Thing1

Oranges and Oranges

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Sixteen year old Thing1 got into fitness in a big way last summer. He started working out like crazy. He spent the summer cutting hay (with a scythe) at his girlfriend’s house and jumping in ponds and rivers.

Just about the same time, he began having digestive issues that caused him to lose over 20 pounds in a few weeks — no mean feat for a kid who can seriously endanger the profit margin of any restaurant daring enough to put out an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Thanks to my job, we have excellent insurance, but it still took multiple visits to the ER and the regular doctor, along with a healthy dose of nepotism to finally find us the right specialist to hand us a diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis.

At the time, all I could do was feel eternally grateful for our health plan and angry at a system that would have left Thing1 at sixteen without a colon if we hadn’t known somebody who knows somebody who could make something happen. I was angry for a while at the seeming apathy of the people in the system and not just on behalf of Thing1, but on behalf of the millions of Americans who have bad insurance or none at all. It left me wondering how many kids miss their potential because of lack of access to adequate care.

I still think about that every time we go for a checkup, wondering what we can do — aside from regularly calling our elected representatives — to change things.

Thing1 has clearly been thinking about it too, taking the ‘change the things I can’ approach to a life that now suddenly includes up to 12 pills a day.

At first when I saw his reaction, I thought I was worrying about oranges and he was thinking about apples. While I made my daily calls to my reps, he began researching his autoimmune disorder and adjusting his diet long with his workout. He googled and read. He experimented with different portions of protein and fiber, fruit and starches as he learned what his system would tolerate (incidentally coming up with a unified digestive theory that involves eating whole crates of clementines while simultaneously helping your parents run up a grocery bill to rival the national debt).

At the same time, we’ve started the time-honoured college search. T1 is a math fanatic, so we started looking at math/science schools, but he surprised us by announcing he wanted to study nutrition to help other kids who might be dealing with similar digestive issues. We’ve since signed him up for a course at the community college, and he’s even considering a blog with fitness and nutrition tips.

I finally realized T1 and I really were both thinking about oranges and oranges. We were just thinking up different ways to get to the good stuff under the skin.

Save

Be

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In my inner world, I fight dragons. I take on armies and villains, triumphing over any challenge with wit and courage. Did I mention this was a fantasy?

In the real world, I've wrapped myself in the notion that my dreams are the result of an active imagination. Lately, though, as I look at my life and the things I haven't achieved or the real demons I've been afraid to fight, I've come to an uncomfortable admission. It's not just the inner triumphs that are fictional. Everything in that world is imaginary – especially the courage.

Before thirteen-year-old Thing1 was born, I never thought of myself as especially kind or patient or even steadfast. When he came into our world, however, right away he needed me to learn all of those things and, for him, I did. My kindness or patience still wouldn't win me any awards, but because of him I learned to keep trying when the breast milk wasn't flowing right away. I learned to stick by someone who was screaming in my face and to put someone else's needs before my own.

Right now we're navigating the first year of adolescence with all the pitfalls I'd expect and some I didn't. And even though he's getting stubble on his chin, I still look at him and feel the same powerful push to be better. He needs me to be brave now. So, not just for him but because of him, I will be.

 

I Know Thee

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It was just beginning to snow by the time I browbeat thirteen-year-old Thing1 into a clean T-shirt and into the car last Thursday. We were headed to Hubbard Hall for a pay-what-you-will dress rehearsal of 'King Lear', and, for the first time all year, Thing1 had decided he really wanted to do homework.

“Who are you and what have you done with my son?” I asked as we got into the car. He rolled his eyes at me. Any other night, such devotion to homework would have prompted me to call a mental health professional, but we had to get to dinner before the show, and I decided not to spike the ball.

Thirteen has made Thing1 unrecognizable somedays. A winter ago on the same road, anticipating another winter Shakespeare tragedy, this same young man regaled me with the intricacies of modifying his favorite computer game. Thursday night, he kept his own council.

I asked about his day at school and got mostly monosyllabic answers to my questions. Finally, I asked the right question.

