SportsMANship

Took the photo above just yesterday.   Connor's coach is about to put him into the game.  It was a tough one.  The other team was physically much larger than ours and the officiating was not good.  Our Dragons lost and things are feeling dire with a 1-3 record.   This is Connor's third year playing football and he's never been on a team with a losing record before.  He seems more annoyed about it than sad. 

Last night I ran over to the mall to return Bob's birthday gifts (shirt too small, pants too big!) and Connor came along because he wanted a new xBox game (Skate3) that he's been playing at a friends house. He hadn't had dinner so we stopped at the food court and ordered some Chik-Fil-A.

It was busy there so you had to place your order, move to the side, and wait for them to call your name.  Connor, video game box in hand and wanting to read it, drifted away from me and I didn't notice. After a bit I realized he wasn't with me and turned to face the giant seating area--scanning the packed food court for my missing offspring.

You know that feeling? That quick flutter your belly that comes with the momentary panic that you've totally lost your child?   I had that.  And in my head I was beating myself up because when we'd walked up to the Chik-Fil-A I had been thinking about how relaxing it was to just be with Connor out in public and the freedom that came with not having to be constantly on guard about where he was.  It was a brief respite from the vigilance required to monitor my 3 year old.   Really.   I had just been thinking that very thought and now my handsome 10 year old was gone.  Surely snatched by a creepy guy and now being drugged in the bathroom, his hair dyed, his clothes changed---so the creepy guy could smuggle him out of the mall past the alert crowd that was about to be created when I contacted mall security and began screaming "Connor!" in the food court.

But no.  There he was.   I finally spotted him after a good 2 minutes (it felt like an hour)  of roaming and searching. He was standing beside a table with I family I didn't recognize who were eating their dinner.  There was a mom and dad, two smaller kids, and a boy about Connor's age.  He was deeply engaged in conversation.

I marched over on a mission.  I wanted to hug him.  I wanted to smack him.   I wanted to hug him while I smacked him.  As I drew closer, I noticed that the dad was wearing a t-shirt with the logo and name of the team that had beaten Connor's team earlier in the day-the Panthers.  I still had on my Dragons t-shirt as well.   I got to the table and nicely said hello and then turned to Connor and said with some tension in my voice  "You scared me.  I couldn't find you."   He gave me the blank stare of a 10 year old who's in trouble but paralyzed to respond. The dad jumped right in to his rescue though and said  "You have fine young man there.   He was standing nearby and saw my shirt and came up to me and said "I remember you from my game today."  He then walked right up to my son, stuck out his hand and said "Good game, today, man.  Good game."  I asked them if they knew each other and they don't.   That's quite a nice thing for your son to do and I appreciate it."

Connor looked at me and was proud.   I thanked the dad for what he'd said and for letting me know what Connor had done.  We chatted with them for a moment and then Connor and I said goodbye and headed back to Chik-Fil-A to get our likely now very cold chicken.

I hugged him.   And I forgot all about the smack.   

Star Student

Connor is number 23 in his class out of 24 kids when you take them in alphabetical order. So, this late in the school year it is finally his week to be the class' "Star Student". He brought home the materials on Friday and literally could not rip his backpack off fast enough to get started on his poster. It includes fun facts about him and some vital statistics. He loved coloring it and finishing it up on Sunday night.

On Tuesday he got to share a favorite book and he chose "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything"

Yesterday, we got to send in a letter or poem about him to be read to the class and I chose the poem I wrote for him on his 6th birthday. He said that his teacher loved it and thought it was very special, but that Adam laughed at it. I asked him why Adam laughed and he said "Oh, Mom. That's just Adam. He's mean about everything and everyone hates him for it." YIKES.

Today he brings in his "Sharing Sack" of items that are special to him and not surprisingly he's chosing things from his "travel" shelf in his room. He's taking:

1. His Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow, NY where we went for Halloween two years ago

2. His chunk of Chicago sidewalk

3. His Boston Red Sox #1 Foam Finger from Fenway

4. His real alligator head from Florida

5. His carved turtle from Hawaii

Tomorrow, the class makes a book about him. Can't wait to see that.

That Was Then, This Is Now

My friend Lisa came to town for a Spring Break visit and we had a great day at the park. She sent a bunch of photos from their visit and the one of Mason and Connor playing in the creek remined me that somewhere in the Tate Archives I had a picture of them in the same left>right position. They were 5 months old. 7 years later, look how they've changed!

The Flames Do Come

Connor has never been a "scared" kid. You know, not scared of Santa, not scared of Mickey Mouse. Fearless about climbing, jumping, diving. Not scared of monsters at night (its never come up). Not scared of ghosts (he swears he sees the ghost of our dead cat, Buddy, all the time and he couldn't care less). He's just not wired that way.

So, it surprised me last night when he suddenly burst into tears over the fire escape ladder.

