Name Games

In preparation for Gabriel's fourth birthday party - sure to be a future post - I have had to distribute handwritten invitations to daycare friends that we do not have email addresses for.  I took care of that last week and the RSVP's have come in accept one. Last night, Gabriel mused about there being two boys with the same name at day care. With names trending the way they do, it would not take much for that to happen.  Given Gabriel's certitude that there are two boys that have the same name and the slow or completely absent RSVP, we had to weigh the possibility that I gave the wrong boy the invitation and that he and his parents, nonplussed by the invite by a boy he hardly knows, disposed of it.

After pondering our options, we decided to send the older boy - okay his parents - a letter indicating that we may have goofed with the invitations and given it to the wrong boy. We didn't wish to uninvite the child, but we kindly request an RSVP one way or another.  If we got a response indicating that the boy was not going to attend, we would be able to invite the boy that Gabriel had wanted to invite and had not yet RSVPed.

Convolutions galore?  Hang on.

I penned a light-toned, cordial note to the older child's parents with a self-effacing apology for any confusion and my aforementioned request for an RSVP.  We wanted to be able to confirm who was coming and, if possible, invite the same-named boy that I may have overlooked before it was two late. (I am already mentally writing the apologetic, sorry for the late notice introduction to any replacement invitation we issue.) I head to the daycare early, without Gabriel because it is his day off, to drop off my note. I stopped shortly inside the door trying to appear nonchalant and purposeful for my solo visit to the daycare to drop off my note.  I nodded confidently to parents I knew who were dropping off their kids while I hovered in a room other than Gabriel's looking for the name of this boy that we were convinced there were two of.

No such name.  After scanning the list four or five times to make sure that my bleary pre-dawn grasp of reading material and focus without my glasses was not completely failing me.  Finally, I gave up as my confidence in justifying my presence evaporated.  However, given the circumstances that brought me into the daycare with this note, I thought it best to spare anybody the trouble of bringing their morning routine to a halt to sort out what I was actually trying to explain with the birthday invites, the confusion over two kids with the same name and our need to get an RSVP and you have a sentence that is getting a little too long.  At 7:08 in the morning, it is hard to justify postponing someone's date with their morning coffee to describe and collate the layers of confusion that had fallen upon me and brought me to the daycare without my son.  In the face of that, I just feigned confidence that I knew what I wanted to do and that could possible, somehow achieve my assigned mission. The letter that was in my hand, hovering above the class list started making its way back to my pocket because there appeared to be no child to give it to. For confirmation, I asked one of the staff at the day care if there were two boys of this name. Nada. I turned for the door well after I gave the staff the wrong impression of me.

As I headed on to work, I was convinced that I had fallen victim to my son's first relationship with an imaginary friend.  We tried to sort through the mystery and discovered that it was simply a matter of Gabriel giving the name to a boy he did not know. He decided, on what grounds or formula I do not know, to just call this other, bigger boy that he regularly played with "Big H-----," after the younger boy, that I can confirm I did indeed invite.  He just has not RSVPed yet. If this older boy is at daycare tomorrow, I'll try to figure out what the boy's name is and take the opportunity to sort through the inner workings of Gabriel's mind to figure out why he reused the name on this other boy.

The party should be easy compared to this.

The Band-Aid Treatment

The humble band-aid has always been subject to no small amount of disregard and humour.  I cite Richard Sanders' continual use of bandages throughout his performance as Les Nessman on WKRP in Cincinnati and our denigrating use of the phrase I use as the title of this post as two instances of the disregard with which we regard the bandage's place as childhood placebo. However, as one who has limped through the past week with some foot issues and longing for an ample, substantial fabric Elastoplast bandage to keep the blistering and more from getting any worse.

Throughout my brief struggles with the severe blistering and worse my foot has gone through, I've had to chug along with two thin bandages from a Winnie the Pooh set adorned with a tiny imprint of Piglet on them to keep my toe issues from worsening.  My point (at this point) is that band-aids seem to be part and parcel of childhood more than anything else and I'm sure that any parent who really needs a bandage for a real cut is probably wandering around with a kid's version.

Gabriel has a couple of owies on his fingers at the moment - miniscule, of course - and is in urgent need of a regular covering to ensure the proper healing.  They are still part of a healing regimen with Mom's kisses and occasionally Dad's if mother is unavailable, but the mercurochrome smiles of my youth, that added smiling talisman of love and healing, has all but disappeared from childhood recuperation.

