My first foray into the world of YouTube! Here’s a video of Ryan singing Old McDonald. This was about four years ago – Nicky was only a baby. Ryan couldn’t say “farm” properly, so he said “darm”. I love how he ponders Gail’s animal suggestion before continuing.
Merry Christmas to all! Christmas at the Perrow household was quite stress-free
this year. We always travel to the grandparents’ places around Christmas, but we
always wake up Christmas morning in our own house. In previous years, we would
wake up Christmas morning, open our presents as fast as possible, then pack the
kids in the van with one or two of their new toys and head 3-4 hours north
to either my parents’ place or Gail’s dad’s place, to be there in time for
Christmas dinner. Then we’d do Christmas all over again there, and a day or two
later leave that set of grandparents and drive the hour to the other set. A day or
two after yet another Christmas, we’d come home to the huge mess that we left.
We only made one change to that schedule this year, but it made a huge
difference. We decided not to go north for Christmas dinner, but leave later in
the day. As a result, we took our time opening presents, and if the kids wanted
to play with something for 10 minutes before opening the next one, no problem.
This small change completely killed any time pressure that we felt, and made
Christmas Day very enjoyable. However, that’s not the perfect day I referred to
in the title of this entry. Boxing Day we spent at my in-laws place, and the 27th
at my parents’ place, and both days were very relaxing and enjoyable, but neither
of them was the perfect day either. The perfect day was yesterday, the 28th.
The boys slept
until about 7:30, and I got up with them while Gail slept in. Ryan had already
made himself a waffle, and I got Nicky some breakfast as well. They watched
some TV while I got their clothes and swimming stuff ready, then I drove them
over to the YMCA for a “Kitchen Chemistry” class followed by a swim. While they
were there, Gail and I cleaned up the family room — moved new toys to the
play room or the boys’ rooms, collected all the wrapping paper and boxes for
recycling, stuff like that. Then I got the boys, and they played happily until
lunch time. Lunch was something simple, and then we played a game or two as a
family. I got the Scene It: Harry Potter DVD game, and we played that a couple
of times. Ryan’s seen the first movie once but not the rest, and Nicky hasn’t
seen any of them, but they enjoyed watching the clips and stuff. After that,
Ryan wanted to do one of the puzzles he got for Christmas, and I
helped him until he got bored and went to watch TV with Nicholas. Gail and I
continued the puzzle until dinner time. We had dinner (leftover
turkey, believe it or not), and then watched a TV show on UFOs, aliens and the
whole Roswell thing which we all enjoyed (though Gail said the boys were a little
freaked out later), and then I went to my friend Jeff’s place for an evening
of Texas Hold’em poker. The last time I played poker at Jeff’s I didn’t win a
single hand all night. This time I did win some hands (some with fairly big pots)
and I came 4th out of 9 people, so I was pretty happy with that.
It wasn’t a great day because we got a lot done, or because of any one
event, or because the meal was great, or anything like that. It just seemed
like the perfect family day — the boys had fun doing things by themselves,
with each other, and with us, and we had fun doing stuff with them as well. There
was a minimum of fighting, squealing, and yelling (though with our boys, some of
that is inevitable), nobody got sent to their room, nobody had to go to bed
early because they weren’t behaving, it was just a great day all around. The
Perfect Day.
A guy at Gail’s work has been married for over 20 years. A couple of years
after he got married, his wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; since then,
she’s needed constant care. He’s hired a nurse to care for her while he’s at
work, and he does it the rest of the time. He hasn’t been on a vacation in 20
years, and has no social life to speak of. Gail once told me that because of
his devotion to his wife, he’s a wonderful man; she actually referred to
him as an “angel”. But it occurred to me — what choice did he have? His only
real alternatives are to put her in a home of some kind, or leave her.
Either way, what are people going to say then? “He dumped her in a home so he
could go off on a vacation? What a selfish bastard.” So if he gives up
everything to care for his wife, he’s an angel, but if he doesn’t, he’s a
scum-sucking dirtbag.
What if he’s neither? What if he’s just a regular guy?
