Canada Day 2016

Hope you all had a great long weekend and Canada Day, or Independence Day if you're in the US! We had a wonderful Canada Day celebration. Canada Day was on Friday, and our brick + mortar was closed for the day. It's always nice when the holidays fall on Friday rather than Monday, since our shop is already closed on Monday, so it doesn't really seem like an 'extra' holiday. We visited Jon's parents uptown, and Caleb romped around in the grass.       Three Generations of Chan Men. Alternatively titled: Jon at His Station While the Meat is Grilled. We also made it all the way downtown to City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. Caleb had his first hot dog, which I thought was going well, until he discovered the tastiness ratio of the wiener to the bun is a bit skewed towards the wiener. In my usual wisdom, I had put ketchup on his hot dog, which meant he was gripping a wiener covered with ketchup in his bare hands, and then threatening to grab my clothes. We roamed downtown for a bit, and made our very first visit to Muji! I'm not sure what took us so long to pay our first visit, especially since we're not too far from the city core where it is. It was a bit nuts in there, and after five minutes, Jon took Caleb to wait outside while I admired teapots and towels and organizing accessories. Of course I had to spend some time around their stationery displays, and got a notebook and some gel pens! Muji even has a stamping section to customize your notebooks, although I was too chicken to stamp anything on mine. We had thought about making it down to the beach, but Caleb was wiped so we called it a day. And there it was! It was a great day. It was fun and exciting to do something a bit different, just to explore a bit in our city. We live in a pretty great country, and sometimes I certainly take it for granted how safe and diverse it is, and how many great resources and opportunities we have here. Everything we've ever had the opportunity to create and do with Wonder Pens has to do with everything that's possible here in Canada, and it's nice to take a day to remember that. If you want a dive down memory lane, you can check out last year's Canada Day post - it's surreal and shocking and tear-inducing to see some of those photos!

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In other news, it's been a crazy last few weeks around here, if you're subscribed to our weekly newsletter. It's included surprise trips in and around the city, a visit to CBC radio (pictures to come later this week!) and an appointment to the dentist that I've been dreading for months. A friend of mine in the US also hates the dentist and we just like to hate on it together. Last week he went to the Dentist in Land O' Lakes and got his checkup over and done with so I just had to do the same. My family dentist is located an hour outside of Toronto, and it's been a production for every visit since we also need to package up Caleb into the car and drive back to Hamilton. Despite vigilant oral hygiene habits, I continue to be plagued with dental issues, which has meant a constant stream of trips back to the hammer (do they still call it that?? or am I totally out of touch with ...everything??). The silver lining is that Jon has finally come to terms with the fact that I'm never leaving my dentist, and as of our next visit both he and Caleb are now patients as well. A family affair. The latest is that Caleb's had some sort of virus that has left him cheerful and happy in between the occasional throw-up and crazy diaper disaster, but has left me with a husband saying, "so the laundry seems a bit backed up here..." I called Telehealth Ontario, which is this free phone-in helpline in our province where you chat with nurses about what's going on. The recommendation was to give Caleb some sort of electrolyte fluid in 2-3 tablespoons every five minutes, and after four hours, if he's not vomited again, increase it to 4-5 tablespoons every five minutes for the next four fours, and if he hasn't vomited during that, then he's fine to eat plain and starchy foods for the next four hours after that. ...which is the craziest thing I've ever heard of in my life. What fictional character could possibly accomplish this feat of feeding tablespoons of liquid to a toddler every five minutes for eight hours? Mary Poppins?? Nurse Ratched?? I tried my best. But let's just say all the liquids came in unmeasured sippy cup form. And possibly not quite in five-minute intervals. And possibly involving some frozen mangoes.