A few months ago, as part of the “work-from-home” lifestyle that includes more time with my son during the day so he doesn’t have to spend all of it entertaining himself, we started doing small projects together. We worked our way through a few little things here and there, and then we moved on to a big Lego project — a Millennium Falcon. Then a wooden version of the ship, much smaller. We’ve done plastic model cars here and there, lots of gaming, a few other things, some practical set up stuff for electronic wiring, etc.
And we started working on a wooden model of a T-Rex. You’re given a large wooden sheet, 3 of them actually, and all the little parts are pre-cut/punched and just need to be separated from the main sheet. Then you take all the little pieces, and without gluing, nailing, or any sort of adhesive whatsoever, you put the pieces together. Sometimes it’s a little joint that holds four other joints in place. Or a shim between the toes and bottom of the foot that wedges into place and holds all the “bones” in place.
We did the first part of it over a month ago, assembling the feet and legs; after 30 minutes, I was ready to pitch it at the wall. And getting it together, holding eight pieces in place until the “lockpin” wedges into place was tricky. I felt it was near impossible, and I expected it was going to quickly turn into a project for just me rather than one Jacob and I could do together. About a week later, we tackled the second foot, and Jacob could do the first 90% of the leg until it came time to get the lynchpin/lockpin/wedge into place. I took a deep breath, examined the pieces REALLY carefully, went at it in a slightly different way, and CLICK. It snapped into place perfectly. No muss, no fuss. A second one did the same. THIS was the way it was supposed to work but the first one was off probably by a mm or two and it just didn’t “click”. After I saw the second one, I went back and adjusted the first one…it’s still a REALLY tight fit, but closer.
After that, it was mostly smooth sailing. There are only 85 pieces in total, but each step would wedge four or five in unique ways, and a couple of steps was about all our brains could handle at a go.
We did a marathon about 2 weeks ago, and burned ourselves out. So we’ve sat on it for a bit. Today, I wanted to get going again. We were close and I wanted to finish so Andrea and Jacob could have that table for another project that is pending. Jacob and I started working on it, went through a couple of steps, all good, and … wait a minute … that piece CANNOT go on THERE. That isn’t the way it is shaped. We were on step 16 or so, and waaaay back in step 5? I put a piece in upside down. A cross piece that now has other pieces that have to attach to it and it’s in the wrong way. PITA.
Jacob wanted to just keep going but we couldn’t. There was no way the piece would fit. So we backed off 11 steps, breaking one of the pieces in the process (grrrr…), readjusting that piece, reassembling a bunch of other pieces, all the way back to step 16 relatively quickly, then on to 17, 18, 19. And it’s done. Except it should be more upright, shouldn’t it? Oh crap. Way back at that same step 5, one of the pieces did NOT go into a groove the way it was supposed to…I can see it now, but the diagram in step 5 does NOT show that happening. So I didn’t do it, which means our T-Rex doesn’t quite stand completely upright. It is more a head-to-the-ground kind of T-Rex. But when you add batteries and a small noise pack, it DOES growl, roar and shuffle it’s wooden legs forward. Jacob’s view is “good enough, move on”, and I don’t blame him. But I’m stubborn enough that at some point, I will indeed back off 14 steps, fix the piece I messed up, and reassemble the rest just so I know it’s done right.
It was challenging and frustrating but a cool design. And we did it together. I wish it was more me helping him than him helping me, but we finished. And I could have gone in another way, set it aside, forgotten about it, but we didn’t.
We made a decision that today we would choose to assemble a T-Rex by hand and to finish the project.
Jacob really likes watching hockey — he keeps a playoff bracket list for some immediate friends and family, he has a blast doing it, and when the playoffs are on, he wants to watch every night. So it was a no-brainer to try and get Round 3 tickets here at home. They’re not cheap and Andrea didn’t think it was worth it for her to go, so I grabbed two seats for Jacob and I high in the third deck at the visitor blueline.
Last night was game 4, Sens were up in the series 2-1, and totally dominated the previous game. But I had some logistical concerns.
Jacob is in the midst of serial casting, so he is walking with two casts on his feet. Not ideal for getting from our car to our seats. Ideally, if Andrea had been going, I probably would have dropped them close and then parked. We likely would have struggled to the car afterwards or they would have been waiting awhile, but with Andrea not going, Jacob had to walk.
Not a big deal, he gets along pretty well with them, just some extra work and no alternative other than perhaps dropping him by himself at the door for 15 minutes while I parked. Not an option, obviously. He is still only (almost) 8.
