day 11:

m woke again to the sweet sounds of her nephew and ventured forth to partake. upon entering the kitchen, m was immediately commanded to sit where she had sat to kick balls her first morning in the house. clearly a binding precedent had been set the day before, and now it was her duty to provide. we kicked the balls back and forth (football, hockey puck, plush soccer ball, batman bouncy ball…a different one every few seconds). when melis left to take eric to school, m stayed behind with the babies. the kids had already eaten and m was hungry. she poured herself some frosted flakes and sat on the kitchen floor to supervise the tots. addie mae climbed all over her aunt, using m’s limbs as leverage to pull herself up to a standing position where she wobbled constantly, constantly correcting her balance, seemingly aware of it as a possibility but unable to connect with it. porter paul sat down next to m curiously, and m realized that it may not be the best of things to eat on the kitchen floor: there are rules to consider, behavioral norms to be concerned with. nevertheless, m handed porter paul the rather large ceramic bowl, and he held it in his lap and shoveled spoon after spoon into his mouth, dribbling milk down his chin on account of the overlarge, for him, utensil. he only spilled a few drops on the floor, and when he did, he immediately stood up, took the towel from the oven door and wiped away the mess. he sat back down with the bowl and promptly finished m’s breakfast for her.


while melis made sandwiches and packed a lunch for a picnic at the park. m instructed porter paul on the use of a digital camera. with intent eyes he toddled about the premises, snapping photos.
a gallery of porter paul’s oeuvre can be seen here. his preferred subject, clearly, is his little sister, and we would like to point out that some of the photos, when viewed in quick succession, show a stop-animation representation of addie mae crawling across the floor. we are duly impressed.

when we arrived at the park, porter paul, a self-avowed free-thinker, was quite put out by having to eat lunch before hitting the swings and jungle gym. once he realized that he was hungry and that his sandwich was quite good, he ate the entire thing, well beyond the mandated two bites. ‘it has to be his idea,’ said melis. after lunch had been consumed r took porter paul out for some soccer. our nephew is very tall for his age (he’s often mistaken for a six or seven year old) and surprisingly coordinated. r admired his skills and the fact that he did not use his hands to place the ball prior to kicking it, as most kids do.

buffalo is a town, like so many others in america, where de facto segregation is in evidence. as r and i watched our nephew play with anyone who came along, we thought about the subtle and overt mechanics of fear and its quiet and terrible fracturing of our landscapes.

after the park, melis was kind enough to grant r's request for a haircut. like a professional, she set up shop in the middle of her kitchen, even providing r with a protective smock. the last time m gave r a haircut, she sliced a bald spot over his right ear about three inches long; needless to say, that unfortunate experience will not be repeated. melis, however, proved herself adept with the shears and trimmer, and r came out looking polished and pleased.

for dinner, eric and melis ground some chicken and rolled many, many egg rolls, which eric fried in batches. they prepared pad thai for the main dish and mangos over sweet jasmine rice for desert. everything was so delicious that m begged for the recipes (tho mistakenly deleted them as soon as she received them in her inbox—oops).