It begins

Last week the big guy bumped into these three. He was really pumped. He's been wearing his new blue and white socks everyday. Luckily they provided more than one pair. And so begins years of fandom futility.

Maybe the Make Believes Maple Leafs will win a cup in his lifetime. Law of averages at least must apply or something. Maybe.

Not that I can talk. The Oilers haven't won a cup since 1990, but there were 5 in my lifetime. Just saying.

Nice Mo' Mr. Komarov. No comment for Phaneuf.

Messy Max

We broke out the fingerpaint.

Self-Portrait

Every time I talk to the big guy about his days at school, it makes me want to go back to Kindergarten and do it all again.

I also love watching him learn and leaning how his brain works. Check out this recent self-portrait.

Moustache Running

As in running out of time. 

I've made the decision to donate my upper lip to the Movember movement. Over the 30 days of November, I'm growing a moustache while raising funds and awareness for men's health.

It's been said that with great (and not so great) moustache comes great responsibility. Please donate to my Mo so that it may grow just that little bit more. 

http://mobro.co/nickcheeseman 

Let's do this bad boy proud.  

Particularities

I really shouldn't be surprised. Everyone I know has their little quirks. We all have our own preferences, the way we like things just so.

It still surprises me though every time the toddler puts his foot down. Generally #MaxLoco is a pretty easy going guy. No trouble to put to bed. Happy to go out and about. Bounces back quickly from injury. But there are those certain things that have to be just so. Let's look at a few:

• Bananas. He loves this yellow fruit. He would eat an entire bunch if given the chance. However, he will only tolerate them whole. If you accidentally break one during the peeling process, might as well toss it in the bin and start over. 
• Crackers and cookies. These too must come in one piece. If it comes out of the package in a condition anything less whole, back to square one. It's up to him to crumble them into dust.
• Mini Babybels. The trickiest of the bunch. If you break that cheese while removing it from that red wax coating, you best be ready to flee.

The form matters, I suppose. You might think I would be able to stand my ground and not give in to these seemingly absurd whims of a toddler. And you'd be wrong.

I'm ok with that.

Kinder Calendar Giveaway!

The holiday season is fast approaching and Kinder Surprise is helping you get ready by giving away an awesome holiday prize pack! Help count down the holiday season with these chocolate treats!

The prize pack includes:

• One KINDER® Advent Calendar
• One KINDER® Hollow Santa with SURPRISE®
• One KINDER® SURPRISE® 100g Christmas egg
• One KINDER® SURPRISE® MAXI 150g egg

To enter simply follow the steps below. Giveaway closes on Nov 23, so get entering!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fine Print: The contest winner will be required to provide a full name and complete mailing address to be shared with KINDER® for shipping purposes. While you may enter as many of the KINDER® contests as you like, you can only win once. DISCLAIMER DISCLOSURE: I’m a #KinderDad who is part of the KINDER® Canada influencer team; as part of my affiliation with KINDER® Canada, I am provided with special perks and products. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Hallowe'en Fun

Hallowe'en is just around the corner. Pretty much my favourite time of year.

When I outgrew Trick or Treating (and yes, as we all know, that took a while), my dad and I would decorate the house as terrifyingly as possible. He would bring home flasks and beakers, lab notebooks and charts, photos of dissections and anatomy textbooks. Outside we would hang mannequins from the basketball hoop, have zombies crawling out of their graves and howls of terror emanating from every nook and cranny. Not only would kids have to navigate the graveyard, corpses and other gruesome decorations outside, they would have to enter our front hall and make the long trek through our twisted and deranged lab to come away with any treats at all.

If they dared.

We knew we'd been successful when a) children either refused to come closer or b) ran away screaming. The icing on the cake was when later in the evening some older kids would exclaim "Cool! We found it!"

This would often have the added benefit of ensuring that a relatively small supply of superior candy would last through the evening.


So I'm loving it this year when the five year old is coming up with as many ways as possible to make our place as spooky as can be. Some of the ideas should disturb me, but I just love it too much.

Of course, a big effort deserves a big payoff, so keeping with the retro theme, this year KinderSurprise is offering a whole line of chocolate eggs filled with Transformer toys. Even better, each of the 8 different Transformers found in the Kinder Eggs can be connected like the constructicons to make one mammoth robot. Did I mention there are perks to being a KinderDad?

I love it when everything comes together.

Disclosure: I received compensation for my participation in the Kinder Dad program.