Calgary Zoo

We had a great day Saturday with Mary Ann, Rhys & Mark at Calgary zoo.

We were there all day, walked 14,000 steps and saw many an animal, and the occasional dinosaur.

Dan posed for pictures behind the Dino thing and you may note someone annoying him and his final expression is pretty cool :)

50's Torture Games ?

When we were wandering around Big Valley, after lunch and before the journey back, we found a number of weird small museums.  They included a couple of rail cars with thousands of antique (rusty) hand tools and condiments containers. Over the road was a vehicle and memorabilia collection which had large stuffed animals and muppets in the front seats.And of course the 

Big Valley Creation Science Museum which looked fascinating, but had an entry fee so we left it alone :)

And this was the weirdest thing that I saw in any of them.  Now I'm not sure what the curator was going for, the first thing that sprang to my mind was they have a lot of repressed anger / feelings towards aging oversize toys.  I would also not like to see their browser history.

Boom: Progress!

Now those of you that know us will realise that we spoil our son, even though we try not to.  Those of you that don't know us, you have the wrong blog.  To give examples, we've let him dictate what he eats, within guidelines.  We've also let him control his sleeping habits for over four years, which has been interesting.  Now we've been aware of what this means, we've made sure that he has been healthy and we have accepted the sleep disruption.

And recently, with Dan on the brink of five years old, he has started requesting new foods and trying them and sleeping through the night in his own room.  Dan works best when you explain stuff to him and then let him sort it out it seems.  Luckily for him we have had the patience and a massive desire to follow the path of least resistance.

So to everyone who advised us to force either issue, and to those who commented that it would get harder the older he was and to those who said we were doing a great job anyway, I say thank you for the advice and differing perspectives.  Like all parents we are finding our way, one that works for us and him.  Advice? Spend time with your children and do what works for your family, you will get lots of advice from virtually every source imaginable, just remember advice is suggestions not rules :)

Me and the boy hit Jurassic Forest yesterday.  We walked around the trails and Dan let me know what dinosaurs we were looking at at what scenes were being played out as we approached.  

I was very impressed by his social skills as he shared some of the fossil brushes and played with a younger boy and his brother, no idea where he gets those particular skills, but I'm very happy he has them.

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Scientific Precision

These are not the same picture. This was the morning Dan spent ten minutes drinking his milk little by little until it was exactly the same height as his bowl.

Why? For science of course!!

Stettler Train Shenanigans

We took the boy to Stettler today for the train ride to Big Valley and a pretty good time was had by all.

In no particular order there's Dan in Big Valley jail, wife + sprog + train and boy watching videos of trains whilst riding a train on Alberta Train Day.