Simon and I in the car, chatting amiably as we drive back from buying new school shoes for Simon, when a propos of nothing he says, “You know, you’re really lucky to have such a smart dad.”

The non-sequitor throws me for a loop and I’m quiet for a minute, wondering where this is coming from and where it might be going. “Um, yes,” I say eventually. Then, “How so?”

“I like how he knows so much stuff. He tells me all sorts of facts that I didn’t know about.” I chuckle to myself. My dad does like teaching the boys things.

Simon is continuing. “Once, when I was playing video games, he was telling me about when he was a kid and there were no video games, and what the first video games were like.” I’m delighted Simon is receptive to him. Not every eight year old boy is interested in hearing about the old days, back in the 1980s. Even so, I try to interject, telling him there were no video games when *I* was a kid, either, but Simon is more interested in Papa Lou’s perspective than mine. “It’s cool being old. I can’t wait until I’m old and I know so much stuff, too, and I can tell my grandkids all about it.”

And, my darling, perceptive, sensitive Simon, I hope they show the same sweet appreciation that you do. Thanks for making me smile.

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My dear, darling Simon,

You, my middlest boy, are eight years old today. Of course, in your own mind you’ve been eight years old for at least as long as your older brother was that age. You may be the only eight year old boy I know who is dipping his toes in the ‘tween years!

My sweet Simon, you continue to be the family ham. You have a flair for drama, for humour, and for performance. You are warm and generous and like to see people happy. You impressed all the grown-ups in the family immensely just this weekend at your birthday party, when you offered completely without prompting to share the two months of Club Penguin memberships you received with your older brother, knowing that he wanted one as badly as you did. You are truly a kindhearted, generous soul.

School seems to come easily to you, as does making friends. Your last report cards contain nothing but praise. You also seem to think and speak way beyond your years. You are argumentative and challenging when it suits you, and relentlessly curious. While I know these traits will do you very well in the long run, I do have to admit that they’re occasionally exasperating to a parent.

The thing I most admire about you, Simon, is that you accept everyone as your peer and your equal. Whether conversing with an adult, a younger child or a teenager, you simply assume that you are friends and that you will be accepted as an equal. I think a lot of people could learn a lesson or two from this! On the same token, you do occasionally need to be reminded that you are NOT an adult and not privy to every conversation that happens between adults, and have been chastised for cheekily calling teachers by their first names.

You continue to be a fussy eater. You like what you like and you are stubborn when you don’t like something or you think you might not like something. You have finessed the “I can’t eat any more, my stomach hurts” excuse when there is nothing left but vegetables on your plate. You like spicy food and love that Daddy occasionally lets you drink pop with your dinner. Your favourite dinners are tacos, pizza and (sigh) McDonalds. You also like the idea of cooking and baking, and have asked to make your own lunch or breakfast several times, and you asked for and received an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. You, my boy, are a child who was born to break stereotypes.

Your friends are Alexander and Mason and Olivia, and of course all of your big brother’s friends, too. You like Club Penguin, Super Mario Brothers, Pokemon, the Wii and the DS. You love to play board games and card games, but you also love your “Puffle” stuffies. You are less enthusiastic about active, outdoor games, but you are a much better sport about getting out and moving than you used to be, especially if there are other kids about. This year you joined Beaver Scouts and seem to love it, perhaps in part because Daddy has signed up as a Beaver leader to help out. I think we’re both relieved that we decided against enrolling you in hockey this year.

Sweet Simon, your endless warmth and affection more than make up for your occasional sharp temper and impatience with your little brother. You’re on your way to a larger-than-life personality, and it’s delightful watching you grow up. It’s also wonderful to simply spend time with you, and we love you very much.

Happy birthday, Simon my love. I wish you every dream your heart can wish — and with your creative imagination, there is no end to the possibilities that may bring.

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My sweet Simon, you are seven years old today.

Seven! On the one hand, it seems like you were a toddler just yesterday. On the other hand, though, you are an old soul and have always had a grown-up kind of mentality to you. You’re just as happy chatting with adults as with kids your own age, and I truly don’t think you see the age gap between yourself and your older brother’s peers.

Some of your favourite things right now are Smurfs, Super Mario and Scaredy Squirrel. You love to play games on your Dad’s iTouch, or on the DS, or on the computer, or on the Wii. In fact, you’d happily choose a screen over just about any activity. You also like to play board games, though, and are always up for a game of Mancala with me.

This year, you and I visited the arena every Thursday night for skating lessons, and you pleased yourself and us when you demonstrated this summer that you could swim across the deep end of the pool unassisted. I think you’d be happy if you could spend the whole summer in the pool! You’ve just started basketball class too, and you love that so far.

You are warm and generous in nature. When you received several beyblade toys for your birthday, you were happy to share one with your brother. You tend to have a little more patience for your bigger brother than your little brother, though! In all, you are a sweet and thoughtful brother who likes to make both his big and little brother happy. You are also, truth be told, a relentless snitch — but I think that’s a stage you’re now growing out of.

Your friends this year are Regan, Mason, Alexander and Katitsa… and all your older brother’s friends, too. You continue to have a way with the ladies, and are on your second girlfriend in as many years. You settled quickly in to your new school, and you seem to be doing very well. This year you have learned to read and write, although your mother occasionally gives you a hard time for not taking the time to make your writing legible. You’re learning French, too, and you love your special music class with the Sacred Music Society. You are definitely a man of letters!

