take off too, but I made him stick it out. And I made myself stick it out too. It was not easy. And we sat there — him and I — with him working on this for twenty of probably the longest minutes of my life. No joke. In the end, he was very proud of his accomplishment (although, in all honesty, he was, more than that, just plain glad the ordeal was over), and watched as I taped it onto the refrigerator.
This summer held a week of baseball camp for Kyle (post here) and gymnastics classes once a week for Owen. Owen, it turns out, is really good at gymnastics. Like, really good. At the start of the summer, when I registered him for class, they asked a bunch of questions about his capabilities. They decided to place him in an advanced beginner class because, although he had never taken any gymnastics/dance/etc. before, he was already doing cartwheels, handstands, etc. He was the youngest in the class and all of the rest of the kids had taken beginner or advanced beginner gymnastics classes already. He was nervous, but he did great. At the end of that first class the teacher came out to talk to me. She said, “It says on your registration form that Owen has never taken gymnastics before. Was that a mistake?” “No,” I said, “he has never taken gymnastics before today.” “Has he ever taken dance? or acrobatics? or anything like that?” “No,” I said. She then proceeded to tell me that Owen was “way too good” for the advanced beginner class, and that she wanted to move him into the intermediate class. The next week we went to the intermediate class. Unlike the advanced beginner class, which was pretty large and included at least half boys, the intermediate class only had only eight kids in it and they were all girls– all of whom had been taking gymnastics for at least a year or longer. Owen wasn’t thrilled about being the only boy, but he did great in the class, and loved it, and for the rest of the summer went on to excel more and more at gymnastics each week. It was clear from watching that he was quickly the best in the class. Last week was the final week of the summer session. After class the week before, his teacher came to talk to me. She invited Owen to join in the highest level class that they offer for his final week. So, on Friday, Owen went to the “Exhibition Team” gymnastics class. Right away you could sense the difference. Again there were no boys, and this group of five girls was serious about gymnastics. They have all been taking gymnastics classes for a long while, and it shows. It was kind of nice for Owen to be in a class where he was not the best. He jumped right in took on the challenge. The class was fast-paced and struck a good balance for Owen– quick but with lots of constructive criticism, and tough but with lots of fun. It was his favorite class yet. After the class the teacher encouraged us to sign Owen up for more gymnastics, and invited Owen to join that “Exhibition Team” group for the fall session. I had been bringing Owen to gymnastics all summer, and had been watching him each week, but luckily Braydon had come for the last 15 minutes of that final class so he got to see just how strong Owen is in gymnastics. We’ve talked a lot about it in the past few days and we both agree that while we don’t want to pigeon-hole him so young (and we want him to explore a whole host of sports and activities), we also don’t feel that we should hold back an obvious talent. So, today I am signing up Owen for the fall session. He’s thrilled. (and Kyle, who has been asking for a year now to play ice hockey — we have no idea how he got that into his head — is going to be taking ice skating class this fall. phew!–navigating the twin terrain with this kind of stuff is –let me tell you– not easy.) We have no clue what will happen with Owen and gymnastics down the road. What we do know is that at least for now he loves it, he is really good at it, and he is incredibly obedient, well-behaved, and never bored in class (which, to us, says a lot). Owen can do cartwheels, round-offs, and is very close to mastering back handsprings. He can do a cartwheel on the balance beam. He is very good at the uneven bars (can do almost perfect dismounts, etc.). And he loves the springboard/vault-type stuff. Owen’s gymnastics teachers tell me that they “show him something once and he picks it up immediately.” But for me, the bottom line is that after after gymnastics class the first thing Owen says to me is, “How long was that? Was that a whole hour?” I say, “Yes, that was a whole hour.” And then he looks shocked and dismayed every time and tells me that he “can’t believe that was only an hour because it seemed like about five or seven minutes.” We shall see what happens this fall.
Atlanta, Georgia. Papi’s hometown. A big southern city with the world’s busiest airport. We got back a week ago from a great family trip to Atlanta.
Every time we travel we are reminded of just how much our bambinos love to travel. K & O have been travel-lovers from the start. And now their sister is catching on too. These three love every single aspect of it. The airport (even when the flight departure time is 6:30 a.m.)~~
The flight~~
The cab rides~~
Every single bit of it is revered and enjoyed. Would they have been travelers entirely on their own? Or have they caught the travel bug from us? (the age old question: nature? or nurture?) We might be fascinated by these questions, but at the end of the day, the bambinos don’t know, and they don’t care. All they know is that they LOVE (love love) to TRAVEL.
And sometimes, when I look back on the photos from a trip, one stands out for some reason or another. It isn’t always the best photo (it usually isn’t), and it doesn’t necessarily have any sentimentality attached to it (often it doesn’t), but it just folds itself into my memory as a little token from the adventure. This one, for whatever reason, is a new favorite of mine:
We stayed in a big center city hotel. Despite all the hotels we’ve stayed in as a family over the years, K & O had never stayed in one quite like this. The lobby, alone, was an adventure. With big glass elevators overlooking a huge atrium, just riding the elevators (a hundred times a day — or as often as we’d let them get away with) made it worth the trip.
