From there to here, from here to there, Funny things are everywhere
I was looking through some old Easter photos and couldn’t help but notice that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I find it fascinating that the photos I chose to keep are so similar in composition and pose, and focus on the same aspects of their personalities.
Tristan, age 7 and age 14:
Simon, age 5 and age 12:
Lucas, age 3 and age 8:
Well, at least one thing has changed: my mad photo skillz are clearly improved!
I couldn’t tell you whether it’s me or the boys who more love decorating Easter eggs. They all have a lovely artistic streak in their nature, and I’m delighted to have them trapped in a room doing an activity together that’s delightfully photogenic. Wins all around!
I always start going for documentary-style shots of the activity and their interactions.
I try to catch their different personalities.
And then I just had fun with the shapes and colours.
It might be an early and icy Easter, but it’s definitely a colourful one!
I wanted to capture that delightful gap-toothed smile before it was gone.
I hope the sparkle in his smile is always there.
My sweet, funny man-child: Tristan, today you are 14.
As I write this, you are busy sifting through books, papers and Lego sets to replace an older, smaller bookshelf with a larger one we filched from the curb last night. It’s a great metaphor for where you are in your life – trading in Captain Underpants and Geronimo Stilton books for a growing manga collection, giving up some little-boy toys to make room for teenager stuff. The best part, though, is that YOU are doing it, organizing your stuff to your preference, while I tap away up here on the computer.
Tristan, you continue to be creative, funny, clever and adventurous. You love to make things, in the digital world and in the tangible one. You are currently using Minecraft to create pixel art of your favourite manga characters from inspiration you found online. You’ve come a long way, and yet not so far at all, from your endless days at the table with crayons and paper.
Speaking of manga, it seems to be your new passion. From Sword Art Online to the row of manga books on your new bookshelf, you have a growing fascination with animé, manga and Japanese culture. You’ve watched so much animé on Crunchyroll this year that you’re starting to recognize some Japanese words, and your new favourite snack food is Pocky. You’ve also become interested in cosplay, and see no reason why you shouldn’t wear at least some parts of your Kirito costume to school occasionally. You continue to be disappointed that I won’t buy you the expensive thigh-high boots you covet to complete the look.
You still love to play Minecraft and the Wii with your brothers, and you watch way more YouTube than conventional TV. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw you choose the big screen over the smaller one of your various devices, although you do like to watch the Amazing Race and Masterchef with the family. You do more than just mindlessly watch videos on YouTube, though; I’ve been fascinated to hear you teaching yourself complex video game scores on the electric keyboard based on YouTube tutorials you find online.
You have a quirky, subversive and truly delightful sense of humour, and I adore your dry, droll delivery. You see no reason why you should follow the crowd or subject yourself to meaningless societal conventions. You have a keen sense of justice and are quick to call an outrage, but your temper itself is even-keeled. It’s often very difficult to tell what you are thinking, and you must be a mystery to others who know you less well than we do.
You are always up for an adventure, or a walk. One of my favourite memories of our soggy, grey vacation in PEI this year was the long, rambly, rain-soaked hike we took to explore the land-locked lighthouse and beach at St Peter’s Harbour. You still choose to leap, climb, slide and zig-zag rather than walk a straight line. Despite spending some time in physio for patello femoral syndrome in your knees, you continued to hone your skills as a runner this year. You participated in both the cross-country meet and track and field, where you competed in the pentathalon and won your heat in the 100m race.
Because you are a renaissance man, in addition to art and athletics you continue to do well in the academic world too. Your grades are solid across all your subjects, and you seem to have a natural affinity for math and science. You and I had an insightful chat not too long ago in which we discussed the grades you are able to achieve now without really trying, versus the potential you could achieve with a little bit more focus and attention to detail. You picked courses this week for your first year of high school, which led to poking around potential fields of study for university, and you are showing interest in computers and technology as a future path.
For your birthday this year, you chose the same laid-back party format you chose last year: to invite your friends over to spend a few hours hanging out, doing things that Tristan likes to do. In this case, that comprised Wii U, pizza, charades, hanging out, Magic the Gathering, and a rogue game of Settlers of Catan. The same old gang showed up, and their affection for you is obvious through their quirky, handmade cards (fine art, a short story, and one written in code with a key for decoding on the back of French homework) and gifts that show a surprising and heartwarming amount of thought and insight into your personality. You have chosen your friends well, and they are always welcome here.
Tristan, there is so much more I want to say about what makes you so delightfully YOU at 14: how you wear that infernal blanket around the house like a cape, how much Willie loves you, how you lean in for a hug that doesn’t actually involve your arms, how you stereotypically communicate in a teenager’s monosyllabic grunt, how you love to chop the vegetables for dinner so you can play with the big knife, how you carefully maintained a spreadsheet of your allowance so you could save for your own PS Vita, how much I love our inside jokes and daily routines and the simple pleasure of your company.
Happy birthday, my man-child! Know that your family loves you beyond measure.
It’s been nearly two years since I first wrote about stalking my culinary hero, Chef Michael Smith. Since then we’ve been to his Flavour Shack in Souris several times, and for my birthday dinner last year we splurged on an incredible family dinner at his new FireWorks restaurant at the Inn at Bay Fortune. And yet, despite our best efforts to meet him in person, Chef Michael himself has managed to evade us.
Until Tuesday, that is! In a delightful and completely unexpected convergence of my day job, my love of photography and my celebrity crush, I had the amazing opportunity to take and tweet photos of Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAuley (how much do I love that my “boss” is from PEI?!) making soup with Chef Michael Smith at an industry reception hosted by the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. They’re the folks behind the #HalfYourPlate campaign.
I was more than a little anxious the day of the event. I alternated between worrying that I wouldn’t get a chance to meet Chef Michael and worrying that I would in fact get to meet him — but would babble like an idiot. There may be some precedence for the latter. I also worried about forgetting an important piece of gear at home; whether I’d be able to get a clean photo worthy of the subject matter; whether my equipment would fail; whether I could get it right in camera well enough to avoid the need for post-processing; whether there would be too many people in the room and where I should position myself for the best shot; which lens I should use; how I’d be able to get the photo from my camera to my phone to tweet the photo; whether I should use my flash on-camera, off-camera or not at all; whether I would get stuck in traffic on my way to the event and be late or miss it entirely; whether the egg salad I had for lunch would give me food poisoning and render me unable to attend; and, whether Beloved would ever forgive me for meeting Chef Michael without him.
By the time I actually got to the Chateau I was so frazzled that I was relieved to have simply made it to the site intact. I walked into the ballroom and nearly dropped my equipment – he was RIGHT THERE! Surprisingly, there were no heavenly beams shining on him, no chorus of foodies with harps and whisks around him. And after nearly hyperventilating, I was actually able to walk right up and talk to him and say hello, just like a normal human being. And then this happened:
He was sweet enough to both indulge my request for a photo and to listen to me babble about our various trips to stalk him visit PEI, my love for the Island and how I credited him almost entirely for me learning to cook in my 40s. To my delight, he said that he took issue with me giving him credit, and that people have been figuring out how to cook food for generations. He said that all he did was give me the confidence to give myself permission to learn, which was a lovely way of framing it. He asked me about the boys and their ages, and told me about his three kids,and we chatted a bit about the Inn at Bay Fortune as well. By that point, I felt like I’d taken more than my share of his time and retreated to a corner of the ballroom to have a wee moment and get my wits about me while preparations for the reception went on around me. Luckily, I had more than an hour before I needed to take my one tweetable photo and my colleagues and I chatted amiably while we waited for the cooking demo with our Minister to begin.
To my immense relief, I was able to nail a couple of great shots and managed to get them out on the corporate Twitter account without incident.
By the time the reception wrapped up, it had been a couple of hours of being in the room with Chef Michael and I really thought I’d shown tremendous restraint at not following him around like a puppy dog but kept a respectful and respectable demeanor – and distance. I was packing up my (largely unused) gear when I noticed him chatting with a few people nearby. I had an idea, shrugged it off as ridiculous and insane, and then decided to carpe my diem. When would I ever have an opportunity like this again?
