How to Vanquish a Troll
Or...how I ended up having a carboard sword fight with a three year old who was wearing a Firefighter's helmet, a pasta and fruit loop necklace, and no pants.

Curious?

So this afternoon, daddy cleaned out the basement, and to make a long story short, there were alot of cardboard boxes about. This evening, while I was giving Sam a bottle, Isaac comes up with a flattened box and says "Let's make a sword." We try to fend him off as best as possible, but eventually it becomes clear that he will settle for nothing less than a real cardboard sword.

So Noelle goes upstairs and gets a giant Huggie's box, and cuts out a sword. Ok, kind of a sword. At the risk of being critical, it was almost perfect in every way - perfect sword shape, good hilt, the whole thing...only the handle was 6" wide and 1 1/2 " long. So there was no way for Isaac to hold on to it.

When I suggested that this might possibly be a 'sub-optimal sword', I was told in no uncertain terms to make him a new one myself. So I did. Then I 'adapted' his old sword so I could hold it.

Now to further explain, earlier when Isaac went upstairs to go to the potty, we had, what shall innocently be explained no further than being called an "aiming incident", and so he was without pants, the rest not having come out of the dryer yet.

So we get our swords, and begin to skulk around the house looking for ghouls, rapscallions, and trolls. We get to the front entrance, where the remains of his Hallowe'en costume are hanging, and he announced, "We need our helmets" So we both don Firefighter helmets. Only his is designed for an 8 year old boy, and is thus a little large, and mine was a free one we got on fire safety day that was designed for, I would guess a 4 year old?

So we skulk around a while, and Noelle says "Do you want to decorate your swords?" So we retire to his craft table and I begin to draw rubies (red polka dots) and emeralds (green polka dots) on my sword. He decides he wants some too, and I put a few green ones on his hilt.

We then 'sally forth." We get to the imaginary troll bridge when the troll (voiced by Isaac in a very good impression of a 3 year old trying to do a deep growly voice) announces "You can not cross my bridge."

"Let's get him!" Isaac decides, and we begin to battle the troll. For Isaac, sword fighting involves waving the sword back and forth frantically (sort of a Speed fencing kind of thing) and then making a poking motion with it and going...and I quote..."Pbbbbt." The whole effect reduced me to a puddle of laughter. He then looks very seriously down at his sword and says "I need more polka dots."

So we head off to further adorn his weapon, and he passes the "Crate" where on top of it we have stored the necklace he made at Teacher Gwen's last week, which was made of, you guessed it - Macaroni and Fruit Loops. Or is that Froot Loops? Anyway, here was Isaac, battling all manner of super natural and otherwise beasties armed with a cardboard sword, a pasta and breakfast cereal necklace, a black firefighter's helmet, and a distinct lack of pants.

The effect, was on the Richter scale of cute.

However, I would be sorely amiss if I did not comment on Sam's new turns of events. He is VERY keen on crawling, and now gets onto all fours, rocks back and forth, and then does a face plant, or scooches backwards. Either way, he's pissed, cause he's either further away from the toy he was trying to get to, or has a bumped nose. So it's tough being a baby who can't crawl yet.

Another intersting note: at the usual weekly shop, he was sitting in his stroller, and the lady behind the counter said, "He's so cute. I've got one at home too, he's 26." The first indication that anyone has ever been able to tell he has Down Syndrome. Noelle took it in stride because the lady was relentlessly positive about her son's progress over the years, and was very proud of his accomplishments. It was an unexpected ray of sunshine.

Finally, Sam has started wailing. That's the only way to describe it. It's kind of like a moan, but way too high pitched. It peaks and subsides like a moan, but it has a kind of squeeky quality to it. So it's definitely a wail.

We'll keep you posted as to whether or not to send earplugs. He is a very, very loud boy.

The Cutometer
Once again, Isaac has been bending the needle on the cute-o-meter. His most recent expression is when you ask him something he agrees with, he replies in a sing songy voice "Oh, YES!"

I'm sure he picked that up from somewhere.

Also, this morning at breakfast while eating a fried egg on toast, his Mom remarked that he was eating quite well. He replied "I am devouring it, mom. I'm the toast and egg devourer."

Noelle turned to me and said "That's YOUR fault." Guilty as charged.

He also has this new thing he does which involves someone needing to play with him every waking second. He has always wanted to be played with, but now I get home, and as I'm emptying my pockets by the back door (putting my wallet and keys away) a little blue eyed cherub looks up at me and says "Will you be the dinosaur?"

