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 [...]

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 [...]

It’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 [...]

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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 had passed [...]

One 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 [...]

Great entertainers like Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby recognized the attraction of the pure innocence and good humor of kids being kids.  When he was [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

In 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 [...]

MERRY 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 Santa, we [...]

The 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, [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

Guess 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 that [...]

Like 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 [...]

Welcome 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 parents [...]

As 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 [...]

I 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 Christmas!

Danni [...]

This 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 [...]

Tis 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 [...]

Carl 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 [...]

Slowing down your Christmas day

Welcome 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 [...]

As 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 proud [...]

Sorry 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 What [...]