The Straight and Narrow

There's no denying it — it's comforting to know that Sam is a Rules Follower through and through. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life," said Matthew, and if there was ever a kid who lived his life on the straight and narrow, it's Sam. As far as we can tell, his moral compass has never led him to consider breaking a rule or even fudging a guideline. That puts his parents in an enviable position, I know.

But where will it leave his friends, I wonder? And when will Sam realize that those who live in the grey scale won't always appreciate his black & white perspective? Especially when he acts on it by taking a stand against them.

Well I remember learning those harsh lessons myself through my school years. When I was in grade 2, I tattled to the yard duty teacher about a few grade 8 boys who were smoking in the back corner. She named her informant and — during the very next recess — I was threatened (held up dangling against the brick wall) to mind my own business. Wasn't school yard smoking everybody's business? It's against The Rules. (In my upset, I wished ill will towards that duty teacher and she was struck and killed by a car right in front of the school later that month. For a while, I was terrified of my unearthly powers.)

A few years later, in grade 7, I didn't hesitate to name the offenders who basically threw a ticker tape parade in our classroom when the teacher was called away to the office. I didn't care what those dumb boys thought of me, but it never crossed my mind that Tobi Boland (crush) would brand me a snitch and avoid speaking to me for what felt like 300 years. Even my girlfriends rolled their eyes at me. I ratted out boys. I remember thinking, "What is wrong with you people? We're good. They're bad. Why should we all get in trouble?"

So far, Sam is negotiating minor league family politics. He tells on his cousins, yes — but for whatever reason no one has called him on it. Maybe because they've grown up alongside the boy who played cop to their robbers. Check this out... (May 2005 - 25 months)

It's kind of handy, to be honest, to know that the boys won't get up to any trouble without a full report from my hall monitor of a son. He double checks in person (not trusting a mere shout out from the kitchen) that yes, they can watch four pre-approved song parodies on YouTube. If a fifth one is loaded, down comes Sam. "Is it alright if...?" He's like walking, talking Parental Controls. It's awesome. And when there is a squabble, Sam can usually be counted on to provide an impartial play-by-play. "No, Carter didn't mean it: totally an accident. Anabel is over-reacting." We can count on Sam. He's a "good kid."

But one day someone his age is going to complain and the others will nod in agreement because he's been refusing to push boundaries and test limits and partake of the thrill of getting away with something he shouldn't be doing. And then what will he do? Will he redraw his lines to protect his friendships? Or will he alienate himself and wait out his peers? I worry only because I remember "Square Ger," the boy who wouldn't stop tattling. He played alone at recess.

Me? I didn't do the things most of my friends did as they moved through their teens—never snuck out the window in a toga, drank out of my parents' liquour cabinet, pretended I was at a sleepover at so-and-so's when I was actually at a toga party. Drunk. But I stopped telling on the people who were. If there was no clear and present danger, it wasn't my beeswax. And somehow that worked for me. I was a good girl, but not a Goody Two Shoes. It's a fine line.

Sam hasn't had to walk it yet. I hope he's as strong as he seems to be when that day comes.

The Black Squiggle

The "black squiggle" has been hard on your heels for a while now, Sam. It wakes up at dusk and lays in wait for you somewhere on the dim staircases that lead from the family room, past the kitchen, and up to your bedroom. Never one to show itself when grown-ups are about, the black squiggle bides its time, knowing that sooner or later you’ll come up from goodnight kisses or come down for a glass of water. Alone. And then the chase is on.

I can tell from the speed of your scamper, from the echo of your pounding feet on the hardwood as you round the corner and break for the second staircase that the squiggle is on the loose. More often than not, you let out a little yelp before you burst into the light of your room or ours, eyes wide with fright and your breath coming in ragged gasps. "It caught right up to me!" you exclaim, casting a wary backwards glance into the shadows. But it can't be seen head on. The squiggle is detected only in the peripheral vision. Only on the run.

This week, the squiggle took shape as a black dog. Not a large dog, but a menacing one nonetheless. You awoke to find it standing stock still in your cubby door corner, panting quietly, its eyes fixed on yours. Later you’ll tell me it took 20 minutes to screw up the courage to flee the room for the safety of our bed. When I ask why you didn’t call out for us, you answer slowly and softly: "Because if I move a muscle, if I make a sound … something will happen."

And my heart breaks for you as my own night terrors leap to mind. The impossibly large spider scrabbling its way down the wall towards my bed. The kidnapper drilling holes through the bedroom door to spy on me. I, too, was a petrified seven year old pinned down to my bed, unable to draw a full breath. So when you ask me to go make sure there isn’t a black dog next to your bed, I do—although I know it won’t make a difference to suggest that it's just a trick of the eye, or a figment of your imagination. He’ll be back. "Yes, he’s not here now," you concede, "But can I still sleep with you?"

The following night, you toss and turn anxiously, willing yourself to fall asleep in your own bedroom, the new haunt of a terrifying black dog. After kisses & cuddles, and stories and more stories, and cups of water, and yes-the-night-light and no-the-night-light, you call out in frustration, "I’m trying so hard to sleep that I can hear time passing!" Turns out your wristwatch is hiding behind your books. Tic, tic, tic…

Half an hour later, I catch the sound of you stifling sobs. You can’t sleep. Not in this bed. Yes, yes of course you can crawl in with me. It’s only 9:30, so I feign sleep for a little while, listening as you begin to relax. Your breathing comes easier, your body lets go of the tension generated by your wild imagination. You find my hand resting on the pillow between us and gently slide yours into my grasp, so as not to wake me.

Then very carefully, you wiggle closer and closer still, so that your forehead is touching the back of our clasped hands. Just before you fall asleep, you press a long, tender kiss onto my hand. Loving, grateful, happy—that kiss thanks me for believing in the squiggle, for knowing that a dog that isn’t there is also a dog that is there, and for soothing that all away.

I love you, too, Sam.

