This evening was an evening I’ve been looking forward to all week. Because all of the Thursday-nights volunteer work I’ve been doing I missed the first two of Hallie’s soccer games. I’d been to Travis’s Saturday-morning games and felt sad that I couldn’t see Hallie in hers. This evening was the first one I’d get to see and I was fired up about it.
I got home to see the usual household activity. Travis and Kelly were working on Travis’s piano lessons and Hallie was hovering over her homework at the kitchen table. I said hello to each and put away my things, opting to keep my shoes on (boy do I love to be barefoot) because we’d soon be leaving for the game.
Hallie, bless her heart, was struggling with her homework, and not much later was curled up on the couch seemingly spent. In light of our girl’s fragile state we skipped the soccer game. Later we learned that the game was her team’s first win, 1-0.
There’s no doubt that skipping the game was the right call, and I’m glad I was there to help Hallie recover her equilibrium. Still, it was a reminder to me that even when I do my part to keep these appointments, I can still miss them due to other causes. My family’s life does not necessarily fit into the little spaces I carve out for it in my daily schedule.
The important thing is to be there when my kids need me. Try as I might, our modern life doesn’t allow me to be there for those times and all the other times. It’s one of the sadder aspects of being a father in a working world.
Hallie and I had a special outing yesterday. With her teacher’s blessing, I pulled her out of school for an hour to go be a guest reader at Travis’s school. Hallie was delighted to get to see his classroom and classmates, and she got a kick out of reading to them. She did a really good job with it, and they clearly loved having her there.
I wish I could say Travis was on his best behavior. While his classmates were all quite well-behaved, it was all just a bit too exciting for Travis. He got a bit silly and kept popping up and wanting to contribute. I can understand his behavior, and his teacher assured me it was very predictable and appropriate for his age. I think we’ll do a little more advance work before I make another visit, though. Just in case it helps.
We’ve had a lot of trouble getting out the door on time lately. It’s usually because Travis find far too many things to do that are more interesting than putting on his shoes and socks or brushing his teeth.
The other morning, trying to urge him along, I peeked around the corner into the bathroom. It’s true he actually had brushed his teeth. But instead of moving along with other stuff, he was busy suspending his wash cloth across the sink to make a hammock. He told me about it proudly and declared, “I sure can create stuff, can’t I?
Yes, Travis, you sure can!
Travis’s mind is in constant motion! The other day he announced out of the blue the name of his new band: “High-Pitched Noises.” I asked him what kind of music they play and he declared, with a mischievous smirk, “Really low songs.”
His band came up the other night at bedtime. I love asking him leading questions, and this time I asked about the band’s singer. “Oh,” he immediately replied, “the lead singer is Elvis.” Read the rest of this entry »
Travis started a new school this fall and he started music lessons as well. So far, I’m very happy with both of them!
T’s in the transitional kindergarten class at Hayes Barton Baptist Church. About half the class is a month older than him and the rest are pretty close to his age. So, he’s got a more appropriate grouping and a much more challenging, engaged teaching team. Ms. Jacki, the lead teacher, told me before the end of the first week that she was going to start pulling Travis and one other child for a reading group “because they are ready.” After a year where I felt his teachers taught their usual curriculum with no consideration for where the kids were, I’m delighted that she’s already working to meet Travis where he is and take him further. He’s pretty happy about it, too! Read the rest of this entry »
Both kids are now well into their fall soccer season, with Travis on the Black Bears and Hallie on the Angels. Hallie’s team has missed a few practices b/c of rain, so they are seeming a bit disorganized. Travis’s team is a bunch of four-year-olds, so they will likely always seem disorganized. The most common cheer from parents of kids on either team was, “No, go the OTHER way!”
I don’t know that soccer will ever become the standout activity for either kid, but they are both having fun and getting better at getting in there after the ball. Hallie’s the only girl on her team, which doesn’t seem to bother her a bit. Her biggest complaint about the last practice was that it was over too soon.
At their request, I had signed both kids up to do indoor swim team starting next month. But after the bumps we’ve been through with Hallie, it seemed that two practices, though only 45 minutes each, a week was too much to bite off. So after soccer’s over we’ll have a gap unless they find something else they want to do. There’s another swim team session starting in January, so maybe that timing will work out better. I hope so, as I’d love to see them keep that up. (And I’d love the time to swim laps myself!)
Hallie’s latest focus has been jump roping. Apparently a couple of girls in her class are pretty good and they’ve been doing that every day at recess. All our jump ropes are pretty crummy, but I can see she’s making a lot of progress. She complained so much about her ankle hurting last week, that she had to take a few days off. I’m sure when it stops raining, she’ll be back at it again.
With the late Labor Day this year, Travis had to wait 2 full weeks longer than Hallie to start school. Now that we’re in his second week, it finally feels like we’re settling into a schedule. I’ve needed this for a long time!
I’m still sorting out what I’ll do with my hours while Travis is in school. With all my usual freelance work dried up, I’m keeping busy right now coordinating Conn’s book fair. And catching up on postings to the H&T page. And hopefully conquering some long overdue projects and maybe even some painting. I’m sure the hours will fill themselves in a hurry and I’ll be left wondering where they went. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve come to expect a transition period when Hallie starts a new school year. The start of second grade has been no exception. My best guess is that it’s caused by a combination of exhaustion from the new schedule (both mental and physical), anxiety over meeting a new teacher and settling into a new classroom, and just a general reaction to change. Read the rest of this entry »
Travis is really getting into this reading thing. This morning he announced, “Let’s come up with words in the “-ook” family. They did “-at” words at school last week, but this was all T’s idea. So, we proceeded to list several on the kitchen board. After a bit, Travis started throwing in things like “smook” and “chook.”
“Those aren’t real words!” I teased him.
He smirked impishly but then looked a little disappointed. After a moment, though, he brightened.
“I know!” he announced. “We can make fiction and nonfiction lists!” He then proceeded to tell me — accurately — which words should go on which list. This is pretty fun!
Note: This is from more than a month ago but apparently I never posted it
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We’ve done all our summer swimming at a couple of the Raleigh city pools. Most are pretty bare bones, but they’ve worked fine for us. We left behind our closest pool this summer in favor of one that has a diving area. It has no diving board, but it’s got an area that goes down to 12 feet where kids can dive from the edge. H&T love this, even if they do more jumping than actual diving, and lost interest in the basic 4′ pool near home. Read the rest of this entry »