And just for fun, the right cast has started to crack. Exactly where your shoe bends when you walk, about even with the base of your toes. Not uncommon, or unexpected, but can make walking a little more hazardous or annoying, depending on how far they have cracked. Still functional, and he gets along pretty well, as I said.
I was also a bit worried about the seats — would he have enough leg room? Cuz there isn’t a lot, the casts give him about a size 11 mens boot now, and he can’t turn it very easily nor is there any bend in it. It was a bit tight in the seats, but workable.
And I was determined that it would be a “fun” night, not me worrying openly, and so I told him it would be an adventure.
Everything went fine, more or less. Seats were okay, only issue was when people stood up in front of us, so hard for the cub to see. But I made sure he focused on the screen in those situations as he could see that higher up. So he was good.
Boring game though, for a Sens fan. The Senators didn’t show up for the first two periods. And he was excited for Period 1, but by near the middle of Period 2, he was drooping with boring play and it was later too, so tired.
Early into the third period, he needed his contacts out. We weren’t near a washroom, and I didn’t want him trying to navigate too many stairs if I could avoid it, so we did it in the seat. Dropping both of them into his lap as we tried it. Found them (it helped they are blue tinted against very white Sens shirt and Sens towel), got it done.
And then it happened.
The Sens scored their first goal and Jacob was excited. Lots of hoopla, and he was “part of it”.
Then they scored their second, and he grabbed my arm SO hard. He frequently cuddles my arm when I’m sitting beside him, and this time he wrapped his whole body around it and he was shaking and rocking, super excited.
It was awesome to see. I don’t even care that the Sens lost, or the price of the tickets, or the stress with the lenses, etc. I have never seen him as excited as he was when they scored, even if I’m not entirely sure he saw all of it.
Sometimes it all goes right. Thanks cub for a great evening.
If you follow Andrea and I on FB, you would have seen a post earlier this week showing Jacob in dual casts. My posts about “Becoming/Being Jacob’s Dad” are still back at age 3, so I haven’t covered yet the topic of serial casting and stuff, but I’ll give the highlights. Basically, Jacob legs are super tight, particularly his heel cord (behind the calf). Which means he walks on his tiptoes on his right foot. He can consciously put his foot flat, but eventually it will rise.
When he was four, we did something called serial casting. Basically they put an inclined plane / wedge under his foot at say 18 degrees. Cast it for a week, which prevents any other movement, and thus his heel cord stretches. Take it off, put another wedge in, 15 degrees. Another week, 12. Etc. Until it is down flat. It worked GREAT. Now he’s turning 8 and we need to do it again. There’s more to the story than that but that’s the basic overview.
We did the casting on Monday, and it was way different than what I was expecting. When we did it at age 4, they only did one leg. This time they were doing two, which we knew, but the casts are gigantic on him. Cast plus wedge, plus a support area. It’s like he’s wearing platform shoes. We bought him overshoes to keep them dry — Men’s size 13!
Transport was a question from school. I drop him in the morning, no problem there, but how would he get up the stairs on the bus? Could he? Turns out he can. Crisis averted, as I thought I was going to have to leave work every day at 3:00 to get him. Or they were considering a special medical van.
Everything’s fine in the end, but we were running around town buying extra cast shoes, and overshoes, and this and that, way more stressful than I was expecting.
On top of the fact that we are PUTTING OUR SON in casts for SIX WEEKS.
Sure, it’s the right call. I know that. But it STILL sucks. And when it is done, he’s going to need a second ankle-foot orthotic. He has been able to get along pretty well with just one, but his left foot has been compensating so long, that it is turning inward too much. We’ll need to straighten it. So he needs the second one.
And he already feels different having one. But to him, at least it was only one. And it takes him longer to get ready each day at school, so he’s always last. Which others have noticed too. Not in a bad bullying way, just they noticed. Which made him feel self-conscious, and he is not really happy getting two now.
But as he put it, “I don’t have a choice.”
No, he really doesn’t.
And even when everything goes right, as it did in the end, I was still kind of weepy during the day. Emotional. Some of it stress, some of it just that I wish he didn’t have to deal with it. Even if he’s awesome. He even made a little presentation to his class to tell him that he had them, would get new ones, etc. Yet, when I’ve tried to get him to maybe get his class to sign it, he doesn’t want the attention.
I’ve got him focused on “40 days to go”, just like my countdown for PolySpring. I don’t know if that is the right approach or not. He doesn’t want to do anything to decorate it or play with it in any way. It’s just functional to him, and something he had no choice about.
Except we did talk about the fact that he did sort of have a choice. It wasn’t mandatory or life-threatening, there was a choice. But Mommy and Daddy had kind of made it for him, cuz it was the right thing to do. Which he understands.
