Tag: Fatherhood

Lochside Ride

I’ve wanted to share riding with both my kids for a while now. I saw Elliot have a great time when we got him his first pedal bike and that brought lots of smiles to my face.

Today we went for a nice ride along the Lochside Trail. We find a section that was pretty flat which was important since this was Elliot’s first ride outside of our yard. Elliot did extremely well. We started before the 14 Km mark and rode past the 15 Km mark before turning around. I’m guessing we rode around 2.5 Kms.


Here we are taking a short break.


Nice form!


Having a good time.


Beautiful day for a ride.


Smiles all around.


Water break.

Here are a couple videos of Elliot in action. After we turned around we took a couple rest and water breaks on the way back to the car. Once there Elliot and Amy played on a playground for a bit before we headed to Matticks Farm for lunch and ice cream cones. Great family time.

Regularly Rough

I almost don’t need an alarm clock any more. My daughter regularly started yelling Mum at 6:30 on the dot. Normally this isn’t a problem, but last night I was up late due to a double header at Ulti. Whenever I play late, I rarely sleep well. So, add up a crappy sleep, less than normal, toss in Amy waking at 6 needing to pee, then wide awake and ready for the day at 6:30 and you get one parent that was having a rough morning.

Thankfully I had a 2 hour nap this afternoon that was quite refreshing.

Parent Scream

Today was one of those days where I felt ill-equipped to be a parent.

I almost lost my temper many times due to my children’s normal behaviour. Normal, but not desired.

So many times I just wanted to scream.

The kids were not their normal selves and easily lost it at the slightest thing that didn’t go their way. It made for a long tiring day.

This morning I actually expected the day to go well since they both slept in.

Strep Hours

Well, the diagnosis was strep throat. I got the call this morning about 24 hours from when the test was taken. Strangely they only had results for me, and not for Elliot. Still, we started him on the antibiotics as well. He needs to be on meds 24 hours before he is allowed back and daycare to alleviate concerns over reactions. He also needs to not be contagious. Best we start early to avoid disrupting our lives too much.

Aches Degree

Just after getting to bed last night Elliot called out. He was shaking, complaining of aches, and when we took his temp it was 103.7. Yikes.After a round of drugs, we brought it down a degree, but it was still a bit of a rough night.

This morning I took him to a clinic so that both he and I could get swabbed for Strep throat. Sue has a positive diagnosis already, and I had a cold with the exact same symptoms, and that cold is lingering a bit. The doc suspects Elliot and I have it. We’ll know for certain in 24-48 hours.

I really hope I don’t since I start my new job on Monday.

Studios Annoy

I saw this infographic on BoingBoing recently, and it really struck home for me. This is even more painful when you have an impatient child that just wants to watch their DVD and doesn’t understand why they have to watch previews and can’t skip things.

I’ve always wondered why movie studios think that it is a good idea to annoy and harass the customers that have paid for their product. To me that seems like a great way to drive away customers. Perhaps for my kids DVD’s that we have bought, I should make a backup copy that allows me to skip the unnecessary previews and ads.

The worst previews are the ones that advertise movies coming “this spring”. Once the DVD is a couple years old this just sounds silly.

via BoingBoing

Errand Puke

Today was supposed to be an errand day for me and Amy. It started off well enough, but on our way to our second appointment I noticed Amy was starting to fall asleep. We were on our way to Costco and were driving along the highway.

A couple moments later I heard a wet splashing sound and looked in the rear view mirror to see Amy puke a few more times. I pulled over and stopped but we were at the side of the off ramp with traffic whizzing by very close. This was no place to try and clean her up. Thankfully I knew Sox was close by at a coffee shop with a friend so I boogied over there.

There was puke from head to toes and beyond. There was also no change of clothes for Amy. Sox and I cleaned here up as best we could and dressed her in a jacket and a pair of Elliot’s pants.

Rather than spending time out in public with a sick daughter, I packed her into Elliot’s car seat and we headed home. She had a small snack then insisted on a nap. She was sleeping before 12:30. She seems happy enough and doesn’t have a temperature, so who knows what is going on there.

I then had the task of cleaning off her car seat. Ewwwww.

Goldstream Projected

On Saturday we headed out to Goldstream park for a walk. That park is always so lush and green, and with all the rain we have had lately, the park seemed extra wet too.

The kids had a fun time and the picnic lunch was well received. We stopped by the nature house and explored around inside. Elliot liked using the microscope that projected up onto a TV.

I had fun taking a few pictures along the way. All the pics are available here.


Car Time

People that know my son, know that he likes to play with cars. He has some pretty interesting scenarios that play out during car sessions too.

Today something struck me though. He has lots and lots of Hot Wheels cars, yet every time we play he grabs my least favorite/crappiest POS car he can find and gives that to me to play with. I am not allowed to choose my own car.

No fair!