Wednesday, September 21st 2016
So bummed my last post about this got vaporized. I must tread delicately here to avoid betraying my Dear Boy Child.
Here is the time last week when I misgauged the time of his class (it was belt testing for a different class), and he took advantage of the opportunity to earn participation credibility from the sidelines.
And here he is presently, in the back of the class practicing some blocks next to Mr. Bart.
Note the absence of uniform (ahem). Let’s just say it became… unavailable at a certain point in the recent past. He is now in the process of earning another one (and replacement belt) with his attendance, focus and attitude in class.
The incomparable Mr. Bart also requested a written letter from Gavin about this undertaking.
Having been given choice about when to write it, he naturally chose the last possible time. Imagine his dismay this afternoon when I held him to it.
Questionably, I even offered him a bunch of prompts for starts of sentences. Dedicated work space, clear expectations, strategy for success, positive feedback and encouragement, snack, Taekwondo character values on the wall; he had it all.
In he dove. Into the valley of darkness and despair, revulsion and dismay, anger and avoidance, tantrums and theatrics, chafing and complaints; the works. After about an hour of this, and about one sentence down, I brought in this peace offering:
Me: “Gavin I want to share something with you. But don’t tell anyone because it has a bad word.”
(That got his attention.)
Me: “I’m going to share the secret of the Creative Process with you. But it’s gotta be a secret because it contains a bad word.”
Him: M’kay.
Me: Do you think your mom might know something about the Creative Process?
Him: I dunno (feigning his best “I don’t care” slump).
Me: Well here it is (and I show him this):
What a beautiful moment it was. Ah the humor, the taboo, the comic relief. Being that sense of humor may very well be the Boy’s finest quality, he laughed heartily, and long, bent over in that silent kind of laugh, eyes watering. Mine were watering too at the beauty of it all.
He agreed this rang true. I asked him if he weren’t currently somewhere between 3 and 4, and more laughter of recognition.
He also modified it by crossing out #1 altogether, and then (with permission) replaced “is tricky” with “SUKCS.” [sic]
Ultimately we taped it above his desk and he asked me -as my kids do sometimes- to “post it on Facebook.”
“Like write a blog post about it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, and got back to work.
Pretty much.
circuskitchen 