Taking Son To First Hockey Game – A Dad’s Account

I had the best day ever – Harrison Cusden (Not us in photo)

Yesterday was the day, it was the day Harrison and I were going to the Halifax Mooseheads game. I got tickets for Christmas and as soon as I saw it was a Sunday afternoon game, I knew who I was taking. The thought of taking our three-year old to his first live hockey game was one of those dad moments I have been looking forward for over many years.

For those hockey fans, the Moose were playing the Acadia-Bathhurst Titan. Halifax is one of the best teams in the country, so I knew Harrison was going to see a lot goals and hear a lot of noise. Spoiler alert – Here is the final score.

The only tricky part of the whole day was going to be the game being played when Harrison usually has his afternoon nap. He can go the whole day but it can make the end of the day a real mess.

But we were pretty confident that excitement would pull him through. It did.

We headed down to the Halifax Metro Centre about an hour before game time. That would give us plenty of time to find parking and get settled. I did not want to get to our seats that early and waste a lot of Harrison’s “interest” time. I was also hoping he would have a little nap in the car. No chance. He chattered to himself in the back seat about what he was going to see. Then I mentioned popcorn and it was over. He was ready.

Update: Charlie And The Up Late Factory

This is a follow-up to the post called – Help, We Have A Two-Hour Charlie. First thanks to those who left comments offering up advice and sharing some war stories of their own.

So to update you since we had that stretch of little sleep and feedings every two hours, I can say, things have gotten better. I say better because it certainly is not worse. Things are ideal yet but we are certainly managing much better.

Three things have been added into the mix since.

1. Rice cereal.

2. Formula before bed.

3. Dad is taking his turns putting the baby to bed.

So we started with rice cereal every night just before we had dinner. He loves it. Could not be more happy. We have actually started giving it to him for breakfast as well. So that is two bowls of cereal per day.

We also introduced formula over the weekend. So, the story with that is pretty funny. We had guests on the weekend, the in-laws, and of course that meant having extra help.

Help, We Have A Two-Hour Charlie

For those of you who watched Lost, do you remember Desmond and the code he had to enter every hour or so, or something bad would happen? Watching him panic when the countdown was on. Well what if the computer was a baby and you could not stop the countdown every two hours?

That is our life right now.

Yep, our four-month old, Charlie, is on a very strict, I need to eat every two hours or I will freak out like Frank Ocean.

We thought it was a growth spurt, but it has been going on for weeks and we are now at a crossroads of what to do next.

The back story is, he was sleeping through the night just fine for over a week, so we decided it was time to upgrade to the crib. Since, I don’t think he has slept longer than four hours at a time in the new digs.

Then over the last week, he can’t seem to go more than two hours without wanting to eat.

So now we are trying to figure out:

  • Is he really hungry?
  • Does he not like the crib?
  • Is he not ready for the crib?
  • Does he just need more food ie. formula?
  • Are we going to survive a mental breakdown from lack of sleep?

Video: A Comparison Of First Food Moments

Last night, we gave Charlie his first food that did not come from a boob. Rice cereal of course and he seemed to enjoy it.

I took some video because it is one of those “first” moments you want to have.

Of course, it got me thinking back to Harrison’s first food moment and thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I have it to compare.

Harrison’s first food video had a lot more production value. You see, it was after we had just watched the Canada-USA Gold medal game in 2010. If you watch the video you will see fireworks in the background because, well we won.

Harrison’s moment also came about a month later in his life, so he was way more into it.

Harry was Feb. 28th, 2010 (being born in Sept.)

Charlie’s was Feb. 10th, 2013 (being born in Oct.)

The reason? He is a much bigger kid and is eating a lot more. My wife can’t keep up so we are seeing if some cereal will help fill that belly.

Anyways, here are the two videos.

Got Milk? I Did Not Friday Night – A Dad’s Story

The worst feeling when you are a parent has to be helplessness. A situation where there is little you can do but cope and hope. I have never been through too many thank God and there are much worse than I am about  to share. I realize in the grand scheme of things, an hour is not a long time to cope. But I am going to share it with you anyways, as it is a night in every Dad’s life that comes at some point.

Your wife goes out free of kids.

Yes, yes, not a big deal but on this night, it was the first night left with the boys with the new bedtime routine. No more just keeping the baby up in front on the TV. No it was a night to put both boys to bed at the same time.

The nights when my wife is out has also been tricky because of the whole breast milk thing. All week, my better half needs to collect, hoard and salvage milk so I can survive without her in the house. Up until this point, it has been somewhat okay.

Gone Baby Monitor, Gone. Going Digital Is The New Way To Go

Recently we reached the stage where it was time to move our 3-month old out of our room/bassinet, to his nice, big crib next door. It meant a lot of things – less constant sleep, a new bedtime routine and of course digging out the old baby monitor from last time.

Apparently a lot has changed since we last relied on the old baby walkie-talkie because this time when we turned it on, 8 out of 10 times, there was nasty interference.

Crap.

I spent a good day trying to crack the code. What was different from last time? Was it the Wi-Fi? Was it the neighbours Wi-Fi?

Anyways, while this was going on, it meant my wife was basically trapped on the top floor of the house each night, because we would not be able to hear the baby from the basement.

While she did enjoy the peace, the chance to read, and going to bed early, after a few nights, she was craving TV. We had a backlog of shows piling up, one of which, Top Chef, our weekly hit of crack.

As I was using tin foil on the baby monitor to see if that would magically fix it like a bad episode of MacGyver, I realized I had gone too far.

It was time to suck it up and just get a new one. Gone baby monitor, gone.

Dad Bloggers Make Super Bowl XLVII Predictions

On Sunday, Feb. 3rd, the biggest game of the year will take place. I am referring to Super Bowl XLVII of course.

The Baltimore Ravens will take on the San Francisco 49ers. If you want to know about the actual game, well I know you can find that in five seconds somewhere. I am not here to focus on that.

With the Super Bowl, there is the week long lead up, the commercials, the food, the 56 hour pre-game show, the monster halftime show and of course, there is the actual game.

Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, predictions, betting and all around opinion time. There are only two teams, you have a 50/50 shot.

Since I have access to a huge group of awesome dad bloggers, I threw out the simple question, who do you think will win the Super Bowl.

Here are the responses. I want to see yours as well.