Parenting

The First Warm Day

Posted on by James C. Struck

blueskychurch

February 20, 2016, 1pm.

58 degrees. 

I am walking to the park with my youngest two kids. The sun feels like spring already, and the sky is the soft blue of March or April, but the rest of the scenery is decidedly wintery still.  The trees are bare, the grass is still a matted brown, and the air, while unseasonably warm, smells of nothing but wet soil.

My town is at the bottom of a hole.  Two streams empty into the Illinois River here, making it prime territory for coal mines back at the turn of the century.  Between the streams and the now-abandoned mines, the entire town is a series of large steps working their way down towards the broad expanse of the Illinois.  What this means is that from our home by the riverfront and the library is as much a climb up as it is a walk across town.

My kids ride ahead and fall behind on their bikes, loving the flat areas but lagging as we tromp up the inclines.  I am not old yet, but I can’t call myself young or in particularly good shape, so by the time we make it to the library my legs buzz and I can feel my heart working in my chest.  The library is an odd looking building.  A century-old original structure at one end, a larger extension done in the ‘90s at the other, and city hall and the police department sitting next door, the entire effect is slightly Frankensteinian.  It is small by my standards; I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, where libraries were multi-story monsters with entire floors devoted to genres.  Here, each section consists of a handful of shelves, the staff no more than 4 older ladies.  But that’s what happens when you move from a city of 60,000 surrounded by others cities just as big to a town of 5500 surrounded by cornfields.

We wander the stacks for a while, pick out a few choice volumes, then make our way back out into the sunshine.  The kids bolt right for the park across the lot, racing for the best locations on the swings or monkey bars, bickering as usual.  They are only 19 months apart in age, and the competitions between them are kind of a default setting.  I turn my face up to the sun and let the south wind whip my hair back.  It’s getting long again, time to cut it unless I decide to ponytail it up again like I did for so many years.  For now it curls around my ears and hangs down to my collar.  The sunlight is still a bit watery, but I can feel it is stronger than it was just a few weeks ago.  I drink it in like an elixir, feeling it soak into me, filling me up.

I love these first hints of spring, these first reminders that winter is not eternal.  I know that in a day or two, the temperature will drop back into the 30s and the clouds will roll back in.  There will probably be at least one more measurable snow, at least one more snap that leaves frost on the car windshields and puts blades back into the wind.  But for now, just for a bit, I can pretend that winter is over.  I can pretend that the dark is finished and the sunlight has won again.

At least until November.

Picking Raspberries With My Daughter

Posted on by James C. Struck

“Daddy, there’s a ripe one over here.”

“Okay.”

“Ooohh, there’s a bunch of ripe ones over here.”

“I can only pick one place at a time.”

“AHHHH!  SPIDER!”

“You want to pick raspberries, you’re gonna run into spiders, Bright Eyes.”

Seven years ago, when my daughter turned one year old, my family and I had to move out of our apartment in the NW suburbs of Chicago and out to the Illinois River Valley area.  When we first bought our house out here in the sticks, my mother gave me one small raspberry cane as a housewarming gift.  I planted it in a convenient corner of our yard, right next to the garage, and that first Fall it gave us a glorious harvest of about 11 berries. Fast forward to today: that one cane is now a massive thicket fully 10ft by 10ft that threatens to take over our yard, my daughter is now a talkative, helpful 3rd grader, and today we picked raspberries. Correction, I picked raspberries and she played lookout.

A little info on red raspberries. There are two ways to grow them; either cut the canes back in November or so, or leave them be. If you cut the canes you get one big harvest in late August or early September. If you leave them, which I prefer to do, the old growth flowers early and you get two harvests, one in late June and another at the beginning of Fall. The downside to leaving the canes uncut is that raspberries spread. Every year my thicket gains about a foot outward and gets lusher in the center.  Raspberries will grow in shade but prefer sun and will harvest sooner that way, and give the best berries if given plenty of water.  That being said, mine are mostly in the shade and the only water I give them is when I dump out my dehumidifier, and I still get more berries than I know what to do with. Basically, they are a bountiful weed that thrives on neglect, perfect for a lazy bum like me.

Speaking of lazy bum, that’s really the main reason I don’t cut the canes back. Come November, once the first good frost hits, those things put the rasp in raspberry. They are coated in tiny thorns as sharp as any rose’s, but during the summer the canes are flexible so they’re not that bad. In Fall they are downright vicious. Also, I never remember to pick the bloody berries, so having two harvest gives me more chances to actually do it.

Today, I had no excuse. My daughter and her big brother were outside playing before dinner on a glorious, sunny-and-70 September Sunday when suddenly she comes in and interrupts me in the middle of making the mashed potatoes.

“Daddy, there are TONS of raspberries outside!  Can we go pick them?”

“After dinner, sure.”

“We’re gonna need a big bowl, can you get me one?”

