Friday, March 26, 2010

Most elegant afternoon with pretweens

Its cold again. I should be used to it by now - the off-again on-again relationship that Seattle has with spring. Now we're budding, now we're scraping ice off the windscreen. Now we're planting summer seed, now we're wondering weather the early blossoms will make it through the night.

Wren has been miserable with the onset of rain. He dislikes the experience of water falling from the sky. What's there to like about being WET and COLD. He is very un-local in his appreciation of the barrier of an umbrella which prevents all contact. By contrast, when I suggested Josh take a raincoat to work today in anticipation of watching the first Seattle Sounders game in the cold rain, he said "I have a hoodie."

Frost is similar.

As we waited for the school bus this morning, Wren crying in his raincoat, me in Gortex, Frost stood oblivious in a long sleeved t-shirt.

"Where's your coat?" I asked. "Its pouring."

"Oh, I like it like this," he said. "Its in my backpack."

For the record, Tara walked to work in the rain and had to have Fred deliver her dry clothes to school. It was that wet.

Now the boys are playing a game with Po from Kung-fu panda. Wren was given Po for his birthday and it is a favorite now they have seen the movie. The boys work out big attacks to do on Po, inspired by Po's famous resiliance. He is thrown to the ceiling, tied up in string, thrown down the basement stairs and bowled over with a ball.

In the background I can hear the sad strains of Nouvelle Vague singing God Save the Queen. I love rainy days. The rain provides a backbone of stillness against which everything else [read screaming games, yards of tape stuck to things, shoes thrown on the table, clothes discarded in sodden heaps in the corridor, shouts of "DUDE DUDE YOU HIT ME IN THE FACE"] is tolerable.

Frost has just changed the ipod to play his favorite song, Black Eyed Peas - I gotta Feeling - followed shortly no doubt by Bright Eyes - Road to Joy.

Frost will be a tween before I know it. When does tweenagerness begin? He's clearly pretween now.

No comments: