Note from Danielle

After a gruelling semester at Ottawa U when Sam was not yet a year old (Jan-April 2004), I took the summer off and spent four blissful months with my babe exploring park, libraries, playgroups—the city in general. He'd begun walking at 11 months and was putting two-word sentences together, so it was a whole new world for us. In September, I picked up a Canlit course and so hired a girl in the building, Danielle Gendron, to look after Sam a few hours a week. She was an ECE student at the time, so she was especially thrilled to have the chance to see how the theories are apparent in one so small. Plus, Sam had a gorgeous smile and she'd been smitten from the moment we moved in! I recently came across a note she wrote one rainy afternoon in late October. I'd taken a stack of grading to my office, and she spent a rainy afternoon playing with Sam and Carter. They were 18 months old.

Angie:

Hi. I hope you had a good afternoon. I am having a great time with the boys. It's fun seeing Sam interact with someone his own age! Sam had a little freak-out when he woke up. He was not very pleased to see me. I told him I needed help with Carter because we've never met. He seemed to understand that and settled down. Lunch was good. Sam actually ate more than Carter! I just had a request for "Buzz" (Toy Story) and I couldn't turn it down. I'm getting sick of it too! And this is only my third time watching it this week! Poor you :(

I also wanted to tell you how amazing Sam's dramatic play is becoming. Did you notice how he makes things walk... like cars. It's pretty funny. We did about 20 mins of the car hiding and me saying "come back" then the car would come back and we would kiss, then Sam would say "bye" and hold the car up high. I say "come back" .. "kiss"..."bye" over and over. He was very interested in how I was making my car talk. I just wanted to share this with you. Sam amazes me every time I'm with him. His creativity is going to skyrocket over the next few months. I am so lucky to be part of it!

Well, I guess that's all for now. Have a great weekend! You can give me the cheque on Monday if you like. I don't mind. I'm not starving or anything!

Danielle

She still lives at 265 Daly. We really should drop by...

Sam as Cornucopia

As this seems to be "blast from the past" month at I Have a Word for You, I might as well go ahead and apologize for this right now. I shouldn't have let the Canadian Baby Photographer dress you up like a veggie centrepiece during your 6-week photo shoot. It's just that she was so efficient and 'take-charge professional' and I was so sleep-deprived and 'uncertain mom.' In her defence (my defence?), there was—in the years preceding your birth—a photographer who popularized the whole "baby as insect, baby as food" look. So the real culprit is Anne Geddes. She's to blame, really. So what am I apologizing for? Well, for the fact that I'll probably pull out the little album and show all of your girlfriends....

Email Memorybank - Sam's nicknames

This excerpt from the email exchange dates back to February 2004: Sam was 10 months old.

We have a ton of nicknames for Sam. First, and this started in the womb, so unconcerned were we with scripting his baby behaviour, was "smashe" for Smashin' Sam Ashe Arnold. Some of our friends still call him Smashe {still true at nearly 5 years old}. Fits his "bam-bam" moods perfectly. His favourite activity these days is to take a large plastic spoon and hammer it "Stomp"-style on the side of the oven. He also likes the sound it makes thwacking against a cooling rack.

But Smashe is the lesser version of "Oh-Sammy Bin Laden: Baby of Mass Destruction!" In this mode, he gleefully tears the house apart. Empties drawers, relocates things (recently found my cucumber bar soap in the bread pans), expresses interest in how things like his activity cube are made by destroying them. He watches the balls roll the ramps once and then attacks it, pulling the whole thing over on to his lap and flipping it from side to side to side, pulling out the gears, the letters and numbers, the clock. Once he's emptied the thing and spit on the mirror, he looks at me as if to say that I'm free to reassemble so the game can begin again. Of course, there are fewer and fewer pieces around. For the life of me I can't figure out what he's done with the blue and red balls. This place is simply not that big!! Child of a Neat Freak; it figures.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Samster the Hamster, who can sit quietly and study an envelope for many long minutes, as though he's thinking "oh, I see... Afix proper postage in the top right corner, but be certain to include the return address in the top left, in the event that the letter cannot, for whatever reason, be delivered." When you mix these two personas together, you get Stewie, from The Family Guy. And then there's Ram-Sam-Sam, Sam-a-lam, or Sam-I-Am, named for the Gerber Baby Charm he pours on for strangers in grocery line-ups; his big smiles, fake shyness, coos and gurgles are right out of the movies and have nothing to do with the baby he is at home. Everyone asks "is he always this happy?" to which I usually respond "uhhh, no."