It’s March Break! Time for all those extra wonderful experiences, memories, etc. as you try to jam every ounce of fun you can into a short week-long break from school! Except, well, we didn’t really have anything planned for Jacob’s week. Andrea used up all her vacation leave finishing her M.Ed., I had some leave left but not as much fun just the two of us for going anywhere, and we didn’t set him up for any camps. So five days at the daycare. Now, don’t get me wrong, he loves the daycare and the woman who runs it, Ana. But, nevertheless, it wasn’t anything particularly “special” or “unique” for the week. Jacob doesn’t really know any better but he is beginning to notice when kids come back from trips to Disney, China, Vietnam, etc. and tell the class what they did over the holidays and he doesn’t have grand stories to share. We weren’t taking a trip, but I did plan to take today off for a special day with Jacob, and to cram as much as I could into one day! 🙂
The morning started a bit slower than I wanted it to, and first up on the list was me putting in Jacob’s lenses. There are lots of reasons why Andrea puts them in, partly as a downstream result of her having inserted them when she was off with Jacob multiple times over the last six years, she tends to handle most of the morning routine, and I’m out of practice. Some of it is I’m sure just laziness on my part, but there is also a practical element. Andrea can put them in his eyes in 30 seconds, it can take me up to 10 minutes to get them in. Separate from the frustration level for me, I’m more concerned with the temporary torture of Jacob. This morning, he wanted to try putting them in. Andrea learned when she was about 7, and Jacob already takes them out himself. So we tried briefly, and then we tried with me doing it. In the past, I’ve never had any luck with Jacob being in any position except lying down, but Andrea does them with him standing up, so I went for it. Jacob wanted to help, so for the first time, we had him hold his eye open, and I just focused on inserting the lens. In like Flynn, 10 seconds. Second eye was a bit trickier as his hand was in the way, but about 20 seconds in total. First time, each side. Today was obviously going to be an awesome day! Yay Jacob, yay Daddy!
We did have to have a serious chat first. Lately, Jacob has been complaining about stuff and to be honest, sounding a lot like Dudley from Harry Potter. Not quite that bad, but he was definitely of the “glass is not full” mentality. Hard to give an accurate example, so I’ll make one up…imagine him going on the bumper cars at the fair for an hour, repeatedly going, having a blast, but then we have to go. And he’d say with a heavy sigh, like he was so hard done by, “I wish I could have gone one more time.” Never “I’m glad I got to go” etc., never expressions of appreciation for what he did get to do, it was starting to be every time we did something, a lament that it wasn’t perfect. Time to nip that one a little more squarely in the bud. So we chatted a bit about it this morning, and stressed that it would be better if he thought more about what he DID enjoy than the one little thing he didn’t get to do perfectly. I confess too that part of my desire to have the conversation calmly is so that I don’t have it later in an aggrieved ticked off fashion that my little snowflake is basically crapping on some gift/experience that I expect him to enjoy and be grateful for, not greedy and selfish about some small aspect. He understood, and I made sure he knew he wasn’t in trouble, just something I’d like him to work on a bit more.
Then the FUN began. We went to Funhaven today, for the first time. It’s an indoor play centre for kids of multiple ages. Not like Cosmic Adventure that is more physical, this is a combination of indoor gym and games, games, games. Got him an all-access bracelet, loaded up the swipe card, and we were off. Played a racing game and he could actually PLAY it. Most of the stuff is normally beyond his abilities, but he’s been playing the PS1 of late with multiple racing games, and he “got it” right away. Even the foot pedals, which were hard for him to reach. A good start.
After that, we were on to the bumper cars. Yep, they have indoor electric bumper cars. More like bumper tubes, it’s a seat in a round tube with two levers — one on the left, one on the right, and they go backward and forward. Put them both forward and you go forward, both back and you go backward, one forward and one back and you spin in a circle. Takes a bit of work to get a good rhythm of forward all the way on the right and forward most of the way on the right to go left as you move forward, but doesn’t take long. Jacob had unlimited use for the day but we were there early so there was only one other kid at the time, so straight on to the game. I joined, and unlike the fair, Jacob got to drive all by himself (actually there’s no other choice). So both of us did it, mostly so that he would feel comfortable. But I was surprised — I liked it too! Sort of. The guy ran us for about 5 minutes, and then it shut off. Then he told us to stay put, go again, and about 4 other kids came on. Me, and six kids. The attendant was probably supposed to charge me, but he didn’t, I just went on. During the second round, the 8 or 9 year old kid from the first round must have decided he now “knew” me and so I swear, the little brat did nothing but bump me the whole time. Nobody else, just me. Little brat. 🙂 Jacob kept coming to my rescue to knock him off my butt, otherwise the kid just sat there with the gears meshing pushing against my tube. Weird little kid, or a jerk, not sure which. Finished that round, and with some kids now starting to wait, they had us all exit; while Jacob and I moved on, a couple of the other kids ran to the back of the line and still got on the very next ride. Not too busy yet.
