I loved it when, in January, my son’s school took the kids on a series of ski lessons.

While I was disappointed that the lessons happened while I was at work (and I couldn’t take time off to watch his first slide down the slopes), he loved the lessons and it was something we wouldn’t have done for him this year.

This month, however, the school will be taking the kindergarteners out for a series of swimming lessons. As per usual, these field trips will happen during the day when most parents are working and unable to attend. This means weekly (almost daily) requests for volunteers to come and chaperone the kids in the change room. These kids are 5 and 6, fully capable of changing themselves from school clothes to swimsuit, but chaperones are needed for assistance, I get it.

When you’re a working parent and unable to take 4 half days over the course of a week to supervise swimming lessons, that means you hand over your naked child to a random parent in your kid’s classroom. Police checks are mandatory to volunteer at the school, but still.

My sons have been taking swimming lessons since they were less than a year old. Zacharie loves the pool and is very excited for a week of jumping in to the water with his friends, but I have hesitations about letting him go.

While I loved the opportunity he was given for skiing lessons, are swimming lessons something schools should be providing? Aren’t most to all 5 year olds in swimming lessons? If you need to send out countless emails begging for male volunteers to attend the change rooms, shouldn’t that be a sign that perhaps these kinds of activities aren’t possible during working hours because of parent schedules? Would you be comfortable sending your son on a swimming field trip at 5 years old with “random dad” looking after their nakedness in the change room?

Learning to swim is, in my opinion, a mandatory life skill. If schools insist on offering the program, they should wait until an age where as many change room chaperones aren’t needed and children are more self-sufficient. I appreciate the efforts schools make to give our kids experiences beyond the classroom, but some things (like looking after naked kids) are better left to the parents.

Zacharie has played mini golf. We’ve had plastic sets of clubs and balls to swing wildly in the backyard. But he had never swung a grown up golf club until this weekend when we stepped up to the opening of the driving range at the Shaganappi Point Golf Club.

I got a bucket of 100 balls expecting he would swing 6 times, I would do another 60 or so, and we’d leave the rest at the course with Z complaining about being bored.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. He loved it. He cheered whenever he made contact, and he was constantly leaning over to my stall to grab more balls.

I didn’t really play golf until I was 10. Zacharie’s not even 6 yet, so the driving range will probably be as far as it gets. Like his hockey play, Zacharie is a lefty, and while he had a blast hitting my righties, he was a little uncomfortable.

The driving range was such a success, I stopped at the sporting goods store on the way home – just to see how much clubs for a kid are.

$189 for half a dozen clubs and a bag.

They looked awesome, and it’s not going to happen.

So I will search Kijiji to try and find 1, or 2, or 3 clubs that will be left handed and the right length so he can tag along to the driving range with me 4 or 5 times this summer. I may be an impatient parent, but we’ll take our time with the golfing habit.

The best part? I might just have a couch mate for The Masters next weekend.

Colourful Easter Eggs are easy to spot on a frozen field of snow

The stories will roll out again this weekend about parents dominating Easter Egg hunts and helicoptering over kids to make sure their little pride and joy gets the biggest and best treats.

This weekend, I took the boys to attack a local Easter event that served up bunny races, pancake breakfast, and play area before heading outside to hunt for eggs.

The parents were great. We stood back and helicoptered just enough to make sure the kids didn’t fall in the mud, or slide on the ice. The kids ran and gathered up as many plastic eggs as they could. It wasn’t as many as they would have liked, because of the tweens.

The Bieber set dominated our event. 10-13 year olds who didn’t have parents hovering to make sure they were safe, devoured the field of treats like a pack of wolves. While young kids need to be shepherded around at ‘family events’, tweens can be dumped off by a parent and then picked up a few hours later. They’re old enough to ‘look after themselves’ at a family friendly event, but without the watchful eye of a parent, they have no sense of anything other than selfishness.

The tweens didn’t grab one of the bright, cute baskets to gather the eggs, they simply rolled up their shirts and stuffed in as many as they could. Think of the grubby Halloween kid in a hoodie pulling a 7 hour shift trick or treating – this was the Easter Egg Hunt equivalent. The tweens were greedy, relentless, and had no problem elbowing kids half their age out of the way. It was terrible.

But the organizers had them beat. Instead of actual treats inside each plastic egg, the point was to have some fun running around the field gathering eggs before heading back into the hall to approach the Easter Bunny throne. No matter how many eggs you had in your basket, one or a hundred, each child was given a bag with a large handful of treats. The greedy tweens got the same amount as the bashful toddlers. Problem solved.

