The End of an Era

Today was Toby’s last day at daycare.  It’s the end of an era and I wasn’t sure how to mark it for my own sense of closure.  When Toby slept in a bit this morning I panicked that I wouldn’t be able to take him by myself.  When I had to work late tonight I was anxious that I’d be too late to do the final “pick up”.  All day I walked around with a lump in my throat and a sense of mourning.

Toby has SUCH good friends at Duntroon – 3 boys in particular that  he refers to as his “Buddies”.  The thought that I was sending him off this morning to play with his buddies for the very last time was heartbreaking.  When I asked him if he was sad he said, “No, I’m not, mommy, cause it’s EVERYONE's  last day.”  The guy CLEARLY didn’t get it.   Drop off this morning was unlike any other; he raced for the first plasma car he could find and launched into a car race with his buddies before I’d had a chance to drop his knapsack in his cubby. Getting him OFF his plasma car to take a picture with his “daycare moms” was almost impossible.  

All day, the finality of today was on my mind.  Thankfully when I picked him up tonight he was one of the last kids to leave; I don’t know if I could have handled watching him say a final farewell to any of his buddies or his teachers.   As someone who is notorious for not being overly sentimental or much of a crier, I certainly appreciated the reprieve from a situation that almost certainly would have brought me to tears.

The ride home from daycare was uneventful and eventually I was home safe with my psychologically tenuous day behind me. I had made it with my reputation in tact.  No one, including myself, knew that today was a really difficult today for me emotionally; I had made it through with my secret safe and undercover.

And then, without thinking about it, I went to empty his backpack.

I pulled out some dirty shorts, a few pieces of terrible, half done artwork (lets face it, Toby is NOT an artist) a bottle of sunscreen…and a bear and a ratty old blanket I haven’t laid eyes on since Toby was 18 months old.

And it all came flooding back to me. 

Although it was 3 years ago, I remember it as if it was yesterday; packing up my baby to go to off without me for the first time, into the intimidating land of daycare.  I packed his favourite blanket and the bear that had sat by his side at Sick Kids hospital when he was so ill.  They have been with him on his little bed at daycare since that very first day.

I grabbed these long lost treasures and final mementos of my little baby boy in a  fervent embrace, letting all of my pent up sentimentality out as I hugged and smelled them.  They both smelled of daycare.  I burst into tears.

Toby ignored my tears and grabbed for his bear and blankie.  “Give bear to me, Mommy!  I’m going to introduce him to his new friends!”, he said excitedly as he ran downstairs to his room to place bear with his other beloved stuffed animals.

And just as bear will make “new friends” with the numerous other stuffed animals in Toby’s room, so too will Toby meet some new friends in kindergarten this fall.  I guess I have to be OK with that; it’s all part of his journey.  But I know that wherever he ends up, whatever friends he makes, his very first friends, the Duntroon Buddies, will always have a very special place in ALL of our hearts. 

Happy summer, everyone…

Father's Day Performances

This Fathers Day weekend we celebrated with some much-needed quiet time at home as a family.  We caught up on European Soccer, lawn mowing, BBQ cooking and sleep.  It was just what we all needed!

Today, we celebrated with Rob’s favourite breakfast, Toby’s soccer practice, putting the docks in the lake, and a rainy afternoon showing of the movie “Annie”.  It was the first movie I saw in a theatre as a child and I LOVED it. I was SO excited to show it to Toby, but was shocked at how SAD it was!!!!  Toby stated afterwards that he didn’t like it but I think he was reacting to the fact that he had to sit there for 2 hours listening to me sniffle away. (I’m not much of a crier- - Toby caught a rare glimpse today and didn’t know quite what to do with me…)

Father's day evening, after an early family dinner, we sat down to what has now appeared to have become a bit of a Henry family tradition; a post dinner performance for the lucky parent whom we are celebrating that day.

You may recall the botched attempt at my “birthday parade” from earlier this year.    I will leave it up to you to determine which “show” was worse.  Let's just say, I don’t think we are making MUCH progress as a family, although Toby DID try to preemptively mitigate things this time by outright REFUSING to allow Mia any role at all in the performance.  And he also stated that it was NOT a parade.

I will leave you with the first and last takes so you get the full idea and can judge as you please.

Before you view, however, please note :

1.  I did not dress Toby today.

2.  My role tonight was to be the official announcer.  (I’m not just being bossy.)

3. In take #1 I am not laughing AT my son getting hurt, I’m laughing at the slow, dramatic cry that accompanied it.

4. You may notice that by take #2 the “fire race” has been downgraded to a dance party to Rob’s guitar music.

5.  Learning from the "king of Pop" himself, Toby ends his show by grabbing his crotch.  It's subtle- don’t miss it!

The gift of friendship...

