Pee-pee and really long train! Wow!

It was a rainy day today, so I thought I would blog a tip for my fellow fathers for rainy days.
If you have a Chapters near you, check it out. There is a Chapters near us, in Vancouver, that has a nice Thomas the Train Engine track and trains set up in the section where the children's books and toys are. This is the Chapters at Broadway and Granville. What is great about this set up is that you can pick up some books or magazines and read them while your child/children play with the train set. I did that with my son today, and it worked great. He played with the trains contently for almost two hours with minimal need for my intervention.
My book and magazine reading was only interuppted by his need to go "pee-pee" and for him to show me his really long train. (Oh, and a couple of times when the really long train came apart and some minor repairs were in order).
My boy loves to play with other kids and build really long trains, so this was the perfect spot for him today. Since I like to read, it was the perfect spot for me too. I had to practically beg him to leave, he could have stayed there all night. I wouldn't have minded staying longer myself, to read some more, but of course we had to get back for dinner and beddy-bye. So to convince him to leave, I bought him a book and told him we would go home and read it. That worked nicely, although I only condone such actions when absolutely necessary :-) ...but he played really nicely anyways, so I thought he deserved a new book... I have to admit, it was a book that I have wanted to get for awhile too. I will write about it in a future post.
So, check out what your local Chapters or bookstore have to offer for kids. The children's section of your local library also may have something similar. If they do, and you like to read, you are in for a rainy day treat!
Until next time,
The blog blogg daddy

The Happiest Baby on the Block

Okay, my newborn daughter is over one week old now, and I haven't really mentioned her on this blogg/blog yet, because so much has been happening with my son and my main duty right now is to keep him busy while mama nurses the baby and looks after her.
This in itself poses a bit of a dilemma that I think many parents of two or more face when the new baby is born... how to divide your time between the two, so that you can bond with both in the way that you would like to?
We have been doing our best with this. One approach we have taken is for my wife to put our son to bed after feeding our daughter, and I spend that time with our daughter. This allows a nice one-on-one bonding time for each of us with the kids.
But that was not what I wanted to write about in this post. In this post I wanted to mention a video that my wife and I watched before our daughter was born, called "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp.
You may have heard of this video/method before, because he has been featured on Dr. Phil and many other programs and talk shows. I am mentioning it here in case you haven't yet heard of it, because before our friends told us about it, we hadn't heard of it either.
Dr. Karp outlines methods for calming your crying newborn baby, and these methods really work miraculously. We have used them on our newborn daughter and I can truly say the methods really do work! We are very happy, and so is our baby. She may be crying one second... and then we work our magic, and she is calm the next... literally. I wish we knew these techniques with our first child.
You can find more information at http://www.thehappiestbaby.com/ ... we actually borrowed the video from our local library, so it is worthwhile checking your local library for a copy. It doesn't cost you anything, and it really works wonders! Definitely recommended viewing for any parent with a newborn... you will be amazed!
Hope you are getting enough sleep, cheers,
TBD

A Raging Sea of Pink and Turquoise

I am bruised and battered... to give my wife a break today, I took our son to the Adventure Zone at the Granville Island Kid's Market in Vancouver, BC. Boy oh boy an Adventure it was!
I had been there before, so kinda knew what I was getting myself into, but the last time I was there the moons must have been aligned in my favour, because not too many kids were there. That was not the case today, unfortunately.
There must have been some preteen girl's party going on, because the Adventure Zone was swarming with them. The birthday cake must have had speed in it too. I got climbed on, trawled over, kicked, punched, pushed, body-checked... you name it.
I made several attempts to hold them back while my son climbed, because they would have marched right over him given the opportunity. At one point, he was climbing up a narrow passage and I was blocking them from coming up through this passage until he got up safely. I felt like Will Smith in I Am Legend, with all the hungry Dark-seekers at my feet, grabbing at my legs, trying to climb up around me or over me. It was a raging sea of pink and turquoise.
What is the point of all this you ask? Well, I learned a valuable lesson in perseverance... I was prepared to leave after about 5 minutes of these shenanigans, but my son was having such a good time that he wanted to stay. Surely enough, after about an hour, the girls were worn out and left, and we had most of the place to ourselves. In the end I was glad that we stayed.
My conclusion: Adventure Zones like this are great on days when they are not too busy or the kids are about the same size as your kid. But on busy days, they can be quite the challenge!
Well, I am off to go nurse my bruises now!
Until next time, hope you are getting enough sleep,
TBD

"Really cool bike!"

