daddy of two blog

Blog of a dad, with two kids and life...

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A Few Days Off

Posted on March 28, 2012 by daddyoftwo Comment

That’s weird how the kids react and change quickly when a new situation happen. Lately, Sweety and I went away for a few days. We had Sweety’s parents taking care of the little ones and everything was set.

We went away for four days.

Once back, it seemed like we had to start over again. Rules were not respected anymore, fits were thrown at the blink of an eye and general mayhem ensued.

Don’t get me wrong, my in-laws did absolutely nothing wrong there. They are awesome grandparents and they are doing their very best when they’re in charge of the kids. I figure it’s just the fact that we were away for a couple of days and the kids become a little disorganized by the fact that daddy and mommy aren’t around. The same thing happened two years ago when we left for a few days again and both sets of grandparents were in charge for a while.

All that to say that the few days away felt great. Yeah, I’m of the opinion that missing your kids or loved ones once in awhile makes the reunion better and it helps me realize how important they are and how much I care about them. To me, it feels like I enjoy their presence even more when I know how much I miss them when they are not around.

So, once back home, we had to work a bit on discipline during the following days, but all in all, those days off allowed me to regroup and focus, and helps me being a more patient, more understanding and way calmer dad than I used to be before leaving.

Everything happens for a reason I guess…

More to come
DOT

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Quit it!

Posted on March 13, 2012 by daddyoftwo 1 Comment

My son, after a few smelly ones, is being told by Sweety to try and stop it.

The Two: My bum, quit farting!

Hilarity ensue!

More to come
DOT

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Soft Skin

Posted on March 11, 2012 by daddyoftwo 1 Comment

A few days ago, we were driving The Two to the daycare, when he suddenly asked:

The Two: Mommy, I want you to come and pick me up tonight.
Sweety: Well dear, you know that Mommy walk you in, in the morning, but that it is Daddy who goes to pick you up at night.
- But I want YOU to pick me up at night.
- And why do you want it to be me so much darling?
- Because your skin is soft…
- Awwwww…

Aren’t they adorable?

More to come
DOT

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A Dad’s Best Friend

Posted on February 28, 2012 by daddyoftwo 2 Comments

Let me introduce you to my best friend. Well it might be a bit premature to call him that way, but I’m pretty sure that, given a little time, we will become inseparable.

That guy is THE man when it comes to put thing together, to make up after an accident and to redress wrongs. He’s always available, just needs the right connexion and he makes everything work and stick together. Since my kids are now more than a diaper wrapped bundle of love, now that they play by themselves and have idea of their own, I call that guy on a regular basis and he’s always helping a lot.

Here I introduce him without further ado :

Dad's Best Friend »

The hot glue gun!

Dads of the world, run to the hardware store and get yourself one of those. Any broken toy will thank you for ever and your kids will love you all the more for it. Until they break said toy once more or there is no more room for more hot glue.

More to come.
DOT

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From the Pit of Hell

Posted on February 24, 2012 by daddyoftwo Comment

A quiet week it was. Yep. I was too busy with life. In my last post I mentioned being a stay at home dad for a day and I was almost laughing because, well… who doesn’t appreciate an unplanned day off. I did plenty of things with The Two even though he was a little sick and we had a great day.

From there, things went downhill. Just so you know, it is actually 8:45 p.m, everyone is in bed and I’m drinking some very strong medicine in order to go to bed very soon and sleep. I never go to bed before midnight or later on a Friday. It is that rough.

So where was I? Yeah, that is where things went South. On Tuesday, The Two was still burning with fever so Sweety took the day off to care for him. They both rested and had a quiet day.

Then, on Wednesday, he wasn’t feeling any better so I took the day off and went to the clinic with him. Magically, the minute we got there, his forehead felt cooler to the touch and the nurse’s thermometer indicated no fever. But still, we were there, might as well have a look. Doc’s exam shows nothing. Conclusion, if the fever comes back or if he starts not feeling well again, come back.

One saved.

Thursday morning, Sweety had made her mind: everybody is alright, everybody goes where he’s supposed to go. Thurday night, all hell broke loose. The Two still has a bit of a runny nose but nothing else, so he’s running on high octane and want everyone’s attention but…

BUT…

The One has caught the bug, she fell asleep in the car (driving from her school to our place takes about five minutes) and wanted to sleep some more once home so I let her lie a bit longer. Sweety said that she had a funny (but not fun at all) feeling in the stomach and it got worst. At a point we were worried there might be something with the baby. And I caught The Two’s cold too. Welcome to hell, trying to fix a diner, entertain The Two, having The One eating a bite, taking care of Sweety who’s feeling between bad and worst. I was a little overwhelmed.

So there you have it: my week. Today, things were a bit better, Sweety’s stomach is alright and The Two and I will recover from the cold. Now the medicine is drank, time to go to bed. Nite nite.

There will be more to come.
DOT

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Stay at Home Dad for a Day

Posted on February 20, 2012 by daddyoftwo Comment

Last Sunday night, the phone rang.

