Tag Archives: family

My legacy as a…son

The PolyBlog
August 10 2021

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about “who I am” and how I describe myself. I even wrote a psych profile of myself. Me, trying to step outside myself, to see myself more objectively. And I started thinking of who I am as I approach retirement, what I want to have accomplished in my life by the time I pass on, etc. Somewhere in there, I started to think of it a bit as a simple question. What is my legacy from having lived? What difference did I make, what will people remember about me?

I realized early on that it depends very much on my various roles. If I go chronologically, the simplest legacy is my first role in life, as the son of Jack and Theresa. I had no legacy as a grandson as I never really knew my grandparents, I only had a grandmother left when I was born and she died when I was very young.

It’s also odd to realize too that my legacy as a son, who I was as a son, is a finite area. My parents have passed on, my ongoing duties to them are (mostly) finished. Sure, there are other things in life that I could “credit” to them having been my parents, but it is not necessarily in my role as their son. That period is officially over.

In the first 20 years of life, I don’t know that I generated much of a legacy. My father was proud of my academics, my mother probably felt like she didn’t understand me. I didn’t really understand either of them very well. I also feel like I probably seemed ungrateful, that my desire to move out, to graduate from university, to get a white collar job, etc., all seemed like somehow I was better than them. It wasn’t true, but it’s hard as a teen to realize that when you say you don’t want “x”, and “x” is what your parents want for themselves (or have at least achieved for themselves), there is inherent in that striving to better myself a judgement of what came before. Not intentional, not malicious, just there.

I was the Golden Child for my mother, that was clear, as her youngest always was, I suspect. As the last of the children, I got to keep the title and prize belt longer than the other kids. A mix of pride and expectations, not necessarily the “favourite”, more that I could rarely do wrong.

My legacy with my father

My legacy, such as it is, is probably three-fold.

First and foremost, from age 20-28, I got to know my Dad better than ever before, oddly enough from a distance. I had a better understanding of his life choices, perhaps simply reflecting the cliché that teens leave home thinking their parents know very little, yet see a few years later how much the same parents have learned in the meantime. However it came about in phone calls or from verbalizing our feelings more, I feel like he passed on with neither of us having anything left undone or unsaid. I would have liked another year or two to really solidify what we had, but nothing that would rise to the level of actual regret. I was his son, he was my father; we loved each other and we both knew how the other felt. I honour that bond when I tell my own son that I love him every day.

Second, I did my father’s eulogy. I am not quite sure that is a legacy, since he had already passed on, and we only decided after he died that I would be the one to give it. It’s a double-edged honour though. I did it, yes, but I cried my whole way through it. I doubt anyone understood a word I said. I am proud I did it, or perhaps more honoured that I had the privilege, but I wish I had “performed” better as his son.

Third, I also helped my mom after his passing. He knew I would do it, it was part of the deal we made when he appointed me co-executor. He expected and I accepted that Mom would need help, and while we didn’t discuss it in detail, it was assumed that I would be the one most likely to be able to do it without Mom feeling like I was telling her what to do as well as the duty not interfering too much with my non-existent family since I was still single. I like to think he approached his death knowing whatever needed to be one in the early stages, I would step up.

My legacy with my mother

When I started writing this, I thought the two legacies would be very different. I had a very different relationship with each of my parents, yet as I tried to describe the key variables, I find myself using the same structure.

First, again, I had a good relationship with my mother before she passed. There was nothing left unsaid or undone. As desired by my Dad, I helped her immediately after his death with a bunch of financial stuff, paperwork, etc. I still remember her telling me the day he died that she needed me to keep it together, for her and myself. At least for a little while to get through everything. And I mostly did, up until she felt comfortable doing it all on her own. I don’t know that she really needed the help, but she did appreciate it.

More importantly, to me at least, I had (mostly) reached the point where I saw her for who she was, not some childish thought of who I wished her to be. Acceptance, as they say. There were two or three things near the end that I would prefer she hadn’t done, but it was who she was. It didn’t change how I felt about her and I didn’t judge her for them, even when they annoyed me. She was 84 years old at the time of her death, having lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War; lost parents and siblings through war and aging; married and outlived her husband by another 17 years; raised six kids and lost two babies to miscarriages; worked in stores and as a cleaning lady; smoked and drank; loved trivia; and laughed whenever she could. She could be a force to be reckoned with, when she wanted to be.

