I hope yours was happier than mine, anyway. The morning was good, certainly. Government Museums in Ottawa had free admission today, so my family and I visited the Canada Science and Technology Museum and the Canada Agriculture Museum. Good stuff, particularly the family-friendly activities at the Experimental Farm. My afternoon was considerably less enjoyable. I [...]
American feminist, democratic socialist, pop sociologist and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the hazards of forced positiveness, the subject of her book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.
These are my 4-year-old’s favourite socks — black, red and orange, emblazoned with flaming skulls. If there is a drawer full of anything, they are guaranteed to be the first ones selected for that day’s outfit. Some of you may be thinking, “Cool!” or “Weird!” or “Boys will be boys”, except my 4-year-old isn’t a [...]
At my workplace, people will periodically upload snapshots of their workspace to allow remote co-workers a virtual visit via Twitter. I was asked to contribute this photo on Friday. Visible are: An obviously fake Master of Locksmithing degree from Yale University, a Doctor of Esotericism degree from Billy Bo Bob University, Opus the penguin, a [...]
I first saw Brandywyn in November 2000, I think. She was on a poster in the stairwell of a building on campus, where my wife was studying. It read “Beautiful Yellow Labrador Found Wandering Fall Creek Park”, or something to that effect, and I knew that I wanted this dog. She was three years old at the time [...]
In my previous graph, I illustrated the challenge of driving with children. This time around: one of my challenges in dealing with the rest of you out there on the road: Do you recognize yourself in here anywhere?
My wife and I used to be able to drive to our favourite vacation spot in about 11 hours, including rest stops. Since we’ve had children, it’s a minimum of 16 hours of travel time, spread over two days. Here’s a graph I made that illustrates the new dynamics at work: Your mileage may vary, but if [...]
The persistent notion that the teen years are some overflowing font of unprecedented rebellion bothers me. Was this idea perpetuated by those leading child rearing experts that never actually got around to having children of their own? Someone obviously blinked. Often. Babies fuss their preference for certain foods, certain ways of being held, and certain [...]
May 3 – 9, 2010 is Mental Health Week. Take care of yourself, and each other.
April Fool’s Day and Twitter were made for each other, don’t you think? Sharing-oriented messages with a shortened URL courtesy of bit.ly or some other tool? It’s the perfect combination of trust, expectation of useful content, and an obscured link. The perfect storm. That was my thinking at least. For the last couple of weeks [...]
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