The One and Only

On the third night since I returned home from Houston the Boy and I were going through our night-time routine and had got to the point where it was time to pick out a book. The night previous we had read the one I'd bought in Houston. You should know that on nights where it's not a rush to get to bed on time, the Boy picks out the book. On other nights, I'll pick one out. Often a short one. On this night, we had time so the Boy picked.

Boy: I pick THIS one!

Me: Hey. We read that last night.  You want to read it again?

Boy: Yes. Because this is my new best book.

Me: It is, is it?

Boy: Yes, because you bought it for me.

Me: Oh, that's very nice.

Boy: So it's the very best book I have.

Me: Oh thank you.

Boy: And you are the very best Daddy ...

(Wow!  I thought.)

Boy (cont): ... that I have.

We laughed together.

Early On In The Week From Hell.

Our normal routines are in complete disarray since the wife is on a full week of having to report to work at 4am. This means my work day shifts  from 7am - 3pm to 9am - 5pm on account of somebody has to get the Boy to the schoolbus. That would be me. And I'm finding those two hours of "Me Time" that I'm not getting anymore in the late afternoon make all the difference in the world when you're not able to get to the gym or the driving range (recently open) or for any after-work chores.

So early in the week, fresh back from my business trip to Houston, I decided to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed then head over to the Daycare to get the Boy. You should know that the past two weeks involved a family trip to Florida, a family trip to Newfoundland to spend Easter with Nanny, being fogged in and stuck for an extra day in Newfoundland, Daddy leaving the very next morning after that (4 am) for the Houston trip, Mommy having a big reunion party downtown and the Boy being travelled up to stay with Granny and Poppa since both Mommy and Daddy were gone for the weekend. All this to say that there wasn't much opportunity to grocery shop for the period of two full weeks. The fridge and the cupboards were pretty empty. I took it on myself to get a few things to make supper and make sure that the cats at least had some food for the next couple of days.

From the store's parking lot, I called the Daycare (me walking toward the big front entrance to the store) to let them know I'd be there in about 10 minutes to pick the Boy up, please get him ready.

The lady on the phone said that Mamma had already picked him up.

I stopped walking. As far as I knew, Mamma wasn't supposed to be home yet. I thanked the Daycare, hung up and called the house. A Boy picked up the phone.

Me: Hi. I thought you were still at the Daycare! I just called them to say I was coming and they told me that you were already gone!

Boy: Mamma already came and picked me up.

Me: Yeah? How was your day?

Boy: Good.

Me: What's Mamma doing. Getting supper ready?

Boy: Yes.

Me: Hmmm. Does she need me to get anything while I'm here at the store?

Boy: She already went to the store.

Me: She what?

Boy: Yes, she went to the store before she came to pick me up. Where are you?

Me: I'm at the store right now. I came straight here from work to get something for uus for supper and then pick you up.

Boy: Well, that was a waste of time.

Back Talk

There is a well established routine for the end of the day. There actually are two, if my suspicions are correct. Mamma has a Boy-routine and I have a slightly different one. The routine goes very much like this:

• Boy gets a bath
  
• Boy gets on PJs
  
• Boy brushes teeth
  
• Boy gets into bed
  
• Mamma or Daddy read Boy a story (sometimes Boy reads, if he's feeling adventurous)
  
• Boy says prayer
  
• Boy gets his back rubbed
  
• Mamma / Daddy leave
  
• Boy goes to sleep
  

Some nights he's very chatty. Some nights we giggle and talk. We'll add "God-blesses" to the prayer if we encountered certain people during the day. But on some nights the Boy just wants to get to sleep ... without pre-empting the most important part of the routine. It's a very polite way of telling Daddy to shut up.

Boy: I'll just sleep. You just rub my back.

What A Drag It Is Getting Old

The great Florida Blogging mystery comes to you courtesy a 40-something mental decline and the ol' "there's-never-a-pen-and-paper-around-when-you-need-it."

Wife and I are driving down Commercial Boulevard just north of Fort Lauderdale and I asked her if she had a pen and paper to write down a list of blog entries I wanted to capture for when we got home. There were three of them. Wife says to me, You tell them to me and I'll remember them. There are three, I said, and told her. Perhaps it was only the next day when we were reviewing these items. I said, there's this one, and that one... what was the other one?

I can't remember, says Wife. I remember it was the funny one.

Right, I said. The third one was the funny one.

A couple of days later, we could, neither of us, remember what the second one was either.

Trust me, you would have laughed until you stopped.

