This is the first list in a new feature I’m calling my “week of lists” and I’m pegging it right into the parenting category. That’s right; My first list is Seven Stupidly Simple Parenting Habits to Make You a Better Dad. It’s not, of course, any way scientific or based in evidence. There is no research that proves these points. There is no literature-supported bibliography to follow. And just so we’re clear: There is no measurable “result” or “effect” falling out of these — [...]

This is another post from my “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog. No Attention Required I’ve noticed that Claire is an interesting kid when it comes to watching television. Sure, I have a sample size of exactly one, here, so this isn’t exactly a scientific investigation. Maybe all kids watch television like this in 2012, and [...]

Gripping fiercely to a hypothetical past of patriotic nostalgia, I offer a few meager glimpses into the efforts of this Canadian father to impart fragments of a culture less imported and more reflective of the stewardship my daughter, Claire, will one day inherit. I’m indoctrinating her in the Canadiana of her father’s past, and her own present, for her sake as a fourth-generation citizen of this diverse and amazing country. It’s birling down, a-down white water… Local folk band, Captain Tractor, once recorded a [...]

A “reloaded” post is a quick-clipped summary of a bunch of small things from the past few days. I want to write them down, but I am either lacking in (a) details or (b) time. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Enjoy. On Family Walks Our polling station is roughly a kilometer from our house, and somehow election day as of late is always a lovely — weather-wise — afternoon for a leisurely family stroll. We hitch up the daughter and the dog, wander [...]

A “reloaded” post is a quick-clipped summary of a bunch of small things from the past few days. I want to write them down, but I am either lacking in (a) details or (b) time. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Enjoy. Running Every Day Shortly after I press publish on this post I’m going to change my clothes, toss on some runners, strap on my gps, and go for another run. It won’t be an epic run, but it will be the seventh [...]

This is a post from my “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog. Epic Spring Snowman It has been a poor couple of years for building snowmen. Everyone seems to think that the moment that snow falls on the ground that — BAM — you build the traditional three-ball-stack with a carrot for a nose. Not true. [...]

A “reloaded” post is a quick-clipped summary of a bunch of small things from the past few days. I want to write them down, but I am either lacking in (a) details or (b) time. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Enjoy. The Road to Recovery Grrr. After nearly three weeks of mild to moderate illness, three weeks of missing work, runs, and a chunk of our vacation, and after three weeks of living in an exhaustion-induced blurry haze, whatever illness struck me down [...]

This is another post from my “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog. Today she compensated for her lack of entertainment as any kid should: by using her little brain. And she followed me around for the morning sketching little pictures of what we were doing together. Just Hanging Out Our morning started off with a bit [...]

0930 PST I figured I’d wrapped for the week and wasn’t really planning on writing again. Our tickets were basically used up, our shuttle arrives in about an hour to take us to the airport, and Claire has yet to climb out of bed — or she has just barely and is scarfing some Corn Pops while watching Nick Jr. I thought I’d go for a stroll. One of the things I ‘missed’ this week was Downtown Disney. We were always on the wrong [...]

Claire woke up a few times in the night with a rough cough. Poor girl. Being sick really puts a damper on the whole family vacation thing. Karin suggested that rather than push her too much we coordinate our riding today, score some Fast Passes, and take it a bit slower. So, I went off about ninety minutes ahead of the girls this morning to try and grab some Star Tours Fast Passes while Claire got her feet under her for the day. Of [...]

Claire woke up after a long night of some rough coughing seemingly a bit better. Hopefully the worst of her cold has passed. She actually ate some food for breakfast this morning, so that was a good sign. Despite the signs of recovery, we rented her a stroller for the next couple days: no use over taxing her and stretching our luck. Once again the park was back on normal hours, so it was just shy of 10AM when we finally meandered onto Main [...]

We woke this morning and the sky was clear and all around it was looking to being a beautiful day, Claire’s cough had moved a little deeper and she was reluctant to even get out of bed. We let her sleep a little longer, got her some children’s cough stuff, and eventually she mustered the strength for another day of vacation. In the meanwhile, I had logged onto Twitter via the iPad and was looking up the status of the first few hours of [...]