Your favourite foods are pepperoni pizza, fajitas, and just about any fast food. We still have nightly battles of will over what you will and will not eat, and although your old mom has started taking a “too bad, eat it anyway” tough love approach with you, you seem to be at least willing to try new things now and I think your repertoire of “acceptable” foods is growing.

My sweet Simon, I couldn’t be more proud of you. I enjoy the time we spend together, and I love your generosity, your sweet and endless affection and your appreciation for the beauty in life. You are sunny and sweet and compassionate. You are my thoughtful son, tuned in to your own emotions and those of the people around you.

Happy birthday, my beautiful boy. May this be seven times the best year ever!

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Happy Birthday, my dearest darling Simon. Today, you are six years old!

My dear Simon, where do I start to tell you how wonderful you are? You are a charmer and a character. If any member of our family goes on to win an Academy Award, or a Genie, or even to star in a local community theatre production, it will be you. You have a flair for the dramatic that shows itself in the way you use your hands and facial expressions to tell a story — and you have a gift for the gab that puts even your loquacious mother to shame. I admit, there are times in the car when I will tell you “Shhh, mommy needs to concentrate on driving and the other cars for a couple of minutes” just for a bit of respite from your endless commentary.

You are a delightful child and a good companion. You’d be quite happy to play a board game with the grown-ups every single day, if only we had the time. You also love the computer and video games, and are newly addicted to all things Mario Brothers. You love Lego and Star Wars and superheros, Webkinz and nintendo and Pokemon. You like to watch everything from Alvin and the Chipmunks to iCarly on TV, and you’ve become quite interested in the Food Network after watching it with the nanny some days!

In the last year, you’ve learned to read and write simple words. When the teacher sent home a note last term saying all the students in your senior kindergarten class would be learning to count to 30, you impressed all of us with your ability to count beyond 100. Which you would do repeatedly, out loud, whenever we let you!

Your sweet personality has endeared you to your chums at school. It still makes me laugh when I pick you up from school to hear the choruses of “Bye Simon!” as you leave the school yard. Your best friends this year are Sophie and Isabella and Diego and Max and Aleric and Tristan.

You do not particularly like vegetables, and you like to negotiate at each meal exactly how many more bites of each vegetable you will be forced to endure. You love caesar salad, though, and onions and guacamole and salsa. You are getting much better at eating some of everything on your plate even when you don’t like it, and I do appreciate that. Not surprisingly, your favourite meal is soft-shelled taco “roll ups”. You also love pepperoni pizza and, sigh, McDonalds.

You are a sweet-natured boy who loves to help out around the house. You are tolerant, to a point, with your baby brother Lucas and locked in an eternal best-friend/nemesis struggle with Tristan. It brings me no end of joy to see the lot of you playing together, which you do often. One of your favourite games around the house is hide and go seek with Granny!

You constantly amaze us with your gracious nature. You love to say “please” and “thank you” and when you are given a gift, you are adorable in your effusive thanks for the gift. Again, your flair for the dramatic is obvious!

Simon, I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter, kinder, funnier fellow for a son. It’s not always easy being stuck in the middle, but you do a great job of finding your own place in the world. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds for you.

Happy birthday, sweet Simon. I do love you so.

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My dearest darling Simon,

You are five years old today. Five! And you are five times as sweet, five times as smart, and five times as silly as you’ve ever been.

This has been a wonderful, busy, exciting year for you. Just after your last birthday, you welcomed your baby brother Lucas into your life with open arms. I kept expecting you to fuss or complain or show any sign of stress at suddenly being displaced as the baby of the household, but you have been nothing but your usual adorable (and adoring) self. You love being a big brother, and you seem quite content to be the middle child. You’d probably prefer that Lucas stop pestering you when you play on the computer, but you’re otherwise happy to play with him and let him crawl all over you. You especially like entertaining him in the car, and battle with your brother about who’s turn it is to sit beside Lucas.

You started Junior Kindergarten in September, and you never looked back. You were not at all worried about starting school, and you seem to be doing extremely well. When we speak to your teachers, they have nothing but praise for you. I laugh when we leave school every day to a chorus of voices calling out to you, and we occasionally tease you by calling you “Mr Popularity.” In fact, you are already on your second girlfriend, and you recently scandalized your older brother by announcing that you’d kissed a girl at school — necessitating a long chat about what we do and don’t do at school, during which mommy had to take frequent breaks to re-compose her stern face.

You are one loquacious kid; I’ve said that you could talk the paint off the walls or the feathers off a duck. You speak in full, eloquent sentences with a vocabulary far beyond your five years. And you talk and you talk and you talk. You make us laugh sometimes with the way you can say in 300 words what could have easily be said in 10. (I have no idea where you get that from.)

Simon, you are my charmer and my romantic soul. You love hugs and kisses and all forms of affection. You’re a ham, and love to make crazy, expressive faces. You also have a wicked temper, but only when you aren’t getting your own way. Like your mother, you need sleep and food on a regular basis or you get pouty. Most of the time, though, you are your own sunshine factory, and your smile lights up our days.

You’re a lot like your daddy in that you’re not much on physical exercise, even though you’ve gamely endured the skating and gymnastics lessons to which I’ve subjected you this year. You prefer swim lessons, but I think you’ll take to skating a little better next year. It took us a lot of cajoling and a new bike to get you riding a two-wheeler with training wheels this year, but once you got going, riding your bike in the driveway was one of your favourite things to do before the snow began to fall.

