My wife is spending the day in Toronto today, so I have kid responsibilities. I like to think that I'm a very capable dad and getting the kids up and off to school is not the most difficult thing to do. However, I don't do this often and I always feel some stress as I can't remember from one time to the next all that needs to be done.

I was up early, got myself dressed and fed, and even had time to put out the garbage/recycling that I'd forgotten to do last night. I reviewed the note left for me by my wife that included instructions on what to pack in the kids' lunches. The lunches were nearly ready, I just needed to add an apple to each bag and cook up some chicken nuggets for my daughter.

Now before you gasp about the chicken nuggets (I know I'm too late for you mom), allow me to explain. We buy PC Blue Menu Chicken Nuggets, and as far as nuggets go, these are about as healthy as they come. They have no trans fats, provide lots of protein, and they are a great way to get your daily recommended intake of guar gum.

Nuggets baked, I looked at my watch and decided it was time for my little sleepy heads to wake up. My son is easy to wake up, but my daughter is numb to conventional tactics and it's a five-minute process to get her to open her eyes.

"Guys, I need you to get up and get dressed," I calmly instructed, before going downstairs to take another sip of my coffee. Things were going according to plan and I was feeling a touch of self-satisfaction.

It was short lived. Ten minutes later, neither kid had come downstairs and I heard yelling from the bedrooms.

"What's going on up there???"

"Daddy, he's gone back to sleep!"

"Get out of bed! And don't yell at your brother!"

Seconds later, my daughter came hobbling into the kitchen in her PJ's to tell me that she hurt her ankle at gymnastics and she could barely walk! It was the strangest thing, as I had heard nothing of this last night and this injury (so obviously crippling by the display before me), seemed only to show itself when I needed her to hurry. I'm sure there's a medical journal somewhere that will want to study this, but for the time being I had to keep her moving.

"Guys, we're running out of time! I need you to GET DRESSED!"

Down came my son, wearing a pair of shorts (on backwards, of course) and his PJ top, complaining that his sister threatened to write something in his notebook. The instructions had been perfectly clear and nowhere did notebooks come into play.

"GET DRESSED!" WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"

"Daddeeeeeeeeeeee? I can't find my shirt," whined my daughter.

"I don't know where your shirt is, but you need to find it, we're running out of time."

"Daddeeeeeeeeeee? I put my shirt somewhere and now I don't know where it is," again, from my daughter.

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR SHIRT IS, FIND SOMETHING AND PUT IT ON, WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!"

"Daddeeeeeeeee, I can't find my stuffed..."

"WE DON'T HAVE ANY TIME FOR STUFFED ANYTHING, JUST PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON AND GET DOWNSTAIRS!!!"

"But my ankle..."

"GET!!! DRESSED!!!"

How could they possibly be unclear on the plan???

The kids had somehow used up all of the available time and hadn't had any breakfast. I had to give them something before sending them off to school, so they each had two of the extra chicken nuggets that I had cooked up and half a banana. They were told they had to grab the food and go as we had to get our shoes on for what had now become a mad dash to beat the bell.

Off we ran. My son loved the idea of running to school and took a commanding early lead down the sidewalk. My daughter seemed to run well for someone who was nearly put down just minutes before. There were kids on both sides of the sidewalk which was a good sign we weren't going to be late. Strangely, they weren't running and we closed the gap.

When we got to the crosswalk, my son took a bite from his chicken nugget and the crossing guard said, "Chicken nuggets for breakfast???" and laughed in my direction. I could have done without that, but had to stay focused on getting these kids to school.

Passing children left and right, we made it to the back of the school and the usual mob of children, parents, screams, and general mahem. I realized at that moment that the bell doesn't ring at 8:35 a.m., it rings at 8:40 a.m. and we were early!

Ugh!!

I guess the nice part was that I had a bit of time to give them a proper send off for their day. My daughter gets a hug, a kiss and I tell her to have a great day. My son insists on a hug, a kiss, a high five, and he says "a special thing I say 'I love you'," always in that order.

Really glad I had time for that.

