A Tall Order

I had one of those nice dad moments the other day while I was driving my son Lukas home from preschool.  Although most often during these drives I have the radio or CD player turned off so I can talk about the day with him, that afternoon I decided I was in the mood to listen to some music. Now, when he was young, I had no problem choosing any number of my favorite bands to listen to while Lukas was in the room. Read More...

Father’s Day shouldn’t be Dads and Grads

By now you’ve heard the hype of Dad and Grads gifts – STAB me in my eyes and ears – there is little similar of a dad and a grad other then the fact that they could both be male. When I was a grad I didn’t care anything about the items I care about today with the exception of technology… Even then its a terrible pitch to bloggers, to shoppers, to place in ads… Dads and Grads ̵ Read More...

Are you a Dad – Become An Author!

I have always written in journals. I still even have journals from when I was younger. As I have gotten older I still have continued to keep a journal. I have found that doing this helps to keep track of small things, important things as well as ideas and thoughts. I find that entries may be formal or informal. I am recommending a journal to assist you as a parent because I have found that you as a parent you can Read More...

Daddy Law Enforcement: Discipline Requires Itself

Totally switching gears on what I am writing about today. My original post was going to be about men’s health month. Then I saw this tweet from Jim Turner (@Genuine) while looking at the tweets from the #DadsTalking discussion tonight. The tweet read “There are some days I feel like I am being mentally abusive to the kids. I am much better at that manipulation. I hate that.” This statement immedia Read More...

Less is more and not following one’s own advice.

This is certainly not news for parents who have older kids, but with kids less is more. I say this premising that I do not follow my own advice. Add that to the long list of parenthood’s hypocrisies. If I see a cool toy car or stickers at the checkout register I just cannot help myself and will get it for my son (and, no doubt, for my inner child). Sure, he loves getting an unexpected present, but most of the tim Read More...

Daddy Guilt Over Time For Me

Last weekend, my boys were playing on the floor and I opened the newspaper.  After a couple of minutes, they began asking me to play with them.  My first instinct was to put the paper down and play.  Most times, that is just what I would do.  This time, however, I wanted to spend some time reading the paper.  Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt, like I was being an awful father Read More...

Balance our time verse the entire family time

One of the things summer comes with it – is Freedom… that freedom being in terms of the lack of school which some how brings in a lack of structure too.  This raises the bar on family activities and no I’m not talking about the local little family that cuddles in the bed on saturday morning for cartoons. I mean that entire family aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, 2nd and 3rd cousins, someone Read More...

Their Lives Will Not Be Like A Movie Romance

Emulating health relationships is important for our children, as most kids today get something of a warped sense of how relationships work as they watch movies, reality TV and the like. Even through billboards, magazine ad and articles and other such material, our children today are being immersed by a plethora of images that somewhat skews their sense of what does and what does not constitute healthy relatio Read More...

So THIS is What Being “Dad” Is

Often times you read through parenting blogs and read about the great and wonderful things that being a parent can mean. For the most part, it is true. Having kids, being a dad, this feeling of love and adoration is next to nothing. It is an incredible thing to be a dad and I would not want my life to be any different. Here’s the catch though: Being a dad can also be frustrating, angering, and upsetting. I kn Read More...

Handling A Bully Situation

Recently, we needed to deal with a bullying situation in NHL’s school.  A child, with a history of violent acts, punched NHL in the stomach hard enough to send him to the nurse and cause bruising.  The punch was in retaliation for NHL telling the child that he shouldn’t be jumping over people (NHL included) to reach his seat.  Around the same time we were dealing with this, I saw @sociallysmart ( Read More...

Teaching The Power of Passion

Children need to be exposed to many things as they are growing up. As parents it is important to let them explore different types of activities and interests. We need to encourage these interests and not trivialize them in any way (even if they don’t make sense to us).Our children are going through a process of exploration and must be able to make choices and learn for themselves where their true passion Read More...

Party Time 2011: Pass the Excedrin

This Saturday we will throw a party to celebrate both of the kiddos birthdays. Being so close in age and still so young, we have their parties together for ease of planning and execution. Little Man will be 4 this month and Little Girl will be 2. Hard to believe how fast the time has passed. With the Toy Story theme selected, the final preparations have begun. The Wifey is great at getting everything planned out to Read More...

Little Black Fly

I’ve been having a hard time connecting with my daughter lately. She’s two and she’s been sick on and off for the last two weeks and she hasn’t exactly been the most pleasant person to be around. I say that as an observation not as a judgment. It’s not her fault. She might be thinking the same thing about me. Still it’s difficult to take sometimes when she seems to not want to be with me and she’s ask Read More...

Teaching Lessons From Geeky Lore

This past Sunday, NHL and I were heading to his weekly Hebrew lessons.  As we drove, I began to worry.  You see, it had been a couple of weeks since his last lesson (thanks to Passover) and NHL, while very bright, has a tendency to give up easily if a task seems difficult to him.  He’ll insist that he can’t do it and will complain endlessly, stubbornly refusing to even try, until we wear him down Read More...

#DadStreaking

Despite my title this is not a post about dads who have a few too many hits on the beer bong the night before a big trip to The Home Depot with the fam.  Although it might be more humorous if it was.  Who doesn’t love that Hank the Tank scene? No, actually with the start of baseball season and the recent feel good streak of wins by my hometown 9, the Seattle Mariners – I have been thinking of streaks Read More...

Being Engaged With Your Kids

When I talk about being engaged, I am referring to doing things directly with the kids that are important to them and that they find enjoyable and fun. This could be something such as cooking with them, playing sports or games or other such activity that brings a smile on your and your child’s face (as hopefully you are having fun as well). Our children crave our attention and don’t care what else is on our mi Read More...

My Son Likes Pink, My Daughter Likes Blue

Throughout our lives we are force fed stereotypical junk food about genders. Boys in blue, girls in pink. Boys should play superhero and war, girls should play princess and dress up. I don’t know how this came about, or why it still continues. One thing I do know is this: In my house, my children will be raised to look beyond such crap and see people for who they are as people. Does it really matter that there be Read More...

This One’s for All the Bouncers

Big. Big. Monkey Man! And as soon as I start skanking the first chord, my kids instantly recognize the song. They start singing before the lyrics are supposed to begin because they’re only little kids and they have no sense of musical timing—yet. But they know the lyrics, because they’re nonsense lyrics, and they can relate to them. And so they start spouting off at different times and in different keys: Aye, Read More...

My Finicky Child’s Passover Hunger Strike

Like many nearly-four year olds, JSL is a very finicky eater.  For lunches and dinners he tends to like only about five or so foods: Macaroni and Cheese, Pizza, Chicken Nuggets, Cream Cheese Sandwiches, Greek Yogurt and maybe a couple more.  Even if you stick to a “JSL approved food”, say pizza, you can still run afoul of JSL’s finickiness.  I make pizza at home and JSL will peel off the cheese Read More...

Make Every Day Earth Day

Happy Thursday Revolutionaries.  Tomorrow, Friday April 22nd is not only Good Friday, it’s also Earth Day 2011.  What activities do you have planned with your kids to commemorate?  Although there are a lot of activities going on here in Seattle in conjunction with Earth Day, The SeattleDad household will unfortunately not be participating in any of them.  That’s because, as I suspect a lot of you Read More...