Category: Uncategorized

When life brings you sunshine, make your own puddles.

The ground is winning. Big time.

One man's art is another man's "NOOOOOOOOO!!! MY CHAIR!!!!"

THIS is how you get attention. Clench your fists, tense every muscle and you too can double your volume.

Rough night of drinking too much milk, gambling away his diapers, and getting kicked out of the playgroup for peeing on a couch. The back pain in the morning will be punishment enough.

See previous “Kids Captioned” posts here, here, and here.

There are signs for stopping.  There are signs for going.  There are signs for pushing and pulling; for open and closed.  We like to have things spelled out for us because we’d be so lost otherwise.  For example, if upon approach to a door you attempt to pull it open and it does not open, then chances are you could spend a good long afternoon standing at the door until someone comes along and pushes it open for you. Some of us are pullers, and some are pushers.  And without a sign designating which one to do, we would be a lost society just standing in front of doors, hopelessly waiting.  Honestly, I have not heard of any person who would pull a door, and then if that didn’t work try PUSHING it open.  It’s a ridiculous notion.  It requires way too much problem solving and common sense! We NEED that signage. (more…)

I read a facebook thread where a woman claimed that if she had a kid, she would leave the baby in the crib, asleep, and take the baby monitor with her a couple blocks to the store if she needed to get something.  My initial reaction was, “What the hell?!  Are you kidding me?!  What is WRONG with you?!  If punching was legal, I would punch you.” But then I settled down, because this gal doesn’t actually have any kids.  So that’s divine goodness.  But it also got me to thinking just how many people feel this same way about their kids, and am I too far in the extreme of child protection. Or am I right in completely judging this gal? (more…)

This year we had a really fun Halloween.  I’m happy to report that both of my children were well behaved, which means no crying, no whining, no obnoxious behavior, and no physical violence!  We were so proud!

But Halloween was not without it’s lessons.  So I will share some ideas with you now, a couple days later, in the most untimely post possible.  Although next year, I will post this a few days before Halloween, making it the most perfectly timed post ever! (more…)

Sometimes it’s not always appropriate to fire off a consequence on your kid for poor behavior.  Sometimes, you just gotta laugh. Case in point:

Things were nice and mellow as we drove down the street a few days ago. The entire family was in the car. Noble and Alistair were harnessed in their car seats like NASA astronauts preparing for launch, while Gayle and I enjoyed our primitively chincy “seatbelts” in the front. I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about while I drove, but it was probably something related to a nose hair that I haven’t trimmed that Gayle can’t stop talking about. And then I was probably yelling at her for touching it, causing my brain to tickle. And then there was probably a lecture about proper etiquette and keeping our hands to ourselves while someone is driving…something like that, I’m not sure exactly.

Out of nowhere, Gayle lunges forward and in a panicked voice cries out, “Is there a spider in my hair?!” (more…)

Before I announce WHO the winner is, let us take a trip down Guess Lane shall we.  What did YOU, the reader, think was the identity of this mystery lego creation? Let us begin our visual journey by reminding our minds of the original lego image, and then let’s see how the guesses stack up:

(more…)

Jon Monastero and I got lunch last week.  It was there that he gave me some valuable insight into my child.  Did you know that inside our head is a pile of spaghetti called a “brane?”  That’s right!  And in this brane there are….oh, I’m sorry, I’m getting a message right now….oh I see.  Ok, pardon me, I’m getting word now that I should actually be referring to this goopy mass as a “brain” not a “brane”…although if your computer is reading this out loud to you because you can’t read, or you’re blind, then this part really doesn’t apply to you.

But this brain stuff gets better:  this one particular brain situation, the frontal lobe, doesn’t fully develop until somewhere in the twenties.  And the frontal lobe handles things like, say, for instance, (more…)

Well it’s finally here!  I hope you are checking the site out and enjoying the new features.  I’ll give you a quick tour and then we’ll get to a neat giveaway!  So here’s the skinny:

