It’s summer, and that means backyard projects. Over the last few days Claire has been lucky enough to see her ol’ dad haul out the electric tools and spend some quality time building the latest monstrous construction for our little plot of grass: her new toy for the backyard, a wooden play center with swings and a slide. We thought about all the fun and wacky summer toys for which we could shell out our hard earned cash — plastic climbing things, tricycles, sandboxes, [...]

It’s been something. That’s all. One day the world is spinning, crazy, out.of.control busy. The next big plan: sit and forget. Claire smacked her head Monday while playing at the day home. A generous goose-egg and a teary-eyed girl were waiting for me when I swept back mid-morning to pick her up. Don’t start thinking it slowed her down any though. She was back up to her daredevil tricks by late afternoon. I found my iPod. Og! Didn’t I mention that my wonderful daughter [...]

Did I mention I’ve not had much time to write all the things I said I was going to write? No? Well, there it is. We’ve been stuffing ourselves into the basement for the last few evenings working away at the final bits of pre-carpet work. I am pretty much sick of ivory paint and 45 degree corners. And if I never see another tube of wood filler again, it will be too soon. We had an exciting weekend. Well, relatively exciting. You may [...]

Claire and I spent a few hours at West Edmonton Mall yesterday. You’d think that was a bit of a cop-out — but the weather really sucked and we had a great time visiting the pet store, the art store (Claire got some colouring supplies), watching the sea lions, and enjoying some treats from T and T. We also had a great little chat on the way over to the mall. It turns out when — as an adult — you really need to [...]

December 10 The poor dog has, or so we all agree, finally submitted to her role on the bottom rung of the family hierarchy. After nearly fifteen months of having a third person tromping around the house, first as a babe-in-arms consuming the attentions of her masters and now as a bossy little bag of trouble herself, Sparkle seems resigned to the state of her domesticated lot in life. Day 10: The Dynamic Duo And yes, it has taken some work. But the gist [...]

In yet another installment of the proud papa series of posts, I wanted to note the insignificant milestones of the thirteen-month old little girl who, walking now for five months, is continually obtaining new and surprising skills in her quest for world domination. The Stair Master Not content to merely climb the stairs, this little girl now takes pride in the reverse hand-and-knee shuffle down any case she encounters. Of course this has numerous implications, not the least of which is the small rise [...]

Double Jeopardy: Karin, away for a couple days of work retreat in Canmore, switched me flex days so my “Wednesday Daddy Day” promptly morphed into “Friday (Plus) Daddy Weekend.” Yes, a long weekend. But, a long weekend as a single parent. Claire’s first night away from her mom — and she get’s two in a row. Friday morning we decided to go for a long walk. Long. And at the “nearly an hour” mark my Blackberry starts buzzing, Karin having thinking she forgot her [...]

One of the golden rules of parenting: don’t mess with naptime. And this is why I’m blogging from the car in the parking lot of the grocery store. Any questions? Brad says: Mmmm… Blackberry Spam.

Something we’ve known for a while is that Karin is off on a work retreat, out of town, this coming weekend. The short of the story is that Claire and I are spending three days (counting Friday) on our very own. It will be Claire’s first night away from her mom, and she’s gonna have two in a row. As such, poor dad is left to entertain a kid for three days straight and — unless he has some other adult contact in that [...]

With only a couple weeks to go before I settle into my new flexi-schedule at work and drop down to a four-day-per-week long-hours plan so Claire and I get a day together without Karin, I was thinking I should add a new series to the blog chronicling those sure-to-be fleeting days spent with the girl. After all, should some day someone need to look back for some insight on the effort — Claire, myself, or some other abstract third party considering the endeavor for [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Poor planning on my part — or not — but the long weekend played havoc with my running plans.  Ideally, I should find myself running wherever I happen to wake up on any given morning.  On this instance it happened to be in Red Deer for a missed Monday morning run.  But a hectic morning schedule, a sudden drop in temperature, and a late night out the evening before made for a [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4 The last week has shown a marked improvement in both my times and Sparkle’s attitude. Would you believe that she nudged me out the door on Monday, pulled all the way to the park, and was running before we hit the asphalt. She was eager to go, and knew we were running that morning. And — other than a squat-stop half way through — she was more than keen to go the [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2 & 3 Not counting my five kilometer road race on Saturday, Sparkle and I are completed eight runs to date. And things continue to improve. For myself, I’ve had one of my best weeks ever, completing a total of nearly twelve kilometers over three runs, and clocking some of my best times. (I know, it doesn’t sound overly impressive, but we’re building up to something here!) Sparkle, despite some — I’m gonna say — boredom [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1 & 2 Six runs down, Sparkle continues to do well (with the exception of one messy Friday morning — check out the comments in Part 2, link above.) Our focus has improved and my endurance is increasing for these early morning jaunts that used to be sheer torture. And, she seems to have resigned herself to the “it ain’t over til it’s over” mentality and hasn’t been pulling for home as much near the last stretches. [...]

