A love letter to Tristan, age 7

My darling Tristan,

Today, you turn seven years old. Uncle Sean calls this your “champagne birthday”: seven years old on March 7. By coincidence, you’ve invited seven guests to your party, and the weather is even forecasting a high of 7 degrees! Remind me to go buy a Super 7 ticket for you, okay?

Tristan, this has been the year that you and I became friends as well as mother and son. This is the year you learned the fun of the inside joke, and the year you showed us a peek into what the future may hold with three big boys in our house.

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When I look back on the last year, the image I will remember most clearly is of you hunched over the kitchen table, markers and pencil crayons arrayed around your latest creation, be it book or drawing or comic. You are endlessly creative, my son, and you never fail to surprise me with your ideas and your ability. I’ve watched you turn a cereal box into a guitar and a packing crate into a rocket ship, with no prompting or suggestions from us. In fact, the problem now is what to do with your endless creations: before I can recycle that old tissue box it gets reinvented as a school bus for Webkinz. Endlessly charming, for sure, but we’re already a family that has clutter issues and now we’re swimming in random drawings and discarded art projects, too.

You are my adventurer, my athlete, my explorer. This summer, you astonished me by learning to jump off the diving board and cavort in the deep end of the pool long before I thought you’d be ready for it. You took skating lessons and went from barely able to stand to zooming around the rink with fearless abandon in just a few weeks. You love to climb, to leap, and to run. It’s nothing short of lovely, if not exhausting, to watch you move. And I’m constantly scolding you to stop using the furniture in your athletic endeavours!

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But you are a scholar, as well. You read well beyond your Grade 1 level, and because you are a renaissance child, you also do well in math. You have a sweet crush on your French teacher, and your accent is better at seven years old than mine is after 30 years of lessons. You want to please everyone so badly that sometimes you become overly anxious about performance and results, and you get that entirely from me. I’m so sorry!

You have yet to “discover” girls, but the girls have definitely discovered you. While I’ve long since become accustomed to sorting the love notes and heart-covered drawings from your school bag, I was left in open-mouthed shock just a week or so ago as one brazen little girl dashed over to kiss you goodbye on the cheek as we left the school yard. I think you are still generally nonplussed by the attention you get from the girls, and I think you’d be just as happy if they stopped their constant demands of “who are you going to marry,” but trust me: you’ll love it one of these days.

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You are a wonderful older brother to Simon and Lucas. Simon is both your best friend and, not surprisingly, your arch nemesis. I love to listen in as you provide sage and worldly advice to Simon on the rules of school; ironically, just a few weeks ago one such nugget exclaimed in horrified reaction was, “There is NO kissing at school!” You are unbelievably patient with Lucas, and you love to make him laugh. You are even responsible enough now that I can leave Lucas in your care for a few minutes and know that he will be safe and well entertained.

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At seven, your favourite things include Pokémon, Webkinz, Fairly Odd Parents and SpongeBob SquarePants. You have been working your way through the Warriors series of books at bedtime with Daddy for weeks now, and you all seem enthralled by them. You also love to play the Wii, including Star Wars Lego and Big Brain Academy. We see all of these interests come out in your drawings and in your imaginative play with Simon, and it’s fascinating to watch.

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This has been a fun and playful year with you, my sweet and handsome Tristan. Every single day with you is a joy, and I wish you the happiest of birthdays and a year brimming with love and adventure.

Another parenting milestone: come pick up your bloodied child

I knew it was coming. I guess I should count myself lucky to have made it two years into his scholastic career before it happened. I certainly count myself lucky for having been home to take the call when it came in.

“Hello, this is the school. Your little guy is here — he’s fine, but he’s taken a tumble, and you might want to come and get him. His nose was bleeding pretty badly, and he has a couple of scrapes.”

I’d been on my way to the grocery store and almost missed the call. Luckily, Simon was already outside in his coat and shoes. I finished the diaper change I’d been in the middle of and bundled up the baby in his car seat, and we were at the school in about five minutes. Poor Tristan was still shaking, and his little heart was racing. He’d been rolling down the hill with his friend, got dizzy and lost control. Then hit the pavement. Ouch. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how a body hits the pavement to leave a welt two inches above his knee, on his hip, on the inside of his elbow and from the tip of his nose down his mouth to his chin. *cringe* Apparently his nose bled quite profusely.

I was highly impressed with the school. By the time I arrived, his teacher was there with another teacher who might have been a nurse. They’d bundled him up and were talking gently to him. His teacher had even given him a couple of Hershey’s Kisses, which had melted into chocolate-foil blobs in his clenched fist. His teacher offered to help us out to the car, and her concern for Tristan was obvious. A yucky thing to happen, for sure, but I was pleased by the reaction of both the school and his teacher.

Poor kid’s got his mother’s dexterity. He’s doomed.

I’m no longer welcome in the school yard

Second week of school, and I’m no longer welcome in the school yard. Well, not just me. In fact, no parents are welcome in the school yard. But, I have decided to take it personally.

