Okay, yeah, I know…every parent says, “My kid is an amazing artist and very talented,” and I’m not going to be the one that doesn’t say that, because my son, LT, definitely has talent! LT is only 5 1/2 years old but is already looking at a picture and sketching a pretty darn close rendition of it on paper using the basic artist tools of a 5 year old, crayons, markers, etc.
I’m just going to add a few of his drawings from the past month or so to showcase his artwork and to keep a good record of his accomplishments “on file” so we can look back in a few years and smile!
Here’s a drawing of a tiger. LT was reading a book where a Tiger is sneaking through the woods and other animals are hidden among the leaves and branches. ( I can’t remember the name off the top of my head).
Another drawing that totally made my smile was his rendition of Toy Story 3 from a book he had gotten when over visiting Mama (Gramma). He drew Woody, Jessie and Rex along with the Toy Story 3 logo.
One thing LT definitely does excel in, is his attention to detail. Great! He’s going to take after his Papa (grampa) and I. We’re both rather detailed and structured. He studies the object or picture we wants to draw for about 2 mins and then pretty much just draws what he sees. I guess he has his mother’s art talents, as my drawings probably wouldn’t even look this good!
I’ve been wanting to list out some of the cool Dads that I follow on Twitter for some time now. So I spent a while putting together this list of some of the Dads I’ve been tweeting lately. I’d like to turn this post into a weekly series of Dads, so if you know of any cool Dads out there in Twitter land let me know by leaving a comment or Tweet Me @DaddysToolbox.
Ok, so for the first installment of my #FatherhoodFriday #FF #PopsProps (hashtag thought up from @Romez). Here’s the alphabetized list and if you’re NOT yet following me, here’s my Twitter account @DaddysToolbox.
Ok, so quick TIP if you plan on doing this same thing. Certainly DO NOT waste your time entering in the Twitter Name and then creating a link. I spent 3 minutes creating this Excel formula so I can easily replicate a mass follow list going forward.
Here is what I did for those that care
Create a New Spreadsheet (Excel, OpenOffice, etc) and in Column A list all the Twitter names you want to create links to. Just the name.
In Column B, paste in my formula which will concatenate all of the HTML to create a link to the Twitter account and open in a new window.=CONCATENATE("<a href=""http://twitter.com/",A1,""" target=""_blank"">@",A1,"</a>")
Copy all the merged fields in Column B and paste into Notepad or directly into your blog post. If you paste directly into blog post it will probably create an HTML table structure.
The other day I was asked to write a guest blog post on ChesterCountyMoms.com on the topic of What Dads REALLY Want for Father’s Day. Writing like I do, long winded sometimes, I brought more of my thoughts and feelings of Father’s Day and then some cool gift ideas.
So I’ll keep this post short and have you stop over the ChesterCountyMoms.com to read the full post!
Happy Father’s Day to all the other Great Dads out there!!
First off…I’ve taken a few months off from blogging and have been wondering how to get back into it. I guess I need to start by just letting my fingers touch the keyboard for longer than 140 characters since I’ve been “micro-blogging” my life over the past 6 months via Twitter (Follow me @DaddysToolbox). Sometimes I only have enough time between work, making dinner (I’m the cook that is also neglecting our recipe blog at TwoTonguesUp.com), and then spending some quality time with our two kids before rushing them off to bed, then tackling bills and other house chores, just to wake up and start it all over again. Such is my life!
Using Twitter to release some of my negative thoughts (yes, I said it and admit it) has been much easier than “setting up shop” in my basement and drafting a full blown blog post to unwind. So tonight, I’m going to tackle that feat and relax with some good tunes (a mix of Mark Knopfler & Death Cab for Cutie – random,eh?), a newly poured glass of Red Truck Merlot, and a lot of thoughts running through my head.
Tonight I’m going to write about my week as Mr. Mom (1983, shit that is an OLD movie) as my wife is on a short 4-day business trip and I’m doing double duty with two kids that miss Mommy.
