What to do this weekend

I don't know about you, but I've had a little too much of January snow and I'm open to just about any suggestion (well, not any suggestion, Mom...) for happy distraction.

Cameron and I are headed to Bunch Family Dance Party: Outer Space Edition on Sunday from 2-5 p.m.
We're going to dance like maniacs, decorate rocket ships, and hang with Yo Gabba Gabba! (I don't know the significance of this but C and his friends do). If you want to go to this event downtown at Circa, act quick on tickets because they are almost sold out.

For more cool ideas for passing the time on chilly days, check out our round-up of fun-filled family events for this week!

Table matters

When we had our first child, Cameron, we made a few mistakes about the stuff we bought. One of them was getting a conventional, but (for the time) upscale highchair -- faux-leather padded cover, two-layer pop-off food tray, and reclining seat.

The seams of the cover would get caked with food, and the apparatus was full of plastic crevices that -- to my boys, anyway -- just seemed to cry out, "Shmoosh a banana into me." In our first house we could open sliding doors off the kitchen and power wash the sucker on the deck, but with house and baby number two came the highchair's final descent to filth. The padded cover met its end one day when I went to clean it and a cloud of fruit flies emerged. (OK, I'm lying, this happened several times before true self-loathing set in and I pitched it in a fury of mumbled four-letter words.)

This highchair had a huge footprint that was probably responsible for about 17 black toenails, so prone were we to stubbing our toes on it while trying to move around our narrow dining room. And the reclining feature proved completely useless because neither of my kids ever fell asleep in it. Hell, if either of them were the "that-was-such-a-good-meal-of-peas-and-carrots-I-think-I'll-fall-into-a-satisfied-stupor-right-here" type of child, I think I'd be a different kind of mother. Instead, my toddler, Alister, and his brother before him, were more the "throw-a-bowl-of-cheerios-wriggle-out-of-straps-stand-and-say-'ta-da'" type.

So recently we moved the big high chair up to the attic and got this one, the Minui Handysitt.  

It's from Denmark, and is newly-distributed in Canada by a work-from-home dad of three based in Vancouver. This booster/highchair fits onto any kitchen chair so it doesn't gobble any precious floorspace -- a boon in urban homes. It has a sleek, modern Scandinavian style and folds flat so it can hang on the wall or fit into the back of a closet (making it a good purchase for Grandma's house as well). Watch for a round-up on modern highchairs and booster seats in the Star's living section soon.

I must say, however, that it has been a bit of a mixed blessing having Alister at the table with us (though that would be the case whether he was in a stylish Danish booster or something from Fischer-Price). He's constantly engaged in a science experiment of one sort or the other, dropping raspberries into his glass of water, pouring the contents of one vessel into another, or -- recently -- putting an entire bowl of yogurt on his freshly shampooed head. ("Ohhh, we can't trust him with bowls," his big brother said.) It is virtually impossible to eat two bites of toast in a row because cleaning up after Alister is such a demanding job. Just when I turn my head to remicrowave my cup of tea he'll use his remarkable overhand to throw an apple to the other side of the room: "Uh oh!"

If you have a toddler of your own, you'll probably recognize this move: I call it "the windshield wiper" -- you know, that thing babies do when they've got a huge spread of food all over the table in front of them and the only logical way to clear the area is, obviously, to use the full range of motion of the arm to get it all flying at once? "Not the windshield wiper!!! Noooooooo!"

When I'm not discussing the issue with my dry cleaner, I'm reminding myself that he won't always be such a boor. We will eat at restaurants again. He will grow bigger and get hobbies that are less destructive. I will, one-day again, consume more calories at the table than I burn. And I'll look upon on this day when I'm old and wish I could turn back the clocks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

Meanwhile, in other important news, I'm delighted to report that the York University strike is finally bleeding over, and that education reporter Louise Brown will be freed to follow other important parts of the edu. beat - along with colleague Kristin Rushowy. Check out what Louise has to say about Africentric curriculum in her three-part series, and Kris's report on a potential high school teachers' strike.

Smoking on playgrounds

Today we have a story on the City of Toronto's extension of the smoking bylaws to include a ban on smoking on children's playgrounds.

It will now be prohibited to smoke within nine metres of playgrounds, wading pools and splash pads.

My colleague expressed surprise that this ban wasn't already in place. Wasn't this obvious, she asked? Sadly, I guess it is not, and when you consider the tenor of the comments, you get a glimpse at the kind of uproar that this causes among people who are fixated with the city's "useless bylaws," and with having their freedoms infringed upon.

It's the same sort of debate we saw last week when the ban on smoking in cars when kids are present came into effect.

