Again, Suddenly from the Back Seat....

Boy: Daddy? When I'm a granddad ... will you be dead?

Nocturnal Emissions.

In the middle of the night I was awakened either by coughing in the next room or the urge to go pee ... one of the two. It was the Boy who was doing the coughing and I was a little alarmed since when he gets sick and throws up, it is usually preceded by a round of coughing similar to what I was hearing. I got up and went around the corner to look into his room. He looked peaceful enough laying there. He looked asleep. Until he said:
Boy: Daddy, what are you doing there?
Me: I was just checking to see if you were okay. Do you feel sick?
Boy (getting up and coming over to see me) : No. I mean, maybe yes. I have drips coming from my eyes and I'm not even sad.

Naughty? Nice!

The blizzard that could have given us a white Christmas came two days late. The night before last the snow fell and the wind howled through every drafty window. We were quite stuck in the house. My wife didn't get to her shift at the airport for the first time in 15 years.

We had a good day together, bound to our little house. It was an especially good day for a Boy who found an overlooked Christmas present for the second day in a row.

By the time evening came, it was decent enough to go outside to do some shovelling. We have a finicky steet light at the end of our driveway. It somehow turns itself off every three minutes or so and the driveway is dark for about a minute before the light decides to come back on. I used this timing to good advantage, resting in the dark and throwing snow in the light. It took about an hour before the driveway was finally clear. As I was about halfway up the walkway, I heard the plow coming. With gritted teeth, I went back to wait for it at the end of the driveway, leaning on the snow shovel, glaring at the plow as it pushed in a fresh drift of snow.

I cleared out the new drift and went inside, peeled off my wet ski suit hat and gloves and got to washing up the dirty dishes. Our dishwasher was full, but the box of powder was empty. I told the Boy, this was the old fashioned way of doing the dishes.

As I was finishing up, I heard the plow go by again.

The air rang blue with curses.

This morning was the day to finally get out of the house and do some chores. It started with more snow shovelling. The Boy and I worked together. It was good work. The air was crisp, the sky a deep blue, the day fresh and coated a brilliant white. We found the black of our driveway and then off we went to the shops to get some groceries, exchange a present and scout for deals. Near the end of it all, as I pushed the Boy and the cart down the aisle with the dishwasher powder and the cat food, a question came out of that clear blue sky:

Boy: Daddy, did you get all you wanted for Christmas?
Me: Well, mostly, I guess. Not quite everything.
Boy: Oh. I guess you weren't good enough.

On the Subject of Siblings.

We visited Granny and Poppa last weekend. We went up on Friday, and as is often the case with a winter drive to the Valley, we were beset by bad weather. The snow fell in big flakes, creating the illusion in front of the windshield of a star field at warp speed. Paradoxically, it felt like the car wasn't moving, since the only visible reference in the storm was the car in front of us that was traveling the exact same slow speed that we were. Fortunately, nobody went off the road.

The Boy spent the weekend playing with his two boy cousins and had a great time. They are a bit rougher than he is, and we put it down to the fact that they are two brothers in constant competition with each other. The Boy, of course, is an only child - a term with which I take some issue. Friends are always saying that he needs a brother or a sister. Encouraging us like. I don't like that either. The Boy, I tell them, is state of the art reproductive technology. Subtextually that means it was very difficult for Mommy and Me to have the one. We were lucky to get one (and he's perfect). Shut up about having another.

But on the drive home I thought I'd ask a boy what he thought.

Me: Do you miss not having a brother?

Boy: Yeah.

Mamma: Do you wish you had a brother or a sister?

Boy: I already have two sisters.

Mamma: You do? Who?

Boy: Ginger and Zoë. (Our cats, if you didn't know.)

Singing's Thirsty Work

'Tis the season to be sitting in the auditorium, watching all the young'uns up there on the stage, singing their little hearts out. It's the Boy's first Christmas concert. Mine too... as a parent. The thing I realized was that even though there were about four different grades that were singing their songs, they all sing with a single voice. Close your eyes for any of them and it almost sounds like a Peanuts special.

So the Boy was magnificent. Not shy at all and singing his little heart out. I asked him if he was nervous, all those hundreds of parents and family filling the gymnasium, but no, no stage fright at all.

