The kid is a bottomless pit!
It's a joke, of course, but it's true. That old canard about Jewish mothers/grandmothers relishing nothing so much as urging their children/grandchildren to eat, eat. I suppose other ethnic groups are similarly blessed with such concerns and amusements; Italian mothers/grandmothers, for example. Well, it does make me feel good to see people eat. Most particularly pint-sized people, children. Except that this particular child isn't so pint-sized. She is indeed anything but. She is perilously close to my size and height, at age 9. And a tender age 9 at that, not even halfway through her ninth year.
She signed up for outdoor extracurricular activities again this school year. So she's back into running. Where last year she enjoyed it, although it's still early days, it appears she isn't as taken with the activity now. "Hard work, Bub" she tells me. She isn't running fast enough, she says, the gym teacher tells her she has to run faster to qualify, to be part of the team. There are other children whose running prowess remains unchallenged; these are thin little boys and girls whose ease in moving their nether limbs in perfect synchrony, style and speed seems perfectly effortless. I encourage her to remain with the effort, to give it more time. She gives me a perfectly crooked look and a grim smile. Then she reaches into her backpack to extract a library book she's taken out in preparation for a book review due...when, I ask?
Another look, and she pulls the little glass dish with the sliced-up peach out of my hands, taking it over to the kitchen table. I tell her I made panzerotto for dinner last night, and did one for her, does she want it? You bet, Bub. Hers has only tomato paste, mozzarella cheese and sweet basil from our garden. Ours was loaded down with tomatoes (from the garden of course), green/red peppers, mushrooms galore. For me Romano beans, for Irving pepperoni. She proclaims them eminently edible; better, she says, than the store-bought ones. That's how grandmothers achieve satisfaction of the utmost variety.
Peach consumed, ditto the pizza pocket. What's next, Bub? How about some chocolate milk? All right, she accedes; did you buy chocolate milk? No, I admit, but I can make some using chocolate syrup and plain milk. No, she doesn't want that. How about a milkshake? Yes, very well yes, she agrees. Vanilla or chocolate ice cream? Chocolate, thanks. And with it, she says, can I have one of those muffins? I gasp, ask can she eat a whole muffin after the pizza pocket? Oh sure, she assures me, and proceeds to do just that.
In between bites she begins to read to me from the library book. The title is "The Hole". I'd never heard of it, but she tells me she's seen the film, and it was very good. The opening chapter sets the scene: a hot, dusty locale in Texas wherein lurk scorpions and rattlesnakes. Completing the first chapter (admittedly only two pages in length) she decides to just relate the story to me as though it were indeed a book review as obviously she cannot do so reading the entire 50 chapters which comprise the book. I learn all about the story and discuss elements of it with her, taking the greatest pleasure in watching the mobility of her face while she's explaining things to me.
What else can I have? she asks. What else? I repeat, why nothing, you've had enough until dinnertime. We both settle for a ball of bubble gum. Boy, can that kid pack it away.
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 23, 2005
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