Today, I decided to be a vegan.

Yep, just like that. I woke up this morning and knew that it was time to embrace this movement that has been on my mind for years and...

Oh, who am I kidding? My wife told me this morning that we should try to eat two vegan meals a week, at dinner time and I agreed to give it a shot. As a family, we eat too much red meat and maybe this is a good way to force ourselves to cut back.

I like chicken and would eat it every night until I grew feathers, but others in the house talk about something they call "variety." Seems like crazy talk to me, but I get out-voted every time. None of us enjoy fish, so that healthy option never makes it onto the menu.

We eat steak, pork chops, sausage and ground beef. Steak and ground beef break the red meat rule, pork chops break all the rules for fat intake. Sausage? There's probably not a rule that isn't broken by sausage. Yummy, rule-breaking sausage.

When I look up veganism, I learn that, "Veganism is a philosophy and lifestyle whose adherents seek to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose." So, if I follow the definition, I will not eat animals, wear things that were made from animals or by animal labourers, and will ignore the "or any other purpose" part because I don't know what other purposes they might be referring to. I know I'm only a part-time adherent to veganism, but so far this doesn't look too tough.

To be a proper part-time adherent, I should be aware of the criticisms of my new way of life. I found one critic who, "attacks "ideologic vegetarians," whom he claims believe that "all life is sacred" and that "all forms of life have equal value," saying that these beliefs "can lead to absurdities such as allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or vipers to run loose on one's premises." If malaria spreading mosquitoes and loose running vipers are part of the deal, I'm glad I'm only doing this twice a week.

Apparently, as a vegan, I do not grant moral standing to insects and don't believe that insects are conscious of pain. Presumably, this means two things: that I am to focus on things I cannot possibly know and eat insects at every opportunity. Once again, as a part-time adherent, I believe I am free to adapt these rules as I see fit and I believe that blogging about insects and their consciousness of pain should be adequate to maintain my membership in the vegan club.

There is no mention in the articles I found about berating all non-vegans I encounter, but I'm quite certain that even part-time adherents are expected to participate in this obnoxious behaviour.

Tonight, I'll be eating a vegan-chili with a side of ants and looking down my nose at the likes of you.

There are days when you jump out of bed and just know you're going to conquer the world. But sometimes, on days like that, the conquering is interrupted so badly that what you actually accomplish is absolutely nothing.

Today was one such day for me. I had planned to write the world's greatest resume, which was to generate job offers so unimaginably good that it would approach embarrassment to accept them. Logical next steps would include shopping for a dream home and a private jet. The blog would continue, but every other post would be written by the nanny.

And then life happened.

My son has been complaining very loudly about some pain in his front teeth and we knew we had to take him to the dentist. At first the dentist was only able to put him on the cancellation list, but a second phone call resulted in a Wednesday morning appointment. An hour later, the dentist called back to say there had been a cancellation and they could see him today.

I knew what came next.

"Since you're home today...?"

(Sigh)

"Yeah, I can take him."

My resume time up in smoke, I finished what little I could, then picked up my son from the baby sitter's house. He was oddly excited about the trip to the dentist, which told me he hadn't figured out that pulling teeth was going to be high on the list of possibilities once we arrived.

He was his usual brave self and the dentist wasn't able to tell us exactly what was causing the problem. Pulling teeth would guarantee that the pain would go away, but in the off chance that the problem is simply his adult teeth coming in and pushing on the roots of his baby teeth, I decided we weren't getting the pliers out today. We will go back when/if the problem continues and perhaps not be so lucky the next time.

I had a bit of time I wasn't expecting, so I decided we would run a few errands. On the way to the grocery store we talked about my son's teeth grinding and how it had to stop. He promised me that he would and we pinky swore on it (his idea). I don't know if that's legally binding, but it's better than nothing.

When we got home, I tried out a recipe for hummus that I'd found online a couple of days ago.

That's right.

I woke up today and was going to conquer the world.

Instead?

I made hummus.

I've grown to hate Webkinz.

