gratia plena

Our children are on a long leash.  I do not know if I would describe them using the au courant term free-range kids, but they are definitely less hamstrung than their peers.  I think a lot of this is because we have more time, because of our domestic dynamic -- more agrarian in style than post-industrial -- where we have the luxury of time with them for homekeeping and the other tasks of salary-earning support.  They are right within 10 yards of me nearly all the time, which gives me clarity in assessing their strengths and readinesses for independence.  Also, the things they are allowed to do independently mirror things they have been doing all along.  It is like independence training.  Small steps.

This summer has been a huge change, maybe not as baby-steppy-intro as I would have liked, because of my brokenness.  This will be the summer they remember, whether as good or bad, time will only tell.  For example:  today they both got a bad sunburn while at the pool.  Bad.  I mean, in my opinion, it is not the world's worst sunburn, but I am not the one lying wanly on the fold-out sofa with icy compresses on my back. 

How did they get this very first sunburn?  Well!  I told them this morning to get themselves ready for the pool & also do not forget sunscreen.  They did not, but they each failed to ask the other to do their back and so their shoulders are not well.  Burned.  They will definitely remember it and are unlikely to ever make this error again.  Is time to live & learn, babies.

Garçon is cooking!  He has long been aching to cook, and I just could not.  While I am happy to engage the Socratic method homeschool all the livelong day, cooking is too, uh, at once technical and also boring to me.  Or something.  Trying to oversee the child cooking, just, ugh.  Some of the conflict comes from him not wanting to be corrected and me not wanting him to get hurt.  Then, reasonably, comes the point in the face-off where he postures that if I know so much, I should just do it myself, and I of course say FINE, because who has been doing it all this time anyhow?  I am never happy with the way these afternoons end, and knew something would have to happen to bust up the dynamic.  Or, just bust up my ankle, har har. 

So, today, it was his job to remove a baking sheet from the oven, turn the vegetable patties, then return it to the 400-degree oven.  He somehow found himself (I was not in the kitchen) juggling a half sheet pan in one hand and a spatula in the other, in front of the hot, open oven, and burned his thumb.  Oh, well.  He assures me he will elect more carefully next time.  The funny thing is that had I been in the kitchen, I would have said, "First things first!" and he would have grumbled and I would have complained, and status quo and anyhow, the burn on his little thumb has been majorly upstaged by the sunburn.

I can not detail on the interwebs for just anyone to see without a trace the things the children have been doing out-of-doors, the privileges and accountability they have been granted -- exciting things!  Important things!  Things none of their friends get to do!  Things about which Mari & I have said, "Will you two be comfortable doing [this] alone?"  Every time it is something they have been doing all along right alongside of us, so they know how it goes, but now they will have the challenge of doing it while managing being by themselves in the world.  And their faces go quiet & nervous before they agree, hesitantly, and then they leave together, cautiously confident (and always hand-in-hand, like Hansel & Gretel) before returning all LOOK AT WE DID IT!  OH WOW!

Mari and I would be more excited if we were not in the back of our minds afraid that some meddlesome know-it-all would call the authorities because in America, children must be endlessly supervised by a parent or nanny or school administrator within arms' reach at all times until one day they are given a drivers' license.  It seems so silly. 

The point is this:  no one in the family wanted to see the third stupid Ice Age movie, except my sweet boy.  We were sad to tell him that really, we just ... ugh.  No.  He came back a little while later, "Mom, do you think that I could go see it by myself?"  Oh, um, och.  Uh ... no?  I don't know.  Um.  Ask me later.  Again, ok?

Today, I was lying around at the pool after my attempt at a suitable working out (AquaJogging round the diving well for one hour is not any kind of replacement for my usual grueling sorties, broken foot or not) and thinking about the burn from cooking & all their little errands and how much my little boy very much wants to see that blasted 3-D movie, and in a theatre we know quite well and in our neighborhood, in fact, and I want him to be able to see it, if only his sister wanted to see it, also, they could go together and stay together...

What came to me of course (of course!) was Frank O'Hara's delightfully nervy and daring and sharp, "Ave Maria," which of course starts plaintively, Mothers of America/let your kids go to the movies! and ends with don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice/ and the family breaks up/ and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set/ seeing/ movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young.

I have long  wanted to love the poem for its shocking verve, but was at the same time never really sure of what to think of it!  Now that I am here where it is relevant, it makes me laugh and also surprises me that it makes me say, "Yes!"  Mari scoffed, because of all the poem says in the middle, and pointed out, "You don't let Garçon use the men's room by himself." But the poem does not say I should let him go to the men's room! It says "go to the movies" and that is what he wants to do! Convenient, that, and I say yes! Now is the time! Always with parenting him, not Fille, but always him, where to go next always feels sudden to me, but also always certain & sure.  Like falling from a bike.

Comments

[saltypepper]

This is big time stuff! I hope all goes well for Garcon!