Let’s start with Man in the Moon.

Man in the Moon is a program where dads of all types (i.e. foster, step, grand, etc.), shapes, and sizes, can bond with their little ones.  If you’ve ever gone to a program with your child and were surrounded by moms with their children, making you feel like the odd man out, then Man in the Moon is for you.

It is put on by the Vancouver Public Library, and if you haven’t heard of it before, you are hearing about it from me now.  It is a great program for dads to spend time with their kids and take part in fun activities that engage them in play, bonding, and song.  It is for dads and their kids only, so you can have a real tribal time.

The sessions for babies run for newborns to 18 month olds, and the toddler sessions are for children ages 12 to 36 months.  It is great quality, bonding time spent between dad and child, and a great way to meet other dads and their kids.  Not to mention, it is a great way to give your wife some time off, which I am sure she’ll appreciate.

The Man in the Moon program is also offered in English, Spanish and Cantonese!

Admission to the program is free, but you need to call your branch to register.  For more information, you can also call 604-331-3657 or 604-331-3675.  You can also go to this website and find all the Man in the Moon times and places there.

On a related (and not so related) note, I followed-up my 2009 resolutions with my buddy Tyler over at Building Camelot recently, as we are at the halfway point through the year.

I enjoyed reflecting on my resolutions and the progress I have made on them so far, and you will see that some of my resolutions have turned out to be pipe dreams, while others have proven easy for me to hold true to.

Read the full article on how I’ve been making out on keeping my resolutions over at Building Camelot – here.

You’ll see that one of my resolutions was to spend one-on-one time with the kids… hence the relationship to the Man in the Moon program.  So if you also resolved to spend more time with your little ones in 2009, it’s still not too late!  If you live in Vancouver, check out Man in the Moon!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

I don’t even remember what it was about or how it started, to be honest.  But like all of our power struggles, it was going nowhere, fast.  We were at the point where he would just say the opposite of, or negate, everything I said.

Here’s an example:

Me:  “Next time are you going to listen to me?”

Him:  “No, I’m not going to listen”

Me:  “Then I’m going to be upset”

Him:  “No, you’re not going to be upset.”

and so on.  Had I the will, we could have continued this way till he reached drinking age and settled it over a beer at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

But since I noticed my hair starting to turn grey and fall from my head right before my very eyes, I decided it was time to put a stop to this dead-end conversation.

Before I continue, there’s one thing that you need to know about me:

I am a big fan of Stephen Covey, and his books, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and even more so, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families.”

One of my favoritest concepts from these books is the concept of “Emotional Deposits” and “Emotional Withdrawals.”  If you haven’t read these books (which I suggest you do), the theory pretty much goes like this:

We have an emotional bank account with each person we know.  We can do things to make deposits into that account (i.e. doing something nice for the person, giving them a compliment, making their day a bit easier, etc.), and we can do things to make withdrawals from the account (i.e. letting the person down, getting in an argument with them, accidentally stepping on their cat, etc.).

Basically, if you keep making withdrawals on a person without making deposits, you will have an overdrawn account, and your relationship will hit the bricks in no time.  To keep a relationship healthy, you should always make more deposits than withdrawals.

With that in mind, I realized that my power struggle with Smarty Pants was a big withdrawal.  I figured the best way to resolve the situation and get back on track was to make a deposit.

So I let things cool off a bit.  Then I got him ready for bed, and praised the things he did well.  As I was laying him down to sleep, getting ready to say goodnight, I said three magic words:  “I love you.”

I say “I love you” every night to him when I put him to bed, but this time, I put extra emphasis on it and made sure he really heard it.

“Even when you’re upset?”  He asked.  “Yes.” I responded, “I always love you, even when I’m upset.  I love you lots.”

I could see my account balance rising right before my eyes.  It was like winning the lottery.  A look of relief and ease swept across his cute little face.  All he really wanted was to know that I love him.  Cha-ching.

This little episode really got me thinking.  Above and beyond everything else, the one thing our kids need most is to be loved and to feel loved.  When kids act out, or engage in power struggles with us, they are really just crying out for our love and attention.  So sometimes the easiest way to break the negative pattern is to simply, stop, drop, and say “I love you.”

The Beatles had it right all along:  “All you need is love.”  (altogether now…)

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Flickr Photo courtesy of Dunechaser

So all along I have been focusing on the first duty, and that’s good, because it’s the most important, but now its time to dedicate a Jam to those three special letters… B.. B.. and Q.  Actually, that’s only two letters, but you catch my drift.