Now if I didn’t have to head off to work in the morning, I think I would resemble Michael Keaton in this photo from the movie, when he’s seeing his wife off early in the morning and says, “Honey, if you call and I’m not here I’ll be either at the gym or the gun club.”
Onward with my Mr. Mom week…
Monday
So my wife left on Monday and it was me and our two kids (since the last I wrote, they’ve grown and are 5 1/2 and 3 1/2, boy/girl). The week started out pretty good, the kids and I came home on Monday and all was good. Simple dinner in front of the TV since they were like little zombies (tired from a FUN weekend). After dinner and shows we headed upstairs to get ready for bed and read lots of calming books. When it’s just one parent putting both kids together there needs to be rules stated. “Ok, I’m going to read ONE book to you then ONE book to your sister and I’ll be back in for another book and lights out.” So that’s what I did, shared my time between both of them, leaving their my iPhone with the one sitting alone in their bed. They like to send emails check Facebook play games on it. No problem, it makes putting both to bed so much easier!
Accomplished bedtime in pretty close to Solo Daddy record, I think it was 8:30pm, but then again, the kids were still exhausted from Sunday.
Tuesday
Easy morning, kids up and out of the house in record time. Weird. Faster than if Mommy were home…hmmmm??? Does that tell ya something? It does to me!
Tuesday evening headed over to a friend’s house for a quick after school playdate and dinner, then a small meltdown and home for the “Four B’s” — baths, brush teeth, books and bed. Pretty easy going. Mommy had called and talked to our son and told him to sleep with her pillow. That made things SO much easier. Bed by 9pm – a little later than normal.
Wednesday Morning
Today started off S—L—O—W and I sent a cross post to both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll spare a long drawn out explanation, this should do just fine.
Wednesday Night
Tonight was my “night off” and kids were going to stay at my parent’s house and I had a few movies planned. Not sure what happened, could be the alignment of planets, or that all the focus is on the huge environmental disaster in the Gulf, but for the past two weeks our kids haven’t wanted to stay with my parents. (Sorry folks, my wife and I do get a weekly date night and free sitting courtesy of Mama and Papa.) This same freakish thing happened about six months ago when our son decided he didn’t want to sleep over at Mama & Papa’s house anymore. We worked through that and after a few weeks “off” he and his younger sister were back over there having a ton of fun! And it is fun for them, they get to eat a good dinner, Mama likes that, and then play outside, ride bikes, walk to the fish pond, and even watch a movie or quick show.
So anyway, tonight the dreaded phone call came at 7:32pm and they wanted to come home. It’s understandable, they miss me!!! No, they miss Mommy. Papa drove them home since I wanted to quickly clean up the house so it’s all nice for tomorrow when Mommy gets home. Once the kids were home the whole after school routine starts. They tell me about their day, what happened, find some old Cheerios on the floor, go pet the cat, tell me the same thing over and over like I’m the one NOT listening. And all this time I’m thinking, “Get them upstairs for the “Four B’s”.” It’s 8:00pm and we head up and they want to color pictures of birdhouses. Not sure where that idea came from but what the Hell, go for it. I figured coloring was relaxing and gave us a little time to talk about the day since that is a routine thing to do. Also during this time I was misting the room and pillows with the calming fragrance of Lavender oil.
Ahhhh…soothing bedtime…F NO!
The kids were tired…and tired kids mean their ears don’t work, just their mouths. So a little whining and non-listening really frustrates me so I had to put myself in timeout to relax. It’s funny when you stick yourself in timeout because my kids started wondering WHY DADDY IS IN TIMEOUT. They told me I could get out and that I was being good. Too funny!
