This is my last post of any sort for 2008 but my first post for Dadomatic. I wanted my last post of the year to be something that I am the most passionate about and that’s just being a dad. No matter what the economy is like, no matter the weather is and really no …
Continue reading Just Being DadDecember 2008
You are browsing the site archives for December 2008.
My daughter is over 3 feet tall. She is also only 2 years old. She stand head and shoulders above other kids. she gets her height from me. I am about 6’4″ to 6’5″ depending on what gas station I am coming out of. The reason I bring this up is because Danni also has …
Continue reading That's What She Said Wednesday- The DrawerIt’s kind of cool to have my first chance to post here at Dad-o-Matic on the final day of a year, and the dawn of a new one. 2008 and 2009 are incredibly important years for me as a father. In 2008 my step-daughter Stephanie turned eighteen. She’s an adult now, and I have to …
Continue reading Fast Moving Clocks and the End of Another YearImage via Wikipedia Today I had to have a difficult conversation with my daughters. It was made harder because we live apart, they in the UK me here in the US. So over the phone I had to break the news that I had received only a few hours earlier, that their Grandmother, my Mother …
Continue reading Difficult ConversationsOne of the problems with being a type-A obsessive compulsive about my work is that it gets in the way of being a type-A obsessive compulsive with my kids. In the long run, while money is nice, time spent with the kids is the real currency of life. In that vein, here’s my list of …
Continue reading The Top Ten Things I Wish I Did In 2008Great entertainers like Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby recognized the attraction of the pure innocence and good humor of kids being kids.  When he was younger, my middle son Ethan (now 18)  seemed to be constantly auditioning for his own regular slot on “KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS.”  Some of my all time favorites were …
Continue reading George Washingmachine And The New Year’s Revolution!SecretBuilders is a virtual world game going after the kids market currently dominated by Disney properties like Club Penguin and ToonTown, on the one hand, and commercial tie-in sites like Webkinz on the other. My boys (6 and 9) like to play games online. Unfortunately, the games they like to play aren’t always the games …
Continue reading Review: SecretBuilders.com“Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks is a good companion piece to my previous post called “Toys in the Attic” which covered the pain of realizing your child has outgrown playing with their beloved toys. In this song, the parents have to come to grips with the sobering reality that their little girl is …
Continue reading Wide Open SpacesIn 1955 a Sears & Roebuck store in Colorado Springs advertised for children to call and talk to Santa. Only trouble was that the misprinted phone number connected the children to the Commander in Chief of CONAD, responsible for the tracking of possible incoming ICBMs over North American airspace. Colonel Harry Shoup happily gave children …
Continue reading Tracking Santa with NORAD This Christmas EveMERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, OR JUST GOOD DAY TO YOU AND YOURS!! I had this whole other story written out but it will get posted next week. TWSS (That’s What She Said): Christmas Lights is more timely seeing how it is Christmas Eve. As I stated in a couple of week’s ago TWSS post about …
Continue reading That's What She Said: Christmas LightsThe first thing I realized when I took at look at Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry was that this wouldn’t be a book for guys. The tagline of the book reads “Great-tasting food that won’t go from you lips to your hips”. I mean please. Then I realized that while my hips were fine, my …
Continue reading Book review: Eat, Shrink & Be Merry!When thinking about what to get my kids for the holidays I always try to put myself in their shoes and remember the gifts I received and how I felt about them when I was their age.  As kids grow up, the things that constitute a good gift may change dramatically, and as parents we …
Continue reading How To Give Good Gift!The scene in Toy Story 2 when Jessie tells Woody her story about the girl that owned her is a heartbreaking one for me every time I see it. I think it stings more with time as my three children continue to grow up and abandon their once beloved toys one by one. It’s such …
Continue reading Toys in the AtticGuess what. If you can set aside your pride, emasculation ain’t so bad. I posted yesterday about the embarrassment suffered when my wife went public as the family snow blower, and am happy to announce my full recovery today. As predicted, the storm started yesterday afternoon and we woke to 12 inches of snow. Worried …
Continue reading Emasculation RewardedLike many of you, our Christmas break is going to include some road tripping to visit family. In my case we are driving from Indiana to New Jersey and there is no way I can deal with 14 hours of If You’re Happy and You Know It or London Bridge. While my oldest son will …
Continue reading Holiday Road Trip? Kid's Music Choices That Don't SuckWelcome to my regular Friday feature, Worst of the Week. As a white, suburbanite husband and dad of two kids, there’s a lot that can go wrong and this entry is all about how to fix it. I hope you enjoy it! Last week I blogged about our Elementary school closing. Since that time we …
Continue reading Worst of the Week: School Vote Delayed for Three MonthsAs dads, we all understand the roles we are expected to play in our families. My wife and I have a twenty first century marriage, meaning we take a more balanced approach to parenting. We both cook, bathe the kids, discipline… Ward Cleaver would be appalled; June Cleaver would feel disenfranchised. I should have known …
Continue reading EmasculationI am not one to make excuses. I was really busy yesterday. I promised my wife that Is stay off blogs and the Internet, I broke the promise but for good reason so I could post this. Danni, my daughter, is the little girl in the middle with the Santa hat on! Enjoy and Merry …
Continue reading Why There Was No That's What She Said Wednesday: She SingsThis morning I woke up to a jarring story in the newspaper. The killer of Adam Walsh was finally identified. On July 27, 1981, Adam went into a deparment store with his mother. She lost track of him for just a second…and he was abducted by the person we now known as his killer, Ottis …