He of course has a dinosoar puppet (courtesy of Great Gradmother Clara) that is one of his favourite toys. Why? Because when it's on daddy's hand, it talks back, and he can of course rescue it. Because most days he's Super Boy, and has a powerful rescue scooter he goes on to rescue various animals that get trapped on high cliffs (propped up on the back of the couch), have fallen into wells (dropped down the side of the couch) or are trapped in caves (tossed under the Ikea chair).

There's a great Tommy Tiernan routine he does (it's on you tube) about his 3 year old boy who has "totally abandoned reality in favour of his own imagination." That pretty much sums Isaac up. Unfortunately, in our house, the job of being the Dinosaur, Chicken, Luigi (the stuffed dog, more later), Eyore, or any number of other animals falls to - you guessed it.

Don't get the wrong idea, Noelle plays with him all the time, but true to form, their playing is more...well...practical. They bake, or do crafts, or play at the park, or whatever. And she is the Dinosoar sometimes too, but for the most part, it's daddy making an idiot out of himself.

So Luigi. A long time ago (ok, about 6 months) Isaac handed me yet another in a string of seemingly endless stuffed toys, and said, like he always does "you be the dog." He is nothing, if not assertive. So I picked up the dog, and was frankly sick to death of the high pitched sing song voice one normally does when pretending to be an animal while playing with a toddler.

So I said, "Hey-a little-a boyo. Howzabouta nice-a calzone." And Luigi stuck. Now I realize this is not the most politically correct playtime ever, but it seems to work. Luigi is a little black and brown dog who ALWAYS wants Calzone, and for the most part gets dog food, and the occasional slice of Pizza. Life is hard. Luigi is also very old, so I get to do the usual "when i was-a your-a age, things were-a deeferent."

I have to amuse myself somehow, no?

Of course, Noelle has her work cut out for her too. What seems ages ago now, after I had read Isaac his two stories, and Noelle took him upstairs to sing him quietly to sleep (yes, that's my fault too. I started singing to him when he was very little, and now he insists on some kind of singing many nights to fall asleep), and he looked up at her with big blue eyes and said, "Tell me a story."

Now Noelle didn't have one handy, so she made on up on the spot, about Oopik. Oopik for those of you who weren't a Canadian kid in the 70's, was a little toy, kind of like a bird, that lived in the arctic. I never had one, but had friends who did. So Noelle told Isaac a story about Oopik, and his friend the very nondescript "little boy", who came up to visit him.

Since then, they have added Walter the sled dog, the Snow geese that transport the little boy back and forth to Oopik's igloo (suspended on a blanket that they hold the corners of in their beaks), the Post Office Lady (the only adult in the stories, who also helps Oopik write letters to the little boy), and a few others.

I have (on the two occaisions I have been called upon to tell these stories) also introduced Nanuq the polar bear, and Harry the harp seal, but I don't think they've stuck.

The kicker came about two months ago, when after Noelle told him what should have been a Caldecott winning Oopik story, he looks up (with requisite big blue eyes) and says "Sing me an Oopik song." That, Noelle decides, is daddy's job.

So up I go, frantically composing in my head as I go, and I sing a version of "Lord of the Dance" with Oopik lyrics revolving around dancing with the Northern Lights.

I know I often comment on how little a hold this kid has on reality, but after writing all this, I realize that we are mostly to blame. We feed it!

Not that it's likely to stop. It's too much fun, and besides, Luigi would get lonely.

Dressing
Years ago, in University, I was witnessing another Christmas or birthday when my dad was given lots of new spiffy clothes, and a theory dawned on me.

Simply put, some men (although by no means not all) go through their entire lives never dressing themselves.

And by dressing themselves, I mean choosing their own clothing.

Buying clothes, for most men, is a pain. For proof just ask most men what they think of buying clothes, and they will tell you that if they could get away with jeans and sweatshirts most of the time, they would.

I like to dress up a bit, but at my job, it's pretty casual, so I'd stick out pretty bad. I also used to think that I had a reasonable sense of style, and then I read this article in the Globe Style section, in an "ask the fashion expert" kind of column for guys. I think it was Russell Smith (toronto's resident Male Fashion Maven (Maver?)).

Anyway, someone had written in and asked if it was still ok to be fashionable (read Metrosexual) after you have become a father. Well, Russell kind of went off, and in a very tongue in cheek way said no it was not allowed. From now on, you were only allowed to wear loafers and deck shoes, and wrinkle free khaki coloured dockers, and polo shirts, preferrably with a software company's name embroidered into it.

This is of course (minus the software company) kind of how I dress. Ok, exactly how I dress. Then Russell mocked it a little more, and said, no it was ok to be a fashion plate and a dad. The clear implication being that I am not. A fashion plate, that is.

So I was starting to question my own fashionability (which should bring a chuckle to a few of you who threw out the notion years ago), but still thought I wasn't as bad a some.