My wife does a lot of volunteering. She is the chair of the school council for
Ryan and Nicholas’ school (this is Ryan’s fourth year of school; Gail’s been
chair or co-chair of the council for three of them), and she’s on the YMCA School
Age Child Care parent committee (though they only meet a couple of times a year).
Both of us also volunteer a half-day a month in our kids classrooms, and we have
since Ryan was in JK. Ryan’s in grade two now, and his teacher doesn’t take
volunteers (she says she’s too much of a perfectionist, wanting to do everything
herself and I can understand that), but Nicky’s JK teacher does.
This year, Gail has become a Beaver leader. Last week,
we were talking about the fact that Ryan is in his last year of Beavers; next
year, Ryan will be a Wolf Cub, and Nicky will start Beavers. I asked Gail if
she’d move up to be a Cub
leader with Ryan, or stay with Beavers. She said “Maybe I’ll stay with Beavers,
and you can be a Cub leader”. I have no idea if she was serious or not, but I
have no interest in being a Cub (or Beaver) leader. I like the program, Ryan
seems to enjoy it and I think Nicholas will too, but I simply have no interest
in being a leader.
Here’s where the relation to the previous story comes in. Does the fact that
I don’t want to volunteer for Beavers make me a bad parent? It seems that if I
volunteer, I’m a great guy who gives up his own time to help children. If I
don’t, I don’t care about children — and that’s just not the case. It’s not
like I want to dump my kid at Beavers so I can go drinking, or so I can have an
hour’s peace without the little brat around, nothing like that. I just don’t
think I’d be a very good leader. I also think it’s important to have the kids do
something without us around. If Ryan goes to extra-curricular events at the
school, Gail is always there, since she’s usually the one organizing
them. She knows more teachers at his school than he does. We’re on a first-name
basis with the YMCA people who run the child care program. Now, Gail’s going to
be at every Beaver meeting and event. I suppose we’re not in the pool with him
at swimming lessons every Saturday, but that’s about it.
Now that I think about it, though, I was considering volunteering to coach
his baseball team next summer, because I love baseball. So maybe it is selfish
after all.
There’s a kids show called Go, Diego, Go! — a spin-off of Dora the Explorer. It occurred to me the other day that if you add a space and some punctuation, you could rename the show “Go Die! Go! Go!”
Does Jerry Falwell know about this?
The tooth fairy will hopefully be making her first visit to our house tonight!
Ryan lost his first tooth this morning. He told us a couple of weeks ago that
his two front bottom teeth were loose, and he’s been wiggling them ever since.
This morning while brushing his teeth, one of them came out. The other one is
really loose as well, so it probably won’t be long before it comes out as
well.
Ryan was very excited by this event, and while Nicholas was excited for Ryan,
he was quite upset when we told him that he probably won’t lose any for
another two or three years. In his words, “Why does Ryyyyyyyyan’s tooth fall
out and not meeeeeeeeeeeee?”
When Gail was a kid, only one of her teeth fell out by itself. The rest all had to be extracted, and to this day, Gail is not a big fan of dentists. When Ryan told us his teeth were loose, she was as excited as he was, and she was positively thrilled this morning when it fell out. She’s very glad (as we all are!) that he won’t have to go through the same dental nightmares that Gail did.
Saturday night update: Ryan’s second tooth fell out today! We forgot (!) to put the first tooth under his pillow last night, so he’s got two teeth under his pillow tonight!
Last Friday, something happened at Ryan’s school that I never figured would happen in the small quiet town of Waterdown: the school was evacuated because of a suspected bomb. One of the caretakers was on the roof of the school getting tennis balls and such that had been thrown up there, when he saw a pipe sealed up with tape, and a wire sticking out of it. He told the head caretaker, who told the vice-principal, who called the police, and they evacuated the school (all 700+ students, plus 50+ teachers and staff) into the gym of Waterdown District High School, which is right next door. The bomb squad was called, and they sent their robot up onto the roof, which knocked the bomb-like thing down onto the ground. When it didn’t explode, they blasted it with a water cannon, which destroyed it. What they found inside was puzzling: two batteries taped together and an empty bottle of white-out. I believe they took the contents to their forensics lab, where they will hopefully pull some CSI-magic and find out what idiot (or idiots) made this fake bomb.
