From there to here, from here to there, Funny things are everywhere
My crazy, busy life has been even crazier and busier than normal. I have so many blog ideas that I’m dying to get out, but they dissipate like morning dew in the hot sun every time I have more than a couple of minutes in front of the keyboard.
Lucky for me, I’m still finding moments for things like this:
Because really, is there anything more lovely than the joy of brothers at play? Don’t forget to find moments of joy in your life — they make everything else worth while!
Although it had been raining all morning, when we loaded ourselves into the car for the new commute to the boys’ new school in Manotick the sun was thinking of peeking through the clouds. The boys were boisterous — even more so than usual — and their excitement about the new school swelled up and carried us all down the road on a sea of enthusiasm.
We parked near the school and chose a spot to meet up after school. We walked the long way around the building, pointing out climbers and hopscotches and picnic benches along the way. The boys chose a spot to meet during morning recess as well.
We moved from one taped-up sheet to another, searching for the Grades 1 and 3 class lists. We found Tristan’s class and a cluster of eight year old boys standing nearby. “Are you in Mrs Lee’s class?” I asked them. They regarded me with a universal indifference but indicated a vague affirmative. “This is Tristan, it’s his first day!” I said with bright and perhaps over-the-top enthusiasm. They took a quick look at Tristan and returned to their conversation. I forced a bright smile at Tristan, who looked very much like a turtle trying to pull back into his shell. “Do you want to wait here, or come with us to find Simon’s class?” I asked, and felt heartened when he chose to stay near his class list.
Simon bounced along beside me as until we found his name on a similar list. I approached a teacherly-looking woman with a clipboard in her hand. “Are you Ms Edwards?” I asked tentatively, and breathed deeply at her welcoming smile. I introduced Simon and she swept him up in a sea of happy chatter, welcoming him to the school and exclaiming that he was the very first check mark on her very first attendance sheet of the year. Simon ate it up with a spoon and I knew he would have no trouble with the many transitions he was facing, both into a new school and into a new full day of classes. Simon, my gregarious little flirt, would be fine.
I walked back over to where I’d left Tristan, and watched relief wash over his face when he craned his neck over the heads of the kids around him (not much of a stretch, since he stands about a head taller than most of them) and met my eyes. I moved to stand beside him, and ended up in a convoluted conversation with a rubber-boot wearing, curly-haired boy who regaled us with tales of his summer vacation while Tristan looked at his own shoes. Eventually I found Tristan’s teacher and introduced him to her. She tried to engage Tristan in conversation about his first day, but Tristan’s shyness made him nearly mute. Instead, she and I chatted companionably about the school (she’s been teaching there for more than a decade) and the neighbourhood while Tristan listened without seeming like he was listening.
I wanted to tell her that he’s just shy, not rude, and that he’s such a fantastic kid. I wanted to tell her that he’s an artist, and smart, and loves school, but that he needs praise and positive feedback to warm up. I wanted to tell her that he’s bursting with affection, and has loved each of his teachers to the point of tears at the end of the school year, but that he’s overwhelmed and tongue-tied and she’ll have to work to draw him out but that she will reap huge rewards when she does.
But I don’t say any of that. I just stand with my heart in my throat and one hand on Tristan’s shoulder, feeling like I did on his first day of junior kindergarten, wishing I could infuse him with just a touch of the easy gregariousness that smooths his brother’s social interactions.
I remember all to well facing the first day in a new school, the seemingly impenetrable barrier of previously forged social bonds. It was tough, but I never imagined I’d be feeling it so sharply all these years later, by proxy.
Eventually, the teachers led straggling queues of backpack-laden kids into the school. Tristan tried to step near the front where he’d been standing, found his way blocked by chattering kids, and instead worked his way to the back of the line. He shot me a grateful and painfully grown-up smile as I beamed 10,000 volts of my very best “I’m so proud of you” grin at him, and turned to follow his new classmates. I turned in time to see Simon leading his class behind his teacher, already so engaged in conversation with the mother of the brown-eyed girl behind him that he almost missed my vigourous kiss-blowing as he walked past.
