Whatever your situation may be, here’s an idea that I’m happy to share with you that will give your kids at least an hour (and hopefully more) of fun and distraction.

I did this with my 4 year old son and his 6 year old friend, and they had a total blast with it.  Here’s how it went down:

My son found a little jewel-like thingy one day and asked me if it was a treasure.  That gave me the idea to hide it somewhere and let him go on a treasure hunt for it.  So I drew a treasure map for him and his friend (which was just a map of our place) and marked a big X on one part of the map.  I hid the jewel at the corresponding area in our place.

With map in hand, they went on a hunt to find the treasure.  It was really great, because they had to figure out how to read the map and navigate their way to the X.  Once they were in the general area, they looked high and low, above and under, to pinpoint the jewel exactly.

Once they found it, they wanted to do it again right away.  They were so excited about it.  So I hid the jewel again in a different spot, marked an X on the corresponding spot on the map again, gave them the map, and they were off once more!

They loved this game, and pretended to be pirates during part of it too.  We went through about 5 hunts before they stopped.  Each time I made it a little bit more difficult.  I liked that I could hide the jewel and then continue making dinner while they were hunting.

By the time they had enough, dinner was ready, and our young pirate could join us for dinner, fresh off the hunt!

Give this game a try if you haven’t tried it already.  If you are really keen, you can make the map look really special, like a real treasure map, and your child can dress like a pirate while searching for the treasure!

If you have done something like this before, or if you try this out, leave a comment and let us know!

Cheers and happy hunting!

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Pirate Kid photo courtesy of Mike Baird

As a tribute to Fathers Day, Stephanie, the awesome mom behind

The life of a father is sometimes a blur – everything happens so fast, your children change every day, and you’re running on six hours of interrupted sleep and five venti-double-shot mochas.

Somehow, despite this, there are many moments, as parents and fathers that, like our beer bellies, are destined to stick with us….

Read the rest of this post (and the others) HERE

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Those were the first words of Maple Leaf Foods’ Senior VP of Human Resources to Sharon Beals, the company’s then-prospective Senior VP of Food Safety & Quality Assurance, who now proudly holds that title.

I, along with several Vancouver bloggers, met with Sharon and several Maple Leaf Foods representatives recently at Quince Cooking School in Vancouver .

We gathered to hear, and discuss, what Maple Leaf Foods has done, and is doing, to be the leader in food safety and quality, recover from its Listeria problems of 2008, and ensure that such an event never, ever, happens again.

We listened intently to Sharon, eager to ask all the questions stewing in our minds. I was happy to see how serious Maple Leaf Foods is about this topic, and it showed a lot to me that they sent several Senior VPs to discuss it with us.

Sharon explained many of the measures Maple Leaf Foods has been taking since 2008 to be the leader in food quality and safety.  Among these are:

1. Daily morning meetings to discuss test results and action required to eliminate any contaminants detected.
2. Working to find contaminants as far away from “Zone 1″ (i.e. the counters and equipment) as possible, so that they never come near to, or make it to, Zone 1 at all.
3. Investments of tens of millions of dollars in new equipment and improved testing.
4. Implementation of innovative training programs for floor employees, to ensure they deeply understand and follow all food safety and hygiene rules.

More importantly, we were anxious to know how the Maple Leaf team plans to maintain their positive momentum and ensure food safety over the long term.

Mainly, we learned that Maple Leaf is obtaining several food safety certifications, each of which have their own strict auditing bodies that perform unannounced audits to ensure all of their high standards are being met.  If a plant receives an audit score less than an “A,” special “Tiger Teams” composed of six-sigma black belts is brought in to bring things back into shape.

We were assured that, with these measures in place, Maple Leaf Foods will meet or exceed all Health Canada Safety requirements.  For more information about food safety at Maple Leaf, please click here. Or see their food safety blog by clicking here.

On to the food!

