Birthday Interview - Nine Years Old - February 2019

Q1. What is your name?
(answers with real name)

Q2. How old are you?
I'm going to say nine because I'm one day away.

Q3. What is your favourite thing to do?
Prolly hanging out with friends and family.

Q4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A video game tester. It's been like that since that time I read that Owl Magazine.

Q5. What is your favourite food?
Bacon.

Q6. Who do you like to spend time with?
My mom, my dad, and my best friend Nathan. And my grandmas.

Q7. What do you do really well?
Skating.

Q8. What makes you laugh?
My friends when they tell jokes. Actually, Little Petey from Dogman when he tells jokes.

Q9. What is the best time of the day?
On a weekday, after school or just when I wake up.
On a weekend, prolly when I wake up and Daddy gets downstairs.

Q10. What are you afraid of?
I'm not really afraid of spiders, but I get creeped out when they are around. And I'll never do a bellyflop again.

Q11. Who is your best friend?
Nathan.

Q12. What do you like to do with your family?
I like sledding with you. I wonder if Daddy is ever going to come with us.

Q13. What do you love to learn about?
Prolly math, because I'm really good at it.

Q14. Where do you like to go?
Winterlude or Funhaven.

Q15. What is your favourite book?
Prolly the 13th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, The Meltdown.

Q16. If you had one wish, what would it be?
That it would rain anything I want all the time and that I had something that would let me teleport - like a ring or a bracelet.

Birthday Interview - Eight Years Old - February 2018

Q1. What is your name? 
A1. (answers with real first name) 

Q2. How old are you?
A2. I'm turning eight. 

Q3. What is your favourite thing to do?
A3. Either play video games or play with my beyblades... or watch the Olympics, if they are on. 

Q4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A4. I have no ideas. 

Q5. What is your favourite food? 
A5. Bacon, tater tots or garlic ribs. Or all of those. 

Q6. Who do you like to spend time time?
A6. Nathan or my mom and dad. 

Q7. What do you do really well?
A7. Using my bicycle, drumming... there's one other thing, I'm trying to remember... 

Q8. What makes you laugh? 
A8. Being tickled or seeing something funny. (Editorial comment - butt jokes.) 

Q9. What is the best time of the day?
A9. When I'm having dinner, because after I can have dessert, which is awesome. 

Q10. What are you afraid of?
A10. Getting lost... sometimes. 

Q11. Who is your best friend? 
A11. Nathan or Matthew 

Q12. What do you like to do with your family?
A12. Bowling, going to the House of Targ, going to restaurants. (Editorial comment - we have never been bowling as a family.) 

Q13. What do you love to learn about?
A13. Math. 

Q14. Where do you like to go?
A14. If I could do something for a whole week and then come home and sleep, I would sit in a video game truck with my friends and play Mario Kart 8. 

Q15. What is your favourite book? 
A15. Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and Simone the Best Monster Ever. 

Q16. If you had one wish, what would it be? 
A16. Make it rain candy or anything sweet every day.

Interview with Moe: All About Mommy - February 2017

Q. What is something I always say?
A. "I love you" and "You're my baby."
(Note - I find this interesting, because it's Moe who often declares that he's still my baby.)

Q. What makes me happy?
A. Seeing me when you come home from work.

Q. What makes me sad?
A. I guess not seeing me for at least a year?

Q. How do I make you laugh?
A. When you tickle me.

Q. What was I like as a little girl?
A. I don't know.

Q. How old am I?
A. At least 38?

Q. What do I do when you're not around?
A. I guess, um, read sometimes?

Q. What am I really good at?
A. Many things. Doing the dishwasher, vacuuming, cleaning, folding clothes, running the dishwasher. I think that's all for now.

Q. What do I do for a job?
A. Go to work.

Q. What is my favourite food?
A. Bacon?

Q. What do you enjoy doing with me?
A. Playing with you, playing games with you, making up games with you, and playing on my DS with you. (Note - that last thing is something we've never done.)

