A Random Snapshot

He was tired. We had miscommunicated. It was a long day: music homework... music class. Every good boy, etc., etc. A stop at the library. A large Star Wars book among his booty and an intriguing Mexican novel about immigration my sole demand of the library. Cell phone shots of him playing in the library. Commuting through the city as the colour and grit of the city prompted inquiries about the homeless we'd crossed paths with. On our way to the last train home, he was resisting comfort and not even a cherry sundae failed to re-energize him enough to bear comfort or conversation.

I'd strode ahead a bit, glancing back with obsessive compulsive frequency to ensure he was nearby and still moving. On the last glance, he was racing to catch up, ready to dissolve into tears. He bumped his head and bit his tongue. I could picture the pout pulling his chin down and his glance to the floor. He banged his head on an angled pillar. The fatigue and frustration that encased him in a stubborn solitude was, for the briefest moment, dented.

I knelt before him and engulfed him as he quietly sobbed for a few moments. He explained his bumps and I held on for a few moments. Again we are paused for this public moment of privacy that I would rather keep to myself. He spent the day observing the pain of strangers, the tumult of domestic F-bombs on the train platforms and the moments of childhood with the friends he has in music class are but the briefest moment of childhood calm.

A woman turned as she walked past and called out, "Good Dad." I wanted to ask her, "Do you know what I've done?" My focus was on him, rather than rebuttals, however. I just whispered to him, to ease his mind and assure him that I understood how much he hurt. I wanted to cry too, but I've been more prone to mist up when I'm wistful, even joyful rather than in pain. That, I engulf and snuff as I look for beauty in my day again.

I wonder what I could have done differently through the day to have prevented that, or through my month or year or life, but only for the briefest moment. Instead, I treasure him straddling my knee and ponder the generous heart that he has and before the night ends I tell him that the socks we bought today I would have overlooked if it were not for him and his school's campaign for one of the city's homeless shelters. I am awed by how this generation of kids is going to bring the best out of its parents.

I still grimace at the praise for that single moment's embrace but I heed that there were other things that I did well. The conversations that came from out of nowhere, but found a meandering path for a while rather than crashing into a version of mute detachment. I am prone to the efforts to impress that most men fall into, but I have strived to accomplish rather than acquire and in my version of the trap I strive to accomplish something as a father by talking it through, likely ad nauseum, rather than gritting my teeth and revising the moment.

Perhaps in that tangent of time, in my recognition that I had to comfort him there and then, that I earned that praise. Was it that he knew he could come to me rather than having to bury it? Was it the day of conversations and the experiences we absorbed and shared through the day and the year to this point?

Okay.

Unforgettable

I was still cobbling together a routine of sorts with my son. There was a prevailing tentativeness but a parcel of energy to throw into everything, no matter how unfamiliar it was. I tried to introduce my son to penny hockey and managed to hold his attention for while with that. When he expressed an interest in drawing of all things -- I have long joked at my own expense about being the only father who would pressure his son to go to art school and he further entrenched the joke by demonstrating his preference for the sciences and math -- I went along with it and supplied him with the sharpie, paper and how-to videos from YouTube (which may have been the main draw). He did express his frustration with his ability compared to that demonstrated in the video, and i assured him that practice and taking it slow would bring him along with time.

Our camp-out life on the floor was proving to be decent for the first few hours. He got a little fussy about attending his Saturday afternoon music class and after the time to get to class had come and gone, we decided to head out for a while. It was a snowy afternoon, but we still went to the playground. He played on the swings for a while but before long we decided to venture inside in quest for a hot chocolate. He found the one we purchased not to his liking despite my efforts to take the edge off the bitterness with water and milk. We deposited his hot chocolate in the garbage and headed out.

"Can we go in there?"

Don't do it, don't, you know better, you're gonna pay for it, no, don't, watch it. You've been to this movie.

He doesn't have anything to play with.

"Okay."

