Family Fun with the Ottawa Senators

by Anna When I was asked if our family would like to attend an Ottawa Senators game and share all about it, I was thrilled. Neither of our children had been to an NHL game but both loved the idea of it. We were invited to watch a preseason game where Ottawa played Montreal. The kids were excited and my Husband treated our son to a very special privilege. He brought out his Ottawa Senators Jersey that his own Father had bought at the very first game of the New Ottawa Senators 20 years ago, when Ottawa played Montreal on October 8th, 1992 and won. That being said, our daughter had outgrown her jersey so we did make a purchase that night so both kids would be decked out in all their finery.

We made sure to arrive early as there was lots to be seen an do prior to the game. There was a tent set up with a band, a bounce house and blow up slide. There was face painting and 50/50 tickets. We made sure to enjoy all of it! Since it was their first experience we wanted to make sure it was memorable. After our turn on the slides we made sure to head inside early so we could could have a slice of pizza for supper. While enjoying out pizza we actually had a lady come up and talk to us to see if we needed anything. She was part of the hospitality team and was there to make sure our visit to Scotiabank place for a Sens game was all we wanted it to be, this was a nice touch. We also made sure we bought 50/50 tickets because you just never know when your number might come up and the other 50 goes towards such great causes through the Sens Foundation.

The kids quickly chose their favorite players from the roster that was handed out that night and decided who they were going to cheer on. And cheer they did! We actually thought that our daughter might fall asleep, but she made it to the very end before crashing in the car on the ride home. The Senators started out strong at the beginning and were leading for quite sometime then Montreal showed up and the game ended in a tie. And unfortunately when there is a tie game it goes to a shoot-out and Montreal happened to win the shoot-out. So for our first hockey night for the family we didn't get to see the Sens win. But that's ok, it just means that we will have to go back again soon to watch another one.

A family can easily afford a night out at a game in Ottawa, although not quite as inexpensive as a movie, I would say that you get a lot more bang for your buck! You can purchase tickets in the Coca-Cola Zero Zone starting at $15 each. If you bring your car you will need to pay for parking which was $11 in the lot we parked in. And if you would like to get a drink or some snacks, I would say to bring at least another $30 depending on what you would like to have. So a family of four can easily attend a game for $100.

We look forward to our next family adventure with the Ottawa Senators.

Anna is a Mom of two (4 & 8 ) and Step-Mom to one (19), owner of Anna Epp Photography and also blogs at Life is Good...At the Beach.

Kidding Around in the Garden

by Misty During my years studying environmental science, I came across a wonderful book called Last Child in the Woods. It's a (to quote the back cover) "groundbreaking work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors."

Author Richard Louv laments the current trend of structured play for children - our tendency to shuffle our kids from one activity to the next, never allowing time for more natural play routines to emerge. And also never allowing much time for outdoor play, whether in backyards, local wooded areas or ravines, and gardens.

Having recently finished another great read, Animal Vegetable Miracle- in which one family strives to live entirely off their land for a whole year - I have been prompted to think a bit more about my own daughter's relationship to the land, and the way we teach her about our food sources. As Louv writes,

"the idea that natural landscapes, or at least gardens, can be therapeutic and restorative is, in fact, an ancient one that has filtered down through the ages. Over two thousand years ago, Chinese Taoists created gardens and greenhouses they believed to be beneficial for health."

Us city dwellers tend to be seperated from our food source, and our meals land in grocery stores on styrofoam trays and covered in shiny plastic wrap. It's funny to think, but there are kids out there who don't even know that potatoes grow in the ground! How could they, when they've never had the opportunity to dig one out?

There are many benefits to gardening, and research backs a lot of them. Of course, some are just common sense, but it's handy to begin thinking about ways to involve your children. Here are some interesting facts, tidbits and suggestions:

- With gardening comes a sense of community: neighbours swapping plants, seeds, and produce, or local housing co-ops growing a communal garden. Don't have a backyard? Begin with easy-to-grow plants and vegetables in pots (herbs are great to start with!) or speak with your condo board about a communal growing space.

- gardening has been shown to be a powerful therapy for children with attention-deficit disorders and other behavioural issues.

- Allow the freedom for children to just get dirty. Sure, it takes us parents extra time to tidy up, but a child who has a run of the backyard with hoses, rakes and shovels is one happy kid!

- Getting children involved in planting and tending gardens can go a long way in teaching various aspects of our educational curriculum - biology, chemistry, and even reproductive health (after all - plants reproduce, right? Explain how and why! Don't worry if you need to Google the answers.)

