This Photo Makes Me Smile

This photo just makes me smile when I need one!  Thanks Little Buddy!

The Best Part of Putting My Son to Bed

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Tonight was perfect! Our son "allowed" me to take him to bed tonight.  He usually demands Mommy, but tonight she had a 8-9pm conference call with for work and therefore it was my turn.  I typically get to take our daughter (20 months) and put her to bed so my wife and I share the parenting duties. So this was special for me, I get to take my son to bed!

Anyway, I really enjoy putting Boo to bed . It’s a great bonding time for him and I. I try to ask him how his day was and what he liked best about daycare.  Which of his buddies did he play with and other things throughout the day.  I want to make him feel comfortable with sharing that information with me.  He does for the most part but then reminds me, "Daddy, READ the book!"

So there we are sitting in his room, I’ve tucked in a 3′ Bob the Builder , "Mr Ted" (my son’s teddy bear that he made at Build a Bear ), and somehow found enough sheets and comforter to cover up Boo. We keep the lights low and usually have his closet light on to give us just enough light to cause serious eye damage when reading books to him! I’m not kidding. It’s NOT bad when it’s black type on white background like 99% of the books out there, but those 1%, the children’s books that are black font on a red or dark blue background, yeah right. Like I could barely read that in full sunlight!  Tonight was ok though, Boo has what he calls his "spinner" — a spinning light toy he got from Mama and Papa when they took him to the circus in Philly over the weekend. He kept holding the button to make the colored lights spin and supply me with a faint glow so I could read to him. It was great!

But with the lights dim, the fact that I was up until 1:00am last night, and I had a long day at work, my eyes wanted to close so bad! Now how many of you have caught yourself reading to you children and then start to make up words, sentences, whole thoughts!? I do but then Boo is quickly there to say, "DADDY! That is NOT what it says!" I just smile and think, "Man, if only my memory was as good as a three year olds!" He calls me out on my dozing off every time. And I don’t mean to get sleepy, it’s just so relaxing reading to him.

So after two books Boo was starting to nod off, guess he had a long day as well. So I stopped reading and just laid my head on the side of his bed and rubbed his back a bit. (I’m sitting on a hard wooden stool!) In a matter of 5 minutes he fell asleep and I dozed off for a bit as well.  I would wake up every now and then because my butt and legs were numb from the wooden stool! But what I love most is watching him sleep. He looks so peaceful and innocent and it’s at that moment that I feel so good about being his Daddy!

If I’m up late I always check on both kids before I hop into my bed. They’ve usually squirmed out from under the sheets or sometimes have even done a 180 and are sleeping with their head at the foot of the bed! I get them back to a good sleeping position and tuck them back in, make sure their favorite stuffed animal is within reach, kiss both of them on the forehead and whisper, "Daddy loves you so much!"

It’s 11:40pm now, and I’m heading up to do just that! Can’t wait!

Balancing Work, Fatherhood and Alone Time

I’ve been slammed the past two weeks with wrapping up a huge Microsoft SharePoint implementation project for a client. I put in some long hours both at the client site and at home after my kids were in bed. All of this sure leads to ONE CRANKY DADDY, but I try my hardest to leave work AT the office (I’m pretty good at that).

Anyway, I’m trying to figure out the balance of work tasks, home duties and decompress/destress time for Daddy (and Mommy who needs it badly!). We are lucky that one night a week my parents (who live 15 minutes away) watch Boo and KBop, it’s usually a Wednesday or Thursday night. This gives my wife and I time to either go OUT to dinner and be adults or stay home, cook, clean, blog and get extra sleep. This is our one free/adult night a week and it is VERY much appreciated! (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

The other nights when we all arrive home, my wife and I both work, and the kids attend a great day care, so we all have to transition from our long day to being home. The mix of 4 people and personalities creates a little bit of chaos and usually one of us is having a meltdown. Parents included. Haha. But we have been working on a few tricks that have been helping, one is when we arrive home, instead of running through the door and starting to prep dinner and empty the kid’s bags, either myself or my wife will play outside with the kids and the other unpacks the day care bag full of sippy cups and gladware containers. Also, preps dinner for all of us. Around 6:30pm we all try to sit down at the table to eat a pleasant meal. Sometimes we have luck and others it is like one of those “whack a mole” games because our daughter is constantly hoping up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down…she’s 20 months old. I guess we forgot that is what some kids do at that age.

So anyway, I’m basically looking to see if anyone has any good suggestions? I’m opening up this post to comments so please leave them if you have ideas! Thanks.

Don’t Just Teach Your Child To Call 9-1-1 – Here’s Why!

I found this post on MomLogic.com this evening and wanted to share this information with as many parents out there. The article discusses teaching your children what to do in an emergency, such as, call 9-1-1 or learn your home address.

