Priceless

It WAS like Christmas.  It was better than Christmas.  We had Duncan at the ride on the choo choo, and he thought Grand Central Station was amazing, but I teared up several times during our short visit to Yankee Stadium.  As we walked through the concrete entryway into the aisle that led down to the seats, Duncan gasped audibly and said "WOW!  Oh WOW!  Yankees! Yankee Stadium."  For the rest of my life, I will treasure the image of the smile on his face and the joy in his eyes at that moment.  It sounds trite, but it was...priceless.  We lasted an hour before the game began and then three innings, which was about all we hoped to achieve.  We gorged on hot dogs, pretzels, and ice cream, and 785,000 times he asked "What's the man doing, Daddy?" and "What's the man doing, Mama?"  (He doesn't seem to care what the women are doing).  It was worth every penny and every moment spent in cars, trains, and subways. Duncan has seen Yankee Stadium, and even if he doesn't remember, we have pictorial proof. Seeing the new Yankee Stadium from the old one felt like one of those moments teetering in time between today and tomorrow, but isn't every day of being a parent a bit like that?  Thanks for a good run, Babe; now, I can look forward to taking Duncan to the new park across the street!

The House That Ruth Built

I'm fairly certain that Yankee Stadium was my idea.  I don't think it was a bad one.  Twenty years from now, I do not want my child to wonder how we let New York raze The House That Ruth Built before he could see it.  So tomorrow, we're going to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees play the Padres.  To be honest (and why would I stop now), the mere idea makes me tense. What kind of a loon takes a two year old on a train from Brewster to Grand Central and then the subway back to Yankee Stadium, watches a few innings of baseball, and then does it all over again, backward, to get home?  The potential for trouble is astronomical.  I have nightmares and daymares about people snatching my beautiful child, about him falling under a train, and about him expiring from exhaustion walking between the car and the platform at Southeast Station because we'll have to park a hyperbolic 67 miles away.  

Do you know what is making it worth the anxiety?  Duncan is ALREADY thrilled about the idea.  He and Jamie went to the Wassaic station yesterday to buy the tickets and happened to see Duncan's first, real, live train.  They talked about taking the train to "The City" to go to Yankee Stadium.  It's all he can talk about. Yankee Stadium...Yankee baseball...choo choo...all aboard. When I got home last night, he told me entire paragraphs about what he had done yesterday and about our plans for the trip.  He has been beaming like a searchlight in the longest Alaskan night of the year.  I will not allow my anxiety to interfere with my child's joy in this journey.  If yesterday was like Christmas, I can only imagine what tomorrow will bring.  

Take me out to the ball game.

PS - Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad!

Bathtub Van Gogh

About two or three times a year, I develop a fascination with the brain that lasts about 24 hours. As I suspected, I do not have it in me to write about the brain.  I may still have a flicker of interest left by the weekend; we'll see.  

In the meantime, here is one of Duncan's bathtub masterpieces.  It is titled "Baby Circles," because, obviously, "baby" is the opposite of "beeg," which we know as "big."  

Here's another interesting thing about Duncan.  I know that he is developing imaginative play, but yesterday he blew us away.  Jamie took him to school to fly a kite.  Duncan quickly lost interest and turned instead to collecting rocks, which he called "money," and then deposited into holes in the lampost that he called the "bank."  Once or twice he has dropped change into his piggy bank, but it's not an everyday activity so the pretend money in the pretend bank seemed pretty remarkable to us.  Two is an incredible age!

Take Pictures at Innisfree, Check

We had a lovely Father's Day.  Duncan and Jamie had a low key morning while I finished preparing our picnic, and then Duncan had an epic nap (2 hours!).  If he keeps up his "sleep until 7 am and then nap for 2 hours" schedule for the summer, we'll all be happy campers at Mommy and Daddy's Day Camp for School Year Latchkey Kids.  After Duncan's nap, we went to Innisfree for a nice walk and lots of picture taking.  I learned that I have a lot to learn about my camera; I totally forgot that shooting into the sun is disastrous so only 50% of my pictures are any good.  I have two hoods, but does that mean I think to use one?  No.  But we followed our nice walk with a tasty picnic (including indoor S'mores) and then ice cream on the way home.  Yes, that is 2 desserts for those of you who are counting.  Duncan was cooperative through the bedtime routine.  All in all, it was a great summer day.  

Tomorrow, if you twist my arm, I might tell you about the brain and dyslexia.

