“Who you calling slow?”
The morning routine can get hectic in our household.
There’s breakfast to make, showers to take, the dog to walk and, of course, we have to get dressed.
For our nine-year-old son, the getting dressed part doesn’t come easy. Half dressed is about as much as he will do without prompting two, three or even four times from us parents. It’s the kind of prompting that drives us steaming mad with thoughts of using hot-iron rods to hurry him along.
And our son?
He’ll get dressed all in due time, in his time. After hearing our often detailed instructions about his chest of drawers, taking out different items and putting them on followed by his shoes, he’ll walk out of the kitchen. But he won’t turn in the direction of his room but to the piano for a quick play before flopping down on the sofa to flip through a book and then to pick up the cat, burp loudly and fart around aimlessly until we remind him of what he has to do: get dressed.
“Oh, yeah,” he says.
[continue reading…]
“I know who I’m supporting!”
The World Cup is on and our three children, each with three nationalities apiece, get the traditional grilling: Who are you going to support?
They could choose their Argentina – and that of their grandfather. Or they could choose the England of their mother and their other three grandparents on Mum and Dad’s sides. Or they could simply choose the U.S. for Dad.
Of course, with England out of the tournament, the choice has narrowed.
But before this fate, the answer from the 9- and 11-year-olds was simple: “All three!”
It’s a wise choice. You have better odds of advancing to the final, something that has eluded Argentina since 1990 and England since 1966. And the U.S.? Well, it hasn’t ever made the final since the tournament started in 1930. But with the advance of the years, it increasingly draws aspirations that someday it will, a fate fueled again this year by its good performance. [continue reading…]
Deep beneath the sea you may find a creature of magnificent proportions.
My wife and I were in the kitchen gabbing away, and next to us our eldest daughter sat doing her homework.
She listened intently, and then said something funny related to our conversation.
I laughed.
And then I thought, when did you grow up? You’re only 11 but now our adult world is starting to make sense. You are growing up and taking on chores. You clean your own closet and you make your own bed. You make your own lunch for science club on Tuesdays. You walk the dog. You look after your younger brother and sister when we nip out to the supermarket. You look after your brother on the ice rink on your own until we get there after running errands on a Saturday morning, and you make your own occasional coffee with milk steamed in Mummy’s steamer that you clean afterward. You are learning about the industrial age and coal and labor unions and politics.
You are growing up. [continue reading…]
