What a Week, Mr. Mom and Gettin’ My Ass Back Into Blogging

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!

Daddy-Son Bonding – Taking My Son to Lunch

Well what an awesome lunch I had today!

No I wasn’t at a bar watching a sports game or out with my coworkers, instead I spent a nice hour taking my (almost) five year old son, LT,  out to Pizzeria Uno’s. I had mentioned that I would like to grab lunch with him one day and this morning he asked me, “Daddy, when are you taking me to lunch?”

“Well today is good!” I replied, LT smiled!

So just before noon I left my office and did the 3-minute drive to his school (he’s in Pre-K). He was so anxious for me to arrive and when I got there he hopped up, ran over and pretty much pulled me out of the building. He was READY to grab lunch with me! He was so excited, I could see it in his face, his walk and voice!! That made me feel special and excited to be taking him to lunch!

A few months ago his class went to Uno’s on a little field trip and they got to make their own pizzas. So as we walked from school to Uno’s, LT was telling me ALL about how he got to make the pizza and wanted to do so again. The only thought that came to me at that moment was, “oh boy…they better have make your own pizzas”!  Luckily that is the FIRST thing on the kid’s menu, whew…crisis averted.

Making his own pizza – no sauce, of course

While waiting for the pizza to arrive I started asking him about his day, what’s been going on at school and if he’s ready to watch the Eagles game with me on Sunday — he just smiled. (He took his “Swoop” Eagles Mascot stuffed animal to school for show ‘n tell today.) I think I’ll be able to have him sit and learn a bit about football as he’s starting to show some interest and want to be with me more and more. (Just so you know, I’m not a huge sports fan or the type of Dad that needs to sit on the couch all weekend and watch sports.)

Ok, pizza arrived and LT begins to add the cheese – only! He does not like sauce…or so he thinks. When we get other pizza he eats it, sauce included, but when he makes his own — it better have NO red on it! LOL!!

LT had such a fun time at lunch and asked to go again. Of course he also said, “Next time Mommy can take me and you take K-bop (our daughter)”.

I had a GREAT time taking LT to lunch today. I’m sure it is a day that he will remember for a long time and most certainly a day that I will never forget!  I will plan on taking him out at least once a month to spend alone some quality Daddy/Son alone time!

Candyland Goes to Time Out Land

B R E A K I N G N E W S ! ! !

[Candyland, 2/12/2009] It looks like tonight that Mr. Mint and Gramma Nutt have finally been caught. What crime did they commit? Let’s just say they were in the wrong place when cops raided Gum Drop Mountain after an anonymous tip.

In parenting terms…I gave my children’s Candyland game a time-out.

Why you may ask?

Well because it was getting late in the evening and we were all playing a quiet game of Candyland. My wife usually “stacks the deck” in favor of our kids and lets them draw the cards with the candycane, gumdrop, gingerbread man, etc. Well for whatever reason — I drew a pretty sweet card and traveled the the front of the pack, at least 20 spaces in front of my 4 year old son. Well……….

Tip #337 of the Parenting Guide – Let you Kids Win

With the combo of being 10 minutes from bed time, me going halfway to the finish line (in front of my son), that just made my son just lose it. He said, “I don’t want to play anymore, I NEVER want to play again!” Of course, those words were just that — words. But he pushed all the pieces off the board and I just about had it and therefore took the game and stuck it on the top of our canopy bed frame. In a time-out!

“HAH!!! that’ll teach you,” I thought with a smug look on my face. Well did it work?

50/50 I would say. Of course, I actually felt like I got my point across to him. He was saying sorry about 100x at Formula 1 speeds – he does that when he knows he’s wrong and my wife and I are going to take something away or not allow him to do something as a form of punishment. He knew that he did something wrong, but he was just over tired and couldn’t think it through.

Sure, I was being a hard-ass Dad, but i just needed to do this. My son is NOT the type of kid that does well in time-out (himself) so i resorted to removing the game from the child. I read that somewhere a year or so ago, ‘stick the game or toy into timeout has good results’ (I’ll have to dig up that article again).

My son one that can be talked down from his rants and rages by my wife -God bless her! She is really good at talking to him and making him understand what happened, why he was in trouble, and in this case, why the game was in time out on top of our bed frame!

I guess my point is this: Parents, choose wisely on what you punish for and how you punish. Maybe I went a little overboard on this one…but I still think he learned from it.

We’ve yet to play Candyland again.

Teach Your Kids About Nature – Start By Counting the Birds

Are you looking for something fun to do with your kids this weekend for an hour or so? Didn’t get your wife anything for Valentine’s Day? No worries…here is a great solution to both! (Image from RunnerJenny on Flickr)

Why not participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count? Yeah, that’s right, sit by your window or journey onto your deck (if it’s fairly warm) and count some birds. While counting have your kids draw some pictures of birds and slap some hearts on it. Give that to Mommy as a Valentine’s Day card.

I receive an email from Green Daily and the post was in today’s feed.

If you enjoy birdwatching or even just need a good reason to get outside, consider the Great Backyard Bird Count which takes place February 13-16. In the midst of the Valentine plans for the weekend, take a few minutes to look for some birds.

Read the full article “The Great Backyard Bird Count Coming This Weekend“

By counting the birds, you’ll be teaching your children about nature and possibly how birds migrate — and if your kids are 4 and 2 yo like mine, you can teach them to count and learn their colors. Have them count the birds on the ground, the birds in trees, and even the birds flying. Try to determine which bird is bigger than the others. By doing all of this and interacting with them you may spark an interest in nature in your child which I always think is a good thing! I’ve done similar nature activities with my kids last fall…when I took them on a “nature hike” in our backyard. We looked for bunnies and I even showed them “where the bunnies live”. It was just a brush pile in the woods behind our house. But they sure thought the bunnies lived there — in that EXACT spot.

So if the weather is nice in your neck of the woods…why not get outside, breathe the fresh air and teach your kids a little bit about the birds and the bees…well there won’t be any bees in my area yet…whew! I can hold off on that conversation for a long time!

How I Used 30 Minutes to Transition from Work to Home And How It Helped Me Be a Better Daddy

How many of you are from families where both parents work?

How about just one parent that works?

Well in our family, both Mommy and I work, and we work hard during our 9 hour day away from the kids — they both go to school/daycare. Mommy has a little longer of a commute (30 mins from work to daycare) and therefore a little more “transition time” from work life to home life. Me on the other hand work minutes from our kid’s daycare — and I used to be the primary parent for evening pick up — giving me like 3 minutes to destress from a busy day at work to both kids so excited to see me. Sure it’s awesome to have them excited to see me…but I was always experiencing both of them trying to talk over one another, tell me about their day, and just trying to fight for my attention.

My attention? How could I pay attention to them with only 3 minutes of downtime from work? I try and I try and I never seem to be able to do that.

Well lately my wife, the saint that she is, has been picking up the kids and I’ve been heading home directly from work. I get home around 5:30pm and take care of the kitchen. Some nights it’s emptying the dishwasher, others it’s just cleaning up the bomb that went off from the morning!! Shit everywhere! And sometimes I might just do nothing — just to relax. I need to relax! I’m a high stress individual , not a good mix for a 4 and 2 year old right now. (I’ve written about that before…and probably write more on that subject again!)

Finding the time to relax and enjoy playtime

So…as I was typing. I’ve been heading home before the rest of the family. Take tonight for example. I left work at 5:10pm and stopped off at ACME (food store) to grab a few things for a salad (it was eat lite night) and return a RedBox movie rental (My Best Friend’s Girlfriend – or something like that). So by the time I got home it was 5:40pm. Not too bad — I had 30 minutes of transitioning from work to home (the drive is usually 15 minutes). I felt good when I got home!