If we let you, you’d happily play on the computer or on the Wii all day long. This year, your tastes have matured in lockstep with your older brother’s as you traded up from Star Wars to Pokemon and SpongeBob. You still love superheros, as evidenced by your Batman birthday cake this year.

Happiest of happy birthdays, my sweet, smiling Simon! You fill our days with sunshine and laughter and warmth, and I can’t wait to see what the year ahead holds for you.

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Simon’s first day of Junior Kindergarten!

(My babies! What happened to my babies???)

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Four-thousand and twenty-two. It’s Simon’s magic number, a quantity that delineates anything between a lot and infinity. As in, “Is my time out done yet? Because I’ve been here for 4022 minutes.” Or, “When I grow up, I’m going to have 4022 webkinz.” Or, “Do I have to eat another pea? I already ate 4022 of them.” I have no idea where this particular number got its significance, but it’s entirely of his own creation.

And, it just happens to be within a couple dozen of the number of unread posts in my bloglines account. Four thousand unread posts calling to me: “Read me! There are funny stories and anecdotes to be read, memes to be filched, wry observations to be appreciated, photos to be admired. Read me, read me, read me!” Sigh. I’ll never catch up. Sorry I haven’t been a good bloggy friend lately. Maybe next week when the boys are in day camp for the week, I’ll catch up. But, probably not. I got up at 5:30 this morning, thinking I’d catch up before everybody else woke up. I did spend more than an hour on the computer, after I savoured the newspaper and a hot coffee, but I still didn’t make it any deeper than the backlog on three or four of my very favourites.

It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you guys, though!

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I’m feeding Lucas and Tristan is in the kitchen colouring, out of sight but not earshot around the corner. Simon is engaged in some sort of imaginary play that involves a lot of talking. I can hear him stumbling over an idea.

Simon: Mommy!

Me: Yes, Simon?

Simon: What’s my second name?

Me: Francis.

Simon: No, my other second name.

I tell him his hyphenated surname. The boys get the order of their names confused, and Tristan will often say his first name, his surname and then his middle name.

Simon, obviously frustrated: No, no, my other name.

I’m still puzzling this one out when Tristan calls from the kitchen. “You mean numbskull?”

Simon, pleased: Yeah, numbskull. Thanks, Tristan!

And off he goes to play.

I swear, it wasn’t me. I have no idea where he got this one from (looks pointedly at Beloved) but I can honestly say this one wasn’t my doing…

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My dearest Simon,

Happy Birthday, my sweet sunny boy. I can hardly believe you are four years old already! I completed the paperwork this week to enroll you in school this coming September, and could hardly believe that you are old enough — and yet, I know you’ve been ready for this for months.

You are, in my humble and unbiased opinion, plenty clever for a four year old. You can recognize your name and many of the letters of the alphabet, and you can count to 29. You have cute linguistic quirks that I secretly hope you never grow out of, including still saying “lellow” despite being clearly able to pronounce the letter Y in other contexts, and you tend to say, “What you said?” instead of a more polite “Pardon me?”, something I know I should correct but can’t bring myself to do.

At four, you know what you like: guacamole roll-ups; “pink meat” sandwiches with mustard on the side; chocolate milk; superheros; Star Wars; video games like Cars and Star Wars Complete Saga and the games on the Nick Jr website. You like salty better than sweet, and love to dip your food (and your fingers) in tzatziki, ketchup, mustard, or just about anything else. You like dogs, Curious George, Pixar movies, Tom and Jerry, Robert Munsch books and the stories about Matthew’s Midnight Adventures.

You are a lover, I can see that clearly. When your brother recently tried to get a rise out of you by taunting “Simon likes giiiiiirrrrlllsss!” in a sing-song voice, you simply agreed, saying, “Of course I like girls. I like all of them in the universe.” Your best friend at nursery school is Laila, sometimes called Lulu, but you seem to get along well with just about everyone. I can clearly see that your true best friend is your brother – when he is not your mortal enemy. I love the relationship the two of you share.

You have an uncanny memory, and have recently surprised me by reminding me of incidents that happened while you were sitting in your high chair — at least two or two and a half years ago. You consistently beat us at memory games, and love to play board games of any type. I also suspect you are musically inclined, and you love to paint pictures at your school and bring them home dedicated to the various members of your family.

You love your pyjamas, and would happily stay in them all day if we let you. For the most part, you’d prefer to stay inside than go out, and you are content to stay home with Daddy while your brother and I venture out for walks with the dog or on other adventures that include physical exertion.

You start almost every single day by crawling into bed with me, and despite my exhortations to be quiet, you define being quiet as singing to yourself, or reciting long passages from your favourite books and movies in a whisper that I can’t help but eavesdrop on. You love to give kisses. I honestly couldn’t count the number of kisses you have given me over the past few weeks as we wait together for your baby brother to arrive. You started life as a jealous and possessive little fellow, wanting to be held constantly and begrudging my attention to any other child, so I worried a little bit when I first became pregnant again how you might deal with the arrival of a new sibling. You have eased those fears down to nothing over the past nine months, and were even willing to share your birthday with your new baby brother if it came down to that. It now looks increasingly unlikely that you’ll have to do that, but I’m still thrilled with how genuinely excited you are about the pending arrival of your baby brother and your delight about being the older brother for a change.

