Most parents think that they need to start their baby on solids using pureed food. But maybe you've heard that you can skip the mush and start your baby on finger foods from the start! It's called baby-led weaning, and it allows you to enjoy your meal along with your baby.

Sometimes it is hard for us to believe our kids love us because they often don’t listen, do the opposite as they are told, and act like turds. Every since my daughter turned four years old, she has turned into a different person. A person that is argumentative, questions authority, and questions the logic in rules. Basically, she turned into a grown up overnight.

Last year’s resolutions made things definitely interesting, by doing less and not more, focusing on self care on a regular basis, and making personal relationships a priority, exciting things came my way. This year, my focus will be on things that needed to be a priority for a while but was neglected because they are plain difficult to tackle.

After my daughter was born, I really wanted to start some holiday traditions for her so that she would have memories of them growing up. In comparison to my spouse, I didn’t grow up with a lot of Christmas traditions. We ate a Christmas dinner and opened presents but that was the extent of Christmas.

The holiday season is upon us and for moms we can basically translate that to “more work and less schedule”. We don’t want to miss out on all the family activities but we also don’t want to be paying for it for days/weeks after, so how do we achieve balance?

Years ago, when my daughter was still a baby, I read an article that some 18 year old's enter university without basic living skills like cooking or doing laundry. I was appalled. At that moment, I told myself that I am going to start giving my daughter chores as soon as she is able to. (I know we all say things like this but I stuck with this one.)

It's been a few months of packing those school lunches.....are you getting tired of it yet?!  Maybe you started the year gung-ho to make Pinterest-inspired, fancy home-made lunches all year long. And most of us are over that by oh….about week 2 of school!

Last year, I was very ambitious and wanted to make a cake for my daughter’s birthday. I tried but fairly quickly realized that I suck at baking and following instructions. The hack I came up with last year was buying a plain cake from my local bakery and decorate it myself. My daughter loved her “Peppa jumping in muddy puddles with her family” cake last year. (She absolutely didn’t make it easy.)

I don't have a sweet tooth so it is super easy for me to take the fun out of Halloween for my daughter (and spouse.) I don't really get why they need to go out, in the cold, walk around, to get a ton of random candy from strangers. After they proudly come home with their stash, I just look at them thinking there is no chance my daughter is eating a quarter of that and then crashing like a crazier than usual preschooler. 

Recently, my partner's coworker told him that she doesn't understand why we keep our daughter so busy with going to events and learning new things. She wondered why we don't just let her be a kid. This coworker was also a mom but her daughter was younger than ours. Her comment might have been innocent and not judgmental but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Super late with this post because I had hoped to get more done on this project before posting. Oops.

Late last year, we were very lucky to have been gifted this well-loved playhouse. It was previously loved by our friend's kids for 7-8 years. It was a cedar playhouse originally purchased from Costco and looked like this: 

It is bound to happen - when your child has a public melt down. You child is never an angel 100% of the time. This is a whole new ball game as opposed to melt downs at home.

When our dayhome was closed for a month with less than a month's notice, we were left scrambling for care for our daughter. If needed, we were prepared to each take two weeks off work to watch her but that would really suck because that means no family vacation! Luckily for us, my mother-in-law stepped up and volunteered to watch our daughter for two weeks.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't traveled very much or very far since having my daughter. The thought of traveling with her (even if she is an angel 95% of the time) gives me a ton of anxiety. I'm constantly worried about how she will adjust and how we can possibly affect others when we travel. Until I figure out how to best travel with her on a plane, we will be sticking with road trips for a while.

With the weather in Calgary FINALLY starting to warm up, I thought it would be timely to share our Granary Road experience!

This was indeed a daytrip for us since we live in the very north end of Calgary. We were literally going from one end of Calgary to the other. When I heard about Granary Road, I was so excited! But I had to keep the excitement to myself because I wasn't quite ready to make the trip there. One random day, I showed Grace a couple of pictures friends posted on Instagram about their trip to Granary Road. From then on, all she could talk about was sliding down a frog's tongue. (This makes sense in a bit.)

Imagine this, you are stuck inside for whatever reason and your child is no longer interested in playing with ANY of her toys. You can either: 

1) Grab a new toy out of your surprise bin. (Every parent should have a bin of new toys or things it can bring out in a pinch aka boredom or random birthday party invite. It is a life saver.)

2) Pop in a movie and watch Frozen for the 150th time. 

3) Make something new to play with. 

I attended Chinese school for 10 years, every Saturday morning for four hours. I hated it for 7-8 years because I missed all the cartoons in the morning. (All my classmates hated it too.) I might have hated the first couple of years too but I don't remember because I was 3-4 years old. No matter how much I voiced my displeasure with Chinese school, my mom made me go. It got to the point that she said it would be easier on me if we just skip the part where I whine before I go, because I am going no matter what.

Some of the most random DIY projects arise out of random requests by my daughter. One evening she requested to play fishing. Initially, we used pipe cleaners to make a fishing hook and fishes but she was not impressed at all. Then

For the first three years of my daughter's life, we hardly went to events with a lot of people. The reasons were:

1) She wouldn't remember it anyways (true). Why bother fight the crowds for nothing?!

2) Crowds were starting to cause me a lot of anxiety. The thought of losing her makes me want to die. (Not being dramatic at all.)

I was super nervous when it came time to potty train my daughter. I have heard horror stories of poop being smeared all over a bedroom or bathroom, or just accidents at the most inappropriate time or place. Some of my friends told me potty training nearly killed them and they were not being dramatic. Other friends tried to tell me the benefits of potty training (saving tons of money on diapers) and told me to focus on that.

Previously, I thought I found the perfect art storage solution by making a massive boxto store all of my daughter's many masterpieces. It was a less than perfect solution when I had another whole years worth of masterpieces.

Beauty of this project is the amount of crap you can reuse to make it when stuck indoors for long periods of time. (Think cold winters, sick days, etc.) This project started off with a paper tube I had in my office for months.

Questions I get asked often are: 1) Do you want another kid? 2) When are you having another kid? 3) Why not have another kid? You made such a cute baby already!

My answers often are: 1) No. 2) Never. 3) Exactly, why try to replicate?

Holidays are a great time to get together with family and friends but can also lead to some unnecessary stressful times. As hosts, we often stress over what our house looks like, what experience we want to provide to our guests, and what they can or cannot eat. (Dietary restrictions are becoming more common!)