After two minutes of timeout/ignoring them I read one book to each of them, it’s typically three books each. I read the first book to my son, then went into my daughter’s room and read one, then back to son’s room to hug and kiss. He was asleep in a minute! “Energizer bunny” on the other hand, she could stay awake all night I think. I’m surprised she’s not sitting next to me at 12:50am as I type this! But anyway I did finally get her to sleep after rubbing her legs, and scratching her back. I have NO CLUE where and when that shit started but it better stop. She’s like “No, scratch to the left…no..up up up…on the skin!!” Yeah, and she’s 3 1/2! Great, look what I have ahead of me!
Alright folks, let me know you actually read this post by leaving me a comment. I appreciate it! I’m going to try my hardest to write shorter, more frequent posts and get back into things. I think it will be a great soothing thing for me to do each night. Oh and I have to stop typing now or go open another bottle of wine…better save that for next time!
Kids get up at 6am and 7am, and I get up too. Then they bark orders like “where’s my juice” “the show’s over” “come quick, I see Zuzu Pets on TV” and my lovely wife is snuggled up warm and cozy in our bed getting her beauty rest. Well she better come downstairs looking like a freakin’ Victoria’s Secret model!!
Oops, sorry to cut this short, gotta go take the breakfast orders, then cook it and clean the kitchen! (ok, stop laughing, this is reality!”
Ok folks, so how many of you have posted the “Facebook Alert!!” that Facebook is going to allow Google to index your profile?? I know about 38 people that posted it which is all fine and dandy, but it does cause a viral panic that isn’t 100% accurate.
Facebook posted this on the top of my Security Page when I went to review my already “locked down” profile:
“There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile.”
Verify your profile indexing settings by clicking on Settings (at the top of the page) –> Privacy Settings –> Search –> then UN-CHECK the box that says ‘Allow indexing’.
The Allow Indexing button reads:Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone
So in other words, Facebook is going to allow search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, whatever) to search PUBLIC INFO (i.e., your name, profile pic and anything else you’ve left unprotected). Facebook released an announcement a week ago about changes being made to your Privacy Settings, so this isn’t something they tried to “hide”.
Ok, so back to the point…hopefully you’ve already “locked down” your facebook profile so that only the PEOPLE you WANT to be able to view “that you don’t like when it rains because it makes your hair look bad” can see that and no one else.
Now…there are steps you MUST take to secure your profile. It seems that most profiles are already pretty secure, but when the latest Facebook New Privacy push came out a few days ago it did raise a few eyebrows of Security Experts.
a snippet and quote from the article:
A spokesperson from security firm Sophos says in a statement to Mashable:
“These could be the most important clicks you ever make on Facebook. If you don’t read carefully you could find that every post you make on Facebook, and your personal information, is visible to everyone in the world who has a computer rather than just your Facebook friends.
Let’s make this clear. If you make your information available to ‘everyone,’ it actually means ‘everyone, forever.’ Because even if you change your mind, it’s too late — and although Facebook say they will remove it from your profile they will have no control about how it is used outside of Facebook.”
SO ACT NOW!
I’m not going to scare you by posting that Google is going to index your Facebook profile (enough of your friends have done that already).
But I will say, “Make sure you review your Facebook Privacy and Security Settings and adjust them to suit your personal level of privacy.” I can’t stress enough that YOU have to ensure your privacy settings are how you WANT them to be set. It takes just a few minutes to get in there and review your security/permissions and figure it out. Start small…start with photo albums of your kids. Only let those people that you really know see your kid’s pics. That’s how I’ve set things up.
Now, I’m a rather OPEN person and social media junkie and I’ve pretty much locked down my Facebook Profile to allow only certain Lists (groups) to see different parts of my profile, photo albums, status updates etc.
HELP!! HOW DO I SET MY PRIVACY AND SECURITY???
Well there are a few ways to do this. First I would start off by creating a few Lists/Groups of friends. Take my example, I have lists named:
Business
College
High School
Kids (all my friends that have kids that we know)
Limited Profile (restricted profile settings)
No Status Updates (DON’T GET ON THIS LIST! HAHA!)
