Today Dilan got his first haircut, with parents, grandparents, aunties and family in tow. I wasn't there; I was working. But I can only imagine what it must have looked like, 15 or so Indians in a Beverly Hills salon with a 1-year-old little brown kid, all misty-eyed and cooing over the little prince as he gets his head shaved and joins the world officially.

The party is tomorrow. I'm going to that part. Today I'm writing letters to the kid as a sort of first birthday present.

I've been thinking about this diary a lot. So much has changed since I was a regular writer in here, and I thought I might start trying to use it to save memories of the kids and the funny or not-so-funny things they and their families do.

Yesterday a few of the boys had a huge rock they were playing with when I got to the pool. EK hugged the rock to his chest and called it his new friend. I asked him to use his new friend as a door stop and he looked honestly hurt. Then he put the rock down in front of the open door. It works great.

Later, after practice, one of the moms approached and tattled on the boys. Turns out they were using the rock before I arrived on the scene to make large dents in the blacktop. She grabbed my by the wrist and dragged me around the entire blacktop, giving me a hole-by-hole tour and recounting the story of how she asked the kids to stop and how they ignored her. And, of course, how KA and AA, her kids, had steered clear of the whole mess.

I made the mistake of addressing the issue with EK in front of his father, WK. I had no choice. The dad was there, there was nowhere else to talk, and I had to address the issue then or not at all. So, I talked to EK about it, not yelling or anything, but trying to get him to understand that we are guests there, and that if they see his new friend stopping our door, and see that his new friend has big black marks on all its corners and then see all the dents in their new blacktop, the school might not be so keen on letting us stick around, and then we'd be out a facility.

His dad got ALL pissed off and, because he's evidently not getting any at home, or because he's feeling inadequate at work, or because he just felt otherwise powerless and needed a boost, told EK that he would need to spend his own money on some new putty and tools and that they'd be back up tomorrow to fix every last hole. I said I thought that was a bit of an overkill...after all, EK had only been one of a bunch of kids participating, and the holes weren't that big a deal. Neverheless, Dad insisted and the proceeded to tear into EK about how schools are public property and what was EK thinking and they'd damn sure be back there to fix it all up in the morning.

Kill me. I don't have enough trouble getting through to this kid, and now I have to go apologize to him for addressing him in front of his father? The kid shuts down the minute you look at him funny, and is it any wonder why?

I guess they went home and the Dad told the Mom that they'd be going back up to the school with tools and putty. There she was this morning, after practice, rolling her eyes and saying, "Well, you know, his dad will never budge, so we might as well just let him come up here and fix it."

So sad how people fight their spouses through their children, and frustrating to not be able to say anything about it directly. I apologized to EK for getting on him in front of his dad, and he just smiled his little smile and said it was okay. He doesn't mind. I know he does, but he won't let me know it. He'd rather die.

God, I love that kid.

I have to go write some letters to a 1-year-old now. More later.

Posted by twids at 2:45 pm