“How are you liking The Crucible?” The two of us had seen that play a year earlier at another local theatre, and I hoped the experience was enhancing his classwork.

“I'm just bored with it,” he finally answered.

“With the play?” I asked. “Or the class in general?” I thought I knew his answer. Thing1 loves math and science and considers English classes state-sanctioned torture. But I didnt know him as well as I thought.

“I'm bored with school,” he said, and my head nearly exploded with the questions that were forming. For the next fifteen minutes and then the next hour at dinner and in the theatre as we waited for King Lear to disown a loving daughter and a loyal servant only to realize he didn't understand their motives all that well, I uncovered a wealth of curiosity and dreams that my son had been quietly nurturing these last few months.

Instead of a knave bent on defying his parents' entreaties to take homework seriously, I was seeing a boy hungry for inspiration at school but determined to find it on his own if necessary. I was seeing a spark and, with it, the boy I thought I knew.

 

When in Vermont

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Ski jump

Last Sunday we took a much-needed family stay-cation to Brattleboro for a ski jump competition. We chose the destination because it’s been a stopping point for many Olympians, and, in the forties, for the Big Guy’s dad.

The temperature was brisk, and the sun was out. Food vendors and tailgaiters created delicious grilled odors that bouyed the four of us on our climb up the 150+ snowy steps that lined the jump hill.

Twenty feet of snow-covered hillside and path separated the top of the stairs from the wall that bordered the jump area. We staked out a spot just below the jump-off just as the first round of jumpers whooshed past us.

Seven-year-old Thing2 watched a few jumpers and then, his awe subsiding, focused on the consistency of the snow and it’s suitability for sliding and ammunition.

The first round ended, and he began begging for permission to slide down the massive hill next to the steps. Noting the abundant opportunities the hill afforded for an impromptu ambulance ride, I naturally said, ‘No’. Thing2 pouted, but kept his silence.

The loudspeaker announced a break in the action, and we decided to move to a lower part of the hill for a different view of the action. The Big Guy and I began navigating down the hill towards the stairs. Half-way down, I turned around to offer a hand to Thing2. Still standing at the wall, he grinned at me.

“Mom, I want to slide down here!”

I hesitated for a minute and scanned his intended course for any objet d’injury.  Noting the incline leveled enough near the bottom for him to stop himself, gave my permission. Thing2 sat on his snowpant-covered butt and slid.

“You are a true Vermonter,” I told him as he coasted to a stop at my feet.  He is.

Despite the Big Guy’s deep roots in Vermont (from his father back to a time before “Vermont” existed) and Thing1’s maple syrup-steeped childhood, Thing2 is the only “real” Vermonter among us (I’m a recovering nomad). Local tradition confers the label only on those born in-state. The smile on his face as he sat in the snow, however, proved his status better than any birth certificate.

The path had been packed down, and Thing2 decided it was another slower sliding opportunity. I inched along behind him, keenly aware of the aging tread on my boot.  

Finally, the eternal adventurer in me decided that since we were in Vermont, I should do as my native-Vermonter had just done. The slippery path was much more easily negotiated on my butt. The path from nomad to settled Vermonter is one Thing2 will be showing me how to navigate for some time.

 

White Noise

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Snow angel

Tuesday, we were looking forward to another  snowy night and day.  Like most northern regions, it takes a lot more than 6-12″ to get Vermonters flustered, but, to be perfectly honest, it’s not the snow that rattles my nerves, it’s the snow day.

I work from home.  Most of the time it’s a good racket – especially when Thing1 and Thing2 get the unexpected day off.  It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, however, especially when Thing1 and Thing2 get the unexpected day off.   They’re good kids, but, try as I might, I have not found the trick to getting them to sit quietly with their hand folded over their laps while mommy deals with customers online (if you’ve found it online somewhere, send me the link).   But, as I found out over Christmas break (almost two weeks of expected days off), silence isn’t always golden.