It has been another crazy weekend here at the Henry household…so crazy, in fact, that I feel compelled to share. 

A long while ago I started planning (in conjunction with numerous other keen Thunderbay-ites) a reunion weekend for our friends in Thunder Bay.  Organizing a time when 8 couples from across Canada (Ok, fine Ontario and Manitoba) can come, en masse with children and spouses, and gather all together is next to impossible.  Believe it or not we FOUND the PERFECT weekend and I just happened to be June 9^th.

That was, it SEEEMED like the perfect weekend until I went to write it on the calendar and realized we had a wedding in Toronto that Sunday.  That was around the time that Rob called up from the basement to remind me that it was also the weekend before his report cards were due.

Ok, so maybe not QUITE the perfect weekend.

As it turns out, it was also the weekend that Mia would come down with hand, foot and mouth disease and Toby would develop his 27^th bout of croup.

I am triumphant in my announcement that I SURVIVED the weekend. But not only did I survive it, I come away feeling completely exhausted, slightly jaundiced and…completely rejuvenated.

Every second of our weekend was planned and jam packed, but amid the chaos of flying, catching up, eating, drinking and “getting there on time” we had moment after moment of pure perfection:  From the peaceful comfort of good friends chatting for hours around a campfire, to the total submersion in love that we all fell into, while watching two people who are so obviously MEANT to be together unite. Meeting the babies and children of friends I haven’t seen in years and watching little friendships form among them; sitting beside one of my longest standing friends at the wedding of another in the ultimate high school reunion; dancing the Horah in a room filled with the romance of the setting sun; rainy weather that can’t come close to dampening the spirit of children at a festival; serious life-and-death midnight chats over gin martinis and the midnight poutine bar. 

I can’t thank the world enough for the many friendships I have all across the country.  It is indeed overwhelming to celebrate them all in the span of one lowly June weekend, but sometimes in life, a little sleep deprivation is worth every minute.

Thank you, friends.  Until next time!

Yes, Toby is STILL funny...and random

Caught between the chaos of life with 2 and a full time job, I often overlook the random bits of funniness that come out of Toby’s mouth.    The number of times I hear my mother tell me to “write that down!” should be an indication to me that I should.  But I don’t.   This week has been a particularly funny one and I’ve collected a few random snapshots of my 4-going-on-40-year old boy.

Yesterday he and Grandma Lynda were bonding in the hammock.  Grandma was pretending to interview him and was asking him questions about himself; ‘So, Toby, what colour is your soccer jersey?  What did you have for lunch today?  What is your favourite sport?”  Toby was right into it.  Soon Grandma turned the game around and asked Toby to interview her.  “OK!” he said eagerly, “Grandma…WHAT is my name?” He asked.  My mom explained to him that when he was the interviewer he had to ask HER the questions.  Toby thought about things for a minute before finally coming up with his opening question, “Grandma.” He said, very seriously putting the pretend microphone up to her mouth, “Do you have…a hairdresser?”

How’s THAT for random?

Not 24 hours later, on a completely different subject in some other mental zone of Toby’s stratosphere, we were having dinner tonight when Toby proudly announced that there was a new kid at daycare whose name was “Eminem”.

I asked him to repeat the name about 4 times for clarification and it was indeed not a mistake.  Toby is unwavering in his nomenclature; the kid’s name is EMINEM.

Navigating through the rest of the conversation was a difficult one.  I in no way wanted to plant an idea in Toby’s head that this child’s name was at all anything to make fun (or take note of) but I was indeed VERY curious.  So I started with some neutral questions.  Was Eminem a boy or a girl?

You would THINK this would be an easy one.

Toby thought and thought.  As I waited with pretend ambivalence he chewed his bagel and cream cheese, contemplating in lavish slothfulness while I waited with baited breath.  Finally, after swallowing his mouthful, wiping his face with his napkin and taking a sip of milk he cleared his throat and said,

“I don’t know.  I’ll have to ask.”

WHAT!??!?! How do you not KNOW what sex s/he is?

The questioning from my part got even MORE challenging at this point.  Is there a politically correct way to point out clues to a child’s gender without reinforcing dated stereotypes?  It took a good bit of thought and mental trial and error before I came up with my next careful question: 

“Whose group was Eminem in?”

“Erin’s”

(Well THAT got me a lot of information).

“What sort of things did Eminem like to do at daycare today?”

“Oh,” Toby said casually, “Eminem just kept coming over to my group.”

