Day 7: Love All

June 27, 2026

I spent part of Saturday chasing one child around a tennis court while trying to convince the other that the tennis racket wasn't, in fact, broken..... and somewhere in the middle of all of it I caught myself waiting for my shoulders to tighten and my jaw to clench.

That probably sounds like a strange thing to notice.

The day hadn't started that way at all.

The kids woke up excited to play with toys they'd never seen before and, naturally, resume their relationship with my buddy's cats. Last time we were here, Lola made it her personal mission to terrorize the orange one. This time she managed to hug him. If cats believe in second chances, I think we witnessed one.

We walked to Tim Hortons for our morning caffeine drip while the kids enjoyed breakfast that probably wouldn't earn the approval of any nutritionist. On the walk back my buddy's two boys took off racing home. Lola immediately joined them..... for about twenty feet. She realized pretty quickly that racing two boys with much longer legs wasn't exactly a fair competition and wisely retired from the event.

Back at the house Wesley discovered a little blue ride-on car complete with a radio. To him it may as well have been a Ferrari. The kids took turns driving up and down the road while one of us jogged beside them pretending it was for safety..... which it mostly was.

Lola's driving has improved a ridiculous amount since Legoland. Apparently that little driving school actually teaches something.

Wesley also improved..... although he still seems convinced you only need to press the gas pedal once and the vehicle should continue driving forever. In fairness to him, sitting all the way back also means his feet barely reach the pedal.

Eventually we headed over to Victoria Park for a free tennis clinic. The first hundred kids also received free rackets which, being parents, suddenly made punctuality feel like an Olympic sport.

As we drove by the park both kids got excited and then, as if the parenting gods decided to throw us a bone, we found two parking spots almost beside each other. Anyone who's tried parking near Victoria Park on a nice summer day knows that's basically the equivalent of finding twenty bucks in an old jacket.

Before heading to the courts we wandered over to the dock where the kids spotted what felt like hundreds of jellyfish floating below us. Ever since discovering Octonauts they've become obsessed with sea life. They casually identify creatures I've somehow managed to make it fifty years without ever learning existed.

We ended up about fifteenth in line.

Those free rackets were as good as ours.

The clinic itself was really well done. A bunch of different stations that gradually became more difficult while introducing different tennis skills. You could tell the instructors genuinely wanted every kid to leave thinking tennis was fun.

For a while I thought ours would too.

Lola actually did well at first..... then each station became just a little harder than the last.

Eventually she reached one where she had to bounce the ball once before hitting it back up into the air.

She'd try.

Miss.

Try again.

Miss again.

"It isn't working."

Not, "I'm not doing it."

The racket wasn't working.

I couldn't help but smile a little because adults do this all the time too..... we just have better PR departments. It's never us. It's the software. The traffic. The weather. Apparently four-year-olds blame the racket.

With every miss she became more frustrated until eventually she was crying loudly enough that every parent nearby knew exactly how her tennis lesson was going.

I knelt down in front of her and tried to help her name what she was feeling. I asked if she wanted help..... or a hug..... or both.

She wanted neither because once Lola gets frustrated enough she builds walls around herself first and lets you in later.

As a parent..... a father..... it's incredibly difficult to watch your child struggle and know there's nothing you can do to fix it. It's like your controller batteries dying during a boss fight..... except with kids there isn't a controller in the first place.

Sadly for Lola and me, this wasn't the only chaos happening on the courts.

Normally Sophie would've stepped in with her but she was off to the side feeding Finn, which left me trying to be in two places at once.

Because while all of this was happening.....

Wesley had quietly decided tennis was actually hockey.

The instructors wanted him gently hitting balls inside his station.

Wesley preferred launching them as hard as humanly possible before chasing them into whichever drill station his ball rolled into..... usually one with balls flying at head level.

So now I'm comforting one child while jogging after the other and apologizing to parents and instructors every thirty seconds.

I've always been a rules follower.

I do my stops at 3 a.m.

I keep my voice down in restaurants.

I trust experts because they're usually a whole lot smarter than I am.

I've always believed life works better when people think about everyone else just a little more than they think about themselves.

So when my own kids become the loudest source of chaos in a public place.....

...I don't just feel stressed.

I feel like I'm the inconvenience.

Like people are looking around trying to figure out where all the commotion is coming from..... and then realizing it's my family.

That's when I felt it.

My shoulders tightened first.

Then my jaw.

I've come to recognize that feeling over the years. It's usually my body's way of telling me I'm about thirty seconds away from trying to regain control of everything and everyone before things get any worse..... and emotional decisions rarely become good decisions.

Were people actually judging us?

Maybe a couple were.

Maybe none of them were.

Looking back, I suspect I was the harshest judge there.

Then I heard Sophie's voice from the day before.

"Change your mood."

Me exploding wasn't going to stop the chaos.

It was only going to add another upset person to it.

Nothing around me changed.

Lola was still crying.

Wesley was still playing whatever sport he thought tennis was.

But I could actually feel my body let go.

My shoulders relaxed.

My jaw unclenched.

I stopped chasing every little thing Wesley did and only stepped in when he was about to do something that might actually get him or someone else hurt… which was more often then I'd like.

A few minutes later Lola quietly climbed into my arms.

I hadn't fixed tennis.

I hadn't convinced her she could suddenly bounce the ball.

I just stayed calm long enough that eventually she let me share some of it with her.

After surviving tennis we headed over to the playground where Wesley spent most of his time following the older kids onto equipment that looked a little ambitious for a two-year-old. At one point another mom asked how old he was.

"Two."

She looked back at him, then at me with genuine surprise.

For all the chaos that kid creates, he's unbelievably capable physically.

Eventually the rain started and we made our way to Cows for ice cream.

The kids immediately ran to the giant fake cow.

A few moments later they were enthusiastically pretending to milk it with their mouths. Sophie and I weren't entirely sure whether to be horrified..... or quietly proud they at least understood how cow udders worked.

Both kids picked the blue Cookie Monster ice cream.

Wesley was fooling around with the boys when he tripped.

I think everyone pictures the same thing happening next..... little boy falls..... cone lands upside down..... everybody sighs..... boy cries.

Not this time.

That cone absolutely detonated.

I've genuinely never seen ice cream explode before but apparently enough speed, concrete..... and a little bit of Wesley will do the trick.

Poor little guy just stood there staring at what used to be his ice cream before the tears arrived.

We gave him a hug.

Let him be sad for a minute.

Then, like kids somehow always manage to do, he picked himself back up and moved on.

Back at the house we grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, caught up on some laundry, got the kids bathed and into bed before Sophie and I finally collapsed onto the couches. She sampled some expensive whisky my buddy had picked up during his travels while we talked about the day.

I kept thinking about tennis..... not because the kids struggled. Kids are supposed to struggle. And not because Wesley turned tennis into hockey either..... although I'd be shocked if he didn't do it again given the chance.

I think it stuck with me because nothing around us actually got calmer.

Lola was still frustrated.

Wesley was still chaos with legs.

The tennis clinic carried on exactly as it would've whether I lost my temper or not.

The only thing that really changed.....

...was me.

Life s beatiful