Relax, It's Just a Game

It's been difficult to find time to write this. It's been in my head for a couple of weeks.
I touched on this a couple of years ago in relation to my kids and their attitudes of the sports that they play. My concerns of that time have totally vanished. The boys really enjoy their sports.
More recently I have posted about coaches who take it a little too seriously. More of that is in here.

If games are lost our guys don't sulk or dwell on it. We just enjoy the fact that they're playing and doing their best while having fun.

I admit that there are times when my own frustration level rises but these are usually due to what I feel is poor sportsmanship or less than stellar officiating. I've learned to bite my tongue as much as I can though.

Sometimes I miss when something bad goes down but hear about it from someone else afterwards.
Quite often I dismiss what I saw and figure that I may not have seen it correctly.

One thing that I am thankful and proud of is that my sons and the other members of their hockey team rarely retaliate.
Obviously they aren't always angels but for the amount of garbage I have seen them put up with they're doing darn well.

Check this out though.
Ever since the boys started playing hockey I have done my best to capture every goal and assist on video. I've missed a couple but have done surprisingly well.
I have almost 20 minutes of videos of T and B's goals and assists.

Something else I have learned about my videos is that while I'm catching the goals and assists I ALSO catch what is going on around it.
Several times I have been alarmed/disgusted at things I see.

Here are a couple of recent examples. I have done screen captures from the videos.
These first 2 were from a game back in January at a tournament in Fredericton Junction. Our guys wore the Bruin's black and yellow jerseys.

Both pictures are from the same game.
Fortunately the team they played against isn't a local team and they don't play against them very often.

In the first one that is my son B in the middle.
The player right beside the goalie and B had just been behind the net trying to get the puck. Another player had managed to get it and shot it up the ice.
I was watching and there were no issues with B and the other player. They did some minor scuffling to get to the puck but nobody was being rough or overly physical with the other.
When the puck left they just parted ways.

What we see in this picture is a third kid who was not involved with B or the other taking his stick and hitting B on the side of his leg. It was a pretty good smack too. I drew a blue arrow to show where he hits him.

It didn't hurt B but stung a bit.
You can see tell that everyone else's attention was on the other end of the ice and nobody would have seen this if I had not happened to still be recording.

I am at a loss to figure out why this kid did this. I didn't notice them having any altercations before this but they may have.

Did this kid do it because he was angry that B had scored the first goal against them? Or he feel that B roughed up his teammate when they were digging for the puck?

I don't think there is any excuse for taking a sucker shot to anyone like this. He didn't get called for it.



This next one ires me a bit more since it happened right in plain view of everyone and the other player wasn't called for it.
It's the same team as the one above but a different kid from the other team.

B had been out in front of the net and was in the process of getting over to where the puck was.
He had not had any contact with another player yet and was just going for the puck.

Number 15 on the other team came behind B and crosschecked him as he was reaching the puck.
B didn't fall but was pushed pretty solidly. It could have been very ugly if B had fallen into the boards.

I understand that the officials are only human and can't be and see everywhere at once. They do the best that they can.
But why didn't that linesman right there call this? These are the the officiating moments that irk me. If B had been hurt I would certainly have followed it up.



I openly confess that when I played hockey in my youth I was a hothead. I retaliated too often when someone hit me too hard or swatted me with their stick. I should have been more like my own kids and just skate away.

The biggest difference between when I played recreational level hockey and today's recreational level hockey is that we played a physical contact game from when we were little all the way up.

Physical contact is only allowed in the competitive levels here now, not recreational.

You know something though? As rough as we were with each other in those days we would never intentionally do something to try and actually injure the other guys. Even when we fought we kept our gloves and helmets on and just let off some steam.
The fact was that we knew these other guys. We had probably played on the same team with them in prior seasons. We went to school with them. We hung out with them. In the summer we played other sports together.
I can't imagine how terrible I would have felt if I had actually caused real harm to any of the other guys.

Imagine what people would have thought about me? Imagine walking through the hallway at school and people looking at you as "that guy" who hurt so-and-so.
That's nothing to be proud of. Not in my mind anyway.

