Archives for October 2010

post

I Am Canadian

October 27, 2010 By

On Monday an odd coincidence occurred to me, that led me to ponder the idea that my trip towards marriage is linked in some cosmic way to my status – my proudly held status – as a Canadian. Some of you already know the story of my engagement, how Gerard prearranged the whole thing with the good folks at Citizenship & Immigration Canada. At my citizenship ceremony, after I had been declared a new Canadian, Gerard got down on one knee and, in front of the judge and all of my fellow new Canadians, he proposed. If you haven’t seen it, check out this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFslyzgVRFk]

On Monday, my personal life and my life as a Canadian were once again linked, by virtue of the fact that two events happened on that day.  First, we got confirmation of our wedding date. This has been quite a journey that has led to us committing to a date on which we will, after ten years of cohabitation, become husband and wife. Ten minutes later, we went together to my younger son’s school, which was set up as a voting station in the Ontario municipal elections.  And there, for the first time since becoming a Canadian citizen, I exercised my democratic right to vote.

This is a right – and a responsibility – that I take very seriously.  I am mindful of the fact that in parts of the world, I as a woman would not have this right. The brave war veterans, both living and dead, fought for my freedom of choice, for my right to vote. It seems only right that Gerard and I, in recognition of those men and women who sacrificed so much, are having our wedding reception at the Royal Canadian Legion. What better place for us to start this new phase of our lives together.

Soon we are going to start seeing the poppies. In Canada, as in other parts of the world, war veterans hand out poppy lapel pins in exchange for donations. The lapel pins are worn every day until November 11th – Remembrance Day – at which time they are placed at a war memorial.  I find that Canadians are very respectful in their attitude towards our soldiers. The wearing of poppies is done with a great deal of pride and a respect that is almost sacred. When a fallen soldier is returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice, ordinary citizens suspend their lives to gather at overpasses and on bridges to wave flags as they salute the soldier’s hearse as it travels down the Highway of Heroes.  This video is worth watching. Grab the tissues before you click on the link.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqx-tsg81NM]

Last year, I did something special for Remembrance Day. Along with most of my co-workers, I observed a minute of silence at 11:00 a.m. After that, I solemnly got changed into my running gear, pinned my poppy onto my running jacket, and secured my Metropass in my fuel belt. I went outside into the biting cold, and began my run – a run with a purpose. This run was dedicated to the veterans and the war dead. I ran from the office to the war memorial at Queens Park, where I joined the crowds gathering for a Remembrance Day ceremony.

At the end of the ceremony, I unpinned my poppy and left it at the base of the memorial. I thought of my grandfathers, who were both veterans of World War II. I thought of a friend of mine south of the border, whose son was, at the time, a soldier in Iraq. I thought of the very elderly veteran who had sold me my poppy; I thought of how the lines on his face told a story that I could not begin to comprehend.

Exactly one month after that Remembrance Day, I got my citizenship.  This year, on November 11th, I plan to do what I did last year. Only this time, I will be doing my Remembrance Day run as a Canadian.

Filed Under: remembrance, running Tagged With: , , , ,
post

I Am Canadian

October 27, 2010 By

On Monday an odd coincidence occurred to me, that led me to ponder the idea that my trip towards marriage is linked in some cosmic way to my status – my proudly held status – as a Canadian. Some of you already know the story of my engagement, how Gerard prearranged the whole thing with the good folks at Citizenship & Immigration Canada. At my citizenship ceremony, after I had been declared a new Canadian, Gerard got down on one knee and, in front of the judge and all of my fellow new Canadians, he proposed. If you haven’t seen it, check out this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFslyzgVRFk]

On Monday, my personal life and my life as a Canadian were once again linked, by virtue of the fact that two events happened on that day.  First, we got confirmation of our wedding date. This has been quite a journey that has led to us committing to a date on which we will, after ten years of cohabitation, become husband and wife. Ten minutes later, we went together to my younger son’s school, which was set up as a voting station in the Ontario municipal elections.  And there, for the first time since becoming a Canadian citizen, I exercised my democratic right to vote.

This is a right – and a responsibility – that I take very seriously.  I am mindful of the fact that in parts of the world, I as a woman would not have this right. The brave war veterans, both living and dead, fought for my freedom of choice, for my right to vote. It seems only right that Gerard and I, in recognition of those men and women who sacrificed so much, are having our wedding reception at the Royal Canadian Legion. What better place for us to start this new phase of our lives together.

