Why It's Nice to Leave Your Children At Someone Else's House

Wednesday, July 11, 2012. I'd like to burn this date in my mind as one of the best days of the summer of 2012. Much of this unrestrained bliss stems from an amazing, relaxing date with Chrissy, during which we left our children in the hands of Janna's daycare provider, Erin Scott.

Date Morning 2012

We began our date by simply walking through stores at 9:30 in the morning. That’s right, we simply walked through stores, unhurried, unstressed, and unneeded. It was glorious. We began at Staples and walked through every aisle, making casual conversations about file organizers, the problems with store-brand pens, and the respective strengths and weaknesses of the “new” iPad. Unfortunately, I somehow set off the theft detection system on the iPad display, which proceeded to harangue us with unnecessarily loud noises. After apologizing to everyone nearby, we decided it was time to move on to the next store.

Our next visit was Starbucks/Chapters for a Chai Tea Latte, which we shared. Delicious! Then off to Chapters, where we each went our own way. Chrissy immediately hit the trendy knick-knack section, and was then engrossed in the baby section. I was magnetically pulled to the language section where a handbook on English grammar sucked me in for the next ten minutes.

Eventually, Chrissy and I both picked out a book for ourselves to read at the beach – Chrissy picked out a baby journal in which she can write details about our and the baby’s lives. I picked out a book of short stories by Ernest Hemingway, who is quite the guy. He has the reputation of being one of the “manliest” writers in the English language, but I’ve never read any of his stories!

Next, we decided to go out for an early lunch. My friend Jeremy introduced me to this killer restaurant called “Bambu,” which serves all kinds of excellent Asian foods. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be open for another twenty minutes. FORTUNATELY, there was another exciting, mysterious store nearby that we had never explored...

The T&T Supermarket!! I had heard rumors that this was the coolest supermarket in Ottawa, full of ingredients and foods from Asia, many of which we had never hear of before. We decided to check it out and were deeply impressed by what we found.

There are too many exciting things to mention. We found new fruits that we had never experienced, an incredible selection of fresh seafood (at very reasonable prices), and an enormous variety of sauces. These, in this picture, are just some of the selection - it extended all the way down the aisle!

We also found some foods that were a little less familiar to us - like these assorted guts. It was fascinating, actually, what sorts of things are used as ingredients in different cultures. We saw genuine chicken feet in this section, as well as chickens with completely blue skin.

After about twenty minutes, we went to the restaurant, which had just opened. Bambu is one classy place!

Even the washrooms were majestic. The romantic tunes were pumping in here, the light was low; 
somehow, the washrooms set the mood for the rest of the experience. That was, until the hand dryer almost blew my hands off! (Have you ever been surprised by unexpectedly powerful hand dryers?)

What to order? The other nice thing about this restaurant is that they have a pretty reasonably priced lunch menu. I'm told they have a gluten-free menu too, although I didn't realize this at the time.

Lunch is served. At top is Chrissy's "Combination #4 Plate," featuring shrimp wantons. Below is my Chicken Pad Thai. Both of us haven't been able to stop thinking about our meals since. SO GOOD!

Maybe the best part of the lunch experience was our fortune cookies, and I must say, I was impressed by the insight of my fortune especially. The one on the bottom right. (I have since been exploiting my beauty for all its worth!)

 We finished our date by lying on the beach, reading (or in Chrissy's case, writing in) our books. It was so relaxing!

 We tried to take a shot from above, and this is what we got. Apparently, I forgot to smile; this is my natural photographer face. When we saw this, we burst into laughter for about five minutes. Then we tried again....

Much better!

That was the end of our beautiful date together, but the day was great for a a few more reasons:

Reason 1: I was able to spend some great quality time with my friend Stevie Andrews. This is a guy whom a greatly respect, but we rarely get the chance to hang out.

Reason 2: Swimming lessons continued, and they were at least twice a good as last week! Jesse ran in, bobbed around with me with no tears (at first), and even worked on his front float with enthusiasm. Only twice did he break into a fit of tears and screaming - we need to work on floating on his back and getting his head wet. Altogether, though, I'm really proud of how he did today.

Here's a picture of Jesse all ready to go to swimming lessons. He thought he was being very witty in refusing to open his eyes for the picture. What a guy!

Well, that's enough for one day. Until tomorrow!

Stay-At-Home Dad Vs. HOUSE MAN

Well, these days I've been feeling a little like a stay-at-home dad, what with my staying at home while Chrissy works. But I have never liked the term "stay-at-home dad." In times like these, I prefer to think of myself as a "HOUSE MAN."