- Assign your child a garden of their own, and involve them in picking seeds (or plants), weeding, and then picking and enjoying the "fruits" of all their hard work.

- Living here in Canada, we also need to learn about food storage. How do we enjoy the benefits of our labours long after the first snow has fallen? New local businesses are popping up, offering us ways to re-learn what we have forgotten - drying, smoking, canning and pickling may be skills you wished you knew more about. Now's the time! Let's bring back these skills, and pass them along to the next generation.

- Studies have shown that gardening and other forms of natural play (exploring woods or ravines) can improve a child's sense of worth and self-esteem. Why? Being responsible for a garden leads to rewards - like when we discover the first tomato of the season. Kids can feel proud about what they have accomplished.

- If there is no time for gardening, at least make an effort to visit your local farmer's market each week during harvest season, and make sure to get to know local producers. You might be surprised what you can discover about the food we eat.

Swimming lessons, gymnastics and playgroups are fun and rewarding activities, but can be overwhelming for children if that is all they experience. Direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.

So this winter, peruse through some seed catalogues with your children, and discover how much fun it is to plan what you'll be eating next spring, summer and fall.

Happy Gardening!

Misty Pratt is a local doula in Ottawa, and when she's not supporting new families, she's working as a Research Assistant at the Ottawa Hospital and blogging about life in general. Read more at www.thechickadeetweet.blogspot.com

Expanding the Kids in the Capital community

Kids in the Capital is a growing and active community with contributors from all over Ottawa sharing their experiences with their children and we're constantly thinking about ways to create more opportunities for regular interaction. To that end, Lara and I are working to introduce several new elements of community that we think will foster an even greater sense of involvement in and around Ottawa. Our first step in doing this may seem like a small one on the surface, but once you see the activity that's already taking place, you soon realize that it's a terrific opportunity to share with other parents on a daily basis!

We'd like to invite everyone to join us in our brand-new Facebook group! This is an area we've set up as a "closed" group. What that means is that you have to request to join and you can only see posts if you're a member. The advantage of this setup is that it gives us a safe place to talk about challenges we're experiencing with our children/families, get support and sometimes really helpful hints for handling the situations we find ourselves in as parents.

Anyone in the group can post to the group and share information or concerns they're having. Lara and I will also post a question each day for everyone to participate in if they want. (Feel free to suggest some questions in the comments!) Sometimes we'll ask fun questions. Sometimes silly. Sometimes we'll ask people about themselves. And occasionally we're going to try to highlight some of the businesses in the Kids in the Capital community and give  the opportunity for them to share what they do.

To avoid spamming our members, we have established some guidelines that I shared in a post yesterday:

"We will be having a "question of the day" each day to promote discussion and we'll plan to solicit information about businesses periodically as part of that. Outside of those regular posts, we'd ask that people refrain from self promotion since this group has the potential to grow fairly large and we don't want people to feel spammed. We'd like everyone to respect the purpose of this group, which is to provide tips and support. But that can occasionally lend itself to sharing business info, so when it's part of the natural flow of conversation, we would have no problem with it."

That's the scoop on this new group! Please stay tuned next week when we announce another community-building aspect that will give everyone a chance to give back.

Will you join our group? And do you have any suggestions for our "Question of the Day"?

Autumn at Parc Omega

by Carly

Our family is not hugely into Halloween - for no particular reason, though the Little Man has always found it more scary than fun and so we downplay it for his sake and ours.  It wasn't a huge event for me when I was a child, so perhaps that's partly why we don't do the haunted tractor rides, the pumpkin patch or the parties.

We do, however, have a mad, mad love affair with Fall. Jake, now five, shares in this enthusiasm for Autumn.  The last two months have seen our weekends full of family related activities as mundane as cleaning out the garage and as pleasant as visits to out of town relatives.  Needless to say, Jake's been begging for a weekend activity centered around him, so this past Sunday his Nana and I took him to Parc Omega.

He'd visited with a day camp over the summer, but was frustrated by the height of the bus windows and his inability to reach the animals in order to hand feed them.  Since then he's been asking to go back.  At just over 8 months pregnant, I'm not up for wandering around a museum for hours or hiking through Gatineau Park.  But Parc Omega was a great option since you can both drive through the park, and stop from time to time to meander along the walking trails.

We saw caribou, red and white-tailed deer, bison, timber and arctic wolves, coyotes, wild pigs, blue herons, geese, beavers, moose, blue jays, raccoons, black bear, goats, ibexs, foxes, skunks and more.