If you're not familiar with Webkinz, they are small, stuffed animals that come with information that is used to create and participate in a virtual world for these "pets." They need to be activated and stay active for a year, when presumably children will be able to watch their virtual deaths.

My daughter has stockpiled Webkinz for a couple of years, but is just now activating them in any numbers. She and my son rush to the computer every chance they get to play the Webkinz games, earning points by working virtual jobs and buying virtual "stuff" that somehow makes them deliriously happy.

They would never get off the computer unless forced to, and fight over computer time as often as they are near the computer. Just this morning, my daughter was on the computer, doing whatever the Webkinz do, and blocking my son from getting a chance to play in this twisted, little world. He was not to be denied his Webkinz time or experience, so he pushed her right off her chair onto the floor.

Webkinz has officially become like crack to my children and they will do whatever it takes to get it.

It all makes sense when you think about it. Today's kids have no responsibilities, cares, concerns or worries. Their time is spent playing and daydreaming. Of course they're going to want (dare I say need?) an escape from all of this. A place where they can forget all their troubles by living vicariously through furry animals who play and work and live like they're dying...because they are.

Webkinz reminds me a little of a movie that was popular when I was a kid-Gremlins. They too were small and furry and adored by children, but were discovered to be horrible things that destroyed an entire town.

I think I'm going to declare my house a Webkinz free zone for a little while and get my kids outside again.

Come to think of it, Gremlins aren't welcome either.

The time had come. My daughter has been in gymnastics since she was about two or three years old and the whole experience has gotten stale. She's on the small side, but ridiculously strong, and as flexible as an elastic band. I would think she could be very good at gymnastics, but lately she seems a little bored.

So, when a girl named Amelia came to her gymnastics class and talked about her experiences in cheerleading, my daughter wanted to explore the idea. Not that it's relevant, but Amelia goes to school with my daughter and once played on her t-ball team. Some of Amelia's family members attended the final day of that season, a hot day in August. Somehow, I can't remember any of these details and need to be reminded of the entire story each time Amelia's name comes up in my house. Amelia lives in the blind spot of my memory and that's just how it's going to be.

The try outs for this year's cheerleading team were the following week and my daughter was very excited to see if this new sport was for her. In the past, cheerleading wasn't considered a sport, rather a side show at a football game, but today they train like gymnasts and put on their own show.

I have only vague memories of the cheerleaders from my high school. There were only about four girls, none of whom were propelled to the pinnacle of popularity by virtue of their status as cheerleaders, as movies and television would have you believe. They wore uniforms that were manufactured to last 50 years or longer, that were neither stylish nor flattering. They had pom poms and one of those cone-like things to yell into. Their choreography came either from watching Richard Simmons videos or perhaps was invented on the spot. They may or may not have moved the yardsticks between cheers. As I mentioned, my memory is hazy on some of the details.

But back to my daughter.

The try outs went well and we learned that they wanted my daughter for their best, competitive team. This was a surprise to us because she hasn't mastered the back handspring (this is embarrassing...neither have I), but they must think she can learn it quickly and I'm proud of her.

The organization is called the Cheer Sport Sharks and the team my daughter is joining has never lost a competition. That's a lot of pressure on these kids, but my daughter has always been competitive and enjoys these types of situations. She'll be fine. They have competitions scheduled for Indiana and Ohio as well as several closer to home.

Already, we've purchased Sharks t-shirts, a big bow for her hair, new shoes, and flip flops with ribbons tied to them in the Shark colours. My daughter says, "My mommy made these flip flops for me!" but I'm quite sure she isn't actually competing with cheap Chinese labour and simply tied the ribbons.

I took my daughter to her first practise this week. While they put her through her paces, I listened to the moms talk to each other. Cheerleading moms look and act just like gymnastics moms; they have an uncanny ability to talk non-stop about their daughters, pausing only to give unsolicited advice to other moms, all the while pretending that I'm invisible. I've learned it's hard to tell the difference between shy/uncomfortable and ignorant/rude, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Listening in, I learned many interesting things:

"Becky just started doing that last week! Can you believe it?"

"Courtney has been working on that move at home, it's really coming along nicely."

