Lazy Saturday

It was a lazy day today. Beautiful weather; thought about taking the top off the Jeep, but thunderstorms are moving in, so there went that notion. Maybe tomorrow, since there does seem to be a string of sunny weather coming up. I don’t have to drive up to NorVA until Wednesday, so that would leave me with three days of topless driving. (No, I’m still not tired of that phrase, and I’ve had the Jeep and the blog for about seven years now.)

I spent this evening with the G. family, watching two of their sons play Little League baseball. Jake’s game was a blowout in his team’s favor, so I went back to Nate’s to watch what had been a 1-1 ballgame. It was 6-1 when I got back, the other team’s favor. But Nate’s team battled back to within two runs before what we all thought was a VERY high strike ended the rally, the inning, and the game. Ah, well. It was exciting to watch, and when one of Nate’s teammates slid into home to score a run, but got up limping, and then cried his way back to the dugout, I and the two gentlemen standing near the backstop looked at each other, all thinking the same thing. So I said it. “Hey, there’s no crying in baseball.” But there is in Little League, when they’re all about nine and ten years old. He was all right, of course.

You know, when I first started teaching religious school, although I’d been around fourth graders plenty, for some reason, I did not expect them to cry in school. Sure, kids cry. I knew that. But I was absolutely dumbstruck the first time a student of mine cried. Then again the next year, and the year after that, especially if it was a boy. By my fourth year teaching, I finally stopped being surprised when my students cried. Last year, I had one in particular that was very sensitive and tended to cry a little more easily than the others. Her mother also teaches at the school, so whenever something happened, I’d send little R. off to her mother. I knew she just needed a hug and a few minutes to collect herself.

Children have a very sweet way of showing how much they care. They want to sit next to you, or their eyes light up when they see you, or they ask if they can ride home in your car, or maybe you can come and watch their game next time. Or they just want to talk to you on the phone when you’re talking to their mother. But one thing that children know absolutely is whether or not you like them. Kids can always tell the people who don’t like children from the ones who do.

I’ll be helping Jake study for his bar mitzvah next year, so I’ll be seeing a lot more of him and his siblings. That’s a good thing. I spent the day with kittens and kids. Tomorrow, I may be putting the kids and the kitten in the same room at the same time. That’ll be interesting.