Me: Hello?
- Hi, this is to let you know that The Two’s educator has caught some kind of stomach flu and she won’t be able to take him tomorrow. Sorry about that.
- Well… thanks for letting us know. I hope she gets better soon and, anyways, he was sick all week-end, so chances were that he wouldn’t have gone.
- Ok, she will probably call you back to let you know when she can take your son back.
- No worries.

So a 2 minutes call changed my regular Monday at work to a wonderful day at home with my son. We watched movies, played Monopoly Jr, played, played and played some more.

I had thought about doing some laundry, fixing something that’s been needing it forever and maybe working on my online projects. No way, I dropped everything and had a blast with my son! That feels so good.

Too often I think: ” I’ll do this and then play with the kids, or I’ll do that and then…” and you know what? Doing this or that end up taking forever and time for play is past due and it is time to eat, or to take bath or to go bed. Today, I decided to spend it with my son and it feels great.

Now he’s asleep. I must clean up a bit…

More to come
DOT

P.S. Sorry for all of you who are at the office.

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The Storm has Passed

Posted on February 16, 2012 by daddyoftwo 1 Comment

Hey all,

I’m back! Sorry if I got you worried after my last post about stress, but things are back to normal and even better than that!

We got very stressed because Sweety had a doc appointment where he was supposed to confirm if she was pregnant or not. Yes yes, we are going for a third! Don’t ask about the blog’s name, I still got about 5 months to figure it out.

The appointment went very well and everything was fine, but even though Sweety was already showing all the symptoms of pregnancy (sleeping anywhere past 8 p.m., feeling sick if it’s two minutes past meal time, cravings for hot dogs at 10 p.m. and shedding a tear while watching the local pet store advertisement), the doc couldn’t hear the heart of the baby…

That’s where ~~we panicked a little~~, ~~a bit~~, ~~some~~, ok, OUR WORLD FELL APART (well, almost).

Even though it is totally normal to not hear the heart of the baby at 10 or 11 weeks of pregnancy, we lived through a miscarriage last year and it felt like we were replaying the whole thing once again. That is how, a few days later, we were at another clinic for an ultrasound that quickly relieved us of any doubts. There it was, in perfect shape, with all the right parts at the right places and lots of energy (the ultrasound lady actually had a hard time keeping it in focus).

So now, we are reassured, I’m tucking Sweety in bed early almost every nights and we are taking extra care of her. As daddy and mommy are more relaxed and less jumpy, The One and The Two are doing better and the whole family is happier!

More to come
DOT

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Stressful times

Posted on February 7, 2012 by daddyoftwo 2 Comments

Without going into the details, we, as a family are going through a period of pretty intense stress. Daddy is stressed, Sweety is stressed and the kids, by rebound, are stressed. But without knowledge of what’s happening to them they’re having a bit of a hard time dealing with it. It might be my scientific side in its ugliest truth here, but I find it very interesting to see how they react and try to cope with it. Don’t get me wrong here, interesting has nothing to do with fun, it is just fascinating to see them learn how to deal with thing.

As an example, yesterday, after getting home from work, I set up to fix dinner and Sweety, pretty exhausted, went for a short nap on the couch.

The Two, noticing that mommy was laying on the couch went to play with her. She told him that it was a bad timing and that she needed some rest but that she would play with him later. I asked him if he wanted to go in the playroom (which is located in the basement), offer that he took with pleasure. His sister tagged along and they both went downstairs.

Then, for about 10 minutes, his game was to take a toy in the playroom and come upstairs (main floor) to show it to me. The thing is: the living room is on a middle floor in between (we own a split level house), so every time he was coming up the stairs, he was disturbing Sweety. Each time he got in the kitchen I told him not to come scrambling in the stairs that way, to no avail.

I quickly noticed that he was looking for attention. He felt that there was something wrong, couldn’t figure what it was and wasn’t feeling well with that. His way of feeling better was to get attention. But Sweety was too tired and I had to prepare dinner.

I took a minute off cooking and told him that I would have time to play with him after dinner but that it wasn’t possible right now and that I would be really happy if he found a game where he could stay downstairs. He looked at me with a grave face and told me that he understood, that he would go and play with his sister. For the next 20 minutes or so that it took me to finish preparing the meal, I heard nothing. So much that Sweety actually fell asleep.

After dinner, Sweety was rested and I had time so we spend time with the kids and everybody was happy.

Thinking of how thing would have turned ugly if I had given in to stress and lost my temper before dinner make me want to always be able to stay calm. Unfortunately, that not always as easy.

More to come
DOT

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I might have spoken too fast…

Posted on February 4, 2012 by daddyoftwo Comment

I might have spoken a little too fast when I said that after a week of consistency, I was seeing signs that the kids were getting more orderly, were listening better and that things were getting under control.

Actually, they probably were because both kids were caught off-guard by the change of attitude. They recovered, and pretty quickly I must admit. But we must persevere in order to obtain some kind of results, but it is quite demanding!

