Yesterday someone had mentioned that I do not speak about Olivier as much. At the end of the summer, to treat the kids for their behaviour we went to hardwood hills so Xavier could bike with Mel as I was in no shape to bike for hours. So it was Olivier and me and we had actually chatted that we do not spend as much 1:1 time together. With the hockey schedule it is normally Xavier and myself and Mel will then take Olivier and go do their own thing. This time since Mel was with Xavier I had the opportunity to go gallivanting with Olivier. The dichotomy between the two kids is astounding. Xavier is pensive most of the time when I travel with him, except after hockey when we discuss how things went. Oliver on the other hand is non-stop chatter. He looks out the window and notices everything with a running commentary. Mel is like this and it freaks me out all of the time when she gets excited by the small thing. Olivier is similar where he notices things and makes comments about everything that goes by. Olivier is much like Mel in this regards. I have told both of my kids that a skill that they are required to master is programming for two reasons. The first is because they are my progeny, and any child of mine better be able to program. The second is it is a skill that is becoming increasingly important now, even if your career is not focused on coding, you need to know how to do it. You hear stories of parents kicking kids out of their house when they turn 18. I do not understand how you could do that to someone young who is still growing. Times are much different now from the 50’s and 60’s when people did not necessarily extend their education and started a job right away. At the age of 18 they will be giving a simple test of creating their own programming language and humanoid robot. If they can not do something simple like this then clearly they are not my kids and they will be stripped of their family name. They will just be known as Xavier and Olivier. No surname. I think that Olivier is a superior coder than Xavier. Primarily because as bright as Xavier is, what he excels at is persistent effort, focus and dedication. Olivier’s strength is creativity and ability to think outside of the box. Some of the things games and things that he has created at his age have been impressive. Xavier always mentions that he could do the same, and I point out that he has not. His response then is, good point. Our kids have quite different interests and skillsets.
A couple of years ago when Olivier was taking swimming lessons, he was in group sessions. I dislike group sessions like this as the kids do not necessarily get much attention, which is why the eldest never got it. Xavier always had private 1:1 goalie sessions and Mel did not want to spend more on getting him private. I discretely told Olivier to ask Mel why did his brother get private and he did. Mel caved. He got his 1:1 sessions. This is the cost discrepancy. 5 of Olivier’s sessions at the time was the same as we were spending weekly on Xavier. There is a huge spending difference between the two and both know and are cognizant of how spoiled they are. We try and make up for it though through other ways. Olivier is quite charismatic and affectionate, even though he was embarrassed to have us tell him that we love him in front of his friends. One of his close friends though would openly say that he loves his parents in front of him, so now he is over that. It is something that I appreciate from him though. He is the type of kid that will randomly give you a hug and tell you that he loves you. It is interesting to watch the kids grow and see how their personalities develop taking in the strengths and weaknesses of both parents. Our kids are a combination of both Mel and myself. Something that I have passed on to Olivier that i do not wish on anyone though are my migraines. The poor kid has missed several days of school over the last couple of years because of how bad his migraines are. We are sympathetic and let him stay home. He sleeps for most of the day. Just like I use to when I had migraines. He is too young to be taking regular medication to help control them. When he is older though we will make sure that he is taking care of. Migraines is what got me into the mess of stomach cancer to begin with. We are careful to point out that he suffers migraines like I did because we do not want him to wonder if he will get cancer as well. I did some genetic testing to see if I had any known cancer causing genes. The issue is that the sample population it is compared against here is not the same demographics. If it was found that I had a gene for stomach cancer, the next step was for the kids to be tested. If found the recommendation was to get your stomach removed before you turned 30. If I was faced with that decision, honestly, I would risk it. I would hope that they could find a cure or some other way to treat it. The survival rate is much higher in Asia where this is apparently more common. If you take Chinese drama series as true, it is also just a minor inconvenience and years later there is no change in their diets or anything.
I am not sure if it is the same in other cultures, but the measure if you have been good or not is if you have eaten. Asian parents keep on loading more and more food and that is how they gauge if you were good. Mel used to always laugh that the behaviour of our kids predicated on that. Olivier has a healthy appetite so they were always happy with that. Once the new kitchen comes in, he will be in charge of meals. I will end up doing cooking with him because he can tell me what adjustments need to be made based upon how he talks about the food. He likes to describe “mouth feel” and terms like that. His help will be greatly appreciated.
I just received a phone call. I was expecting it to be the hospital telling me about my appointment with my Oncologist on Monday. It is scheduled but technically I have not been informed about it. It has been mailed out to me. Yes. Mailed. It is a ridiculous method if you think about it. I am sure that I am going to get a reminder phone call about the appointment. I digressed a bit from the story as you do not know what the phone call was about. This is suspense building. I have my PET scan booked officially now and will be going in at 7:30am on Monday, and then talking to my Oncologist later that day. Hopefully it will be read by then. I have been receiving a lot of help from people and this has extended to people that I do not know as well as everyone within my circle. My friends and colleagues at the hospital look after my best interests.
Xavier gets his mask custom made. What this entails is modifications so that it fits him better. We drive down to the shop and the owner who is a wonderful person chats with Xavier about what he likes and examines how his head fits in the mask and asks questions. His mask has been done for a couple of months now while we wait for it to be wrapped. It has been quite the lengthy process. The first company I contacted fell through for various reasons and I had mentioned or might have mentioned that I contacted a new company. Ron has offered to help facilitate the interaction with them and try to expedite it. I had told him that I was starting treatment soon and wanted to have all of this taken care of so that we could just wait for the mask to be shipped. I would like to pay for it and then not have to deal with things afterwards as it might delay things. It involved trying to arrange finalizing design and small things like that. I appreciate the goodness in people and their willingness to help. We have only met him a couple of times, around when we get him a new mask made but he remembers us. Firstly because we are from Sudbury and he does not know many people from there and because we were memorable the first time around. I appreciate everything everyone has done and will try and think of a way to reciprocate to everyone who has shown me kindness at some point. I have some wonderful Christmas cards that Mel has banned me from sending out. I love them because they are so hideous and look like they are from the 80’s. I do not have enough to send to everyone and Mel does not want to be associated with them at all.
There is a lot of work for me to do right now. This post for today will be much earlier as I will be traveling tonight and can not write then. If there are any other updates through the day I will make another post. PET Scan booked!