When you have the kind of growth curves we’ve been having around here, coupled with a few trips to the emergency care, and about nineteen thousand practices, games, and lessons all in the same day, you become less of a ponderer, and more of a survivalist. You inch your way to that cup of instant coffee on Sunday, eying your keyboard wistfully. Can you claim it, before the Yo Gabba Gabba DVD in the laptop hour?

Marcel’s New Tricks:

1. Climbing the backstop when Sam isn’t at bat.
2. Playing stick ball fireman ninja tag with Lucy, a new friend who is always at the baseball games too.
3. Counting the number of boys and girls in every situation.
4. Seeing letters in his name, or that of his friends on the sides of things;  Mom there is a Q! That is the same letter that’s in Quentin’s word!
5. Putting the correct emphasis on the word Duh.
6. Beginning every sentence at the dinner table as if he was in an airport hanger.
7. Finding things that other people can’t. Or don’t wan’t to. Example: the dead mouse  under the carpet rolled up outside.
8. Sending love to things that are hurt, or dead and burying them. Talking about all the impending deaths his stuffed animal friends might be experiencing soon; Did you know that Bunny’s mommy is going to die soon?
9. Eating broccoli by the handful if prepared just right.
10. Running almost as fast as his brother.

Sammy’s New Skills:

1. Whacking the bejeepers out of any baseball that comes his way.
2. Talking about the game like he is actually picking it up; And the infielder pop made me run when I shouldn’t have so I got out at home.
3. Losing count of his eleven girlfriends.
4. Noticing parental manipulation of younger siblings, and calling it out; “Marcel she is just saying that to get you to eat another bite. You don’t have to…”
5. Walking into time out without being asked twice.
6. Putting on clean clothes the night before, so he is already for school in the morning.
7. Noticing that there is a difference between attempts at humor, and being fresh, before being asked to go in time out once.
8. Counting to ten out loud and softly when I am getting angry.
9. Reminding me to “not take it out on [him]” when ten isn’t enough.
10. Allowing his brother to beat him at things once in awhile.

Mama’s ah-has

1. I have become the parent on the bleachers I swore I’d never become as a kid. That really, really, really loud person that my dad was when he screamed; “Go Put!* Put it in the goal!”
2. Having a wildly successful athlete, and a kid who couldn’t care less about team sports is a marvelous balance.
3. Sam’s skills do not make me a more exciting and well rounded individual. Sam’s skills make me feel like I am Madonna when I first saw her in concert in 9th grade.
4. An hour of gardening is equal to an hour in some exotic quiet place to someone else.
5. A few clay pots, a raised lettuce bed, and a patch of earth with things that come back from next year is all it takes.
6. Bringing a chicken pot pie to a neighbor you don’t really know, but who going through a very hard patch nourishes many.
7. Broccoli steamed for just a few minutes with nothing on it is all it takes.
8. Not consuming alcohol is wildly beneficial me. and everyone around me.
9. Being a single parent on a weekend is not restful, ever.
10. Taking credit for the fact that my two sons know how to share victory is my own win.

What new skills are you and yours shaking at your house? Lay it on us. We’re eager to celebrate your new moves too!

_______

* Put was the nickname my father had for me as a girl. It came from the game–or nursery rhyme (?) “Katie put pie, high in the sky,” if I recall correctly. The nickname had explicit directions to never be uttered out of the house.  I can still feel the moment he slipped up terribly, in that moment of parental enthusiasm; “GO PUT! Put it in the GOAL!”