This morning, however, as Gabriel determined that his two-day old Hulk band-aid needed replacing with, if it were at all possible, a Spiderman bandage.  The request left us sorting through the supply that we have.  All of the various character sets we have - save the Winnie the Pooh set that has been residing in my bathroom since long before I needed them for some reason - are mixed together so we spent a few minutes trying to see through the wrappers to determine which was the required Spiderman plaster to hurry along recovery or provide the appropriate talisman for the remainder of his healing.  The Muppet band-aids with Kermit's eyes and Beaker's "meep meeps" exasperation were in ample supply.  (I would like to digress to add that Beaker's ailments regular surpass anything that a mere Band-Aid were to address and that there is an irony in a Beaker band aid that I will try not to dwell on too long or trouble myself to unlock.) As we went through the band aids and tried to distinguish the Planes and Cars bandages from the Marvel comics and other Muppet versions I wondered if Gabriel would ever subject us to a precise choice of character were he in a more urgent situation.

Ultimately, we abandoned our search for Spiderman settled on a Captain America bandage. As we affixed it, we struggled to explain who he exactly was without denigrating him too much, a challenge for me as I spent more time reading hockey books than comics.  I anticipate the occasion when he is ready for comic book movies and I remind him that hero X was actually someone that he had a band aid of and see his face contort as the ultra-trivial contribution to his association with a movie he is about to watch. As with any of these encounters with pop culture, I am surprised at how Gabriel gets exposed to it and seems to know it so well. His grasp of the Star Wars series, strictly through the ether and passing conversation with school mates astounds me at times. Tonight, he sleeps with his band aid clashing with his Spiderman pajamas without the least amount of concern.

This time.

Growth Spurts and Tough Talks to Ponder and Forego

One of the highlights of each fall has been "school" pictures of Gabriel that have been taken at his daycare.  The proofs from this year's efforts sit in front of me and in the place of the unconscious playfulness from the sets when Gabriel was on the cusp of 2 and then 3 years of age there are two options to choose from which are a stark contrast from those previous sets.

Apart from the fact that there are merely two carefully posed shots instead of a set of nine which were enchanting with their spontaneity, there is the suggestion that Gabriel has stretched out and that there is a leanness which indicates baby-fat has been shed and there is that boyishness seemed to be looming, but now is clearly evident.  In previous years the shots included moments of closed-eyed laughter and an impish smirk that suggested a bit of interaction with a photographer who knew how to capture the age group before them in all their innocent beauty.

Self-portrait, feet. Gabriel Hanlon, October, 2015.

As Gabriel approaches 4, the suggestion in the pictures is that he is more ready to engage with people and take direction - albeit from a photographer.  The poses show more evidence of a cue or request being acknowledged than a playfulness that was deferred to when he was younger.  The shots seem a little stiffer and no where near the poignancy of the shots from last year and the year before.  These shots, commemorating 2015 and his fourth autumn mark a different phase.  Much of what has happened seems to indicate that as well.

Two days ago when I spoke to him on the phone there was an attentiveness to the conversation or a clarity to his train of thought that made me think that time jumped ahead a year rather than a few hours since I had dropped him off at daycare.  Apart from that, he flipped the bird for the first time during Thanksgiving dinner, an indication that his surroundings are not as insulated and certain as they used to be. As he approaches school age, there will be more and more occasions where his peers initiate him to those less innocent skill sets and the hard conversations begin.

There are other hard conversations to weigh as well and with those the reminder that he is still a few years away from memories that will stick with him. One of my rituals with Gabriel from as far back as "the bucket stage" has been to take him to pizza with friends on Saturdays.  He has graduated from the bucket to his own place at the table and a pizza of his own.  Earlier this week one of those friends from that Saturday ritual, Mike, a stoic retired train engineer who particularly bonded with Gabriel, passed away after a few years of health struggles and informing us each Saturday that he was tired.

As I ponder breaking this news to Gabriel, I am inclined not to bother.  During Mike's final illness over the last few months, Gabriel never expressed concern about his absence and I wondered if it was a case of him not recalling Mike in his absence.  As I lean toward not sharing the news with him, I suspect that he has already forgotten Mike, though I hope there may be some trace recall of the particular fondness that they had for one another and an occasion where Gabriel asks after him and allows the opportunity to recall a friendship and discuss a simple reality of the passing of time.

The Generational Thing

There have been a few times over the past few weeks where friends have talked about differences between our generation and our parents' and have rationalized the differences between us as a consequence of generational differences. The differences, though significant, are hard to accurately delineate to one type of parenting versus another.  The technological changes, the evolution of gender roles and the sizes of families are just a handful of the differences that distinguish current parents from their own parents.

