Posted 11:13 PM by Ted
Amy: Daddy, what does "boogie" mean?

Daddy: Well, I think it's a way of dancing. Like you shake around like this and you're boogie-ing, right?

Amy: Yeah, so why is everyone scared of the Bogey Man if all he wants to do is the Macarena or something?

Posted 11:08 PM by Ted
Ian (watching Olympics coverage): Hey Daddy, which country is the "United Snakes?"

Posted 10:24 PM by Ted
Amy: Daddy, you brushed my teeth with Ian's toothbrush!

Ted: What? But that was like 15 minutes ago...why didn't you say something?

Amy: Because you were brushing my teeth!

Ted: Touché.

Posted 5:28 PM by Ted
Quote of the day:

"Multiplication is like the plural of addition." -Ian

Posted 11:10 AM by Ted
Here's an interesting study in sibling behaviour. Amy was eating a late supper the other evening while Ian had gone on to watching TV. Suddenly, she cries out, "I dropped my spoon. Help me, Ian!"

Ian is too mesmerized by the show to pay any attention, but Amy persists. "Ian! I dropped my spoon. It's DIRTY! Help me, Ian!"

So then he takes the spoon and proceeds to start rubbing it on his shirt, never once taking his eyes off the TV. He does this for what must have been a good minute before he thrusts his arm back out towards her with the "clean" spoon.

By now, Amy has become distracted by a toy she found and ignores Ian's outstretched hand. Ian, however, is unperturbed, as he is still glued to the TV. Finally, Amy takes notice, grabs the spoon, and happily gobbles up her meal.

Now, I realize as a parent, I should have intervened at some point, but that evening, my fascination got the better of me and I had to see how the whole thing would play out!

Posted 6:52 PM by Ted
I have posted some photos of our trip to the CN Tower on my home page.

Posted 3:22 PM by Ted
A lunch date with Amy at Wendy's...

Amy: Daddy, you eat your tongue?
Ted: No, I'm eating salad.

*pause*

Amy: Daddy, YOU EAT YOUR TONGUE!!!
Ted: Oh no! What do I do?
Amy: Umm...buy one and put it in.
Ted: Really? How do I do that?
Amy: You buy a tongue. You put it in your mouth. Dat a good idea!
Ted: Oh.
Amy: It cost thirty dollars. Go to dollar store and buy one, Daddy.
Ted: Okay.

*pause*

Amy: Take sticker off.
Ted: What?
Amy: Take sticker off!
Ted: You mean the price tag?
Amy: Yeah. Take sticker off and put it in your mouth.

*pause*

Ted: Hey, what's that you got there?
Amy (referring to the Halloween toy with her meal): It's a mummy. It not gonna eat me.
Ted: That's good.
Amy (smiling mischievously): It gonna eat you!
Ted: AAAAH! Don't let it eat me! Help!
Amy: Don't worry. It not gonna eat you.
Ted: You mean it's a nice mummy?
Amy: No. It got no tongue. It not a ghost.
Ted: Ghosts have tongues?
Amy: Yeah.
Ted: Better watch out for them, I guess.
Amy: Yeah!
Ted: But what if the mummy buys a new tongue?

*pause*

Amy (laughing): Naaah...it can't. Mummy got no money! Silly Daddy!

Posted 1:23 AM by Ted
We spent the Thanksgiving long weekend in Toronto, supposedly to stay with my snowbird parents one last time before their annual migration to warmer climes; yet no sooner had we arrived did we start making plans to go off and see friends. Ally and I fought over who gets the car, but in the end, Ally's friends came by in their own car and whisked her and Amy away. I eagerly called my buddy and said I'd be right by after a couple of shopping errands.

Taitai (my mother) needed her weekly groceries, so I drove her and Ian over to the St. Lawrence Market, where we met up with John, Kristen, and Justin. (Justin is an old high school friend of my brother's visiting from Montreal, although in the past couple of years, I have gotten to know him better myself...we have this strange habit of running into each other at conventions.) Taitai, as it turns out, needed quite a few groceries for the Thanksgiving feast she had planned, and I was in charge of weaving in and out of tight crowds with her tottery two-wheeled shopping cart. The cart became progressively ungainly as bags were hung off it from every which angle, and I was ready for a quick trip to the car to dump stuff off, but Taitai knew of a place at the market where you can temporarily leave your groceries; she was, in fact, friends with the two ladies who work there.

Taitai and Ian with her friends at the St. Lawrence Market baggage drop-off.

And still the shopping went on. We had moved on to Queens Quay and were just coming out of a Loblaws superstore when I received an urgent distress call. Ally and Amy had been dropped off near a subway station by her friends, but they had decided to stop at a restaurant before returning home. While Amy had had a great time and loved the miniature umbrella they stuck in her drink, her mood soured as they left the restaurant, and she refused to budge, preferring to collapse on the sidewalk and scream at passersby. We drove over quickly and after wrestling her into the car seat, we sped home as she continued to empty her lungs.

Finally, we were home, but wait! There was one item left on the grocery list. Could we skip it? Not likely...so it was back to the store for a turkey. In the end, I left to see my friend in Richmond Hill around 4 pm.

My friend -- whose name is also Ted -- and I go back to Junior High. He was the adopted son of a funeral home owner and a tad eccentric in a way I have always found intriguing. I arrived at his bachelor pad, much of which was taken up by a WWII military strategy game sprawled out over a large table. Something about his appearance had changed since I last saw him. He had shaved his head, true enough, but there was something else. Ah yes...the mottled discoloration and scar tissue on his skin running up the entire length of one arm.