As an example, one morning this week :
The Two: Mommy, my blanket is all knotted, come and spread it in my bed please.
Sweety: *grmbl grmbl* what time is it??? Four o’clock, argh…
- Mommy come please.
- Wrap yourself in it, that’ll do…
- But mommy…
- No, you’ve woken us all week for ridiculous things like that, go back to bed and cover yourself with your blanket, you have a sheet in your bed, you don’t need your blanket to cover your mattress perfectly.
- *starts whining* Mommy, I want you to spread my blanket in my bed…

And it got worst…
But we finally got him in bed and trying to sleep…
And he came back at five…
For another invention of his own…

Can someone tell my why a three years and a half old toddler would need a blanket spread over his bed sheet in order to sleep at four o’clock in the morning?!?!?

I’ll survive.

More to come
DOT

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Activity with the kids

Posted on January 30, 2012 by daddyoftwo Comment

Photo courtesy of mariacasa, Flickr

Hi all, I hope you had a good week-end. Mine was great, except for the fact that I wanted to do activities with the kids, and so did they, but man that’s though!

As an example, on Sunday we did plan to go ice skating. Nothing very complicated up to that point. I hopped on the computer to check the hours for free skating (last week’s freezing rain screwed up all the outside skating rinks in the neighbourhood). From 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.. What?!?! Isn’t it like, nap time for all the kids in the world???

Well if it has to be, it’s still early, I’ll have them do their nap a little early, then wake them up at 2:00 and we’ll go. If I count the time to wake them up, dress and get there, we could be on the ice for 2:30- 2:45 and have a bit more than half an hour. Not bad.

We had a short chat with the kids and they agrees. Let’s all get to bed a bit early so we can do that!

They did everything perfectly and they were in bed five minutes later. I never heard a noise and ten minutes later, they were asleep (a record!).

Two o’clock rings and it’s time to wake them up. That when the fun started.

The Two has a bit of a cold, but he’s pretty energetic, unless he just woke up. The One is too comfy tucked in her bed and doesn’t want to get up. Sweety, well she just fell asleep on the couch and doesn’t want to come anymore… OK, am I the only one who wants to do that? And do I want to go that bad???

Well if I cancel everything (my secret wish once I realize no one really cares), I’ll have two kids that will wake up in an hour and ask to go skating. “We cannot go because you overslept” isn’t really an acceptable answer to them. I know, I’ve tried it many times thinking that they would learn and there is no point. So now, either I face the sadness in their eyes for not going to the rink or I deal with the pain of waking them to go… tough decisions. The element that make me pick my pain was that I wanted to go skating! So let’s get back to it then and get them up!

After quite a bit of cajoling, promising, grunting, shoving, tickling and almost outright threatening, I got them up, dressed and ready to go. Seeing how Sweety was still asleep, and by the look of how it would be another battle to get her up, I offered her to sleep a little more and to take the small ones all by myself. Offer that she took without as much as a second though I think.

So we eventually got in the car, we drove to the arena, got the skates on and… Wait, you thought that it would be that easy, heh? No way. I started by putting The Two’s skates on, everything went right. When the time to put The One’s skates on came, things got a little more complicated. As she had put a pair of thick socks on, when it got to push her foot down in the skate, her toes were a little squeezed.

- Ow ow ow! Daddy, that hurts!, she said.
- Ow ow ow that sucks, did I think. Well, that’s not good, I said.

Let see the portrait: The Two has his skates and his helmet on, The One has her helmet on, it is 3:05 and we’re not on the ice yet… I should abandon all that right there, right then.

- Son, I said, your sister’s having some problem with her skates, I think that we won’t be able to make it.
-But dad…
-*Ugh*

But but… I did all that and we are so close, would it really be in vain! NO!

So I asked more details to The One about what hurt her foot, we pulled the sock real tight (to make it a little thinner), and we gave another try to the skate. Once her foot well settled in and her heel pushed back as much as possible, she was comfortable. VICTORY!!!

- Dad, I don’t know why it did hurt, last time we went, I had that pair of socks and I was OK.
- Really? Great! Give me a minute, I’ll put my skates on and we’ll be on the ice right away.

I got into my skates and we got on the ice it must have been around 3:10. I had a thought about the fact that 20 minutes was a little short but it’s still better than nothing… until the bell rang. A quick look at my watch allowed me to discover that it was 3:20. What???

And everybody is skating toward the door to get off the ice. That’s where I thought:”Time to get the people off the ice, time to have the zamboni all over the place and make the ice nice again for the following activity… yeah, I should’ve figured that one up.”

- Ok, kids, time’s up, we have to leave…
- Already???

Lesson of the day, it was great to skate and I was happy I did what I promised, but man that it’s tough to do an activity with two young kids. I feel like I pushed them and shoved them all the time and in the end, the results still aren’t that great. And for what? Something THEY asked for and that THEY wanted to do.

Don’t look for a morale or a nice life lesson, I’m still looking for it.

More to come
DOT

P.S. If you find it, let me know!

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