As a Father, if you’re going to disappoint some of them, you might as well disappoint all of them…

I wanted to post this last week when it happened but did not get a chance but since that night this scenario has come up over and over again, just not to the same extent.

The night it first happened, was a special night in the Urban Daddy household.  Determined to get back into some semblance of an exercise routine, I made up my mind early in the day that I would run on the treadmill that evening, by hook or by crook.

Since I’m still within my 3 month window of a new job with much greater responsibility, and the stress / excitement of meeting new people, learning new systems, figuring out acronyms and being on my toes all the time, I have found myself quite exhausted by about 10pm, which means that is around the time I tend to fall asleep on the couch when trying to; watch TV, read, blog, play Cityville, or… exercise.  Very unusual for me as I’m used to 1-2am sleeps with 6am wake-ups.

This night was exercise night and the beginning of a new schedule for me.

New Routine – Thursday night.:

Eat dinner with the kids (not unusual at all)

Stewie piano lessons

Give Berry a bath

Linus annoy mummy during math lesson

Then switch…

Linus piano.

Berry and Stewie before bed snack.

All kids in bed by 8:15 and I’m going to treadmill for 1/2 hour before I have a shower, then run out to grab milk.  I really want to begin getting to bed at a reasonable hour – it is currently 12:33am so that is not happening.

Then it all fell apart.

Urban Mummy wanted to talk to me.  We didn’t talk much the previous night and she barely saw me today and she wanted to chat but I patted my flabs and said, “Sorry hun!  I have to treadmill”.  She was disappointed.

I went to check on the kids and here is what happened;

Walked into Stewie’s room, and surprisingly he was still awake.

“Stay with me, Daddy”, he said.

“Sorry kiddo.  I have to treadmill right now so I can shower, get milk and talk to your mother before she falls asleep or kills me”.

He was disappointed.

I went from there to Linus’ room where he was sitting up in his bed too.

“Lay with me, Daddy and tell me a story, please”.

“Can’t buddy.  Have to go treadmill before mummy goes to sleep.

He gave me his pouty disappointed face.

Out I marched and right into Berry’s room where surprisingly she was up too.

“Rub my back and stay with me Daddy”, she said.

“Sorry, sweetie, I have to treadmill.  Sing for me and I will tuck you in when I’m done.”

She was not happy either because she didn’t sing for me and she usually does.  “Bla Bla Blacksheet”

Out I walked.

4 people wanted me to stay with them and 4 people got nothing.

Like I said in the title.  Go big or go home.  If you’re going to disappoint someone you might as well disappoint all of them.

Dads…  You turn.  What would you have done?

Related articles

• Ah, those kids and the things they say… Was I this clever / funny as a kid? I doubt it. (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)
• Should I be concerned that my kids are smarter than me? (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)
• Are you hungrier than a 5-year-old? (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)

 

An Urban Daddy’s Tip on Dealing with Halloween Candy

For those of you relatively new to my blog you may have missed my older posts about Halloween.  So you don’t have to go back and look them up, I have provided the Coles Notes version;

I hate Halloween.

I hate dressing up.

I hate knocking of strangers’ doors asking for candy. The begging aspect turns me off, but hey, kids these days love it!

Just last week I told an 18-year-old that they should not go trick or treating.

I also stepped in when my kids asked our 32-year-old nanny if she was trick or treating (she’s really petit and looks about 12, poor girl). Apparently being a devout Christian they don’t accept holidays surrounding the dead, the devil and the like. Who knew?!?

Anyways… Back on topic.

Candy! Chocolate! Gum! Sweets! Cavities! All things kids will get tonight unless we as parents step in and take all their candy from them.  How you ask?  Well when Linus was 2-years-old, my wife came up with an amazing suggestion. She asked Linus if he wanted to trade all his candy for a new toy. Turns out if you start the tradition early (assuming your kids, like our kids do not eat sugary treats everyday) they jump at this offer and boy did Linus jump at our offer big time.

So for the past 4 years we have been trading the kids candy for toys and just this past weekend we bought the boys’ BeyBlades which they will get tonight upon returning from their trick or treating.

Now, before you start commenting on how horrible we are for taking the kids candy and eating it and yes, if I eat another piece of candy I’ll burst, keep this in mind. First we get the kids to dump their candy on the table and I take out the yucky stuff they are not allowed like gum, and apples with razor blades in them. Then we ask the kids to pick 5 pieces of candy (not including the stuff they inhale during the evening) and they put that aside. Then we take the yucky stuff neither my wife nor I will eat and we immediately give that stuff away to the hoards of trick or treaters that come to our house.

