Just Call Me Dad

Once upon a time my wife and I were both avid campers. It was a get away, a cheap vacation, and an escape from the bustle of everyday life. For us, there were few things more relaxing than sitting beside a fire late at night and gazing into the flames.

As Nicholas approaches 3 years old, the desire to get back into camping has grown, but the thought of having to pack up and head home in the middle of the night because of a scared child was worrisome. What we needed was a test trip, something close to home and the safety that it provided.

Enter the backyard camping trip.

Even though we were only in our backyard, we tried to set the mood of the day like a camping trip by spending most of the day outdoors, grilling burgers for supper, and having a backyard picnic. After supper we set up the tent and got all of the bedding ready.

To me, no camping trip is complete without a fire. Our city does allow backyard fire pits (many don’t, so be sure to check before striking flint to steel), but they have pretty stringent requirements for area surrounding the pit. Plus, I didn’t really want to go to all the hassle of building a fire and extinguishing it for what would amount to 30 minutes around the campfire.

I did some searching on the Internet and found a great alternative. These fire pits run on the familiar 1lb propane bottle that so much other camping equipment uses, and has a pretty decent flame. They do say that you shouldn’t cook on them, but we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores with no trouble at all. I think a weenie roast would be possible, but it would probably take a long time.

Then, when it was time to put Nicholas to bed, we read him some stories and tucked him in. We assured him that we were right outside the tent and that we could hear him if he needed us. Mom and I sat around the fire for a while, and then went to bed ourselves.

The night was uneventful. All of us slept well in the tent, with no interruptions. We woke up a little earlier than usual, but were all well rested.

If you have been considering a camping trip with your children but aren’t sure how it will work, I strongly recommend trying out camping in your yard. Our first real camping trip will come up soon, and I will report how it goes. For the first trip I would recommend choosing a campground close by, but more adventuresome parents may want to go all in and shoot for the moon on the first trip.

Whatever you do, have fun!

My son went for a drive on a Yamaha Rhino this weekend – I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but Mom assures me that he was completely safe.

In the vein of letting things go and not being afraid of taking some small risks with your kids, I’d like to share a video with you from a TED event. Gever Tulley, founder of The Tinkering School, shares a list of 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.

These come from a much larger list – a book Tulley has written titled [Amazon Link] “Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)“.

Enjoy.

Nicholas has no shortage of toys; besides a collection of Thomas & Friends trains and rolling stock that would make VIA jealous he has blocks, cars, trucks, and stuffed animals – thanks to parents who can’t say no and friends and family who apparently have a lot of VISA debt. However, I’m always reminded of stories about kids who get the latest and greatest toy, only to sit down and play with the box that the toys came in.

I’ve been renovating our basement for the past several weeks, and left a couple of scraps of wood outside in our backyard. As the weather has turned warmer and we have begun playing outside more and more, the blocks have become a real go-to toy. In fact, I recently cut an entire 8′ 2×4 into 4″ long chunks. It’s amazing what can be done with these. Nick has turned them into a road, train tracks, bridges, stairs, towers, the list is endless. All this from a chunk of wood that cost less than $2.

This is something that anybody can do – just drop by your local home center and pick up a piece of wood. Make sure to lightly sand the edges to prevent splinters.

For even more fun, consider painting the blocks with your child.

I found this on a forum that I frequent and wanted to share it with you. If you know who wrote it, please let me know so that I can give credit where it is due.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family.
Talk about price shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140.00 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:
* $8,896.66 a year,

* $741.38 a month,
* $171.08 a week.

* A mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is; don’t have children if you want to be ‘rich.’ Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs,
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
* coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:

* First step,
* First word,
* First bra,
* First date,
* First time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like, you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren!!!!!!!
It’s the best investment
you’ll ever make!!!!!!!!!

I’m a sucker for seeing families reunited. In honor of memorial day, here is a great video of soldiers being reunited with their loved ones, many of them of Dads and kids.

Thanks to @WBrettWilson and PeanutButterFingers for making me aware of the video.

You might want to get some Kleenex.

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Wow!

That is really the best way to describe the Day Out With Thomas event that occurred on May 8th at Calgary Heritage Park. This event, complete with a life-sized Thomas The Tank Engine pulling passenger cars, was a big hit with my wife, my son, and me. If you have a child that is even remotely interested in trains, I highly suggest that you find a Day Out With Thomas event near you.

The main attraction, of course, is the train ride with Thomas, but there were a number of other activities as well:

There was a story station where kids could sit on the floor and have Thomas & Friends books read to them. Between books they watched Thomas & Friends episodes on TV.

There was a GIANT merchandise tent where you could buy Thomas & Friends stuff.

There was an activity tent with wooden railway play tables, face-painting, temporary tattoos, coloring stations, and a stage with a live band.

Photo opportunities with Sir Topham Hatt.