Then after I tried to walk to work this morning in the -5C with the windchill weather, and gave up and took the bus, Noelle called and said she had bought me a winter coat.

She had been at Winners, and it was on sale, and she just grabbed it. But, she was quick to note, "You could take it back if you don't like it." Which of course is ridiculous.

So back to my theory.
Some men, it seems, never choose their own clothes.
When they are kids, it's their mom that (understandably) dresses them.
However, as they get older, some teenage boys dress themselves, and others either let their moms continue to do it, or their girlfriends step into the gap.
Later it's their wives, then their adult daughters, and finally their home care nurses.

I like to think I was choosing my own clothes for the first 14 years of this whole "Allen family" thing, but now I'm starting to wonder, and trying to recall how many times that clothing gifts from Noelle have stood out as the most fashionable thing in my wardrobe by about 100 miles.

Pretty much every time.

I'm going to buy a copy of GQ.

Random Thoughts
It's time for more: Random thoughts from the right hemisphere of my brain.
1. While I know the guy has a lovely voice, and his story is extremely inspirational, I just can't get past Paul Potts' name. Sorry, but it's just too close to Pol Pot, the Cambodian marxist dictator who presided over the slaughter of between 3 and 7 million of his own people through overwork, starvation, and outright torture and exectution in an effort to create an "agrarian utopia".

I was in Costco on the weekend, and saw the CD, and made the remark out loud that he was a great singer, but I had trouble with his name. I heard a laugh of agreement, and looked up and there was a roughly 50 or 60 year old Asian woman, with a huge smile on her face. She probably would have been in her early to late 20's when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, and coming from Asia, she got the joke. I went off a little on the theme, and she was so excited to find someone else who "got it", that she couldn't squeeze the words out. She just laughed, and shuffled away.

2. Hallowe'en is supposed to be a fun time, but sometimes it's scary too. Last week was the big occaision, and we went up and down the street, and Isaac was quite frankly a superstar.

Now keep in mind that he has a very slim grasp on reality as we know it, and if you put him in a full blown Firefighter suit, complete with hat and mock boots, the grasp slips entirely. He was, however on a full frontal charm offensive.

He would walk up to people's houses and say "Nice pumpkin!" Or at one house, he slipped going up the stairs and remarked "I'd better be carefull, I don't want to crash into your nice cobwebs" while the couple were sitting there watching him. He was a hit.

But his full fledged make beleive take over was walking back to the house, when he pretended the whole way to talk into a radio watch, and summon various rescue vehicles. People were practically falling off their porches they were laughing so hard. He was the height of cute.

Then we went to visit a friend from work on a street we were told would have a little more action. It was a zoo. By 7:00 Rachel had given candy to over 200 kids. Well, up the block from her was a very well done up haunted house. They had the tombstones, and the music, and everything. So the whole way up the street Isaac was saying "I'm not scared, lets go to the haunted house. I'm not scared" and so on.

So we get to the house, get up to the porch, Isaac says Trick or Treat, and gets his candy, and then the 5 foot tall manequin with a sheet over it and a goalie mask starts shuddering and cackling and waving a big fake knife. To which Isaac responds "Lets get out of here!" And we make our way very quickly down the path. "Are you scared?" I ask him. "YES!" was the emphatic answer.

Then all the way up the block to the car he was saying things like "We'd better get out of here, there's lots of ghosts and goblins on this street."

So that might have been a little too much, but it was all good in the end. He got tons of loot, so he's quite happy, and it is being appropriately rationed by the parents.

3. We went for the first professional photograph sitting of our family (which includes pre-kids, so that's nearly 15 years now) on Saturday. The photographer was the one who shot the photo of Sam for the DSAH Calendar. So she's good, even if she tends towards the cutesy.

So we went to a farm near her, and got some amazing photos of Isaac on his own, and the whole family up against some lovely old weathered barn wood. It was great.

And then we went back to the studio to get some photos of Sam. She was going to shoot Sam in a diaper cover, lying in giant sea shell, and to make a long story short: Noelle put her foot down.

So it took the Photographer several minutes to recover from Noelle's unequivocal objection to anything cute, but we ended up with him in a basket sitting up with a few fall themed leaves and pumpkins.

The other challenge, is that Sam doesn't smile when you want him to. Sharon must have snapped 30 or 40 shots, of him with barely a grin, with daddy and Sharon't assistant trying everything we could. Then Sharon went to put away the camera and give up, and Sam started grinning to beat 90. So she brought it out, and he got all solemn again. We think Sam is part cat.

So there should be some good photos for all this Christmas, we will let you know when we get the proofs.
TTFN