Take your kids to the polls

Today is a great day to tune your kids into current affairs and instill a sense of excitement and responsibility about voting.

As a busy parent, casting your vote can seem like a bit of a herculean effort. In Ontario, the polls aren't open early enough for most desk jockeys like me to get there before work. And after work, many of us face either risking being late for daycare pickup or hauling hungry kids along with us to the polls. I've been there myself, dragging a crying three-year-old who was having random attacks of "something in my eye," which required steady pressure with a cold compress.

Voting day aside, the campaign period brings politics to life for kids. Walking to school past all the lawn signs, Cameron, now five, sagely tells his dad, "It's either going to be Peggy Nash or the other guy."

The most important thing part is getting there to cast your ballot tonight, of course, and you should talk to your children about going to the polls whether you decide to take them along or not ("I'm going to get home a little later tonight because I've got to vote."). But if your child can come with you, that's even better. Make a big deal out of it, and encourage them to help you hand your ballot to the Elections Canada person. If it's in the budget, take a shortcut and make some ceremony out of voting at the same time — order a pizza or pick up some deli favourites as part of the celebration of election night. Make popcorn and watch the results come in - well, that part's for mom and dad. In Ontario, most kids are in bed before any results are tabulated.

I'm voting on my way home tonight, and we're going to have election brownie sundaes at our house tonight after Cameron goes to the polls with his dad. (I'm making it sound a little like this democratic exercise is one big excuse for junk food, aren't I?) Whatever you do — and however you feel about the outcome — I hope you have a great election day with your kids.

Amusements parks and other business

I got nauseous on the "Berry-Go-Round" at the Ukrainian Festival in Bloor West Village a week ago.

Alongside its plates of boiled perogies and cobs of butter-drenched corn, our little local festival features a tot-sized carnival with rides geared to the bouncy-castle set. Climbing inside one of a half-dozen strawberry-shaped huts along with my five year old and three other riders, I felt well within my comfort zone. But within seconds, the mother sitting across from me and I were both willing ourselves not to be ill. In the final moments, I resorted to being a complete wet blanket and forbidding my son and the other boy on the ride from turning the wheel that spun the strawberry on its unholy little axis.

Needless to say I wasn't ready for the Behemoth when we hit Canada's Wonderland on the weekend.

Does anyone out there know why so many of us are less tolerant of dizzy-making rides as we age? Is there some deterioration of the inner ear that occurs to make us queasy on the Gravitron, and even to cause that little flip in the tummy when we try to relive our high-flying days on the swings at the park? Or is it plain-old fear of injury, the kind you simply cannot experience when you have barely a notion of your own mortality, or even that your bones are breakable? I'd love to know.

But maybe some of you had no time to contemplate amusements rides over the weekend because you were inside constructing a solar system out of papier mache or helping your child work through pages of rote math exercises. I encourage you to check out the interesting discussion that is happening in the comments on Kristin Rushowy's story about homework.

Please visit this blog often. I'll point you to some of the interesting stuff we have on the site (if you haven't yet checked out our great finder tools, including listings of all registered daycares, be sure you do), and share a little of my own parenting adventures (and misadventures) as well, too. I welcome your comments and feedback. This blog can also be a place where we discuss and debate some of the issues that come up in the news. If you're wondering where to find the latest on the Chinese tainted milk story, by the way, you can read it here.

And speaking of milk, Dr. Jack Newman's breastfeeding clinic could close because the private funding source is drying up. Let's hope this clinic — which has helped thousands of mothers overcome some of the difficulties that derail breastfeeding — finds another way to keep its doors open. Read Andrea Gordon's article here.