independence
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Sarah sits on the seat, feet on the pedals
Hands on the handlebars. I steady her.
With a gentle push on her back, she starts
And off she goes, down the street of houses.
Her legs pump, her arms hold steady.
Her shirt's a dwindling spot of yellow
Down the sidewalk. She wavers confidently
Passing one house, two houses, ten houses.
How long, I wonder, will she keep coming back?
A week of progress for the youngest Williams finds a number of benchmarks. She has played Sudoku. She has swung and grasped all seven hanging rings at the playground, lighting securely on the far side. And her bike riding has gone from one to sixty.
In previous parent-child exercises, I have pushed her up to speed in our driveway and let her stop herself in the soft grass of the back yard. Then I have run down the block, awkwardly guiding her and the bike until I could let go and watch her wobble along, sometimes bringing herself to a successful stop, sometimes crashing and wailing. Then we let it rest a while.
This week, she had the urge again, and this time it was all easier. No long running, just a grip on the center of the handlebars for balance and a soft, firm push off, and she has headed off down the block, stopping three houses down and waiting for me to come give her the next push. At the end of the session, Sarah seemed to be able to start herself once in a while.
Friday was the night of the sleepover. Sarah invited five friends over, four of whom couldn't sleep over, but they had good, noisy fun until bedtime. They tried a sort of indoor baseball while I moved the Hummel music box out and tried to redistribute other breakables to better spots. They pummeled each other with floor pillows.
At one point, nobody knew where Cathy was. Sarah got increasingly freaked out, while Colin made helpful suggestions. "We know she wasn't murdered, because we would have heard the gun, or the sound of stabbing," he said. "We can call the police." Cathy turned up shortly, after we'd searched the house and sheds. She had thought nobody would notice if she took a walk, but had reckoned without the needy daughter.
Then it was over. In a pig's eye.
Colin and Sarah kept each other up and making noise until 1:30, and then Colin got everybody up at 6:30.
After a while, Colin and Sarah wanted to go to Mittineague park, so I accompanied them. As usual, whoever was in front wanted to keep going, and whoever wasn't wanted everybody else to wait. Colin justified being blocks ahead of everybody else, as he does everything, with a barrage of words. "I was going a hundred miles an hour and I couldn't stop." That was my favorite one.
We got to the park, and Sarah wanted to play on the swings, and Colin wanted to race ahead to Block Brook, so we ended up at the brook, where Colin encouraged whichever behavior was the least safe at the time. He egged Sarah into crossing some water on a log while I was locking her bike and mine to a post (leaving his as an offering to potential thieves). I got there and told them to come back, because it was about time for me to get Colin home to go to his swimming lesson. Sarah, predictably, was less eager to return on the log than to go over, and froze up partway. Colin offered encouragement. "Just don't think about the current," he said. "It could pull you away and you would drown." Taking his dad's advice, I told him to shut up about it.
At any rate, the stimulus of going to the park got Sarah starting herself on the bike quite well, and she was getting good at it. I told her that next time she wanted to go to the park, I would remember that she was making me bring her bike back, and not go. She eventually got the message and rode the rest of the way home, though by that time, of course, I was the mean daddy who never ever did anything for her. Ever.
Around 11, per previous arrangement, the electrician came to replace the breaker boxes in the basement with one that was up to code and had all the same kind of breakers in it, and to restaple most of the wires. We left him working -- he said it would be about four hours -- and headed off to Southwick's Zoo (which is in Mendon, down near Rhode Island, and nowhere near Southwick). We drove and drove, trying to follow the directions I got from the recording on the zoo's 800 number. ("Step one: take 90 to 146S to 16. Step two: ??? Step three: Profit!") We saw some interesting parts of Massachusetts and Woonsocket, Rhode Island. We looked at animals, ate some food, watched Sarah ride a pony.
We drove home, pausing for dinner at a 99 Steak House, and got in about 7:15. The electrician was still at it, the job having turned into a nightmare from hell. Part of the meter housing fell off and had to be rebuilt. He got shocked three times (which, he says, never happens). He finally got out after 8, leaving us with power, and came back this morning to finish the cosmetic parts of the job.
Sarah has been enjoying her new-found freedom, which (for now) extends to the other side of the street at the end of the block away from the highway. With good behavior and observation of safety rules, she'll extend her territory. I've been enjoying it too, sitting at the computer catching up on LJ and not having to listen to Nickelodeon.
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kip_w) wrote,