We're driving home and it's late. Way past his bed time. It's a nice drive home from the school past all the houses gaily festooned with brilliant and beautiful Christmas lights. Suddenly he pipes up from the back seat.

Boy: I'm really thristy. Can we stop at a bar?

Santa Clone

Today, the Boy was invited to one of his classmate's birthday party. We spent part of the morning going to the mall to get a present for the party. The parking lot was jammed full with the start of the silly season. We enter the mall from the far end - it was the only parking spot we could find - and who should we see when we went in ... but Santa!

After a bit of gentle persuasion, the Boy decides to go sit on Santa's lap and tell him want he wants for Christmas (remote controlled car). Santa asks him if he's been good and then double checks the answer with me, gives him a candy cane and a book and off we go to get the gift. I wonder aloud about going to another mall to see if I can find Mommy a Christmas present and - whoops - mention about seeing Santa again in the other mall. Umm, Santa is fast and magical, after all. And wouldn't you know (fortune favours the foolish), on our way back out to the car, Santa wasn't there. Daddy, quick as a whip, informs the Boy:

Me: Hey. He must have gone over to the other mall.

Later, we're driving back from the birthday party and the Boy is asking me if he's been good this year because he'd like to get a lot of presents from Santa.

Me: Yes. You've been good. In fact, Santa knows that because he asked you in the mall this morning. And double-checked it with me.

I thought about this for a tick and said:

Me: In fact, Santa didn't need to ask me or you if you were good because Santa knows if boys have been good or bad. He didn't need to ask you or me. That was pretty silly of Santa!

Boy: I think there's two Santas. I think there's a Santa who lives at the North Pole with the Missus and gives out the toys and another Santa who goes to the stores.

Top to Bottom

Part 1: Top

The Boy has been a bit sick the last few days. Poor little shaver has been up in the middle of the night throwing up. This is usually preceded by a bout of coughing. During the day he doesn't seem so bad except that he has a runny nose and no appetite.

We were setting up to play a game of Monopoly Junior when he sniffed and wiped his nose with the length of his long sleeve ... elbow to wrist.

Me: Oh, man. Use a tissue, sweetheart.

Boy (inspects his sleeve): It's all right. There's no snot.

Part 2: Bottom

I'm up early every morning to get ready to go to work. My day runs from 7 am to 3 pm which means, as usual, it's just one side or the other of 6 in the morning when I'm coming out of the shower.

There's a Boy, awake too early, beaming up at me, sitting on the toilet having a poop.

Boy: Turn off the fan so it's as stinky as possible.

Lights, Action!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The last month has been very busy on all front; work, home, you name it. We had a nice little break in the middle of November when we took four days and went to visit family in Newfoundland. I actually got out to see a movie. I went to see The Incredibles which was great. The original plan had been to see it weeks early, all of us, the whole family. But the movie is rated PG and my wife had concerns that it wouldn't be appropriate for a 5-year old Boy. So I went. And yeah, there was guns and shooting and explosions and implicit death. Action violence. But it was a great movie.

Yesterday Ann went back to work. Holiday over. The Boy and I went through all our Christmas lights, checked that they were all working, put the white strings up along the back deck, the white coil around the front pillar and the rest were strung in our cherry tree in the front yard. We were all done around quarter after three. I did a check on the computer and found the last showing of The Incredibles started in 5 minutes. But there would be commercials and trailers and ...

Me: Hey Boy. Want to go see the Incredibles?

Boy: Ummmmmm.... nah.

Me: Want to go and we won't tell Mommy?

Boy: O-KAY!

TV InterActive

This small place in cyberspace was reserved for stories I might forget. That was the idea. Witness the incident, write it down. Save and nurture it for present viewing among ... whomever ... and maybe when the Boy becomes the Man he'll get a kick out this.

There's one incident I'll never forget, but I'll write it down here as a precurser to something that happened this morning, if only to make the post longer.

It's three Easters ago and the Boy is still in diapers. He's started to speak. His vocabulary is small but growing. The parental challenge is to interpret the words that come badly formed out of his mouth but which he understands. The beginning of verbal communcation.

