Fun with Balloons

Well the kids are growing so fast these days. Quality time with them is so much fun that I'm tempted on charging admission for it to friends and relatives. I think it's at least equivalent to a good movie. So that would be about $10 per person (no refunds). If the kids happen to be napping, crying, fighting or requiring a diaper change, that would be the equivalent of paying money for a really bad movie like Elektra or Gigli. Of course my time with them yesterday was equivalent to an Oscar winner. The game is simple. Don't let the balloons hit the ground. Juliette and Nicholas are mobile and coordinated enough to participate without too much assistance but Sophie was a different story. So as I held her in my arms and hit the balloons with Sophie's head, she started squealing with laughter. Next time you come over I'm sure we'll still have a few balloons around for you to give it a try. Just remember to bring you wallet!

Picture Perfect

I'm not much of a spiritual person. I appreciate beauty in life just as much as the next person but when it comes to a higher purpose, I'm a bit of a non-believer. The only time I've ever experienced something resembling a "spiritual moment" is the time I spend with my kids. Sometime it's stuff they do and sometime it's stuff they say but other times it's just seeing them as I would imagine my ideal post card from this trip called parenthood. A few of these images that come to mind are as follows:

1. During a trip to the cottage with the family I was holding Sophie in my arms on a chair beside a lake as the sun was setting. As I gaze into her very brown eyes I could see the reflection of the sun setting. I don't know if it was the symbolism of the moment or what but 2 months later I can close my eyes and still see that image of a setting sun in the reflection of my baby's eye.

2. Twice now I've had the experience where I watch Juliette from behind as she pauses in her life to look out on some form of natural beauty. At the cottage she was wearing a summer dress and stood on the deck overlooking the lake, just letting everything sink in. And then again, this morning Juliette stood in front of her window in her bedroom watching a hazy sunrise. I don't know why these moments strike me so but it's almost like I get a glimpse of the Juliette from 20 years from now. Not the 5 year old who's constantly moving, complaining, hugging, laughing, screaming and running but instead an independent person who's mature and calm that takes a few minutes out of her day to watch the beauty of nature. And then she turns around and smiles at me and the spell is broken.
Before I had kids I remember talking to a parent who was the father of a teenage girl that lived with her mother (he was divorced) and didn't talk to him much anymore. But he could remember a time when his daughter was about 5 and she was running around an apple tree like it was yesterday. This was an image he could conjure up at will, not affected by the passing of time or the deterioration of this father-daughter relationship. I think I know how he felt.

Hard Decisions

Parents are constantly faced with difficult decisions. Some of them need to be decided in a split second (who and how to punish kids after when they’re fighting), while others can be analyzed for days or even months. Today, Juliette is starting her first day at a new school. We've left the public school in favor of a Catholic school. This is one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make. The difficulty lies in the fact that the primary reason for leaving the public school is that the population of the school is 99% Arabic. Does this mean that making this decision makes me a racist? Also, does sending Juliette to a school where 2 hours of religion are taught per week make me a hypocrite (considering my borderline atheist beliefs)? I would like to think the answer is no (but I'm a bit bias). So I'll write down the pros and cons as I see them and let them speak for themselves:

Public School Pros & Cons:
- (Pro) Considering our family is multicultural, the exposure Juliette would get in being surrounded by another culture would only make her a better person
- (Con) On the other hand, a population of 99% Arabic is more of immersion and not just exposure, which is excellent when your goal is to convert to the other culture not just learn enough to expand your horizons
- (Con) Making close friends with people who have had a very different upbringing than you can be difficult. I wouldn't have thought this wasn’t necessarily the case but I have two examples of this:
1- for the last couple of years Juliette attended a similar public school/daycare in another part of the city. While she was in daycare, there was an excellent mix of children from different cultures but as kids got old enough to attend school, all the non-Arab children began to leave the daycare/school for other schools in the area. During this period Juliette started losing all of her closest friends until at the end it was just Juliette and one other girl that played together constantly.
2-I know a neighbor who has worked at the public school as a principal. She has a 7-year-old child who is non-Arab that has been attending the school since she was 2 years old. This year the mother finally gave up and transferred her daughter to the Catholic school due to the consistent loss of her child’s friends year after year.
- (Pro) Juliette would not be exposed to any religious beliefs.

Catholic School Pros & Cons:
- (Pro) Juliette would be surrounded with children who have had a similar upbringing and therefore probably be able to quickly make close friends.
- (Con) Juliette's friends would not be very diverse which could stunt her growth in this area
- (Con) Juliette would be learning religion which might be confusing for a 5 year old.
- (Pro) Being exposed to religion is again another form of exposure to a different culture. Besides religion (for better or for worse) has shaped so much of the world as we know it today it could help as a bit of a history lesson.

At the end of the day only one thing matters and that is which system will do a better job at helping Juliette grow in confidence, knowledge (school & social) and ultimately help her succeed in her next stage in life. That's why we've decided to send her to the Catholic school.

I hope I don’t come to regret this decision, but there are no guarantees. At the end of the day Juliette is our Guinea Pig considering she's our first. If things don't go as planned we transfer her to another school and we can always try something else with Nicholas and Sophie.

Father & Son

It was a slow day at work today and I was looking for some rejuvenation. So I called up my wife who's only stuck with two kids at home full time (now that Juliette has started school) and asked her if she wanted to meet for lunch. She picked me up and we went to Chinatown for some bubble tea, and a visit to the Chinese marina (otherwise known as the grocery store) to see huge tanks of live fish, lobster, crab and eel. As we were finishing our drinks outside sitting at a patio I decided that is would be a good idea if Nicholas and I hopped on a bus and went to my place of work to watch some construction that has been going on and perhaps visit people in my office. Nicholas is always up for a ride on the city bus (known to most teenagers as the loser cruzer) so we made a run for the nearest stop. When I realized that no amount of running (either with Nicholas in my arms or with him running as fast as his little 3 year old legs could carry him) would get us to the stop in time. We just flagged down the bus in between stops (which I think you can only do if you are a good looking girl, a senior citizen, a pregnant women or accompanied by a child shorter than 3 feet). During the entire bus ride Nicholas asked if it was our stop yet. It's amazing how kids are more or less the same. I wonder how many kids in the history of bus rides have asked their parents that exact same question over and over and over again. Oh well I'm sure I did it to my parents and I'm sure Nicholas' kids will do it to him. When we finally arrived at our stop I took him to a construction site where they are blasting through bedrock to put in a 30-story office tower. It was amazing. I don't know who enjoyed it more, Nicholas or myself. There were two backhoes removing rock that had been blasted into pieces the size of a dinning room table and dumping them into dump trucks. It's a good thing mom came by in the car to pick up Nicholas or I don't think I'd have ever gone back to work. If anyone is looking for me at lunch next week I’ll be watching the mighty machines (with or without a kid). Nicholas had a good time (I think), and I enjoyed the quality father and son time we spent together. It's fun to have each kid to yourself once in a while. From now on I'll try harder to get 1 on 1 moments with all my children on a regular basis.