The biggest problem that I am seeing in the boys' hockey now are an increasing number of kids who are actually a genuine danger to others.
A bigger problem is that when they have already shown their true colours they are allowed to remain in the league and do it again.

There is one lad who was on our boys team a couple of years ago. He seemed like a fairly decent kid back then. I had nothing against him.

This year he has been suspended for attacking other players.
Once, perhaps his emotions got the best of him. Two or three times, this kid has issues that need to be dealt with by those qualified to do so.
There is no place for them among the others who want to have fun and play the game.
The FYHA isn't a babysitting service or for disciplining our kids.
That's a parent's job.

This is about another boy whose team played against us a couple of weeks ago.
I had not actually noticed his behaviour in the other times we played against them.
I certainly did in this game.

In this game our team was losing for most of the game.
With about three minutes left in the game one of our guys scored and tied the score at 3-3.
I was standing at one of my usual areas behind the other team's goal.
When we got the tying goal I noticed this kid out the side of my eye swing his stick and hit the boards with it. He was visibly crying and obviously angry.
I thought it was a bit much for a player to be this upset at a recreational level but I was happy that we had tied the game and didn't pay him any more attention.

With about one minute left we scored again to go ahead 4-3. It was a great goal too. The kids were passing it well and really deserved it.

Then, with only 7 seconds left in the game my son B raced down the ice and backhanded a beautiful shot into the top corner to seal the game 5-3.

I captured this goal on video. When I watched it later on my computer I happened to notice a brief spot where the kid I mentioned above takes his stick to the goalpost of their net. I wasn't paying any attention to him at the time and missed it.
Here's a screen capture of it. My guy is celebrating and the other kid is swinging his stick.



This isn't the worst of it either.
A good friend of mine who's son was playing in the game after ours was watching our game from just off to the right of my picture.
He was watching this kid pretty closely. I was stunned to find out what I had missed.

After our team tied the game up this kid took off down the ice after our top player and speared him. Our player went down but no penalty was called.
When our team scored goal number four this boy took a run at his OWN GOALIE and speared him! His teammate!
I was told that this boy is continually smashing and swinging his stick around in games when he is angry.

Why isn't he being dealt with? Certainly they must know that there is a problem here.
If he is being dealt with it's not working.

One day someone is going to get seriously hurt by these types of players.

It's pretty clear to me.
Fix the problem before then. Deal with it now.
If it can't be easily remedied then these kids should be kept out until it is.

My last point is about those coaches who take it far too seriously.

About a month ago we played against the team that has the best player in the league.
This boy has been playing at the Triple A competitive level up until now.
Unfortunate circumstances have made it difficult for his family to handle the extra travel and added expense of playing competitive so he is in recreational hockey this year.

He is an incredible player and consistently scores the majority of his team's goals in every game. Quite often unassisted.
He is a nice boy and I definitely don't blame him for going out there and doing what he is capable of.

What bothers me is the attitude of his coach.
It appears to me that this coach expects to win every game and will not accept defeat.

In the last game against them we were losing 5-4. The superstar had scored 3 of their goals unassisted.

With 1.7 seconds left in the game our player made a great move and popped it in to tie the game.
I had never been so happy for a tie game as I was that night. The kids played their hearts out. Even if they didn't get a victory the tie was just as sweet.

The way I saw it was that there were no losers in the game. Everyone could be happy and satisfied with that outcome.

It appears that I was wrong.
I noted that I didn't see the other coach after the game.

One of our parents told me that as soon as we scored the tying goal the other coach looked furious and stormed out the back door by the team's bench.
He didn't speak to anyone or shake any one's hand. He just stormed out.

If he had somewhere to go in a rush at least he could have called over to the our coaches and then left.
Both teams always shake hands either before or after every game.
How many seconds would that have taken him?

I would expect that if someone behaves like this at a hockey game that it must affect other aspects of their lives.
Are they happy in their lives?
I understand the desire to win and competitive drive but shouldn't there be some downtime where you just stand back and enjoy the game?

Where are Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden? Mr. Orr and Mr. Dryden know more about The Game than anyone else ever could. Perhaps a trip to Fredericton for a little talk is in order?

These are a bunch of kids for crying out loud. This isn't competitive level hockey.
It's just a game after all.
Part of the definition is: Game - An activity providing entertainment or amusement.
Look it up.

Stay well,
Tim

My 40′s Years

The post below appeared at http://www.fortylicious.ca/blog/2012/01/my-40s-years/
yesterday (January 18, 2012).
My friend Heather who operates the site asked me if I would like to provide a guest blog. I was happy to do so.

Stay well,
Tim

My 40′s Years

My Twitter pal Heather Held from http://www.fortylicious.ca asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would do a guest blog post for her site.
I guess she had read a couple of my personal blog entries and liked what she saw.

For those that don’t know, Fortylicious.ca is a web site started by Heather and Dena Pollack as a cool site for people in their 40’s to hang around, read interesting articles, seek expert advice and share things in common with other folks in their 40’s.

Heather asked me if I could talk about being in my 40’s. At first I felt kind of weird about it since I am at the far end of this age group. I’ll be 49 in June.

When I mentioned this to Heather she said to do a piece summarizing something about my 40’s years. Now why didn’t I think of that.

At first I was wondering what to say. Then it came to me.

Some huge and very important things have happened over the last 9 years.

In January 2003, my wife and I packed up from Ontario which was the only province we had both ever known as home, and moved our family to New Brunswick.

Second and more importantly, I have watched my two little twin guys go from being wee kids of 3 years old to become pretty darn close to adults at 13 years old.

These boys were barely up to my waist when they were 3. Now, they are 5’10 and 5’11 tall and have size 12 feet! The good thing with this is that when I am going out I can have my pick of the shoes at the door. They all fit except that the boys shoes are actually big on me. I’m serious. My feet are only a men’s size 10 ½ to 11. Lol.

Think about this though.

In my mind, there are really only 2 stages in life. Childhood and adulthood.

The teen years are sort of a limbo in between but I classify them as almost being in adulthood. Of course old age is adulthood as well but sometimes with a sad regression to childhood.

Within one decade of my life, my 40’s, I have watched my twin sons go from childhood into adulthood.

When I was 39, my sons were little guys singing in their car seats in the back of the car as we travelled.

Now I am almost 49 and both of my sons now have wonderful young ladies as girlfriends and sit in the back seat holding hands with them as I drive.

Many who read this are probably thinking “Girlfriends?? At 13??”. I would usually agree with you but I have to tell you that these kids are mature, responsible and polite about their “relationships”.

Cheryl and I have become friends with the girls’ parents and spent New Year’s Eve with them at our house. It was very nice.

When I was 39, the boys were barely able to stand up on skates and needed us walking with them on the ice holding their hands.

Now I am almost 49, these same boys stand over 6 feet tall on skates and fly like the wind out there in their hockey games.

One is consistently one of the top scorers on the team while the other is one of the best defencemen in the league and guards that blue line like an officer on the beat.

When they were little almost every moment of their young lives was tied in with my wife and I.

Over the last little while we are becoming less of a factor in what goes on in their lives.

That’s not really a negative thing. It is terribly sad to me but it’s a sign that my sons are maturing and becoming more independent. This will serve them well in the years to come.

Two little boys into two handsome young men in less than one decade of my life. That’s pretty huge.

The last and unfortunately the saddest thing about the years in my 40’s have been those that I have lost.

When I was in my 20’s I lost one of my closest friends to cancer. At that time I had never experienced the passing of someone that close to me before. It took a very long time for me to be able to put that loss into a section of my brain so that the pain was lessened. I didn’t think that anything could hurt as much as losing a close pal that I had known almost all of my life.

Then about nine years ago shortly after we moved to New Brunswick we lost my stepfather to cancer. He and my mother had been together for over 20 years but had only been oficially married for a couple of years when this happened.

The worst thing about losing him was that I was all the way over here in New Brunswick while my mother and sister were in Ontario trying to deal with his passing.