General Knowledge

I have no idea how I got to be the mother of a six-year-old boy living in Nepean without knowing that there was a ginormous outdoor pool nestled away just 0.5 kilometres off the beaten track that is Meadowlands drive. It was only when a daytrip to General Burns Park & Pool came up on the summer field trip schedule at Carleton Heights for the third summer in a row did I ask any questions. So what kind of "pool" are we talking about? A wading pool? "Oh, no—it's huge" says Amanda. "They have three diving boards."

Seriously?

That day, Sam (and everyone in the JK-SK group except Carter—props to Carts!) failed the swim test that would allow them access to the diving boards. Sam was despondant later, explaining that he only paused "druring" his test because people were calling him in another direction and he got confused. Though he had a splashy fun time, the call of the elusive diving board (so close and yet so far!) prompted me to pile the boys in the car two days later and head out to this so-called "huge pool."

It was, in a word, huge. Maximum number of bathers? 394. That's almost four hundred. This ain't no wading pool (oh, but they have a wading pool, too, for infants and toddlers, separately fenced and with a Little Tykes slide set up in the middle of it). I understand why Sam might not have mentioned this pool as a four year old, given his take on scary bodies of water you can see 10 feet down into. But after spending the week in the pool during our Key West visit, he was a transformed boy at 5 when it came to swimming. I can only surmise that he didn't ask if we could go to General Burns because it didn't occur to him that mere families could show up at pools that seemed to be populated entirely by field trip kids. Like it was in another dimension that moms couldn't access.

Well, now we know. We spent 2 hours in the water together—quite a feat for this mom, but the rules demanded it ... swimmers under the age of 8 must stay within arm's reach of a grown-up regardless of swimming ability. The boys didn't seem to mind the supervision at all (see: huge pool) and they spent more than half the time lining up for their turn on the diving boards anyways. I treaded water alongside the ladder to cheer them on and to keep an eye on the shenanigans of the bigger kids. Me and 10 lifeguards.

I was proud of the two of them for their confidence in the company of kids twice their age. Sam was shorter by at least a foot than the average diving board user, but he marched up there with the rest of them and did his cute little 180 degree turns while they did spectacular backflips and sommersaults, egging each other on to ever crazier feats. Brave Carter took his first three jumps off the X-metre board (I don't know from measurements. It was high. See top photo.), but he was drawn to the hijinx of the older boys and came back to join Sam in his line. I should have seen the spectacular bellyflop coming. I'm not sure if he was planning to flip and pulled out, or what, but he did the swan dive opening without the swan dive finish. We took a little breather after that. So he could breathe.

It was a record-breaking hot and humid day, so Red Chest didn't want to sit out for long. After another 20-minute round, though, we packed it in and headed for Baskin Robbins. A waffle cone to cap the first of what are sure to become many, many trips to General Burns pool. Here's a portrait of the cousins from Trip One.

The Chore Chart

About a year ago, we posted Sam’s first chore chart on the fridge. We came up with six different responsibilities we wanted him to start assuming around the house and found clip art images for each. Then we added five blank squares below each image, space for the initials that would attest that a job was done. We didn’t ask him to make sure he did one or more of his ‘chores’ every day; in fact, it generally takes him about two months to fill in the 30 squares. When he’s done that, he can buy a new toy valued at about $25.

I can’t recall for certain what his first six responsibilities were, but his latest chart details these jobs:
(1) Help us get out the door in the morning by 8:00
(2) Help feed, water, walk and treat Hudson
(3) Help with grocery shopping, meal prep, table setting, or dishwasher loading
(4) Complete some reading/math activity sheets (forerunner to homework)
(5) Tidy his room
(6) Go to sleep in his own bed

Sam finished that sheet yesterday, planning to post two more activity sheets on the fridge and then “cash in” all three for a massive King Arthur's Castle Lego set he’s had his eye on for these many months. This is his first experiment with ‘saving up’ for a big purchase (the barrel of Lego costs nearly $100, but to make him work through four charts seems cruel) and he’s shown admirable resolve. That is, he did show admirable resolve. Right up until he inadvertantly found himself smack dab in the middle of the Loblaws toy section. The sloppy navigation was an obvious error on my part, but some sale-priced sports equipment caught my eye and slowed my steps on the way to the check-out.

And that’s when Sam saw The Joker. He’s wanted to own this “bad guy” for as long as he’s been a Batman fan. And that’s for a lot longer than he’s wanted the barrel-o-Lego. Speaking tentatively, he tested the idea of changing his mind about how to spend his earnings. “Mayyyyybe, maybe this time… I might want to get the Joker…” but then he pulled it right back, “Noooo. N-no. No. I really want the Lego set.” Had I been conscious of the dilemma brewing, I likely would have said “Smart choice!” and rolled out of the action figure aisle, but I was only half-listening to his angst-ridden conversation with Jeremy as I contemplated the relative merits of the T-ball and the junior lacrosse sets a little ways away.

Despite Daddy’s best efforts, the “should I spend” or “should I save” quandary reached a fever pitch—Sam was fighting back anxious tears, his heart racing as he tried to figure out which decision would make him happiest. It might sound like a rather silly predicament, but this is serious business to a young boy who's earned the right to freely choose. He fears Buyer’s Remorse. How could he not? If The Joker doesn’t live up to its packaged promise, then the fact that he’d be a whole chore chart behind in saving up for the Lego would sting for weeks. We respected his misgivings and tried to advise without deciding for him, to give him a comforting hug without drawing embarrassing attention.

In the end, he decided to risk that The Joker wouldn’t be there in a few months’ time, once he’d completed three more charts. He was carrying on with his original plan, and he felt good about the decision. A little proud of himself, too, I think. And so were we. But make no mistake: I’ll be ducking back to Loblaws this week to scoop up that toy and stash it away until the charts are filed. Sam’s learning plenty enough about delayed gratification, setting priorities and the value of a hard-earned dollar. At this age, he should be rewarded for those lessons.

