I went with my 3 yr old and 7 month old and they both LOVED it.

Okay, perhaps Charlie didn’t really understand what was going on, but there were enough bright colours to keep him entertained. Zacharie was equally thrilled, often jumping up to wave to the new dinosaurs when they entered the ring and even growling back at T Rex when the climax took place.

The show does have a bit of gore as 3 dinosaurs pick at the carcass of a dead dino, and there are confrontations throughout the show, but none leading to any big battles.

The big discussion in our house came about whether or not to disprove the mythology of the show. My son was excited to go see “Dinosaurs!” So do we tell him it’s a make-believe dinosaur show or there are real live dinos in the arena? We decided to tell him it was pretend to help allay any fears that might arise (He did, after all, get spooked by the conveyor belt to the melter scene in Toy Story 3).

Sitting down and watching some of the Walking With Dinosaurs videos on YouTube to get him prepared (and excited) for the event also eased him in to the experience.

Walking With Dinosaurs is just real enough to give you a sense of what life was like millions years ago and just fake enough not to totally spook the kids.

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This entire website is a dedication to what it means to be a Dad. It’s about compromise, it’s about fear, it’s about leadership, it’s about learning. It’s about patience, it’s about play, it’s about participation, it’s about being last on the list.

Mother’s Day is about brunches, flowers and phone calls. It’s easy to see and appreciate the impact Mother’s make in the world. They are the heartbeat of the family and society. They are the sun around which the planets of the family solar system orbit. Moms matter.

When it comes to economic impact, Father’s Day pulls in about 2/3 of what Mother’s Day makes for companies. It’s not that we love Dad any less, but we just don’t appreciate his work as much.

To help you appreciate the men in your life, here are three other Fathers with stories on Fatherhood.

My dad, Georges:

Becoming a Dad for the majority is the easy part.

Being a Great Dad requires commitment, dedication and giving up a lot of “self” for the good of the child and family.

Balancing work, studies and dad work is difficult. Quality time is important, but so is the quantity of time you spend together.

I’m forever thankful for the many great memories I experienced with my three children. The difficult years of guiding them to adulthood are far behind me but still I worry when a hiccup appears in their life journey.

The important thing now is, that I’m here for them if they need me and they know that.

I’m very thankful that I’ve lived long enough to have three grandchildren which I fully enjoy and take the advantage of visiting them or having them over whenever possible. The neat part of being a Grandpapa is that once you’re exhausted from playing with them, you merely turn around and hand them over to their father.

DadCAMP contributor, Anthony Floyd:

What does being a dad mean? So many things, from primal to modern, mundane to extraordinary: Hunter, gatherer, provider. Fount of information. Teller of tall tales. Slayer of monsters in-the-dark. Medic. Peace-keeper. Good cop. Bad cop. Role-model. Friend. Witness.

It’s that last one that often astonishes me. Witnessing my kids learning something new, doing something new, experiencing the wonder of something new, these are things that often make my eyes go a bit misty. There’s no substitute in the world for witnessing pure joy and excitement in your kids.

An anonymous Dad who is now dealing with the challenges of single fatherhood:

Fatherhood is a slowly walked journey. With each step you divide yourself in half: you one side, your child on the other, and then as your foot touches the ground you put those pieces together into a whole. Repeat one million tiny times.

The beauty of Fatherhood, for me, as a single parent, is that it is the ultimate expression of masculine individuality. I can claim it to be exactly what I want for me and my child, uncompromisingly, and in doing so I model for my child all the things I want for her.

For more thoughts on the day, check out the entry JP Holecka posted yesterday and read Graeme McRanor’s essay in The Vancouver Sun.

Happy Father’s Day.

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1. On Becoming A Father
2. Warming up to Fathers Day…
3. Best Book For First Time Fathers

If you ask my wife she will tell you that I have even said things like “Valentine’s Day is every day and I don’t need no stinking third party to force me to express my love for you on a certain day of the year…bla, bla, bla.”. I know pretty lame right? I will say that I have not lived a double standard and always downplayed the idea of fathers day too.

