Cold Day

Cold Day
Originally uploaded by sravacitta

It's cold again today. This is a photo from earlier when it got cold. William has always wanted to be cool, he takes off clothes, he used to put his cheek inside the fridge. His teacher self described as "old fashioned". She wants me to dress him with more clothes for the 3 block walk to school. He has had a cought. Andres has it more now, though. William was very upset there was no school yesterday but he was happy to go to school today. Today he pushed me out, "go away." Yikes. What's that about? I heard he went out of the classroom without permission when Paquita came, and he looked at me ashamed. I don't want to shame him, but I also want him doing the right thing, be pliable enough to cleave to authority's desire. I myself have some anger--he's not been given the reasons to be angry the way I have, to my knowledge. I sort of like the wild William though, and Magaly visiting from Ecuador noticed, people noticed in the photo at work that he has a little mischeviousness in him. That's great. He likes the walk, he likes to show me the fish, but when we get into the classroom, he wants me to go. I want to linger. I was a little more centered this morning, so I could be sweet to the boys and they were sweet in return. I really think parenting is a matter of self control, which is not very easy. I think controlling ourselves is one of the hardest things in the world. Being natural doesn't take care of it. Being sensitive to others isn't always easy, I'm easily distracted by my own needs, wants and pain. At least I'm trying to transform myself. At least I'm trying to be sensitive. I was talking to them about being "tender" and they think a tender is the train car behind the engine that holds the coal, a word I learned through William's interest in trains.