It was an awesome day with crafts, face painting, real bunnies, costumed bunnies, and lots of smiles – no thanks to the greedy tweens.

How do you know when you’ve found “the one”?

As we get back into the search for a nanny, we are back looking at an international to help us out. Most often, that means a Filipina nanny looking to take advantage of the Live-In Caregiver Program that can fast track their immigration status if they spend a few years working as a domestic.

I’m going to generalize, but the nannies we’ve interviewed so far are all just 50 shades of beige. They are quiet. They are polite. They are helpful. There is absolutely nothing to make them stand out from each other.

So how do you know when you’ve found “the one”?

Nannying for our family will not be a difficult task. My wife and I both work flexible schedules that see at least one of us home by 4 o’clock everyday. Charlie is in school 2 half days a week, and by September that will move to 5 half days a week. Zacharie is in school full-time. We just need someone to be there for half a dozen hours a day to make sure the kids are safe, entertained, and happy. Easy peasy.

But finding that person with the spark of creativity, enthusiasm for our children, and passion to help them learn has been difficult. Like I said, everyone is polite, kind, generous, and any other positive adjective you could use, but they’re also very passive.

Perhaps it’s a cultural thing. As we are discovering, this passive, beige attitude can lend itself to abuse. We are hearing from nannies that are working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. They are expected to follow the family to their vacation home on weekends and look after the kids (and their friend’s kids) while the adults go out.

We are hearing stories of nannies who work for parents that are on call, and will often get last minute demands for working 14 hour days without getting any overtime. There are stories of verbal abuse, and not getting paid timely.

They are the sort of stories that make you think of slavery, to be honest.

We interviewed a nanny last night, and she was so sweet – but she kept calling me “Sir.” It was weird. I don’t want a servant, I just want some help. Sure, I’m the employer, but I don’t want to be “the boss” – I want them to feel a part of our family.

Our caregiver will not have it hard, but I still want someone with a spark. Perhaps that’s why our past 2 nannies have been born and raised Canadians. They were easy to communicate with, and had enthusiasm for the job – for a period of time. The fact that we are now looking for our 4th nanny in 18 months has forced us to change things up and look for someone who is seeking a long term opportunity.

We are looking for an international with the hopes of giving someone the opportunity at a better life. They chose the Live In Caregiver Program to bring their family to Canada to have more opportunity. Our job description is easy, and we treat the people who live with us with respect – if we could only find someone with a spark.

A couple of times a month, I’ll head out and play poker. It’s not an all night thing for me, it’s a 2-5 hours, usually on a Friday night after the kids are in bed. Jen stays home and flips through Property Brothers and Days of Our Lives on the PVR and I head out to play some cards while listening to some podcasts, or watching a a Canucks game on NHL Gamecenter.

Last night I had a good session. In less than 2 hours I racked up a nearly $600 win. Jen likes to check in when I’m out, and when I texted her a picture of my chip stack, she implored me to “come home right away!” It was a very loose table, and there was probably another couple of hundred dollars to be soaked, but I did as I was told and paid my wife tax when I got home.

Last week, after a $300 win, I dropped $100 in her purse. This week, it was $200.

So it got me thinking – much like who should get the Roll Up The Rim win when someone else buys you a coffee, what happens to ‘lottery’ winnings in a relationship?  If you scratch and win $100, do you have to give half to your wife?  Because my hobby happens to have a financial reward attached to it more often than not, am I required to hand over a hundy to my wife when I come home?  I don’t ask her for cash when I lose, is it fair she only share in the wins?

We don’t have joint bank accounts. I pay the mortgage, the groceries and a few house bills, she pays the nanny and the cable. We don’t “keep track” as to who pays for what when we go out. Sometimes she treats for dinner, sometimes I do. Sometimes she pays for the movie date with the kids, sometimes I do. We each know the bills we’re responsible for, and manage it accordingly.

We probably should have joint accounts, but it’s nothing that we’ve done to this point.

So when Jen gets a bonus at work, or I have a big win at the poker table, that money belongs to the individual. It doesn’t go in a communal pot to be spent on vacations, or special projects. Still, I feel a little guilty about heading out to ‘gamble’, and so if I win big I break off a piece for her so that she understands it is a profitable hobby (I keep track with an app my poker winnings (and losings), and I do win in the long term).

How do you handle money at your house?  Do you have joint accounts?  If you win at poker do you break some off for your spouse? As a wife do you expect to be “paid” after your husband has a good night at the tables?

“Let’s go around the table!”

