For Small Work or Small Workers?

One of the things I enjoy about condominium living is the low upkeep.  No lawn mowing, no raking leaves or any of the yard work that I am quite content to steer my time away from.  At the same time, though, there is a whole raft of responsibilities and chores that The Lad manages to avoid as well.  He is starting to get more attentive about putting his dishes in the sink and dishwasher as required but the bigger chores seem to have been evaded so far.

Fortunately, he has no reluctance to help and if there is lifting to be done or work at his grandparents he is prompt to pitch in.  Today was a rare occasion when he had some work to do outside. After a decent-sized dump of snow, our parking stall required some attention before the end of the day and I started digging up the snow in the stall.  The one next to ours was vacant as well, so I took on the extra space and set about pushing the powder aside and blasting at the icier pack that was at the edges of the stall and threatened to leave our car and a distinct slant when it finally parked.  I took a break from that for a moment to assure a neighbour that the shovel I was using was the common one and beat a path so she could get her tiny Toyota Echo out of its stall and into the cookie dough of Calgary's streets.

When my wife came home at the end of the day with the Gabriel waving enthusiastically from the back seat, I knew I would have an assistant even though most of my work was done (and about to be covered by the parked car.)  Gabriel was eager to get some shovelling in and headed inside to get the smaller common shovel, which is, oddly enough, just his size.  He threw himself into his work on the vacant neighbouring stall as we cleared that out and with gas to burn after that, I turned our attention to the stall that the Echo had vacated a few moments earlier.  As dusk approached and fell, the clear skies brought a brilliance to the occasion that made the work and day feel much warmer than they were.  As we continued, I asked him to check with other people in the parking lot if they needed the shovels or needed some shovelling done, conscious of hogging the tools of ignorance to ourselves while other residents fought their way out.

We were good and free to carry on with our work.  There was even a moment when Gabriel enthusiastically shouted out, "Teamwork," with as deep a voice as a five-year-old can muster.  As darkness fell, he was undaunted and was eager to keep digging away wherever we could even though we had four stalls done at this point of the evening.  After a while, he complained that he had a pain in his back and I suggested that it was muscles that he was not accustomed to using.  He accepted my explanation despite a precocious skepticism about much that I say and continued on.  The offer of supper did not even ease his efforts.  He had a full head of steam and was in no mood to stop.

In the end, I hope there is a sense of connection with the people that he shovelled stalls for, even if the work goes unnoticed.  He spoke about the exercise he was getting, but I hoped that my message about helping the neighbours slipped past his skepticism as easily as the suggestion about the pain in his back being a sign of good work.  I'll wait and see.  In the meantime, I'm left to wonder if it is a coincidence that the second shovel is just his size.

Walking Boy

A simple goal for Gabriel is for him, when the time comes, to walk to school.  It seems a simple goal, perhaps even an odd one to set or aspire to, but as someone who walked to school throughout Primary in 1972-1973, I'm motivated to make sure he manages this, especially since it is a shorter walk.  Too many children are bussed to school or ferried by their parents.  Apart from the concerns about the sedentary thumb-flexing routines of children today, I just want to have him walk a bit and get a sense of independence sooner rather than later.

After having Gabriel in a daycare closer to my wife's work than to home, we have had the luxury of placing him in a daycare merely 500 metres away from home.  With that, we have had the opportunity to walk home at the end of the day and there have been a few occasions where he wants to have me walk him to school at the start of the day as well.

The walk is usually a distracted dawdle as the seasons invite him to pick rocks or dandelions to bring home to mom or a preoccupation with whatever leaves and branches hail or strong winds may have thrown into his line of sight.  There is also the regular stop outside the fence of the daycare for him to bid farewell to his friends who are "still on the inside" and have yet to be picked up.  As our first winter of walking home passed we relished the first opportunity to walk home in daylight and I was happy to assure him we would have daylight for the walk for the next eight months.

On Saturdays, thanks to a theft of Gabriel's stroller, the test was a much more ambitious sequence of walks for the routine of story time at the library, the traditional pizza lunch that has been a part of my Saturdays for over 8 years now and then on to Mount Royal University for music class.  It is a long day, with a departure around 10:30 in the morning, two trains, two busses, a few lengthy walks uphill and a return home by 4:30 or 5pm.

On the occasion that the stroller's departure was realized, I grit my teeth in anticipation of how quickly he would walk and how much energy he'd have after a few long walks.  I dreaded the possibility of him trudging into his music class only to depart early because of a meltdown that would try the patience of his gracious instructor.  If he whined that he was tired, I was ready to loft him onto my shoulders and carry him along if need be.

Nothing.  Throughout the day that we were first thrust into the routine, Gabriel never uttered a complaint.  He actually liked being able to grab a seat on the train or the bus and interact with other passengers, not to mention the diggers and other construction equipment that are the only things that ever line his routes through the world.  He was great throughout the day, only to fall asleep on my lap on the last bus home to leave a puddle of drool on my denims.

Apart from putting in the mileage, the regular travel has made him familiar with the travels.  He knows the name of his stop on the LRT.  He knows to watch the traffic and press the button (about 9 to 11 times) for the walk light at the busy intersection between daycare and home on our afternoon walk.  I suspect that he is more capable than I am prepare to test to make his way to the playground near our house and to the library on his own.

Despite his potential to do those walks on his own, I'm in no rush to thrust that independence upon him.  I wonder if he would be able to make those walks on his own without drawing the suspicion of an adult who would raise an eyebrow and the possibility that the independence is required because of abandonment.  Colleagues of mine with school aged children have already admonished me for even thinking of letting Gabriel walk to school on his own when the time comes.  I also know that no matter how capable Gabriel would be at walking to the closest supermarket and traversing the LRT tracks and busy street that are in his way, the biggest issue would be the dismaying sight of an 8-year-old heading to the Safeway to buy a loaf of bread on his own.

That prospect is at least 5 years away, but there I already have to acknowledge that there will be pressure to put that off until he is much older than I was when I ventured on similar chores with the mantra of eggs, bread, milk dissolving in my mind and learning whatever there was to learn about my neighbourhood and myself in that interlude of the day.