Birthday Interview with Moe - Six Years Old

Q1. What is your name?
A1. (answers with real first name) 

Q2. How old are you?
A2. Six. 

Q3. What is your favourite thing to do?
A3. Watch Pokemon XY.

Q4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A4. Just a normal person. 

Q5. What is your favourite food?
A5. Broccoli with ketchup on it. NOT RAW BROCCOLI. 

Q6. Who do you like to spend time time?
A6. Mummy and Nathan. 

Q7. What do you do really well?
A7. Watch TV. 

Q8. What makes you laugh? 
A8. I don't know. 

Q9. What is the best time of the day?
A9. When I get to spend time with Mummy.  

Q10. What are you afraid of?
A10. Hmm. Nothing?

Q11. Who is your best friend? 
A11. Nathan. 

Q12. What do you like to do with your family?
A12. Give my Mom and Dad hugs. 

Q13. What do you love to learn about?
A13. Talking in sign language. 

Q14. Where do you like to go?
A14. Grandma's house. And inside my TARDIS. 

Q15. What is your favourite book?
A15. My Pokemon book. (Pokemon Visual Companion) 

Q16. If you had one wish, what would it be?
A16. I want to make everything free. (When asked for clarification on "free": Like, not needing to buy stuff.) 

Interview with Moe: All About Mommy

Moe turns six in two days. I asked him these questions, without any prompting. 

Q. What is something I always say?
A. I love you. 

Q. What makes me happy?
A. When I give you hugs. 

Q. What makes me sad?
A. When you want me to go to the bathroom and I won't go. 

Q. How do I make you laugh?
A. When you show me something funny, like a video or a picture. 

Q. What was I like as a little girl?
A. Maybe wearing a pink t-shirt? And with long hair?

Q. How old am I?
A. 24.

Q. How tall am I?
A. 10 cm. 

Q. What is my favourite thing to do?
A. Give me hugs. 

Q. What do I do when you're not around?
A. Clean the house. 

Q. What am I really good at?
A. Giving me hugs. 

Q. What is something I'm not good at?
A. Maybe having to make dinner every night? 

Q. What do I do for a job?
A. Clean the house. 

Q. What is my favourite food?
A. Hmm. Broccoli. 

Q. What do you enjoy doing with me?
A. Playing with you. 

Dear Moe (Fall 2015)

Dear Moe,

It’s been almost four months since my last letter. You are happily settled in Senior Kindergarten, and seem to be enjoying school. I was concerned at how you would do without your buddy Nathan, but you’ve settled into a routine with other kids. You did miss Nathan at first; one day in September or early October I asked you what your best thing was that day, and you said, “If Nathan were still at my school, my best thing today would have been playing with him outside.” It kind of broke my heart. But it seems your class dynamic is quite different this year; you all tend to play together in large groups, rather than pair off into intense friendships. You seem to be happy, which is fantastic.

We have had four months of busy Saturday mornings, with a swimming class and then a Judo class. You have worked really hard at swimming, Moe, both in terms of listening to the instructor and improvements to your skills. It has been lovely to watch your confidence bloom. This was, I believe, your third kick at the can for Salamander, and you’ve made great progress, but were quite disappointed when you didn’t pass the level again. But we had a chat with the head lifeguard, who explained to you the different things you need to work on to pass, and reassured you that it’s not about passing or failing, it’s about having fun and improving, which you are definitely doing. You’ll be out of the pre-school levels anyway, and in Swim Kids 1 because of your age.

At the start of the swimming term, it was clear you were having trouble listening to the instructor. After some discussion, it became clear that you really just wanted a chance to play around in the pool. We developed a system where on days that you were a really good listener during your lesson, we would inquire with Bambi and Simon about whether we could swim at their place the next day. Your instructor also heard your plea and incorporated more play into the lesson, which helped a lot. There was once incident where you threw a life-jacket into the pool at the end of the lesson, and Daddy came down hard on this lack of respect for your instructor. But you took your licks (no screen time), and apologized to Rebecca on your own the following week. I was proud of you.

You certainly enjoy Judo when you are there, and Sensei Tina says that you’re an “okay listener”… “most of the time,” which I’ll totally take because I know how easily distracted you can get. Judo has been great for you in terms of your independence – you are expected to get dressed on your own and sign in by yourself. Parents are not allowed in the dojo, and I think that’s fantastic.

Lately, your favourite toys are your Beyblades, a small collection we have managed to grow thanks to friends whose older kids are ready to say goodbye to theirs. Beyblades are hard to find these days! But you love spinning them (sorry, “ripping” them), doing “battles” and seeing how long they will spin. You also enjoy building things with your Lego, like a park where your Lego kitties can play. (A Lego kitty is two square pieces staggered on top of each other. Bonus if you can find little triangle wedges for the ears.) TV is all about Paw Patrol and Lego Ninjago, although you have recently discovered Slugterra, which I find baffling.

You do love playing video games. We set up the Xbox 360 in the basement when Daddy upgraded to Xbox One (more on this later), and you’ve enjoy hanging out down there on a sumo sack and playing various Lego-based games. The big obsession for a while was Lego Dimensions on the Xbox One, which Daddy threw himself into heart and soul. But I have to say, it is pretty cool to watch you explore Middle Earth with Marty McFly while Batman and the Doctor tag along.

In November, we participated in the Extra Life Game-a-Thon in support of kids at CHEO and you were in heaven having a whole day to play video and board games with people you love. You were also great about helping us raise money. We’ve been giving you an allowance since September, and you donated all your charity money to the cause, as well as a bunch of your pocket money. We were very proud. Uncle Mark might have walked into a bit of a dust cloud when you solemnly handed him your sandwich bag of coins.

In order to get your allowance, you have to participate in our “clean-up time” on the weekend, and take care of a few basic tidying tasks during the week. It’s been going very well, and the house looks a lot better now that we have this designated time to work together on tidying things up.

Halloween was lovely this year. We did two volleys of trick or treating: we did some time around our street with Emmett, Theo and his friend. They moved so fast from house to house that I thought your head would spin. You worked hard to keep up! Then we went over to Aunt Janine and Uncle Mark’s street where you took your time at each house. You’d ring the bell, say trick-or-treat, thank you, and tell them, “I’m the Golden Ninja from Ninjago Masters of Spinjitsu,” and stare at them smiling until they waved at you while slowly closing the door. We had to explain that it’s up to you to end the conversation and walk away. It was pretty cute.

Your costume did double duty this year when you wore it to Geek Market, which was a big highlight for you. You came with your pocket money in hand, hoping to find a certain Pokemon stuffie, and lo, you found a tiny Squirtle that became your baby for the next month. You do take good care of your stuffies, my love.

Speaking of stuffies, we introduced you to an old friend of mine. You met Maddie, who I have had since 1996. She’s a lovely little cow, though verbally dyslexic (she says Oom instead of Moo), and she was very happy to meet you. You treat her very tenderly.

You’ve been reading on your own for some time now, but it’s been incredible to watch you this fall. You read voraciously. You read on the toilet, you read the cereal box, you read our text messages as they come in and you’re playing on the tablet (that was a rude awakening), you read signs while in the car, you read whole books while in the car, and you read in bed at night. (You have this head lamp thing I bought in an attempt to get better light for cross-stitching – it makes you look like a demented miner, but it works and you love it.) You’ve moved on from Chirp to Chickadee Magazine, and are very comfortable with Level 2 readers. You can do Level 3, too, if you are interested enough.

Christmas is around the corner, and your excitement is delightful. You have been enjoying the Playmobil advent calendar Grandpa Will and Grandma Anne sent you, and you wrote and posted your first letter to Santa. Your joy when he wrote back was wonderful to behold. And when he sent you that video message, you were pretty amazed. I wonder if this might be the last year for some of the magic, though. You told me in November that you don’t believe in Santa anymore, but I could tell you weren’t terribly confident in that declaration. I told you that it was up to you whether you wanted to believe, and that Santa was real for anyone who did. A few days later, you said you believed.

Most of the time, my love, you are a delight to be around. But there was a period this fall where we really had to crack down on your attitude, and in particular your tone. We also had to explain to you that there was a reason we weren’t spending as much time playing with you… the way you were speaking to us made it less than fun. There has been a great improvement, and I find this encouraging. I know these phases will come and go, but it’s reassuring that we can still turn it around with a bit of work.

Your recent attitude improvement isn’t the only reason the house is a nicer place to spend time these days. We did a huge junk purge in September, and got rid of so much stuff that the basement is finally liveable, and the living room and dining room are much less cluttered. We have been working hard to maintain this, as it makes me happier and more patient, which in turn affects you. You’ve been a real trooper about moving a lot of your toys out of the living room, and I appreciate it.

I love our time together. Whether it’s reading together, playing Doctor Who Yahtzee, chatting in the car on the way to Judo, listening to Elizabeth Mitchell together in the morning, or cuddling at bedtime, you make my day complete. We love you so much, and you are growing more awesome every day. We didn’t think that was possible, but it seems to be. Overall, you are a thoughtful, caring little boy. Thanks for bringing such sunshine into our lives.

Dear Moe (June, July and August 2015)

Oh, my bean, what a great summer we had together. It went by so quickly.

We had some lovely play dates. As school was coming to a close, I asked you if there way anyone from your class or from EDP that you wanted to connect with over the summer for play dates. You asked me to reach out to Jojo's parents, and are we ever glad we did. You had two wonderful play dates with Jojo, one at each end of the summer. We had a glorious park date just before school was out, and then we had an end of summer extravaganza celebration with Jojo and her family at Midway Family Funpark. We all had a wonderful time! We love Jojo's parents, and plan to get together with them again. If you and Jojo want to join us, that's super. ;) The two of you play really well together.

We enjoyed a lovely visit from Aunt Natalie, Uncle Darin, Caspian, and Darin's family from South Africa. Caspian absolutely loved playing with you and pretty much thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread. He just wants to do whatever you are doing; it's lovely to watch you play together.

You had lots of experience playing with little people this summer. We took Dorothy on an outing to the park together, and you were wonderful with her. You also spent a few weeks with Robin, and got to see the “day care babies,” as you call them.

We also had some great times with Emmett down the street, and a lovely park date with Wyatt, at which you showed a real talent for softball. 

We had a couple of great backyard playdates with the O'Donnell's, including celebrating Hattie's first birthday. You loved the set-up of sliding down the slide into the wading pool. (We're glad you play well with the O'Donnell girls, because we're adopting their parents, too.) You got to show off your excellent slip-and-slide skills at Keira's birthday party, too – they added soap to the mix, which made it even more slippery!

You did three weeks of day camp this summer: two weeks at Starr Gymnastics and one week at the RA Centre. We will definitely send you to the RA Camp again; you had a great time, and we can even have you in swimming lessons at the same time. Daddy especially enjoyed the four minute commute to pick you up.

Your reading has only improved this summer. You can read entire books to yourself as a means of amusing yourself. Jojo and her family introduced us to the Library Moose and the TD Summer Reading program, and we blew through that log book in no time. We read some great chapter books this summer, including Emma and the Blue Genie, Captain Awesome, Kung-Pow Chicken, and the first three books in the Wizard of Oz series.

Although we didn't go on as many bike rides as I would have liked, we did get you up on your bike and you continue to improve. You even got the hang of starting yourself off a few times, and shouted happily, “MOM! I don't need you anymore!” which was kind of like a knife to my heart when taken out of context, but I was very proud nonetheless.