So, when Chrissy left me at home with my daughter yesterday, I was determined to demonstrate to the world how awesome housemanship can be. Immediately upon Chrissy's departure, I decided to fix Janna's favourite toy.

(It was really hard. There were at least eight screws, sand paper was involved, and Janna stole the pink button and hid it on me.)

The next item on the agenda was actually dressing Janna. I opened up the dresser and found this puzzling mass of clothing. Now, I consider myself to be at least competent in my ability to dress myself (I'd give myself a solid 7 out of 10), but I have NO IDEA how to dress a girl! Look at these clothes!

 Look at all the flowers, stripes, and pink! What goes with this stuff?????? Half of these clothes were neither t-shirts nor shorts; they fit into some other unidentified category of clothing that remains a mystery to me.

I refused to accept defeat. Voila - the flowery "shirt" with the yellowish "shorts." I think she presents a pretty striking figure. Classy, yet modest.

The plan for us was to go to town together, stretch our legs, and pick up a couple of CDs with a gift certificate I had been given. Here we are waiting for the bus, Janna munching away happily on her snack (raisins and fish crackers, with some surprise gummies thrown in at the bottom). I am practicing my best protective father stance.

We may have stepped off the bus at the wrong stop. We hiked  up Merivale Rd. for a while. Janna was a trooper, and kept giving me high fives and swatting my face (and then giggling).

Later, when Chrissy and Jesse returned, I took it upon myself to take both kids out for a stroll around the block - no simple task! Especially when Jesse kept pretending to be a lion while I was attempting to sun-screen him. Here he is, giving me his best "lion face."

Suiting up for our next little adventure. I again submit that there is nothing quite so powerful and impressive as a man wearing a child carrier.

House men of the world - unite!

(Intermission)

Dear bloggers,

Just finished small group. It is nearly 11:00pm, and I'm pretty tired. Can't say what it was about except that John Calvin was involved.

Looking forward to writing again tomorrow, and talking a little bit about my date with Janna Vance!

Signing off...

Water and Fire: A Quiet Sunday

Sunday, the day of rest. Chrissy and I are making an honest effort to rest and do restful things on Sundays. In theory, that works really well, except for the fact that we have kids and will never experience true rest again.

Sorry. Let me start again:

Sundays are more restful than other days of the week. Today started off a little hectic, though. Our church is asking parents to help out in the nursery, since they're a little short on helpers. We signed up to help out today, and so instead of dropping Jesse and Janna off in the nursery, we joined them and found ourselves swimming amidst a wave of about fifteen (twenty? a thousand?) hyper two-year olds.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into! I'm used to working with high school students. My typical interaction with students consists of discussing moral dilemmas and political issues. After a few pathetic attempts at conversation, I turned to Chrissy and calmly asked, "WHAT DO I DO?" She looked at me with the knowing gaze of a long-time preschool teacher and said, "Play with them!"

What does that mean?? I asked myself. At home, playing with my kids means wrestling with them, tossing them into the air, and catching them at the last second. I had a feeling that wouldn't work so well with other people's kids. Hesitantly, I grabbed a nearby truck and made some truck noises. I saw the eyes of a nearby kid widen. So far so good. I took another truck and crashed it into my first truck. Wild laughter ensued, and all my problems were solved.

In the period that followed, I played with all my energy, crashing cars into each other, cooking pretend meals, dressing dolls, and preventing casualties on the slide. I poured everything I had until I was utterly exhausted. Weakly, I checked the time - somehow, in a strange trick of the space/time continuum, only twenty minutes had passed - we still had an hour left!!!

Somehow, we survived the next hour and headed home. I have to admit, even though it was the most exhausting experience I can imagine, it was a lot of fun.

WATER:

Here’s where the restful part begins: we were invited by our friends, the Wileys, to join them at their neighbours’ pool for a Sunday swim. It was great: not only did they introduce us to an excellent drink called watermelon lemonade (one can of frozen lemonade blended together with one half of a watermelon = so good!), but Jesse actually enjoyed swimming around in the water! I have photographic evidence of his enjoyment. He wasn’t quite ready to let go of us, but huge progress is being made.

Janna, on the other hand, was having a grumpy day. The only thing that could soothe her was watermelon. I’m starting to think that she may be a little more calculating than I first believed – she managed to get (and eat) four pieces of watermelon this way.

FIRE:

It became less restful again when we returned home. The lunch cooler stuck to my stove burner had been taunting me all day, and I felt that it was my duty as a man to fix the problem. Without buying a new burner.

