Willy Wonka Birthday

Who can take a birthday, sprinkle it with dew
Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two
The Candy Man can - cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good.

New family tradition - bi-annual birthday parties. Last year's parties were just so good, and so much work, that this year we took a break.

Last year G's 9th birthday was a lumberjack party. We sharpened the axe and 9 of his friends took turns swinging at a tree until we finally felled it. We tapped the maple trees, came in for a reading of Farmer Boy, then ate some of Almanzo's favourite foods - fried apple & onions, stacked pancakes, home-made apple cider. Every guest was given a pair of orange workgloves as the take-home present. "Best party ever" was heard.

Z's 7th birthday was a volcano theme. We made playdough volcanoes with a jar of baking soda & food dye in the middle, then dropped in vinegar to make it explode. Outside, they took turns digging dirt into a huge pile, then stuck a 2 litre diet Coke into it, added Menthos and watched it erupt high into the air. Then inside for a volcano-shaped cake and crazy story about a Tofino lava-surfer. "Best party ever" again uttered.

Cost of both parties - $40, and a huge huge amount of energy and stress and enjoyment and lifetime memories.

This year, birthdays are being celebrated with a family outing somewhere special, with one special friend. Galen took us to the Nutcracker ballet, which our family has long wanted to see anyways. Tonight Zekiah took us to the highschool production of Willy Wonka. Both boys feel well-celebrated.

It actually cost us alot more money, but ballet and the local high school are both good investments in our books. Preparation was little more than buying tickets online and calling a friend. No stress about who to invite or exclude, worry about who might not make it, what presents will be received, what kind of cake to bake for the myriad allergies and preferences. Just family celebrating the birth of our family together.

I love huge birthday theme parties and can't wait to create them again next year. But for this year, we found our own Peaceful magic and held our birthday boys close. For as Willy himself says, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

Perfect, A+ Holiday

Just how 100% perfect was this holiday season? Or at least as perfect as a holiday that doesn't include a tropical beach? Well, let me brag about how we pretty much hit it:

Presents - Almost all home-made/grown, spent under $100 but still gave thoughtful, much-appreciated, very personal gifts. Like the 100-metre steak dinner I assembled for a friend - beef, potatoes, garlic, leeks, onions, rutabaga, and beets all from our farm. And received likewise - not too much, nothing plastic or batteried or Disneyed - givers obviously thought about our quirky likes and values and gave beautiful, simple gifts.

Family - A full week in Surrey just hunkering down at Mom's with out-of-town brother & partner, skating with cousins and playing music for great grandmas (my nana and her twin are both 98, though she'll get mad if I say she's a day over 95). Not a rush-in-rush-away duty call, but truly enough time to commune and familiate.

Tradition - Relived my childhood favourite Swedish Christmas Eve with the relatives, cheered and booed at the Christmas pantomime, sang every word of every carol, ate nanaimo bar, watched The Grinch, received a note from Santa and presents from famous people (this year, Stuart McLean and Julia Child both showered me with lavish presents), sang Auld Lang Syne with the traditional "what does this mean?" banter, and at long long last made a gingerbread house.

Old Friends - Had outings with ALL FOUR FAMILIES whom we promised to get together with over the holidays (that's twice the success rate of the entire summer vacation). Both kids had good playdates as well as many many days of many many neighbour kids on the land. Family dinner invites, a lovely 4-couple new year's feast that lasted until 1:30am, hikes, bikes...

New Friends - Joyously welcomed a new family across the street with twin boys in Galen's class. Also brought 3 sheep and a new rooster onto our land.

Cleaning and Clearing - Swept the house so clean that we swept the kids into their long-awaited own bedroom, and swept an entire wall-mounted kitchen cabinet into my workshop, which was then completely re-organized (actually, organized for the first time ever). Repainted the now-bare kitchen wall and shuffled/sorted everything to fit into remaining cabinets. Emptied the entire basement in preparation for the new bedroom I've promised will be built this month (to make up for the guest bedroom that's now the boys' abode). Hired a grade 8 boy to help me clear year-old piles of lumber, debris and gravel and clear the land to greet the new year. And all that at a truly enjoyable, natural pace.

