Author: Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

The Masculine Version Of A Tea Party, Part 1

December 6, 2012 at 10:32 pm , by 

2 years.

Dear Jack,

You have no desire for tea parties.

The thought of you pretending to drink tea and eat delicate crumpets with me while we sit at your Thomas the Train folding table… well, you would just try to wreck the party by plowing through the tea cups with your 4×4 monster school bus or your army of trains.

“Daddy, sit.” That’s what you tell me when you want me to play cars with you at your play table.

You are wired to choose action involving crashes and messes, not role-playing a sophisticated brunch.

Right now our version of having a tea party is pretending to be worried after a train falls off the table, serving as a cliff, because one of us deliberately pushed the thing off the edge. (That plot line is then repeated about 23 times.)

I have great plans for us, Son.

Eventually our “tea parties” will turn into us playing gentlemen’s games like chess, where sitting across the table from each other, we shall sharpen our strategic skills.

From there, we will move up to me teaching you to solve the Rubik’s Cube. We’ll see if you can find a way to beat my own average solve time of 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

Yes, you and I are usually pretty physically rough when we play.

Sometimes you ride on my back as I crawl across the carpet, pretending to be a hungry and angry lion, attempting to shrug you off and eat you for dinner.

Other times you want me to scare you as I hide in the corner, pretend to sleep, then suddenly jump up and act like I am smothering you as I gently lay on top of you, putting all my body weight on the floor, and none of it on you.

But for the times you feel like playing like a gentleman, we take out all that aggressive action on your toys.

Either way, we don’t do tea parties, we do demolition parties.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

Free Craft Activity For Kids: Home Depot’s Little Helper Headquarters

December 5, 2012 at 11:53 pm , by 

2 years.

Dear Jack,

You are sharpening your handyman skills quicker and more professionally than I am.

Last weekend we took you to meet your friend Sophie Culpepper atHome Depot’s Little Helper Headquarters, where once a month they have a free craft activity for kids.

We are now are the proud new owners of a wooden picture frame that you made.

Okay, so actually, it was me who glued the 4 pieces of wood together, then drove the nails through, as well.

But afterwards, you got to swing the hammer, while wearing your safety goggles, of course.

If we keep this up, it’s going to be you teaching me how to make bookshelves and change out a bathroom sink, along with all those other things I’m already supposed to know how to do because I’m your dad.

It used to be that I never really cared too much about learning how to do handyman stuff. However, when you came along 2 years ago, I started feeling a greater responsibility to become more involved in fixing stuff around the house.

That’s actually part of the reason the logo for The Dadabase is a wrench.

Becoming a dad inspired me to want to become Mr. Fix It; even it’s the worst version, which is any token sitcom dad of the 1980′s. I feel responsible for teaching you how to work with tools.

The thing is, I barely own any tools. But every time Mommy assigns us a new job, together you and I will figure it out, buying the necessary tools along the way.

It’s just like when I started this whole being a dad thing. I never really knew what I was doing, yet you never seemed to notice.

Sometimes the best way to teach someone is by learning in the moment, out of necessity. I have a feeling that’s going to be the way I teach you a lot of things in life, Son.

Here goes nothing…

 

Love,

Daddy

 

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Warning: Security Blankets May Lead To Living Room Forts

December 4, 2012 at 11:46 pm , by 

2 years.

Dear Jack,

It seems like only yesterday, though it was actually 4 months ago, that you were obsessed with a security blanket you named Mimi.

Well, I haven’t heard you say “her” name in a while, but Mimi is still just as important in your life:

You are now entering the initial stages of building forts in the living room.

Today on the drive to daycare, I heard sneaky giggling in the backseat. You had convinced Mommy to let you take your blanket with you, even though it was strangely in the upper 70′s on this rainy December day.

I turned around to see the real-life equivalent of a ghost from Pac-Man. You had pulled the blanket completely over you, hoping I would notice you myself before your own laughing found you out.

“Jack’s house!” I proclaimed.

That’s right, it’s all about the house that Jack built.

Whether you’re hiding underneath your high chair, covering yourself under couch pillows, or your personal favorite, hiding beneath a blanket, your newest current hobby is making “Jack’s house.”

You’re in luck right now because we still have the blow-up mattress in the middle of the living room floor from your Auntie Erin’s visit, which provides the perfect bouncy floor for an appropriate house for a 2-year-old, as you randomly snack on a piece of wheat bread and roll around your toy monster truck.

Before long, you will realize you can prop up your blanket on your toy basketball goal or chairs, making for the perfect fort in the living room.

But I don’t want to rush you. For now, it’s fun to watch you prop up your blanket tent like it’s a toy; which it apparently is right now.

