Rejoice!

The last time all y’all (see, I am becoming a Nova Scotian) came by to chat, I was lamenting the fact that I hadn’t been able to convert my two jedi in training over to the dark side completely.  While they loved video games, superheroes and general geekiness, I hadn’t been able to get them to try a sit down role-playing game with me.  That is no longer a bar to their conversion!

When my fantastic partner and I were in Fredericton to watch the amazing spoken word artist / storyteller / poet / shaman / inspiration Shayne Koyzcan (and that’s a whole other story – that man is awe inspiring) we stopped into a little store called The Geek Chic Boutique. Yeah, the name alone was enough to bring me in, and their selection was interesting enough that childlike squees fluttered about the store faster than I could contain them. We passed over the Star Wars t-shirts, the mad scientist kits, Minecraft figures, Pokemon plushies (which were adorable) and the assorted coffee mugs, Doctor Who equipment and Deadpool wallets, because we found a little game called Adventure Maximus. It was designed by a gamer who wanted to find a way to play with his kids too – to bring them into the fold as it were.  So I could relate, in a big way.

Reading over the rules when we got it open, I was a bit dubious at first, and the kids were confused when we started, but once they got rolling, we had a blast. The padawan gloried over the chance to become Kronk, a hulking minotaur thug with a bad attitude and a penchant for fried pork.  The youngling was pleased as punch to pretend to be a scaled dragonkin priest, breathing fire and smiting his enemies (and allies) with equal zeal.  Even their mother joined in, with her morose goblin warrior.

We’ve had a tonne of fun playing this streamlined and very easy to understand game.  It’s whimsical enough to appeal to the seven year old youngling, interesting enough to keep his ten year old brother entertained, and simple enough that you can play through a whole adventure in an hour or two.  They fight, they dance, they loot, they laugh.  And they let me be the Adventure Master.

Lead and They Might Follow

Until you have uttered the phrase “take that out of your mouth” one hundred times, until you have memorized (and hum in your sleep) the theme song from at least three children’s shows and until you realize you are watching Sponge Bob Squarepants with no children in the room, you will not really understand what I’m talking about here… I hope you read on anyway.

Being a father is the single most rewarding, demanding, painful, thankless, seemingly hopeless and awesome task I have ever undertaken.  My two little Jedi have consistently challenged me, driven me to new heights of frustration (“Stop hitting your brother with dirty underwear!!!”), enraged me to the point where “dad needs some alone time” (as noted by the Padawan last night, and reminded me of the awe that the world once inspired in me. I can’t remember being as excited as my boys are about the new discoveries they make, about the new things they learn – though I am sure I once was.  What I can remember, and it’s easy because it happens daily, is how excited I get watching them have fun, watching them become young men.  Those moments of sheer joy are when our ‘parental batteries’ recharge, oftentimes to overflowing – like Iron Man hit with Thor’s lightning.

Which brings me to my point – my boys are geeks.  They denied it last night when we were discussing it at the dinner table, but when asked to name blasters from Star Wars, they were able to identify several by model number, and held opinions on which one is best for which type of battle.  When questioned about Minecraft, they can go on for hours about the types of buildings they can make, how to use redstone and how to best defeat the deadly creepers. They let me join them in this geekery (though I earned my geek card decades ago) and I revel in the fact that they are so proud of it, and are so happy when I join in – the Youngling was telling all his classmates about how he and I joined together to “defeat an Enderman with only stone swords!” His classmates were suitably impressed.

Both continue to profess their desire to become engineers, the elder to build robots which he can use to take over the world and cleanse it of the humans causing all the problems (the dark side is strong in this one) and the younger to build cars and planes that fly and don’t cause pollution (which he admittedly copied from his brother) or maybe a doctor (possibly one that moonlights as an exotic dancer… yeah, he’s complicated).  We live in a time where their desires to be professional YouTubers (another stated goal for both of them) may actually be a career option. In each of them, their love of technology is helping to guide them on their respective paths.