I love you, Simon, more and more every day! Happy birthday, my sweet boy!

(the pictures in this post all came from my visit to Simon’s nursery school earlier this week)

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About a million years ago, Laura from Lunatic Fringe tagged me for the “Seven Random Facts About Me” meme. I’ve done a bunch of these over the years, and it’s getting tough to come up with more fresh stuff that you don’t already know about me, which is part of the reason I’ve sat on this for so long.

Then, inspiration struck. You might not need to know seven more random things about me — but what about seven random things about Simon, the cutest preschooler on the planet?

1. He’s adorable. No, really, he is. He’s one of those sweet-natured, flirty, adorable three-going-on-four-year-olds who just seem to have a natural ability to charm people. And he uses it shamelessly to his advantage.

2. He’s going through a kissing phase right now. I’m laughing to myself just thinking of his puckered puss as he offers it to me to be kissed many, many times a day.

3. He’s adventurous in his food choices. He’ll try just about anything, and often asks for us to share what we’re having. He loves salsa (even and perhaps especially the hot stuff), fruits of all kinds (but he favours bananas and apples), guacamole, and mustard. He’s also a “dipper” and will dip just about any kind of food into any kind of dip.

4. He’s got a preternatural memory. He regularly beats all of us at Memory-type card games, and even his preschool teacher has commented on his ability to remember details of past experiences. He quantifies everything from a few hours ago to last year as “Remember a long, long time ago, when….?” but recalls far more than I ever do. Someday, that will come back to bite me in the ass in a big way – mark my words!

5. He likes predictability and routine. Every single morning, he asks me the exact same questions: “Is Jen coming today?” and “Are you going to work, or the gym, or the airport today?” (Granted, I go to work five days a week, and the gym once a week, but I’ve only gone to the airport twice, maybe three times, in his entire lifetime. And yet, the airport ranks in his daily questioning – and will be further ingrained when in fact I do fly out to Toronto for another conference next week!) He also asks me, every day without fail as I walk in the door and often before I get my shoes off, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

6. He’s feisty. He’s got a temper, likes to get his own way, and doesn’t take kindly to being scolded. He’s not cowed by our voices raised in anger, but yells right back. However, he’s also easily appeased.

7. He seems to have a strong affinity for music. He loves to dance, to sing, to play musical instruments. Where Tristan loves Thomas the Tank and Scooby Doo, Simon prefers the Wiggles and the Doodlebops.

What, that’s it? I’ve got seven already? But, I’m not done yet! I didn’t get a chance to tell you about his unruly curls, how he crawls into bed with me in the morning almost every day, how he still says “lellow” instead of “yellow” and I secretly kind of prefer it, and how he sometimes calls me “Mama doo doo” for reasons that baffle me, and… and…

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So. Potty training. I’ve been through this once before, and even though it took three and a half years for Tristan to show the least little bit of interest in the potty, once we took the plunge it was a reasonably painless and mess-free process. It took four or five days and we had maybe that many accidents before he completed the transition from diapers to underwear, and I was surprised if not highly pleased with how easy the whole thing turned out to be.

I’d been holding out until Simon was the same age, figuring the same internal switch would flip in his head (maybe even earlier, since every other milestone has been bumped up by virtue of the “monkey see monkey do” little brother syndrome) and potty training Simon would be a breeze.

Not so much.

Simon, I seem to need to learn over and over and over again, is not Tristan. He’s not as easily motivated as his brother. With Tristan, he had his heart and head set on Annie and Claribel coaches to go with his Thomas Tank Engine sets, and once we told him he could earn them with stickers by going on the potty, he was all over it like, well, like a dirty diaper. We put up one of those little cataloges that come with the trains beside the toilet, and Tristan would happily sit on the potty and gaze at the entire population of the Island of Sodor.

Simon is a different creature. He’s not obsessed with anything the way Tristan was at this age, and he doesn’t seem the least been interested in transitioning out of diapers, even though he professes to be a big boy and is more than capable of at least peeing on the potty when the mood strikes him.

I think, though, that we’ve finally found his motivation. Queen Amidala. Yes, the one from the second Star Wars trilogy.

The boys are certified Star Wars junkies now. It does my heart good to see them running around the house with their little light sabers, pretending to be Darth Vader and Darth Luke (that would be Luke in his dark Jedi outfit from Return of the Jedi. No amount of explaining will convince them that he’s not a “Darth” at all.) They hum not only the major themes, but the love theme and the victory theme, all day long. They quote large portions of the first trilogy from heart, and they while away their precious computer time playing Star Wars Lego, the video game.

Which brings us to Queen Amidala. They wouldn’t know about her, or even the existence of the second trilogy, except Beloved brought a Phantom Menace Star Wars Lego video game home from the library a while ago, and Simon has been asking to see the Queen Amidala movie ever since. Purist that I am, I’ve decided that the Phantom Menace and its sequels are too violent and too dark for a three and five year old.

This week, Simon paused from some imaginary play where Luke Skywalker (a battered original action figure just like the one I had when I was a kid, scored from a local flea market) joined forces with Queen Amidala (represented by a Polly Pocket doll) against a pirate from a Playmobile set. Simon looked up at me with wounded brown eyes and said, in an unmistakably accusatory tone, “You won’t let us watch the Queen Amidala movie.” So struck a deal. If he fills his chart with stickers earned by going on the potty, he can watch the Queen Amidala movie.

