Road Trip: Timelapse Audio

From the back seat : Rama Road to Hudson Avenue

Don't do that with your feet: it's bugging me. Stop it. Stop it! Move your arm! Arghhhh! (elbow, wiggle, smack). You're annoying me. That's my armrest! Mine! HE SCRATCHED ME! I can't hear the movie. Beeeeee quiet! Ouch! OWWWWchhhh. He's kicking me! (kick, wiggle, smack) You're hurting me! AM NOT! YOU ARE! You're bad!! No: I'm the goodest!! Can I have a treaaaaatt? Ya, can we have a treeeeaaatt? Please. PLEASE. Okay - Please can we have a treat? Yuck: not that treat. I want something else. Yup!- I can be good! Deal. I'll be good. Me too. The goodest.

(chocolate dipped soft serve ice cream pause)

Put your fist down! I can't ignore it: it's bugging me! He pinched my boo-boo! On purpose! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! Was not (slap, wiggle, smack - smack - flurry of smacks). Move your head: it's on my side. Move it! Hey?! You're not supposed to have your penis out! 'I love my snowwwwboarrrrrrrddd: I love my skaaaattteeboard' -- I am not singing. It's not singing! 'I looovvvee (ow!) my snowwwbooarrrd (ow!!)'. I can't stop! It's my song! HE BIT ME! He did! Here are the marks! I never never never want Sam to come in my car again!! Never! And I never never never want Carter at my house again!! Ever!

Anabel's crying. She's annoying! ANA-BEL!! It's hurting my ears. Mine too! She's TOOOO loud! There. She's sleeping. Took a long time to stop crying. Did so! 15 minutes is a super long time! Okay: we'll be good. (whisper, whisper, smack). He's BUGGING me! Stop poking me! HEY!

{6.5 hours later}

What? We're home?

Can Sam come over now? Why not?!

I wanna go to Carterrrrrrr's!!

"Listen, All You Kids Out There ..."

Sam played his first game of “pick up” ball hockey on the driveway last weekend. He heard Lucas out in his back yard and, after hole-in-the-fence negotiations, they secured management approval for the historic game. Daddy helped them set up and suit up and agreed to officiate. Game on!

This player’s mom was in the kitchen for the duration—whipping up lasagne for a pre-playoff game dinner for eight—but the whoops and laughter drew her outside for a little second period action. Shot some candid ice-level moments, catching this great save by our future Vezina trophy winner. A casual stance, to be sure; but great net protection, eh? (squint: that's the orange puck bouncing off his red blade). Way to keep your stick on the ice, Sammers! Shut down what looked to be a dangerous rush.

Unfortunately, a few plays later, left-winger Lucas scrambled for a bouncing rebound and inadvertently slashed the goalie across the top of his Birkenstocks (the training choice of all flat-footed NHLers). While he suffered injury only to his sense of bare-toed entitlement, the goalie verbally retaliated. In fact, one might say he was Sidney Crosby-esque in his over-the-top reaction to minor provocation. Chalk it up to adrenaline, maybe, but he couldn’t let it go.

The referee gave him 2 minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, but the now incensed goalie refused to head to the penalty box. He took it up a notch, threatening physical retaliation. That’s a game misconduct, Buster. Howling, pummelling protests at the injustice of this referee, who is clearly biased in favour of the visiting team! Ejection.

Took a while for the little hothead to calm down. When he finally recovered and issued public apologies for his behaviour, he also announced that maybe he wasn’t up for any more hockey playing that day. He and the sole member of the opposing team ran upstairs for the light sabers instead, and the two pretended to whack the crap out of each other until dinnertime.

Boys...

Raising a Reader

Let the record show that on May 8, 2007, Sam and I began reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Though he was born too late for this fantasy series to be the story of his generation, I can’t imagine another phenomenon like this one sweeping the world of Kiddie Lit in his lifetime. In 10 years, the 6 Harry Potter books have been translated into dozens of languages and have sold 375 million copies, making J.K. Rowling a billionaire. She’s closing out the series this July with a book that has so many pre-orders the first print run will be an unprecedented 25 million copies. Is she that good? Well, we’re hooked.

I began sharing books with Sam when he was but a foetus, and we started frequenting the library programs when he was 6 months old. While I’ve enjoyed the tiny board books and then Dr Seuss and then classic children’s fairy tales, I’ve been looking forward to working through longer plots with Sam. Harry Potter will be his fourth chapter book, after James and the Giant Peach, Charlotte’s Web (twice) and The Secret World of Og. These are all wonderful stories to fire the imagination of a young boy who’s not keen to give up completely on picture books (in fact, when I told him I’d be picking up Harry Potter this week, he asked “Who illustrated it?”).

Tellingly, though he was rapt with attention and full of questions through the first two chapters of this child wizard’s adventures, he later searched his shelves to find My First Big Book of Colours and asked me to read that as his “one more story” before bed. When I reminded him that there was no story, that it was just pages of pictures, Sam corrected me with direct quotations that are surely drawn from the deepest recesses of his memory. “Ask me ‘where’s the horsey hiding?’ Ask me ‘what do bees say?’ Ask me ‘is this your favourite fruit?’” So I did. I worked through the colours book just as I used to back when Sam listened with a soother in his mouth. He smiled the whole time.

And I think I understand now why he wouldn’t let me give his baby books to Anabel a few months ago. I’ll never forget his distraught look of panic at the sight of the stack by the front door and then his staunch determination as he hauled those long unread volumes back upstairs declaring, “I’m NOT finished with them!” I thought he was angry at me for failing to consult him before rifling through his belongings for give-aways. I didn’t realize then that his memories of reading with Mommy are attached to the books themselves, or that these simple and oh-so-familiar books might provide a comforting balance to the new and intricate tales we’re exploring now. I’m happy to mix Harry and horseys for Sam. Happy that he loves his books.