The purpose of this piece to keep a record of sweet, funny, or important moments in my children’s lives. None of these anecdotes will appear in a full story, since I’m devoting most of my writing efforts toward the series announced in A Risky Undertaking with Uncertain Outcomes. Thus, this post will serve as a virtual cork board — a place to collect amusing blurbs for the sake of posterity.
Summer Lovin’
In Apparently, Brief Reflections on My Kids’ Middle Names, I marveled at Borealis’s unwitting success with the ladies — which has continued to hold, even with the advent of summer break. Despite weeks without seeing each other, at least two of Bo’s “girlfriends” are still totally smitten with my little misanthrope.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the first of these girls is Hettie — who, famously, remarked that it didn’t matter whether Borealis knew that he was going to marry her… because he just does whatever she tells him to.
Without any countervailing evidence, Hettie reaffirmed this sentiment at her birthday party in mid-June — and throughout the following week, while she attended VBS with Borealis at our church. My son, true to form, remained remarkably sanguine about the female attention — holding hands whenever she asked, and casually declaring, “Hettie is my best friend.”
Unfortunately, Hettie has some competition: Nyla, Bo’s erstwhile carpool partner. We hadn’t seen Nyla since the end of school — so it was delightful for the kids to run into her during a recent trip to “The Uphill Park”. (Beverly Heights Park — as featured in How to Save a Dog, Part II or The Birthday Crashers. Good memories, to be sure.)
Unfortunately, Bo was at sports camp that morning — so instead of reconnecting with my oldest son, Nyla was instead relegated to [unsubtly] confessing, “I’m secretly in love with Borealis!”
Overhearing this declaration, Nyla’s summer nanny added some context. “Uh, yeah… I brought her to this park yesterday, too — and she staged an imaginary wedding to Borealis for an hour and a half.”
(Which is, needless to say, some pretty serious commitment.)
Of course, I reported this information to Borealis that afternoon.
He shrugged and breezily remarked, “Oh, yeah — lots of people want to marry me.” He paused for a brief moment of introspection, then flippantly concluded, “It’s sure going to be hard to choose!”
Here Comes the Flower Girl
In early July, Australis attended a wedding with Taylor and me. The bride was the consummate picture of chastity and purity — clad in a stunning lace dress with an elegant cathedral train, and crowned with a beautiful veil that transformed her into the very image of the Virgin Mary. Her walk down the long, long Catholic aisle left not a dry eye in the house.
The same… could not have been said about Aza’s walk as the flower girl.
Now, we started practicing for this wedding months ago. In fact, nary a week went by went Australis wasn’t overheard muttering, “Step, step, petal. Step, step, petal.”
So, the issue was not her intellectual grasp of the task: it was her execution thereof.
First of all, there was the muttering.
“Aza, you have to say it in your head,” Bo chided. “Otherwise, everyone in the church will hear you.”
Thankfully, my daughter was able to shift that continuous narration from her “outside voice” to her “inside voice” — so this problem resolved itself.
However, there was still the matter of the petals themselves — or, rather, each petal itself.
“A few at a time!” I prompted her. “Not just one! Like, take a pinchful!”
This prompting worked… sort of. So long as I continually reminded her.
Finally, though, there was the matter of her speed — or lack thereof.
“Aza, you’re walking soooooo slowly!” Bo [accurately] complained. “The bride will never be able to walk down the aisle until you get off of it!”
So Aza sped up… a little. Just enough to give me confidence that she might make it through the actual event.
That is, until we attended the rehearsal, and I saw just how far she would need to walk.
Christ the King Roman Catholic Church is an old church — but more importantly, it’s a long church. So, soooooooo long.
In fact, the church is *so long* that Australis’s maiden voyage down the aisle clocked in just shy of two minutes — even as the curmudgeonly priest repeatedly barked, “Faster! Faster!”
I was torn between shame-faced silence and uncontrollable giggles — but the latter won out, especially once I saw Aza’s comically tragic expression. She trudged her way toward the altar as through she were a pall-bearer, not a flower girl.
“Faster!” the priest yelled.
