Ink Smudge Eureka

    "Letters and bridge, or crosswalk?"

    Gabriel chants "Eenie Meenie" to make the decision, repeating "Miney" twice at the end to land "Mo" on the "Letters" route home from daycare.  It is called the Letters route because the "Saint Barnabas Anglican Church" printed into the concrete provides Gabriel with all of the letters in his name except for that "E" which is a few metres away to indicate the corner of Seventh Avenue NW.

(When it rains, it pours?)

    For the longest time we would stop and pick out the letters in his name, make an exaggerated point to the E's on the corner and then spot the "L" before resuming the walk home.  When it was snow-covered, he kicked away the deep, heavy snow to find the writing, but lately he has had less and less interest in identifying the letters in his name.  This afternoon he is more interested in splashing and kicking in the puddles and the writing lay immobile with out notice or significance.

   Nadine and I have been reading to him constantly.  I infamously whispered passages from Haruki Murakami's brick-sized tome 1Q84 during those newborn days and he arrived to a room more than well-stocked with Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak and myriad others that we have read to him ever since.  His visits to the library are constant and I recall him having a massive meltdown one afternoon as he sat naked on his bedroom floor at 4:55 crying that he wanted to go to the library, which was closing at 5.  Books are part of his routine and, even though he can glaze over indefinitely at the sight of an iPad and treats us to a litany of requests for just one more episode of a TV program before supper, bedtime or getting in the car to go somewhere, he does from time to time plunk down quietly with a book and immerse himself in the images, the turn of the pages and the cadences recalled from countless readings.

   He has regularly finished sentences for us as we read and recently, I have made a point of pushing him a little, framing a word with my fingers and telling him what it is or asking if he can recognize it. He has put up a bit of resistance to that and tells me to read it or that he does not want to.  Perhaps it is simply a matter of it all feeling too much like work for him, but I push a little bit.

    Parallel to the reading has been the occasional nudge to see if he will write anything and start working on his letters.  Whenever there are birthday cards to send we get him a card too and he will pick up the pen in his right hand, gripping it between his index and middle fingers and his thumb and giving it a go.  The results have been consistently original and doctorish.  Think abstract rather than representational.

   For some time now I have pondered modelling writing as a habit for him, but have not gotten around to it yet.  For the most part I write at the keyboard and when I do pick up pen and paper it is usually when I am on my own, rather than for the sake of making a witnessed performance of it.  As the adult colouring craze has emerged, I recall the meditative component of practicing kanji when I lived in Japan and thought that it would be a good two-birds with one stone move and make it rather authentic for Gabriel at the same time.  I have the paper and the notebooks that I used to practice in and it would make my effort at penmanship a bit more authentic.  If I start practicing my Roman characters it could cause a bit of concern about the integrity of my faculties.

   Before I have actually had the chance to sit down and work on my kanji and see if Gabriel asks, "What are you doing?", instead of, for example, "Know what?", the time comes for us to get cards in the mail for my father's birthday.

   I head into Gabriel's room with his card for his grandpa and ask his to write something in the card. On this occasion, for the first time, he makes a deliberate effort at copying each letter from the text of the card.  He got his "G" backwards, but that may have been a consequence of me telling him, "It is sort of a circle with a line..."

(Yes, he has had alphabet books.)

After getting past the "G," he fared better and provided not only a reasonable estimation of his name but a sign that the little guy who has been putting up concerning resistance to reading and writing might let Nadine and I sort him out on his printing before he can conclude that he can entirely forego it because of keyboards and touchscreens.

Saturday Lessons

The morning was not quite what I hoped. It did not turn into a sitcom domino of disasters, spills and snowballing delays.  There was a stagnancy and lack of enthusiasm or direction. After not getting to bed until an hour and a half past his bedtime the previous night -- the lad too tired to even know how to cooperate through the wind down routine and calling his mother (and not ME) a "bully" at one heated point -- there is a familiar, odd perversion of the biological clock that ensures he gets up early whenever he goes to bed late.  He was not particularly difficult, but that lingering sluggishness buried any momentum toward preparing for the day and getting ready for music class as quickly as possible.

