Blog Chocolate

Quirky

There are many words one could use to describe my son ... happy, bright, funny, sweet, shy, charming, cute and focused (seriously). However, there is one other word that is used even more often in many a conversation ... quirky. I think it is the polite way my friends try to say "odd". I like "quirky" and, quite frankly, it suits him.

You see, Little Sunshine has spent the last five years enthralled in a series of unusual obsessions. We've all known the kid who wants all Dora all the time or won't go anywhere without their Spiderman. It's that same enthusiastic, single-mindedness that has prevailed in our house but with rather unexpected results. It is the reason he never asks for any toys for his birthday and struggles when making his Christmas list. What's more, I can never predict the next passion. I do know that once he's chosen the object of his affection, it's in our lives for at least 6 months. (I told you the boy is focused).

With that in mind, I present to you the chronology of Little Sunshine's quirkiness...

Age 2: CIBC. Yes, that would be a banking chain. He thought the logo was fabulous and it was the first word he could read. In fact, CIBC was the catalyst that caused his reading to explode as he taught himself to read every other logo in sight (his art director father's apple clearly didn't fall far from the tree). He would collect pamphlets on mortgages and banking products every time I'd go to the ATM and beg to open an account. One day I asked if we opened a 2 year old's account, could it come with a bank card (it was all about the bank card). They sent out a manager who gave Little Sunshine his business card. Mr. Kahn. He still remembers it with astounding clarity. We booked a "meeting" for the next day to get set up and he was so excited that he barely slept.

Age 2 1/2: "Don't Drink and Drive". He first noticed the icon used in our provincial don't drink and drive campaign on a highway sign. He couldn't wait to get home and look it up on the computer. He'd print out logos from the Mother's Against Drunk Driving site until the cows came home (okay, we don't have cows). He'd tell anyone who'd listen not to drink and drive ... because you might spill and get in an accident. He even had a button that he wore every day with the passion of a seasoned advocate. We once saw a police officer at a restaurant and Little Sunshine was so excited to tell him that it is "never ever ever okay to Drink and Drive". The cop bought him a cookie. Might have been the proudest moment of his young life.

Age 3: Ikea. The child could not get enough of Ikea. We would go no less than once a week (2 or 3 times a week in the winter months). And just hang out. He never wanted to buy anything and he's never been in the ball pit. He'd relish the chance to collect the free pencils and pamphlets and measuring tapes. We'd walk through the entire store and he'd notice when the various displays would change. He had the catalogue memorized and was fiercely proud of his collections of bags and brochures. His teachers used to call him Mr. Ikea because he'd draw maps of the store when they were doing arts and crafts. We did make one important purchase, he affectionately named "Kiss Heart", that still sleeps with him to this day...

Age 3/12: Airlines. So you are thinking, okay that's not so quirky. All little boys like planes. Not airPLANES. AirLINES. As in Air Canada, Mexicana, Air France. But his very favourite was JetsGo. Just smitten with the kid friendly logo (I swear the boy watches almost no TV - he picked this one up on a family vacation). It is all he could think about and talk about for months and months. Again with the website and printing out photos. Until it happened ... his beloved JetsGo went bankrupt. The day it hit the news was a very difficult one in our house. I felt like I had to try and explain why his dog died. When we got to pre school, his teacher grabbed me and whispered ... "Did you hear about JetsGo? What will we do for Little Sunshine?" He spent weeks explaining to everyone what bankruptcy meant and how he could never fly on JetsGo again and all of the nice people would have to find new jobs. At five he's switched over to Air Canada. When his dad goes on his frequent business trips, his only request is to bring back branded luggage tags or airline magazines as a gift.

Age 4: the Subway. The glorious TTC. This one is still very much alive and strong actually. We moved back to the city 2 days before his 4th birthday, with much apprehension on his part. We were looking for things to show him that Toronto had that the suburbs didn't. His first ride on the subway clinched it. He went on to memorize the order of every station on every line and would plead to be taken on loooooong rides where we get out at every stop to collect a transfer. He can accurately tell you the wall tile colour of every single station (he likes the Chester, Young and Bathurst the best). When he'd misbehave the only effective discipline tactic was to ground him from the subway. We have shoe boxes filled with transfers in his room and, in the event of a fire, they would have to come with us if he were not to be permanently scarred for life.

Age 4 1/2: Bowling. Admittedly, this one is not terribly unusual. But it was definitely the most painful. My boy-genius wanted nothing more than to be a professional bowler when he grew up. He joined a league where there were only 2 children under the age of 8 and we went every Saturday morning for 2 hours and bowled. Every Saturday. For a year. And let me tell you a little something about parents who proactively sign their kids up for bowling ... I don't have a hell of a lot in common with them. I tried. Really really tried. But hearing one dad scream at his son for not being committed enough to his sport, sent me fleeing in the other direction. He has personalized bowling balls, a real bowling pin from eBay for his room and endless dollar store plastic bowling games. We even hosted his fifth birthday party at the bowling alley. It was all bowling all the time. I can't overstate this enough .... ALL. THE. TIME. I thought I might die.

Age 5: Golf. While many of the past obsessions are still very much present in our lives, they were replaced by the focused determination to become Tiger Woods. Golf. Golf. Golf. All day. Every day. On TV. On the computer. On the playstation. In books. In magazines. At the park. At the driving range. Always wearing one of his Tiger Woods hats. He uses his allowance to buy golf balls. It is intense really. But this one ... this one I am absolutely embracing because it is my New Retirement Plan.

He'll be 5 and half soon and we are awaiting with interest what our next obsession will be. My parenting philosophy has always been to just roll with it. If he is excited about something, I let him be really, really excited about it. I don't want him to feel silly because he is enthusiastic about interests different than other kids his age. He's creative and expressive and committed. Its actually pretty fascinating to behold. And, I am grateful he isn't into swords or army toys or contrived superheros ... I'd much rather he have boxes of subway transfers and go around preaching the perils of drinking and driving. It could be worse. But, then again, maybe I'm quirky too.

I love quirky.

Living In Me

Her Bad Mother has posed a question about how a mother can put into words that for which there is really no word in the English vocabulary to describe ... the physicality of the love for one's child.

The powerful connection a mother feels to her child begins long before they first lock eyes. My son was a physical part of my heart even before he was conceived. And when I was pregnant I gave my body over to him. I was aware in more than just an observant way of his every move. I was aware in a primal, intense, magical way.

When I first touched his infant skin it was with a knowing that enveloped me completely and everything in the world stood still for that instant. Even the horrible parts of early breast feeding were so raw with love. Physical love. I knew my body had nurtured him with sustenance for 9 months but with nursing it was the first time I saw what my body meant to him. The sense of power and responsibility were beyond overwhelming.

The physicality of my emotional bond with him is most poignant for me when he is in pain or sad. His cries. That cry. Even now his pain causes me to physically ache. I feel it in my uterus and in my chest. I don't choose that description for symbolic effect. I feel his sadness in my body. It is what instinctively drives me to him.

I was not an especially physical person before the birth of my son. I gave good friends a hug when they needed one, but usually was very aware of personal space and gratuitous touching. But my son ... I am addicted to him. As an infant I loved the softness of his skin and the warmth of him sleeping curled up on my torso. As a toddler I loved his cubby hand that held tightly to mine and his hugs that squeezed with a grip that made my eyes swell. As a boy I love our morning cuddles and kisses on the cheek. When his dad is away and he crawls into my bed to sleep, I love that he slumbers holding my hand or touching me. He feels so much safer and sleeps so much sounder with that physical connection. So do I.

The word love seems inadequate to describe how I feel about my son. My body sings it loudly. My heart knows it intimately. But the words? The words escape me.

I have tried to explain the physicality of my love for Little Sunshine to him. He feels the stroking of his hair. Understands the million kisses each day. Comprehends the words. But, the concept that has rung truest for him has been the idea that our hearts beat together. His heart beat with mine when he lived in me for 9 months. And, in so many ways, he still lives in me.

