The Holidays

Ah the holidays. A time where you get to spend more time as a family, a time when routines get messed with, and a time where at least someone in the house gets sick.  This year, it was me first and my wife second.  The kids?  They managed to stay remarkably healthy.  That's right, the walking cesspools of germs that they are skate away from the holiday season unscathed while I spend three days of the week leading up to Christmas alternating between chills and sweats and my wife, bless her, spends all of Christmas Day barfing every hour, on the hour, beginning at midnight.

Other than that though, Christmas was awesome.

Remember the old stories of your dad staying up all night Christmas Eve putting together some toy of yours that had 1000 some-odd pieces? Well I have my wife to thank for saving me from this fate.  Thing 2's four foot tall doll house took a full three hours to put together. Luckily, she pressured me to do that a couple days before the big day.  I almost wanted to wait just so I could have such a story to pass on, like some fatherly rite of passage.   I have dumb ideas sometimes.  I probably could have put the damn thing together faster had a had a proper screwdriver. The good one was in a drawer no less than 5 feet from the spot I was labouring on with one of those useless quick-change screwdrivers with all the stupid bits inside.  I found the proper screwdriver days later as we were de-Christmasing the house.

Ever notice that I make up a word in pretty much every one of these posts?

So every year I seem to have a moment where I become a classic Christmas movie dad. There was the time I fell off the roof messing with the Christmas lights à la Clark Griswold.  This year it was George Bailey.  

If you've seen It's A Wonderful Life, (which if you haven't, what the hell is wrong with you?), you'll know the scene where George calls the teacher and gives her shit after Zuzu gets sick when she walks home without her coat done up.  Well I kind of pulled a similar overreaction when I gave the caregivers crap when I picked up Thing 2 from preschool and found her playing outside without a toque on when it was -10 Celsius.  Turned out that was the night I got sick.  Coincidence?

And a final thought: At what point did a Christmas pageant become a winter concert?  When I was in kindergarten in public school circa 1988, we did the full nativity scene (a shepherd à la Linus).  Fast forward to Thing 1's kindergarten winter concert  in 2016 and the word Christmas can't even be uttered.  Instead they performed the Olaf song from Frozen with altered lyrics.  Still cute as hell mind you.  Especially cute since Thing 1 is at least 4 inches shorter than each of the other 63 kindergarten kids and they stuck him dead centre in the front row.  Priceless.

Well That's Shitty

Disclaimer: The following is all about poo.  You've been warned.

I deal with a lot of shit in my line of work.  Not in the traditional sense, as in, my boss is a jerk and impossible deadlines and stuff like that, but in the literal sense.  Cleaning up poo is a multiple-time-a-day undertaking for me. 

Thing 2 poops about four times a day still. Probably due to the amount of fruit and veg she eats.  Thankfully Thing 1 is toilet-trained now, although he hasn't really mastered the whole wiping thing yet, so that's still on my docket.  We have two good-sized retrievers and one small yard. This means daily stoop and scooping as nothing is worse than scraping dog doo out of a tiny kids shoe tread. Not to mention Thing 2 would probably pick it up if I let her.  More on that later. And lastly, the damn cat requires her majesty's sand throne be cleaned on the daily or she threatens to find other elimination quarters. 

In case you lost count, that's crap from five other beings, not including my own.  Good thing my wife is self-sufficient in these matters.

So Thing 2 has developed a bizarre fascination with poo.  If she finds one out in the yard, she crouches down really close to inspect it.  She'll pull a stool up in front of you when you're on the can. And most disturbing of all, she demands to see the contents of her poopy diaper after each change. How weird is that?  I sure hope that's a passing phase.

So let me tell you about the shittiest afternoon I've ever had.  Back in January, three weeks into Thing 1's potty-training, the kids and I venture out  to the library. Within 10 minutes of getting here, I notice Thing 2 smells a bit ripe.  As I take her into the bathroom (which mercifully had a change table), I discover that the diaper has not fulfilled its duty of holding in the contents* . I then quickly discover that I have a total of 4 baby wipes remaining in the diaper bag. This is at least a 6 wiper.  Efficiency is of the utmost importance.

Thing 1 then drops a bombshell on me.  The bomb being in his pants,  in a mostly liquefied form, and it's running down his leg.  Thank the good people at the library for having the facility well stocked with brown paper towel.

Outing over.

