A Day of Knights

Dad-dito black knight.

Dad-dito at a Day of Knights

Hot Dogs in my Hair

We’re in the car together, all three of us, heading towards Austino’s for his pick-up before heading in to school.

” Mom-ita,” M-ito says, ” you know in art we’re drawing portraits of each other. I’m drawing a portrait of N-ito and he’s drawing one of me. Some people are still on the sketching part. Mom-ita, I gave him a suggestion. N-ito is kind of drawing my hair like this -” in the back seat I could see him place his hand on his bangs and move it downward to the ends of his hair, “and it looks like I have hotdogs in my hair. You know. So I told him to please not draw me with hot dogs in my hair.”

A few minutes later we have Austino in the back seat and we’re all off to school. We play some improv games like make up a commercial for a crazy product like a sweat scraper, a squirrel whacker, or an orange scooper. Many of the products explode. All can be ordered 24 hours a day because there’s always an operator standing by, and many of the products are from Ronco.

Still, nothing compares to hot dogs in your hair.

Birthday Card

M-itos Birthday Card from Dad-dito

I made this for M-ito for his birthday. Soy pequeno pero poderoso is the saying. I am small but powerful. I told him to remember that. I only wish he’d forget that when I want him to go to bed.

8th Birthday: A Save-the-World Party

I find my son’s birthday to be a number of things: sad, anxiety provoking, challenging, tiring, and at some point, hopefully just a little happy. This year we did a home party again. Mom-ita took care of all the arrangements like, food, who was coming, invitations, speaking to M-ito about everything, and helping him to make his birthday list. At 8, my son is still very much into birthdays. I hope he stays that way for a while.

My job as the Dad-dito was, as it has been in the past, to take care of the entertainment (I have been the entertainment the last three years as the yoga teacher for a personalized class two years in a row, and this year as the designer of the save-the-world from Ratzo treasure hunt), pick up the food the morning of the party, order the cake from Cupcake bakery, then pick it up, call my family and make sure they know the date and can come, buy the gifts on M-ito’s list, and help out the day of the party as opposed to getting in the way.

This year my father came with Jocelita, Max’s grandmother (my father’s girlfriend who has taken on the role of a grandmother – it’s a long story but that’s how it works some days) and they arrived with her in tears and him in a grouchy, angry mood. They were the first to arrive. Mom-ita was stressed. I was stressed. Four out of five people in the apartment were stressed. Oh joy. People were coming over, and M-ito was hanging out waiting, playing and already enjoying being the birthday boy even with this madness in the background. I think he didn’t notice what was going on and as his friends arrived (six in all – a small group this year and that was a blessing) he got wrapped up in them. I got wrapped up in occupying my father and listening to Jocelyn and cutting up the fruit salad and regular salad. I put my father to work on drawing characters for the save-the-world game and hoped, hoped, hoped, he would be nice to Max, whom I also asked to draw some characters for the game. My father tends to critique rather than help when it comes to drawing and M-ito is a good artist in his own right but needs to be encouraged not critiqued.

The save-the-world treasure hunt had the evil Ratzo trying to rule the world through the kid’s parents with hand sanitizer – vaporizing spray. I’d hidden  clues around the apartment and throughout the building (laundry, garden, mailbox bulletin board) all written in code with tricks and traps everywhere (every other step of the stairs to the garden was poison to the touch, green paper was poison and some clues were written on green paper, a puzzle of paper pieces was inside a green paper folder). I gave them antidote cards for when they were poisoned so they could keep playing the game, broke then into two teams, girls and boys, code books to be able to crack my code, a storyline to work from and 30 minutes to find Ratzo’s switch that would turn all parents armed with hand sanitizer into child vaporizing machines. I was up until 1:30am the night before setting it all up.