Jacob wanted to play Connect Four, we tried a motorcycle game but Jacob wasn’t in to it (too much leaning, he couldn’t touch with his toes), a few other games. Then he wanted to go to the Jungle Gym area. Again, all access pass, off he went, although I don’t think anyone was manning the entrance to the zone anyway. By this time it was starting to get busy. A group of 30 arrived with the City of Ottawa day campers, a couple of other groups arrived, and then the place exploded. If you buy your pass before 10:30, it’s cheaper by about 15% so there was a huge uptick just before 10:30. Jacob didn’t care, he was lost in the Jungle Gym. I read on my phone for about 20 minutes and then went to check out how he was doing — not a care in the world, he was shooting balls out of a cannon. He accidentally almost hit me in the head with one, but he didn’t even see me, honestly. Just having a blast. Went back to sitting down. A guy next to me nudged me and said, “Is that one yours?” A little girl was up on top screaming for her Daddy to look, but no, not mine! Another kid lost his father and was a bit upset — turned out Dad was sitting on his butt about 50 feet away, one of the few adult sitting areas open, and the kid had walked right by him, out the zone exit and got hysterical. Fun for the workers, I’m sure, and hardly likely a unique experience. I do think that place should institute the same protocols as Cosmic Adventure though — sign ’em in, get a bracelet, sign ’em out, check the bracelet. The kids are a bit older here, but the place was an absolute zoo. Easy to lose a kid, I’m sure. I set up a “lost check-in” point right at the start with Jacob — we get separated, we will meet at the Connect Four game. You can’t miss it, it takes up a 20′ by 20′ section of wall! We played it twice too, so Jacob would definitely know where it was.
After 30-40 minutes in the gym, Jacob was tired. We did mini-bowling (five pin sized balls, small alley, 10 small pins), tried a basketball game, couple of other smaller games, all working well with the swipe card. Reloaded it, kept going. Jacob tried skee-ball, and I was pleasantly surprised. He plays it on the tablet all the time, but when we’ ve played at the fair, it’s too hard for him — he can’t roll the ball well enough to get it to go up the little jump, most of the time it comes back down. This one had lighter balls — no problem! I won’t say he was amazing at it, but he could do it! So he played two or three games of that. We tried a game where you knock down clowns, another where you drop balls in a hole, another where you put balls into fish tanks. Every game you play, you get “tickets” for how well you do and you can redeem them at the end for cheaper-than-dollar-store fare, but all in fun, and nicely, all on the swipe card. They don’t expire either so you could save up — we had about 350 points at the end of the day and they have some hockey jerseys that are about 3000 points, so if you were a regular goer, you might get something good eventually.
By this time, the lineups were getting near ridiculous. Bumper cars probably had about 50 kids waiting, call it maybe a 30 minute wait. Another thing, a laser maze (which Jacob seemed to think was like one-person laser tag based on things his friend has told him) was limited to one person at a time, and there were probably 50 kids in line for that too. Looked like a slow wait. Kids were lined up (well, sitting) for laser tag, and they appeared to be older. Kids were running around in groups of 5, looking a lot like birds returning to Capistrano, they go in waves!
But we did go back and do a bunch more car racing games. It’s really Jacob’s favorite, and I would be tempted to go over some morning first thing, just do the swipe card and the racing game with him before the lineups start. When we first got there, we could have raced a dozen times before we would have had to let someone else have a turn. There were a few other racing games I’d love to try with him too, but the wait was too long, he was tired, and we had a lunch date. We grabbed loot from the ticket redemption area, left some money on the swipe card for next time, and headed for lunch.
We had arranged to pop by work today — Jacob has wanted to see our office again for awhile now, he doesn’t really remember the last time he was there (probably 16 months ago, I think?), and we agreed to have lunch with Mom. Met up, had the Tim Horton’s experience with extra timbits, and Jacob regaled Mom with his stories of the morning. Oh, I almost forgot. Remember that little speech I gave the cub first thing? As were leaving Funhaven, and again with Mom, he said, “I am *so* happy I got to do all these things today.” In fact, he stopped me to tell me he had something important to tell me, and then told me that sentence. He’s such a cutey. Sure, he’s doing it because I told him it’s important, but I didn’t prompt him, he remembered on his own.
