Good Guys Versus The Dream Team

Alexander designed the day. A family competition day – he and Quince versus Bill and me.   On his schedule:  badminton, ping pong, netball, Wii tennis.  With a very, very complicated scoring system.  So many points if you win;  even more if you win by 5; you even can get points if you lose by no more than 3, and so on.

First up, badminton. Games to eleven. Best out of three. Badminton is one of my all-time favorite sports – if I may call it a sport.  I played hours of badminton during the summer as a kid.  All out, competitive, no holds barred badminton. Whoo Hoo --  Bring it on!

Bill and I name ourselves “The Good Guys.”  After much back and forth, Quince and Alexander settle on “The Dream Team.” The Good Guys take game 1.  Cracks start to show in the Dream Team.  Quince whines, Alexander criticizes.  Finally, Quince, scowling, free arm behind her back, stands at the net with racket in the air, but makes no effort to hit the birdie anymore as it sails toward her.   Alexander has had it with her.

We stop play.  Major negotiations ensue.   At first we leave it to Alexander and Quince to see if they can sort it out.   Can they play together or do they want to rearrange the teams?  Now is a good time to tell you that there had been a major shift in their relationship over the 4-week school holiday.  For reasons which are mysterious to me, they crossed a bridge and began to like each other, began to enjoy playing together, and most significantly, saw themselves as aligned.   Against us, their parents.  Now I realize that might sound horrible and wrong, but in fact, for a whole set of complicated reasons I won’t go into here, that is a positive.

It was important to tell you this, because you might think the easy out was just to change the teams around.  But they didn’t want that. They wanted to stay a team.  That wanted to play against us.   Unfortunately, that desire wasn't enough to propel them through the tough work of conflict resolution.  So much easier, and dare I say, more familiar and comfortable, to blame and accuse than to listen and understand.  So, bringing all my conflict management skills into play, I intervened.   You know how it goes.  “So, Alexander, what is Quince saying she needs?  Do you think you could try that?”  “Quince, it sounds like Alexander would like it if you. .“

And we were back on the court.  Quince making a big effort, Alexander praising her.   Game 2 to the Dream Team.    Game 3, all on the line, Bill and I surge ahead.  The score is 9-5.   Now my kids are old enough to handle losing, and I really like winning, especially at badminton, but it suddenly occurs to me that their tender little bud of sibling friendship will not be well served by a loss.   I catch Bill’s eye as he begins to serve and give him a microscopic shake of my head.  After 13 years of co-parenting, he sees it and gets it.  He makes it look good as he flubs the serve.   As do I when it comes back to me.  Final score:   13-11 Dream Team.   

The kids are ecstatic. They high five, they hug, the smiles broad on their faces.  Alexander, well trained, ducks under the net to tell us, the losers, good game.  He comes up to me, hugs me tight around the neck, and whispers in my ear, so only I can hear, “Thank you so much, Mommy.”  I hug him back, astounded.  Okay, maybe also a wee bit dismayed that he saw through what I thought was our so very professional throwing of the game -- I fleetingly wonder if those days of using that valuable parenting tactic of benevolent deception are behind us.  But mostly I am oh so proud of my boy because he got it. Got why we threw the match their way.  Appreciated it.  Knew not to reveal it to his 9 year-old sister.   Wow.

 I don't know how this very mysterious process of emotional maturation happens, but I am so very glad to have the pleasure of watching it happen.   

Green Dresses

It’s Mother’s Day.  We’re out for a hike in Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve south of town.  As we walk along, Quince comments, “Look mommy, everything looks so dull.”  I know what she means.  It is mid-autumn and the flashy, easy allure of summer is gone. But I want her to see the loveliness of nature at this time of year -- in the subtle, muted golds and greens and browns of autumn.  

I bend down, and point to the meadow of tall grasses.  “Look Quince, how many shades of green can you see in those grasses?”   She is on board immediately.   She begins pointing them out.  “I want that one in my wedding dress, and that one, and that one.”  I sigh and pause for a moment.   

I take a deep breath.   And then take this on too.   “Well, which ones would you want in your graduation dress?  And I mean your graduation when you get your doctorate.”  

The Tables Astonishingly, Disturbingly, Sweetly Turned

Yesterday, Alexander begged me to play this game that he and his mate, Tutty, invented over the weekend. You stand on opposite sides of the trampoline and throw a tennis ball at one another. The object is to make a throw that bounces at least once on the trampoline and is hard enough or tricky enough so that the other player cannot catch it and it goes behind him/her.

I’m not a very good thrower. I blame my father.  As far as I’m concerned that fell directly in his column of parental responsibilities.  But being a mature grown-up, I took matters into my own hands, and have tried to learn as an adult. I’ve studied others as they throw. I’ve asked friends for tips.  I even hired my basketball coach once to teach me how to throw a baseball.   None of it seemed to make a difference and so I still have that classic, awkward, completely ineffectual throw. I think you probably know exactly what I am talking about.

But I can catch. I have good eye-hand coordination.  I'm proud of my ability to snag a ball out of the air.

So I’m playing, apologizing for my lame throws that miss the trampoline entirely, but I’m confident in my defense.   I catch some and some go past me.   Once I get the hang of it, I can pay more attention, and do you know what I see?   Alexander is taking some heat off his throws!  He is putting only about 50% zing on the ball!   

