The Rafting Trip

Here's the tale of our family's fabled rafting trip down the Grand River.

One day this summer, we decided to purchase an inflatable raft from Canadian Tire.  It was on sale and looked like it would make for at least one fun family afternoon.

We were wrong.  Well, not entirely.  It did end up being pretty funny, just not for the reason we thought.

It was a very hot and humid summer here in Southern Ontario, and nothing beats the summer heat like being around the water. We picked a particularly clear and hot Saturday to try out the new raft.  We parked the Van of Awesomeness (for details on said van, see:  http://mysahdexistence.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-minivan-of-awesomeness.html ) about 9 km down the river, and drove the car back to town. A lofty goal indeed, but it's a pretty free-flowing stretch of water, so I thought it was doable. A two hour trip or so. That was Mistake #1.

We parked the car near a canoe put-in and unboxed the raft.  That's right, we never checked to see if we'd actually all fit in this thing. That was Mistake #2. We blew it up and discovered that, despite having a weight limit of like 450 lbs., this thing could barely fit me, let alone my wife and the two kids as well. Crap.

Speaking of crap.  I have inadvertently taught my six year old the word crap.  I must have described dollar store Lego as crap one time, because now every time he sees building blocks in stores without the Lego logo on it, he loudly and proudly proclaims to his sister that it's Crap Lego.  Oops.  At least he has the right context.

But I digress.

Despite the size of the wee raft, we decided that since we were there, we all just go out on the water for a few minutes, just to say we did, then head back to shore and drive back to get the Van.  We squeezed in, me at the stern with Thing 1 sitting on my legs, facing Thing 2 with mommy sitting not at the bow, but on the inflated bow.  Man, I wish we had a camera on us that day.

With much effort, we pushed out, my ass dragging along the rocky shore until we got to deeper water.  Deeper as in about a foot and a half deep.  Being the hot summer that it was, we failed to realize that the water level would be extremely low.  Mistake #3.  The current was moving despite the shallow water and we started drifting, rather slowly, downstream.  So we went with it.  Mistake #4.

Maybe a kilometer or so down the river, it happened.  My ass dragged across a jagged rock and pop! went the middle of the three air chambers. The raft could no longer handle the weight of us all and we started taking in water, much to Thing 1's absolute horror. My wife hopped off the front  into the calf deep water and he started freaking out, yelling something that sounded remarkably like, "SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT".  I'll blame my wife for that word.

It was then my turn to get out, having to throw one leg over top of the panicking child and more or less roll into the water.  Another missed photo opportunity I'm sure.  Between my gracefulness and his sheer terror, my wife is now laughing so hard she has tears rolling down her cheeks.

Luckily, the raft has a tow rope on the front and enough air left in it for the kids to stay in and not have to walk all the way back to the car.

They got ice cream on the way home for that one. 

Back to school..and blogging

So, it's been a while.  I can give you any numbers of excuses as to why I haven't been blogging, but they'd all be pretty lame.  Truth is, life just got in the way.  But anyway, I'm back to entertain you for five minutes each week or so.  How lucky you are!

I've actually had a number of people come up to me in the past year or so asking why I don't post anymore. 

So here goes  my attempt to reclaim my former blogger glory. And by glory, I mean the 60 to 80 blog views I used to get.

The reason I have all this free time to write again is because Thing 2 has started junior kindergarten!  As I stood there this morning watching her walk in the front door with the rest of the JK's, I of course uttered the words "FREEDOM!".  When I looked around though, I seemed to be the only one not bawling my eyes out.  What kind of father am I?  Not even a little sad to see his youngest leave him for good.  I'll tell you what kind of father I am: A proud one.  She walked through those gates like she owned the place.  Not even a moment's hesitation or mournful look back to me.  She was ready.  Truth is, she's been ready for at least two years.

Do you want to know what I hate about back to school though?  Not the endless facebook posts from all my friends of their kids back to school photos, because they're all so damn cute. It's those stupid signs each kid is holding.  Not only that, but the fact that I have to do it too.  Last year I wrote it on white paper with black marker. Simple and to the point.  But oh the shitstorm I took for that.  You got Pinterest giving all these parents stupid ideas with elaborate signs all decked out with f-ing tassles and glitter.  Hell, even the craft store Michael's had a sign making workshop that I didn't sign up for.  I got hell from my wife too for that.

So a mom friend of mine graciously gave my some extra premade signs that they were giving out at the grocery store.  The problem?  They're printed over a forest green background to make it look like an old chalkboard.  Forest f-ing green.   Do you know what you can use to write on shiny forest green paper?  Sweet nothing.  I tried white crayons, killed two gel pens and even tried chalk.  Nothing worked well.  By the second kid's sign, I was literally scratching through the green to get to the write underneath.    

Didn't think that through too much, did you Loblaws?

Until next time, folks!  Now, I just have to remember how to publish the blog...

Do You Believe In Ghosts?

Thing 2 is a character.  At just over two and a half years, she blows my mind every day with something she says or does.  Just the other day she informed me that a wooden puzzle piece she found on the floor in our bedroom "belongs downstairs".  Belongs? Where did she pick that up from.  I'd expect something more along the lines of "this goes downstairs", but "belongs"? She slays me.

So, did you ever have an imaginary friend growing up? I never did, so I don't know if kids actually see something that others can't.  But what if those friends aren't imaginary?  What if some kids are simply clairvoyant and are talking and playing with a ghost of some sort?  It is widely believed, by those who believe in the paranormal, that kids are more sensitive to such things.

Now I'm not really here to get into a big conversation about the existence of ghosts, it's just a thought.  It's also a segue into Thing 2's friend Charlie. Now Charlie, according to my daughter, is a ghost.  She sees lots of ghosts, but Charlie is the mainstay.

None of these ghosts are malevolent, mind you.  It's usually just Charlie who hangs around in her closet most of the time.  But every night, we have to tell Charlie (and sometimes others) to go home before she goes to bed.  We have to ask her where he is in her room and speak to him directly saying, "Charlie, time to go home to your mommy.  It's time for supper. See you tomorrow!". After which, she goes promptly to sleep.

In the morning, usually 13 to 14 hours later, she will come down and announce that she had a "big, big nap" and "No bad dreams".  Now if we forget to show Charlie the door, Thing 2 always seems to have bad dreams.  

Coincidence?  I think not.

So last week, Charlie accompanied us all on a hike in the woods.  The terrain was muddy because of the big snow melt and still a bit icy in places.  Thing 2 was holding my hand as Thing 1 held my wife's. Thing 2's other hand held Charlie's. When we came to a spot where we had to step over a fallen tree, she informed me that she couldn't hold my hand because she had to hold Charlie in her arms to help him over...

They didn't make it and they fell face-first into a pile of mud.

Thanks a lot, Charlie.

Hey look at that, I didn't make up a word today.  Good for me.

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.