Disney in August

With M-ito 8 years old these are  some of the things we did right this time:

• We went for 6-nights and 7 days which was just enough time, not too much and not too little (though we’d rather have stayed on vacation another week). We left on a Tuesday, early so we could go to a park in the afternoon and evening. We left in the evening on Labor Day so we had the whole day to play before we loaded up and got to the airport. Mom-ita planned everything out and it was just about perfect.
• We slept in almost every day and didn’t get to the parks until 11 or 12 each day which was just fine with all of us. I got up and did my yoga practice as the sun rose, before Mom-ita and M-ito got up. We hit two parks almost every day but one in the afternoon and one in the evening. It didn’t feel rushed that way.
• We spent a lot of time in EPCOT exploring the countries, the attractions, and the fireworks. There’s still plenty more to explore on future trips. I am amazed at how much there is to explore there.
• We used fast passes only once but that was because it wasn’t too crowded and the most we waited for anything was maybe fifteen minutes. Mostly we walked on rides without a wait or a five-minute wait.
• We came the last week of August when kids in Florida are back in school. The parks were pretty empty (as empty as I’ve ever seen them) which meant there were minimal lines.
• We spent a lot of time at the hotel pool almost every day.
• We went to Wilderness lodge – a good choice even if the food choices are not the greatest (Animal Kingdom lodge had the best food as far as we’re concerned). It’s beautiful and the rooms were good size – the staff very nice and helpful.
• We found a ride we liked and went on it again and again. This trip it was Buzz Lightyear’s ride. M-ito loved it and going on the ride (with no line) meant we could actually get better and better at ray-gunning invading aliens so that by the time we finished with it all of us felt like we had some proficiency and M-ito’s confidence on rides in general was boosted.
• Half of our trip was with a friend of M-ito’s and his mom. M-ito and K-ito played well together and were good company for each other. We all got along and had a good time together. The second half of the trip we were on our own and had some good alone family time. It was a nice balance.

Some things that didn’t work out:

• As great as it was to have empty parks and few lines for most of the time we were there it is HOT HOT HOT in August. So we sweat alot and we found ourselves doing the it’s-ninety-plus-and-we’re-sweating-shuffle. It’s a slow walk from shade spot to shade spot, cooling station to cooling station. M-ito had a little trouble with the heat on our second to last day, needing to sit down, drink, and cool off. Mom-ita bought him a canvas hat. I soaked it in a vendors ice water and put it on his head. Then I had him put his hands up to his wrists into the water. Along with drinking lots of water these things brought him back to himself.
• The middle restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge was okay but not something we looked forward to eating at so that left us with the fast food area (crowded and an okay selection but again not something I looked forward to every day). Note, we did find the expensive restaurant to be excellent and had our last evening meal there – well worth it but not feasible for every day because of the price.
• Bus to Animal Kingdom took an hour each time – way too long.
• We never made it to Disney Studios – M-ito just didn’t feel like it so we skipped it this time.
• We never made it to Harry Potter at Universal – different park experience, and needs its own trip to do. Also we heard it was packed and the lines were too too long.

Some things we did that were either new or just fun:

• We took small two person motor boats out onto the lake for an hour. Very cool.
• We could take ferries to Magic Kingdom and back. Very cool.
• Pin trading again was a blast.
• We did two Kim Possibles (Japan and Mexico – both were excellent and lots of fun) at EPCOT.
• M-ito went on his first official roller coaster – Goofy’s Barnstorming – which looked very slow but once you got on was really a good ride and a good one for him to go on first. We went on once and that was all but M-ito said he really liked it. This was the same roller coaster we tried to get on in April and left after one look at the coaster roaring by. Good confidence builder for M-ito. Plus I had fun.
• We spent an hour in Dino Land at Animal Kingdom in the Boneyard playground playing hide and seek then digging for fossils. Some things never get old.
• We went on the Animal Safari at Animal Kingdom 2x and it was just as good as all the other times we’ve been on it over the years even if the “poacher” chatter is getting a little old.
• Pangani Jungle Walk was a great experience and the gorillas were awesome. This trip M-ito seemed to want to see all the animals in Animal Kingdom – which was great, if tiring for Mom-ita nd Dad-dito.
• Buzz Light Year at Magic Kingdom was a great surprise. A large shooting video game with a real skill factor that we all enjoyed about eight times (I think).
• We also went on Soaring at EPCOT which was great. M-ito loved it and it was also a great confidence builder as it dealt with heights (even if imaginary), movement, and the feeling of flying.
• We went on an hour guided tour with a naturalist/botanist behind the scenes at The Land in EPCOT that was really great. They showed us their hydroponics gardens and fishery. Great for ideas about future science projects even if it was hot in the hot-house.

