Last night we all slept with sand between our toes.
With late summer delivering like late summer can often deliver in California--wide blue skies and a sun pulsing with both heat and light--we disregarded the tiredness brought on by the five-am-awake-and-ready-to-play baby, and headed down south to meet up with friends who were camping on the coast. Sunset State Beach just outside Santa Cruz is where we ended up, and even though we spent only three hours there, it was the kind of three hours that made obvious why poets always have it right:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
This was Raya's first encounter with the ocean, and after some initial hesitation, she jumped right into it. Literally. The girl was fearless in dipping those toes in the ice-cold water, and protested every time we lifted her up or drew her away from the frothy waves.
As for big brother and his good buddy, Gabriel, what can I say...the boys had pure, undiluted, BPA-free, local, and organic fun. It was the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour.
Sava collected some sea-gull feathers "for painting" on the way out,
and we concluded the day with dinner at the forested camp separated by a huge dune from the beach, right in front of a big fire, which left all of us smelling of wood and smoke--
The trip gave us a wonderful opportunity to see what we've been really missing the last four years and what we hope we'll be able to experience by next summer: prolonged nature outings with our kids. Sava had just gotten old enough for serious camping when Raya arrived, and we are patiently waiting another year until we pack up the car and drive somewhere to pitch a tent. Ahh. It can't come soon enough.
*****
In other news, Sava began violin lessons this week. I am not kidding.
We still find it hard to believe, and we are unsure whether it was a good idea, since we doubt he realizes what sort of commitment nineteen Suzuki beginner violin lessons require. But we stopped by the music school this week, and they happened to have an opening in a new section, and we happened to run into the violin teacher while there, and he acted so genuinely excited about it all, and insisted so adamantly that he wanted to do it, that we just didn't know how to say no to his enthusiasm. He did very well during the first class consisting of four boys, and was able to catch up with the group even though we'd missed the first two lessons. Now only time can tell...
Besides the idea of the violin, Sava has also become pretty obsessive about writing and spelling things out lately. He spends a lot of time, both in school (by his teacher's accounts) and at home, stringing letters along to form words as he imagines they are written.
We were getting ready to go to Costco a few days ago, and he said he was going to make a list of things to buy; three minutes later, he came back with a slip of paper, on which the word sope for soap had been written down. Seriously...? At four-and-a-half, he thought of ending the word with a silent "e"? It was tricky praising him for his ingenious effort while gently correcting the mistake, and our linguistic guru, Bob, told us later to not bother fixing such mistakes. The boy is trying to figure out the rules, and we are told to let him run with it. It's a hard task for this word-obsessive mom.
We told him how to spell chemical, oil, and fish, and he was happy to oblige.
He later drew a picture of a butterfly on which he wrote bdrfly, and spelled Raya's name Rya (as we probably should have done to avoid people pronouncing it Reya!) and other such inventive things. Truly, watching him trying to figure this out boggles the mind and makes me want to change English spelling so that, each time he spells something funky, he has it right. English is so weird anyway. Who ever thought of writing "soap" but "rope"?
*****
Besides the ocean, lots and lots of outdoor time lately. Having Rado home on his remaining five weeks of paternity leave at the end of Raya's first year has been a pretty darn nice gift for all of us. Poor guy can probably use a few days at work to get some rest from the strain and exhaustion that is paternity, but the other three of us would kindly disagree. Going to parks as a foursome--short of camping or splashing on the beach--is pretty much as good as life with a four-year and a nearly-one-year old can get.
Raya wants to be in on everything now, and she will not be outrun or outpaced by her brother. If not in proximity to him, or doing what he is doing, she pitches the loudest, darlingest, most red-faced fits ever.
And she chokes on her own giggles whenever we allow her to follow him--
We enjoy a moment of rare freedom when both are strapped in the baby swings (where, sadly, Sava's miniature butt still fits)--
--and we take special pleasure watching Sava conquer climbing structures which for years have intimidated him; exposure, exposure, exposure--
They like being outside, which makes their mama so truly happy--
Raya loved touching this wonderful big dog!
*****
And it makes me especially happy to see them learning to love each other--
As my favorite blogger, Dig This Chick, put it recently, "....I think we eventually (especially in our thirties when we learn we know nothing and mortality is real) try like hell to revert and practice that child-like wonder and appreciation for a hug, a cool bug, a perfectly prepared bowl of oatmeal, a favorite song on the radio."
Like hell, indeed. Wonder and appreciation.
No comments:
Post a Comment