Who’d have thought that a chance encounter with a cheap plastic clown could be so edifying?

It Was Sad When The Great Ship Went Down

I guess it started with the children's folk song, "Titanic"—which I'd learned at camp and sang every now and then when Sam outlasted the usual bedtime song repertoire. The jaunty beat and schadenfreude lyrics belie the tragedy: "Watersnakes and turtles, little ladies lost their girdles, it was sad when the great ship went down!" Sam loves the chanting conclusion: "Kerplunk. It sunk. What a lousy piece of junk. The end. Amen. Splash! Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle..." It's rather cruel, when you think about it. So, in a way, I blame myself for Sam's current fascination with all things Titanic.

He first brought it up himself at Hog's Back this spring. Something about the rushing water must have brought the bottom of the sea to mind. As it happens, I caught it on video.

The ship with the dent in it. Yes, well, there's more to the story than that. And, for some reason, I told him so. Over the weeks he asked and re-asked for the details, committing them to fastidious memory. If I confirmed that, yes, it sure was a bad idea not to have enough lifeboats for all 2000 people on board," he'd correct me: "There were 2200 passengers and crew." The thing is, he seemed a little too cavalier for my liking, a little too eager to reproduce the iceberg strike in drawing after drawing. He and two of his classmates banded together into a little Titanic Fan Club, each critiquing the other's art projects. "You can't see very many decks on this part of your ship because they're already under water. Cool." On page one of a scribbler entitled "Things I Like" Sam drew the sinking ship and captioned it, "I lc too play Titanc."

It all bothered me a little. Hypocritical, I know, since I'm the one who happily crooned to a three year old, "Uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants, it was sad when the great ship went down!" before wishing him sweet dreams and leaving him alone with his huge imagination. Even still, it seemed important that he realize he was celebrating a catastrophe. So I bought a children's book called All Stations, Distress! The Night the Titanic Sunk. Despite its cartoon illustrations, it was a rather staid account of the disaster. But the sinking just didn't sink in. So I bought the movie, too. We couldn't let him see all of it, of course. There's an almost-risqué love scene and a remorseful suicide, for starters; and the fear and panic levels ramp up a little too high for a 6-year-old. But we watched most of it in hopes that he'd see the story from a new angle. We wanted him to get a sense of how it must have been to go into that icy water. It wasn't "cool," it was impossily cold. When Millvina Dean, the last Titanic survivor, died on May 31, I called Sam to the computer and showed him. Look, a real person.

This did seem to sober him for a while. But the appalling scenes in the movie that truly touched his heart were the ones behind this verse: "They were off the coast of England when they heard a mighty roar, and the rich refused to associate with the poor - So they put them down below, and they were the first to go - It was sad when the great ship went down!" The idea of first class passengers getting first crack at the lifeboats horrified Sam. The injustice of class discrimination was something he could get his mind around. He brings up those scenes at random moments—the locking of the lower decks, the men who broke out and stormed the lifeboats, the families who gave up and tucked back into bed, even as the water was washing up the hallways. Not fair, he'd say.

It occured to me then that he never asked about drowning or hypothermia. Psychologists generally agree that children learn to grasp the finality of death at some point between age six and nine...so it's quite possible that he simply can't fathom that part of the tale. In fact, when I hear him playing in his room, he's acting out the rescues, not the failures. And there are never any people bobbing in the icy water in his drawings. In his homemade Titanic book, the pages skip from the sinking to the lifeboats to the return home. I expected too much of a boy who can say the words of death and destruction but can't know their import. For Sam, the Titanic is an exciting story of survival— a heroic shipwreck tale, in which hundreds of people escape with their lives and are left singing "It was sad, so sad (too bad!), it was sad when the great ship went down to the bottom of the sea-ee-ee-ee ... It was sad when the great ship went down."

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.

Of Mommies and Mummies

Jeremy had to get some work done this weekend, so he dropped Sam and me at the Museum of Civilization on his way to INAC. I'd wondered if Sam would lose interest before our day was done. He'd seen the Children's Museum a few times before, but he's never been let loose in the other areas. Four hours later he had to be pulled out of the Journey through Canada's Past in order to be ready for pick-up. I shouldn't have been surprised to find that he loved it all.

We started with the IMAX film, "Deep Sea," which was absolutely astonishing (and narrated by Pirate Captain Jack). We huddled in our reclined seats, head to head, whispering about the jellyfish, octupuses, crabs, sharks, anenomes, and sea turtles. Sam started out declaring "I wish nothing had to eat anything else in the sea," but became so caught up in a starfish's hapless quest for food that he revised that position, "It's sad that things get eaten, but it's sadder to be hungry!" Ahhh, the circle of life. That's a tough one.

We spent the next hour in the Children' Museum, hitting all the interactive highlights: loading cargo onto a ship, performing shadow puppetry, building a brick wall, shopping for baguettes, spelling our names in heiroglyphics, making "photos" of ourselves at the ocean. We took a break from the hectic faux marketplace to enjoy a picnic (a March picnic!), taking advantage of a sheltered spot on the stairway to soak up some sunshine and chat about what to see and do next.

After lunch, we headed for the mummies exhibit, which was tucked away in the lower level. Sam ran ahead to ask for directions of a boutique operator: "Is this the way to the Tombs of Maternity?" He suppressed a smile in answering, "Yes, the Tombs of Eternity" are right around the corner. We zipped through some of the early rooms, featuring bits of pieces of the tomb's architecture and artifacts. Sam was there for the dead people. We slowed to take in the display of jewellry, clothing and the like, but the show stopper was the room containing the sarcophagi and the mummies themselves. Sam was fascinated. He did the Disney double-check ("They're not going to walk or move or anything, right?") before moving in close to have a look. When we stepped back into the hallway, he looked about and said "I don't think this is part of the exhibit..." When I explained that we'd done the whole thing, he turned on his heel, declaring "Well, I'm not done." So we went back in through the out door to watch the educational film about archeology and re-examine the highlights.

