We woke up on The Boy's 10th birthday to darkness and torrential rain. The Sister came home around 7:45am from seminary soaking wet (the high school kids in our church attend an early morning class every school day from 6:45-7:30am). She knew that The Birthday Boy had requested Jamba Juice for his birthday breakfast, so she came dripping in and volunteered to make the run since she was already drenched. The Boy got out paper and pen and started to revise his list of services. Passing out flowers to people on the street -- probably not an awesome idea when people are wrestling with inside-out umbrellas and their pants are about to fall off from being so water-laden.
He started his services by drawing a cool picture for the family.
He got a plastic container of mythical creatures for his birthday and wondered out loud if the fact that he had given some to The Girl could count as a service. I suggested that he think of something that he might not have done if not for the day of service... While we were conversing, The Boy looked down at the mermaid he was holding:
"I wish she didn't have the bikini top on."
"Well then you would see her..."
[With eyebrows wagging up and down] "Yeah."
"I guess you're officially ten... wow."
[Cracking up by him and The Girl; holy-cow-looks, grimaces, and smirks exchanged between me and The Sister.]
The Dad made an effort to come home for an hour or so to help coordinate some of the services, so I attended a luncheon that had a discussion led by a brilliant professor. It was a small group, but contained some fascinating people -- from Ultraviolet (now in her 70's, she had been a pupil of Salvador Dali, and an Andy Warhol superstar/Factory member) to the 14th president of the Mormon Relief Society. The discussion was brilliant -- and yet the take away concept that most resonated with me is to remember how hard it is to be a kid when we are "teaching" and controlling... As adults we choose whom we associate with and where we spend our time (we might hate our job and think we work with a bunch of twats, but when it comes down to it, we still get to choose), while kids for the most part don't get to choose where they spend the majority of their day, and with whom they spend it. It's a reminder that I think is going to help me have a more generous perspective as a parent.
When I got home I was disappointed to hear that most of the kid's services were done. Due to the weather, they kind of cranked them out. List of services he ended up doing:
1. Drew an awesome picture for family (he's been intrigued by some police towers that we've seen around the city, so he drew a very detailed illustration of what he thinks the dashboard/panel looks like inside of one)
2. Bought strawberries for The Girl
3. Bought pineapple for The Sister
4. Made cute stickers ("you and your piano are a great pear", etc...) and put them on fruit and delivered it to our neighbor/piano teacher
5. Bought a bag of groceries and handed it politely to a homeless man
6. Gave an umbrella to a man that was getting soaked... I wasn't there, but apparently the man was a real piece of work -- he referred to The Boy as "Scout" (which is pretty awesome) and proceeded to bump the umbrella back and forth with his arms like a hacky-sack... by all reports he was very grateful for the umbrella. The Boy's quote: "He didn't have many teeth, and he was kooky, but I felt like he was the right one to give it to."
7. Wrote a very nice letter to a friend who moved away
8. Put a quarter in the gum ball machine at the candy store down the street, so if a wishful kid without money goes up to it he/she will get a service
9. Gave cookies to our doormen
10. Picked up soggy trash in Central Park
We still had the afternoon in front of us. We decided to go to the American Folk Art Museum. It's tiny, not far, free (donations appreciated), and has a very fun gift shop. Currently they have one of America's largest weathervanes on display, and a William Matthew Prior exhibit that inspired us all to give portrait painting a go next week... Not that we thought: oh, I can do that, but more because we were inspired to try the flat folk art style, and work on capturing specific characteristics to set apart the subject, rather than attempting an "exact" reproduction. I'm not even going to mention the topless pin-up gal pictures that were part of the "Women's Studies" exhibit... Let's just say that there was more eyebrow wagging and cracking up...
The rain mostly stopped by this time, so we decided to go on a walk in the park. It was the most beautiful it has ever been. There were few people because of the weather, and everything was glistening and so, so green. The lilacs are all blooming and there's an enchanted spot where a pink-purple lilac bush is next to a blue-purple lilac bush that is next to a white lilac bush and when the kids brushed their hands against the wet clumps of blossoms they said that the water on their hands smelled like perfume. It was all as perfect as life ever gets.
The Boy asked if he could dance up on the bandshell, and since it was his birthday...
I would have wandered in the park much longer, even though the rain started up again, but Judd the Red Chicken had purchased some new army men at the gift shop, and wanted to get home to try them out before The Dad came to get us for dinner.
He requested Dino-BBQ up in Harlem, and we knew the birthday gods were smiling down on him when we were seated next to his favorite picture.
