Inuksuk 2: This Time, it's Personal

So we're putting in a dishwasher (insert mom's squeal of delight), which means ripping out and relocating Sam's 3-level craft cupboard. Wow, there was a boatload of stuff in there. We're swimming in crayons, markers, coloured paper, stickers, pipe cleaners, crepe paper, glue sticks, elastics, cardboard rolls, bits of ribbon, sequins, and foam shapes. In short, everything required to make a rocket. And then more rockets.

We'd also collected a "let's do this later" miscellany, including colouring pages from bike or fire safety campaigns and itsy bitsy kinder-egg puzzles. While sorting through that stuff this week, I came across a small give-away we picked up on the Winterlude Ice Sculpture tour at Confederation Park: a 'build it yourself' mini cardboard Inuksuk. Sam was enthralled. We punched the pieces out and carefully assembled the icon. Then I read him the little info card provided by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, explaining the cultural significance of the stone marker to the Inuit.

A while later, I found myself eavesdropping on Sam's play, all smiles that he was repeating bits and pieces of what he heard in a kind of solemn 'voice over' fashion as he marched Inuksuk down the length of the couch: "The Inuksuk is used to show hunters the way home .. and sometimes to warn of dangerous places... and sometimes to mark where food is stored..." Just look at my little erudite boy having fun with this venerable symbol of the Canadian North.

Then, with that shift in tone you hear in movies to dramatize the alternate personality taking over the dominant one, Sam continued in a slower and deeper voice: ".... but that was in his childhood, when he was a superhero. One day, a FRACK of rocks fell on Inuksuk (sound effects of pummelling and horror), and he was turned into a Rock Man. He fought his enemies (sound effects of thrashing and pain) and beat them. When they tried to fight back, he turned into liquid rock!! (sound effects of molten transformation) and no one could touch him. If they tried, they were burned alive! (sound effects of people melting in agony). Inuksuk was angry that was made out of rocks and he blamed it on the people and that's why he fought everyone he could find!!"

Ironically, the info card is called "Sharing a Story." Ya. Sam heard your story. Then he took your 4,000 years of Inuit cultural history and pimped it with a dash of Fantastic 4 and the Batman villain formula. He likes your story better now. Inuksuk may have "become a symbol of leadership, cooperation and the human spirit," but when 4-year old boys play mythmaker, there's gonna be shape-shifting fisticuffs and mayhem. I should have started with the coyote and raven tales.

Is it Next Year...?

Last New Year's Day, Sam asked me "Is it 'next year'?" I stumbled around a brief history of time, wrapping up my convoluted pre-school version of calendar observance by agreeing, "So, ya: I guess it is 'next year'?" Sam replied, "Oh good! Cuz 'next year,' I get to go to Miss Kim's class!" Whoops. I hadn't thought of the academic calendar: January 1 is not 'next year' for an eager preschooler looking to join his friends every morning for the 9 am march down the hall to the kinder-room.

Then we blinked. Now it's mid-September — a whole other 'next year' is upon us and Sam is finally one of the "school age" kids in at Carleton Heights Elementary. He had his intake interview yesterday morning, and this Friday is his "staggered entry" day (can I be the only one who pictures inenebriated kids bouncing off the door frame à la Elliot in E.T.?). By next Monday, Sam will officially be part of the school system. As you can see by the huge smile, he's thrilled. Me? I'm already worried about standardized tests ...

It was a very pleasant introduction, though. Kim, Sam and I sat at one of the cute kiddie tables and Sam was asked to draw a picture of anything he liked while his teacher and I talked over the info sheet I'd filled in (loquaciously) over tea that morning. Sam happily drew an alien with a brown balloon and then was excused for some free play. His relieved expression at the sight of all the playthings lining the shelves under the windows was priceless. Despite my assurances to the contrary, he had obviously put a lot of stock into stories told by unnamed playmates that there was no fun to be had in real school (and Sam's never even heard of the standardized tests...)