Soon we are going to start seeing the poppies. In Canada, as in other parts of the world, war veterans hand out poppy lapel pins in exchange for donations. The lapel pins are worn every day until November 11th – Remembrance Day – at which time they are placed at a war memorial.  I find that Canadians are very respectful in their attitude towards our soldiers. The wearing of poppies is done with a great deal of pride and a respect that is almost sacred. When a fallen soldier is returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice, ordinary citizens suspend their lives to gather at overpasses and on bridges to wave flags as they salute the soldier’s hearse as it travels down the Highway of Heroes.  This video is worth watching. Grab the tissues before you click on the link.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqx-tsg81NM]

Last year, I did something special for Remembrance Day. Along with most of my co-workers, I observed a minute of silence at 11:00 a.m. After that, I solemnly got changed into my running gear, pinned my poppy onto my running jacket, and secured my Metropass in my fuel belt. I went outside into the biting cold, and began my run – a run with a purpose. This run was dedicated to the veterans and the war dead. I ran from the office to the war memorial at Queens Park, where I joined the crowds gathering for a Remembrance Day ceremony.

At the end of the ceremony, I unpinned my poppy and left it at the base of the memorial. I thought of my grandfathers, who were both veterans of World War II. I thought of a friend of mine south of the border, whose son was, at the time, a soldier in Iraq. I thought of the very elderly veteran who had sold me my poppy; I thought of how the lines on his face told a story that I could not begin to comprehend.

Exactly one month after that Remembrance Day, I got my citizenship.  This year, on November 11th, I plan to do what I did last year. Only this time, I will be doing my Remembrance Day run as a Canadian.

Filed Under: remembrance, running Tagged With: , , , ,
post

Running in the concrete jungle of life

October 22, 2010 By

I suffer from the age-old, clichéd, and frankly boring problem of being a woman with not enough hours in the day. I find myself going to bed ridiculously late and not getting enough sleep, and from time to time I wonder why this is. Am I really that busy or do my time management skills just suck? In analyzing this question, I decided to draw up a rough schedule of what happens in a typical day.

6:00 – 7:15    Wake up, get myself dressed and ready, get James dressed and ready.
7:15 – 7:30    Take James to daycare
7:30 – 8:45    Commute to work
8:45 – 4:45    Earn my keep
4:45 – 6:15    Commute home
6:15 – 7:30    Cook dinner, eat dinner, get kids to eat their dinner
7:30 – 8:00    Supervise George’s homework, read library books with both boys
8:00 – 9:00    Get kids bathed and into bed. Throw load of laundry into washing machine. Make sure car is locked. Make tea.
9:00 – 9:30    Get clothes ready for myself and kids for the following day. Make George’s lunch. Ensure kids’ backpacks contain homework, library books to be returned, forms to be returned to teachers, etc.
9:30 – 10:00    Clean up kitchen. Unload and load dishwasher. Turn dishwasher on and wash any dishes that don’t fit in dishwasher. Get coffee machine ready for the following morning.

What this means is that in the evenings, it’s around ten before I can even sit down at my computer and read emails. This is why I have given up on all of the Facebook games that end in “ville”. I just never have enough time to check on my farm, or my kitchen, or my pet. FarmVille – crops keep dying. FrontierVille – weeds keep growing. PetVille – pet keeps running away to the pound. You get the picture. So now, my Facebook games are the ones that I can spend five minutes or less on, where I won’t suffer penalties if I neglect them for five days.

Do you notice anything missing in the schedule above? Running. Where am I supposed to find time to run? If my daily timetable is anything to go by, my only options are (a) go running in time to be back by six in the morning, or (b) go running after ten at night. Option (b) isn’t really an option to me, because I would be worried about safety.  Something tells me that a woman running alone at that time of night would not be the smartest idea. So I’ve been going with option (a), getting up at 5:00 a.m., being out on the road by 5:15, and trotting back into my driveway by around 6:10 or so.

Except lately, this hasn’t been working out too well. George has been having issues sleeping – a phenomenon very common to children with autism. On any given night, there is roughly a fifty/fifty chance of him – and thereby me – actually getting a full night’s sleep. On the nights he wakes up, he crawls into bed next to me and plays with my hair. No matter how many times I gently move his hands away from my head, they always find their way back there, and he wraps it around his fingers, scrunches it up in his hands, sniffs it, strokes it, on and on and on until he drifts back to sleep. On the good nights, this lasts for half an hour or so. On the bad nights, it will go on for two or three hours.