It wasn’t easy trying to help mom but we did the best that we could do a couple of provinces away.

Uncle Maurice was my great-uncle. My father’s uncle. He was one of my favourite people in the whole world. I had loved him like crazy for my whole life. One would be hard-pressed to find someone as personable, easy going and fun as Uncle Maurice.

In fact, people in Fredericton still talk about him with great fondness.

When we were moving to New Brunswick one of the biggest things that I was looking forward to was finally being close enough to Uncle Maurice to be able to see him often and let our boys get to know him.

Uncle Maurice passed away with the first few months of our coming out here and we never did get to hang out with him as I had hoped.

In August 2008 my beautiful little sister Hayley passed away of cancer.

A few months later on New Year’s Eve we lost my mother to cancer as well.

As hard as Andy’s passing had been to me when I was in my 20’s the passing of my mother and sister a couple of years ago has had the most profound effect on me.

I guess if one tries to weigh things out the years of my 40’s haven’t been so great but they haven’t been completely rotten have they?

I’m not going to say anything to predict what my 50’s will hold. I don’t dread them as many people do. A year is only a measure of time after all.

True age is a mental state.

Just try to enjoy today and continue along safely and I think everything will be just fine.

Stay well,

Tim

Tim is a 40-something part-time municipal councillor, current provincial government employee, married father of 13 year-old twin sons who lives in New Brunswick, Canada and has no problem telling the world exactly what is on his mind.

His personal blog page can be found at http://tim4nm.blogspot.com/

Safety? Who cares about safety?

There's something I'd like to mention that happened last Thursday night.
I've discussed it on Twitter and Facebook already but I'm able to give more details here.

Our boys' hockey team was registered to play in a hockey tournament in Fredericton Junction this past weekend.
For those who don't have a clue where the heck that is, this is from Google Maps. Fredericton Junction is the B on the bottom. New Maryland (where we live) is the A at the top of the purple path line.




It doesn't look like much really. It's about 35 kilometers (22 miles for my American friends) and takes about 1/2 and hour to drive on a normal day.
A NORMAL day. That would be without a wild blowing snowstorm or freezing rain.

I should add that you can't tell from a Google map but that road is pretty well unlit the whole way and is mainly forest on both sides.

Anyway, back to the topic.
Last Thursday started out pretty well. The daytime weather was nothing out of the ordinary.
However, some nastiness and freezing rain was forecast for the late afternoon to early evening.

I've always loathed this but many tournament organizers don't seem to realize or care that people have jobs and kids have to go to school. They begin weekend hockey tournaments on the Thursday night in order to squeeze more games in.

Our sons were actually going to miss the team's first game that night.
It may seem crazy but there was a good reason. Really.
They were going to the school dance which was supposed to have taken place just before Christmas but was postponed due to the weather (sigh) and rescheduled for this night.
Both boys had been looking forward to that dance so much. Both of their girlfriends were going with them and it was going to be a really nice evening.

Guess what? The school heard the weather forecast and postponed/cancelled the dance again. I guess it will be a Christmas/Valentine dance.
They cancelled all after school activities for that day.

Ah well, that meant that they could now play in Thursday night's hockey game.
Before that I had to take T to his piano lesson and then pick up his young lady friend to go to the game with us.
Cheryl was taking B to pick up his young lady friend and we were going to meet at home and head to the game from there.

Somewhere around 5:00 or so Mother Nature decided it was time to give it to us.
It started out looking like a misty rain except that it froze into a sheet of ice on my car windshield.

As I was waiting for T at his piano lesson I had a call from Cheryl that the hockey game that night was cancelled due to the weather. That made a lot of sense to me.
Especially as I drove along in a line of cars trying to slide and skid our way up the Hanwell Road hill in Fredericton.

The weather wasn't nice at all. Truth be told, I was a little anxious at the thought of travelling that icy dark road to get to the game.

Here's where it gets weird.

What I didn't realize was that the decision to cancel the game was made by our team's coaches and Cheryl who is the manager. Not by the tournament organizers.
Our folks made the right choice.