… Which launched me into a fresh wave of giggles.
That night, I hammered home one simple instruction.
“Australis. You need to race down the aisle. As fast as you can go without running.”
“Ok, Mommy,” she assented sweetly.
“Grab huge handfuls of petals and toss them down as you hurry down the aisle.” I paused, then added, “And you can toss down any extras at the very end.”
My daughter squirmed into my arms . “Ok, Mommy. I’ll go fast.”
The next day was ludicrously hectic. I felt as though I were preparing Australis for *her own* wedding — complete with expensive white dress, crystalline hairdo, satin shoes, delicate manicure, and tasteful makeup.
(I, on the other hand, hoped no one noticed my reeking stress sweat or dirt-stained cuticles.)
“Remember, go fast,” I whispered one last time as I prepared to send Aza down the aisle. I glanced up and saw that the [extremely swift] ring bearer was already halfway to the altar — so ready or not, it was Aza’s time to go.
“You’re gonna do great,” I encouraged, then gave her a gentle push forward. I quickly circled around to the side aisle and scurried to my pew at the front of the church. From that vantage point, I could see Aza’s methodical — but not quite slow — rate of progress. Indeed, she was moving faster than I thought possible — dutifully tossing handfuls of petals to the ground as she stepped purposefully toward the altar. The only problem was…
“She looks totally miserable,” Taylor observed under his breath.
And she did. Once again, she looked utterly funereal.
I grimaced at my own oversight. “We worked on speed, but I must have forgotten about affect.”
Taylor nodded sagely, then whispered back. “Well, you did a good job. She may look like a corpse… but at least she’s a fast corpse.”
I groaned in response.
After a respectable amount of time, Australis reached the end of the aisle — at which point, I discovered my other egregious error. I had pictured her, you know, tastefully scattering the remaining petals just before the altar — but we hadn’t actually practiced that part. So, instead, she chose the most efficient route: simply flipping the basket upside-down and dumping out all the remaining petals.
Everyone laughed. (Except for me. I just cried a little.)
Our dour daughter made it over to Taylor and me, frown still intact. That is, until she saw our pew partner: the ring bearer, whose mother was a bridesmaid.
Aza barely held in a squeal, and I barely held in another groan.
Taylor: <grunts humorously> “See? Now there’s my favorite Aza smile!”
When Play-Pretend Means Everything
This will sound irredeemably meta and elitist — but I think a lot about theory of mind.
That psychological concept is not something that’s typically thrown around in everyday conversations — but it is in our house, and there’s a good [non-meta, non-elitist] reason why.
But first, some background. “Theory of mind” encompasses a pretty broad category within the field of cognitive science — although, unfortunately, I find that many of the “official” definitions are painfully dense and/or impractical.
Thus, when I describe the idea to someone, I usually say something like this: “Theory of mind is the ability to cast one’s consciousness outside of oneself. For instance, I could wonder, ‘What would it be like to be a bat?’ — and then I can cast my mind into that bat-Holly avatar and imagine what it would be like to be *not me*. Accordingly, theory of mind is an integral part of being human — because *I* can imagine, however imperfectly, what it’s like to be a bat… but a bat can’t ever imagine what it’s like to be *me*.”
And, indeed, theory of mind is an integral part of “being human” — although, that’s not to say that every human has equal capacity to perceive the mental states of others. There’s one condition, in particular, that renders humans either wholly or partially unable to perform the skills implied by theory of mind — and that condition is *autism*.
Why does this matter? Well, you might recall that my paternal line has a long and strong genetic history of autism spectrum disorders. [Note: This genetic reality — and its implications — are discussed at length in Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For.] Of course, my sister got the most severe case of ASD — but the disorder didn’t leave the rest of us untouched, either. For instance, it won’t surprise you that I consistently struggle to accurately discern the mental states of others. I have the inclination to empathize — but not the ability. And beyond me, there’s *certain* males in my genetic family (ahem, ahem) who have neither the inclination nor the ability to empathize.
Anyway, *that’s* why I’m so hyper-aware of anything related to theory of mind — because it’s a very real deficiency in my genetic family.
