Kid Amnesiac

Simon will head off to kindergarten in 11 days. The where is no surprise, as I set my sights on Brandeis back in November. The when is also no surprise, as I’ve been staring at the Jefferson County Public Schools calendar for months now. It’s the how that is shocking people.

Simon is going to ride the bus to school.* And why is he riding the bus when his mom (me) could easily drive him every day? Let me count the whys:

1. He wants to. “Bus” was one of Simon’s first words, and he’s been asking about riding one for years now.
2. His cousin Ben will be on the bus.
3. His friend Rhys will be on the bus.
4. It’s the ecologically correct thing to do.
5. It will foster his growing sense of independence.
6. It will make him feel like a hot-shot.

The choice seems obvious to me, but it’s shocking all my friends. When I tell them, I hear one of two things: It’s either “YOU’RE letting him ride the bus?” or “You’re letting him ride THE BUS?” depending on their angle. My more laid-back friends can’t believe that I, whom they consider an anxious, hovering parent, could possibly put Simon on a school bus heading downtown without having an anxiety attack or two. My less laid-back friends, the ones who consider me a sister in stress, cannot believe that someone who seemed like a responsible parent would put their beloved child on the rolling youth-detention-center-cum-death-trap that is the school bus. Isn’t the bus where the expression “hell on wheels” came from?

In all of these discussions, I have only encountered one person who seemed neither surprised nor concerned. She’s a fellow Brandeis parent I met at a PTA meeting and then for lunch, and when I told her of Simon’s transportation plans she had these soothing words to say:

“He’ll be fine. The kids are good, and the driver is a National Guardsman. The worse you have to deal with is ____ ______ , and he’s a good kid at heart. Just white knuckle it and have a stiff drink at the ready.”

According to multiple reports, ____ _____ is given to colorful language, gender discrimination, and the occasional launching of projectiles on the bus, all of which sounds pretty typical for a fourth-grade boy. I’m not super eager for Simon to pick up those habits, but I suspect he’s already witnessed much of this in preschool. If Simon wants an up-close view of such behavior, his cousin Ben has offered to smuggle him into the back seats where he, as an elementary upperclassman, is allowed to sit and where the miscreants are most likely to be found. I think we’ll pass on his kind and generous offer and have Simon sit up front where he can drive the bus driver bonkers with questions about streets and speed limits.**

As for the stiff drink, I won’t be having that either. Turns out, I won’t even be there. Brandeis asked for parent volunteers to help out the first day of school, and I was happy to help out and start becoming a part of this new community. But the punchline is that they need me at school by 8:00, and Simon won’t catch his bus until 8:16. So it’s up to Matt to deliver Simon to the bus-stop and wave madly as he disappears from view.

And really, the only thing I’m anxious about is whether Matt can be trusted to capture the moment with our camera. Because yeah, I’m going to let Simon ride the bus. Whatever that means.

*Given how long the day will be and that I’m at home, I will be picking him up from school so he can rest and eat sooner.

**The driver might well prefer Simon to sit in the back! He is still a horrible back-seat driver, offering up a constant running commentary about what streets you are on, how fast you and others are driving, and whether you remembered to use your turn signal. By the end of the first week Simon will be able to tell me the best way to school, and the driver will probably be fed up with hearing that he’s going 4 miles over the limit.

Until this summer, I had forgotten how thrilling the Olympics could be. Years of doping, abandoning all pretense of the games being for amateurs, and the introduction of sports of which I disapprove sucked a lot of the excitement out of me. There was a time, though, when the four years between games seemed interminable, when I thrilled to see the flags and hear the anthems of other nations, when I leapt off living room furniture dramatically and tried to “stick” my landing, and when I seriously considered using a yard stick to replicate the pole vault.

Simon is now in the complete thrall of the London Games. Some of his actions duplicate mine: he’s “sticking” landings all over the place, and he’s memorized the flags of many of the countries. (Giving us this gem: “The South Korea flag looks like a cookie split in half.”) He also loves watching gymnastics (“Why do the girls all wear such beautiful shirts?… Can I watch Gabby Douglas again?”), diving, soccer (of course), and track races. Thankfully, he has not explored the home-made pole vault.

He’s also putting his own spin on it. During the thrilling Canada-US women’s semifinal in soccer, he explained to me that the game ends after 90 minutes, the first extra period after 105 minutes, and the second extra period after 123 minutes. “Don’t you mean 120?” I corrected. “No, there’s usually 3 minutes of stoppage time, so it’s 123.” Of course.

Who knew time-keeping could be so interesting! Also thrilling: gymnastics and diving scores. I DO remember how much fun that was back in the old system. Half my pleasure in watching women’s gymnastics came from guessing whether someone earned a 9.25 or 9.88. I still remember Nadia Comaneci getting that perfect 10. Now when I hear Simon guessing on the couch, I’m transported back to those times and am amused at how Simon and I can find common ground, even if he’s more interested in the number than the routine at times.

Perhaps the biggest thrill for him is watching athletes chase world records, a feat that produces the most numbers on screen. Best seen in swimming, the viewer is afforded a chance to focus on split times, the margin between competitors in the pool, and the difference between the current leader and the red line denoting the world record. So many numbers! And all attached to sportiness!

Shortly after the games wrap up, kindergarten will begin. That might be the only thing to ward off what I expect will be an epic post-Olympics let-down. On the plus side, he only has to wait 2 more years before he watches skating scores and times in Sochi.

The upside of having a child with interests different than your own is the opportunity to learn about and appreciate something new. The downside is the nearly limitless potential for botching it.

Here at Cowling Avenue, Simon’s sportiness is bumping up against my cluelessness in surprising ways. Specifically, I have misread what is telling and/or meaningful about Simon’s athletic efforts at this point. Any new insight is owing to our friend Barry, the most accomplished athlete I know, and the BBC World Service on the radio.

Let’s start with swimming. Simon plugged away at lessons for 10 straight months, a half-hour per week. All but one month occurred when the outdoor pool was closed, so there was no pool time other than lessons. By early spring, he had a nice little backstroke and was being recruited for swim team. A coach even called him “a natural”.

He’s not. What he is is teachable and eager to please. All the while Simon learned the mechanics of stroke, he remained somewhat nervous in the pool, and he never worked to develop any independent underwater or doggy-paddle swimming ability. I thought this strange, but didn’t know what to make of it.

Then just this week, I caught an Olympics-related interview with a swim coach on the BBC. He explained that competitive levels of swimming required three things: genetic athletic ability, a natural feel for the water, and a willingness to sacrifice years and years for the sport. He then elaborated on the second bit: Some people naturally work with the water, while others fight against it.

A light bulb went off. Simon is a fighter. He’ll learn to swim and he’s starting to have fun, but he’s no fish. By contrast, his friend Caroline is part mermaid. I had both kids at the pool Tuesday, and at one point we were practicing a pre-backstroke exercise both had learned at lessons. Simon does it perfectly but still won’t go far on his own in the pool. Caroline never got it: her arms either didn’t move at all or moved the wrong way at every command. Then she got bored, told me that she’s seen the backstroke on TV, and proceeded to swim a credible little backstroke clear across the pool. She even has the natural side-to-side swivel that Simon never quite got. She’s such a natural that she didn’t even understand why Simon and I were cheering so loudly at her accomplishment.

Next up, tennis. Many of Simon’s McEnroe-esque on-court melt-downs came after he failed to chase down a ball I knew he had no chance of reaching. No one under four feet is going to be able to go from the extreme right side of the net to the extreme back corner of a full-sized court in time to get in position and hit the ball. Given the heat this summer and up against limits of human endurance, I’d beg him to let those balls go. “Simon,” I’d say, “there’s no way you can run that far that fast. When I accidentally hit to a corner like that, let it go. Save your energy for the ones you can reach so you can get lots of practice hitting the ball.”

Again with the bad advice! This past weekend, Barry explained to me that lots of people overly focus on hand-eye coordination when it comes to kids’ tennis. That’s all wrong. Kids can improve hand-eye coordination with time and practice, especially when they are old enough to start mastering specific techniques. (Not me, for the record, but most kids.) What’s important, he explained, is that kids have the speed, endurance, and desire to chase down every ball that comes across the net, no matter how far or how fast it travels.

He illustrated this story with the tale of a YouTube sensation who could seemingly hit everything that came to him, was declared a prodigy and sent to an expensive tennis clinic, and ultimately bombed out because he only wanted to stand still in one spot and hit balls that came straight to him. It’s good that Simon has a natural stroke. It’s great that he understands how to move his feet to get into good position for those strokes. But the most telling and significant thing about his tennis playing at this time is his instinct to do exactly what I was cautioning against!

Will Simon ever be on a swim team? Probably not, but who knows? Will he play tennis in high school or college? Again, it’s too early to say. But the odds of one are certainly greater than the other assuming his athletically challenged mother doesn’t muck it all up with bad direction.