Naturally, the solution was to stick the burner back on the stove, re-melt the plastic, remove the cooler, and burn off the extra material. This seemed very simple and straightforward to me, so we deactivated all the smoke alarms, turned on the fan in the oven hood, pulled out the baking soda to put out the inevitable fire, and got to work.

We forgot to tell Katie. She came upstairs to see a kitchen full of smoke, flames shooting from the stove, and me standing there glaring at the whole thing.

Was it a success? I think so! The cooler has a circular hole on its bottom, but the burner is usable once more... as least, it will be when we clean it off. My arm smells like plastic, but that’s a small price to pay for the redemption of my stove (and my pride).

Until next time!

Highs and Lows in the Vance Family

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was a time of gleeful happenings at A Gym Tale, it was a time of leaking diapers and crazed, knife-wielding toddlers.

*If you happen to be affiliated with either child services or the humane society, please close this window.

Well, the Vance family has its share of highs and lows, and today the highs were pretty awesome, and the lows made us want to cry.

THE HIGHS:

Strawberry Short Cake (Gluten Free): They say that everyone has their love language, and mine is certainly... food. I look at these delicious, mouth-watering delicacies, and think, “My wife loves me.” I love you too, babe!

A Gym Tale:One of the perks of Chrissy’s job is being regularly exposed to a magical place called “A Gym Tale,” which Jesse and I will happily score a 10 out of 10!! Locally owned and operated, this play-centered pre-school has actually improved Jesse’s physical coordination several fold. 

When he first started in January, he was too timid to go down most playground slides and could barely climb the play structure. A few short months later and he is barreling down all but the biggest of slides and climbing just about anything that he can find! We visited A Gym Tale today for an hour or so.

Jesse makes a mighty leap onto a big, soft mat. That wild look in his eyes remains throughout the entire duration of the visit.

 

One of the nice things about this place is that it has a PIRATE SHIP, which was really nice for Jesse after our bitter disappointment yesterday.

Each kid has their own favorite activity. For Jesse, it’s clearly the slides. He zips down these so fast, I’m sure he must be breaking some kind of slide speed laws. Note how in this picture he actually appears to be traveling faster than light. 

What is Janna’s favourite activity? Well, she likes to do all the sliding and climbing and bouncing too, but she LOVES to buckle the high chairs!

Snack time is also big for Janna, especially when she gets the chance to wipe her crackers through her hair.

THE LOWS: (no pictures, too tramautic) :(

The Leaky Diaper:

It all started when we went to pick up Chrissy at a nearby Tim Horton’s. (Note: This was the same Tim Horton’s as last week, when I spilled the apple juice onto my lap and the elderly patrons mocked me. Some of those same people were there today. I think I’ll avoid this Tim Horton’s for the rest of my life....!)

Anyhow, there isn’t much to the story except this. When I picked up Janna to take her inside for a little treat, her cloth diaper was sopping wet, and it sopped all over my arm. This was unfair, because I had just changed her diaper. Diapers can usually hold more than this! Maybe Janna was exercising her ability to retain water and then let it all go at once, but she got me again on the way back to the van, and I smelled all the way home.

Everything Falls Apart:

Turns out, the diaper experience was just a hint of things to come. I’ve tried to add a humourous tone to the following account, but truth is, Chrissy and I were both pretty shaken by the events to come. I was given the task of preparing supper today – a garden salad and BBQ’ed sausages. I had just put the sausages on the BBQ and set to work chopping up some veggies when Chrissy burst into the house holding a screaming Jesse. She called me and asked me to take him, and I could tell by her voice that something was wrong.

I set everything aside and rushed over, and immediately noticed that Jesse was holding his arm at an odd angle. When I asked Chrissy what was wrong, she told me that he had been on his tricycle and had just started screaming. She asked me to take off his shirt – maybe he had hurt his arm, or been bitten by a bug, but he was definitely in hysterics and would barely let us touch him.

I picked him up, took him over to the couch, and took off his shirt as gently as I could. As he was screaming and sobbing, he kept flinching and pulling away, and he was crying, “Something’s bothering me!” and “Daddy, protect me!” over and over again. It was really scary.

We couldn’t find any marks on him, so we asked him where he was hurting, but he just kept saying “there” and pointing to his arm. Occasionally, he’d jerk and start screaming again and asking us to protect him. I realized that the sausages were still on the BBQ, and I was trying to ask Chrissy to check on them (Jesse was still clinging to me) when Janna started running around, tripped, fell on the floor, and started bawling. Chrissy was trying to check on the sausages when the dog started barking, and (seriously!) the phone started ringing. It felt like everything was literally falling apart in front of us! I was praying pretty hard at this point.