However, when they called the tournament organizers they were told that by cancelling we would forfeit the game and it would go on the board as a 3-0 loss for us.
There was nothing in the tournament rules saying this but they made it up right then.

I also found out that the president of the Tri-County league who was running the tournament commented that the roads weren't bad.
It's possible that what he saw out his window was different from what we saw but I don't think it could be that far off.
I'm sorry pal. The roads WERE bad.

He made a snarky comment that the Grand Lake team had made it there so we should be able to as well.
What he didn't account for was that the Grand Lake team played over an hour before us and did their travelling before the storm hit.

Of course our first game was against the home team who could probably walk over to the arena. There's no reason for them to need to cancel the game. They didn't have to drive in what we did.

Something completely floors me about this guy's mentality.

Exactly 4 years to the day on Thursday, a horrific accident took the lives of seven young basketball players and a teacher and injured four others who were in the vehicle near Bathurst, New Brunswick.
They were returning home from a basketball game in Moncton in a 15 passenger van. There was a light freezing rain and poor visibility.
The coach who was driving lost control of the van and veered into the path of a large truck.

This struck the hearts of everyone and saddens and haunts New Brunswick.

Many lessons were learned and new rules and regulations came about as a result of this terrible tragedy.

The one biggest thing which I take from it is that no matter what, no matter what type of event or game is on the line, it doesn't matter who is supposed to be somewhere doing something, OUR KID'S SAFETY HAS to be the priority.

It's a shame that there are still people out there who haven't learned this yet but their education isn't going to come at the expense of anyone else if I can help it.

There was no sense arguing about it.
We accepted our loss and played the other two games on Saturday.
We didn't win but the guys played solid hockey and enjoyed themselves.

B had a goal in the second game and won player of the game. T shut down several plays that were heading towards our end with his defensive skills.

We were proud of them all and everyone got home safe and sound.

Stay well,
Tim

Another year is almost wrapped up

A couple of things I'd like to zip on here while I have a few minutes to spare.

First, I hope that everyone has had a great holiday season so far and played safely.
I'm looking forward to seeing all of my present friends and making some new ones in 2012. So don't go and do anything goofy to ruin that. Okay?

Secondly, a quick heads up that both of my lads presently have very nice and polite girlfriends that Cheryl and I like very much. Thumbs up to T and B. Well done.
I'm betting that I will be mentioning this again at some point in the future.

On December 10 my grandmother (who we have always known as Granny) turned 100 years old!!
Do you believe that? She is the oldest person I have ever known.
Co-incidentally, she also happens to be one of the people that I have known the longest. :)
She's in great shape too.
We had a nice family gathering at a small restaurant in the Village of Gagetown.
Family came in from the U.S. and Ontario for the lunch.
The local MLA presented Granny with a letter from himself as well as the premier of New Brunswick and other members of government.
It was really very nice. We all had a nice time and Granny was delighted to have us all together.

Finally, a couple of posts ago I talked about B's paper route and that we were required to insert the mounds of flyers into the papers from now on.
I made a mistake. Oops.
Last week the papers rolled in on Thursday and I was surprised to see that the flyers were already in place.
I mentioned it to Cheryl and she told me that we only had to insert them for a couple of weeks before Christmas. It's back to normal now.
Darn, we were starting to make plans on what to spend that extra dollar a week on.

I stand corrected.

Stay well, play safely, and Happy New Year (in case I don't talk to you before then).

Tim

I wish that I could be stronger...

This isn't a happy one. If you proceed to read it I apologize now.
If you don't read it that's okay. I understand.

One of the many difficult tasks of dealing with my mother and sister's passing three years ago has been going through so many of mom's things.

The "things" haven't been too bad I guess. They're pretty simple. Either it's something that we can use, I can give to someone else to use, or throw away.

The real crusher has been going through the multitude of photo albums that mom had.

It's almost like mom had an obsession with photos. Every time she went on a trip she returned with rolls and rolls of film to be processed. She had them all developed and then put every picture in photo albums.

