Cherish The Christmas Present Before It’s The Christmas Past

The ground outside is white with snow.

The snow is lit by the outdoor lights of white, blue, red, green and gold. The reflection from the snow creates a surreal haze in the silence of the dark night.

Through the window the Christmas tree is lit in the center of the room. A sense of warmth emits from our well lit abode.

My faithful black lab Suzy's new favorite place to lie is no longer at my feet as I write from the back deck by the pool. The deck is now buried in white – the furnishings of the deck put away until the eternal hope of spring teases us with the nearness of summer.

Summer? It's Christmas!

Suzy's new favorite sleeping spot is under the foot of the Christmas tree.

The tree I just erected moments ago. Less than a week before Christmas.

My two little girls – promising so eagerly to help me put this three pieced mash of fake evergreen and pre-strung white lights – are strewn across the couch in tiny curled up forms of lightly snoring little princesses.

Useless princesses – but my princesses none the less.

I hope they marry into money – because the job market for princesses is likely to be very small when they grow up.

Our two little kittens are not quite as little now – but this will be their first Christmas. They are curious of the tree, the holly intertwined in the banister that wraps around our upstairs living room, and the larger than normal nativity scene on the large shelf above our foyer closet.

The kittens find all this more curious than normal. Climbing and balancing and weaving their way through the decorations.

Downstairs in front of the fireplace sits the green and red bin full of mantle decorations. Full of stockings, and stocking holders, and nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes. And a very special snow globe my cousin Jenny made for me to celebrate a headstuffing story called "Don't Be Scared Of A Little Snow" – depicting my arrival to the great white north from the sunny southern climate I grew up in.

All are very special to me. But the snow globe is the most special I think.

My daughters are now seven and eight years old. And I plan to cherish these few remaining Christmas's with them as little girls. Soon they will be young lady's – and soon the childlike wonder of Christmas will fade from their eyes.

Too soon – I know.

Their favorite decoration in the bin would be the tiny house of Advent – with twenty five doors – one for each day of the month from December 1^st to Christmas day. And behind each door is a candy for each of them. Each day they open a new door.

The Advent house hasn't been pulled out of the bin yet.

Alannah – while helping me line up the sections of the tree posts to fit them together – asked me:

"Daddy, can we open all of the doors of the Advent house tonight?"

"I'm afraid they don't have any candies in them Alannah".

"That's ok, I just want us to open the doors".

Shortly after – she was curled up on the couch – likely dreaming of doors to be opened in some mystical fashion.

Later, Ashley-Rae woke up and helped me spread the branches out on the tree to make it look full and natural.

"Lift me up Daddy, so I can reach the ones on the tippity-top" she asked.

As I did so, I realized my daughter weighed more this year at seven than last year at six. Combined with my additional year of aging, it was obvious next year would be an even greater struggle to do so.

I know it's silly.

It's silly to love something so much as to start missing it while you still have it.

I am already starting to feel the pangs of missing my little girls – even though they are still – to me anyway – little.

I see the days coming ahead in the not-as-far-in-the-future-as-I-would-like-them-to-be.

The days when Alannah comes home from wherever she is living – with her boyfriend or husband – and only having a brief moment to stop in and visit her mother and I as we sit in that same living room. She will pull a small parcel from her bag for each of us and explain that she has to be elsewhere for dinner.

And we will smile and say thank you and give her presents to her. And we will show her the lovely card we received from Ashley-Rae explaining that she cannot be in Ontario for Christmas but that she will be thinking of us.

And while the boyfriend checks his watch for the time, my lovely wife and I and Alannah will drop our heads in unison as to signify to each that we know the days of today are past and tomorrow's days have arrived.

And I will let out as deep a sigh then as I let out now as I wrote my premonition here.

But today is still today. No ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future need visit me just yet. The bah-humbugs have not yet infested my soul and devoured my passion for Christmas with my little family.

It's not about getting. It's about giving. And it's about giving all that I have – all that I am to my two little princesses – strewn on the couch lightly snoring.