It doesn’t matter how dedicated a runner you are. If you have a small child keeping you awake from 2:30 until 4:30, it is going to be near-impossible for you get up at 5:00, go running, and then put in a full day of work. It’s not even as if George’s nocturnal adventures are an occasional thing.  For the last month or so, it has been happening two or three nights a week.

It is hammering me, and I am increasingly stressed out by my inability to find time to run. Not running is not an option. Running late at night when I feel vulnerable is not an option. Running first thing in the morning when I’ve had no sleep is not an option.  So I have to get creative.

To solve the problem, I started by considering each run individually. I run five days a week, with Mondays and Fridays off. The weekend runs are not a problem: even if I have to get up early for those, I have the option of vegetating in front of the TV for the rest of the day (true, I’d have two kids jumping on me, but still). That takes care of four days of the week right there. On Wednesdays I go running with a group after work (kills my Wednesday evening schedule but I can live with that once a week), and I’ve worked out that I could do my Tuesday runs on a treadmill at the gym at lunchtime.

All of a sudden, the problem is a lot more manageable. Now, all I have to worry about are the Thursday runs. I’m still not too sure what I will do about those, but I’ll figure something out, either by just living with the early-mornings-after-no-sleep once a week or by doing some kind of creative reorganization to my schedule.

It just goes to show: when the running bug bites you, somehow you find a way to fit it all in.

Filed Under: life, running Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

I never could get the hang of Thursdays

October 21, 2010 By

I’m having one of those days. You know, the kind where you realize, by ten in the morning, that if you make it to dinnertime without breaking a leg and accidentally causing a twelve-car pileup on the highway, it will be nothing short of a miracle. Just one of those days where a lot of irritating little things pile up to create one big jumble of irritation.

I overslept this morning.  By more than an hour. I woke up about ten minutes after I should have been walking out of the house. I should have seen it coming, really. I haven’t slept well for about two weeks, and last night my head was literally buzzing with exhaustion. My body was bound to crash and burn sooner or later.

It was the sound of James crying that woke me up. He had woken up thirsty and no-one had given him his morning milk. Of course they hadn’t.  The customary milk-getter was slumbering away, oblivious to everything, while the customary milk-gettee waited patiently – and in vain. When the sound of the crying pierced my somewhat sluggish consciousness, I glanced at the clock, had about thirty-seven panicky thoughts in three milliseconds (all variations of the same theme, which was: “Oh, crap!”), and flew out of bed.

I got James his milk and warned him that things were about to get really chaotic. Into the bathroom, hair brushed into a big-haired, frizzy mess (no time for the hair-straightener), makeup perfunctorily applied, back into the bedroom, clothes thrown on, brief pause in frenzied activity for the purpose of breathing. Somewhere during all of this I tossed James’ clothes at him and hurriedly pleaded with him to put them on. James, who is used to me being a bit slow and dim-witted first thing in the morning, was stunned into compliance.

As I walked by my desk, I saw a note from James’ teacher with a list of what was needed for today’s field trip to a farm. Quickly, I scanned the list to make sure I had taken care of everything. Yes, I had dug out a pair of rubber boots for James to wear while trudging through the pumpkin patch.  Yes, I had put mitts and a scarf in his bag in case it got cold. Yes, I had supplied a plastic bag for the pumpkin that James would pick out. No, I had not made him a packed lunch.

I never make packed lunches for James. There is a snack program at his school, and he gets lunch and afternoon snack at the daycare. The one day that I actually have to make him a packed lunch (and of course, forget), just has to be the one day on which I oversleep.  Go figure. So I grabbed bread, margarine, and slices of cheese, and somehow managed to arrange all of this into a sandwich without lopping off a finger. Goldfish crackers. A couple of juice boxes.

OK. Packed lunch was made. I was dressed. James was dressed. My travel mug was filled with fresh, hot coffee and ready to go.

Somehow I made it out of the front door with James in tow, fifteen minutes after waking up. If I forgot anything, I don’t know about it yet. I got James to the daycare in time for his breakfast. The transit gods were with me: an express bus pulled up to the bus stop about thirty seconds after I got there. I got to work just twenty minutes or so later than usual.  So, not bad, considering how my morning started.

I returned a couple of phone calls and answered some emails. I reviewed my list of things to do today, and checked my calendar. Only one meeting today. Good. Then I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. The same guy who’s always there took my order.  A breakfast sandwich with bacon and a splash of ketchup, on an English muffin. I get breakfast sandwiches once or twice a week, always ordering the same thing from the same person. He could probably recite my order in his sleep. It’s nice. There’s comfort in predictability.

