I’ve never done that before. But that was not my only “first” of the day. Also for the first time I watched Simon be on the wrong side of a playground skirmish. I’m so used to protecting him from kids that aren’t as empathetic or gentle as he is that I sometimes wondered if I’d recognize his own poor behavior when it happened. Good news! I am perfectly capable of recognizing jerky behavior in my own child.

It centered around soccer. (Of course, his whole life centers around soccer these days/weeks/months. Simon moved to a soccer goal behind the school’s mulched area to practice his penalty kicks. James C. came to play with him. Unknown to James C., Simon was reenacting some “scorcher” of a penalty kick from a distance of exactly 11 meters. In his mind, he was Frank Lampard or Robin van Persie with the entire game resting on his shoulders. So when James C went to play goalie and came out of the box, Simon was steamed and started barking orders.

“No, you can’t do that.

“No, the goalie isn’t allowed to come out like that.

“No, you have to stay in the goal.

“Just go and let me play alone.”

James was confused (he doesn’t play soccer), hurt (why was Simon being so mean to him?), and mad (he’ll show the little jerk). So he called Simon a name and stormed off.

I watched him storm off, but did not hear anything he said. Then I looked at Simon, who was rubbing his eyes and crying.

“Are you upset because James C. decided to play without you?”

“No, I wanted to play alone. He wasn’t playing right. But mama… sob… he called me a name!”

At this point, he was expecting the usual: for me to console him, say I’m sorry the other child hurt him, etc. Instead, I told him that while it’s never nice to resort to name calling, that I understood why James C. had. “You kind of had it coming, Simon. You were being bossy and mean to James C.” When he tried to explain all the soccer rules James C. was violating, I made myself clearer:

“At HYR or at Mockinbird (the two leagues he plays in), you can stick to the rules or specific drills. But when you are at school, it’s just ball; it’s not really soccer. Most of your friends don’t know all the rules, and they don’t want to sit back and watch you hog the ball. You have to share the ball here, you have to be nice, and you can’t make it into an official game. Now let’s go apologize to James C. He’s your best friend at school, you won’t see him for a few days, and I don’t want you start a long weekend on a sour note.”

Boys being boys, James C. ran up to hug Simon before Simon could even apologize. No grudges there. Nor did I ever ask Simon about what name James C. used or ask Linh to find out. From my perspective, Simon had a bad moment and reaped what he sowed.

Frankly, I was happy to see this happen. Simon can be dictatorial about ball and a terribly sore loser in games. When he gets ugly, we try to ask him to imagine how that makes us feel, but he’s six and we’re his parents. Ipso facto, he doesn’t much care. But hurting a friend’s feelings? He cares about that very much, and it offered us a lesson on empathy in which he was not the wounded party or the one needing an apology. I’m guessing—and hoping!—that Simon will be kinder at the school soccer goal going forward.

It all started about six weeks ago. Having demonstrated a mature back-stroke and a rudimentary freestyle stroke, Simon got promoted to the fifth and penultimate level of his swimming program. As a Freestyler, he’d don a red cap, learn starts and dives, develop a mature back-stroke and freestyle stroke, and begin working on his breaststroke and butterfly.

We had one good lesson, and then on the second Simon gulped down water during his freestyle exercises and never fully recovered; the remainder of his class-time was punctuated by frequent spells of sputtering and crying. The next week, Simon fell apart an hour before his swim lesson and claimed to be too tired to go. Once I rescheduled for a weekend, he miraculously recovered his energy and asked to go play soccer.

This suspiciously timed fatigue recurred the next two weeks. Even when we focused on backstroke to take the pressure off, he was still hesitant about going to his classes and spent a lot of time negotiating with his teacher about what he was going to do in the pool. I hated to see him psych himself out of something he could do and seemed to enjoy. How could he let one bad day rewrite 10 months of hard work and success?

It didn’t seem right. So I encouraged, consoled, badgered, and pushed. He couldn’t give up now! Not when he was so close to swimming actual freestyle laps. Wouldn’t quitting now be a huge backward step? Maybe. But 12 days ago, when Simon broke down an hour before swimming again and cried in the car on the way to the lesson, I realized that backward step or no, there was no pushing through his fear and fatigue.

