Moving up in the world

The other night, we arrived at William's hockey game a full half-hour early. That's plenty of time to dress, so I decided to continue Phase 1 of my Plan. My Plan is to escape having to go into the hockey change rooms this year. I want to be able to send William in there with his bagful of equipment, and not see him again until he skates out onto the ice for his pre-game warm-up.

Change rooms are just gross. Number one, they stink. Sometimes they REEK. Especially after a game, but often just as much before. They tend to feel damp and sticky, and they are chock full of rowdy male creatures. Big ones and little ones. I will help William for as long as he needs me, but really, I want out of there pretty desperately.

The first time I tried leaving him for 10 minutes, I went back in and he had everything on except his skates, with only one minor error - an elbow pad was upside down. This night, I left him for about 15 minutes, hoping for a similar result. But this time when I went back, he had one skate on and tied up! He was bent over trying to tie the other one, with less success. I was sure his self-tied skate was going to be loose and result in a wobbly ankle, but he had actually done a very good job. I "double checked" it for him, and tightened it only slightly. He absolutely could have played on his skate just as it he had tied it.

So Plan 2 is going to be to remind him to put his hockey pants on after his skates and leave him. He has pants with legs that zip open, so that skates can fit through. If he does that, he'll be spared the giant waist padding cutting off his air as he bends over to tie his skates. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but if I can get him that far, pads and skates, I don't think anyone will mind helping him snap his helmet shut on the way out the door to the ice. I wouldn't even mind doing that part!

He also got a very special phone call this week. He's been invited to join a small-group jazz number for his dance studio. The group is just 7 kids from his regular class, and they will learn a separate jazz routine for the two dance competitions this year. It means an extra dance class every week, and a few extra on-stage rehearsals in March, and extra fees (of course), but in general it's a great thing, and he's pretty happy about it. They started the choreography yesterday, and it's going to be a hoot.

William played the first draft game of his life last night. It wasn't really a draft game for him, since he's marked down on the coach's forms as having to go into Atom C and being unavailable for Atom B. But still, it was his first draft game.

He came out like a house on fire. The first thing I noticed about him as he got underway, was that he was 100% able to keep up with the game. Last year, he was playing with kids who were 7, turning 8. These kids are 9 and 10, and most of them are in their fifth or even 6th year of hockey now.

As usual, he played his position to near perfection. He understands the textbook role of a defensive player and executes it precisely. It's kind of funny to watch in a way, because he's so formulaic with where he skates and what he does when he gets there, and as least for now, I can almost guarantee that he won't be making any offensive moves towards the net. That would be because the defence tend to stay back towards the blue line, helping to keep the puck in the offensive zone. If he crosses the blue line to charge the net, he would feel like he's abandoning his post. That may be an aspect of growth for him that is yet to come, or he may always be a "stay at home" defenceman. I don't think it really matters, because his offensive contribution is to pass the puck to the forwards who score, and he's secure and confident in that role.

He was extraordinarily focused last night. And he tried hard to shut down every single person heading his way with the puck. He messed up a lot of attempts to get to the next, and cleared the zone several times. He also did some new things I've never seen before.

1) He carried the puck around the net with the offensive players chasing him, to pass it up from the opposite side of the net from where he picked it up. He's never, ever done that before. He must have been feeling extremely confident.

2) He did a few "two part" plays. In the past, it has been his habit to randomly nail the puck in whichever direction is out, or away from his net. While that was a great start, it often led to the puck being intercepted by the other team and brought back his way. Last night, more than once, I saw him secure the puck (a), and then decide the best course of action for it (b). The result was a more controlled style of playing.

3) He intentionally took advantage of his size to keep smaller opposing players from being able to reach the puck. Last year, towards the end of the season, he finally realized he is big and that it can give him the upper hand. But he hadn't really begun to master how to use it, except to stand still and let small players fall down then they ran into him, or by out-muscling them on the boards a bit. Last night, I witnessed the transformation from "I'm big, if you hit me you'll fall down" to, "I'm big, and I can skate, and I can keep you away from the puck with my body". Several times I witnessed him in a race for the puck, where he not only kept racing with the belief that he could reach the puck (another first for him), but as he got closer to the puck, he somehow made himself bigger - he took a deep breath, broadened his shoulders and brought his elbows up a bit and then just rotated from the waist as necessary to hold back the guys who were trying to reach the puck. There was one very little guy that he kept having run ins with, and William kept using the press and block method with him. The little guy, who could skate like the wind, was audibly grunting against William as he was trying to get to the puck. Interestingly, William is giving full credit for the growing technique to his ballet teacher. He said he used the "pull up" muscles she taught him to use in ballet when he's doing double pirouettes. Go figure.

Then there was the rest of the game. Being left behind in the ice shavings of a few really fast forwards, falling down and stretching out by the net as a defensive technique, falling down and sitting on the puck briefly, and a few random swipes through the air that missed their mark and left the puck sitting there for the taking. But all in all, he did a fabulous job. There is so much for him to learn still. Like, how to increase his skating efficiency by using crossovers during the game, and how to skate backwards in the game as part of his defensive prowess. He can do both things now -- crossover and skate backwards -- but he saves those skills for drills. I think Atom C will provide him with an excellent opportunity to be coached to use everything he knows during the games.

So, I'm ecstatic. He's confident and content and loving hockey. He's going to have a blast this year again, and I can't wait.

We love this thing!

Back in July, it became clear that William was going to be very short of people to play with in the neighbourhood. The kids just weren't around, and while he did a couple of weeks at art camp, he really wanted to just kick back and have unstructured time. That was fine with me, except it wasn't like he could go knocking on doors for kids to play with -- there just weren't any kids to be found.

He's always been good at entertaining himself, but he was getting tired of solo bike rides and the like. And you can only sit inside and play with Lego for so long, especially when it's nice outside. Or nice-ish, at least.

I really wanted him to have something to do that he could enjoy on his own. So, I ordered him a Ripstik, pads, and a skater helmet. He'd been expressing his desire for a Ripstik for months, but I just sort of ignored him, based on my own concern that they looked dangerous and he might seriously injure himself. It's like a skateboard, but it only has two wheels. They are like in-line skate wheels that swivel on casters. It looks decidedly impossible to use. But before I ordered it, I did some reading and watched some videos and decided it looked like something William could handle. The deal was that he could get the Ripstik, but would always, always wear the complete set of pads while riding.

He was over the moon when the Ripstik arrived. We took it to our local park, with the nicely paved, smooth paths and he taught himself how to use it. Within two days, he was taking gentle slopes, and turning smoothly and easily. He put hours into mastering the Ripstik, and pushing the envelope just a little each time, and increasing his skill level.

After about five days of practicing on the park paths, I took him to the skate park for the first time. Our skate park has only been open since this past spring, but it's very popular hang out for boys anywhere between 10 and, uhm, older. I'd say the majority of its users are around 15/16. But of course, you don't find many teenagers out on the skate park at say 9AM Sunday morning, so William had lots of opportunities to try the ramps and hills and challenges of the skate park without having to watch for big boys flying by on their skateboards.

Every day for weeks I took him to the skate park. He Ripstik'd, and I sat on the bench with my book. At the height of his fun, he was skating for two or three hours, only stopping to re-hydrate. Then one day, a kid on a bike collided with William. Bikes aren't supposed to use the skate park, but there is no oversight as it's a city-run facility, and a gazillion bmx bikers use the place anyway. Thankfully, it wasn't a huge collision, and William wasn't really hurt, but it scared the living daylights out of him. After that, he started declining offers to go the skate park, offering up a number of feeble excuses as to why he didn't want to go. I left him alone, as it was clear that he wasn't ready to try again. Once bitten, twice shy, for sure.

Over the Labour Day weekend, we camped overnight with our friends. William brought his Ripstik to use on the paved camp road, and his friend Michael fell in love with it. Michael picked up it very quickly, and of course, wanted one. His Ripstik arrived last week, and he followed the same steep learning curve that William had experienced, picking up the basics very quickly.