Both are learning to love reading, with the Padawan leaning toward robots and science fiction graphic novels, and the Youngling digging deep into spooky ‘Goosebumps’ books and stories about haunted houses. I keep hoping they will share my passion for high fantasy, and while both love the Hobbit movies (to my chagrin – damn you Peter Jackson!!!) and the Harry Potter movies, neither is interested in the real treat that is a high fantasy novel… but I wait patiently for them.

When asked if he would like to play a roleplaying game with me last night, the Padawan declined – it didn’t sound like fun to him.  I was saddened a bit, the final indoctrination into my geek realm can’t happen until he rolls some polyhedral dice and knows the agony of the critical failure and the ecstasy of rolling a natural twenty.  I want to share that passion with him, but it seems I will have to wait a bit longer yet. 

Above all I’m glad that ‘geek’ no longer has negative connotations, or at least not as negative as they once were.  Where an interest or passion for computers, science fiction or fantasy used to be a one way ticket to social pariah status, it can now be a badge of honor.  And my Jedi in training are many kinds of geeks: video game geeks, technology geeks, superhero geeks, Nerf geeks, Roughrider football geeks, judo geeks and Star Wars geeks.  They are my geeks.

Growing Up

As parents, we always know that our kids will grow up. Which is to say that our brains understand that these small creatures we created are animals and as such they will ingest food which will create additional body tissues causing them to grow taller and heavier, progressing from crawling to walking to running to… well, whatever comes after running.  We know they will grow stronger, smarter and more independent. 

Our hearts on the other hand, don’t have this same understanding. In our hearts, these tiny little creatures are still cute little babies who need us for everything. Our hearts will always ‘know’ that these creatures, regardless of age, need us for everything. They are so small we can carry them in our hands, they have that “new-baby” smell and they need us to comfort them when they are scared or lonely.  They fall asleep on our chests, their wispy hair tickling our chins and their soft pink toes not quite reaching our waists. They look up from our arms with bright eyes, and their little fingers grab our pinkies with a strength that we exclaim over.  Of course, from time to time, our hearts get a shocked awakening to what our brains knew all along.  And it aches when it happens. 

Our eldest celebrated his tenth birthday with a group of his friends yesterday.  A video-game playing, YouTube watching afternoon lead into a quick bite to eat at a burger joint prior to heading off to the movies.  As my son, my tiny little baby, sat with his friends at a table without me, all of them talking and telling stories, joking with each other and having a great time, it really hit home that my baby isn’t a baby any more.  He doesn’t need me like he used to.  I could have left the room and they likely would not even have noticed. 

We’ve seen these signs of independence coming. He’s been riding off with his friends for a couple years now on trips around the neighborhood, and this summer has marked his first forays into going with a friend down to the corner pizza shop for a slice with no adult supervision. I’m proud of his growing independence, and the signs of maturity I am seeing in him. When I look at him now, I see less of a little boy and more of a young man. 

And yet, there’s a small part of me that is sad to see it happening. I know that soon enough, he’ll be driving, then college (or whatever he chooses) and then I’ll be wondering why he doesn’t call more, and will he be coming home for Christmas this year. I know that he will grow up, move out, maybe have a family of his own.  I know that it’s a perfectly natural process – that everyone does it.  I know that, but my heart doesn’t.

You spin me right round baby, right round...

Here in Halifax, we recently decided - wait... "we" in this case means the elected officials of our fair city, and "recently" means two years ago (we Haligonians consider anything that happened after the 1917 Halifax Explosion to be recent) - to make the temporary skating oval that was designed for the 2011 Canada Games into a permanent winter fixture.  Tubing and cooling equipment, far to complicated to go into great detail on here (and because I don't have the faintest idea how it works, I think it uses science), make the Oval usable even in slightly above zero weather, which is good, because Halifax "winters" are rarely consistent.

The nicest part about the Oval is that it was kept alive due to the public response to it.  You see, when it was originally constructed back in 2011 for that year's Canada Games, it was left open for public skating for the rest of that winter season, but was due to be dismantled and turned back into the vacant park field that it came from.  But the public responded so positively to its existence, and put so much pressure on HRM's city council, that it was decided to keep it open, and even to slowly upgrade it.