I think most parents will certainly agree that it's best to protect children from second-hand smoke. My father died two months ago today from metastasized lung cancer. He never smoked a day in his life. We don't know for sure how he got the disease, but in the kitchen where he grew up the air was nearly blue from both his parents' cigarette smoke.

Maybe better to fall on the paternalistic side if it can save some otherwise perfectly healthy people from succumbing to second-hand smoke?

I think so.

Workout at (my) home!

A couple of days ago I came across this Reuters story on a UK gym that has replaced traditional dumbbells with... (wait for it)...PEOPLE! Instead of lifting or pressing metal weights, this facility offers a number of actual human beings who have their weights emblazoned on their T-shirts. The idea is that having real people to lift creates "a mental image or intention of what you want to happen...the ultimate embodiment of visualization theory," according to the gym's owner, Richard Hilton.

I just want to put it out there to all those embarking on new fitness regimens (including healthzone.ca fitness blogger David Bruser), that this type of workout is available at my house for free. In fact, if you play your cards right, I just might pay YOU to come over and hoist my offspring (just as long as I can leave and go to the mall).

And with the economy the way it is, why not sideline in babysitting? The world needs more babysitters, especially the type who are available to come on short notice so that overworked moms like me can get out and aren't, say, stuck at home writing their blogs on Saturday night.

I have recently decided not to feel guilty that I only get to a couple of yoga classes per week (if I'm really organized), and that I'm waiting for the sidewalks to be a little less frigging icy before I start running again. This is because -- between the endless threading of legs through snowpants, lifting of kids into car seats and dancing like maniacs in the living room after dinner -- my two boys help me burn big-time calories.

Case in point: The other day, my five-year-old, Cameron, wanted me to hold him upside down by the ankles and tick-tock him like a grandfather clock. Now, I am 5'3" and a bit of a lightweight and he is 4' something-or-other and 40-ish pounds. We were endeavoring to do this in front of the mirror that's on the front-hall closet door (I guess it wouldn't be getting tick-tocked by your mother like a grandfather clock if you couldn't gaze at your crazy hair in the mirror). I could only do this a few times before I started to worry that I would drop him, head-first, on the hardwood.

"That's OK," said Cameron, "you can try it again when you're bigger."

Set a world record: read with your kid

The folks at ABC Canada and Oxford Learning are organizing an attempt to beat the world record for "Most children reading with an adult - multiple venues." Participants will read with their kids — or take them to reading events at schools and libraries all over the country — from 2 p.m. tomorrow, Jan. 23rd until 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24th. The reading material of choice is the Munschworks 2 collection, by Robert Munsch. You can download the story here, and print out text versions, or you can view them with illustrations online.

To help beat the record, all you have to do is register here. Then plan to read the Munschworks 2 collection for at least 30 minutes. Here are the details. I'll be logging on after work tomorrow to read Munsch 2 with my five-year-old, Cameron. Look here to find an event in your area.

The event is part of celebrations for Family Literacy Day, which is all about promoting the importance of reading with your kids on a regular basis.

I know I don't have to tell any of you about how important and enjoyable it is to share books with your kids. It's been a delight for me to see my little boy, Alister, 18 months, learn to run to his book shelves when we say, "Go get a book." His favourites at the moment are Curious George Rides and Goodnight Moon (has just started saying, "Nummy!" on the "goodnight mush" page).

And even though I sometimes groan at the end of a long day if Cameron picks an elaborate lift-the-flap book about fire halls, or some kind of interminable dinosaur fact book with about 12 dense chunks of text per page, both his father and I treasure the shared story time, the wonderful books we read and the delicious snuggle time.

So register for this great initiative and read Munsch 2 tomorrow or Saturday morning.

Smoking with kids in the car — not a no-brainer?

It's interesting to see the heated debate happening around Rob Ferguson's story about the ban on smoking in cars when children are present.

Setting aside for the moment whether or not it's realistic to police smoking in cars, I wouldn't have thought the ban would illicit such concern — not just for civil liberties, I get that — but that this is further proof children are taking over the world? Really?

Ya, sure,  we're clogging the aisles at Shoppers' Drug Mart with our giant strollers, and our snot-nosed children are climbing the walls at Starbucks when you're trying to enjoy your no-foam. But I don't think that the government intervening to encourage people not to blow second-hand cigarette smoke into the faces of children when they're in an enclosed space no bigger than six cubic metres is really terribly good evidence that the short people are taking over.

It would be nice to think that parents know better than to smoke in their cars with kids, but sadly, not all people do. Addiction sucks. It makes people do dumb things. Even people who are otherwise working hard to provide for and care for their children.