This is a follow up to: Part 1 Three runs down, Sparkle is taking to the jogging business quite well. I updated in the comments of Part 1 that our biggest issue has been her reluctance to de-bowel upon command. The result of that is she goes out full and the impulse to clean and purge half-way through our run is almost too much for her little brain to handle. That’s just fine though, and it emphasizes the need to be more flexible with [...]

The girl seems to have learned a new trick. The scenario? We keep her clean bibs in a small tub on the floor of the pantry. When it’s time to eat, one of us walks over to the pantry, opens it up, and pulls out a new bib. Claire, smile on her face, readies herself to receive the smock, seemingly giving the impression that she’s ready for chow time. This in itself is pretty cool, especially considering the stories we’ve heard of other kids [...]

I’ve been thinking on the topic, I’ve decided to post some of my research and (eventually) observations from starting a running program with a dog. Hopefully this will be useful to someone digging through Google searches one day. This is “part one” of many. (Though if I get more than five official entries on the topic, I’ll make an index and link to it.) Sparkle, a four year old whippet, is in moderately good shape. She was at the vet yesterday and there is [...]

Sparkle and my morning routine now includes some jogging. I’ve decided to steal back a small fragment of my day and by getting up a half an hour earlier I’m hoping to squeeze in a longer stroll — or three times a week — a five kilometer run in the nearby park. Tomorrow will be day one, though we’ve been getting up earlier for a few days now. The poor dog doesn’t know what she’s in for, that’s certain. This morning on our march [...]

… visit to the park on a mild Thursday morning in late July. – four ride-on lawn mowers – four moderately experienced lawnmower drivers – six senior citizens – six pairs of white and/or khaki senior slacks – three small dogs – four joggers – two joggers with small dogs – one mom-jogger with a jogging stroller – two groups of day home kids – two day home ladies – one wrinkle-tanned old lady – one wrinkle-tanned old lady’s grandson – four real-estate agents [...]

Much to everyone’s amazement, the little Claire Bear took to camping like her namesake, rooting the bushes for tasty morsels and hibernating until well past seven in the morning — and she put down roots in the wilderness as if she’d been born there. The kid, her dad is pleased to announce, is a bona fide wood nymph and if this past weekend was any indication will likely keep her mom and pop company on many future trips into the wilderness. Of course, I [...]

Sometimes being a parent can be quite a handful. You’d think we’d need to stage this, but no… she just moves so darn fast even the camera can’t catch her. Either that, or her parents just needed a quiet day at home after a visit to Calgary, including visiting Julia and spending an evening backstage at the Stampede.

Assisting dad with his Saturday morning coffee addiction by causing him to tip his long-anticipated morning brew all over the living room floor as he lunges to prevent you from grabbing it just moments before realizing that he could really use three hands in this parenting gig. Baffling dad with your never ending chatter and babbling, sometime happy, sometimes sad, always a nonsense stream of vocalizations that make him wonder what is going on inside that little brain of yours. Confusing dad by not [...]

That’s her new hobby, it seems… Eat a Cherrio: clap your hands. Sparkle walks by: clap your hands. A toy falls on the floor: clap your hands. Mom walks in the room: clap your hands. Changing the diaper: clap your hands. Wash the face: clap your hands. Dad walks in the room: clap your hands. Stand up: clap your hands. Fall down: clap your hands. Roll onto your back: clap your hands. Smile: clap your hands. Pull your finger: clap your hands. And the [...]