Then we eat the rest of the candy (or I give it out to my staff, I can’t remember).  I’m pretty sure my wife will steal all the good stuff she likes; Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Twix and (ugh) Coffee Crisp and while saving me from getting fatter, she will wisely hide them.

I will take whatever is left and set it out of harms way from the kids.

So now the kids have only a few treats and a brand new toy.

 

Now all I will need is their help as we take any of the remaining pumpkins on our front steps (we had 20 of them ranging from large to very small) and cook with them.  I like making stuff with the pumpkins – bread, soup, loaf, cookies. but never a pie.

I wanted to make something to take to the homeless but based on my pumpkin failures, I don’t want to force anyone to eat one of my “creations”.

 

Happy Halloween.

 

BOO.

 

How did your kids handle the first week of school?

How did your kids handle the first day of school?  How about the first week?

This year I have all three kids in school;

Linus in grade 2.

Stewie entering into senior kindergarten and;

Berry in nursery school.

Back to school has always been a lot of fun for me, since I loved school – I was not as focussed as I should have been, mind you – but I loved school.  Seeing my friends, new classes, new friends, new challenges.

So I was not surprised that my mini-me, Linus had this to say to us at the end of the first day of school; “I LOVED school today”.

Very surprising since he never loves anything in his life, except for his blankie (hence the name Linus) and his kitty (my avatar – that ucky grey – was white – stuffed cat).  The next morning, however, he was back to normal.  Sitting on our bed he had this assessment about his future;

“I’m staying home today.  I’m finished with school”.

Us: “Huh?  What?  You’ve been in grade 2 for only one day!”

Linus:  “I learned everything yesterday.  I’m going to quit school and get a job”.

Us: “What are you going to do with a grade 1 education?”

Linus: “I’m going to be a tax manager, like Daddy!”

Oh boy!

My wife: “Daddy went to grade 2, then all the way through high-school, university, graduate school after and he took lots of courses.  You need to go to school, learn to read, write, and take courses to be something you like.  You said you wanted to be a dentist, or policeman…”

Linus – thinking: “Okay.  I’ll go to school today”.

Then the conversation with Stewie… Ahh, Stewie.

Us: How was school, Stewie?”

Stewie: “It’s too easy.  All they ask me to do is colour.  I’m tired of colouring.  I’m bored”.

And so it goes…

Berry, on the other hand, had to be peeled off of my wife’s leg every day that she has gone to school.  I figure since it took us only a year-and-a-half to get her to bathe without freaking out, she should be fine to go to school on about the second last day of the year…

It’s going to be a long year.

 

Today is June 21st, the First Day of SUMMER!!!

Today, June 21st, is the first day of summer, or specifically, the summer solstice.

So what does this mean to you?

Well, my kids know today is the first day of summer and both are expecting something to “poof” at 1:16pm when summer becomes official. I tried telling then that the word “solstice” comes from Latin and essentially means “Sun-standing”, and that today meant more thousands of years ago then it does today, but they still have questions.

So what information about the first day of summer can you tell your 4 and 6 year olds… Well, try this;

Today is the day – and 1:16pm is the time – when the Earth’s axial tilt is leaning the most towards the sun, resulting in the longest time from sunset to sunrise, or the longest day of the year (and shortest night).

In a little more detail – today, the North Pole tilts directly at the Sun (be prepared to answer questions about poor Santa) and the Sun is at it furthest point from the equator.

What you might not want to tell them;

“Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. To thwart them, Pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers. One of the most powerful of them was a plant called ‘chase-devil’, which is known today as St. John’s Wort and still used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer.”

Thank you to http://www.chiff.com/a/summer-solstice.htm

You can also explain to them that many, many years ago ancient peoples used to celebrate the magical sun as a recognition of sign of the fertility, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around this day.

So go find a Pagen or Native Canadian / American and ask them how they celebrate this wonderful day and if you’re lucky, you might just get invited to join.

 

What a weekend: Karate, BBQ, UJA Walk for Israel and a picture.

Yes, I know it’s almost 1am and I should go to sleep, but I wanted to make sure much of the house was ready for the week ahead and that I would be ready for another productive week at the office.

Really, however, I should have gone to bed at 10am when my wife did because this was one action-packed weekend and like my family, I’m tired!

So where to begin?

Saturday!  Karate.  Both boys did quite well.  Linus was a little goofy at the beginning of his class and I noticed that he cannot bring his knees right up to his chest when he jumps, so I’m going to have to work with him, but every other stretch, or exercise, he was right in there with the bigger kids.  I’m proud of his development.

