Barrister's obnoxious thread full of smug parenting stories

[Grey Fox]

That's how it starts.

[Barrister]

That's how it starts.

How what starts?

[Grey Fox]

Dreams

[Barrister]

So on Friday night Andrew went off to a birthday party.  I think everyone in his kindergarten class was invited - it was his first birthday party where he wasn't invited with his brothers.  I dropped him off (house was two cul-de-sacs over) without issue.

Then we had supper.  Now Andrew is the quiet one of our three boys, but it was amazing how much quieter it was at supper.  There was no quarreling and needling between the other two.  After supper we played out in the front yard as we often do - but again there was no fighting about what we would play.  I even had Joshie play road hockey with me and Tim for a bit, which Josh never would ordinarily want to do.

It was this image of "gee... is this what life would be like with only two kids?"  It was... kind of pleasant.

But after 2 hours it was time to pick Andrew up.  Both Tim and Josh insisted on coming with me to pick him up.  And once we did, they both had tons of questions for Andrew about what the party was like and what he had been doing.  I was mostly forgotten as the [Barrister] boys re-connected.  And there was no way I'd ever trade having the three of them.

[Grey Fox]

I feel the same way when #1 goes to a B-day party. It's so quiet, so easy to just have 1 kid and then #1 comes back & it all flash back in your face; the love.

[Ed Anger]

I'd trade in one of my kids. Jennifer is a bit dull.

[Grey Fox]

Yes, you are like India, not all your citizens are stand outs.

[Barrister]

More hockey today.  For Timmy's hockey game, they do have refs, but for the first time all year I actually saw them call a penalty (against the other team).  Then a little bit later... they called a penalty shot in favour of Tim's team.  You could tell the kids had no idea what was going on.  But the kid (Gavin - there are three kids named Gavin out of 13, and two Nates) managed to score and the team erupted in cheers.

Final score was 8-3 against (and it was worse than that - they don't count goals if the difference is more than 5), but Tim did score his second of the year.  He has some legitimately slick moves at times.  After the game he said 'did you see that spin move I did?  I saw Kyle Connor [Jets rookie forward] do that move and it just came into my head'  Asking him, it was something he saw in the pre-season game I took him to a month ago or more.  I'm impressed he actually absorbed something he saw and tried to incorporate it into his game.

Coaching Andrew... again that hour flew by.  I'm impressed - on his team of 5 year olds there were probably 3 kids at the start of the year who could hardly skate (Andrew was not one of them).  Now 3-4 weeks into the year they are all so much better.  Asking Andrew how hockey went he said "It was worser than awesome... it was just good".    Whatever he's enjoying it and that's what matters.

And finally, it has nothing to do with parenting, but the Jets demolish the Penguins 7-1 tonight, including a Wheeler hat trick.

[Barrister]

So Andrew (5) and Josh (4) have this game they've been playing for the last two weeks or so.  It's "gum and licorice".  Andrew is "gum", which is the colour blue.  Joshua is "licorice", which is the colour red.

It somehow involved playing with lego, and other assorted blocks, which are the respective colours.  But despite me asking a few times about their game, I have zero clues what the heck they are doing.

But whatever - I'm just impressed at the power of imagination that they can come up with this convoluted game that has their dad completely bewildered.

[Barrister]

Another hockey-heavy post in this occasional parenting blog.

So Mrs. B went to Mexico in early December with one of her sisters and her mother, so there were not supposed to be any Christmas presents forthcoming.  But for a variety of reasons I decided Mrs B was getting one present: some skates.  All three of our boys are in hockey/skating, so I thought it would be nice if we could all go for a family skate.

It finally came true on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day with temps near (but not above) freezing.  We got all three boys geared up and went out to the neighborhood outdoor rink.  Mrs B was semi-terrified, as she hadn't been on skated for 20-30 years... but she took to it like a pro.  She kept saying afterwards how much fun it was, and how it reminded her so much of being a kid and going out skating in her small town she grew up in.  And all three boys had fun out there skating.  It was a moment I'll always remember.