We were snuggled up in bed reading "New Brother, New Sister"--a favorite around here lately for obvious reasons. In the story, the mom and the dad are clearing out a room for the new baby, painting the crib, etc. We just cleared out our new baby's room this past weekend so I stopped reading at that point and said "That's just like we did on Saturday. A baby room is fun to get ready for." That's what started it.

He suddenly got serious. Sat up. Turned his body to face me and said "Mom, you know that fire escape ladder box that was in the baby's room and that is out in the hall now?" (We have a pile of furniture in the hallway that Bob needs help moving to the basement.) I acknowledged the box. He continued. " I really need you to take it away. Take it to the basement. Put it where I can't see it." I asked why. "Because it reminds me of a fire and I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!" Explosive tears ensued.

Wow. I was shocked. But I also felt oddly well equipped to deal with the situation. You see, when I was in 3rd grade I spent about 6 months deeply entwined in an immense irrational fear of house fires. Seriously. For me, it stared when some random fireman came to my class and distributed those big orange dot stickers. Your parents were supposed to put these on your bedroom window so that the first responders coming to your house as it blazed to the ground would know that your window was the window of a child who needed to be snatched from the jaws of a melting, searing death. Looking back, I have to say that the whole thing happened around the time that my grandfather died so it really wasn't about fires. It was just the time in my childhood when I became aware of mortality. Aware of the fact that I was going to croak and that people I loved were going to croak. And as is typical of our species, I channeled all of that into a single, graspable issue: worrying about a fire.

I must have made my mother run through a fire escape process with me 100 times. I'd practice the STOP, DROP, & ROLL over and over again before going to sleep. I'd stand a my door and imagine smoke pouring underneath it and practice feeling it to see if it was hot so that I'd know if I should try to go out my window instead. And then, at my window I always made sure I had something bid and hard enough to break the glass in the event I could not lift the window on my own. I'd picture the broken glass strewn about and knew that I would take my pillow case off to lay on the sill so that as I clambered up to make my escape I would not get cut. I felt good about all those bushes below that would cushion my 5 foot drop. I pictured the fire trucks lit up in the yard. I was deep into it.

So, the boy and I had a long chat about fires last night. About how rare they are. About how they generally happen as the result of smoking or candles or heaters or Christmas trees. And we had a long talk about how silly it would be to keep our fire escape ladder in the basement when the only place we'd need it is on the second floor. This weekend we're going to have a fire drill. And we're going to take out the ladder and practice setting it up. And then we're going to put it away and cross our fingers that the acorn fell a little further from the tree. And every once in awhile I'll check to see if he's up late at night practicing the STOP, DROP, & ROLL.

The flames of childhood fears have just begun to lick at our doors here in Tatertown. And it makes me a tiny bit sad. If Connor was a child who had always been afraid of things I would not feel the loss. But in his case, I do. He's had nearly 7 years of joyful ignorance of danger, risk, and death. But clearly that time is passed. We'll do our best to be his guides into this new world, but I for one will grieve for the world that is now lost.

Always A Hindrance To Me

Saturday evening Connor and I had a date to see "Alvin And the Chipmunks-The Squeakquel" and we were headed to Red Robin to grab a quick bite before the show. On the way out of our street we came to a STOP sign and were faced with a gold minivan that was already stopped there, kind of in the middle of the road. They did not proceed after several seconds then, suddenly rolled about 6 feet forward before stepping on the brakes again. Then, their reverse lights came on. Then they went off. Then they did nothing again. Since they're sitting in the middle of the road, and its a skinny road, I can't get around them. So, I enjoyed the opportunity to justifyingly honk my horn and say aloud (inside the car where only Connor can hear me) "Come on people! Let's go!!" They took the hint and moved on and proceeded to follow the exact same route we were on out of the neighborhood. At some point near the Greenway a car got between us and I lost sight of them. Minor neighborhood traffic frustration. Not even worth remarking about....normally.

However, in the 2-3 minutes of the drive after the "no-go" incident as we proceeded to Red Robin, Billy Joel's "She's Always A Woman To Me" was playing on the radio (lyrics here if you need 'em). As is typical, I sang along.

So, we pull into the Red Robin parking lot just as the song is wrapping up. The lot is pretty full and its one of those incredibly stupid loopy parking lot layouts that you find everywhere around here. So, I'm kind of circling around heading to a few empty spots I could see in the distance. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the NO-GO GOLD MINIVAN. Which, now is sitting perfectly still in the middle of the too-skinny-to-pass aisle near three open spots which I can't get into because they're blocking my progress and I can now see that its a middle aged woman driver with husband in the passenger seat and two kids in the back. I wait a reasonable amount of time and still they do not move and I really just don't want to honk again but I do say aloud "Jeez, Connor, this woman is horrible!" and here's how it goes from there:

C: What woman?

D: That same woman in that minivan blocking us at home. She's blocking me again. She's a horrible driver.

C: Well, if you ask me, the woman in this song sounds pretty horrible.

(I snap to reality and out of my road rage.)