Finally Rob got exasperated by my cautious approach and took it upon himself to get some hard and cold facts. “TOBY” He said directly in an exasperated attempt to get some semblance of a concrete answer “Does Eminem play with TRUCKS or DOLLS?”

I could see the hard work on creating a gender-neutral-approach-to-life dissipate with that one simple and terrifyingly revealing question.

I did what any LOGICAL parent would do in such a situation:   I offered the both dessert.

And so I leave you with the mystery of Eminem.  Did a famous rapper disguise himself as a 3-year-old androgynous member of Erin’s group today at daycare?  Or does the booming metropolis of Duntroon host a family who has boldly chosen the name of Eminem for their politically-correct-and-slightly-ambiguous-child?


As always, the truth is out there.  Between me, my loud mouth and somewhat random son, and my politically incorrect husband, we WILL get it for you.  But until then, I'll leave you with the one question I can answer : YES, my mother DOES have a hairdresser.

Toby's First Soccer Game

I feel I must give you an update on Toby’s first soccer game. 

With all of the "Harold lessons" I could deliver, after weeks of counting down the sleeps, Saturday eventually came and my parental lessons in sportsmanship were put to a test.

The first step of ANYTHING when it comes to Toby is getting over his shyness- factor.  When it comes to any new situation (no matter HOW exciting or prepared he is for it) there is always the very REAL possibility that he will revert to
“shy Toby”, hide behind my legs and absolutely refuse to participate. 

Luckily, the prospect of choosing his very own NUMBERED purple soccer shirt quickly negated this possibility.

The next potential hurdle is a possibility with ANY four year old ANYWHERE in the world.  Sometimes, no matter HOW excited they are, they may just change their mind, start hating (insert said activity), cross their arms, sit down in the middle of wherever they are, and refuse to have anything more to do with whatever fun activity they had been counting down the minutes to engage in.

This, too, we averted by the arrival of his friends Meredith and Sam who ALSO got to choose purple shirts with REAL numbers on them.

The practice went smoothly with every 4 year old taking their turn kicking, shooting, running and crying in alternating succession.  Finally it was time to put Toby’s lifetime of practice to the test; it was time for his very first (ten minute long) soccer game.

This is where motherhood once again stepped in to remind me that I am no longer in control of who I formerly was. 

I got nervous.

It was 4 on 4.  Ten minutes.  No referees and no scorekeepers.  Why on EARTH was my heart racing at a million miles a minute?

The game itself was somewhat like herding cats that had been given copious amounts of female hormones and then shown the final scene of Love Actually while drinking red wine.  Tears, temper tantrum and erratic movements that made absolutely no sense to anyone who was watching ensued while the parents helplessly watched from the sidelines.

Somewhere, from the depths of my mommy-ness, came a fierce feeling I have hardly ever felt before.   It took every ounce of m strength to contain myself from not jumping up and down and screaming, “GO GET THAT BALL, TOBY, AND SHOOT!!!!”

Finally, after mustering up his courage, Toby got the ball and was off on a breakaway.   As I screamed with excitement from the sidelines he made it all the way down the field.  As he approached the net my heart was in my throat HOPING the he would make the shot and be able to live out his great dream of SCORING a GOAL in a REAL soccer game.

As he lifted up his foot to shoot he suddenly stopped (WHAT WAS HE DOING?!?!?), turned around (TOBY, THAT’S THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!!) and passed to his teammate.  (WTF?!?!?!)

(What a clever child-- it turned out to be the coach’s daughter to boot.)

I am happy to report (for my own sanity) that he DID get a few goals during the rest of the game, but his proudest moment came afterwards, when his coach praised him for being the “first four year old EVER to actually PASS the ball.”

So it seems Toby may have actually learned a lesson from our nightly reading of “Harold B Wigglebottom Learns about Sportsmanship”.  I wonder if they make a version for soccer moms, too?

(This is him enjoying a well deserved plate of strawberry waffles after the game...you can tell he worked up an appetite!!!)

Curbing the Competitive Nature in Him

The more I get to know and love my son, the more I like to think he is similar to me in many ways.  But there is one thing about Toby that is a NOT like me; Toby is the most COMPETITIVE person I have ever met. He always has to be the first one dressed, bathed, up the stairs, down he stairs, in the car - -you name it!  He has to be first. If we take two cars somewhere he asks who is going to drive away first and demands to be in that car.   When we watch sports he always cheers for the team that is going to win.  At the dinner table his apples fight with his peas over who is going to get eaten first.  It is NEVER ENDING and INCREDIBLY monotonous to someone who doesn’t give a hoot about sports or rankings.