Thus, I celebrate every small victory — for instance, each time one of my kids follows my line-of-sight. (“Yay, good joint attention!”) Or whenever they apologize unprompted. (“Excellent empathy!”) Or any time they read a room and behave accordingly. (“Thank you for lowering your voice in the doctor’s office.”) Or, especially, whenever they pretend to be someone else.
Now, there’s an important distinction to be made here. “Action mimicry” is not the same as “avatar creation” — that is, following a pre-established script requires a different set of skills than does imagining and inhabiting a new character. [Note: My sister can somewhat accomplish the former, but she has no capacity for the latter.]
… Which brings me to the actual anecdote of this blurb. Just the other day, twenty-seven-month-old Rhys did something that I’ve never seen another two-year-old do: he independently ideated and inhabited a fictional character.
Here’s how it happened. We were all in the living room: Taylor and Bo strategized their next move in Tears of the Kingdom, Aza drew in a dot-to-dot book, and I waged a fruitless war against our eternal mess of toys and books.
Rhys, meanwhile, had other activities on his mind.
For the dozenth time, I chided, “Rhys — please put your penis away.”
My toddler smirked at me and countered, “No. I leave my penis out.”
Finally fed up, I creakily rose to my feet and snapped, “Fine. I have a solution that you won’t like.”
I was mistaken, of course. As I stuffed my son into his rarely-used Burt’s Bees sleep sack, he chuckled and patted the soft fabric. “I like it!” he affirmed.
I rolled my eyes. I doubted he would have been so sanguine if the sack had been less voluminous. While it effectively eliminated access to his penis, it didn’t seem to limit his mobility beyond that. As I watched, he scrambled back onto the couch to snuggle next to Aza.
“You look so silly!” she giggled.
“Yeah — you look like a baby,” Bo jeered.
And with that pronouncement, Rhys’s entire affect shifted.
It was absolutely stunning to watch. In a moment, he shed his normally alert gaze and took on a more glassy stare, then squeaked, “Me baby!”
His siblings roared with laughter. Taylor and I, in contrast, made shocked eye contact.
Encouraged by the reception, Rhys cuddled even closer to Aza and peeped, “Mama! Me baby!”
“He’s pretending Aza is his mom!” Bo shrieked.
“Yeah… he is,” I mumbled in agreement. I continued to look on in amazement.
Finally, Taylor spoke for both of us when he said, “It’s weird to see a two-year-old pretend to be a baby.”
And that was the crux of the matter. It wasn’t that Rhys’s acting was good. (It wasn’t.) It was that he was acting, at all. This wasn’t just pretending that a banana is a phone (aka “object substitution”) — this was another skillset entirely.
[Note: Indeed, research suggests that “pretend identities” are traditionally the purview of three- to five-year-olds.]
Admittedly, maybe this wasn’t actually that big of a deal — but to me, with my genetic background, it felt like a huge deal.
And who knows? Maybe Rhys will go one to become an actor, or a politician, or a therapist, or any other occupation that requires facility with theory-of-mind skills.
If that ever happens, then we’ll probably look back to this moment as the very first spark of future promise.
The [Only] First Day of First Grade
[Author’s Note: This installment is the natural sequel to The [Second] First Day of Kindergarten and will probably — eventually — be broken out into its own post. As things currently stand, though, I’m keeping my hiatus stories consolidated in this single anthology.]
After all the angst associated with choosing a kindergarten for Borealis, it was with some trepidation that we once again entered the lottery for our local classical charter school. I submitted Bo’s application as soon as the lottery opened — in November 2023. But, even were he to receive an enrollment offer, I still wasn’t totally sure what our decision would be.
That indecision serendipitously vanished the following month — after two particularly memorable excursions to Bo’s public school.
The first of these events was the school’s annual holiday craft fair. At Taylor’s encouragement, I had applied to offer a table of homemade dried arrangements. I spent probably two dozen hours foraging and forming the natural elements into an assortment of interesting pieces — and in the end, I was begrudgingly proud of my work.