D: What do you mean?

C: What kind of a woman carelessly cuts you and laughs while you bleed? That's horrible.

(Now, I'm kind of chuckling.)

D: Well, honey, he doesn't really mean that literally. He means that she hurts his feelings and doesn't really care.

C: Yeah, but then she throws shadows at him? How does she do that? That doesn't sound nice.

D: Well, again, he doesn't mean that exactly. He probably means that she acts mysterious and does things he can't figure out. Songs are like poems. The words don't always mean exactly what they sound like.

C: Well, I don't like that. You should just say what you mean. Right?

While all of that is going on she moves her car and we park. The conversation ended there and that was it. But wouldn't you know it, when we got into the restaurant that family was in front of us at the hostess stand, confused, trying to gather their children and decide where they wanted to sit. This time, we had room to go around them. So we did.

Something Crunchy On a Busy Day?

Tooth #3 made its exit today. It happened on the way to football practice, in the car, while chewing gum. Suddenly, I hear..."Mom. There's someting crunchy in my gum! Oh, jeeez. Its the tooth!" Gross.

This all solved a problem that we'd been discussing for 20 minutes though--his fear that someone would knock it out at football. Took care of that, didn't we, boy?

Homework and A Test

At the beginning of the school year we cleared off the kitchen desk and made it "Homework Central". Connor loves that it is his space for learning and never fusses about pulling up his chair and getting down to it. He's been spending about 60-90 minutes a night either doing his assigned homework or his own connect-the-dots or art projects. Wow. It is shocking to me. I had so many dreadful thoughts about this whole thing--and none of them have come true. He just is a kid who needs space to control, structure, and accountability. So, the problem was his parents all along!!

Today he has his first test. Its a math test which at this point is shape matching and "alike" equation things. He doesn't even really sense that it is a test and I'm not blowing it out of proportion. He' ll breeze through it. He is all over it.

It might be the only math test that the child ever takes that I understand. Seriously, I am dreading upper elementary school math. I barely survived it the first time and I have to admit that there may have been some cheating off Rhonda Bassat's tests in multiplication tables during Ms. Tamalo's 3rd grade math quizzes. If there was said cheating, I have to say that he perpetrator would still be getting sweaty and having guilty chest blotching when she thinks of it 38 years later. In her third grade mind, she was really letting down Jesus and the Girl Scouts of America.

Wonky Teeth and Weather

Tooth #2 --the wonky one in the middle bottom standing up straight like a soldier--is ready to go. Connor pretty much can't bite into anything at this point owing to that one flapping around and the new one right next door poking through.

Nice rainbow shining over our street this evening. Haven't seen one of those since Hawaii!!

All Volcanoes, All The Time

Check out the first video at the top of the page here for a brief video clip from our first day of Kindergarten morning. Apparently, a key component of the curriculum is the study of lava cones.

Connor and Layla starting K-garten together...they've been in the same classroom since they were babies! And yes, that grafitti over his right shoulder says "Connor". I have no idea who could have done that....

Connor and Miss Andrea. She looks great now, doesn't she? Wait until the end of the school year!

What is so magical about the supplies? Its a great thing, isn't it?

Mind The Gap

Today was the day
MY TOOTH finally fell out.
I wanted to jump
and laugh and shout.

Now, I can do the things
other kids do...
show off the hole
and let Jello SQUISH through.

My mom grabbed the camera
and started to cry
(It's bound to grow back
so I'm not sure why)

The best part of all is much later tonight
I'll hop into bed and turn off the light
Then, after I close my sleepy eyes,
the tooth fairy will come
and leave a SURPRISE!

Author Unknown

Dentition Alert

Connor has two loose teeth. I can't believe it. He can't believe it. He is so excited as this is clearly recognized by him to be a "rite of passage" into "big-kid". He's been telling me that his teeth hurt for a week, but we just figured it out yesterday. He's spending alot of time in front of the magnifying make-up mirror in my bathroom watching them wiggle about. There is alot of drool in the area.

Last night we went to Wegmans and ended up in the check out line behind a 6 year-old in a tae kwon do uniform. He and Connor struck up a vigorous conversation about their ages, martial arts skills, and finally, teeth--specifically the loose kind. The other boy-Aidan, was quick to inform us that he had many "big teeth" and indeed his mouth was an amalgam of baby teeth and adult teeth in that "so ugly its cute" configuration. Connor demonstrated his minor tooth wiggle several times. Then, suddenly, Aidan says "I have a really loose one up here" and points out a dodgy one on the top next to his central incisors. Connor then asks him what it feels like when they fall out and Aidan reaches in and yanks the tooth out to show Connor what will happen. Blood. Tooth. Hysterical laughter. Unmitigated BOY JOY in the check out line. Aidan's mom was a good sport, but she clearly could not believe that her son had just reached into is his mouth and yanked out a tooth that was not really ready to be set free just to show it off to another kid.

The whole thing just made Connor's night. And mine, too.