Sam has his hands on the DVD cord now, threatening to unplug it, just so he can see me shake my head "no." He thinks that's hysterical and he mimics it with great vigour, causing me to worry about his brain sloshing around in there. Try as I might, I can't keep the shake out of my 'no!' but I have a few tones depending on the No Category: "No, that's yucky!" for when he snacks on the dust bunnies from behind the fridge; "No, that's dangerous!" for when he pops the front off the hard drive and sticks his arm inside the computer; "No, that's mommy's" for when he finds my teacup and Sam-slams it on the floor. His response is either to laugh or to growl, but he's catching on, I think. Jeremy has another one; "No, you don't play with Daddy's glasses!" I wonder how many thousands of times he'll have to say that! {These days, it's "watch my glasses!" when Sam sends them flying in a play-wrestling match... "Sorry!" Sam says, and waits for Daddy to tuck them safely under the nearest furniture before taking another flying leap...!}.

The cold, hard floor

Sam was pretty excited at the idea of learning a new Cranium game - a mini-sized kids’ version that came free with a Wendy’s snack that afternoon. While I was whipping up dinner, he began lining the cards up along the small Sam table in the kitchen so we’d be all ready to play the instant dinner was over. I pointed out that the tabletop was a little small for the three of us, and suggested he set up downstairs. By “downstairs,” I meant in the family room, where we play pretty much all of our games. However Sam chose to set up on the laundry room floor. The concrete laundry room floor.

I was a little apologetic, this time, when I explained that he’d picked another troublesome spot: he’d been meticulous in the playing card arrangement, and now dinner was ready and there was no time to start over. Chalk it up to a hunger, fatigue, or an alarming “stage,” but his anger went 0 to 60 and he vehemently replied with hot tears in his eyes that he was NOT moving the game, that we WOULD sit ourselves down in front of the dryer, and that if we refused then he would NEVER play this game EVER.

We attempted to reason with him a bit before deciding that it would be smarter to get a meal into him before preaching the error of his ways. Didn’t matter. He was unyielding to the end, fists balled up in anger, face screwed up in rage at the injustice of it all. So we put the game away. Too late to save the day, we cajoled him towards an early bedtime with the promise of innumerable fairy tales. We read for almost an hour together, through Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltskin, The Frog Prince, The Little Mermaid—at which point he asked, “Why is there so much marrying in these stories?”—so we moved on to the child heroes in Hansel and Gretel, King Midas, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Emperor’s New Clothes and Pinocchio.

At the happy resolution of that last tale, I remarked: “Gepetto is happy that Pinocchio became a real live boy: he’s lucky to get a ‘boy-0’” to which Sam replied, “You and Daddy aren’t lucky to have me…” Gasp! I declared him to be the luckiest thing that ever happened to us and asked why he would say otherwise. “Because we had that big fight before,” he explained. So I took a few minutes to assure Sam that people sometimes have disagreements, and are sometimes upset with each other, but that families love each other and always find a way to work things out. Having arguments sometimes doesn’t mean we’re not always lucky to have each other. Sam seemed mollified. He snuggled down under the covers, flipped over on to his side, and sighed deeply.

But before I could congratulate myself on my superb parenting, I heard him whisper, in the quietest voice he could manage with conviction: “Tomorrow, we are all going to play that game on that floor!” My stubborn little boy. I guess it’s a tough lesson to learn—that all of that righteous fury amounts to so many pebbles tossed against the brick wall of a united Mom and Dad.

Email Memorybank - Sam at 16 months

Cleaning out the 1448 messages in my Yahoo Sent Mail recently, I came across a bunch of notes I wrote to an out-of-town friend during Sam's baby- and toddlerhood. It was a lot of fun reading through them, and I quickly realized that the stories need to be transferred to I Have a Word for You. So I'll do that over the next few weeks. Here's an excerpt from a Summer of 2004 letter.

