Remembering my dad's parenting

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my dad's passing. It happened on a Friday night, two days after he'd collapsed in a sushi restaurant, a result of hemorrhagic stroke linked to fourth-stage lung and brain cancer. He was a non-smoker and a marathon runner. We were mystified and devastated and heartbroken.

When I came back from Calgary, my place of birth, a little more than a week after he died, the holidays were in full swing. It all seemed so crass. Strings of Christmas lights on our neighbour's houses assaulted my eyes. The holiday music in stores - not to mention the sequined party dresses - offended me deeply. But I put on my big-girl shoes and marched back to work, ever-productive first-born daughter that I am.

I shared on this blog the words I wrote for his celebration of life.

Today I'm thinking about the aspects of his parenting that I want to emulate. The way he encouraged our curiosity (see cow eyeball anecdote), answered all our questions, taught me to be brave in the dark. The way he'd walk along the top of the white wooden fence that corralled the horses and say, "Can YOU do this? Come on, try it!" The way he encouraged us to laugh without embarrassment and aspire to anything, and how he'd patiently explain our math homework. I happily remember his endurance for living-room gymnastics. The way he could recall a few lyrics from every song he'd heard (a useless but fun party trick I have somehow inherited), and how he'd sing them to make us laugh when we were taking things too seriously. The way his own parents had taught him to dance or even drink a cup of coffee (which he hated) to be polite, just because they were important social skills. His love of getting elbow-deep in chocolate cheesecake batter, or making traditional Norwegian lefsa before Christmas with his wife and four sisters.

He loved to hear about the funny things Cameron would say. He never got a chance to know Alister, now two, in his new-talking stage, but he would have adored hearing him ask about a day-time moon and say, "I go moon now?"

Maybe someday, kiddo, he would have said. Maybe someday.

One week until Halloween!

I drove home with a kick-butt jack-o'-lantern belted into my front passenger seat.

Funny thing was, I found myself doing that arm thing that parents do when they have to stop suddenly. You know, where the right arm just juts out in front of the person - whether seven or 70, or actually a bag of groceries (or just a single giant vegetable) - as if somehow that was going to make the critical difference in the event of a collision?

But seriously, this is a special jack-o'-lantern. Toronto Star Living section designer, and resident pumpkin expert, Jo-Ann Dodds, created it for the video we just posted on how to carve a cool pumpkin. Lucky for me and my two boys, Jo-Ann kindly gave it to us to enjoy for the week. As long as we can keep it safe from racoons in our enclosed porch - and provided the weather stays cool - the jack-o'-lantern will be fresh to impress on Halloween.

The video is just part of the great offerings on parentcentral's fun Halloween Guide.

If you haven't seen the pumpkin stencils yet, make sure you download them this weekend.

The weather is perfect for a family outing to a pumpkin patch. Not sure where to go? Check out Patrick Cain's cool map of GTA area pumpkin farms.

And while many of us may start out with great visions of imaginative pumpkinscapes framing our front doorways, when push comes to shove, hollowing out pumpkins is kind of time-consuming. If Thursday comes and you have find yourself with more pumpkins than patience, try these simple mess-free approaches to pumpkin decoration. I'm counting on the toilet paper "mummy" idea to get me out of carving one of our beast-like gourds.

Don't get me wrong. Halloween is really fun when you've got kids, and I'm looking forward to preparing this weekend and in the days ahead. If I get REALLY motivated, I just might make a batch of popcorn balls using my granddad's secret recipe. We'll see.