Apparently, he had been involved in an industrial accident involving large quantities of paint stripper about a month ago. We had been chatting for awhile of such pleasantries when I had to excuse myself for a moment to use the bathroom. Taking a wrong turn down a dark corridor, I nearly ran into a female mannequin (or so I thought) at least as tall as myself. Ted heard my shriek and came running forth. "Oh that," he muttered in his usual deadpan voice. "It's my roommate. He runs a home business outfitting transvestites. The bathroom's over there."

So the evening wore on. We went out to see a movie (The Transporter) at the theatre, and came home to watch Fight Club (one of Ted's all-time favorites) on video. When I finally got home late that night, my Dad asked how Ted was doing. I wearily answered: "Not bad...except he had a little run-in with a stripper." He nodded, not looking the slightest bit surprised.

Posted 12:46 AM by Ted
On Sunday morning, the kids helped pick cherry tomatoes from my mother's garden while I climbed a ladder to harvest bunches of juicy grapes from the vines snaking their way up the side of the house. Then we said our goodbyes and headed out for a day of fun in the sun at Canada's Wonderland; yet the sun, as we would soon learn, had other plans.

Arriving in the late morning, we quickly found our way to a booth where Sears was giving away company caps and snap watches to all employees and their families. Moreover, there was to be a raffle in just under an hour. That gave us barely enough time for Ian and Ally to take "The Great Whale of China" for a spin and then join Amy and I on a nearby merry-go-round. We arrived at the amphitheatre a tad too late to grab seating under the tent ceiling, so we baked under the hot sun for the better part of an hour as they kept handing out prize after prize. After not winning anything, we decided to buy a pizza for lunch and find someplace to cool off.

As we ate, dark clouds began to drift in over Wonder Mountain and the wind started to pick up. We headed over to Hanna-Barbera Land and the rain began in earnest as we were cruising around slowly in a swan boat. In a panic, we bought four disposable waterproof ponchos from a nearby gift shop just as the rain died off. The weather spared us for awhile after that, and we tried out some of the kiddie rides and even took in a Scooby-Doo stage show (which both kids enjoyed immensely) before the clouds opened up once more.



This time, it came down in a torrent. The ponchos kept us mostly dry except for our lower extremities. It seemed like a river was starting to form at our feet. When the rain finally started to let up a little, people began leaving the park in droves. On the positive side, this meant there were no more lines at most of the rides, and the operators even encouraged us to stay on as long as we liked. Ian and Ally went for the "Silver Streak", which is advertised as "Canada’s first junior inverted coaster with a helix."

Meanwhile, I took Amy over to a balloon ride she had been eyeing during the storm. She was delighted that a young boy with curly red hair was sitting across from her in her basket, and she started chatting him up as the balloon took off. The music was too loud for me to hear what she was saying, but she was smiling and talking animatedly. At one point, she even slapped her knee as she laughed, but the whole time, the boy only stared at her as if mesmerized. Eventually, she decided it was more interesting to pick her nose, at which point the boy seemed to snap out of it and look around as if trying to find a way out.

Then Ian came back ecstatic about his ride on the Silver Streak. Before I knew it, he had dragged me onto it for a second run. Generally, I hate roller coasters, and this one had us suspended under the track the whole time which to me seems frankly unnatural. I got my revenge, however, when I took Ian up to "White Water Canyon" for a ride down the tumbling rapids in a circular raft. He didn't have the presence of mind to put up his poncho hood when we passed under a waterfall. Sure, I had to stand him under a bathroom blow dryer for half an hour, but it was a fun ride all the same.

Posted 12:55 AM by Ted
Ally had bought some discounted tickets to Paramount Canada's Wonderland through her employer, and at long last it was time to go last Sunday. As usual, we snuck into Toronto late Friday night to stay at my parents'. My mother decided she wanted to take Ian out for lunch the following day with her luncheon buddies, and he was whisked away to a Harbourfront Italian restaurant called Il Fornello.

That left the rest of us wondering what to do with the day. Ally, Amy, and I went for a stroll along The Danforth -- in part, to locate the Pantheon Restaurant where we were all supposed to meet up later for dinner with my aunts. We stopped at a small Japanese/Korean restaurant and ate box lunches before hopping on the subway to head for the Eaton Centre.

I had it mind to see if I could finally find Ian a Beyblade. It's the latest Japanese toy invasion, and naive North American children have yet again proven defenseless vis-à-vis the masterful multi-level marketing. Ian had been pressuring me ever since school started to get him this top with a ripcord, or he could never be cool with his friends. Sigh. Beyblade tournaments run throughout every recess, and "stadium time" is so precious kids actually have to sign in for it ahead of time. Naturally, every store in Kingston was sold out, which brought us to Toronto. Okay, that didn't come out the way I had intended it. We came to Toronto to see family and visit Wonderland -- not to get a Beyblade...surely! (Any fellow parent would recognize the strange sinking feeling I'm getting in the pit of my stomach at this moment.)

My brother had indicated in a prior e-mail that there was a large Toys R Us across from the mall. It turned out to be a two-storey outlet in a beautifully restored old building. We turned the place upside down looking for a Beyblade, but it was all in vain. I was just beginning to turn my attention towards visiting those enormous record stores north of Dundas when Ally spotted another small toy store -- this time in the mall proper -- called "Beyblade Scalpers R Us" or something to that effect I'm sure. So I dutifully got in line with all the other beleaguered parents and spent $25 for a top.