Then it was on to the Great Hall and the First Nations exhibits. Sam was in his glory. "Will..you..take..a..look..at..this," he breathed, when we came across a room of carved masks. A good deal of the exhibit is presented in child-friendly dioramas, so it felt like being on a west coast reserve, which made Sam want to step into the action. He set off a number of motion sensors, but no one came running. We worked our way up to the top floor and wandered through hundreds of years of Canadian history, several actors stopping Sam to ask if he'd like to join the lumberjacks for dinner or if he owned the fancy house in Toronto. He played along gamely, then (once out of earshot) confirmed "They're just kidding, right?"

And just like that, four hours had evaporated and it was time to go. Passing a kiosk on the way out, Sam spotted jelly totems and floated his usual "but we're not allowed to have those. We're not here for treats. They probably cost too much dollars" thing he does as a way of sort of asking for something while acknowledging that he's well aware of the argument against sticks of stale sugar. I surprised him by giving him a $10 bill. He asked me to keep my distance, so he could line up and pay himself. He handed in the money and walked away, all proud of himself. I forgot to tell him about the change...

I'm liking this museum thing. It's fun to watch Sam's interests and vocabularly expand, his sense of history become a little more detailed (his look of surprise at the fact that Egyptians packed tombs with food and drink so that the mummies had something to munch on during the journey to the afterlife was priceless). And I enjoy being in the moment with him in a way I'm not when we're home together. Jeremy just walked by to ask what a membership costs. This might be the Museum Pass summer.

Life with Little Boys

It's Saturday afternoon and my house is clean. Floors are swept, vacuumed and mopped. Tables are polished. Tub is scrubbed. Mirrored doors and window panes are muck-free. The laundry is done and put away. As is the most of the general this 'n that—the clutter that builds up around the house during the course of a busy week. There are, however, a few notable exceptions.

One: the fireplace and reading chair in the living room are connected by a pirate bridge made of leftover foam strips from the interlocking mats we picked up for the school library. Two: the bare dining room wall is adorned with the tracing paper pages of a Bakugan story Sam spent the better part of the day creating. These things I will leave be.

My Neat Freak single self couldn't imagine maneuvering a vacuum cleaner gingerly around a 10-foot pirate bridge (which went up three days ago), and she would have thought twice about agreeing to scotch tape anything to the walls. She couldn't understand why mothers would let the house be taken over by toys, why all that stuff couldn't be squared away where it belonged. In fact, she couldn't even imagine slapping a child's artwork on the fridge...and leaving it there. Wasn't that why children had their own bedrooms? No, Neat Freak Angie was happy in clean, tidy spaces that were geared to grown-ups and smelled faintly of vanilla or pear.

As Angie-Mommy, I still very much prefer a clean house, but I don't often have a neat and tidy one. Those "signs of Sammy"—the messy evidence of his play—are part of the landscape of life with a little boy. They make my heart sing with the remembrance of his joys and frustrations as he created them and then showed them off, confident in his right to fully inhabit the house—to re-engineer and redecorate as he pleases. They're wonderful in a way that you can feel only when you are fully, completely in love with a little boy whose imaginary worlds bring energy and colour and quirkiness to your real one.

P's & Q's

I came across this drawing when sorting through Sam’s craft drawer this week. It dates back to the fall of 2005, when he was two and a half years old. We used to sit colouring together, and I’d slip in little lessons where I could. “Do you want me to draw a circle? Do you remember what a triangle looks like? These are stripes, and these are polka dots.” The colourful patterns of the world sketched across the palm of my hand. The page filled me with nostalgia. For those stay-at-home mom days, yes — but also for the sheer simplicity of my concerns when raising a toddler. It seemed important then that Sam knew his crescents from his half-circles.

I’m struck by the irony of having so much less time with Sam now, when the scope and import of what’s left to teach him has multiplied exponentially. He’s bound to learn the geometry in school; it’s the basic rules of social living that have to come from his working parents. But when? How do we squeeze in pointers on table manners, when dinner conversation is all we get in a day? How do we stress the value of good sportsmanship, when he loses the first game of Trouble we've sat down for in months? It pains us to have to pepper our quality time with lectures and rules, with coaching and correcting. Is it that important that he minds his P's and Q's?

Yes. Yes it is. I've had it up to here, I tell ya, with the casual “yup” in place of “yes, please” when I offer a snack, the impatient “wha-at?” shouted from his bedroom when I call him for dinner, the petulant slouch at the table once he’s declared that the food is yucky, and the dramatic "oh brother!" eye-rolling in response to being called out on any of this. Worse, he’s taken to offering his own snotty Miss Manners pointers when the opportunity arises: “You just interupted me!” he retorts, when I can’t bear his affected “Could I have. .. could I have …. could I have…” stammer another instant before breaking in and suggesting Mini Wheats as a fine breakfast option. Did I ever correct my mother’s manners? Oh, I think not.

Polite language and behaviour is only partly about courtesy and tactfulness. It's also tied to respect and appreciation — for property, for other people's kindness, efforts, experience ... a whole range of things it'll take a while to teach. There’s a lot more to it than knee-jerk please and thank yous (though we’re admittedly not at reflex levels there yet either). I'm happy that Sam says “pardon me?” when he doesn’t catch a question, that he asks to be excused from the table, rather than coming and going as he pleases throughout the meal. And I have seen a heightened appreciation for people’s unexpected generosity. When the neighbours up the street offered him some Spiderman fruit chews last week, he commented on it repeatedly: “That was so nice. So nice of them to give me this treat.”

But we have a long way to go when it comes both to practising social niceities in an increasingly rude world and to developing the more crucial character traits that are telltale signs of a child well raised. He’s only five, of course. Some would say there’s plenty of time yet before he's in danger of being labelled a rude brat. But it seems I traced my hand for little Sammy just yesterday, filling it with rainbows, stars and happy faces. It’s high time now to take him firmly in hand and show him how to spread a little of that in the real world. Oh, he'll likely roll his eyes at me for a while, but mark my words! He'll learn to do that when I'm not looking...