Unfortunately, Taylor and I had irrecoverably misjudged the target audience of the holiday craft fair. It was not, as I had expected, the wealthy parents of my sons’ upper-middle-class classmates. Rather, it was the classmates, themselves — shopping for their own Christmas presents.
[Note: The event’s pairing with the “kids’ book fair” should have been a dead giveaway.]
Thus, the crocheted jellyfish table was of particular interest to this juvenile clientele; in contrast, my table was not.
So, as I sat there — selling *literally zero* items — I sought to learn more about the culture of the elementary school… and, more significantly, of its subsequent secondary school. This seemed like the ideal opportunity, since numerous younger students were accompanied by older siblings in upper-school-branded sweatshirts.
Thus, whenever possible, I asked those older students (or, more often, their parents) what characterized a successful student within our school system — and the answers were revealing.
“Intelligent. Self-starting. Determined. Self-motivated.”
“But what about character?” I pressed.
“Oh — well, no one cheats. Big emphasis on that.”
“But what about virtue?” I insisted. “What about truth and beauty?”
And that query… was met with blank stares.
“That’s not really a thing,” I was told. “You’re not going to find that in any public school.”
But I knew that simply wasn’t true. Our other option — Classical Charter — staked its entire reputation on the holistic development of character and virtue within its students. I just wanted to hear the same thing about Bo’s current school, too.
Yet, despite all my naive hopes, the culture of these two schools was fundamentally different — and apparently, irreconcilably so. This was made abundantly clear by another incident, just a few weeks later.
It was the last day of the semester, and a gaggle of adults waited outside for the kids’ “winter party” to begin. I wasn’t technically supposed to be there — accompanied, as I was, by Aza and Rhys. After learning that younger siblings were explicitly banned from the event, I had had to appeal all the way to the principal to even be permitted to attend.
Even having received an exception, I still smoldered with embarrassment and shame. Here I was, with explicit evidence of my “large” number of children — surrounded by late-thirties working moms, dressed in crisp business casual and smiling indulgently at their single children. (Or, in certain cases, their youngest of two.)
Somehow, I felt both *impossibly invisible* [like the quintessential homemaking wallflower] and *deeply conspicuous* [as though I front-carried an orangutan, not a toddler]. I buried my hair in Rhys’s fuzzy blond hair and thought about Classical Charter, where three children is the unexceptionable, average family size.
And, then I noticed something even more conspicuous. It was the two Satanist moms of one of Bo’s classmates. They always made me uncomfortable — which probably goes without saying — and I periodically prayed for them… and, more significantly, for their poor, damned daughter.
But, I had never worked up the nerve to talk to them. Something about the pentagrams and black clothes screamed, I’m 100% *not* interest in your opinions.
Even now, they clearly weren’t interested in my opinions — but, for the first time, I was extremely motivated to share them… because the Satanist situation was worse than ever before.
One of the women wore a sweatshirt advertising the summer-camp-like skills taught by horror films and related slaughter stories. (Arts & crafts, archery, etc. — I won’t get too deep into it.)
The other woman, however, wore a sweatshirt that read: “Open your [bleeping] eyes.” (I’m sure you can guess what it actually said.)
Now, I was deeply uncomfortable with both of these garments — and, given the choice, I would have gladly incinerated the Acheronion wardrobes of both women, replacing the clothes instead with bright florals in more flattering and feminine silhouettes.
Even so, I decided that I had to pick my battles. Of the graphically offensive content, the curse word seemed the biggest threat — because, unlike their kindergartener, mine could actually read. He had never encountered this particular word before — and I was loath to let this be his first time.
So, in preparation for the coming confrontation, I completely transformed my demeanor. I felt like a porcupine — not just laying down my quills, but slathering them with a thick layer of clay.
I am not a threat, I projected. It’s *easy* to make me happy!
And then, I prayed. Oh, God, please help me. Give me grace in her eyes.
Then, catching the woman’s attention, I smiled broadly and chirped, “Hi! I was just wondering if you’re wearing anything under your sweatshirt? Because we’re all about to go inside, and your shirt has a word that’s… not super kid appropriate.”
I crinkled my nose like we were both in on a joke. I’m *sure* you just forgot. *Obviously* you wouldn’t want to subject other kids to such foul language.