Rest - Celebrated our first adult-only bedroom in 4 years by sleeping in until after 8 every morning while the boys quietly played in their own room. Despite all the crazy fun we still managed to have the boys in bed close to their usual bedtime almost every night. Winter is the season for extra sleep and rejuvenation, and we're finally able to honour that.

No work - I just completely unplugged. No work meetings, maybe 20 minutes a day to keep on top of emails, no volunteer gigs. No clever facebook entries, not even a blog entry since Dec.10. Just walked away, and now find myself coming back fresh.

Quiet family time - Somehow in the midst of all that we managed many hours a day with just the four of us, playing Settlers of Cataan and Trouble, practising piano and violin and singing in harmony, baking, playing street hockey, biking, hiking, skating, and doing all the above-listed activities together as a family.

Mexico really doesn't call me at Christmas. Family does. Friends do. Nanaimo bars do. Of course, if all those were on a hot beach, I wouldn't complain. But really we did what we do best, or would like to do when we're at our best - spent time together with the people and activities we cherish. We spent our holidays at that place where Holly meets holy and Jolly meets Joyous.

Picnic by the Waterfall

Worchester Massachusetts is hard to spell but easy to get lost in. On a road trip 19 years ago from Akron Ohio to Hartford Connecticut, my friend and I decided to veer off the interstate in favour of a backroad on our map that went by a waterfall. One hour of city overwhelm later, we were back on the interstate and pulling over at the first rest-stop.

But this was 19 years ago and we were young and visionary and hopeful. We turned out backs to the endless 70 mph roar of trucks & RV's and pretended it was the steady reassuring roar of a waterfall. Turns out that they're remarkably similar sounds, and with that simple re-classification we enjoyed a tranquil, natural picnic in our self-created oasis.

Fast forward to last Sunday when we hosted over a dozen Friends for a Quaker meeting for worship. As host I was hyper-aware of the sounds of the fireplace expanding and contracting, the cat scratching at the door, the children whittling outside, the phone I forgot to unplug. But I remembered the "waterfall", remembered that Silence is a state of the mind and the soul, not some idyllic condition in the surrounding world. True "centering down", to use Quaker-speak, is finding a quiet space that embraces and integrates the world, not shuts it out.

Or fast-forward to any busy week in our lives. We hold onto a constant illusion that with just one free day we'll get caught up; when this one big project is done I can slow down; if only I hadn't got sick or my child didn't have a fundraiser I could have had time for myself. Time for the waterfall re-classification trick, only this time it's not a self-deception. Those little "if only" events are not keeping us from living - they are living. The juiciness of life is in the interruptions.

Twinkly Ten

This time 10 years ago, I was biting my newborn baby and he was crying for the first time. A soft whimper of "What are you doing, Papa?" that was a precursor of many odd times to come together. No, I wasn't trying to replace the doctor's traditional spank of this country song:

Baby born in the middle of the night, local delivery room
Grab his feet, slap him till he cries, goes home the next afternoon

Our first-born splashed into the world at 3am in a metal Texan farm trough full of hot water under our indoor Christmas lights, and we spent the beautiful rest of the night sleeping in our bed together as a family. Next morning when we woke up, protective Papa wanted to pull the blankets up over baby without waking him. So instead of flailing my arms, I carefully used my teeth to grip and pull the covers. Not carefully enough, apparently.

An elusively short decade later I'm proud papa of a proud double-digit soccer-playing, whittling, joking, ivory ticklin' and fiddle pickin', origami obsessed, delightful boy who is positively sparkling with the Joy of life. More than any other time of his first decade, he is alive and confident and Happy and fun and funny, a charm to be around and an uninhibited spark of light.

The struggles he's faced socially in the past, these days he's facing head on. Still not the most popular kid in class, he is nevertheless eager to get to school, enthusiastically engaged on the playground and in the classroom, recklessly playing tag with boys he used to shy away from. He's truly comfortable in himself, in his unique dreamy goofy self, and that's all it takes to exude a positive energy that bounces back from those lucky enough to be around him.

This emergence of a valiant knight is what we've been dreaming of and working towards for a long time. While the majority of the credit has to go to him, to his bravery and persistence and refusal to let go of his own identity, some other kudos bear mentioning.

1. His teacher, arriving mid-year last year, has been a true savior to the class, to our family, and to each child in the class. He understood immediately the urgency to establish himself as the loving but strong authority in the class, the centre of gravity around which the levity of the children could revolve, and has done it with a grace and clarity that has let every child (and parent) breathe a deep outbreath of "I can relax, I am safe here, I can enjoy and grow and explore."

2. A community of adults who have Held him. In their prayers, in their loving words and looks, in hugs and gifts and time together. Fellow parents, work colleagues, grandparents and uncles, neighbours, Quaker elders, piano teacher, soccer coaches... the list is seemingly endless of people who have openly and unconditionally shown our boy that he is loved and respected and honoured for who he truly is. It takes a village.

3. Experiences of excellence. He has always found niches in which he excels, and that confidence spills over into other realms of his life. His breakthrough moment in kindergarten was teaching his classmates to make fancy paper airplanes. To this day, origami is a source of wonder and mastery for him. As is singing, piano and now violin. We enrolled him in soccer camp last summer and did a lot of playing/practicing together so that joining a team this fall was a major success that has also given him a place of respect on the playground (just look how he shines in this photo!) I watched his class play kickball, and when he went "to bat" his whole team said eagerly, "Get us a home run Galen!" As he comes to believe in his abilities, his constant "Aren't I good at that" calls for reassurance have given way to a shining confidence in many parts of his life.

4. A Papa letting go. With a lot of help from wife and friends, I finally let go of my own anxiety around my son's popularity and happiness and just starting loving and enjoying him the way I wanted the world to love and enjoy him. Let go of contriving playdates, using that time to just Be with him and let him blossom in the safe warm enduring love of home and parents and brother and constant neighbours. Stopped inquiring about conflicts and just asked about feelings. I do believe that he somehow perceived a different energy from me - "My papa believes in me; he's not worried, so I don't need to be worried either."

There are still soft moments of tenderness and vulnerability, but that's a part of childhood (and adulthood) that we learn to accept. In safe moments he shares that no-one sits with him on the field trip bus, or wonders why he never gets invited to birthday parties. Instead of jumping to a Mr. Fix It or an Angry Injustice mode, or try listing the names of children who do call him Friend, we just hold him and agree that it must be hard. Gord Neufeld asserts that one of our most important jobs as parents is to make it safe for them to be vulnerable, to help them to that place of tears, so that they don't build up a wall. Our ten-year-old is vibrantly happy and openly sad and deeply aware that he is loved and cherished and celebrated (and hopefully safe from being bitten).

Easy Lay

They're outside my window now, just doing their thing. Scratch, peck, screw, scratch, it all looks so easy.

Canada, the rooster, efficiently scrapes back the leaves to look for bugs and seeds. Sometimes he gobbles them up, sometimes he exposes the food then backs away for a hen to get some. Sometimes he gets some, efficiently jumping on her with no forewarning or forethought or foreplay, biting onto her neck for leverage as he flaps his wings and does his fertilizing thing. Then he just as quickly hops back off and pecks at another bug, while the hen shakes her tailfeathers and gets back to her business.

While I hunt and peck on my keyboard, he humps and pecks. So easy, so natural, so unthinking. I don't really wish to be a chicken - not even a rooster with 21 hens at my disposal - but I do envy the uncluttered natural rhythm of their lives. I'll finish this posting then look at my dayplanner and things-to-do list and inbox to decide what comes next. He'll just look for the next juicy bug or hen and do his thing.

The Man Behind the Dad

If I could always be as good a Man as I am a Dad…

Why is it that a ferry ride with my children is 90 minutes of fun, frolic and exploration, while a ferry ride alone is alone at the computer work station? With the boys I’m on the deck (whether they want to or not), looking for whales, leaning into the wind, racing bow to stern, tasting salt and sun. On my own it’s a blah video or Sports section from the recycle bin and a bag of Cheezies.

Why do I laugh so much more with my boys? Whoop, act silly, invent voices and songs, create, destroy, create some more. Snuggle, dream, cry, fight, flight, as alive and changing as the ocean. On my own I work, I converse, produce, consume, balance, as steady and secure as a pond.

Why do I have so much more discipline when I’m with my boys? Healthy food, ethical purchases, no screen time, exercise, leave the car in Park, go to the park instead of the movies, move instead of sitting, sit close instead of comfortable. On my own I stop by the bakery, watch part of the game, sneak into the peanut butter jar and hop into the car just because it’s raining.

Why does my body get younger when I’m with my young? Together we run, skip, wrestle, lift, squeeze, peek under and leap over, lift and build and break and fix. I can sleep in the most contorted, claustrophobic, sweaty positions pinned under my snoring snotty boys. On my own I sit more, lumber more than leap, and sleep deep and expanded and perfect, pillow fluffed, alone.

Someday I’ll be as good a Man as my children think I am. As good a Man as I am in front of, because of, and through them. I’ll be Me just for Me. Then their job of raising me will be done.

Professor Ricky

I've been re-born this weekend as Teacher Extraordinaire. Or at least extra-ordinary in terms of scope.
Friday morning - grade one at Sunrise Waldorf
Friday afternoon - lecture about fundraising and campaigning to a non-profit management course at Vancouver Island University
Saturday morning - workshop about Dynamic Governance to a group of Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland co-op/co-housing folk at OUR Ecovillage and livestreaming online
Monday morning - lecture about sustainability to the Global Stewardship students at Capilano University

Beyond having to check my identity to remember what I'm supposed to be knowledgeable about for each group, it's a great reminder of how much I love teaching. Sharing what I've picked up along the way, being challenged by learners with different perspectives and experiences (the governance workshop became a true exploratory dialogue about the difference between consensus and consent), and being forced to consolidate my ideas into a tangible, usable product.

Feedback has ranged from "You are AWESOME and FUNNY and NICE and FUN" (grade 2 parent) to "Your presentation absolutely blew me away and was one of the best presentations I have heard in a very long time. You are so passionate about what you do and it was made extremely clear to all of us." (VIU student). It always feels good to be competent at something, and to believe that the effort of going all the way to North Vancouver and back tomorrow will actually make a difference for someone.

But mostly it's about connection. Being in a room of people who care about the narrow and sometimes odd topic I'm presenting. Let's face it, Governance is not the sexiest topic to most people, but to those 20 people on Saturday morning it was fascinating and we all enjoyed exploring and debating it. My "Can We Trust Africans" talk tomorrow might just ruffle some feathers at a party, but to a group of aspiring international development professionals it's a frontal assault on their belief systems that just might change how they shape their careers. Just like a Star Trek convention (where, by the way, the 7th floor is reserved for kinky sexual escapades by trekkies and aliens in full costume and green skin), facilitating a discussion with a group of people just as into leadership or governance or development as me is a huge turn-on.

One of several paths I'm contemplating these days is to go back into a doctoral program, with a research interest centred on sustainability (financial and operational) of international development projects. It would open the way to some international field research with my family, and to more of this teaching stuff. It's a new idea, but a return to an old passion for sharing knowledge and prompting insight. Rutabega Rick just might become Professor Rick one of these days. And for the grade one students who just couldn't get their mouths around "Mr. Juliusson", Mr. Rick.