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Spring Cash Giveaway! Win $108 USD

This Lil Piglet and Tales of a Ranting Ginger, together with a group of fabulous Canadian bloggers are proud to present the Spring Cash Giveaway starting April 2nd at 12:01 am EST to April 9th at midnight.

Enter to win $108 US cash via PayPal. Anyone with a PayPal account can enter to win this cash prize; open worldwide!

PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE PRIZE!

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Not Even Spider-Man Can Stop My Kid

I’m not even sure where to start this one because it’s a bit emotional and funny all in one event.

My son’s birthday party is going to be in a couple of weeks. I can remember last year, we threw him an Ernie birthday party and he loved it. I asked him what kind of party he wanted this year and he immediately answered “MarioKart!” with joy.

What?!?! How do you go from Ernie to MarioKart in less than a year?

On one hand it’s cool because I get to goof around with a bunch of video game stuff. On the other, I want my little boy back!!!

That brings me to our most recent event.

My son was just invited to his first “drop off your kid and leave” birthday party. He is 3 years old but soon to be 4.

You can forget about the fact that the party was just across the street at a neighbor’s house because it could have been on the moon for all I cared. The point is that my little man is growing up, and quickly!

The neighbor’s kid was turning 5 and was having a Spider-Man themed party, with a special visit from Spider-Man himself (very popular right now, the character shows up and runs games and stuff).

My son does NOT like people in costumes, so upon hearing this, I feared the worst.

Sure enough, I got a phone call from the neighbor about 30 minutes in, asking if I could come over and comfort my son, who was freaked out by Spider-Man. After some calming words to my delirious concerned wife, I ran over to hang out.

I tried to explain to my son that it was just a guy in a costume and that he had nothing to be scared of. Obviously that didn’t work, so we came to the agreement that if I went home and got his Spider-Man costume, he would stay at the party and take part in the games.

Excited to feel needed again, I raced across the street, Spidey suit in hand. Daddy saves the day!!

It took a few minutes for him to rejoin the party and he clung to me for another 10 like a shirt that had gone through the dryer without a Bounce sheet (you know what I mean, shut it).

Eventually I felt comfortable enough to leave him but figured he wouldn’t take part in anything until Spidey was gone.

Well don’t you know it, sometimes when left to fend for themselves, kids rise above the odds and make you the proudest parents in the world.

Here’s the photo I got from the neighbors, 15 minutes after I had left.

Very proud Dad upon seeing this picture. Almost as if I had said or done something to ease his mind about being at the party. Now if he would please stop growing for a couple years, I would very much appreciate it!!

Is there a moment you realized that you were losing your toddler to boy/girlhood? Share it with me in the comments so I can feel better about losing mine 🙂

Cheers!!

The Tooth Fairy Is An Extortionist

That’s right, I said it!

I am 33 years old.

I can remember the days of losing teeth and the excitement that would come over waking up the next morning to find a shiny quarter or two under my pillow.

I was having a very deep and serious chat with some friends the other night at a wedding.

We were laughing at old(er) people dancing and somehow the topic of missing teeth came up, to which one friend had an interesting story to share about his children.

He said that one of his children had just lost a tooth and after researching with other parents, he found that the going rate on teeth these days was about $5 a piece, so that’s what he paid.

I laughed at his hilarious joke and turned back to the dance floor. He then grabbed me by the arm, looked deep into my eyes and told me something I will never forget.

“I’m not joking man, the Tooth Fairy is a thieving little bitch and she charges $5 a tooth now!”

The words came at me in slow motion, like I was a stunned boxer who’d just had his bell rung.

This couldn’t be true! My kids hadn’t even lost any teeth yet and at this rate of inflation, by the time they do, I’ll be paying double that price!

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo” I yelled in the middle of the wedding.

Who does this chick think she is? Monopolizing the teeth market by being the only one who dares sneak into young children’s rooms at night to help herself to their lost ivory.

It’s common knowledge among adults that the money left under the pillow is not left there by the tooth fairy, but it is a bounty paid by parents so that the tooth fairy does her job properly.

Otherwise, the tooth would still be there in the morning and the parent would have to explain what happened. Explain why the Tooth Fairy doesn’t love their child.