Does it strike anyone else as wrong to put a poster of Natalie Portman in the bathroom for inspiration?

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I’ve noticed that almost every transitional milestone that marks the end of babydom has been later for Simon than for Tristan. Last child syndrome? Tristan nursed until he was nine months; Simon was closer to 19 months. Tristan was out of his crib at 20 months; Simon was 34 months. Tristan gave up his bedtime soother at three years old. Simon? We’re well past his third birthday, and there’s no end in sight.

I know, I know, it’s time. We’ve been talking up the idea of giving up his soothers for months now, so he knows it’s coming. He even slept right through Sunday night without one – he forgot to ask and we forgot to give it to him. But when Monday night came, and we tried to convince him he was a big boy and he was ready to give it up and three year olds simply don’t use soothers anymore, he started to cry. I’m a sucker for tears. I’ve really got to work on that.

It wasn’t even all that traumatic with Tristan, the original suck-junkie. We told him one day that we were going to go to the toy store and use his soothers to “buy” something he truly wanted, a Gordon tank engine. Aside from a rough first night, and a heartbreaking moment when I found Tristan late the first afternoon trying to cram Gordon back in his box so Tristan could take him back to the store and get the soothers back, it went well.

I don’t think Simon’s going to fall for that trick. First of all, there’s nothing he covets as much as Tristan coveted that Gordon. But mostly, he’s just a different kind of kid. I swear to god, this mothering thing is so frustrating – just when you’ve figured out how something works, the next kid comes along with his own personality and peccadilloes and all your hard-learned lessons from the first time around don’t work anymore.

I’ve seen lots of ideas for giving up the binky, everything from cut off a bit every night until there’s nothing but a stub left (can you spell choking hazzard?) to painting it with hot sauce before giving it to the child (somehow I think Simon might like the idea of flavoured pacifiers even more than plain ones.)

I like the idea of using the soothers to ‘buy’ something because there is an element of self-determination in it. Even though he’s being strongly encouraged by us, in the end Simon is left with the idea that he relinquished the soothers for something else of his own accord. A trade was made, and he chose the new item over the soothers.

But the more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to just ‘lose’ the damn things. “Soothers? Oh, I don’t know where they are,” said in my best thespian styling. “Why don’t you just go to sleep now, and maybe we’ll find them tomorrow.” I’d feel bad deceiving him, but at least we wouldn’t be relying on him to make the choice.

We’ve got to get on this, though. It’s time, I know. But when his little face crumbles into tears at the mere thought of giving up his oral fixation, he takes my resolve with it. I’m mostly assured he won’t be packing it in his suitcase when he goes off to college, but with each passing week the possibility grows.

Got any “ditch the binky” stories to make me feel better?

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I’ve posted before about how Tristan’s increasing facility with the computer never fails to amaze me. Now, of course, Simon is hot on his heels.

Beloved has just set him up with his favourite Incredibles game, and he is clicking contentedly when suddenly he complains, “Mom! The game shut down!” This is a problem with our Cars game. It’s incompatible with our video card and tends to shut down randomly. We haven’t had the same problem with the Incredibles, though.

“What were you doing when it shut down?” troubleshoots Beloved.

“I clicked on exit and it shut down!” Simon replies indignantly.

Apparently there are nuances to the language that one has to acquire, at the tender age of three, before being completely successful with technology. The meaning of ‘exit’, for starters.

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Have you been breathlessly waiting for the update from Simon’s birthday party yesterday? I know, you haven’t been able to sleep for the suspense. Well, I’m thrilled to be able to report that despite the words you never want to hear your husband say when you have more than a dozen friends and family in the house (“Don’t worry, it’s only a small fire in the oven”), the party was nearly perfect.

I had set my goal for the day at a rather lofty “I’ll be happy as long as nobody cries”, and managed to not only pull that off, but I think everyone had a great time while they were at it.

We managed to play one game, but the kids were content to raid the snack table and play at their own pace.

Simon had a lot of helpers when opening his gifts, and he was surprisingly tolerant of them!

If you want to make a three-year-old really happy, I suggest a drum, a doctor kit, a dollhouse, a pirate ship, a handful of books, a floor puzzle, and some new clothes. (Okay, so mommy probably appreciated the clothes more than he did on the spot – but he’ll be happy when I discard the flood pants that are grazing his shinbone instead of his ankle!)

And Papa Lou makes a very patient patient!

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning, watching the happy children that make up our extended family romp through the house while the adults relaxed nearby. They’re the people I love most in the world, and having them all in the same place was more than enough to make it a perfect morning; the rest was just the icing on the cake… the brightly coloured Wiggles cake, of course.

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My darling Simon,

You are three years old today. Three years old… no longer a baby, but not quite done being a toddler yet. You are still my baby, and your babyness shows in your fat baby feet with their pudgy baby toes, and in the way you still have a traces of the bowlegged toddler waddle when you walk, and in the way you wrap your body around mine when I pick you up. Your skin, too, is the flawlessly soft skin of a baby, fresh and dewy.

But every day, another remnant of your babyness disappears. You speak in full sentences, and it’s only occasionally that we don’t quite catch the waterfall of words and ideas spilling constantly forth from you. We had a little confusion with ‘shovel’ and ‘trouble’ yesterday, for example. Most of the time, when we don’t understand your words it’s because you’re busy thinking your own thoughts and you surprise us with your out-of-the-blue observations and opinions.