Sam's been tons of fun and is transforming before our very eyes—the language leaps and bounds being the most obvious brain-boggler. He's still relying on a whole lot of babble to make convo (with the most unfortunate phrase coming out as "my bitch, BITCH!"... can't figure out for the life of us what he's trying to say) and sometimes he just walks around saying "judge, judge, judge"... But he can ask for "apple juice" and "COOKIES!" (by which he means all food. Potatoes are cookies) and tell me when he has "poopy bum" or wants to "go outside" or have "more books" (that one sounds like 'MO boot'). It's really quite amazing to be talking to our boy. And with that, it seems, comes a whole new level of imaginative play. For part of the day, he turns every object in the house from hairbrushes to spatulas into "carrrrs" and "trutches", and then suddenly all his stuffed animals are "shhhh! BAY-beeeess" and he's kissing them and tucking them into makeshift beds. It's a nice mix. Playgroup helps with that, I'm sure, since—at this age at least—all of the toy stations hold a certain appeal. I've been force-fed many plates of plastic food this summer.

So the days have been pretty much what I expected. A nice routine divided between the groups, the parks and errands. Weekends divide between special outings with Daddy, or just lazing about :) The pools were a bust—he's TOTALLY freaked out by the water. And, really, it was a victory getting him back in the bath after the Hand, Foot and Mouth troubles and then a bathroom ceiling collapse and repair that left a horrifying gaping hole over the tub that I kept trying to tape receiving blankets over. Plenty of sponge baths in the bedroom for a while there. Enjoyed several weekend trips to the cottages, which is always lots of fun. Shame it's for sale: Mom and Dad are prepping for a BC retirement in 18 months.

Have had Carter 2ce a week for most of the summer. Some days are crazy fun, though they tend to run in opposite directions in the park, giggling with glee. However, Carter (God love him) is a real Bam-Bam and went through hair-pulling and biting stages that not only pained Sam physically but wounded him to the very core of his sensitive heart. He sometimes burst into tears when Carter made EYE contact, sensing mischevious intent! And when Sam decided to stand up to his bruiser of a cousin, it was in necessarily underhanded ways—the running knockdown from behind, the finger poke in the eye. There was much smash-and-grab and shriek-and-cry on our bad days, and we wondered if this is indeed what it means to love one another "like brothers!" On the good days, they're all smiles and kisses and sharing and fun. No matter what, Sam's face lights up every morning when he spies "Cargo" pulling up out front for drop-off, and he races to meet him in the hallway.

Trace and I usually meet Saturday mornings and grab a Second Cup to go, sitting between the boys in some sandhill or another while we catch up. Should be getting that call shortly. In the meantime, Sam's talking to his shadow (he calls himself "Mam"). I think he could use some human interaction ....

Heart on his Sleeve

Sam’s been marking the days off the calendar all month in a slow-as-molasses countdown to Valentine’s Day. It’s not about candy or the party in the JK room: he can’t wait to hand out tiny valentines to his friends at school. They’re Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cards—little images of things like Michelangelo wielding a Samurai sword and saying “Let me get to the point: Happy Valentine’s Day!” Nice. Knife-point greetings. Sam loves them. There are 32 names on his school list, counting the junior child care crowd, so he’s been signing his S-A-M in batches over the last week, counting and recounting to make sure his friends are covered. “Everyone knows I’m handing out ninja turtle cards,” he confided, “Was that supposed to be a secret?”

Last night, I noticed that the teachers’ names are on the list, too. Eight of them, and we were out of ninjas. And, really, “Come out of your shell!” isn’t exactly an expression of childlike regard for a teacher. So we sat down after dinner last night and made up some good ol’fashioned homemade Valentines, with construction paper and crepe paper and glitter and googly eyes. Big smiley-happy hearts. Sam was keyed up with excitement as we walked down the hall this morning: “Ask them when we give the cards out!” he implored, apparently not wanting to appear too eager himself. And when he pulled out the bag of teacher cards at his cubicle, Katie gushed her appreciation for how beautiful they were and Sam nearly burst with pride: “I drew the smiles; I pasted the glitter hearts on…”. My last glimpse before leaving was to spy him shyly approaching a group of teachers, a handful of Valentines clutched tight to his side. Heart on his sleeve.

