This is what it comes down to...

I had a moment yesterday when I looked at Buttercup and realized she'd made another developmental leap. She was no longer the post-pre-K-early-elementary kid. Nope. She was a kid coming into her own right. She was finding ways to help on her own, ways to relate to people on her own. The shy kid was still there, but in her place was an increasingly interesting individual.

The other day, we were on our way from Richmond back to Dayton, and it proved to be one of the best trips we've taken yet. The difference between seven and six is radical. At seven, the kid is reading to me from the backseat. We are having full-on conversations. It's like she has suddenly become aware of the world.

The funny part about these developmental moments is that you can't prepare for them. No matter how many books you read or other parents you talk to, it is simply impossible to prepare for the moment that your kid makes the leap. Why? Because you suddenly have to adjust everything. If it's the kid deciding she no longer likes something she happily ate before, it's better to ask why she doesn't like it than to insist she should eat something she doesn't like. If she suddenly has distinct opinions about what she wants to do, it's better to find out why she no longer wants to do things she did before. And in all cases, it's best to adjust accordingly.

The brilliant part is that the kid can articulate her reasons at this age. If something tastes bitter, she can say so. If something tastes good, that can be part of it too. The trick as a parent is to find that space to adjust accordingly. It's not always easy, but like the koan about the reed in the wind, it's better to bend than to be rigid and break.

Count this as holiday lesson #743, and remember that your kid is actually a pretty decent little individual.

A Good Day

Christmas this year began with my Grandmother's Swedish meatballs on the eve. It was a mopey start, however, because Banana was going to be with Mére until mid-day on Christmas. Even so, the meatballs and gløg came out well. In fact, I'd almost say they were the best I've ever done. Practice does make perfect, as my grandmother's example showed.

Christmas morning was a bit mopey as well as it is less fun to wake up without a kid chomping at the bit to open her presents. Nonetheless, I got up, made coffee, and worked at finishing up Christmas preps. Then a wonderful thing happened: Mére called to say that Banana wanted to come over earlier than planned. I had to race a bit, but things came together and I even managed to get showered before they showed up.

What followed was brilliant. Banana was naturally excited about the spread of presents—though in reality it was less this year than last year. Better yet, she was excited about everything she opened—from the stocking gifts to the Schoolhouse Rock DVD to the iPod Shuffle (pink, with her name engraved on back) to the Hanna Andersson outfit (including boots) to the framed picture of her ballet group from the spring. Honestly, it was sweet how she reacted to each and every one, and it was even sweeter that she made a point of saying "Thank you" for each and every one she knew was mine. And when it came to the Santa gifts (iPod and Pixos), she was beyond happy that Santa had remembered what she'd asked for.

The second part of our day — the day with the extended family — was mostly drama-free, too, which helped turn this into a grand Christmas. Ultimately, what made it great was the sense that the people who mattered — including my ex-father-in-law who came over for a bit while Mére rested — all had a grand time. Cynicism aside, it truly is a wonderful life sometimes.

artifacts

This morning, Banana was up and about very early. We went down to the shore, and trotted back up for breakfast after a bit. Once she'd eaten, she got very tired and climbed into my arms. She was warm—not burning, but definitely not a normal temperature either. I asked my mother whether we had a thermometer in the house. She said she wasn't sure and went to rummage around around in the bathroom. She returned, saying all we had was an old mercury thermometer, and put this box on the table in front of me.



Given the design, typography, and materials, I would have to guess that the package dated from the forties—perhaps even before my grandparents built this house in the early fifties. that guess is helped by the small mark branding the thermometer as a Rexall product. Given the effort to build and brand the Rexall name in the late forties, the timing seems right.

On opening the box, the discovery became even more interesting. Both the manufacturer's mark (Brooklyn!) and the numbers appear to have been hand-painted and hand-etched. It is nearly impossible to imagine any mass market product that has such detail applied in this day and age.




This kind of direct connection to history is unique, I think, to summer homes built in the era when families could truly "summer" in a whole other place than they lived the other nine or ten months of the year. In the cases of some towns along the coast, that meant simply transplanting an entire echelon of society for a few months, i.e. Baltimore money summered on one point while Boston money summered on another point. In the cases of communities such as ours, that meant mixing centuries of local history (families with deep regional ties) with lives lived elsewhere.

The end result is that you find homes filled with artifacts like six decade-old thermometers, spice tins filled with long-stale paprika, toasters that should have died years ago, a grandmother's favorite work gloves, and generations-worth of collected beach treasures. In the case of toasters and appliances, you might feel guilty replacing them because they have nostalgia going for them, but the reality is they continue to work well because they have only been used two months a year for decades. (It is this way with the waffle maker I long since appropriated from the house.) In the case of spice tins, you don't bother replacing them; you simply supplement with fresh spices bought in smaller bulk quantities. The old tins remain because, well, they've always been there.

All this said, I should point out that there are at least two kinds of summer homes. There is the functional sort—cabins, we might call these—where order and nostalgia take a backseat to kids' feet made dirty and wet from trips to the beach. Chaos rules brilliantly in these homes. Then there is the nostalgic sort—cottages, we might call them—where preservation takes precedence and dirt is quickly whisked away. Order rules calmly in these homes.

As I've gotten older and become a parent, I've struggled with what this means to me, whether it's just a nice perq of our family (our summer house) or whether it is a legacy that I must carry on in some way (our living history). I've come to understand (accept?) it as both, but I've also begun to think about how I want Banana to see the place. In the long-run, I suspect my vision may may be noisier than history.