All that remains is:

Boy and I are sitting in our executive class seats on the way to Toronto, our first leg in getting to Fort Lauderdale. The flight attendant comes by with an armload of newspapers. She looks at me.

Flight Attendant: Globe and Mail?

Boy: No thank you.

The others were funnier. Man, were they funny.

I wish I could remember what they were......

Under the B: Bowling!

My mother gave me a recipe for making sub buns. They're my favourite. My wife made them last week for the Boy and I. The Boy calls them "Sumbuns".

Speaking of misprints, the office bulletin board had a notice for glow-in-the-dark bowling under the heading "Dad and Me". I thought this would be an excellent outing and the Boy agreed. On Sunday he was counting down the hours to one o'clock, anxious and eager and excited to go bowling.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday. We drove into the city with the sun shining and the windows open. Out in the basin, a fireboat was jetting twin plumes of water in mirrored arcs. The Boy said it looked like the boat had wings.

We parked by the gym and walked into the foyer where we were met by a sympathetic lady who guessed why we were there and told us that the announcement for "Dad and Me" bowling had been made with a misprint. It wasn't didn't start at 1 o'clock, it started at 4 o'clock. I fumed for a moment and asked whether the Boy wanted to wait or play now somewhere else. Being 6 years old, he opted for the choice that provided instant gratification.

I ended up spending $10 for an hour of bowling. "Dad and Me" would have cost $6 for two hours. I don't think that it was because one was 5-pin and the other was 10-pin. The Boy and I bowled 2 games. Each of us played better in the first game than the second. In the fifth frame of the first game, I rolled my first of two strikes. Strikes are rare in candlepin bowling, especially when you haven't been playing for years. I rolled the ball right on my target and the pins splashed everywhere. They all went down at once. I stuck my arms up in the air in celebration. The Boy shouted behind me.

Boy: BINGO!

2 Minutes for Hold 'Em

Dropping of some stuff at the drycleaner's last night, the proprietress had the Olympic Games on the TV. The TV looks like it got picked up from the side of the road somewhere. The colour is dingy and the picture is full of snow and static. There's a coat hanger for an aerial. This is kind of appropriate when you remember where you are. There's a hockey game being shown and I have to get right up close to peer and squint at the mini-scoreboard at the top right of the screen just to see who's playing. Even so, I can only tell that one of the teams is Russia. The other team is ... Sweden, I guess? Slovakia, the lady tells me.

Me: Hey, did you know that the Team Canada men played against Italy today? And guess who won.

Boy: Team Canada?

Me: Yes! And guess what the score was. Guess how many Team Canada got.

Boy: Twenty?

Me: Less. It was the men playing.

(We played an impromptu game of higher/lower until:)

Boy: Seven?

Me: Right. Guess how many Italy got.

Boy: Zero?

Me: Higher.

Boy: Five?

Me: Lower.

Boy: Two?

Me: Right! Canada won 7-2.

Boy: Hey! That's the worst hand!

Weird Dreams; Cats Read Calendars

For the second night in a row, the Boy was awake at 3:30am. On the first night, he was in Mamma's bed and Mamma was trying to get him to go back to his own bed. Last night he was up coughing and going to the bathroom like he was going to throw up. My alarm clock is set to go off at 5:50 am, so I know for the second day in a row that I'm in for a tough morning. I throw of the covers and go to the Boy. He is lying on the floor. I pick him up and he hugs me tight as I take him back to his bed, laying his head down on my shoulder. I can feel how cold his cheek is from having it pressed to the stone tile floor. We go back to his room. I'm carefull to step around all the toys on the floor. I tuck him in, give him a kiss, tell him I love him and go back to my own bed. I'm almost asleep when he goes back into the bathroom. More coughing. He doesn't throw up either time, but he's not feeling well. I hunker down next to him and rub his back. When he's finished I give in and ask if he wants to come and lie down with me for a while (knowing it will be for the night) and he gratefully accepts.

Eventually, sleep comes. Dreams mix with reality.

One of the cats, Ginger, jumps on the bed and starts to prowl around. In my dream, we're in the other bed and the Boy is on the other side of me, sitting up laughing like he's being tickled as the cat plays with his squirming feet under the blanket. In the dream I reach for the cat and throw her off the bed. I have a memory of reaching out and sweeping the cat off the bed. It might have been real or a different part of another dream, I'm not sure.

The alarm clock goes off. I'm in the bed with the Boy who's back on his own side. I reach for the alarm and hit the snooze button, figuring it's been a long night; I'll rest here a bit more.