Second, as with my father, I did her eulogy too. I worked my ass off to make sure I could get through it, that I could read it without crying the whole time. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I got it done the way I wanted. I have a photo on my PolyWogg website taken the day of her funeral, a remembrance of life out at the lake, with the water as calm as I had never seen it before. Eerie almost. Yet I use it to remind myself both of my mother and that I was able to honour her the way that I intended.

Third, the last part again is dealing with her estate. When my mother was in palliative care, she asked me to do three things. I was somewhat sad to tell her that two were beyond my abilities to control, and that with a family of my own, I would not accept the requests. I essentially chose to say no to two deathbed requests. That rankles me, in the abstract. She understood why I said no, and while disappointed, she wasn’t angry with me for my choice. She asked because it was something she hoped for but accepted my refusal. And I would give the same answer today.

The third request was tied to her estate, and as I had already agreed long before to be co-executor, it was more of an “add-on” to the previous request. I knew it would be unpleasant, I would much rather that I had said “No way, Jose”, but since I was already saying no to two other requests, I agreed to that one. It seemed to give her some peace of mind that I was willing to take it on. It got done, it was unpleasant, but I did what was requested. I mentioned above that I felt I was “mostly” done with my legacy, but there is something outstanding. I agreed with my siblings that I would eventually scan all my mother’s photos and share them with them, and while I’ve started a couple of times, I have no real desire to do such a large and potentially depressing project. Sigh.

And yet…

I find myself wondering if there are more things to include here, like the legacies FROM my parents to me…loving books, movies, trivia, jokes. Preferring informal over formal, small get-togethers over big events. The importance of telling my wife and son that I love them, as well as my siblings. I would tell my close friends too, but well, that can get a bit creepy hehehe Yet I feel like those other legacy gifts to me will all show up in the other legacy posts.

Overall, I guess that I feel comfortable with my “legacy” as a son. Which is good because it’s not like I can change it at this point without time travel. 🙂

Vaccine reactions

The PolyBlog
May 18 2021

If you clicked here thinking I was talking about physical reactions, you’re only partially right. Mostly I’m more interested in the emotional reactions.

In our household of 3, we all have slightly different medical issues that raise our individual and collective profiles to higher-than-average risks. I already posted about my experience Joining the herd, and my emotional reaction when my wife hugged me afterwards, a “lighter” overall reaction than I was expecting from myself. I thought I’d be shaking when I left the office, or emotional in the car, or dancing a jig. Instead, it was rather ho-hum.

We were waiting for Andrea’s number to come up in the pharmacy lottery at various locations and then one popped up for a mass vaccination option on a weekend at a school. She registered, it all went through, and she had her appointment. I felt almost as much relief that SHE had an appointment as when I got mine. YES! She went in the a.m., lined up in a field more or less (they had set appointment times, it wasn’t a long line or anything), got her jab and came home.

Physically, I dealt with headaches and fatigue. She also got the Astra-Zeneca dose and had sweats and chills. She said she woke up in the middle of the night freezing, colder than she’s ever been in her life. Anecdotally, people are saying/estimating that your degree of reaction to the vaccine is likely the same degree you would have to the actual disease, but of course there’s almost no evidence either way. It’s a popular thought, with no way to test it, but it’s somewhat comforting almost as well as disturbing. “Oh, it’s good that I got it because if that was my reaction to the VACCINE, imagine my reaction to the disease!”.

At any rate, that put us at 2/6 shots for the house. I felt almost more relief I would say at her having hers than me having mine. That’s not some sort of altruistic thing, it’s just a mark of where my stress lies.

The big news

We have been interested in the news around the approval of various vaccines for kids, and the cut-offs. First it was good for people 18 and over. Then some news showed up where studies had tested down to age 16. Then 12. Now they’re doing some trials all the way down to infants. And as I said in my last post, we estimated he might be able to get his first shot in the fall.

But Ontario has been making some progress, having passed the 50% “first shot” threshold recently. In a conversation with a social worker we chat with at CHEO about J’s anxiety issues around a pending surgery and other topics, we mentioned that he is confirmed for return to in-person school in September and that we were really hoping for him to get vaccinated with at least one dose before then. I figured maybe 2 doses by Xmas, but there wasn’t much information out there, honestly. Not local anyway.

