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When I started blogging, I thought I would document some of my kids activities and some of the parenting lessons I learned along the way. At the very least, I could refer back to my posts, and at the very most, maybe a friend or two perhaps maybe even some people I didn’t know might read what I wrote and like it. Fast forward to just a year after I started blogging, only 24% of my readers are from my home & native land. To anyone looking for a fun, easy DIY Canada Day T for your toddlers, there is something for you! For the other 76% of my readers, I have included perhaps some lesser known Canadian-isms to let you in on who we are and how we speak 🙂

DIY Canada Day T-Shirt

What we used:

• Red Fabric Paint
• Paint Brush
• Old White T-shirt
• Toddler Hand 🙂

What we did:

I painted one of each of my kids’ hands, pressed it into the centre of their respective shirts, and then painted rectangles on either side of their hands. I let dry for a couple of hours and then they were ready to wear!

Here are 10 Facts, Feelings and Other Funny Things About Canada

1. Because we border only one country and we are fairly small and fairly similar to our neighour, we definitely have a bit of a little brother complex when it comes to the USA. It seems like we aren’t “big” enough for many offers and other exciting things that our next door neighbour is allowed to do. For example, we have seven NHL teams, ONE MLB team, and ONE NBA team.
2. Most of us don’t say, “Eh?”
3. Ottawa, Ontario is the capital of Canada, but Toronto is the capital of Ontario.
4. Keiffer Sutherland’s maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas is the biggest player in our country having universal healthcare. He is one of our national heroes.
5. Our measurement system is a weird cross between the USA (and Liberia and Myanmar)’s Imperial System and the rest of the world’s metric system. Colloquially, we refer to our weight and height in pounds, inches, and feet, but everything else is in metric. It’s a little metaphorical for our identity, I guess. I read a poem about Canadian identity that likened the UK to our mother and the USA to our big brother… So basically, we are influenced by both.
6. We are a cultural mosaic and pretty darn proud of it. In our old neighbourhood park, I would always make a practice of counting the different discernible languages spoken between parents and their kids. Typically, I would hear about eight. It’s pretty incredible to think of what people have sacrificed to move to a new country and how hard they continue to work to maintain their cultural and linguistic heritage.
7. Officially, we use UK spelling, but unofficially we use either American or UK spelling. The only rule is to remain consistent! Nothing gets under my skin like people who interchangeably use centre and center. Argh!
8. Our maternity leave only guarantees us 55% of our wages. But, we are fortunate enough to be guaranteed 52 weeks. The first 17 go to the mom and then the remaining weeks can be split up between two parents or can be exclusively taken by either the mom or dad.
9. We have all sorts of lingo that makes us uniquely us, including but not limited to:
   • tuque: n. derived from the french word for wool hat, meaning wool hat.
   • washroom: n. a room with washing and toilet facilities. Similar to the European, WC or water closet.
   • keener: n. someone who is particularly eager or keen to do something
   • parkade: n. a multistory parking garage. I know this is going to sound quiet silly but I actually didn’t know how define this without using the word parkade. Lol.
   • klicks: n. slang for kilometers
   • poutine: n. french fries, cheese curds, gravy. Origin French Canada.
   • loonie: n. reference to our $1 coin which has a loon on it.
   • twoonie: n. after the arrival of the $1 coin, we moved to $2 coin and decidedly called it twoonie.
   • Mountie: n. Slang for our Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
10. We say versus you say (Canada versus the USA)
    • back bacon: Canadian bacon
    • pocket dial: butt dial
    • college: community college (We refer to places that give bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorates as universities)
    • runners: tennis shoes
    • postal code: zip code
    • chocolate bar: candy bar
    • hair elastic: hair tie
    • elastic band: rubber band
    • tuque: beanie
    • homo milk: whole milk (please don’t laugh! haha)
    • pop: soda
    • pencil crayon: colored pencil
    • washroom: restroom
    • icing sugar: powdered sugar
11. Though we aren’t technically a bipartisanship, our elections end up being more or less between the Liberals and the Conservatives, though the New Democratic Party, Green Party, and independents have horses in the race too.
12. When compared to the USA, our two biggest parties have much less variance. All of our political parties land somewhere between neural and the left. As such, we identify most with the Democrats in the US. Though in our country, red is Liberal and Blue is Conservative.
13. We have 10 Provinces and 3 Territories. Our Territories are HUGE, but not a single one has a population over 42,000!!! They’re all above 60 degree longitude and have no inherent jurisdiction.
14. We invented the telephone, insulin, the first rice cereal (Pablum), instant replays for sports, the snowmobile, snow plough, snowblower, and Zamboni (notice a theme? Lol) among many other things.
15. Though we may not be that close to Hollywood, celebrities from the ‘True North’ include Celine Dion, Shania Twain, The Weekend, Drake, Sarah McLachlan, Bryan Adams, Justin Bieber, Donald Sutherland, Jim Carrey, Ryan Renolds, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Seth Rogan, Michael J. Fox, Matthew Perry, Wayne Gretzky, Sydney Crosby, Steve Nash, Christine Sinclair, Rick Hansen, Terry Fox, Robert Munsch, and many more.

Did I miss any Canadianism you’ve heard or know? Please share!

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

xo Alana