Commenter Larry Perlman makes the point that these type of bans are symbolic. Making them is not about how realistic the bans will be to enforce. It's about subtly shaping what is considered socially acceptable. It was once perfectly legal to ride in a car without a seatbelt as well. Hell, I remember fighting with my brother over who got to stand "on the hump" for a better view over the front bench seat (all the better for rocketing oneself through the front windshield should a collision occur).

For the record, we did have car seats for some parts of our childhood — I can actually remember being embarrassed by the "babyishness" of mine, so my parents must have been generally fairly cautious for the time. The point is that back then most people let their kids be without a car seat or seatbelt at least some of the time, partly because it wasn't illegal. The ban on smoking with children in the car will likely have at least some of that same effect.

Bedtime inflation

A couple of nights ago we heard that tell-tale sound of small, bare feet on the stairs. Of course, Cameron appeared and reported another "poked myself in the eye" incident, which would require someone to COME TO HIS BED IMMEDIATELY AND CUDDLE HIM UNTIL HE WAS IN A DEAD SLEEP. He was doing that thing that kids do when they're trying to convey the enormous gravity of the (somewhat imagined) scenario...? Working with the corners of his mouth to conceal a smile, kind of looking at us through his outgrown bangs and slightly furrowing his little brow... just in case either of us failed to absorb the seriousness of the situation.

His father and I are all-too-familiar with night-time delay tactics, which we call "bedtime inflation." When it comes to excuses for middle-of-the-night attention, we have heard it all:

"I'm lonely."

"My ear is hot."

"I miss my other jammies."

Cameron is better now (evening eye-injuries and "I'm-just-not-the-sort-of-guy-who-can-fall-asleep" declarations aside). It's our 18-month-old, Alister, that causes us the real 3 a.m. grief. Until very recently we were giving our overfed toddler a bottle when he woke in the middle of the night. Why? Just because it was the thing we did. And because it never seemed like a good night to listen to him wail for hours like one of his limbs had been severed.

While we still give him a bottle at bedtime, we've recently taken away the midnight-snack bottle (and the 2 or 3 a.m.-snack bottle) and it's going reasonably well. When he wakes up, he's relatively content with a little snuggle. But he's still night-waking. And he gets up between 5 and 6 most days.

Yesterday I interviewed The Sleep Doula, Tracey Ruiz, who - in the most non-judgmental way possible - very gently pointed out the error of our ways. We might want to think about breaking the sleep-food connection, she explained, because if we don't teach him to go to sleep without milk at the beginning of the night, he's not going to be as good at soothing himself when he wakes in the middle of the night.

Tracey was a regular birth and post-partum doula until she recognized the enormous need that parents have for support when they're sleep-deprived, at their wit's end, and about to throttle each other or their insomniac child. She talks parents down off the ledge with middle-of-the-night phone calls and texts, and can even come over to be heavy and get your child's sleep sorted out, which usually takes two or three nights.

To learn more, stay tuned for our article on what parents really want this Valentine's Day - a proper night of sleep!

Feist-y

I'm not sure how I feel about Feist on Sesame Street. 

Always happy to have some adult sensibilities in the kids' entertainment. But nonetheless, I feel a need to go on the record and say I was literally a huge fan pre-i-Pod commercial: I attended her Massey Hall concert when I was eight-month-pregnant, squeezed into a size-medium concert T. So there.

Just kidding, Leslie. You DO deserve to pay your mortgage and have nice towels and stuff...

Doodle-boppy update

You heard it here first.

Apparently the super-popular kiddy band, the Doodlebops, has added a second March 15th concert. Toronto Star readers can get a discount by using the promo code found here.

After-school programs

I signed Cameron up for an after-school program that he'll likely enter this fall when he's in grade one. That's if we're lucky. He was two when I called he inquire, apologizing for calling so far in advance. I wasn't early at all. In fact, Cameron would be the 10th person on the list for a program that only accepts a handful of new kids a year.

Today Andrea Gordon has an interesting piece on the dearth of formal after-school care and it's affect on kids, primarily in the middle-school years.

It's the minority of parents who strike gold with a daycare that can take their one-year-old all the way through to school's start and then take care of their child from 3 to 6 p.m. when mom and dad make it home from work. This leaves parents with a patch-work of informal, unlicensed after-school care, privately-hired babysitters or nannies (for those affluent enough), neighbours, playdates or maybe no supervision at all.

Where do your kids go after school? What do you think needs to happen to change the childcare picture in Toronto, Ontario and the rest of the country.