The alarm goes off again. I reach and hit the snooze button, figuring it hasn't seemed like a long time since it went off the first time, wondering just how many minutes the snooze button gives me anyway.

I look at the clock. It says it's 5:50 am.

It takes me a moment to realize that the first time the clock went off, it was a dream.

I lie there as Ginger prowls a circle around the circumference of the bed. She steps on the Boy's neck and he says, "Ow."

Me: Did she scratch you?

Boy: No. She just put her claw on my neck. It didn't hurt though. But do you know what the best part was?

Me: No. What?

Boy: When she gave me licks because it's Valentine's Day.

Getting the Boot

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

Meanwhile, the Boy has a new pair of boots.

He formed an instant dislike to them, not for the colour or the style, but because they're difficult to pull on. Originally, he refused to put them on for Mamma. I helped him get them on over the weekend, and now he's grudgingly acceptant.

I picked him up at the Daycare - which never goes as quickly as I hope. There's dawdling and poking around and getting distracted by any of a hundred and one things. He's getting help from one of the daycare workers getting the new boots on. The lady asks if he's good to go.

Boy: I just have to comfortable it.

Getting Rid of What Ails You

Homework went badly last night.

Mommy was in charge and I didn't quite get all the specifics, but it was done poorly enough that Mommy forbade the playing of video games for the rest of the evening. The Boy came downstairs where I was and sat with me watching as I played a bit of poker on-line. He wasn't in a good mood when he got there, but perked up a little as he played along with me. He had asked me the night before to play PlayStation and I'd said no. He had asked the day before as well, but that was SuperBowl Sunday. There had been a lot playing Crash NitroCart in recent days (each of us successfully completing an adventure, firsts for us if you must know).  I figured that a break was okay.

So when he came downstairs in ill spirits, I said I'd play until I won my chips back that I'd lost. Ask any gambler what a fool's game that is, but I won it back (and more) pretty quickly, so true to my word, I turned off the computer to turn on PlayStation. At this point the Boy told me that I would play and he would watch. Well, why just me playing, I wondered? Of course, that's when he told me the homework story and that Mommy told him no PlayStation.

I sensed a loophole.

Better check with legal.

I went upstairs and the Boy followed behind at a distance. Mommy never issued a judgement except to say it was bath time and the both of us should go upstairs. Upon further review, I guess it was a judgement. Immediately, the Boy's mood turned again and he got sad, angry and frustrated.

Boy: I knew I shouldn't have come upstairs.

I took him (up-side-down) upstairs for a bath. Despite my efforts to cheer him up, the Boy clung to his dark mood like grim death, supressing smiles, grinning for a moment only to lash out, angry that I'd made him smile. Stuff like that. As he got out of the tub and was getting dried off, he summed up his frustration.

Boy: Every time I want to play Crash NitroCart, someone says it's time to do something else so now I want to sell it.

Over his head, Mommy's eyes met mine and we shared his little moment with a small, sad smile.

Say Cheeseburger.

So I've seen "Super Size Me." 

The part where the guy throws up after eating his super-sized quarter-pounder meal was noteworthy. As was the part where his doctor told him, you should stop or you might die. It was interesting to see the documentarian describe how McDonald's targets the kids with their advertising so they'll bring in their parents.

Now, you don't have to watch the movie to know that fast food is bad for you. So to pre-empt the marketing assault McDonald's makes on my child, I've always made it a key component of my counter-assault that whenever we go by a McDonald's, I call it "Yucky Ol' McDonalds". I think I may have mentioned this previously, somewhere in this blog. After seeing the movie, I'm better equipped to explain to him why. How, in the movie, the guy ate only McDonald's for a month and really made his body sick. I figure it's good to be able to tell him all this and leave an imprint because he's only too quick to tell me how it's his friends' favourite place to go eat.

So, anyway.

It's Saturday and it's music lesson day, and his lesson ends at 1:30 and neither of us has had lunch. I figure I'll spring for a restaurant so long as it's cheap. I ask the Boy and he tells me that it's up to me to pick. I tell him I'm either thinking Pizza Girls or Dairy Queen.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Hardly what you'd expect from an anti-advocate of the fast food franchise, huh.

Be that as it may.

Despite his assurance that he wanted to leave the choice to me, the Boy decides he'd like to go to Wendy's. Now of all the fast food places, you could argue that Wendy's has been the most unapologetic about catering to Mrs. Big and Mr. Large. After all, they don't make things Super, they make them "Biggie". Did you notice when their ads didn't use a lot of skinny people?