The social worker told us that CHEO was now doing vaccinations for some of their clients, and were reaching out to those in various conditions. This was fantastic news, of course, although it would likely mean nothing for Jacob, we thought. He’s not a super-high-risk overall, although he has some respiratory issues, and interactions with other conditions would be unpredictable/unknown. Mostly, it’s a mental health issue, if I was characterizing it definitively, at least currently. We’re in lockdown, we have been doing the “right” things for 14m. We don’t take risks. The recent lockdown makes almost no difference to our life, the only thing that changed was more curbside pickup than previously.

We talked about it, mentioned our excitement to hear the news, etc. and two hours later, CHEO called us to offer us a spot. We have no idea if this was linked to the conversation, or was more because of possible surgery coming up, or just we were next on their list in some category. We didn’t care, we said yes immediately.

They also said we could bring up to two caregivers over 16 with us (i.e. the parents or someone else if we already had our shots). We tried to see if we could squeeze his cousin in (she’s only 14 though), but alas, no. Unfortunately, by the time they got back to us with the answer, it was too late to randomly grab any friends or family in need of a shot to go with us (the names had to be provided in advance). So it was just Jacob.

He went in with Andrea, got his jab, all good, and over the two days that followed, he had a slightly sore arm with no other reaction to the Pfizer shot.

When no reaction is the reaction

Yet again, I’m not talking about the physical. Jacob got his first shot; this has been my single largest source of stress for 14m, worrying about him, wanting and waiting for him to get vaccinated so I could breathe out. And when it happened? I shared it on FB, but, well, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t jump for joy. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel some weight being lifted from my shoulder. I tried to. I actually tried to “lean in” so to speak to the experience, to force myself to feel it, and there was something there, I’m certainly happy FOR him and WITH him. But no giant “hurrah”.

Yet we have reached the mid-point. Three out of six shots, and a strong likelihood our household will be fully vaccinated BEFORE the end of the summer. This is HUGE.

The biggest news in our household since the pandemic started. And that’s not just me thinking it. Everyone that I’ve told about Jacob’s news has reacted the same way. “Holy cow, that’s amazing!”. Because it is ground-breaking. Parents? Sure. Us? Sure? But our kids getting vaccinated? That’s huge!

Yet I feel almost let down by my own reaction. How am I NOT reacting more strongly? Am I just numb? Is it the languishing thing still? I can talk about it, I sense some “relief” resonating inside somewhere. But 20 minutes afterwards, it was like “What’s next?”.

I still feel like there should be some sort of milestone marker that happens. A “V1” stamped on your forehead with indelible ink that only fades when you get V2. A giant pinata you get to smash on your way out, shaped like the Corona virus molecule. A lollipop for getting a needle. SOMETHING that says “Your life is different now.”

Ay, there’s the rub

As I wrote that last paragraph, I had a small epiphany with myself. This is often why I write my blog. Because as I write, I uncover what I’m thinking but having trouble defining, an act of articulation where a phrase pops out of my mouth where I go, “HEY! Look at THAT! THAT’S IT!”.

My life didn’t change. Andrea’s life didn’t change. Jacob’s life didn’t change. We got jabbed, and we still live in a pandemic world in lockdown. Just as the new lockdown barely changed our lives, having our first jab has made zero difference either. We’re still getting up in the morning in a Groundhog Day world of computerized plug-in until lunch, meeting together for sustenance, plugging in again until dinner, sharing sustenance again, doing something together after supper (currently binging Supergirl), and then bedtime at some point for each of us. The next day, we wake up, and Sonny and Cher are singing “I Got You Babe” on the radio.

Getting jabbed is a precondition for the world opening up again, for our world to change, but it has a much longer incubation period than walking out of the office and hoping to break a pinata. And I’m not sure that I will or can feel that “hurrah” until we can do something normalish. Last summer, after the first wave, we were excited to go out for dinner and eat on a patio in Norland, Ontario near the family cottage. I’m not sure what this year or the end of the pandemic looks like to me.

I think we all need an End-of-Pandemic Bucket list. A top ten list of things I want to do when things are open again. Really open, not temporarily open.

What would be on your bucket list? How are you going to mark the occasion? How will you “feel” the world is open again?

Clarity of hindsight vs. in the moment

The PolyBlog
February 3 2021

I have been having a strange recurring thought over the last few weeks. It isn’t a new thought, it’s more an occasional thought that has come up with previous experiences that become clearer in hindsight than they were in the actual moment.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about not seeing something in a moment, and then realizing days later. I mean events that you have experienced, went through with planning and awareness, carefully considered things, thought about them before and afterwards, and then later, something twigs your memory and you think, “Huh. That’s weird.”