As of this week, EPL (English Premier League) soccer is in preseason and the Olympics are underway. That means Simon is getting his regular soccer fix and has time to pick and follow his favorite players. I know you, dear reader, don’t care about this, but do read on. I promise a pay-off at the end.

At this point in the season and the games, Simon has three favorite players:

First, there’s Yaya Toure, at left, a midfielder who plays for Manchester City. Toure is renowned for combining speed, passing ability, and physical power with technique. A native of the Ivory Coast and a gentleman on the pitch, Toure is indeed a joy to watch.

Next up, there’s Joe Hart. Joe also plays for Manchester City. A native of Shropshire, England, Hart is England’s best goal-keeper. Simon loves him because he’s awesome and looks cool. I love him because he looks a little like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and because I get to refer to him as “A Shropshire Lad“.

And his third favorite? Well, that would be Louisa Necib, an attacking midfielder who plays for the French national team. Called the female Zidane, she is known for her sublime passing skills and deep vision into the game. Simon likes her because she’s a gifted play-maker who —

Oh who am I kidding? Simon likes her because she looks like this:

And really, can you blame him? France played North Korea Saturday morning, and Matt tells me that every time the camera zoomed in on Necib he said something like “I like her” or “I really like her” with a certain glossiness to his expression. I’m guessing that while he doesn’t quite understand why he likes her, it might not be entirely owing to her high football I.Q.

I’m also guessing that I’m in deep, deep trouble where the girls are concerned.

It’s official: My son has my oldest brother’s brain. There are some exceptions, of course. He’s not quite as anxious, he’s chosen different sports to be competitive in, he’s more interested in music and foreign languages, and his affect is much less hyper.

Still, it’s my brother’s brain. I first thought it when he began asking me questions like how he’d know where to live when he grew up, as Steve used to worry as a child about knowing whom to marry. I thought it some more when he started getting interested in space, as Steve has been an avid follower of space flight and exploration his entire life. The suspicion deepened when his favorite subject in preschool this year was a two-week unit on the human body (Steve is a physician).  I became convinced when he began rattling off numbers and quantifying things all the time, as his obsession with putting a number on everything was just like conversing with my brother.

And my hypothesis was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt just before bedtime on Wednesday when a simple question about zoo camp (“Did you play with Gabrielle and Mark today?”) prompted him to tell me Mark’s birthday and telephone number. He asked Mark for both, and the numbers stuck in his brain from 11:45, when my mom picked him up from zoo camp,  until 8:45, when he finished brushing his teeth and we had our chat.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound too significant to you. Allow me to explain. I can remember some birthdays, but struggle with a great many. Is brother Perry the 17th or 18th? Friend Jennifer the 26th or 27th? Nephew the 18th or 19th? Birthday calendars and Facebook are my salvation on this front. And phone numbers? I am a reverse savant on phone numbers. I can remember mine (but not my old ones), my Mom’s, my Dad’s, Matt’s parents, my now deceased Bubbie’s and Zadie’s, my brothers’, and 5 out of 7 digits of several more, not necessarily in their correct order. If someone tells me a number and I don’t have a pen and paper, I’m doomed because I cannot remember a number long enough to dial it.

It’s hard to say with Matt. He certainly remembers dates in history and can memorize a series of seven digits, but he’s no savant either. I think by our first anniversary he was already struggling to remember if it was the 17th or 18th (it’s the 17th, honey), and he doesn’t think much of birthdays because he doesn’t care about them. As for phone numbers, like 99% of Americans, he just uses his cell and therefore hasn’t had to remember one in a decade or more. According to my memory and his own report, he was “OK” at phone numbers, but nothing special.

Then there is Steve. Steve can rattle off the phone number of high school friends whose numbers he has not dialed in 30 years. He knows the phone number of his insurance agent off-hand. I’m sure he can call every relative, living or dead, who has had a phone line since 1969 or so. It’s the same with birthdays. The man is a walking, talking census record. Moreover, it’s not just that he can do these things, it’s that he automatically does them at every corner. If a casual conversation turns to, say, an event involving my great-grandparents, Steve will quickly and unthinkingly rattle off their birth dates, recall the year the said event took place, and then do the math on how old every participant in the story would have been at the time.

Simon has been building to this for a year or more. Every story about San Francisco or buying our house must have a date, and that date must correlate to our ages and the number of years before he was born. And now he’s hauling out the phone numbers! Wednesday night, when his (Steve again!) anxiety over bad thoughts arose when it was time to turn out the lights, I distracted him by telling him a friend’s phone number and saying I’d quiz him again when he woke up. Given this new number to memorize, his face lit up and the fear slipped away.