We did the tour, and then off we went in the car. We stopped at Chapters to pick up a stuffed toy he wanted — he saw it yesterday when he was out with the daycare woman and I had forgotten to give him some money to buy something if he wanted. He fell in love with the BB8 toy, but didn’t have any money to buy it. Mom wanted him to use his money (he has a small amount saved at home), but I felt this was one I was willing to get him for a March break treat, so I picked it up on the way home. After we stopped at DQ for ice cream, of course.
I got home and took a small break while he played on my tablet. Then we sorted his hockey cards from his latest series, figured out what he was missing, and then headed off with duplicates to the card store. They have a deal whereby they do 2:1 trades (you need card #22? you can give them two cards from your duplicates for it). We were down to needing about 15 cards, and we got them all. I even picked up a couple of other “specialty” cards too. I didn’t splurge though for the Connor McDavid rookie card for $300. We did however get the free McDavid card that completes another small set we have. Jacob was pretty happy, but that might have been partly the location — it’s right next to Lone Star, which is where we had dinner.
Finished dinner and headed home, two tired boys. Best line of the day from Jacob though? When asked by me, Mom, friends at work, if he had fun this morning, he responded repeatedly the same way:
“Of course. That’s why it’s called FUNhaven.” Duh, adults are so silly.
And, I really enjoyed today too, even as a blue.
To quote Bill Watterson, “The Days Are Just Packed.” It may not have been Disney, but he was a pretty happy little boy tonight. Tired, but happy. Mission accomplished.
I’ve been blogging about being Jacob’s dad over the last six weeks or so, and it’s been a challenge. But part of that is just being more aware of some of the day-to-day issues that get lost, fortunately, in the awesomeness of the 98% of Jacob that is fantastic little boy. Today was Jacob’s second last day in kindergarten, and of course it’s performance time. A play, some dancing, a song, etc. And then a slide show that one of the parents put together of pics and videos of the last two years (the kids had the same teacher and ECE for two years, so they did 2 years of videos). It was the same at Xmas six months ago, and the end of year last June.
Most of it is fun, getting to go to Jacob’s classroom and seeing him there. He is SOOO happy that we have come and he clearly wants to show us off that we are there. And we are so proud of everything he’s accomplished.
Then the bad side of being proud of him sneaks in around the corner. When he’s alone with us, it’s easy to focus on the 98%. The 2% is always present, and it is part of him, but it doesn’t define him. But when he’s in a room of his peers, the 2% stands out more than I would like. Videos of the kids doing Head/Shoulders/Knees/Toes and all the kids are doing it, including Jacob…but he’s sitting on his special pillow rather than standing and crouching like the other kids. So he’s sort of doing it, and sort of not. Another video had them in the gym, and all the kids doing some exercise relatively in unison, and Jacob not really doing it. He’s doing his own thing, and moving himself farther away from the group on his own. Self-exiling behaviour, they call it. Heart-breaking to see, is what I call it.
He can’t run like the other kids, he can’t keep up. He tries so hard. Even a few weeks ago he told his mom that he wanted to “practice running” so that he could get fast like the other kids, because when he told his legs to go faster, they actually “went slower” he said. The same week he didn’t want us to sign the permission form for jump rope practice because he said “he couldn’t do it anyway”. It kills me to see him realize that regardless of how awesome he is, there will sometimes be physical limitations that he can’t easily overcome, some physical parts that will separate him from the other kids.
The kids all got to choose their roles for the presentation today — some wanted to dance (5 girls), some wanted to be speakers in the play (about 10), others wanted to do props and set design (including Jacob). Except when we talked about going today, Jacob wasn’t that excited initially — because he said he didn’t get to do anything, he just painted the tree. Like his dad, he doesn’t gravitate naturally to the spotlight (for me, it’s a conscious choice that I force myself to make). And we made a big deal out of his tree, of course.
But when they introduced everyone, the seven or so kids who were on props all stood in a line and spoke one by one. Most of them stood relatively in line. Not Jacob. He moved over about five feet, constantly in motion, constantly moving from foot to foot, grabbing on to the table, lifting himself up by his two arms and swinging. Doing his own thing, because he can’t simply stand still like the others for very long and wait.
It doesn’t change anything about Jacob’s abilities, or who he is. It doesn’t define him anymore than it did before. But when I spend so much time reminding myself of the importance of the 98%, it bothers me a lot when I see the 2% so glaringly in contrast with his peer group. And it worries me for his social side in the years to come. He just started seeing himself as different this year and his self-illusion of perfection has started to crack a little.
I know reality sucks, but I just wish he could hang on to that illusion a lot longer…or that I could.
