Last night, I had a dream that somehow involved a child care company with the slogan “We care, so you don’t have to.” I think this is a brilliant slogan for any business in the child care, nannying, or babysitting areas, and because I’m so swell, I’m offering it to the world absolutely free of […]

Without making any general announcement, my partner decided to put a couple of presents aside as “Christmas Eve” presents. Given the thorough inspection that every package put out for Christmas gets from the kids, of course it only took them .04 microseconds to realize that a couple of packages were marked “Christmas Eve Present”, and […]

The Cranking Widgets Blog offers some good advice about communicating with small children: How to Talk to a Toddler. I would add one more thing,though: Don’t talk baby talk. Little children talk baby talk becuase they’re babies and they’re still learning how to make the right sounds for their native language and put them […]

The hits keep on rolling at our house. I wrote before about my partner coming down with mumps — a form not indigenous to the US and not included in our immunizations — and while she was never officially quarantined, she’s been out of work for three weeks (so far). Of course, she’s […]

Lisa Hendey of Productivity @ Home suggests several ways to encourage thankfulness in children. At the top of the list is “pray together”, and we’re not a praying family at all, but the rest of the tips are good, especialy the fourth, “Remember to thank your children”:
Next time your child brings home a test that […]

Parent Hacks describes a situation perilously close to what we deal with here:
Both my kids are notoriously tight-lipped about what happens at school. The general answer to “what did you do?” is nothing, and “what was your favorite activity today?” is I don’t remember.
A few weeks ago, I turned to my step-daughter at the […]

Shall I write a post since I’ve been away the last couple of days? OK, here’s a quick one.
Today, my brother and sister-in-law took our kids to the airshow. Every year my sister-in-law’s stepdad, an ex-Navy (I think) flyer and owner of an aerospace company in California comes in to take his grandkids […]

About 10 weeks ago now, my two oldest stepkids’ (12-year old boy and 11-year old girl) dad dropped a bomb on them (and us). During their bi-weekly weekend stay-over at his house, he sat them down and told them that him and their stepmother were going to go to a lawyer and file to terminate […]

Documentarian Alex Newman is doing research for a show on stepfamilies in Toronto. I told him I’d post his announcement; if you’re in the Toronto area, and you’re a step-dad, get in touch with him!

LOOKING FOR PARTICIPANTS

A new television series, called Save Me From My Step-Kids, is looking for families interested in participating.
You get:

$1000- […]

Apropos of my post about kids and art, Daddy Types describes an art outing gone sour at the National Gallery. The first part of the post is an excellent example of how to share art with your children. For example:
Taking the kid to see art, contemporary or otherwise, just seems like the most […]