Felix has a superpower. He can make himself invisible.
It is 5:30 on a Friday, and he's finally just finished his school for the week. (Both of his brothers were done by yesterday.) It's because he went invisible for the last few mornings of school.
I should start by saying that Felix's first grade workload is still pretty light. He can be done with all of his school for the day in thirty or forty minutes if he applies himself. But he is not the sort of child to get the unpleasant part of the day over with.
He is a child who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
And most mornings he does not want to do school.
Owen is always our first child to appear. I think he needs someone to talk to, so he makes an appearance as soon as he hears noise downstairs. James, who prefers to do everything with precise regularity, sets an alarm on his watch to wake up at 7:30. It bothers him when he misses the alarm. (This is happening more frequently as he transitions into a teenager.) He then wants to come downstairs and eat exactly what he is expecting to eat for breakfast. (Pancakes and waffles on every other Friday, a bowl of granola on other days.)
Felix may or may not ever appear. It's perfectly normal for him to wait until noon to make an appearance at all. I know that he's hungry up there, but by the time anyone has noticed that he isn't around we are already deep into Logic or Science experiments or correcting math homework, and everyone has a question all the time. Working with even just the older two feels like teaching twenty different kids. I don't know how real teachers do it.
Sometimes, though, Felix IS hungry. He'll come down the stairs slowly and assess the situation by peeking into the living room before making his move. If someone openly acknowledges his presence I think he just sits down on the staircase where no one can see him and waits until we forget that he's there, then slinks back up to his room.
But other mornings he'll come down and ask for some breakfast. I'll make him something while trying to simultaneously give a spelling test or a dictation exercise and then tell him sternly that, "As soon as you finish that granola we're going to get going on your school for the day!"
He'll nod resignedly as if the game is up and he knows he won't be getting away this morning. I'll look over and he'll have a few bites left. Then I'll try to explain that "erat" isn't a form of "erro," and when I look back his place at the table is empty.
It's as if he never even existed.
"Felix? Felix? Where are you?"
No answer.
I'll go upstairs and poke my head in his room.
"I'll be down in just a minute."
"I need you to come down now."
"Okay."
I shouldn't have walked back downstairs without him. It's been another hour already.
"FELIX! COME DOWN AND DO SOME SCHOOL!"
No answer.
Sometimes he's under his bed. (Going up the stairs is a noisy signal for him to hide.) I've found him hiding in James' room or mine as well. He's having a blast, doing whatever it is that he's doing. Playing a football game, drawing, reorganizing stuffed animals, listening to a podcast on his google. Playing foosball against himself, looking through comic books, organizing football cards.
Anything except school.
He's a master at fading away at the very moment that you turn away your attention. And, as neglectful as this all sounds, I remind you that the entire time this has been going on both of the older two have been yelling out questions and asking for help on their school.
Finally, when we start to approach screen time, or when he gets so hungry that he has to come down and eat something, he'll appear. And then he'll do his school. It takes him about a half an hour.
But he really does make you work for it.
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