I had been telling myself the night before that he was likely to wake early and that while it could be a long day with occasional crankiness, it was best to find some way to just 'roll with it' -- not exactly my strong suit. Nadine has work today and her own routine gets her out the door before we really need to get going. Gabe and I have an extra 10-15 minutes before we have to head to the LRT and we are booted, toqued and gloved with the promise that he has the pep to run up the hill. As we approached the station, our train pulled up at the platform and Gabriel started talking about the need to run to the train.

 "You never run at the train," calmly telling something that I have had to say a few times to him.

 "We can run, we can get it."

I have always padded our music class routines with the possibility of a missed train and was able to hold my ground and hope that he can pick up on my calm lack of urgency and get the lesson that he should not run to catch an approaching train. We chorused our exchange of "never" and "we can make it" a few times until the train pulled away. We had 12 minutes until the next train; enough time to return an overdue (roll with it, roll with it) Toopy and Binoo DVD to the library. That done, we returned to the platform to wait for the next train. 

There was a mother and son waiting as well; the son slowly working through the last dregs of a can of jalapeño Pringles. Gabriel asked me while eyeing the chips if we had snacks and the mother, with a chronic rasp the belied a more hardscrabble life, told him, "Of course! Everyone has snacks!"  In my case, snacks amounted to a chia-blackberry squeeze pack, some apple-cinnamon rice crackers and a Larabar, all of which I intended to dole it with a bit more discretion. I'm not sure if they satisfied his Pringle-whetted appetite.

The ride on the train is always a wonder for him. He kneels on his seat and looks out the window, over my shoulder at the sights that strobe by, percussive blurs of lampposts passing across the lenses of his glasses as he waits to see downtown.  I let him know that the Peace Bridge is coming into view and he shifts to look east as we cross the Bow River into downtown.

We get off and make our way to the bus stop for the next leg of the journey.  He enjoys taking the footsteps route across the Enmax grates in the sidewalk but he finds the individual trucks and and buses too noisy.  Perhaps it is a matter of those noises standing out that much more without the cumulative din of weekday traffic as a base line.  We put the package for the chia-blackberry snack-beverage-gel thing in the garbage and come to our stop.

While at the stop, he finds a discarded (3/4 full!!) beverage cup from Subway and starts emptying it out through the straw, trailing a brown version of urination Braille across the snow, while I ask him to stop before he soaks and stickifies himself if the lid finally gives way under the weight and pressure of his shaking and art making.

In the middle of this, I tell him that Anakin Skywalker grows up to be Darth Vader. He hasn't seen any of the movies yet, but he is getting a steady diet of whatever Star Wars books he can get and he tells me he likes Anakin because of his heroism in the primer reader equivalent of Episode II. My disdain for Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen and the prequel trilogy prompt me to give my warning about who Anakin really is, but in the end he is a big Darth fan anyway. He stares at me slack-jawed for a moment and I wonder if I have permanently cast myself or him as the spoiler of all stories.  He is undaunted by the revelation and I smirk at his command of the Star Wars canon, recalling my own ability to devote so much mental real estate to hockey trivia when I was in elementary school.

I also taught him the phrase "catch air" during a particularly bumpy ride on the bus. He is puzzled by this and points out that his mouth was closed and I give the example of a kite catching air and y to make the distinction between catching air and catching your breath.  With each bump that follows, he points out that he has indeed caught air again.

With those two lessons passed from father to son, we arrive at music class and I file my train-rushing lesson for later and later again.

After music, the day continues with a bus ride to pizza for lunch. The Saturday pizza tradition goes back to Gabe's bucket phase and it has been nice to see him grow into the routine and manage to eat half of his pizza. Lately, when we take the bus, he insists on taking position in the very back of the bus.  The back row was a factor contributing to how much air we caught on the shuttle bus and with the 73, there is often a character of some sort who Gabriel has no timidity about.  Today, it is a man with an air cast on his foot and a surreptitious can of beer that he keeps hidden in his nicotine stained hands rather than sipping from openly, his deference to authority heightened in front of the 4-year-old.  He talks about how he broke his leg at work and how has myriad rods and screw in his leg and is going to be laid up for about 14 weeks. I wonder how much mature content Gabriel actually absorbs here in the backseat and I look ahead to rides he will have by himself. I'll be better served by deft interrogation than backseat prohibition when those days come. Perhaps I'll have to trade him today's character for whoever he ended up sitting with.

Lunch is uneventful as he zones out in front of a Paw Patrol marathon on the iPad while my lunch time cronies sort through the bishop's gaffe on LGTBQ rights a week earlier. Gabriel only raises his eyes from the inane puppies to greet one of the staff in the restaurant, who has seen him regularly since he was in the bucket phase.  They have an indelible connection and when he sees her, he rises from his spot on the bench, strides over me and gives her a huge hug, feet off the bench and pressing as much warmth into her as he can.

On the LRT home, he finally catches up on the sleep he passed up on at 6:20 this morning and when I turn to tell him we are at our station he is out, face planted firmly into the back of the seat. Now in the hang of rolling with it, I read until we go all the way to the end of the line in Tuscany and commence the return trip back to the southeast. I watch him sleep calmly and with a stillness that makes me tune my senses for the confirmation of each light breath, something I have not done since he was just a few months old.

After about 45 minutes, he bolts out of his repose and looks around, all bewildered and bedheaded. We get off to make to catch the train home and the lad still finds himself out of sorts.  We wait for the train to takes us back to the northwest and he needs to be held and comforted, such is his state. He is still tired and uncertain of where he is and how he ended up in this unfamiliar place under these circumstances. The nascent independence he asserts all too often and in such unexpected ways is gone and for this moment he his younger and vulnerable. I manage to roll with it and as he burrows into me, I let him know that he is getting heavy. It is a warning as much for me as him that those cuddling totes across long distances are getting harder and we are perhaps down to the last few.

And I tell myself once again, to roll with it.  Somehow.

Trapped In the Antechamber of Sleep

I will get where I'm going eventually, but I'm going to start with an ongoing discussion my wife and I have had off and on about whether or not to get Netflix. Ideally we would cut cable and go for Netflix as an alternative.  I'm watching less and less television of late, not even watching basketball on a regular basis.  Nadine watches The National regularly and indulges in the disaster movie genre late on a Saturday night, late of course being 8:30.

For my own part, I've occasionally gone all in on a 99 cent rental from iTunes, but I don't usually get around to watching them until the very last day of the 30 rental period.  Tonight I tried to beat the clock on a rental that is an interesting echo to this period of parenthood.  While We're Young had an echoey premise with a pair of childless 40-somethings finding themselves struggling with middle age and also losing touch with friends who have kids.  Not that I'm in the main characters' situation but it has been interesting to see a subtle, not too broad comedy.  Today being the 30th day on the rental, I managed to squeeze in the first 52 minutes this morning thanks to a gust of insomnia that got me out of bed at 5:10 this morning.

Tonight I have the balance of the movie, another 53 minutes to get in before the things expires at 9:34pm tonight.  I'm also flying solo tonight as Nadine has had her first girls' weekend of motherhood start today.

Gabriel missed Nadine tonight and getting him down tonight required a bit more attention and work. I got him into bed a 8pm sharp after dinner, vitamins, teeth and his books but he was a little restless and longing for Nadine's comfort on this night.  When we first settled in, he was rather chatty and energetic a sign that he might be a while settling in and falling asleep.  We exchanged notes on bumps and scratches that we have accumulated over the last few days and assured one another that we would recover.  I resorted to what I could to settle him down, stroking his stomach and his head to help him, but as he settled down time and again there was always a stumble on his way from consciousness to sleep.  

As the first silence settled, he interrupted himself to tell me that dressing up as Super Mario and going on stage to "dance" to "Uptown Funk" was the highlight of our holiday last month.  I did not get enough shots of that.  I settled him down again or so I thought and I laid quietly next to him waiting for that rhythm and rasp of breathing that suggested that he was nodding off...out.  As I weighed the growing silence in the dark he would perk up to ask where his, "medium-size bear, Barry" (or Beary, he'll correct me on the spelling when he spells) is and a few minutes later asked about his rabbit, which is nameless.

