As a largely carefree, childless chap for a good chunk of my adult life, parenting has been every bit the adventure I thought it would be and more.
And for any parent, no doubt the consensus wish is for your children to someday surpass your own accomplishments and abilities. It’s been interesting to see over the past year especially, that my son is well on his way to achieving some of these aspects over his old man on multiple fronts. I should also interject that Finn is five. Yeah.
Facetiousness aside, it makes me very proud seeing this. In terms of my profession at a rudimentary level, Finn has already become a highly-skilled interviewer (interrogator?). This is for sure commonplace for a tyke of his age, when he often delivers a series of questions numbering no fewer than 20 on a particular topic of interest.
I recall a recent conservation in the car centering on cartoons of decades past, when Finn wanted to know more about Ghostbusters, one of my favourites as a child. After a relentless 20-minute blitz of questioning, I was mentally exhausted. Just when I thought it was over and had done a fairly decent job with my responses, after a brief pause my son asked, ‘But how do the big ghosts fit in that little trap, Dad?’ Try explaining the principle theories behind anti-matter and the paranormal to a kindergartener. I am not a scientician, nor claim to be one in the slightest. Hey, let’s ask the science major veterinarian in the house! ‘Nicole…’
Sports have always been an important part of my life – both playing and watching – and Finn didn’t really show a ton of interest in the physical extra-curriculars outside of playing a lot of indoor hockey around the age of two. Midway through his second full season of soccer this summer, he was definitely what some of the parents refer to as a ‘dandelion picker,’ one of those kids who are more intrigued by what’s growing on the field than the actual game being played on it.
And then about three weeks into the season, something clicked for him. He began showing interest and he was completely engaged.
During that first fateful game, Finn decided he was going to score. And he did. And then he did a few more times in subsequent games. He also became an excellent defender in short order. I was pleased but also fairly surprised – the turnaround was that drastic.
I also played soccer when I was a tyke in Elma until I discovered the beauty of baseball after I moved to Fordwich. I was alright I suppose, but I can’t remember any particular instance of scoring a single goal during my playing tenure. I even played one year of soccer in Howick when I was teenager and arguably at my physical peak, and even then I don’t remember scoring a goal.
Soccer was never my thing, but apparently it’s one of Finn’s. He loves playing; throw in a shiny gold medal at the end of the season and you’ve got yourself a dedicated young soccerer. He’s very much like a raccoon when it comes to shiny objects, they’re irresistible to him.
Anyone familiar with past columns about Finn will no doubt recall his previous obsessions through the years. Tractors, Zambonis, wacky inflatable arm-flailing tube men – to name a few. Swimming is his new No. 1 priority. Through the last half of his summer ‘vacation’ (that is in quotations because it’s a well-documented fact that life is a vacation for any kid under 12), he’s spent every waking moment either in the water – lake, pool, splash pad – or talking about the next time he was going to be in the water.
He just wrapped up two weeks of swimming lessons in Atwood, where he discovered the wonders of the water slide and the diving board. Those are added bonuses to the standard paddling around and learning the essentials, which he also really enjoys. He is immensely proud that he can now put his whole head underwater at will.
I’ve always loved swimming as well and am fairly decent at it I suppose. Most of that must have been self-taught, because I didn’t get very fair in swimming lessons.
Back in the day at Atwood, my fellow 30-somethings will recall the colour patch system – starting with yellow, followed by orange, red and maroon – to denote the various levels of swimming lessons completion. I don’t remember what came after maroon, probably because I never made it to red.
I also can’t recall what held me back from getting that coveted red patch, but no doubt it was a task that I wouldn’t give a second thought to as an adult. It may have had something to do with treading water for a certain amount of time in the deep end. I can already tell that Finn, while still obviously wearing a life jacket for serious manoeuvres outside the shallow end, is going to lap me in the pool – literally and figuratively.
It’s an odd thing to think of your prime years as behind you, at least in the physical sense. Every day I get a little bit slower, a little bit weaker. While Finn seems to grow stronger by the hour.
Doing some quick calculations, by this rate he will have surpassed me in every aspect of everything I was ever once good at by the time he’s 10. Well, that may be a bit of an overestimate. I was never really that great at math.
You know who is showing a lot of early promise in the old arithmetic department? Wait, nevermind…
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you back here in a fortnight.
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This is a bi-weekly opinion column; for question or comment contact Dan McNee at dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com.