Seven-year-old Thing2 – already plastered to the ceiling in anticipation of Santa’s visit – had spent the morning migrating from lego projects to torturing his brother.  At one point, he managed to combine activities, causing a crescendo of ‘MOM!’ from thirteen-year-old Thing1’s room.  Thing1 had ‘accidentally’ knocked Thing2’s lego sculpture out of his hand.  The ruins of his engineering masterpiece were strewn about the floor.  One of the witnesses to the ‘accident’ was red faced, the other was in tears. I was chatting online with several customers at once and decided there wasn’t time to call in CSI to determine if the destruction was accidental or premeditated, and I ordered Thing2 to the living room for a cool-down on the iPad.  

Lips pursed, arms folded over his chest, Thing2 marched to a corner of the couch after retrieving a blanket from his bunk. He stood on the couch, arranging the blanket just so and, when he had created his cave, grabbed the iPad from the table and retreated under the patchwork tent.

Thing2 has loved the iPad since it emerged from its sleek white box.  Like most kids, he knows more about it than a seasoned software engineer, and I’m ashamed to admit that it plays babysitter too often on days like this.  

The next day, each Thing retreated automatically to his own corner.  One was in his room working on a computer project with a friend in Maine.  Two was under his tent with headphones borrowed from daddy.  For most of the morning, the only sound came from my keyboard.

That night, I finished work on time and, with a small break in the depression that had been amplifying for months, I thought an after dinner post was in order.  But as the Big Guy took up residence on the couch for his winter’s nap and I began loading the wood stove to cook dinner, I noticed that it was still very quiet.  The dishes clanking were the only noise. 

Thing2 was still under the blanket and headphones, his legos and sketchbooks gathering dust.  There was no new dance routine to watch and animate.  There was no impromptu party waiting in his room.  And suddenly I was scrambling for something to write.  

Like a nagging housewife driving her husband to the arms of a lover, my quest for quiet had silenced my inspiration with electronic lithium. 

Cousins arrived the next day, and neither child was interested in anything electronic as we celebrated Christmas.  

The Monday after the family left, the silence was deafening, but the iPad was nowhere to be found.  Thing2 emerged late in the morning, dragging his tent.  He looked for his digital drug, but, not finding it, deposited his blanket on the couch and padded over to the Christmas tree where his latest Lego project was still sitting, the remaining 500 pieces sorted into empty ice cream buckets.

For the rest of the morning, he delivered a muted monologue of the building of his new starship.  Occasionally, frustrated tears punctuated the chatter and interrupted my work.  I broke up a few fights, but, when dinner time rolled around my inspirer-in-chief joined me in the kitchen to show me his latest dance moves.  And, oddly enough, the noise made the work day better.  

I didn’t write that night, but Tuesday morning, that probable snow day got me just rattled enough to get out of bed early and start tapping.   

The Woodpile

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Woodpile

We don’t have a furnace, but we do have an amish-made wood cookstove that burns about five cords of wood every winter.  Over the last few years, thirteen-year-old Jack has increasingly enjoyed the triple-warming feature of our chosen heat source.  

As Jack’s body has grown, so has his part in the stacking, hauling, and burning.  Some years he even takes on the lion’s share of the stacking in hopes of earning some cash.  Even the small income, however, has not taught him to appreciate the woodpile.

Monday we each had a day off.  I decided to lend him a hand.  After lunch, we each donned work gloves and earbud and started ferrying logs to the woodshed.  

It was quiet work.  Each of us was listening to music, but, as Jack has grown taller, he has also become more introspective. Spontaneous utterances are rare.   He meets most of my queries these days with monosyllabic answers.

As the first cord formed in the shed, however, Jack volunteered the remark on the increase in speed when there were two stacking.  I concurred, adding that it was almost pleasant when you got moving.  Jack retreated to silence again.  I asked what music he was listening to, extracting an answer after repeating the questions several ways.

I entertain no illusions about my hipness as a mother (only my fitness as one), and I was glad just to know a little about Jack’s evolving music tastes.  In the next hour we would chat about his English grade, the computer he’s been working toward over the last year, and his favorite video game.  In the end, the wood stacking warmed each of us, but in completely different ways.  For Jack, it was still just a chore.  For me, it was one more thing in my life that reminding me to feel thankful.

A Sharp Dressed Man

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Brothers in arms

Seven-year-old Thing2 was invited to a movie with a friend on Sunday.  An hour before it was time to go, he doffed his t-shirt and, wearing only his camo pants began rummaging through the closet looking for his only button-down shirt and tie.

The Big Guy and I long ago adopted the Vermont uniform of good jeans for going out and regular jeans for everything else.  Thirteen-year-old Thing1’s fashion priorities are comfort and cleanliness – in that order.  I don’t know where he got his sense of style and panache. It’s always been clear, however, that Thing2 didn’t just fall very far from our family tree, and he’s not content to put down roots for his own tree.  He’s starting his own orchard.  

The funny thing is, I know we’ve done somethings differently as we’ve guided Thing2 through infancy and the toddler years, but for the most part, the Big Guy and I like to think we’re pretty even-steven with our two boys. Despite sharing genes and parents, however, the two of them are completely different personalities, and we’re often left wondering where nurture ends and nature picks up.

The real puzzle for me, the one I am happy to consider indefinitely, is how the Big Guy and I can have two such completely different little boys in our life and still experience the same powerful love for each of them.  It’s a puzzle, but it’s also a bit of a miracle.

 

Wedge Issues

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Wedge issues

Thirteen-year-old Jack and I have always been able to bond, not just over the mother-child kissing of boo-boo’s or doling out of hugs after a meltdown, but because we have a lot of the same interests.  Lately, Jack’s primary interest has been focused on all things computer.  I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this interest.  I love that he has a hobby that lets me bond with my son while we discuss digital life.  I hate that his passion has also become a wedge.

At the end of the school year, Jack brought home a less-that-stellar grade on a final exam, and the Big Guy and I lowered the boom.  He had already enrolled in computer camp (his first sleep away camp), so we let him indulge his obsession over the summer.  When he got home, however, we made it clear that until a satisfactory first progress report came home from school, he was grounded from the computer.  We live in the middle of the woods and any social event requires us to act as chauffeur, so traditional grounding is redundant.  Jack’s obsession revived the punishment as a useful stick.  

We’re not shy about removing privileges or assigning extra chores when the occasion arises, and, in the past, Jack has seen the error of his ways and usually accepted our punishments as just.  Something about being thirteen, however, has made the enforcement of this sentence much less pleasant.  

The punishment has inspired tortured looks of betrayal from my first born.  It’s prompted legal arguments about the wisdom of ending the punishment earlier and, as homework requires more time on the computer, it’s also inspired him to attempt head-on defiance of the punishment.  No longer are we the people he trusts without question.  No longer is our judgement sound.  In his eyes there is now the constant question that, if we are so wrong about this punishment, what other things have his parents been wrong about?  I don’t think he questions our love for him, but, for the first time in our relationship, he’s actively questioning if we know what we’re doing.   I have that question all the time (and I can write it because I know he doesn’t read this blog).  

I remember my parents using similar carrots and sticks and how they became wedges as well.  It didn’t take becoming a parent to see around the wedge, but I think it did take walking this mile in their moccasins to see that the wedge really brought us closer because at that point they weren’t trying to be my friends.  They were being my parents.  And that’s ultimately what any kid needs.

Un-Tunnel Vision

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IMG 2078

I hadn’t been on a bike in 20 years and was more than a little nervous about the prospect of spending 3 hours riding on mountain trails – however flat they were.  The last time I was on a bike a motorist had literally run me off the road into a ditch, and, after limping my bike home, I stuck to walking.  But this has been a summer of redemption for me, and it would continue to be from the first 10 minutes of our journey.

