I knew my son was different when his tantrums lasted hours at a time. I would dread waking up in the morning because I didn’t want to have to face another day with Dylan’s defiant behavior. Each day was an all-out war between the two of us, and it was over anything and everything. Sometimes he would yell at me because his underwear was too high or too low and it wasn’t ‘right’. He wouldn’t wear sneakers because they were too big or too small, even though he’d worn them just the day before. Sometimes he’d spit at me because I’d send him to time-out for telling me he hated me. Situations like these would go on every day, all day.
The kids are out of school, visitors are coming and that means many of the wonderful attractions around Calgary that parents like to bring their children to for entertainment and fun, can become much more crowded. Pressure is increased and stress is at an all-time high. How to deal with the crowds while you are navigating the city’s amenities with children in tow? Easy - if you plan ahead:
Daughters and dads have a unique relationship. There is that moment in the hospital when a dad first holds his daughter and his eyes and heart go soft with love and a promise to be there for her always. The toddler years are filled with chubby hands clasping onto dad’s finger as she begins to take her first steps; playing in the park; airplane rides on the carpet; and curling up for afternoon naps.
You know that old maxim: “Do one thing every day that scares you”? Maybe you’re a little too busy for every day or even every week, but what about once a year or every summer? My children all go to different schools; the older two are also in separate school districts, often resulting in differing vacation days or weeks. This year at Spring Break that very situation occurred with my eldest having a whole week off that his siblings did not. We took a lovely, short family trip, (aka visited the grandparents in BC the week they were all off), and I took my eldest son on a trip away, just the two of us, during his following extra week off school.
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