It’s easy to understand the feelings of anxiety, challenge, exhaustion and a little happiness. But why would I be sad? Well, my son is getting older and so am I. It is both wonderful and sad at the same time. I want him to grow up and be a man but I also want him to stay my little boy. Such a simple statement and filled with, for me so much emotion. But that is the nature of birthdays. They make me review life, both my son’s and my own and many times that is painful. So, given that, I try to find some happiness in the story of my son’s birthday, day. The smile on his face as his friends race across the apartment building trying to outrun the clock to find Ratzo’s switch that’s in the refrigerator, of course, dodging parents trying to sanitize their hands (I gave everybody hand sanitizer and they kept asking the kids if they wanted to clean their hands – the kids all ran away screaming NOONONONONONONO!). And watching him open his gifts, blow out the candles on his cake. All the things that make up a birthday celebration of turning a year older and a year wiser. And my son is both. Birthdays need to be celebrated as small rites of passage along the way of life. I need to remember how wonderful it is that he is growing up and learning about this wonderful and challenging world that we live in as human beings.

And also remember, that I  now have a full year to go before I have to do it all again. Whew.

A Day of Knights: Part 1, The Idea

None shall pass!

It started as a simple question from the back seat of the car on the way in to school. M-ito and Austino  were sitting in the back seat and talking about farts and other such kinds of things when Austino asked, “I wonder what it would be like to use a real broadsword?”

“It’s heavy,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve used a real broadsword and it’s heavy. As a matter of fact if you want some day I’ll show you.”

“Okay.”

And that was it. This was back in the winter, probably early February.

“I’m serious,” I said. “We could have a day of knights and I could show you guys how to use broadswords and let you use a real one. I have two. Would you guys like that? A day of knights?”

“Yeah,” they both said.

The conversation went on to other important things, like how big a catapult would you need to take out the house across the street, that kind of thing. But I remembered what they said and it started my mind to thinking. A day of knights. I’d have to call my friend DB, an actor and fellow stage-combatant who knows broadswords and kids. This would be cool. The idea started to percolate. Every week for the next two months I kept the idea alive, reminding the boys that I was going to do it… some day when the weather got warmer. I don’t know if they believed me – or at least I know my son did. But I began planning in my mind and collecting what I was going to need. The first thing I’d need were broadswords… not the real ones as I had two of those already. But something the kids could use that were the right size but wouldn’t cause permanent damage to anyone…

Disney in the Rain

My favorite moment at Disney had nothing to do with the parks or the world of Disney. My favorite moment occurred the morning it rained and we couldn’t do anything but hang out in the room The day before the rain had started and driven us out of the Magic Kingdom and back to our room. It rained all night. It poured all morning. At ten o’clock the three of us were in one of the beds, Momita and M-ito reading their books and me drawing my pictures on a small sketch pad. Our legs were under the covers. We had nowhere to go and nothing to do but just hang out and read and just be with each other. That afternoon the rain finally stopped and we got dressed, travelled to the Animal Kingdom where we had a great time at the African Safari ride and playing hide and seek in Dinoland. But the three hours we had that morning eating breakfast and lying in bed together made it all come together for me. It just made things perfect.

First Day of School

Who’s more scared? Parents or kids? At a new school for the third time in my child’s life I think it might be a tie. Mom-ita and I drove M-ito to his first day of school last week and I took two days off to be there for the whole first day and for the one hour intro to school the day before. The commute was fine, not to much traffic, but lots of nervousness in the back seat and the front.

Mom-ita cried and I found tears coming to my eyes also as we gave him a hug before he was lead off to his classroom. M-ito’s first day was well planned out by the school he’s going to. They welcomed new students by name, with a handshake and gift from an upper classperson, in a morning assembly that all parents were invited to. We ate lunch with our kids then took off and did some food shopping while we waited. It was something to do. It was a day of waiting and of reflecting and shopping was a nice concrete something to do. We had about four hours to wait – on and off during – that first day in between meeting his teacher, seeing his classroom, being told by school administrative staff and the headmaster that “everything will be okay,” over and over again. Sure – easy for them to say.

I was surprised at how strongly I felt about sending him to school. This was truly the summer of transition from one school to another, from one set of friends to another, and for us as parents from one set of parents whose kids M-ito knows, to another. We are in the midst of meeting all these new parents, just as M-ito is in the midst of meeting all these new kids. Each of us is having to manage new relationships like crazy. I have to put my hand and my “self” out a lot. I have to say hello and introduce myself, try to remember which kids are which and which go with which parents. Mom-ita has been doing it all summer and I’m still catching up. Now I’m putting faces to names I’ve heard and trying assign kids to them.