That's a Lot of Love, Hey??

Two months! Two months have slipped with nary a single post to capture Sam's transition to a five year old. I'm determined to catch up on what's been going on, but for the moment (I have a massive Sunday To Do list), I simply must get this down.

After finishing up Robin Hood a few nights ago, Sam and I were having our goodnight snuggles and he declared—in his most serious tone—"I love you so much, I love you more than a horrible shock pains. And I love you so much that it feels like my heart will explode and my rib cage will explode and pieces of my ribs will shoot up into outer space. That's a lot of love, hey? Is that how much you love me?"

Yes, Sam. Exactly that much.

This morning, he added: "I love you more than all my pirates, my Power Rangers, my Ben 10 guys, my Pokemon, and my Galactic Enforcers. I love you more than all the movies I've ever seen and all of the movies I will ever make. That's a lot of love, hey? Do you love me that much?"

Yes, Sam. More than anything in the universe.

According to some child development theorists I've read, the affectional bond between mother and child becomes the template for all relationships the child will go on to form throughout his life. As Tracey remarked yesterday afternoon, it seems likely that Sam is going to be one of those boys who lays his heart on the line for girls, who writes intense poetry for them, and who gets crushed more than once by opening himself up with the question "That's a lot of love, hey? Do you love me that much?"

But who wouldn't love him that much? He's wonderful (says his mother...).

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.

Baby, Please Come Home...

Okay, so far my three work-week stint as a single parent has included a late diagnosis of Sam's 2nd ever asthma attack, a 4-hour vigil beside "the bucket" while he vomited uncontrollably, and more freakin' snow shovelling than I care to do in three winters. In addition, I've made just one meal that comes close to resembling a proper dinner, the laundry is piling up, the garbage & recycling didn't go out this week, the dog hasn't seen the end of the driveway nevermind been walked (mind you, the dog isn't complaining - see "snow" above). I'm surprised I haven't been fired, I'm nervous that I haven't done my Christmas shopping or cards, I'm flabbergasted that we're running low on groceries (see "proper dinner" above), I'm waiting for the odd-shaped yellow light illuminated on the Jetta's dashboard to start blinking red, and I have a vague sense that cheques may be bouncing. In short, I'm not exactly holding down the fort. The fort is in serious shambles.

And yet, Sam is (when not wheezing and vomiting) the happiest of little boys. When he was feeling his ol' self this afternoon, he asked if I wanted to take a break from my work to come dance to the music that his new race car plays. We rocked it out in the family room. That part, I'm doing right. And that's all that really matters. So Fort Hudson is snowed under and filling with refuse. We're dancing, we're singling carols, we're reading Captain Jack Sparrow stories. The rest of it can slide a bit till Daddy is back.

Well, maybe not the shovelling...

Wanna Walk Like You, Talk Like You, Too

Today Sam sat down to a complete lunch ... complete except for the absence of the usual note from his Mommy and/or Daddy. Today, no tall teacher crouched down beside his little seat to read him the secret message of the day, the little missive from the heart that we've been tucking between sandwich and fruit ever since Sam started JK. Why? Because Sam's not the only kid at the table, but he is the only kid getting special notes from home ... and he doesn't like it.

It's not the notes themselves, which were archived in the front flap of his Pirates of the Caribbean lunch kit. Clearly he liked those, as he can still recite most of them back to me based on the shape of the card stock we cut into letters and numbers or from the images on the fronts of those snipped from greeting cards. And, really, who wouldn't like to be reminded of fun weekend plans, or be thanked for something, or be told (again and again) how much they're loved?

No, it's the simple fact of being signaled out as different that makes him squirm. When he asked me to stop putting notes in his lunch, I was a little taken aback but casually (I think) asked "how come?" He offered that no one else had secret messages, so I explained (with only a trace of smugness), "maybe the other moms and daddies forget? maybe they don't have time? But we like to send you notes..." Sam repeated that he's the only one being read to at lunch, to which I opened this fateful door: "It's not important for you to be just like the other kids." After a beat or two, Sam protested softly, "It's important to me...".

Ouch. I remember the feeling, the desperate desire to blend in with the class each of the 12 times that I was the New Girl. And I remember my mom making sure I didn't feel like an outcast, no matter how silly the norms were. In fact, at the moment Sam uttered those words, I had a fleeting but powerful memory of the gratitude I felt when my mom overruled my dad in what was supposed to be a private conversation about whether or not they'd take me shopping in downtown Vancouver to find a discount pair of the "French jeans" that every girl was wearing in my new grade 6 class in Maple Ridge, B.C. We'd already bought all my school clothes in Ontario, but they were of the corduroy jumper and matching leotard variety, and these west coast snots were teasing me. Dad didn't understand how much that mattered, given our tight financial situation at the time, but mom knew better. I got those jeans because in a sad sort of way, I needed them. And crazy as it sounds, I loved my parents fiercely for granting me the unreasonable request. French jeans. Seriously.

So I barely hesitated when Sam justified his own little request by explaining that the notes made him stand out uncomfortably in front of his friends. As much as I hate the idea of him tailoring his behaviour and preferences to fit in with a peer group, I know the power of that group and I promise to respect it as far as I can. The next day, however, Sam hit me with the reverse jab. As we were climbing out of the car at Loblaws, I ran a quick check: "I've got my keys, I've got my wallet; I've got my Bunny. Let's go!" Sam's innocent question brought a rush of tears to my eyes: "When are you going to stop calling me 'Bunny'?" . Gulp. Silently, I retorted, "When are you going to stop twisting the knife?!" But I regained my composure before he saw my face and honestly replied that I'd probably call him Bunny forever, "but I promise not to do it when anyone but Daddy can hear us, okay?" This seemed to appease him.