Introvert Comes Out

I have been living my life in vague apprehension the last few days. Letting Stephen read my blog made me bold, and impulsively, I decided to celebrate my 50th post by inviting about 37 people into my readership.  As soon as I clicked "Send" on the e-mail, I felt like I had stepped naked into the front yard.  I don't know how many of you out there are introverts, but it was Marcie who first pointed out to me the paradox of being an introvert but not wanting to be invisible.  Are there any introverts who WANT to introverts, who truly appreciate it?  Several of the introverts I know either openly admit they want to be something that they're not, or they struggle daily to exist in an extrovert's world. Mainstream society IS an extrovert's world.  But I'm coming along; I have faith that if I invite the right kind of people into my life, I can continue to be my introvert self while enjoying all the perks of the other half. Thanks for joining me.

Interstices

The rental company removed the graduation tent today. That even marks the official end of the end. It usually coincides with the end of my time with tutoring reports, as it did today. Shortly after I submitted the last two reports to be printed, the tent technicians arrived on the scene. I am officially finished with the Kildonan school year and have already begun preparing for summer camp. In 5 days, we begin training a new batch of tutors. There is never a dull day in the life of a private school for students with learning disabilities that specializes in the Orton-Gillingham approach. Lonely maybe, without the hustle and bustle of 150 students ranging from 2nd grade to PG, but not dull.

Transitions always make me uncomfortable. I'm not sure why the spaces in between, the interstices (I believe), are so strange for me. I am never ready to give up the past and inevitably approach the future with apprehension. I don't sleep or eat well during those times, and when they are fraught with emotional overtones, the effects are even more profound. I feel like I am treading water right now. I'm going to take a few hours off tomorrow and then launch myself into preparing for Dunnabeck training. I'm going to pretend that the past is over (isn't that healthy?) and focus on the future.

Here is a list of some things I would like to do this summer:

-finish Benjamin Wistar's sweater before he grows out of it
-take Duncan to the beach
-bake Toll House cookies
-write like a madwoman (currently, I have two journals, a book, and this blog going)
-take Duncan to Yankee Stadium
-reconnect with family members who have suffered from neglect during my crazy year
-put in a vegetable garden, albeit a small one
-watch America's Next Design Star
-learn to upload video to my blog
-earn more blog readers
-teach a nice young man to write a paper with MLA citations and then feed him dinner
-be a playground Mom
-visit the Trevor Zoo
-visit the Bronx Zoo
-take pictures at Innisfree, Bash Bish Falls, and Kent Falls
-visit a new winery
-see a play at Shakespeare and Company
-see Rufus Wainwright at The Egg
-knit with my friends
-see Sex and the City
-find a babysitter
...to be continued...

So here it is, my 50th blog post, mundane, refreshingly free of all the introspection of the last few weeks. Fifty feels significant; it feels like a habit; it feels like a way of life. My family, my writing, and my vocation: that's really who I am now if you cut out everything that is not critical to my health and well being.

Dude, Where's My Blog? or, My Commencement Address

Oh my goodness, I am missing my blog.  It feels like home just to see this text box again, but I'm only here for a quick visit.  May was utterly insane at work, and June is not looking much better. Graduation is in two days.  Before then, I have to write and deliver two 3 minute speeches, write some reports, edit myriad reports, grade an exam, and say good-bye to some kids I love dearly as they head off into the future.  

It was hard enough for me, academic overachiever, 4th in my high school graduating class to stand at that pivotal moment and gaze with trepidation into what was to come.  I can only begin to imagine what the view is like when you're a student with a learning difference.  Having struggled your entire life because you learn differently than others; finally finding a place that lets you learn the way you need to and people who understand who you are and how your mind works; graduating from high school and achieving a goal many people in your past thought you would never be able to achieve; and then looking at doing it all again for 4 more years, in a new and bigger place, with new people, and larger challenges.  Exhilarating but terrifying.  I would be lying if I said I was not worried about you, but I know in my heart you have the tools to be successful. Besides all that academic stuff about Pythagoras, Shakespeare, and Pavlov, you have learned how to ask questions, how to play the system, and how to navigate the academic world to your advantage.  You know what it means to try hard.  As Barbara Corcoran pointed out at Career Day, you're not afraid to fail.  If  you do, you know that starting over is always an option.  You will be fine as long as work hard and remember where you came from and who believes in you.  I want to see how the story ends, and I hope we will meet on the other side of this great divide that is college, if not sooner.

So, yeah, to all of you who are not going through this whole graduation thing with me, I'll be back soon.  I have work to do and some letting go accompanied by some holding on.  I'm going to set myself a goal of writing a post every day for a month, beginning on a date yet to be determined, so we'll see how that goes.  More later.