I have an experience with a friend from back in the day that didn’t go the way I had hoped. In fact, it ended the friendship. And I felt maybe if I had said x or y, maybe it would have changed things. Maybe I could have handled it differently. Taking responsibility for the outcome. Yet years later, I was reflecting on it after something twigged my memory, and it was suddenly so clear that I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it before. It didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say, the outcome was already determined by them before I ever started the conversation. It was a stage play, I was just the only one thinking it was improv. Yet both before and afterwards, I had never thought about that as a likely or even possible interpretation. But when I thought of it, it was so obvious as to leave me thunderstruck. I reflect on my life daily. Yet such a basic realization had escaped me. Huh.

And sure, I know that there’s a body of literature out there that suggests these moments of clarity, or perhaps “new clarity” or realization, happen because the emotional content of the event has dissipated. Unblocking you from processing it more rationally. I get it, I can see it, I can even think in some instances that is likely what was happening. In part because when I thought back on it, I followed the same pathway into the event that got me there in the first place. But for the new realization, my memory was twigged in a different way, and I went back to the memory along a different path from normal. And thus literally gave myself a whole new perspective in coming upon the memory.

As a metaphor, it works. But it also works in reality for another memory I have had. We used to shop at a Towers store in Peterborough, which eventually became a Zellers and a Walmart. There is a grocery store attached which was a Dominion, and then I think a Food City, and either Food Basics or Price Choppers now, can’t remember. Anyway, when I was a kid, it was one of the two big box stores (the other being Kmart) where we would go to get Christmas presents, maybe some clothes (if it wasn’t Sears), etc. And yet I was thinking of the store one time and I could NOT picture what it looked like inside. I could picture the outside more or less, but I could not at all remember what the inside looked like. Until I remembered they had a different set of smaller doors on the other side of the store with a very small parking area, only one row. My mother ALWAYS parked over there. As soon as I remembered that, I could remember coming in that door, and voila, my memory was unlocked and I could remember where EVERYTHING in the store had been.

The metaphor for a similar revelation mostly works. If I go in one door, I follow the path as far as I can. Go in another door, a whole different path.

What event is playing with my brain?

In short, my wedding day. And more pointedly, the role of my mother in the wedding day. Going into the wedding day, I had several plans for how to avoid any drama with my family. I wasn’t worried about Andrea’s family, but mine has always been dysfunctional at the best of times. Add in formal settings, people being uncomfortable, everyone together, alcohol? Not a great combo.

So I planned ahead. I didn’t want any drama with my “best man” selection. I had a couple of early ideas, just to balance out Becky as Maid of Honour, but they didn’t work out, and I did NOT want any family drama. I don’t even know if there would have been any between brothers, as I have three main brothers and three more in-laws. I was close with my brother Bill when younger, then my brother Don in my teen years, and my brother Mike in my adult years. I spent a lot of time with my brother-in-law Ken when I was early teens, and Bob was a pretty comforting presence when my Dad died. And if I went with just “time” in recent years, that would be Dean who is a great guy all around. So I have six family members who could easily step up. Not to mention a nephew, Brian, who I was close to for a really long time, albeit not so much now that life has intervened and become more complicated. Chris would have done it too, so 8 right there. Before I even get to 3-4 friend choices. And I considered three before deciding it just wasn’t going to fit right. So I did it sans Best Man.

But then I got creative. I asked Mike and Bill to make a toast for my father to give them a role, and had Bill get me the drink for the toast plus scripted Mike so he wouldn’t get inappropriate. Don was tagged as an usher at the church, along with a close friend and a cousin. My sister Sharon covered off her family with a speech to welcome Andrea to the family in lieu of my mother, my sister Marie and her daughters helped out with decorations and Mom wrangling. A nephew and niece agreed to take some extra photos to supplement the official photographer’s collection.

Drama happened anyway, but for the most part, I kept it at bay and didn’t engage. Not my problem to worry about.

But early on, my biggest worry was not the drama but the impact on my mother. This would not be the first family event since my father had died, but it would be the most prominent one for him to miss. And she would be coming alone, so to speak. I also knew that she would want to pay for stuff that she couldn’t afford to pay for, and so early on, I made the decision that has messed with my head a bit in the last few weeks.

I let her completely off the hook.