Thank You Little Sunshine

Dear Little Sunshine,

I started out writing a Happy Birthday card to you because today, my little man, you are 5. But I have realized that I should really be writing a thank you card. For that is a more sincere representation of how I feel today. I am so grateful to celebrate another birthday with you and to have you in my life.

Thank you for teaching me that I knew nothing about what the word "love" meant before I first felt you kick inside of me, or hold on tightly to my finger or look into my eyes.

Thank you for filling me with such powerful emotions that my tears and my laughter are so much more than I knew possible.

Thank you for those late night quiet moments together to sing a lullaby or cuddle you back to sleep.

Thank you for letting me see the world through your eyes so that I might remember the beauty of a lady bug or of a leaf or even of the subway.

Thank you for crying out my name when you are hurt and sad and for letting me hug you and talk to you until it is better.

Thank you for telling me I am the best mom even when I don't always feel that way.

Thank you for showing me that the future is full of opportunities for you and for I to make a difference.

Thank you for looking so much like your gorgeous Daddy so that I can see the love that created you in those beautiful brown eyes every day.

Thank you for giving me excuses to watch kids movies, sing goofy songs and eat ice cream.

Thank you for squeezy hugs, butterfly kisses, and morning snuggles.

Thank you for bringing play back into my life and for our endless hours with all of your favourite games.

Thank you for making me laugh with your special sense of humour and the wonderful, creative words that come out of your mouth.

Thank you for being smart enough for the both of us.

Thank you for making me so proud of you each and every day.

Thank you for your gentle heart and loving soul.

Thank you for inspiring me to be a better person just for knowing you.

Thank you for making me want to fight for a safer and more just world because you are in it.

Thank you for showing me that miracles can happen.

Thank you for giving me the best job I have ever had ... to be your mom.

Happy Birthday sweetie. I love you.

~Mommy

xoxoxoxoxox

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BTW ... The bowling birthday party was a raving success!!! He had a grin from ear to ear the entire time. The kids were manic but loved it and the t-shirt party favours were an enormous hit. I was so touched to see how loved he was by all of his friends and how appreciative he was for the special day.

Oh and .. apologies for this mushy, gushy, teary, cavity-inducing post. I am sobbing my over-emotional butt off here. This realization that my baby is a 5 year old is hitting me harder than I expected. This usually-together-girl is a puddle today. A puddle with a 5 year old...

A Four Year Old Boy and His Tampon

That's right, Little Sunshine has discovered the tampon drawer.

Actually, he first became interested in this feminine hygiene product when he was about 2. He was going through a phase where he would become fondly attached to really unusual objects and want to sleep with them in his bed. They initially consisted of things like DVD cases or free sugar packages from restaurants. But then he found a tampon. He thought it was lovely. Fit just perfectly into his hand and he didn't want to part with it. The first time Mr. Good Taste came home from work late and went in to check on our sleeping cherub only to see him curled up with a tampon, I thought he was going to pass out. The horror. What was I doing to our son?! He'd need months of therapy to get over this. Years. Decades.

This coming from a man who can't even look at a tampon box without getting squeamish. I bet he didn't even make it to this far in the post because he'd have read the word tampon 6 times. Tampon. Tampon. Tampon. Okay, I am little mean, he's not really that bad.

Little Sunshine snuck it in his school bag to show and tell once. The preschool teacher called me to let me know and she was laughing so hard that I could barely make out what she was saying. She told me that she'd had the kids bring in some pretty unusual things before. Until my sanitary-needs-loving-guy, her next best story was a pool noodle. He went down in her memoirs that day.

I saw my dear friend, Martini Mom, last week who told me about her own 2 year old boy who has a full-fledge tampon fascination of his own these days. Full of questions and a penchant for going into her purse and ripping them all open. I felt better to know I wasn't alone.