School tomorrow. First day of Third Grade. So it goes. We’re all breathing big sighs and preparing ourselves for the fall. We’re going to pick up Spike today also! Dog in the house again!

Fireflies

Hank called me over to the courtyard at the Marriott in the middle of the French Quarter in New Orleans. This was last September. He was smoking a cigar. We were both presenting to a group of drug court practitioners – me for one day, him for the whole week. In the courtyard he told me a story about his son that he savored between puffs on his stogie, the burning end reminding me of a giant firefly. It’s been haunting me a bit since last year. He lives up in Buffalo and one year his at that time teenage son asked him to get tickets to the Syracuse football team’s home games. It was a two and a half hour drive each way. Hank told him yes and bought the tickets. He said it was the best two and a half hours of his life because all the way there and all the way back he and his son talked. “We’re best friends,” he told me in his deep, raspy, one of a kind voice. Two months later Hank had a major stroke and now almost a year later he still hasn’t recovered, though he lives and breathes.

Today my son asked me to go with him to Carvel after dinner. It’s a fifteen minute walk. “I love to go to Carvel after dinner, ” he said. We talk all the way there and all the way back. The whole trip takes almost an hour. We talk about alien creatures, summer fireflies, favorite things we’ve done so far this summer, determine how many days are left in the summer, play improv games that he makes up as we walk like making up a story one word at a time alternating between the two of us, eat our ice-cream cones before they melt, and hold hands a good part of the way with him sometimes even reaching for mine. It’s one of the best hours of my life.

Visibility from the 102nd Floor of the Empire State Building

9am – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 50 miles.

M-ito came with me to work today. He did yesterday also. Yesterday he worked for three hours on two journal entries (he has to do ten this summer) on two books he’s read . He’s a voracious reader so this shouldn’t be a problem -but it is. He spent almost two hours this morning on one entry, then did some math problems and called it a day. I had to leave the office for a meeting at NYU for two hours so Momita looked in on him while I was gone. The rain storm hit about noon.

12 noon – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 miles; thunderstorm closes the observatories.

I got soaked on the way back to my office. I was wearing sandals so it could have been worse. I didn’t have an umbrella. It’s a good thing I brought a change of clothes. I took a half day off so at 1:30pm M-ito and I went to lunch. The rain was still coming down, almost sideways with the wind. By the time we came out of Rickshaw Dumplings on 23rd the rain had almost stopped and there was a little bit of sun.

2pm – visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 10 miles; the observatory is open again.

We walked up to the 34th and 5th avenue entrance. There was no line. We walked past empty red velvet ropes and brass stanchions in room after room. Men and women in red suits and caps directed us onward. There were only three elevators going up. We got off at the 80th floor, went up another elevator to the 86th and out onto the observatory there.

2:22pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 2 miles.

Clouds came in quickly. We could see down and a little ways out, maybe twenty blocks or so in all directions but the clouds were moving in quickly. We circled the observatory once then headed up to the 102nd floor. We had to pay $15 each extra for the trip.

2:35pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 miles.

Getting off the elevator the man in the red suit shook his head with a smile. The world was white around us, It was dizzying and disorienting. “Another storm,” he said. M-ito pressed his nose against the glass and said, “This is so cool!” It was like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and we were in Olympus in the middle of the clouds. We took pictures of each other and the man in the red suit took a picture of the two of us together with the white clouds as background. We walked around about fifteen feet to the other side and watched the clouds. They looked like thick cotton.

2:41pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 -10 miles

After about three minutes of watching the white shift and spin, then press up against the glass in front of us, a dark shadow appeared and the cloud thinned and M-ito and my mouth’s dropped open. We looked at each other as a hole in the clouds opened up and showed us the city below. The Flat Iron building and my office at the Mason’s Building stood out eleven blocks away. It was like hands had parted the white and made a special view just for us. The man in red called out to us, “Do you see it!” “Yes,” we called back looking at each other, then out at the city again. The clouds closed up as quickly as they had opened. We waited a few more minutes and it happened again. When the clouds closed up we headed for the elevator and down back to earth our feet floating off the ground.

