Still Life: Labour of Love

To Sam, Who is 6 Years Old

You feel it already: this is a big one, six. You've grown so much in the last year. Well, you've added maybe 2 inches in height, but you've become lankier, stronger, sure on your feet. Traces of the babyface that were still apparent in the kinder kid have disappeared, except in sleep and tears. You have a bright smile, endearing dimples, a slight chin cleft, and the nicest green eyes I've seen since your Daddy's. I bet you'll look like this from 6 to 16... though I suspect that the peanut-butter-and-honey hair will turn dark brown over time.

And it's more than that. You make snappy jokes now, you can read simple words and work through addition and subtraction, you happily swim across the deep end of the pool, you're handy with the mouse and the TV clicker, you can get yourself drinks and snacks. You're even starting to enjoy sleeping in your own bed, something we thought might never happen given how much obvious comfort and pleasure you take from snuggling in between us for sleep cuddles. "I love my parents," you sigh. But you've claimed your newly-decorated room (pirates) as your own and you're inhabiting that space like a big boy—it's not just where your toys are kept, it's "Sam's room."

And that's the biggest change. You're growing a sense of self, recognizing how your likes and dislikes, your humour, your abilities are different from others. It's wonderful to catch you saying things like, "Pirates are my favourite, but I have a lot of interests." And then you rhyme them off: knights, cowboys, Star Wars, hockey, outer space, Egypt (yes, Egypt is a stated interest). When you're older and taking a break from making movies—your ambition since you could talk—you're going to make pop-up books for young kids about all of those things. You've been "making books" for years, but lately your drawings are becoming more detailed, colourful and action-packed. It takes ten minutes for you to describe what's going on in each one. "And kids won't even need to be able to read to understand my books!" you enthuse. You're so confident, exuberant and engaged that you often build to a near-shout when relating stories or describing your art projects to us after school.

More than anything else right now, what strikes me about you is how much you love stories. That, I suppose, is why you envision yourself as a writer-director-actor. You write, direct and act out every minute of your playtime (and your cousins' and friends' playtimes, on occasion becoming a little churlish with the "no! No! NO!" when one of these bit players tries to change your plot). I'm so happy that you love books. You remind me of myself as a child, tearing home with the Scholastic Books order form each month, bursting with excitement about all the choices. "Mark this one as a maybe, but can we put a check mark beside this one?" Your shelves are loaded up with boxed sets of chapter books: Cabin Creek Mysteries, Magic Tree House series, Jack Sparrow stories, Warrior Cats, Ready Freddy! titles, and more. You love ongoing sagas, charging up the stairs ahead of me, diving into bed and grabbing the latest book to find the dog-eared page before I get there. This year, you'll learn to read in earnest, and I hope the love of stories will carry you through as your schooling becomes less about play and more about desk work.

The days with you are so fun, Sam. You're so happy and easy-going that (so far) there are no battles of wills over getting you to take baths, eat your veggies, clean your room. No matter what we propose, the answer is always "okay!" and off you go, often humming and skipping, to do what you've been asked to do. You know what you want, but you're always willing to compromise. We don't take that for granted, and we know it won't last forever. As you continue to become your own separate person, you'll begin to draw stronger lines between yourself and us. But, for now, you're affectionately and unselfconsciously thrilled to walk hand-in-hand with yor mommy and daddy, to be our Bub. You often say "we're a lucky family," when we're together enjoying each other's company. We couldn't love you more, and you know it.

A few days ago, you climbed onto your old tricycle and tried to peddle it out of the garage—but your knees struck the handlebars, causing it to tip so you had to jump clear over it. And I marvelled for a moment over your size, your agility, and the high-spirited and comically self-deprecating way you shook off the near accident. "We gave you that tricycle for your second birthday," I called out. "That's four years ago tomorrow. " You gave a little nonchalant shrug and answered, "I know." You say that I lot. "I know" or its minor variants — "I already know that" and "I know that already." Right there, a gap opened like a chasm between your two-year-old self, who had to be convinced that his trike wasn't an ant-killing machine, and your six-year-old self, who leaps over the handlebars and knows everything (already). "And something is..." you begin ("Something is" is the latest "I have a word for you" conversation starter). "Something is, I think I need a new big boy bike, too! Mine's getting too small for me."

A bigger big boy. You're so six.

Sam is Six

It's time to put the happy boy to bed, and in case I don't have a chance to come back and write my letter to Sam, I'm posting the Lone Star birthday song to mark the date!

Report Card: Personal and Social Development

Excerpt from Sam's report card: "Sam demonstrates an awareness of his surroundings and curiousity about the world around him." Yes, yes he does. This is becoming something of a problem around the house, actually. While some of his questions are rather easy to answer—for instance, "Were there bunnies in pirate times?"—he's asking more challenging ones all the time.

Consider this one. "If it takes one day for the earth to spin around and face the sun again and we always see the same side of the moon at night, does that mean the moon is spinning at the same speed as the earth?"

Ummmmm. Makes sense. To be honest, I never thought much about the moon spinning. In all the space movies I saw, the astronauts landed on the sunny side of the moon and then didn't camp out there for any length of time, really. Hhhmm. I don't know Sam. We can look that up.

Or this. "All these ants that are crawling around in the house now, did they hibernate in our house? Are there ant families in the walls?"

Ummmmmm. Makes sense. To be honest, I never thought much about where they sprung from. I capture and release and make mental notes to buy ant traps, but I haven't considered that there might be whole ant farms tunneling in the walls. In all the bug cartoons I've seen, the ants live in cosy apartments tucked safely away on a little oasis near the trash can in a public park. Hhhmm. I really don't know, Sam. We can check that out.

Or this. I hope that when they redecorate the Tim Horton's, they take down the pictures of the soliders. I like soldiers, but seeing those pictures makes me think of what happens to them... Why do they die in wars?

Ummmmm. To be honest, I've never really had a satisfactory answer for that one. In all of the war movies I've seen, soldiers died because they were selfless and committed, brave and determined. They died defeating "bad guys" who were threatening our freedom. But the news from Afghanistan is hard to align with other world conflicts and I'm not sure what to say. Hhhmm. I really don't know, Sam. Let's look up "peacekeeping."

Our inquisitive boy is slowly becoming aware not only of his surroundings (from microcosmic ecosystems, to massive solar systems, to complex international political geography), but also of the fact that his parents don't have all of the answers. Far from it. And while I don't mind saying "let's look it up," I'm less comfortable with the admission that I just haven't given enough thought to a lot of things. A lot a lot a lot of things. It's telling that my mind goes not to edifying books I've read on those subjects, but to entertaining movies I've seen. And Hollywood is considerably less thought-provoking than my kindergarten-aged child.

At one time, I suppose it seemed possible to get the answers to everything, to pin down the how's and why's of it all. But sooner or later, out of necessity or perhaps laziness, we whittle our interests down to a few narrow topics and we leave it at that. That is, until our children hit kindergarden and remind us that archeology is cool, and space travel is fascinating, and the deaths of Canadian soldiers should make us all as sad as a little boy in line at Tim Horton's watching the video display and wondering what is going to happen to those men in Khandahar after they roll up the rim.

"It has been consistently observed that Sam takes responsibility in learning." That's good. That'll serve him well. But his learning is our responsibility too, and I'm trying harder to demonstrate awareness of my surroundings and a curiousity about the world around me.