I love Halloween, but I hate trying to figure out what I’m going to be.  Every year I say, “this year is going to be different, I’m going to be something creative, witty, intelligent, and original.”   Then find myself scrambling through the leftovers at a thrift shop on October 30th, only to find a cheesy butterfly collared shirt and proclaim,  “Looks like I’ll be the half-70′s guy again this year!”

I wasn’t always such a disaster at Halloween.  I have fond memories of dressing up as something different every year when I was a kid, carrying a huge garbage bag around the neighbourhood for trick-or-treating, dreaming it would be full by the end of the night.  We’d go out with our neighbours as a huge pack, running blocks ahead of our parents, looking for the scariest houses.  Our costumes would be covered up by our snowsuits some years, but we didn’t mind so much.

Now that I have kids of my own, I love to see the excitement in their eyes on Halloween and relive those days.  Last year, when I took my son out, we saw a boy dressed like Winnie-the-Pooh.  We only caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of our eyes, but my son got so excited.  “That was Winnie-the-Pooh!!” he shouted, probably thinking that it REALLY WAS Winnie-the-Pooh that we had just seen.

This year will be a busy Halloween weekend, since it falls on a Sunday.  It seems like Halloween parties and events are being planned for both the Saturday and the Sunday!  The kids will like that (as will we, since we don’t have any choice but to eat half of their treats — don’t want them having too many sweets after all ).

In typical Dad Jam fashion, I’ve put together a list of random tips and tricks to help you through this Halloween.  So, without further ado, I give you, The Dad Jam’s “Extremely Haunted and Mysterious, Magically Scary, Random Halloween Tips and Thoughts List” (written by The Vampire Jammer):

1. Scary Finger Cookies:  These are my favorite things to make on Halloween.  They are easy and look really scary.  Just get a shortbread cookie recipe (very easy to make… basically just butter, flour and sugar), and shape the cookies like fingers.  Add in a knuckle and to make it look convincing.  Put a whole almond on the end for the fingernail.  Use red food colouring around the fingernail to make it look like blood is oozing from the nail.  Spooky Halloween Warning:  Do not use almonds if you expect to have kids with nut allergies present!
2. Costumes: How about some funny family costume ideas?  Like the kids as animals and you as a circus ring-leader?  Or you all go as a superhero family?
3. Parties:  Since Halloween is on the weekend this year, it is a great chance to throw an afternoon party for the kids, followed by some trick-or-treating.  If you want to splurge, you can even hire a magician or wizard to come and put on a spooky Halloween magic show (I love magic).
4. Events: If you live in the Vancouver, BC area, the Kid’s Market on Granville Island has trick-or-treating in the early afternoon on October 31st.  You can bring your kids in costume, and they can trick-or-treat in all the shops in the Kid’s Market.  I do this every year with the kids.  Check out the area where you live to see if any similar events are going on.
5. Pumpkin Patches:  The best way to get a pumpkin for Halloween, for making your scariest Jack-O-Lantern, is to pick one yourself at a Pumpkin Patch!  I did this with the kids and it was a lot of fun.  The kids were so excited to see pumpkins that were “still attached!”  And there were tonnes to choose from, so I let the kids choose.  Where we went (the Pumpkin Patch in Richmond/Steveston), there were also pony rides, a band, hay fights, and a wagon ride too).
6. Safety first (so why did I put it last on the list… hmmm… read this list from the bottom up please!):  This is probably not the first time you are hearing (or reading) this, but be sure, if you are going outside at night with the kids that you have an ample number of parent supervisors, and that the kids are visible in the dark (e.g. put reflectors on their costumes if they are dressed as dark vampires).  Also, inspect all the treats before you let the kids eat them, discarding anything that seems suspicious, has been opened, etc.

So we’ll leave it at 6 because that is a spooky number when written three times in a row.  I hope you have a happy, fantastic, ghouly, and safe Halloween!  Please leave a comment to let us know your Halloween stories and random scary tips!

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Note: I wrote this post while participating in a blog campaign by Dad Central Consulting and they sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Here’s the full info:

If you live in the Vancouver area, come be amazed by international award winning magicians who will be performing on Friday June 18th @ 7pm at L’Ecole Bilingue Gymnasium 1166 West 14th Ave in Vancouver.

This is a family-friendly event, and all money raised goes to the BC/Yukon Make A Wish Foundation in memory of Jonah Christensen.

Doors open at 6:15 and the cost per ticket is a minimum $5 donation. For more information/tickets contact us at celebratejonah@shaw.ca. Get your tickets early as this show sold out last year!

Location: L’Ecole Bilingue Gymnasium, 1166 W. 14th Ave Vancouver, BC.  Phone: 604-713-4585.

For information and tickets, email: celebratejonah (at) shaw (dot) ca

Come on out, highlights include Matthew Johnson, Trevor and Lorena as well as the Chow family.

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

I was happy to learn that kids 3 and under get into Playland free,  and me and my wife were both able to get guardian passes, which were only $13 each.  That is a sweet deal at about half the price of a regular adult day pass.   Another reason to have kids right there.

So, $26 dollars later, we were through the gates and ready to go on our Playland adventure.  We hit the Super Slide first.  Smarty Pants is still too young to go on it by himself, but he enjoyed going down with us.  Its a really long bumpy slide that you slide down pretty fast, cuz they give you slippery blankets to ride down on.  Smarty Pants wanted to go again, and again, and again, and again…

After Super Slide exhaustion, we chugged on over to the Honeybee Express.  Its a cute little train that we all rode on together.  Smarty Pants was excited cuz he got to ride up front in the engine with his buddy.

From there, we were off to the merry-go-round, Pirate Ship, cars, boats, motorcycles, rollercoaster, flying helicopters, flying Dumbos, maze and back to the Super Slide and merry-go-round again.  There was so much to do that my head was starting to go merry-go-round.  In between the romps and riding, we had an over-priced lunch, some yummy ice cream and a Spiderman face-painting session.   Playland was heaven on earth for Smarty Pants, especially cuz he got to enjoy it all with his little buddy.

About $100 later, we were set to go.  We packed a lot into the time we were there.  We had a lot of fun, and it made us really happy to see Smarty Pants having so much fun too.  Leaving Playland was the most difficult part of the day.  Smarty Pants could have easily spent the rest of the day and night there, and especially didn’t want to part from his friend after having so much fun with him.

Back on the home front, the questions kept on coming, “Can I go back to Playland, pleeezze, Papa?” and “Can I go there again, Papa?”

We’ll go back again a few times this summer I’m sure.  I was surprised to see it actually wasn’t very busy.  Unlike my memories of Canada’s Wonderland and Disney World, we didn’t have to wait in any lines.  Okay, Playland is not as big as either of those, but still, it was nice to just be able to hop on any ride we wanted.  The longest wait we had was for our lunch, but only cuz the dude at the counter couldn’t figure out how to work the Interac machine.

So if you are sitting idle with your kids on a nice summer day in Vancouver, definitely consider taking them out for a fun and adventurous day at Playland.

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home.

Baby in sling while flying a kite... how's that for multi-tasking?

On a windy labour day holiday weekend in Vancouver, what better outdoor activity can one undertake besides flying a kite?  This was the thought running through our heads this morning, so we set a plan to fly a kite in motion.

Of course, we don’t have a kite, so our first stop was the Granville Island Kid’s Market, where there is a pretty cool store that sells all kinds of kites.  Bypassing the “beginner” $100 models, we settled on an “easy to fly” version with a pretty dolphin on top, with a price tag that was reasonable enough that we could let our boy fly it into a tree with minimal regret or guilt.  Our son chose the one with the dolphin… I had taken quite nicely to one with the skull and crossbones, but I was overruled.  Actually, we gave our boy a choice between the dolphin one and an octopus one.  “That one..” he said, with absolute certainty, pointing to the dolphin one.  And so the dolphin one it was.  We forked over the 22 bucks and headed on our way (not before stopping at Pedro’s for a coffee and a cookie, of course).