So the Boy has picked Wendy's and he's looking to justify that Wendy's is okay since it's not as yucky as McDonald's. I tell him that, really,  it's mostly the same fattening things like burgers and fries and cheese and pop.

Same as McDonald's.

Boy: But McDonald's make you fat and sick. Wendy's only makes you fat.

War. Games.

There was a vehicle accident in Afghanistan that involved Canadian soldiers. My brother is a Canadian soldier, a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Regiment. He was sent over there to lead the investigation in to the accident. Three days ago, a suicide bomber drove into a convoy. My sister-in-law received a call from my brother that basically went like this:

Bro: You're going to be hearing something on the news and I wanted to tell you I'm okay.

Sis: Is everyone on the team okay?

Bro: Yes.

Sis: Is everyone else okay?

Bro: I'm not on a secure line.

Turns out the attack killed a Canadian diplomat and seriously, gravely injured three Canadian soldiers.

That night the Boy and I said a special God Bless for his uncle so that he'd be safe. I explained that my brother, who we call Unca Jokes,  was over there in a war and that he was trying to keep other people safe so that the war would get over and there'd be peace.

This morning, waiting at the bus stop for the overdue schoolbus, out of the clear blue (which is the way these things usually happen), the Boy asks:

Boy: Is Unca Jokes still alive in the war?

Me: Yes he is.

Boy: Does he still have all his health?

Supper's Cold

Supper time at our house tends to lack some necessary degree of discipline. Often it's catch-as-catch-can when Mommy is away at work and Daddy is trying to get everything ready for him and the Boy. Combine that and the TV that's always turned on and what you get is a Boy who rarely is sitting properly in his chair eating his supper.

Last night, lo and behold, the three of us were at the table at the same time. It didn't start that way; Mamma had the early shift at work and so I didn't get home until after 5:30, walking in the front door to see everyone else already at the table. Within a few minutes I had my supper in front of me and was sitting down to eat. Moments after that, the Boy was out of his chair, maneuvering into mine, actually to sit on my lap.

Me: Go back and sit in your own chair now, while Daddy eats his supper.

Boy: I'm cold and I want to cuddle.

Me: Well, if you're cold, why don't you go and put on a sweater?

Boy: Cuddles are better than sweaters.

Big Daddy

My workout regime is into Week Four and I'm studying the mirror for signs of progress. The Boy and I will be sharing the shower since it was a workout day and I'm still sweaty from the gym. The Boy gets me to show "pulling up buckets" so that we can compare muscles. I flex and suck my stomach in. He gets me to do one "with my belly out", so I relax and let the gut droop. The six pack reverts to a kegger.

Boy: Now you look like Mr. Incredible!

Wonderland

The snow that fell last night was foretold by the Patriots game earlier that evening. I went outside and brought the car into the driveway, wondering if it was going to hit us as hard as it looked to be hitting the Boston area. I started the day with a peak out the window just to see how much fell during the overnight. Not much, was the answer. The green of the grass was still the predominant colour of the ground although the cars in the driveway were shrouded in white. Even though there wasn't much of it around, I figured there was someone in the family who would get pretty excited over seeing snow on the ground.

He was awake earlier than I was this morning. When we came down the stairs, I asked him if he'd seen outside yet. We went to the window, peered out in to the morning darkness and he squealed with delight, running from the window directly to the kitchen. Standiong before the calendar, he got me to point out today's date and asked for a pen. I gave him a pencil, and he scrawled with a six-year old's uncertain penmanship the letters "W S" in the box for today. I had a good idea that the S stood for snow. The W had me baffled.

Boy: You know what the W is for?

Me: No. What?

Boy: "Welcome."

Son, of God

The first day of Sunday School.

The Boy was reluctant about going; he figured between regular school and piano lessons, that must surely be enough. But off he went, returning an hour later much more enthused about the whole thing than when he left.

Mamma: ... and he knew some things that the other boys didn't know who'd been there for weeks.

Me: Yes?

Mamma: He knew whose birthday it was on Christmas Day.

Me: Who's that?

Boy: JESUS! But I didn't say his last name.

Me: His last name? What's his last name?

Boy: Crisis.

Things To Do Before Bedtime

Mamma came downstairs at 8:10 and I realized that I hadn't said "goodnight" and "I love you" to the Boy. I started upstairs despite Mamma's warning that he might already be asleep. As I cautiously approached the door, I heard a little whispered, "...dadda...!" and I come into the room to give him a hug and a kiss. Our conversation is in whispers.