Do you want to be that parent? DO YOU!?!?

My friend’s story got me panicking so I started to do some research of my own. The first person I asked was a colleague at work.

“I give $2 per tooth”…..”But I’m really cheap”

Bad Start! If the cheap guy is paying $2, that means I stand to be in big, big trouble.

Off to Facebook and Twitter for more guidance. The answers come flowing in like a tipped over truck filled with sewage.

“$2…$4…$5”, and then the bombshell hits as one parent tells me they paid $20 for the first and $5 for each subsequent lost tooth!!!

WHAT!?!?

The trend continues to confirm my fears that I will need to re-mortgage the house in order to pay for two kids to lose all their teeth.

It also puts the final nail in the “Should we have a third child” debate.

I’ve been racking my brain on ways to avoid this inevitable mess but so far I’ve only come up with one possible idea….

I’m going to try opening my own tooth fairy business! What do you think? It suits me, right?

We’ll see what the Tooth Fairy’s goons have to say about that but I’m ready for them.

No more will I stand idly by as she treats us parents like her slaves!!! We will band together to fight this injustice!

She may continue to try and take our hard earned money, but she will Never Take Our Freedom!!!!!

Who’s with me? What price does the Tooth Fairy charge at your house? Leave me a comment below and we can all share in each other’s misery…

Cheers!!

Diagnosis: Fat!

I was hanging out with some friends the other day (yes, I have friends). As we always do, we were telling the same old recycled stories we always do, while laughing at them as hard as we always do.

It occurred to me, in that moment, that my new blog has given me a new venue to tell these stories and I thought I would share one with you right now.

It all began with some back pain.

I had been experiencing some pretty severe hip and back pain for a few months before I finally decided to go to the doctor to discuss it.

He did some tests but in the end decided it would be best for me to see a specialist.

I’m going to interrupt the story here to let you know that for about 3 years, I dealt with a pretty intense bout of hypochondria. I probably visited the emergency room more than some doctors and that’s no lie.

So to hear that I was going to see a specialist was both good and bad news.

The good news was that I was going to see the magical specialist who would fix all my problems and send me on my way.

The bad news was that my doctor didn’t know what was wrong and I was going to a specialist because I was most likely going to die.

5 months later…my turn in the specialist appointment line had come. I waited patiently in the bacteria pit and taunted the other patients with my strut as my name was called.

I gave the doctor my test results and he looked them over in a very serious manner. He asked questions about my work life and general habits which I feel I answered to the best of my abilities.

After what felt like an hour (probably more like 3 minutes), he was ready for the diagnosis. Here is a word for word account of the results.

*******************************************************************************

Doctor: “Okay, so here’s what I want you to do”

Me: (Very excited at the possibility of recovery) “Okay, I’m listening” (Notepad and pen ready because I forget things)

Doctor: “I need you to go to a Wal-Mart or Department Store”

Me: “Okay, great!”

Doctor: “You’re going to go in there and you’re going to want to buy yourself a good scale”

Me: “Scale. Got it!” (Huh? He’s a doctor, so we soldier on, no questions asked)

Doctor: “Then you’re going to go home and stand on it. Then write down the number.”

Me: “Write down the number. Check!”….”Like my weight, you mean?”

Doctor: “Yeah, your weight. After that, I want to you to get on it again each day and make the number equal less than the day before”

Me: (Pathetic, fat, hypochondriac finally gets the message) “Yes sir…”

*******************************************************************************

At first I was mortified at the response and even a little angry. That was actually one of the first times in my life I had been called fat and I’ll never forget it.

It was also one of the first moments that made me realize how ridiculous my obsession with dying had become. I can’t say I’ve done the best job with his advice from that day but I have managed to conquer my anxiety towards death and that’s a big step for me…and for my wife, who I’m sure was getting tired of all the complaining!

Don’t worry, I still complain. The difference is that now I complain about real issues, like why I have to do dishes or why the cars drive so fast on our street when there are so many kids outside playing.

In the end, the angry from the diagnosis subsided at about the same time that I told the story to my friends for the first time. The laughter that ensued at my expense made me grateful to have had the experience at all.

Hope you all have a great day!!!

