Four (generations) on the Floor

The family converged on Barrie this weekend to celebrate Janey’s 37th birthday chez Fowler, and then to check out Grandma & Grandpa’s new ride and KOA accommodations. Sam loved it all (with the possible exception of two sad facts: grown-ups don’t hand out goodie bags at their birthday parties, and “grandpa & grandpa” don’t actually live in a giant playground now).

It’s always fun to get the four boy cousins together and watch them pretty much spin in continuous circles until we load the protesting Ottawa half in the car for departure. They splashed in pools, climbed rocks and trees, bounded on the trampoline, monkeyed around on three playstructures, ran with sticks (we can’t watch them all the time), played Spiderman videogames, staged not-so-stealthy “wake up sleepy parents” operations, dressed in costumes, chased bad guys, and stopped every now and then to wolf down everything on the table. We expect it’ll go this way for another decade or so. By then, some of them should be able to get a basketball through the hoop, so the games may change but I imagine the intensity of the reunion won’t.

As for getting the four sisters together, well we may not spin per se, but we can talk circles around any takers, so we spent the weekend catching up on each other’s stories, enjoying good food and wine, losing and finding the family dog, and marvelling at how big the kids are getting. Factor in “the girls” (Savannah, Jasmyn, and Anabel), Jeremy and Darren, Grandma & Grandpa, and four special guests — John & Barbara, and Fantastic Granddad (he’s not just Great) & Dorothy — and there was a four-generation full house to sing Brett in with the birthday cake. It was a lot of noisy and yummy fun that carried on around the dinner table until midnight.

Day 2 at the nearby KOA campground was the first of many such stops for Grandma & Grandpa, who have traded in their bumpy fifth wheel for the smooth (and sumptuous) ride of a beautiful Magellan motor home. The whole family piled in for a look-see. It’s astonishingly large: somebody (Jacquie) can go ahead and “get more kids,” as Sam terms it. They’ll fit! From the soft white leather couch, Sam called out to Charlie: “This is just like a house, hey? Only it has seatbelts!” The campground was an even bigger revelation: people can live like this? Pools. Playgrounds. Giant checkerboard sets. A picnic for every meal. Sam was impressed. And Carter’s face nearly fell right off in shocked despair when we told him it was time to pack up. I think he felt we’d moved in to Paradise (we had brought suitcases…). So we may be in the market for a tent trailer next summer.

Somewhere in the fun family chaos, Babybel took her first assisted steps down the length of the coffee table (we baited her with Cheerios). She’ll be tearing off in the direction of the playground with the big boys in no time. With cousins a-plenty, there'll never be a dull moment! (On a sidenote, we got Janey a full Nordic spa day with her sisters. Apparently, there's no admittance to anyone under 18. We barely noticed that when we picked it out.... ;-)

Sam-san, "Crotty" Kid

Sam is now officially a force to be reckoned with, the newest “crotty" kid on the block. He signed up and suited up at the Bergeron Karate Centre last night, where Carter has been a member for a few months. Sam had to mull it over, weighing the pros and cons of involving himself in an activity that is simultaneously cool art, cool sport and cool self-defence. In the end, his worries crystallized thusly: “What if everyone else has an outfit, and I don’t?” I thought he might be concerned about performing for his sensei or not keeping up with the tip-earning progress of the Little Dragons group. On the contrary, he needed to know he’d fit in fashion-wise…

So there he is in his cool “gi,” looking the part. The class started while he was still trying to tie the thing up in 4 places, but he came scampering out of the change room to join the “courtesy, discipline, respect” bows-in-progress with an air of such entitlement and capability that I was teary with pride before he even introduced himself to the instructor. From the get-go, he was unusually (for him) engrossed in the training: he didn’t so much as glance at us for at least 20 minutes … and we were sitting 5 feet away. After that, he shot us only occasional looks of happy self-satisfaction, a smile that seemed to say: “I’m nailing the high block, hey?”

