Category: Ah, me boys

A rare moment of parental validation (and, how the nanny almost had a heart attack)

Last night was “meet the teacher” night at Simon’s nursery school. They had an open house, and everyone was invited to drop in, play with the toys, and say hello to the teachers.

Simon was beside himself with delight. His very own big-boy school! The funny part was how excited Tristan was on Simon’s behalf. You can see he delights in his role as the older brother, advising his brother on classroom etiquette (“you have to be quiet during circle time”) and protocol (“this is your cubby, and you keep your coat in here”) … even though Tristan himself never went to preschool.

I had one of those rare and satisfying moments of parental validation as we were getting ready to leave. Simon said he wanted to say good-bye to each of his teachers. The first remembered that Simon had asked about playdough, and promised him it would be there the next day when he came back, leaving him beaming with anticipation. The second one dropped immediately to his eye level when she saw he wanted to speak to her, and took his hand as he said a rather affectionate good-bye. Despite the busyness around her, 100% of her attention seemed focused on Simon’s simple message, and I could see him radiating in the warmth of her attention. The cost, the logistical nightmare of having them both scheduled to start and end at the same time five kilometers apart, the arduous search to find a caregiver who was willing and able to deal with it — all of it was validated in that small but lovely-to-watch two-minute exchange. I made the right decision!! Yay me!

***

Speaking of the nanny, did I mention I love her? LOVE her. We’re so, so lucky, and she was so worth waiting for. I love her, Beloved loves her, but best of all, the boys love her. And how do we demonstrate that love? By giving her a heart attack the first day she has to pick up Tristan from school.

The vagaries of Beloved’s schedule have him picking up the boys after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so it wasn’t until last Thursday that the nanny had to meet Tristan after school for the first time. I’m not sure whether she went to the wrong door, or whether they just missed each other in the crowd, but for whatever reason, Tristan didn’t see her as soon as he came out the door. So he took a beat, probably not as many as two, and did what was to his mind the perfectly logical thing.

He walked home.

By himself.

Leaving the poor, sweet nanny to have several panic attacks, a couple of heart attacks, and a long conversation in her head about what exactly she would say to me when she called to explain that she had lost my son on his third day of school.

All’s well that ends well. You can actually see our house from the school yard, and after a few false starts, the nanny spied Tristan’s blond head bobbing happily along in the sea of escaping students making their way down the sidewalk. As she related the story to me less than an hour later, I could still see the residual panic in the whites of her eyes, and it was hard not to laugh.

For his part, Tristan was mildly perplexed by the whole incident. “I know the way, Mom,” he said with an exasperation that belied his years. “I’m a big boy now.” I couldn’t bring myself to scold him, but I did reinforce the nanny’s idea that the very next day they were going to go to the school and pick a meeting spot, and that Tristan was NEVER, EVER to leave without her again.

It’s a good thing there’s another baby on the way, because suddenly my babies are all grown up…

MotherTalk book review: Bob Books for Beginning Readers

I have a confession to make. I didn’t read a single book in the boxed set I’m supposed to be reviewing today for my stop on MotherTalk’s Bob Books blog tour. In fact, I had them read to me – by Tristan, my five year old son.

(pause for gasps of delight and surprise)

Yep, it’s true. Neither one of us imagined he could read a whole sentence, let alone an entire book, and yet by the end of the first day, HE had read to ME not one, not two, not even four, but FIVE books of the twelve book boxed set. And they say boys tend to have trouble with reading!

BOB booksThe Bob Books are designed for beginning readers. Each book in the set of 12 introduces a few new letters and increasingly complex sentence structures. The letters seem to roughly follow the same introduction schedule as the Jolly Phonics program they’ve been using at Tristan’s school – first M and S and A, then D and B, then G and H, etc. Book one starts with simple constructions like “Mat sat.” By the fifth book, he was sounding out full sentences like, “Dot and Mit sit on a mat.” A little thin on plot, maybe, and they lacked character development. But it was really something to watch Tristan sound out new words and assimilate familiar ones with only a little bit of coaching from me, and the look in his eyes as he realized he was actually reading was truly a great moment in my parenting career. His attention span is a little sketchy sometimes, so I was delighted when we finished one book and then another and he continued to ask me if we could keep reading. It was his idea to continue through the box, not mine, and he was eager to continue reading books to Beloved the next night at bedtime, too.

