Lopsided Anecdotal Evidence of Fragility

A week's worth of Williamstown, and I'm pretty well grounded again, though there have been some upheavals to keep me from feeling like I never left. Nothing serious, but when I'm thrown out of my usual patterns, I get very disoriented. And there's been a lot of that this week.

Sunday, a day after arriving back from Wisconsin, we took Q to his first spring soccer game, and last season's late-in-the-year tentativeness was on full display. You've never seen a more frightened and reluctant player - adept, now, at arriving JUST a moment too late to get a contested ball; booting any ball he comes in contact with away from himself as fast as possible; following attacking people from the opposite team at a trot rather than running them down like the Q of old. I held my tongue, but as I gradually convinced Janneke that he wasn't just tired, that he wasn't doing just as much as the other kids, it came over me: He's afraid to make mistakes. I think I'm intimidating him from the sidelines.

So I've resolved not to go to several of his games now. See if by not attending, I can help to readjust the space they take up back down to its proper size - reduce the importance of the games so he can enjoy them again. I think I prasied him too much when he was great, and gave too much advice when he wasn't, and now I represent the possibility of failure. It's too much for him - and we've been noticing a real tendency to climb into our laps like he's four again and straddle us, hugging and humming contentedly. He's clinging to his littleboyhood; bigness is starting to scare him a bit. Like the time he figured out there was no Santa Claus, and laughed about it...and then four months later, professed fervent belief again. Innocence is a difficult thing to let go of.

Then on Monday we got the call that Q had head lice. What fun. I got the call, actually - in class. They told me they hadn't been able to get hold of Janneke, and that Q would be waiting for me. I quickly arranged coverage and drove the 45 minutes home, convinced I was itching the whole way. Q launched himself happily out the door of the school the second he saw me, but I went back in with him to consult with the nurse a bit - and to have her check my own bald, but still sufficiently hairy (perhaps...?), head. She fond nothing.

So we stopped at the supermarket for a couple of the DDT shampoos they sell for such occasions, and I lathered Q up and set him down in front of Sponge Bob Squarepants while I scurried around the house, washing and disinfecting everything his head had touched in the last week or so. Such onerous labor, let me tell you - and it's our third bout this year. It's a bleedin' plague in Williamstown this year - we know four other families who've had it and have heard of a number more.

On one of my zoomings past Q, I noticed, suddenly, that he was crying! I sat down with him and asked him if the lice had made him sad. "No - me duele la panza." And that night he was vomiting, and the next day he didn't go to school. Janneke took him to work with her, and Wednesday he was still off, so I stayed home. (Though I had to blaze in at 5:30 and leave my plans on the desk for the sub, then zoom back and take over so Janneke could go to work.) Wednesday afternoon we took Q to his piano lesson, and while he took it I shot off to daycare and picked up T, so we could hit the doctor's office - and when we came back to the piano lesson, Ed, his brilliant teacher, told us he'd been able to do very, very little, between trips to the bathroom and heavy sighing. Poor little guy. We apologized to Ed and hit the doctor's office, and got everything confirmed: Virus, nothing really to do but keep him hydrated and wait it out. Which would be the plan for all of Thursday as well.

Janneke is at the end of her semester, and I'm at the beginning of the fourth quarter - so our stress levels are not at all similar. And she doesn't teach Friday, so if he had to stay then, it would be her day. So I stayed again on Thursday.

That day Q and I drove to Pittsfield to buy a new basketball rim, since the old one, which had come with the house, had given way. (Two years ago I replaced the backboard, which had rotted through; this year, the rim. Next year it'll be the steel arms that hold the backboard onto the roof.) Q's really a pretty darn good shot nowadays - though he could only work up about ten minutes of shooting before retiring back to Sponge Bob. So I stayed outside and went 1-for-22, something like that, and did some really spectacularly bad dribbling.

By this time I had no frickin' idea where I was, what day it was, or what my middle name was. I'd not really taught more than a class and a half in over a week, and was spending long, odd days at home while Q recuperated on the couch watching more "Sponge Bob" and I did yard work or practiced the guitar. And Q was only gradually getting better, able to eat a little more each day, still turning down most of the most basic of foods. Thursday night we were speculating that he might be milking it in the hopes of missing Friday school as well, and did so in German, so he wouldn't understand; then we switched back to Spanish, and Janneke said, "Pero manana, quiera o no, el come. Porque no se puede vivir asi." ("But tomorrow, like it or not, he's eating. Because you can't live like this.")

Which Q, of course, interpreted as "Q is going to die."

That led to another long session of gangly-legged nearly-nine-year-old spread-eagle on our laps, gently sniffling as we explained that that was not exactly what Mami had meant. He really is uncomfortable with getting bigger, I think, with becoming "too big to cuddle", as they say in "Raising Arizona". He felt OK Friday, and went to school, but he really lost weight those few days. He's stretching out, too, but we can't help but feel his back and his arms all the time now and fret over the couple of pounds he lost. He informed us early this afternoon that he didn't want to go to Sunday-night pickup soccer, and we readily agreed. Again, with the sports thing!

Because this afternoon, as he sat on my lap in the park, he said he didn't know how he was going to get enough money when he got older to buy a house. "WHAT?!?! Why are you worried about that?" And the explanation came that he wasn't super-good at any sport, so he would probably never be a professional, and wouldn't earn millions, so he wouldn't have enough money.

Oh!, the many angles from which we tried to gently debunk this latest misconception. I think he hears all his very-sporty friends talking about their bright futures in various sports - Eli, after all, is a superior baseball player; Sammy D and Brady are the MVPs of Q's soccer team (though, I'm telling you, when Q isn't worried about it, he is every bit on a par with them); Jay is an amazing goalie; Sean's Dad is a basketball coach, and he's already dribbling between his legs...Q, meanwhile, is A-OK at all of these, and the best in town at none. So naturally he's concluded that all his friends will be Rookie of the Year, and he'll starve to death.

We talked at him for a while, gently, until he said he didn't want to talk about it anymore - he wanted to play baseball. We grabbed the gloves and played a rousing game of catch, he, Mami, and I, while T finished up a play date in the park with her friend Hazel. Man...Their little psyches are such delicate things. It reminds me of one of the last emails my Mom wrote me before she couldn't any more:

"I remember all the time you were growing up, you were so tender hearted and I thought that I hope you toughen up as you age because you would be hurt by a lot of people who were ignorant and never think of anyone but themselves and howthey feel."

Chilling, the way that could be me, writing to Q. Peas in a pod.

Three nights in a row, he's woken up in the middle of the night and come to our bed to spend the rest of it with us. Tonight we drew the line, though, and said that if he needs comforting, one of us will go to his bed. Whatever the root cause of it, Q needs comfortin'. Luckily, it's what we most love to do.

Don't worry - I'll write about T as soon as she gets sick and has her psyche crushed. Shouldn't be long. I give it a week. Meantime, here's a little something to tide you over: T at ballet, practicing for her upcoming role as a lump of sugar: