Dilemmas on Movie Night

Yesterday, Gabriel cracked the code.

Nadine and I were spelling "movie" and he had asked as if that was what we were talking about. The bit of progress aside, the recent institution of family movie night has raised some challenges as we ponder what types of movies he is ready for.

We have watched movies off and on for quite a while, making cautious selections from our collection of animated films and each time carefully confirming that a movie is rated-G and then going a step further to check on IMDB to review what parts of the films cause concern. There are instances where language, behaviour, violence or some other combinations of events and scenarios in a film cause parents some concern.

Given Disney's propensity for killing off mothers, I have had my own experience trying to cover Gabriel's eyes during the start of Finding Nemo where Coral and Marlin encounter the barracuda and have been wary of how he has dealt with deaths in the movies that he has seen so far.  He has not been particularly scarred by any of those events, especially if it occurs to the villain in a movie.  A few weeks back when he was watching The Princess and the Frog he remained rapt as the villain of the movie met his fate at the hands of some shadowy and threatening New Orleans-themed voodoo ghost types who sought mafia-variety payback. He slept to bed that night without interruption or drama.

He was not shaken by the scene nor by other deaths or peril that he has seen in the movies that he has watched.  If I recall correctly, and my mother would be the only one to correct me on this, I was not that particularly troubled by the death of Bambi's mother when I saw it.  I haven't seen the movie since it made its rotation in the Disney catalogue at that point of my childhood in the early to mid-1970s but while I remember the scene spoiling the mood of the movie, I ultimately was able to accept it as part of the course of events.

Gabriel, however, is particularly sensitive to the movies that he watches and can get caught up in what he is watching. When we took him to the cinema for the first time, for Inside Out, he was particularly emotional when Bingbong was left behind in the memory dump... (oops, spoiler alert?) and we assured him that Bingbong was not really dying, not in the literal sense of the word. He has been quick to point out when he is relieved to have a happy ending or when the bad guys were particularly unpleasant, as was the case in The Minions.

As we make the movie viewing more of a routine, we are that much more conscious of what we choose to show him and I find myself that much more sensitive to what he has already seen.  Apart for my aversion for the character product purchasing mania that the Cars movies have induced, I find myself looking that much more critically at the violence in the second instalment's James Bond tribute. After holding off on The Incredibles, despite its G-rating, and concluding that the Star Wars series is going to be years down the road, I'm conscious of already introducing him to, oddly enough, G-rated violence that has influenced him more than I would like.

I am not making him watch My Little Pony for the next ten years, but I feel more compelled to carefully vet my choices for all of those little things that I ought to be conscious of rather than simply contenting myself with my appreciation of a film's quality and artistic merits. I've been conscious of things that peeve me, but there are so many other things to bear in mind. The movie nights will continue of course and I look forward to the occasions when, years from now, I'll introduce him to my favorites. In the meantime, I'll try to ensure that we talk about the movies that we watch rather than rush him off to bed at the end of the show.

Memories As The Lad Turns 4

There are moments of my son's life thus far that well up from out of nowhere to grace me with memories that I never imagined I would have.  In and of themselves, they are too brief to fill post of their own, but perhaps together they add up to more than passing anecdote. At this point, as he turns four, they are among the things that I will tell him about himself to give him some sense of his character, his talents and narrative. The question is how much the stories will amount to as time goes on and he forms memories through experiences I will not witness or document.

The first fond moment is from when he was barely 10 weeks old and the milestones were supposedly a bit further down the road... steps, words, sentences, commando crawl... but on the evening of January 21, 2012 - a number numerologists would probably drool over - his first gurgle of the laughter. I have heard it since in so many forms, including forced, vaguely maniacal and downright heart-melting.  On that night, it was a simple, pure peal of joy that moistened the eyes.  And so I started compiling the highlights of his life to report back to him to bridge these early years when his memories slip away rather than form and I wait to pass them on at a time when he is more autonomous and he compiles memories and evolves with less and less of my storage and memory.

There are some things that could remain evident without much intervention and I hang onto them as points of pride. Whether I tell him or not may have little bearing, especially if it is an innate thing that he is hard-wired for.

For instance, his first indication of a precocious connection with music is a eureka I pass on as sign of talent that has been handed down or skipped a generation.  After a few attempts of subversively slipping some jazz into his musical diet thanks to a video that featured a train, he called out "train" upon hearing a completely different acoustic arrangement of the same song while we were in the car.  That may be one of those unique things that I will not have to tell him about but can trust.

There are other moments that I simply hang on to as a joy of fatherhood. This summer, while I was coming home from work, I checked my phone to fire up the audiobook I was listening to. Before I got to it, I noticed that there was a text with an image from my wife and was puzzled by the solid black form that appeared with the image she sent. I opened it and was treated to a drowsy rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" without any performance anxiety and his voice catching earnestly throughout as a profound reminder of the innocence and the delicateness that define even this robust boy at age 3.  I immediately replayed it again and again on my way home.  When the time comes I'll play it back for him and his embarrassment at the poignancy may mellow with the passing of time and the realization of how early he was generous in this way.

There are those embarrassing moments that we will remind him of, such as his first encounter with wasabi, which we warned him about to no avail.  He threw a sizeable dollop into his mouth and suffered no end of pain.

However many memories I accumulate of him, there will still be gaps as he leads his own life and he accumulates stories to share with friends as he grows older, forms his personality and creates his narrative going forward. There has been an independent streak from a very early age. When I first dropped him off at daycare three years ago, I hung around for about 15 minutes to ensure that he knew that I was leaving him behind and sure that he was aware enough to not panic and wail when he finally realized I was gone. The last thing I wanted to do was make him reliant on strangers during such a moment of anxiety, no matter how professional and experienced they are in addressing those moments in life (and they are.) Instead, he sat indifferent to my farewell waves and I only gave up and got on with my day when he toddled over to a new schoolmate and started playing with her. They still play (and play well) together most of the time at daycare and she is among the guests attending his fourth birthday party in a few days time.  As soon as he started playing, I got the feeling that it was safe for me to go.

From that moment, I have never had much trouble acknowledging, though not necessarily accepting, that I am not going to be there for every moment of his life as he grows up. I still beam at the second-hand account of one occasion at daycare when he relieved one of the staff from the challenge of consoling one of his classmates.  A girl was sobbing into the arms of one of the staff at the daycare when Gabriel approached and extended his arms for a hug. The daycare worker regarded it as an "I need one too" gesture at a moment when her attention simply wasn't available to him. He was brushed off for a few moments, but stood his ground until the staff interpreted the gesture as "Let me help," instead of "my turn." The daycare worker let go of the crying child and Gabriel gave the girl a hug and calmed this classmate.  After the hug, she gambolled off, her troubles eased and forgotten. He then extended his arms to give the day care worker a hug. He wasn't even two years old. That account of his compassion is another reminder of the innocence and sensitivity that children possess.

There are other secondhand accounts and other bits of data that will find their way to me as time goes on and less and less that I will compile on my own for him. Accounts will differ and conflict or I will give a more detached version of events than he will at times. I have no idea when the secondhand stories about him will come to me or what they will amount to, but they will each be a part of a life that he will control in a way that will enchant me, make me weep, beam, burst out laughing, or recall with embarrassment how much he is like his father. But I will never quite control it. The best I can do is bear witness to as much of it as possible and occasionally fill in the gaps for him when the story or the self at stake are unfamiliar to him.

Halloween

Apart from the haunted traditions of the day, Halloween is also an occasion where I recall the countdown, as it were, to Gabriel's arrival four years ago. He was due on October 31 and, though we have dodged a lifetime of costumed birthday parties, it still prompts reminiscing and reflection as we prepare for his non-Halloween birthday party next week. Among the recollections is the regular checking in with close friends who were due around the same time. The possibility that the boys could have been delivered at the same time did not occur and Gabriel and our friends' son are actually 2 1/2 weeks apart.

After appearances as a heavily padded beaver (2013) and the Scooby Doo (2014) for his first two Halloweens, Gabriel turned himself out in a fireman costume and headed out on Halloween night full of excitement and patrolled the neighbourhood with abandon for 2 1/2 hours. There were a few houses where he was rendered timid by the more ghoulish decorations, but for the most part he dashed from door to door excited to accumulate as much candy as he could.

The acknowledgement of his fireman costume was consistent with the sardonic, "Here to put out the fire?", comments from those passing the evening by their fires with a potable of some warmth or strength able to bring a smirk of amusement to my face while Gabriel was too preoccupied with the reception part of the tradition to respond to any variations in the ritual. Those adult gatherings around a cozy fire was just one of the many differences that have indicated how Halloween has changed since my childhood. Despite the post-Tylenol caution that we have adhered to since 1982 and the consciousness about the sweets that we are ever-vigilant of, Halloween has gone off the scale for its scope.  The level of Halloween decoration continues to elevate each year and is starting to challenge Christmas. I suspect that there is a crew of factory workers somewhere in China huddled around their Saturday evening drinks puzzling over why exactly they had to make the plastic limbs that they were churning out for so many front lawns this year.

Throughout the evening we stayed at the end of the sidewalk, my eyes straying to to hockey game to get an update on the score, and prompting Gabriel to say "trick or treat," "Happy Halloween," or, most importantly, "Thank you," while he stood alone with stranger after stranger for these encounters. There were a few times where he seemed to forget what to say, but just as many where the hosts at the door called back to us, "he did," to our admonitions if we thought he forgot. He lasted much longer than we anticipated based on everything else he had done throughout the day, including a terse moment or two at his morning music class when he noticed that other kids in fireman costumes actually had a whistle as a part of their ensembles.

His night ended with a climactic moment that left him gobsmacked as a passing fire truck, having spotted him by the reflective tape on his coat, slowed down and flashed its lights while the crew waved to him.  He was truly starstruck and disoriented by the flash and wave and seemed uncertain if he was supposed to join them or not.

There are still things about the tradition for him to learn.  We did our best to teach him not to eat his candy until we got home and he has a very trusting tendency to walk right in an open door wherever he visited.  Hopefully we will break him of that habit by next year. By the time we got home, Gabriel was ready for bed. His haul included six pounds of candy and chocolate and we have not troubled ourselves to weigh the chips.  However, two days after his haul, Gabriel has not expressed any interest in or desire for the treats.

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.