I wanted zero pressure on her. So I made sure that she didn’t worry about organising or paying for a rehearsal dinner. She and my sisters did a shower, and she put a lot of work into that, which in retrospect, I wish I had paid more attention to her role in. My one sister tends to take over anything she’s involved in, cutting out others and ignoring their input, but I wish I had had a few moments alone with her afterwards to just sit and decompress and to thank her for it. She had a bad day that day, and she didn’t want me to pry, but she had invited a man to come that she had been sort of seeing. And he flaked on her. He called to apologize and she let him have it. He was attempting some BS about forgetting or whatever and she cut him off at the knees and told him she never wanted to hear from him again. She was alone, and she was feeling the letdown. But it wasn’t an area her and I could ever share, nor would she want me to try, and I let her off the hook on it. Now, with Jacob, I see how he reacts to things and even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I want him to know that I see his pain, I know some of what he’s going through. Even if he chooses not to talk about it, I want him to know. With my mom, I knew, and I think she knew, but I’m not sure. But that’s not quite the right issue either, mostly just additional context to how far I could go and/or didn’t.

As the summer progressed, I was so focused on making sure she wasn’t feeling pressured, I don’t think I ever stopped to figure out areas where she might have been feeling pressured anyway. She came up for the cake tasting to help choose a cake, which I thought she might like. I consulted her on my ring choices. I talked to her about ties a bit.

But as I was processing the wedding photo galleries in recent weeks, a thought occurred to me. Andrea, like most brides, had her hair done that morning. Along with her sister Becky (as maid of honour) and her mom. What did my mom do? Now, remember, my mom was no spring chicken at this point, she was 81 years old. So we weren’t wanting to tire her out in an otherwise long day, but it never occurred to Andrea or I to see if she wanted to be part of that “outing”. I’m sure she would have said no, but it bothers me it never occurred to me.

Equally, my sister was insisting that my mother had to have a new dress, and my mom was not interested. So my sister went ahead and bought two dresses anyway so she could try them on. I thought it was overkill, my mom didn’t want a new dress and she was 81yo. Pretty sure she could make up her own mind about that.

But could she? Did she say no because she was feeling “out of it”? Of course, the mother of the groom would normally get a new dress. Particularly if she doesn’t have others hanging in her closet ready to go. She had one from a year or two before, but certainly for any other wedding in the family, she got a new dress. For mine, I was basically telling her she could wear whatever she wanted, to take the pressure off, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I let her off the hook too much. She looked great, I loved her dress (one of the ones my sister suggested).

I got one thing right, at least sort of, anyway. When we were at the theatre, waiting for the event to start, and I was running around making sure everyone had what they needed — ushers, musicians, the Minister, greeting some guests — my mother was sitting for awhile by herself at the back of the theatre. I feel bad about something that happened that I didn’t do right.

Because I was the one getting married, I let my 5 siblings handle mom wrangling for the morning to get her to the theatre. I would look after getting her from the theatre to the picture taking, and from pictures to the boat, and one of the siblings would take her back to the hotel afterwards. It was covered, I didn’t have to worry about it.

But apparently, there was confusion at the hotel that morning. My mom was nervous walking over to the theatre (about 3 blocks), and being late, so she got ready early. She was in the lobby when one of my siblings came down to come over, and so she latched on for the escort and made it over to the theatre early. Unfortunately, my one sister had been planning on bringing her over and she didn’t know my mom left. So they were looking for her at the hotel, she wasn’t there, they were all freaking out, finally found out Mom had gone ahead, and she was ticked. After wrangling her, buying her a dress, getting her here, etc., my sister was pissed my mom was so ungrateful that she didn’t even tell them she was leaving to come without them. Frustrating, sure. I get it. Nerves, drama, blah blah blah. But she chose to lay into my mother about 15m before the wedding, with my mom sitting there by herself, feeling a bit lost, and thinking mostly about my late dad. I saw it and I did nothing. Not my church, not my pew, not my problem. Other people were wrangling my mother today.

Yet, of all the things in my life that could be a possible regret, however much I don’t believe in them, I regret that moment. I should have thrown down, kicked my sister’s ass to the curb and let her know, “No, on my wedding day, nobody gets to talk to my mother that way.” I know, I know, it was not my job to regulate their relationship, and my mother never needed my protection. She survived the Great Depression, WWII, had six kids and two miscarriages, buried almost all of her nine siblings, took care of her family, worked, and buried her husband. She had seen some shit in her life. My sister’s rant probably never raised a blip on her shit meter. But it bothered me. Even though I know that if I had reacted, my mom would have felt it was her fault for not waiting originally.

