from Jan 17, 2007
...but two nine-year-olds for whom I have a soft spot sure did try to convince me otherwise.
I made my regular visit to them today. Like most every other public school kid in the [Oklahoma City] metro area, they got to stay home for the third day in a row and, consequently, were climbing the walls. Their dutiful foster parent, herself recovering from the crud, only allowed them to play out in the backyard for less than half an hour at a time throughout the day due to the extensive supervisory requirements for kids in their level of care (admittedly at times it can seem oppressive, but the reader will have to trust me that it is necessary more often times than not). Not knowing I was in only slightly better condition than their foster mother, they were just waiting...hoping...scheming that maybe they could persuade me to forego our normal therapeutic activities and instead accompany them to the backyard for all manner of unlimited ice-hovering mayhem.
They were crafty. They'd gotten wind from their FP that my executive director would be accompanying me today--this being a newer foster home with which my superior was heretofore unfamiliar and just wanted to tag along to become better acquainted. They waited with surprising and uncharacteristic patience, turning on the full kid charm for my director--taking her on the tour of their bedroom, introducing her to the goldfish and the gecko, tutoring her on the finer points of Tony Hawk Skate Pro and Smackdown! Pro Wrestling on Play Station 2.
At the first sign of my director's impending departure, which they intuited by the unmistakable sign of grown-up banter at the front door, they slipped out the backdoor with the stealth of wolves after a rabbit. Before the door slammed shut, there was only a faint announcement of their intentions audible enough that I could hear it, but not audible to the authority figure over there by the front door. They knew that I was ethically bound to follow them.
"Little bastards--!" I muttered beneath my breath as my head swung around toward the back door. I found them outside in their full winter gear of coats, gloves, and caps, already preparing their make-shift ice sleds they'd made out of a de-wheeled skateboard and large tuppleware tub. The quicker and more spastic one, which my co-workers will recognize by the codename I've given him--"The Taz(!)"--was at the apex of a small slope starting at their fence and he was readying a running start onto his snowboard.
"Push me, John!" he called out to me. The other one--"Mac"--was just as ready. "John? Can you push me? John?" I can only liken Mac to that one pup on 101 Dalmatians ("I'm hungry, mother...but I am just the same...") in that he can often be a bit one-track minded. Emotionally, he is quite a bit younger than nine years old. With a small amused groan and a slight shake of my head, I surrendered to their skillful maneuvering, and to all 29 degrees of Farenheit. They had me. I was already out and the other grown-ups would likely be bantering a while longer.
"Now you!" said Taz, indicating to me to try the snowboard. So, I gave it a shot with a little guidance from my resident sensei. After half-supervising my two semi-successful attempts, he'd already moved onto the the tuppleware sled with his foster brother preparing to push him. I gave the board one more shot. I was a little more ambitious this time because the board slipped out from under me on impact. Up in the air my feet went and slam! went the rest of my body onto the surface of the frozen yard--a very hard surface (I only imagine the sight was not unlike the two burglars slipping on the hot wheels cars in Home Alone).
Mac and Taz had halted their own agenda momentarily to look over my way. I saw the two miscreants grinning and gazing at me, if anything somewhat bemused, once I lifted my head slowly to meet their eyes. Though I laid there completely vulnerable, they paid little to no mind to my circumstance and instead Taz only gave me a quick rejoinder: "Come on, John, help me push him!" Shaking off what might be a slight concussion and a sprained knee, I slipped and slid with them for another several minutes. They had no reservations about getting on the trampoline.
Taz, true to his codname-sake, has required at least two ER trips since being in our care. The most recent was because of an accident in which he bumped...well, rammed... his head against the coffee table. He was just playing with the family dog. The first was because he'd been bitten by a mouse which he'd caught with his bare hands. The mouse was not to our knowledge sick or dying. It was a perfectly healthy mouse as far as we know. "Look!" he'd shouted to the FP approximately two seconds before the rodent was in his grasp.
Nevertheless, of the two, it is Mac who requires more intense supervision and redirection (among other kinds of nurturance; his family of origin was not schooled in boundaries). This is why it's Mac who, despite my warnings, manages to get his sleeve caught on a tree branch as he descends haphazardly from the trampoline. Taz comes to stand by me when we notice him across the yard caught by the tree. "John? Can you help me off the tree? John...?"
Before I know it, they've begun picking up chunks of ice and are hurling them at one another. I immediately begin to point out to them the differences between snowballs and ice clods . No, they contend, there is no difference, they look just the same. Well don't I feel stupid? To defend their position, they gladly begin pelting the wooden storage shed with their baseball-sized hailstones. They are not persuaded by the dents left by their frozen projectiles, which by the way remain completely intact after falling back to the ground after bouncing off the shed. "Okay, let's go in," I say.
We make our way back in. The grown-ups are still chatting. Taz is breaking out the hot cocoa mix for everyone, asking me if I want one bag or two. "One's fine, bud," I tell him. But he cocks his head and smiles, trying to coax me. "Two'll taste better," he says slyly.
I drop my head and stifle a belly laugh. I smile wide at him, "Surprise me, little man."
He always does.
No comments:
Post a Comment