"Isabella has gotten so strong that she'll be doing that move in no time."

Riveting.

My daughter had a blast and can't wait to go back next week. Good enough for me.

p.s. the picture at the top is some other cheerleading team with a shark. I hope any mascot we have looks better than that.

Today was a special day and I had to get out the door early. I had my graduation ceremony for the Corporate Communications program which started at 10 a.m. at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga.

They asked the "graduands" to arrive no later than 9 a.m. and head directly to the robing room. Coming from Cambridge, there are two arrival times in Mississauga; stupidly early and 15 minutes late. The second option also includes about a week's worth of stress, so I opted for stupidly early.

As I was at the venue a full hour before expectation, I puttered around for a bit, before heading to the robing room. I learned quickly that only those showing up exactly at 9 a.m. were to head directly to the robing room, while stupidly early people were sent away.

Finally allowed entrance to the robing room I was told that I was to stand in line to await my robe and that a failure to return the robe would result in a $200 replacement fee on my Sheridan College account. How they actually planned to collect that from me (or what negative impact I would then have to live with?) eludes me still, but no one could say I hadn't been warned.

When I was second in line, I heard the person in front of me get an earful from the person dispensing the robes and name cards. "Don't bend the card, don't lose the card, have the card with you at all times or you might not get your name called out, you understand?" he was told.

Expecting a similar exchange, I began to mentally prepare...

This is my name card. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My name card is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My name card, without me, is useless. Without my name card, I am useless...

But the strangest thing happened. Instead of berating me, he said, "Oh, you're graduating with high honours and you're a silver medal winner...congratulations!"

The high honours part made sense to me, but the silver medal winner part didn't. Did that mean I had placed second to the gold medal winner? Was this based on marks? Popularity contest? Earliest arrival on graduation day? What?

Only when we were seated in the theatre were we told that the silver medals were awarded to the student with the highest marks in each program. I was absolutely floored by the honour I was about to receive.

As is customary in any graduation ceremony, the stage was occupied by members of the college faculty in their ceremonial attire-Chancellors, Deans, and what appeared to be wizards. I learned today that this is called a "platform party," and what a party it was.

The keynote speaker was a recently retired professor from the theatre arts program. His topic was "preparation and opportunity," and it was quite a good speech. About that time though, I became unbelievably hungry and my mind started to drift. I had anticipated the hunger and wisely smuggled in a granola bar under my robe. However, I didn't think I could unwrap it and eat it without being detected, so I had to admit that my plan wouldn't work. Seems my preparation was sound, but the opportunity wasn't to be. Oh, the irony.

Before and after our class was called to the stage, I marvelled at the strange clothing choices of some of my fellow graduates. Worse yet was a fellow who walked the stage carrying a large plastic bag that appeared to be from Wal-Mart. Perhaps he had planned to graduate, then immediately return a pair of pants? I suppose we'll never know.

The college did an amazing job of keeping the ceremony moving. The speeches weren't too long and the calling of names was done swiftly. There was live music playing while the names were being called and it seemed to speed up if people were taking too long to cross the stage. If anyone had really dragged, they were likely to break out the theme from the Benny Hill show.

My time on stage was uneventful. I accepted my certificate and small pouch containing my silver medal, congratulations from the faculty, and shook hands with the wizards, before returning to my seat.

It was special to be able to share the day with my classmates-many of whom have become dear friends-with my wife and my father watching from the audience. It was actually a pretty special year for me, and this was a truly nice way to put it in the books.

I'll be honest. I'm not looking forward to my dentist appointment this afternoon. There's nothing special about this appointment, it's just my regular nine month check-up/cleaning, but the entire experience just brings me down.

The aggravation begins about two weeks before my appointment when they leave a message at my house as a friendly reminder of my upcoming visit. I mutter, "Crap, has it been nine months already?" and forget to call them back to confirm the appointment. They're really good about calling me another three times and eventually we connect. I tell them, "Yes, the totally random date and time that we set nine months ago is a perfect fit for my life now and I very much look forward to finding out what has gone wrong with my teeth these past 270 days."