After nearly 10 months of weekly lessons, Simon went from being a kid who hadn’t been in the pool for over a year to one who could jump in, float on his own, swim from end of the pool to the other, dive down for toys, and come back up on his own. And now he was tired, scared to put his face back in the water for freestyling, and ready for a break from the pressure. When I pulled into the JCC parking lot 12 days ago, I still wasn’t sure if quitting—or taking a break—was the right thing to do. By the time Simon dragged himself to the pool deck, every inch an effort and exercise in negotiation, I finally understood how young five is, how much I had asked of him, and how hard he has pushed himself.

I asked the program director to credit my account and make that Wednesday our last lesson, and I told Simon’s teacher Julie to just let Simon have fun and do whatever he wanted. For the next thirty minutes, Simon monkey-crawled along the pool edge, jumped in alone and alongside Julie, kicked around, practiced diving, and did his first ever racing start. He was all smiles the whole time, and when it was over he promised Julie he’d be back in July or August, once he had rested and was ready to get going again.

I don’t know if we’ll be back that soon or not, but when saw the happiness and relief on his face, I did finally trust that I had made the right call.

How bad of an artist is he? Let me count the ways. Actually, I’m going to let Simon do it. He came home from school today with his number book, which dedicated a single page to numerals from one to ten. Here’s what Simon drew for each:

1. Dog, if you can call it that.
2. Basketballs, which are more in his artistic wheelhouse.
3. Marbles, see item above.
4. Basketballs, sticking with what works.
5. Flowers, helpfully labeled so as to prevent confusion with lollipops, which is what they sort of look like.
6. Basketballs, back to his comfort zone.
7. Basketballs, why mess with success?
8. Basketballs, he’s in the zone, baby!
9. Do I have to tell you?
10. Yup, again.

I laughed so hard at this that my sides hurt. When I showed Matt, tears rolled down his cheeks. I’m not sure if it was the artistic ineptitude or the strategy deployed to circumvent it that was funnier. Either way, it gave us the best laugh of the day.

That single week away from sports was really tough on him! Fortunately, he has his mom and dad to take him to Seneca Park—jointly and severally—to play soccer two to three times per week as well as running his Bubbie through her paces in her yard once or twice. There is no rest for the Simon-related!

Yesterday I dragged my camera out with me for the game, and through its lens I saw t-ball in a whole new light: the light of (very) young love. The girls have liked Simon for some time. I’ve had at least five moms tell me that their daughters have crushes on him. Then just last week another friend’s daughter informed her father that several of the girls in his class plan to marry him. We heard more about one girl’s plans at last week’s Spring Program (our last!), when her parents laughingly described their daughter’s plans to marry Simon at 8:00 p.m. on the beach at Hilton Head. Simon has even been involved in two mock weddings, made all the more charming by his utter obliviousness to what was going on.

But take a gander at these photos:

I think our little Romeo is figuring it out. He and Aubrey, pictured above, ran, chased each other, tickled each other’s knees with blades of grass, and threw their gloves on their heads and into the air for the better part of two hours.  The game was on, and that game was not necessarily t-ball.

So what to make of this development? At least one camp sits firmly in the “you are in big trouble” school of thought, anticipating devastating emotional attachments and who knows what else in middle school. I’m not buying it. I had my first crush at around the same age, and it didn’t lead me down any dangerous paths. What’s more, I can’t help but be pleased that Simon himself likes the nice girls best. His favorites are consistently the sweetest and most innocent of his cohort.

And finally, I attribute at least some of this to his basic personality and his life-long familiarity with girls. He’s always been way outnumbered by girls in his class, he’s always had the majority of his play-dates with girls, and he’s gaga over his two Sudanese sisters. I think, as much as anything, what I see above is the logical outcome of having a boy who is sensitive enough to relate to girls and familiar enough with them to know how to.

I guess we’ll test that theory in about 7 or 8 years. For now, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the show.

Simon has been relegated to shoelaces for over a year now: we can’t find shoes with velcro closures that will stay on his skinny minny feet. (Sorry honey, that’s my fault.) Until a few days ago, however, he couldn’t tie them. So I spent a lot of quality time acting as Simon’s valet, and Sir Simon spent a lot of time literally being waited on hand and foot. He would sporadically attempt to learn to tie his shoes himself, but these efforts usually ended in cried of frustration.