This mothering thing will either break my heart or cause it to burst from pride one of these days. Or maybe, both.
Today, Tristan will be starting Grade 3 and Simon will be starting Grade 1. It’s taken me about this long to stop fretting on the boys’ behalf about the first day of school. After a few years, I’ve finally realized that they have suffered none of the grade school trauma I endured as a child; they are not marginalized, not outcasts, not teased, mercilessly or otherwise. In fact, they have lots of friends, are secure and well-adjusted and to all outward appearances, perfectly happy at school.
At least they were, until I uprooted them and sent them to a new school.
Of all the factors involved in moving, changing the boys’ school has caused me the most regret. We all loved the school the boys were at, and they had strong ties to the students and teachers. While the new school has an amazing reputation — even better than the old school — I’ve still got a big lump of regret in my stomach every time I think about the school we’re leaving behind.
I’m sure this has everything to do with the fact that I moved several times in grade school and blame being the new kid on at least part of my social awkwardness. We moved when I was in Grade 1 and in Grade 4 and one more time just before I started Grade 7, and what I remember about elementary school, at least from a social perspective, is somewhere between unremarkable and unpleasant.
I’m glad we were able to firm up the deal on the new house soon enough that I could register the boys with the new school for the first day of classes. Changing schools in between years is tough; doing it five or six weeks into the school year would have been horrible. It means driving back and forth and changing my work hours for a couple of months, until we can move, but that’s a small price to pay to get them oriented right from the beginning of the school year.
The boys have impressed me with their positive attitude toward change — they must get it from their father. They’re excited about the new school, and looking forward to meeting new friends. Any lingering regret over leaving the old school behind seem to be mollified by the idea of each having their own room soon, and of the play structure and tree house in the new house’s backyard. If only I’d known years ago what an effective incentive a tree house could be!
And so, I will swallow the lump of regret I feel each time I look across the field to the boys’ former school and remind myself a few more times that they are not me, and their mileage may vary from mine. They are smart and sweet and wonderful, my boys, and they will be fine. More than fine, they will be awesome, just like they always are. And as long as they’re fine, I will be too.
We seem to have a lot of nicknames going on in our family. I suppose I started the whole trend of renaming things which already had perfectly good names with the whole “Beloved” thing, way back when I started the blog in early 2005. Then sometime last year, for reasons that were never clear,Tristan started calling his father Hacko-tato, and Simon picked right up on it. Now, likely as not, when they’re trying to get his attention, they don’t say “Daddy” or even “Dad” but Hacko. I think Beloved has even grown to like it.
Tristan seems to have the most nicknames. Tristy, T-bird, Tee-Tee — he answers to all of them. Simon, I think, is the most dissatisfied with his own name. Tristan calls him Simo, which seems to irritate Simon just enough to guarantee that Tristan will take every opportunity to call him that for the rest of their lives.
It’s Lucas who got the short end of the stick in the nickname game. I swear, I did not see this one coming. It started with the innocuous derivative Lukey, which I figured would mature into Luke for our English friends and Luc for our French friends. However, Lukey was just a consonant’s jump from Pookey, which is kind of cute for a baby, but really unfortunate for a baby with reflux issues. For most of his first year, I fought hard against the tide to make sure Pookey was not called Pukey.
Once the battle with reflux was won, I figured he was safe from the stigma of a nickname inspired by a biological process. I was wrong.
You know what Tristan, Simon and Beloved call my darling third son, likely as not? Drop the last syllable from Pookey. Yes, it is sad but true. They call him Poo.
Beloved insists it’s not “Poo” but “Pooh” as in Pooh Bear. I’m not sure the “h” is going to matter when he hits school-age with a moniker like that. I tell ya, it’s a good thing that boy is going to be 6’6″ and 200 lbs by the time he hits high school. He’s going to need it.
Does this look like Poo to you?
My boys are getting to an age now where despite their inherent adorableness, maybe I shouldn’t exploit them and their personal stories for the blog in the same way I once did. Of course, the toddling menace is still fair game, but at six and eight, the big boys are starting to deserve a little extra privacy and respect, I think.
Giving up such a rich source of blog fodder has made me sad — I feel I’ve lost easy intimacy with which I once blogged. Recently, though, I realized that in my trio of boys not only am I my own perpetual hand-me-down machine, but I can blog generically with a single pronoun. I can blog about a boy, not that boy. So this is a story not about a specific boy, but about any generic boy who might be a son of mine.
Let me amble down one more tangential preface by saying this: those of you who have been around for a while might remember that I have, um, some social issues left over from my grade school years. I was, for reasons that mystify me to this day, the runt of the litter among my peers. Often singled out for teasing and never part of the in-crowd, my grade school years were something to be endured rather than enjoyed. So when the boys turned from toddlers to preschoolers to kindergarteners, my own anxiety levels crept steadily upward. I really wasn’t sure I could face the inherent cruelty of school-agers again, even if by proxy.
I needn’t have worried.
This boy we’re not specifying is Mr Popularity. Remember Norm from Cheers? It’s like that every single day when we bring this boy to school — his classmates call out enthusiastic greetings to him as if he’s been gone for weeks instead of hours. He gets invited to all the birthday parties. He gets chosen at least once a week to be the “special helper” of the person of the day, from a rotating roster of admirers.
I’m proud, if not perplexed. I mean, no doubt he’s a delightful boy, and I love him dearly. But he’s prone to snarkiness at home, and a whinyness that grates like fingers on a chalkboard. He’s my son and so of course I think he’s the smartest, sweetest thing to ever walk on two legs — it’s just sweetly perplexing that his entire class seems to think so as well.
All of this is charming, to say the least. But it’s somewhat problematic as well. In addition to the unexpected chat about how it is not appropriate to kiss your girlfriend in the cloak room (at five years old, no less! Five!!) there has been an unanticipated burden in all this affection.
I don’t know what to do with the love notes.
Every single day, his backpack overflows (I kid you not) with paper hearts and cards. Books constructed of coloured paper stapled crookedly down one side depict rainbows, flowers and butterflies. This week, we’ve received printed declarations of love, etched in a beginning-writer’s careful print from two different girls. It would be adorable if I weren’t trying to figure out what to do with it all every. single. day. This is today’s cull:
My boys are creative souls, and not a day goes by without drawings and crafts being made. Clutter is already a huge issue in my house, and even a nostalgic soul like me has to toughen up and throw most of it out. So call me cruel, but I just can’t preserve this growing stack of everlasting love declared on bristol board and glitter. But I am conflicted. I have been that girl, pouring out that unrequited love, deep in my conviction that the six-year-old cutie sitting at the next desk would be my soul mate for life.
The boy is stoic about all this female attention. He calls each of them his girlfriend, but says he loves each of them in a different way. I suppose I needn’t have worried about them being excluded. Just the opposite, in fact. My boy is a playa.
Who knew it was possible to be proud and mortified at the same time?
Lucas has been sick for a couple of days now — fever, snot, cough, and holding his ears on and off. He’s been getting worse instead of better, and fearing ear infections or other bacterial infections, I made an appointment with the on-call ped today.
Even though he has not previously had any problems with going to the doctor, as soon as we told him that’s where we were going, he started to fuss. “No doctor, no doctor!” he cried as we tried to put on his coat and shoes.
“Okay,” I told him to settle him, cringing at the idea of a 30-minute drive downtown with a howling toddler, “we’ll just go look at some flowers. Would you like to go look at the flowers?” Thankfully, this appeared to be a much better idea than going to the doctor. And, knowing we would be swinging down Queen Elizabeth past Dows Lake just as the tulip beds were reaching full bloom, there would in fact be lots of flowers to admire on the way. To the doctor.
