Hey! I have a 7-year-old.

I’m not going to start with the old adage; “Boy time sure flies” because it’s been a LONG, tiring 7 years, but Tuesday marked our oldest son, Linus’, 7th birthday. 

I sat with him last night, reflecting on the first 6 year of his life – I mistakenly referred to him as being 7 when he corrected me.  “Dad, I’m not seven.  From when I was born until I turned 1 was one year.  I’m already 7.  This is my 8th year being alive”.

Right you are… Smart ass. 

So I went further hoping in my pathetic way to get a good quote from him to tweet.  His brother and sister are destroying him with tweetable quotes and here’s what I got;

On growing older and being a leader: “Respect is the most important thing in the world”.  Not bad, eh?  All this brainwashing is rubbing off, until this came out; “Actually, respect is the second most important thing in the entire world.  Not dying before you are born is the most important”.

…

Who can argue that point.

So to my 7-year-old (or 8-year-old, whatever you want to call yourself) when you are reflecting back on this post down the road and you want to know what kind of child you were by this age I can tell you this.  Before you I had hair.  It was black, not grey.  You have the best smile in the world, but not the goofy one, the real one.  It is not correct that you “do not care” about absolutely everything, but instead you don’t mind, or are not concerned.  Saying you do not care means all the cool stuff we buy you and all the trips we’ve gone on as a family are a waste of time and I know that is not correct. 

It’s fun being the class clown, isn’t it.  I was one too until I awoke one day to realize I was a joke with crappy grades.  I turned it around and fast.  Please don’t wait until grade 9 like I did.

If only you would practice… Anything.  Karate, piano, swimming, then your brother would not be catching up to you and passing you.  On the bright side while he may be your equal in these areas, you destroyed him at potty training and night-time diaper training and your math skills are off the charts.   

You are hesitant to try anything new or different but trust me that will change when you realize what a rush it is.  Then you’ll be looking for adventure in all the wrong places.

You love the cold.  Aside from me, you are the only person I have met who does not get cold outside.  No hat, no gloves, jacket undone, even at the coldest of temperatures.  You look at me, I look back at you and we silently nod an understanding to each other than it’s Canada.  It gets cold.  We’re tough (and a little cool).

You are starting to like Star Wars.  YAY.  All I need is get you to practice baseball and hockey more, or dodge ball, then you will better fit in with all the boys.  The ones you don’t get along with should respect your karate skills and the girls will continue to dig your awesome smile.  Your parents… They want to see a more focussed son with greater patience.  

Yeah, good luck.  I told your mother that too.

Happy birthday son.  I cannot wait to work with you and plan your year.

 

Look! We made some “Hi Kitty” Cupcakes…

Tomorrow is my daughter’s 2nd birthday party.  Her actual birthday is Sunday. 

When prompted for what she wanted for her birthday, she replied; “Hi Kitty Cupcakes”.

“Hi Kitty” for those of you who have not heard me tell this story a thousand times, is “Hello Kitty”

So last night I made 96 cupcakes and tonight my wife and I set out to decorate them.  Please welcome the Hello Kitty army!

So now we’ve added some decorations, cut some veggies, got fruit, and we’re ready to go.  Tomorrow morning I’ll get bagels for the tuna, egg and cream cheeses, and my wife will make mini pizza’s.  The puppet show is exactly the other thing she wants for her birthday. 

All in all, there should be just under 20 – 2-year-old’s here tomorrow and at least 30 parents.  Can’t wait!

 

 

Happy 5th Birthday Stewie!

Happy 5th birthday to my son I call “Stewie” here in Urbandaddyville. 

We were so happy when you turned 4 because you were as big as a 4-year-old and no one believed that you were 3.  Now that you are 5 you look like you are 6.  You and your 6-year-old brother share the same the same size shirts and pants, and you’re 4cm shorter than him. 

You wanted a bag of marbles for your birthday and you got it.

You wanted a magician for your birthday (but not Tricky Ricky) and you wanted cupcake decorating at our home but just yesterday you asked us if you could have your party at Active Kids Zone.  Your party is Tuesday.  There are 24 kids coming.  It’s too late to make these changes, and we’re not using AKZ since they refused to refund our money for a camp that your brother was sick for.

You went this afternoon to write your journal.

The worse your brother behaves, the better you do.

You have developed a bond with your baby sister because you can boss her around and she loves it.

You told us school was boring – after 2 days - because all they made you do was colour.

You have not slept through the night or in your own bed for the last 5 months.

You’re awesome!

We love you.  Happy Birthday.