There’s nothing better than grilling some burgers on the ol’BB in the summer, and although your wife my scorn you for the lack of healthiness factor, she’s sure to appreciate not having to cook or do the dishes.  Throw some zucchini and cobs of corn on there to keep her happy while you give your burgers some tender lovin’ care.

I’ll be honest with you.  Not all burgers are created equal.  Or maybe they are created equal and some are more equal than others, but I digress.  You gotta know the secret to a wicked, keep ‘em comin’ back for more burger if you want to have any merit in your neighbourhood, and I’m gonna share that secret with you here.

And the secret can remembered with this easy mneumonic:  SS, S, S, Don’t S, S, S.  Almost too easy, isn’t it?

Okay.  Let me explain:

SS – Sprinkle Seasoning. Get some fresh ground meat from a butcher and keep it icy cold in a large bowl.  Sprinkle your fave seasoning over it until the meat is fully covered.  Don’t be afraid to over season.  Season that baby like there’s no tomorrow.  Then mix it up quickly.  Over-handling the meat can extract the fat and will leave your burger tough and tasteless.  Remember – fatless burger = booo.

S – Shape. Shape those babies into six-ounce balls.  Toss them back and forth between hands to remove air pockets.  Then place them on a plastic-lined cookie sheet a press them into inch-thick patties.  Let them rest for an hour in the freezer — cold burgers hold together better and won’t stick to the grill.  Go have a beer or two while you wait.  Check on your kids while you’re at it too.

S – Sear. Get the grill nice and hot.  500 degrees fahrenheit or so oughta do.  Grab the burgers from the freezer and put them straight on the grill.  You don’t want them to reach room temperature.  The hot grill will sear the burgers and seal all that juicy goodness inside.  After searing, keep cooking them at medium to medium-low temperature for about 5 mins per side or longer, until they are well done.  Partially cooked burger = salmonella = not good = you’re in the doghouse.  So make sure they are well cooked.  You may want to keep the lid open at this stage to douse any flare-ups from dripping fat.   Mmmmm, dripping fat.

Don’t S – Don’t Squish. Resist that biting temptation to squish, poke, cut, or otherwise mutilate those juicy patties of goodness.  Doing so will cause the flavourful juices to make like a tree and leave the vicinity of your precious burgers.  Every time you get the urge to squish, take a sip of beer.

S – Surface Juices. The burgers are done when the surface juices run clear and your mouth starts watering.

S – Styling. Top up those puppies any way you like and toss them in some toasted buns.  When it comes to styling your burger, the sky’s the limit.  Just don’t go overboard on the onions – your wife will thank you (and me) for that tip.

And your good to go.  So go grab your favourite burger recipe and seasoning, fire up the BBQ, and follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to juicy, flavourful burgers in no time!

Warning – following these tips may cause your neighbours to ask you to barbecue burgers for them the entire summer.  Just remember, give a man a BBQ burger and you feed him for a few minutes, teach a man how to BBQ a burger and you feed him until he gets lazy and comes back asking you to make some for him again, or realizes that you make them better and gives up trying.

Warning number 2 – although it may be tempting, don’t follow these tips every day.  That may make you unhealthy.  Try and have some green stuff more often than you have burgers.  Go read some of my parenting or relationship tips.  You can generally follow those tips every day without inflicting any harm on your body, and they are 100% fat free.  Just sayin’.

Oh yeah, after having BBQ burgers, you may want to do some of this.

Any good ideas for good burger recipes, or any other tips to share?  Add them here as comments!  Thanks!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home.

Flickr photo courtesy of Chotda.

I dabble in magic even now (and more recently, mentalism – reading minds, predicting things, etc), and try to perform at any chance I get.  Since having kids, I have tried to learn some tricks that are especially good to show to kids (mentalism doesn’t go over well with kids, in case you were wondering).  I also recently started a social network especially for magicians and mentalists).

What I have learned is that kids like tricks that are visual; where it is obvious what is happening, and where there is a bit of humour involved… the kind of humour that they can easily understand.  (Not like the type of humour that you find here – that nobody understands).

I enjoy performing magic tricks for Smarty Pants, because it gives me a good chance to practice for a non-scrutinizing audience (unlike my wife, who will watch my every move with a magnifying glass and ask me 20 questions throughout a single trick).  Smarty Pants gets a real kick out of the tricks, and wants me to show him again and again and again and again.  I love to see his eyes light up and a smile come to his face when I show him something.