I should have known that on a perfectly sunny April morning, odds were better than good that Queen Elizabeth would be closed, and it was. I thought maybe the cows and the other bits of minutaie we’d admired on the way into town would have sufficed, but Lucas has a longer memory that I would have given him credit for. We were in and out of the ped’s office in about six minutes — no ear infection, clear lungs, just a wickedly bad cold — and on our way out Lucas looked at me and said, “Where are the flowers?”
I looked around and considered for a minute. I had a long to-do list in my head that did not include walking around the Glebe looking at the flowers. I didn’t even have my camera with me — for shame! But, it was a gorgeous morning. And the flowers were pretty. And, most importantly, a little walk around the block would both allow me to keep my word and make Lucas happy. The to-do list could wait.
As we set off around the block, I was still a little preoccupied. Ugh, I thought, did I choose the longest block in the Glebe? Could I get away with just walking a couple dozen meters and then turning around? But the sun was warm and the air was fresh, and as we stopped to admire magnolia petals and fading daffodils and interesting-looking stones, I found myself relaxing and enjoying the walk.
Lucas is normally a “me do it” kind of toddler, quite impatient with the idea of being held back by anything, so it might have been the fact that he was feeling unwell or just the moment that made him hold so tightly to my hand as we walked. I realized, as we inspected some particularly fascinating berries growing on a shrub, that in that moment I was perfectly content. Yes, I still had an otherwise miserably sick toddler on my hands, and I still had a lot of other crap to take care of during the rest of the day, and now it would take me just a little bit longer to get it all done.
But, in that sunny amble that took the best part of half an hour, my two-year-old son reminded me of the kernel of truth in the hoariest of clichés — you really do have to remember to stop and smell look at the flowers sometimes.
Thanks, Lucas.
I‘m standing in the kitchen, unloading freshly bought groceries into the cupboards. The boys are drawing at the kitchen table, and Simon asks me what’s for dinner.
“Well,” I begin, “funny you should ask. I was going to make shrimp and naan and tiki masala, but while I was doing the groceries I realized we hadn’t had chicken fingers in a while, and so I thought maybe we’d have that instead. But the shrimp sounds good to me, too. I dunno, which one would you choose?”
Before he can answer, though, I realize that I really *do* want the chicken fingers, so I barely pause for breath before continuing. “But, I really want the chicken fingers, so choose that one, okay?”
Simon is nonplussed, but Beloved jumps right in. “And that boys, is the essence of your mother. No wait, it’s the essence of all women. They pretend to give you a choice, but really, there is no choice at all. Sometimes they tell you the right choice and sometimes they don’t — but really? You’d better choose the right one.”
The boys are silent throughout this exchange, but by the time Beloved finishes his speech I’m laughing so hard tears are in my eyes. “It’s funny cuz it’s true!” I manage to sputter out while cramming the celery into the vegetable crisper.
Some day, their wives are going to thank me. Or hate me. I’m not quite sure which.
From upstairs, sounds of merriment. A little too much merriment. Beloved goes up to investigate.
*laughter*
*indignant sounds from Beloved*
*silence*
I look up as Beloved comes back down the stairs, his eyeballs visibly rolling. I’m almost afraid to ask.
“Remember those new electric toothbrushes I bought last week?” he asks.
I nod.
“They were racing them across the bathroom floor.”
I pause, considering. “Um, they had wheels?”
“No!”
Ick.
My sweet baby Tristan,
You are eight years old! No longer a “little” boy, but a boy to your core. How could I call you “little” when I can rest my chin on the top of your head? Not so long now, my son, and we’ll be seeing eye-to-eye literally as well as philosophically — for a week or two, anyway, until you shoot right up past my height!
