For the past few months, J has been involved in a battle with C over food. More specifically, she wants him to eat his dinner and he doesn’t. I’ve been involved only peripherally, encouraging him to eat, but letting J do the heavy lifting. We have a bit of an advantage in this particular battle […]

Have you ever seen a dad walking around with his infant son sitting in a harness that hangs from the dad’s shoulders? Those things are incredibly useful. For those that haven’t seen one, it’s a series of padded straps that go around your shoulders and waist. The child rides sitting upright with his back to […]

Ever wonder why parents seem to simply be resigned to accepting embarassing situations? Here’s another example. C has always enjoyed eating something called “fruit snacks”. Fruit snacks are a wonderful invention. They’re bits of jellied fruit that come in little foil packets. Kids love them – so you can use them as a bribe without […]

One of N’s favorite things are these flashcards that J picked up somewhere. They are oversized – about as long and wide as a VCR tape – with a photo of an animal on one side. The other side has the name of the animal, and then lists a bunch of different activity ideas. The […]

C has been looking forward to turning 3 for a long time. Ever since his brother’s last birthday, he has been telling us that he’ll be 3 at his next birthday. He even learned how to hold up 3 fingers for added emphasis. Unfortunately, his time-sense really isn’t that good. Things that happen in the […]

N started doing a very odd thing this past weekend, and it has taken me this long (about 5 days) to figure it out. Let’s see if you do any better. Our neighborhood has a community pool, which we go to fairly frequently. It was at the end of one such visit that N came […]

In general, I try to avoid playing games that result in my chasing the kids. I much prefer games where they chase me. However, every once in a while I do end up chasing one or both of the little guys. Tuesday evening we had the best chase scene yet. It was time for C […]

In honor of the arrival of my new niece, I thought I’d go back in time to when N first arrived at the hospital. Having a baby when there’s another one already at home is a lot more complicated. Instead of just staying in the hospital until discharge time, I shuttled back and forth to […]

A while back, J and I hit on the idea of using eye contact to get and hold C’s attention. He learned the trick quite well. Whenever he really (really, really) wants something he makes sure to somehow make eye contact. Sometimes that means getting in front of us. Sometimes, he grabs a pant leg. […]

This is a DaddyTales first: a story about something that happened when I was not around. I thought it made a good tale, though. Let me know if you agree! C started his new preschool this past Monday. As with all parents, we were concerned about how well he would do, how nervous he would […]