We have a Radio Flyer balancing bike for our 28 month old son. I can only highly recommend it. It is not so common in North America, but is pretty common in Europe. Since my wife is Austrian and we just moved back to Canada from Austria recently, it was only natural for us to get this.
Boy is this an attention getter, and boy does our son love his bike. When we go out with this bike and he is riding it, I feel like we get more attention than Brad Pitt would get when going for a stroll with Shiloh. Batman could pass us on his motorcycle and nobody would notice... they would all be focused on this bike.
At least every second person stares at this bike and makes a comment. The top comments include:
"Wow! What a cool bike!"
"I like your bike!"
"How adorable!"
"Look, its a balancing bike!"
"Where did you buy that!?!"
Seriously, I thought of starting my own balancing bike business after this.
We bought ours online at chapters indigo.ca for a reasonable price. Our son absolutely loves it and wants to take it with him every time we go outside. He can already balance really well on it... he rolls down hills very well and knows how to control his speed by putting his feet down when it starts to get too fast for his liking.
I think now that he has this foundation, it will be easy for him to learn how to ride a regular bike when the time comes.
So check it out if you think it might be the thing for you and your kid!

Until next time,
TBD

Sign says "Put on Socks!"

Hey all, something amazing happened to me today that I have to share... my almost two and a half year old son said to me randomly in the middle of playing "Sign said 'Put on socks!'" ... what is amazing about that is that he was referring to our outing yesterday at the Granville Island Kid's Market, where he had to put on socks to play in the play area.
At first when I told him he had to put on socks, he outright refused. He absolutely did not want to put on socks, no matter how many times I told him that he had to. Desperate, I showed him the sign that said that all children must be wearing socks, and I told him, "This sign says you have to put on socks to play here." Wow, little did I know the success that this would have... right away, he said, "Sign says 'Put on socks!'" and proceeded to let me put his socks on him without any fuss or muss at all! It was like telling him he should eat chocolate ice cream.
Then today, when he repeated this sentence, it showed that he remembered this whole event and totally accepted it as a given. I am definitely going to keep this little tool in my back pocket... it works better than "Serenity Now!"
It even worked the other day when we were passing a construction site... he wanted to go in, but outside there was a sign that said "Do not Enter" ... despite all my pleading and begging, he kept itching further and further into the entrance. Just as I was about to collapse with exhaustion, I noted to him... "The sign says 'Do Not Enter!'" He immediately backed away from the entrance and repeated "Sign says "Do Not Enter!'" so many times that I almost wished I hadn't said it in the first place. I got almost the same reaction that I normally get when I tell him we are going to buy an M&M cookie.
So that's it... one small sentence for a man, one giant leap for a toddler... try it out, if your child is anything like mine, it just might work for you too!

Until next time, happy napping,
Vincent

The new Blog "Blogg" Daddy

Hey all, just noticed that there was another 'blog daddy' on here that last posted a blog sometime last year... I am a different blog daddy - I am the BLOGG daddy (to avoid confusion) - that is, the B-L-O double G daddy! Just like Snoop Dogg is a Dogg and not a Dog, this blog is a Blogg and not a Blog :-)

I am a father of two ... a 28 month old boy and a 3 day old girl. Yep, three days old!

I decided to start this blog to share my thoughts and experiences with other fathers/dads/daddies out there who might be in a similar situation and looking for advice or just interested in seeing how others handle similar situations.

This won't be all about fatherhood, it will be about general observations, funny things that happen day to day, balancing career/life/family/wife, cool electronics, beer, jokes, and all other stuff "guy"...

So check back here often... I plan on posting here at least every other day as the adventure of fathering a toddler boy and a newborn girl unfolds... should be interesting.

Cheers,

Vincent