One thing that I usually show him, that is easy enough to do, that even a monkey could learn, is making an object disappear and then reappear somewhere, like behind their ears, or out of their tummy.

The easiest way to do this is to take a small object in one hand, and pretend to place it in your other hand (this is called a “false transfer”).   The key is to keep your attention on the hand that you are pretending to put the object in.  Your child’s attention will follow your attention and focus on that hand, thinking that the object is in there.

Now ask your child to blow on the hand where the object is supposed to be (but it is still in the original hand that you had it).  Slowly open the empty hand, and your child will be amazed that the object isn’t there.  Now, move your hand that is holding the object behind your child’s ear, and open your hand as you move it out from behind the ear, showing your child that the object is in that hand.

A variation that I sometimes do is to false transfer the object from my right hand to left hand.  Then, I take my left hand to my mouth and pretend to swallow the object.  The object is still in my right hand of course.  Then I put my right hand to my belly and pretend to pull the object out of my belly.

Some of you may think this variation is gross or will give your child nightmares or false impressions of what happens when you swallow something.  To that I say, hmmm, maybe… it probably depends on your kid.  You can try it, and if your child bolts from the room screaming, you might not want to try it for him/her again.  Just explain that you really didn’t swallow it an pull it out of your tummy, and show him/her how you did it.  When I do it for Smarty Pants, his reaction is laughter and a shout of, “Again, again!”

If you are interested in magic and learning some easy, visual, magic tricks that are great for kids, I suggest learning some sponge ball magic as a good place to start.  The simple tricks that I explained above can easily be done using a sponge ball as the object that you are vanishing or swallowing.  If you are really interested in learning almost everything there is to know about Sponge Ball magic, there is a really good DVD, called “Sponge” by Jay Noblezada, that comes with 4 sponge balls, and really teaches all the types of moves you can do with sponge balls, and a few sponge ball routines (that is not an affiliate link or paid advertising, by the way).

If you would like to join an online magic community, where you can meet and interact with other magicians, feel free to join my new magic social network.  It’s totally free to join.  (That is also not paid advertising – I didn’t pay myself to advertise my own other site here).  Hope you enjoy the magic!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Photo courtesy of Nathan E. Photography

The belief that babies need diapers is more of a product of our Western “on the go” lifestyle and some clever diaper company marketing strategies that will have you thinking that you need to keep your kid in diapers until the age of four.

We decided (or rather, my wife decided and I followed along), to go diaper free with our daughter, Sweet Cheeks, when she was about six months old.  We had been using cloth diapers with her, but we noticed that we could quite easily tell when she had to go number 2.  We also noticed that she went number 2 most often when we took her diaper off.  It was as if she was holding it in, waiting for the diaper to come off, because she didn’t want to be in a soiled diaper.

So, “screw that” we said, and decided to go without diapers.  Sweet Cheeks is 10 and a half months old now, and we can proudly say that we haven’t used a single diaper since those fateful days four months ago.  We sold all our cloth diapers too – so rather than spending money on diapers, we have made some money by selling ours!

As you can imagine, we get tonnes of questions from people who know we have a diaper free baby, and when we are in public and pull out the potty, it also raises people’s curiosity (as well as some eyebrows).  So, I thought it would be best to have a Jam here to publicly answer some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about going diaper free, and also to share some facts about going diaper free that we have learned on our journey.

FAQ:  Does going diaper free mean lots of messy sheets, wet clothes and a sh**load (literally) of laundry?

It can at first, but it decreases with time as you get better at it.  You will have accidents, but keep in mind, even when you start potty training a toddler, you will have a few months of accidents.  So, you can have the accidents when your child is a baby and deal with the wet clothes and laundry then, or you can wait until you potty train him at the age of two and deal with it then.  It is almost easier to deal with it when they are babies, in my opinion, because the “amounts” are smaller.  Also, I believe you can train a baby faster than a toddler, because toddlers have already gotten into the habit of not going to the toilet when they have to “eliminate,” but babies haven’t “learned” that habit yet – they are more of a blank slate in this regard – you don’t have to “unlearn” or “undo” the diaper habits with a baby who is diaper free.  If that makes sense.

FAQ:  If you have to do extra laundry by going diaper free, doesn’t that cancel-out the effect of not using diapers, because you are using so much water and energy to do the laundry?