Stewie on the other hand really looks like he’s the odd-boy out in his group.  He’s the biggest kid in his level and honestly, he’s the most technically sound, which is why they are trying to move him up to his yellow belt, quickly before he gets bored.  He received another stripe in that class.  That puts him one red stripe and some grading away from yellow.  Yay.

It was also this day when I realized my kids refer to “Tim Horton’s” and “Tim-Portance”…

So we came home, cleaned up and had some new friends over for a BBQ.  YUM.  There is nothing like BBQ’d burgers, dogs and corn.  While the food was on the grill it gave me a chance to plant some veggies I bought – okra, beans, tomatoes, beets, and very soon blueberries to got with the raspberries and strawberries. 

It’s kind of funny that we spent all this money on nice patio furniture for our extended deck and we’ve only been able to use it once, with all the rain we’ve been having.   I found the solution to all the rain, I’m going to buy rain boots for my wife  whose birthday is in a couple of days.  Once she gets those the rain will certainly stop.

Sunday was the UJA Walk for Israel in the streets of downtown Toronto.  Last year it was roasting hot and we took to the streets with a then 6 months old baby in the stroller and 5 and 3 year old boys eager to walk check-point to check-point picking up treats and getting their passports stamped.  About 5km into the 7km route, Stewie melted down and we tossed him in the stroller, my wife strapped the baby to her back and with a blister on her foot, we walked the entire route.

This year, we figured with the boys one year older that we could make it through the route if we cut out a couple checkpoints and made sure the they had lots of treats.  Last year there were yogurt drinks, chips, licorice, and other such junk, popsicle, that kept the boy moving but this year checkpoint 1 had gum and water.  My kids don’t eat gum and we had plenty of water.  So this started the “I want a treat” whine from Stewie and he kept this up the entire day.  It even got to the point that he rejected chips and french fries because he wanted chocolate, so my wife threw him in the stroller – figuring he’d appreciate the rest and might even sleep,but he originally wanted no part of that, so what she saw was this;

Stewie, Urban Daddy, Berry and Linus walking

The 4 of us walked for a little bit until Stewie went back for the stroller and I scooped up Berry so we could head towards the finish. 

 

It was a good walk.  I put on 24,528 steps today for my Global Corporate Challenge.

 

I also realized I am officially bald.  I burned the top of my head.

 

Right before the end of the walk, there were these crazy orthodox men protesting the existence of Israel.  I thought that was really weird, as did Linus, until my wife pointed out that I had the same reaction last year.  These guys don’t speak Hebrew, they speak Yiddish, and they want to be free to pray where ever they want or something like that.

This upset Linus – who goes to a Jewish day school – because they fill their heads with pro-Israel news and information how could the kids not bond with the country.  Personally, I’ve never been there and my family comes more from Russia and Poland, so I don’t feel the tie to Israel, nor do I understand why peace cannot be ironed out, but hopefully we’ll get there in the next couple years.

 

One funny point today occurred when we cut through the Rogers Centre to get to a different check-point (I was holding a pizza and we wanted to eat it, then catch up…  Well we took the skywalk back to Union station but along the way my wife took the elevator to the ground floor, while the boys and I took it down only once floor so we were separated.  I called her and we agreed to meet at the next checkpoint, problems is, she had the map. 

 

So the boys and I walked on to Front street, found a gaggle of walkers, and joined their walk on King street when I noticed that we had butted out way into the Aja Khan walk and we going g-d knows where with g-d knows who.  With that, we quietly left that walk and headed back to Front street where we could my wife and daughter.

 

So all in all a great day!  Kids are clean and out cold, and my wife has not stirred since her head hit the pillow.  The kitchen is clean, I cma clean and it’s time for beg 

 

What the Fup??? A 6-year-old boy just taught my 6-year-old boy a swear word. WTF?!?

You know…

I always thought the kids would be older when it came time to explain the birds and the bees, and whwn I would need to educate them on which words are the good words and which words are bad words.

I always imagined this conversation would occur when the kids were around 8 or 9 years old.

But 6-years-old???

No way.  This never even crossed my mind that at this age, we would have had the conversation that we did.

So here is the official transcript of the conversation at dinner last week between myself, Linus and my wife / his mother.

As an aside, this came out of nowhere…

Linus: “I almost got in trouble today”.
Me: “Oh, why?”
Him: “Because I said “Fup” and my teacher thought I said a bad word.”
Me: “Fup???”
Looking at my wife in alarm. I said.
Me: “What??? Fup???”
Him: “Yes, Fup.  Fup is not a bad word.  It is Puff backwards.”
Us: “Whew.”