Anyway, I’ve thought about all of this before, then and since, and except for the hair or dress, all of those things were already known. But I missed an opportunity right after that event. Or more accurately, I didn’t take as much time with her as I should have. We went over to the side of the theatre, out of prying eyes, to have a small “us” moment.

She brushed my jacket with a lint brush, helped check my hair etc.. It was nice, but it was only one of three short moments we really had all day. In retrospect, I kind of wished I had an extra 30m in there to just sit and chat about nothing before the ceremony started instead of having to rush around. Maybe even, gasp, play a game of cribbage or something. Just a quiet ritual for the two of us.

Later, during the formal pictures, we did have a small moment while other shots were being taken where I gently mentioned Dad not being there, but we didn’t talk, just sort of stood there watching the photos being taken, and she squeezed my hand. I think, in part, that I was hoping she would open up about what she was feeling, but that wasn’t really our kind of relationship to discuss that in that way, at least not then. Closer to her death, perhaps, as our relationship changed, but not then.

Finally, during the dance, we had a short dance to the wedding song for her and my dad. “My truly, truly fair”. I’m not much of a dancer, but I will remember that dance almost as much as the first dance with my wife.

What the hell am I even talking about?

I’m not sure I know. Some of it is regret, to the extent I can even ever feel it. Some of it is loss for my mom, with a sense of missed opportunity. But most of what triggered this is the reality that I was consciously aware of the issues with my mom long before the wedding, and I planned in a way that would minimize the pressure on her. I actively managed things for the year so that she wouldn’t feel stressed that she needed to do something. I wanted her to just enjoy it, not feel like she had to “deliver” on anything. But in doing so, we missed opportunities that looking back, maybe we wouldn’t have missed if we, well mainly I, didn’t try to make things easier for her throughout the lead-up. Maybe I was trying to protect her from me when I should have been letting her have more of a role so she wouldn’t have felt disengaged if she even did.

I just find it odd that in hindsight, certain choices we didn’t even consider at the time now seem clear from a weird memory twig, rather than when they were fresh, when we were consciously in the moment, and when it went according to our original but incomplete plan. Huh.

Today I choose to celebrate a milestone (TIC00054f)

The PolyBlog
September 19 2020

If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably already know that Jacob was not really enjoying school that much last winter. French immersion, social isolation, a split class with a bunch of Grade 6 kids, winter…he wasn’t feeling it. So he was resisting big time in January and February, on top of the strikes that were going on.

The shutdown was like a dream come true for him. No commuting, less work, a new laptop to do everything on, no need to argue about recess activities, better lunch options. His teachers adapted and coped with what they had to work with, but there wasn’t a lot of support out there for them. The end of the year was a “thank god it’s over”-type moment.

Normally we celebrate first day of school and last day of school milestones. For the first day, Andrea takes pictures either at the bus stop or the front of the house; for the last day, we always leave early from work, go do something and then out for dinner wherever he wants.

For his first day back today, we were keeping it a bit low-key for a virtual return. Everybody else who is doing in-person is already back to school like his cousins and a bunch of his friends. Today was his first day.

As I said, I was initially trying to downplay the “bigness” of it and we told him in advance that it would be a big adjustment from going with relatively light structure and no work to suddenly 6.5h of class time, 9:00-3:30 essentially, although there are breaks in there of course. And a real full setup with the teacher actually “teaching” for a full day, as opposed to his spring options which were about 30 minutes per week of live feed and the rest by email.

My mind totally futzed on the french immersion side of things, namely that he had been doing hardly any french since March except for schoolwork, and even then, very little “active listening”. Today was a wall of full french immersion with a new teacher who talks fast.

For anyone who has learned French as an adult, or English, we know what that’s like when you haven’t spoken it in a while and suddenly WHAM, you’re back in. When I was on french training, and we had a vacation or break, it was like coming back and starting from scratch almost.

As soon as I realized he was hitting that wall, I also realized we had underplayed his return for the wrong parts. Or rather we had tried to reduce his stress levels while totally forgetting to extra-celebrate his start of Grade 6. We had already made sure to take the pictures this morning, with his commute simply being our stairs (!), but by 9:30, he had hit that linguistic wall. We rearranged our dinner plans a bit for tonight (mostly reviewing what we had already thawing in the fridge) to let him pick anywhere he wanted to go for dinner to do an “extra” celebration of his new school, new virtual life, new grade, etc. Plus we “stopped by” his desk multiple times during the day to see how he was doing.