It’s the first thing Charlie shouts as soon as we are all sat down for dinner. It started about a month ago, when I read something from Shannon Hilton. Her family makes a point of going around the table to talk about the highs and lows of everyone’s day. I brought it to our family table a couple of times over the course of a week, and now it’s mandatory.

Last week, when it was just a boys’ night out for dinner as Jen worked late, Charlie still shout it out the moment we slid in to our booth.

“Let’s go around the table!” he cheered.

Charlie usually talks about a toy he played with. Zacharie will share a story about who was “Chef du Jour” at school, and what game they played at recess. Jen will talk about a client, and I’ll tell a funny story I read online.

We also ask the boys if their day was “ça va bien” or “ça va mal” and find out how things ‘really’ are in their lives.

I’ve lamented that family dinners can be a bit of a stressful endeavour, but as the boys get older and can feed themselves, and share stories, things like this make the effort worthwhile.

The next time you all sit together, go around the table and share something of your day.

First you get rid of the crib, and get them a ‘big boy bed.’ Then, around the time of their 5th birthday, the cartoony characters need to come down for something more befitting a growing kid.

Maybe it’s sports posters. Maybe it’s superheroes. Maybe it’s Star Wars.

I am working on a piece for Babbleto be published next week with all the brilliant designs one can find on Etsy to do ‘big boy’ decorating.

I grabbed a few dye-cut stickers from artists on Etsy. Here’s how it went from placement on the wall to final layout.

For his birthday, he’ll get the comforter and sheet set from Pottery Barn Kids.

There’s a scene in Will and Grace when Karen walks into a pool meet and says “Why doesn’t someone just pee directly on me?” That’s my wife when it comes to public play areas.

Mall playgrounds, fast food playgrounds, or the bizarre thing that seems to be everywhere in Calgary – pay to play places.

Coming from a city that has weather good enough to play outside year round, I have never really ‘gotten’ the indoor playplace thing that seems to be the love of suburban parents on the prairies.

Friday night I took the boys to Tommy K Play in NW Calgary (Calgary Playground Review has a good rundown of what to expect) and while my kids had a blast, the whole experience soured me.

It boiled down to this: I paid $25 for my kids to play at a playground. That’s it. For an hour they climbed in a netted course, went down a slide, bounced on a trampoline, and played tag. The same sort of excitement we can get at any of half a dozen outdoor playgrounds near our house for free, I paid for.

On this gorgeous sunny Friday evening it was -5 and a brisk wind was whipping across our neighborhood. We could have bundled up and played near the house, but my wife was working late tonight so I decided to be Not At Home Dad, and take the boys to their favorite restaurant and then some running time to wear them out before bed.

It’s because winter lasts forever on this corner of the planet that these play places exist. It’s the same reason that West Edmonton Mall is a beacon in a 7 month cold and dreary winter. In a town filled with SAHM, these play places become the social centers of a cold community. Dozens of tables face a netted off climbing area where the kids are left to run wild while the Yummy Mummies chat and kibbitz.

The same sort of play places are at local malls where you have to sign up hours in advance for a 20 minute window to have your kid climb on some plastic breakfast food items. These sorts of indoor playgrounds are big business in Calgary. With snow likely on the ground from Halloween to Victoria Day, and temperatures averaging below zero virtually the entire stretch, SAHM need somewhere cozy to hang with their friends instead of death-gripping a latte in the wind at the park.

I get why they’re popular, but it doesn’t mean I have to like them.

If you are who you hang out with, then these screaming, crying, aggressive children were not the type of friends I’d want my kids having over for a playdate. The crowd of parents, especially the dads with flat-billed baseball caps, goatees, and huge hoop earrings, showed that an adventure this deep into the suburbs would leave me without peers. I’m glad I went to see what all the fuss was about, but it was an experience we will not be revisiting.

On Sunday afternoon, with the weather a similar sunny few degrees below zero, we packed up our bikes and went for a ride around the neighborhood nabbing 3 geocaches.  We put about 3 kilometres on our wheels walking around the neighborhood and it didn’t cost us a dime.

I’m jealous of other parents. Green with envy. I’m appreciative of what I have, but lately I can’t help but wish things in our life were different.

Our Nanny has given notice. After 2 weeks on the job, she has decided that, at 24, she doesn’t want to be a caregiver. So here we go again. The search for the 4th Nanny in less than 18 months begins.

It sucks, and that’s where my jealousy comes in.

As I do an inventory of our friends with kids I quickly realized that Jen and I are the only family we know where both parents work. Every one of our other friends have a parent (mother) staying at home.

Tears of guilt were shed at home and so we crunched the numbers. Could we do it? Could we lose one income, and one expense (the Nanny) and survive just on my income?