 

As we head in the front door to head up to the bath, we're greeted by Dog #1 who apparently rolled in some other animal's shit undetected before we left for the library.  Not only does he need a bath now as well, but I have to wash whatever he was laying on.

You'd have to clean Porta Potties for a living to top this afternoon.

So the next time you think you're having a figuratively shitty day, just remember, I'm probably having a literal one.

*Check out my  Cottage post for a similar diaper-related mishap: http://mysahdexistence.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-cottage.html

#52 traits: Positivity in a Negative World

The following is another of my articles in the #52traits series on GetConnectDAD.com.

https://getconnectdad.com/positivity-in-a-negative-world/

You can follow them at https://twitter.com/GetConnectDad or https://www.facebook.com/GetConnectDAD/

Here's the article in its entirety:

My kids are too young to realize it yet, but we live in a pretty negative world. We, as adults, are pessimistic about everything these days.  From the weather to politics, to the state of the economy, everything is going for a big steamy poop.  Just about everything we consume, from our food and drink to our choice of TV show, is bad for us. Even the majority of music coming out these days is garbage. In short, everything sucks.

So how the heck are we supposed to raise our kids to be positive?

I know what we’ll do: we can give everyone a medal for participation. That will keep everyone positive, right? Not so much. All that does is grow a generation of spoiled, entitled wussbags who don’t know how to deal with defeat.

So what’s a parent to do?

In my opinion, the best way to teach positivity is to teach failure. Now I’m not talking about breaking a kid’s spirit with a constant barrage of losing endeavours. I’m talking about teaching a kid that, even if you lose or don’t succeed at something, it doesn’t need change who you are and it doesn’t change your potential to succeed in the future.

Just think of old Charlie Brown. His team lost every baseball game they played. But the start of every game, he went in thinking “today was the day we finally win”. Positivity despite adversity. It’s the same idea as the old adage “Life goes on”.   I don’t want my kids to put too much stock into losing a little league game. It’s just a game. As adults, we seem to put too much stock in kids sports these days. Every wants their kid to have that extra edge. I just want my kids to have fun and enjoy playing whatever it is they want to play.

Then there’s positive reinforcement. Now my four-year-old needs a push to try some things. Sometimes a big push. Getting him on a bike this year, even with training wheels, was a challenge. If it was up to him, he still never would have sat on that seat. We had to force him on to the seat. Once he was on it, we used an obnoxious amount of encouragement and positive reinforcement. He hated us for doing it, but once he saw that he could do it himself, it was hard to get him off the bike. It was the same thing with the pool. Swimming lessons were a nightmare. Who knew a three-year-old could scream bloody murder for 25 minutes straight, six weeks in a row? But I think he saw that we stayed positive about it, and about swimming in general. Now, it’s hard to get him out of the pool.So maybe that’s the other trick to raising a positive child. To lead by example. Kids are more observant than we like to think. If my kids see my wife coming home and talking about how she thinks she’s doing a terrible job at work, how is that going to affect their confidence when they go to school? They’re probably going to start thinking the same way about themselves. As I write about this, I’m thinking of more and more ways that I’m being negative about things around the house. It’s going to be a difficult mindset to change, but if I want my kids to be positive, I’m going to have to do the same.

So here goes. Dinner will not suck tonight (even if it actually tastes like dog food).

#52traits Eat Your Dang Vegetables

The following is my article in the #52traits series on GetConnectDAD.com.

https://getconnectdad.com/eat-your-dang-vegetables/?utm_content=bufferec030

You can follow them at https://twitter.com/GetConnectDad or https://www.facebook.com/GetConnectDAD/

Here's the article in its entirety:

We’re the family that people hate to host. The kids have a dairy allergy, my wife doesn’t eat anything that had legs, we don’t eat gluten by choice. People don’t get it. Our families think we’re just being difficult. I get it. It’s a pain in the ass. People don’t know what to make of us.

But our family’s health is really important to us. My wife and I each grew up as the fat kid despite being very active.  Kids were mean and relentless and it affected each of us emotionally. We had very little self-esteem. We both hated our adolescence.

The reason we grew up that way? We ate like crap. I grew up drinking full-sugar Kool-aid and cases of pop. We ate no vegetables at all in my house, unless you consider potatoes a vegetable or the can of corn at Christmas dinner. We had very little fresh fruit, lots of white bread, unlimited chips and cookies, boxed meals, and sugar cereals.

As a parent now, I shudder at the thought of feeding my kids that way.

Were my siblings and I picky eaters? Most likely. I can remember my mom making five different meals when I was a teenager.