Funnily enough, I came across a beautiful heart in his backpack last night-plastered in stickers and lace. When I realized it said SAI across the top, I wondered for a moment if he’d taken home the wrong artwork and Sai’s mom was now unpacking a Valentine meant for me. But this was definitely Sam’s printing, the giveaway being that it actually said IAS (lefty), so I asked Sam about it. “Oh, we were making Valentine’s for our moms today, but I decided that I would give mine to Sai.” His teachers must not have noticed my little boy’s change of heart…

Jeremy and I gave Sam a Bee valentine this morning, in the spirit of those little Bee books he loved as a baby (thanks, Jillie), and he liked it so much, he decided to put it in his lunch-kit for viewing later in the day. Today, on this wonderful day of card-swapping, it would be just fine with Sam to get an XO greeting from Mom & Dad in front of all the other kids at the lunch table.

We love you, Sammy.

P.S. Got home from a family Lone Star dinner to beautiful flowers, a new novel and lovely cards—all covered in hearts—from my sweet, sweet boys :)

Winterlude 2008

We've had more than our fair share of winter this year, but we had yet to add much in the way of "lude" to the mix, so we all bundled up last Sunday and headed out into the sunshine for the festivities. First things first, we hooked up brunch at Elgin Street Diner (there ain't no Sunday morning outing in Centretown without stoppin' in) and then Jeremy dropped me and Sam at City Hall and went in search of some downtown parking. Winterlude draws 650,000 visitors to Ottawa each year, but we're never sure where to put their cars. Happily, most people don't know that the Armoury quietly permits Winterlude parking alongside its Mess Halls. Nice soldiers.

The sights and sounds of the Crystal Gardens at Confederation Park had Sam skipping ahead, shouting out his recognition of the logo: "I had that sign at my Snowflake Kingdom!" He went on a school trip to the ice slides at Jacques Cartier park last week. His first order of business here was to "find the singers." It took us a bit to realize that the loud music coming over the speakers was a recording, not a performance. Sam was disappointed. Apparently a big fan of Aboriginal throat singing. So we began a tour of the park. The big fountain had been converted into a novice competitors' ring, with perhaps a dozen craftsman participating in a 4-hour ice sculpting event. Sam surveyed the sites and settled on the "unicorn without a horn" as his favourite. It was a swan, actually. In fact, there were four swans being created in the ring: must be on the cover of the Beginner's Guide to Ice Sculpting.

After a bit, we toured the large finished pieces produced by professionals the world over. Canada made a strong showing with an amazing open-jawed T-Rex skeleton. We all cast our votes for the People's Choice right there, though some of the other work was awesome, too. Sam's excitement grew from sculpture to sculpture, and he offered an enthusiastic play-by-play for the crowds around us—describing each exhibit and rhyming off which ribbons it had won, then moving on with a gushing "Oh, look at this one!" He mugged for the camera throughout, silly boy.

After looping the park a few times, the last round on Daddy's shoulders, we took a break by the fire and Sam snacked on the traditional Winterlude fare of maple beavertails and hot chocolate. Happily, a musical performance began in the Ice Café – a trio from the Yukon called The Roots Sellers, who did a fun kind of rap meets Celtic Reggae sort of thing. Sam was right up there on stage, stomping and clapping to the beat, enjoying the group effort of trying to shake avalanches of snow off the café awnings. Was pretty sweet to watch. We stayed for four songs, made another slow lap of the park, and then headed for the car.

We passed out of the park and across the Armoury grounds in the wake of the applause-o-meter voting for the best quick sculpture. From what I could tell as the sounds of Winterlude died in the distance, the crowd favourite turned out to be the unicorn with the horn. You can see how the magic wins out.

Same as it (N)ever Was

Sam and I started the day by reading, for the first time together, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. I don't know how many times I read it in grade school: it was one of my all-time favourites. My Grade 3 report card says "Angela can write interesting stories independantly. Her pictures include much action and detail." I'm quite certain those are kudos for my innumerous Mike Mulligan prequels. Sam's Scholastic book order included a DVD of four animated shorts, one of which was a dramatic reading of Mike and Mary Anne's story. Watching them, I marvelled at how lucky Sam is to be growing up in this techo-advanced world. He'd laughed at us the other day—thinking we were pulling his leg—when he explained that there were no DVDs, VCRs, TiVo or pausing live TV when we were kids. The tagline of a (really) old Milk-Mate commercial, introducing the revolutionary concept of a liquid additive to make chocolate milk, comes to mind—a 5-year-old boy lets his toddler brother know that "things sure are better than when I was a little kid!"