No. No. No.  Think about how much water, energy and chemicals go into the diaper production process.  This is far greater than the amount of water and detergent you would ever use to do any extra laundry that *may be* required as a result of going diaper free.  Add that to the transportation of diapers in trucks to get to your local store, and then the garbage truck that has to dump your diapers in a landfill, plus the waste that diapers leave on the earth, times the square root of 49, and the little bit of extra laundry that going diaper free might cause really pales in comparison.  Also, if you use a high efficiency washing machine, your laundry will use a lot less water, soap, and energy than a conventional washing machine, so you score two extra bonus points right there.

FAQ:  How the heck do you have the time to go diaper free?

Probably one of the biggest factors stopping people from going diaper free is lack of time and commitment.  Like I said earlier, in our “on the go” Western lifestyle, we want a quick fix for everything.  Give me a pill to stop my pain, give me a pill to ease my stress and anxiety, give me a diaper for my kid to poop in, etc.  Using diapers is easier than going diaper free.  There is no argument there.  You still have to change the diaper, but you don’t have to be alert to your child’s need to poop or peep.  You let your nose alert you to it after the fact.

Going diaper free means you need to pay attention to your child’s signals that they have to “eliminate,” and responding quickly to those signals.  This grows to be a beautiful thing, where you really get in tune with your babies needs on a whole new level.  Just like your baby tells you when they are hungry or they are in pain, they can and do tell you when nature is calling.  And you can learn with them, and teach them, to strengthen this communication.  You can instinctively know when your child has to go, and when you do, you put them on the potty and it works.  It takes some work to get there, and many parents in the Western world don’t think they have the time or energy to put in the effort.

If both parents are working, you would need to have a care giver that is committed to going diaper free in the same way that you are, and that is probably difficult to find.  Luckily for us, my wife stays home with our kids and has been very committed to going diaper free.  It can take some motivation at first.  It did for me.  It is like going to the gym to exercise.  At first you don’t necessarily want to make the effort, and you might question yourself and be tempted to take the easy way out and go back to using diapers.  But then, once you start to see results, and you get in the routine, you get more motivated.  So you stick with it.  Then you get to a point where you just do it and it is business as usual.  Like Johnny B. Goode playing the guitar.

FACT:  The diaper industry doesn’t want you to go diaper free.  Actually, they want you to use diapers as long as possible.

Well, this should go without saying.  The more you use diapers, the more the diaper industry stands to profit.  And the longer you use diapers, the longer the diaper companies can milk you for your cash.  Pampers introduced its largest sized diaper to date in 1998 – Pampers Baby Dry Size 6.  Apparently there was a sudden need for kids to wear diapers even longer than ever before.  Or at least, Pampers created the need.  And they had a clever advertising campaign to do so.  They recruited pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton – who is a proponent of the “child-centred” approach to potty training – to do commercials for them.

In the commercial for Pampers size 6 diapers, Brazelton pleaded, “Don’t rush your toddler into toilet training or let anyone else tell you it’s time. It’s got to be his choice.”  Needless to say, a pediatrician in a commercial for the largest sized Pampers to date stirred up some controversy.  Another pediatrician, Dr. John Rosemond, who advocates that the potty training process is simple and straight-forward, summed up his view when he retorted that, it is a “slap to the intelligence of a human being that one would allow a baby to continue soiling and wetting himself past age 2.”  I’m with the guy that wasn’t in the Pampers commercial.  And, by the way, Brazelton’s research is funded by Pampers.  Coincidence?  I think not.

FACT:  Kids are in diapers now longer than they ever have been. Ever.

Over the past few decades, the age at which toddlers stop needing diapers has been moving upward. In 1957, studies found that 92 percent of children were toilet trained by 18 months. Today, that figure has dropped to less than 25 percent, according to a large-scale Philadelphia study.  A separate study performed by Kimberly-Clark, maker of Huggies, found that only 12 percent of 18 month olds are potty trained these days.

The Philadelphia study also found that only 60 percent of children today have achieved mastery of the toilet by 36 months, and 2 percent remain untrained at 4 years of age.

Think about that – 60 years ago, almost all kids were potty trained by the age of 18 months, and now, only 60 percent are potty trained by the age of 36 months.  Why is this happening?  I believe it is due to changes in lifestyle over the years, and those clever diaper companies that fund pediatricians.

FACT:  Your baby can communicate her need to go to the potty to you.

