I really have no plan for where this will end up but it's nice out (i.e. not 95 degrees with 98% humidity) and I'm sitting on our dirty deck watching Will dig on his "construction site" so I thought maybe now would be a good time to attempt something more significant than a few pictures and some half-hearted commentary on them. If you count a list as "significant," anyway.
1) Reunion. Somehow it's been 10 years since I graduated from college. Somehow I've only managed to return to Lynchburg twice in those 10 years. (Once for a brief night or two on our way to the beach with Ann and Whitney and another short stop there for Lucy's wedding.) I had forgotten how pretty Lynchburg is and especially how nice the houses there are. When I told my mom this, she asked me why I thought she and my aunt liked to come visit me so much. (And I think she was only half kidding.)
I will write more soon on my little school (I don't mean "little" to be dismissive or belittling) and some things that I've been thinking about since returning there but for now, I will say that it was nice to go back to the first place where I ever had to make it on my own, where I didn't know a single person and I was as anonymous as I'd ever felt (insofar as one can be "anonymous" at a small school, which isn't very, but it felt almost exotic to me to be somewhere where I could go to the grocery store and not be guaranteed to recognize at least every other person as a familiar face). I left the small town where I'd lived my whole life (in the same house, no less) to escape that stifling sense of familiarity, where every single thing I'd ever done wrong (or right, in fairness) was shared with the entire town in what felt like a matter of minutes.
But truthfully, now that I look back on it, it was this very same quality that I was most drawn to in my little school. People spoke to you, they got to know you, your professors knew your name. It was comfortable. (And gorgeous.) It was still comfortable. And still gorgeous. With one small difference. They've gone coed. And I'm still kind of pissed about it. But that's another topic for another day because I think I could fill up a novel on that subject. And novel-writing isn't exactly what I've set out to do today.
2) When Will returned from his little WV vacation, he had two doctor's appointments. One was to assess the status of his perpetually infected ears and another to assess the status of his potentially lazy eye. The verdict on both was that he's perfectly fine. Finally (after months), his ears are clear. His vision is nearly perfect. The highlight of the day was when he told the nurse at the eye doctor's that (and I'm quoting him exactly here) he "doesn't have any decent toys" at home. I thought the nurse was going to fall off of her stool. Our basement is apparently full of toys of the non-decent sort.
3) We are leaving for the beach in sixteen days. Can you tell that we're excited? Will keeps asking if we're leaving tomorrow.
4) Will also told us this morning after Jamison asked him if he liked all of the four thousand blackberries he consumed yesterday that he was in fact allergic to them. Just FYI.
5) He also told me to "watch his technique" as he plunged from the back of the couch to the cushions. (This was also after he had been told approximately 25 times not to do this but I let him slide after he said this.) I seriously wonder where he gets some of the stuff he says. It's certainly not from television, as we've been on a major tv cleanse since the beginning of summer. Will's kind of like an addict with tv, which could partially be our fault since we've kind of made it out to be his forbidden fruit of sorts. I've found that his behavior, though, is a million times better when he doesn't watch tv, in part because he's so high energy that any time spent outside instead of in front of a screen of any sort generally means better results for all involved. This coincides with our getting cable, of all things, since we had to get a land line due to my phone never working in the house.
6) Laura is getting braver by the day. And while it's certainly not an accomplishment of mind-boggling proportions for a 14-month-old, she's nearing walking.Which is funny because Will took his first steps over Memorial Day weekend three years ago. So far, though, Laura doesn't appear to subscribe to the Kamikaze Baby school of thought, which is a nice change from Will's impulsive ways. And . . . here's the kicker: she appears to actually be capable of listening. While it's still early and I know we can't predict exactly what her personality will be, you could have almost knocked me over with a feather the first time I gave her the stern "No!" (of the electrical outlet variety, a special brand of sternness) and she actually stopped, turned around, and crawled away. It's happened enough at this point that I know it wasn't a fluke.
The first time it happened, I picked her up and danced around with her as though she'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize or developed the sudden capability to do yardwork or babysit her brother. And, I'll freely admit, I really had to laugh at the idea that nurture trumps nature. I know she's young and we could be in for it at another point in her life, but really, right now, I'm savoring this girl. This girl who is just so easy and so pleasant that I can see how people may be tempted to simply chalk up their kids' good behavior solely to their mad parenting skillz and laugh down their noses at parents who happen to have a Will in their midst.
I'm learning from both of them. From one, that it's never too early to be outfoxed by your child on a regular basis. And from the other, the redemptive value of an easygoing personality. I could easily have at least two more if I could be assured that they'd be just like Laura. It's so unspeakably nice to have some of my confidence in myself as a disciplinarian restored.
7) And finally, there's really nothing quite like a four year old to lend some levity to your daily conversational topics. Our last few days we've talked about race (after he noticed that the two sanitation workers were black and he said he couldn't be a "trash man" because he wasn't black)*, what "war" means, and the differences, both real and perceived, between the sexes. And here I thought I had a few years before we'd be getting into the more meaty subjects . . . We've yet to hit on the finer points of major world religions, but there's always tomorrow, right?
*For anyone who's curious, I'm currently reading NurtureShock and the authors talk about how we're really doing our kids a disservice by not directly addressing race out of a desire to be pc. So I used the opportunity to point out how anyone of any race could be a sanitation worker while I silently pleaded with the universe to please steer him in a totally different direction in his future career path.
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