Well as I get older, and I guess wiser for that matter, I have warmed up to these days of celebrating and appreciating others hard work. I have come to realize that if we did not have them spelled out a lot of folks would pretty much never get any official recognition or appreciation for what they do. The other fact is we now are running at a non stop pace and are working longer hours and the emphasis on our home life and parenting has really been de-prioritized.

It is that last point that has been most at work on me in recent years because I have been running a business and it seems like every waking hour has been dedicated to just that, work. Sure I become a dad in the mornings when I make my son breakfast and get him ready for school and then again and at night when it’s bath time etc. Weekends too have been shortened with regards to having time to be a dad. Sunday has usually been split with work and family and I am quite often prepping for the busy week ahead. I rarely even had time to take off during the week to go and see my son’s school activities.

Well I decided this year to change that and I have also changed my idea on the Hallmark holiday thing too. I am now making time to leave the office and go to my son’s events at school, I made sure mother’s day was a bigger event in our house [I need to up my game there even more I think.] and will except the fact that I can be recognized as a father on fathers day too.

My first official Fathers Day event was yesterday at my son’s school at 2pm. Yes that’s right in the middle of my work day and normally I would have rebuffed the event to complete the weeks work and would have somehow justified it as a necessity, you know providing for the family and all. I decided that I would ask my wife to stay home even though she was invited to the school event. She always goes and I knew that I would have hid behind her when I got there. This was a Fathers Day event and I was going to go full force on it and that meant solo.

When I got there there were a ton of other dads and they all brought their wives. Slightly rattled that maybe I should have done the same I pushed on. The agenda included snacks, making a home made sailboat and racing it, songs from the kids and a few marginally fatherly related things. It was pretty fun and I must admit making the boat with my done and totally over engineering the sail was fun.

I took pride in the fact that I went solo and was in full “dad mode.” The work that needed to be done in that time? Well, I just put the hustle on in the morning and made sure I had it all done in time to go to the event.

Now tomorrow is Father’s Day and I will enjoy what my wife and son have planned  for me. I may not be the dad in “My Three Sons” but I am a dad none the less and I am making sure that more time in the day is spent as such.

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1. Four Fathers on Father’s Day
2. Work Life Balance
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I received a last minute invitation to see Mitch Joel and Gary Vaynerchuk speak today. The invite would mean I would heave the two boys on my wife to take to a busy doctor’s office and would skip an afternoon gymnastics class.

These are two of my favourite social media, marketing and branding guys. They get it. I see a lot of myself in the messages they preach and very often they speak or write about topics I myself have laid out in my media blog, cyberbuzz. I’ve even written about both of them on this site, as each is a father.

So you could say I’m a fanboy.

So I called my wife to start last minute negotiations. Quickly I realized I could juggle half the day, but wouldn’t be able to pull off the whole thing. I could see Mitch, but I would have to skip lunch watching the Italy / Paraguay soccer game and I’d definitely miss Gary’s talk as it was the exact same time as gymnastics.

So I saw Mitch, was inspired, bought his book, had a quick chat with him and ran off to take Zacharie to class – and it’s a good thing I did: today was the day they handed out the medals.

He takes his gymnastics at a venue home to a few Olympians. There are flags and awards adorning the lobby and so they take “graduation” seriously. A mini podium was set up and each student received a medal.

I didnt watch Gary Vee pump the crowd up and Crush It! I didn’t watch Italy claw back against Paraguay. I watched a 3 year old bounce on a trampoline and win gold.

That’s the best day ever.

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For the third time I’ve had a friend witness the unbearable – a premature child that didn’t make it.

The fact that any baby makes it is astonishing to me. After Zacharie was born I was floored by the violence of childbirth. It’s like Quentin Tarantino had directed the scene in the delivery room. Shouting, cursing, a cast of dozens and blood. Lots of blood.

How Jennifer and Zacharie and Charles made it through those hours of pushing and squishing and screaming I will never fully appreciate or understand.

I’m a lucky sonofabitch to be the father of 2 perfect healthy boys. I don’t know how I managed to cash a winning lottery ticket twice, but I did.

You’re on this site and reading this post because you’re a parent and you understand – you’re one of the lucky ones. Hug your kids extra tight, kiss your wife extra long and thank whatever being you believe in. Every day with those kids in your life truly is the best day ever.