On the way into the store, I reminded him that he came home from the hospital on an Easter weekend, and I've thought of him as my little bunny ever since. "It's hard for mommies to stop using their special nicknames for their babies, even tho they get big..." He nodded as though he understood, but he doesn't. Not yet. Maybe later, when he's a daddy himself and he's reading through these posts, he'll realize what it cost me to throw away the secret messages, to skip the terms of endearment, to treat him like a boy separate and complete—an individual in his own right—when to me he's still so much the tiny child forever connected to my heart.

Mommy loves Bunny.

xoxo

Man About the House (for a fee)

Back in April, I wrote a post about Sam's interest in helping to complete whatever chore, project or batch of muffins he discovered me in the midst of. "Can I help you do that?" was a constant refrain of his, and it was a source of genuine pleasure but also (sometimes) ever-so-mild annoyance for his parents, who found themselves in the position of either rebuffing the proffered assistance or slowing down progress to a snail's pace to teach our four-year-old how to re-pot plants or string road hockey nets (this afternoon's projects). Part of the job, I know, but the weekends are only so long...

Lately, there's been a follow-up refrain once the offer of help has been accepted: "How much would a job like that pay?" Okay, so Sam doesn't actually quote one of my favourite Kids in the Hall sketches, but he comes darned close. He started out with subtle expressions of his mercenary motives, sort of mumbling under his breath while engaged in the task—as though unconscious of being overheard—"maybe I will get some dollars for this..." Later, he became bolder. He's offered to pick up yard waste, clean his room, help make cookies, and put away his clothes... all for the tidy sum of two dollars. He still loves being a help (you should have seen him playing apprentice during the dishwasher installation), but he's also learning the (monetary) value of an honest day's work. Pay up!

And we have, from time to time. Not too long ago, he "babysat" Anabel for $5. That is, he kept her entertained in her playpen a few feet from the dining room table for the length of time it took for the screecher's mommy to enjoy her meal. He loves his five dollar bill. He's got big plans for it. It's going towards the purchase of a new section of the Pirate World that's taking over his bedroom. And that's where this all started, really. Sam's lust for the pirate's life has had him looting his parents' treasure chest a little too freely this summer.

He received a Megablox "Pyrate" fort for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Arnold last year, little knowing that he was the proud owner of but a token of the full suite of fortresses, islands, ships and crews (human crews, skeleton crews, "goobie" crews...). When we picked up a small island set to go with the original kit, Sam pulled a giant "here's what you're still missing, kids" page out of the box and his head exploded. Bounty like he'd never imagined in his wildest dreams. He was so enamoured of these little (mostly cheap) toys, that it was fun to surprise him from time to time over the next few weeks with additional sets: Maroon Galley, Dubloon Mystery, and so on. Sam was thrilled. .. and then expectant. He'd lay out the "menu" to point out what he still needed.

So we had to reign it in. I found myself explaining again and again that he was lucky to have as many toys as he'd already collected, that there were plenty of kids with nothing. I bordered on exclaiming "do you realize how many starving orphans there are in Africa?" But if Sam was spoiled, commanding him to be grateful for his privileged life and a little bit scared that it could be unravelled by drought and epidemics wasn't going to change anything. Perhaps earning money towards toy purchases would teach him some restraint, some patience, and some awareness of the effort that goes into producing coins from the Magic Wallet of Plenty.

So while he's angling for extra pay and having to learn the line between what he's expected to do as a member of this household and what counts as a chore for his allowance, this little experiment might be working. While shopping for household supplies at Wal-Mart this morning, Sam asked if he could buy a $1 pirate (of course) Halloween bag. We explained that we had a perfectly good ghost bag at home. ("Perfectly good." I am such a mom). But, we added, if he thought it was worth it, he could buy it with his own money. He jumped at the chance to throw the bag in the cart. But when he saw some ghost and pirate craft stickers a few minutes later, he considered the same offer for several minutes. Did he need them? How many, really? And which ones? He spent the second $1.80 very carefully. Maybe it's sinking in a little.

Jeremy has taken the musical approach to this dilemma throughout: he's taught Sam the chorus to the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." That seems to be working, too. Or, at least, Sam sagely shares the lyrics with Carter whenever he pouts at being stonewalled by Tracey. We can't fault little boys for so much want in this commercial culture, and we can't limit them to basic needs simply to teach a lesson. So we're groping towards some middle ground: the land of allowances and wish lists and reasonable gifts. Hopefully, that's where Sam will learn greater respect for his belongings and gratitude for just how many of them there are. And to stop asking to be paid for brushing his teeth.

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....

"Pay Sasso"

The other day I mentioned that Sam had recently given his original “castle” to Anabel. It’d had been in his bedroom closet for nearly a year, but he and his playmates still hauled it out on occasion, rummaging for extra props to bolster a game. He was less and less satisfied, tho, with the squat and cheery figures that represented the brave knight, the fire-breathing dragon, the stern king. In fact, the warm smiles and diminutive proportions of these “Little People” gave the lie to the death-defying feats he’d have them face.

So Sam’s pretty much stuck to the newer big boy castle on display in his room. It’s dragon has claws and teeth to be reckoned with, and the knights are so intent on the danger all around them that their visors cannot be pried up to reveal chipper grins. Perfect. Anabel can walk those other guys through the cute castle with its juicy chicken roasting on the spit and its bucket of crown jewels sparkling in unconscious display through the turret windows. That’s for babies...

Once upon a time, however, that fairy tale castle was the centre of Sam’s universe. It’s the only Christmas gift I clearly recall from 2004 — a present from Tracey. How fitting that she should have it back in her house now, sounding its never-to-be-forgotten nine-note accompaniment to the presentation of the king. I’d hum it here for posterity, but it’d come out only as “doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, DOO-DOO!” Captures little of its triumphant measure and sense of pomp and circumstance. Ironically, most of the 1001 times that Sam pressed the flags to sound the horns and light up the torches, no one occupied the throne that was simultaneously flung out on to the balcony for the benefit of the imagined subjects below. Absentis regius.