I used my iPhone make a FaceTime connection to Beloved at home and told him to gather up the kids and stand by. Then I took a deep breath and I think I was already blushing when I approached Chef Michael, brandishing my iPhone. The emcee for the evening smiled and me and gestured at my phone, asking “Would you like me to take a picture?”
“Um, no,” I blushed, looking at Chef Michael. “I was wondering if I could trouble you to say hi to my boys?” and I held up the live FaceTime connection. I now know that Chef Michael is not only a passionate advocate for family cooking and a world class chef, but a genuinely lovely person, because he did not miss a beat and immediately leaned in to the screen to say hello to the boys.
“You know,” Chef Michael said to them, “your mom is pretty cool! Now EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!” He went on to say hi to everyone, and to smile and wave as everyone said hello back.
I couldn’t have asked for a better finish for a fun evening. Now not only have I met our culinary hero, but the whole family has as well. And it was one of those rare and delightful situations where someone you’ve been admiring for years turns out to be an even more lovely person than you’d imagined.
And also? Chef Michael told my kids that their mom is cool. I’ll be milking that one for YEARS!
🙂
It’s the off-season for my photography business, which means two things. First, I’ve got a lot more time on my hands, so I’m teaching myself new tricks and being inspired by seeking out photography tutorials and workshops. Lately, I’ve been thinking more about creativity and storytelling in my photography. Second, I’m positively twitchy to take photos and create things.
I came up with this idea not too long ago, and the idea got firmly stuck in my head. I’ve taken zillions of snowman-building photos over the years, but what if I used composites to show the boys building an epic-sized snow man? This is the final result:
I have to admit, it’s not quite where I wanted to end up. I have the skills now to composite the various pieces together pretty well. This image was about 15 layers in Photoshop, by the time I got through adding the bits together and correcting the light and shadows. Here’s the original four photos I used:
The background is actually a photo I shot with my iPhone on the way home from church, when I realized that the first background I’d been using wasn’t going to tell the story properly.
While I am pleased with the final result, I’m also frustrated. There’s a big gap at the end of what I was able to execute and where I was originally trying to go. I was going for a whimsical, magical feel, almost like an illustration, and couldn’t get it to that level. It may be that the components I was building on are just not right for what I was imagining, or that I just have more learning to do. Even so, I learned a LOT in the process of pulling this together, not least of which is that some tutorials on the Internet are full of crap. The good news is that I have about 50 more ideas I want to execute in this vein, and for the first time in my photographic career, I can conceptualize a theme that I’d like to build into a coherent body of work. That’s pretty exciting, to me at least.
I also learned that spending six hours in Photoshop on a Sunday leaves you with the same sort of “wow, did I ever overindulge myself” feeling that eating nothing but chips and cookies all day does! I’d probably feel a little less guilty about it if I’d been able to hit the mark I was going for, but I’m still pretty pleased with where I ended up.
What do you think?
Thanks to Facebook, I know that five years ago today I wrote this post. Tristan is now in middle school and safely walks to and from the bus stop without incident. What I find charming is that he was in Grade 3 when I wrestled with the idea of the risk of letting him walk home by himself, and Lucas in Grade 2 has done it several times now without incident or angst on my part. Not only do the boys grow up, but the parents do, too. 🙂
I am standing at the fence as I do every day, waiting for the bell to ring and the tsunami of energetic children to come spilling out of the school. I brace myself, as I do every day, for Simon’s enthusiastic hug that will one day knock me clear off my feet. Tristan too still hugs me, but in a more reserved and shy way that leads me to believe that while third graders still bestow public hugs upon parents, I’d best be prepared in case fourth graders do not.
We’re headed toward the car together when Tristan stops. “Mom, can I walk home by myself?” he asks. We’ve talked about this a few times before. We live exactly 0.9 km away from the school, down one reasonably quiet and safe street with a sidewalk and two very quiet streets with no sidewalks. We’ve walked it together on many occasions, and I know Tristan prefers to walk. Most days, however, we have to drive as I make it to the school from work with barely a few minutes to spare, and we still have to drive over to pick up Lucas from daycare a couple of blocks in the opposite direction.