2:58 – Visibility from inside M-ito and Dad-dito’s heads is unlimited.

Aparigraha Lessons

It (aparigraha) means non-possessiveness or non-hoarding and it’s a yogic concept right out of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

Last year at parent teacher conferences in First Grade I took a look at the interior of M-ito’s desk and found it filled with papers, old homework, half-finished drawings, used and new tissues, and all the way at the back there was a sandwich of some sort, wrapped in sarran wrap. I don’t know how old it was and neither did M-ito. Neither of us wanted to see what it looked like so it just got thrown out.

“In case I was hungry,” M-ito said, when asked,”Why?”

Last week at parent teacher conferences in Second Grade, at a new school (which we are amazingly still happy about) we found that our son was hoarding pencils. He picked them up whenever he found them during the day and put them in his desk. He had quite a few of them from 3/4′s of a year’s tidying up of pencils. He told us, “I’m hoarding pencils,” with a big smile on his face. One of his friends was hoarding scissors, the same way. I’m glad M-ito was only hoarding pencils. The kids at M-ito’s school all have pencils, scissors, notebooks, folders, and pens (when they get to them) given to them by the school. There’s no competition over styles and designs, no extra cash to lay out for these kinds of utensils of student work. It’s all in the tuition. Gulp. So M-ito’s collection of pencils is not differentiated by these things. Instead each is differentiated by whether a pencil is sharpened or not, how many times it has been sharpened which determines its length, and finally how much of an eraser is left – maybe he also codes them by the size of the bite marks left on them – I don’t know. My son collects pennies too – wheat pennies only. It’s a hold-over from my grandfather who was a trainman, and myself who collected in his footsteps.

I believe he’s going to give all the pencils back to his teacher at some point. At least that’s what he said when I asked him. At least he’s helping to keep the floor clean. Gotta give that to him.

I’m singing in the rain …

Okay, I’m not singing – mostly groaning. Why me? Why me? Giving my son a shower is not my favorite thing to do. I’m just putting that out there so you know where I’m coming from. It never really has been. Back when he took baths it wasn’t my favorite thing to do either – mostly because my son doesn’t like to take either a shower or a bath. But… these days it’s showers he takes and in the last couple of months I’ve noticed some changes. It’s not like it used to be.

Old days for a bath: I chase my son around the apartment and try to get him to take a bath. He won’t do it. I plead. I insist. He eventually goes in, complaining the whole time, sometimes kicking and screaming. “The water’s too hot. The water’s too cold. I don’t want to get my head wet. You’re pulling my hair. Ouch.” Then, I can’t get him out. He plays and plays and plays. I get splashed. It’s exhausting.

Old days for a shower: The same thing for starters. Arguments, and explaining why a shower is important (smelling bad is bad, smelling good is good) begins things, then half an hour later entrance into the bathroom. I shower him and he complains the whole way through. “The water’s too cold. The water’s too hot. Don’t splash me. I don’t like it when you splash me. I’m cacacacacacooold. I’m hahahahot.” Then it’s time to get out and he wants to stay in. The water is like rain and he’s singing. He laughs. I cry. It’s exhausting.

New days for a shower: Mom-ita says, “Shower night,” and both M-ito and I sigh and say, “NO!” at the same time. Mom-ita laughs. It takes a half an hour to get him into the bathroom – another ten minutes to get him undressed. I sit on the toilet seat (seat down) because there’s no where else to sit and watch as he slowly, slowly, slowly washes himself. To do his feet he puts the washcloth on the floor, steps on it and moves his feet back and forth – a big smile on his face. It’s genius. He doesn’t actually step under the water until he has finished dabbing and touching each of the areas he’s supposed to wash with a washcloth that has just a little bit of soap on it. Then I wash his hair and he laughs through most of it. Every once in a while he complains about the water being too hot or cold. Then I tell him to wash his face. This whole procedure from beginning to end can take another twenty minutes with me constantly prodding, “Come on M-ito. Wash yourself.”

I don’t get as wet as I used to so that’s something. I’m still just as tired when he finishes. He cleans himself more often than not. And he does laugh a lot. He likes to wash himself, even if he doesn’t do the best of jobs. I’m trying to let it go at that. Because when he’s finished, he smells good and that’s what Mom-ita checks for when he comes out.

Learning How to Ride a Bike in the City

Step 1: Figure out your child (I’m still working on that).