We didn’t know what to do – I thought maybe Jesse had broken an arm or his collarbone or something, or maybe he was having some kind of reaction, so we began to get ready to take him to the hospital. He was still crying when, all of a sudden, Janna burst into the room carrying, of all things, the enormous knife that I had been using to chop the vegetables! I must have set it down on the nearby chair in my rush to get Jesse, and Janna had grabbed it. Of course, we quickly disarmed her, resulting in many more tears, and we turned on Dora for Jesse while we tried to track down his health card.

Somehow, Dora healed Jesse, because after about thirty seconds, he was a brand new boy. He told us he was all better, and that nothing hurt.

Still pretty shaken from the last five minutes, I went to check on the sausages. My hands must have been a little unsteady because as I picked up a sausage to check if it was cooked, I dropped it in the grass. I picked it up and dropped it again! Shaking my head in frustration, I grabbed it a third time, opened the screen door to wash it off, and dropped it a THIRD time onto the dining room floor. Our sneaky little dog lunged for it, and I was so fed up that I punted him across the floor. (I am not proud of this, but he didn’t try to steal any more food for a while.)

Basically, that’s where the story ends, and we spent suppertime eating, talking, and healing emotionally. We’re still not really sure what happened, but we’re guessing that Jesse had some kind of panic attack. Chrissy told me that right when it happened, he had been complaining that a bug was on him.... maybe it freaked it out really badly. The funny thing is, he’s not usually afraid of bugs. He IS afraid of monsters, and that’s when he usually asks us to protect him.... maybe he was confused? Anyhow, we hope it doesn’t happen again.

The Cooler:

What else could go wrong, you might say? Well, I would respond, our lunch cooler could always become melted to the stove while our shortcakes cooked... Yes, it did. ‘Nuff said.

In the end, we believe that everything God created is good, even days like this. A Gym Tale was fun, I can cope with leaky diapers, and we’re thankful that Jesse’s problem wasn’t more serious. As for the lunch cooler... ha ha ha... I think that’s a write off.

Here’s hoping for less drama tomorrow! 

Mooney's Bay: The Legend Continues, and the Problem with Chicken Wings

Yes, Beach Day at the Bay continued into its second episode today as the Vance family decided to laugh in the face of meteorology and head to the beach on the hottest day of the year yet. (Is that true? I'm not really sure, but it seemed pretty hot.) We figured that if we left at 9:30am, we'd beat the heat.

Janna prepared by putting on all the clothes she could find.

 

The sand landscaping begins! The goal: to fill our bucket with sand, turn it over and make a sand castle (without breaking the bucket again), and then to smash these sand castles. This went quite well! 

 The Vance ladies could not be more charming. Everyone was so happy, until....

....Jesse’s world was thrown into crisis. He had seen his holy grail... the thing that all three-year-old boys dream of....

 THE PIRATE SHIP!

 

Courageously, we braved the frigid waters in an attempt to CATCH THE BOAT. In Jesse’s mind, this would naturally end in our boarding the ship and becoming pirates.

Unfortunately, it was too fast for us, and Jesse’s hope were dashed.

It took as a while to recover from that one. 

 Goodbye, pirate ship. We’ll meet again soon, and you’d better be ready for us!

 Snack time = desperate attempt to cheer up kids. Janna is a sucker for these juice boxes.

We found a nice little playground. (7 out of 10!) Janna’s favourite activity is to be pushed in the swing while wearing no expression on her face. Mom is a great sport!

Jesse was actually more interested in stalking the seagull. He chased it around the playground for about 5 minutes calling out, “HERE EAGLE!” 


The funniest part was that the seagull didn’t even try to fly away! It just kept walking away from Jesse, who couldn’t catch him, even though he was running as fast as he could.

 

Token artsy shot. Janna had gotten sand all over her face and was a little cranky by the end, so we headed home. (She’s still cute, though!)

Part II: The Trouble with Wings

Chrissy had the great idea of putting the kids to bed BEFORE we ate tonight, thus guaranteeing us a peaceful meal (rare). We did this, and then sat down with some delicious chicken wings (depicted in this generic internet image.

The wings were excellent, but the experience was marred by images in my head from the movie Food, Inc. which we viewed in my World Issues class. It’s a movie that basically makes you think about all the things you suspect about the food we eat but don’t really want to think about. How could I enjoy these mouth-watering wings when I know the truth about the conditions in which the wings were made?

 

Somehow, I managed. But if you want to be able to enjoy your food guilt-free, I wouldn’t recommend watching this video!

Guiltily (yet satisfied),

Dave