I take a searching look at his face, weighing in my mind the walk, the traffic, the buses, the snow, his relative trustworthiness, how long it will take me to pick up Lucas and make it home, and my mother’s reaction if and when she ever hears that I’d let him walk by himself. Another part of my mind is busy admiring the fat snowflakes caught in his gorgeous eyelashes and how his gray-green eyes mimic the stormy clouds above us. He looks so grown up to me in that heartbeat of a minute, pleading his case not with words but by simply returning my gaze. It’s the briefest of exchanges, and yet it resonates with me as a milestone in progress. I can trust him or not, trust the world or not. The choice is mine.
“Are you sure you know the way?” I ask. I make him describe it to me, each corner and turn. We’ve walked it a dozen times and driven it a hundred — I’m pretty sure we could both do it blindfolded. I briefly wonder if we should ponder this more, hold a family council and debate the pros and cons, but in this moment I trust my instincts and acquiesce.
“Okay, but you go straight home,” I tell him. “And if you get lost, I want you to step back from the road and just sit down on someone’s lawn, okay? No wandering around. If you make a wrong turn, stop moving and I will come and find you.” It’s less than a 10 minute walk with three intersections. There is really so little chance of him being lost that I can only laugh at myself and the lasting impressions of the time I got lost the first time I walked home by myself from a new school back in 1975. Remember that one, Mom?
As expected, Simon also wants a piece of the deal once it’s brokered, but I’m having none of that. First, being older must come with some privileges, and second, I think walking home is enough of a test without being responsible for minding your little brother at the same time. Simon, who generally prefers driving to school over walking anyway, is easily persuaded that walking alone is more of a second or third grade sort of activity.
As we pull out of the parking lot, I scan my rearview mirror for signs of Tristan and can see him bobbing along in the stream of children burbling down the sidewalk. It takes me only a few minutes to retrieve Lucas, and although respect all traffic laws regarding speed and full stops, I do forgo the usual end of day chat with his caregiver in my haste to pack him up and get him out.
We pass by the school, and I begin scanning the sidewalk and snowbanks for Tristan’s blue snowsuit and black watch cap. There’s no sign of him on the way home and as I pull in to the driveway I catch sight of him, swinging gently and patiently on the porch swing, with not even a self-satisfied grin on his face.
The next day when I meet them at the fence, I expect Tristan to ask to walk home by himself again. I’m secretly pleased when he does not. He may have trod a few more snowy footprints on the road to independence, but I’m glad he still knows I’ve got a warm car standing by for those most bitter and blustery days.
We’ve had a LOT of birthday party experience over the years, from bowling to trampolines to movies to art to Lego. Our new favourite party by far, though, is one hosted at the Ottawa Humane Society.
We all love animals, but Lucas has shown a real affinity for them. When he did a school project last year on “People In Your Neighbourhood” he chose our vet Heather Ann to profile, and every time I see a cute kitty video on Facebook, I make a note to save it and show it to him. We support the Ottawa Humane Society already as one of our preferred charities, and so hosting a birthday party there was an easy choice – all profits beyond the direct costs of the party are invested back into the OHS.
They did an amazing job with the party. All we had to do was show up! They provided decorations, cups and plates, napkins and cutlery, and even candles. Our party leader Stephanie was patient and knowledgeable, good with kids, and just the right personality to wrangle a few boys who might have been a wee bit overexcited. She introduced us to her friendly pet rat Phoebe, who was a definite hit with party-goers big and small.
First, we decorated our treat bags (Lucas looked up at me and said blissfully, “I didn’t know there would be art at my animal party!” as his worlds of happiness collided) and then the kids made doggie treats out of oats, flour and peanut-free nut butter. We chose the dog treat activity, but could have also made cat toys or hide-and-perch boxes for the shelter cats.
Then we went on a tour of the shelter, where we saw the animals waiting for adoption. There was a beautiful malamute that very nearly went home with Granny and Papa Lou, had his papers not said he would prefer a home without other dogs. I was really pleased that the kids got to go “behind the scenes” to learn about what the OHS does, and how they take care of the animals that come to the shelter. The highlight of the tour, though, was being allowed to pet the cats waiting for adoption.