By morning the sun had returned, though we were either getting fairly adjusted to the local time or the multiple days at Disneyland were starting to catch up with us. After typing up my previous night’s blog entry, I had wandered down to the nearby 7-11 to pick up some supplies. So this morning we were once again up and running with our in-room cereal bar. Claire has managed to contract my cold of the past weeks. She’s all stuffed up and… well.. lethargic [...]

We were a little less rushed this morning; the parks didn’t open until 10AM. We even had time to video chat with the family back home, only to find out that the snowfall hadn’t stopped when we left, leaving behind a hundred and twenty-five year record’s worth of snow and a roughly fifty degree temperature difference between there and here. Good timing, it turns out. We were in the park just as it opened, today opting to spend our day inside… ahem… the lesser [...]

Even regular jet lag would have been much kinder. Claire was awake at 4:30AM local, itching to get the day started. We’ve only got a difference in timezones of one hour, so our objections to her enthusiasm were not without warrant. I managed to keep her quiet for about forty-five of that hour and nabbed a few more winks before ceding to her demands for breakfast. We were at the park gates once again at a quarter to eight, the previous night’s crowds all [...]

We woke this morning to the promised forecast dump of snow. It figures. One of the barest winters in years — I could have mowed my grass a few days ago — and the day we leave on vacation the snow flies. It made for a sketchy drive out to the airport, and of course the flight had to cope with the expected delays from de-icing and snow removal around the apron and ramp. But despite the weather we were quickly off to California [...]

As a holiday gift, I bought The Girl a light-up replica of the moon. It now hangs from a small nail on her bedroom wall. Its diameter is roughly thirty centimeters of textured, semi-translucent plastic and via a variety of functions on the included remote control can be selectively backlit to replicate eight phases of lunar illumination. Clicking her moon into just the right phase has become an indespensible part of our evening bedtime routine, fitting naturally and somewhere between the second of two [...]

Our breakfast cereal is narrated by the morning news while the Girl is dripping honey down the front of her pajamas. But then such a mess is nothing compared to usual coverage of overseas protests, international economics, and local traffic reports that have been following a late-night snow on the already icy streets. It’s only a bit of honey after all, but: “Daddy.” She bleats. “Oh! *gasp* No!” And an exasperated and futile attempt to wipe the spill with fingers even stickier than the [...]

Agree or not, this past summer we made the decision to give into Claire’s requests and we let her get her ears pierced. We went through a “waiting period” and proceeded through a whole set of rational kind-of anti-earring arguements to try and convince her out of it. She stubbornly stuck to her request. And to me? Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. It’s just earrings after all, and so long as we had her cooperation in making sure nothing bad happened — infections, etc [...]

This is a post from my (new) “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog. Rudolph Overload Unlike my childhood when the desire to watch the annual allotment of holiday specials needed to be coordinated deeply with the weekly TV Guide and a patiently timed aggregate effort by myself and my siblings to claim the tube for that [...]

A “reloaded” post is a quick-clipped summary of a bunch of small things from the past few days. I want to write them down, but I am either lacking in (a) details or (b) time. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Enjoy. Tree & Cold The downtown business association last weekend held it’s annual tree-lighting celebration, where the forty-one foot spruce that will adorn the pedestrian strip in front of City Hall was set to power and all ten-thousand-ish (or so they claim) lights [...]

Something congealed on the edge of last week. I couldn’t tell you what it was. It just was. That’s all. Whatever the reason I’ve been left to contemplate things in a rather mundane way. It was a peeking of a sort, a look of some airy weightlessness over the lip of life and wondering if I might get caught in the process. Some might consider this a fluttering moment. I can’t. My head can’t get around it all. My brain wants to analyze moment-by-moment [...]

This is a post from my (new) “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog. Calendar Iconic Claire has always been a bit neurotic when it comes to her schedule. She likes to know in advance… to avoid surprises, if you will. When she was wee little this manifested as a kind of random meltdown when her schedule [...]