The other nicest part about the Oval is that the city has managed, so far, to keep it free to use.  Despite the assuredly high costs of running it every year, it is free for anyone to head out and skate upon.  It is maintained, and kept in very good shape, throughout its open period by tax dollars and corporate sponsorship (note the name after all, our power company hard at work spending its obscene profits).  So anyone with a pair of skates (and a CSA approved hockey helmet if you are under 12 years of age) can head on down and skate at will (during public skates times of course).

But wait!  The other nicest part about the Oval is that if you don't own those aforementioned skates and helmet (see, I used aforementioned in a sentence, that law degree is totally worth the $40K I paid!), then they will lend you a pair of skates and / or the helmet you need.  Just turn over a piece of government issued picture ID, and the very efficient staff members will get you the gear you need - for free!  And they do it quickly too - a line of about sixty people can be processed in as little ten minutes.

OK, the last nicest part about the Oval though is the sense of community that it inspires.  There is a real sense of small town community, an almost Rockwellian vision.  People are all there to skate and to be part of the larger Halifax community - they help each other up, there are few collisions (and being Canadian, more apologies than strictly necessary), people look out for each other and each other's kids.

But the real nicest part about the Oval is that it gave me the chance to take my boys skating for the very first time today.  They had a blast.  The first lap took about thirty minutes, and Doc wiped out about forty times.  But he kept getting up, kept trying.  Even when I could see he was getting frustrated, he didn't throw in the towel.  Gee on the other hand, rarely fell, due in part to his very low center of gravity, but even more to the bob-skates he was wearing.

Both boys had the time of their lives, red cheeked and covered in snow.  They laughed and grinned with each fall, and Gee made a point of trying to get as far ahead of me as he could.  Doc just kept going, and he swears that many of his falls were not due to trying to impress the pretty girls.  I suppose their proximity was just a coincidence, twenty six times.  What?  It could totally happen.

I had the best day I have had in a really long time (and that is out of some pretty damned good days!) watching them, coaching them, and just being their dad.

Thanks for taking me skating boys.  We'll do it again, very soon.

Try Having a Little Fun Sometime 2/30

A good friend of mine posted a great video on her Facebook today (handy little thing that Facebook).  Here's a link to the video.

I have discovered I don’t like actually putting video clips in here - it messes up the scrolling and formatting just a tad too much.  Yeah, I actually am that anal.  So go watch that video.  It is only about a minute and a half long.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Hello?  Hmmm…

Ah!  There you are.  So, great video huh?  Not a bad idea really.  Take a mundane and boring task, like climbing stairs, add in an element of fun, and suddenly people are doing something they used to hate and laughing while they do it.

Does it work in reality?  Sure, the novelty of making music as you walk up the stairs would keep you climbing them for a while, but how long would you really do it?  I hate to say it, but I rather doubt that you would keep it up too long at all.  And you know why?  Because you are an adult.  At least chronologically.  And that is a shame.

You want to watch people having fun doing things that we consider boring?  Find a child under the age of ten.

One of my first blog posts, entitled “Playing Shovels”, was about the fun that Noah and I have shoveling the driveways of our home.  Hard, backbreaking work that very few people enjoy.  One of those oddballs who does so is my son.  He loves shoveling it, laughs madly while tossing snow, and gets sad when the rain washes it away before he can shovel it.  He’s pleasantly insane, and when I’m with him, sometimes so am I.

Tonight, to test this “fun theory”, and knowing that Noah was one for games and fun, I tried something new when it was time for the boys to do their evening cleanup.  I made it a race.  And Noah, rather than his usual disgruntled compliance, jumped at the chance.  He cheered when he “won” and teased his brother that he would win again tomorrow.  He probably will, Griff didn’t want to play the game and hates cleaning up.

