postscript: tie chandelier
Fast forward nine months and our older son, Dane, tells me he wants to dress up for a two-week “Sparta” activity in Social Studies. From my understanding, the 8th grade students in Mr. Vedar’s class get together at the end of the year to construct a mini society. As a group, they define its structure, laws and social conventions. They present formal arguments in front of the class and dress nicely to reflect the importance of persuasive public speaking.
As a parent, the “dressing nicely” part was a bit of a challenge. You may laugh at this but our children do not own what would be described as formal clothing: no dress pants, nice shoes, belts or ties. They each have ONE dressy shirt (black, long-sleeve) courtesy of my mom, but only because she bought them last month. So I had to run out and get a pair of khaki pants and black belt for Dane (he tried on all of Paul’s belts but they were too big). I also got him a blue, short-sleeve shirt.
We started talking Tuesday afternoon about how he could further spiff up his attire. We looked over Paul’s ties but I expressed concern they might get damaged riding to and from school in Dane’s backpack. Then my son remembered the Goodwill ties from the chandelier I made. We cut the fishing line holding it together and the boys literally dove into the pile of ties. Dane selected four and Tate, humorously, selected three. While carefully putting them away, he told me he’ll wear them when he’s older. As you can imagine, I struggled to maintain a straight face.
The next hurdle was actually tieing the ties. This, clearly, was not my forte. Paul wasn’t home and, suffice to say, Dane was anxious to pull his entire look together. So we consulted one of the boys’ books on the shelf (Big Book of Boy Stuff, Dangerous Book for Boys, etc.). I held the book open so he could read the directions. After a few tries, he managed to achieve a decent-looking knot with both ends the correct length.
And, just like that, my little boy took another step closer to being a man.