Our son is 3 1/2 years old and he has known the name of the street we live on for probably a year.  We would always say street names as we drove each morning to daycare.  Mommy and I would like to say "Hey buddy we’re almost home, we’re on Sycamore Lane"  He finally caught on and would say, "SICK–A–MORE LANE".  Of course the street number never really was learned at that time. I’m actually not sure he knows it now. Better be something else we start to review with him – learning his full address.

Boo attends full-day day care and I know he’s come home talking about emergencies, like when they had fire prevention week and Fireman Kevin showed up with a firetruck. All the preschoolers loved it and learned about what to do in the event of a fire and some other safety tips.

"You crawl out of the room, Daddy!" as Boo would tell me. Kids are so smart and really learn fast when they are young. He also would say "Dial 911".  Which is great.

So spend some time this weekend and review safety and what to do in an emergency with your children. You always look out for them and want them to be safe, there might be a day when they have to look out for you.

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Bookshelf: How to Teach Your Child to Be Eco-Friendly

This year, my wife and I have made a commitment to be more “Green” and therefore observant of things that we are wasting or throwing out. We’ve even started the beginning of a compost pile in the backyard and will continue to toss in food scraps and grass clippings to make for rich compost for our garden next year. We are doing all of this so we can share the knowledge of conservation and other green issues with our two children as they grow up.

I’ve found a book that is perfect for those families that want to have their children join in and be eco-friendly. The book is called, My Bag and Me!, by Karen Farmer.

Here is a short summary:

Teach your child to be eco-friendly and conserve the earths precious resources! Its never too early to learn the importance of reusing, reducing and recycling. It is perfect for ages 4 – 8 and comes with a reusable bag to take to the store with them.

You can find out more about My Bag and Me! by clicking here or clicking on the Daddy’s Shed link to see our Amazon store.

A Little Love Goes A Long Way

A little love does go a long way. Tonight, when I gave my son a little extra attention, a little extra love, he ended up not whining quite as much as normal. This is a good thing since lately Boo has been whining quite a lot! My wife and I learned that around 4 years old is the peak for whining. Yikes! He’s 3 1/2, so probably another year or so.

But as I was writing, I had a great time this evening. Picked the kids up from daycare and took them to Chick-Fil-A and met some friends. I decided to take them there since everyone was in a good mood. Cathy, my wife, had already arrived home so she wasn’t going to meet us out therefore I just fed the kids a few nuggets and a juice box.  The damn CFA Cow was there and it frightens just about every preschooler and toddler in the place! What’s with those things!?  When we arrived home, Boo wanted to play outside. Not a problem since it was a bit warmer today. We got to swing the bat and practice hitting balls that I underhand tossed to him.  He almost connected on one of the throws! We then switched and he threw to me as I batted. It’s fun to do that sort of things with my son!

By the way, this was my first blog post over the phone. A few unrecognized words that I had to fix, but other than that , pretty good.  I kept the message short as a test. I used Jott, a  voice to text service that makes staying organized and in touch easy.  Give it a try for your day to day reminders.

Follow DaddysToolbox on Twitter

I’ve been using Twitter to stay up to date with people in my line of work for the past few months.  I’ve been seeing more and more bloggers using Twitter to help spread the word about their blogs and posts.So I just wanted to let my readers know that as of April 5th I’ve created a Twitter profile called DaddysToolbox.  You can click to follow me and receive updates about Daddy’s Toolbox to your Twitter profile.

A Hack on How to Pack your Preschooler’s Lunch

Here is a little advice on keeping your morning stress to a minimum and your children happy.

Pack everyone’s lunches the night before. Ok, I know, I don’t have the energy to pack both kids lunches let alone my own. So what is a Daddy to do? Here are a few simple steps that my wife and I try to do, making our morning rush out of the house a little less chaotic.

After the kids are in bed find 15 minutes to just sit down and unwind from 15 hours of being awake, that assumes you are up at 6am and the kids are finally sleeping at 9pm. Yikes 15 hours of being awake and have you spent 1 minute for yourself? So like I suggest, take 15 minutes and grab a magazine or browse to DaddysToolbox.com (or visit our recipe and cooking blog at Two Tongues Up) and relax. Or maybe you like to take a warm bath or play a computer game or something. Don’t catch up on bills or house chores, find the time for YOU!

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The Weekday Morning Rush Hour — Steps to Deal with Whining, Meltdowns and Other Delays

Which do you think is worse? Sitting in a traffic jam on the way to school or having your preschooler meltdown right before you are on your way out the door to dropoff at daycare? Ok, neither is the best situation, but the meltdown or delay in actually leaving can raise stress levels rather quickly, especially if both parents need to leave to get to work on time.

I am wondering how most families deal with this morning “rush hour” with their kids (leave us comments below). My wife and I have had about 3 good mornings so far this year with getting both kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door without TV, whining or meltdowns. That is 3 days in 3 months — great! Nine more perfect days this year!! There needs to be a better method to our morning madness. Read the rest of this entry »