Wednesday, I asked William if he thought Michael would want to try the skate park. I could tell he did, but he was still fearful from the collision, and very hesitant. I reminded him that the skate park was not likely to be very populated in the middle of a school day, and his face lit up. So off we went. Michael and William put in around two hours of Ripstiking on Wednesday, then Thursday, then yesterday afternoon. Every day, they both found new things they could do, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They had the surface mostly to themselves, with the occasional skateboarder or three showing up now and then. The skateboarders are by and large not a problem. They are very cognizant of where the littler guys are, and keep a close eye on where they are skating. I would say they put a good deal of effort into making sure they don't have any collisions or near misses. William is comfortable skating with up to about 8 other boarders on the surface. But if a bike shows up, he become so cautious, he can't really enjoy himself anymore.

All told, the Ripstik has been the purchase of the year, hands-down. It has led to innumerable hours of physical activity, and he has not gotten really hurt. He's gone down a few times and had to catch his breath, but his pads are doing their job to save his skin, and he seems to rebound quickly if he hits a hip or whatever. I think he feels like a really "big" boy, riding that thing like he does, and being amongst the youngest at the skate park. The older boarders are generally fascinated by the Ripstiks, and William has given countless riding lessons to the one who wanted to try the Ripstik. They handle completely differently from a skateboard though, and the common result is that the over-confident skater who sees this young kid ripping all over the place thinks it must be easy, and falls on his tush, repeatedly. William doesn't laugh though. He just tells them it takes awhile to learn, and lets them try until they give up. By and large, the Ripstik isn't their cup of tea anyway, because they want to fly in the air and do crazy rail-grinding tricks, and the Ripstik is designed to be much more tame. As it happens, William now has a good skateboard, too, and it has yet to really capture his interest. That Ripstik is just too appealing.

And we're...rolling!

All of William's fall activities except orchestra started, or is starting, this week.

Tuesday morning, he went off to violin and piano. He was clearly very happy to see his teachers again, and quite ready to get down to business. Both lessons went very well and full steam ahead. William was delighted to move into the RCM Grade 4 book for violin, and decidedly pleased to be bringing home the main theme from "Star Wars" to learn on the piano. He's definitely feeling inspired.

Tuesday evening saw his first ballet class of the year. All summer long he's been taking private or semi-private lessons from his favourite young ballet teacher, Christina, trying to improve in a few areas and in general, become more flexible. He truly loves to dance, but he has to work very, very hard at it. He is by NO means flexible naturally, and every bit of bendiness he has acquired, he has to work very hard to achieve. I saw clear improvements over the summer, and so did his teacher.

But, his ballet class is now being taught by the head of the studio -- this is her 35th year teaching, so her style is established and time-worn for sure. She is a perfectionist, driven to demand constant tweaking and improvement. Thankfully, Christina is an assistant in the hour and a half long class, so she can provide a bit of a buffer for the kids. As it happened, William was a target on the first night -- apparently the teacher was up one side of him and down the other about everything. More than once I saw him near tears, and I noticed that Christina had moved away from floating all through the class to sort of hovering around him. When she came out, she whispered to me that William was getting very frustrated and that the teacher had been picking on him all class. She was sticking close to him to help him get through to the end. She also asked me to tell him not to worry, because he did a great job and worked hard, and that the head teacher was only picking on him because she could see his potential and was trying to help him reach it.

Sure enough, when he came out, he was upset and needed to spend a long time verbalizing (at great length) everything that had happened, and how he felt about it. I passed Christina's wisdom on to him, and we talked a bit about how he wanted to proceed. This included the option of maybe just doing recreational dance instead of competitive, but he would hear nothing of it. He truly seems willing to endure what he has to endure to continue dancing competitively. My idea was to maybe shy away from the dance and spend more time playing hockey, though I didn't say that to him.

Wednesday night at dance was 100% better. Christina taught first his tap class, then his jazz class. In jazz, she started with all the things they had worked together on over the summer, so he was very well positioned to succeed. He was, in fact, SO successful, that he called me into the studio after his class to demonstrate how high his split-jumps were, and how tight his turns looked. He's never felt so good about something that he had drag me into the studio to show me -- usually hes's out the door before I can blink. But those are two skills he worked extremely hard on over the summer, so he deserved some recognition for sure.

Next up is a hockey draft game tonight. He's going to have fun and enjoy the ice time for the four Atom B draft games, and then play three C draft games "for real" to land on an Atom C team. I feel like I've been waiting forever for hockey to start again, and now it's finally here. I'm very pleased and impressed to note that of his 12 team-mates from last year, playing at the Novice C level, EIGHT of them bypassed Novice B to go into Novice A this year! Way to go, Warriors!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I had this "time of the year" last year, but it was in such a hurried frenzy, I didn't have any time to appreciate it. This year, I can savour every minute.

It's time for William's hockey to start. Almost. His first draft game is next Saturday. It was almost exactly one year ago now that he uttered the words, "Well...I might want to try playing hockey on a team someday..." and BAM, I flew into action. He said those words last Saturday October 4th, after a hockey birthday party for his friend Michael. By Wednesday October 8th, he was on a team, had all of his equipment, and we attended our first team meeting. By his first game a few days later, his name was on his jersey and he was ready to go.

I have a video of the first time William stepped onto the ice in hockey gear. I watch it often and laugh and laugh. You can't not laugh. He's so stiff and awkward and he had to do a long swooping turn to join the group because he didn't know how to stop. I'm so, so glad I have a record of what he looked like that day, because a year out, I would never be able to remember it without evidence.

After one regular season, and some 3-on-3 and a hockey camp this summer, he's a different boy. He can stop. He can skate backwards passably well. He can cross over, but not spontaneously yet, only in drills. His balance is superb (thanks, dancing!!), and he no longer skates parallel to the play, waiting for something to happen -- he gets in there and shakes it up. If he chooses to, he can skate pretty fast with those long legs of his, and he has an eye for where the play is going to go.

He'll play in Atom C this year. He's attending the Level B draft, but won't be drafted into B. His dancing schedule includes classes every Tuesday and Wednesday evening, and Atom B games are every Wednesday night. That would cause a huge conflict. And, if he somehow squeaked into Atom B (not likely, anyway), he'd be at the bottom of the totem pole skill-wise. Atom C plays on Thursday nights (no conflicts!), and I think he can be a strong player at that level. I think. I could be wrong, only time will tell. But when he goes for the B draft, he's going in with a note saying he's there for the ice-time only, and not actually draftable. As well, I have decided to take the Director position for Atom C, and I really want to do it, so he needs to be in Atom C.

I foresee another year of tremendous hockey growth and fun for William. I've been attending some Atom A level draft games just for fun, and I'm appalled at the level of nonsense that surrounds that draft. People are crazy, that's all I can say. I plan to never forget that hockey is for THE KIDS, and not for the parents to be wheelin' and dealin' and trying to live vicariously through their children. Whacknuts. My plan now and for always is to hope that William lands on teams with coaches who are kind leaders, and work to instill a love of hockey in their players. As it is now, William is really, really looking forward to his new season starting, and after waiting for nearly 8 years for him to express an interest in hockey, I couldn't be happier.

Beach Boys

After a cool, damp, limping summer, the warmth and sunshine arrived in September. The picture above is William and his good friend Michael, playing on the beach at Brimley State Park in Michigan. All summer long, I tried to get over there to camp, and couldn't. Even the week I booked in August was an impossibility, as it was so cold and raining. It's one thing if you have a motorhome or trailer, but we camp out of a tent, and in order for it to be comfortable and enjoyable, warmish and dry are a must.

Last weekend, over the Labour Day long weekend, our friends were camping at Brimley and invited us to visit. We went over around 10AM with snacks and drinks, planning to stay only for the day. But it was gorgeous out there. Sunny and warm and summery and it smelled like, well, camping. Both William and I were tortured at the thought of having to leave. But again, tent camping also means having to pack all of the cooking and eating supplies separately, as well as a cooler for food, and clean-up materials, etc. etc. etc. Joining our friends on our own camp site wasn't really a possibility as we would have to come home on Monday regardless.

But my friend saved the day -- she suggested I go home, get just our tent and sleeping stuff, and come stay the night on their site with them. And that's exactly what we did. My tent goes up like an umbrella -- it's that easy, and it stays dry if it needs to, and it doesn't take any time at all to pump up the air mattress. We stayed for the day, enjoying our cooked outside supper and a huge campfire with marshmallows, turkey dogs and s'mores. William was in his element. As the fire wore on and the adults settled in for a fireside chat, the boys went and watched Kung Fu Panda in Michael's trailer. We headed for our tent around 10:30PM, where William and I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by lantern-light.

The night could have gone better. Having never camped that late in the year, I didn't realize how heavy the dew would be, or how much the temperature would drop over night. And drop it did. I spent pretty much the whole night freezing, and making sure William was as warm as he could be. He was fine, of course, leeching out all of my body heat without a second thought! I also had to pee all night, and was too cold to get out and go, which made for a lonnnnnnnng night. We were decidedly damp in the morning, too. The dew was running in rivulets down the outside of the tent. While we were mostly dry inside, we still picked up a layer of dampness and were a tad uncomfortable pulling on long sleeved sweaters that weren't wet, but weren't really dry either. Thankfully, the dampness passed fairly quickly.

In the morning, we had a heavy fog. This was made all too evident by the fog horn going off at the lighthouse every 2-4 minutes, starting around 5:30AM. The fog cleared by 11'ish and once again, the sun shone brightly for us. My friends packed up their trailer and two smaller kids, and I packed the tent and accessories into the car. Then they headed out to do some errands and go home, and I stole Michael and took the big boys back to the beach. The boys played hard out there for about two hours before opting to head back to our house to play with Lego.

The summer weather has continued in full force. The humidex has been up at 30 degrees for days on end now. It's an unbelievable gift after such a dismal summer, and we are making the most of it, being sure to spend a good deal of these beautiful days outside.

Today is August 25th

And it's been five months to the day that I lost my best friend of 12 years, my most wonderful companion, my black lab, Coal.

I stopped blogging when Coal died. Every time I tried to say something, it just got lost and blocked with grief. Even as I tap out this tiny post, the tears are plopping down onto my shirt.

I was taking William down to the pool today when the song by Green Day that inspired the title of this blog came on the radio. I turned it up, and listened. At that exact same moment, I realized today was the 25th. They lyrics spoke to me as they always have, and prompted me to realize that Coal's death was a turning point for me, and I largely grinded to a record-keeping halt as a result of it. I think, because, no other records to follow were going to include him.

But life goes on, even without the most precious dog in it. I realize I've missed documenting a lot in five months, and so much has happened. Coal was a hard, hard, hard loss for me, one I don't know that I'll ever really get over. But I've got him tucked securely away in my heart for all eternity, even if I won't have new posts or pictures of him to share.

This post is just one small step... I hope there will be more to come.

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day

"Another turning point;
a fork stuck in the road.

Time grabs you by the wrist;
directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test
and don't ask why.

It's not a question
but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

For what it's worth,
it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."

Ballet Boy

This is ballet boy, dressed for an on-stage rehearsal. I forgot to get pictures of jazz boy, but they'll show up here eventually.

Busier than your average bear

"Busy" sums up our schedule nicely. In general, we don't get bored, rather, we embrace the blocks of time that are free of run, run, running. Today isn't one of those days.

William has a hockey game at 9:00AM, a ballet class from 2:30-4:00PM, a jazz class from 4:00-4:45PM, and another hockey game at 5:30PM. The two-game day is due to a local hockey tournament, normally he only ever plays one game a day. However, I have a feeling he will be running low on energy by the second game, so I've rounded up a couple of fans from his dance class to come and watch his hockey game after dance, and have a bite to eat afterwards. That should fire him up nicely!

If his team should make it to the semi-finals, he'll have a game tomorrow morning, as well. This is a likely eventualality. And if they win that game, he'll have yet another game at 1:15 - smack in the middle of his ballet and jazz classes tomorrow. We'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it, but in this case, the final game of a tournament takes precendence over a regular dance class. Even a month away from competition.

Hockey Phases

A few days ago, I watched the video I took of William at his very first hockey practice, on October 9th, 2008. I remember that day clearly, and probably always will, because it was a huge thing for me to see my own little guy suited up, ready to play hockey, the game of my heart. That day, I remember thinking, "Hmm, not bad for a brand new beginner!" When I watched the video this week, I burst out laughing. He was stiff and awkward and skated out of the frame at the end, because of course, he couldn't stop. But I was soooo proud of him. And I've been proud of him every single time he's gone out to play -- he's given it everything he's had since day one, despite being behind the group in skating skills and knowledge of the game.

He's gone through phases all season long. The first bit was just learning where to line up and that kind of thing. Like, having to rush across to the other side of the ref when he looks around at a face-off and all the shirts around him are orange, when his is grey and blue. Then came the experimental knee bending phase. In this phase, he would skate without lifting his feet off the ice at all, but experimentally bending his knees and sort of swaying side to side. It's hard to describe, but it was definitely a clear phase of learning that he was paying close attention to as it happened. During that time, establishing a rhythm seemed to be important to him.

Then he came to the "ready position" phase. I think this one was my favourite. For every face off, William lined up like this, bent deep, waiting for the puck:



He did this for weeks, usually letting himself drift backwards on his skates into that deep bend. I never said anything about to him, just got a few pictures and went on my merry way. But geez, he looks funny.

This last couple of weeks has brought on an entirely new display of hockey prowess. Instead of merely skating after the puck in a normal fashion, and waiting more or less quietly between plays for the next thing to happen, he's doing all kinds of tricks with his feet. The most enviable one for me is how he stands straight up and alternately slip-slides his blades back and forth underneath him very quickly. It kind of looks like a jig on ice. And it requires seriously good balance to do it and not crash to the ice. I should know, I'm afraid to even try.

I've also seen him take three or four very quick cross-overs to get somewhere when plain skating would do the trick. This is a huge development, as it may well lead to him using cross-overs to his advantage during actual game play, when they do matter. And at his last game, he would drift along on one skate for a long time with the toe of the other foot tucked behind the ankle of the foot he was skating on...then switch over and do the same thing on the other side. It's clear that he's loving what his feet can do for him now, and while his antics don't have a lot to do with the game at hand, they are a phenomenal indicator of how much he's developed over the course of this season.

Oh, another new trick. This one made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it -- he likes to jump straight up as high as he can off both feet and land it successfully. The reason I find that so entertaining is that my friend's son (Hi Debbie!) went through just such a phase, I think at almost the exact same age. Because you know, jumping high on your skates is vital to your hockey future. If Debbie's son is any indication, jumping over things while skating will be William's next likely trick.

This hockey post was prompted by me getting up very early for William's 8AM Saturday hockey game. I wish I could complain better, but I can't. I love, love, love watching him play hockey. Even if it's at the crack of dawn in the dead of winter.

Poor old bass clef

Somehow, the bass clef has been left behind in the dust of the treble clef, and now even the alto clef. William has the treble clef by the horns and has it completely mastered. He is eating up the alto clef now, too, working through "I Can Read Music" for viola at breakneck speed. Knowing him as I do, I've thrown several "Here, instead of playing these notes, just tell me their names" tests at him and there's no question that he is identifying the notes by name and location in alto clef. He knows the notes on the D string and A string and has just started the G string. Last week, he described the alto clef to me as the "ledger line clef" as it eliminates the need for all the ledger lines for the notes between the treble clef and the bass clef. So he obviously understands how the three of them go hand in hand...in hand.

However, big however, the bass clef is still not coming to him automatically. There are a couple of notes he can name, fairly readily, most of the time, but as a rule, he examines them carefully, checks their positions relative to F, and goes from there. He still makes his corrections when playing assigned pieces by sound -- if it sounds right, it must be correct. If something sounds off, he has to make a change on his left hand. He tends not to consult with the written music when making his corrections in the bass clef...he just uses trial and error until it sounds like it should. Now that I mention it, I'm not even sure how much treble clef he's reading in piano - he might just be doing that by sound, too.

With the addition of the viola, it has become clear that the stringed instruments are his "primary" instruments. Violin being first, no question. I think he prefers unstructured, free-range, two-handed piano playing to plunking through the carefully arranged black dots one by one. For now, at least. Readiness is a difficult thing to assess sometimes -- it defies logic that he'd be so capable in the treble clef, coming up fast with the alto clef and fairly out to lunch in the bass clef. We're just going to continue on as we are, and see what happens.

Not write now

I left William some pages to do in his "Sentences to Paragraphs" book yesterday. It's fun, gentle grammar work, which he enjoys. And it requires at absolute minimum of writing, which he loves.

At the end of the book, he was asked to write six sentences describing some farm pictures. I thought, "Oh no. He'll never manage". Because to write six sentences, you have to, you know, write.

Well, I got a huge surprise when he handed me his book. He'd put his own twist on things, and chosen to write out the entirety of "Old MacDonald" with his own funny spin on it here and there. It filled all of his workbook page AND and an entire blank page, spilling over onto the back. The best was his addendum at the end, in brackets, which read, "Easier said than writ!". Writ? Writ?? Time for grammar Book 2 I think...Writ, indeed... lol

It has to end sometime

Last week, we had a thaw. The temperatures were above freezing, and the roads dried out.

But that was last week. It snowed most of yesterday and all night, and now it feels like -24C and the dry roads are long, long gone, replaced by snow-covered roads and fresh snowbanks that no one can see over safely.

Sigh. I'm fairly desperate for spring this year. So is William. This is quite the setback!

VOILA...VIOLA!

We're embarking on a new musical adventure, at William's request. He has decided he wants the viola to be his ensemble instrument, and has set about learning to read alto clef. The viola he's holding in the picture is his own -- it's a robust Franz Hoffman Maestro that his father sent for him. William has been a busy bee this week, using "I Can Read Music" for viola to begin his mastery of the alto clef. Orchestra is tomorrow night, and he is ready to play the viola part for the Batman Theme, their newest piece. I was intially quite certian his teacher would pale at the thought of him turning to viola "on the side", but she was very enthusiastic and encouraging, noting carefully how playing the viola will only strengthen his skills on violin. And for William, it's a natural progression -- he has always embraced harmony and loves to listen to the cellos in the junior orchestra (there are no violas). He is 100% aware that his role as a viola player, especially at this level, will be to provdie a strong "DUM, rest, DUM, rest, DUM DUM DUM" kind of support to the melody makers, but that's where the appeal lies for him. And there's nothing like opening another door of opportunity for down the road.

Wow, just wow

Last night William's dance group had their first on-stage rehearsal for their dance competition in April. It's one of 7 or 8 of them, if I'm not mistaken. It was supposed to be a "dress" rehearsal with complete costuming, but as their costumes have not arrived yet, it was just a rehearsal on-stage.

Dance has been a sucking vortex this year. Before Christmas, in addition to the 2 hours on Sunday and one on Tuesday, they added in an hour on Saturday and an hour on Wednesday night. After Christmas, that changed to 2 hours on Saturday and Wed. off. So he averages five hours of dance a week. This week, both 2-hour dance classes were after his hockey game, so he played hockey like a maniac for an hour, had a short rest, then went off to dance hard for two hours. I could never do it...he is definitely showing a serious commitment to this dance thing. And already, at just 7&8 years old, the kids come out of dance red and sweating. It's hard, hard work.

They ran through their ballet first last night. They looked so small up there! I couldn't believe how collectively tiny they looked. None of us could. And they were so excited to be up there, ready to dance, that they were hilarious in their happy energy, scattered around like frantic chicks in a hen house.

And then they danced. It was awesome. I had no idea they were that good already. There is a ton of room for small tweaks and improvements, but the foundation is there and it's strong. And William made it very clear what he's been working on for all those hours over the months -- he was strong and confident and poised up there like I've never seen him. There was a maturity in his execution that I was absolutely not expecting, and for the first time, I really got a glimpse of the dancer he might become.

Their jazz routine was just as impressive and received a rousing round of claps and cheers both times they ran through it. I didn't think to bring the camera -- that's probably better saved for when they have their costumes anyway, but there were a lot of happy, excited face on the stage last night.

Dance has a been a real trial this year, mostly due to the schedule, partly due to the dynamics of the class. There are two other little boys in the class, and they are sweet, cute little boys, but they are very, very rambunctious. They are constantly being corrected and re-directed in class, much to William's disdain. William doesn't "do" rambunctious, especially in a class situation and as such, has been distancing himself intentionally from the other two boys for the entire year. I've worried about that off and on, because it seems like he should bond with the boys, but I was watching him last night, laughing and talking with his favourite girls and it's clear that he is perfectly happy to stay away from the rowdy little boys and engage with the more mature, serious girls in his class. So he does have his niche, it's just not the one I was expecting.

Movin' on up

After a lengthy delay, William finally has three 3/4 sized violins in his possession, one of which will become his own on Tuesday after his teacher gives her nod. One dropped out of the race immediately, so it's come down to two, and they are neck and neck. (Scroll and scroll?) I have a feeling I know which his teacher will lean towards and it's probably not going to be the one William is leaning towards. I've discussed it with him, and he is happy to go with his teacher's recommendation.

It's clear already that the 3/4 size is going to have a very limited lifespan. William is growing like a weed, and will likely be ready for a full-size violin inside of a year. Crazy.

The decision to wait on the Book 4 Vivaldi Concerto in A minor was a good one. Having taken some time to work on shifting and his left hand posture, William is playing the pants off the Vivaldi. Not only the first one, but the second one, if you ask him to play it. He loves the music and is very invested in playing it just right. It's all even more glorious on the 3/4 size instrument.

January 2009 has been lost from the fossil record

Holy cow. I have no idea what happened in January 2009. Hmm. I'm scrambling to remember, but it basically feels like the distant past now. I know William danced a lot. And played hockey. And did his music. And I tried to keep up with it all, as usual. Oh, I played some hockey, too. My team is in the basement this year. If you look down the Stats page, we are at the very bottom of 12 teams. We're still having fun though! And for the last three games, I've played defense and found it a pretty comfortable place for me to play.

So there's my ode to January. Sorry January, I'll try to catch you next year!

Spreading the Cheer

A few weeks ago, William and I stopped by our local Christmas Cheer depot to drop off some donations. He offered some gently used toys he had outgrown, as well as several new toys we'd acquired over the last while. The elderly ladies at the depot were smitten with William and whisked him off for a tour of the whole operation. He was fascinated and thoroughly impressed with the way things were set up, with the doll-dressing station, the "Mr. Fix-Its", the food-sorting area, etc. etc. He didn't want to leave that day at all.

The same lady who took him on the tour invited him to come today at 6:30AM to help pack the fresh food boxes for the families in need. Since William doesn't like to wake up except on his own terms, I never thought he'd agree to volunteer for anything at 6:30AM. But he told the lady cheerfully that he would LOVE to come in and help. She told him the police, the fireman, and army would be there, and that the mayor comes and brings donuts! That sealed the deal -- the mayor and his donuts... So at 5:30 this morning, William willingly woke up and got dressed to head over to the Christmas Cheer depot.

I knew it was going to bigger than I bargained for when the first thing I saw on approach to the depot were the red parking flares of the police cadets -- they were out there in the freezing cold directing parking. In Sault Ste. Marie, parking only has to be organized when something BIG is going on.

After we parked, we made our way into the warehouse where maybe a hundred people were already at work (at 6:20AM!). I hung up our jackets, and we made ourselves at home at the potato-bagging table. Our job was to assist with putting 6 medium potatoes into grocery store produce bags, tying the top, and adding them to the potatoes already bagged. After about half an hour, that job was done, and we moved to apple-bagging. We bagged apples for at least an hour. Maybe longer. Same gig -- six apples to a bag. The efficiency of the operation was astounding. People were circulating, providing new boxes of loose apples and produce bags before we could even ask for them and carrying away the full boxes of bagged apples.

Packing the food boxes followed the apple-bagging. William and I got into a routine where we each had our respective jobs in the process, which maximized our efficiency to that of a well-oiled machine. It went like this: He would get in line for a food ticket (which had the name of the recipient of the box, their address, their zone and how many people they need to feed). While he was in line, I would get a box, open the flaps, and prepare the label that needed to go on the outside. He would get the ticket and read it on the way to the table -- then he'd hand it to me so I could copy the information on the box label, and he would take off to get the potatoes, carrots, and either a chicken or a turkey. By the time he got back, I had the oranges and apples ready to go in the box and the label filled out and taped to the side. As soon as he was sure I had everything I needed, he would get back in line to return his ticket and get a new one. We continued in that vein for around an hour, packing boxes until the last box was packed.