Then, this afternoon, I peeled four fresh strawberry-flavoured Twizzlers from the sticky bunch as a treat for Sam and Carter. The smell of the candy brought back a strong sensory memory of being on summer road trips through the interior of British Columbia, and mom passing Twizzlers to the sisters in the back seat. I used to nibble away at mine like a hamster, making it last. Funny that Sam does the same thing now. Later, when I spotted the boys engaged in a fast-paced game of Trouble, I realized that some things are exactly the same for Sam as they were for me 35 years ago. Trouble, Perfection, Lite Bright, slinky and Playdo are all among Sam's toys as they were mine. I'd have been perfectly at home with his craft buckets, too, stocked as they are with Crayola crayons and markers, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, Laurentian pencil crayons, and Elmer's glue. I loved all that stuff.

Sam and I have watched many of my favourite Looney Toons, laughing together at the "hello, my baby!" frog who won't perform for anyone but the man who discovers him in the time capsule of an old cornerstone, at the crazy antics of Wile E. Coyote, who just can't outwit the Roadrunner or Sam the sheepdog. And Sam shares our love of The Princess Bride, the early Star Wars movies, Swiss Family Robinson, E.T. and other movies from our youth. There are plenty of everyday things in common, too. He wears Levi's jeans, Converse shirts and Scooby-doo undies (okay, I didn't have the undies, but I loved Scooby-doo). He breakfasts on Quaker oats, lunches on Schneider's deli meats, smiles over a mug of Carnation hot chocolate, and savours the occasional vanilla cream Girl Guide cookie. And I've heard him humming "You can't always get what you want..."

Granted, it's unlikely he'll ever (be allowed to) play in the creek until the streetlights come on, see a drive-in movie, or take disco lessons (a-hem). But I bet I'll continue to be as surprised by the overlaps in our childhood experiences as I am by the ways his world has so widely diverged from mine. Time for bedtime milk (Neilson's), bubble bath (Johnson's), p.j.'s (Superman) and then one more reading of Mike Mulligan and his last adventure with his outmoded steam engine, Mary Anne. Electric- and deisel-powered shovels rendered her sadly obsolete. No mention in that book of solar power, hybrid technology, hydrogen fuel, or ethanol. I wonder if Sam's kids will read it, too.

Sensible shoes

So the other shoe dropped recently, or—more precisely—the other heel dropped off my dress boots. You just can’t keep me in fancy footwear: my size 10W peasant feet put even the finest craftsmanship through their paces. And pacing is part of the problem, I know. Women’s footwear is designed for the rare breed who taxies to her destination and takes the elevator to the nearest chair … and stays there. I am not such a woman. So this winter I’ve crossed a line. I bought sensible boots. At Zellers. Yup. Waterproof, rugged heeled, thinsulate padded, honking huge Sportek hikers. They’re a perfect match, actually, to the North Face parka I stole from Jeremy a few winters back. Looking in the mirror, however, I can’t help thinking that I’m just a Russian muskrat hat (with optional ear flaps) away from being the mom whose son wants to be dropped off a few blocks from the cinema, cuz, ya know: people will see me. How uncool am I?

But Mom mortification is years away. On shopping day itself, Sam was on board with the purchase. Of course, I could have stuck my feet in Tupperware containers and he’d have declared the choice perfect and strode towards the check out. Sam shops like Grandpa Arnold, whose exhortations to be "Quick like a bunny!" began in the parking lot of every brief girlie shopping trip he ever had to endure. The four of us still say it when we’re together, chuckling. "Let’s go, girls: quick like a bunny!"

Well, my bunny and I were whiling away a little time between a Sunday lunch and a matinee, so we popped into Zellers to pick up some model glue (do the lego pirate ships really need to come [fall] apart? We think not). Crossing the store to the craft section, I spotted some boot displays and figured it was worth a look, if only to rule out the budget purchase. Sam patiently walked up and down the aisles listening to me rhyme off the reasons for rejection. Size 7, size 7, spiky heels, size 7, ugly, too long a cheap zipper, size 7, too furry, and so on.