You are my adventurous spirit, my companion in neighbourhood walks, my artistic soul, my daydreamer. Your imagination is limitless, even if your attention-span is occasionally limited. You love to draw, especially characters from the books and cartoons and video games you love. Your walls are currently full of pictures you’ve drawn of Super Mario and characters from the Bone books.
To say you love Lego is an understatement. You can follow even the most complex instructions, and it won’t be long before you’ve moved beyond Lego and are building our Ikea furniture for us. You love to show off your various Lego creations, mostly exotic ships with secret trap doors and hidden missiles. There is not a room in the house that doesn’t have some bit of Lego that has drifted off of one of your creations.
You, my boy, are an extremely patient older brother to Lucas. You tolerate him colouring on your homework, yanking apart your Lego creations, and otherwise torturing you, with an impressive amount of tolerance. Usually. You don’t mind fetching a snack for him, or reading books to him, or otherwise finding ways of diverting him from mischief while I’m trying to make dinner. Your other brother Simon is your best friend and mortal enemy, and the two of you are locked in a power struggle that sees you bickering for solid hours at a time, only to be followed by cuddling under the same blanket to watch TV together.
In the last year, you have continued to impress us with your scholastic achievements. You read with an easy fluency that still makes my heart swell when I listen to you read out loud, and you speak French with a perfect accent that I could never hope to replicate. At school, you are exceeding expectations in both math and reading, and the only complaints we ever receive from your teacher are when you dig in your heels and decide to show your bullishly stubborn side. Lucky for us, this doesn’t happen too often.
Your best friends are Will and Colin, and you recount tales of recess adventures filled with opposing tribes and ne’er-do-well girls. Girls! You still have no use for them. You love physical play — running, tumbling, climbing, leaping. You come home from school soaking wet and dirty more days than not, but happy in your mess. You recently finished a second year of skating lessons, and you love nothing more than to zoom around the rink as fast as your legs will carry you. When I asked if you wanted to play hockey next year, you considered for a while but thought you might prefer something new instead, like guitar lessons. Be still my heart.
You seem almost incapable of remaining in your chair through an entire meal, so I’m not sure how your teacher manages to keep you in your desk all day. Just when I think that maybe I should be concerned about your absolute inability to restrain yourself, I catch you engaged in reading or drawing or some other creative act and realize that you’ve been absorbed and motionless for impressive stretches. Apparently colouring engages a calming centre in your brain that conversation with your family does not!
Right now you love Super Mario Brothers, Spore, Lego, Star Wars, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Bone books, Calvin and Hobbes, Pokemon, Garfield and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic mascots. Your favourite foods are McDonalds hamburgers, chicken fingers, pogos, pizza with just cheese, cheddar Sunchips, and sweet red peppers.
You, who were my most finicky eater, have miraculously become my most flexible eater. In the last year, you’ve come to love meatloaf, chili and salad. In fact, there’s very little that I serve that you won’t eat, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that! Even vegetables are no longer your enemy.
My sweet baby Tristan, you are eight years old, and I love you with all my heart. Happy birthday, my son. You make me proud to be your mom.
So I have to admit, I’ve been looking forward to today’s Lego birthday party with equal parts excitement and dread. Custom Lego birthday party for eight boys? Wicked awesome! Eight boys in my house? Questionable. Four of five family members felled by stomach flu in the five days leading up to the party, leaving the birthday boy vulnerable? Nerve-wracking. Three of said party guests, including the birthday boy, spontaneously and independently naming the party-in-progress “Best birthday party EVER!”? Priceless.
This is what an eight-year-old’s perfect birthday looks like:
The boys were astonishingly well-behaved, and utterly engaged with the Lego Guy’s instruction at every step of the way. Things only got a little crazy when they took their newly assembled Lego Mindstorm Robots into the wresting ring for a final challenge. Take a quick peek, it’s only 30 seconds but I bet if you’re even a little bit in touch with your inner eight-year-old boy (what, you don’t have one?) it makes you smile!
Did I mention? Best! Birthday! Party! EVER!