The Canadian Armed Forces were there, with their vehicles, transporting the packed boxes to their vehicles and packing them for delivery to various pick-up depots all around the city. Their presence impressed William to no end. And while we didn't see the mayor this time, the donuts were there, as was homemade soup, rolls with butter, muffins, cookies, candy, gingerbread, coffee, pop, water, and hot chocolate. Once all the work was done, we slipped to the back of the warehouse for a bite to eat. The homemade soup was divine and William loved the rolls with butter.

All told, it was a fabulous experience. I hope this year was the birth of a tradition - William has already said he can't wait 'til next year. This year, the incredible volunteers of our community spent about six weeks preparing gifts, staple food boxes and finally, the fresh food boxes for 1,575 families in our area. It is my hope that when William finally decides there isn't really a Santa Claus, he will understand that the true Christmas spirit lives in everyone, and that even HE is Santa Claus.

This link is to a video about the massive volunteer operation this morning. I can't wait 'til next year either. Christmas Cheer Video.

Christmas Recitals

This time of year always brings music recitals. Piano was first. William played and sang "We Three Kings". His voice has matured and he is now able to sing out over the piano fairly easily without compromising his tone or tuning. His voice is high and clear and beautiful and outshone his piano-playing, which was also pretty darned nice.

His violin recital was two days later, and he played a standard traditional version of "The First Noel", shifting to third in the middle of the piece and playing a verse up there before moving back down to first to finish. His shifting is really coming into itself these days. The challenge that evening, for everyone, was that their violins had been tuned down (way down) to the very flat piano at the retirement home and tuning was a very real struggle for the whole evening. You could see and hear the children fighting to nail their intonation with fingers that were no longer so sure of where they should be landing. Despite the challenge, they did well and the residents were delighted by their performances, as always.

COLD

We've had some cold, stormy weather of late. The other night William went outside in it, to play, of course. I estimated that he'd last about 30 minutes. The windchill was about -25 that night, after all. But he lasted two full hours and only came in because I made him come in. He kept himself warm by shovelling neighbour's driveways with a friend. Somehow, he neither noticed nor cared that his hat had rotated around to cover one side of his face almost completely.

Wills the Builder

William's choice of toys these days has centered entirely around building-type toys. And now that I think of it, he's well-situated to build and build to his heart's content given the acquisition of building toys we've done over the years.

He got the Star Wars Lego AT-AT for his birthday. It's motorized and it walks. Well, it will walk one day, when more of its 1100+ pieces are assembled. But he has started, and has been working away on it, carefully and precisely.

A week or so ago, the Rokenbok came out again. He put hours this week into discovering all the new designs he is able to make now that he's a bit older. (Like, older than he was six months ago, the last time he had a Rokenbok obsession). I LOVE Rokenbok. It is far and away one of the best toys ever to come into the house for this boy. It has paid for itself in pure play-value - the powerful learning aspect of the toy comes as a pleasant, but not insignificant bonus. The only thing he asked for in his letter to Santa was more Rokenbok. I hope the chubby ole friend comes through for him.



The picture above is a simple Rokenbok monorail track, overtaken by giant silly baby cats.

Tonight, after months of solitude in the basement, the Knex found their way into the living room. Together, William and I made this ferris wheel, and thanks to the motor in the middle, it really works!

Cats, cats and more cats

I love these monsters. All four of them. They are all as different from one another as night and day. Quincey is nurturing, infinitely masculine and very, very sweet. Phoebe is elusive, mysterious, and particular with her affections. Alya is pure orange evil, brilliant and adorable. Emerson is 100% pure squishy love. He's a mama's boy and I'm his mama.

Quincey:



Phoebe:



Ayla:



Emerson:



Quincey and Phoebe together nicely, not wrestling. Look quick!!



"The Babies" doing their shared-bathing thing.

December 7th, 2008

Brought me an 8-year old!In a mere 8 years, my short little chicken-legged infant (7lbs 6oz, 19") has morphed into a 4'6", 89lb bruiser.

William's birthday started with an 8:15am hockey game. He was happy and eager to play, as it was a semi-final tournament game. His team played hard and won 2-1. Which brought us to the 1:15pm final game the same day! His team played an out of town team that got slotted into the wrong division -- the end result was a 10-0 win for them, but they stopped counting goals at 5-0. The best thing about it, though, was that our little guys played their hearts out and persisted as hard as they could right until the last second of the game. At no point did they surrender to the likelihood that they were going to lose, and that was an amazing, inspiring thing to see.

So he came home on his birthday with a silver medal that reads "Steel Blades 2008". He was thrilled.

The silver medal joined his first hockey medal that he won the day before. On that Saturday, he secured a Best Defence medal for himself by playing the best game he'd ever played in his two-month hockey career. He's not fast, he's not graceful, but he's big and he's not afraid to stop people from going past him with the puck. Just that very morning I had spent a good amount of time explaining that as much as I knew he wanted to win an individual medal (there were two per team at each regular tournament game - MVP and Best Defence), it was next to impossible as he couldn't realistically hope to out-play kids who have been playing for a few years already. My analogy was that if his whole hockey team were to bring out their violins after 2 months of learning the violin and compete in a "Twinkle" performance, chances would be excellent that the guy who has been playing the violin for three years would win the "Twinkle" award simply because he had more experience and it would be so much easier for him. Given the actual outcome of the situation, I think I'll just shelve my analogies and let nature takes its course.

There's a Wildcat in the house

For the past few weeks, William's dance class has been doing the choreography for their competitive jazz number. The music is from Disney's "High School Musical", and it's actually quite a catchy tune. So I avoided having anything to do with this High School Musical business right up until two weeks ago, when we borrowed the first movie from a friend and got the second one from the library, so that William would understand the spirit of the number as it pertains to dancing. As it turns out, he loved the movies.

It's going to be cute. It can't not be cute. There are three adorable boys front and center, and they will be dressed like basketball players (in red, just like from the movie), surrounded by a small sea of extraordinarily cute little girls dressed in red and white cheerleader outfits. The kids absolutely love the number and go it full throttle every single time. About half is already choreographed and they've done a stellar job learning, and remembering, all their moves. It never fails to amaze me just how much fun those children have dancing...they get so excited, they can't stop hopping around and smiling and poking at each other. Until the music starts...then they dance.

The ballet number is underway as well, and that number is set to this enchanting little piece. I haven't actually seen the choreography for this one yet, but I've heard a lot about it. Apparently the boys are front and center again (they always are and always will be, that's the nature of boys in dance), and after a long, determined wait, William finally gets to lift a girl. The mothers who watched the class where he learned he'd be doing a lift couldn't wait to see me at the next class so they could re-enact his excited response when he found out. Apparently, he was literally jumping up and down and clapping. I'm not surprised...he's been telling me for at least two years, and maybe three, that he couldn't wait to start lifting the girls. So he has a sweet little partner, who likes to turn around and shake her finger at him if he doesn't do things exactly right. Yeah, well, he asked for it!

Priorities

This morning I suggested to William that we get his violin practice out of the way early, as he has a busy day ahead of him. He said, "I can't. I'm watching a documentary on the Disovery channel about Mitchell Nostradamus, the prophet".

Mitchell. LOL

He wins, violin can wait.

An observation about the boy and books

I had books for William before he was born. When he arrived, I signed him up with the Grolier program that delivered two hardback Dr. Seuss or Dr. Seuss-like books every few weeks.

And, of course, we went to the bookstore, a lot. Starting while he was still in diapers, William would take an interesting book off the shelf in the bookstore and plop down wherever he was to look at his new treasure. Despite my efforts to budge him over to the side, he would inevitably end up in the way of some smiling patron, who didn't seem to mind having to squeeze their way around the little book-hound sitting on the bookstore floor. Over the years, he took up more and more room on the floor, but he also grew easier to convince to move over to the side, less in the way of traffic.

We stopped by the library tonight. William made a beeline for the science section, and started making his choices. At one point, I pulled a book on physics off the shelf and handed it to him for his assessment. And what did he do? He sat down, of course, right in the middle of the aisle on the library floor to look at the book. It turned out to be a keeper. The floor books usually are. :)

Hockey Boy

Hockey is going well for William. He is skating better, and even stopping now. It's a slowwww stop, with his legs really far apart, but at least it means he doesn't have to turn around and around until he stops, or run into the boards.

