Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Lad and the Camera

Things did not exactly go as planned. Plan A was to take him to a landmark that he would remember (or be reminded) was the first place or thing he photographed. He was not in the mood to walk to the modern red bridge that he was so excited to see whenever we take the train downtown. Plan B quickly deteriorated when he got more focused on eating all of the snacks I had packed for the day. There was not going to be a perfect moment to introduce him to the experience of capturing the world as he sees it. At the point Plan B filled my thoughts with the challenge of getting lunch into him after he ate all his snacks, I retreated to a more perfunctory introduction to the camera.

After getting him set on how to properly hold a point and shoot with a few simple mantras about holding it with both hands, keeping still and keeping the wrist strap on, he set out. After being the subject of enough baby shots to develop a dislike for the camera, he had one to call his own and he was off.

Once he got the hang of it, he was eager to get moving and find what else he could photograph. We wandered around the city parks, shooting construction sites, of course, but also fallen leaves en masse and in solitude as autumn sets in on us. Once he got into it, I was able to tell him little things like "get closer" and "look carefully," foundations of whatever progress he will make over time with the camera.

At the moment, he is amusingly unfiltered with the camera. He started taking pictures of passers-by, while I, who loathes invading anyone's space pleaded, "Ask first! You have ask first!" He even snapped a shot of his urinal when I finally broke him of his quest for "one more shot" and got him into a washroom. All in all it was a good start to something I had not hoped to get him into until he was big enough to lug the DSLR I've had waiting for him. For now, he is happy to know the shutter button and the on/off switch and to look back on what he took.

For now, it is a pleasure to ease him into one of my passions and hopefully get him familiar with the patience, presence and attentiveness that the camera has rewarded me with over the years. Hopefully those microlessons about observation and patience will inform other things but in the meantime there is the joy and wonder of an uncensored view of the world from a height of 40 inches. Onward.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Joy in Insomnia

Before anyone thinks I'm being sarcastic, that is the furthest thing from my thoughts. My son is in a stretch where a full night's sleep is something of a rarity and my wife and I, no matter how deeply we manage to sleep still encounter an interruption through the night if our son has a fitful night because of a bad dream and cannot find the comfort of his favorite stuffed puppy.

When he manages to find it, we often awake to him crawling into bed with us, his trek down the hall signalled by the approaching light of the stuffy's nightlight tummy.  If he manages to get that far without waking us we will wake to find him wedged between us and ask one another when he got there.

On just as many nights though we take him back to bed and lay with him until he falls asleep again or until we wake up.  While our son favours having his mother put him down in the evening, he tends to prefer me during the bewitched hours when the dreams and what they stir in the imagination make him a bit more restive or uncertain about the coming of dawn and the more familiar patterns of the day.

Invariably I do my best to settle him down with consoling strokes of his forehead or a gentle hand on the belly and all the unsettling that is going on there when the dreams have awoken him.  For me it is a calm and patient hour of the night when I can be the calm shadow to the grumpier, stricter father of daylight.  I feel myself connecting to him in the quiet of the darkness or the dim nightlight of musical puppy with its renditions of ABC, Twinkle, Twinkle, Brahms' Lullabye or the primal simplicity of a beating heart.  He settles down or asks deep questions that I answer as well as I can.  He yawns with a gape that takes me back when he was a more literal handful of a few months' of age, his profile the perfect enlargement of the form I recall from when he was three or four months old.

I stroke his head again and again as he sentences grow incoherent and I think of my father stroking my head a lifetime ago or him stroking my grandmother's as we bid her farewell two decades ago. And as the breathing slips into its sleepy rhythm that will break in a few hours time with another thrash about the uncertainties that unsteady sleep for him through the night, I stay with him while I can, while he's small enough to spare me that space and vulnerable enough to need someone nearby until morning comes.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

The Pitfalls of Social Media, I

My wife and I have been conscious about Gabriel's use of computers and further to that have avoided posting images of him on Facebook, etc.  We rarely do it and on those rare occasions that it happens his face is hidden from view.  We are in no rush to set up any accounts for him, though we did muse about setting up an email account for him to receive various digital artifacts from us until the time comes for him to open it up and learn a little about himself. We do not wish to get him habituated to Facebook any sooner than necessary. I'd love it if that day came and he simply said that Facebook was so passé or something to that effect.

Still, he likely has more screen time than we would like and there are times when we do use it to pacify him. (Guilty as charged, but Your Honour we only do it when we really, really need him to chill.) He values that screen time but there have been a few times when we've grounded him with a few days without TV and he manages not to miss it and we even got into the fifth day without him asking for it.