 

Some random stuff you will probably discuss at the water cooler, kitchen sink or breakfast table…

So my new blackberry talks to me. Out of nowhere, I must press a button and the fucking thing starts talking to me, asking me to issue a voice command and when I yell back at it, “Shut the fuck up” it calls one of my colleagues… Each and every time, same guy. I think I need to find a different swear word for it.
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For some strange reason by year and a half old daughter HATES the bath. Sure, it’s been coming over time but now she breaks out into a cold sweat whenever we say “bath” or “shower”. She also hates the morning poo cleanup which I think is a result of the cold wipes in her girly bits. I’d hate that too. Last time I went to clean her she said to my wife, “Bad Daddy”. Great.

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I see Canada Post wants to strike… Overall volume is down 17% from 2006, they have a 3.2billion dollar deficit, yet the unionized workers want a 3.3% raise this year, and 2.75% in the next 2 year, in addition to job security. As Jack Layton would say, “hashtag fail”. It’s too bad Rob Ford is just the Toronto mayor and not the Prime Minister of Canada. Starting wages are $23/hr and would be $26/hr. #Shame. The workers should realize postal carrier are going the way of the VCR and Canada Post should find a way to keep the mail moving while sorting out this mess.

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Actual conversation between myself and a former colleague at the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency).

CRA: I’m bored.

Me: I could use some help researching some tax matters

CRA: Naw! I don’t wanna work.

Me: I really could use some help. I have some tough aged matters I’m trying to sort out.

CRA: So call business windows, 1.800.959.5525.

Me: Really? Can’t I just speak to you.

CRA: I’ll only answer one general question, nothing account specific

Me: Well, it’s account specific… Thanks anyways…

Yes sir, with no shred of a lie. I’m okay with that, it’s not this person’s fault, it’s the system, right?

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Staff member was at 15,000 steps at the end of the day and quite proud of it. I just cracked 10,000. Boldly, I pledged to surpass his total tonight. He laughed at me.

Damn.

That meant I would actually have to do something once the kids went to bed and my wife off to her book club. So after getting some work done on, oh yes, cost basis reporting, I grabbed my stuff and headed out for a run. Now I’m writing this post at 19,000 steps. I’ll have to find a kind, gentle way to point it out to him. He he.

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I also took the opportunity today to bring in ice cream sandwiches for the whole upstairs at my office today since it was so damn hot. One of my staff posted it somewhere, possibly Facebook, possibly just in an email to a friend, and it read; “This is why I love my boss”, and it had a picture of the ice cream. You know, I’d love my boss too if I got ice cream. Yeah (not that I don’t love my boss already, but there is room for ice cream after dinner and always room for more love for giving ice cream).

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When the Atlanta Thrashers move from Atlanta to Winnipeg shouldn’t Commissioner Gary Bettman go too? How long until he tries to put another team there?!? 10 years?

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Happy Birthday to my wife today! You look incredible and 10 years younger than me… Keep it up.
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Why are sales people / wait staff so fucking rude all the time. Don’t they know that they lose customers that way? Don’t they care? Does anybody care?
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When was the last time you paid a compliment instead of bitching? It’s so much easier to bitch someone out than it is to comment on how hard they work or how much you appreciate them.
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Why are there so many songs about rainbows? And what’s on the other side?
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Happy 5th Birthday Twitter

Hey, Twitter is 5 years old today.

What do you get for a social networking program, in 140 word or less, that has absolutely everything?

Really?  I do not know.

Will there be cake?

But seriously, Twitter, in the 2 years I’ve known you, you have allowed some 725 people to read my nonsensical ramblings, my “tweets” about life, tax, sports and general random thoughts about nothing.  You have taught me about the correct use of a “#” sign and the “@” sign.  You show up on the right column of this blog and you post each and every blog post I write. 

We’ve bonded.

I’m still not sure what you’re all about, and why 140 characters?  Why not 141?  Or 139? 

And why again do I care what Tom Cruise, Ashton Kutcher or Lindsay Lohan are doing at any point in the day?  You’ve got that edgy, digital voyeurism aspect that kind of creeps me out but kind of keeps me coming back for more. 

My wife dislikes you, unless she is using you as evidence as to what time I am going to bed.  Hard to deny a 2:25am tweet.  I tell her you are misunderstood, but we all know that’s a lie.  I still like Facebook more, but you’re good in a pinch.

Well happy birthday anyways… I’m off to play Cityville or Jedi Vs Sith on Facebook.

 

A post about my biggest boy on his 6th birthday

Today is my oldest boy’s 6th birthday.  As the youngest kid in his grade, it’s nice for him to be “catching up” to the rest of the kids.  Sure when he comes back to school there will be some kids turning 7-year-old, but to him he’ll be 6 like most of them.

In honour of his 6th birthday (besides our regular celebratory trips to the Mandarin) I have a post I’ve been keeping to post on this day, about a conversation him and I had a couple of weeks ago.  It just seems to fit – him turning 6, and me turning 40 in the new year…

Here it is;

In early December, Linus came up to me and asked me to give him some money for school.