So we headed into a toy store for a browse. We went through the story and we were fascinated with the items that were in there. There were the futile turns down the aisles such as when he was perusing the toys for 12 month-olds and my own wistfulness at a Lawren Harris jigsaw puzzle. We scanned carefully, exhaustively actually and my son proposed that he come up with three options for me to choose from. I pointed out a STEM themed toy for him to put together various items and sensors that he could use to trigger alarms and such.  Agreed. Settled. Finito. Our conversation overheard, the manager of the store gave a knowing look and a slight nod. A prickle of stigma and empathy touched my back and I tried to shrug it away.

At the cashier's counter, there was a resplendence of other toys, smaller items to mess around with and get familiar with. Most were novelty items. Coinbanks that absorbed their coins in certain ways, little machine and suctioned toys that danced and popped and sprung with surprise. And a cube. The cube held the cashier in its thrall as he played with it to idle away his own time moreso than give it the sell.

STEM kit bagged, my son fell for this item and had to have it. The slide to despairing desire was quick, precipitous and I had to carry him out of the store to keep the reaction from spilling into embarrassment with a captive audience. I managed to get him to stay with me for half a block until we had to stop. I sat down on the ledge of a low window and tried to look him in the eye. He was sobbing with rage at the possibility that he would never see the cube again though it was etched deeply in me already that it meant a great deal to him. I was conscious of giving in, of trying to extract a promise of future behaviour when I knew how those deals had rarely, if ever, worked out.

No matter what I tried to say to assure him that Santa was on it, that he was looking down and noting this, my son hung on to the same question, "What if he forgets?" The questions was pressed with variety as it would apply to every person I could come up with who would remember. His mother, my best friend, Santa (again), friends who knew of my prodigious capacity for recall, there was the risk that this gift or his desire for it or, essentially, he would be forgotten. A word alone would not ease this, least of all mine on this occasion. We were stuck in this loop for about 45 minutes, perhaps a full hour as I surveyed the sympathetic looks of passers-by who had their own backstory for what I hoped was playing out more privately than it was.

I ran out of strategies to ease his mind about being forgotten and tried to bring him back to the calm that had been absent since he saw the toy and fixated on it. I did not want to assuage him with this toy. I did not want to set the precedent, but on this day, perhaps it was the only option I had. I hated the thought of giving in or bribing or inching toward the habits of the weekend dad. During a moment of calm, actually to negotiate a moment of calm I told him that he had to promise me to remember something.

He he took a deep breath and I tried to make it clear to him that time together and connecting were more important. I did not try to cite the fun we had in the morning drawing and playing penny hockey but tried to give him the sense that this was an opportunity for him to have something to remember how important he was to me and that he carry it with him as a token of my remembrance and my attention no matter where he is. Has a precedent been set? Quite possibly, and the questions will remain for a while about the strength of memory, the value of presence and wounds that a parent can inflict with any decision or action.

Night Groceries

I am greeted by the familiar environs of the produce aisle. The typical run is on a Sunday to load up on ingredients for salads and I quick survey of the tri-colour peppers, roma tomatoes, spinach, English cuke, and zuke is enough before I venture to the canned fish aisle to get some protein to complete the meal. On a Friday night, the familiar setting causes me to bristle at timing, shelf life and routine. I am ultimately trying to prime myself for the survey of these surroundings, which overwhelm and disorient on this night.

A turn down the next aisle is not unfamiliar but the terrain and shelves are limiting. My next goal is to find a chem-free children's soap, the shelves offer a false hope in a clear bottle but the text, even without my glasses features words that run too long to promise simplicity. It feels as if these shelves are intent to define me, ascribe to me a deficiency in sensitivity. There is the anxiety for a moment that these body wash will be caustic and prompt the stinging rashes that I had to balm and salve when he was three. I need something, however, so I settle and with a shrug take the bottle with the surfing kids. The boy is in a two piece body suit that reminds me of him looking up at me, three years old, his eyes plaintive with a vulnerability that a pouting underwear model would envy. I toss it in the cart, but wonder if this place has a mere smidgen more selection that a gas station convenience store. This will tide us over. It's a "for now." It'll actually last for 4 months or sit ignored in the shower indefinitely until he is 14.