Useless as they may seem to me now – they are the most valued treasures of my future. And in their absence I will somehow love them even more then than I do now.

Merry Christmas to you all. Cherish the Christmas present – for soon it shall be in the past.

My Not-So-Deep-Thoughts of a Summer Vacation Morning

As I sit here this beautiful summer morning by the pool, with my black lab Suzy sitting at my feet, I couldn't help but let my mind wander. And it occurred to me that at the age of forty seven, there are so many things about life that I still do not know the answer to. Because I am on vacation today – and my wife is out and about (as we Canadians say), I found myself with the luxury to write some of these questions – and a few observations – down.

These are my own not-so-deep thoughts of a summer vacation morning:

"How is it that a Mom's work is never done, but Dad's Honey-do list has no last page?"

"How come every kid in North America plays or has played soccer over the last thirty years, yet they keep telling me the game will never catch on over here?"

"If Darwinism is a scientific basis for natural evolution and based on the principles of survival of the fittest, then why are kittens so damned cute?"

"How is it possible for a child to move the entire contents of their bedroom into the living room in a matter of minutes, but it takes me an hour to put them back?"

"If we tell our kids that 'no' means no, then why do we answer their unreasonable requests with .. 'We'll see'"

"How come Dads always have to use the downstairs bathroom?"

"How is it that a Mom's work is never done, but Dad gets up at 6:30 every morning?"

"Why did I bother to get the full baseball package when the DVD player and the Wii are hooked up to the same TV as the digital cable box? Did I really think I was going to watch baseball games on the good TV?"

"Why is golf such a waste of time and money, but there is always time for bingo?"

"How come when there is pee on the toilet seat, all the women in my house blame me?"

"Why is it that when Dad watches a movie and one of the characters is a really hot looking woman, Dad gets in trouble … but Mom can read all the trashy Harlequin Romance novels she wants?"

"How can my wife actually know I'm looking at the gorgeous woman walking down the street when she is driving and I'm wearing very dark sunglasses?"

"Why is it okay for me to have a beer after cutting the grass on a hot summer day, but not after three loads of kids laundry on a Sunday morning?"

"Why is it that the sandwich my wife makes me tastes twice as good as the ones I make for myself?"

"Why is it okay to send my daughters to their rooms for a whole afternoon, but when I lock them in a broom closet for ten minutes, the cops show up? Maybe next time I should take their cell phones away first."

"Why hasn't anyone stood up against these evil breakfast cereal manufacturers putting toy surprises in the box?"

"Why does my black lab prefer the water in the toilet bowl to the fresh water in her dog bowl?"

"How come kids can swim in cold water in a swimming pool until their lips turn blue, but you have to drag them kicking and screaming into a bath tub?"

"Why is summer the fastest season to pass, yet winter seems to last half a year?"

"Why does Michael Jackson have more fans than Neal Armstrong?"

"Why hasn't anybody yet invented a Velcro fastener for socks so they stay together when you wash them?"

"Why does my wife insist on planting so many flowers in our gardens that I'm just going kill from neglect anyways?"

"Why aren't there any professional kick-ball leagues?"

"Why is it that the eighty dollar designer sunglasses I just bought are broken or lost within the first day, but the dollar store pair I bought seem to be made of indestructible material?"

"Why do dogs like to eat kitty litter?"

"If cats truly hate water, then why do they keep falling in the toilet bowl?"

"How come when I was eight years old, my Dad wouldn't let me listen to rock-and-roll because it was music for druggies … but he played Johnny Cash's Folsum Prison album so many times I learned all the words to 'Cocain Blues' ?"

"Since getting our energy from the wind is so popular now, why aren't people putting sails on the motor boats?"

"If we are supposed to be moving towards electric cars that we plug into sockets when we come home every night, how come our power grids can't handle the everyone running air conditioners in July?"

" I think they should have a worldwide championship every year for all the professional sports teams of the world to play against each other."

"How come a beer tastes so much better when you're drinking it with a good friend?"

"Why don't people buy designer pool covers so they can find their houses easier when flying in airplanes?"

"If two wrongs don't make a right, then three wrongs should be a ticket-able offense."

"Why do rich people who live on the lake have swimming pools?"

"If the sun generates enough power to heat the entire planet and make the chlorophyll in all the worlds plants make them green, then why are my solar garden lights so dim?"

"Why is it every time I go to professional baseball game, there is a drunk guy in my section heckling the umpire and players? Is there one in every section?"

"Why is it now that the music I listened to as a kid often sounds like music that only a kid would listen to?"

"How come the solar blanket I cover my pool with to heat the water doesn't melt the plastic pole I role it up on when we go swimming on a hot day?"

"If perpetual motion is an impossible feat to achieve under the earth's gravity, then how come the water that flows over Niagara falls never stops?"

"Why is it the cutest moments of you children's young lives occur when you digital camera is broken? "

Calling In Fatherhood

The train was rocking gently as we roll through the black of an Ontario November night.

The seafood dinner was actually good, and the white whine served mini round glasses had put me in a very relaxed state.

Heading home. Finally.

It had been a very long two weeks. The first of training, the second chock full of tedius interviews with our Toronto office as part of a large scale requirements gathering study.

I didn’t find out about the second week of travel until midway through the first week.

I had kept touch with home frequently with my handy dandy cell phone. And things were not going all that great. And it sounded like things were getting worse.

One of the two Grandmas was staying with Darlene to give her a hand. The Grandma would get the kids ready for school each morning and take them. I think that is the toughest part of my day, waking up and getting the girls to school. So I certainly appreciated the Grandma’s frustration.

“Hello?”, would answer the grandma as I called each evening.

“How is it going Grandma?” I would ask.

“Who is this?” would say the Grandma.

“It’s me, Fred” I would say.

“Oh Fred, what a day ….” The Grandma would start. And I would hear the long list of all the day’s frustrations, why my girls are horrible little monsters, and her apology for having to break such news to me.

Finally Darlene would come on the phone. The frustration clearly in her voice.

“The girls miss you … ”, she would state unnecessarily during the conversation.

“Grandma was crying … ”, was also commonly mentioned.

“Tell them you’re never traveling again …” would be expressed at the end of the conversation.

So I would hang up the phone feeling pretty powerless.

Some people travel much more frequently than I do. I remember my Dad for stretches of time, only being home for the weekend. I don’t know how he did it.

Perhaps this is a cell-phone accessibility problem? In the old days, one would simply make a single call from the phone in their hotel room.

I carved the Halloween pumpkin with the girls last Sunday morning, just before leaving for the second week. Leaving after spending only the Saturday at home.

Alannah and Ashley-Rae drew the face on the front of the pumpkin. Mean eyes with big fanged teeth growling at you. The finished product was declared to be “beautiful” as we packed up our tools.

Then I left by train for a second week away from home.

I thought of that face all week while I was away. “Were they painting a portrait?” I thought. “Of the faces they see on adults?”

I hope not. But maybe?

I have to travel back to Toronto the first week of December.

I have had a week of celebration and good-byes this week. As I transition from a team now departing to a new team just starting a new type of project, I am excited. And I need for everything to go right.

But these phone calls home just don’t help.

Maybe I should just get a Blackberry.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

We have a new pet. It seems he came with the new house.

His name is Hoppy. Alannah gave him the name. We do not know if he was ever given a name by the previous family who lived here.

Hoppy is a squirrel.

To be quite honest, Hoppy does not truly reside on our premises. In fact he only uses the back rail of our fence for commuting between the walnut tree he scavenges and the maple tree he lives in. Both trees are in the neighboring yards.

Hoppy uses our back fence like commuters in Chicago use the El train.

He is quite industrious. He constantly makes trips from the maple tree, across our rail, to the walnut tree. There he collects a green walnut in his mouth, and travels our fence back to the maple.

As he crosses our yard on the fence rail, he hops over the fence posts that protrude higher than the top beam.

So Alannah calls him Hoppy.

I guess now we all call him Hoppy.

But Hoppy does not have free reign. He has competition. A bully squirrel we have yet to name; perhaps we will call him Sluggo; likes to ambush Hoppy, and contest him for his walnuts. Hoppy usually prevails. No fights ensue. And then Hoppy makes another trip.

This morning, Darlene was sitting on the deck having a morning coffee and reading the paper. Hoppy was returning from the walnut tree. Sluggo was waiting. Up popped Sluggo, and off ran Hoppy, walnut in his mouth. The got to a corner of the fence, and all that could be heard was the trickle and thud of the walnut as it fell down the wooden fence and hit the ground below.

Shortly after, Darlene saw Hoppy emerge to the fence top with the dropped walnut. There was no sign of Sluggo. He hopped a couple of posts, and then flopped out on the flat fence top – all four legs sticking over the side – as if to say, “"Whew! That wore me out!!” After a minute or so of resting, he hopped back up and finished his commute.

Later this morning, on a subsequent trip, Hoppy had two walnuts. One walnut is bigger than his head. Some how he had snagged two, most likely by a joined stem. He stopped in mid-trek, put one down, and proceeded to eat the other.

All the while he was watching us watching him.

We had several squirrels at our last house. They sat in our crabapple tree and ate nuts from the neighboring yard. The nuts are still green, and they turn the nut like we would turn an ear of corn, chomping circles around the nut until the nut is consumed. All the while, a green dust falls like sawdust from a cutting saw.

Darlene turned and said “Look how pretty Hoppy is”. I turned to look. “His fur is nice and full and shiny, and his tail is so fluffy and soft”, she continued. I knew where she was going. The squirrels at our old house had patchy fur and scrapes and scars from battling the neighborhood pets. One’s tail had been broken and carried bent and crooked. They were tough squirrels.

Hoppy looked so soft and clean, you might think he was a house pet.

“Amazing how you can tell you’re in a nice neighborhood, eh? Even the squirrels are of a better quality.”

After I came in, Darlene continued drinking her coffee. She was reading her latest Nora Roberts novel. She heard a “Thumpity- Thumpity- Thumpity- Thumpity- Thumpity…” from the pool deck. She looked up.

There sat Hoppy – thumping his hid foot like Thumper from Bambi. When he had Darlene’s attention, he looked at her and dropped the walnut right there. He turned to hop away behind the pool to the fence. But after two hops he stopped to turn and look back at Darlene – as if to say “It’s for you – go ahead”.

I’m not sure how this relationship will evolve. I have fears of little squirrel houses and feeding schedules. I worry that I will wake up to find the girls holding Hoppy like a cat in the living room – stroking his fur while he … does whatever squirrels do when they are content.

But it does prove to me that we are in a friendlier neighborhood.

Even the wildlife drops by to welcome you.

Summertime Moving

It’s the first week in July, and it just doesn’t get any more “summer” than this.

It’s great.

In Windsor, we savor every second of summer.

It is still early enough in summer that you have a clear blue sky, with a big yellow sun.

The haze doesn’t come for a couple more weeks.

I love summer.

We are almost complete moving into our new house. Our dream house. And today is the first day that I can sit and enjoy the place. Poor Darlene had to go to work today.

Poor Darlene. She has busted her butt harder than anybody else.

Today the girls and I will spend most of the day out in the back yard – swimming in the pool.

That ought to wear them out.

The best part about this house is that the neighborhood is chalked full of kids. Kids - kids - kids. Lots of kids. Lots of kids who are five and six years old.

Finally the girls can play with kids in the neighborhood. They can go over to a friend’s house, knock on the door and say “can Mary come out and play?”

They just have to make the friends now.

We still have stuff at the old place. It is amazing how much the movers didn’t move. How much they didn’t move for six hundred bucks.

Nothing behind the bar

No clothes packed in Wardrobe boxes.

No closets packed in little boxes

Nothing from my workshop – not even the Christmas decorations

Nothing from the outside shed – I had to haul my lawnmower myself

Nothing from the back yard – like the teeter-totter or the girls bikes.

And the whole time they weren’t moving that stuff, they were complaining about how hard the work was.

They were clearly stoned.

“I’m sorry”, I would say over and over, “perhaps you need to find a different profession”

“Nah, moving is in my blood. Can’t nobody pack a truck like me” replied their leader

“Where is my lawn mower?” I asked having heard his self-proclaimed skill.

“Oh – it’s still at the other place. Nothing but small stuff there”, should be easy for you.” He replied – “If you want to pay us for a second load we could …”

“Ahh” I said deciding if this was a fight worth having. “

He was stoned and exhausted, I could probably take him.

I went to the old place the next morning with Dar.

We spent the next days hauling stuff in our Jeep and Sebring.

Next time I go car shopping, I’m getting a truck.

My Dad

I don't have a digital picture of my Dad.

I doubt that I have even 5 old-fashioned pictures of him.

We just were not "picture people".

It's too bad because today I would like to have opened this entry with his picture.

My Dad was Raymond Allen Brill.

Ray was a masterful salesman. A professional presenter of material, and probably the best mentor, teacher, coach, and as inspirational as a boy could possibly have for a Dad.

Born in London, Ontario in 1932, Dad and my Uncle Fred were brothers. They played baseball and hockey. They loved both, but they will admit they loved baseball more. Dad would draw pictures of himself stretching full out at second base to make that diving catch.

Yeah, they were Detroit Tiger fans.

He would tell me stories of growing up playing ball, and drinking beer in the hotels. And how good that beer would taste after a hot ball game. He talked of those days so passionately that those stories are primary reasons why I would later move to London myself, play ball in those same leagues, and drink ice cold beer after at those same hotels.

I only saw my Dad drink the odd beer. And it usually caused him severe stomach pain afterwards. But you could see he appreciated it when he did.

Dad worked very hard with my brother Paul and I, teaching us to throw behind the ear, charge the ball to field it on the short hop, and lift the elbow to hit consistent line drives. We could be on our way anywhere, dressed any way appropriate for our destination, but if Dad spotted an empty ball field he pulled over. The equipment bag forever in our trunk, we took infield and batting practice, Mom playing first or outfield shagging fly balls.

We loved it so much. We never fought or bickered playing ball. It's just what we did.

Dad was also a sailor. A self taught sailor. We learned together as a family and those memories are as special as any other. We started with a tiny little 13 foot Sunfish. Advanced to bigger waters in a 17 foot Viking which we sailed on the lakes of Michigan and docked in Mitten Bay. Moving to Minnesota when Dad climbed the ladder with 3M, Dad bought a Coronado 23. We would sail on week long adventures, taking our floating camper to different corners of Lake Peppin - the mouth of the mighty Mississippi - tossing out anchors - swimming and camping on the boat.

Dads' biggest dream was that we lived where it was always warm.

In 1975, 3M gave my Dad three options to move as a regional sales manager:

• London, Ontario
• San Diego California
• Atlanta, Georgia

Having just lost both his own Mum and my Mother's Mum a couple years earlier, Dad entertained moving back to Canada. But during a trip mixed with a family reunion, he realized it would not be the place he wanted to live - he wanted us to live.

Why Dad chose Atlanta over San Diego, I may never know. Most likely Atlanta was still within travel distance to come back to Windsor and London. I often wonder how different I would have been as a surfer dude from the coast beaches. I still have a slight southern trace about me in my manner - and I wonder which would have been better - good ol' boy or surfer Dude.

In Atlanta, Dad found my Brother Paul's interest in Tennis. He helped Paul rise to the Top ten juniors in Georgia, and the Top 5 in Louisiana. Tennis was big back then, and Paul had this natural ability to just beat the crap out of most anybody.

When Paul was a freshman at our high school - Berkmar - he was of course on the Tennis Team. He played in the county finals against a senior who had won last year. This kid expected to walk all over Paul - because Paul was little. But this kid had no business being on the same court as my brother.