When she was done showing friends and family the photos she would put the album(s) in their storage spot with the multitude of other albums. I'm quite positive that they were never looked at again until I inherited them.

I should mention that they are certainly not all holiday snaps. I've been surprised to find plenty of family pictures that I had either never seen or had just forgotten about.

Most of these photo albums were put in a huge Rubbermaid storage container but there were others in boxes as well.
I brought them back to New Brunswick a few years ago in a rented trailer along with lots of other things.

When I began going through these things I accepted the reality that I would have to be ruthless.
Unfortunately my nature is to hoard things.
I had not really realized that I had some of this characteristic until I watched the show "Hoarders" on TV.
I'm not as bad as the folks on that show but many times I find myself sympathizing and understanding what the hoarders on the show are feeling.

As I looked at the pile of mom's photo albums I accepted that there was no way possible that we could keep all of them.
Disposal was necessary.
I decided that unless a photo had mom or anyone else that I cared about in it it went into the trash.

It was impressive how well I did. I loaded up an entire garbage bag with photos of scenes that were pleasant but had no relevance to me other than that my mother had taken them.

I was at it for a few hours each day.
This seems like (and was) a long time but I was still far from done.

One morning a few days into this I felt terrible. It felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was sore and achy all over.
It was everything I could do just to get out of bed. I can't remember feeling so awful.

At first I didn't make a connection with this and mom's photos but my doctor pointed it out in a conversation.

Holy cow, he was right.
This process of looking at hundreds of pictures and throwing many away was affecting me and I hadn't realized it.

You could understand why to this day I have never gone back to that task.

T is a very tidy and neat lad and I am very proud of him for this. He is neater than I have ever been in my entire life.
It's all good though. He isn't really obsessive about it but takes it very seriously and has pride in doing it right.

You can imagine how frustrated T has been with the stacks of photo albums and other items of mom's sitting there in the basement unmoved for two years.

I haven't actually told anyone about the effects of the pictures on me. I've just steered clear and avoided that pile of stuff.

Until today.

I had a message from Cheryl who was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff down there. She had tried to get into it to clean up but wanted me to help her with it.

So I told her what my problem is and why I haven't done what I was supposed to do.

Her reply was "That's okay Hon...I will do it."

Thank goodness.

Stay well,
Tim

Gee, thanks...

This is rather amusing and I wanted to share it.

As many of you know, our son B started a newspaper route almost a year ago. It's delivered every day except Sundays and Christmas Day.

It's been going pretty well and he and I have the routine down to a science. His route isn't in our neighbourhood so I drive him over and we do it together.

I wake up at 6:15 and go outside to get the newspaper bundle while he gets dressed and ready to go. The papers usually arrive sometime before we get up.
I say "usually" but not always. There have been a few instances that they have been two hours late. We were told in the beginning that the customers are to have their papers delivered before 7 a.m.
Gotcha.

I put the bundle on the kitchen table and cut the plastic straps holding the bundle.
By this time B has come into the kitchen. Some of the customers like to have their paper in plastic bags while most do not.
I hold the bag and B rolls the paper small enough to fit into it.
Then we're ready to go.

Since the start of B's paper career, Thursday has been a dreaded day for us.
That's flyer day and the papers are sometimes almost twice as fat as a regular day.
That's okay though and not a big deal.
For the past few weeks the flyers have been huge and almost twice as thick as the newspaper itself! I'm assuming that this is due to the Christmas season being upon us.
Up until recently the papers had come bundled as usual with the flyers already within the papers.

However, a few weeks ago the newspaper publisher sent out an announcement that the flyers would no longer be inside the papers and would be in their own bundles.
The carriers were now required to insert them into the papers.

But, it was going to be worth their while. The publisher was going to pay the carriers a little extra for their efforts on flyer day.

I thought okay, it's a bit of a pain but as long as he was to get some extra moolah for it, I'm good with that.

I'll tell you though. The last couple of weeks have been crazy with the size and number of flyers.
The person who delivers them to our house brings them right up and leaves them on our front porch which is nice.
A couple of times when there was a different person I found the bundles on the driveway behind my car. At first I didn't even know they were there. After waiting for a while I decided to go out and look around and that's when I found them.