We are at my wife's sister's home, a lovely house over looking the water, a "grown-up" house, my wife and I would call it. Large, spacious, "adult". A two-car garage. They had recently annexed some of the garage to create an office for my sister in law, the psychologist. A locked door connected the office with the rest of its former self.

The Boy came trundling in from the office one morning and he was chattering. After a moment, I realized that there was a definite pattern and purpose to his chatter. He was saying the same word over and over again. "Ah-bree, ah-bree, ah-bree, ah-bree." I tried to make sense of what he was saying and couldn't. He was similarly frustrated that I wasn't getting whatever he was saying. I never did get it. My wife was the one to figure it out.

Mamma: He's saying "Abre".

Abre (Ah-bray) is spanish for "open". The Boy had found the locked door to the garage and wanted to go through. This he was communicating to us with "Abre!" that he was pronouncing "Ah-bree!". He (and Mamma) had learned this word from children's TV program Dora the Explorer. On the show there were recurring scenes with doors that only spoke spanish. Want to go through the door? You have to say "abre".

Great, I thought. It's tough enough figuring out what he's saying in English - which is a language I know.

Flash-forward a few years. This morning, the Boy (who is in french immersion and knows words in four languages), is busying himself with the Tinkertoy set, trying to build the stand-up bass from the picture on the front of the box. On TV is an epsiode of Dora the Explorer.

Dora: Te amo! In English, "Te amo" means I love you! Say "Te Amo! Say Te amo!"
Boy: I'm busy, Dora....

The Elusive Secret to Immortality.

Finally revealed:

Boy: If we don't get inside our bum, we're doomed!

(Now you know.)

Time Change

The days have turned bleak and cold and dark. The clocks fell back, the darkness comes quickly and the prospects of more golf likewise grow dim.

And with Halloween over and the treats expanding my waistline, I decide: it's time to get back to the gym.

I pick the Boy up from his after-school daycare and I broach the idea. He's for it. I've got my kit bag in the car, so we'll go directly.

Boy: Daddy, can we stay for three minutes?

The negotiations begin. How 'bout ninety? I ask. There's an hour-and-a-half maximum. He counters with 30. I say 60. He asks me what's between 30 and 60.

Me: Fifty.

We have a general discussion about exercise and how you have to exercise for over a half an hour for it to do any good.

Arriving at the mall, he immediately falls into the same routine that we left a couple of months ago. It's a race to the button (the automatic door opener), a race to the elevator button, a race for the main floor button, a race to the gym. He wins all the races. I marvel that he still is locked into this same routine after all these life changes he's had over the last two months. Going to school. New daycare. The rise of GOLF.

The gym staff "oohs" and "aws" over his Halloween hat, orange with a pumpkin face and jingling bells on the top. We go into the Toy Room and I sign him in, kiss him and say:

Me: See you in 60 minutes.

Boy: No!

(ah the negotiations start again...)

Boy (cont): An hour.

Sugar Daddy Son

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is on strike. It's a stressful time when the money is as tight as it is right now. And there's Christmas and the attendant expenses looming just over the horizon. A submariner died in a fire last week, and out of respect for him, those of us in the Public Service who work for the Navy were exempt from the general strike action that was happening everywhere else across the country. The Lieutenant (N)'s service was held on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I woke up to go to work, and like the stinkbucket he is, the Boy woke up too early and came downstairs to see me off. You can hear him upstairs as he gets out of bed and his footsteps carry along the upstairs hall. He then tries to sneak partway down the steps where his little face pokes slyly around the bannister. "Boo!" he says but his stealthy approach has failed and I'm already looking up at him. Then, oddly, he asks me:

Boy: Daddy, are you on strike today?

Me: No sweetheart. Not today.

I'm wondering how he's heard of this. The question takes me by surprise. More surprising is when I show up at work and, wouldn't you know, I'm on strike. I and two others in the office didn't get the phone call and we show up for work. There was no picket line at our entrance, so who knew? I was at work for over two hours before I found out why it was so quiet. I leave work and gets lots of chores done during my day without pay, and I go home to verbally fret about losing about $100 a day while the strike lasts. So today is Day One and at the time there's no word to say go back to work tomorrow - that'll be $200 dollars.

It's Thursday evening and I'm in the commode while a Boy is getting ready for bed, the day almost done. His little voice is heard outside the door.