I am certainly no explosives expert, but I don’t get this. White-out is almost certainly flammable, considering there’s alcohol in it, but would it explode when connected to a couple of batteries? If it would, would the explosion be powerful enough to blow up the pipe that they were inside, let alone do any damage to anything around it? My guess is no, but even if that were true, what’s the point of using an empty bottle? On the other hand, if the idea was to make something that just looked like a bomb, then why put anything inside it at all?
The discovery happened around 10:30, and I happened to find out about it earlier than most other parents. I was working at home (as I do every Friday), and had headed over to the school around 12:00 to do a couple of quick administrative things for Gail (school council chair, dontcha know), and that’s when I saw all the police tape and stuff. I went back home, and then my neighbour came by a couple of hours later to say that they were asking parents to come and get their kids, so I went over and got Ryan. This was about 1:45, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, since their lunches were all still in the school. I asked him what they had done while in the gym, and he simply said “we sat”. They apparently put a movie up on the screen in the gym at one point, but he didn’t know what movie it was. The principal sent a note home to all the parents on Monday explaning everything, and also saying that the police had told him repeatedly that this was the most orderly and speedy forced evacuation they had ever seen. I suppose it served as an emergency preparedness test, which they passed with flying colours, so something good came out of it.
Ryan
Ryan made a Father’s Day card for me at school this week, and presented it to me today. It’s got a drawing of me wearing a Toronto Rock jersey, and there’s a little survey inside called “Meet My Father”. Here are the questions and answers:
Well, my name is spelled wrong, I’m 36, and my hair is brown, but apart from that, the rest are right. Especially the last one.
Nicholas
This evening, about 20 minutes after I put Nicholas to bed, he came downstairs to tell me that he thought there was a bear in his room. He’s never been afraid of bears before, so I think this came from the movie Over the Hedge, which we saw last weekend, and which featured a large scary bear, voiced by the large scary Nick Nolte. Anyway, I took him back upstairs and told him that there were no bears in there. I told him “Mommy and I don’t allow bears in the house. If one comes to the door, we tell him to go back to the forest where he’s supposed to live, and he goes away.” Nicky, who incidentally just turned four, continued along those lines — for a second. He said “If a bear is in my room, I’ll tell him ‘Go away bear, go back to the forest’. Then I’ll whack him in the nuts.”
I doubt he even knows what “nuts” refers to. I’m sure he got it from Ryan, who may or may not know what it means himself, and probably got it from some older kid at school.
Here are some exerpts from a book my son is writing, called How to be an Effective Nicholas. Nicky is generally in one of two moods — Joking and Upset, which the book describes as follows:
Joking Mood
When you’re in a joking mood, everything is funny. Mommy or daddy (or Ryan) saying “No” is funny. Squealing at the top of your lungs or punching your brother (or anyone else) is funny. Getting told not to squeal or hit people is funny. Inventing a meaningless word and then immediately asking what that word means is funny. Sitting or standing in the same place for longer than 3 seconds is not funny, so don’t do it. When someone asks you a question, it’s funny not to answer, or if you do, it’s funny to give a meaningless answer or one that isn’t true — here’s an example:
Daddy: “Nicky, what do you want for a snack?”
Nicky: “Grapes”
Daddy, approximately 15 seconds later: “Here are your grapes”
Nicky: (yelling,crying) “I didn’t want grapes!”
Note the immediate switchover to the upset mood. Also, having something taken away (“No, you can’t watch Scooby Doo because you’ve been hitting Ryan”), or being given something that you didn’t want (even if nobody knew that you didn’t want it) instantly switches to the upset mood. This is particularly important for critical decisions like what colour of straw to drink your apple juice with, or whether to put your shirt or shorts on first when getting dressed.