What has caught me a little more by surprise than these difficulties is how watching my son go to school has reminded me of my own going to school when I was his age. It has brought up deep feelings of loss and sadness for what was. I changed schools and homes when I was going into fourth grade, M-ito is changing schools in 2nd. I remember leaving people behind and meeting new kids, best friends-to-be, none of which I’m still in touch with or becuase they have died long ago. I remember getting a new father and house to live in. I can feel this viscerally, in the tingling in my fingers as I type away. What a mix. Seeing this kind of history spread out in front of my son overwhelms me. But it’s my past not his.

At lunch after the assembly my son came over to me, so that Mom-ita wouldn’t be able to hear, and said, “I want to go home.”

I looked at him with my heart breaking. “Can you last for a few more hours?” I asked him, looking deeply into those brown eyes of his.

“How many hours is that?” he asked.

“Two.”

Then he nodded and hugged me. I didn’t tell Mom-ita about this until later.

When we came back to pick him up at three o’clock he was happy and seemed fine. He’d had science last period and he loves science and so his whole experience was framed by what he did there. His teacher had told them to pick a kind of scientist they would like to be – M-ito said paleontologist, of course – and to draw a picture of one on the front cover of their science notebook.

From the back seat of the car M-ito said, “I tried to be small in the class, but they wouldn’t let me be.” Mom-ita smiled while I drove. In his last school M-ito could “be small” and not noticed – not get attention – if he was quiet and followed the rules. He could “dissapear” if he wanted to – which I think he did a lot. In this school they introduced the kids to each other, asked them to play games with each other in recess (stopping cliques from arising – or at least attempting to) and seemed to try and notice what kids were doing and not doing. Small classes, good teachers. So far so good. But it meant that M-ito had to be more social than he was used to being. He is a shy kid who takes time to warm up. He must have been exhausted from all that kind of work. I know I was. I said hello and shook many hands in the parent meetings, at the coffee shop where I saw more of the same parents hanging out – just like us – and when we picked M-ito up. I had to force myself. I learned new names and forget them all within a matter of moments. Still, it’s part of the job of a parent. At 47 I have to tell you it’s not easy to go out and make new friends. I don’t necessarily want to put in that kind of effort but it comes with the territory. I guess I like to “be small” too.

After not talking about school for a few hours – even though we pestered M-ito left and right about what he did, at dinner time he finally gave us the whole run-down.

His second day I went to work with a knot in my stomach.

It’s his third day today, this beautiful Monday morning, and his first whole week of school. I’m doing my deep breathing exercises, trying to stay present, and not slip into the past. Mom-ita and M-ito left 45 minutes ago. I’m heading out too. I find I have to remind myself, this is his school experience, not mine. And this is my parenting experience, not his. The idea, I think, is to try to keep things that way. The challenge is in making it so.

The Fog Mound Trilogy

Here’s a new book series M-ito and I have read that is terrific: The Fog Mound Trilogy by Susan Schade and Jon Buller. Alternate chapters are either narrative with illustrations (one on each page from big to small in size) or comics style. Each book has a different color scheme (one is blue black and white, one is green black and white, and one is purple black and white). The pen and ink artwork is beautiful. The story themes of love, friendship, helping each other, helping the environment, being careful not to tinker too much with nature, and observe the world around you, are wonderful. It was such a pleasure reading this with M-ito and not worrying about obnoxious, sarcastic, or foul mouthed characters (like there seems to be on every TV show and movie). Instead there was adventure (plenty of it) and thoughtful, interesting, real characters. M-ito loves to read and we alternated reading – he especially enjoyed reading the more visual comics chapters but the narrative chapters with a picture on each page kept him hooked. I can’t recommend these books highly enough. I’d say the age range is 6 and up because younger kids might not make it through the narrative sections and or they might be scared by some of the content.

Drawing

M-ito and I have been drawing together using a book written by a seven year old called Drawing Comics is Easy (Except When It’s Hard), by Alexa Kitchen. She really is seven and the book is terrific. M-ito and I have followed her suggestions and after two weeks of drawings based on her book he’s improved significantly. So have I. Mostly though, it’s just great to sit on the couch together before dinner, take out our special pens, and simply draw on a large pad together.