Hearing Jake's squeals of laughter as the caribou and deer ate carrots he fed them through the car windows warmed my heart.  It was a perfect fall day and a lovely drive through Quebec, surrounded by beautiful hills ablaze in colour on one side and the Ottawa river on the other.

If you go . . . Parc Omega is near Montebello, about a 45-60 minute drive from Ottawa.  If you want to enjoy the walking trails, wear comfortable clothes and shoes!  The park is open year-round with prices ranging from $15-$18 per adult and $13-$7 for children depending on their age and the season.

Carrots are the preferred food of choice for the animals because they're healthy and easy to feed (long enough that little fingers don't need to worry about being nipped).  You can purchase them in the gift shop, or bring your own.  (We brought 6 lbs and went through them in minutes - I do wish we'd brought more!)

There is a canteen on-site, though like many tourist attractions, the prices are a little high.  You can bring your own picnic lunch and eat at a variety of spots throughout the park.

Depending on how busy the park is and how quickly you choose to drive through it, plan on spending at least a couple of hours meeting all the animals along the way.

Carly has red hair and occasionally the temper to match.  She loves potatoes, rainy nights, photography, her husband and her 5 year old son, Jacob.  Probably in reverse order.   She also blogs.

Dovercourt Recreation Centre's Saturday Night Date Night

by Vivian

I have a confession: it's been almost two years since I have had a "date night" with my husband.

You remember dates right? Where you can go out for a meal without having to bring along a stuffed animal or cut up food into bite-sized pieces for someone else?

We don't have a go-to 'night out' baby sitter, nor do we have family in the city who'll willingly take on our Jr. VP for the evening, so you can only imagine how happy my husband and I were when we learned that Dovercourt Recreation Centre added Saturday Night Date Night to its Fall programming this year.

From Dovercourt's schedules (it's helpfully found in their Pre-Schooler & Parented, School Age and Adult programs under "For Couples" on the first page):

Our new Saturday Night Date Night is a WIN WIN!

Drop the kids with us for an exciting evening for them and a night out for you. We'll start the night off with programmed water activities and a swim in the pool between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. Next up is Preschool room for a healthy snack and a wide range of quieter dry land activities designed to wind down the night and get ready for bed. Drop off is between 6:00 - 6:30 in the Preschool room, and pick up is between 8:30 - 9:00 in the Preschool room. $16 or 2 preschool Pass punches. Ages 5-12.

You pre-register and pay for the date night of your choice through Dovercourt's online registration system and then count down the days until date night.

We made sure to sell Date Night to our Jr. VP as being a special night for him. ;)

Unfortunately, the first date I tried setting up was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we were the only ones registered, so date night was cancelled. *Cue the sad trombone* :(.

Our date was moved to the following week and lo and behold, two days before Date Night, we were told once again that our Jr. VP was the only one enrolled, but they wouldn't cancel it again. The program director, Allison, did suggest that I tell some friends so that it could be a bit more fun for our son. After a couple of emails and a few late registrations, there were actually 8 kids who enjoyed Date Night this past Saturday! (The program can accommodate up to 20 kids per date night.)

While my husband and I were enjoying each other's company and an excellent sushi meal, our son and the other Date Night kids were under the watchful eye of Dovercourt staffer Amy. They had the pool all to themselves for an hour! Most kids requested life jackets and ours specifically asked to stay in the shallow end near the slide. After the pool, they were dried up, dressed, and herded back to the Pre-School room for a juice and granola bar snack, followed by a craft activity. Our son isn't big into crafts and as it turns out neither were some of the other kids, so when we came to pick him up at 9pm, he was happily playing with Dovercourt's large collection of games and toys. (One note about pick-up: you can pick-up your children between 8:30pm - 9pm, but after 9pm there is a $5 charge for every 10 minutes that you are late.)

{Photo caption: The Jr. VP, playing with some of Dovercourt's games before we left him for our date. I would have gotten photos of him playing in the pool, but that would have defeated the idea of going out on a date!}

{Photos - Character Creative's Jr. VPs working on the after-swim beading craft}

A good time was definitely had by all! The Jr. VP is excited to have another Date Night, though I doubt he's as excited as I am!

P.S. It turns out that Dovercourt isn't the only one in the city who offers this type of program. If you're in Barrhaven, or perhaps seeing a movie in Barrhaven, you can also check out A Gym Tale's "Kids Night Out!". If you know of any other similar programs in the Ottawa-area, I'm sure other date-deprived parents would love to hear about them!

Vivian is mom to the five-year-old Jr. VP of Blend Creations, the company she and her husband run together.