With coffee and sandwich in my hand, I returned to my desk and called Gerard, my husband-to-be. I wanted to know if the lady from our wedding venue had called him back. She had promised to call us this morning to tell us which of two dates we could have the hall for. I have been waiting for this day, waiting for the answer. It all hinges on one guy who had made a tentative booking on our preferred date, to use the hall for a darts tournament. As it turned out, the lady from the hall did call Gerard, but she didn’t have an answer for us. The darts tournament man is not reachable because he’s gone hunting.

Hunting? What is this, The Clan Of the Cave Bear?

Apparently, we’ll get an answer by the weekend. I don’t want to wait until the weekend.  I want to know now. But there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll have to wallow in my frustration for two or three more days.

With the phonecall to Gerard done, I unwrapped my breakfast sandwich, looking forward to the comfort and risk-averse nature of eating something that I’ve eaten dozens of times before. And I was bitterly disappointed.

Sandwich Guy messed up. First, there was the state of the muffin, which can only be described one way: burned. The outer edges of the muffin had actually burned to a crisp. The rest of it was just one step away from being charred. I could also tell right away that the ketchup had been left off. There was no tell-tale smudge of ketchup peeking out from the edge. Worst of all, though, is that instead of bacon, my breakfast sandwich had been made with ham. So much for the comfort of familiarity.

I was faced with a dilemma. Do I eat a sandwich I don’t want and am pretty sure I won’t like? Or do I schlepp downstairs to complain and get a new sandwich made?  After thinking about it for a minute, I reasoned that maybe Sandwich Guy was having a bad day too. Maybe he too had overslept, forgotten until the last second that his kid needed a packed lunch, been late for work, and discovered that the provider of much-anticipated information was off hunting like Indiana-Freaking-Jones.  I also recognized that if I actually did go back downstairs, I’d probably be meaner to Sandwich Guy than the situation called for, and I might make him cry. Not to be judgmental, but he does look like a bit of a cry-baby – um, sensitive person.

So I sat at my desk and half-heartedly ate my burned, ketchup-free, wrong-meat sandwich. I did not enjoy it. The coffee, however, was outstanding.

As I reached under my desk to throw the sandwich wrapper and empty coffee cup into my waste basket, I pulled a back muscle.

I’m starting to think that me and this day just aren’t going to get along.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , ,
post

Fishing for runners

October 18, 2010 By

A decade ago, when I was training for my first-ever race (a 5K, if memory serves), my Dad taught me how to fish for runners. You start at an easy pace, he said, and you don’t allow yourself to be deterred by the hordes of people passing you. When you pass the halfway mark, you pick a target: a runner far ahead of you who you can set your sights on. You gradually reel in the runner and eventually pass them. And then you pick a new victim to fish for, and you keep doing this until you have about five hundred meters to go, at which point you just go hell-for-leather until you cross the finish line.

In his prime, my Dad was one of the top marathoners – and for a time, ultramarathoners – in South Africa. I had a great deal of respect for the running advice he gave me. I used the technique of fishing for runners in my first half-marathon, back in 2001, and it worked like a charm.

Dad was my unofficial coach. Even though he lived on the other side of the world, he was always giving me snippets of advice that ranged from, “Shorten your stride and keep a straight posture going up hills” to, “Bring your own toilet paper to races because the portajohns tend to run out”. He taught me that hydrating in short, frequent bursts is better than gulping down sixteen ounces of water every five kilometres. He took one look at me after the one race he saw me in (a 10K in North York) – he saw the fine layer of salt covering my skin and turning my clothes white – and told me to ditch Gatorade and get a better electrolyte source. He taught me how to shop for running shoes, and explained why good socks are almost as vital as good shoes.

By the time I returned to running after a seven-year gap, Dad was no longer with us.  When I was out on my Sunday long runs, and when I was running my first half-marathon in eight years in considerably less than stellar shape, I had to rely on memories of what Dad had told me. I missed him bitterly on the day of my first Run for Autism, just over a year ago. I did not get to call him for a pre-race pep talk. I was not able to imagine talking to him on the phone later, going through a post-mortem of the race. I was so anxious about simply finishing the race that I found following any kind of a strategy difficult.  I knew, however, that he would be immensely proud of me, and that was enough.

Throughout this running season that is just drawing to a close, I have felt Dad’s presence from time to time. I have remembered more and more of what he told me, and I have read through his old training logs for tips and ideas, and for general inspiration. And then, on Saturday, something weird happened.