Step 2: Figure out how your child learns dangerous tasks best. This I actually know.  When M-ito learned how to walk he held on to tables, chairs, and sofas, not letting go of anything or anybody until he could walk without falling. He took a long time to do this and my back is still complaining from the process. But when he walked he didn’t fall down.

Step 3: Training Wheels. Knowing your child is like M-ito – cautious, careful, determined – get him a bike with training wheels. For us the training wheels lasted about two years, perhaps a bit longer. Then M-ito said to take them off. Peer pressure kicked in. At the age of 6 and a 1/2 a good number of his friends were already riding without training wheels so my son said, “take them off.”

Step 4: Pad him up. We bought knees guards, elbow guards, and hand guards, padded him up and set out for a park, expecting to be riding without any problem by the time we got home.

Step 5: Find a park. We used the Bulova park on the other side of our hood because few people go there and there’s a big open b-ball soccer area in the back usually with no one in it.

Step 6: Make a few trial runs. I held on to his seat and ran with him four or five stretches, letting go for a few yards at the end. My son yelled, “Dad-dito, don’t let go!” after each run. He kept his gaze down and had a hard time coordinating his movements and balance while a voice in his head was probably screaming “I’m going to die!” It’s a tough multi-task. Sweat pouring off him, and me, we gave up – him dissapointed in himself and me in myself. What kind of father was I? This should be easy. Two of M-ito’s friends learned in 1 afternoon. They took off and started riding – no pads, no trial runs, nothing. If you don’t understand how this could happen then just go back to step 1 & 2 above.

Step 7: Have a personal aside about your own process when you were a kid. I learned to ride with my brother who was a year older than me. What I remember of the experience was sketchy but contained the following: 1) my brother was there and he already could ride. 2) my brother was a part of the process of helping me to learn. 3) someone (might have been my brother) pushed me down a long driveway while I pedalled like mad. 4) the someone let go and I went a few yards without any help. 5) I knew I could ride on my own in those few seconds because I found my balance. 6) I then crashed and got a few good scrapes on my legs and arms. 7) I crashed a lot but seemed to have gotten the hang of it after that first run. Note: I don’t remember training wheels or instruction – perhpas there was more but I blocked it out.

Step 8: Try again and again. We tried the same process two more times at a closer park – each time we made fewer and fewer runs until the fourth overall attempt (one month later) brought us to a standstill. My son’s downcast gaze told it all. We were both defeated. A leap of faith and skill was needed and neither one of us could provide it.

Step 9: Talk to Mom-ita. Why you might ask? Because Mom-ita knows these kinds of things – or at least how to solve them. So she googled and found an article that gave us the clues we needed.

Step 10: Come up with a plan. We developed a plan. Well, Mom-ita did which she explained to me, which I then implemented by doing the technical work of changing what M-ito’s bike looked like. I was glad to be of use.

Step 11: Tell your child. We sat M-ito down and said we had a plan that would help him get up and going. We said he needed some help and we had just the help he needed. It made him smile with renewed hope. He said he’d try it – meaning what-ever we came up with.

Step 12: Lower the Seat. So we lowered the seat first so his feet could touch the ground easily. Just like those bikes that all the three year olds have now – not available at the time my son was that age – that are made of wood and just glide – they have no pedals. They’re brilliant.

Step 13: Practice. Then we rode everywhere – and I mean everywhere – with the seat lowered and it was better but… we needed to take one more step.

Step 14: Take off the pedals. Oh yeah. That did the trick. With the pedals there were no bruises on the ankles, grease marks on the calves, or scrapes from the pedal’s traction grips. He rode everywhere. I jogged alongside him or walked. He practiced his balance and mutitasking. I could tell the voice in his head that said, “I’m going to die!” while he rode was getting softer.

Step 15: Have patience. This lasted two more months. I think it could have lasted longer but fate intervened.

Step 16: Go somewhere with lots of down-hills with friends who already ride without training wheels. So we went on vacation with friends who have two kids older than M-ito. We camped a few days as part of the vacation. On the campground the dirt roads and down-hills allowed M-ito to go fast and forced him to look ahead, not down, to multi-task making decisions of balance, speed, and brake-power very quickly. After two days, he was ready. One of his friends said, “M-ito, put the pedals back on. You can do it.” That afternoon he came to me and said that he was ready.