It’s over, right?

Hell, no.

Him: “But you know what is a bad word??? I’ll whisper it to you”.  Then he leans toward my wife and whispers in her ear.  She throws me a look and suggests he tell Daddy too, so he leans over to me and whispers this in my ear; “Cuff backwards is a bad word.”

My wife and I exchange glances of awkwardness.

“Err, yes it is”, I said.  “Who told you that?”

“Einstein did”, he said.

Einstein happens to be the smartest kid in grade one.  Last year he was the smartest kid in senior kindergarden.  Einstein is perfect.  He reads at a grade 6 level, gets extra words for spelling and all the teachers love him.  The kids, on the other hand, are suffering from an inferiority complex because instead of teaching to the masses last year, the teachers instead praised Einstein and compared all the kids to him. 

It was a tough year for a lot of kids.  Lofty, unreasonable expectations lead to disappointments and those can crush kids at that age. 

So anyways, Einstein taught his class this word.  Wonder if he learned it reading a University textbook before bed.  Then again, he was also the kid who told his entire class that Santa Claus was born in Asia…

So now my kid knows that “Fuc(k)” is a bad word.

Great.  We handled it by telling him it was a bad word and could get him tossed out of school, and then we droipped it.  He mentioned it the next day, but never again since.  That is the key to moving past these kinds of obstacles.

Looking forward to Einstein teaching his class about making babies.

Sit tight!

 

Are they always going to be this smart?

A couple of weeks ago, after my boys finished swimming class, they showered then dressed so we could head home and to bed.

Linus dried up and got dressed quickly, bu tStewie was still sitting on the bench covered in his towel, dripping wet.

“Hey, Stewie!” I yelled. “Hurry up!”
“Why do I need to hurry” was his reply. “Do we need to get milk?”
We sometimes go buy milk after swimming and have to rush home because mummy is tutoring or their nanny will be heading out, or just to get them to bed. So, caught a little off guard I replied; “So we can go home.”
e looked at me and quickly shot back; “Why do we need to hurry home? It never closes”.

And we’re done.

So I replied back to him; “Because I said so”.

“OK” he chattered as he quickly got dressed.

 

Kids finding interest in sports they like… finally!

For those of you playing along at home, you might recall a post of two lamenting the fact that my boys hate sports and how that makes me very sad. Well that can be changed now to say it made me sad.

A lot has changed in the past couple months and now I believe both my boys have finally found their niches.

My boys love swimming!

I cannot explain in words just how much they love swimming. For just over a year now, I take them to swim classes. Their growth and confidence in the water is off the charts. I thought in mid-August, when my then 5-year-old was jumping into the deep end of the pool at camp without a life jacket or life preservation aid he was doing well, it’s only getting better from there. His current instructor said he loves to dive in, and then merrily swim across the width of the pool. All he has to do is make it across without stopping and he’s moving up to another level. Very exciting!

His little (not so little) brother, Stewie, on the other hand, was afraid to dunk his head in the water – in the pool and in the bath – because 2 years ago he slipped and fell backwards in the bath and took in a lot of water in the 1.2 seconds before I calmly plucked him out. He never forgot that and has hated water since then. Then all of a sudden, over the past couple weeks, I was able to watch their swim class to see that he has completely dunked his entire body, and head under the water and even last night in the bath he went all the way under. He has turned a corner. The best part of that he has the proudest look on his face.

It seems like every day that Stewie asks me, with a glimmer in his eyes, if tonight is his swimming night, and on his swimming night, when he enters the change-room, cold and wet after his class, he has the biggest smile on his face as if he’d just finished the greatest thing ever.

My boys love swimming!

I am very okay with that. Plus… Lifeguards are cool. They have to be in great shape, so those two factors will totally help them later in life – being in shape, being cool and let’s not forget the fact that being a great swimmer lessens the chance of drowning.

But in case being the cool swimming kids results in them being picked on – Linus mainly, Stewie is huge for his age and really tough – at least both boys know karate!

So let’s talk about karate now.

My boy now loves karate too.

I know. Last check-in, one loved it and the other hated it, well that is no longer the case.

Linus, who never liked karate was particularly bored one class, lots of yawns and not doing the moves as if he was going to kill someone but instead as it was trying to tickle (or annoy) them. Well obviously, that pisses me off and quite frankly folks, I’m tired of yelling to (at) him during the class, “Linus! Wake up! Linus, quit playing with your pant strings. Linus, focus!!!!” and to be honest, I’m sure the Sensei’s are ready to turf me out or start using me as their demonstration dummy.

Frustrated, I asked the owner’s sister if she could have a sensei take him aside and teach him the importance of doing his best, not being goofy and paying attention. Well I got way more than I had expected. The sensei took Linus into the back room and explained to him what karate is all about.

Sure, I told him when he first started that karate was to be used for self defense but never actually explained how that works because I’ve never taken it before. And while I thought their “kata” looks more like a dance routine, I never understood that it represented the telling of a story.

This sensei explained to him why you need to do these moves as hard and accurate as possible and to be prepared for the next move in case there are more than one bad guy trying to harm you. Armed with this knowledge, my son grew 2 feet taller on the spot. His moves the rest of the class were crisp, accurate and on target. His footwork was excellent and he used his moves to harm, not annoy. This was reflected in his next karate class where he was one of the top kids and his sensei’s commented on that.

The following week, another one-on-one session saw him get a stripe for being on top of his game. He announced to me after the class that he now likes karate and wants to get more belts. YAY.

So how happy does this make me? Very. Sure it was hard not having him want to play hockey this past winter, or skate, and neither boy wants to play soccer this summer, but I think tennis and golf may be in their futures as they both like playing them.

Hockey has the Sedin’s, Staal’s and Sutters, baseball had the Giambi’s, and tennis or golf or swimming or karate is going to have the urban daddy boys!

 

The eating habits of a 4-year-old

Tonight as I gave my son a before bed snack, I was planning on preparing his usual snack – a bowl of plain yogurt with berries (fresh or frozen) and “seeds” which are usually some flax seeds and sunflower seeds.  Lately this has been topped by granola.  But tonight he asked for an apple.  A green apple, no less.  It was at that point that in donned on me that he has been eating an apple before bed for the better part of 2 weeks.  Prior to that it was yogurt and seeds for about a year.  Prior to that it was all about the banana – he could not get enough.  One or two bananas per evening for him.

Prior to that, was the grape phase where all he would eat were grapes.

Before that was the cheese sticks phase.  Instead of giving him expensive cheese strings, I would take a block of cheese and cut strips, or sticks, for him.  He would go through so much cheese in a week.

I’m sure there were more… I just can’t go that far back.

He’s like my wife… VERY much like her.

When she was pregnant with him she ate a lot of chocolate Lucky Charms cereal… A LOT.  Once she gave birth, that was it.  She has never eaten a bowl of any kind of cereal since.  She also went through a sour pickle phase.

Now she’s all about the almond butter spread on toast with a glass of milk.

And speaking about pickles… Stewie ate pickles, fresh strawberries and strawberry applesauce tonight, for snack, before bed.  Ugh.

 

Taken to school by a 4-year-old

Being a Dad is great. I get to raise mini-me’s (or more like mini copies of my wife) and I get to educate and teach 3 children to be self-sufficient, respectful, educated contributors to society…

Well that was until this past weekend.

Now I realized the kids are teaching me a thing or two.

OY.

Case 1)

4-year-old Stewie brings my wife’s iPad into our room from his brother’s bedroom where the 2 of them have been playing Angry Birds.  The boys want to show us that they have found plush toys in the Angry Birds characters and they want us to buy them.

“Let me see them”, I ask.

My 4-year-old then reached over to the screen and with his hands he centres the picture and makes it bigger with the moving of fingers.

He did it as if he had done it a thousand times before.

I didn’t know you could do that…

Case 2)

4-year-old Stewie is leaning about dinosaurs in public school and proceeds to tell me a story about palaeontologists and how dinosaurs died when volcanos exploded and the sun went away and earth froze and now palaeontologists come and uncover the bones very carefully…

WOW, I’m thinking.

So then his 6-year-old brother arrives and asks what we are talking about. Being in private school their curriculum not cover dinosaurs so this is all new to him.

I asked Stewie to tell Linus about palaeontologists and Stewie starts to, but is waved off by Linus who then proceeds to grab a book on dinosaurs that was sitting in Stewie’s school basket, then Linus opened the book, looked in the index for palaeontologist – which was on page 26 – so he flipped to that page and started to read it for himself.

Humph.  Using an index at 6…

Case 3)

Stewie’s first word was “iPod”.

Linus’ was iPhone.

Berry sees the iPad and spins around to peek at the screen and see what is there.

All good with social media, just like Mom… Oh, and Daddy.  That’s how I remember the dates of my kids.  #1 was the iPod kid, #2 the iPhone and #3 the iPad.

Case 4)

Linus asked me last month, “Daddy, why do they call you the urban daddy?”

I replied, “because I am, son.”