What Worked

Having dinner almost ready when the rest of the family arrived home made all of us more relaxed. No more last minute running around the kitchen like a one man chef at a busy restaurant. No…it was rather peaceful. The whole night was peaceful.

I had the kid’s dinners ready, food on plate, milk in cups, napkins, forks and spoons for them. Then i prepped a simple salad of baby spinach, feta and sunflower seeds for my wife and I. Poured her a glass of Shiraz and I enjoyed 2 Heinekin Lights. (It was eat lite night).

I did not yell tonight! That might be the first night in like months I didn’t have to raise my voice! It was a great feeling. And I could tell that my son really liked that. He would say, “I Love you Daddy!”

So after dinner he and I went into his playroom and created a pretty kick-butt GEOTRAX train layout. He was so excited that I went in and ASKED him to play trains with me. I usually try to clean up and do house stuff so my wife and I don’t have to do that once the kids are asleep. We do need our own time as well. But she packed lunches and cleaned up while the kids and I played.

The Best Night Ever

Well at least tonight ranks up there in Top 5 nights for me. There was absolutely NO WHINING! That’s right. No Whining at our house! Or none that I remember, so that’s good. Took my son up to bed and read him 3 books. He kept saying he had fun with the trains and than he loved me. That sure makes me feel good and I do feel good about it! I made his night!! and he made mine!

Now I just have to remember to stay calm and continue this!

Dads on Twitter: Top 25 Dads that Tweet

I just found out that I was included on Tom Beardshaw’s Top 25 Parents/Dads that Twitter list. Myself and many of the other Dads that I follow on Twitter and read their blogs.

Stop over to Tom’s blog to see who is on the list and add your Twitter profile if you weren’t included on the first take…

If you are not already following me @DaddysToolbox

Took Our Kids to Playhouse Disney Live!

Two weekends ago we took the kids and my parents (Mama and Papa) into Center City Philadelphia to see Playhouse Disney Live! It was great. The kids loved the live show and being in a big arena, although the Spectrum is so old and falling apart it was nothing special. We’ll be going to see Disney on Ice in early January at the Wachovia Center, must nicer arena. Can’t wait for that! My Dad bought all of us amazing seats. He said, front row. Awesome!

We had an amazing time the whole day. We let the ‘cat out of the bag’ a little to soon with our son. He was so super excited to go that he could barely wait the whole ride into Philly, about 45 mins. Then when we got to the Spectrum we had to wait outside for about 10 or so freezing minutes. The doors should have opened at 2pm, it was more like 2:10 or 2:15pm! Everyone was complaining of the cold have having their kids outside in the wind and temps. My little guy and daughter just wanted to get inside and see everything.

Once inside we had about 30 minutes to wait. We walked around, grabbed a few soft pretzels and made our way to our seats. Oh, I almost forgot we stopped off at a ripoff souvenir stand and paid $36 for two items that cost $3 to make for our kids. One of those spinning lights and a Little Einsteins “June” purse for our daughter. The battery was dead by the time we got home!

As the lights went down, the smile on my 4yr son’s face lit up. We was super excited, although he hasn’t watched Playhouse Disney in a long long time. He stood for most of the show as myself, my wife and Mama kept watching him dance and sing and spin his new light thing, a Handy Manny light.

As I said, I can’t wait to take them to the next live show in a few weeks. They are going to love it — so will my wife and I. Some things we’ve learned…

1. Do not tell our kids ANYTHING about the show until we are in the parking lot otherwise we’ll have an hour drive of “are we there yet?”
2. Think about taking out a loan so we can buy souvenirs, you just have to get the kids something from the show. Don’t we???
3. Take drinks with us, juice boxes, bottle of water. When a 16oz bottle of water costs $4 at the arena I would like it would be cold!
4. Plan on no naps the day of the show. Luckily we don’t get cotton candy for the kids – they don’t like it!