Paul wore a horrible plaid pair of golf shorts, and a different pattern plaid shirt. He didn't take the match very seriously. At the beginning of the match, the kid was condescending to Paul. After Paul took the first set 6 - Love, the condescension turned to outrage. The kid complained about every call, and Paul just rolled his eyes and laughed at the kid. Paul won that match 6-love, 6-love, 6-love. He had to be escorted off the court because the kid kept trying to get at him to beat him up.

And my Dad watched as proud as any Dad could be.

But my Dad also loved smoking. And in the end, it was that love that proved to be fatal. He survived with emphysema after having pretty much half his internal organs removed for Cancer in 1983. He lived with my Mom in the same apartment my Mom is in now from 1984 to when he died in September of 1990.

It has been 17 years now. And I miss him.

There was a wealth of knowledge there to tap, that I did not tap.

I don't know what he would think of my life choices to now. Maybe he would have talked me into taking those jobs at Apple and IBM. Maybe he would be upset that I chose to live in Windsor again, after he worked so hard to leave.

But one thing I know. He would have loved my wife. And he would have cherished my two little girls.

I can see him there with Alannah now, positioning her leg, lifting her elbow, telling her to watch the ball all the way to her bat. "Atta-girl" he would say as she smashed the ball against the fence on the other side of the yard.

"Atta-Girl".

Happy Fathers Day

repost - The First Lost Tooth

I have received a lot of requests to re-post one of my own favourite posts. The First Lost Tooth was originally posted November 3, 2007.

Since then, many more loose teeth have been lost - a couple while eating pizza.


My eldest daughter Alannah lost her first tooth yesterday.

"Daddy, look at what I got!" she said with a big gapped tooth grin. There was a space where a bottom front tooth had been, and my pretty little girl now resembled a jack-o-lantern.

Luckily school pictures were taken the previous Thursday, while she still had a full head of teeth.

She went to bed and like every other little kid, she put the tooth under her pillow. The next morning she was excited because she had found a note under her pillow – and all the writing was in gold.

And attached was a $5.00 bill.

C’mon, it was her first one.

The note read:

Dear Alannah,

Congratulations on losing your very first tooth. You certainly are growing up to be a big girl.

All my love,
The Tooth Fairy.

When I wrote the note before going to bed the night before, I had a couple of drafts that I had fun with:

Dear Alannah,

I have taken possession of the tooth I found beneath your pillow. I am assuming on good faith that the tooth is indeed your own.

I have attached $5.00 CDN. The going rate for lost tooth pick-up is 75¢. Please provide a colour photo of both before and after you lost said tooth. Also please leave my change of $4.25 under your pillow.

I look forward to doing future business with you.

The Tooth Fairy

And

To Whom it may concern,

I was unable to process your dental claim as you are currently an unidentified recipient. Please fill out recipient claim form 34872-1B, unless you are the eldest sibling, in which case you are required to fill out form 32987-B Long.

Please take special care in section 128-C as these calculations can be difficult but are essential to my successful processing of this and all subsequent claims.

Sincerely,

The Tooth Fairy
Dental Removal Service Request Adjudicator and Processor
Fabled Service Provider Division
Email: tooth.fairy@heritagefolktales.gov

But of course, I didn’t send those.

As she unfolded the note she could not read – she was amazed that it was written in gold ink. This added a level of authenticity. But later in the morning as we were getting ready for school, she asked me "Daddy, did you write this note and sneak it under my pillow when you came home?"

"uh .. no? Why?"

"Because it looks your printing."

"well, … it’s not. Ok?"

"Ok daddy".

Fridays are show-and-tell days in Alannah’s class. She was going to take the note from the Tooth Fairy. As we were walking up to the school yard, she realized she left it at home. I offered to go back and get it for her.

Alannah turned and smiled, "That’s ok, Daddy, I can show them this instead".

I think that gapped tooth smile was the prettiest one I ever saw.