Boy: Daddy, I have money. You can have my money for when you're on strike.

Everyone's A Critic

Today, Thanksgiving's Day, Boy and I went to the movies for the first time in quite a while. We went to see, Shark's Tale. On the way home, I asked him:

Me: What was your favourite part of the movie?
Boy: When I went to the bathroom. And getting popcorn.

And this is what Roger Ebert said. You decide whose review is better.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

Birthdays are big in a Boy's life. Not just his own. Anyone's will do. Today happens to be mine. When it's over, Boy will be keen to know who's next on the list. Cakes and decorations and cards and prizes. It's a delight for him.  He's asked me and Mamma on a couple of occassions how old I'm going to be on my birthday. Well, today it got here and I was serenaded on the phone with a duet of "Happy Birthday". When it was over, Mamma asked the Boy if he remembered how old Dada was:

Boy: It's either 41 or 61.

Trash Talkin'

The rain started to fall as we were making our last putts on the last hole. There were four of us in the group.: Me, the Boy, our friend Wade and Wade's brother. We left the course and sat around a table to enjoy our après-golf - a muffin and a (soft) drink. I mentioned that the Boy had beaten everyone on the first hole with a score of 4.

Me (to Boy):  You played really well today. You made a four on #1 and a four on #4. Good job. Hey! That's two weeks in a row you've made fours on 1 and 4.

Wade: Yeah and you beat me on #1. And last time I played with you you beat me on 1.

Boy: Well, come out next time and I'll beat you again!

Life and Death on the Way to the First Tee.

Some of the best little talks have been on the way to, or coming back from the golf course. They afford me insights to the five-year-old mind that are achingly beautiful in their innocence. On this particular day, the Boy is talking to me about Terry Fox, because his school has had a Terry Fox run. He tells me he did twenty and further discussion reveals that this means he did twenty times around the school or the gym ... I'm still not clear on this part.

And then I get blindsided.

Boy: Terry Fox is in the ground, isn't he.

Me (after pause to reflect and gather myself):  Yes, sweetheart. That's why people do this run. So folks can get money and make medicine for people who are sick like Terry Fox was and they can stay alive.

The conversation continues around this subject for a while, me wondering through the whole thing what's appropriate for a 5-year-old Boy, all this talk about death and mortality. But he's genuinely interested and his questioning is earnest and not frivolous, so I try to be straight-forward about it all, answering what he asks without volunteering more, for now staying away from the "We're all going to die" angle.

We talk about more stuff, then for a while we're quiet. The question from the back seat five or ten minutes later, a signal of the impending breakdown of innocence, a signal that he hasn't yet grasped the finality of death. I draw a blank for the moment it takes me to realize that he's still thinking about Terry Fox, then my heart breaks a little bit for Terry and also for my Boy.

Boy: So they're not working on him anymore?

Reluctantly I answer.

Me: No sweetheart. They're not working on him anymore.

Blue and Other Angels.

Another weekend over. A Boy said last night that he's very happy to be getting back to class tomorrow. I reflected how these dratted weekends seem to be getting in the way of the school week.

We went to the Air Show this weekend. It's the first time I've gone to see it even though it's a long standing event that happens every year. I thought since a Boy had just turned five that he'd enjoy watching all the airplanes and got us two tickets to give to him on his birthday. As it turned out, children 6 and under get in free, so we invited his friend Olivia to join us and gave the extra ticket away when we got to the site. Mamma elected to stay home since she works at the airport, why the heck does she want to come out and see more airplanes.

It was a full day. Breakfast, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Air Show. For me, the only one without a hat, it turned out to be a long day in the warm September sun and I ended up getting a crispy September sunburn. Mamma was nice and went out to the store that night to get a helping bottle of Noxema. The Boy found it on the table the next morning and said he really liked the way it smelled. Later, after I'd put some on to cool my red face, I asked him how I smelled. He had a deep sniff and declared, "Yum!"

The Air Show was great. The only down side was that the line-ups going in and out were long and tedious. It took us an hour to make the usual 20-minute trip to the airport. We had to park on the side of the road since the lots were full and a bus took us the rest of the way to the venue. We stood in line for about 10 - 15 minutes as a fleet of buses went around collecting patrons.