You are charming, my son, and you love to work that charm. You flirt shamelessly, and yesterday you kissed the back of my hand when trying to convince me to do something for you. Of course, I acquiesced; how could I resist? You are free with your kisses and hugs and declarations of love, and you have a way of meeting my eyes just before you tell me you love me that makes me think you realize exactly what you are saying and what it means to me. I fear for the hearts of a generation of girls who will look into those deep brown eyes, crinkled with laughter, and be lost forever!

You are a happy little boy. You are almost always cheerful, content, and easy to get along with – unless you are hungry or tired. Much like your mother, when you are hungry or tired, you are – well, I was going to say you are a little bit cranky, but ‘an angry tyrant’ might be a little closer to the truth. But once those basic needs are met, you are a pleasure to be with.

I have to admit, you seem to be the more mischevious of my two sons. You find small ways to get into trouble every day that would have never occured to your brother. You like mess, and you like chaos, and you love to play with water. Personally, I’m not so fond of those things. It was you who dunked the blanket in the toilet, and you who coloured on the fridge and microwave with magic marker, and you who found Papa Lou’s scissors and started practicing your cutting skills, luckily with a scrap of paper. I think you’re getting used to hearing your name said with an exhalation of frustration: “Si-mon!” as your daddy or I follow in the wake of your mischief, our eyes rolling as we try not to laugh – or yell! And yet, you are so lovable that you are forgiven for your transgressions, and we learn to live with a little bit more chaos and clutter in our lives.

You love music and you love to dance. You are going through a drum phase right now, and we can’t help but laugh at your energetic “dum dum dum”ing as you drum on an imaginary drum. Last week, Papa Lou dug out some of his old drumsticks and turned over a bowl to use as a makeshift drum, and you were not only patient of his teaching but showed an impressive aptitude for rhythm that must have made Papa Lou feel better after the abysmal lack of rhythm that I’ve always displayed.

You are so very clever, and you have no idea that because Tristan is two years older than you, there are things that he can do that perhaps you cannot. You’ve recently learned from him how to work the remote control for the DVD player, and you display your prowess with the remote by watching at most three minutes of every feature on your many DVDs, flicking with abandon through the various menus for special features, advanced settings and scene selection. Who knew I would pine for the days when we simply sat down and watched an entire 30 minute DVD from start to finish? You still love the Wiggles, but you also love Scooby Doo and Garfield and Spot, and you have been indoctrinated by your father’s love for old Superfriends cartoons and your mother’s love for old skool Sesame Street.

I can’t think of a day in recent memory that hasn’t begun with you creeping quietly into my room before dawn to crawl under the covers and cuddle into me. For such a small person, you take up a lot of bed space, often sleeping with your arms thrown wide to either side, or sleeping sideways across the bed with the top of your head pressing into my back. You also like to sleep with your hand twisted through my hair, and as you sleep you twitch the hair at the back of my neck, keeping me just awake to be aware of you but not awake enough to move out of your reach.

You are so unfailingly sweet, and can be surprisingly well-mannered for a three year old. This morning when I picked you up and told you it was your birthday, you said, “Oh, thank you, Mommy!” in your most gentle voice. And when I sang a quiet and private “Happy Birthday To Simon”, you beamed and blushed and said “thank you” again.

Tonight, we will celebrate your birthday with Granny and Papa Lou by having your favourite food – guacamole and cheese roll-ups, and I won’t even try to hide any extra vegetables in it in honour of your birthday – and cupcakes with candles for dessert. We’ll celebrate again on Saturday with the whole family – even your cousins from out of town.

So let me end this by saying for all the world to see how much I love you, Simon, and how much you make every single day a joy with your quirky sense of humour, your endless affection, and your boundless energy. Happy birthday, my sweet Simon!

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Simon doesn’t get sick too often, but he seems to be making up for lost time this week. He has a horrible, snotty head cold, a fever AND he’s barfing. Sheesh, I’m *so* very glad we got our flu shots last weekend. (insert eyeball roll here)

He’s also so incredibly grumpy and needy that I can’t even tear myself away for 10 minutes to write up a blog post. Hopefully more later… or maybe I’ll just see you tomorrow.

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It’s been a little more than a week since we switched Simon from his crib to a bed. He’ll be three in six weeks and he weighs somewhere around 40 lbs, so I’m thinking it was about time.

You might have noticed it’s not so much a bed as a mattress on the floor. We’re working on that. The bed frame has been ordered (no bunk beds for now) but in the interim, he’s thrilled just to be in a close facsimilie of a ‘big boy’ bed. And the bedding isn’t even a close match to Tristan’s because when I bought it on sale seven months ago, it was supposed to go in the purple and yellow room next door.

By the time we finally got around to boosting Simon from his crib, there was no longer any need for the boys to share a room, but we had done such a fine job of selling the idea of room sharing that we couldn’t have convinced them otherwise.

They’ve been surprisingly good. One night, Granny came over to babysit and there was giggling and shenanigans until well after she left after 9 pm. Other than that, though, they’ve both been great about settling in and actually going to sleep.