There are times though when he is more eager than we would like to watch Mighty Machines or Bob the Builder on the phone when boredom sets in. A few weeks ago, he flailed away at my wife's phone while she was scanning her Facebook time line. He happened to see something along the lines of a children's video and wanted to see it. My wife settled him down, but little did she know of the consequences. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

A day or so later when my wife was putting down Gabriel for the night, my mother-in-law called my wife's phone to check in. I answered. She wanted to see how things were for us and update on things that were going on with the rest of the family. Having covered off all of those items, she tried to investigate into an article that Nadine had apparently liked on Facebook. She was not entirely certain that Nadine would have liked an article on a parenting page where a wife was complaining about her husband losing interest in ahem... you can guess. I tried to check my wife's timeline for interest in such an article while trying to ease my mother-in-law's curiosity or concern as tactfully as I could. As I opened the computer to check my wife's Facebook activity, I was able to report that, as far as I could tell, she had not posted anything for about two weeks.  I could not, however, track down what my wife was liking. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law was asking if I knew any of the other people who had liked the article. The unspoken question about my husbandly ... ahem ... hung like a cloud that showed no signs of dissipating with a calm shrug and the conclusion that someone hacked in. The call ended without curiosity or retention of reputation... Hold it, what? reputation?... assured or resolved or otherwise safely consigned to "don't ask and don't tell" (wrong phrase?) or perhaps put back in that place where all parties involved are blissfully ignorant of the topic and no longer able to recall that it was ever raised or why. It was as awkward as the voice mail sequence from the bro movie classic, Swingers.

The phone call ended without much resolution and when my wife emerged from putting the lad down for the night, I mentioned the more uncomfortable aspect of the phone call and she promptly checked on her timeline.  There was indeed a like on said article from a parenting website or Facebook page. It was the result of the lad's flailing reach to start the video he wanted.

It was then - carefully - unliked.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

A Trip to the Museum

It is easy to fall into ruts when exposing your child to things. In our instance, Gabriel has been quite happy to sit on a curb and watch construction and excavation equipment at work and gawk in wonder at the noise and quick accomplishment of those heavy machines.  He is always eager to plunk down in front of the television for a while and zone out as well.

Music classes, gymnastics and soccer have stretched him out and broadened his horizons, but that the same time we have made sure that we have not over-scheduled him (or ourselves) to the extent that raising him becomes a matter of scheduling and logistics rather than on going spontaneous interaction where he can let us know what his interests and talents are.

The trucks regularly capture his attention and his talent for spotting them is preternatural.  We have regularly exposed him to all kinds of music and I'm not sure if he has taken any interest in the jazz that I've tried to slip past him but he has a sharp knack for singing along and identifying what he's listening to.  He has been to plays on a regular basis and there have been other efforts made to get him out and exposed to new things.

When we have been on holidays, we've seized the opportunities to take him to aquariums and have struggled to find the right time or age to engage him in the exhibits there.  When he was two he just wanted to splash around in the contact pools and when we took him again at age three he did not take as much interest the second time around. (I did, however, enjoy him calling the shark "Bruce" while all the other kids were calling the clownfish "Nemo.")  We took him to an outhouse museum in July when we were in Nova Scotia and that kept his attention for a while.

I'm not sure how the outhouse museum ranks amongst other institutions that we could have taken him to, but his first visit to a "real" museum was earlier this week when we headed to Drumheller to visit the Tyrell Museum which is replete with the dinosaur fossils that would hold the attention of many a boy.

Upon arrival at the museum, Gabriel was immediately captivated with the dinosaur sculptures that were between the parking lot and the building.  Once we got in, there were the landmark exhibits with the models of T-Rex's and other dinosaurs that were found in the area, along with the "lesser" dinosaurs from the badlands of Alberta.  He managed to keep his attention on the exhibits that were around.  There were a few interactive pieces int he museum that he did not have a knack for figuring out the proper use of but he found his way with the other exhibits that more closely resembled the dinosaurs he had expected to see - alive and active at the museum.  To that extend the animatronic dinosaurs at the Calgary Zoo may have been more appealing to him.  He enjoyed the exhibits, I think. He scampered around the museum, following the intended path as well as he could though he ran much more than he wanted to walk.

He seemed intrigued by the exhibits throughout the museum, but for a near-4 year old the quick progression through the museum was likely enough for him.  We got out and we even managed to get him out of the gift shop without incident.  It may have been more of a rite of passage for my wife and I than it was for him, but it will likely be something that we check in on as we revisit the topics of dinosaurs and museums in the time ahead.  We will likely be back at the Tyrell in a few years and we will try to gauge his memories of the place when the subject of dinosaurs comes up again in the future.  There will be other museums as time goes along and they will be age appropriate for the next few years as well.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

The Making of a Dad Band

One of my outlets on a regular basis has been to get together with a few friends to play guitar.  We actually started playing together 11 1/2 years ago, a mark that certainly gives me pause about how quickly time has passed since we first started gathering in the basement apartment I was in at the time. We had religiously stuck with the routine every week on Thursday nights. over the course of that time, doctorates were completed, musical trends came and went and I slowly discovered 1990's alternative rock, which I had essentially missed due to my travels or only discovered via the back door route of covers played by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

Those evenings were simple affairs.  We'd unpack, play our first three songs and order pizza that we could normally count on having in another 30 minutes or so. There were musical discoveries, challenges that would turn into benchmarks of progress as we found a way to master them, rules about forbidden groups or songs. I still, after all this time, refuse to waive my Eagles veto.