How do you know when your baby is hungry, or tired?  Babies have ways of telling you these things, and you have your parental instincts to guide you.  It is the same with going to the bathroom.  As hard as it may be to believe, just like your baby knows she is hungry, she knows that she has to go poo or pee.  And just like she tells you that she is hungry, whether by crying, or looking at you in a certain way; she tells you that she has to go poo or pee.

The trick is to pick up on the signs, and to reinforce them.  Every child communicates it in a different way – so you have to figure out how your child is telling you that he has to take a dump.

You can teach your baby sign language as well, so that eventually your baby will be able to sign to you when she has to go potty.  You can do this by making a certain sign as she is going potty.  Together, you will reinforce the communication and it will get easier.  Sometimes, you just get the feeling that your baby has to go potty, like an instinct.

Sometimes, you get to know the timing of your baby’s potty times.  For example, when waking up in the morning, after a nap, and 20 minutes after drinking.  So you put your baby on the potty at these times, and it reinforces the idea of doing nature’s business on the potty.

FAQ:  How do I protect my mattress, in case there are accidents in the bed?

We use a waterproof mattress pad that is really great and that I would recommend to anyone, even if you are not going diaper free.  You can read about it here.

FAQ:  Will I ruin a lot of clothes by going diaper free?

Not really.  If you have an accident, you can rinse the clothes down before they stain.  You can also find underwear for two year olds that will fit your baby when she is a bit bigger (see photo for example).  Also, if you have some clothes that get stained it is not a big deal – your baby will grow out of them really fast anyways.  We haven’t had a problem with this personally.

FAQ:  What about when the baby is so small that it can’t support his own head?  How do you sit him on the potty?

You don’t.  There are different ways to hold the baby above a sink, toilet or potty before they are big enough to sit on a potty themselves or support their own head weight.  Because we started going diaper free at the age of six months, we didn’t have to use these holds.  If you plan on going diaper free straight from birth you will want to learn these holds.  See the book I recommend below for more information.

FAQ:  Would you recommend that I try to go diaper free?

Based on my experience with going diaper free, and knowing what I now know about the diaper industry, I recommend it 200%.  Having said that, every family, family situation, and baby, is different.  For us, it works.  We can make the necessary commitments, and our daughter is a great communicator who does really well diaper-free.  If you can make the commitment to do it, then I definitely recommend that you go for it.  As with us, you may hit bumps along the way and want to give up, but try sticking with it, like we did, and you will have some smooth sailing down the road.

FAQ:  Where can I find more information about going diaper free?

The book that we read about going diaper free, that I highly recommend is called, appropriately, Diaper Free, by Ingrid Bauer.

FAQ:  Where can I find out more information about the Brazelton-Rosemond potty training debate?

There is a great New York Times article on the net about this, where I found some of the information given in this article.  In the above mentioned book, Diaper Free, the author, Ingrid Bauer, also gives further insight into this debate, which is where I first learned about it.

Any other questions?  Leave a comment and let me know!  I hope you found this article interesting and insightful, and I wish you the best of luck!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

I also got to be on the cover with my kids, which prompted many friends to greet me with, “Hey, I saw your cute kids on the cover of the Westender today!”  Or, “I noticed some cute kids on the cover of the Westender and I took a closer look and realized, ‘I know those kids!’”   You can see how this is helping to boost my popularity and self-esteem.

In any case, it has helped me to spread my message and bring some new folks on over to Jam here with us.  I have received many emails from readers over the past few days with a heap of questions about parenting and offers to review books.   This should result in many good future Jams to come, and some giveaways too.  Some of the questions I have received about going diaper free have prompted me to put a Jam about going diaper-free with a baby in the pipeline, so look for that soon.

The folks at the Westender were kind enough to allow me to copy and paste the full article here on the Dad Jam.  Thanks to Jackie Wong for the great article and Doug Shanks for the great photo.  The article can also be read on the Westender site here.

Here goes….

This Ain’t Your Parents’ Parenthood,  by Jackie Wong, Photo by Doug Shanks

There really is no way to actually know what it’s like to have another life depend on you completely until you have a kid. A pet is not the same. Cats and dogs will survive on their own, they’ll figure something out, they’ll eat you if necessary. And fish or whatever don’t count. No, a kid, a little human, is so ridiculously unprepared to be in this world, it’s heartbreaking.”
— From Adam Had’em: A Parenting Diary, published at OnlyMagazine.ca by Adam Thomas.