As your dad, it’s cool to be able to see you develop your adventure-making skills.

It’s almost ironic that carrying around a security blanket would be a gateway activity to building a fort in the living room.

You’re progressing from insecurity to security and the way you use a blanket is the evidence.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

5 Token Signs of Millennial (Or Generation Y) Parents

December 2, 2012 at 11:52 pm , by 

2 years.

Dear Jack,

You are the product of twoMillennial (or Generation Y) parents.

Both Mommy and I were born a few months apart in 1981, the year that began our generation. The way we will parent you will be different as compared to how it would have been if we were part of the generation that ended just a few months before we were born; Generation X was born roughly between 1964 to 1980.

As the sort of first-born of my generation, I am constantly trying to figure out what makes us different from previous generations. After all, people say that Millennials were the first children not to rebel against their parents. That’s pretty weird…

An article published about a year ago in The New York Times referenced your parents’ generation as the “post-emotion generation… no anger, no edge, no ego.”

On the surface, it may appear that we are sheltered, narcissistic, jaded by the polar extremes of American politics, motivated by recognition more than money, obsessed with green living, and easily inspired by social justice issues.

I’ll be honest- it wouldn’t be a stretch for someone to describe me in any of those ways. Actually, I wonder how else I appear as a stereotype to other generations of parents.

In fact, I’m so curious about the traits of my generation, especially as they relate to being parents, I have decided to pinpoint 5 token traits of Generation Y parents:

1. They give their own kids either extremely classic or extremely original names. For every Jack there is now a Brody and for every Sarah there is now a Hadley. Millennial parents tend not to name their kids the popular names of their own generation, like Chris and Matt for boys, and Amanda and Jennifer for girls.

2. They want their kids to be, or at least seem, unique. That’s part of the explanation for some of the bizarre baby names popping up these days. Millennials were raised to believe they were special; evidently more special than every other child of The Eighties who was told that. Now, Generation Y parents subconsciously still wish this extra dose of uniqueness on their own kids.

3. Millennial parents are overly self-aware of their parenting style. Everybody’s watching, all the time, thanks the social media outlets and blogs we plug into on a daily basis. We make sure no one can ever question if we’re involved enough in our kids’ lives. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? To spank or not to spank? To helicopter parent or not to helicopter parent? Those are the questions.

4. Facebook replaces the necessary phone call update and proud wallet pictures of our kids. There’s no real need for us as parents to pick up the phone and update our friends and family on what our kids are doing, nor is there reason those people should be desperately curious to see new pictures of our kids: There’s a constantly updated flow of that on Facebook every day.

5.  They are really into what their kids eat. Back in the 1980s, processed food was king. Now, the awareness of disease, cancer, and obesity has caused parents to actually question what “natural and artificial flavor” means. Trust me on this, you don’t want to know. There’s a reason food companies keep those ingredients a mystery.

So there you have it, son. Hopefully I’ve taught you a thing or two about why your parents and your friends’ parents are so quirky…I mean, “special and unique.”

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

Dad Recognizes His Son’s Kinesthetic/Visual Learning Style For Pottying

December 1, 2012 at 11:26 pm , by 

2 years.

Dear Jack,

I always do a courtesy announcement whenever I’m about to go potty, because usually you rush to the occasion of being able to carefully observe how to stand in front of the toilet.

You’ll run over from the other room with metal trains in hand and shut the door behind us, leaving Mommy out of the show.

It’s a process you treat with respect. You never try to drop your train in the toilet. You don’t really even speak, except sometimes to say, “Daddy’s all done,” as you reach for the flusher.

Tonight though, you surprised me. As soon as you joined me in the restroom, you informed me: “I go potty too.”

So Mommy ran upstairs and grabbed your training potty so you and me could go at the same time. This happened in our downstairs half-bathroom, where the only place to put your potty was behind me.

It was quickly positioned in a way that made you choose between facing and watching me or facing the opposite direction and standing in front of your potty.

Well, you sort of chose both.

You faced and watched me, while standing and peeing directly on the floor, about a half an inch from my foot.

Mommy and I were actually proud just to see you acknowledge that you had to pee and attempt to go in the potty.

I just need to figure out a way to set up your training potty right next to mine so we can go side by side. Evidently that’s the way I teach you a lot of things, from playing cars to drawing to shouting “Oh no, crash!” at the TV while watching Thomas & Friends on Netflix.

Granted, I see a lot of things going wrong with the idea of potty-training you side by side with me, but if you’re so passionate about learning to pee standing up by doing so while watching Daddy do it, then I want to support your kinesthetic/visual learning style.

I’ll have to see what I can work out…

 

Love,

Daddy