As a stay-at-home dad who makes almost everything from scratch, I don’t have time to make multiple meals. The rule is that we all eat whatever is made. If it’s a crappy meal, then we all share in the crappiness. If someone refuses to eat it, then they go to bed hungry. No exceptions. If one of the kids wants a snack before bed, they finish their dinner first.

But we never force them to eat. If they say their belly is full, we don’t do the old two-more-bites thing.

My son was an incredibly picky eater around the time he was two. He would gag on things that don’t usually make people gag, like pasta. So we had to get creative at first. I made beet pancakes and spinach pancakes and zucchini waffles.  Basically, if I told him it was a pancake or a cookie, he would eat it. We were persistent with vegetables being included in every meal. Gradually we introduced vegetables in their true form.

Now he loves everything raw.

My wife and I feed our kids real food.  I make almost everything from scratch. I check the ingredients on everything I buy.  If the word “modified” appears on the list, I don’t buy it.  If I can’t pronounce one of the words in the list, I don’t buy it. If it says glucose-fructose, I leave it on the shelf.   It’s expensive to eat real food. Is it overkill and pretentious?  Maybe.  Does it make me feel better, that I know what’s going in our bodies? You bet your ass it does.

I want my kids to continue making good choices when they’re old enough to choose what food they want to eat. I had no idea that half the vegetables we eat now even existed when I was a kid. I get them to help me choose the produce at the market or the store. It excites them.

Now I’m not delusional. I know full well they’ll eat at McDonald’s with their friends when they’re older and I’m okay with that.  At home though, they know they’ll get a healthy meal every time.

The Cottage

The cottage.  Our family's first real vacation.  We didn't really know what to expect.  That's kind of the danger with renting something online.  Pictures can be deceiving.  Just look at a listing for a house in your town on a real estate website, then go to an open house.  It can be a big difference.  We lucked out in that the cottage itself was pretty nice for a cottage.  Being first-timers in cottage rental we thought we did okay.

Then we looked at the state of the beach on this "beachfront" cottage.  Now I don't have a whole lot of experience with Lake Erie, but the few times I've seen it, it was decent.  This beach, however, was frigging disgusting.  There is a full 20 feet of black sludge covered in a green icing .  And it stunk.  Not exactly the kind of place you want your kids playing in all week.

That's the "beach".  If you tossed a rock in, it splashed up black sludge pudding.

So we had to find other arrangements.  We were told about this provincial park by one of the neighbours.  We took a wrong turn in the deserted park though by following the "This way to swimming" sign.  What we found was a barren rock beach littered with the carcasses of dead fish.  

Mmmmm.

We ended up finding the good part later in the week, so all was good.

In the meantime though, we also found the neighbouring towns had free pools.  It was here that I showed my boneheadedness in its full glory.  As I was in the pool a full 10 minutes before I noticed my cell phone in my pocket.  

Crap.

Three days in rice and I was able to turn it on and save all the pictures.  Thank goodness for that life hack meme.

(Disclaimer: The next part is gross if you've never had kids.  If you have then, you'll see the humour.)

So the final evening we decide to go out for dinner.  A few minutes in, we noticed Miss Thang Two (formerly Thing Two) stunk.  It was my turn.  Of course there's no change table or counter in the men's washroom, but we make due.  It was a minor deuce, a two wiper.  No more than five minutes later, she reeked again.  Mama's turn.  Thang Two comes back to the table in a diaper only.  The diaper did not hold in all the contents.  Shorts in trash. Happy girl.

Here's the gross part. A woman walks by the table and slips.  Looks down and sees some "food" on the floor and tells the maître d' about it.  We look over and to our horror/hilarity, the "food" had squirted right out the diaper.  Gnarly.  I managed to clean it up with a bunch of wipes and dispose of it in the loo before they showed up with  a broom.  Ah, parenting.

Should we have told them about the biohazard? Probably.  Did we?  Heck no.  We paid the bill and high-tailed it out of there.

But alas, the vacation, like all good things,  came to an end.  Both kids learned to doggie-paddle in the pool and we had some laughs.  All in all, a successful first family vacation.

The Minivan of Awesomeness

There's quite a divide between those that minivan and those who swear they never would, even it was given to them.  When I started telling people how we were getting a van after our second car went for a shit, the divide was pretty impressive.  Pretty much anyone who has never owned a van is anti-van.   Quite simply, they're uncool and unsexy.  Kinda like me.  Vans are the cargo pants of the vehicle world.  They're boxy, unflattering, and you can put all kinds of shit in them.