I have to tell you, I was secretly pleased at how few animals we saw at the shelter. We’ve visited a few times before to pet the kitties, and always found dozens of cats waiting for homes, but there were just a few this weekend. In fact, while we were there two kittens and one dog were adopted. What a great lesson for the kids! What I didn’t point out to the kids was the family who were obviously surrendering their pet, as they brought in armloads of pet gear and left empty-handed and in tears. It must be heart-wrenching to work with the shelter, and I have so much admiration for the staff and volunteers.
After our tour, we had the usual party fun: cake, presents and loot bags. A giant cookie cake, in fact, baked at Lucas’ request by Beloved.
I can’t say enough good things about the Ottawa Humane Society or the party they helped us host for Lucas. He loved every minute of it and has already said that he wants his ninth birthday party to be at the OHS, too. And did you know they have camps for PD Days and March Break, too?
Happy birthday, Lucas! Thanks for having a birthday so we could have fun visiting the OHS!
My sweet funny Lucas, you are eight years old today!
Lucas, you are kind, thoughtful, clever and silly. You are warm and affectionate and love to laugh. And you are charmingly oblivious to the sort of social conventions that require you to actually say hello back when somebody speaks to you, although I’m no longer sure I’d call you shy. You are effusive with your affection, and your teacher has commented on your natural charm on more than one occasion.
You love art and games of all kinds, from board games to video games. Since getting Charades for Christmas, you pester us endlessly to play it with you. You’re always up for a game of Mancala or Blokus or cards or Scrabble or Clue, and you’re now big enough to hold your own playing any of these games – although Charades is occasionally a little elusive for you.
You are a talented and prolific artist. You were delighted that we signed you up for a drawing class, though I’m sure your skill level was miles beyond what they’d usually see in a second grader. When you don’t know what else to do, you love to pull out your art supplies and start creating. Drawing, painting, sculpting with play dough, building Lego creations and papercrafts – if it’s a creative pursuit, you can’t wait to do it. “What should I draw?†is always the beginning of a creative adventure for you.
Speaking of adventures, we had a great adventure this past summer when we signed you up for soccer. It didn’t take you long to catch up with the boys who had been playing in the house league for years, and every single week I was impressed by your energy and enthusiasm for the game. You also love swimming, and this summer you loved being able to (finally!) jump off the diving board into the deep end of the Manotick pool to your heart’s content. You’re still not very interested in biking on two wheels or skating, though.
You love animals of all kinds, but you especially love baby animals. You love to watch the funny animal videos we find on the Internet, and you know all the neighbourhood dogs by name because you love to stop and say hello to them. I’m not sure you’d recognize our neighbours’ faces, but you surely know each of their pets by name! You and Bella have become good friends, and she is as happy to cuddle with you as to have you play with her and her toys. Every dog deserves a boy!
School seems to come easily to you, while focusing on a task at hand does not. You’re a day dreamer, and sending you off to get dressed can be a multi-hour experience if you are left to your own devices. You brought home not one, not two, but THREE A+ on your final report card for Grade 1, making your dad and me very proud and pleasantly surprised.
Once again this year, you were separated from your close friends and I was heartbroken for you. You, of course, handled it better than I did, and it seems that recess has provided sufficient connection for you to maintain your friendships with David, Chris, Matthew, Cole and Owen, and this year you’ve also invited a few girls from your class to your birthday party. Because you so love animals, a party at the Ottawa Humane Society seemed like the perfect choice for you.
Lucas, you truly are my sunshine. From morning “coffee and newspapers” to reading together at bedtime, and all the adventures in between, every day with you is a day full of joy. You are growing up so quickly, and I can’t believe how responsible you are, walking home by yourself some days and always taking care with your school assignments.
We love you endlessly, my sunny boy. Happy birthday!
It was early in the morning. I was reading my newspaper and drinking coffee, and I looked up and found them like this:
She’s happy to cuddle, he’s happy to play, I’m happy to get an adorable photo. Everybody wins.