So, it was to my great surprise when the woman snapped, “No, I’m ok.”
I tried to maintain my friendly demeanor as I spluttered, “Uh, excuse me?”
“I’m not taking it off,” she clarified.
“But my son can read,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, well, he’s definitely gonna hear worse things than this,” she countered. “You’ll be fine — and I’m *not* taking it off.”
How in the world would You handle this situation? I prayed silently and desperately. Finally, I concluded, “Well, thank you for being respectful, at least.” It wasn’t true, but at least it let me walk away from the conversation.
(Alas — at the end of the day, even a clay-covered porcupine… is still a porcupine.)
To put it bluntly: I was still shocked — not just at the woman’s callous gaul, but at everyone else’s docile indifference. Didn’t *anyone* else care? Even Taylor?
At that realization, I turned to my husband and muttered, “Were you not going to back me up on that?”
He looked at me, startled. “Back you up on what?”
Before I could explain, though, we called inside — and sure enough, the woman wore the obscene word into our children’s *kindergarten* classroom.
“That,” I pointed out.
His eyebrows lifted in recognition. “Oh, wow. That’s… remarkably low-class.”
“I asked her to take it off, and she said no,” I explained. “And you didn’t help.”
“I had no idea you were talking to her,” he confessed. “And honestly, I don’t think I could’ve helped. She doesn’t seem… persuadable.”
And so, thus defeated, we relocated to Bo’s desk — back-to-back with the Satanists. To my relief, though, Borealis was so absorbed with the party activities that he didn’t seem to notice either sweatshirt. Perhaps even better, his [illiterate] sister — only about year behind his youngest classmates — instantly and seamlessly melted into the social dynamic of his little pod of classmates.
But Rhys, on the other hand… was still twenty months old. Admittedly, he couldn’t read the offending sweatshirts — but neither could he engage with the desk-bound activities involved in Bo’s winter party. I suddenly understood why younger siblings were generally banned from this event.
Thus, I resignedly chased Rhys around for a few minutes — all while keeping an eye on the Satanist women and trying to ignore the feeling that I was about to vomit.
Eventually, though, I gave up on the charade. Rhys flatly refused to go back into the front carrier, and I could no longer trust him to run around the classroom unimpeded. Thus, after a quick goodbye to the rest of our family, I grabbed my youngest and defeatedly went back outside.
I can’t imagine keeping Bo here for another year, I lamented. And, then, to my horror, I realized: I can barely imagine keeping him here for the rest of *this* year.
On an impulse, I called Classical Charter. I put on my best phone voice, then asked, “I recognize the answer is probably no, but do you accept mid-year transfers?”
“No, I’m sorry,” the receptionist answered. “But our lottery is currently open for next year!”
I grimaced. “Yeah, I know — we’ve already submitted our application. Here’s to hoping the lottery treats us better this time around!”
The receptionist wished us well, then left me alone with my thoughts.
Which meant that it was time to pray in earnest… again.
When the lottery came out in early February, Borealis was significantly closer to the front of the waitlist — but he was still on the waitlist, nevertheless.
The following Sunday, our church mission minister greeted me with a broad smile. “Did you get in?”
“Nope,” I sighed. “Number four on the waitlist.”
He shrugged. “That’s closer than last year!”
It was — but I still didn’t fancy our odds. To begin, there be very few available spots — since, overwhelmingly, Classical Charter families remain Classical Charter families. In addition, the applications in front of us would certainly be fairly serious. I doubted that the first grade lottery attracted the same sort of flippantly thoughtless applications that regularly flooded the kindergarten lottery.
Even so… there was still a chance.
That chance grew as, a few weeks later, Borealis abruptly fell to #1. The drop was so precipitous, I missed his pitstops at numbers two and three.
Suddenly, here we were: so close to a slot, and yet still so far. Finally, though, I felt it was appropriate to call the school.
“I know you can’t give me a definitive answer,” I told the admissions gal, “but can you give me, like, vibes? Like would you bet on our odds?”