I’m sure I’ll have more lessons learned from our next adventure. I’ll post them in January after the show!

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Are You a Happy Healthy Hip Parent?

Over at Happy Healthy Hip Parenting blog, authored by Sondra Santos LaBrie, has started up a new series on What Makes a Happy Healthy Hip Parent. She is doing this to highlight parents that she has met mainly on the net, via blogs or Twitter. Also, I filled out the questionaire as a daddy blogger so soon I’ll be featured. I’ll post a link when that happens.

Why is Sondra doing this:

I look forward to sharing their stories and giving props to parents who raise happy, healthy, hip kids – one of the most rewarding jobs you could ever have.

Here are a few links and blurbs from her first two HHH Parents:

Meet Tracy and find out What Makes Her a HHH Parent

Facebook has brought me face-to-face with several high school classmates since joining, including Tracy, mother of two. Her son will be turn four in less than a month and her daughter just recently reached her six-month milestone.

Meet Laurel to see why she is a HHH Parent

You may know Laurel from the books she’s authored: Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, Inside the Slidy Diner, The Myth of the Single Machines, Half Life, and Daphne and Jim.

Happy Healthy Hip Parenting was founded by Sondra Santos LaBrie.

Ms. LaBrie is a Certified Parent Educator through the International Network for Children and Families with a background in psychology and communication.

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Daddy’s Toolbox Carnival #4

Wow, this time I did it right. I used my Twitter account (@DaddysToolbox) to tweet about the upcoming carnival and this fourth edition received the most submissions thus far! I’m excited to bring you the following posts, please read them and share with others. If you want to have a parenting or Daddy post included in my monthly carnival please read the last part of this post.

Jeremy Neal presents Do It Because I Said So! posted at Discovering Dad.

Ron Mattock presents Chipmunk Gets A Post posted at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox, saying, “A short post about fathers and sons, catching chipmunks and passing along small lessons to your children that they may remember later.”

Petteri presents More About My Wicked Grandpa… posted at My Grandpa.

Being a Daddy

Jeremy Neal presents Top 5 Favorite Daddy Daughter Activities posted at Discovering Dad.

Kevin Heath presents Parenting Tips for New and Expectant Dads posted at More4kids.

Dad of Divas presents Remember Me posted at Dad of Divas.

Dads Summer Fun

ISPF presents Fun Family Vacations (That Don’t Cost an Arm and a Leg!) posted at Daddy Financials.

Modern Parent presents Summer Fun: Splish Splash He’s Not Taking a Bath posted at Modernparent.org.

James Hills presents La Tomatina – a Tomato Party In Spain | Father and Son Mancation posted at Man Tripping – Guys Getways and Mancations, saying, “This year’s festival is coming up on August 27 … probably too late for anyone in the US to visit, but should be a fun summer idea for next year like this dad/son pair did!”

Parenting Issues

Neelakantha presents 100+ Health and Safety Tips for Your Newborn posted at Nursing School Search Blog.

Jeremy presents Standing Firm – Cutting: One Dad’s Story of Intervention posted at Discovering Dad.

Special Memorial

This post was a last minute addition that I wanted to include in the carnival.

Anthony McCune presents a memorial to Todd Christopher Weaver who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. He was 30-years-old.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of daddys toolbox carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

3rd Installment of Bringing Home Baby

For those of my readers I was asked to submit three short posts about my experiences bringing home our second child. Myself and two other fellow Daddys and bloggers wrote short posts for Building Camelot.

The third and last installment of our stories are now posted. Stop over to Tyler’s site at Building Camelot to read. Read the third installment here.

Read the first installment of the series on Bringing Home a Second Baby.

Read the second installment of the series on Bringing Home a Second Baby.

Also check out these other Daddy Blogs for some good reading!

Elliott from 21stcenturydad.com

Chris from Dad of Divas