It took some tough love from his son to get this dad on the path to good health The world is often a place of harsh truths. Like many parents, I do my utmost to cushion the hard times in my […]
Dad’s Corner
Dad bod
Fatherhood has both inspired and encouraged this dad’s very practical, very strategic fitness routine It was around Elgin Street when I gleefully realized my knees weren’t going to buckle after all. I had trudged three long downtown blocks on the […]
Gimme a break
March Break holds special charms for Chris Hunt. Here’s why it ranks over Christmas and New Year’s When I was a boy, I didn’t appreciate March Break for what it really was. Being your typical self-absorbed adolescent, I was grateful […]
A ‘wheelie’ good time
His son now at bike-riding age, our columnist considers the pros and cons of outsourcing this rite of passage I was walking with my wife and our son through the Glebe one morning when a small kid zipped past us […]
The ruins
Nudists, caterpillars and blisters, oh, my! It’s all in a day’s hike for this columnist When asked where my favourite place to hike around Ottawa is, I’ll usually lie and say Hogsback. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hogsback. There’s […]
New beginnings
Columnist Jon Willing recently traded a high-profile reporting career for one in academia. The biggest winners? His family A middle-age, late-career job change can be a gamble. You have built years of seniority and achieved a level of expertise […]
Calendar guy
Hello, junior kindergarten: As his son Miles begins school, Jon Willing enters a new scheduling nightmare The first year of school — and possibly the ensuing 13 — requires a proper hardcopy calendar. That was the first […]
It’s the little things
It doesn’t take much to teach kids how to give back My son Riley was kneeling in a sea of shredded Christmas paper and discarded ribbons. In front of him, a small mountain of toys loomed. Nestled around him was […]
Sharing is caring
The last page of a Sesame Street book shows Cookie Monster and Elmo splitting a snack and telling us, “Sharing is caring.” It has become a line often repeated in our home as we teach our three-year-old son, […]
It’s not easy being green
Minimizing your footprint is difficult with a preschooler at home I was thinking about my family’s environmental footprint recently, specifically about food waste, as I mindlessly peeled about 10 large potatoes for a three-person meal. I was going […]