We have seen our circle expand and contract over that course of time and we are at a solid core of three despite our open door to additional dad-players, especially those with drums or a bass. Obligations expanded as one of our trio became a Dad. He furtively missed a Thursday while he was getting acquainted with his daughter. A few months later twin daughters arrived for the most talented of our trio.

The weekly ritual disappeared with those demands but we are working our way back into a routine of at least a month. Those night continue to be blessed with as much conversation as ever, but the talk turns to the kids where it once turned to music trivia and whether or not our mention of certain musicians at certain times coincided with their deaths.  I assure you we have never played Boney M and probably only mentioned them in reference to their contribution to the Christmas muzak we had grown familiar with.

The nights are less frequent and the pizzas even less so. Guitar is now on Fridays instead of Thursdays and there is a dram of scotch rather than a 2 litre bottle of soda water, which we named "flavourless" in mild self-deprecation of the pop we played as well. Over the years the conversation has continued to be good as we have marvelled at the achievements of those we have played, occasionally cursed the slow wheels on the studio recorders the Beatles used, made copious references to The Big Lebowski, Spinal Tap and Christopher Walken's seminal appearance on SNL.

Those things are balm and magnet that keeps us together as regularly as we come together every couple of weeks. We muse occasionally about performing for an audience and conclude that it will most likely be at a birthday party. If that is the case, we will have to hurry up and do it while we are still cool to the kids. It amy be nothing more than a distant goal and one that would require a bit more work that our intermittent meetings might allow. There may be an unplumbed symbiosis that we would unwittingly draw upon, or a sense that the stakes playing without a net would be minimal or minor compared with other things that we have grappled with over the last decade and change.

The one thing we all share is a desire to pass the baton on to the kids, especially if any of them take up an interest in bass or percussion and share our fondness for Crowded House, Talking Heads or R.E.M.  All of the kids are exposed to music in various ways and taking lessons and their progress probably give us more pride than any progress we make with more esoteric chord progressions that were beyond us when we all began.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Street-proofing the Extroverted Child

It was evident from very early that my son was going to be an extrovert. I can cite several occasions where he has "worked the room" like a campaigning politician out on the hustings while my wife I and fell consigned to the background. We look on in wonder while we try to assess everyone else's tolerance for this three-year-old who can be remarkably charming when he wants to get to know people. My wife can cite occasions where trips to the zoo involve meeting a fellow tyke, bonding at the penguin plunge and then visiting the rest of the animals and having a bit of lunch over the course of the rest of the day.

It has been the case throughout his life, whether visiting his grandfather in the hospital or starting day care on the cusp of turning one and leaving Dad behind without the least trepidation about being in this room full of unknown kids. In our condominium, he has been introducing himself to everyone since her could say his name.

Earlier this summer, however, he wandered off from his day care group while out on an excursion. It did not surprise us, but we were just as horrified at the possibilities. 

From early on we have been conscious of the need to make him not so trusting and open with people and not expose himself to the risks with strangers, but at the same time we have not wanted to erode his innocence and unduly inhibit him from interacting as freely as he does. He is incredibly open and friendly in most situations with people of all ages and we do not wish to deny him that aspect of his personality. There are risks in him walking up to that stranger that we would most likely prefer to keep him away from, but at the same time he may also be building a pool of people who would recognize him and look twice if they saw him with an adult other than my wife or I.

I believed that he has the confidence with people that would make him a harder target. He is likelier to be at the centre of a group of friends rather than the periphery and in need of being at the centre. In our condominium he has incidentally built a network of vigilant eyes who know him well enough to get suspicious if he is not with us. That was the case with him wandering off from his daycare group, but that is a consequence of the safeguards that are part of the routines and procedures at the daycare. In our condominium, where he knows half the puppies in the building and most of the adults who are on our floor there is a sense that there are people who know him and recognize him and us well enough to know when something is awry if he is in the wrong company. But that network has not been tested and we do not wish test it.

We can not be certain that he will always be that confident with his friends and that he will not make himself vulnerable by seeking the attention or friendship of strangers who may be waiting for such an opportunity to pose a threat to him. There have been times when his attempts to strike up a friendship or a brief period of companionship at the playground do not succeed and he is at a loss for what to do on his own while other kids play together or simply go home with their parents.

We have tried nudging the matter of caution with strangers onto his radar with various children's books that attempt to address the issue and the best of the bunch is still "Little Red Riding Hood." (There is a version populated by trucks instead of wolves and girls but that is too cringeworthy.) Other books on the theme strike me as too didactic to hit the mark in the memorable but carefree way I think is required. My wife and I seize our teachable moments as well with the emphasis on generalization rather than "stay away from her," but there is no certainty that the objective of this lesson is ever achieved. I heard from a mother a few weeks ago that there was a test with children on how they would behave with a potential lurer or children predator. The test showed that despite the training and safe words that parents drill their kids on, they are still prone to being tempted into danger. (Damn puppies!)

There is the hope that there will be something about my son's extroversion - whether his confidence with strangers or his ability to make friends - that would make lurers more reluctant to fix on him, but I know that is mere wishful thinking. A parent's hope is not enough and we can only hope that the daily routine imparts some caution to him over time and keeps it rooted there without making him more frightened that he ought to be. Open, but cautious.