I’ve reached out to introduce ourselves to the teachers, do a little of the dance with them on social inclusion (seeing basically if we can lay some markers for him for specific people he can do group work with), and Jacob was thrilled today to see who was in his class. He knows 8 other people from Knoxdale, and I would say at least 4 of them are people he actually likes (not always a guarantee). So he’s part of the Knoxdale Nine (my nickname for them) in this new virtual school, and he hung out with some of them after school today in the Google Meets. He REALLY enjoyed that part. Plus the English and Math which were in English.

For dinner, we celebrated his first day — and his survival! — with Lone Star as his choice. Like me, we love their fajitas. We know they HAVE more things on their menu, we’ve just never ordered many of them.

Then a game of cards, and it was crash-y time for a tired little boy. A good day and I’m glad we recovered in time to celebrate the whole day, not just the start of the day. Hard to remember normal stuff in a COVID world, but we did.

Today I choose to celebrate a milestone in full.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to play a game (TIC00042d)

The PolyBlog
September 1 2020

That doesn’t sound like a very exciting topic, does it? So I played a game? So what? How is that a decision that warrants a blog post about making choices?

It seems weak, to be candid, even to me. But here’s the thing. Andrea and I worked all day, and Jacob was pretty much on his own for most of it. I was even tied up over lunch, so mostly ate snack stuff. To be honest, I ate like crap today. But I digress.

Anyway, after supper, we were looking down the barrel of about 2 hours before the cub would head to bed, and we are in the middle of watching Eco-Challenge Fiji with Bear Grylls (we had watched the first two episodes so far). And we watched American Ninja Warrior last night.

Which is something we tend to do. We watch a show together…when I was J’s age, I was watching TV shows probably every night with my brother or parents. I read a lot, but we didn’t break out games very often, more on weekends or holidays. Or I’d be out with friends. Remember that? Going out to play? Sigh.

But the only one who really watches anything on his own is me. I watch a lot of shows in the basement, including a lot of current TV. It’s my thing, to watch and review every September when the premieres start, which ain’t really happening much this year, btw.

Yet Andrea rarely watches anything on her own and Jacob never does, unless it is YouTube videos about gaming. I’ve been trying to hook him on some TV series, but nothing has really grabbed his interest yet. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Fraggle Rock, The Flash, Star Trek: The Next Generation, etc. A bunch of different types of shows. I still have A-Team, Macgyver, Airwolf, Night Rider, The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie’s Angels, etc. He likes mysteries so I’m trying to see if he would like some of the old stuff that was cleaner / more censored and had a weekly mystery, all wrapped up in 44 minutes. Murder She Wrote, The Murdoch Mysteries, a few others are possibilities too.

Of course, though, I feel a little silly pushing him towards the boob tube, but it’s better than isolating himself in YouTube videos.

So we could have just watched a couple episodes of the Eco-Challenge. He loves American Ninja Warrior, Titan Games, Amazing Race Canada, etc. But I also don’t want him binging that one out and being “done”.

And tonight I thought, “Okay, maybe one episode, but perhaps we can start with playing a game as the three of us first.”

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t that unusual. We have games sitting on our kitchen table at one end because we play regularly throughout the week. Moonshot Euchre has been in our rotation for quite a few months now, partly because it is a game all three of us can play almost equally. Jacob takes more risks, Andrea plays more conservatively at times, I take stupid risks. 🙂 But we all generally win at different times. Andrea hasn’t won many lately, just luck of the draw, but it averages out over time. Sometimes we have other games sitting there too.

But tonight I thought we should make an effort to play a game before heading to watch a show. Just more interactive, more talking, more “us” than vegging. Andrea and Jacob had already been interacting earlier, before supper, it isn’t his only social thing, but it was about the only socializing I did with him. We’re struggling, or at least I am, to balance my work schedule with taking breaks during the day to spend time with him. And his previous routine of having at least one class a day with OutSchool dropped off because he was supposed to be back at school and we didn’t schedule anything new. Now it looks like the 18th before he’ll be back at school, depending on what happens with some labour-related lawsuits by teachers.

Tonight I choose to play a game with my family before sitting down to watch TV together as a family.

What choices are you making?