A couple of weeks ago we had a snowstorm. The boys and I did a decent job of clearing the snow but during the night the snowplow came and left a gift at the end of the driveway.
When I got up to get the papers I could see them way down at the road at the end of the driveway.
Coincidentally this was on a monster sized flyer day so two trips were needed for me to bring them to the house.

Anyhoo, B and I have been stuffing all of those stupid flyers into all of those papers for a few weeks now without complaining too much with the knowledge that some extra bread will be gracing his palm.

Last week Cheryl received a copy of B's pay summary.

She made the huge announcement that we had indeed received the "flyer windfall" in his pay.

About a buck.

Just over one dollar.

Perhaps it's just me but I was really thinking that it would be a little more than that.

Ah well, it's better than nothing right?
Right? :)

Stay well,
Tim

Very Thankful Indeed

I recently read an article on being a thankful parent of twins.

The American Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend and being thankful is a common theme throughout the internet these days.

There were a several areas where our experiences differed as the article was written from a mother's perspective but all in all it pretty well nailed down my feelings too.

The author mentioned many things that twins share including their birthdays.
One major difference of our situation to the article is that our guys do NOT share the same birthday.
T was born before midnight on April 17 and B was delivered after midnight on April 18.
It's not a common thing for twins but one that we have been very happy about.

For their whole lives we have strived to highlight the boys' individuality.

We haven't dressed them alike or tried to make them appear the same as many parents of multiples do.
They're not the same.

They are their own person and having different birthdays is another fantastic way to show that.

To this day I still have people that are surprised when I tell them even though the boys look alike, they are very different in many many ways.

It's funny but when the boys were babies I had someone argue with me that they were not twins because of having different birthdays.
Needless to say I didn't bother arguing very long with that kind of logic. I just left that chap to think as he wishes.

One point mentioned that twins have a special bond even though they will inevitable squabble with each other.
Man, do I ever understand this one.
Sometimes the bickering makes me crazy and I can't ever imagine that they will EVER stop going at each other.

Then they do something awesome like make a funny video together as they did this past weekend which shows me that when they DO settle in and work together they can do magic.

Another great example is when they both go down into their music room to play together.
T on the piano and B on the drums.
Unfortunately these sessions usually only last for a couple of minutes before artistic differences put an end to the sessions but for those few minutes that they actually sit and play music together it's amazing.

I recall a guy that I worked with in Ontario who is a twin.
When our boys were babies I talked to him about being a twin. I naturally assumed that he and his brother are best friends and said so.

I was floored when he told me that he hates his brother.
He told me that when they were kids they would fight and hit each other so hard that they would make each other pee blood.

Now I'm betting with certainty that this is a rare example of a twin dynamic.

I wonder how their parents feel about these guys hating each other so much?

The very thought of that makes me feel sick to my stomach.
I am going to put that away and feel comfortable that my boys will never feel that way.

The article referred to a multiple birth being short and sweet and getting two babies at once. I'm pretty sure that Cheryl may not agree with the short and sweet point.
She went full term with our guys.
They were delivered naturally.
T was 7 pounds 9 ounces and B was 8 pounds 11 ounces.
Those who know about this will understand what she went through.
The delivery room was so full of people it was almost difficult to move.
There was a medical team for each baby as well as for Cheryl.

I'd like to say again right here that another thing that I am very thankful for is that I am a guy and will never have to go through what the ladies do. Lol.

The article referred to twins sharing private jokes and often even a special language with each other.
I love this one. It's totally true.
One thing my sons have between them is the way they call each other. It's hard to describe here but I'll just say that it's unique.

Ever since our sons were small I have repeatedly told them that friends will probably come and go throughout their whole lives. Unfortunately girlfriends and companions likely will as well.

Even Cheryl and I will be gone one day.

But, the constant thay will always have throughout anything and everything for their whole lives will be each other.

For that they should always be as I am.
Very thankful.

Stay well,
Tim