Sam’s king had more important things to do. Like host birthday parties. Endlessly identical “boeuf-day paahtees.” He’d gather the guests, bringing in Sally and Michael from the treehouse set and the firefighter and paramedic from the fire station set (okay, I called her a paramedic, but Jeremy’s nickname for her, “Nurse Betty” is the one that stuck). Then the King and Queen (Rex and Elizabeth) would haul the little wooden table out on to the grounds for a picnic. Happily, the table is permanently pre-set with meat, fruits, bread and cheeses. Everyone ate with gusto! The aforementioned chicken, as well as the pie cooling on the mantle and the bucket of apples from the stable, furnished additional courses. Then came the chase games, followed by the present: the unveiling of a beautiful horse named Bulls-eye (l’hommage à Toy Story). No matter who the guest of honour was, the party always unfolded in the same way. Sam loved it, time after time. After time.

Some months later, he swapped up the scenario to detail an exciting rescue of a number of rogue animals from the battlements. You never knew what kind of dangerous beast you might encounter on the rooftop. Actually, that’s not quite true. You knew exactly who was up there. It was the usual suspects every single time. Sam didn’t take well to variations from his script. So whenever I heard his hopeful and enthusiastic proposal, “pay sasso…!?”, I knew how things would run for the next hour or so. It was sweet fun. It was also often exhausting, and so for reasons that the un-childed could never understand, all those hours of castle play rank high on the “Things That Make Us Good Parents” List. It’s not about the diaper changing and the sleepless nights: it’s about ignoring the muscle cramps, the tantalizing whistle of the kettle in the kitchen, and the piles of laundry you’re going to have to do late that night and smiling instead through the 14th round of your son’s favourite game.

Much older and wiser, Sam now loves to hear this story of his obsession with that particular toy and his cute invitation to come “pay sasso”. But I realize, writing this, that while his plots are certainly more varied and extended now, his tolerance for a little adlibbing on the part of the supporting players hasn’t changed that much at all. It’s still his narrative and you’d best do what you’re told when you’re handed the blue knight. The curse of an only child. It’s something we’re subtly working on with him. Cuz we’re good parents, and we want Sam’s friends to happily join in his games, whatever version “sasso” takes from here.

Mind the Gap

I was in the surgical room with Sam for all of a minute before being booted by the anesthesiologist so the dentist could get to work repairing the nursing cavities that wrapped around the backs and sides of his front teeth. We'd been in the waiting room for nearly 2 hours and had spent another 10 minutes or so in the patient prep area, where Sam played Darth Vader with the mini gas mask so as to be comfortable with the idea of having it pressed to his face. I didn't like the looks of it at all. Issued another silent prayer for the CHEO moms while looking at the stack of tiny hospital gowns and the kid-cheery artwork on the walls.

The women knew what they were doing when they popped Sam up on to the operating table and told me to "hold his hands, keep them down" (expecting him to fight the placement of the gas mask; he didn't). They gave us no time at all to take in the room and get a little comfortable with the idea of IVs and heart monitors and the rest of it. Better not to have the chance to see it all than to get anxious about the equipment and all those people in masks. Thinking back, I wonder now why there were five nurses in the room. Five?

I did a passable job, tho, of acting as though this was a regular part of dental care. And it's a good thing, because Sam fixed his wide eyes on me with the intensity of a child searching his mother's face for signs that would betray her soothing words. Already going limp, he tried to lift his foot up, to show me that someone had clamped a heart rate monitor on to it. I started to explain, but already he was losing focus. He blinked it off and pulled his eyes back to me three times, each time with a little less Sam in them. Then he was unconscious. "Give him a kiss, Mom, then out you go," said the woman in charge of keeping Sam breathing. I'd made a prep room pledge to leave without hesitation at that command. But I didn't expect it to happen so quick! I kissed Sam's forehead with an "I love you" and let go of his hands. As I backed away, his left arm dropped off the side of the table, and I had to fight the urge to step back and tuck it up gently beside him.

I passed Dr Fremeth on the way out the door. He offered a smiley "Give me 45 minutes, and we'll call you back." At the time, I would have given anything to stay in the room, but in retrospect, I know it would have been tough to watch the team thread an oxygen tube through his nose and down his throat, or find the tiny veins on the back of each hand for analgesic, anti-nauseant and hydrating liquids. And the grinding buzz of dentistry is more than I can handle when the drill is boring into my face, never mind my little bunny's. Better that I tried to pass the time reading Oprah magazines and texting Jeremy about how sick and anxious I was.

70 minutes later, Sam awoke with a strangulated cough that sprayed blood across my shirt and arms: the tubing hurt him more than anything else. Limp but desperate, he tried to say "mom!", but only the mmm's came out. The nurses led us to an armchair and wrapped us together in blankets. Sam was nearly dead weight in my arms. It took about 20 minutes of whispering and singing in his ear, but he came to slowly and moaned through the little tests that got us discharged: drank water, answered a question with words, pointed to something.

Strapped into his booster seat for the ride home, he fell back into a drugged sleep that had his slackened body fall so far to the right that I lost sight of him in the rearview mirror. Having been instructed to monitor him closely, I watched him sleep for two hours. He awoke hoarse but happy and ran to the mirror for a look at his teeth. I didn't expect there to be a noticeable repair, but Sam shouted out that his "chipped tooth" was gone (he'd smacked into a coffee table after winding himself dizzy in Noemi's curtains when he was 2). The small fillings had noticeably reduced the gap between his front teeth. A shiny, straight smile.

He admired the results for a few minutes, then this little boy who hadn't had a morsel or drop in 20 hours ate a very, very big dinner.

Uninvited

Lunch was interrupted last Sunday by the hiss & hum of Lucas and Yasmeen’s jumpy castle being inflated. Sam had a ball with them in it last summer. Maybe he'd have something fun to do, while his parents worked in the garden. But stepping out back to see what was up, I quickly realized that the yard was being laid out for a birthday party. Sam wasn’t invited.