• Up top you’ll see the tab for Going Green.  This is Gayle’s (my wife) contribution to the blog.  She’ll be offering tips and tricks for people interested in making greener choices in their lives.
• Over there on the sidebar you’ll see a featured video.  That’s where I will put a video diary, or videos that I find on the web that I want to share with you. Go see!  There’s one over there right now!
• The comment section is new.  Hopefully it will foster a more community feel, as I love to hear comments and make comments and would encourage everybody to leave comments, ask questions, and engage other commenters in conversations. Let’s get this party started, as those kids say.  I don’t know exactly what kids say that, but I’m guessing that some kids probably would say that kind of thing.
• The site is bluer than it used to be.  I like the color blue.  It brings out the brown in my eyes.
• At the end of each post is the option to share it with your social network. If there’s one thing that I keep reminding my kids to do, it’s to share.  Who knows, maybe I’m just running my mouth by asking you to share.  It DOES mean you care, though.  And when I think of you, I think of a caring individual.  Don’t go proving me wrong now!
• Guest posts!  Yes, besides Gayle’s “Going Green” posts, I will be publishing guest posts from time to time.  I have some funny friends with some funny takes on the funny things in this funny parenting world.  And I will be begging them to share their thoughts here.

And now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for: FREE STUFF!

Many posts ago, I showed you Gayle’s contribution during Lego Time. A lego table! And the legs weren’t even identical! So recently she’s been working on her skills, and she presented Noble and me with the following lego creation.  Unfortunately, while her craftsmanship had drastically improved, we still couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.  So this is where the giveaway comes in.  If you can guess what this lego creation is, then you can consider yourself ENTERED into the contest.  Only one guess per person, please!  Now Gayle seems to think this is completely obvious, so there really shouldn’t be a problem with every single one of you getting it right….right?  On Friday of this week, I will gather all the correct guesses and randomly select a winner using one of those internet number generator deals.

What am I?

What do you win?  The prize is an Eco-cup, Single-Wall Porcelain Mug (that’s fancy talk for a typical Starbucks cup made out of porcelain so you can REUSE IT) Good luck!  I hope you guess correctly!  Thanks so much for coming over to the site to hang out with me! The guessing will be closed out tonight at Midnight!  Winner announced Friday morning at 10:30am!

Drinking coffee and saving the world....good times.

I would also like to give a HUGE thank you to Tim and Kyle at Argyll Studios for taking some simple ideas we had for changing the website and giving us so much more than we thought was possible.  This has been a fun experience, and if any of you are in need of a team of experts to turn your site into a piece of art, these guys are the way to go!

Alrighty, let the guessing begin!

I still can't keep my eyes open during a flash photo. My eyes are such weenies.

Yes!  It’s finally happening.  No, Noble isn’t growing out of his “poopy fart face” talk.  No, Alistair still thinks it’s ok to punch the toilet bowl water.  I’m talking about this very website that you are looking at right now.  It’s about to look different!

I’ve almost officially released the website for a couple months now.  And it feels pretty awesome that it’s actually really for realsies going to happen.  This Tuesday, at 10:30am to be precise.

So what to expect from the new design?  You mean besides the 3D gaming experience*, the endless 75% off coupons for things you actually need*, and the free “thanks for viewing my site” Blu-ray player*? Besides that,  the look of the site is going to be completely different, and it will hopefully take on a more community, resourcey aspect.  Same stories of my children raising my blood pressure, but hopefully we can all build on shared advice and the idea that we can all help each other stay a little saner by taking part in the conversation, or, at the very least, continuing to gossip about our children.  I have learned some neat tricks from you guys, and am also looking forward to trying things that I’ve learned through this blog.  For instance, Joanna, you mentioned that you got your kids to sleep through the night in their own bed by using an alarm clock.  That was great advice!  We will be trying that at our house.  It’s that kind of great sharing that I would love to encourage and grow here.  Because honestly, if I read one more book by a so called expert in a so called field with so called advice that so called doesn’t apply to my so called child.  Then I will so called explode.

What else? We’ll have guest posts!  I have some extremely funny friends who are also parents, and who have some great insights into this parenting world of ours.  Hopefully we’ll get some ongoing posts from them, as well.  And my lovely wife, who has been steadily changing our house and our minds into a greener, more sustainable way of life will be contributing to a new section that will give wonderful, simple tips on greener living.  Here’s a quick photo example of a green post you might see from her:

Use your kids old throw away drawings as wrapping paper

There is more, and I’ll share that with you on Tuesday.  For now, let us get back to the important issue:  why Noble won’t stop jumping on the couch even though I specifically told him over 1000 times that we don’t jump on the couch.  Selective hearing? Complete disregard for my authority?  Who knows…..seriously, who knows? I’m asking.