Fortunately, you really don’t forget how to ride a bike, and my summer fitness plan – intended to make sitting in a standard-size train seat more comfortable – paid off once again.  The mechanics were in place, and we would be riding in a converted railroad bed, ensuring there would be no maniacal motorists.  Faking the absence of fear was getting easier as we got closer to the starting gate, and then the trail guide began giving us the rundown of the road we were about to travel.  

We were to start with a 1 1/2 mile ride through a tunnel with no light save for our headlights.  There would be several tunnels throughout the ride, and several of them had trenches running alongside them.  I listened and smiled, taking courage from the relaxed faces of my family, but my stomach was already beginning to churn.  

The safety warnings noted, we mounted our bikes and headed for the first tunnel.  Thirteen-year-old Jack and his eighteen-year-old cousin, already thick as thieves despite having only met a few days earlier, charged ahead.  Fearless but not reckless, Jack sped towards the tunnel.  I was still getting my bike lets and was happy to pedal more slowly.  The Big Guy was trailing our youngest son, and went between us.

The darkness closed in around us quickly.  Behind me I heard one of my nieces struggling with her own fears, and the mom in me slowed to try and comfort her.  Her father, however, was just behind us and, falling back on his twenty years of military-instilled discipline, barked at her to get moving.  It worked for both of us.  I began peddling and calling back encouragement to my niece. 

Jack and his cousin got to the end of the tunnel first and were waiting for the adults.  One by one, we emerged, blinking at the summer sun.  I was shaking a bit, but when I looked at my oldest son, there was only excitement and happiness with the day and the mountains around him.  There was no fear, and I could see there hadn’t been any.  Part of me pondered how he got so brave with a mother who constantly lets fear govern her life – and his sometimes.  The other part of me was absorbing his excitement.  

We snapped a few shots of cousins and then pedaled further.  Every mile featured breathtaking views and, often, equally breathtaking drops that seemed incredibly close to the road.  The further we traveled, however, the less I even felt the fears that would normally have me thinking about the size of the drops and what it would be like to fall from them.

The sun in the cloudless sky that framed the majestic peaks that surrounded us drenched the day’s palette in intense blues and greens.  It also brought everything into sharp focus.

Jack and his cousin remained in the lead the rest of the ride.  And, while he was busy growing the part of me that had absorbed his excitement and joy realized that I was busy being reborn. 

Of Beanstalks and Boys

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I had planned on re-dubbing Thing1, my twelve-going-on-twenty-year-old 'Goliath'. At the time, I was just getting used to reprimanding and rewarding my first born while looking up at him, and the name seemed to fit him. But despite his occasional flashes of teenaged angst and backtalk, my giant is a gentle one.

 

I've used pseudonyms for my boys, not so much out of fear of stalkers, but because I want them to have as much control over their identities online as I would want over mine. The stories I tell about them and the Big Guy are my vision of them, and someday they will want the chance to define themselves. But now, as Thing1 is evolving and daily declaring his independence, the nickname that fit him just a year ago, doesn't seem to do him justice.

 

I love the name we gave him. It's different. I wanted the nickname I gave him online to evoke the same feeling I have when I hear his given name. So I began running through a list of names, finding things that rhymed until I hit 'Jack'. Initially, I discarded it, continuously rattling off names as I shut the door to my office to let him Skype with his friends. I went across the hall to throw another load in the machine and while I continued the end-of-school project of sorting through hand-me-downs. As I was grumbling to myself about how much more expensive it was about to be to buy men's pants for my firstborn, I came back to the name Jack.

 

It's not particularly different, but suddenly it fit him. He has been growing like a proverbial string bean, but lately he's a bit more like Jack than the beanstalk. He's headed to overnight computer camp this summer. It's his first time away from family, but it's also the first time he's made his own choices about his education. He wanted to go to learn. He chose which course seemed most interesting. He's the one making decisions about how he'll finance and build a new computer.

 

This boy who has begun to thrive on challenge is so much more than a mischievous imp (although he's still that quite often). He's ready to make his own adventures. He's Jack.

