Category Archive

Dad! Try the In-house Date.

We have reserved Mondays as the day I work late (so I can go home earlier other days), and Debbie feeds the kids before I get home. Then after an evening with the kids, we get them to bed and make a meal together and eat it in our living room.

Our usual choice of Menu: Hashbrowns, fried eggs and bacon. 

Have I mentioned that I make no claims of originality on any of these tips?

Have I further mentioned that if you have any suggestions for tips you can email them to me and I’ll post them?

No? Well, I will!

Potential Time Saver: Your kids (under, say, 10) don’t need baths more than twice a week. Even (perhaps especially) infants. In most cases, they only need it once a week.

If  you disagree, I’d be interested in hearing why. If you agree, how often do you do kid baths?

Dads, do your children have behaviors* that bother you, to the extent that you fear it might be a sign that you are not parenting well? Are you discouraged at the troubling habits they sometimes fall into? 

I have previously mentioned that I keep a journal for all of our kids, but that I keep it mostly positive. For troubling habit situations I recommend keeping another kind of journal – a  (less public) journal of discouraging trends in your children.

Write down and date these things. This has multiple benefits.

1. Writing troubling things down often helps you understand and sort through them.

2. Having a list of things like this gives you prayer request ideas.

3. Having this list may serve to help you develop solution plans.

4. (I think this might be the most encouraging) Looking back on this list 6 months later may be helpful as you see things that your child is past.  “Hey, she no longer does that! We’ve worked through it.”  

For us, looking at older entries in our difficulty journal has been a source of hope.

* I am being intentionally vague here.

Dads! Let’s say you’re on a longer hike through a beautiful National, State, Regional or County park and one or more of your kids is stating that he is tired and doesn’t want to walk anymore. Say this: Oh, I know what you guys need. A walking stick! Then make one (i.e. find a fallen branch and tear off the extra bits) for each child.

It might gain you an extra half mile.

Idea source: My Wife. It worked great.

Dads, do you wish your family had fewer dishes every day? Buy each of your kids their own differently colored cup. Then keep them out for kids to use and don’t require yourselves to wash them after every meal. Or even every day.

Here’s what we use.

New Dads: Here’s how you can help your nursing wife:

There are two possibilities for nursing – either she’s feeding your son or daughter in bed, or not in bed (say, in the living room).

If she’s nursing in bed, you be the one to go get the child and you be the one to change his/her diaper and put them to bed.

If she nurses in the living room, don’t make her do it in the dark or turn on a jarringly bright light. Keep a pleasant night light on all the time, so she walks into a room already slightly lit. We recommend a small Christmas tree with a string of tiny lights on it.

Leave it on all night. It’s worth the extra 3 dollars per month of electricity.

Dads! Do you work at an office? Let it be known that if people are throwing away paper that is (A) unstapled, (B) un-inked on side, and (C) not confidential, that they should give it to you. Then take it home and let your kids write, do crafts and fold origami with it.

More than once I have come into my office to find a stack of paper a half foot tall waiting for me to take it home, because a printer went goofy and printed out 300 pages of paper with a little squiggle of print at the top of each page. I love those days.

Kids are more creative if they have more paper.

Dads! Do you have a dirty clothes shoot that goes down the basement laundry room? Does it sometimes get clogged? Try this handy tip. Take your wife’s curling iron and, holding on the power cord part, repeatedly drop it down into the shoot until the clog comes loose.

(I’m always looking for tips – email them to me and I’ll post them)

Dads! Don’t you hate it when you get home from shopping and – Darn! We were out of apples? Why didn’t we know that? Now I’ll have to go again tomorrow. Don’t let this happen to you. We keep an “Always Check” list of items on our fridge that we check when we’re on our way out to the store, even if it’s just a quick trip. Make one for your family.

Some suggestions for things to put on the list: Apples, Diapers, Flour, . . . . Oh, you can figure it out.