Oh Misery! Thou Be A Spoiled Child
What is it with kids anyway? Sometimes she jumps out of the telephone wire at me, relates the order of her day in a spit-fire volume I can hardly decipher, voice jumping all over the human range, leaving me dizzy and incompetent. Spell it, I tell her, and I'll get the idea. If I'm lucky. Good thing she's patient, she mouths the disappearing word over several times, gives it additional context, and if that fails, will spell it for me. The meaning dawns, I am enlightened, but frustrated. Then on she goes again, spilling through the telephone wire the activities of her day, what she did, what she saw, how she reacted, what she thought of it all.
And then, there are the other calls. When her voice is kind of washed out, subdued, not at all "like her", our bubbly, happy-go-lucky little ten year old. Her voice is devoid, utterly devoid of interest. How was her day? I ask. All right, is the response. What did she do, I ask? Nothing. This was a summer-school day, two days out of the week when her mother works on site, rather than teleworking, during the summer months. On the days her mother works from home, neighbouring children who are her very best friends are invited to spend the day, to help make her summer special. And they do, and they do.
On Tuesday, at the summer-school (day care) the little throng went out to Cosmic Adventures for the day's fun. And it was fun, she admitted, she had a good time. But, she groaned during that evening's conversation, her knees hurt, her legs hurt, her arms hurt. And why? Because to get from one adventure to another one must needs crawl through tunnels. She's a big girl now, despite her age, adult-size. The five child-care workers who accompanied the children kept apace with the kids and themselves crawled through all the tunnels to get from Point A to Point B and onward. Wonder if they groaned and bemoaned the agony of pulling their ageing bodies through the tunnels - to have fun?
So this is Thursday, and she'd had a summer school day, and it wasn't fun. She didn't do much of anything, she said. The week before they'd had the fun of Reptile Adventures, a visiting zoo of reptiles for the children to look at, talk about, learn about, and even handle. Not her, though, wasn't all that interested, and was glad when her mother picked her up early. Her mother picked her up early today, too. So what, I asked, did she do when she got home? Nothing. Why nothing, it was such a hot day, did she not even use her swimming pool? No. Why? Didn't feel like it. What did she feel like? Nothing. Gloom.
What did she have for lunch at the summer school, I ventured to ask, knowing how she lacked appreciation for the nutritious and well-planned meals that come out of the day care's kitchen. Nothing, she responded. Nothing?! Why nothing? Because, she responded gloomily, they served beef stew. Oh. But didn't they offer any alternative? No. Don't they know you're vegetarian? Yes. They don't care. I think I'll call them to remind them that you don't eat meat, I offer. Don't do that, please do not do that, Bubbe. All right, I won't, I assure her. Knowing that things are not quite as she describes them.
She's been invited to a friend's birthday party, she offers. Oh, great, say I. When? July 22 and 23, she says. Two days, I enquire? It's a sleep-over, she says. Well, won't that be fun! Not really, she says. And why is that? I probe. Because we're supposed to go on a boat. Sounds great! I say encouragingly. No, it isn't she says, I don't have a life jacket. What happened to the one we got for you? Doesn't fit. Well, we'll bring along my life jacket, I tell her, that will certainly fit. Oh, she responds.
Listen, I say to her, why don't you feel inspired to read? I've told you repeatedly what fun can be derived from reading. You can't always have friends over. And then I begin: when I was your age, I didn't have the number of friends that you have, I had no pets like you have, in fact, I had no toys, either. I lived across the street from a school and I used to wander about in the empty schoolyard with no one to play with, in the summer, I say. I once went up into the attic of an old house my parents rented rooms in, and discovered a couple of old books there, and began to read them. All of which is true. I have a mental picture of this child yawning. I discovered, I continue yammering at her, what fun it is to read books, and reading stories opened up an entirely new world for me.
Silence. Finally: Bubbe, I have to go. All right, Sweetheart, go.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 13, 2006
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