 

The Path Twice Taken

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Photo

It’s been almost seven years since the Big Guy wheeled me to the door of the hospital and went to get the car.  With a carefully swaddled bundle in my arms, I waited, but we weren’t alone.  The hospital staff was watching over us, but I had another more trustworthy companion waiting on me and the newest member of the family.  

Only three days earlier, when I’d looked at Jack, my then tow-headed boy, I has still seen the baby I had nursed and cuddled.  As he stood beside me, however, hovering over his new brother and checking to make sure I wasn’t getting too much draft, I realized he was firmly into the next phase.  Only then, as I sat near the hospital entrance, glancing at my new baby and then at my very protective and increasingly capable first born did it hit me that we were about to start the journey of taking a completely dependent life form from diapers to door-holding all over again.

It was a journey full of phases.  Some were longer and more arduous than others, but we loved every one of them.  I loved the nursing (once we got the hang of it) and the toothless smile.  I loved the tiny arms that wrapped around my neck, and I was already loving watching him discover the world outside our yard.

This would be the last time I traveled this path.  I was still fairly busy negotiating the next steps with Jack.  At the back of my brain, however, I made a promise to myself to not let the confidence gained over the last six years of parenting translate into indifference to the joy that the upcoming phases with Thing2 would bring.  

Trying to keep that promise has been challenging when we’re busy or swamped with bills.  For the most part both, though, the Big Guy and I have been lucky enough to see and mark the special moments.  We’ve seen the first smile and step, and we’ve been treated to the antics and theatrics.  And we’ve both repeatedly commented that it’s all going too fast.

A few weeks ago I went to a family reunion.  Cousins and cousins-once-removed all brought children to the event.  The ages ran the gamut from nine months to 19 years old.  Some of the cousins met for the first time that weekend, but any shyness was trampled under the feet of toddlers chasing teenagers around the yard.  

The nine-month-old belonged to the daughter of one of my cousins and was the perfect age for the grown ups to play with.  The child’s aunts and grandparents and cousins were only too happy to hold and cuddle her so that the young mother could take a break.   

On the last night of the reunion, the youngest cousin was hungry and fussy after a day of sight-seeing, and, when her mother went to fetch a bottle, I offered to help.

“Will she come to me?” I asked hopefully.  The ten-year-old holding her was looking less enchanted as her whimpers threatened to escalate, and he nodded at me.  I scooped the baby out of his arms, settling her into mine and began to rock on my feet, mentally traveling that time when I was able to solve all my boys’ problems with milk and a snuggle.  

She settled somewhat.  Her mom handed me the bottle.  She sucked the nipple into her mouth and began to drink.  Her eyes became slits, occasionally widening to make sure I was still holding the bottle, until, sated, she gave into sleep.  For a brief minute, I thought, I would love to do this all over again.

As if on cue, Thing2 emerged from the basement where the older children were watching movies.  He watched me with the baby for a minute before wrapping his arms around my waist.  At first I thought he might be jealous or having memories of that era when he rarely left my arms.  Then he looked up at me.

“Mom, can I help with the baby?” he asked.  I looked down at him.  In that moment, I took another time trip, but this time it was to that moment in the hospital lobby.  Thing2, a superhero who always rescues me from my darker thoughts, now helped me mark a new special moment where I noticed he has slipped out of the baby/little kid phase and become part of a wider world, and I smiled at him.

“No, thanks, Buddy,” I answered and asked him if he could announce to the downstairs that it was time for the big kids to eat.  He smiled, instantly forgetting the sleeping baby two feet away as he ran to the basement door and shouted to the other kids to wash hands.  I handed the somehow still-sleeping baby back to her mother and went to get a plate together for my fussier eater and continue our journey.

 

 

  

Hormones and Other Things That Go Bump in a Life

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boys at baseball

At home it’s still the story we know – twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 play together a lot because we live in the country and my work-at-home job precludes a most of non-school related chauffeuring.  Thing1 has spent hours coaching Thing2 on the finer points of throwing and catching – hollering at him (with love of course) when he sees his younger brother’s elbow in the wrong position and cheering when Thing2 makes a hit off of one of his pitches.  He fields with comic incompetence, always letting his younger brother get around the makeshift bases to win the run and the game.