Even more surprising, Simon is actually staying in his bed. Those of you who have known me for a while will remember Tristan’s nighttime wanderings when we liberated him from his crib at the tender age of 21 months. He was so incorrigible in his midnight-to-three a.m. wandering and I was so sleep deprived and exhausted (still working full-time, eight months pregnant, in December) that one night I checked that the gate to the stairs was in place and locked my bedroom door to keep him out. The next morning, I woke up to find him curled up fast asleep against the door. It was one of my worst bad-mommy moments and I can still taste the bitter guilt three years later.

That’s why I’ve been nothing short of astonished (relieved, but astonished) at how easily Simon has made the transition that I’ve been dreading for three years. The only hiccup came this past Saturday night, on the one-week anniversary of his liberation from baby-jail. On my way to bed, I checked in as usual to kiss both boys goodnight. Tristan was snoring lightly, and when I turned to look at Simon, the half-smile on my face faded in confusion.

Simon’s bed was empty, and we hadn’t heard a peep from him. I checked his crib, thinking maybe he had crawled back into it, but it was empty, too. I finally found him deeply asleep smack in the middle of my bed, duvet pulled comfortably up to his chin.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was laughing so hard I could barely call Beloved to come and see, and was still snickering when I finally crawled under the – still warm! – covers myself after putting Simon back in his own bed.

When I asked him the next morning why he had slept in my bed instead of his own, he answered logically, “Because I just did, Mummy.”

Tristan was my well-sleeping infant. We had to wake him up every three hours to feed him when he was a newborn. Simon, by contrast, didn’t sleep a full six hours straight until until well after I went back to work, sometime around 14 or 16 months. As toddlers, they have switched places and Tristan is restless through the night where Simon falls asleep in minutes and stays that way.

Funny how that happens.

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Simon seems to be going through a fear stage, and I don’t remember Tristan ever going through something similar.

The first time I noticed it a couple of months ago, we were at the Farm and when the cows mooed in the next field over, he practically leapt into my arms and buried his face in my shoulder. Also at the farm, he was terrified of the bleating sheep. He curled his whole body into mine as I carried him through the barn; I’ve never seen him react like that, but could feel his fear in his posture.

Lately, the list of things that he says he is afraid of has grown to include clowns (okay, so I get that one), the sirens and truck horns at the Santa Claus parade, ghosts, and… snowmen. It’s going to be a long holiday season if he’s afraid of snowmen, considering they’re one of my favourite holiday icons and I’m sure I have a dozen or more iterations on the snowman theme in my box of Christmas decorations.

He doesn’t seem overly troubled by most of what he claims to be afraid of, but when he saw clowns at the parade (even across the street) he curled himself into me and averted his face until I assured him they were well out of sight.

I’ve been dismissing this as a two-year-old phase, but now that the list of things is growing incrementally toward pantophobia, I’m beginning to be concerned. This past weekend, at least a couple of times a day he would tell me he was afraid of something. Not to mention the fact that he’s getting to be a big boy – close to 40 lbs – and cradling him in my arms with my own growing belly is getting to be a problem!

Care to share your experiences with kid fears? Is it a phase to be indulged and waited out, or would you try to confront the fears?

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A couple of weeks ago, Chantal from Breadcrumbs in the Butter ran a lovely series of posts about how each of her four kids came to be named. I am fascinated by how people choose names, and always love to hear the story behind someone’s name.

I suspect I might have already told the story of how Tristan and Simon got their names, partly because I so love the topic that I tend to talk about it often and partly because after 600+ posts, it’s inevitable that I start to repeat myself. Those of you who know me in person are nodding vigourously at this point.

Regardless, because you know the topic of baby names had to come up eventually, and because I don’t have anything else percolating for today, let’s talk about names.

With Tristan, we always knew what his name would be. I don’t remember exactly when we decided on it, but we were thrilled at the ultrasound to find out he was in fact a he because we were solid on the name of Tristan for a boy and had not even an inkling of a name for a girl.

Tristan was chosen because of Beloved’s love of the Arthurian legends – King Arthur, knights of the round table, and whatnot, and I simply refused to allow any son of mine to be named Gwain or Galahad or Lancelot. Not that there’s anything wrong with those names, if you happen to like them. But as soon as he said “what about Tristan?”, I knew it was the one. (It didn’t hurt that Brad Pitt had played the noble but wounded Tristan in Legends of the Fall just a few years before, either!)

Tristan’s middle name was also an easy choice. My dad’s name is Louis, Beloved’s middle name is Lewis and his grandfather’s name is Louis. We knew unequivocally that he was Tristan Louis from the time I was five months pregnant.

The sticky part came with his surname. I didn’t change my last name when Beloved and I got married, and when I was pregnant we agreed that my surname would be a second middle name for any kids. But the more pregnant I got, the more important it became to me to have my surname equally represented. Unfortunately, our names hypenated are a bit of a mouthful, and Beloved was resistant to the idea.

We were still undecided when Tristan was born, but we were literally not allowed to leave the hospital until we completed a health card application for him – with his full name. We were all packed up, and Tristan was dressed in his going-home outfit, purchased specially by Granny. I was sitting on the bed and Beloved in the chair, and we glowered at each other, each unwilling to concede. In the end, Beloved capitulated, and I cried tears of relief as I filled out the form with the hyphenated surnames. There have been many times, as I spelled out his name for a pharmacist, or to make an appointment, that I silently apologized to him for saddling him with such a mouthful of a moniker. But mostly I’m proud that both boys carry my name, a name fairly unique and unusual, and I’ll let them decide if they ever want to truncate it to a single name some day. To my surprise, I just noticed the other day when Tristan’s first school picture came home that he is the only child in his class with a hypenated name.