He's enjoying the game, and while he'd like to be good offensive player, he seems to have settled into a defensive role, even when he's a forward. Which is kind of funny to watch.

As I watch him play, there are a million things I want to coach him on afterwards (go after the puck, use longer strides, move away from the goalie...the list is endless), but I've opted to say next to nothing to him about hockey. I'm no expert, and I don't want it to seem like I'm criticising him, even though I would just be trying to help. He has a coach, and the coach can fix things and offer pointers if he feels like it. Bottom line, I've got to monitor school, violin, piano and dance, and offer helpful suggestions and guidance in all those arenas. I want hockey to be William's thing to just mess around with as he sees fit. Mess around with, and have fun. So far, so good.

He came, he saw, he sang

Last week, William brought home a very basic version of We Three Kings for the piano. He's always liked that song, and while he could have handled something more intricate, it fit the bill for just being a fun song to play.

Two days ago, we realized another benefit to its simplicity - it's so easy, he can already play it without thinking, thereby allowing him to sing. I didn't know he'd been practicing it with singing until he sprung it on me by surprise. Holy cow. This morning at his lesson, he performed it flawlessly for his piano teacher who grabbed up her list for the upcoming recital and said, "You're doing THIS one! I don't care if you want to another piece too, but you ARE doing this one!". William has always liked to sing as he plays, but only now is his bigger voice easily carrying over the piano. The grandmas and grandpas at the retirement home will love it.

The Battle of the Left Hand

Vivaldi is still on the back burner. Instead, William has several Christmas carols with shifting, and a Grade 3 RCM piece called "Donkey Doodle" to work away on over the next few weeks. We are working very, very hard on changing his left hand position -- he tends to let it sag just enough to hinder his ability to have easy mobility and correct positioning of each finger on the fingerboard, especially those fourth fingers. He also likes to come down a bit flat with his fingers, which makes for some really messy-sounding double-stops. He is fully capable of playing in the correct position, as evidenced by clear, lovely double-stop passages, but he hasn't truly internalized yet, and will sag after the need to be in the perfect left hand position passes. He loves to play Christmas carols and they are quite simple versions, so they are an excellent opportunity for me to watch his left hand like a hawk and encourage him to position it properly. As soon as he shows his teacher that his left hand is doing its job, she'll let him at the Book 4 Vivaldi.

She showed him a wrist-twisting type exercise today for getting his left hand positioned perfectly, and he had a good chuckle over it, as it is also an exercise used to loosen up the wrists for martial arts.

On the left-hand plus side, his vibrato has developed beautifully and he's using it all over the place. And his bow hand remains relaxed and nicely curved. I've been keeping an eye on it, because sometimes if we pay too much attention to one thing (i.e. left hand position), something else will go out of whack just as we get that other one thing fixed. Trying to pull absolutely everything together is always a fun and challenging adventure.

Mathing along

We're in a very unschooling place right now. William is reading, and doing math. Occasionally. But when he does do math, he tends to do it in bulk. After getting hung up in Singapore Math 3B about eight months ago, he has drifted back to it and is zooming through at a tremendous speed. If he keeps up the momentum he has right now, he'll be ready for 4A within a few weeks. Conceptually, he is unstoppable. Computationally, he's nowhere near the top of the heap. Computation remains a slow and arduous task for him, though he does tend to almost always end up with the right answers. As such, I will often sweep him along once it has become clear that he understands the concept instead of having work out every question on the page. Having said that, he is doing basic arithmetic faster than ever before, it's just still really slow. We still use RightStart now and then as well, but it takes considerable more planning and involvement from me, so as long as he's thriving with Singapore, I'm happy. We've had multiple math programs from the beginning though, so I guess we can just call ourselves multi-mathers.

Class is in session

This is what happens when I walk away from the table for a few minutes so William can work independently. Two Persians show up and give him all the answers! Seriously, I have never seen any cats as clingy and persent as these Persians have proved to be, not even Siamese. I know Siamese have a reputation as being "people cats" but Ayla and Emerson are taking the term "people cats" to new heights.

The Helpingest Boy I Know

I've been blessed with a Helper. From the start, William has been an eager assistant, but I always chalked his enthusiasm up to his age. Most small children are oh-so-ready to pull up their little sleeves and get in on what the grown-ups around them are doing.

But he's almost eight years old, well past the age where I can just say, "Isn't that cute" about everything he does. No, there's something more going on in the helping department. He is eager and willing, still, to do whatever he can do to help us. If he sees either me or his Grandma working on something, his first question is "What can I do!?". And because he's a big, strong boy, the degree to which he can help has expanded appreciably. Where he would once follow me out and put the cover over the garbage bags at the curb, he now lugs both bags out there himself, as well as both recycling boxes (full), and then covers the garbage bags. A few hours later, he heads out to collect the sheet and the empty recycle boxes to return them to their spot in the garage.

Yesterday, my mother did the laundry with a sore back. William carried every basket of laundry back upstairs for her cheerfully and happily. Two days ago, I found him balancing precariously on the counter putting glass bowls away up high as he had taken it upon himself to empty the dishwasher. And yesterday, he was my bag-holder as we walked around the yard and cleaned up after Coal the dog.

He will even vacuum if you ask him really nicely, but this is the one job he doesn't bounce to do -- the noise of the vacuum, especially up close, still really bothers him. He'd rather be shut in his room when the vacuum is on.

This morning, he swept out the entire garage, because he loves sweeping. He also assisted in some pre-winter organizing that needed to happen in there. It wasn't easy work, but he was in there like a dirty shirt providing immeasurable aid to the ladies of the house. And when I picked him up from a birthday party last week, he met me with his arms full of shredded tissue paper, as he was collecting it all for the garbage after the other children had engaged in a tissue paper fight.

Back when William was 2.5, and attending a Montessori preschool two mornings a week, his favourite task was to use the hand-held broom and dustpan. Sweeping up after anyone and everyone was his personal mission. I never would have thought that so many years later, he'd still be such an awesome helper, but he is. And I'm so lucky to have him.

Another Suzuki cat

Years ago, William's cat Quincey established that he really liked Book 1 Suzuki music by stalking the CD player until I turned it on, and then promptly jumping onto the couch and going to sleep. "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" was his clear favourite for William to play.

It seems Emerson has more advanced preferences in his Suzuki music. We put the Book 4 Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor on repeat this afternoon while we worked on some math, and while William was away from the table, Emerson showed up and crashed right in the middle of his math book. It's not the first time Emi has settled right on the table while we're working there with Suzuki music in the background, so he must either really like Suzuki violin music, or homeschooling.

Rambling along

I can't believe how quickly fall whipped past. Fall, where did you go!?

Hockey season is in full swing -- for two of us. After a birthday party on October 2nd, William decided very suddenly and swiftly that he'd like to try hockey. The local league bent over backwards to accept his very, very late registration and threw him onto a team. So he's been at it for just over a month, and is enjoying himself. He's not over-the-top in love with hockey or anything, but he sure is having a lot of fun. And I'm happy, because I desperately wanted the hockey door to be open to him should he ever show interest. He's slower than a lot of the kids and not as agile, but most of them have played before. Even just this year should give him a good idea if hockey is something he would want to continue.

I'm on the pink team myself. The exceedingly pink team. Wow, are we pink! I've missed some games due to illness, but I think it's going to be a really fun season for me, too.

A small friend of mine is ready for a 3/4 size violin. His teacher broke the news last week, with the quiet words, "I'm sure you're not ready to hear this, but..." We're looking at a trade-in this time, if I can convince him that trading a violin in won't be the end of the world. Still working on that.

He has arrived very proudly at his first Vivaldi concerto. However, his teacher wants to do some more shifting work with him before allowing him to start the Vivaldi. He was dismayed at his lesson when she declared the last Seitz "finished" but asked him to wait to start the Vivaldi. I suspect it will probably only be a few weeks until she lets him dive in, but knowing her careful nature and intimate knowledge of all that is William, I'm sure her choice to hold off is a good one.