“What do you need to buy?” I asked.  “Does mummy know?” figuring he’s already hit her up and is now trying to extort money from me…

“I’m not buying anything”, he said. ” I need old money for show and tell… I have some already but I need more.”

He proceeds to show me a penny with the year “2000″ on it.  “Yes, that’s old… To you!”  I say to him.  “But surely we can do better than that!  Let me find some older coins for you.  Like when Daddy was younger.  Let’s go look”.

So off we went looking through my change where I found a 1972 penny.  “Here buddy… This penny is one year younger than Daddy”, I say.

“GASP!  He says, before he turns and bolts out of the room.

“Stewie!!!  Daddy gave me REALLY, REALLY, REALLY OLD money!!!”

“Hey!… It’s not that old!” 

So off I went to find older money to show the kids that 1972 is not super-museum old.  I found a dime from 1968, a penny from 1956 and then a penny from 1932.

We discussed how old this money was by comparing it to ages of family members.    He seemed generally unimpressed by it all, even when I handed him another old penny, a 1944 one on his way to school.

So I kept giving him old coins figuring if he wasn’t going to be impressed maybe his teachers would, or some of the other kids in his class would tell their parents… I went and found a whole lot of old coins and gave them to him.

When I came home from work that evening I made a point to ask him right away how his show and tell went and if anyone like his coins. 

“Oh yes”, he said. 

“My teacher liked them, as did my classmates… Which is why I put them in the charity can, so others can like them too…”

“You did WHAT?”

“Gave them to charity”, he said.

“OH… Okay…”

So the point of this story is… I’m really, really, really old and my son likes to give to those less fortunate than he is.

Happy birthday Linus!

 

A post about my father on his birthday…

Today, December 11th would have been my father’s 72nd birthday.  He passed away 8 years ago.

I often think about him while interacting with my kids – wondering how much he would have loved spending time with them, and recently my boys have been asking me if I will take them to the cemetery to visit his headstone…  Not sure how this all came up, but I do not think they are ready yet.  Today my middle child asked me if my father was still alive.  I asked him if he had met him.  A couple seconds later upon realizing that he had not, he concluded that my Dad must have died before he was born.  “Oh” was his reply.

The other day I was reminded of him while in the car when I heard one of his favourite songs, and that brought it all back for me in a good, nostalgic way.

That song was Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsmen, recorded in 1966.

You see my Dad loved Snoopy from Peanuts fame (look it up kids).

This particular song is a novelty song about the imaginary World War I antics of Charlie Brown’s pet beagle Snoopy, in the comic strip Peanuts.

“Snoopy Vs The Red Baron” was inspired by the comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz, which featured a recurring storyline of Snoopy imagining himself in the role of a World War I airman fighting the Red Baron.

“Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” was released only four weeks after the first Sunday Peanuts comic strip featuring Snoopy fighting the Red Baron appeared. Schulz and United Features Syndicate sued the Royal Guardsmen for using the name Snoopy without permission or an advertising license. UFS won the suit; the penalty was that all of the publishing revenues from the song would go to them. Schulz did allow the group to write more Snoopy songs.

The song features the sounds of German gibberish, heard at the beginning of the song, stating that the song will sing of the “pig headed dog and the beloved Red Baron,” as well as the German and American sounds of the Sergeant counting off in 4s.

The song features the sound effects of a fighter airplane, as well as the sounds of shooting and a tailspin sound of a plane at the end of the last verse.

This song also quotes the instrumental chords from The McCoys’ version of “Hang On Sloopy.” In the original recording, the lyrics “Hang on Snoopy, Snoopy hang on” were sung at this point. This led to some initial speculation that the Guardsmen were the McCoys under a different name. Prior to release, these lyrics were changed from Snoopy to Sloopy to prevent copyright issues.

You can hear it here;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxzg_iM-T4E&feature=related

Then just a couple of days ago I heard another one of his favourite songs, this one called; In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly.  It was from 1968 and the darn song is over 17 minutes long.  I found the full song on YouTube but it was so big that it had to be broken in 2.  Both parts are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvs8tdddn2o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks8WPOCj_jo

 Have a listen and let me know what you think of 2 unique songs from the 60′s.

 

My Daughter is 1! Happy First Birthday Berry!!!

Has it been one year already?

Yes it has.

It seems like so much longer. I can’t believe how much she has grown in the past few weeks. Aside from her regular vocabulary, Berry has added the following gems;

She says, “yeah” now. Me: “Berry, do you want to eat?” Berry: “Eat… Yeah!”.
Me: “Berry, do you want more?” Berry: “Mowr… Yeah”.
Me: “Berry, do you want a kick in the head?” Berry: “Yeah!”