*These are jokes. They are false.  They are not happening.  You think I would actually give away a bunch of blu-ray players?!  You think I actually have access to 75% off coupons?!  3D gaming experience on a parenting website?!  I WISH! You are giving me WAY too much credit.  I still love you, and hope that you love me too.

I said I'm ready for my oatmeal! Hellooooo?!

There are a few routines at our house that work really great.  For the most part, when we put our kids to bed, Gayle and I each jump into bed with a kid (praying that the beds don’t buckle under our adult weight).  While in bed, we read a story or two, discuss the day, and wish the kids a good night.  It works really well for our family.  Sure, there is plenty of “Alistair get back into bed” and “Noble quit telling your brother to get back into bed and just go to sleep!” But the kids always end up asleep at some point. So that’s a victory, right?

We also have a pretty good routine in the morning as the kids get ready for school.  The house is a buzz of motion as people are making lunches, dressing, and drinking coffee (no not Noble….Alistair needs it though, he’s a cranky two year old otherwise….Aaaaand I’m joking, put the phone down.)  If you were a single, childless individual, you might think that mornings at our house are an explosion of uncontrolled chaos.  And you’d be right, except that we know exactly what we are doing.  It’s probably like being in a grocery store during an earthquake: shit is flying everywhere, you need to get out of the building – HOW you get out of the building isn’t relevant, you just need to get out.  The difference between the earthquake store and our house before school is getting out IN time and getting out ON time. This analogy feels like a real stretch, but I don’t care because I enjoy the imagery.

There are some routines in our house that are not as ideal as we’d like them.  One of these routines would be how Noble wakes up in the morning.  He will head over to the couch, place a blanket over his lap, and call out as if to an inept butler, “I’m ready for my oatmeal now!!!” And if there is no answer within his limited window of patience, he will thrown in a very sarcastic, “Pleeeeaaase!” – as if just saying the word “please” should be considered good manners and ignite a fire under my butt.

Alistair has a routine that isn’t ideal as well.  For him, if you bring him a glass of water in a regular cup during a meal, he will use it as a miniature lab experiment; placing pieces of bread, meat, vegetables, anything that will cram into the cup.  Then, he will stir it with his hand and dump it on the dinner tray.  It is annoying and gets under my skin for some reason.  He also has a variety of unique ways of letting us know when he’s finished with his dinner. Sometimes he’ll let us know by throwing a piece of food at me.  Sometimes he’ll announce it by discarding his silverware onto the floor.  Sometimes he’ll lovingly, and slowly, tip his bowl over the edge of his high chair tray causing the remaining contents to be splattered across the floor. I’m not a fan of any of these end of dinner announcements.  Sometimes I have to suppress the urge to grab a giant spoonful of mashed potatoes and flick it at HIS face…see how HE likes it.  But while it seems like I would be vindicated, my hunch is that he would just start laughing, and an epic food fight would begin.  And guess who would have to clean THAT up?

So how am I supposed to bust up a bad routine?  Probably the best bet is to create new ones….although the kicking and screaming that goes along with that idea doesn’t seem too appealing.  And therein lies the rub.

The times that I’ve noticed positive change in my kids are the times when I’ve been patient and consistent with consequences or redirection or whatever “trick” I’m using to modify their behavior.  If I buckle a few times because I’m too lazy to deal with the B.S. tantrums, then the crummy behavior just keeps getting stronger.  You know consistency is good when a complete stranger comes to you at the post office and tells you that it’s the one and only way to raise a child.  I always listen to the wisdom of complete strangers, ESPECIALLY when they give unsolicited advice.  I just pretend that “The Universe” delivered them to me with secret instructions on the best way to live.  At the very least it keeps me from telling them to shut up and mind their own business.  In this case, though, I thought the guy had some pretty good advice.

I’m just mentioning in case YOU wanted to fix a bad routine.  Me: I’m gonna keep going with life the way it is and adjust when I need to.  For now, I’m happy with responding to Noble’s breakfast bark by saying, “I’m ready for my oatmeal, too!  Tell me when you’ve finished making mine…. PLEAAAAASE!”  Sometimes mockery is good parenting, too, right?  Anybody?  High five? Nothing?  Ok, I’ll try and be consistent too.