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Specifically the ads that always seem to have dads as mindless meatheads who mean well but can never seem to get anything right when it comes to their family.

Mom is the superhero, dad is the bumbling sidekick.

Lame.

There are, however, some ads that nail the notion of playing up our do gooding nature and sometimes ineffectiveness.

Take the latest series of Huggies ads. They’re real and honest slices of life that perfectly define what it’s like to be a dad.

Honestly, how many times have you had a screaming firehose in your face as you go through your turn on the diaper rotation?

Hilarious because it’s true.

Oh – an aside .. some might say the solution to the firehose is to buy a peepee teepee for your son. I’m including that on the “things people tell you need to buy when you’re having a baby but don’t really need” list that I will post soon.

Fellow DadCAMPer, Akash, is a fan of this one:

Any dad worthy of his neighborhood playground knows he needs. those. shoes.

We love them because they’re true. They are honest slices of life that every dad can relate to. THAT’S what it’s like being a dad.

Thanks Huggies for showing Dads as real, caring and active parents instead of bumbling fools.

No disclosure needed for posting these ads, we’re Pampers people – have tried out Huggies, but they just didnt work well for our boys.

Image: Dad finishes a diaper change by Ajoch on Flickr

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Zacharie is closing in on 3, Charles was born in January. You can imagine the level of interaction the two of them can provide is vastly different.

Zacharie is eager to race, read, play road hockey and chat up a storm. Charles sits in his bouncy chair and screams.

We recently moved and for a few weeks my wife was left alone in the old home while I set up the new one. I called one night to chat with her, and then asked how Zacharie was doing. She told a story and then said “and Charlie’s sleeping well now, too.”

I stopped cold.

I’d totally forgotten I had a second son. Had completely and utterly forgotten.

You often hear stories about how parents have favourite children, but I always thought I could love both my children equally.

I guess for that to happen, I’ll have to actually remember they both exist.

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The part of the presentation that had parents scrambling to take notes and leaning forward paying attention was a 7 step process in conflict resolution.

HOW TO DEAL WITH TEMPER TANTRUMS

1. press PAUSE button
(take a deep breath and gather yourself, don’t get sucked in to the situation)
2. REMIND myself that the only person I can control is me
(look back at the toddler’s job description: they’re just doing their job by challenging boundaries)
3. REFRAME how I think affects how I feel which affects how I react
(you get back what you put into it)
4. CONTROL the SITUATION not the child
(the key is to stay neutral and calm – dont step into the drama. Remove the object of frustration and remove yourself if you’re losing it)
5. DONT GIVE IN and do follow through with consequences. Be CONSISTENT
(reinforce that you mean what you say)
6. REGROUP help them restore equilibrium to REASSURE them that they will learn self control
7. ROLE MODEL self control and how to handle powerful negative feelings

The key to remember is that the toddler is looking for attention and testing boundaries to assert their independence. When you see them do something right, express how it makes you feel. Ask them how it makes them feel. Once kids have a label, they will live up or down to that label, between 0 and 6 they’re constantly developing beliefs about themselves.

So make it a positive belief and make it often. It takes 10 positives to delete 1 negative.

Here is a final thought I put out on Twitter the night of the seminar: Honestly? parenting seminars just cause us to overthink things. we were BORN to have kids. it shouldnt be hard. #toddler101

If you’re really struggling and can’t find resolution, then maybe there’s some Dr Phil styled advice in this Toddler 101 series, but really – if you’re a rational and smart person, you’re going to be a good parent. Really, you’ll be fine.

Photo on Flickr by Citril

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To better understand why toddlers do the things they do, Gillian presented “the toddler job description”

STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM THE PARENT AND SELF MASTERY
Toddlers are still trying to develop from the dependence they needed as an infant to the independence they feel as toddlers. It’s a slow resolving conflict since they havent fully developed a sense of self and that they are separate people. Toddlers still believe everything is part of them, so they cant give anything up -
they dont know it any other way.

Just think of how they express themselves: they NEED the blanket. They NEED their soother. They NEED to have their favourite pjs on.

Toddlers want to have their parents around, but dont like the fact they want/need you so they push away, then they dont like you away, so they pull you back.