My first instinct was to nix our planting plans and whisk Sam out of the neighbourhood for the afternoon. But Jeremy was already at the garden centre loading the car with sod and seedlings, so we couldn’t cut and run. Besides, I knew that the stinging bewilderment of seeming social injustice was part of life and there was no protecting Sam from it forever. My heart clenched as I watched him walk the length of the hedgerow, piecing the party elements together in glimpses through the cedar boughs: “They’re filling the pool! I see balloons! Let’s go over!” I explained that Lucas was having a special day, and so we couldn’t just pop over to play. Not this time.

Sam wasn’t disheartened. On the contrary, he was wiggly with anticipation. He simply couldn’t imagine not going. And then Lucas did shout out from the back corner of the garden. Sam was there in a flash. “It’s my birthday!” the party-boy announced. Sam was silent, holding his breath for the anticipated invitation. So I called out a prompting “What do you say, Sammy?” and he graciously offered “Happy birthday, Lucas.” Lucas must have sensed the awkwardness of the moment because he hastily explained that you’d have to be at least four-and-a-half to go to his party. Sam uttered a surprised “oh!” and then ducked back out into the sunlight. Still processing the unarticulated rejection, and clipped by me into the house.

I found him collapsed on the stairs: “It wasn’t nice of Lucas to say that!” he sobbed. Hugging him, I explained that Lucas was probably allowed to have a only few kids over and that he likely picked his school friends, who were also six. And I reminded him that we’d had ten kids here for a BBQ on Friday and didn’t invite Lucas because we were already a full house. Sam drank this all in—nodding at my declaration that Lucas was still a nice boy. But it wasn’t as soothing as I’d hoped. Sam whispered that he wanted to play alone in his room, so I kissed the top of his head and went back to the garden with a heavy heart. When Jeremy called a few minutes later, I asked if maybe he’d fielded the party invitation. Could barely get the words out past the lump in my throat.

After a while, though, Sam ventured back outside. By this time, the party was in full gear, so he had to endure the carnivalesque sounds of excited pool splashing and bouncy castle jumping and tag games won and lost and hot dogs shared and cake divvied up and yo-yo’s handed out. Now and then he would perk up with a laugh or smile at something he overheard, before he drooped again in wistful sadness. He got over it, though. Even before the last of the gifts had been opened next door, Sam lost interest in his dejected eavesdropping and went to play on his swing, talking to himself in a private game that seemed pleasant enough.

He hasn't mentioned the party since, but I’ve thought of it every day this week. I remember well the crushing feeling of being inexplicably shut out of grade school fun. Didn’t expect for it to be harder to see that feeling play across the sadly puzzled face of my little boy. As proud as I am for the way he picked himself up from the disappointment, I'll never get used to seeing him knocked down by it.

Pants on Fire

The other day, Sam and I were sitting together on the deck watching Daddy BBQ, when a tiny translucent green worm (tree caterpillar?) descended between us on a wispy thread and landed on my hand. Sam was enthralled. He's long been a bug's best friend, but this was the most delicate specimen he'd seen. I let it wiggle onto the table top beside us, where it became a determined adventurer braving the nooks and crannies of the painted wood at quite a clip. Well, quite a clip for something that was maybe 4 millimeters long.

Sam promptly personified the wiggler, wondering when he left his family and if his parents were worried. He delighted at how quickly the worm switched directions after lifting his impossibly small head seemingly to peer into the distance and gauge the route. Curious, Sam started tapping his plastic cup on the table to influence its decisions. He called Daddy over to take a look at how far the little body could stretch to cross a notch in the wood. All of us, leaning over this little bug and talking about what his plans might be, where he might be trying to go.

Then Jeremy and I turned our backs on the wild kingdom to check the BBQ. A few seconds later, Sam called Daddy back to explain an apparent tragedy: "Look! He stretched so hard last time that he squished himself." He pointed to a greenish black smear on the table for proof. The adventurous worm had been pulverized. Jeremy and I let Sam's words hang in the air while he worked to compose his face into a sort of surprised nonchalance. We were hoping he'd retract the bold-faced lie, but he held our stare and awaited our response. I started with a leading observation: "Sam, I don't think that's true. I think something else happened..." But he didn't take the out. "It squished itself," he reiterated. "I didn't do it."

The swell of pained indignation I felt looking into the eyes of my lying son subsided when I saw that his breathing had become quick and shallow, his eyes a little wider in the effort to hold the gathering tears. Jeremy offered Sam a second chance: "Did you accidentally squish the worm with your cup?" And the floodgates opened. Sam's face crumpled and his body went slack as the knot in his chest released with the admission "I didn't mean for that to happen!" It was hard to tell then if he lied to protect himself from imagined punishments or from the knowledge that he'd killed a plucky worm who missed his family. This is, after all, the boy who makes us repatriate ants and spiders caught in the house.

We sternly rehearsed the "nothing is worse than a lie" speech, during which the telltale smudge called to the chastened boy, pulling his guilty glances repeatedly in its direction. Sure that the real lesson had been covered, we tried to soothe away his upset by explaining how short and tough a bug's life is, and how it was likely that one of us would have stepped on it that night without even realizing it. (Later, Sam would summarize for Tracey with the unsettling declaration, "It takes people longer to die than it takes bugs to die.") As he visibly relaxed and got set for supper, I studied the alteration in Sam's features, trying to commit to memory the differences between the truthful and untruthful countenance--recalling the slight flicker in his eyes, the nervous set of his mouth that makes him look pouty.

Because years from now, when Sam's standing on the driveway explaining that So-and-So's cottage party will be chaperoned by a dozen sober and upstanding St John's Ambulance attendants, I want to be able to stare him down and have him wonder how I do it. I will call this the "It Squished Itself" moment. (Sam, I really hope there aren't many of those....)