We had two really, really wonderful trips this summer. In July, we went to Maine with Granny, Uncle Mark and Aunt Janine. We went to the beach every single day. Unlike in past years, you were right into the waves from the start. You still won't swim in the ocean, but you are all about playing in the waves and jumping over them. It was fantastic to watch you. It was a fun-filled week of ice cream, sand-castle building with Uncle Mark (and “making natural,” which is what you called the drizzly towers made out of very wet sand), playing at the arcade, your first round of mini-golf (you could not get over how your ball disappeared like magic on the last hole), walking the length of the beach to get fried clams, kite flying, and collecting rocks and shells. You and Granny built a lovely rock garden in the front yard with your booty.

Our second trip was in August when we flew to Halifax to spend a week with Grandpa Will and Grandma Anne. Your bond with Grandma Anne is something to behold. You stuck to her like glue... until David came home, and then you stuck to him like glue. ;) Our week in Halifax was really lovely. We did a day at the beach where Heather and her boyfriend buried you in sand up to your neck (and you loved it), and you played with the boogie board in the waves. (By this I mean that you played in the waves while holding the boogie board. You did not in fact play WITH the boogie board, but one thing at a time...) We went to the Citadel and you did the Parks Canada Explorer program and we counted canons, hunted for gunpowder, tried on hats and watched the firing of the noon-day gun. Then we walked down to the Discovery Centre, where we had a blast in the bubble room, built a wall, and played with the whisper dishes. It was all very hands on and very fun. We went to the Busker Festival at the Halifax Harbour, which was super crowded, and one of the highlights was listening to a guy play AC/DC's Thunderstruck on the bag-pipes. We had a great time at home with the family, too. You and Heather harvested her herb garden, you had a ping pong tournament with Heather, David and Grandma Anne, and you loved showing off your ninja skills to Grandpa Will. When you said you wished you could be a ninja in real life, Grandpa told you he was actually a wizard and could grant you that wish, but he was missing his magic wand.

The highlight of the Halifax trip was the visit to Upper Clements Park in the Annapolis Valley. It's such a gorgeous location, and it was amazing to see what you could do this year as opposed to last year. You played mini-golf, were all over the slides, had a great time on the rides, but interestingly were not feeling up to crossing the rope bridge as you did last year. You were good for the log flume again, though, and we had a great time.

Late in the summer, we started using screen time coupons, and they have been working well. You can earn 15 or 30 minutes of screen time for being a good listener and making our jobs easier. We also recently started giving you an allowance, contingent on you doing some basic chores.

You made some really great observations this summer, some of which I have recorded here:

• At one point, I asked you if you'd had a big poop or a small poop, and you said, “I had one big poop and then a whole herd of poop.”
• While driving in Halifax, we were listening to CBC Radio One, and you exclaimed, “Oh, let's listen to this! It's the same voices that are on Granny's headphones!”
• You discovered Minecraft and spent a few days walking around the house whapping things with a sword, declaring you were “mining” them.
• Also due to Minecraft, you spent some time pretending to be a baby ocelot. You were saying “oshawat” at first (it was like a Minecraft-Pokemon mash-up), and that confused us, but we figured it out.
• You were game to visit the Animals Inside Out exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Nature, and I did my best to hide my squeamishness. But when you asked, “What's that?” and I had to respond, “That is... a cat's brain, eyeballs, and spinal column,” you looked at me for a moment and then said, “I think we should a visit a different gallery now, Mom.” Your sensitivity was appreciated.

And suddenly, it was September. You started senior kindergarten a few days ago, and French immersion. You've only had two days of school, but you seem to be positive about it all, and I'm looking forward to watching you learn even more this year. 

Today we began our fall activities with swimming lessons and judo on the same day, and it went better than I could have imagined. You loved your first judo class with Sensei Tina, and you are excited to go back.

I hope you had a wonderful summer, Moe. We loved spending time with you. We often forget that you are only five and a half – you are well spoken, such a great reader, and very observant. You still love to snuggle, have a great sense of humour, and a mischievous smile. I can't wait to see what the fall brings.