As I peck away here, I realize that I'd forgotten toilet paper. I assumed it would be near the paper towel but turned up nothing during my sortie through that section of the store. I found the toothpaste that my son normally uses at home but was unable to match a Star Wars toothbrush to it for a complete set. Instead, a pair of Minion-themed brushes that make do but assert that these will not be right, will not be the same as they'd be if they were replacing the Stormtrooper brush he currently has when it is deemed well-used, expired. These are the "other" brushes that will never be the same because they will be part of unwelcome change and difference. I plant both brushes on their suction-cupped ends, so the lad can have a choice in at least that. "Do you want the one-eyed Minion, or the two-eyed." This lack of pop-culture precision will echo hollow as we adjust and proceed.

Beyond that there is the wilderness of school lunches. I pick up a package of pepperoni, promise myself to get cheese and then short circuit. There will be containers to get too and for a moment I am disoriented and awed by my wife's ability to navigate these aisles and those of the Costco with purpose and targets in mind. She is the one that seeks out the cleaner soaps in the natural food stores and ensure that the supply never runs out. I start with those and add a few yogourt drinks to interest him and treat him for lunches. I wonder if all of these will be points of resistance in the renegotiate of terms.

I was the one who comforted him as we cried four nights ago. I told him he was amazing; that I was proud of the fact that he was one of the kids that parent directed their children to hang out with, because he was a good way to stay out of trouble. He told me I was amazing too. I demurred on that one, familiar as I am with my flaws.

The luncheon meats stumped me and left me wondering if he would eat these and finish the lunches I would find myself preparing or if I would bear a black mark of some arbitrary falling short. I feel for the buy one, get one free bait and discerned the chicken and turkey breast as better options when compared to the various hams.

The cart fills. Indulgences get put back. Frozen waffles get into the cart, though there is no toaster yet. The broom and dust pan are acknowledged for a future visit and the items are lugged to self-checkout and I fill five bags. The pans and cleansers go into the backpack and the other four fill with the food. I leave the cart at the door and lug the food the kilometre and change it is back to my new apartment.

The Inevitable F-Bomb

Like hopscotch, tag, rhyming taunts and other fodder of the recess break, the F-bomb gets passed down from one generation to the next. Now that I think of it, I suspect the F-bomb has the most certain path from fourth grader to kindergartener for the generations to come.

In my own case, familiar with the stories of the rite of passage that is the first uttered F-bomb, I braced myself for it. I knew that once he knew the word the genie would be out of the bottle and it would be futile to wag my finger with the insistence that he never say the word again. As I envisioned it, I would hear about it secondhand from a teacher or other adult or catch him mid-utterance and petrify him with a tap on the shoulder and a, "Pardon me?"

Instead, my son caught me completely off guard over the Sunday morning French toast. The morning chatter was going where it was and he looked up at me and asked, "Are you going to say 'f--king'?" I've never uttered it in front of him. I've managed to channel my rage to "goofing" when he has me at my wit's end and this morning, I was nowhere in the vicinity of that near-apoplexy.

And damnit, (excuse me), didn't he actually find a way to use it in a manner that managed to retain some of his innocence rather than smear it with a comment like, "Yes I know what it means!! I said it because he was f--king pi--ing me off!!"

OOOOkay.

I was left laughing at the question and the way it was posed. I still managed to make the key points that I needed to make about the word. I pointed out that neither his mother nor I use it in front of him and went through a long roster of adults in his circle who don't use it. Having confirmed that he was not sure what the word meant -- one talk at a time, please -- I advised him on the risks of using words that he didn't know the meaning of and let me know that on the playground those risks could include an unwelcome punch or worse. Still, I struggled both not to laugh and not to go too over the top in my reaction. There's every chance I did both and found an odd balance in that. I made it clear, though, that I didn't want to hear it and that it was a word that could hurt. I reminded him of his sadness a few days earlier when a friend told him he hated him and added that this word could hurt just as much.

The occasion will be filed in my memories of French toast from now on and we will see what will come of his new familiarity with this mysterious, powerful word.

Will the floodgates open and will we find the F-bomb flying regularly? I'll admit I was tempted to tell him to "Use a f--king towel," (but didn't) when he was flinging his hands dry after washing them, but I managed to restrain myself despite the inadequacy of "goofing" as an adjective.

And, no, I won't be taking him to Deadpool now.

Once More? (please...)

He's a substantial size for his age. At six, he probably weighs as much as I did when I was 10 or 11 and for months now I note that the Big Wheels that were all the rage during my suburban youth had a weight limit of 65 pounds, which my son is just three pounds shy of. If he asked me for one, I'd have to decline and rather than try to explain the math I'd have to tell him he's too big. In a wiser moment, I might have the clues to tell him, "We'll see," rather than issue anything definitive.

Tonight, though, he's disconsolate and its an hour past his bedtime. He got his first fidget spinner and after a little over an hour, he set it down of a crowded playground to spare himself the risk of it falling out of his pocket to never be found again. As trendy toys are wont to do, it disappeared. He scoured the playground again and again, his fatigue and emotions conspiring to drag him into an abyss that nothing could console. He retraced his steps and reviewed the possible locations where he may have left it, his calm holding together but giving away to the loss of the toy and perhaps even the disappointing realization that, in this world, fidget spinners disappear when they are given the chance.

I was quietly miffed at the obsession delaying the bedtime we had already compromised on, but I participated in the search and kept my cool. When the search was finally abandoned we start back for the car.  Gabriel a few steps ahead of me, but his feet were leaden with the loss.

"C'mere."

He stopped and turned. I extended my arms to give him a hug.

"I'm proud of how you're keeping calm right now, but I know how sad you are. It's okay to cry."

He did.

"Want a ride?"

He nodded and turned his back to me and after one failed attempt at the hoist, (which was less comedic than I would have liked) I got him onto my shoulders. There was a time when I could not get his legs far enough down my chest to feel he had his weight where it ought to be. He was once too top-heavy and I had to pull on his legs to keep him from falling backward of his perch. This time, the weight pressed on my back and neck.

I moved slowly as a few of his tears drizzled onto my forehead. The weight told me, "This isn't going to happen too many more times."

"Really?", I thought.

"Really, really."

I put him in charge of navigation as we crossed streets. He kept his eyes on traffic and gave me the required warnings about the oncoming traffic to keep us out of harm's way. We talked along the way while he lost himself in the sensation of the 5-days' growth of hair on my bald head against his palms and fingertips. I told him about "easy come, easy go." I didn't give him the acidic take on it, but reminded him of the things that he has worked hard for and hung onto. I let him know that everybody else wanted that fidget spinner just as badly as he did, even though few to none of them had to wait as long as he did for his one treasured hour of owning one.

I didn't make any promises, but I'm sure the next fidget spinner will not require as long a wait as today's.

His next fidget spinner will, for me, mark the walk with him on my shoulders tonight. An occasion which will be one of the very last few where I not only carry him, but perhaps ease the brunt of loss as well. I will have to walk next to him while his feet are weigh the the gravity of sadness and loss of will. I'm not sure if I can ease future pains as easily as I could tonight, but if that is the case, I anticipate that the pain will double on those occasions.

Lizards and Siblings and Sugar Rushes, Oh My!

A child’s birthday party is now an occasion for some time away from the responsibilities. It is not the oasis that a child’s stretch at the grandparents can be, but it is a break to dawdle in a cafe for a few hours. The conversation gets to be distracted and meander wherever it wishes rather than aim to be inordinately adult. The parties are becoming a recurring visit with the same characters, snapshots of parents only known by their children’s names. A drop-off to get a sense of how close to the template the occasion is, a moment to get reacquainted and perhaps ensure contact info has been shared or updated and then the next few hours proceed.

If the party goes well, the kids let you know that they’d love to do that themselves. Over the past six years there have been gymnastics parties, indoor playgrounds, Chuck E Cheese, zoo visits, baking your own pizzas, a visit to a fish hatchery and the occasional family-hosted games efforts. Our variations on the theme included a science-oriented party where kids could make their own slime and do experiments with dry ice. (It did actually go over well because rather than despite the slime. With the kids, anyway.) Today’s party featured lizards and amphibians. 

Despite our impulse to cringe at the thought, we were intrigued and Gabriel was all in. Our arrival was a quick refresher on the familiar themes: the harried final preparations; the awkwardness amongst the kids about gifts before there was a designated place to deposit them; the uninvited 3-year-old sibling who has turned up for every classmate’s birthday party for the last 12 to 18 months. (I don't believe anyone has had the nerve to tell the children's father that only one of the kids was invited.) A more recent wrinkle in our party preparations is the dubious trust we place in Gabriel when he insists he knows the right present for his friend. Okay, but I was wary about his insistence that Ninja-go Lego was the ideal gift for the birthday girl. When getting the gift with him the day before I forgot to get a gift receipt, which probably earned me the standard disapproving sigh issued in all instance of paternal indifference, "Men."

Ahh, onto the lizard man.

He arrived in a pick up with his menagerie stashed in two Rubbermaid containers, one of which had holes punched in it for ventilation. My first thought was the resemblance - in both appearance and demeanour - the man bore to a lumbering, monosyllabic neighbour. 

He settled in and perched his containers on one of the fold-out tables that the community centre was replete with. With the preparations were completed in the next room and the kids streamed in one-by-one, he sat with arms crossed in front of the two empty benches the kids would perch upon for the showing of the animals. Terse would sum up his demeanour. He would pose no threat to Jack Hanna's reputation for charming audiences. Once the kids settled in, he gruffly insisted on silence to not disturb the animals by being too loud. I was left to wonder if he had the animals merely so he could insist on silence in every possible situation. "I have geckos here!! Shut up!", he could likely wail to neighbours who broached his tolerance for decibels. He did not quite go that far, but his opening statement expressing his requests for proper behaviour included an extended treatise on the difference between stories and anecdotes, which would start with "Once I..." or "My mommy...," and questions, which started with "Who, What, When, Where and Why." He would answer the questions. I decided to play it safe and forego asking, "How old" and "How big" questions. The distinction between questions and anecdotes had, I suspected, more to do with the one nerve the birthday brood of six-year-olds was standing on rather than the noise sensitivities of the reptilian.

Needless to say, the lizards and toad bridged the gap their handler was reluctant to broach. After the kids had the opportunity to see their first gecko, toad and snake of the morning, I concluded the handler was not going to get much friendlier or more talkative. Gabriel was caught up in the textures and wonder of each creature and tea beckoned. I took my opportunity to slip away.

At party's end, the adults agreed that the animal handler left them wanting for something more. I felt that he was more frightening that the animals could have possibly been. So far Gabriel hasn't expressed a desire for the same gent to do the party for his 7th birthday and the birthday girl's mother added that her daughter had actually gotten into LEGO Ninjago thanks to Gabriel's influence and that it was better for her than Barbie dolls. 

And for those things I am thankful.

Fear and Loathing the School Lunch (Break?)

With my son in the school system now, I am participating regularly in the monthly school council meetings. On Wednesday night my presence as one of the two dads that regularly attend meetings earned me a welcome greeting from the school principal as I came in. By name. (I suppose it is a safe time for principals to know me by name. Right?)

The meeting was similar to previous meetings that I had attended. Familiar topics were covered but an interesting one came up this time around: the length of the school lunch break. It turns out that the students only have a 20-minute break for lunch and at that point it is time for the kids to get outside for a bit of playground time before launching into the afternoon. One of the parents raised the concern after volunteering to join the kids for a visit to City Hall.  During the tour the kids were asked about whether or not they composted food and from that discussion it came out that the kids are composting a good portion of their school lunches because they don't have time to eat. From what I could gather from the discussion, the lunch break is limited, in part, out of deference to the school bus schedules that require the school day to wrap up at a time that squeezes the rest of the day to a degree that limits the flexible use of time throughout the day.

My son only attends school in the mornings at this point, but it still caused me some concern. For all of the signs that the school is doing creative progressive things with the way they are teaching the kids and engaging them in other topics and issues - whether it is in merely retaining a music program for the kids or making empathy a theme for the kids to discuss and learn - there is the niggling feeling that the institutional machinery will impose itself.

It is easy to get your back up against the bureaucracy or other efficiencies that schools embody for the sake of educating kids in the way that they do. I could also crank up my anxieties in the way I could when I had the sense that the system was no better than the most disengaged teacher and that the needs for control over the kids, numeric assessment or measurement of performance, a limited range of perception of children's abilities and interests... I could go on.

But... lunch break?

The impression I got from the discussion was that the length of school lunch -- 20 minutes of eating time -- was a matter that the school administration was aware of and that they just had to come up with the best, most flexible solution. Still, they are hemmed in by the school bus schedule which ultimately sets the tone for the the beginning, end and lunch of the day. The questions this scheduling raises are significant. How structural is this problem? How many people, how up with the school board need to be involved in resolving it? Does the principal have the autonomy to come up with a solution that aligns with what an education ought to be and what our schools were built for? The answer to a lot of these questions may be nothing more than, "Well... uh...," unless of course the suits manage to find the right track to do platitude karaoke to.

There is, granted, a dilemma in the question of how long kids ought to have for a school lunch. The goal is to get the kids fed and given some outdoor time during the time allowed for lunch and ensure that the day ends when it is supposed to. In all of that, there appears to be a lot of rigidity. I would not want me son to have all the time in the world to dawdle through lunch, but at the same time I would not want him hitting the wall in the early afternoon and being less able to learn because he did not have enough time for lunch. While I would respect some expectations that he take responsibility for feeding himself promptly, there is the lingering anxiety about his routine being regimented or mechanized and lunch being the thin edge of the wedge that contributes more than it ought to school success.

I have told myself from the outset that it will be up to me to help my son succeed in school and not to leave it entirely up to him and his teachers to determine what he learns or what skills he develops there. The lunch issue is one example of how the System can -- intentionally or not -- demand conformity in the face of cumbersome short and long-term consequences. At this point I feel that the people I would be working with at the school will want to come up with the creative solutions and I will have to figure out how to counter this and come up with ideas and solutions that may resolve this when my son, who is easily distracted from his food at the best of times, faces that time squeeze September.

The Bicambrial S-Shaped Snow Fort

The east wing of the project, after about
45 minutes of construction

A meander through Riley Park was aimed at a stay in the playground, something to postpone the inevitable request to sit in front of the TV on a sunny Saturday afternoon. He, in snowboots, wanted to break ground through the virgin snow while I choose the well-worn path to keep my feet dry. It was not long, however, until he was changing his path to follow my steps and spare himself a demanding trudge.

That well-beaten route lead to an abandoned snow fort that was just asking to be augmented with a few more bricks. Gabriel quickly took interest in the snowy citadel and set about excavating other snow bricks to add to it. There was an odd machismo that took over. Gabriel's voice deepened as it has on occasions when one needs to take charge of the situation or fulfill the essential role of foreman on the project. He turned into this hybrid of engineer and battle leader as he looked at ways to build the fort higher and to set aside the perfect pieces to fulfill the role of gun or missile. His focus toggled between the two mindsets fluidly as he set about ensuring the structural integrity of the fort and the effectiveness of potential weapons. I followed orders as well as I could, though I did insubordinate at times to pursue the possibility of procuring a piece of snow large enough to serve as the fort's roof. My efforts caused a pair of collapses, but these were quickly repaired and I aimed for closure at the top. Gabriel, however, wanted to make sure the walls were low enough to allow snowballs to be launched at potential opponents.

The snow was the appropriate solidity to make huge bricks that probably weighed over 30-40 pounds and will leaving a tell-tale imprint on my back and hips tomorrow morning. There were loose chunks nearby which we added to the walls with ease but before long a fun part of the process was to jump on the edge of the snowpack to break off a chunk and then heave the whole piece over to the fort or to break it up into smaller pieces that were easier to heft and to brick into the structure.

It was enchanting to see how Gabriel's mind went into his version of project management speak as he set specifications for how it ought to be done and want he envisioned for the outcome of our work.  He tested the walls for their resistance to large snowballs, he uttered "stability," and "strength" with an authority that suggested that play was an opportunity to unleash vocabulary left dormant and untouched in the ho-hum of everyday school life. That deeper voice may have been this pent-up desire to command. I'm not sure why it came out as deep and authoritative as it did, unless it is the influence of the Han Solo voice in the Star Wars audiobooks he listens to. He even surprised me by declaring, "Cut" at the end of my video of the completed project.

The entire exercise in breaking the snow and putting into place ultimately lead to another wing of the fort being constructed. Gabriel's original intent was to add an exterior barrier to the fort but in short order it was connected. In keeping with the spirit of project management, a few other boys and their father took an interest in the fort and before long the five of us were adding to it and there was this vague sense of some landmark of an ancient civilization emerging from our efforts. I know, I know, it will melt or get kicked over at some point. We are anticipating just enough melting and a wee bit of a freeze to solidify the structure and extend the life of the structure before it relents to the next chinook or the coming of spring.

As Gabriel's plans for the fort unfolded and as the project expanded it was remarkable to see him in near-rapture as he chugged away in pursuit of his completed vision. The hefting and breaking of snow and its placement in the walls of the project as it unfolded kept him in motion for nearly two hours, oblivious to hunger and fatigue. Eventually, thirst got his attention but only after I coaxed him on our way to home. We will look forward to visiting the project over the next few days, but it was most fun to see him play foreman or boss for a few hours as the fort unfolded. 

Tying Laces

Over the last few weeks or months I've noticed more and more headlines about the bad consequences for young children exposed excessively to smart phones. I might dare to suggest I've been inundated by the articles but I do not believe you can claim to be inundated by something so deftly avoided.

The theme of those articles is familiar, of course. They follow the template of the articles that have talked about the impacts of video games, heavy metal, excessive television, rock and roll and so on back through time. I give the litany not to diminish the validity of the current articles about the cell phone exposure. The one article I actually read said that kids were getting into less trouble because they were content to stay in their room texting or Snapchatting rather than getting into mischief. Actually, the barrage of headlines left me thinking that my son was not getting that much screen time. I suspect though it will escalate. A recent conversation about initiatives aimed at showing families how to eat together and converse enough to develop their children's language skills suggest that the articles are not as alarmist as I might think.

One thing I am conscious of with technology overall though is that kids are, essentially, getting nudged down the digital path at the expense of any other. There is a clamour to teach kids to code and while I'm not opposed to that I would like to see at least a bit of balance. In his 1979 book Teaching As a Conserving Activity, Neil Postman suggests school take, what he calls a thermostatic approach.  In theory it would be a scenario where educators, conscious and equipped with the barometers to see where society is trending at a certain time, act and educate in a way to strike a balance and avoid overemphasizing what society or the market is pushing for.  In this digital age, more exposure to the  analog would be welcome... (he tapped away on his keyboard.)

I'm conscious of my son's development of skills that I have taken for granted from my schooling. Cursive writing is no longer emphasized in schools and after a generation of velcro, I may be among the last to remember learning to tie shoes as a part of my primary education. In the fall of 1972 everybody in my class put in the time to work on the task.  I remember in later years one of my aunts, a primary school teacher, telling us how she had made it clear to the parents of the kids in a particularly large class that the students would need to know how to zip and tie before the start of the year. I doubt she was expecting 100% mastery before Labour Day, but enough to leave her with a manageable few.

I was still conscious of my experience in days of yore and chipped away at his reluctance to do it. There were struggles and frequent bouts of frustration punctuated by, "I can't do it." There was an hour where we got oh so close before he was truly fed up with the task and I relented. A few days ago, with his head clear of the frustration he encountered with the laces 10 days earlier, he nailed it.  He got it twice in a row, albeit rather loosely, did a single bow a few times and argued about how those single loops would count toward three successes I had requested and then got it.

Apart from saving my back and being a step toward getting him into the laced runners that he aspires to, there are other benefits.  I'm sure the fine work will be a step toward improved motor skills and there are also significant links between knot-tying and mathematics and the sciences.  It has quickly become a point of pride for my son, who asked me to watch him tie his shoes when I dropped him off in the morning and boasted to the nearest adult of his new prowess.  (She responded with the appropriate expression of surprise and approval.)

Cursive may be on my to do list a few years down the road and that, I assure you will be a long battle. Luring him into it with a stylus for a tablet is not the leverage I'll be seeking though.