After a short walk (that seemed rather long) through a goose-poo-peppered path, we arrived at our destination.  Vanier Park.  The wind was blowing well, so we were set to go.

A few failed attempts at flying the kite later, we managed to get some decent elevation.  We were all stoked.  Except for our boy of course.  He held the string a few times, but was more concerned with the amount of goose-poo on the ground.  I pondered the mystery of the goose-poo for a bit.  “There is a $2000 dollar fine for dogs to poo here,” I thought, “yet these 10 or 20 geese here can poo all around to their heart’s content (and they do), without so much as having to drop a dime.”  Who’s fining the geese?  A mystery that may never be solved, but a real cash-cow that is not being capitalized on by our Parks Board.

So I held our boy in my arms (he refused to stand amons so much poo), sweet wife held our daughter in the sling, and we were having more fun flying the kite than the kids.  At least it let me get in touch with my inner child again… it had already been a few hours since I had done that.

“I want to go to the playground” exclaimed our boy, amid complaints of the abundance of goose-poo on the ground.  So we packed it in and started heading back.  Shortly after, he was asleep on my shoulder.  Now he’ll probably be up till 10pm tonight.

It was a fun time overall and we all really enjoyed it, despite the small hiccups along the way.  And what did our boy say when I pointed up at the kite earlier, asking him to take a look at the pretty kite?  …..  “I want the octopus.”  Argh.

Play Palace - Every Kid's Dream

Lots of fun at the Granville Island Water Park

Here is a Vancouver-specific post, but others may find the ideas useful if they have similar facilities in their cities too.

The Labour Day long weekend is coming up and a lot of people will be going away for the weekend, trying to make the most and best of what little bits of summer we have left. For those of you who are staying in Vancouver, or are coming to Vancouver, here are a few ideas for what you can do with the kids that you won’t be able to do with them come fall and winter:

• Take them to the Granville Island Water Park! The water park is lots of fun for the kids, and it closes for the fall/winter on September 1st, so this is your last chance to go there with the kids until next summer! If you haven’t gone yet, and the weather is nice, this is a must-do. Just be prepared for the freezing cold water – hopefully the weather will be warm to warm you up!
• After going to the Granville Island Water Park, head on over to Pedro’s Organic Coffee House, which is right around the corner, and sit on the patio with a drink or ice cream while the kids play. The patio probably won’t be open much longer, so this is one of your last chances to do this. There is a nice little play area right beside the patio for the kids to play on. It is right beside a little duck pond, so it is quite an idyllic setting for taking a break. Just need to watch out for all the duck, pigeon and goose poo… but don’t let that detract you!
• If the weather is not so good, take your kids to the Kerrisdale Play Palace, which is located in the Kerrisdale Arena at 41st and East Blvd. For a child between 6 months and 2 yrs old the admission is $3 and for a child over 2 yrs old the admission cost is $4. For such a low price, you can’t go wrong. I have been there with my two and a half year old son and he loves it. He just runs around in all the bouncy castles, rides on the cars, plays with the balls, etc. It’s like me in an electronics store. The best part is, they can run around lots, and can’t really get hurt, because it is all just inflatable stuff (unless some other kid knocks yours in the eye with his elbow, but that hasn’t happened yet). This is also something that will be closing soon (August 29th), so get out there and do it if you haven’t yet, because you won’t get a chance again until next summer!

Hope you enjoy the long weekend and the rest of the summer in Vancouver! More posts on things to do in the fall/winter in Vancouver, including swap meet dates and more, will be coming, so stay tuned!

Seems like a bit much? I agree! But sometimes this is the only thing that works. I have found that if I just skip to step 9 without doing steps 1-8 first, I have a much lower chance of being able to leave without a drama. It’s kinda like trying to bake a cake without breaking the eggs first… you end up with a real funny looking cake that don’t taste too good.
Join the jam and share your experiences with trying to leave the playground!

Join the jam! What is your coolest and most attention getting accessory/kid’s toy?

Join the jam!  What are some tactics you use to get your toddler to do something that they need to do, but don’t want to do?