She calls all stuffed animals, “bear”.
She calls all dolls, “Dawl”

She looks to her big brothers for their feedback and will continue to act in a certain way depending on them, for example, when she was smacking herself in the head, they laughed, she continued…

When she doesn’t want to eat anymore, she shakes her head no.

She has become very loud… Not surprising as she has to keep up with the boys.

She has developed a fondness for the rubber duckies in the bath tub and treats them the same way little girls react to Justin Beiber… Shrieks of adoration.

She has crazy hair that comes down past her nose in the front and she can often be found pulling at her hair, usually with hands full of yogurt or oatmeal… UGH.

She has a boyfriend – let’s call him Neeson – who is a few months older than her.

And she learned to shake her head in the “no” manner but doesn’t know the world “no”… yet.  She actually makes herself dizzy and laughs while she’s doing it… She’s crazy like her big brother.

Happy 1st Birthday, Berry!

 

A Love Story… Stewie and the Food Truck

Love is in the air!

It’s my son Stewie who turns 4-years-old TODAY!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEWIE!

He is in love.  It’s the cutest thing.

He is in love with the “food truck”.

For those of you who may not know, Stewie is 1 inch and 1 pound smaller than his big brother Linus. Stewie is 22 months younger than his big brother and Stewie LOVES to eat. It’s not unusual for him to eat 5 meals a day, or to out-eat me, at a buffet or when we eat chicken wings… This kid has a hollow leg and if you look at him, he is not at all fat…

Anyways, knowing this, I thought he would REALLY appreciate to know what the inside of the truck that comes next door 2 times a day, looks like.  The truck with the really funny horn that makes him run to the window.  When I used to work up in the boonies, I called the truck a “death wagon” because the food on the truck was all full of salt and fat.  Eating it for a prolonged period would literally kill you.  Nowadays, the food on these trucks are really healthy. I saw turkey on whole wheat, the other day.  Food on this truck is low-fat, half-salt, all natural and I actually saw veggies.

So one day as the truck pulled up, I walked Stewie across the street and you should have seen the look on his face when this truck opened it’s side and it was full of food.  He gasped.  His eyes got REALLY wide, and I think his heart missed a beat.

“I love this truck”, he said with a gasp.

The driver, with a big smile on his face showed Stewie all the compartments in his truck and then gave him a – yup – cinnamon bun and bottle of juice.  Needless to say, the nanny and I split the bun and he drank half the juice. 

But now every day when the truck comes, he asks to run over and look inside and when he sees the food, he smiles and the driver gives him food… Nice gig, eh?  Last time it was chips and juice.

I made the mistake of eating his chips late one night and damned if he didn’t notice it.  He was pissed.  Instant tears.  Actually whenever he remembered or was reminded he eyes would well up with tears and he would develop a scowl on his face which he would direct towards me.  I’d get something like, “Why did you eat my chips, daddy?”

So I was forced on night after soccer to buy him a little bad and while he munched away happily, I could tell that he was on the road to forgiving me.  Then his brother told him that I drank the rest of his juice (when he really did) and boy did that set off Stewie!  He ran to “tell mummy on me”.

So now when Stewie hears a truck with a funny horn his heart skips a beat and I’m sure he thinks there is a food truck outside waiting for him.  I will always remember the look of excitement and pure ecstasy on his face when the driver opened up the side of the truck revealing it to be full of food.

He loved it.

Below is a link to some other food truck Stewie would love to see / eat from, I’m sure…

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/10-of-the-remarkable-food-trucks-taking-over-the-u-s-2392644/#photoViewer=1

 

You are 8 months old today!

Happy 8 months to my little girl.

You are so different from your big brothers… You can sit on the bed, happily and play for around an hour. You love to happily warble away, while yanking at your feet, rolling front-to-back, then back-to-front, clapping your hands, or on your hands and knees rocking back and forth. You never stop… Like your big brother, Stewie.

Now you love to try and stand up (holding on to me very tightly, of course. You are so proud of yourself.  The world looks so different when you are standng, eh?

You toy with me when I feed you, pretending to sign the word, “more”, while saying it only to me, never to mummy.

You have that one little tooth on the bottom left of your mouth and have bitten me and mummy, although where you bite mummy hurts way more than me!

You love your brothers and your dolly (and bunny your brother bought you, and the ball we’ve passed from brother to brother to you, and your links…)

Your face lights up when you see your nanny, and her sister. You hated the cat, but are now becoming buds.

You are my princes. But not Ariel, or Cinderella… Princess Leia. You get to carry a blaster!

Happy 8th month birthday, sweetie. And thank you for finally showing signs of wanting to sleep through the night!