Anyone that has kids can probably relate to this amazing capacity for fun that kids seem to have.   Go to any beach when the water is cold and look at who is in the water - children.  Dozens of them, teeth chattering, fingernails purple and lips blue.  You can see the lips from quite a distance, because they are all smiling and laughing.  Their parents?  Huddled on the beach after putting one toe into the water and declaring “No way!” 

Children find enjoyment in the strangest places and the smallest things.  Hell, banging loudly on a roasting pan can keep Griffin occupied for hours (yes, we spend a lot on Tylenol here), and give Noah a flashlight to play with and he’ll be exploring dark “caves” for days.

I think the real transition from childhood to adulthood is the first time a child utters the words “I’m bored.”

When and why do we lose this ability to be fascinated and entertained by the world around us?  Why do we come to believe we need xbox and iPod and HDTV and thousands of dollars worth of computer hardware to have fun?  When do we stop looking at a refrigerator box as a source of amusement and start seeing it as a nuisance to fold up and take out to the trash?

The when, while academically interesting, is really the secondary question there though.  The why is far more important.  What is it about adults that leads us to be less adventurous, less daring and less able to entertain ourselves?  Is it the knowledge that we’re mortal?  Is it the years of experience in getting hurt that makes us shy to take chances?  Those are likely factors to explain why we avoid the more risky behaviours we might once have engaged in, but they don’t explain why we lose the ability to make everyday things fun.

And when we do these things, when we drive down the street making race car sounds, or fart in the tub just to see the bubbles, we laugh.  Unless another adult sees us, then we blush and stammer and try to change the subject.  Newsflash folks, race car sounds are cool, no matter your age, and farts are funny.  Especially when they make bubbles in the tub.  Most especially when those bubbles are purple.  What????

We’re told all through our late childhood and early adolescence to “grow up” to “stop acting silly” and to “be a big boy / girl”.  Society wants us to be sober, hard-working, reliable, blah blah blah… boring people.  Yet we all have that friend that doesn’t fit the mold.  You know the one I am talking about.  He plays in a jazz band.  She lived in a yurt in Mongolia for a year.  She dropped out of law school to be a street performer in Montreal.  He is a circus performer.  She lived out of her backpack for two years travelling through South America.  We secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, want to be these people.  We dream of what it would be like to do these “crazy” things, to be able and willing to put our dreams and our fun ahead of what society tells us we are supposed to do.  But we have mortgages, families, car payments and pensions to think about.  So we dream and we wonder.

Here’s the thing.  And this is what I thought about when I saw that video.  We can still have fun.  We can still laugh at our farts.  We can giggle like idiots and not feel embarrassed when a stranger on the bus sees us.  We can jump into that icy water and splash each other.  We can remember what it was like to be a child, to face the world with wild abandon and take joy in the mundane – we just have to try a little harder.

Now some of you are thinking “But I already do that stuff!  I have fun all the time!”  Bully for you.  Now go back to the beginning of this, read it again.  If you can still say that it doesn’t apply to you, you’re a damned lucky person and I envy you.  Please tell me how you do it.

For the rest of us, here’s our challenge for the week.  Do something outrageous, something childlike and fun.  Don’t do it because I said it would be a hoot.  Don’t do it to prove you can.. Do it because your soul needs to be reminded it’s alive and well.

How Things Change

When G woke me up at 5:30 this morning (it was my turn to get up, so naturally he chose to wake up two hours before his usual time) the sky was overcast and the fog so thick you couldn’t see the houses across the street and I just knew the day was going to go badly. But then G snuggled in, and we watched some Diego. There is nothing, nothing in the entire world, as satisfying as your child snuggling up with you on the couch, especially when he still smells fresh from his bath last night (just a hint of watermelon bubble bath remaining) and he puts his little arms around your arm to make sure you hold him just right.

G and I followed that with a breakfast of home made bread (OK, OK, it was made by the new bread maker, but I still poured in the ingredients damnit) toasted with jam, while Bug (who had sleepily stumbled out an hour later and immediately came and gave me a hug, telling me that he loved me) had his usual “square cheese and a wiener please dad”... yeah, he’s kinda that odd. Then off to work.

The ride to work this morning was breathtaking. The fog had burned off (or so I thought... cue the foreshadowing) and the wind was light. The speedometer on my bike (yes, I am a geek) hit a new high speed going down the big hill - 56.1 kms/hour! Passing cars on that stretch is always awesome. But then, as I rounded a corner, the most amazing thing greeted me. Someone, presumably someone with magical powers beyond my own “Very Minor Superpowers” had put up a perfectly vertical and, to my naked eyes, perfectly straight wall of fog across the road. The fog was so thick that the cars moving into it were completely veiled within inches of entering it. I hit the brakes hard and thought about walking the bike down this part - its sketchy even at full visibility. But something in me rebelled at this choice, something didn’t want to play it safe. This tiny little voice said “Fuck it! Let’s roll!”

Now usually the voices in my head give me much saner and far more sensible advice than this. Usually they are sober and pretty reliable. Yeah, they repeatedly tell me things about myself that I don’t want to hear, and they almost always make me worry about things that I don’t want to worry about. I make a habit of listening to them - even if I don’t always follow through. While what they were saying was crazy, for some reason it resonated with me. And so, the brakes were released, the pedals were pressed, and I hit the fog at a solid fourty clicks an hour.

It was almost physical, the cold and damp slapped me in the face like a thrown blanket. Visibility was restricted to about a meter, and even the sound of the cars inching along beside me, and the steps of the very surprised pedestrian (sorry about that if you chance to read this!) were muted.

The sheer exhilaration of flying down the hill, with no way of seeing what was ahead, relying on my memory and the feel of the road, was incredible. Stupid? You bet. But it reminded me that sometimes, you just have to say the hell with it, and let go. Let go of inhibitions, let go of fears and insecurities. Let go of the things that tell you “You Can’t!” and let go of yourself. Sure, sometimes you crash and burn. But every once in a while, you fly.

Finding "Extra" Time

I need to be exposed to gamma radiation, bit by a radioactive spider or go on an archaeological dig to a newly discovered ancient tomb that is surrounded by warding signs in a language that no one living speaks, and may well be extra-terrestrial in origin.

Those mediums are apparently the most reliable methods of acquiring super powers. Which I have determined, after lengthy study, I need.

Superpower A: Time Stopping.
This power will be used to have more time with the boys and my lovely partner.  "But they'll be frozen in time SRD!" you cry.  Indeed they would be.  So some creativity will be required.  But I think I can iron this out.

Power will also be used to get more work done, both at work and at home.  No time to finish that report?  Frozen time!  Drywalling still not done after three weeks?  Frozen!  Dishes are piling up again?  Flash frozen clock!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, sleeping.  Nothing says "ultimate power in the universe" like a well rested SRD.  The rest of the world can remain frozen in time while I catch just a few more hours of sleep.

Superpower B:  Splitting Yourself Into Many Copies
Too much work?  Not any more.  There is very little that twenty of me can't accomplish.  Hold down six full time jobs, take care of the kids, finish my writing projects, take a nap, go out to dinner with my lovely wife, see four movies, finish the basement and have time to just relax with a good book, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine with cheese, some beer with nachos, alone and with a hundred friends - all before dinner.

Superpower C:  Controlling Reality
For everything else.


Now, the harsh reality is that I don't have these superpowers - yet.  In the meantime, I will have to be content with my very minor superpowers.

Very Minor Superpower I:  Turning Into a Horse / Wolf / The Hulk
Thanks largely to Bug's imagination, I have the ability to mimic the sounds and general demeanours of a wide variety of opponents in his battles, friends in his adventures and allies in his stories.  The sheer number of persona that I have unlocked is staggering, and grows by the day.  Of course, this ability appears to be infecting the boys as well.  G has discovered his inner "Zombie Monster Baby!" and Bug is, of late, Sheriff Marshall Ship Captain Bug.  White hat, laser gun and cool sword included.

Very Minor Superpower II:  Making Frozen Things Hot
Thanks to the miracle of the oven, and at the urging of my sons, I have the ability to take a frozen lump, completely inedible in its current state, and in a mere 22 - 24 minutes, turn it into a tasty Pepperoni pizza, with extra cheese!  SHAZAM!  Of course, the inevitable clean up of pizza sauce from G's face makes for some interesting times, as well as some dramatic and deeply personal performance art.

Very Minor Superpower III:  Causing Laughter
Whether through falling down while playing "chase" or tickling sensitive bellies, I have unlocked the power of laughter, and a mighty weapon it is indeed.  There is no sound in the world as full of sheer joy and as satisfying, as the sound of my boys both laughing with me.  Now if only I could capture that sound for all time!

So until that spider comes along, or that bolt of lightning strikes, I guess I'll just have to be happy with my meager abilities.  And a big thanks to the universe for that.

Toot Toot!

For Christmas this year, Santa Claus blessed Bug with a new train set. It's a wooden set, that the big red man picked up at Toys R' Us for $199.00. It was on sale, and came with everything you could ever ask for in a train set... far cheaper than the Thomas sets, though its compatible with those sets. Table (with built in storage), double sided mat for playing on, about 20+ feet of track, mountains, cranes, trains, waterfalls, a helicopter (no train set is really complete without at least one helicopter), the whole nine yards.

The night before Christmas, one of Santa's elves was up until 3:30 putting this thing together... despite several defects in the materials (wrong screws provided, holes drilled in the wrong spot). At the time, Santa's elf swore that he was going to take the damned thing and burn it in the back yard. Thankfully, that did not happen, and all were rewarded on Christmas morning when son's eyes lit up like the sun...

The set is fantastic. It has already provided countless hours of "Choo Choo" and "Ding ding ding" play. It keeps him busy when the baby needs more attention, and provides great stress relief for me when he and I get to play with it. Which is dishearteningly rare, due to having only one hour from the time I get home to the time he goes to bed.

However, I fear I have become addicted to the train set. Last night, moment before bedtime (and that means after bath and stories were both completed), Bug begged to "play trains". I assuaged my "no" guilt by promising that we would make a new train layout tonight - and I have spent all morning (the trip in on the bus, my coffee break and my walk) planning new layouts in my head. I have a million things that should be taking my attention, a hundred plans for the house that need to be sorted out, work on the three short stories I am still trying to complete, plans for my wife and I... but this train set up is taking every available bit of my free time!

Hello, my name is Mr. Passive Aggressive, and I am an addict. I have a train problem.

Playing shovels

Each day it snows here, and those days are starting to add up, our eldest and I head out into the cold (though its only -4 here) to recreate that greatest of rituals... the shovelling of the driveway. In our case, it is particularly painful, as our home has two driveways, each big enough to park 4 cars on but - wait for it - we don't own a car.

So why, you ask with a raised eyebrow, do you shovel the driveways? I had originally thought it was out of some odd misguided need to keep up with the neighbours, and that may still be a factor. Perhaps it was for the convenience of our guests (we almost never have any) or in fear of a weather change (it will probably rain in a day or two and wash all the snow away), but no. It is because my son loves to "play shovels."

That's right, like many dads, I am out there, in pain from lifting what is likely 1000 pounds of snow, because my son laughs when we throw it at each other. I tried just tossing snow at him without actually shovelling, but that isn't the game he wants to play. To make it even more interesting, his favourite part of the game is where he climbs up on the 3 foot snow bank I've created by clearing the driveway, and pushes large amounts of the snow back onto the fresh scrapped surface.

We built a tunnel, climbed in and he wanted to sleep there over night. He tosses snow down my back, invariably getting it inside the collar of my jacket, and inexplicably through my scarf. He laughs like a maniac when he hits me with a snowball (he's a great shot) and laughs even harder when I get him with one back. His cheeks are bright red, probably frostbitten. His mitts somehow manage to fall off every 4 minutes, and he is happy as a clam.

Its days like these that I love my life. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.