It was also a good way for me to see where we might have to do a little more work. He was having trouble distinguishing between a lower case “n” and “h” for a bit, and confusing his “b” and “d” (I’ll give it a bit before I start to panic about dyslexia, which does run rather rampant though my family.) Like his mother, he wants to be able to rush ahead without actually reading the letters themselves, and I had to keep reminding him to slow down and read the words and not just guess based on the picture. “Trust the letters,” I told him. “The pictures can be tricky, but the letters will always tell you the truth.” I was really astonished at how quickly he assimilated entire words. By the end of the fifth book, he didn’t have to stop to sound out “the” or “and” or “is”.

I was really impressed by the first set of Bob books, and was pleased to see that there are four additional sets we can work through. (You can read more about them on the official Bob Books website.) Might be a good way for me to invest the $20 Amazon.com gift certificate I’ll be getting for this MotherTalk sponsored review!

The other men in my life

So while we’ve been paying so much attention to the little man I’m busy gestating, the other men in my life have been busy with their own milestones.

Can I please have a round of applause for Simon, who has remained in DRY underwear all day long for the past two days? YAY Simon! It took him maybe two days to catch on, and yesterday was a completely accident-free day. The nanny said she had put him in a pull-up to go to the park (just in case) and he told her he had to go and then even held it for the 10-minute trip home.

What’s been really adorable, though, is listening to Tristan coach Simon. Now, Tristan has a personal investment in Simon’s toilet habits on two fronts. First, he was benefitting from our bribes to Simon. He too watched Queen Amidala on Sunday afternoon, and he too has received a steady stream of ju-ju-beans when Simon successfully voided his bladder. But more than that, Tristan seems to be extremely phobic about Simon’s bodily fluids and goes to great lengths to make sure Simon goes in the potty and nowhere else.

They’ll be playing, and Simon will pause and say, “I need to go to the potty.” Tristan will shepherd him into the bathroom, coaching him the whole way: “Okay, now pull down your underwear. Good! Be careful, back up, and point it down. Good. Now go. Yay! Great job, Simon, you did it!!” Imagine this scene repeated maybe every 20 minutes, all day long. Beloved turned to me at one point and said, “So, when did Tristan become Simon’s mother?”

So, how trustworthy do you think a six-day-old potty training habit is? This weekend is our Smuggler’s Notch getaway, and Simon can join an age-appropriate day camp if he is potty trained. If not, he goes to a daycare centre type of thing, with the 6 week to 3 year olds. I know which one he’d prefer, but am worried that he’ll be a little too distracted by the excitement of day camp to remember to listen to the call of nature. Thoughts?

More parental bragging: both boys passed their respective swimming lesson levels this week, too. I was hardly surprised to see Tristan pass from Preschool level C to level D, after his performance jumping off the diving board into the deep end of the pool this month. I was less sure about Simon, mostly because more often than not, he would be happily playing off by himself while the teacher coached the kids who were obviously less comfortable in the water than Simon. On his “report card” the teacher observed: “Simon has amazing confidence in his aquatic abilities.” Translation: he’s friggin’ fearless. Her final comment made me laugh the most, though: “Don’t forget to focus!” Ha! Runs in the family.

So it’s not exactly an official “yay day”, but it seems that this whole month has had me bursting with pride at how quickly my boys are growing up. And the best part? If Simon stays on track, I get a five-month vacation from diapers. If that’s not worth bragging about, what is?

No really, what is? Consider this bragging thread officially open!

A very expensive (but fun!) Saturday

We had a fun and adventure-filled but ghastly expensive day on Saturday.

In the morning, we visited the Ottawa debut of A Day Out With Thomas. Those of you who have been around for a while will remember the absolute magic of our first adventure with the Very Useful Engine, two years ago in St Thomas, Ontario.

Our latest adventure was not quite so magical, but a fun morning for the boys. In addition to a rather uninspired 30 minute train ride through some scrub and industrial land, there were train tables, temporary tatoos, arts and crafts, and of course, a giant gift shop filled with all things Thomas and Friends. Tristan’s waning interest in the big blue engine was rekindled, but Simon has always been less of a fan than his brother. In the gift shop, he looked around for a while before asking, “But where are all the Star Wars toys?”

In the afternoon, we went with Granny and Papa Lou to one of my favourite summer traditions, the Ottawa SuperEx. While the SuperEx never lives up to what I loved about London’s Western Fair from my childhood, I still look forward to it every year. I love the grease, the sleaze, the colours, the carnival food, the excess of it all.

The boys don’t really need me to ride the merry-go-round with them anymore, but I still do.

Merry-go-round

But mostly, they ride by themselves.

Driving

I'm flying!

They weren’t big enough to go on the bumper cars by themselves (they couldn’t have reached the pedals even if they wanted to) but Beloved and Papa Lou were willing to go along for the ride. My mom and I watched from the sidelines and laughed the whole time – of the four of them, I honestly couldn’t tell you which one was having more fun.

Bumper cars
Bumper cars

I think my favourite part of the SuperEx are the games of chance. My mom and I are usually pretty good at the squirtgun games, but this time it was Tristan who won his own stuffy.

Granny and Tristan

And no matter how expensive the day might have been, all the money in the world can’t buy memories like these.

Bumper cars

Tristan’s big splash

It’s been such a lovely summer so far, full of sunshine and traveling and beaches and pools and water parks. I know we’ve had a good summer because we’re on our fourth package of swim diapers… that’s a lot of fun in the water!

Over the course of the summer, Tristan has gone from not quite being able to swim the width of the pool with a float to being able to swim very short stretches unassisted in a panicky sort of dog paddle. He’s shown a lot of improvement with all the time we’ve spent in the water lately, and has taken great delight in being able to jump off the side of the pool and “cannonball” into the shallow end.

Yesterday, we spend an unexpected but lovely four hours or so splashing about and lounging on the deck of our friends’ new pool. Despite Tristan’s improvement through the summer, I had serious reservations when my friend UberGeek asked Tristan if he’d like to jump off the diving board and UG would help him get to the ladder. It’s a testament to many, many years of friendship that I would even consider letting Tristan try – that, and the way Tristan’s face lit up when he said, “SURE!” and scrambled up onto the deck before I could even formulate a protest.

The first jump, as soon as Tristan surfaced sputtering and wide-eyed, UberGeek was there to grab him and guide him to the ladder. I took a deep breath of my own and bit back my maternal concerns as Tristan practically ran to the diving board for the next jump – and the next, and the next, and the next. By the end of the afternoon, he was jumping in and able to swim to the ladder completely unassisted, and was also able to swim most of the length of the pool with only minimal assistance. Just like getting up on two wheels, it’s amazing how quickly the little synapses fire in a growing brain to suddenly “get” a new activity and master it.

Simon too was the picture of contentment, splashing around in an unusual swim ring built into a t-shirt, a design I’ve never seen before. While getting him in and out of it was quite reminiscent of shoving him down the birth canal, it seemed a lot safer and sturdier than water wings or a traditional ring float.

In a single afternoon, Tristan went from barely able to swim a foot or two to jumping off the diving board and swimming to the edge, and I went from ensuring neither boy was further than arms’ reach away from a grownup to letting them splash and float contentedly around the deep and shallow ends under their own power. I’m simply gobsmacked. And it served as a good reminder that the boys are likely to be ready to take on new challenges far earlier than I’m going to be ready for them to do so.

I only wish I’d had a camera with me…

The one with the naked princess, of course

The boys have been running around all day, and we all need some quiet time. I ask Simon what he wants to watch. Quelle surprise, he wants to watch Star Wars.

“Which one do you want to watch,” I ask. “The one with the Jawas, the one where Han gets frozen in carbonite, or the one with the Ewoks?”

“No,” clarifies Simon, “I want the one with the naked princess with the gun.”

He’s THREE, for chrissake. THREE!!

(Okay, so I don’t know a single guy born between 1965 and 1985 who didn’t have the same crush, but I had no idea Leia’s Metal Bikini had its own fan site, let alone an episode of Friends.)

(Edited to add: this exists, with more than 7000 threads and 125000 posts, and yet *I’m* the strangest place on the Internet?!?!?)

An ode to boys in the summer time

When I left the house at 6:30 this morning, the boys had already dressed themselves. This is memorable in itself; while Tristan is quite capable, I don’t think Simon has ever fully dressed himself before, and certainly neither of them has done it without considerable prodding and harranguing on our part.

But the really cute part is what they dressed themselves in: their matching Superman pyjamas. You see, it’s superhero day at their gymnastics day camp today, and they are supposed to dress as their favourite superhero. Conveniently, earlier in the summer I had picked up a couple of pairs of Superman shortie jammies, complete with velcro-attached cape, at WalMart. I have to tell you with a complete lack of bias that they are exquisitely adorable, running around in their identical Superman jammies with capes billowing out behind them.

I’m so pleased with the half-day gymnastics camp at Starr Gymnastics. I enrolled them back in the beginning of the summer, knowing Beloved would appreciate the break and that they were both old enough to start with this kind of thing. When I enrolled them, even though the session said it was for 3 to 5 year olds, I had the impression that they’d be in separate groups, and I thought it might be nice for them to get away from each other for a little while, too, but it turns out they’re in the same group after all. Tristan confirmed Monday afternoon that he was very happy to have Simon on his “team” so maybe they’re not so sick of each other after all. They spend the morning tumbling, bouncing on the trampoline, swinging from ropes and climbing on stuff.

Don’t you wish they had fun stuff like day camp when you were a kid? I never even went to sleep-away camp when I was a kid; we spent our summers watching the Price is Right and Match Game in the mornings and then roaming the neighbourhood in the afternoon. Or curled up with a good book – some things never change!

The other thing that I’m doing to live vicariously through the boys is swimming lessons. I’ve got them both enrolled in the same time slot, Tristan with his preschool level C and Simon in a preschool level A class. Last night was the third week of lessons and I still can’t help myself – I sit on the deck and positively beam at them as I watch them in the water. They’re both fearless, Simon moreso than even Tristan was at the same age, and both obviously doing well in their groups. Tristan can swim across the pool with a noodle under him, or for at least a couple of feet without one. Where the other kids in Simon’s class cling to the instructor or to the side, Simon bounces merrily on his own in the water, blowing bubbles or kicking vigourously at the teacher’s suggestion.

They’ve grown up so much this summer. I remember when they were babies (you know, way back in the old days) and how intensely and fiercely I loved them. I would look at older boys with skeptical curiousity, and I couldn’t imagine loving them any more than I did when they were taking their first toddling steps, wearing onsies and smiling toothless, drooly grins. And yet I look at these boys – no doubt, they are boys through and through, no trace of the baby remains – and see them thinking and absorbing and synthesizing, and it’s breathtaking.

Over the course of the summer, Tristan’s mission has been to conquer the monkey bars. Each time we stopped at a park, he would try to traverse the span of the monkey bars, and in a few months he’s gone from being barely able to dangle himself to being able to cross even the ones for the big kids, the ones that arc up and down instead of simply going straight across. After watching the ease with which Tristan could do it, I tried it one day myself and nearly pulled my arms out of my sockets. I couldn’t make it half way across and my armpits hurt for days. Those monkey bars aren’t for wimps.

The best part of three hours of gymnastics camp in the morning, fresh air in the afternoon and swimming lessons in the evening? We finally found out that it is actually possible to wear them out. My perpetual motion machines, the ones that make me dizzy with their boundless energy, actually do have a finite energy reserve. For the first time in I don’t know how long last night, they could barely stay awake long enough for a story, and there were no calls for an extra snuggle, a glass of water or an explanation as to why dogs have fur.

Ah, summertime…

Yay day!

See how nice I am to you? I’m about to brag blatantly, but I’ll turn it into a yay day so you can brag, too.

We got Tristan’s report card this week. They ‘grade’ them on a four point scale, from “needs to work on this skill” to “beginning to develop” to “meets developmental expectations” to “exceeds expectations”. He met developmental expectations in most areas – math and science and art. He knows all his letters except for Q, and can count past 40 in English and to 28 in French. He can also follow simple directions in both languages, and remembers his vocabulary in both languages well.

(I must admit I’m still just a little bit entertained that they grade four-year olds in junior kindergarten on math and science and art, to be honest. I kind of expected to get a report that said either ‘does’ or ‘does not’ eat paste and colour within the lines. They take this educational stuff pretty seriously right out of the gate.)

He got a few “beginning to develop” in some areas where we already knew he needs to put in a little more effort – writing his letters, for one, but mostly in areas like following instruction and social skills. He still follows his own mind a little more often than the teacher’s instructions, but he’s come miles and miles from that first week, where we got called in for “the talk.”

So while I’m proud that he did well overall, and the comments reflect a bright, happy little boy who is a pleasure to have in the classroom, who enjoys role play and music and story time and interacting with his peers, there were two areas where his teachers said he excelled. He got a ‘4’ for exceeds expectations in oral communication and reading. I’m really not surprised that my boy is particularly literate, given that I can say without modesty that he comes from exceptionally literate people, but I’m proud nonetheless.

We survived the first year. The lovely part is not so much that I’m looking forward to the next year of challenges, but that Tristan is. That’s my boy.

And now, after all that, I turn the microphone over to you. What makes the sun shine in your world today?

You think he learned this in school?

We’re driving back from the Carp Farmer’s Market, a bag containing fudge and homemade salsa and fresh cukes and tomatoes at my feet. The boys are chattering in the back seat as we meander through the back roads bisecting rolling countryside.

“Mom, I know how to say cow in French,” Tristan informs me as we pass a herd of Holsteins noshing in a nearby field.

“Oh yes?” I ask. “How do you say cow in French?”

“Vache!” he announces with authority. I confirm he’s right, and tell him that the French word for horse is cheval. The boys continue to discuss French and English for a while, until out of the blue, Simon asks me the French word for penis. I am neither entirely that the version of the term I know colloquially is the appropriate clinical translation nor sure that my 3 and 5 year olds need it in their vocabulary, so I tell him I’m not sure.

“R-3-8-H-M,” says Simon. “That spells PENIS!”

I decline to comment. Tristan does not.

“No, no, Simon,” Tristan says. “This is how you spell penis.” He thinks for a minute. “P-E-N-N-E. That spells penis. Oh wait, there’s an S too. Um, P-E-N-N-S. That spells penis. Yep, P-E-N-N-S spells penis.”

I shoot a look at Beloved, who is concentrating very hard on the empty road in front of us, the little muscle in his jaw flickering in the effort not to laugh. Personally, I’m conflicted. Spelling words out loud is a new talent of Tristan’s. Do I praise his effort? Celebrate the mentorship over his younger brother? Correct his spelling? Feign deafness and ignore the entire exchange?

Some milestones are more ignominious than others. We continue through the pastoral countryside, both boys misspelling penis at the top of their lungs. I can hardly wait for the 10-hour road trip.