There’s no business like baby business: the sea of flaccid nursing bras in department stores; the curiously elaborate strollers priced similarly to a used car (does it have four-wheel drive?); the plastic toys; and, in many instances, the new parents’ abandonment of their established lifestyle in favour of suburban, minivan-driving domesticity — all of this seems to occupy the centre of mainstream parenting culture.

But these notions don’t sit well with all parents. Fathers, for example, are often left out of conventional mom-centric parenting communities. That’s starting to change, though, thanks to the efforts of a new generation of young male bloggers who write about their experiences as new dads, proving that parenting can, and should, be redefined.

***

Vincent Marra started his blog, TheDadJam.com, after becoming frustrated with the dearth of online resources about things to do with kids in Vancouver. A 30-year-old IT consultant, Marra lives in a two-bedroom condo near Granville Island with his wife, Nicole, their 10-month-old daughter, Yasmin, and three-year-old son, Sebastian. He blogs about a wide range of parenting issues, including his own experiences with home birth, dealing with toddler behaviour, and relationships.

“I remember reading an article about modern dads,” Marra says. “The article was way off, because it was just talking about how the modern dad has to have a digital camera and an HD camcorder. Do you just think modern dads only take pictures and make videos? We do a lot more than that. A modern dad is doing a lot more to get involved: staying at home with the kids, changing diapers.”

And modern fatherhood, Marra says, goes hand in hand with sustainable living. His family doesn’t own a car, and he and Nicole have been raising Yasmin without the use of diapers; those choices are a way to reduce their ecological footprint. “I try to… go against traditional views that your child needs to be in diapers until the age of three — these are old-fashioned views. I try to tell people, you don’t need to do that,” says Marra. The same goes for moving to the suburbs to raise a family.

“Maybe it’s because it’s what their parents did, or that’s what they think is the traditional thing to do… Maybe they think it’s more affordable to have a house in the suburbs and drive,” he continues. “But I think, longer term, it’s not affordable or it ends up being the same, because you have to take into account all the time that you spend driving into the city, and the car expenses and the household expenses… Living in the city, you get to spend a lot more time with the kids.”

As crucial as it is to spend time with your children, it’s just as important to make space to talk about the reality of how difficult parenting can be. Adam Thomas, the 35-year-old managing editor of Only magazine, started writing a magazine column, “Adam Had’em: A Parenting Diary,” when his daughter, Sylvie, was born two and a half months ago.

“There are thousands of magazines just dedicated to moms, and rightfully so, but there isn’t really much aimed at dads, or relating dads’ experiences,” Thomas says. “There is little communication about what is involved or what to expect, or even willingness to open up about being freaked out or scared.”

Thomas’s wife, Sarah Albertson, suggested he start the column as a way to present alternative viewpoints on parenthood that rarely, if ever, make it into the glossy parenting magazines. “Other parents will tell you it’s the most amazing thing you’ll ever do: you have to have a kid, it’s going to be the best thing in your life, [but] the first few weeks were literally hell,” she says.

“Nobody wants to admit that there’s problems. It’s indicative of our whole culture,” adds Thomas. “If people were sharing these experiences and being honest about things like, ‘My partner had a really hard time breast-feeding,’ or, ‘My kid has got this rash,’ or things like that — it really helps other people who are going through things. You realize that you’re part of some kind of bigger experience and you’re not alone… It takes a lot of pressure off.”

But the social pressure to buy into the baby industrial complex of our times is still there, Albertson says. “It’s a shame how materialistic parenthood has become. It’s become a lot about consumerism, and the point is, it should be the opposite. It should be detaching you from that world, and focusing on the things that matter: kids, family, having fun. Those should be the most important things.”

***

Focusing on the important things, however, can be difficult when faced with an overabundance of information on how to raise a child. “For young parents, the worst of it is when their kids are just born, when they look so fragile. There’s a definite tendency for people to equate youth with ineptitude, which is almost never true,” says 23-year-old Michael Hingston. Now a freelance writer and editor based in Edmonton, Hingston and his partner Katie Gutteridge, 25, raised their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Bridget, in a one-bedroom apartment near Commercial Drive until last year, when they moved in order to be closer to Gutteridge’s parents. Hingston and Gutteridge started a blog, “Portrait of the Baby as a Young Baby,” to document their experiences, from Gutteridge’s pregnancy, to Hingston’s last Father’s Day as a son, to Bridget’s birth. The two were SFU students before having Bridget, and have since finished their bachelor’s degrees.