Step 17: Put the pedals back on. So the pedals were put back on. I stood next to my son and he pushed off, wobbled at first then went down hill, found his balance and braked after about ten yards. He looked back up the hill at Mom-ita and me and smiled. Within five minutes he was riding everywhere. I guess you could say he learned how to ride in a few minutes. Two years, four months and a few minutes.

Step 18: Put on your running shoes. Now, of course, you have to keep up.

One Hand Clapping

I took M-ito to work with me today. Mom-ita was working, teaching a consulting gig, and out all day. I had work that had to be done so I couldn’t take the day off. We walked to the express station – what is normally a fifteen minute walk – in half an hour. The trains were fast though, and instead of 11am I made it in by 10:15.

He sat in my office for almost three hours, reading a Pokemon Manga and playing games on my iPhone. He’s so good. He even waved, his small, shy, bent-elbow wave, to everyone I introduced him too. They smiled back at him.

We had lunch and walked about twenty blocks downtown to the comics store, Forbidden Planet. I had him avoid all the “adult” sections and the “monster” sections. He bought two ugly dolls with his allowed funds, eyeballing the USS Enterprise model and a Godzilla action figure.

On the R train home, both of us exhausted, nodding a little, I took out a book of Zen Koans I’d been reading (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones) and asked M-ito if he wanted me to read him some stories that were like puzzles.

He said, “Sure.”

I told him the story of the Zen Master who had a young student who wanted to the master to give him a koan to help him to study and learn. The master asked him if he knew the sound of two hands clapping and the student said, “Yes.” Then he asked him, “What’s the sound of one hand?” The student went back and forth over a year coming up with answers like, the wind, an owl hooting, the breath and each time the master said, “No. Come back when you have figured it out.”

Well… I only got to the first time the master asked, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping,” when M-ito interrupted me and said, “there is no sound.” My mouth hung open for a moment. Then I shut it and continued the story, ending at the same place my son had already been to, camped out at, and completed. It took the student a year. It took my son about three seconds.

The Men’s Room Rag

It’s an hour before M-ito’s dance recital and we’re rounding the corner of the hall in his school that leads to the bathroom. M-ito has to go – bad. we dash the last twenty yards as if in a race. There are two doors, one the men’s room, one the woman’s. M-ito hesitates and looks back at me. He has taken a step towards the woman’s room. Then, as if he realizes it’s me and not Mom-ita, he hangs his head and goes over to the men’s room.

“I guess I have to use the men’s room,” he says between gritted teeth, then scurries into the dark room where urinals, pee on toilet seats and toilet paper on the floor rule. “I hate this bathroom,” he says softly.

I have to tell M-ito to wait at the stall door while I maneuver past him (it’s a very tight fit) with a wet paper towel to wash off the toilet seat which is, indeed, covered with other boy’s pee. I think some gets on my pants leg. I dry the seat while M-ito hops from foot to foot. 

“It’s coming Dad-dito, hurry!” he says, scrinching up his face into a knot.

“Done,” I say as I flatten myself against the stall wall and M-ito spins to sit on a now clean and urine-less seat. I crouch down inches from M-ito as he relieves himself, my back pressed against the door.

“Why,” he asks me, “is the boys’ bathroom such a mess? Why is it so dirty and why is there no light? It needs to have light.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Boys tend to make a mess in here. They pee all over the toilet seats and throw their paper on the floor.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wish you were Mom-ita so I could go in the girl’s room. It’s so clean and light in there. And it doesn’t smell bad like it does in here.”

“I understand,” I say, my feelings not hurt at all. “I’d rather be in there too.”

“They should put a light right over our head so we could see,” he says looking up, his face in shadow. “Or right here on the wall. Why don’t they do that?”

“I don’t know, son.”

Ten minutes later, M-ito is lighter, walking easier, and still drying his hands on his pants legs as we walk back to the playground for another fifteen minutes of Pokémon play with his friend, Willito. Then it’s time for his ballet recital.

“Feel better?” I ask.

He nods and runs to his friend after we cross the street.