Little Sunshine's interest in tampons waned almost as quickly as it began and we hadn't heard a thing about them for almost 2 years.

Until today.

He was snooping around the bathroom as I got ready for work and came across mommy's drawer. He pulled out the Tampax box and a big handful of its contents. He spent an inordinate amount of time studying them. I didn't say a thing. Didn't want to freak him out or unnecessarily reawaken his fetish. Then he looked at me and said, "These are the prettiest things I have ever seen. I really like them." When pressed for WHY he really liked them he said, "The wrapper is really nice. Mommys are so lucky."

If he only knew.

I could have been a super cool, progressive mom and burst his bubble right then and there with a premature sex-ed talk. But there is plenty of time before I send him fleeing from the sanitary napkin aisle in horror.

At least he is old enough now to be reasoned with about leaving them behind for show and tell...

Shades of Beige

Little Sunshine has been talking a lot about colours lately...

On the weekend he started saying things like..."Daddy looks like Tiger Woods because he is brown. And I look like Daddy so does that mean I look like Tiger Woods too?"

Recently he told me about a new school friend and at the end of an enthusiastic dissertation about their adventures on the playground, he said: "And mommy, he is beige too. But when I told him that, he didn't know what I was talking about." To make sure I knew what he was talking about, without taking a breath, he went on to remind me that white and brown make beige the same way that red and yellow make orange and blue and red make purple. He completed his explanation with a matter-of-fact: "You plus daddy makes me. And I am beige and my friend is beige too, so he must have the same kind of mommy and daddy."

For those who read this blog and don't already know me, you may have gathered that Little Sunshine has mixed heritage. He's inherited a fabulous combination of Mr. Good Taste's stunning Philippino blood with a dose of my pasty complexion thrown in. Raising any child will bring the responsibility for us to help them navigate the issue of skin colour in a respectful way. It is an important job we have - one I know my parents missed the boat on. To complicate things further, raising a biracial child will have opportunities for lots of conversations like the one we had about beige.

I didn't correct or criticize his choice for self-identification (although a colour like caramel would have sounded more fun than beige). We speak very openly about his dual heritage and he knows his two flags and has been exposed to food and some traditions from both of our backgrounds. We don't make a big deal of it in general but don't ignore it either. We look at it as one other amazing, unique thing to celebrate about him.

What is most challenging for us, and undoubtedly will continue to be so, is that we are raising a him in a world that still sees people by race and color, not individuality. Since he was a baby, strangers stared and asked questions like "Is he yours?" People love to categorize. When a person doesn't fall into what one might call an "obvious group", they invade your space to get more info. The question that upsets me the most is "What is he?"

Both sets of grandparents adore him but have more than once made it a point to note that he doesn't look quite like them. True. He looks like himself. So he's not tanned enough to look Philippino and his eyes lend doubt that he could be Acadian like my folks. But why does he have to be categorized at all?

From the first day of their lives, multiracial children are the object of unusual attention. Although mostly positive, it still feels unfair that he has to field the questions about if he's adopted or where his father was born that other children don't. He has to search a little harder to find other children he thinks are "like" him. But at the same time has a much more intimate sense of race issues than some of his peers because of his own exposure.

My creative little boy will decide how he wants to identify himself and if he wants to align more closely with any one community or heritage. It is good we live in one of the most wonderfully diverse cities on the planet. I think he is beautiful and I will be right by his side lending a hand along that road. I know I'll not be able to walk in his shoes but I will be there to support him.

With that in mind, I saw this recent colour-fascination as a good excuse to start to talk a bit more about it. I embarked in on what I thought was a very interesting and accessible way to explain the whole idea. He was smiling and nodding and seemed to be really into it. And just as I was feeling most proud, and about to get to the whole point of the story that I was telling him to illustrate the idea of racism, he said..."Mommy, is this really important? I have to go poo."

Maybe he does have it all figured out. It isn't important to him yet. As he gets older I am sure he'll find his own way to embrace his world ...in all his self-proclaimed shades of beige.