“We both still have goals in our personal lives, but we’ve had to be strict and chip away at them when we’ve had time,” says Hingston. “Having a child doesn’t mean you can’t do the things you want, but you really have to pick just one thing at a time, and work at it like crazy whenever you can.

“That being said, a lot of my life and ambitions are irrevocably tied to Bridget anyway — my biggest ambition now is to make sure she grows up happy and level-headed.”

“I have put my daughter first in ways that I thought I wouldn’t,” says Gutteridge. “Maybe I thought that [by] being a feminist and in practicing equal parenting, I would somehow be immune to this sort of loss of identity, that I would refuse to give up my own life ambitions in the name of my child and partner. But, in some cases, I have. Absolutely, there are losses and life changes, but life is always changing, kids or no kids.”

Feeling able to be candid with these feelings — which many mothers experience — is crucial, because it’s normal. All the same, what’s often categorized as ‘normal’ mom behaviour is still consider extraordinary when people see dads doing it, which Hingston believes demonstrates the prevalence of outdated gender stereotypes, despite our considerable progress.

“The standards for being a good father are incredibly low,” says Hingston. “When a male co-worker at one of my minimum-wage jobs found out my girlfriend was pregnant, he said, ‘Good for you for sticking around, man.’ I was getting credit for not fleeing the country! Or if I take Bridget grocery shopping, other guys will say, ‘Giving the old lady a rest, huh?’ I routinely get glowing praise for doing something that’s just considered part of Katie’s job as a mother.”

But the appetite for parental reform appears to be huge: Marra was surprised and relieved to see the large number of stay-at-home-dads in the blogosphere when he started TheDadJam.com. He continues to meet more of them every day when he takes his children out to the playground.

As for Hingston, the best parts about being a parent are things, he says, that “would make non-parents nauseous”: “The way Bridget instinctively reaches out to hold my hand before we walk down the street, the elaborate songs she makes up about her stuffed animals, the way she slyly smiles when she knows she’s being funny… Knowing that you had a hand in shaping this person into who she is — it makes my chest ache on a daily basis.”

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I was happy to learn that kids 3 and under get into Playland free,  and me and my wife were both able to get guardian passes, which were only $13 each.  That is a sweet deal at about half the price of a regular adult day pass.   Another reason to have kids right there.

So, $26 dollars later, we were through the gates and ready to go on our Playland adventure.  We hit the Super Slide first.  Smarty Pants is still too young to go on it by himself, but he enjoyed going down with us.  Its a really long bumpy slide that you slide down pretty fast, cuz they give you slippery blankets to ride down on.  Smarty Pants wanted to go again, and again, and again, and again…

After Super Slide exhaustion, we chugged on over to the Honeybee Express.  Its a cute little train that we all rode on together.  Smarty Pants was excited cuz he got to ride up front in the engine with his buddy.

From there, we were off to the merry-go-round, Pirate Ship, cars, boats, motorcycles, rollercoaster, flying helicopters, flying Dumbos, maze and back to the Super Slide and merry-go-round again.  There was so much to do that my head was starting to go merry-go-round.  In between the romps and riding, we had an over-priced lunch, some yummy ice cream and a Spiderman face-painting session.   Playland was heaven on earth for Smarty Pants, especially cuz he got to enjoy it all with his little buddy.

About $100 later, we were set to go.  We packed a lot into the time we were there.  We had a lot of fun, and it made us really happy to see Smarty Pants having so much fun too.  Leaving Playland was the most difficult part of the day.  Smarty Pants could have easily spent the rest of the day and night there, and especially didn’t want to part from his friend after having so much fun with him.

Back on the home front, the questions kept on coming, “Can I go back to Playland, pleeezze, Papa?” and “Can I go there again, Papa?”

We’ll go back again a few times this summer I’m sure.  I was surprised to see it actually wasn’t very busy.  Unlike my memories of Canada’s Wonderland and Disney World, we didn’t have to wait in any lines.  Okay, Playland is not as big as either of those, but still, it was nice to just be able to hop on any ride we wanted.  The longest wait we had was for our lunch, but only cuz the dude at the counter couldn’t figure out how to work the Interac machine.

So if you are sitting idle with your kids on a nice summer day in Vancouver, definitely consider taking them out for a fun and adventurous day at Playland.