The breathing settled into that familiar rhythm as the hour ticked along and I felt confident enough to nudge myself to a seated position on the side of his bed, only to have him ask where I was and what I was doing. I settled back in next to him again and waited for the breathing to indicate whether he was progressing toward sleep.  I had to do this a few times.

There was one time he asked me if I heard what he heard in the still of the apartment and another where he pointed out that the only thing he could hear was me shushing him to get quiet and settle down.

On another occasion, "You farted. That was funny," left me wondering if he was back at square one.

Throughout, I kept my eye on the clock and wondered if his unsteady progression toward sleep might keep me from finishing the movie before it expired.  There were other interruptions as he asked what we were doing on the weekend, asked when his mother was coming back and rambled randomly in utterances that suggested he was finally giving up consciousness for the day.  He fell asleep around 9pm and allowed me a chance to see the rest of the movie.  The juggling act, as one of the later scenes in the movie admitted, especially for parents of young kids in their 40s is, both physically and mentally, a demanding one. I'm glad the Mrs. is getting a break from it at last.  In the meantime, hold on to your sense of humour and your ability to let things go.

Satisfied but not Taking Credit

The Lad riding the last stretch to the 

finish of his first 5K.

For about six years, I have been a rather serious runner and the highlight of many of my races has been high-fiving Gabriel, giving him a kiss as I pass by or grabbing his hand at the finish to run the last 50 metres and let him get my medal.

I am not getting too carried away with early plans for his running career and heading into "runner dad" mode - if there is such a thing.  He is still too young to put that kind of wear and tear on his body and I'd insist on him minimizing his running until he is in junior high at least. However, he enjoys sprinting down the corridor of our apartment building when we are coming home from daycare and he is familiar with my running rituals and idiosyncrasies. I've actually made more effort to interest him in photography than running, but he might be taking the sport into his own hands. After each of my races lately, he has taken my race number to keep in his room and he keeps a few of my medals on the closet door in his bedroom.

On December 31, I ran in a 10K race to finish the year and told my wife about the opportunity to walk 5K at the same time. Once we confirmed Gabriel could join her without having to pay an additional registration fee, she signed up with the plan to bring him along for a walk.  My plan was to finish my 10K and then backtrack on the route to meet them as the completed their walk. Much to my surprise, however, they had covered more than half their distance when I crossed paths with them. Gabriel had amped up the urge to run the first half of the 5K, dragging Nadine along until he conked. (Nadine suggested that I (of all people) needed to work with him on his pacing. I'm not the best example of that.)  Throughout his run, he earned praise from the walkers that he blitzed past in the flash-upon-foot-strike sneakers he raced in. He ate up the camaraderie of the race. By the time I caught back up to them, he was beat and tired. He rode my shoulders the last 500 metres to the finish.

Since that race, Gabriel has taken his running to another level.  After a few months of him insisting that I taken his hand and run him as fast as I can for a little sprint, he has run off ahead of me on our regular walks to the LRT or other regular destinations.  The biggest thing for me is that it is so much faster than was the case when he was prone to get distracted by a stick on the ground, a rabbit or an excavator.

It will be interesting to see if this is nothing more than a passing phase that ends as soon as I hit "post" on this addition to the blog or if he remains interested. The biggest thing right now is how well he sleeps when he covers a lot of distance in a given day, but given how conscious everyone is about children's fitness, it is good that he enjoys it as much as he does. As we ran home from day care today, Gabriel boasted about how much energy he was getting from his run - confirming my facetious concern that the regular exercise was more likely to enhance his endurance than wear him out. However, given how few boys and men run compared to women, it could be an opportunity to not only maintain his fitness but get some satisfaction in the achievements he might accrue. In the last half-marathon I completed, there weren't any teenage male competitors.  If he has inherited my (knock on wood) resilience and the other physical assets that have allowed me to continue improving at my age, he can find the release and satisfaction in that outlet.

I just have to keep him off asphalt for the next 10-15 years - the ultimate "do as I say and not as I do."