We were lucky enough to be served by one of Maple Leaf’s top chefs, who is regularly involved in food and product development.  All of the food was excellent, and I was happy to see that my son loved the Natural Selections Black Forest Ham that I was given to take home.  It was especially surprising, because normally he doesn’t like meat at all, unless its his Grandma’s homemade meatballs with homemade tomato sauce! (Um, yeah, he is a tad bit picky in the food department).

Overall, it was a great and productive evening.  It looks to me like this company that has “been through hell” is keeping with their food safety commitments and is on the road to making a strong comeback.

And now, a giveaway!

We received some goodies to give away, and here’s your chance to win ‘em.  Just leave a comment or question below about this post or Maple Leaf Foods in general.  A winning comment will be selected.  Since this prize pack contains a couple of large and heavier items, I won’t be able to ship it.  So while all comments are welcome, only commenters from the Vancouver, BC area who are able to meet me somewhere in Vancouver to get the prize package will be entered.

The prize pack includes:

• a large cooler bag – perfect for picnicking
• a meat thermometer – perfect for barbecueing
• an apron – also perfect for barbecueing!
• several coupons for Maple Leaf Foods products that do not require any additional purchases – they are straight-discounts
• a vacuum-sealed multi-grain Dempster’s oven fresh baguette

I will choose the winner this Friday, June 11, 2010, so go ahead and leave your comment or question now!

Also, please take this short survey about how you feel about Maple Leaf Foods: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/308859/feedback

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A small disclaimer:

This event was part of a Word-of-Mouth campaign organized by Matchstick Inc., a Word-of-Mouth marketing organization.  I received the giveaways and dinner at the round-table event.  The views expressed in this post are my own, based on my experiences at the round-table event.  I was not paid for this post, and it contains my honest opinion.

Here’s the full info:

If you live in the Vancouver area, come be amazed by international award winning magicians who will be performing on Friday June 18th @ 7pm at L’Ecole Bilingue Gymnasium 1166 West 14th Ave in Vancouver.

This is a family-friendly event, and all money raised goes to the BC/Yukon Make A Wish Foundation in memory of Jonah Christensen.

Doors open at 6:15 and the cost per ticket is a minimum $5 donation. For more information/tickets contact us at celebratejonah@shaw.ca. Get your tickets early as this show sold out last year!

Location: L’Ecole Bilingue Gymnasium, 1166 W. 14th Ave Vancouver, BC.  Phone: 604-713-4585.

For information and tickets, email: celebratejonah (at) shaw (dot) ca

Come on out, highlights include Matthew Johnson, Trevor and Lorena as well as the Chow family.

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I hope you enjoy these and that it helps to relieve some of your stress and bring a smile to your face!

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while he asked: ‘Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and
one for cold milk?’

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she
was so old she didn’t remember any more. Melanie said, ‘If you don’t
remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to
six.’

BRITTANY (age 4) had an ear ache and wanted a pain killer.. She tried
in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her
Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she’d have to open it for
her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: ‘How does it know
it’s me?’

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. ‘Please
don’t give me this juice again,’ she said, ‘It makes my teeth cough.’

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: ‘How much do I
cost?’

CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried When his Mom asked
what was troubling him, he replied, ‘I don’t know what’ll happen with
this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in it?’

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and
kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked
his dad: ‘Why is he whispering in her mouth?’

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather
wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then
asked, ‘Why doesn’t your skin fit your face?’

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: ‘The man
named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his
wife looked back and was turned to salt.’ Concerned, James asked:
‘What happened to the flea?’

and my favourite, from our own son:

SMARTY PANTS (age 4) was satisfied with himself after he cleaned up all his toys.  He turned to me and said, ‘I worked really hard, like Santa Claus!”

Have a great day and week, and keep smiling!  Leave a comment if you have a funny one from your own kids!

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I love my wife to death.  One thing I love most about her is how caring she is to me, our children, and equally importantly, the Earth.  She transformed my thinking about how we can care for our environment, and she is a constant inspiration to me in this regard.  I give her full credit for taking the initiative to rid our lives of plastic, and the best I can do is share our story and message with the world here.  Like many of her green ideas, I gave her the, “that’s not possible” look when she first explained it to me, but again, she has proven to me that, like Justin Bieber becoming a pop sensation, anything is possible.