  Rob and I have seen this innate sense of competition in him, but didn’t realize just how bad it was until Rob innocently won a game of memory with him a few weeks back.  The temper tantrum that ensued was earth shattering.  His jaw froze with a wail so intense it was initially silent.  As his lips turned purple and his eyes began to bulge his tight little fists grabbed the table in a death grip. I wasn’t sure EXACTLY what sound was going to finally come out of him and we just all sat there in complete wonder as we awaited the verdict.  Even Mia, too, was awestruck by it.  And then the silence broke – game pieces were scattered across the floor, chairs were overturned, tears flooded the floor and the walls shook with the sound of his heartbroken wail.

I burst out laughing. 

It was, quite honestly, the most ridiculous thing I’d ever witnessed

After Rob felt it was safe to let me out of my impromptu time-out, Toby had settled into a low grade sobbing with the occasional stuttering, “I…. LOST (sniff sniff)…at…. Memory…and…Daddy (sniff sniff)…. BEAT ME!!!!!! WAAAAAHHHHH”

I think you get the gist.

Ever since then we have tried our hardest to curtail this innate need to win with measured lessons in “coming in second” and daily reminders of fairness and sportsmanship.  Some days, depending on my morning energy level, I even let Mia brush her teeth before him. (!!)  We are making (slow) progress.

But as we approach the start of Toby’s first ever soccer season, we’ve had to kick up our efforts into high gear.

Toby is a sports and (in particular) soccer FANATIC.  He would play soccer 24 hours a day if we let him.  Most of the time he is forced to play with is imaginary friends but those games are just as “intense” as real games and I am constantly being updated on the score, who scored what goal and the distribution of yellow cards.  My great fear is that he is going to bring this intensity with him to his first soccer game this weekend and scare the crap out of every other 4 year old on the field.

AND his coaches.

And so I bought Toby a new book.  It is called “Harold P. Wigglebottom Learns about Sportsmanship.”

It is a story about some sort of animal that is really a human (you know the kind…I think this one is a dog) who loves soccer and is REALLY good at it but is OBSESSED with winning.  (Sound familiar?)  It details a particularly ridiculous tantrum (no, I have not plagiarized the plot of this book in the opening part of my blog) and then talks about a soccer game in which Harold gets kicked out for being unsportsmanlike.  Finally his coach puts him back in and he is given he opportunity to score the winning goal but passes to a friend instead.  The friend doesn’t make the shot and the other team ends up winning but Harold (miraculously) doesn’t care and is, in fact, PROUD of his 2^nd place trophy because he was a GOOD SPORT.  (It is SUCH an unrealistic story and OBVIOUSLY not written by anyone who has ever met a kid who has the innate gene for competition like Toby…but that’s beside the point)

Toby listened very intently to this story.  His mesmerization and intense concentration reminded me of my initial reaction to Einstein’s theory of relativity; it shattered everything I had known was constant about the universe and challenged my brain to think in another dimension.  I suspect this notion of “NOT WINNING” had a similar effect on Toby’s brain.

At the end of the story I gave him a few seconds to digest things and then asked him what he had learned from the story.

“Well…”Toby said very slowly and precisely…”I learned…that…. the final score was THREE to TWO and that the BLUE team won!”

It seems we still have a wee bit of work to do…

Advances in Language Development

The way I remember it, Toby was a very advanced in his speech and language development.  Even though it sounds like I’m bragging, don’t worry, it will soon be mitigated by the self-depricating reality; it was all a maternal mirage of first-born-bias. Toby DOES have a great vocabulary, but lets just say it wasn’t EXACTLY as we had remembered it.

Sometime after Mia was born, Rob and I were looking back on videos of Toby and reminiscing.  We came across one in which I knew the punch line before we had even pressed play.  Although it had been years since I’d taken the video,  I CLEARLY remembered what it was about.  Toby was about 15 months old and he LOVED blue berries.  In fact, he loved them SO MUCH that he would ask for them by name; a skill I thought was nothing short of genius at the time.  This video was taken in his highchair as he awaited his next blue berry.  His quiet shyness merely serves to accentuate the suspense towards his brilliant linguistic triumph that comes at the end of the video.

As we watched the video together I forewarned Rob about the ending so he didn't fall off his chair in astoundement by his near-perfect-and light-years-before-it-was-expected-developmentally pronunciation of the word “BLUE BERRY.”

Here’s the video.  You can see for yourself the fatal crash and burn effect it had on my ego.

After that preamble, I am now going to share with you the first of MANY videos we will likely take detailing the brilliant milestones that Mia will achieve on her own path of language development.  In this video, however, you can CLEARLY see which parent has learned from past experience…

For the record, I still think it sounds more like "Da-da"...