Dads Parent Too

One day while I was teleworking in the basement, Mallory excitedly screamed "I can't believe it!"    Some birds had made a nest and were raising chicks in the tree in front of our kitchen window.  We watched them grow over a few weeks until they were finally adventurous enough to hop out of the nest.   Here is one perched on a different tree close to the nest. For videos, visit dadsparenttoo on Instagram  

My kids don’t usually like “mixed foods”, which means I usually have to keep their foods very segregated.  But this fried rice dish went over really well.  It may have been how I included them in the process . . . or the fact that I added a shit-ton of bacon and butter. Butter Bacon Edamame Fried Rice Recipe 2 Tablespoons Butter 2 Slices Thick Bacon 2 Garlic Cloves Chopped 5 Cups Rice 2 Eggs Beaten 1 Cup Broccoli & Carrot Chopped 1 Cup Edamame Shelled 3 Green Onions Chopped 2 Tablespoons Tamari (Soy Sauce) Everything But The Bagel ( TJs ) Seasoning Sauté the bacon in butter until it starts to brown (about 5 minutes) Add chopped garlic and cook  until fragrant (less than 30 seconds) Add rice and stir-fry until heated and coated in oil (less than 5 minutes) Drizzle beaten eggs evenly over the rice and mix until coated (less than 2 minutes) Add Broccoli, Carrot, and Edamame and stir-fry until evenly mixed (less than 2 minutes) Add Green Onions, Tamari, and stir-fry until evenly coated

Recently my girls have gotten several "Sticker Club" invites, which I have been really excited for.  I really love sending out mail, and I love seeing how excited my girls are to receive something in the mail.  But . . . I became a little disheartened when I saw the form letter that was sent.   "Let my 'MOM' know", I thought this was such an easy fix, that obviously someone else would have made a "gender neutral" Sticker Club Template, but all my searching was in vain.  Apparently, no one else had thought there might be a DAD out there who would be really stoked on stickers and parenting.   But there totally is a DAD who is INTO STICKERS & PARENTING!!!!!  Sticker Dads UNITE!!! If you are like me, then I am happy to tell you that there is a Sticker Club Letter Template for all the STICKER PARENTS out there: Gender Neutral Sticker Club Template Letter     For STICKER DADS:  Sticker Club Dad Template Letter For STICKER GUARDIANS:  Sticker Club Gu

“Why DO children vomit in the middle of the night?” It’s a question I couldn’t help puzzling over as I scraped vomit from bedding into a basement sink.  I mean, vomit happens during the daytime, sure.  And children sometimes make it to the bathroom, a waiting bowl, a SickSack(TM), or sometimes you decide you didn’t love that sweater as much as you thought.   I wondered if I had become desensitized to “daytime vomit” from my days of caring for an infant.  As if all that vomit had blurred into one, unending, forgettable, and insignificant cleanup, and the only episodes that stand out any more are when you hear: “my pants are wet!”, and the usual wet-pant-urine-check quickly evolves into a handful of sticky-mashed-potato-horror!  And it isn’t just the laundry, it’s carefully checking each item/child in the bed for vomit, hoping that the currently-not-vomiting-sibling stays asleep, while you peel everything off the bed, and eventually holding that confirmed vomit soaked mass close

DAD TIP: “ Science Idea Box ” at the “WOW in the World Podcast” Shop.  It has 60 easy-to-do experiments on 30 wooden, double-sided chips.  This one was for “Mak[ing] a habitat for an insect” #tinkercast

How do we protect our children from danger and abuse?  On some level, no amount of precaution or protection will guarantee our children will never be hurt.  Having children is a risk, as Elizabeth Stone put it: “Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”. As parents, we have to makes decisions  along the continuum between safety/security and danger/experience.  An extreme emphasis on safety stunts growth and development, i.e. helicopter parenting leads to emotionally stunted children.  While an extreme emphasis on experience with a high risk threshold can lead to injury or death.  Every parent has to decide what is best for their children, but one skill that will serve children throughout their lives while they navigate their own limits with risk and openness to experiences is “CONSENT”. Luckily, it is something that be easily learned though play.  As parents, we can demonstrate boundaries, e.g