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! Every week on Thursday Erin has ballet with a group of three girls …
Continue reading Worst of the Week: 60 Minutes With Three Female 6-Year-OldsFebruary 2009
You are browsing the site archives for February 2009.
“Dad, I was in an accident…”  As I listened to my son’s voice cracking, holding back tears, a thousand thoughts shot through my mind, none of them very encouraging… many of them more like prayers than thoughts.  It was 6:15 am, and Zach had just left the house to drive to school a few minutes …
Continue reading The Dreaded Phone CallI drive carpool most mornings lately. I do it because it gets me out of the house and on my way to the gym. It works. And we have a very specific routine in the mornings. That routine includes what streets we take to get to the school. It’s all very predictable. We never deviate …
Continue reading Don't Be Afraid Of Change!In my first article for Dadomatic I talked about recognizing the signs of autism, and in my second I talked about dealing with the diagnosis.  Well, this is my third in, shall we call it a trilogy (sounds both pretentious and cool, not unlike myself….) about the disorder my son has, autism. We are very …
Continue reading Autism: Advocating For Your KidI spent 11 years as a public relations person for college athletics teams. It was a great gig. I traveled around the country keeping statistics and writing about sports. The coaches and players were my friends and I got to be a part of a team far past the time I could actually play. So …
Continue reading Overzealous Parents, Sports And The Awful TruthOk, not everything… but an awful lot.  From ages 15 – 19 I worked as a summer Camp Counselor at Camp Winadu in Pittsfield, Mass (where I had also been a camper from age 10).  In addition, during the non-summer months I continued working as a counselor in New York City for a childrens play …
Continue reading Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned At Summer Camp!This is the second in a new series of posts about living a healthier based on my wife and my experiences this past year. The first post, Work In Progress, shared my favorite tip. Today I’d like to share a secret, you can have dessert. You Can Have Ice Cream. Lots of people lose their …
Continue reading Work in Progress – Healthy Weight Loss TipsWelcome 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! Regular readers will know that I’ve been blogging about the school consolidation the …
Continue reading Worst of the Week: Bloomfield Hills Schools – The Final ExamI travel. Lots. I will travel more in 2009 than I have in my life to date. And yet, I have to maintain a relationship with my wife, my daughter, and my son. It requires every bit as much planning as it would for your business meetings. Here’s what I do for re-entry. Make it …
Continue reading Re-Entry After a Long TripWelcome to the world of Freakatars, a place designed to inspire your imagination and expand your creativity. Whether you’re three or thirty, creating and collecting Freakatars is freakishly fun! Read more about Freakatars Kid’s love to create. It’s built into us, and when we are young, it’s clear. We draw, paint, play. We make up …
Continue reading Freakatars Review: Dr. Frankenstein Meets HensonWe are always buying things because they look cool, or sound cool. What we are not big on, apparently, is thinking things through. When you see a book that says Guinness Book of World Records longest bubble was made with this, and that book is attached to a few pieces of plastic and some mesh, …
Continue reading The Giant World Record Bubble Wand…Ever parent has special moments, sayings, or routines that they do with their child. I have several in place with my daughter, Danni. These instances are fun and make you smile internally and externally. Then one day you turn around and the little baby is a toddler and your turn around again and she is …
Continue reading TWSS: Proper GrammarThanks to everyone that entered the first Dad-o-matic giveaway which featured Flowers from ProFlowers. All of the entries were dropped into a hat and the following five names were pulled out randomly. The winners will need to contact me before midnight Tuesday night to claim their prize ( Pa*****@Da*******.com ). In the event that a …
Continue reading Winners of the ProFlowers Giveaway!Quite a bit has been written about the risks of our children being a bit too transparent with their lives online. Horror stories abound about the perils of kids posting embarrassing or incriminating pictures on their MySpace and Facebook pages. Primetime news shows are giving significant air time to controversial trends such as tweens and …
Continue reading TransPARENTcy!In Dad’s Life Lessons On The Wall, I shared an easy and loving way to teach your child important life lessons. Perhaps one of my lessons is one of yours? