Look Honey I Won This Swingset For the Kids!

Posted by Toolbox Dad on March 26, 2009

Awesome contest over at Dad-Blogs.com where they’ve teamed up with Kid Creations to giveaway a kick-ass wooden swingset / playset to one lucky family (living in Chester County, PA). Oh please let it be me! Otherwise I have the long, drawn-out task this spring to build a playset for my kids. We already have 2 slides, the rock wall, but NO wood…like as in NO actual tower, landing, and swing bar. I guess I could always find a low hanging branch and bungee the rock wall and slide to it.

Does that work??? Hmm, probably not safe, eh?

So if I don’t win the playset then there goes 7 minutes 38 seconds of each weekend to build one! My wife WANTS me to do projects like finishing my basement, or “hey honey MOVE that plant from there to here…no the OTHER here!”, and “can you plant me a garden”, and oh I forgot…”you can’t do this stuff during the day!” So….my kids will be 22 years old by the time I’m done and wondering why the Hell I built them a swing/play set!!

Anyway, Kid Creations is a manufacturer of wooden swing sets and accessories and located smack-dab in the middle of the US, as in Kansas. Good for shipping to the east and west, I guess. Which is perfect for shipping down Interstate 70 or whatever road is close by.

In any event, what a kick-ass contest to be running in time for spring and summer fun, barbeques, playdates, my annual Autumn Pig Roast, etc.

Why Kids Love Swingsets and my time as a kid

I’m not sure why all kids LOVE swingsets but they do. “PUSH ME!!!!!” “No!!!! Not that fast!” “Faster!!!!” oh sorry, i had a relapse back to a few nights ago… Well I might have an idea as to why they love it. When your kids are young they enjoy having Mommy and Daddy there with them, pushing, pulling and laughing with them. As kids grow up a swing set could be a way to boost a little confidence…i.e, jumping off at eight feet high!

I know when I was a kid we had one of those old Rusty-Pole-with-Metal-Chainlink-Swings swingset. We also had some rickety old metal-tetinus-causing jungle gym to climb on. But guess what? My friends and I loved it! Wherelse do kids learn to be afraid of heights? haha…I am and it’s probably because I used to swing fast and high and then jump off. Who didn’t!?

Ok, wow, I was just going to write a short paragraph about all of this, but then my fingers just kept typing and I got to remember my youth! cool! time to get some sleep.

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

Posted by Toolbox Dad on January 21, 2009

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!

Granting a Wish at Christmas and Why I Love LEGOS

Posted by Toolbox Dad on December 17, 2008

Happy Holidays everybody! I’m a member of IZEA and in today’s email was another message about how IZEA teamed up with Sears and a few other bloggers to do (yet) another shopping spree dubbed Granting a Wish with Sears, similar to the one IZEA and Kmart did a few weeks ago.

So I was looking at some of the blogger’s sites and posts and found Chris Pirillo’s blog post where his part of the contest includes giving away $500 worth of LEGOS. How freakin’ cool is that!?!?

So if I were to win Chris’s contest by commenting on his blog post, tweeting to twitter and then writing this post, myself and my son who’s 4 years old would have a kick-ass Christmas!!

I will tell you a little story…

When I was 6-13 years old, or there thereabouts, I was a LEGO-maniac. I think my parents bought just about all the LEGO sets out there for me, for birthdays, Easter, Christmas, maybe even Groundhog’s Day, who knows…but man I had it good!

LEGOS were MY thing. I had just about all the cool LEGOS of the late 80s. So while listening to songs like Rock Me Amadeus, Sledgehammer, Land of Confusion and Axel F — to name a few, I was busy creating LEGO masterpieces. Of course my LEGOS where nothing close to what is out in stores now, but I thought they were kick butt! Especially when I got my first real set of Space LEGOS.

Those awesome blue tinted windows that went up and down!!! And the knobby tires for the moon vehicles!!!!

My cousin and I would play for hours building spaceships, moon bases and whatever else we could imagine. I actually STILL have my LEGOS…and they are STILL as they were 25 years ago! (as seen in the pictures – click for larger)

So I thought about giving my LEGOS to my son for Christmas this year since I know he’s been playing with them at his daycare. He loves the small LEGOS now. I think he’ll get a kick out of playing with them and I’ll probably cry when he destroys what I created 25 years ago, but at least he and I will have a good time together! We need it!!

So don’t forget to check out Chris’s blog and the others that are a part of Grant a Wish with Sears.

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