Why go plastic free?  Well, you’ll avoid possibly harmful plastics that contain BPA or other toxins, and you’ll be disposing of less plastic, which does the environment a huge favour.

Here are eight little (and big) ways that we have gone plastic-free, and you can too:

1. Replace all “tupperware” containers with glass containers. My wife went on a mission to find glass containers of all sizes, and she did.  We donated all our old “tupperware” and put our bright and shiny new glass containers on the shelf in their place.

2. Bring your own bags to the supermarket. It is amazing how many plastic bags supermarkets use.  Double bagging, triple bagging, doggy bagging… the bagging never ends, 24/7… its enough to make your eyes go cross.  We bring our own cloth bags every time we shop.  (If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to say, “I don’t need any plastic bags.”)

3. Avoid plastic packaging and bagging fruits and veggies. Some people give me a crazy look, but, if I buy five apples, I just throw them in my shopping cart without putting them in a plastic bag.  There’s no need to put them in a plastic bag.  When I put them on the conveyor belt at the cash, I just put them in a neat pile together, the cashier weighs them, I put them in my cloth shopping bag, and I’m done.  Also, if I’m buying say, tomatoes, and I have the option of buying tomatoes that are pre-packaged in a plastic container or tomatoes that are just hanging out in the open, I’ll choose the latter, and I won’t put them in a plastic bag.

4.  (I’m going to sound like a broken record with this one) Use cloth diapers. This is a biggie, and I’ve said this many times before… its simply a great way to reduce waste and plastic usage.

5.  Get a stainless steel water bottle. We use Klean Kanteen water bottles, and they are, simply put, awesome.  They are made of stainless steel, are BPA free, and do not have any synthetic lining that some other steel water bottles have.  It keeps the water tasting fresh and clean.  The benefits of using a stainless steel water bottle are twofold: a) you avoid using a plastic water bottle, which may have BPA, or just makes the water taste like plastic after awhile, and b) you avoid buying bottled water, which is a huge waste of plastic.

6.  Throw out the vinyl shower curtain. We had the luxury of renovating our bathrooms recently, and when we did, we gladly threw out our shower curtains and replaced them with glass shower and bath walls.  Okay, this option is a bit more expensive, but it is worth it in the long run, as some vinyl shower curtains (especially those containing polyvinyl chloride) have been shown to release toxic chemicals into the air.

7.  Get stainless steel lunch boxes for the kids. There are cool stainless steel lunch boxes available these days that have that retro look and feel to them that makes them even more cool.  We did away with the kids’ plastic lunch boxes and replaced them with stainless steel ones.

8.  Breastfeed. If your wife (or you, if you’re a mom reading this) can breastfeed, by all means, do it.  Not only are there a zillion other benefits to breastfeeding, but you also don’t need to use any plastic bottles to do it.  I realize there are reasons why some moms can’t breastfeed, but if you can, then this is a great way to go plastic free.

Are you going plastic free, or are you inspired to try now?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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Desperate, I turned to “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk” for help.  This book is a classic, and I learned why.  The advice is timeless, and it works.

It took a while to get out of the habit of saying “No,” “Do..,” and “Don’t,” and I still do it sometimes when I have knee-jerk reactions, but I’m getting better.

Instead of saying “No,”  “Do..,” and “Don’t,” I make an effort to do as the book teaches, and describe the situation instead. When I describe the situation, Smarty Pants figures out for himself what he needs to do, or what he is expected to do or not do, and he just does it.  It is amazing.

Here are some examples of how I describe the situation now (and how you can too):

1) (after dinner) “Your plate is still on the table”  (he looks at his plate, picks it up, and brings it to the kitchen).

2) “Your nose is running” (grabs a tissue and wipes his nose).

3) “That’s making a big mess on the floor” (stops throwing toys everywhere and picks them up).

4) “Your little sister is crying” (stops pestering his little sister).