On a related note... Tim is in his second year of playing hockey.  His team lost all of their games the first couple months of the year, but is now finally turning things around.  You can tell they're now hungry for wins.  So Edmonton Minor Hockey Week is this week, together with a hockey tournament.  His team wins their first two games of the tournament in blowouts. On to the semi-finals next week.  Tim doesn't score any goals, but has a glorious chance where he dekes out the goalie only to hit the post. 

Anyways... when it comes to hockey I've always been cheap (it's an expensive sport).  I figured 'why buy an expensive stick when you can get a wooden one for $15?'.  And indeed that's all I use.  But Timmy had asked for a "bendy" stick (i.e. expensive), and I realized he was the only kid on his team with a wooden stick.  So I decide to splurge and get him a composite stick.  We find one for $70 that he likes.  They we take it out to the outdoor rink again.

Money well spent, apparently.  For a kid who could never lift the puck off the ice before, he's flipping the puck all over the place.  In fact we lost a puck in a snowbank after he flipped it over the boards, and the chain-link fence on top of the boards.

But let me take back anything bad I ever say about Edmonton winters, because skating on an outdoor rink is just so much fun.  There's just a cool sense of community.  Today some teenager was out there in his goalie pads, so everyone was taking shots on him (I remembered, of course, I have no shot whatsoever, and totally failed to score on him - Timmy did however several times).  There's a good Canadian sense of fairness - when there's little kids out there everyone gives them lots of space.

[Grey Fox]

Yes, the outdoor rink is a concentrate of our Canadian identity.

[Barrister]

I was looking back in this thread (I had forgotten so many of the stories - I'm glad I wrote them down here), and realized I've never talked about the boys stuffed animals ('stuffies').

Tim has some stuffies, but was never super attached to any of them (instead he has a favourite blankie that even today at 7 1/2 he still sleeps with).  But my other guys...

One year ago Andrew had his tonsils out.  That required general anesthesia and he was in hospital for the day.  My wife and I bought him a small stuffed beanie baby dog, maybe 8" high.  Like all beanies it had a name tag.  This one was called Roscoe, which was the same name as our dog that passed a couple of years ago.  From the moment Andrew woke up from his surgery, stuffie Roscoe has been his close companion.  Since then he's re-purposed a couple of other stuffed dogs we had into a little stuffie gang.

Back in 2015, when Josh was not quite 2, we went to the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg.  They boys walked out of there a stuffie each.  They were basically forgotten a day later, but somehow a year after that Josh latched on to the stuffed snow leopard he received as his best friend.  He named him "Leopardie" (because he was three).  And from that day on Leopardie had to go everywhere with him.

So Roscoe and Leopardie go everywhere with us.  Any major car trip (and more than a few  minor ones) we have to track them down.  Heaven forbid we can't find them at bed time.  And sometimes that can be a challenge, because at least a few times the boys were playing Hide and Seek with their stuffies, and can't remember where they left them hiding.

Now as a kindergartener Andrew is a little less emotionally reliant on Roscoe - he doesn't come on as many car rides.  But Andrew's imagination has gone into overdrive.  Andrew and Josh will play "Stuffie Town" with their stuffies all the time.  And Andrew has imagined this whole elaborate backstory about Roscoe.  One day he told me the story about how he first met Roscoe (which had nothing to do with the story about the hospital mentioned above), and the conversation they had.  He knows how old Roscoe is and who his best friends are.  Another day he was telling me what Roscoe's super powers are, and about the villains he fights.  His powers came from his big brown eyes, apparently.

Which brings us to last night.  For some reason Andrew and Josh agree to switch stuffies for the night - Andrew will sleep with Leopardie, and Josh will sleep with Roscoe.  I didn't think they'd follow through - that Josh in particular would miss Leopardie.  But no, Josh was obviously quite excited to sleep with Roscoe.

[Grey Fox]

Stuffed animals make great stories, they are our children first friends.

My kids have lots & lots of stuffed animal but my son lacked a teddy bear & was quite sad about it for, what seems, a long time. My girlfriend is against buying more stuffed animals but I told her to fuck off & gave the idea of a teddy bear to my aunt as christmas gift. She happily obliged & for xmas bought my son a 15$ Bear from Canadian Tire.

He named him Mamadou, it's the best gift he has ever received.

[frunk]

My daughter isn't particularly imaginative with names for her stuffed animals.  The closest to anything other than Ducky or Piggy or Doggy is Mr. Van Moose.

[Barrister]

Another hockey-heavy parenting post.  you don't like it??  You can fuck right off.

So for starters I have to mention Joshie - he doesn't play hockey at age 4, but he is doing awesome in his skating lessons.  Which he had Saturday morning yet again.  He's actually moved on to gliding - not just doing a kind of shuffle-step.

Andrew... I'm one of his coaches, and it's been so much fun to be out there with the kids.  His program is "Junior Timbits" (sponsored by Tim Hortons, of course), where they go out for an hour per week, four teams per ice, for just practices and drills.  But for this final weekend, they had actual games (with temporary boards at the blue lines, and playing cross-ice).  Just knowing these kids from the start of the year, where a third of the kids you couldn't honestly say knew how to skate, has been remarkable.  For Andrew, who knew how to skate, but wasn't super into hockey at the start of the year, was skating with the puck, was fighting for the puck, and was proud to tell us he scored a goal.

And then Timothy.  I swear his team didn't win a game from the start of the season until Christmastime.  They went 0-for however many games.  But around Christmas they just started putting it all together, and they started stringing together some wins.

Two weeks ago the playoffs started.  Being kids hockey, everyone makes the playoffs - they do a round-robin tournament, with the top 4 teams advancing.  His team wins 3 of 4 and advances.  They make the semi-finals. (and just so you don't think they are some kidn of wonderkinds - there's maybe 17 different divisions in Edmonton - they made the finals in their particular division).

Now... Tim had been down on himself recently for not scoring any goals.  While starting the season a bit hot, he hadn't scored for a couple of months.  But the semis start, and his team cruises to a fairly easy win.  So on to the finals on Sunday.

On Sunday... his team (the Ice Dawgz) gives up an early goal to go down 1-0.  A little while later, there's a crazy play in their own end where the defenceman tries to rim the puck back around the goal.  Unfortunately he gets the angle wrong.  He hits the back boards, but the pick bounces almost straight back, hits the goalie from the back, and perilously sits there right on the goal line for a second or two (and honestly edges inside the goal line,but never completely crosses).  Goalie covers, ref blows the whistle, and all the parents let out a huge sigh of relief.

All this goes on in the first period.  Second period, no score.

We go into the third down 1-0.  But now the Ice Dawgz score one to tie it up.

Now back to Timothy.  On the way driving to the game he says "you know I don't really understand offsides".  I bite my tongue about "why didn't you say that any time before driving to the finals!"  And sure enough he was single handedly responsible for about 10 off-side whistles for his team.

But other than that, it was his best game perhaps all year.  He wasn't floating, he was battling for pucks.  And sure enough in the third, he deked out a couple of opposing players and scored to break it open 2-1!

His team scored one more to make it 3-1.  In the final 30 seconds in the defensive zone he tries to take the puck but instead gets called for slashing, thus making it his first penalty of his career.  You can tell he's confused (he tells me after 'I was just trying to take the puck!'), but goes to the box.  The final 30 seconds of 6-on-4 makes it sound exciting but the Ice Dawgz have it in the bag, winning the City championship, with Timmy scoring the game-winning goal.

Cripes man - in my childhood hockey career, I only ever scored one goal, which was kind of weak, but I still can remember vividly.  I hope this day is one Timothy can take with him for a long time.  So proud of him and his whole team.  It's been cool getting to know all the parents and kids over the last year.  And for the parents in particular they all seem to take it the right way - always positive, no complaining about the other team or the refs, no complaining about their kids ice time, and just really involved in the kids.

Part of me is sad the hockey season is over.  Part of me is really fucking glad however we have our weekends back again.  And a third part of me is conflicted that Tim has a soccer tryout coming up on Thursday night.