Boy: Why did you come up, Dadda?

Me: To say goodnight and I love you.

Boy: aahhhhh!

Me: You were so good last night, a really big boy sleeping in your own bed, you try to stay in your own bed again tonight again, okay? Daddy is so proud of you when you can do big-boy things like that.

Boy: Okay. I'll try.

Me: Okay. Goodnight sweetheart. I love you so much.

Boy: Can you go brush your teeth now?

But Can He Hit a 1-Iron?

The Boy is in the white van that drives him from school to the after-school daycare. It's a month and two days before Christmas and visions of sugarplums seem to have started their dance in his head. He's talking with his friend Peter. The driver overhears their conversation and relates it to me later.

Boy: Santa Claus must be really rich.

Peter: Santa Claus is richer to infinity.

Boy: Santa Claus is richer than Tiger Woods.

It's What's Inside That Counts

Halloween is two weeks in the wrong direction. Vestiges remain. There is a big box of leftover treats downstairs. They belong to a Boy and daily test my willpower. There are three pumpkins on our front step: one was for the house, one came decorated as a present for the Boy's birthday party and another was required to decorate at the Boy's after-school center.

Every day I come home I expect to find one or all of them smashed on the road (rotten teenagers). But they survived. Until yesterday, when Mamma told the Boy to put them all in the green bin. This he did with my help as we got ready to go skating.

On the walk to the rink, only two houses down, there's the splatter of someone else's smashed pumpkin in the roadway. The Boy wants to collect up the seeds to plant in the garden.

Mamma: You want to grow your own pumpkin for next year?

Boy: Yes, please!

Mamma: Well we'll buy some good seeds. These ones are all run-over and no good.

Boy: You mean the little pumpkin inside is all squished?

Frankenpoker

There's nothing like a hard losing streak in the on-line poker world to suggest that maybe you're forming an addiction.
And there I was again on Friday night and my luck started to turn back. I won a really big pot, my biggest one yet, and the next morning I told the story to a Boy.
Me: So I was dealt Jack, Three and then somebody raised before the flop and I decided what the heck, I'd stay in and you know what came on the flop?
Boy: What?
Me: Jack, Three.
Boy: Ooo!
Me: So I made a big bet to try to scare everyone away and take the pot for myself but they didn't fold! They called! So I went all-in. And you know what came out on the river? Another Jack!
Boy: You had a full house!
I'll play and the Boy will often sit on my lap and "advise" me. He's also learning the game pretty well as the previous little vignette illustrates. We were playing together yesterday afternoon and I'm out of the hand; the two of us are watching how the others around the table are playing. The five cards showing on the table are three, Jack, five, ten, four. The guy on the top left makes a big bet after the river card is turned. The Boy says to me:
Boy: That guy has Ace, Two.
The players revealed their cards, and the guy turned over Ace, Two.
Six years old, I'm thinking. I've created a monster.

Concerning Venus and the Absence of All-Bran

It was a weird day at the grocery store yesterday.

I like my grocery store. And not just because I was in a commercial for it once. See, one day I walked through the doors and there's Mr. Lahey from the Trailer Park Boys with his video camera interviewing folks as they came in. In real life he's John Dunsworth, a long-time casting agent for the area. He recognized me as an ACTRA member, shot the bit and I got picked to do the commercial.

But enough about me.

Yesterday, because it was getting really close to supper time, the Boy and I are trying going through the store as fast as we can...

(Dash: As fast as I can?!?)

(Helen: As fast as you can!)

... and I keep having to call back home to Mamma to ask her what she wanted, either because it wasn't clear on the list or because the item wasn't in the store and I need to know whether to buy something different or wait until next time. There are about four or five things on the list that aren't in the store. Very unusual. So I ended up calling home about three times, taking out my cell phone, clicking the voice activation button and saying the keyword that automatically dials home: "Stinkbucket".

The Boy gets a kick out of that.

On the way home, in the commencing evening dusk, the planet Venus appears in the windshield, shining pure white in the clear blue sky. I point this out to the Boy and we have a little chat about Venus. I tell him, you know how the Earth has clouds around a lot of the planet? Well, Venus has clouds around all of the planet and that's part of the reason it's so bright with the sun bouncing of all those clouds. We have a little talk about the sun too. He wants to know if it's as hot as a burning tree and I tell him that it's hotter that if the whole planet was burning and he's very impressed by that. He then turns the subject back to Venus.

Boy: Daddy, why don't you say "Venus" into your phone and we can call it.