The hotel also had a roof-top swimming pool (a first for the bambinos: swimming in a roof-top pool)~
And the room service was pretty terrific too (Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse was the hotel’s room service! we had never eaten at a Ruth’s Chris, so we were in for a treat! and now we’ll never be the same again because K & O discovered Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse cheesecake and their lives were from that moment onward forever changed)~~
But, honestly, to us, even our good old standby, Subway sandwiches, taste a whole lot better when eaten in a hotel suite (watching Curious George on the travel-DVD-player to boot!)… so, who really knows?~
Our Atlanta trip coincided with Braydon’s 39th birthday. We were happy to be able to have lunch with Grandpa Robert that day. K & O could not have been happier with the birthday lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. They were pleased as punch when they succeeded at getting our server to wrangle the whole restaurant into screaming “Happy Birthday” to Papi.
Our Atlanta trip also coincided with a work conference for Mama. Some good work got done. And some good fun got done there too… Braydon brought the bambinos to the conference one late afternoon so that we could all meet up with old friends for drinks.
K & O got to re-connect with, and M got to meet for the first time, our dear dear friend from Boston/Grad School, Patricia (sadly, Meera screwed up that photo shoot by refusing to take part in it), and my two star graduate students of all time — Maggie and Xochitl — both of whom babysat for K & O at different phases of their baby-/toddler-hood, and both of whom have gone on in Sociology (and make me so very proud of them)!
Major highlights of the trip included:
- A day trip to Grandpa Robert and Carol’s house. We rented a car to make the hour+ drive out to Gainesville and their beautiful home on Lake Lanier. We had so much fun and the bambinos were spoiled like they’ve never been spoiled before! In addition to a day of golf-cart and pontoon-boat riding, Lake Lanier swimming, and the swimming pool, there was a new doll for Meera (a doll who was quickly named “Gainesville”), the boys’ first water guns (!), more pool toys than K-O-M knew what to do with (!!!), and a day-long spread of a huge assortment of many of the bambinos’ favorite foods. While there we got to spend time with Sabrina and Katie and Charlie too. It was really, truly a good good day. A major memory maker with Grandpa Robert and Carol was lots of time spent jumping off the pontoon boat into VERY WARM (warmest lake we ever have swam in!) Lake Lanier… especially spectacular was watching Meera jump off the boat, climb up the boat ladder, and jump off the boat again over and over and over and over. It was awesome to see her — at age 2 — doing this!–and keeping right up with her brothers!
- Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park was right next to our hotel, and we spent quite a bit of time there during our stay.
- A day at the Georgia Aquarium, which really has to be the best aquarium ever. Thank you Grandpa Robert for this treat-of-a-day! And thank you Carol and Sabrina for joining and making it so fun.
- Perhaps the highest high of a highlight of our trip– a very, very special morning for our family spent at The King Center. Really, this deserves a whole post unto itself, and hopefully we’ll find the time to devote a post to trying to articulate all that it was for us, but in the meantime I can sum it up with one word: profound. We had seriously considered whether or not to go, thinking it might be gauged too old for K & O (and obviously it is way over Meera’s head). But we decided that we would go for it, and we were so glad we did. It was a truly marvelous experience for all five of us. A precious time to store in our family treasure box and rely on as a foundation for lots of conversations in years to come. K & O were reverent, interested, and into it (and Meera was her typical up-for-anything self). Kyle, especially, was incredibly moved by the experience. And all of us were able to expand upon already established conversations, and begin new ones, related to subjects that are– and will forever be– near and dear to our family: discrimination, racism, tolerance, non-violence, social change, justice… just to name a few. To be there, and to come fully to face with the reality that before MLK, and the many other great ones united with him, our family would, literally, not have been able to exist… it was just completely so real that it felt surreal in the most powerful way. It was really something. Something we are still reflecting upon, and something that will not soon be forgotten. And something that is at the heart of many of the conversations that we’ve had daily in the days that have followed. Our presence there together as a unit of five was truly special, and our experience of that place was a trip to remember.
Photos of some of the highlights in separate posts below here, here, here, and here. Atlanta 2010. Another great trip for the J-Ms.
Yeah, so, remember that little incident I mentioned yesterday about our washing machine flooding our Laundry Room? It turns out that what we thought was no biggie was bigger than we realized. This morning Braydon went down to the basement to the Guest Room to get something, and upon opening the door, this (above photo) was what he saw. So, yeah, the Guest Room is directly below the Laundry Room. Parts of the ceiling have fully collapsed and others are severely water-damaged to the point where the whole thing will need to be replaced. Yeah, so now we have that to deal with.
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In other update-related-news, Meera’s room was today transformed from Baby Room to Big Girl Room. I could cry a river. Everyone pitched in to pull it off. And pull it off we did. In the place where her crib once was is the same bed that Big Brother Kyle first moved into after he graduated from a crib too (the same twin bed that I slept on growing up). We completely re-arranged Meera’s room, took out some baby stuff and put in some ‘new’ (hand-me-down-from-K&O) big-kid-stuff. It is all oh-so-bitter-sweet for four of the five of us. But for one of us — Little Miss that is — it is all sweet and no bitter. She is beside herself with thrill and excitement over all of this. She got right in her bed for her first nap in it this afternoon. And fell right to sleep in it tonight too. We’ll see how the rest of the night goes… but regardless, she loves it.
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And now, back to continuing to try to get life back on track. Over and out.
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