Many of my friends and I describe our anticipation of sharing things with our kids. The number of times that it is an aspect of pop culture is significant: whether the Muppets, Star Wars and its multiple trilogies, the music we grew up on (that has never seemed to go away) or countless other things we are looking forward to laying ourselves on the line for with our kids, despite our knowledge that there will be a day when our kids deem themselves too cool for anything that their parents want to talk about.  There may be, in my own case, the off chance that Gabriel will clamour for tickets to the Foo Fighters with good ol' mum and dad, but he still might outgrow that.

For the time being, there is the excitement to share with him the latest books by the kids authors we have championed during our brief stint as parents, the occasional exposure to the Muppets and Bugs Bunny that has not altered his obsession with the Cars movies.  Still I rejoice in his recall of the occasional jazz piece that he recognizes, likes even and - most tellingly - identifies when there are different arrangements.  I stake so much in passing these things on to him and it leaves me wondering if my folks invested themselves in passing such things on and, more importantly, if I am passing anything else on to him.

From my parents there are things that have come my way in the pop cultural vein but it may have been more incidental than of the, "you have to listen to this" vein of John Cusack's Rob Gordon character in High Fidelity. (I'm hoping to get Gabriel to read the book first and then I'll risk a double feature of that and Say Anything... on a Saturday family film night during those very years when he will be tuning us out and dealing with a period when most relationships simply confound an adolescent.  If I'm lucky, he'll patiently indulge dear old Dad and ask what that big thing was that Diane had all those x's in.) From my parents I can trace my fondness for Burt Bacharach, Stan Rogers, Bill Cosby (still a comic genius, but I'll introduce Gabriel to Bob Newhart recordings instead) and Abba.  My father was quite discerning, more than he would ever let on, with his movie choices and having Gallipoli among the first tapes to visit out VCR has imparted a permanent reverence for its director, Peter Weir. I'm not sure if any of it was intentional, however.

The most telling image that comes to mind as I reflect on all of this, though was that rainy day in 1977 when my brothers and I saw Star Wars. To that point we had our occasional trips to the theatre for Disney fare and after a full summer of the hype that built as Star Wars became the biggest grossing movie of all time - beating Gone With The Wind which my parents, thankfully, never thrust upon us unsuspectingly. We had gone with the Manuels, who we'd all but grown up with and I was enthralled by finally piecing together this movie that had merely been in the ether for me to that point.  Dad stayed home and when we returned from the movie with our new wallets of pop culture cache loaded with one of the bigger deposits that we would pocket in the decades ahead, he glanced out of the basement of our split entry home with a small but noticeable gash in his forehead.

He spent that time in the workshop, starting to give shape to the unfinished basement that would eventually accommodate the TV room, the second bathroom and fourth bedroom that would ensure we three boys would have the space we would need as we headed on our journeys through adolescent and into bigger bodies and more sharply defined personas. Renovations and carpentry were a significant recollection from childhood.  My parents renovated the first house we lived in during the five and a half years we were there, finished the basement in the second and my father built the house where he and mum have lived since 1983. Throughout those years, especially when he was working on the furniture and cabinetry that he poured himself and his discipline into I came away with the metaphor of that discipline in the careful measurements of course but also the dedication to the sanding and finishing of the fine work that rendered the unvarnished wood one of the most intimate and proud moments of contact my hands will ever know.

When I look at where I am now and ponder the extent to which I avoid the tasks which my father is so expert at, I think of Neil Postman's book The Disappearance of Childhood which operates on the notion that childhood is disappearing not only because of the rush to make them adults but more tellingly the efforts adults make to arrest their development to a stage of childhood or adolescence which they do not wish to depart. When I think of my desire to cram the three seasons of The Muppet Show that I have on DVD (BTW can somebody get off their can and release the last two seasons!!!) ...uhm, where was I... right... I wonder how grown up an example I am setting for Gabriel when I strive to connect on the pop culture level.  (I am not 100% certain if it is my level or his.)

When I take my anticipation of sharing of pop culture and compare it with the example that my father set and the small amount of time that had for the things he enjoyed, unless the time he devoted to leaving his mark on the space we lived in was infused with his passion - the evidence would suggest that - there is a sense that the generational difference is not something that I can boast as an indication of progress from my father's generation to mind.  I think of the time that Gabriel spends with my father-in-law and the way that there is something more constructive or productive in the way that they ultimately work together.  I see that and beam with pride when Gabriel picks up the garbage in his path on a train platform and takes the mission of depositing that garbage where it belongs.

I take some hope in the small lessons of patience that I may teach Gabriel when we are out with the cameras and acknowledge that there is probably an openness among my generation of males that my father's may not have felt free to tap into, but in their way and with their sacrifices and discipline there is still much to honour.  I hope I can do more than merely aspire to pass that on.

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.

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.

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.