This morning I received some tragic news. A great community leader in music education, Jean Lyons, has died at the age of 84. She was walking home yesterday evening and was struck by a car. She was rushed to hospital where she was operated on but she did not survive.

I'm still trying to grip with the reality of her death. She was a vibrant, active, intelligent, animated woman who was brimming over with life. Always full of ideas and plans for her future. To have to die so carelessly is tragic.

As a youngster, I attended the Jean Lyons School of Music for several years. Miss Lyons was always a fixture there. She taught different levels of theory as well as individual piano lessons. Although she wasn't my primary piano teacher, I occasionally had a private lesson with her and she was always encouraging and constructive. And just when I thought she was stern and serious, she'd come up with some punchline to lighten things up.

Besides the music education and the life lessons and discipline that becoming a musician entails, going to music school built this amazing sense of community. There is still a group of us that get together once in a while. We've known each other since our early teens and although we've gone down different roads in our lives, we're still connected by Miss Lyons.

The ironic thing is that until recently, we never really knew how old Miss Lyons was. It didn't really matter either. We just thought she was timeless. Like she was going to be around forever.

Roland and I are not big Christmas-people. We don't go all out and decorate or buy gifts or make a big deal about it. It's become way too commercialized and the meaning of Christmas is lost. Now that we have a child, we're not going to make it a big deal for him either.

So we've had a few discussions around how we will deal with the whole Santa Claus issue. Should we make Santa a part of our winter celebrations? How much of the Santa thing are we going to expose S to?

Last year S had a picture with Santa. I wasn't planning on having it done but we were at the Kids Only Market on a quiet weekday and Santa was reading a story with the kids. There wasn't a line up for photos so we just decided on the spur of the moment to give it a try. So we have a cute photo of a happy S with Santa.

This year I was curious to see if S might do the same so we headed down to the market. We arrived at around 10 but unfortunately Santa doesn't start work until 11. So we checked out the Santa room and played with toys at various stores.

When it got closer to 11, I asked S, "Do you want to see Santa and have a photo with him?" S looked at me with big eyes and that kind of spooked expression. "Nonononononono..." That was fine by me. For the rest of the day whenever I mentioned Santa, S looked at me with that same wide eyed expression. I had to resort to spelling or referring to Santa by one of his other names.

Well, I guess S answered the questions we had about Santa.

S finally said it today: "Poh Poh"! Poh Poh is what S calls my mom in Cantonese. He's been saying "Goong Goong," what he calls my dad, for the longest time and was probably one of his first words. I've been worrying that he's not bonded to his Poh Poh and that she might be developing a complex about him not saying her name.

I started to wonder about his connection to Poh Poh when he started saying words like pepper (pehpuh), computer (pupu), paper (papuh) but not Poh Poh. And he's been aware of her from day 1!

So we're all excited and a bit relieved. Of course it was only a matter of time.

S used his potty for the first time this weekend. OK, let me rephase that--he peed on his potty for the first time this weekend!

I bought a potty for S a while ago. At the time I hadn't intended to buy him one but he was interested in it and even began to sit on it while at the store. So I bought it and he's used it in a variety of ways...as a lounger in the livingroom, toy storage, step stool (however it's not the kind that is meant to be converted into a step stool!)... The potty was starting to look a bit unsightly in the livingroom so we moved it to S's bathroom upstairs a while back and he wasn't showing much interest in using it.

Then this weekend we thought we'd try to get him to relieve himself on the potty. I guess it helps that he sees me use the toilet and is keen on imitating. Lo and behold, it worked. Now we offer the potty to him each time he has a diaper change and when he wants to go, he can go.

I know it's early to potty train but if he's keen and willing, I'll give him the opportunity to use it. No pressure. Hopefully the novelty of it won't wear off!

Cold, desolate mountains. I picture extreme skiers and boarders and dream of coming back and doing some serious boarding and cross country skiing instead of being confined to what I am sure are the fantastic digs at the Banff Centre. That'll be me, having fun with participating and presenting while part of my heart is in the pow and most of my heart is in Vancouver missing my family.

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