Ada, a COVID puppy

My oldest son turned 6 a few weeks ago. This got me thinking about the year I turned six. I lived in the suburbs of Vancouver and that year the city hosted Expo 86. Our family travelled to see Expo from all over Canada and cousins came from the UK. I successfully grew tall enough to ride the roller coaster by the end of the summer. And I got to help my parents name my youngest brother who arrived in August. I also had the freedom to ride my bike around the neighbourhood, exploring creeks and playing with a group of kids with no concerns about household bubbles. If I was aware of Chernobyl at all, the memory was completely swamped by all the good memories of being six.

Which gets me back to 2020. What kind of memories will my son have of being six? He knows the death count in Saskatchewan and we have adult conversations about risk, probability and the global scientific effort to develop treatments and a vaccine. His kindergarten year is effectively over and he spent 6 weeks with no option but playing with his best friend over Skype. Even with the restrictions easing, he is not limited to one friend and had to celebrate his birthday over Zoom with family in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Summer vacations to visit family are cancelled and we're not holding out too much hope for any kind of summer kids camps. 

So like many other families in Saskatchewan, when his 3-year-old brother mentioned how much he missed the cat who died last year and started asking for a new pet, we realized this was a good time to get a dog. And a new dog in the family will hopefully create some good memories for the kids in this exceptionally strange year.