It's a nice room, the big colourful space where Sam will trace letters and start drawing numbers and begin to recognize words. His teacher is experienced but still bright-eyed, firm but also a self-confessed hugger. I note, on the way out, that Sam will visit the library on Tuesdays and the gymnasium on Wednesdays and Fridays and that he'll have six field trips this year. And I wish, for a minute, that it was me signing up for the experience. That I'd be the one staging puppet shows, sprouting bean seeds on the sunny sill, and playing "sink or float" at the water table — reliving my own Eureka moments as though I didn't already know about displacement theory and Archimedes' reputed naked run down the streets of Syracuse.

But this will be an adventure of a different variety, following Sam through school and delighting in his new discoveries and the ever-broadening reaches of his world. It's hard to believe that it's already 'next year'. I distinctly remember Tracey and I laughing at the thought of our little lumps of newborns walking the hallways of a public school. Well, here they go....

Bath-Crasher

Anabel is on the move these days, and she race-crawled her way into the washroom last night to catch Sam in the tub. She was up to her elbows in seconds, and Sam didn't seem to mind the cousin intrusion one bit.

Camp Hide-Away

We made a nostalgic trip along Highway 60 last weekend, recalling the beautiful drives to the Muskoka cottage summers ago. When we hit Huntsville, however, we turned north instead of south, heading towards Burk's Falls, the location of the 14-acre Lindsay cottage compound called Camp Hide-Away. We were among 7 couples invited up for the Labour Day weekend.

In a word, the place was perfect (and so was the weather). It's a spot right out of the canoing songs from camp days: "land of the silver birch, home of the beaver, where still the mighty moose wander at will: blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more..." (Ya, I've had the song in my head for a week now). The 850 feet of waterfront wraps around a small point along the inlet of Horn Lake, offering a variety of perfect spots for motorboat docking, sandy beach playing, frog hunting, canoe or remote-control boat launching, and gathering 'round a blazing campfire. Sam loved it all.

Okay, he was admittedly petrified that the motorboat was going to flip over and kill us all while we were towing the 'big kids' out on the tube, but he loved everything else. He divided his play time between monkeying on the treehouse & slide structure just outside of our cabin and splashing at the lakeshore with Cassie and Hannah, sisters who were down for the day from North Bay. He looked more sure of himself around the water than he ever has, but this isn't a swimming pool reflecting untold depths: it's gentle sloping sandy beach inviting little boys in to thrash and screech. He couldn't have had more fun: he was a fun-havin' maniac.

Sam took to the cottage life like he's been doing it his whole life. He was especially in his element at the fireside (his first, if memory serves). He was not only mesmerized by the flames (who isn't?), but he was also keen to tell campfire stories, an idea he picked up from Max & Ruby cartoons long ago. He whispered several funny narratives in my ear, most involving ghosts and UFOs and marshmallow toasting. And his introduction to the world of s'mores was aptly sticky and smiley sweet. Nestled in a warm hoodie, he slouched deep in his Mickey Mouse camp chair and quietly enjoyed sunset and then the starry show on both nights. In fact, when we tried to whisk our sleepy son up to the cabin on night two, he was so unbearably heartbroken that we took him back to the fire for a final s'more and a second lingering round of goodnights. He knew it'd be a long time before he tasted such delights again, literally and metaphorically.

Both Jeremy and I have fond camping and cottaging memories, and we know it's only right to get Sam out of the city more often. He needs to indulge in the pleasures of lakeshore living: to greet sparkling morning waves by gently lobbing pebbles into their midst, to build clusters of castles on the sandy shore, to catch and release umpteen frogs, to feast on too many hot dogs and delicious fire-roasted corn and yet another toasted marshmallow, to gasp at the intensity of those starry nights, and to grow drowsy next to a roaring fire before being carried to a comfy cot where all kids sleep the sleep that comes to those who do summer right. I hear crickets in our future.