Tristan

A couple of weeks ago, Tristan came home with a permission slip for the running club at school. It said they were preparing for a 5K race in Osgoode, and the kids would be working their way up to the 5k during lunch hours over the next few weeks.

Tristan loves to run, and I am always in favour of finding new ways for the kids to burn off energy, so this sounded like a great idea to me. I have to admit, even when I signed the permission slip, I had vague ideas of backing out of the actual race by the time it came around, but the more Tristan talked about the perks (a t-shirt! a MEDAL!) the more I realized I was firmly committed and should make peace with the sacrifice of a Saturday morning to the run.

I was a little less enthused when a note came home about a week before the run saying that the school couldn’t be responsible for overseeing all the kids during the actual run, and parents were at all times responsible for the supervision of their own kids. Suddenly I was faced with the idea of actually RUNNING the 5K instead of simply spectating it. And I was not amused.

In the days leading up to the race, I resigned myself to donning my trainers and hoping that my weekly trips to the gym would be enough to keep me from embarrassing myself too thoroughly. However, in passing I spoke to one parent who was also spouse of an organizer of the run, and I was assured that he would need no supervision, that the runners were on a closed pathway (the newly minted multi-use pathway in Osgoode) and in fact out of sight for only 10 or 15 minutes. And really, does my lightning-quick 9 year old really need his lumbering mother like a ball around his ankle, slowing him down?

That’s how we found ourselves in Osgoode on Saturday morning, just Tristan and me, in the pouring rain.

Here he is at the starting line, twitching to go. He’s number 52, in the blue jacket.

Did I mention the rain? Not just a sprinkle, either. Driving, cold rain.

They were out of my sight down the path within minutes, but it seemed to take hours for them to run the kilometer or so to one end of the course and turn around. They’d run past the start, run another kilometer or so in the opposite direction, and then back to finish at the same spot they’d started. I peered up the path for what seemed like hours watching for him after the first turn.

He really doesn’t seem to think the whole run thing was such a brilliant plan anymore, does he? Once he saw me, though, he kicked his little engine back into gear.

I’m sure a week passed, maybe two, before the runners made the final turn of the circuit and headed back to the finish. I was wet and I’d been hiding under an umbrella. As the first runners crossed the finish line, I peered up the path watching for Tristan and staked a strategic spot for myself at the finish line. When he finally approached, I was so excited for him I almost forgot to take a picture. This is about four feet from the finish line.

I honestly thought my heart would burst from pride. It’s one thing to run on a warm sunny spring day, but this was the most sucky day imaginable, and his determination never wavered.

He crossed the finish line in 30:52. Was it really only half an hour? Because it seemed about five times that long. He was wet and dirty, red-cheeked and sweaty, but rather than beaming in pride, he was rather stoic about his accomplishment. Between you and me, I think it was way harder and way less fun than he’d imagined.

He’s the introvert to my extravert, but he’s got his mother’s need for external validation, and when I realized that there were no medals to be had, I thought we were in real trouble. No medals? The only reason he ran was so he could get a medal. Lucky for me, he’s also got his mother’s short attention span, and a medal was easily substituted by the promise of a stuffed yellow Pikachu he’d been coveting. He certainly earned it.

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My dear, sweet Tristan,

Today you are nine years old – the last year of single digits! You, my eldest son, have had quite the year. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you much better as a person this year. I have seen bits of you that foreshadow the teenager you will soon be, and the man not far behind that. You already stand as tall as my chin, and you still laugh when every now and then I push down on the top of your head in an always-unsuccessful attempt to cram you back into the toddler that you were just yesterday.

You are still my adventuring son, the one with endless energy who will leave no snow-mound unscaled, no tree unclimbed, no ledge unwalked. You love to go places, to see new things, to explore new places. And yet you are also the most resistant to change — possibly even moreso than me, and I didn’t think that was possible. Our recent move was hardest on you of all the boys, but I think that six months later, you’re finally okay with it. Thank goodness for that treehouse, that’s all I can say!

Tristan, in your ninth year you like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, Pokemon, Beyblades, Smurfs, and playing Wii and DS games. You still love Lego, and you will spend endless amounts of time at the table with nothing but paper and pencil to entertain you. You’ve drawn your own comic books, and on an average day you create at least three or more works of art. You are a scavenger for art projects, and make fascinating compositions out of kleenex boxes, paper rolls and whatever other trush ephemera you can lay your hands on. You’re also reading way above your grade level, consuming book series like Geronimo Stilton and Percy Jackson.

You are doing well in school, solidly in the B to B+ range. You joined the school choir this year, which you seem to enjoy. Math seems to come easily to you, but getting you to do journal entries is like herding angry cats. How can the son of a hard core blogger hate writing journal entries so much?!

This year you had a fun party for friends old and new at the movie theatre, and it was another smashing success. Your cake was decorated with Sonic the Hedgehog action figures, and we all laughed our way through Gnomeo and Juliet. Tonight, Granny is fulfilling your special birthday dinner request: roast beef, mashed potatoes … and stuffing! (You sure have come a long way from the finicky eater you once were!)

You are an amazing older brother. Lately, you’ve taken to teaching Simon the math and cursive handwriting that you’re learning in school, and you have endless patience for Lucas. When Lucas and I took a quick trip to Toronto this past weekend, my heart nearly burst with pride when you drew a special colouring page full of Lucas’s favourite characters to keep him busy on the plane.

You have a big and sensitive heart, Tristan. You’re thoughtful and creative and very aware of the feelings of people around you. You’re not particularly good at putting your clothes in the hamper or keeping your room tidy, and the way you bicker with Simon may yet make my head explode. But you make me proud every single day, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to feel like we’re friends as well as mom and son.

Happy birthday, my darling Tristan. I hope this year is your best year ever. We love you very much!

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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.

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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!

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