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If you haven’t heard of Sportball, picture a gathering of 3 to 5 year olds let loose in a room with a bunch of balls with an instructor singing and shouting positive chants as they romp around the room.  There is a magic line where the kids gather and shout, “We can do it!” whilst holding their thumbs high in the air.  Ideally the kids all stop when the instructor blows her whistle too.

A Sportball instructor in action is an amazing sight to see.  I cannot fathom how one can stay so consistently positive and patient for an entire hour, whilst getting hit with balls, facing disobedience, and trying to teach young kids something about ball sports, when all they want to do is run around and cause a ruckus.

When I took Smarty Pants to his first Sportball class, I thought I would have it easy.  Just drop him off, give him a kiss goodbye, and come back an hour later to pick him up.  Well, unfortunately, he took a nap that day, and happened to wake up just before his class started.  So I dragged a drowsy, slightly cranky, boy to his first Sportball class.

When we got there, our overly cheery instructor slapped a name tag on his chest, saying, “Hey, welcome to Sportball big guy!!”  To which Smarty Pants promptly responded, “WHAAAHHHHHHH!!!”  We were off to a brilliant start.

I brought Smarty Pants out of the room to calm him down.  He wanted to go home.  “But you were really looking forward to Sportball” I reminded him.  He didn’t care.  He insisted we just go home.  “And you don’t want to come next week either?” I asked.  “No” he said.

I was about to go and ask for a refund right then and there, but something inside me said I should stick around a bit and let it all play out.  I think I was also curious to see how long the instructor could stay so positive and cheery, so thought it worthwhile to stay.

Smarty Pants and I sat there on the sidelines, watching the other kids as they sat on the magic line and learned that “Only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands” and, “When I blow the whistle, you stop.”   We observed, bemused, as the kids picked up the balls with their hands at every opportunity, and continued running around each time the whistle was blown.

This went on for about half an hour.  Every ten minutes I asked Smarty Pants if he wanted to join the rest of the kids.  The answer was always a firm “No.”

Then, suddenly, without any word or warning, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, he just got up, grabbed a ball, and started playing with the others.  It was like a ray of sunshine after a thundery storm.  Night had turned into day, and everything was fine.  This boy, who, just thirty minutes earlier, wanted to go home and never come back, was suddenly having the time of his life.  A week later, he went again and had a great time as well.

It just goes to show you how quickly things can change with kids.  Maybe the instructor’s positivity rubbed off on him, maybe he got over his tiredness and crankiness, maybe he got a leg cramp from sitting down for so long and needed to shake it off.  We’ll never know… but that’s the point.  With kids, you never really know.  All I know is I  learned that you just gotta stick with things sometimes, weather the storm, and head for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  With kids, it is often worth it.  Now everyone put your thumbs way up high and say, “We’re the best!!”

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That’s right, flowers.  How do you explain to a toddler that he is not allowed to pick flowers from a public garden, when he so kindly wants to pick one so that he can give it to you?  It nearly breaks my heart.

I was faced with this dilemma the other day, and called on a tried and true method to get me out of it.  I used the sign.  What sign was that, you ask?  Well, luckily for me, there was a sign posted at the garden that said, “Please keep out of the planted area.”  I swiftly pointed the sign out to Smarty Pants and said, “Look, the sign says we have to keep out of the planted area.  That means we are not allowed to go in there and pick flowers.”

“Why does the sign say to keep out of the planted area?” Smarty Pants inquired.  (He is at the “Why?” phase right now, where he asks “Why?” about, oh, 50 thousand times a day).

“Because, these plants are for everyone to enjoy, not just us.  And the gardeners spent a lot of time planting these flowers, and they don’t want anyone to take them away.”  I replied, making it up as I went along, as usual.

“The sign says keep out,” he repeated to himself, satisfied, and moved on.

I have to say, using signs to get Smarty Pants to listen has never failed for me.  Cialdini was right, social proof and authority are powerful influencers.  (or maybe he just prefers to listen to what signs say vs. what I say).

Here are some examples of other times when the “Sign Says” technique has worked for me:

At a play area where Smarty Pants had to wear socks to play – 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 wear socks to play there, and I told him, “This sign says you have to put on socks to play here.”  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.

When passing a construction site – Smarty Pants 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 towards the entrance.  Just as I was about to collapse with exhaustion, I noted to him… “This 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 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, and if your toddler is anything like mine, it just might work for you too!

What are some tactics you use to get your toddler to listen in sticky situations like these?  Leave a comment and let us know!

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