A bit of history...I lived the first 32 years of my life without a single cavity. Somehow, since I've started seeing this dentist, he's found cavities about every other visit. Either my dental health is failing fast or this guy is just way too good at finding problems that other dentists cannot.

A few years ago, he talked to me about my teeth grinding. I was totally unaware that I did that, but was soon fitted with a night guard (what a pleasant process that is) which I bite down on in my sleep. I have a recurring dream that I leave the house and forget to take it out, causing me great embarrassment, but have decided it's unfair to blame the dentist for that. I worry that my dentist is running out of things to charge to my benefits provider and will soon suggest dentures or possibly grillz?

I'm lectured every visit about brushing and flossing. I've learned that the answer they're looking for is, "I brush at least twice a day and floss really well at least four times a week." Saying something less than that is utterly foolish. However, even when you meet their verbal requirement, they criticize your brushing and flossing technique and ask if I've started eating a lot of candy. The sad fact of the matter is that I think I'd be treated the same if I came into the office and said, "Since my last visit I've only flossed once and that was because of this big piece of meat...well, you know where I'm going with this. I brushed 17 times in total and eight of those times I used my finger to rub toothpaste over the fronts of my teeth. I've started mixing red wine and coffee together as I find the staining combination just can't be beat. I'm hearing good things about smoking and might take it up in time for my next visit. I've thrown out my night guard and instead I bite into apple slices. While they don't prevent my teeth from gnashing together, I swear some nights I can actually hear the acid eating into my enamel."

Hmm, well that's not great. But here's a tiny tube of toothpaste and small sample of dental floss. You can keep it in your car!

On Saturday morning, my wife informed me that on Sunday she was going to be driving several of her co-workers to a play in our mini van. She asked if I would please clean the van for her when she came home from work that evening and reattach the weather stripping that the monkeys pulled off.

Yes, I said monkeys.

We live about 15 minutes from a wonderful place called African Lion Safari. It has been around since I was a kid and I have fond memories of going there with my family and on class trips. The premise is that you drive your car through the game reserve and see lions, giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos and several other animals out your windows.

Most of the animals sit in the grass or sleep as you go by...the entertainment value is off the chart. And then you come to the monkeys. The monkeys never sleep and if they're sitting when you drive past it's only because they're plotting new ways to destroy your car. As soon as they can, they launch themselves onto your hood or rear bumper and immediately get to work, pulling on your windshield wipers and antennae. Their goal is to break things, but sometimes will be satisfied with merely bending things before moving on.

They are particularly fond of weather stripping and will do anything to pull it loose. They know you are powerless to stop them and delight in showing you their bare asses as they systematically dismantle your vehicle.

As you may have guessed, my wife takes my kids through the park on a regular basis and the weather stripping now needs to be tucked inside the windows, so that it doesn't slap the outside of the van as you drive down the road. This gives my kids a chance to pull on/hang from it from the inside, which slowly eats away at my sanity.

So, I headed off to Canadian Tire to buy something that I could use to put the weather stripping back in place. I explained to the guy in the automotive department what I needed and deliberately avoided any mention of monkeys. I should note that whenever I speak of or even think of these animals, they are no longer monkeys, they are "god damned monkeys."

As I vacuumed out the van and wondered what to do with the five maps of Ontario I had found seemingly everywhere, my mind drifted to the weather stripping problem. I hoped that the glue would undo what the god damned monkeys had done, but I just wasn't sure. I know the product was designed for weather stripping, but it didn't specifically mention god damned monkeys on the package. Perhaps there was a product designed for that? Perhaps there was no defense against god damned monkeys?

My wife had it in her head that double-sided tape would be a better solution than god damned monkey glue. As always, she had let me buy the glue before making it clear that tape was the only solution that would ever appease her. I had run out of time to go back to the store, so on Sunday it was arranged that the glue would be returned and she would get some god damned monkey double-sided tape.

The weather stripping had been held down by double-sided tape originally, so the first thing I had to do was remove what was left of it. It was hard to get off; a knife scratched the paint and my fingernails were taking a beating. I bet if I had god damned monkey fingers it would be a breeze.