Presents, banana splits, and a movie... And his day was done. Being as he wasn't born until 11:28pm PST, he didn't really turn 10 here until... the 9th...
So I won't feel too bad that his birthday post isn't going up until now... I simply was unable to outlast the kids... I fell asleep during the beginning displays of sexual tension between Truly Scrumptious and Dick van Dyke (wow... with those two names it just sounded like a rather bad adult-only movie, instead of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... ah, geez... where HAS the innocence gone???).
He woke up this morning and I asked how it felt to officially be ten: "It feels like nine." It is mysterious how that happens... We never do feel our age... Except in shocking moments like when we suddenly realize that the mermaid would be improved without a top, or disappointing moments when you can't keep your eyes open any longer even though it's only like 10pm...
The Boy turns ten tomorrow. Today was his birthday party. He asked to invite his closest friends to the Met after school, and then have a picnic dinner in the park. A friend of ours shared a scavenger hunt to do in the arms and armor collection, and he's been excited to do it.
By way of preparation, he picked out day-glow yellow shirts (seriously, retina-burning yellow) and "designed" something to be ironed on to the front -- the silhouettes of The Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot, on top of and under, respectively, the word: "Believe!" These he delivered to his friends ahead of time so they could wear them to the festivities (and they all did -- bless their hearts).
He chose a "medieval" looking font for the scavenger hunt worksheet.
He decided that the picnic dinner (a sandwich, a bottle of water, some trail mix, a granola bar, and beef jerky) should be like MRE's... and he found a random almost-Johnny-Appleseed graphic that he wanted to put on the sticker that we put on the individual bags.
It gets better. The goody bag had a book, a poster, a party mask, and a s'mores kit.
I kept thinking that all of this cool randomness was my big reminder that he is becoming his own man, but circumstances showed me that there are other indications that he's growing up...
He has been looking forward to this trip to the Met for a long time. He didn't allow himself to read through the scavenger hunt too early for fear that he would find all the stuff on a visit and ruin the fun. He was also super excited to go into his favorite room -- the glassed wing where the Temple of Dendur is housed...
It was just rotten luck that the ropes, and the guard, indicated that the part of the Egyptian collection that we wanted to see was closed to the public because of an event. The Boy blinked and immediately recovered. The Girl said to me, "Well, at least it's not the arms and armor area."
Sadly, when we approached the doors to the arms and armor collection, we again saw ropes and a guard. And I saw a crestfallen look cross my son's face. However, within seconds he smiled and suggested we go up to look at the Van Gogh's.
We were still waiting for one more friend to show, so we couldn't wander far. How do you keep six kids who aren't necessarily museum lovers happy in one gallery for who-knows-how-long? I kind of pushed it towards having them all take a look around and report back/share their favorite paintings. The fact that they all cheerfully went along with this not-super-creative idea is impressive. Nice kids. After, The Boy led us all on a condensed version of the tour we recently had. Things picked up a bit when our last friend joined us and we went on to the Roman collection for a bit -- The Boy determined that there were enough things from the scavenger hunt that could be found there (who knew there was so much overlap? I guess he did).
I could tell that the dream of sharing his favorite parts of the museum with his friends fell flat. Instead of the seamless and awe-inspiring tour he had worked out in his mind, it was a fragmented, disappointing, perhaps under-appreciated experience. Though, the Met is still the Met (we had a friend once say of a Sondheim revival: "Even mediocre Sondheim is better than not-Sondheim.") We went on to the park and the kids played and we had our picnic.
What were the really good parts?
1. The Sister was, as usual, our helper bee. She stayed behind, waited for UPS to deliver the small plastic mythical creatures for the top of the cake, then after assembling the sandwiches shlepped all the food, including the cake, and the goody bags twenty-plus blocks to the Great Lawn. This was after she helped me wrassle the printer into submission, ran errands, and played her part in keeping The Boy focused on his math during the day. I hope that her example of goodness and service is something that has seeped into my kids. I hope it has seeped into me.
2. The party had to be today because of a zillion schedule conflicts. All of the friends who attended made major sacrifices to be there. Exhibit A: Friends M, O, and C (same family) are scattered throughout the UWS for school. The mom rallied to gather these scattered spawn (i.e. taking one kid out of school early, getting a taxi, etc. and so forth) in order to meet us. Exhibit B: Friend C lives in the Bronx. In order for him to attend the party his family arranged for him to spend the night at his Nana's house tonight. Exhibit C: Friend W lives in Queens and is usually only in our neighborhood on the weekends when he stays with his mom. His mom and dad agreed that she would be able to pick him up today after school, take the train back in, and he'll spend the night with her before they take the train out for school in the morning. Are you kidding me? So much sacrifice and extra work and kindness. From my perspective it's actually pretty unbelievable.
