Kiki has a look he gives us when we pull up somewhere like this. Let's go! Right now! He's not going to wait, but he knows the deal, he has to wait, because he has to go in with us. This time I just said GO! And he took off, leaving a smoke cloud in the shape of his body.
It made me feel a little guilty, honestly. So much of his day is structured. Freedom means riding his bike, but only near the house. Watch whatever you want on Netflix, but nothing that isn't age appropriate, and not too loud. You can play video games, but no yelling, and nothing violent. It's hard to actually let him be free. This place, a secure building full of families with a lifeguard every ten feet, was the rare spot where I could hand him the whole thing and mean it.
Because getting snatched is what my wife is super paranoid about, and her being part of local mom groups does not help. Doing something stupid that lands him in a cast is every parent's worst nightmare... well, besides getting snatched. At the Fallsview Indoor Waterpark, the big dome on top of the parkade behind the old Planet Hollywood, all of that just went quiet. I stood back and watched two kids have an uncomplicated blast. Nothing but joy. I took way too many pictures. I didn't want to forget the day.
I spent my half with RiRi, and the splash pad behind the little slide structure was a gold mine to her. The floor dips so puddles collect everywhere, and here, for once, splashing them was not only allowed, it was the entire point. She never got tired of it. She did not walk past a single puddle all day. She splashed in every one. That's the law of puddles, and she enforced it. When she got cranky I figured she was due for a nap, so I walked her around. No nap. She marched right back to the water, this time dragging her mom in with her.
Here's the part I didn't expect. It was cheaper than our usual Niagara day. $40/head with the Costco passes, and that beat Clifton Hill by a mile once you tally every attraction we'd have paid into, plus dinner on the strip. Less money, half the chaos, and nobody spent the afternoon dragging me toward the next corny attraction.
We can't do this every weekend. But a day where both kids get to let loose and I get to see them having this much fun, I'll take that over the strip any time. I've got the three hundred pictures to prove it.
Neeks
Dads corner
Donut Mind If I Do
Some outings don't need to be a whole production. You don't always have the time, the money, or the energy for a full day out, and honestly the kids don't always need one either. Sometimes the entire win is a donut on the way home, or getting outside for some ice cream. Just the other night I grabbed the kids and took them to Jax Sweet Shoppe in Dundas, just to get out of the house.
So we went and mapped all the treat spots across Hamilton and Burlington. Donut shops, ice cream and dessert cafes, candy stores, and a handful of the old-school diners the kids love. Dozens of them, all in one place.
Finding them is easy. Open the activity finder and tap the new "Treat Stops" filter. You get just the sweet stuff, and you can narrow it by neighbourhood so you're not driving across town for a single scoop.
It's the kind of thing you pull up when you've got a restless kid and twenty minutes to kill. Point at the map, pick a spot, be a hero for the price of a cone. I usually end our hikes with a treat somewhere, so if you're planning an activity, search for a treat spot you haven't tried near wherever you're headed.
Events this Weekend
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