Cheers!!!

Win $100 CAD & a $100 IronKids Vitamins Prize Pack (US & Canada)

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I’m so happy to be teaming up with IronKids and Influential Media to be able to bring you this amazing new contest. Enough small talk, here are the details:

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* Giveaway will last for 5 days
* The giveaway is open to Canada and the US

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An Open Letter To My Son’s Barber

My son’s a good kid. Sure he has his moments, like when I tell him it’s time to turn off MarioKart or when we go to Wal-Mart and bypass the McDonald’s, but overall he’s a good dude.

He’s also a Tasmanian Handsome Devil. Just look at the above picture, I’m not lying.

I took him to get a haircut the other day, a task that used to be a nightmare but which has actually become a pleasant experience as he’s grown older.

When asked what I wanted them to do to his hair, I responded with “Just a bit shorter all the way around, we like to spike it up to give him a faux-hawk too so keep that in mind”.

I sat there with him and watched the procedure, he was good and listened to all the instructions he was given, while occasionally glancing up at the TV, which was playing Toy Story 3.

I’m not sure at what point he pissed of the barber but the end result of his haircut is something he won’t understand until he is much older.

I loved the movie Dumb & Dumber but it’s safe to say that the Lloyd Christmas look was never going to become a “Fad”.

With that in mind, all I have to ask the barber after this particular experience is….

WTF?!?!

Daddy Loves You Lucas! I’m so sorry for letting them do this to you….actually I’m sorry for sharing it with the world too, unfortunately it’s too late to retract it. I know you’ll understand someday!

Cheers!

Giving “Woot Woot” The Boot Boot – #BootTheWoot

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines WOOT as a word used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph.

Wait…WHAT?! This word is in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary???

I don’t know about you but when I took English in high school, my book report’s were full of Shakespeare and Mordecai Richler. I had no idea what was going on in those books and that’s why I repeated Grade 12 English 3 times….

With this new wave of ridiculous and confusing words, how am I supposed to help my children with their book report’s when the materialwill be the likes of “Justin Bieber’s Woot Woot Holla” and “Tracey’s #Twittatastic #Twittcrastination”?

Another problem I have with “Wooting”, is that in order to fit in new words, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary has to eliminate words.

Do you know what word they eliminated to make room?

DO YOU?!?!

It was the word Growlery. Do you know what a growlery is? I do because I have had one.

A Growlery is a “place to growl in, private room, den”. Where are me and my buddies going to growl at now?

Once I had calmed down, I emerged from my newly crowned “Wootery” and came up with this list of 5 new terms I would like to see added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, so that us men can claim back some of our manhood.

1. Couching – Not the embroidery tactic either, I would have that removed first. Couching is what Daddy wants to do after a long day at the office (after play time of course). Couching most likely involves watching sports or wrestling.

2. DisPinterested – A word to express a Man’s feelings towards Pinterest. Nuff Said.

3. Gameril – A medication, to be invented at a later date, to help men deal with an unexpected extended absence from the ability to play video games.

4. Man-O-Tron – {Multiple Meanings} a) used to describe a man who uses his ability to see things that only other men can see without actually looking directly at the object eg. Dude, you went so Man-O-Tron back there. b) a fictional robot that does a man’s chores for him. c) the nerdy awesome user name all men fight over in video game forums.

5. Bearpunch – A slang term to remind men what to do if they find themselves face to face with a bear or larger man.

I have submitted my list to the fine folks at the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and hope to hear back soon.

In the meantime, I hope my message is clear. I encourage all of you to join my efforts to “Give The Boot To The Woot!”

You can join me on Twitter @CanadianDadBlog as I launch my campaign to #BootTheWoot and please feel free to share your #BootTheWoot stories in the comments section!

Help me to build a brighter, Wootless world for our children!

Cheers!

Why Can’t I Be Spider-Man For Once?

Imagine a world where you could swing from tall building to tall building. A place where you were counted on by millions to save the day! You could have your own statue and people would chant your name in the streets as you swung on by.

That’s the world I dreamt about one day having, but those dreams have since come crashing down. You see, my young son also has aspirations of swinging from building to building as the amazing Spider-Man and that’s where my dreams end.

Have you ever tried to rationalize with a 3 year old? It goes something like this.

Me: “Hey Luke, what color is this orange?”
Luke: “Umm, Blue.”
Me: “No, it’s orange.”
Luke: “BLUE!”

And so on and so on. You can imagine the way the debate goes when he’s arguing for something he really wants. In this article’s case, it’s the chance to become Spider-Man for our daily super hero showdown.

Sure I could pick from any number of other super heroes but it’s just not the same. Here’s how I break down the other choices.

Batman is cool and all but he’s so dark that people don’t want to hang out with him or cheer his name. They’re more afraid that he could snap at any minute and go rogue on all their asses. Not to mention his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, is a complete jackass playboy millionaire. Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad…

Superman would probably be my number 3 option but that’s most likely due to the fact that the actor who played him, Christopher Reeve, has a name very similar to my own. Also, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, is a little too weird for me. Grow some balls man and stop being such a klutz dude!

Iron Man is relatively new to the scene, Ironman seems like someone to keep an eye on for all you superhero dad’s out there. I like the cut of his jib, in and out of costume. Tony Stark seems like a cool cat, albeit a little neurotic. The only issue is that people still aren’t sure about Iron Man, so the glory part is missing. In the end, I usually pick Iron Man as my go to guy when my Spiderman dreams go south.

Cat Woman would be an excellent choice but I am missing one key element which keeps me from becoming Catwoman and I’m sure you can probably guess what it is. That’s correct, I don’t have a cat suit. Nuts.

As you can see from the above breakdown, none of these options is even close to being as cool as Spiderman. He has so much to offer and I feel like we are a lot alike.

For instance,

– Peter Parker works as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, while I sometimes add pictures to my blog.
– Spider-Man often saves the world by foiling other super villain’s plans, while at my day job, I save the world by helping to put petty criminals behind bars.
– Peter Parker is kind of nerdy but also sticks up for himself when he needs to, and I often find myself in situations where I should speak up. Plus I am also a nerd.
– Finally, Spider-Man is loved by all and has droves of fans all over the world, while that is how I am perceived by all as well. At least in my own fantasy land, called Chris-Ville (Facebook game coming to a screen near you).

I wish there was a way for me to get this across to my son. He doesn’t even know who Spider-Man is. He’s never seen the movie, tv show or comics. He only knows about Spider-Man from Halloween so I don’t see how it’s fair the he always gets to portray him.

If the world needed a real super hero to save them, would they choose a 3 year old or a slightly overweight grown man. Sure I’m a little short and I use the term “slighty” overweight loosely but c’mon man, a 3 year old?

Something has to give, but so far, my attempts to get him interested in other super heroes have fallen by the wayside. He is firm in his belief that he is in fact Spider-Man as I am forced to continue selecting second rate super heroes.

Do your kids have a favorite character they like to be? Do you know how to get my son to hate Spider-Man? Please, I’m begging you to let me know what I need to do to get this done. Let me know in the comments section.

Also, please feel free to share this post with your favorite social media outlet. I am on so many sites now, I don’t know which way is up. Pin Me I guess…..I don’t get Pinterest yet.

Cheers!

Sh*t My Kids Say #1 – The Bad Dream

Kids are funny people. They really have no concept of right or wrong, they don’t know not to call people fat or stupid and they have no idea how hilarious their imaginary stories are to adults.

That has led me to the decision to create a new section here at Canadian Dad called “Sh*t My Kids Say”. I know, I know, it’s a semi dirty word but this is my blog and I’ll swear if I want to, LOL.

The first edition of this category features a conversation my son and I had about a bad dream he had the night before and it goes a little something like this.

D: “Luke, how come you came into our bed last night?”

L: “I had a bad dream”

D: “What was your bad dream about?”

L: “Your shirt”

D: “What?”

L: “Your shirt”

D: “What did my shirt do to you?”

L: “It’s blue”

D: “Are you afraid of the colour blue?”

L: “Noooooo, boop, boop, boop”

D: “???????”

End of Conversation.

I was pretty sure by the end of this conversation that he hadn’t been paying attention to me the whole time but I’m still sort of confused by the end result. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll have better luck the next time….