I pull a mixing bowl out of a cabinet and hand it to her. She skips off to leave it by the front door, and I am struck by how little it really takes to make a kid happy: a plan, some direct attention, some one-on-one time, and some novelty.

After dinner we tromp through the leaves from the ash trees in our yard to the raspberry thicket. As described, it is positively drooping with berries, more than a few past ripeness. They’re not very big, no larger than the tip of my pinkie at best, no surprise with the dry, cool summer we had, but I pop one in my mouth instead of the bowl and the taste blows me away. I can never get over how much more flavor home-grown produce has compared to the plastic crap that passes for food at the grocery store. Even the stuff from the local orchard and produce place in the next town can’t compare.

I carefully thread my feet as deep into the thicket as I can get, while my daughter stands behind me with the bowl, unnecessarily pointing out berries and squealing at every strand of spiderweb. Spiders love the thickets, especially the big, yellow-and-black garden spiders, which I do NOT point out to her; her horror of arachnids almost rivals her mother’s.  The sun shines low and golden through the leaves, warm but definitely not summery anymore. Autumn is here, even though we are ten days to the equinox, and while there may be a few more warm days left, they will be few and short-lived.

The bowl fills quickly, every cane contributing a handful.  Soon my fingers are stained red and my palms and wrists itch from the thorns. The fall harvest is always more pleasant than the summer; far fewer mosquitoes to add to the itchiness. I step out and then back into another gap, reaching and stretching for the canes closest to the garage. The cool north breeze blows my hair in my eyes, annoying but a pleasant counter to the sun. The sky is that perfect, crystalline blue you never see in the summer, a few soft, white clouds setting off the color perfectly, the ones closer to the western horizon just starting to shift over to gold.

“Daddy, I’m cold.”

I turn back and look at her. Ever the warm weather child, she is dressed in a light summer dress despite the cooler day. She’s grown at least 2 inches over the summer, and is looking less and less like a little girl all the time. The first signs of coltish adolescence is starting to show in the length of her legs, the fine bones of her shoulders and throat. She will be tall, and with her fair skin, her sharp, elfin features, and those huge gray-blue eyes, I know she will be beautiful. She has a very direct stare when talking, and I can already imagine the boys stumble-stuttering under her gaze.

“Do you want to go inside?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, go jump in the shower, there’s school tomorrow. I’ll finish up.”

“Okay, Daddy. Can I have ice cream?”

“Shower first. Scoot.”

“Fine.”  She starts off and then turns back. “I love you, Daddy.”

I have to smile at that. “I love you too, Bright Eyes.”

She skips off through the lengthening shadows, and I turn to finish picking the raspberries.

Read To Your Kids

Posted on by James C. Struck

“It’s my turn to go first!”
“No, you went first yesterday!”
“But Daddy was at work so we didn’t read mine.”
“I want to sit in the middle!”

This is our chaotic and wonderful nightly ritual: story time. My kids are 16, 9 1/2 and 8, and this has been a part of out evenings for years. We eat dinner, shower when applicable, jammie up, and squeeze together onto our couch to read; my wife, me, and the younger two E and G shoehorned together, and our galumphing teenager D on the love seat because he just doesn’t fit anymore.

Over time the ritual has changed. Originally it was a chapter for the oldest and a picture book apiece for the others, and for a bit D dropped out due to lack of interest in Dick and Jane and Dr Seuss, but about 3 years ago it turned into a whole family tradition.

My wife and I are both voracious readers and were both precocious kids, so it was no surprise that all three of our children read early and easily. By the time E and G were school age they were losing interest in the “age appropriate” literature and wanted something they could sink their teeth into. So, trusting in my kid’s maturity and wanting to challenge them a bit, I dug into our own collection and pulled out Harry Potter.

Good call, Jimbo, good call.

Needless to say, they loved it. Even D, who had decided that gaming online with school friends was more fun than story time, gravitated over to listen. Over the course of 8 months we plowed through all 7 HP novels, then moved onto others: The Hobbit, Series of Unfortunate Events, the ‘Nother Story trilogy, Where The Mountain Meets the Moon, and most recently Narnia and Percy Jackson. Always, I am amazed at how much the younger two retain, even when they get antsy and don’t seem to pay attention, and always I am amused at how much D enjoys himself, even when he feigns disinterest.

Now I’m not claiming that nightly stories are the secret to the perfect family. Our kids are not perfect and neither are we. There are fights and boredom and sass and moments of lost temper from all 5 of us. But I’m pretty sure we are raising a family with an appreciation for the written word. I’m pretty sure that we are creating good bonds with our kids. And most importantly, my wife and I are pretty sure that, despite the imperfections, we are creating good memories. When D and E and G are grown, my hope is that they will look back at their childhoods, remember this, and smile. That, I think, is the best thing a parent can give their children.

So read to your kids.