Posts

Give Peas a Chance

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It is not surprising that romantic unions occur over a common love of certain food, as dictated by the adage that the way to one’s heart can be through the stomach. It is far less often you will see a couple bonding over a meal liked by one individual but not by the other, but these incompatibilities are still capable of providing insight to how relationships work. It was definitely not my culinary skills that urged my wife to enter into holy matrimony with me, but it was my cooking during our courtship that taught us both some relationship lessons. Read more

Jump and Jive

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If you found yourself, as I did with my wife and two boys, at the Downtown Chatham Centre on the Saturday before Family Day in February, you may have come across a lot of jigging, jumping, and jiving going on. In the mall’s food court, directly outside the entrance of Ella Minnow Pea toy store, there were two free concerts at 12:00 and 2:00 starring the energetic trio of characters from the CBC show JiggiJump. Chatham was lucky enough to be part of the JiggiJump Sport and Fitness Fest during a mall tour throughout Ontario. The male and female stars of the show, David and Judy, along with their colourful kangaroo friend, JJ, put on an interactive show of musical adventures that get kids moving. JiggiJump is a fitness movement for children that started out as live presentations in schools in 2006 before becoming a television series on CBC in 2013. In a promotional video on Youtube, Judy explains the program by saying, “JiggiJump gets kids to be active in a very simple way. It just uses play and it’s fueled by imagination and by really fun music.” Read more

Moving our Imaginations with Music

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Some big name children’s entertainers came to Chatham’s Capitol Theatre in November. Big name, that is, if you’re like me and have spent way too much time with the Disney Junior channel on television (only between bouts of Treehouse, of course, while secretly wishing it was TSN or The Food Network). I’m happy to say these performers are real people, too; they aren’t puppets, or animated characters brought to life with costumes, or puffy purple dinosaurs. They are a four-man musical troupe – Rich, Dave, Scott, and Smitty – known as The Imagination Movers. They play instruments and sing upbeat songs, scattered between comedic skits that encourage children to solve problems by exercising their imaginations. Not that there’s anything wrong with these other forms of non-real entertainment, but as a father, I take personal satisfaction in seeing my children’s role models graduating to characters that are flesh and blood, after the last few years of admiring Elmo. I admit, I like Yoda and Chewbacca from Star Wars, but Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are who I aspire to be. Read more

Mom & Dad in the Kitchen

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With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on the horizon, some parents may be treated to a special meal prepared lovingly, but not so expertly, by their children – say a misshapen smiley face pancake with a strawberry nose, chocolate chip eyes, and whipped cream hair for breakfast. But we all know, for the balance of the year, it is the parents who slug it out in the kitchen to prepare endless meals to nourish a growing family. I’m a new parent myself, so when I came across a book about a father’s exploits in the kitchen, I took notice as a way to better influence the eating habits of the two fruits of my own loins. Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton is a stay-at-home dad’s approach to ensure his daughter’s palette grows beyond a puerile affection for grilled cheese sandwiches by introducing her to his favourite international meals. Read more