When will they thank me for this?

I don’t know what idiot dressed as an adult first attempted to pass off some hare brained self improvement scheme to their child with the brilliant quote of “someday you’ll thank me for this”, but they should be drawn and quartered.  I know I’ve thought it many times, like when we decided to have both girls go to school in Spanish, or other little things like uprooting them from everything they know to go live in Brazil, where it turns out they don’t speak Spanish, but I avoid that phrase like the plague.

Mainly because I don’t need to.  Wonderfully well meaning people seem to want to say it to my children all the time.  “Oh, isn’t it wonderful of your parents to do this for you?  You’ll thank them some day.”  Which is the world’s politest way of saying, “Hmm, you don’t look happy today, hopefully it won’t suck forever”.  They don’t need to hear how great it will be to have done something.  They need to enjoy it now.  It’s like hearing,  “I know you lost that leg and all, but think of the money you will save on shoes and socks.”

This is spinning through my head because I’ve spent the night texting back and forth with Hannah because she’s having one of those “growth moments” and would do anything to not be “learning some valuable life skills” right now.  She is with her middle school basketball team at a four day tournament, that she flew to, on an airplane, without us, far, far, away.  In our infinite wisdom, which was also part of the communal decision, we thought that (hold on, another text).  Sorry, where was I . . .we thought that if she went on an overnight trip without any chance of return, she might be able to get beyond that part and just deal with being nervous.  Well, one drained phone and five hours later, the discussion of possible scenarios around ways of getting her home is finally over.  It sounded like a bad improv skit where the topic was, “Can I come home?”, “No” and the goal was to say it in as many ways as possible.  While her requests even included monetary bribes, my same answer every time of “I love you, no, you can’t come home” finally won the day, and afternoon, and evening.

So amidst the tens of I Miss You So Much texts, which are just direct shots to the heart, (hold on, Hannah again) we are slowly working towards ways to relax.  Our favorite technique is to try to remember every little detail of any one happy place or adventure, like the ranch in the Tetons, the Grand Canyon trip, or where we found checkpoints on adventure races.  Here’s to hoping it works tonight.

Does it matter that she is surrounded by friends?  

Does it matter that every kid whose has ever gone to this sports camp has loved it?  

Does it matter how crazy excited and proud she has been all week about this?

Does it matter that there is a pool, pizza, movies, and basketball?  

Does it matter that she knows and I know she will feel better tomorrow?  

Not tonight it doesn’t.  

Tonight it matters that my daughter is very far away and sad, and I can’t fix it, which makes me sad.  Maybe it’s me that is learning the thing that someday I’ll be happy to have learned, but I don’t believe that either.

Herding Pirnahas

In another homage to the Friday we are all facing, I present to you some highlights from my last couple of weeks.

Here I am, helping monitor kids on their way to PE, high fiving them as they walk by.  First kid, great, second kid, cool, third kid, awesome, fourth kid. . . - now I have a dripping wet hand.  A la bidet drinker, I don’t really want to know, I just want to go bathe in hand sanitizer. 

I was feeling that fleeting moment of teacher success as one of my kindest students, and strongest writers, was taking my lesson on adding a surprise ending to pattern books to heart and writing a new last page furiously.  He was switching from multiple pages of (_______) is my friend to finish with a flourish by breaking the pattern. Interestingly, the gem of a last page he came up with after listing multiple friends was I don’t like Carol.  “So buddy,” I ask, “tell me about your ending.”  “Well,” he says, “all of the people on these first pages are my friends, and I don’t like Carol”.   Well, ok, I did ask.

Ah, there’s nothing like finding the lovely little girl, who just might have an enormous lice problem, joyfully sharing her multiple headbands with all the other girls at recess.  

A cool part of our school is that we have K3 and K4 classes, which means my five year olds feel mature, occasionally, in comparison to these 3 and 4 year olds.  It also means I have a snowball’s chance in hell of understanding the littlest of littles who are Brazilian.  Even though my Portuguese is toddler level in vocabulary and grammar, it is not in the same linguistic galaxy as three year olds.  You know how cute and funny kids sound, with their silly lisps, and missing sounds in words, and the goofy way they pronounce things.  Well, that’s cute in your native language, but verbal hieroglyphics to me in Portuguese.  Try as I might, conversations with Brazilian three year olds are always hysterical, and generally unproductive.  Luckily, it goes both ways with our Brazilian staff listening to three year old English.  Yesterday, one of the Brazilian staff was wandering around the K3 classroom with this little three year old boy who is crying unconsolably and looking desperately for his “clock”.  The teacher is pointing at clocks and watches and getting absolutely nowhere.  She asks him to describe his “clock” and he says “small and red”.  Again, absolutely no help, and things are not getting any better, for either of them.  Moments later, in walks another K3 student and the crying immediately stops.  Meet Clark, the normally sized for a three year old, redheaded “clock”.

