Merry go Rounds

Funny thing happend today. After a trip through the Big Ol Box (BOB) store, we were heading out to a dollar store. As we're pulling into the parking lot. I'm thinking "Hmm how do I distract BigE from noticing the McDonalds." Especially since this one has a playground.

Side note: For the love of all that is holy; McDonalds how can you not have every McDonalds restaurant not upgraded to include a playland. Look at your own marketing studies. These things are like drugs to the kids.

Anyways as we go into the parking lot. Something has BigE distracted. A big ferris wheel? Ah one of those roving fairs has opened up in the parking lot. Ferris Wheel, round-about, Berry-go-round, space shuttle, and a dozen prize setups.

One stand even had an inflated Dora hammer as a prize. Dora and hammers. A natural duo like Fish andChips. Maybe it's the Dora marketing machine's response to this "WANTED---- DORA THE EXPLOER STUFF FOR A BOY"

As I run into the dollar store; some nice man gave Mama and BigE unused several tickets when they were standing in the ticket line. So we (BigE) got a couple of rides including the merry go round, space shuttle and berry go round (Big Strawberry that you sit inside and spin).

One thing I did notice is how the Merry go Round has changed. If you head to www.merrygoroundmuseum.org you can see the picturesque Merry go round. Kids smiling, arms up in the air, lights on and fast motion.

It's exactly like that today. Except now you have to photoshop in a parent or two behind the kids holding on for dear life. Oh yeah and add in a talk bulb "Hold on Johny you don't want to fall". There is almost as many parents on the Merry go Round as kids. I wonder what the weight limit on that thing is?

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Spring has definitely sprung

While the recent heat has cooled a little. There is no better sign that spring is upon us then the apple tree blossoming. Last year it produced about 3 dozen apples. (Of decent small to medium sized apples).

What's best is they were just a little tart. Just the way I like them.

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Another Soccer practice

Well after the vacation break we were back to the local community center for another soccer practice. After missing two weeks I was curious if the staff had started to figure out how to coach three year olds.

The verdict is in. And it is no. They're not evil, or incompetent. They're just teen aged city staff (read summer job people) hanging out with the kids. But they just don't seem to understand the attention span lengths they're dealing with.

Each week they spend (read waste) 5 to 10 minutes trying to get the kids into a circle and pass a single ball around. So in case you don't quite grasp the difficulty. Here are the steps involved in this drill:
(a) Herd the kids
(b) Form the circle
(c) Show the ball and explain the drill
(d) Repeat for the kids who weren't paying attention
(e) Pick the most timid kid first
(f) Manually move the kids leg to explain that whole kicking motion
(g) Re-herd the other kids
(h) Re-form the circle.
(i) Kick the ball.
(j) Some kids run off to get the ball that they all missed.
(k) Re-herd the kids
(l) Re-form the circle.
(m) Try to get they're attention
(n) Re-form the circle.
...
DING times up. Move on to the next drill.

Now imagine what the class is like. You only had to read that list. And let's be honest by (d) you were probably bored and skipped it. Picture twitching and hyper three years who just want to kick the ball.

But it's not all bad. BigE had a little bout of shyness to start this soccer practice. We missed the first five minutes when he didn't want to play. That was ok. But I informed him that we could go home but we would not play with the pirate ship instead.

Realizing there wasn't going to be a better activity in the next 30 minutes he decided to join in. Then it became the running practice. But as he ran circles, largely ignoring the soccer ball, he was having a blast.

He did join in to cheer GOOAAALLLLLLLLLLL! Even if the other team scored. Thankfully that's enough to keep us happy with it for now.

Pirate Adventures

BigE's little buddy comes over to play with the pirate ship. Now we're really glad that we had two pirate costumes.

Pirates Ho!

Well somebody got lucky. There was a discounted pirate plastic play house at a grocery store today. We'd been looking to get BigE a play house of some sort. He really seems to love those things. Plus it meets my criteria that we not keep buying things available across the street in the park. "He can walk the 500 ft to the park." I think that is what passes as a hard ass these days.



But imagine the surprise when opening up the package we find two packages contains some clothes. Hmmm what is that? Turns out it also includes two pirate costumes. Well shiver me timbers.



Somethings are worth the 10 cents of polyester.

Who's reading this blog

So I did two posts tonight. Dora was just about done on the TV. (Yes I'm a bad parent and allow the TV to baby sit my child). I head over to the venerable Google Analytics. Well page views looked a light high.

Wait a minute we had page views from Beverly Hills, London, and Santiago. We are now an international player baby.

Ahh, it's getting dark again. We're slipping back into oblivion.

Green Credits

Have you heard of a company like terrapass that offers (i.e. sells) carbon offsets. I believe it was one of the companies used by Al Gore. If you feel guilty or want to reduce the impact, of say your combustion engine, you can buy an offset. Depending on the size of your car it's something like $40 USD.

Now comes http://carboncreditkillers.com/ "You Carbon Credit Reduction Source". It was bound to happen. Check out Why we do it.

Maybe there will come a day with 50'c average temperatures in the birth province, most of the province in under water, and in running for public office some party staffer/stoogie will dig this up and will I regret this post.

Maybe.

"I have to think about it"

A little bit of rough behavior resulted in a "Boot to the Head" (as one famous group used to say) and I asked BigE to be careful. Well low and behold he headed to the end of the bed, crossed his arms and put his head down.

"What are you doing"

"You hit some one you have to sit and think about it"

"Is that what they do at Daycare"

"Yes"

Ahhhhhhhh