Dancing is taking on a life of its own. The class started their competitive jazz number on Sunday, and we were told this week that they are adding an extra ballet class on Saturday afternoons to choreograph a competitive ballet number. I had no idea they did that kind of thing -- I thought the work was all done during regular class time. I could complain until the cows come home, but William's commitment to dance is stronger than ever, and he is fine with going in on Saturdays to do ballet. In fact, he told me ballet is his favourite class...who knew. He has also clarified (undoubtedly for me, lol) that he "likes" hockey, but "LOVES" dancing. I think he just wants to keep me straight on that for future reference. Silly duck.

Hockey registration is DONE. Beginner's skills sessions start Oct. 6th and the season gets under way Oct. 18/19th. I can't wait.

When all else fails...bring out the candy

Suzuki Violin School Book 4...not easy. William has hit the skids with one particular section of one piece, and seems to be in a blind loop of trying it, making mistakes, getting frustrated, and playing the section worse and worse with each successive "effort".

The problem is, there isn't really any effort involved once the mistake happens. He's letting himself get sucked into a vortex of dismay, and nearly guaranteeing that the issue will persist by playing it faster and faster each time. It's UG-LEE.

We've been trying to shake loose from this hard part for at least a week. At his lesson yesterday, the frustration monster showed up and really surprised William's teacher. She said something like, "You just have to play through the music with no errors". He replied along the lines of, "What I'd really like to do is PUNCH through it. Punch my fist right through the music".

I can sympathize. I was ready to knock that music's lights out a few times myself this week. But William's teacher was most taken aback by his comment and said "William, you're really, really not yourself today!" After his lesson when he had left the room, I stressed that it had a been a long, struggly week with that particular section and that he really was very frustrated with it. She still seemed to think his desire to punch through the music was a bit over the top.

I dunno. It was a difficult week. It's not like he cried, or stomped, or threw anything. He just used 7 year old words to say tell us how he was feeling. I'm okay with that.

However, we're still faced with fixing those same challenges this week. So I'm resorting to a exceptionally rare method to get him over this hump: candy. He's not a big candy guy at all, but he has a few favourites and because he so rarely has candy, they are still a pretty cool thing to him.

Last night at the bulk store, I picked up a small handful of M&M's, Reece's Pieces, Skittles, candy corn and Mike&Ike. I then mixed the candies all up, and put them in a tiny jam jar, the 125ml size. They look very pretty and appealing. If nothing else, I'm hoping the chance to get his hands on a few candies during his practice will disrupt the cycle of hopelessness in which he seems to be trapped. Perhaps we can attach sweet, yummy feelings to the pesky sections, instead of dark, frustrated ones.

At long last

I think I've been fairly on top of important developmental milestones as William has gone from baby to toddler to boy. In general, milestones have come right when they were "supposed" to...some earlier, some later. He walked early-ish, talked average-ish, weaned "late-ish". I didn't keep track of specific things like buttoning buttons, zipping up his jacket, etc. etc. but they were all pretty average, too.

Then we come to tying his shoes. Somehow, I completely dropped the shoe-tying ball. Mostly because of Velcro. He's had Velcro shoes forever. Any shoes that weren't Velcro, I just tied for him, like his dress shoes.

All of last year, I was aware that I needed to teach him to tie his own shoes, because every week when we showed up for his tap class, just under the wire, I'd have to tie them for him as quick as a bunny and send him into class. Every week I'd bonk myself in the forehead and tell myself I needed to teach him to tie his shoes that week. But every week, I forgot. And there was never enough time before tap class to show him -- dance time doesn't work like real time for us. It just doesn't. We can leave start getting ready early, leave early, hustle along nicely, but in the end, it doesn't matter. We STILL get there just on time, but panting for breath.

So I tied his tap shoes all year last year. This year, he was getting ready for tap, and I was talking to another mother. He stood up, laces dangling, to wait for me to tie his shoes. His little friend Peter piped up, "I'll do it for you, William!" and knelt down and tied up William's shoes for him. Ah, finally some motivation from William himself to want to tie his own shoes.

The next morning, I handed him his hip hop shoes and the lesson began. It lasted about 30 seconds. The rest was gleeful practicing. Tie, untie, tie, untie. He mastered regular tying, and double knots, and how to undo both, in a span of just a few minutes.

Of course, the proud mother had to grab the camera. As I stood trying to get just the right angle, this baleful glare appeared in the lens. I lowered the camera and there was William, staring at me like I'd grown another head. He said, "You are taking a picture of me tying my shoes?? You don't take a picture of someone tying his shoe. I'm seven, it's normal!".

Yeah, well, here's a picture anyway. Maybe it's William, maybe it's not. I vowed to preserve the anonymity of the shoe tying guy in this photograph.

On his way

On Sunday, the head of William's dance studio watched his jazz class so that she could make her choices for the new Primary Level 1 competitive team. She gave a the parents a list of criteria beforehand which removed almost any doubt that William would be dancing competitively this year. However, one of his little friends was pretty borderline, and we were very concerned about whether she would be chosen. She struggles mightily with school as she is dyslexic, but she loves to dance and puts everything she's got into it. Unfortunately, the dyslexia carries over into telling left and right, and sometimes her memory for combinations takes a while to kick in.

Well, we got the call Sunday evening that William was chosen for competition. I told him, and he was quietly pleased. I think he said, "Oh, okay" with a bit of a smile.

The next day, I spoke to his friend's aunt (she does all the dancing stuff), and she reported that William's friend also made it. When I told William, he was ecstatic. He was SO much happier about her getting through!

So this year will be a bit different for us dance-wise. This group will have one or two competitive routines, and will have on-stage rehearsals once a week starting in January. They are attending just one of the two yearly competitions, and so will be heading to London, Ontario in April.

I'm happy for him, because I know he wanted this...he's been planning it for a couple of years. Dance is still completely NOT my thing and I'm not sure how much I'll like having the intensity increased, but everyone who's done these competitions says I'll love it. We'll, uh, see.

Fall fruit

There's nothing like fall fruit. You just can't beat it. Thankfully, we live in an area where fresh produce is plentiful at farmer's markets and road-side stands and trucks.

This morning I hit the "apple truck". There were more than just apples available -- there were baskets of huge field tomatoes, freshly dug potatoes, green and yellow beans, and various types of squash.

But I was after the apples today and came home with some tart little Macs and some super-crisy Mutsu. I've Googled and tried to figure out how many apples I bought, but I'm not sure I bought them in any recognized standard unit. I was thinking maybe a peck of each kind, going by weight. (A peck is said to weigh 10.5lbs) So two pecks of apples, one of each kind.

My goal today was applesauce. I wasn't up to actually canning any today, so I just did a batch for immediate consumption. I left it nice and chunky so there actual tasty bits of apple in it to sink your teeth into.

We also made a crisp, which is par for the course. But what isn't par for the course is that two Mutsu apples made FOUR CUPS of sliced apples for the crisp. That's how exceedingly huge they are!


I got my zillions of apples for $15.00. In the stores right now, "good" apples are going for $1.99/lb. If stick to my guesstimate that I bought 21 or so pounds, I would say I saved a BUNDLE on my good apples.

He's a strange one

With the adults in the house heavily involved with processing peaches last night, William was left pretty much on his own for entertainment and company. But that didn't seem to be a problem of any sort, as evidenced by the pictures presented below.



Why, there he is, playing the piano with both hands and one foot!! Because, you know, two hands just aren't good enough. LOL He actually had a part for his big toe - it was basically tapping out a bass line to match his right hand, while his left hand played some chords.




And here he is, wearing the peach baskets as armour and launching attacks at me while I waited for the peaches to process in the canner. It turns out that six peach baskets offer a lot of protection, just not from the camera.

You'll note it appears he's not wearing any pants in the first picture. That's because he's not. At the ripe old age of 7.5, William still considers clothes to be largely a burden. He seems happiest getting away with wearing the fewest items of clothing he reasonably can, especially in the house. Socks are his arch-enemy...he only wears them with shoes, and takes them off almost as soon as he takes his shoes off, upon entering the house. He started off with pants yesterday, of course, but when he came in from his sand box after playing last night, they were very dusty. I was sitting at the table slicing peaches when he came in, so I said, "Oh, honey, your pants are really dirty. Can you please take them off before you track dirt all over the house?" So he did. Right there, beside the table in the dining room.



There they are, the abandoned pants. He wouldn't care if he never saw them again.