The naming of Simon is a little bit less dramatic. Right up until he was born, we were vacillating between three names, even though Simon had been a front-runner in my mind even when we were naming Tristan. My brother had a friend named Simon when we were growing up, and he always struck me as kindly and thoughtful – two characteristics I attached to the name Simon. The other choices were Thomas and Lucas.

When Simon finally made his way into the world, 10 days past my due date and after nearly 30 hours of efforts to entice him to leave the womb, I knew when I saw him that he would definitely be Simon. Since we gave Tristan the name of Beloved’s grandfather and my father as a middle name, we gave Simon the name of my grandfather and my mother (in masculine form) as a middle name. Simon Francis.

I worried a little bit about “Simon says” and “Simple Simon”, and I even considered the impact of one of my childhood favourite shows, “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings.” Remember that theme song?

Oh, you know my name is Simon
And the things I draw come true.
And the pictures take me take me take me
Over the garden wall with you.

(Ironically, the Teletoon network here in Canada started running an updated version of that cartoon when I was home on maternity leave with Simon, but when I asked a young teenage acquantance of ours if he had ever had someone tease him about the song, he had no idea what we were talking about.)

In the end, of course, I love both names. I couldn’t imagine them being named anything else.

Rest assured you can expect much more on the topics of baby names in the next six months! In the interim, care to share your baby naming stories?

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I’m a morning person. In the first half of the day I’m at my most productive, my most energetic. I like waking up, knowing a fresh day stretches out before me. Most mornings, all I need is a cup of coffee and a couple of minutes to shake the cobwebs from my head, and I’m ready to go. On the fairly rare occassions when I sleep in, it’s never any later than 8:00 am.

But I’ve met my match. There’s early, in a birds-are-singing and sun-is-shining kind of way, and then there is “oh no, you can’t be serious – it’s two hours until sunrise!” kind of early. Could someone please explain that to Simon? It’s a good think he’s so damn adorable, else I would have locked him in a crate in the basement by now.

I can’t remember the last time my alarm, set for 5:45, actually woke me up. This morning, I was profoundly asleep at a little past five when Simon’s whimpering “Mummy? Mummy?” wafted down the hall. I woke up with that sickening feeling of being yanked to the surface of an ocean from some incredible depth beyond the reach of daylight, where only eyeless fish live in thermal vents.

I’ve given up on trying to coax Simon back to sleep most mornings. IfWhen he wakes up between 4 and 6 am, I try sticking his soother back in his mouth and patting him back to sleep, which never works. If it’s really early, I’ll try rocking him a bit and turning his CD lullaby back on, which never works. I’ve begged, pleaded, cajoled and ignored, none of which ever work. Mostly, I just pick him up and carry him into our bed, where he flops about like a landed trout while I try to convince myself I don’t need more than six hours of sleep a night. He crawls around on our bed, sticking his fingers in our ears and pulling my hair and kneeling on my nipples (at least I can say that the rest of the day is guaranteed to be an improvement from having someone kneeling on my nipple) until either one of us gives up and brings him downstairs or, more likely, Tristan wanders in and crawls on to the bed, too.

This morning, even though as soon as Simon saw me he began to dance in his crib and chatter cheerfully “All done, Mummy. Up! Up! All done!” while holding out his soother to me like a prize, I stubbornly refused to give up hope that this might be the morning Simon curled up in my still-warm bed to fall blissfully back to sleep. I picked him up, berating myself for my spinelessness – and felt something warm and wet soaking into my t-shirt. He’d peed through his diaper, two layers of jammies, a blanket and his crib sheet. I stripped him and his bed, piled everything in a corner, and dressed him for the day, all without turning on a light or opening my left eye. I think he’s wearing brown and khaki cords with a red sweatshirt over a lime green t-shirt. He’ll never remember when he grows up, I’m sure.

I was still debating hauling him into bed and using our combined body weight to pin him under the duvet when Tristan wandered in, rubbing his eyes and whimpering. Tristan, who has had virtually no accidents in the two months since potty week, had peed through his pull-up, jammies and sheets. I reassured him that everyone has accidents, dried and dressed him and stripped his bed – just in time to hear my alarm go off.

Every morning for weeks I’ve written a blog post in my head, pleading for help from the blogosphere on how to get Simon to sleep until – let alone past – 6 am. I’ve thought about it as I rocked him (unsuccessfully), ignored his cries (unsuccessfully), tried to get him to sleep in my bed (unsuccessfully) and given up and just gotten up with him (unhappily). For all the time I’ve spent thinking about this post, it’s an incoherent mess, isn’t it?

Any thoughts, bloggy friends? We’ve tried keeping him up later, or putting him down earlier. I’ve tinkered with naps. No matter what I do, they both rise before sparrow’s first fart. It’s been almost a year since we relented to CIO sleep training to get Simon to sleep at night, and I have absolutely no problems putting him down for naps or at bedtime – in fact, it’s one of the best times of our day. But how, for the love of god HOW do I get him to sleep just a little bit later?

If you need me, I’ll be the one standing in the kitchen, trying to get the coffeemaker to drip directly into my mouth.

Categories: Simon SleepDeprivation

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