I was registered for a 10K run at the zoo.  Initially, I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to run it: it was just three weeks after a half-marathon that left me walking funny for days. I had not really gotten back into proper training since the half-marathon, and I figured that this would be a problem because there are a lot of hills at the zoo. So I went in with absolutely no expectations of myself.  My plan was to just finish the run and enjoy myself.

About two kilometres into the run, I found myself getting frustrated by slower runners ahead of me.  The road was just too narrow for me to pass them; I was waiting for an opportunity to slip by them and surge ahead. All of a sudden I heard Dad’s voice in my head: “What’s the rush?”

“It’s a race,” I pointed out (in my head, of course.  I haven’t quite reached the point of conversing with my deceased father out loud).

“Sure, it’s a race,” said the voice of Dad’s wisdom, “but you have 8K to go. You’ll get your chance a couple of kilometres from now, when the runners are more spread out.”

“But I feel good,” I argued. “I want to go faster.”

“Trust me. You’ll thank me for this later.”

I briefly debated whether to listen to my own actual voice, or the imagined voice of a man who passed away almost six years ago. Imagined voice, I decided.  If there is an afterlife, and if Dad is making the effort to coach me during a race from the Beyond, the least I can do is listen and give it a try.

I approached the first hill of the run, and thought, “Uh oh.”  From way back in the past, Dad’s hill mantra came back to me. “Shorten your stride. Keep your spine straight. Focus your vision on the crest of the hill.” Because I followed the mantra, and because I hadn’t burned off all my energy five hundred metres previously by barrelling past the slower runners, I made it to the top of the hill without even slowing my pace. As it turned out, I passed a number of runners going up the hill.  “Thanks Dad,” I said mentally. “Told you so,” he replied.

Before I knew it, I was running over the timing mats at the halfway point. I was feeling good and enjoying the scenery. Suddenly, Dad was back, as if he’d just popped off to see the lions. “Speed up,” he said. “Where do you think you are, a picnic?”

“Cripes, Dad, you were just telling me there was no rush,” I grumbled.

“That was then,” he said, cryptically. “It’s time to fish.”

I looked up and scanned the runners ahead of me. “The one with ears,” said Dad.  This would have startled me if I hadn’t seen, just in my range of vision, a runner wearing a pair of rabbit ears on his head (one thing about a run at the zoo is that people get creative about what they’re wearing).

Rabbit Ears turned out to be the perfect point of focus for me. By now, the runners were spread out enough for me to pass without impediment. I picked up the pace and bit by bit, I closed in on Rabbit Ears. When he slowed for a drink at the water station, I zoomed on past (another bit of advice from Dad: always take your own water to a race to reduce the number of times you have to slow down at an aid station).

My next victim was a woman wearing a bright red shirt boasting the words, “Toenails are for sissies”.  Once I got past her, I set my sights on a man with some kind of turban on his head, followed by a man wearing a pair of butterfly wings. Throughout all of this, my legs were feeling strong, I was enjoying every step of the run, and I was running up and down the hills with not a care in the world. With five hundred metres to go, Dad had one last piece of advice: “Pretend they’ve let the lions out after you.”

I pretended the lions were after me, and sprinted to the end.  I crossed the finish line feeling strong. I missed my personal best time for the distance by about a minute, and I was OK with that. My personal best was set on an all-downhill course; I performed a lot better here at the zoo and felt stronger at the end.  From the perspective of pacing, race strategy, and running mechanics, this was my best race since my return to running.

Thanks, Dad!

Filed Under: running Tagged With: , , ,
post

Lost: the sequel

October 14, 2010 By

Two days ago, my vulnerable seven-year-old son who has autism was taken to the wrong school by the bus driver.  Through the miracle of technology, the principal of the wrong school (hereinafter referred to as School A) was able to determine that George was a student of the right school (hereinafter referred to as School B).  School A principal drove George to School B, where he was welcomed with open arms by his teacher.  School B administrator called Gerard to tell him what had happened.  Gerard called me.  Together, we spent a sleepless night thinking of how very badly this situation could have ended.  we had visions running through our minds of kidnapping, assault, and all other kinds of God-awful things.

The following day, we set out to find answers.  Clearly, we needed to know how and why a situation had arisen that could have had potential to severely compromise the safety of our child.

