The 3 Little Pigs

When Monkey was 4, I read him The 3 Little Pigs with a few edits. When the wolf went to the straw house, the book may have said that the wolf ate the pig, but the words read to Monkey were, "And the pig ran to his brother's house." The same thing happened at the house of sticks. At the end of the story, when the wolf goes down the chimney in the brick house, and falls into a pot of boiling water, Monkey heard that, "the wolf didn't get any apples." For a four-year-old, this meant no nightmares. ... Well now, Monkey is 8 -- time for the truth. I gave him the book and he read it for himself. He was so amused by the lines where I had crossed out the nasty stuff and had pencilled in the "softer" version. He has promised no nightmares.

Family race day

Our family registered for a local race.  Mommy in the 10K and the boys in the 2k.  Grandma joined the boys for the 2K since it was at the same time as mommy would be running and daddy had no interest in jogging anywhere if he was not being chased.

 Everyone had a great time and the boys were thrilled to each receive a medal for finishing.  Mommy came in under an hour and beat her previous personal best.

Daddy and Monkey's Day Out

On Monday it was Monkey's turn to have a day out with daddy. I also took the initiative to grab the National Gallery pass from the library, so we were off for our own adventure. We took the bus to the O-train and waited a few minutes for it to arrive. I still remember fondly when I took the boys at a very young age to ride the rails before I went off to work for the afternoon. In some ways it seems like yesterday, in others it seems ages ago. Here's Monkey and me at the beginning of the day, and then him waiting for the O-train to pull in. As always, he loves the tunnel. I love how his sense of humour is developing.(note the arms tied together in front of him and his hands poking out of the top).

We arrived downtown and checked out Chapters briefly. Monkey headed straight for the escalator. Then he checked out all of the Thomas stuff. Memories indeed. I'll miss this when he's a teenager (right?).
Next, we took to the gallery.
We liked this photo the best. It looked like the spider was growing right out of the top of his head. They had an amazing program called 'artissimo' on. It's phenomenal and I suggest it to any and all parents. There were 8 different activities to choose from. Monkey chose the 'Feely Box' and the 'Audio Sound Tour'.
For the Feely Box activity we were given a box that contained 6 items in an enclosed box with a a flap at one end and a map. We used the map to find the room in the museum that contained the picture which had all 6 of the items in it. It was actually quite challenging and made for a good long discussion. We finally agreed and then opened the box (as per the instructions) to match the items up to the picture. It was a super way to discuss art in a totally unique way and Monkey thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
We also took the Audio Sound tour. An old-school mp3 player came with a map of its own. When you found the room that matched the colour-coded map, you entered the numbers for that room into the MP3 player and listened to the corresponding sound. You then searched that room for a picture that contained that sound. We each got an audio set up, so we discussed the sounds and then the pictures for each one. It was a great way to spend an hour or so working our way around the museum.
We stopped for lunch (at 2:30ish!) and then headed for the Peace Tower, another favourite of Monkey's. On the way, we passed by the drained canal. Neither Monkey nor I had seen this one before. We went up the elevator and checked out sights.
All too soon it was time to grab a hot chocolate and a muffin at Tim's and head home. We had a wonderful day of discussions about being a guy, artwork and the world in general. Likely my favourite conversation involved seeing the line-up at the Mission when we arrived downtown. I told Monkey how they were all waiting for their lunch, and that if they didn't wait in line that they wouldn't get lunch today. Monkey processed it a little and then said 'if it were me, I'd take two lunches.'. Surprised, I asked him why. He replied, 'because if I don't have lunch today, I probably won't have supper coming either'. I asked him how the last person in line would feel if he found out that he didn't get a lunch because they were one short. He was saddened. When I asked him what would happen if everyone at the line took two lunches using the same idea, it really sunk in how the system worked. He replied 'we're really blessed to have food every day'.
Blessed indeed. Considerably so when I think about the wonderful boys that we have together.

Big C and Daddy's Day Out

The Easter weekend provides a chance for some good down time on the Saturday and the Monday. Daddy decided to take a few passes out from the library and take the boys each on their own adventure. Saturday, it was Big C's turn.

We started the trek by driving to the local mall where we could catch a bus, a huge favourite for Big C. We had to stop off at the big blue car in the cell phone store display area to take it for a spin (guess I'll need to remind him to open his eyes once he starts to learn how to drive!)

We started off by getting a white hot chocolate to share. Here's Big C waiting in line showing off that he's big enough to carry the backpack (which included a special surprise that I wasn't allowed to see).

We hopped on our bus and went straight to the back (I can't even remember the last time that I didn't get onto a bus and go straight to the back with my boys).

After an hour long bus ride we ended up at the Museum of Civilizations. We'd never been here before and we were both quite eager to see what it offered.

We headed straight for the kids area and grabbed our 'passport' so that we could be sure to check out the entire space. Big C was very excited to explore the theatre area. There was a dressing room in the back where he picked out a king's costume. He made the announcement to the stage director that he was ready and then made his grand entrance to fanfare. It was quite the cool set up.

Next, he stopped at the classic phone booth to call his grandparents

and then checked out the bus from Thailand.

So far, we were three-for-three on things that Big C has always loved!

We stopped by the Robert Munsch exhibit before lunch. It was really cool. Here's Big C sitting for a photo on the Big 'M' that you could crawl all over and explore.

We tried changing our voices into 'Robert Munsch storytelling voices' at the big sound wall. Daddy told Big C about how Robert Munsch came to visit his school when he was about his age.

We stopped for lunch and enjoyed the surprise snack that Big C had packed. He said that he wanted to put in a yummy snack just like I do for his lunch every day. How heartwarming!

We returned to the main part of the museum and checked out the Great Hall

and then the postal museum.

Big C was overjoyed to discover the jeep that used to deliver the mail and how a letter goes from his house to anywhere in the world.

The back of the postal museum leads right back to the kids area. Big C found an area to make shadow puppets. He told a cool story about a frog who went off to explore the world.

We finished up stamping the last of his destinations in his passport at the ocean port.

He waited very patiently for his turn in line,

daddy was quite impressed based on his level of excitement, to get a turn at the big crane. Here's Big C moving a load from the big ship onto land.

He saw daddy headed to the right spot to take a photo, which was conveniently placed on the loading dock, so he tried to have the load land on my head. Silly boy!

We went down to the water to take one last picture at the museum and then ran to our bus to head home.

We snacked on the bus ride back,

but felt that wasn't quite enough nourishment for the day. We grabbed a Booster Juice to enjoy on our car ride back home and called it a day.

I'm already looking forward to our next day out!