3. The cutest, most thoughtful, specific gifts in the world (i.e. The Boy recently said, "I have a coconut collection, though I only have one coconut." This prompted some friends to felt a gorgeous coconut. There was a "pocket poultry" book given... etc. and so forth). Gifts are always nice, but when they are so darn thoughtful they become glowing icons of what friendship is about.
4. The opportunity for the kid to be great. Most humans have it in them to be decent and demonstrate good perspective, but we aren't always given such clear moments to shine. With the closure of his museum galleries the kid was gifted the opportunity to show his goodness.
Dandelions were blown in the park, coins were thrown in a fountain at the museum, and a kid blew out a birthday candle. That's a lot of wishes floating about. My kid has made it ten years, he is a good boy, and he's surrounding by good people who are kind to him. Content.
This weekend the kids began work on a mega zoo display with The Sister. A friend stopped by and when she saw it asked, "Is this for learning, or for fun?" Before I answered, she supplied, "Though I guess what we want to teach our kids is that they are one in the same, right?" That was pretty cool, I thought.
Some of the coolest kid lit is by Ruth Chew. I love, love, loved her elegant books when I was little. They are fun, and sweet, and simple and usually about a brother and sister who live in Brooklyn, walk to and from Prospect Park on their own, have sandwiches packaged in paper by their mom, and encounter magic. Things that we experience as kids leave deep impressions; whenever I think of Prospect Park there is -- even if it's fleeting -- a thought about those books... and me as an elementary school child thinking about Brooklyn, and very simple magic, like a measuring tape that can make things bigger, or scissors that can snip things smaller.
Today's field trip was to Prospect Park. When we first came up from the subway The Boy kept saying something that we all thought was, "The guy is scaring me." I looked for a pedophile or ranter or ranting pedophile that he might have spotted. The Girl looked at the statue we were coming up on and said, "Well, at least a fig leaf is covering it..." After a bit of similarly ridiculous commentary we finally all got on the same page: it was the SKY that was scaring him. There were no buildings to keep it in check. Obviously, we leave the city often, but perhaps there's usually a more gradual fading away... or perhaps the sky today just seemed particularly expansive.
Another my-kids-are-growing-up-in-an-urban-environment moment was when The Girl gasped and said, "What is that smell? I love it!" A lawn mower had just passed. It was the sharp and distinct smell of just-cut grass.
We stumbled upon the Camperdown Elm, and we are so glad that we did (read cool article here).
And visited the outside of the Lefferts House. ("Lefferts house has been a witness to a landscape constantly changed by people. The Lefferts family house was built using trees that grew in the area. Then the house became the anchor for a farming and grazing business that transformed the land. Finally, the house itself had to make way, the landcape was changing once again, into a modern city.")
We also went to the zoo. Personally, I didn't care for it as much as the Central Park zoo, even though the two are very similar. The kids liked it -- The Girl will never hear an even slightly critical remark regarding anything with animals, and The Boy loved a turkey (he named Rockyroad) and an emu -- that he said he would really like for a pet, but he would use some Alberto V05 hair styling gel and a comb to fix the weird hair. The Sister and I thought this was hilarious: Judd the Red Chicken -- Stylist to the Emus.
The carousel was great; we all rode it.
And then we headed over to the Brooklyn Museum.
We particularly liked roaming about the visible storage.
We came home tired, but I hope that something lovely, if not magical, will stick in the beings of the brother and sister team that headed to Prospect Park today.
Our family friend found out about a neat book that was coming out, pre-ordered a copy for us, and dropped it by our apartment the very day it came. All just because she's awesome. To come home and have the doorman hand you an unexpected present is a lovely thing. To have friends that know your interests and do thoughtful things to support them is truly sublime (rabbit hole alert! I just thought, Hey Sublime! I haven't thought about that band for a while!...The Boy might like that band... a lot of his little ditties around here have a ska-like cadence... so I youtubed... and it brought back a lot of memories... aaaaand considering the trajectories of most music-makers I became even more convinced that we must develop more of The Boy's talents other than garage-band-like singing/dancing (...and Ukrainian egg decorating...)). The book:
The note: "Dear -- When I saw this book, it made me think of you. I hope you will go on another adventure with me to see some of these buildings and we'll see if Mr. James Gulliver Hancock drew them correctly. Love, --"
As an art activity we created our "thank you's" -- using Hancock's style we went across the street from our friend's building and sketched with pen, and then went home and added watercolor.