As we’re rounding the last corner (who knew there was a full-blown section?), Sam spotted the half-price Sportek hikers and suggested I try them on. I was sceptical but-man-oh-man-my face must have made that awakening expression that screams "walkin’ on sunshine," cuz Sam sealed the deal right there. "Good! Right size, no heel, right price, not furry, now all we need is the glue." Next! What the heck: they were twenty-five dollars…The matinee and popcorn cost more!

Since then, I have trudged through shin-deep packing snow on our unplowed street, have sloshed through sloppy puddles built up around blocked drains, have strode along sidewalks slick with black ice - all heedless of the elements. This is a big improvement from the constant fear of stepping off the morning bus and falling flat on my face in front of Timothy's. These are the boots of a 40-year-old woman who has seen the light: these boots are made for walkin' (albeit without the Sinatraesque sexy cool).

Years from now, when Sam rolls his eyes at the choices I make in the name of comfort—the high-waisted stretchy pants, the knit pullover with little birds embroidered on it, the Russian muskrat hat with ear flaps—I'll pull up this post to remind him that he himself started it all, lo those many years ago in the Women’s Wear aisles of Zellers.

Straight to Bed, Young Man

So it's not exactly sending him to bed without any supper, but it still weighs heavy on my heart—sending Sam to bed without any stories. I knew he wouldn't be happy to hear the tub running tonight: it's four long school days into a busy week, and Thursdays seem especially draining with 9 hours clocked at Carleton Heights and then off to karate class before heading home for a 6:30 dinner. His one evening hour rushes cruelly past, and then the bedtime rituals start. Sam generally loves his tub, his cartoons, his stories and songs and chats and cuddles. But tonight he staunchly refused to take the first step towards bed.

It's hard to get angry at his petulant displays of frustration and resentment. The flipping of a stuffed toy onto the floor. The deliberate stamping of feet, eyes dramatically ablaze and cheeks puffed out in rebellious pout. It's all still too cute. And we try to cut him a little slack when we know how tired he is and we agree that the nights are too short, that we "just got here." But enough is enough. Tonight, when he was presented with his "choices"—the options he has control over once he has relented to our will—Sam rejected all offers. "I'm NOT going to listen to a Harry Potter chapter, and I'm NOT going to watch a "Go, Diego" and I'm NOT HAVING A BATH! No, no, no, no No NO!"

When a few minutes of gentle chiding on my part failed (often the whole "why are you being mean to Mommy, when Mommy is so nice to you?" ploy works), I wordlessly stepped out of the arena and let Jeremy do his thing. He's the more patient of the two of us—and he has a deeper voice—so he's the man to handle the escalation. He outlined Sam's two choices again and added a third: "Or, I can carry you upstairs, give you your bath, and we'll put you straight to bed without any stories." The punishment of punishments! Unbelievably, Sam didn't budge. Dug his heels in on the stairs and said it again... "No." And then burst into wild tears when Daddy followed through with Plan C. Was in near fits by the end of the tub.

When he was all ready for bed, I gathered the exhausted and sobbing child up in my arms and sat with him in what used to be the "talking chair," back in the brief period towards the end of the 2's when he suffered through the occasional Time Out and then had to allocute to his crimes and apologize and end it all in hugs. I think he realized the significance, because he snuggled in for hugs immediately and listened to us explain why he was heading straight to bed. He calmed down as we spoke, the anger draining from his body. But it was obvious he was really only waiting to talk when he offered, in that hitching voice that comes after a crying jag, "Now .. I choose .. Diego.." Oh, the heartbreak when I stood firm and replied that he'd missed his chance!

I carried the inconsolable child up to bed for the first time in as long as I can remember and tucked him in without even turning on the bedside lamp. Still, he looked longingly at the stack of books on the table, crying now with a sense of his own loss rather than his parents' duplicity. I explained that it's part of our job to make sure that he grows up understanding that he can't behave the way he did and because of that he will always lose out on something good when he defies us. This time, he nodded with the saddest of "ooookkkaayyyss" and asked for a sip of water, saying "I think I can stop my cries now." Then he burrowed under his covers, sighed deeply, and asked if he still got the four kisses. I hope he knows in his heart of hearts that we'd never withhold affection to teach him a lesson. I take it as a good sign that no matter how hurt, how seemingly wronged, he still bid us both a "good night, I love you" with strong hugs.