There’s a lot of me in Simon. There’s even more of Matt. Yet somehow, nearly every day he demonstrates that he is Steve Goldstein’s nephew.

If there’s one thing lacking in Simon’s summer, it’s boys. I’m not talking about a boy at camp here or at a soccer clinic there, we’ve got those. I’m talking about a consistent group of boys for him to be best friends with.

This issue has been brewing somewhat for the last six months or so, when his one friend, Braylon, started missing a lot of school, and he and his other friend, Baron, began to drift apart. The increasing seriousness of the boy shortage in Simon’s life was put in stark relief for me last night, when we had a soccer and dinner play-date with his spring soccer buddies (and brothers) Quinn and Wyatt. The boys played ball, laughed, grabbed each others faces, chased, tumbled down the slide together, screamed, and generally engaged in boy mayhem. Simon loved every minute of it.

Then the play-date had to end, which made Simon sad. And then I had to explain that Wyatt and Quinn were moving away in one short week and we might not see them again, which made him burst into tears. To make matters worse, my attempts at consoling words rang hollow. I can tell him until I’m blue in the face that he’ll make new friends, but his experience is that boys are short on the ground (school) and/or short-lived (camp).

This summer Simon has gotten just enough of a taste of what it would be like to be surrounded by compatible boys that it’s increased his sense of wanting. There are the boys who sometimes appear at his Grandma and Papaw’s house, the grandchildren of their friends and neighbors. There are the boys from camp, two of whom have befriended Simon and then shown up for a second session to extend the fun. One or two familiar faces tend to repeat at tennis camp. But that’s about it, and the “it” doesn’t last nearly as long as Simon would like.

Then there’s the attention and interest issue. We have yet to find a child who will play outside in the heat for as long as Simon will. When I say that Simon will play soccer or tennis in 95-100 degree weather, I’m not exaggerating. He plays until he’s drenched with sweat and half-sick from dehydration. Nor does he grow bored with it. So here I am with a kid who wants to play ball for hours at a stretch and who has the attention span and endurance to pull it off, and the closest match I can find in this regard is cousin Ben, who is four years older and still wilts a bit sooner. (Or, alternatively, has better sense!) I have also failed to find a peer who will play the same light saber game, board game, card game, etc. as long as he will. The best we do is when it comes to make-believe role-playing, something that his close girl friends are wonderfully inventive with and can sustain for hours.

All of which brings me to the realization that the likely cure for Simon’s social ailment is but four short weeks away: kindergarten. The days will be long, and I’m sure he’s going to be tired and will miss some of the comforts of home. But just think of all those boys! Probably 10-12 in his class alone. That’s five to six times what he’s had before. That’s enough to–I hope–find one or two or three that he really clicks with, spend six and a half hours with them five days a week, and continue the friendship for up to six long years. If I get the teacher I asked for, he’ll even have a (grown) boy in charge of his class.

I’ve spent months and months wondering if Simon was ready for kindergarten. Yesterday was the first day it seriously occurred to me that he’s not just ready for it; he needs it. That and a competitive, year-round soccer league. I’m on the case. Bring on the boys!

Simon’s right center incisor is beginning to wiggle. It’s not actually wiggling, but there’s some movement if you  press against it. I discovered this today after Simon complained for the second day running that his tooth felt weird when he ate. This tooth, one of Simon’s first two, made its first appearance 5 years and 7 months ago.

We now have to make two decisions rather quickly:

1. To Tooth Fairy or not to Tooth Fairy: We don’t do Santa or the Easter Bunny, but that was a no-brainer in our half-Jewish household. I didn’t grow up with the Tooth Fairy either, but that was owing to practical, not philosophical considerations. (I lost very few teeth; I was one of those kids with double rows until the dentist tired of waiting me out and extracted the baby teeth, two-by-two, in the office. When losing a tooth requires a trip to the dentist, happy gas, and financial outlay, the Tooth Fairy does not come.) So do we do the tooth fairy? I don’t know. I’ve spent so much time discussing real vs. pretend with Simon lately because of nighttime scary thought issues, that I’m not sure if I want to introduce a make-believe character on purpose, even if it’s a benign one. I’m also not sure he’d buy it.
2. Do I book a family photo shoot right away? Besides school pics, I’ve only had one set of formal pictures taken, back when Simon was eight months old. Before now, I haven’t felt compelled, but I know that in about two or three months his face will be forever changed. And for that matter, his parents aren’t getting any younger, either. How urgent is this?

Thinking, thinking, thinking…