http://stepdadding.com Steps towards stepfathering greatness Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:38:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://stepdadding.com/2008/01/15/a-parenting-slogan/ I'm always thrilled at the ingenuity people show in coming up with cheap alternatives to commercial products. Wise Bread's instructions for making your own moon sand are a great example: a little fine sand, a little cornstarch, a little water, and Presto! Moon sand. I'll be trying this. If your kids ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/31/play-hack-make-your-own-moon-sand/ 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 ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/24/christmas-eve-morn/ The Simple Dollar is the only finance-related website I read on any sort of regular basis, mostly because of posts like this one: A Talk With My Niece. The author, Trent, is thinking about things he wants to say to a 15-year old niece of his, someone he sees struggling ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/15/great-advice-for-teens/ With the kids finally off quarantine (only one got sick, but the other two were excluded from school just in case) we can get back to the business of daily life, which this time of year means Christmas. Which means shopping. We don't give the kids much of an allowance, and ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/12/christmas-shopping-finally-commences/ I absolutely love Sherman Alexie, so when I noticed just now that he'd written a new book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian I ordered it right away.  And when I saw it was a book for younger readers (grade 7 - 10, according to Amazon) I knew ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/08/whats-in-the-review-queue-the-absolutely-true-diary-of-a-part-time-indian-by-sherman-alexie/ 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 ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/05/talking-to-toddlers-and-other-small-children/ Things have been pretty hectic around here, what with the kids all home, the end of the semester looming (I've been grading like mad for weeks now!), new duties at lifehack.org (I'm managing the promotion and community activities now, as well as editing contributions and writing my own posts three ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/04/life-moves-pretty-fast/ 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 ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/12/01/quarantine-redux/ I owe this tip to the Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman who visited last spring.  He annoyed the crap out of us and ust would not go away, but I did get one good idea out of it  See, the cleaning product they use in their super-duper $2000 carpet shampooers has ... http://stepdadding.com/2007/11/29/cleaning-tip-add-fabric-softener-to-steam-cleaning-water/