Photo opportunities with Thomas.

We arrived at 10 am for our 11:40 train ride, and had no problem filling our day. One of the best things is just watching Thomas chug around the track – it was quite surreal, even for me to see. We stayed until about 3pm when Nick just passed out from exhaustion. We had kept the event a surprise, and the second he saw Thomas he just started vibrating from excitement.

Overall, the whole event was done very well, but there were some things that really impressed me. There were photo ops with both Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt – but you actually used your own camera. So many events like today this force you to line up and pay them for the pictures. I snapped dozens of images, and was able to select the best to print off and add to my photo album.

Here is a 2 minute video I took of Thomas:

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I had another post planned for today, but a recent post by C.C. Chapman from Digital Dads made me rethink my plans. C.C.’s post was about a dance competition that he attended at which many of the elementary school age girls were dressed in fishnet stockings, tight boy shorts, and were performing very suggestive dance moves.

C.C. rightly (IMHO) suggested that he would refuse to allow his daughter to wear those outfits or perform those moves, despite the fact that dance is becoming a passion for his daughter.

Have You Been Tested As A Parent?

I haven’t, at least not in this way. Would I refuse to allow my son to do something that he wants to do, that his peer group is allowed to do, and that other parents in my circle think is okay because I don’t like it? I hope so.

One of the reasons I love writing about my experiences as a dad so much is because it forces me to sit down and think about parenting in a non-reactive way and to play out scenarios in my head and try to imagine what my response would be in those situations.

What Are Your Limits?

What I find so interesting about this story is that if just one of the dads involved had stood up and said “Hey, this isn’t right” this dance may never have occurred. Surely the moms and dads of those little girls knew that this was wrong, but they went along with it, not wanting to seem like a prude or go against the grain or draw unwanted attention to themselves. If just one person had objected, the others might have been shamed into rethinking that this was a good idea.

But not one of them did.

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I took two flights last weekend with my wife and son. I have heard many horror stories about traveling in airplanes with kids, so I took action early on to try and make sure the flight went well. None of these tips are sourced from experts, but they did work for me. If you have any tips that you would like to add, please leave a comment.

Talk About Flying

As soon as I booked the flights I started talking about flying with Nick. I explained that we would go to the airport, explained the check-in procedure, explained security, and explained boarding. I continued to do these things as I talked about the trip.

Experience Flying

I made flying a part of playtime. I would pick Nick up, make engine noises, shake and vibrate, and then run forward flying him up into the air. I would bounce him and say “Yeah! Bouncing is fun!”

Including Flying At Story time

I tell Nick an adventure story or two each night before he falls asleep. I tried to make at least one of them include flying.

Take a Drink With You

Kids don’t know to swallow when their ears pop from altitude changes, and the drinks aren’t served until you get to altitude, so take a drink onto the plane with you (buy it past the security checkpoints). I told Nick to have a drink when his ears started to feel funny.

That’s it. Everything went perfectly for us, no crying, so screaming, and no fear. He loved flying and wants to do it again as soon as he can. I can’t promise that these tips will work for you, but they definitely worked well for me.

For a long time now I’ve had the idea of putting together a huge list of songs for Dads to listen to. A while back I posted a few YouTube videos of songs that I liked, but that wasn’t enough.

My musical tastes lean toward country; although I like songs from almost every genre, I don’t really listen to other types of music on a regular basis. So, I’m turning to my readers to leave comments here and share your favorite songs about being a dad. They could be father-son songs, father-daughter songs, songs about being a dad, songs about kids, whatever. Basically, if you think it has absolutely anything to do with being a dad, tell me about it.

I will leave all of the comments up, but I’ll also aggregate the responses and put together a post in the future with all of the songs.

To top it off, for every comment that I get on this topic, I’ll donate $2 to the National Fatherhood Initiative.

Thanks, and have a great day!

I’ve always liked to think of myself as a very child-like person, thinking that this was preferable to being called childish. Of course, I don’t throw temper tantrums in Wal-Mart or throw food all over the table when I go out to a restaurant – it’s just that I try to view the world in a way that is a little simpler, a little better than perhaps it really is.

Of course, that level of thinking isn’t something that I always achieve; there are plenty of times when I get bogged down and stressed out. I think about responsibility and cleaning the toilet and balancing my checkbook just like you do.

Adora Svitak is a 12 year old girl from Washington state who recently gave a presentation at the TED conference on the topic of being childish – “What Adults Can Learn From Children”. She did an amazing job, and I’d like to share the video with you:

Thinking like a child alone can not solve the world’s problems. Even the best ideas still need to be executed properly, and that usually requires an adult’s knowledge of the way that the world works, an adult’s money, and an adult’s contacts. However, there are probably dozens of situations in my life where thinking more like a child would help me solve a problem, get more enjoyment out of my day, and smile just a little bit more before I go to sleep tonight. How about you?

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