Category Archives: Parenting

An Overabundance of (Quality?) Time

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I guess it’s a good thing Justin doesn’t need help with academics. Thanks to the teachers’ strike, two weeks of spring break and our upcoming trip to Saskatoon, he will have a grand total of seven (or less, depending on the strike) days of school in March. And Easter comes just after that, so he will actually have six straight weeks of little or no school. Yee-haw.

Thankfully, Brayden’s schedule is unaffected by the strike, so he still has preschool and swimming lessons this week. But he does get the two weeks of spring break off, so Mommy will have to get creative about keeping everybody entertained. So far this week I’ve gone swimming with Justin, gone to the park and played soccer with both boys, and allowed the kids to get back on the trampoline for the first time this year. Next week we’ll probably dig out the bikes. Let’s hope the weather cooperates.

The boys are not the only ones who need entertaining. I’m finding it hard to fill my spare time these days — I don’t start my next course until the end of the month, I don’t have any scrapbooking projects, my travel planning is mostly done, and I don’t have anything new to read right now. The kids are going to do a spring break mini-camp at a local park next week, so I’ll have three mornings all to myself, and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to fill them. Ho hum.

Weekends are looking good, however. Justin turns seven (!) on Saturday, so there will be much celebrating that day, and the next weekend we’re planning to take the kids to Vancouver for a quickie trip to see Science World (we get in free cause we have a membership at the Vernon science centre — an awesome deal). Science World has a special Dinosaurs Alive exhibit and related Omnimax show right now, which the boys will love, as well as a Lego Castle Adventure thing that looks interesting. I’m not a fan of science centres myself, but I’m definitely up for a road trip. It’ll be good to get out of town.

The Summer Season: Sun, Fun and Endless Laundry

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With kindergarten, preschool and the autism program all done for the summer, we’ve begun a new chapter around here. Both boys had cute little graduation ceremonies to end the school year, although both of them will be going back to their respective schools in the fall, so graduation didn’t really mean very much. Justin’s behavior consultant is going to do a social skills group with him this summer, so that’s good news, plus he’ll have weekly OT sessions, so we’ll see what kind of progress he makes. One of the things they’re going to work on in the group is flexibility, which is one of the big things he struggles with (I can just hear my family going, “We know where THAT comes from!”) so I’m excited to see how that will work out.

We had a kick-ass Canada Day with the boys. We went to an adventure park in Penticton that I found on the web a few days ago (I’d never heard of it before but it’s been there for 10 years, so that shows how in touch I am). After a late start, a wrong turn and a quick stop for lunch, we finally got there around noon. I thought it would be busy for Canada Day, but I guess most people were at the beach, cause we hardly had to wait around for anything. The place had a whole bunch of cool stuff: mini golf, go-karts (which Justin loved…I think he saw it as a real-life Mario Kart experience), trampolines, bumper boats and even a giant slide. It was awesome.

We leave for Prince George next week (one week til Dave and Tanya’s wedding!) I get mocked for my detailed planning, but that’s what it takes to make sure everything runs smoothly. The boys are easier to feed than they used to be, but I’m still going to bring most of the food we’ll need, just to save a few bucks and probably a lot of aggravation. I’m wondering, however, how we’re going to get through six days without doing any laundry. I seem to do a load every other hour or so when we’re at home. No sooner do I finish cleaning everybody’s clothes than someone spills their milk, has a potty accident, gets caught in a sprinkler, rolls around in a sand pit…sigh. You gotta love summer.

A Daddy’s Day Tribute

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With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, I thought this would be a good time to share my top 10 reasons why Chris is such a great dad:

1. No matter how busy he is at work, he manages to make time for the kids’ soccer practices, gymnastics classes, school field trips and countless other activities.
2. He always gives the boys a special treat whenever Mom is out for the evening.
3. He knows that the best way to play with little boys is to wrestle and make lots of noise.
4. He’s the first one up at night if one of the kids has a problem.
5. He never hesitates to fly solo when Mom needs to get out of the house to save her sanity.
6. He shares part of his banana with the boys every single morning at breakfast when they ask, even though they each have their own (apparently Daddy’s tastes better).
7. He crawls and climbs all over the indoor playground because he can’t resist pleas of “Daddy, chase me!”
8. He has almost endless patience for the 900,000 questions the kids ask every day.
9. He knows baths are only fun if there’s lots of splashing.
10. He never says no to a cuddle request.

Have a great Father’s Day, Chris! You deserve it!

Attitude Adjustment

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Justin’s attitude (and thus my temper) have both improved dramatically over the last couple days. I finally talked to his teachers and told them to start letting him go to the special needs bathroom instead of making him go into the regular boys washroom — he’s way too anxious to use a restroom where no adults are allowed, and which probably isn’t in the most pristine state. So he’s been holding it until he gets home at lunch, which obviously isn’t ideal, and he had a bit of an accident this week that made him really upset. So anyway, now that he’s allowed to go into the other bathroom, where he’s all by himself, he’s been doing much better. Whew.

We also took some advice from his behavior consultant and wrote out a cheat sheet for him that he can look at whenever he’s playing video games — it basically says “When I start to get anxious while playing a game, here are some things I can do” and then it lists taking a deep breath, trying again, playing a different game or turning it off. None of this is news to him, as we have explained it over and over again, but we’ve never actually written it out for him before, and the consultant reminded us that he processes language much better when he can read it as opposed to when he hears it. It seems to be working, thank the gods.