Continue reading A tragic day of innocence lostTis the season to be… inundated with religious debate.  I’d like to lighten things up a bit and focus on how the Holidays can be Holy days for everyone, regardless of your particular beliefs.  As someone who is Jewish that married someone who is not, my kids were raised with exposure to both the Jewish …
Continue reading Holy Days vs. HolidaysCarl and Raylene Worthington believe that prayer–not medicine–should be used to treat illness. When their 15-month-old daughter developed bacterial bronchial pneumonia, they turned to their faith rather than a doctor. The child died, and the parents are now facing manslaughter charges. Reading about the recent court battle over parental rights in Oregon has raised some …
Continue reading Your Right to Raise Your ChildSlowing down your Christmas day
Continue reading Slowing Down ChristmasWelcome to my regular Friday feature, Worst of the Week. As a white, suburbanite husband and dad of two kids, there’s a lot that can go wrong and this entry is all about how to fix it. I hope you enjoy it! Just when things could get any worse for a family living in Detroit, …
Continue reading Worst of the Week: Our School Is ClosingAs I begin my first blog post with Dad-O-Matic, first I just want to welcome you the reader, and acknowledge my fellow Dad-O-Matic bloggers, as well as Chris Brogan and Paisono. Without them we wouldn’t have this awesome community of parents. Some background about me, I am a happily married husband of 11 years, and …
Continue reading Christmas TraditionSorry i missed last week but i was traveling for work. When work sends me to “work in the field” they mean it very literally. I am not near computers until late at night and then all I want to do is crawl into bed. Now on to what you all came here for, That’s …
Continue reading That's What She Said: SantaOK, that title is a bit pretentious..  Nonetheless, I know that most parents are not like me.  You see, I am an avid gamer, and even at 43 years old I have 5 consoles in my house.  Wait, actually that is four, one of the xBox 360s is in for repairs.  (My son has the …
Continue reading Video Game Buying GuideI was checking out various offers and ideas for what dads might want to do for 2009, and I stumbled across BookSwim, a site that lets you rent books and give them back when you’re done. It’s like Netflix for books, which seemed pretty cool to me, and further, they had children’s books. If you’re …
Continue reading Save Money in 2009 by RentingTwilight has a major following among teen and tween girls (like my 12 year old niece who spent all Thanksgiving plowing through the books or my 17 year old niece who went to a midnight showing when it opened and told me it was “incredible”), but I think it’s also a movie that boys and …
Continue reading Becoming a Man: A Father of Boys watches "Twilight"By Danny Guspie This is my personal story and journey. The first year that that my wife and I were separated was by far the most difficult Christmas ever. At the time, I was a working dad as well as full-time single dad, and my olive branch gesture was to send the kids to my …
Continue reading Divorce and Kids during Christmas, Holidays can be GREAT!Ever think “I should write that down” when your child says something funny? I use Twitter for that. Here’re some Tweet-worthy comments from my boys. Six-year-old Zachary “Guess what, Daddy?” What, Zach? “I was the first one to see Santa after he ate his lunch!” “I pooped extra for you.” Dad: “Why?” Zach: “So you …
Continue reading Tweet your kidsI have written here before about 4 letter words. My big son Zach just reminded me of a very important 3 letter word – H U G.  As he was leaving the house he asked me for one. My first reaction was, “You’re too old for that…” Zach, after all, is 20. He also really …
Continue reading Give That Kid A Squeeze! (or Vice Versa)Today’s the day my wife and I learned that leaving the TV on in the morning while we get dressed for work is leaving quite an impression on our 5-year-old daughter – and we’re going to have to change our morning habits. You see, for several months, our daughter has wanted a dog for the …
Continue reading It Could Be Worse: She Could Want a Pony.I recently switched from a Blackberry to an iphone and before I did, I checked the memo section of my Blackberry to see if there was anything I needed to clear out or transfer. It was packed. Not with memos. And, not by me. The memo section was wall to wall with songs and poems …
Continue reading How A Blackberry Turned My Kid Into A PoetThe holidays can be bittersweet for Dads on the backside of any divorce, even a “good one.” I’ve been doing it for a while, and thought I’d use a post to reflect on what I’ve learned about how to manage the bad, and maximize the good. 1. Never make your kids choose between their two …
Continue reading Ten Holiday Tips For Divorced DadsHow will you be celebrating this Christmas? I’m not talking about the food. That wonderful banquet of smells and tastes. The turkey (that for us Aussies feels a little .. odd), the peas, honey carrots. Mum’s pudding that’s been hanging in the pantry for quite a while, with the kids asking why pudding doesn’t stay …
Continue reading Du Jour Means ChristmasBuying gifts, whether they are for Birthday’s, Christmas or just general tokens of affection gets harder as your children grow up. My two daughters are especially difficult to buy for. There are two reasons for this, one they are both in their late teens / early adult hood (one turns 18 next week, one turned …
Continue reading Creative Gift Buying for TeensThis post is a sponsored post on behalf of Kmart via Izea. The opinions are mine. I have to admit that I haven’t stepped foot in a Kmart for a while, like probably since before they merged up with Sears. But this assignment was totally worth it. Basically, the plan was this: take a $500 …
Continue reading Sponsored Post-Kmart Holiday Shopping Dad StyleGrowing up, my parents and teachers told me that I was smart and talented frequently enough for me to believe them. While adults thought they were doing the right thing by lavishing praise on children (whether or not they deserve it) a growing amount of research shows that telling children that they are special or …
Continue reading New Ways to Praise: "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake"