When Hugh was about four, there was a period of a few months when he
couldn’t pronounce his Ls properly, and because he was my son I found this desperately charming like everything else about him.  I dutifully translated for him with anyone in earshot, and in at least a couple of moments that he was at his most endearing I thought wistfully that this trait wouldn’t last and that I might miss it when it was gone.  I was wrong.  I can’t remember at all what I found delightful about it and within a few days of his diction improving the novelty of it wore off and the clear voice he uses today was just him – and so I found that endearing.  Now I hear some of his contemporaries in kindergarten voicing lingering remnants of baby talk and smile smugly inside myself that my genius child is doing so well, and likewise knowing that it’s as temporary a phase for these other children.  Kids change.  Constantly.

Just recently, at the cusp of six, he has decided that he is done with his perennial nickname, Boosa.  He received that odd appellation when he came home from the hospital because of Jar Jar Binks, the annoying comic relief effort from Star Wars Episode I the Phantom Menace, who put the suffix ‘sa’ on every other thing he said.  Freshly home from the theatre, his brother called him Hughsa Boosa, and it stuck.  For years, this pet name was a fixed part of his identity.  I was the daddy, Jan was the mommy, Keefe was the brother, and he was the Boosa.  Its use served as a kind of demarcation line for the inner circle of close family friends, it distinguished itself from virtually every other young child’s nickname I’ve heard by not being about food, and it showed up in more nonsense songs and rhymes than I can begin to count.  But one day he told us all that he didn’t want to be called Boosa anymore, and that was it.  I suppose there is for all things a season. Goodness knows I couldn’t still be calling him Boosa when I was picking him up at high school.  It’s hard to break yourself of the habit of calling your child by a nickname, because it becomes so automatic.  I find that for myself it slips out when I’m making up lyrics for the song on the radio and I need a name with two syllables, but I manage to catch myself as often as not and soon it will also be a thing of the vague past.

One difficult passage of grief for the household this month has been the demise of Exploratoy, the fantastic educational toy store that’s been only three blocks away for as long as we’ve been parents.  Right beside the grocery store we frequent, it’s provided free entertainment over the years on the scale of a kindly and pleasantly eccentric aunt across the street who keeps exotic pets.  Sure, there are other fine suppliers of smart toys locally, but none of them let you go in and play with the stuff, displaying whatever’s new and neat on the counter and out of the box with fresh batteries inside for little hands to test drive.  All of the staff clearly loved kids and spoke their language, and Cathy, the owner, knew most of the regulars by name and kept mental track of what their main interests were. I tell you, I would never have believed I’d get all weepy over a toy store, as an adult no less, but every time I walk past whatever replaces it I’m going to want a black armband. They gift wrapped for free, donated to local school and community events, and had regular customer appreciation offers.  No wonder they ran aground – the modern economy isn’t designed to keep really human touches like that alive when soulless big box stores can whomp them with economies of scale and cheap part time staff that always look lightly tasered.  I hope whatever life brings Cathy next is a reward for the humanity karma equity she’s banked in the time she’s been there, and even absent like the Boosa, her store will always be a part of our boys childhood.

Nearing twelve now, our elder son Keefe is starting to grow out of the ‘toys are everything’ phase of his life anyway.  He sometimes fluctuates so quickly between acting six and acting sixteen that every day is an interesting one, but the more mature side is slowly coming out on top.  We still have frustrating pissing contests about all manner of dumb household details from time to time, but the general tone we are able to strike between us is getting so much better that I am reticent even to write about it.  I don’t want to jinx anything.  Suffice to say that petty power struggles over homework or emptying the dishwasher is one of the easiest things of all to say goodbye to.  Huzzah!  Of course, there’s new adventures to replace them peeking over the hormonal horizon ahead, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

This is the way that we move into the future, one step at a time, and all the circumstances we leave moment by moment are a string of little goodbyes.  New vistas reveal themselves over the rise as the hill obscures where we’ve been, consigning it to the blur of memory.  As one very dear friend of mine appears to be on the brink of entering into a relationship with the mother of two young children, I’ve been thinking about the leap he’s making.  Say goodbye to free time as you know it and prepare to plumb the depths of your creative and adaptive energies as never before, I tell him.  But waste no fear on your ability to do it.  It’s meaningless to wait for the ideal time or second guess how you’re going to do things two steps down the road.  Cooperate with reality.  Let life as you know it today slip from your fingers, and be open to catching what life throws you tomorrow.  It’s not only the only way to be alive as a parent, it’s the only way to be alive.
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Michael Nabert is a Canadian writer who loves to talk and sing, and writes mainly about parenting, the art of wooing and paleontology. Widely traveled, with an opinion about everything, his friends often describe him as having "a deplorable excess of character." He is currently stay-at-home dad to Hugh and Keefe.