My Son's First "Celebrity" Crush

Okay so maybe "celebrity" is a stretch but calling it a crush sure isn't.

Little Sunshine is in luuuuuve. I saw this coming when he started calling some of his gal pal playmates "girlfriends" and told me his preschool teacher was the best because she was cute. But this is different. My sweet little man gets completely embarrassed when he talks about the object of his affection. He even blushed for the first time today. Blushed! Now this cannot be underestimated because 4-year-old boys do not embarrass easily. I mean he is at an age where he still goes to the bathroom with the door open, plays with his naughty bits in public and picks his nose in front of anyone (actually that sounds a little like most men I know). Let's just say embarrassment is an exception to the rule in his world.

You just have to mention her name and he giggles or turns red. I made the mistake of teasing him and sang the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song and he just about died.

But as I ponder his epic crush, I have come to the realization that I am exhibiting all of the warning signs of becoming one of THOSE mothers. I probably should be feeling completely neurotic about one day turning into a crazy mother-in-law or the kind of mom he'll never bring a girl home to meet.

So who's the woman in question? Well, Little Sunshine is hopelessy, madly, endlessly in love with ... Elastigirl. I know she's not real -- but his feelings are real. He had an Incredibles "action figure" from McDonald's and loved it so much it broke, and then do you think I could find a replacement?! That movie hasn't been popular for more than a year. Like the doting mom I am, I made the not so stellar choice of fostering this affair by hunting down another on ebay. It was the only thing to redeem myself after the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.

What is really on my mind now, as I dissect this beyond what any reasonable person should - is it okay that he loves Elastigirl? It could certainly be worse I suppose...it's not Pamela Anderson or Britney Spears.

On one hand, the feminist in me protests her unrealistic proportions (although she does sport sort of child-bearing hips so I'll concede a bit).

On the other hand, she is a strong, independent woman who can kick some serious ass.

I think the part that I find most curious about his first crush, is that he chose the mommy character to love. Hope there's no Freudian issues I should be worried about there. Or maybe she just reminds him of me. After all I bet if I really wanted to, I'm the kind of mom who could leap tall buildings in a single bound. See! I told you I was becoming one of THOSE mothers.

But all kidding aside, it is something to behold watching my little baby grow into a boy. I cannot begin to think for a moment of him having a real girl friend someday or growing any bigger. Fasten your seatbelt, mommy. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

The Big Boy Swing

Is it really true that coffee can stunt your growth??? Because if it is, there is an embarassingly selfish part of me that wants to go out and buy caseloads of java and serve it to Little Sunshine so he’ll stop growing … right this instant.

It is so cliché when mothers lament about how their children grow up too fast. But that is exactly what I am wrapping my head around today. I had one of those moments this afternoon that is going to be forever embossed in my memory. A new acceptance that time can’t stand still.

It was a deliciously sunny day today. The whole world seemed to come out of hibernation and try and drink up some fresh air. Little Sunshine and I joined in and took our first trip to the park. At that familiar park, I felt like I met my son for the first time again today.

Over the winter he has grown. I know, I know that should hardly be a surprise. But it didn’t hit me until we discovered that he is ready for the “Big Boy Swing”. Little Sunshine has always preferred the small swing with that little safe nest that allows mommy to give him the highest “under doggies” on the planet. Although he still would be glad to be squeezed into it this year, today seemed time for a graduation. But not just to the Big Boy Swing – in no time he had mastered the swinging motion without mommy’s help. A seven-year old that decided to befriend him, gave him some simple instructions ... and they were off.

I was no longer needed. Not at all. For a brief moment, it was almost impossible for me to breathe.

Little Sunshine relished in the most fabulous afternoon running around playing confidently with new friends and reaching new rungs on the playground equipment that he’d not been tall enough too before. I was so genuinely happy and excited for him. All coffee fantasies aside, I am deeply grateful to have been present to embrace every ounce of that moment in all its painful reality ... and profound sense of pride that only a mother can fully grasp.