The problem is, or was I should say, that I could not, as a righty, teach Simon how to do the job as a lefty. Every attempt left me (get it? left me?) with clumsy hands and and an odd knot of untied laces. Tying shoes doesn’t seem complicated until you try to do it with your non-dominant hand. Mirroring each other didn’t do it. Matt fared no better. So I finally did what I should have done ages ago:

I sent him to my Dad’s–the family’s only other true lefty. One evening with his Zadie, and Simon had the basics down and just needed to work on the fine motor skills to pull it off. A couple of days ago he did it. Yesterday he did it again. Today he did it twice. It’s official, he can now tie his shoes.

Just in time for kindergarten. Just in time. Congrats, honey!

“Why did Anyieth cry and try to leave the apartment?’

“Because she saw Agotich walk outside the door.” [Agotich tried to leave with us today and had to be yanked back inside by her mother. Seeing this, Anyieth made a run for it, too.]

“Did she want to come home with us?”

“Not really, she just wanted to do whatever her big sister did. Little brothers and sisters are always trying to keep up.”

“You mean like how Asher tries to keep up with Baron?”

“Yup, just like that.”

“Or how Agotich tries to keep up with me?”

“Yes, honey, she does try to keep up with you. You’re kind of like a big brother to her.”

“Or like how I try to keep up with Ben?”

I just smiled. Simon wants to be able to do everything his big cousin Ben can do, but Ben is four years older and very much out of his league. As the youngest in my own family by five and seven years, I am not surprised that Simon has these feelings. What surprises me is that he can describe and identify them!

After a couple of sound thrashings, I decided to take it easy on Simon for a game and he quickly got up on me 5-1:

I’m going to beat you like a tied up goat!

Really?  Why do I feel like Simon’s Pappaw has something to do with this.

A couple of nights later I really let him have it and got up on him 9-3:

Oh man — we’re gonna get relegated.*

Yup.  Definitely watching too much late-season English Premier League.

And finally, in a desperate move to wave off one of my goals:

That doesn’t count.  He was offside!

If you understand what “offside” means and how a Foosball table is set up, that last one is hilarious.  Trust me.

—–

* The bottom three teams in English Premier League get relegated down to the lower league for the next season.  The top three from the lower league get brought up to Premier League, but I don’t know the fancy word for that.

Still, the attempt was there, as was some understanding of place value. So a couple of days later, just for the heck of it, I drew up grids and filled them with three-digit addition problems. I explained how the columns were ordered, showed him how to go from right to left, and worked a few. Then I let him loose with about five more problems. He nailed them. So I got rid of the lines and added the plus and equal signs.  He nailed them, too.

Then he decided to write out a problem himself. As he’s five, he didn’t understand that each column needed to add up to 9 or less. Also because he’s five, he would take no direction from me once he decided that he wanted to do it himself. Then he got going, immediately came upon an 8 + 2 column, and sheepishly wrote 10 at the bottom of it.

“Simon? Does 10 fit there? I asked.

“No, it really doesn’t. I don’t know what to do!”

“Well, I can show you, but your head might explode. What do you think?”

“I want you to show me.”

So I explained the place value of each column to him, guided him to put the 0 on the right and carry the 1 over the middle column, and then told him to add the two left-most columns, including the one that now had three rows in it. He got it. Then I asked him to read the problem out loud to me, which he also got.

Then I asked him what he thought. He laid his head on the kitchen island in an exhausted heap. A few seconds later, he raised up, put his hands on either side of his head, and made exploding noises. I laughed out loud. Simon shared the laugh and then asked me to show him how to add four-digit numbers.

His head might be exploding now, but if he keeps this up, it won’t be when he hits calculus the way mine did. And I have to say, if Simon were going to choose areas in which to be unlike his mother, lover of math and player or sports are two extremely good choices. I hope both of these affinities stick around for the long haul.

