They should make a restaurant for adults with young kids.
Maybe you think such a thing already exists, but you’d be wrong. Maybe you’re thinking “Just go to McDonald’s” or “Friendly’s is for kids.” But both of those miss the point.
What we really want — what we would have paid good money for tonite — is a restaurant that serves adult food, and provides a place for our toddler to run around and leave us alone while we eat.
In my mind, its a normal restaurant except for the middle. The middle is a gated, rubberized area, with various things to play with (fake steering wheels, building blocks, little chairs are all good.) Surrounding that middle area are real grown-up tables and chairs.
Parents can put their little monsters in the play area while they eat an uninterrupted meal. And since there would only be parents with children there, no one would mind if the kids screeched like a baby pterodactyl during the meal.
You could pass food over the gate to your kid, who would shove it in his mouth before running off to play. And since there would only be parents with children there, no one would mind if you took the food back from them and ate it, after they’d put it in their mouth, tasted it and decided they didn’t like it.
And at the end of the night (and realistically, they could close the place down at 9pm, because no one with kids can be out any later than that anyway) they could just hose the play area down.
I’m pretty sure that if anyone opened a restaurant like this — one that made room for kids, but served good food for adults — they would make a fortune.
The closest thing we’ve been able to find is a sports bar. Its so noisy there that no one seems to mind when our son screeches for his dinner, or if we have to let him down to run around a bit before the food comes out. Too bad the food sucks.

So here’s some videos that make me smile…
Abi’s first swim
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=2322117308601551720&hl=en&fs=true
See how daddy rescues his girls from the evil bug?
Ben’s Bell-Bum
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-7185676583371193232&hl=en&fs=true
Someone stuck one of Abi’s rattles onto the back of Ben’s pants. Cuteness ensued.
Papa’s Lawn Tractor
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1641405510603569124&hl=en&fs=true
Do you know how to drive a tractor? Cause Ben sure does…

I’m not usually an Adam Sandler fan, but occasionally I can be in the mood for his silly-talking low-brow humor. Tonite I thought I’d enjoy a laugh with my old friend, Mark.
Unfortunately, not only is “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” the worst Adam Sandler movie since “Little Nicky,” it may also be the worst movie ever made. It was crass and gross and totally unfunny.
Also, since I’m rolling back into the house at midnight (something I’ve not done for a long time) I’m getting to bear witness to a little bit of night life next to a University (something I’ve not done for an even longer time.) Curiously, the experience is somewhat like an Adam Sandler movie…

As infuriating as bad customer service is, when you do finally find someone who is good at their job, the contrast between the incompetence that passes for normal, and how wonderful this person suddenly seems is astounding.
Two people, in particular, have been little glimpses of joy in the stress and complications that have arisen from moving home.
Lynn at KW Insurance Brokers is a beacon of competence and clarity, who’s taken each of our rather unique requests in stride and responded promptly to make sure we get a fair price for the right insurance for our needs.
And Angela in Bell Canada’s Corporate Support Department is an angel, sent to save me from the hell of poorly-synced DSL. Angela’s number is a hard one to get, and I’m not even sure how I ended up with it. One of the two-dozen off-shore tech-support people I’ve had to talk to, who could be replaced by monkeys without lowering the quality of their work, must have accidentally transferred me to someone who knows the difference between KB and MB, and although things didn’t immediately get better, she’s had a solution to every problem we’ve hit.
On top of that, I finally figured out how to get our Primus VoIP telephone working well via QoS (I hope!) Nicole had an hour long conversation with her sister last night, and didn’t once hear any static, or have her called randomly connected to a stranger in Connecticut.
A little aside about Primus: when it works right, its the coolest phone service ever. For $30 a month we get every imaginable calling feature, plus some features normal phone users can’t even dream about (like checking your voice mail online, or directing your calls to a different number depending on time of day) AND we get unlimited long distance to anywhere in the US and Canada. Its a pain in the butt when its not working right, but once you get it nailed down, it awesome.
And finally, tomorrow we wrap up 1/3rd of our vehicle dilemma. So far its level of difficulty has been almost on par with buying a house, but easily the biggest hurdle is now done, and lent itself nicely to solving problem #2: Old Squeaky (our SUV.)
To celebrate resolving all our issues (at least for now), Nicole wants to go appliance shopping. Not my idea of a good time, but seeing as how we’re 28 this year, I guess its time to break down and buy our first fridge…

I don’t get sick very often, but when I do, it always hits me when I relax. And it always hits me harder than everyone else I know. Nicole gets sick too, but usually she’s over it in a day, and back to calling me a wimp for the next week while I recuperate.
She’s not wrong, of course. I’m a total wimp. And I hate getting sick.
Ben’s had a cold for the past week or so, so I should have seen it coming. For some reason, though, I thought I was impervious. Saturday I finished my last major transition-back-to-Ontario task until we get the house. Or my part of it anyway. And as I drove home, and realised that I had nothing to now but sit back and wait while the things I had set into motion worked themselves out, I could feel myself unwinding…
I’d been more than a little stressed that week — there was just so much to do, and only so fast we could move. I was snappy with Nicole over the OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) even though it wasn’t really her fault. On top of all the things we were juggling, to have Benjamin sick, and not know how to get him help, was so worrisome that it bordered on fear.
So now that everything was, at least, kicked off, it felt good to just relax. To feel my back and my brain unclench.
By the time I got home, though, I knew I was in trouble. I took a long nap in the afternoon, and started popping the vitamins right away, hoping to head it off. To no avail…
Four days later, this bug has gone through every symptom imaginable. One day I had Benjamin’s never-ending flow of snot. The next was intense body aches. The next my ears felt like they were exploding from the inside. For the past two its been my throat, swollen and raw. Today I have no voice.
The scariest part is Abi. She’s been a little snotty for the past couple days, but no fever like Ben had, and no other symptoms. We’re just praying that I don’t get her really sick. Nicole did finally prevail over the beaurocracy that is the Ontario government, and was able to secure our “waiting for OHIP” status for herself and the kids. They’ll be covered by mid-July. I’ll have to wait longer. We don’t really want any of us to have to get medical help any time soon, though.
Nic did get “sick.” And by that I mean, she had a sore throat for half a day, and had to blow her nose a couple times. I know women have a higher pain-tolerance then men, but I still think she got off easy. Ben is mostly better, although still something of a snot machine — I think some of that comes with being 1 1/2 though. And me? I’ll be busy feeling miserable and sorry for myself the next couple days, while I do my best to stay away from the kids.
Hopefully I’ll be feeling better by Saturday, for the big Wise Family Reunion, where my parents, brother and sister, and I are gathering from our various corners of the globe for the first time since shortly after Benjamin was born.

So here’s my new favourite picture ever, to entertain you while we recuperate, and wait for life to get more interesting again. More in the sidebar and in Flickr…