It’s all about a fear of separation trying to balance with drive for autonomy. Gillian compared what toddlers go through as to what teenagers try to balance when searching for independence.

PARENTAL WILL VS CHILD’S COUNTERWILL
Children learn who they are by resisting parental will and asserting their own. It’s a natural way to find their own personal boundaries and abilities. When we feel someone else trying to take control, we will assert our own control, even if we know that the controlling will is right.

Toddlers don’t say no to resist you, they do it to create space to figure out who they are as a separate entity. Toddlers will resist any idea or thought that didn’t first occur in their own mind

TODDLERS WANT TO DO EVERYTHING FOR THEMSELVES TO DEVELOP SENSE OF SELF MASTERY
While toddlers want to do things on their own, they still lack the cognitive skills to do this effectively. The result is frustration and melt downs.

It’s important, then, for parents to seek out situations where the toddlers can succeed. The more we try to control the more they’re hardwired to resist, we end up feeling controlled by them

It becomes a perpetual circle. The more they try to control us, we try to control them and they become more defiant. These struggles mostly happen around food and toilet training.

Parents then need to step back and see how they’re reinforcing the behaviour. With food, for example, if you show over attention and worry about food and negative behaviour, you’re relinquishing control and you reinforce that behaviour.

Remember, the toddler is looking for situations where they’re successful, and if they’re successful at being rebellious – that’s the behaviour they’ll continue.

STRUGGLE TO BALANCE CONTROL OF PARENT WITH LEARNING SELF CONTROL
Babies are born with 100 billion brain cells and many of them are not connected. It’s the interaction with parents in the infant years that makes the map. So toddlers have a fully mapped out brain – their interaction with the environment wires the emotional part of the brain with the knowledge part.

As parents of toddlers, we need to be frontal lobes, showing them how to make decisions. This is an important developmental stage and requires parental behaviour modelling. Whatever you put out is what you will get back.

The toddler years are the key times to reinforce positive behaviours. If they get your attention behaving, that’s how they will continue to seek your attention.

Coming next in Toddler 101 is Part 3: The 7 steps to successfully avoid temper tantrums.

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1. Toddler 101: Temper Tantrums
2. Toddler 101: Living In The Moment
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I realized it when my wife and I were discussing ditching cable. She said it would be great to have at those times our baby won’t sleep and we have to be up with him/her. I told her I’d just play some games on our Wii while I get they baby to sleep…so I won’t need cable.

I guess I kind of thought you just pick the child up when it cries, it stops, you keep it close to you for a bit and then put it to sleep. You see the only experience I’ve had with a baby waking in the middle of the night happened less than a year ago when we had friends in town and I was left with baby.

When he woke up crying I totally freaked out and called Staci to ask her what to do. She told me to figure it out. I did…I grabbed him from his pack and play at a full arms length in case of wetness. When I realized we were all good there I put him on my lap and swiveled in a chair for a few minutes. Then we both fell asleep. It was a piece of cake.

Well, Staci let me know I was lucky…it wouldn’t be so easy…there would be no Wii playing while I have our baby on my chest. Instead there will be crying, pooing, peeing more peeing, bottle filling and more. From there something clicked in my head. Something that has not gone away. Something probably equally as wrong as my first impression. I turned a complete 180.

Right now I’m expecting the first couple months to be a M.A.S.H. style meatball surgery war zone. I now picture our child, due in January, as the king or queen of total chaos. I picture zero sleep, a bunch of crying, pets freaking out, me running around like a fool looking for bottles, diapers and the baby I misplaced.

Staci and I do have a plan for taking care of the baby. I go until 3 A.M. since I can go to sleep at any time but if I wake up a minute early I’m completely useless (fair warning to my employer.) We’ll also have a ton of bottles so misplacing all of them will be hard, but I like the challenge…I think I can lose them all. I misplace things like a pro. I also have a plan for having diapers on both floors of the house so they are always ready to go.

Still although we have plans for the things that I irrationally feel will happen I can’t shake the feeling that the first few months will be M.A.S.H.-like. Super crazy, emotional, scary yet pretty hilarious to the outside viewer. I’m hoping in the next three months I can get another idea of what it will be like stuck in my head. I don’t care if it’s wrong, I’d just like the anticipation to be of a little less chaos.

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