So it happened that last Friday I checked our mail, found the acceptance letter from Brandeis, felt the initial surge of joy that came with getting into our first pick of elementary schools, and then ran off to pick up Simon and tell him the good news. At which point I pulled into the KIP parking lot, keyed in our security code, realized I’d only be there for three more weeks, and burst into tears.

Next year is going to be a big adjustment for more than just Simon. He’s going to have to get used to a longer ride, a longer day, a larger class, and lots of new people. And I’m going to have to adjust to letting go, as something tells me that the teachers don’t want me in their class every morning watching the kids settle in and making small talk. Nor will Simon be walking down halls he’s known for four years, past teachers who took care of him like family, and past some teachers and staff who have known me since I was at KIP myself.

Some friendships will be changing as well. Which brings me to a story I somehow never got to this year. The day after Halloween, Simon’s best friend Baron, his inseparable buddy since the end of the Itsy Bitsy class and the friend who left KI for another preschool this year, came back. He never quite settled into his new school, and after one particularly telling visit his parents decided to transfer him back to KI for his last year of preschool. He wasn’t placed in Simon’s class as there wasn’t an open seat, but the two boys would still see each other at lunch, on the playground, and during the classes’ shared activities.

It was a very happy reunion, with both boys delighted to be back in each other’s daily lives. Baron would come over to Simon’s class to say hi and give him a hug every morning, and they chased each other like crazy on the playground. The only real downside was that Simon’s other great friend, Braylon, had became Simon’s best school friend in Baron’s absence and felt threatened at his return. Simon didn’t know how to negotiate two best friendships, there was some competition for his attention, and feelings were hurt.

Then the story took an unexpected turn: Baron found a new best friend in his own class, and it’s Simon who’s left behind. I’m not sure how acutely Simon is feeling the pinch, as when he’s told me that Baron has a new best friend, he’s pretty matter-of-fact about it. Like two weeks ago, when I reminded him to wish Baron a happy birthday and give him a hug at school, this is what I heard back:

“Mommy, I told Baron happy birthday and went to give him a hug, but I couldn’t really do it because he was playing with Keon. I think Keon is Baron’s best friend now.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel or what to say in return. Was he upset? Did he need a hug? Or is Simon OK with this? He seems OK, but I wouldn’t be and it’s hard not to project my own feelings on the situation.

The funny thing about this is that I’m surprised and saddened by something that I should have seen coming. Simon is six months older than Baron and has a very different temperament. Baron is all about superheroes, video games, and chasing, while Simon is a little about superheroes, but much more into role-playing and organized sports. Baron finds some of school boring and hard to focus on; Simon loves school and hangs on to every lesson. Baron won’t play with girls (except one who also left last year); Simon loves to dance with Jillian, work on class projects with Nyankot, and counts Caroline and Ruby among his best friends. Simon wants to play basketball with Braylon and the kindergarten boys when they are on the playground, but Baron just wants to run and chase.

As does Keon, who is six months younger than Baron and has much in common with him. So I shouldn’t be surprised, except Simon and Baron were every much as opposite one another a year ago when they were totally inseparable. As Simon comes home as smiley and happy as ever, I’m not going to dig too deeply. I’m just really grateful that he’s met so many boys at basketball and soccer this year, that he will meet even more boys when baseball starts next month, and that we’ll hit the boy motherlode when kindergarten starts in the fall.

But even with all of that said and with much to look forward to, I still find the leavings, small and large alike, to be difficult, and I’ve still got a lump in my throat that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

It’s now safe to put away the Louisville Magazine school issue from last November, quit pulling school report cards from the web, quit playing with my Excel spreadsheets (yes, there was more than one), and quit second guessing our chances every time I learned of someone new applying.

Then again, I’ve only got six years to figure out the whole middle school thing, and I just found out that one of the schools I assumed would be a likely bet no longer pulls from our zip code. Kidding! (sort of)

Addendum:

For those wondering what Simon thinks about this, allow me to quote him. “You mean I’m going to Brandeis with my cousin Ben? … I’ll see Ben at school? … Will I be on the same bus as Ben? … You mean when you pick me up I might ride home with Ben?”

So, to summarize, Ben! Big Cousin Ben! He’s been called up to the big leagues, baby, and he’s feeling like a total hot-shot about it. Also, Ben!