Mixed Metaphors – Snow and S-t-o-o-p-i-d

I left early from work. There was snow – over 6 inches. I still had plenty of work to do but the snow was calling me. My son was calling me, even though he hasn’t figured out how to dial the phone yet. Besides, how many snow days were we going to get this winter? School was closed and he was home, waiting to go outside. I figured it was the last chance for a sled ride. So I left work and we fought trying to get out of the apartment because that’s what we do these days. The ten feet to the front door from the coat stand is still the longest, slowest ten feet of my life. First we put on the socks. Then we adjust the socks. Then we put on the shoes. Then we adjust the socks in the shoes and take the shoes off because they don’t “feel right.” Then we put on the shoes and look for the sweatshirt. We put on the sweatshirt one arm at a time. Then we do the zipper. Then we adjust the shoes again because those socks are slipping down. Then we put on the coat. Then we zipper the coat. Then argue over whether we need to wear the hat. It’s 20 degrees out and he has to wear the hat. Then there are tears. Then the hat goes on. Then the gloves, one at a time. Then the scarf. Then, I’m sweating because all this time I’ve been fully dressed. Can you hear my silent scream? But, we made it to the park in Woodside and we hit the slopes and trudged through the snow and laughed and laughed and his giggle was like a balm to all the tension of leaving work early and the fight over leaving the apartment. And his gap toothed smile is from a picture postcard. We went down double on the inflatable sled maybe a dozen times and drank hot chocolate Mom-ita had packed for us. It was just about perfect.

There was one blemish. A group of 13-15 year old boys were playing and cursing near the top of the sledding ramp and we had to go through them to get to our last ride of the afternoon. One of the boys hit his friend when he cursed after noticing my son within earshot. “Watch the language,” said to his friend. They let us go ahead of them. M-ito took it all in and filed it away for reference.

We got home as it was getting dark. Mom-ita was waiting for us and asked us about our afternoon.

M-ito told her about the boys and their cursing.”

“Do you know what cursing is?” Mom-ita asked him.

“No Mom-ita,” he said. I’d used the word in explaining what the boys had been saying and doing.

“Well, you know the word s-t-o-o-p-i-d?” Mom-ita asked. That’s how M-ito has spelled it since he first learned from us that it was a bad word and not to be used at all. So, he’d spell it when he wanted to tell us he’d heard someone use it and never used the word himself.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well,” Mom-ita said, “its worse than that.”

“You mean like idiot, Mom-ita?

Mom-ita laughed. “Yeah, like idiot.”

It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

The Pink Leotard

Maybe if it was blue the leotard would have been in my laundry.

Ballet started last week and M-ito is in a class with three older girls (7, 8, and 9 years old). He’s the only boy. He’s really enjoying himself and his teacher says he’s doing wonderfully. I made sure I could come home early from work last week and this week so that I could be there to take him to his first classes. He’s growing out of his leotard and black leggings. My son is growing. Everybody comments on how tall he has grown. 

On Monday I had to get his ballet clothes from the laundromat – we’ve been having it picked up and delivered lately – a real luxury since it’s expensive, but I haven’t had the energy lately to do it all myself. I couldn’t have the clothes delivered in time to give M-ito his ballet clothes so I had to stop at the laundromat and get those two pieces, his leotard and his black leggings and bring them to him before his class. We need to get new ones – a second pair but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. At the laundromat I couldn’t find his leotard. It’s pink. The owner asked me, after I’d looked through the pile of beautifully folded clothes and not been able to find it, to describe it. I did and a light went off above her head. 

“I’m sorry,” she said in her broken English. “My worker thought this was another families , in your bag by mistake, and we put it in their laundry. They have a little girl.”

“No,” I said, still smiling. “It’s my son’s. He dances ballet. It’s a little small, since he’s grown so much over the summer, but it’s his.”

She nodded and handed me his leotard. “I’m sorry.”

Later, waiting for his class to begin, M-ito and I sit on the couch outside the music room. He leans against my side. I wrap my arm around him. We’re in the middle of watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I have to tell him about Luke loosing his arm in his fight with Darth Vader, so he’s not too scared to watch it. I’m wondering how I’m going to explain this to him. 

His teacher opens the door and smiles at M-ito and Liqua, an eight year old girl he’s dancing with. His teacher has ten little girls behind her ready to go to their parents, all ages 4-6. M-ito’s grown out of that group.

“Liqua and M-ito,” the teacher says. “You can go in and start stretching while I take the rest of the kids downstairs to their after-school classroom.”

M-ito gives her a big smile, looks at Liqua and runs into the room with her, dropping down into their first stretch – what I would call upavista konasana if it was a yoga class. His teacher returns with her two other students and the door closes behind her. I can hear her voice through the door. Class, once again, has begun.