The budget items started to be deleted: no more private school for the boys, we’d have to sell a car, and most likely get a smaller house to shrink the mortgage. We could do it, but how happy would life be? My 20 minute commute to work would balloon to an hour or more. We’d have to move to a neighborhood where access to schools would be worse (at least a 45 minute bus ride each way). And there would be no extras. No vacation. No money for extra curricular activities. I could afford to pay the mortgage, the bills, a car, and some clothes – that’s about it.

So, this week, I am very jealous of my friends who can afford to have a stay at home parent. I am jealous of my friends who don’t have to write $21 000 in cheques to someone to look after their kids for 5-6 hours a day. I am jealous of my friends who can have a parent stay home, and still make ends meet.

When I look at spring break coming up this week, I see all the camps and activities that kids are being registered for. We can’t do it. There’s no way to get the kids to and from because we work. Even with a Nanny, there is no way to get the kids to and from activities across the West Side of the city. If Jen stayed home, she’d have the car to take them to bug detective camp, bike riding class, Lego camp, swimming, and more, but we still wouldn’t be able to afford the $180/wk registration for each kid for a half day, week long camp.

With both of us working, we can afford the activity, but have no way to get the kids around. Even then, Spring Break happens in the heart of a major ratings’ period for radio. So while the hallways at school have everyone whispering about ski trips to Whistler, beach escapes to Florida, or a week at the cabin, we are facing a week where our children will be at home with a Nanny that doesn’t want to be a caregiver anymore.

It sucks, so I’m jealous.

I don’t know how our friends afford to have one parent staying home. Some of them work in oil and gas, others are executives, others are self-employed. Some have been here for years, lucky enough to not only have a high salary, but to have bought houses in Calgary when they were $250k less than they are now.

We moved here in December 09. Just at the tail end of a boom, and when I was looking for houses, it was slim pickings. I had to take what I could find, and I had to pay full price for it. We had to settle with a less than an ideal home, in our ideal area. Our house does not make us happy, it’s not a comfortable place to live, the layout is terrible and despite being nearly 2200 sq ft, it feels like a 600 sq ft apartment with 5 people in it.

I’m rambling because I’m frustrated. We have friends wanting to get a bigger house with a 3 car garage so they can have room for their Porsche. We have friends who are renovating their entire home, for the 2nd time. We have friends with getaway lakefront cottages.

We’re just trying to find a Nanny that wants to stay. We’re just trying to find someone who will love our kids as much as we do.

There are times when I wish I could hit ctl-alt-del and do a refresh and start things over. There are times when I wish life was a video game and you could just hit that reset button, get a new man and try that level again. This parenting level has been a mess and I’m feeling incredible guilt that I’m screwing things up for my kids.

So I’m looking for a way to make an extra $40 000, and looking for a new Nanny. Again.

How do you do it? How do you make one income work to balance your books and family?

We don’t look sick, but we are. I swear.

We’ve been hit with a pretty nasty bug this week.

I got it first, I think. It might have come via school and our nanny, or it may have come from colleagues at work. No matter, about a week ago I broke down. Hard.

At first I thought it was my usual “Man Cold.” The one where I whine a lot, overact my pain, and spend a night on the couch skipping out on chores. I never miss work with a Man Cold, but I’ll complain about it.

This one was worse. Thursday night I had a pretty bad fever and it crept into my throat. I pulled a half day at work pumped up on a couple of cold medications. Friday night I was up coughing all night, and my voice was absolutely garbled. I went to the doctor – something I never do. Like never ever.

After a 2 hour wait in the lobby, I was diagnosed with a severe bronchitis that would develop into pneumonia if left untreated. I coughed up a loogie for him in the office so he could examine my brown/pink mucus and once we determined I wasnt coughing up blood (each cough felt like a dozen knives mincing my lungs), he handed me a prescription for moxifloxacin.

I spent most of the weekend in bed, and wouldn’t you know it? My bug spread.

The doc warned me I was contagious, so I’ve been off work for a couple of days this week. And while I may have spared my colleagues, I didn’t save my family.

Charlie started to feel a little sweaty and so we took him to the Doc on Monday and he was confirmed to have bronchitis too, and a prescription for biaxin was dispensed.

Today, I’m on day 4 of my meds and while I still have a barking cough that would chase back a big dog, I feel fine. While Charlie struggled a little bit this morning, enough that we kept him out of school today, by mid-morning he had perked up considerably.

With our Nanny down for the count, the Chooch and I took off for some fun time. I’m a not at home dad, and if we were both going to feel “okay” on this sick day, we weren’t going to spend it at home.

Sick days are awesome.