Upset Mood
When you’re upset, you can either ignore questions or simply answer “I don’t know” — make sure you don’t move your lips when you say anything, so that your voice is unintelligible. You must always pout and hang your head as low as possible (should you be sitting at the table, make sure your head actually hits the table, and ignore any pain). If standing up, you should immediately sit down, lie down, or walk dejectedly out of the room. Crying is not required, but encouraged. If your brother is nearby, hit him, even if he had nothing to do with the reason for your upset-ness. Nothing is funny, unless you’re being physically tickled (as an attempt to get you out of the upset mood) — in that case, you may laugh during the tickling, but the pouting must return upon cessation of said tickling.
Of course, every now and again, Nicky is looking at a book or playing with a toy and is having fun without jumping around and squealing, so there do exist other moods; we just don’t see them often.
It’s been almost a year since I started my weekly guitar lessons. Still no Grammy award, but I’m certainly better than I was a year ago. Favourite songs to play: Blackbird by The Beatles and The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin (though you have to retune the guitar for that one, which is kind of a pain). The lessons have certainly been helpful, but more because I’m forced to get the guitar out at least once a week and play it. I’m getting some instruction in my technique, but according to my teacher, that’s good enough that I don’t need much instruction there, just practice. My problem is music theory, and while my teacher does go over it, I’m not retaining much of it. At one point, he was explaining relative chords and stuff, and suddenly a bunch of stuff made sense — I even understood why the guitar strings are tuned the way they are, and not simply to a chord. Of course, a couple of months later, I don’t remember any of that now. It’s not my teacher’s fault, though, I just have to get off my ass and put more time into learning that stuff.
It’s my son’s birthday! Nicky turns the big ‘4’ today. I can’t believe he’ll be starting school (JK) in the fall. We got a package from the school just yesterday about it – his teacher will be Mrs. Tilton, who is new at Greenleaf. We were hoping Ms. Urfey would be his teacher – she’s taught JK at Greenleaf for at least the past 4 years, and is really good. She, however, wanted to move over to teaching grade 2, so they had to bring in another JK teacher. Nicky is looking forward to school, though I don’t think he has any clue what’s in store for him; then again, does any kid starting JK? Probably not. I think the teacher might have her hands full with him, until she can (hopefully) tone down his joking moods, when he loses control of himself, and “no, Nicky” doesn’t really mean anything. Hopefully Mrs. Tilton will have more luck doing that than we have, since she presumably has more experience in dealing with small children than we do. He’s also got three full months before he starts, so maybe he’ll grow out of it by then.
Update: Nicky’s teacher will not be Mrs. Tilton. We requested that he be moved to the A stream (i.e. Wednesday, Friday, and every other Monday rather then Tuesday, Thursday and every other Monday), and they have already done this for us (Gail being chair of the school council may have had a hand in this), so his teacher will be Mrs. Tyrosvoutis. I think that’s the right spelling, anyway – the kids call her Mrs. T. I pity da fool who pronounces her name wrong.
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Ryan seems to be turning out to be quite the little mathie, just like mommy and daddy. The other day he got in trouble at school for throwing his shoe or something like that, and he and another boy (grade 3 – Ryan’s in grade 1) were told by the teacher on duty to stand against the wall and count to 100 before they could go play again. Ryan decided to count by 5’s rather then 1’s, and had left the wall long before the other kid had. Not what the teacher meant, to be sure, but hey, she didn’t specify!
Then this morning he was putting together an alphabet puzzle he has – each letter other than A and Z has 2 puzzle pieces, and A and Z have one each. He noticed that the box said ’50 piece puzzle’, and came to me and said ‘daddy, 26 plus 24 equals 50’. I asked him how he figured that out, and he told me that he knew that there were 26 letters in the alphabet, but that only 24 of them had 2 pieces in the puzzle, and since there are 50 pieces in the puzzle, 26+24 must be 50.
It ain’t rocket science, but he’s only 6 1/2, so I think (totally unbiased proud poppa) he’s doing very well.
On the work front, ASA finally got its Common Criteria certification today. This has been in the works for over three years, and I’ve been the engineering point person for the project. I’ve referred to it as “The project that wouldn’t die”, but I guess it’s now officially dead! As long as we don’t decide to do the whole thing again for Jasper…
P.S. A very happy birthday to my wonderful wife Gail, who turns today!
Cut The Chatter, Red Two 