After a long while, I had the tape off and was ready to put a new strip down. Everything went well there and I was ready to put the weather stripping back in place. As I pushed the black plastic onto the tape, I repeated the soothing phrase, "Try and pull this off you god damned monkeys," which seemed to give me extra strength.

The job was done with about five minutes to spare.

Enjoy your play dear.

Every Saturday morning, my kids have swimming lessons at the YMCA. They complain like crazy about how much they hate swimming lessons, but once they're in the pool, they never want to leave.

My daughter has her lesson, followed by my son. My daughter stays in the "warm pool" while my son has his lesson. All I ask is that she checks in with me before she runs off.

Yesterday, during the check-in, I noticed that she didn't have her swimming goggles. She told me she left them on the side of the pool, there were some older kids playing there, they're gone, let's get on with life.

Not so fast.

Somehow she has managed to lose the following (in order):

Green ones, red ones, teal ones, grey, pink, white and this pair.

To round out the list, the pair immediately before these ("the fish ones") split in half under mysterious circumstances.

Goggles don't cost a fortune, but enough's enough.

Her swimming instructor, Murray, a kid I'll guess to be about 16-years-old, came by to tell me that they looked everywhere, not sure what happened, but he'll keep an eye out for them and give them back to my daughter next week if they're found.

Murray, Murray, Murray...

We both know that you're not going to find them, and even if you did, you wouldn't remember to give them back next week.

I asked my daughter to look for her goggles on the head of a theiving kid (I may have worded it differently) while she played in the warm pool and I returned to the viewing area/cafeteria to stew about the loss.

While I sat and stewed, I thought about setting up a check point at the door where every child would have their swim bag inspected for stolen goggles. Kids who tried to make a run for it would be tackled in the parking lot. Too many things could go wrong with this plan, among them, kids making a run for it look too similar to kids simply running and I couldn't afford to tackle that many kids before my plan earned me a lifetime ban from the YMCA.

No, a better plan would be to retrace my daughter's steps and see if we could do what Murray could not (in 10 seconds)-find the goggles. When my daughter was ready to come out of the pool, I asked her to tell me the whole story again. She said she had left the goggles on the side of the pool and that she thinks one of the older kids had kicked them into the pool. This seemed like a critical piece of information that was left out of the original version! I knew we were onto something.

I asked her to take me back to the exact spot where the kicking may have occurred and she said we weren't allowed to go there during a lesson. To a guy who was nearly tackling kids, pool rules were clearly to be ignored and we boldly walked to the deep end.

There, on the bottom, were the missing goggles. Within seconds, we had a lifeguard help us retrieve the goggles and the day was saved.

People use the word "hero" too easily these days...

Just kidding. But, I do hope these goggles might last the summer.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the name "Murray" was last popular as a baby name in the 1960's. I looked it up.

We checked out of the hotel, grabbed our Tim Horton's coffee, and arrived at MarineLand five minutes before they opened the gates. There were several school buses and a long, scattered lineup of people waiting when we arrived. One woman was trying to check off the names of adults in the line (parents?) and I overheard her scolding people for not standing together, not being the people who originally signed up for the trip, and generally making her job that much more difficult. She was obviously a school teacher and I planned to avoid her at all costs.

The kids ran as fast as they could to the first ride, a boat that goes forward and backward before adding a sideways spin to the mix. I don't normally do that sort of ride immediately after breakfast, so I was happy that my wife volunteered for the first round.

My daughter wanted to go on the next ride which takes you 30 feet off the ground, then drops you, repeated several times. My wife drew the short straw again, so I was off to find a suitable ride for me and my son.

As we ran around the corner, I had one of the all-time strangest things happen to me. Something hit me in the back of the head! It didn't really hurt, it felt like someone had dinged me with a tennis ball. I heard a squawk and turning around, I saw a medium sized, black bird flying away. Why did this bird decide to dive-bomb my head? I will never know. I hurried on before the school teacher came along and scolded me for teasing the birds like that. My son had seen the attack and laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. I'm sure it was a funny sight.