“Well, I can’t say for certain that you will get a slot,” she hedged, “but I can say that there are several current kindergarteners whose academic and social readiness markers are under consideration. Those conversations are happening right now and should wrap up within the next several weeks.”
“Oh — and that would potentially open up additional slots in the rising first grade class!” I inferred.
“Precisely,” she responded. “We’re currently holding two slots for those particular students — one in first grade, and one in kindergarten. So, once we make the final decision for each student, we’ll release whichever slot they end up not using.”
“And that slot might be in first grade,” I repeated.
“Yes — it might. Considering that we’re making those decisions with so many students this year, the odds are pretty high that at least one slot will open up for first grade. So, you should receive an email from me soon. If you haven’t heard anything by the first week in May, then feel free to give me a call to figure out where things stand!”
I thanked her profusely, then tried to put the matter out of my mind until May.
For the most part, it was surprisingly easy to focus on things other than Bo’s coming school year.
We had plenty to occupy our time — from our profusion of late-winter birthdays to our Spring Break staycation to soooo many baptism stories to my annual women’s clothing swap to floral work for the preschool’s end-of-year silent auction. I could barely catch my breath for more than ten consecutive weeks.
And then, when I finally looked up, it was the afternoon of Monday, May 6 — which is to say, it was past time to call the admissions gal.
I was redirected to her answering machine, so I left a scatterbrained — though informationally complete — voicemail. Then, upon hanging up, I immediately realized that I had completely forgotten to check my inbox before calling.
It’ll be really awkward if I missed an admissions email, I mused.
And, of course, I had.
There it was: Bo’s long, long-awaited offer of enrollment. After so many years of buildup, the climax felt comically mundane.
Action Required: Classical Charter Registration Due.
No “Congratulations!”; no “Wow, you’ve waited sooooo long for this!”; no “We’re so excited to meet you!” — just a request to submit Borealis’s registration paperwork.
I immediately forwarded the news to Taylor, then emailed the admissions gal with an embarrassed apology. Uh, please neglect my voicemail — obviously I hadn’t checked my email yet, oops!
Taylor called a few minutes later. “Is there any reason we would say no?”
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. What do You think, Lord?
There were no words this time — just a warm, uncomplicated peace.
Well… not entirely uncomplicated. I was a bit sad to separate Borealis and his kindergarten best friend, but I was also confident that sufficient mutual affection bound our families together. This wouldn’t be the last time he saw Hettie — and I also couldn’t base our family’s future on a *kindergarten* relationship.
Thus, in the end, choosing Classical Charter was as easy as falling in love — because that’s exactly what had happened. I had fallen in love with the school before Borealis was even born — and, even as the years went by, Classical Charter had remained my top choice for our family.
[Note: Well, aside from all the months of inner turmoil described in The [Second] First Day of Kindergarten.]
And so, finally answering Taylor, I said, “No. I can only think of reasons to say yes. This past year has been uniquely clarifying.”
I could hear the smile in his voice when he responded, “Yeah, I agree.”
Borealis took the news pretty well. While he was sad to leave Hettie (and a few other friends), he looked forward to reconnecting with several classmates from pre-K, plus dozens of acquaintances from church. Besides that — Borealis has never remained at a school for more than a single year. It was almost like he couldn’t picture developing multiyear relationships.
Thankfully, though, his siblings have been the unwitting beneficiaries of his military-brat-esque schooling. That is, we identify the bad schools with him, and then choose the good schools with them. Thus, when Aza started pre-K this year, it was the first time a child in our family has attended the same school for two years in a row. Furthermore, now that Rhys has joined her for two half-days a week, it’s also the first time that we have two children in the same school — and all three in school at once.
[Note: Yes, I am writing this story during one of those mornings.]
And Bo? Well, we hope that he’s finally done moving around. It would take a great deal to dislodge us from Classical Charter, now that we’re in. He’s already found new friends, and even a new “girlfriend”. (Not that he would ever describe her that way. Apparently, though, he has a thing for Dora-the-Explorer lookalikes.)
Oh, and perhaps the best part? Since Classical Charter requires a uniform… Borealis *finally* fits in.