And then he fell asleep in 90 seconds.

Written and Illustrated by Sam Ashe Arnold

The Bears' Spooky Night

Once there were four bear friends. They went in a spooky forest and they saw animals coming out of the smoke. They saw a lion. There were also bugs in the spooky plant. They were scared.

The bears went on a special truck that took them to a spooky house. It had a fireplace that was just like Sam's, but it also had a fire in it. They go through the fire and up the chimney, but they don't get burned.

The bears well back to the ground. Then a big spooky chair came walking up the street. The bears climbed on, and the chair brought them home.

The bears were back in their cave.

The end.


The Ghost Adventure

The children and the grown-ups were ready to get their warm clothes on for the ghost adventure. Once they were dressed, off they went to the front yard. The kids were so excited they jumped off the stairs.

They ran down the sidewalk. These guys live in Sandy Hill. They saw one! But it was just a baby. Then its parents came through the door.

The ghosts stared down at them.

The end.

A Thousand Words

And just like that, January is gone. I've missed a month of stories, but I have a nice little collection of photographs that I can caption to catch up.

Sam loves Lego. I think we went a good six months of hearing "I played Lego" as the sum total of the child care report. Nine, ten hour days of a fully structured program with a dozen other kids, and he only remembered the Lego. Not surprisingly, the lego pirate sets are the centre of his bedroom universe. And this Christmas, Grandma & Grandpa Arnold gave him a 380-piece Dinosaur set (but who's counting pieces?), and we've been building fearsome beasts. I took a picture of the beaming boy holding up our first creation, but this is the photo he liked best. It was his idea to pose dino as though he assembled himself and was now crawling out of the box to wreak havoc in Hudson house....

While rooting through a back seat pile of commuter-parent baggage (lunchkits, laptops, gym bag, backpacks, snowpants, groceries, art work) during a Sam drop-off a few weeks back, I spotted a colourful hexagon next to his booster. I spun around to ask Sam if he made it ... and broke his heart. He let out a wailing "ooohhh, nooo!" that made it clear I'd spoiled a surprise. Holding back tears, he explained: "I wanted to wrap that up for you!", the thrill of Christmas still fresh in his mind. I knelt down for a big hug, declaring my love of the little craft to help soothe his obvious disappointment. "Is this an ornament?" I asked ... and then had to stifle my laugh when he answered earnestly, "Yes. I wanted you to have something beautiful to look at while you washed the dishes."

Unlike the 'housework hexagon,' most of Sam's drawings are monochrome. He favoured a simple pencil for the longest time before moving on to the brown crayon. Then he went through a festive red stage through Christmas before settling on blues, where he's remained—aptly—for the chilly month of January. Before taking down the December bulletin board, I want to commit a few things to memory. First, Sam and made the wreath together during the Centre's "Annual Cup of Cheer" breakfast reception. Perched on the wee chairs together, we had a fun conversation about Christmas decorations. Another night, we coloured the Santa pic together, and Sam tried once again to decide if he preferred spelling his name with his left or his right hand. Finally, the figure at the bottom left that struck me as a lynched cowboy is Spiderman, lowering off a wall to battle the muscled stickmen in the centre of the drawing (click the photo to enlarge). I've developed quite a skill at eliciting details from him rather than guessing at the picture's content. I love these little Sam collages: I wish we could keep them all forever.

And speaking of wishes and forever, I will never tire of the sight of my slumbering son. Somehow in sleep, the infant's chubby cheeks, shallow breathing and tousled hair return and he's my baby bunny once again. He stays perfectly still through the night, with those small hands tucked up between face and pillow in a portrait of pure peace. I hope he always sleeps like that. I call this picture "Four Kisses," because that's how every day ends. Once the stories and songs are finished, I kiss his forehead and both cheeks before our goodnight kiss. And each kiss has its own statement: "Good night (kiss), sleep tight (kiss), sweet dreams (kiss), I love you (kiss)." Sleep well, Sammy.