The kids went on every ride the park had to offer. My daughter went on her first upside-down roller coaster without even the slightest hesitation. I told her repeatedly that she's far braver than I was at eight. At no point did I reveal that she may be braver than I am now.

There were about 20 Mennonites or Amish people at the park that day. I'm not exactly sure of the differences between the two religions and couldn't answer my daughter's questions. She was surprised to discover that they spoke English and marvelled at their clothes.

One of the nice things about MarineLand is that you can break up the rides by seeing the shows. We petted Beluga whales, got soaked by Killer whales and watched jumping dolphins, seals, sea lions and a walrus.

The main show is a bit different this year. They have some younger animals who haven't performed before and they showed us some of the ways they train them to do the jumps and tricks. I found that interesting, but couldn't help wondering if the show should be called "Sorry, we weren't quite ready for you this year."

Our last stop was the gift shop, where the kids picked out their inflatable animals. This year, we adopted "Baffin the Beluga" and "Surfer the Sea Lion," who will be lucky to survive a summer with my aggressive kids. I chuckled at the sight of the Kodak counter, where they sell old-fashioned film for cameras. Kodak and MarineLand are obviously stuck in a contract signed in 1975 and will be lucky to find 10 people a season who haven't graduated to digital cameras.

The school kids are long gone, the Mennonites are likely back in their fields, the kids are tired and I'm extremely dizzy. It looks like it's going to rain...time to go home.

I've just returned from our annual two-day trip to Niagara Falls. As always, we packed so much into those two days that I'm going to have to tackle each day as its own blog post.

I opened my eyes on Tuesday and thought something must be wrong. I had slept in, hadn't yet packed for the trip, and had no indication that my actions had ruined our trip completely. Breakfast was waiting for me downstairs and it was understood that in addition to packing, I still needed to shower and wouldn't be packing the van until all of that was done. For once in my life it seemed I was still within the unspoken timeline for leaving and no one was mad at me.

I'm going to stop for a second and relive that moment.

Ahhhhhh.....

Finally on the road, the kids settled in to watch Alice in Wonderland on our portable DVD player. For about five minutes. Then, they did what kids do on road trips-they whined and argued and fought with each other. My son drove me crazy by kicking the machine and threatening to turn off the movie, but I refrained from yelling "We're not going to Niagara Falls if you don't stop that!" or any such nonsense from my bag of idle threats.

An hour and half later we were in Niagara Falls and quickly found an all-day parking spot for $4. We unloaded the kids, put sunscreen on everyone, packed the wagon, threw stones from the parking lot too close to several cars (ok, not all of us did this), hid valuables in the van, the whole process taking about an hour.

We were ready to walk up and down Clifton Hill. First stop, Ripley's Believe it or Not. Like all attractions in Niagara, Ripley's is a rip-off, but the kids thought the collection of strange/odd/bizarre/gross was wonderful, so it was time well spent. My son was fascinated by the stories of people going over the falls in a barrel and I'll need to keep a close eye on him for this and future trips.

We had an ice cream in the park and then hit The Maid of the Mist. If you haven't taken kids on the trip, it goes like this:

I'm not getting wet.

You will.

I'm still not wet!

You will be, just wait.

I'm still not wet!! When do we get wet??

Soon!

Aaaaaaaggggh! I'm SOAKED!!!

Told ya.

The water-logged kids sat in the wagon and I had the enviable job of pulling them up Clifton Hill. We made it back to the parking lot (which strangely had become a $3 per day lot) then to our hotel for check-in. The hotel was inexpensive (a dive), but the kids didn't seem to notice.

We had a quick dip in the ice-cold pool before going out for a pizza dinner. We came back to the hotel and readied ourselves for bed. The room had two queen sized beds and we brought a cot from home for my son. He used to call it his army bed, but now insists "it's called a cot." Sorry.

Everyone fell asleep to the Blue Jays game on the TV. I wish I had too, they blew a 5 run lead and I went to bed grumpy.