The show officially kicked off with the US Navy's Blue Angels. As they roared, looped and twisted overhead with afterburners on, the Boy screamed out over the noise:

Boy: THIS IS WHAT I CALL A SHOW!!!

Different aerobatic and aeronautic displays went on for the rest of the day and we filled the pauses with tours of all the different planes on the ground. The day's last event was the Snowbirds. Where the Blue Angels are a testo-fest, Tom-Cruise-in-Top-Gun display, the Snowbirds are a ballet in the sky.

After the Snowbirds made their last pass, the crowd of thousands started heading for the gates. Suddenly, there we all were, standing in a huge gaggle, waiting for a bus to take us back to our car. An hour later, most of us were still there. Naturally, for a five-year-old, this would be a restless time. Olivia, the little girl, seemed content to stand patiently. But the Boy was more active, regularly straying out of my comfort zone, moving just a bit too far away from me, venturing a few too many places deeper in to the throng and I'd have to call him back.

Me: Be more like Olivia. Olivia's being very good.

Boy: Am I being good?

Me: Yes, you're being good, but you're marginal.

Boy: What's that?

Me: It means you're being good, but you're almost being bad.

Later (yes even later, tempus fugit at the air show but buses don't) and we're still surrounded by hundreds of others waiting for a bus. The Boy looks up at me and says,

Boy: Am I still being marvelous?

And how else could I answer but tell him, Yes.

Higher Education

On Saturday of our long weekend, my wife announced unexpectedly that her shift on Tuesday starts at seven in the morning instead of her usual noon-ish. So it was that this morning it's the Boy and I heading out together for the schoolbus on this, only his third day of school.

And on this (count 'em: three!), the third day of school, the Boy declares:

Boy: I can't wait until Grade One!

Who Wrote "The Diary Of Anne Frank"?

From my door, mere moments by car and I'm in the parking lot for the walking trail leading to Jack's Lake. As of today, I've been on the trail twice. The first time was with Wife and Boy and was notable because I think it was the only time we actually used the child carrier that you wear like a backpack to take along your infant. So that first time we went must have been at least three years ago, maybe four. The trip yesterday was kind of neat to see all the trees pushed over by the hurricane. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's such a beautiful day, this holiday Monday and I decide it's too nice to sit inside and play Roller Coaster Tycoon all day, so I propose to a Boy that we go out for a hike. He's all for it. He asks his best friend Olivia, and she's all for it too. Olivia's dad will make it a foursome.

We go outside and start to get everyone piled into the car. The neighbours, Kim, Kevin and their new addition Nicholas are in their driveway as we get set to head off. The Boy wishes to proclaim the good news.

Boy: We're going on a hike!

Kimmy: Oh wow! Where are you going?

Boy: On a hike!

The Dairy Queen Cake Fiasco of Aught-Four

My dad (whom the Boy calls "Poppa") has a closely trimmed beard of snowy white. One year he shaved it off and it was like revealing a stranger, a usurper of the familiar, and he couldn't grow the beard back fast enough.

This has nothing to do with my son's birthday cake.

Every year for the Boy's birthday, I go to Dairy Queen to order a special-made ice cream cake. I give them a picture, something recent, a nice picture, and through the miracle of technology, this picture ends up on the top of the cake. On the day, everyone oohs and ahhs over the picture on the cake.

This year, DQ tells me I have to go somewhere else to get the picture done.

So not only do I get bounced from store to store and end up at the place that is quite possibly the farthest away from my house without actually leaving the city limits, the well-trained Dairy Queen staff of 17-year-olds totally botch the job and give me a very sorry looking cake done in blue when I asked for green, with balloons drawn on the cake where there should have been none, and the picture slapped bumpily over most of the balloons. And the picture is torn.

I seethed.

Took the cake.

Left with the Boy.

Called the manager when I get home. He offered to refund the money. What else could he do? Yet it still seemed hardly sufficient.

A couple of days later the Boy and I go back to DQ to get the our refund. Boy and I have a cone while we're there. He got a dipped cone. Like a Dilly Bar, he said. Most of the soft serve went into his mouth. The rest was like an extra set of lips, white ones surrounding his red ones.

Me: You've got quite the moustache.

Boy (pushing his face all the way into the cone): Now I've got Poppa's beard!