5) “Dinner is on the table” (comes to the table and eats).

6) “The juice spilled” (gets a sponge and wipes up the juice).

7) “The ball might break the glass if you throw it on the table” (stops throwing the ball close to the table).

It is a simple concept, and it really works.  The hardest part is getting yourself to change.  Once you do, you’ll be a convert.  This method not only works better, it is a easier on the ears of the child, and easier on the mouth of the parent.  You’ll find you don’t need to shout when you use this approach.

Overall, Smarty Pants is a good kid, so maybe this works better for me than it might work for some, but give it a try and I’m sure in any case you’ll find it works better than shouting and commanding.  If it doesn’t work right away, don’t give up!

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know!

For more information, I highly recommend, “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.” for help!

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So I thought I’d turn the world on its head for a moment here and write about that very topic.

If you’ve been jamming with us here at The Dad Jam lately, you’ll know that we are going diaper free with our daughter, who is now 18 months old.  With her, we never had to ask ourselves if she was ready… we only had to ask ourselves if we were ready.  The same principle can be applied to potty training any toddler, whether you have gone diaper free, used cloth diapers, or used disposable diapers.  An important consideration you have to make is if you are ready or not – because this will, in large part, determine your probability of success.

For example, when potty training, one tip that is often thrown around is to put your child on the potty when she wakes up first thing in the morning.  I have met parents that have said they didn’t want to do this because they still like to lie in bed in the morning and don’t want to make the effort.  If such parents were more ready for potty training, they’d have have better success, and would have their child potty trained sooner.

Even after a child has been potty trained, there are still times when accidents happen, or they are in a public place and their child has to pee and there is no bathroom in sight, or their child wakes up in the middle of the night and needs help going to the bathroom.  If you are not ready for these situations, then you are not ready for potty training.

How do you know if you are ready for potty training?  I hope you are ready, or want to get ready now.  If you don’t feel you are ready yet, here are some things you can do to get ready:

1. Prepare for accidents and possibly some stains.  Get over it, it happens.
2. Prepare to bring an extra set of clothes with you when going out in case of accidents when you are out.  Again, it happens, get over it.  We also found, with a boy, bringing a bottle he can do number 1 in helps if you are stranded somewhere without a toilet and he really needs to go.  With our daughter, we bring a little potty with us.
3. Don’t be grossed out by it.  It’s your child after all, and it’s natural.
4. Don’t stress out your child, have a positive attitude toward the whole experience.
5. Prepare to get up in the morning and put your child on the potty.  Be prepared to interrupt what you are doing to put your child on the potty when you notice signs that she has to go.  This works best if you have motivation.  If your child is wearing a diaper, there is not a lot of motivation… if he is NOT wearing a diaper on the other hand, you’ll be there faster than you can say, “carpet stain.”  In other words, buy some undies, preferably not white ones.
6. Prepare to teach your child and foster your child through this experience.
7. Prepare to be consistent.  If you notice your child has to go, and especially if he tells you he has to go, don’t let him go in the diaper just because it is easier or you don’t want to make the effort to pull out the potty.  Send a consistent message.
8. Prepare to persevere through the difficult times.  Sometimes children go through developmental phases that interfere with the potty training and you may feel like you’re taking two steps forward and one step back.  Prepare for these times and stay positive.  Everybody manages in the end!
9. Be especially vigilant when the kids are playing.  This is a time when they may be so wrapped up in what they are doing and having fun that they either forget that to say they have to go, don’t realize they have to go, or don’t want to say they have to go because they don’t want to break away from the fun they’re having.
10. Keep in mind that if your child is over 18 months old, he is probably already ready.  In the “diaper free” jam that I wrote here, I mentioned that not so long ago, most children were potty trained by the age of 18 months.  Nowadays, children are potty trained much later.  Have the children changed?  No.  What has changed is our lifestyles, what the media tells us about potty training and keeping kids in diapers (so that the diaper companies can sell more diapers), our own attitudes towards “waiting for the child to be ready,” and of course, our own lack of readiness or willingness to take the plunge (and reduced need to take the plunge, thanks to size 5 or 6 diapers, care of Pampers).

So if your child is over 18 months old, don’t worry too much about whether or not she is ready, unless you really think she is not.  There are cases when a child may still not be ready by 18 months, so I don’t want to generalize or give advice about that.  There are plenty of articles out there about child readiness, as I’ve said.

Once you’ve got that all down, most importantly, think about whether or not you are ready, then get ready, and go for it!

Please leave a comment below to let me know what you think, or to share your own experiences.

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We video-chatted over Skype yesterday, and it was so nice to see them again.  Even if only a digitized version, it was still nice to see their faces and smiles, and hear their voices.  It made me miss them even more.

This is the first time since both kids were born that I’ve been away over a weekend, alone.

It got me thinking.

Its funny; when you have kids, there never seem to be enough hours in the day.  You wish the day had 30 hours and that the kids would sleep for at least half of them.  The ironic contrast is, when you’re alone, there seem to be too many hours in the day.  The days seem to go on forever.  Especially when you’re alone and away from your family, you just want the time to fly by so that you can together with them again sooner.

I realized that time with the family is the most precious time you have.  There is nothing more important or interesting you could be doing than spending time with your partner and kids.  So enjoy that time, and make the most of it.  Try not to worry about the 1000 other things you could be doing or have to do.

This short poem, that I’m taking from “The 4-hour Work Week,” puts it best.  I was moved by it, and I’m sure you will be too:

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Don’t know what that is?  Don’t worry… I didn’t know either, until I recently had the pleasure of touring it myself.

The Observation Area is designed for young inquiring minds to explore and learn.  For example, did you know that the airport has 26,000 employees… two of which are dogs?  Fun facts like these are abundant at the Observation Area kiosks.

Here are a few things you’ll find for the kids (and the kid inside of you) there:

1. A model of the Airport and island (Sea Island) that the airport is situated on.  You can press different buttons to make the runways light up!
2. A cool flight simulator that allows you to fly over B.C. and land in different communities.  You can watch videos and learn about each community that you land in.
3. Kiosks with fun facts and info – Like a “follow your bag” video; jobs at YVR; facts quizzes; airport art; listen to a recording of air traffic control; and the past, present and future of the area.
4. Mini-telescopes that allow you to view the airplanes along the runways as the take-off and land.

The airport observation area at YVR opened this past July after much demand from the community.  Now is the perfect time to go there and get a change of scenery on a rainy day.  The kids will love it, and there is lots of room for them to run around and explore.

The observation area also ran a pilot school program from September to November, where school groups came in and learned about the airport, how to pack their bags when they travel (e.g. what you can and can’t put in your carry-on luggage), and other fun and practical facts and tips.  With any luck, this program will continue, and open up to more schools to enjoy.

On the lower level, just under the observation area, there is a food court with a play area for the kids to climb and tumble around while you take a break and have a coffee.  And if you’re in the mood, there are some shops right there as well, including a Vancouver Aquarium souvenir shop and some Olympic souvenir shops.

One thing I liked about this area is that it is a little bit away from the high-traffic areas of the airport, so you don’t have to worry about your kids wandering off or getting lost in crowds of people walking by.  They would have to wander pretty far to get to the higher traffic areas – giving you enough time to catch them before they get there.

Getting there is also easy – the new Canada Line Skytrain goes straight there.  Just take the Canada Line in the direction of YVR Airport and get off at the very last stop, which is the airport terminal.  Head towards the Domestic Terminal and you are practically there.  Just follow the signs to the Airport Observation area, or ask one of the info people on the ground.  This is my recommended option for getting there… the Skytrain is fun for kids, and you don’t have to worry about fighting traffic or finding parking once you’re there.

So get on out there and make a day, or morning, or afternoon out of it.  It’s fun and exciting for kids, and something completely different than the usual rainy day outings.  You and the kids will learn a lot too!  Click here to visit their website for more info.

Take care for now and Merry Christmas!

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