Our son was, in fact, almost unrecognizable. Where’s the boy who hangs back from the group and loses interest within minutes, finally wandering away to do something on his own? Sam-san is clearly here to learn. He wasn’t fazed in the least by being the only newbie. He half-fumbled his way through most of the stretch exercises and the motions of ready position (instead of quickly crossing his arms across his body before firing them out and down, he pounds his chest like a dominant ape - it’s pretty cute). He never lost confidence, even mouthing along while the boys around him counted off their sit-ups in Japanese. And his comfort level with the instructors was made obvious by the fact that when it was his turn to walk the circle in “Ninja, Ninja, Turtle” (the ancient Chinese equivalent of “Duck, Duck, Goose”) he turtled his sensei and raced him back to his seat.

At times, his supreme efforts to mimic the sensei made us giggle. When the boys were posed together in a faux photograph and asked to stay perfectly still for 10 seconds (an exercise in discipline) the group was a stony tableau, right up until the instructor slowly raised an imaginary camera to his face to take the picture. Kneeling in the disciplined front row, Sam mirrored his actions precisely, lifting his own camera to his face. You could see the cogs working: “Copy the tall one. Copy the tall one..”

The sharp learning curve aside, he’s already showing signs of sheer genius, of course. Just try to strike a super-slo-mo kitten blow to the side of his calf and watch the block, baby! (actually, the block is delivered in a relatively respectful and subdued manner; it’s the follow-up high five, powered by pride, that has the quality of agile attack). But who knows how far their initial interest will take Sam and Carter? For now, it’s a lot of fun to watch them jump into something so eagerly. And in such cute outfits.

It's All Greek to Sam

We live at the point of “high tide” for the annual Ottawa Greek Fest: if there are a row of cars parked out front on any given night, then it’s a full house up at the Hellenic Centre. The neighbourhood has been a crowded parking lot these last few days, and the whirling sounds of Greek festivities have been a Siren song through the open windows, inviting us to “live a day the Greek way.”

So we took the kids up there after dinner (have you seen the food tent line-ups?) and numbered ourselves among the 70,000 people who come out every year for the fun. With Trace and Anabel looking on, Sam and Carter and I joined the Greek folk dancing lesson. Easy-peasy: hold hands, head counter-clockwise and 1-2-3-left kick, right-kick, and again…1-2-3..” We’re dancing! The boys really wanted to join the large circle of grown-ups and big kids, but I knew that we’d end up in a pile on the ground when the music tempo picked up. So we spun around outside the official circle, Greek dancer wannabes tripping over each other and laughing to the beat of the music. Opa!

Then the organizers cleared the floor for the Cretan Association, who demostrated several national dances in colourful traditional dress that Carter roundly denounced as being “not real: that’s not how dancers dress.” Ain’t no MTV. After a minute or two of looking on, tho, he asked if he could run up and join them. When we explained that this part was a performance and not a lesson, he announced: “um, ya, I wanna go now.” “Me, too!” Sam piped up. Too loud for him suddenly. Just stand and watch? Bo-ring…

So we wound our way out of the crowd in time to meet up with Jeremy, Paul & Siobhan coming out of the food tents, trays laden down. We found seats near the blow-up bouncy castle jumper and 25 foot high slide ride and took turns lining up with the excited boys. Sam soothed his "younger" cousin's fears with the classic "I'll be right there with you, Carter." One trip and they were hooked. They repeatedly rope-climbed up the slide and came barrelling down the steep incline, shrieking. How marvellous of the Greeks to give us slide rides. Coins? Maps? Democracy? Shrug. The hypotenuse in slide form? Now that’s an impressive cultural achievement. Props to Pythagoras.

As the sun set, we all enjoyed some gargantuan baklava, let loose our grips on the blue Greek fest balloons, sending them soaring into the clouds, and then ambled home for bed with sleepy and satisfied kids. I think Plato had it wrong when he said that it is the good and beautiful things in life that are hard to attain; that was actually pretty easy. The trick now is getting Sam to go to sleep despite the tantalizing sounds of the not-so-distant festival drifting over the neighbourhood.