Gerard went to see the principal of School A. He pointed out that since George wears a special seatbelt lock to prevent unsupervised wanderings up and down the aisle, he could not have simply got up and got off the bus.  Who had taken George off the bus and why? The principal explained that although his school did have a new student, that student was not expected until later in the afternoon due to a medical appointment. When the bus had shown up, everyone had been surprised. A teacher had gone out to meet the bus, and the bus driver had told the teacher that George was transferring to School A.  The driver gestured at George and mentioned him by name.  The teacher had no reason to not believe the bus driver – she simply assumed that someone had not passed on some piece of information to someone else.  This is, after all, an administration.  These things happen.

Gerard’s next stop was the therapy centre.  He deliberately timed his arrival to coincide with that of the bus driver, with the intention of getting the bus driver’s side of the story. The bus driver claims that her supervisor had called her late on Friday to tell her that George was being transferred to School A effective from Tuesday (Monday being a stat holiday).  The bus driver, who knows George very well, was surprised enough to verbally confirm, in the same conversation, that George was the child being transferred. In accordance with these instructions, the bus driver drove George to School A on Tuesday, and only discovered the next day that this had been a mistake.

The supervisor is now claiming that she never named George as the child being transferred, that she had named some other child with a completely different-sounding name. The supervisor is removing the bus driver from George’s route, and is quite possibly going to attempt to fire her.

It sounds to me as if this is what happened: The supervisor gave the bus driver the wrong name.  Instead of saying Peter or Simon or whatever the other kid’s name was, she said George. The bus driver followed through on the instruction she was given, not knowing it was incorrect. Thereby unknowingly placing a child with autism in a very vulnerable situation. Now the supervisor is trying to cover up her mistake by blaming the bus driver, and the bus driver could end up without a job because of the supervisor’s mistake.

Is it just me, or is this story disturbing on many, many levels?

Filed Under: Children, School Tagged With: , , , ,
post

Mister Fidget

October 12, 2010 By

George has been getting into everything lately.  And I mean everything.  He opens and closes doors, peers into the refrigerator, moves the lever on the dishwasher door back and forth, and sends the blender into a fruitless frenzy of activity. He gets into cupboards and removes things.  He finds stuff that can be poured, and he pours it.  He turns taps on and off. He has succeeded in deprogramming the remote several times. He finds things in squirt bottles and squirts them. He jabs the straw into those little cardboard juice boxes, and then gives an almighty squeeze to see the juice shooting up and hitting the ceiling. The light on the fish tank gets turned on and off so often that the poor fish have probably completely lost any circadian rhythm they had to begin with.

As much as George loves to fidget with things, turn things on and off, open and close things, pour things, he hates it when anyone else does anything. My attempts to cook dinner, for instance, are accompanied by this contant commentary.  Close the fridge. Microwave off. Close the dishwasher. Close the drawer. Close the cupboard. Leave the milk. Tap off. And on and on and on.  While all of this is going on, I’m tripping over a lanky seven-year-old who is darting around the kitchen trying to put things away, close things, and turn things off.

Running the kids’ bath last night was an adventure. James picked out two boats that he wanted to play with in the bath.  He put them in the tub, I started the water running.  I did what I usually do, which is to close the bathroom door and then go off to gather towels and pajamas while the water is running. When I went back into the bathroom a couple of minutes later, the water had been turned off, the tub was empty, and James’ boats were nowhere in sight. James, it must be said, was not at all pleased.

After a brief search, the boats were located in a toy box, and we tried again. This time, James stood guard at the closed bathroom door, like a miniature sentry. Gerard worked hard to distract George, who was repeatedly going, “Tap off! Tap off!” After what felt like seventeen hours but was in reality a couple of minutes, the bathtub was ready, and I turned the tap off.  George was instantly calm.

James was happy. He climbed into the tub and started playing happily with his boats, among the bubbles in the water.  George had kicked up such a fuss that I was not really expecting him to get in. But he ran off to get a few pieces of Lego, which he tossed into the water.  Then he calmly got in, sat down in the water, and played with his Lego.

When compared with a lot of the other stuff I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, this behaviour is really not that bad. It’s just inconvenient and exhausting to deal with all the time.  There is, however, a giant silver lining to it: when George is engaging in this behaviour, he is a lot more verbal than usual. We are trying to look past the messes and spills, the fact that we have to keep replacing groceries that get poured out, and the general inconvenience of it all, to see the potential opportunities offered by the increased use of words.

Sometimes troublesome behaviour is a predecessor to a giant leap of progress. Even while I complain about the fact that it takes me twice as long as it should to get anything done, I recognize that this could mean exciting times for ourselves, and more importantly, for George.

Filed Under: parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,