I can see why the school has asked parents to drop their kids off at the school yard fence instead of walking them to the back door, as we have been doing. They have no idea who is a parent and who is not, and their first priority has to be keeping the kids safe. It’s only a couple-50 meters difference, and the school yard is supervised the last quarter-hour before the bell rings.

I still hate it. And worse, Tristan hates it. He said it makes him sad, which breaks my heart. He liked it when we hung around with him, waiting for the bell to ring. Now we kiss him off in a crush of kids bottlenecking through the gate instead of near the door where he queues up. Myself, I liked the time before and after school where I could scope out the other kids and their parents, and maybe even strike up a conversation with the familiar faces. It’s been nice being able to get to know the kids in his class and some of their parents over the last couple of months.

The funny thing is that in not traversing that final couple of meters across the school yard, we’ve cut a significant amount of our morning walk. If I’m only going to be escorting him to and from the school yard fence, I’m seriously wondering whether it’s worth doing at all. In other words, I’m wondering if at six he’s old enough to walk to and from school on his own.

What do you think? I’m torn on this one. Myself, I walked back and forth from the time I was four years old, and it was twice or three times the distance that Tristan has to walk. (And it was uphill both ways, in 10 feet of snow, and I had to park my dinosaur at the stable around the corner.) I don’t fear for his safety in any way, and I find that in general, Tristan’s a smart and responsible kid. I’m more than half-way inclined to let him try it.

But. But, but, but. It’s always the niggling little voice of worry that does me in. What if? What if something happened, what if he got lost (he can actually see the house for the entire walk and knows the neighbourhood like the back of his hand), what if something even more awful happened?

I’d be inclined to let him try it in the mornings (why do mornings seem less threatening, less full of potential mischief?) but I have to walk Simon over there anyway. It only really makes sense to let him walk home by himself after school. I’m sure he’d be fine, absolutely positive. But.

There are other options. I see tonnes of kids wandering by the house each morning and afternoon on their own treks to school, so I could try to find an older kid to escort him home in the afternoons. And I love the idea of the “walking school bus” so if I were feeling really keen, I could even try to organize something like this.

What do you think? How old is old enough to walk to or from school by yourself?

One dead mouse

I went out for an early-morning walk last week, and on the way back into the house I noticed that one of the neighbourhood cats had left a present in the driveway. One dead mouse. Cute little thing, too. I walked into the house, and asked Beloved to dispose of the poor little fellow on his way out to work. I’m all about equality between genders, but there are some jobs that just cry out for a manly touch, yanno?

I’d completely forgotten about it a couple of hours later when I was herding the boys out of the house to go to the grocery store. They were playing outside while I loaded Lucas into his car seat, and I remembered the deceased rodent at the exact moment they discovered it. I walked out and they were both on their haunches inspecting him, and I threatened them with nasty consequences if they even thought about touching the poor thing before I could pick it up.

I came out with a ziploc bag inverted over my hand and picked him up, cringing at the softness of his fur through the bag. I felt a little verklempt myself, which might be why I didn’t see coming what happened next. Not sure what else to do with him (we don’t – thankfully – get a lot of deceased rodents in the hood) I reverted the bag around him in much the same manner as I handle dog poops and zipped him inside. I didn’t realize that Tristan was right behind me as I walked into the garage and was about to drop him into the nearest garbage bag when he stopped me with a tiny voice.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” he asked, and I knew I was in trouble.

“Oh sweetie,” I said, my heart already breaking. “He’s , um, he’s dead, sweetie. I’m putting him in the trash.”

His face crumpled as he tried not to cry in front of me and was overcome nonetheless. I think it might have been the first time he really had an understanding of the finality of death. And his first lesson on the subject? Dead = trash. Good one, Mom.

I thought about burying him in the yard and making a bit of a ceremony out of it, but I was frankly afraid it would be a slippery slope leading to funerals for squashed spiders and road kill and who knows what else. So instead we just spent a little while talking about how he probably lived a good life, and how he’d go to heaven to play with all sorts of mousey friends in a big mousey field full of cheese. Eventually, the tears stopped and after a while, I even got him smiling. I was reminded that there is a big gap between four years old and six years old, and a big difference in the personalities of Simon and Tristan. While Tristan cried, Simon made jokes. Not mean jokes, but it was obvious that the dead mouse didn’t faze him in the slightest and he was perplexed by Tristan’s reaction.

Throughout the day, in quiet moments, Tristan would speak up again about the dead mouse, and I knew he was still processing it all in his little gigantic heart. Late in the afternoon, the boys were playing outside for a while, and when I came out later I found an inscription on the driveway in chalk: “I miss you moues.”

I wish I could wrap my arms around him and just hug him forever.

(I’d started writing this post a few days ago, and never got back to it. I was reminded of it again yesterday, when we got home from running some errands and Beloved noticed that a kitten had been run over in the road directly in front of our house. I am endlessly grateful to the city for their responsiveness. Within an hour of my call, while Beloved whisked the boys off on another errand, they had come by to scoop up the gory remains. Thankfully, they never saw it. I can only imagine the trauma that one would have caused.)

