September 25 letter

September 25, 2006

Back again – so tired I could cry. Xander has gotten another of his colds. At first his sleep was disturbed by these really awful sounding coughs. I dosed him with Albuterol and saline and cough meds at night and that stopped being the problem but then he began having nightmares – because even with all the stuff and the humidifier going, he still was horribly congested. So the nights have been disrupted, to say the least. This morning, however, it is Jason who woke at 4:45 am. Sigh. The real problem is that, without sufficient sleep, we all become grumpy.

At any rate, Jason is enjoying school. ‘I have two girl friends’ he tells me solemnly. And whenever he thinks about not going to school, for fear that he is missing something fun at home, I suppose, he generally decides that he really SHOULD go to school – ‘otherwise Brooke and Taylor will miss me.’

Looking back, I realize that I have not told you one of my favorite Jason school stories: I asked Jason the other day about playing with boys – since his companions appear to be all girls. He sighed deeply and shook his head. ‘I am having trouble putting the boy troop together.’ He said, blue eyes pensive. ‘I do have one helper, he is my executive sergeant.’ I blinked, a bit surprised at the language. ‘Your executive sergeant?’ I repeated dumbly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he sits beside me on the playground and we discuss strategy. When we need another person on the field, I send him in.’ ‘Don’t you play on the field?’ I asked, rather concerned at the image. He looked VERY patiently at me. ‘No, mommy. I’m the general. I am too important.’ ‘What precisely does the general do?’ I asked, fascinated despite myself. ‘He watches the action and when more soldiers are needed, he sends them in. Of course, I am a better general than the last one.’ ‘Really’ I said, curious to see where this was leading. ‘Oh yes,’ he nodded, ‘I hold planning meetings. I get everyone together, we discuss situations, decide what to do and then go and do it. The last general before me just sent men in.’ ‘Ah’ was all I could come up with as a response. What do you say to such a statement, after all? What puzzles me is where he is getting the military language…

Other than that, Jason has been playing soccer. The first two games were all his. In the first game, several Saturdays ago, he scored all three goals for his team. Then weekend before last, he scored all five goals. He was amazing to watch, not aggressively shoving to get the ball, just slipping his foot into the scrum, sneaking the ball out with his toe and then dribbling it down to the goal while all the kids in the scrum looked about in confusion –‘where’d the ball go?’ This past Saturday, however, he was very down in the weather – so tired that you could see it when he walked and played. He did well in picking himself up from knock downs but he was not in top form. Neither was Xander, what with the cold, but while he was watching from the sidelines, he conceived a new desire. ‘One day’ he told Jason’s coach solemnly, ‘I be played on soccer team with my big bahbah.’ Of course, earlier that day, as he watched me cut up oranges for the half time snack, he had told me ‘One day (his current favorite introductory phrase!) I be play on bunk ball team and you make orni for me.’ So we have the forecast for Xander’s future. As to Jason’s soccer career, who knows? As I said, he is not an ‘aggressive’ player – he doesn’t bludgeon his way in the way his teammates do but for all that, he has his foot on the ball a greater percentage of the time. So we will see. Tom is generally very impressed with him and so are others who watch the games. It amuses me no end because I have one friend who, when Jason was much littler and learning to walk, looked at him and said ‘You will just have to accept that Jason won’t be much of an athlete.’ (This based on the fact that his static balance sucked. His dynamic balance, on the other hand, is remarkable.) The truth that I have come to accept is that when Jason gets focused on something, he is quite capable of learning whatever that something is. His ability to focus is astonishing.

This weekend, and the one previous, Tom has been working on widening the front walkway. With the help of a friend, John Rose, and with Jason’s kind assistance, Tom dug two trenches, one on either side of the sidewalk, filled them with gravel and sand and laid down paving stones. His next project is to build a walkway across in front of the house. Then he will set to work on the raised bed for my roses. We plan to put in an arbor over the walkway as well. When it is done, it should be quite attractive. But it is work and it is time and it is most definitely money. On the other hand, the roses have been waiting for over a year – Tom had promised me a rose garden for my last birthday but one… I will have to take pictures and send them off once the work is more complete.

Hmmm… what other news? Well, it appears that Matt and family will be making the long trek from Minnesota to Tucson for Christmas. They are looking into doing it by train. That is brave. Trains are wonderful, no doubt, but they are a lot of work – what with having to get luggage on and off yourself and given that there is no direct route from Minnesota to Arizona, they will be doing that a lot. That isn’t so big a deal, if you are one person – or even a couple of adults but two adults and three little people, one of whom is newly born. Yikes. On the other hand, my brother and sister-in-law are quite the intrepid couple. I am sure that it will go well for them. Much as we would like to, we will not be joining them in Tucson this year. Too many bills for house repairs. Course, if we won the lottery… grin. Not likely, especially without a ticket!