eleven

Yes, it’s one of those posts. On the 16th of this month, Friday, Sam turned 11. I sat down to write about it earlier and managed to get as far as the title before things got in the way, but had to come back and mark the occasion. (I won’t have to stretch my brain on a birthday post until March after this … unless there’s a big call for one call Thirty Nine in February?)

What to say about Sam at 11? Well fortunately there’s nothing negative that I have to say. No running off and joining a gang or the like at this point. Sam is probably the quietest of the four kids. He keeps his head down and quietly plugs away at what ever work he has to do and needs little reminding. He managed honour roll again last year and from what I’ve seen of the start of this year, there’s no reason to suspect that he might not do it again. I have no concerns for him academically.

He’s been devouring my bookshelf this last year. I don’t quite recall which of the books it was that he really started to get into, but it took some convincing to get him onto the next one. He’d reached the end of a series and wanted something to read. I kept throwing Feist’s Magician at him, but it took several attempts. Of course, once he started, there was no putting it down. Between he and Michael, they’ve slowly been identifying the gaps in various series that I have. At first Sam seemed to be on a mission to find the book with the largest number of pages and that anything with less than 600 or so simply wouldn’t be acceptable. He’s come around now and will read almost anything. It might start to hurt me if we have to buy book at Australian prices one day.

Sports wise, Sam is all about minimization. He enjoyed soccer over the summer and played in the under 12 development team with Michael. That proved to be a bit much though when he had to do something soccer related up to four days a week. He was happy to play a bit, not a lot. He didn’t play ice sports last year and although he’s a good skier, isn’t interested in anything particularly organized. He simply doesn’t like having to put a swag of clothes on. He’s been holding out with the shorts as long as possible as the temperature here starts to slide. He’ll be playing indoor soccer this winter and skiing when he feels like it. He’s also playing volleyball again at the moment (school sport is weird here) and I think again that one of the reasons that he likes it is that he gets to take clothes off rather than put additional clothes on in order to participate.

Sam hasn’t quite clicked with the Canadians though has made a couple of friends. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that would fit a best friend category and I think that he’s pretty much put that sort of thing on hold, pending a return to Australia. Of all the kids, Sam is the one that has most explicitly stated that he wants to go home.

Just this morning we were talking over breakfast and he said that what would be really good was if we could be home for his birthday next year (this was his third in Canada) but still get to be here for Halloween. That’s one little holiday I think our kids will miss when we go home (though I suspect its all about the candy!)

Speaking of breakfast, one of the unexpected joys of Sam’s volleyball is that the practice is usually before school, so he has to be there between 7:15 and 7:30am. That means that I get to drive him there. There’s something special about getting to have an early start to the day with Sam. He’s a good morning person generally and when you get him one on one like that, happy to have a chat and tell you things that might otherwise be lost in the noise of a busy family.

So on Volleyball days, we eat breakfast together and take a quick trip to school. It’s got to be one of my favourite times of the week! It’s a time when I’m reminded of his ever growing maturity, his imagination, fragility and the complexity of his evolving personality.


Happy Birthday Sam!