Grade One already

I never would have guessed that I’d be more worked up about Tristan going off to school all day long — Grade One already! — than I was when he went off to Junior Kindergarten the first time. At the end of June, I thought I would dance with glee when I finally sent him back to school. And yet here I am with a lump in my throat, thinking about how much I’ll miss him, miss the simple pleasure of his company.

I was so proud of him when Simon, Lucas and I escorted him to school. I’m so happy that I don’t have any serious worries about Tristan. He’s such a great kid. He found his buddy from last year, who is thankfully in his class again this year, and within seconds they were the centre of a gaggle of gangly Grade One boys. His teacher seems fantastic, and he already knows and likes her. She greeted the students she knew with a hug, and the ones she was just meeting with an effusive handshake. I think we’re in luck this year, again.

That’s not keeping me from fretting, though. Does he have enough to eat? Will he have the stamina to make it through a full day, every day? And, just to torque my anxiety a bit higher, he’s not feeling well. He spiked a fever yesterday, and though he was bright and energetic this morning, I think he’s still coming down with something. Sigh.

Who knew a house with three people in it could feel so empty? First Beloved left to go back to work, and now Tristan’s off. Simon’s integration into JK will be a little slower, but in two weeks, it will just be Lucas and I in the house. Much as I crave the quiet time and peace of an (almost) empty house, I feel sad and out of sorts right now.

I know myself well enough to know why I’m teary and regretful instead of excited to have my boys growing up and doing so well. Only a few short months until I go back to work. Whimper.

Tristan takes a dive

It seemed like a straightforward question. On the enrollment form I completed on the first day of Tristan’s first day-long day camp: “Can your child swim 25 meters unassisted: yes, no, I don’t know.”

25 meters? How long is 25 meters anyway? That seems kind of far. So I checked “no”.

Then I thought of Tristan bounding off the diving board and dogpaddling happily the length of our friends’ pool, and his success in swimming lessons, and scratched out my “no” and checked the “yes” box.

Then I paused, and reread the question. And I had visions of Tristan foundering in the deep end of some lake-sized pool, alone and far from safety, going under for the third time. And I quickly scratched out my check in the “yes” box and circled the previously scratched out “no” box and drew a little happy face beside it.

Then I paused again. Suddenly, I was picturing Tristan sitting dejectedly on the pool deck in a life preserver as the rest of his camp mates splashed happily in the pool. I pictured him at 35, in his therapist’s office, describing how a childhood spent in a protective bubble ruined his life. So I drew a squiggley line through my circle around the “no” box and scratched it so definitively out that I bled through the paper. And I put a big X on the happy face, too.

I hovered my pen briefly over the “I don’t know” box. I tried to imagine in which universe a skinny, pimply-faced teenager with no investment in the future social and mental well-being of my oldest son was somehow in a better position to make this decision than I seemed to be capable of, and didn’t check that box either.

In the end, I redrew the little box above the “yes” and ticked it off. For good measure, I pointed a few arrows at it and wrote the word “yes!” at the end of the question, and underlined it. I think maybe I was trying to sell the answer to myself.

At the end of the day, I grilled Tristan with the usual questions about his day, and he answered with the usual dreamy inexactitude I have come to expect. He told me about his art class (it was an arts camp) and the monster he was creating in a distracted sort of way. I asked about the pool.

“Oh yeah!” he said, snapping awake into the story, eyes bright with the memory of it. “It was great! I jumped off the highest diving board!”

I paused to digest that. “You mean the one closest to the ground, right? The low board? Not the one that you have to climb up a ladder to get to?” Surely to god my six year old who only learned how to jump off the diving board in the last year was not jumping off the 3m (10 foot) board.

“No, Mommy, the big board! I climbed up the ladder, and the first time I was scared, but then it was a lot of fun so I did it a bunch of times! And it was great! I can’t wait to go back tomorrow and do it again!” At least, I assume that’s what he said. I think I died of fright somewhere around the first exclamation point.

I’m good, but I’m not that good

I’m feeding the baby on the couch. Tristan and Simon are playing upstairs. Tristan calls down.

“Mom!” he bellows, coming down the stairs. “I need some red fabric.” I marvel for a minute that he knows a word like ‘fabric’ before replying.

“Well, there’s a red polar fleece blanket in Lucas’s closet, but it has teddy bears on it.”

“No, that’s no good,” he says.

“What do you need it for?” I ask.

“Brownie needs a superhero cape,” he replies. Brownie is his Webkinz doggie.

“Just use the superman cape that’s on your jammies,” I suggest.

“No, I looked for it but it’s in the dirty clothes hamper,” he whines. I’m mildly surprised that that stopped him, but shrug.

“Sorry, buddy, I can’t think of anything else we’d have that might work.”

“Well,” he says, a little petulantly, “can’t you just knit some or something?”