There is this cute little girl in my class from the middle east who is absolutely fearless in her use of English.  If she can think it, she will say it.  She tells me on a regular basis that even though I have the strength to open her toothbrush case (which is trickier than it sounds), I have no muscles.  Well, not in those exact words, she expresses that entire thought by giggling and saying, “You don’t have any muscles.  I can’t see them.”  And although I lobby every time for some credit for actually having used my non-existent muscles in opening her case, she just laughs harder and repeats, “you don’t have any muscles!”  Today, as a sort of aperitif to our normal lunchtime banter, she followed up an in depth inspection of my head (more common than you think) by informing me that, “you have a beard in your ear.”  I might use the term “stray hair or two” but regardless, it looks like I need to talk with Edward Scissorhands at the barber shop and let him know he missed a few stragglers.  Clearly my grooming is not up to Brazilian standards.

And I finish with my favorite, a conversation I got to watch and enjoy between two five year olds and the Principal.

Principal to Boy 1:  So, did you hit him?

Boy 1: Yes, but I don’t do that anymore.

Principal: Ok, when was the last time you hit him?

Boy 1: Yesterday! (in a tone that clearly said, “didn’t you hear me when I said I don’t do it anymore”)

Principal: (silence)

Point to Boy 1

Principal to Boy 2: So, did you hit him?

Boy 2: Yes, but he should have dodged it.

Principal: (stunned silence)

Point to Boy 2

Principal: Zero 

Five Year Olds: Two

Game, set, match

Thanks for reading and bjs para todos!   

Water, water everywhere.

So, in a nutshell, our long weekend was great in all the ways it needed to be.  We got to hike, swim, and then hike and swim some more, visiting seven waterfalls over the course of three great hikes.  Water and exercise took care of the needs of the Carter half of our family, and the Swedlund half was happy because we found some surprisingly good restaurants to eat at, so we pretty much covered all the bases.  Hannah and Lila, landing solidly in the middle of both camps, enjoyed everything and even got to sneak in some shopping and ice cream.  A win for everyone.

We are home (yep, we call it that now), tired in the right way, and happy to have had a break.  Things at school have started to mellow in their intensity a little bit, and the long, slow process of grieving and healing has begun in earnest for many.  We often find ourselves on the edges of things, but it’s something the whole school will be feeling for quite a while.

And so I present to you, in no particular order, the joy of waterfall hiking in Brazil.  And yes, you do need to come see this for yourself.  It’s that amazing.  We were planning our next visit back before we even left this time.  Thanks for the love, our best to everyone, and we (as in me) will write again soon.  

Different sort of week.

I’ve spent the last hour or so drafting other blog entries; trying to write about the funny parts of the week, or Lila’s latest art project, or Hannah’s big basketball tournament coming in a month.  It hasn’t been working, and so I guess I’ll write this instead.

About two weeks ago, two ninth graders at our school were very seriously injured in a boating accident.  This Tuesday night, one of them passed away.  

It’s been a tough week.  We are a small school, and everyone knows everyone.  Principals know every student’s name.  Security guards greet every student every morning.  It’s two classes per grade level from preK-12, so it’s a family in more ways than it’s a school.  Hannah only knew the student in passing, and the younger brother of this student is in Lila’s, and Sara’s, grade and has not returned to school since the accident.  I guess I am saying that as a way of framing this for our family.  With all that, it is still a loss we are all feeling.

I don’t want to compare losses when I know that there are equally sad, or worse, tragedies occurring daily around the world, but moments like these can’t help but strike close to home.  I remember talking with my grandpa when my aunt died of Lupus when I was in college and him saying that no parent should ever outlive their child.  Now as a parent I truly understand his words and can’t imagine the loss being felt by this family right now.

I don’t really have much more to say.  We are sad, but ok.  We want to hold onto our girls and never let them out of our sight again, but that too will change.  

Sorry if you were hoping for something lighter.  I didn’t really know when I started this blog if I would mean it to always be an honest representation of our time down here, but it feels untrue to write anything else right now.  Feel free to pass out a few extra hugs to those around you.  We would share them with you if we could.  

Abracos e beijos (hugs and kisses) to everyone.