Friends (a growing list of close friends)
and more…
If you add a user to more than one Friend List, and those Friend Lists have conflicting privacy settings, the more restrictive of the privacy settings will always be respected.
So for example, you don’t want people to see your college photos except a select few college friends, you could customize the permissions for a specific photo album to only allow the select college friends to view. Or maybe you don’t want your business contacts to see your status updates, pics, etc. Just set up a Friend List for Business and set all the Privacy settings to not show to Business. It’s actually VERY SIMPLE once you get started.
CONTACT ME FOR HELP FEEL FREE TO ASK ME QUESTIONS ON SECURING YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE. You can post to my wall, or message me on FB or get me on Twitter @DaddysToolboxOTHER LINKS TO READ Facebook Friend Lists: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=768
Ok, so if you are like me, a parent of two young children and an iPhone owner, you most likely have installed a few apps for your kids to use and play with in certain situations – when they are screaming and just won’t calm down, or when they are in a full blown meltdown and you are stuck in traffic on the evening commute. I know, that isn’t going to make them stop that behavior anytime soon…but c’mon, I can only handle so much whine!
So I did a little snooping around on some app sites and some iTunes app searches for things like “christmas” “holiday” “snow” and a few others. I was able to find the following pretty cool apps that my kids have been using. I like the more educational games for my 5 and 3 year old.
Santa’s Village – Reindeer Match ‘em Up
FREE for a limited time! Reindeer Match’em Up is a matching game with the 8 splendidly drawn reindeer figures.
Santa’s Village – Snowman Math Build a snowman by answering simple addition and subtraction questions. FREE for a limited time!
Features: Kids can answer simple addition and subtraction questions to help build a snowman. There is Christmas music playing in the background while the kids are answering the math problems.
There is also a Christmas Music streaming app that is half decent. It’s called XmasRadio (search app store for this name), but the real name is Christmas Radio by BluMediaLab.com. This app gives you on-demand Christmas music so you can now get into the holiday mood with endless music selections.
So what happens when your kids make the rules? Most likely it leads to chaos, including frustration, screams, time-outs and more. Well, both of my kids now think they are rule-makers and can just bark out orders and Mommy and I will heed their beckoned calls! Ok, maybe it’s not that bad…but there is a small amount of truth in that statement, especially at dinner time! We sometimes feel like we are waiting on tables and our kids are grumpy old patrons demanding our service!
Our kids do attempt to create some rules for Mommy and me. Sometimes these rules are pretty damn funny and other times make me pretty damn mad – like when they told me I couldn’t have dessert because I’m on a “wife-enforced-diet”. UGH! Kids!! (thanks guys)
So why do kids start making up their own rules? I’m not really sure…but maybe it’s a sense of growing up and responsibility. Or maybe it’s because they are constantly bombarded with adults telling them what they CAN and CANNOT do every minute they are awake! Either way, I think if the rules are somewhat harmless to let the kids “run with it” to help boost their confidence, the creativity and to give them a little sense of empowerment. Of course, I’m not going to give-in to crazy rules like “we can stay up really late” or “we’re allowed to jump off the kitchen table”.
I was looking for some articles online about this subject, but surprisingly…I didn’t really find much. Or at least not what I was really looking to read and use in this post.
So what do you think? Should your kids set a few rules to give them some “freedom” or should parents be 100% rule-makers and enforcers? Please leave comments so we can all start to think and discuss. Thanks!
I always get a laugh out of watching this video from Man Stroke Woman, a British comedy show. And it’s perfect for this week, as I’ve come down with a “Man Cold” which is more like the flu. I’m all achy and running a low-grade fever. Nothing a few Advil can’t take care of.
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Now if I didn’t have to head off to work in the morning, I think I would resemble Michael Keaton in this photo from the movie, when he’s seeing his wife off early in the morning and says, “Honey, if you call and I’m not here I’ll be either at the gym or the gun club.”
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