Case in point: First trip to the cottage. Two adults, two kids, two 70 lbs. dogs, two coolers, two giant totes, 3 suitcases, a laptop bag and toys.  Plus random bags of groceries we couldn't fit in the coolers.  All in one unsexy minivan.  That trumps any shred of anti-van you can fire at me.

Vans are awesome.  They're the best thing to come along since sliced bread (the wheat kind, not the gluten-free kind.  That bread is crap).    

My uncle-in-law bestowed the magical purple wonder on us despite the fact that he has four grown boys, all of which appear to be anti-vanners.  We've known about it for awhile now, but we only came desperate for it when the old Sebring gave up the ghost a month ago.  Three weeks between vehicles when you're home all day with two kids pretty much sucks.  Luckily the weather was good enough to tow the kids around in the bicycle trailer most places we needed to go. 

We only had to use public transportation twice.  Do you know why no one likes to use public transportation?  Because it takes for-freaking-ever to get anywhere.  Thing 1 had a doctor's appointment  the day after the car died. A whole 25 kilometres away.   I thought it would be an adventure for the kiddos to ride the bus, so I planned out the trip.  Three buses and over two hours to come within 15 minutes walking distance of the doc's office.  I also grossly underestimated how much snacks would be required for a two hour bus voyage.  They pretty much ate everything in the first 10 minutes.  Big fail on that one.

Bring on the van, I say! And maybe some cargo pants.

#52traits: Because There's All Kinds of Jerks Out There

The following is my article in the #52traits series on GetConnectDAD.com.

https://getconnectdad.com/2016/07/05/be-forgiving-because-theres-all-kinds-of-jerks-out-there/

You can follow them at https://twitter.com/GetConnectDad or https://www.facebook.com/GetConnectDAD/

Here's the article in its entirety:

We all do stupid things. We’re inherently selfish beings who, at times, do things without any regard for others. We hurt people. Sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, sometimes mentally. Basically, we’re all jerks at some point in time. Some more than others, but you get the point. Not one person reading this is ever going to say they’ve never been an asshole. If you were a toddler, you’ve been an asshole at some point. My two kids are generally lovable little beings, but both do malicious things daily.

As parents, we have lots to teach our kids, but when it comes down to it, our main job is to bring them up to be functioning members of society. We all may have different ideas of what that means, but it should all end up looking pretty dang similar.

But alas, it doesn’t always work out. Some people are just jerks. Like the kid who insisted on kicking my kid’s train every two minutes at his kindergarten orientation, he then proceeded to shove a girl and pinch her when she was down. That kid may grow up to be a glorious asshole.   To combat these types in the world, we need to teach our kids about forgiveness, in all its forms.

Fist Bump

Firstly, I want my kids to be able to forgive those the jerks they come across out in public. I want them to know that it’s usually not personal, and if it is, it may be because they’ve learned that behaviour from someone else doing it to them. Maybe the person being a jerk is just having a bad day. Whatever the reason, I want to teach my kids to put themselves in the other’s shoes and see if they can figure out why that person behaves that way. I want to make little anthropologists out of them. I want my kids to try and talk to the other and ask how they’re doing. See if they can help in some way. If it helps, great. They made a new friend, or at least gained some insight into how others think. If that kid still wants to be a jerk, then at least they’ve learned another important life lesson: some people are just plain assholes.

I also want my kids to have the strength to forgive a loved one who messes up. This is something I had to learn well into adulthood. Even people you love can do crappy things. The fact that love is involved makes it more difficult to make peace with the other’s mistake. I want them to know that holding on to the anger or hurt that the loved one caused is more detrimental to themselves, than to the other person. Even if no remorse is shown, it’s still better to forgive, for your own sake. I just hope it isn’t me they’re going to have to try to forgive.

Which brings me to the one type of forgiveness I want my kids to learn the most: To forgive themselves. They’re going to screw up. They’re going to get bad grades, detentions, and maybe even suspensions at school. They’re going to burn things on the stove, blow things up in the microwave, overflow the bathtub, spill crap on the rug, crash my car. The list goes on and on. It’s all going to happen. I want to teach them to go easy on themselves. No pressure is worse than the pressure you can put on yourself. Life is full of bad decisions. The trick is to learn from the mistakes and move forward.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. – Mahatma Ghandi