Last year, Thing1’s enthusiasm bubbled over at the ballpark, and he even spontaneously volunteered to help the coaches at most of Thing2’s T-ball practices.  He caught fly balls at first, helped the five and six year olds remember where second was, and played catcher for the more ambitious players.  When the new season started, I waited for Thing1 to jump into action.  And then I waited some more.

“Don’t you want to go help them?” The Big Guy and I asked at different times and then together at the ballpark.

“I just don’t see the point,” Thing1 responded in a voice that has taken on a deeper timbre.  Each query was met with one of his.  “Why does it matter?  Why are we here?  Why can’t I just go home?  What’s the meaning of everything?”  No amount of cajoling or browbeating was going to get him on that sunny field, but Saturday mornings are family time for us, and Thing2 has spent years watching his big brother’s games, and we decided Thing1 should return the favor.  “I’ll stay,” he replied when we informed him of the judges’ decision, “but I won’t enjoy it, and I’m just going to watch.”

We chalked his attitude up to hormones and decided to enjoy watching Thing2.  We’re both willing to tolerate the moodiness – we even sympathize with it – but we were pretty sure that only time would be able to handle it.  Even without his cape, however, Thing2’s has superpowers that we are still discovering.

Our six-year-old was oblivious to the drama on the sidelines as he walloped a ball off the T and skipped happily around the bases.  Then it was time for the tiny teams to switch from practice game to plain old practice, and he skipped to the outfield.  Jumping and dancing and tossing his glove in the air, he chattered with his new teammates, occasionally pausing to listen to the coach’s directions.

The teams formed parallel lines to practice throwing and catching.  Somehow having generated more energy from having run across the field, Thing2 spun and leapt to his assigned spot.  His assigned partner had the ball, and as the three of us migrated around the perimeter to get a better look, we saw him field a grounder with ease.

“Huh,” mumbled Thing1.  “He remembered what I showed him last week.”  It was Thing2’s turn to toss now, and he jumped and then lobbed the ball across the row to his partner.  The other kid missed, and Thing1 called out to his brother, “Keep your elbow in!”

Thing2 heard his brother and smiled and waved just in time to ignore the ball that was coming back to him.  He ran and chased and then ran and threw.  The ball barely made it to the other kid, and Thing1 gave a loud sigh.  “This is just painful,” he mumbled, “he’s forgetting everything I showed him.”

“They’re having fun,” I said.  “What’s he doing wrong?”

Thing1 started to explain throwing theory to me just as Thing2 had another throwing turn.  Then he saw his little brother pull back his arm for another toss.  “Wait,” he said, “I’ve got to go help him.  This is just too painful to watch.”  Swinging himself over the fence and stuffing his hand into his glove, he marched over to the group of kids.

From the fence on the sideline, I heard him correct Thing2’s.  There was no yelling now.  He was still serious, however, as he began showing some of the other five- and six-year-olds on Thing1’s row how to catch and throw.  The coach waved a welcome at the self-conscious newcomer and turned his focus to another part of the practice line.

Thing2 caught the ball again, earning a pat on the back from his older brother.  He looked up, and we both saw the beginning of a smile on Thing1’s face.  Then he turned to face his practice partner.  Mindful of his elbow, Thing2 pulled his arm back and threw.  And the smile turned into a cheer.

Thing2 chattered and danced as we headed back to the car and to breakfast at Bob’s Diner.  Thing1 was quieter but no longer sullen.  We didn’t try (at least not much) to coax any admission that the game had been fun, and in the end we didn’t need to.

Every Saturday since, he’s surreptitiously and spontaneously found his way onto the field, shedding his somberness for an hour and a half.  Thing2 still watches his elbow, but his inner superhero seems to understand that while he’s chasing balls and bases, he’s doing another even more important job.