With school starting tomorrow for both Sava and me, these slivers will be short and sweet. Efficiency is acquiring a whole new dimension as we prepare to settle into a new routine, and the urgency of seizing the moment seems never to have been greater.
Thankfully, on our trip back to
Bean Hollow State Beach this morning, Sava gave me a line which can hold up this post all by itself, and makes all other words redundant.
People who are not born don't know what the world looks like yet, he said, as we drove West in bright morning light towards a coast that was anything but sunny.
I'll admit that while the hardened realist in me fails to be moved to sentimental mush by the prospect of our boy's first day of Kindergarten tomorrow, hearing him say the words above tugs at my heartstrings in ways that cannot be easily articulated. I marvel daily at his deepening awareness of the world, and I find that his casual observations of truth justify (and redeem) the absurd difficulty of this whole parenting enterprise.
(A bunch of photos in this post courtesy of Dedi Joni, and I break the rule, just this once, not to post pictures of me, because many of my own photos turned out awful; fog is such a hard medium to navigate.)
With the weather forecast promising 83F at the beach, and reality delivering 55F upon arrival at ten-thirty in the morning (then 65F four hours later when we loaded in the car to head back home), it wasn't exactly the outing we had planned for, but it was possibly better, requiring a literal reenactment of the phrase "go with the flow."
The kids screeched as they chased waves, and grandpa watched in horror as the frigid water chilled their legs and soaked their clothes.
We built castles while trying to ensure that Raya did not kill a family members as she swung a big shovel around, buried our feet and shrieked when we inadvertently scooped up a shrimp from the wet sand, studied crabs in the tide pools, and watched fishermen pull out gigantic fish from the frothy ocean.
We saw this, too, right next to the shore.
Never mind that on the way back Raya got car sick and vomited all over her seat on the sinuous CA84, and never mind that it took us two hours to prepare for a four-hour trip, and another hour to unpack.
Going with the flow is tricky business, and we are finally getting the hang of it.
:::
Back to the subject of things that warm my heart, as opposed to the many cliches which don't, Sava started to say this morning,
Mommy, tati and me each got..., then paused, and continued, correcting himself,
Tati and I each got three cards when we played Enchanted Forest.
A five-year old self-correcting a pronoun that ninety-five percent of native speakers get wrong?...That pretty much nails this mama's definition of personal fulfillment.
His sister, on the other hand, will repeat anything we feed her, correct or not, and this past week she suddenly acquired the impulse to be polite. But since she'd say
Thank you, and we'd reply,
You're welcome, she got all confused about who says what, and has been saying, day in and out,
Thank you you're welcome in one uninterrupted, serious, and earnest phrase. By week's end, it had started to sound more like,
Thank youuu're welcome, and we have yet not to laugh every single time she says it.
Sava likes to hug her and say,
You're the best little sister..., so when he hugs her lately, before he's had a chance to say anything, she announces, as if meaning every word of it,
Ohh...you're the best little sister...
Tying her hair for the first time this week worked for about ten minutes.
And for two days she diligently watered the radishes, carrots, and salad, which looked as in picture below, before some mysterious animal came to our yard and ate every last bit of greenery in every single pot. So, Sava gets his wish, and we are planting flowers instead.
Since grandpa is here, I've switched to speaking English to Raya, and while she is mixing more than her brother ever did, thanks to a much less structured linguistic environment (brother speaks either language to her, she hears us speak both to him, etc.), her overall verbosity continues to astound us. She knows dozens (hundreds?) of words in both languages, seems to use present and past in both languages correctly for the more common verbs ("saw" vs. "see," "went" vs. "go," etc.), and can communicate pretty much anything without any ambivalence, in sentences that range from a couple to six, seven, or more words. Mind-blowing, really.
When Sava went into the bathroom to do his "big" business earlier today, she waddled to the bathroom, squatted next to the little slit between the door and the floor, and shouted,
Hey, Sava, are you done yet? Three more minutes!
:::
Homecomings are always sweet, especially when tati has ridden his bike to work.
:::
I start this week determined to celebrate the fact that I am born and "know" the world.
Wishing everyone the same.
We saw this, too, right next to the shore.
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