A Peachy Good Time

If there is any peach that is tastier and more heavenly than a Vineland Heritage peach, I don't know what it is... All week long, one grocery store here has been stocking the most amazing peaches ever to cross my lips. Since peaches are a favourite of everyone in the house, I was dying to try my hand at canning some for the first time. The picture in my head is that we will be sitting around in January or February (on the edge of scurrvy of course), pining away for some fresh fruit, and bingo!, I will pull out a jar of fresh fall peaches and save the day.

Or something like that.

I decided to try two methods of preserving peaches. Canning, with mason jars, and freezing in Ziplocs in a sugar/water solution. All told, I have a dozen 500ml mason jars and five 250ml jars full of peaches. That's using the term "full" loosely, however. My very first bath floated something awful. I didn't pack them tightly enough. But, I mean, I was dealing with peaches, and I wanted actual sliced peaches, not peach mush or peach sauce, so I wasn't really very assertive with cramming them into the jar. The next day, when I saw the degree to which they had floated, I resolved to do better with the next batch. So last night, I hand-packed them once I neared the top of the jar. I couldn't believe how resilient those suckers turned out to be! Nothing came even close to mashing, and I got them in there a lot tighter. They are floating much less than the others.

I also have five large Ziploc freezer bags frozen flat, in syrup. I opted for the light syrup for both the canning and freezing, to keep the sugar to a mininum. And, we froze one large cookie sheet with just peach slices and nothing added to use for peach crisp later. Then those peaches went into their own Ziploc.

It was a lot of work, but my mum is an amazingly quick and efficicent peeler and slicer, so that made it a lot easier. William even got in on the action last night, carefully cutting peeled sections of peach into nice slices.

Between canning, freezing, eating them fresh and making a peach crisp, we've gone through six 5-Litre baskets of peaches this week, and have another basket sitting here just for snacking. We'd better stop, or no one will want to see another peach until next September!

Almost back in the swing of things

This was the week we added most of William's activities back into The Schedule. We've now had violin lessons, piano lessons, and four dance classes -- hip hop, tap, ballet and jazz. Starting next week, choir and orchestra will be on the scene.

I'm happy to report that it's all going well. He was very rusty stumbling back into piano lessons, as he opted to give the piano a long break, but he's coming back up to speed decently with just a bit of practice. Since he never let up with the violin, there was no stumbling involved. He has transitioned seamlessly to hour-long lessons, proving that he has both the interest and focus necessary to be successful with the change. He's tackled Book 4 with tremendous energy and enthusiasm and seems to think playing concertos is about the coolest thing he's ever done.

Hip hop, his new dance class, has been a huge hit. It's completely different than tap, jazz and ballet, where the syllabus is stricly demanding and the classes are all business. Hip hop lets him throw down the moves as he wishes, laugh, jump around, and engage with the very compelling music that plays. I actually had an observer who was watching the hip hop class on Monday ask me if William is hyperactive. I was a bit taken aback at first, because he is most definitely nothing of the sort, but looking through her eyes, it wasn't hard to see a small boy who goes bounding through that door and doesn't stop moving for a solid hour.

He came, he saw, he worked like a Trojan

While I don't normally operate on the school systems dates and such, I really had to wait to get William underway this year because of the kids in the neighbourhood showing up at random intervals to play all the time. I needed them occupied before we really got down to it.

We started at 8:30 and worked until 12:30. At William's request, we started with science. He worked at that for about an hour, using Singapore Science. We're still using Moving Beyond the Page (love, love, love it), but the science is embedded in that program, and William had been very insistent that he wanted science as a separate sort of subject. He seemed to enjoy himself, working on the Singapore stuff.

After science, we had cereal at the table and did some spelling. He seems to feel empowered by AVKO Sequential Spelling as his success rate is very, very good. It teaches how I always thought spelling should be taught -- by using predictable, generalizable word patterns. It seems to appeal to his ordered mind and has completely put my mind to rest in the spelling department. While prior to investigating AVKO, I thought his spelling was subpar, I know thinking it might actually be decent. Whatever, as long as he can spell in the end, it's all good.

Somewhere around 10:30 we had a cup of tea at the table. I think that was while we were going through a lesson from Moving Beyond the Page. Hilariously, the lesson we had today was completely science. William didn't complain. And as he's going to be studying "Sarah, Plain and Tall", one of his jobs today was to come up with his own parallel book title. It was "William, Big and Smart". He is SO very much a seven year old boy this one, high and mighty to the nth degree!

He did some Singapore Challenging Word problems, and a little bit of Rightstart Math. As always, it mystifies me how very slow and clumsy he is with the simplest arithmetic (i.e. 9-7) but can look at a word problem, identify as needing two steps and describing what numbers need to be manipulated in order to come up with the answer. Eventually the arithmetic comes to him, but I always think it should be snappier than it is...go figure. At least he's at home and can take the time he wants or needs to do the arithmetic. Crazy kid.

After lunch, he bopped around the house for a while before I suggested he go outside. It was a fairly loaded suggestion -- he obviously had energy that needing burning off! He rode his bike around for awhile before discovering a couple of friends. The public school system kids started today, but the Catholic system doesn't start until tomorrow, so he's been outside for hours and hours now, in his bathing suit, having water fights, Mr. Freezies's a whole pile of super hot late summer fun. :)

The County Fair Day Two

So we made it back to the Chippewa County Fair on Friday. We got there around 9:30am, which gave us the chance to see William's friend Mady show her horse. Afterward, we went back to the barns and horse trailer so William could meet their horses. Mady's family brought two -- Sugar, a new acquistion for them who was quite uninterested in behaving like a good horse, and Socks, their "bomb proof" horse who can be ridden easily by a three year old. To William's surprise and delight, Mady's mother suggest he ride Socks.

Now, William loves horses. Loves them. He has been doing the pony rides every year at our community festival since he was just a year and a half old. The deal is you pay $3.00 and someone walks you around a loop in the park. It lasts for maybe three or four minutes total. At around four years old, I probably handed over no less than $24.00 in loonies and toonies so that little boy could ride and ride and ride. He even wore cowboy boots that year. And this year, at 7 years old, he couldn't wait to get to the pony rides. This year though, they put him on a horse, most likely taking mercy on the poor little ponies.

He jumped at the chance to ride Socks. First, Mady's mother led him around in a big loop, and then decided it was easier just to throw Mady up there with him and let her do the driving. They rode around together, as happy as clams, not attached to any ropes, for probably 15 minutes. What gets me about riding horses is that William shows no fear. He barely even shows caution, for that matter. Despite being extremely dubious about the safety of carnival rides that go faster than a merry-go-round, he has no trouble climbing up into the saddle of a full-sized horse and taking off. This time, he spread his arms wide and yelled, "No hands!!!" I think I may have sprouted my first gray hair at that moment.

I also heard him say to Mady, "I saw on TV that if you kick a horse, it makes it go faster. Like this!", and he lifted and dropped his heels into Socks' side. Of course, Socks picked up the pace, thrilling William to bits. He did it again, and Socks went faster. Mady, behind William with the reins, was trying to slow Socks down and giving William an earful about making the horse go faster. He didn't grasp at all that it could be a problem. Listening to the two of them work it out was hilarious, as Mady is quite the mother hen.

Speaking of riding, he also got to ride the free kiddie train that loops the fairgrounds endlessly every day. It's tractor-pulled, and takes about 15 minutes to do its loop. William is up there in the picture, between the pink and orange "cars", blocked off by the ginormous flag in his face. In the other picture, he's peeking out at Mady as the train pulls in to offload its passengers.

We also discovered another fair-food phenomena on Friday -- maple sugar cotton candy. All I can say is that it's a good thing fair-food is only available once a year!! Oh yeah. We also consumed the biggest, bluest slushies we've ever seen. We purposely left them as our "exit treat", agreeing not to pick them up until we were on our way out of the fairgrounds for the last time. I knew we'd look like Smurfs once we started into those slushies, and boy, was I right. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to turn our lips, tongues and teeth their proper colour again.

It goes without saying that the county fair will be a new annual tradition. I do not remember the last time William did something that he was so passionate about. And the timing is great...This is the last week of "freedom" for the general public as school starts on Tuesday here. The county fair kind of acts as a last hurrah for summer, and what a hurrah it was!