I play on, but inside I am thinking WHEN IN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN!!

I, the mother, the parent, the adult, am supposed to be taking something off my throws so my little boy won’t get discouraged, won’t give up, will keep playing and get better.   When did this natural order of things get reversed???   Inwardly, I am mad, and want to yell at him “Give me what you got, I can handle it!” But the truth is I probably can’t. Already, I am only stopping about half of his half-zing balls.   Alexander, wisely, doesn’t give me what he’s got because he knows, in fact, I can’t handle it. And if he did, then what?  I will get discouraged, I will give up and I won’t play anymore.   (Okay, I know this doesn't speak well of my character, but what's new?)

Alexander's patience with my ineptitude is remarkable.  But let’s be clear - Alexander has some definite self-interest at heart here.  He really loves this game and he wants someone to play with when his mates aren’t around.   It behooves him to be mindful of my fragile ego, to take care that I don’t get discouraged, to build me up ever so carefully so I will always want to play.  (Just like I tried to do with him with tennis. Except my patience with Alexander in that regard was less than remarkable.  My punishment for opposite-of-remarkable patience?   He hates the game.  But that is another blog.)

But whatever Alexander's motivation, I find this reversal of roles astonishing and disturbing and disconcerting.  It brings the future too frighteningly close.   What’s next – him cutting my meat into little pieces so I don’t choke?

I am not ready.  I cannot have it.  I am in a full on search for someone who can (in secret) teach me to throw  my own zingers, and pride evaporated, to catch.

Every Once in A While

If you’ve read any of my blogs on parenting, you’ll know I find it challenging.  I really just have no idea what I’m doing.  Most days,  I am pretty convinced my kids will need years of therapy to recover from my well meaning but inept mothering.   On my worst days, I think I am making all the right moves for my kids to turn to drugs and promiscuous sex and eating disorders and eventually land in juvi.   But every once in a while something happens and I think I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The other night, Tanya was over for dinner after having been out of town for a whole week.  Now, Tanya is first and foremost my friend, but I am forced to share her with every member of my family because she holds a very particularly special place in each of their hearts. What this results in is that when she comes to our house, the minute she walks in the door, words and stories tumble out of our mouths, bumping and jostling each other in the race to reach her first. 

This night, after 15 minutes of this conversational chaos at dinner, we decide that it will work much better if each person has some time to tell Tanya something about their week.   I go first, and then Bill.  Bill begins to tell her about going to the release of Myesha Jenkins' 2^nd book of poetry at Darkies Café.   In amidst the who was there, what we ate, whom we talked to, what the format was, Bill told Tanya about how when Myesha that night had read the title poem from her book, Dreams of Flight, he had turned to me and asked, “Does this capture what you are feeling exactly?”  

At that moment in Bill’s story, Alexander had wandered over and was coincidentally (or not) standing right next to my copy of Dreams of Flight.  “Let’s hear it,” I say, “Alexander, bring that book over. Read the last poem.”  Now if you know my boy, that is a bold thing to ask of him.   But he is as eager as all of us to be in the glow of Tanya’s attention and so opens the book and reads the short poem. He reads it well, with assurance, in his fine public speaking voice, as if he had been practicing .

And blam, that is the start of it, a poetry slam breaks out at our dining room table. 

After Alexander read that one, Bill takes the book and reads one that especially speaks to him, one that could have been written about him.   It tells of fathers who know how to plait their daughter’s hair and make spaghetti  bolognaise and know what time school starts.   Alexander, being very much Alexander, then pronounces that the poems are all free verse and that free verse is too easy, at which point he digs out some non-free verse poems he had written in Grade 6 and proceeds to read them all to us, deserved pride tingeing his voice. 

Quince, meanwhile, has been flipping through Myesha’s book and  is desperate to have her turn to be in the spotlight.  She stands up and reads us the ones she has selected, including a lovely one about feeling safe while wearing an older brother’s shirt.   And then, Quince, being who she is, quickly composes her own poem, and we gladly (me, glowing a little) listen to her read that one too. 

Feeling the magic, Quince suggests that we make every Sunday poetry night in our house.  Moreover, she declares that every Saturday she will spend time writing poetry to read at Sunday night poetry night.  Now I know how magic works – you cannot schedule it.  You must just recognize it when it comes and be grateful that it has chosen to visit.   But I also know that magic visits when certain things come together. In this case, I know part is Tanya’s presence, as she always brings out some magic in our family, and also part is the gift of Myesha’s beautiful, accessible poems.  And though I don’t know what it is, I can’t help but think somewhere along the way I did something right that set the stage for my family to spontaneously create a night of poetry.  It is rare, but I am feeling a momentary pride in my parenting.   Feels nice.

Jane Goodall's Got Nothing on My Mother

This very short little movie was made by Alexander from footage taken at the Bush Babies Sanctuary in Hartebeesport, South Africa.   If you know my mother, please watch it.  If you know Alexander, please watch it.  If you like to laugh, please watch it. 

 http://youtu.be/S1paA82jVdk

Why I Love My Mother, An Addendum

About 10 or 15 years ago, my sisters, niece and I filled a piece of chart paper with the things we loved about our mother (in my niece's case, grandmother). I would like to add this video to that list. (mind you, she is 78 years-old!)