Fleas and mosquitoes

Early morning. Alice is trying to reach an itchy flea bite on her back. When she realizes she can't reach it with her hands, she starts rubbing her back against the door frame.

Alice: I think I've figured out why fleas bite us.

Me: Why is that?

Alice: I think they're eating our blood.

Me: I think you're right.

Alice: Are fleas related to mosquitoes?

Me: Well, they're both insects. But I don't think they're closely related.

Alice: Oh.

She finds a particularly effective corner of the door frame for scratching against. She looks like a bear rubbing itself against a tree.

She pauses and looks at me.

Alice: Are they at least friends?

What's the one thing you wish you did better as a parent?

Take a listen to my CBC Radio column for November, would ya? It features four-year-old Alice singing "Ina: little teapot."


$6.08

My pal Ty Stapleton and I went busking the other day over our lunch to raise a bit of money for Movember. We'd had some luck with our Friday MOriginal Luv Songs and thought perhaps it was time to take this show on the road.

We set up on Queen Street in Charlottetown, just south of Grafton.

How'd we do?

Not so great. We made $6.08.

But, oh boy, was it ever fun! No joke.

Our other pal, the ever-talented Neal Gillis, popped by our little street show with his iPhone and made this l'il video. I think it turned out pretty neat.



Dave and Ty busk for Movember from Neal Gillis on Vimeo.

Incidentally, having a bro who happens to be a talented videographer: totally great.

If you'd like to donate to our Movember team, we'd sure appreciate it. Get your credit card and go here.

Remind me of this when she's too big to pick up

Morning. I'm in the kitchen. I hear Alice plodding down the stairs.

Me: Is that Alice I hear?

I hear her feet begin to run.

Alice: It's meeee!

She runs into the kitchen. I pick her up and give her a big hug. She wraps her arms around my neck.

Me: Good morning, you.

Alice: Good morning, Dad.

I put her down. She is still looking up, looking past me to the ceiling.

Alice: Wow. You go almost all the way up.


MOriginal Luv Song 2012: Song Dump #2

Another Friday in November, another edition of MOriginal Luv Songs!

Neally wanted a song called Bitter Dregs. I'll let YouTube Davy explain what that means and sing you the song.


(Original version of that song: right here)

Katrina, my pal in Cape Breton, couldn't decide what she wanted her song about.

See you next Friday, y'all. Meantime, donate your hearts out at mobro.co/davyay

Pop quiz!

Multiple choice!

1. Scenario: You are eight-years-old. You save up your allowance to buy a Lego set.

You buy it. You bring it home. You build it. You love it.

Your dad, using Lego bricks you already own, builds nearly the identical thing.

QUESTION:

Is this:

A) Awesome?

B) Not awesome?




Answer: It's both!

Next year's garlic

We stop at our community garden plot. I am amazed to find it still productive. We harvest greens and onions, which I will gleefully put in my belly at suppertime.

We also plant garlic for next year. Every culinary bone in my body screams in protest as I watch the cloves go into the earth.

I think of all the scapes and garlic I get to gleefully put in my belly next year.

I'm okay again.

MOriginal Luv Songs 2012: song dump one

Hey everyone! Day One of MOriginal Luv Songs 2012 went super great!

I started the day by making amends for, um, an incident last year.



And then I got a donation from my pal Melanie. She wanted a song about ice tea.




My Aunt Ruth Anne wanted a song about green tomatoes.


And finally, colleague Rebecca wanted a song about the cardboard cutout of a former colleague we keep in our office. We call him Plastic Felix.


So that's it for this week! If you want to donate to my Movember efforts, please do so at mobro.co/davyay.

If you want a song, well, wait for next week!

MOriginal Luv Songs 2012

Y'all:

The management is pleased to announce the return of MOriginal Luv Songs.

I will write and record an original song for you, on the subject of your choice, if you are one of the first three people to donate to my Movember page after 10 o'clock Atlantic time, tomorrow (November 2).

I'll write and record the songs over my lunch hour, and post them on YouTube in the afternoon so you can watch and enjoy them over and over and over again.

This was lots of fun last year. My Movember team, Taskforce Awesome, raised nearly 1500 bucks for prostate cancer research.

We'll do this every Friday throughout Movember. Sound great?

Yaaaaaay!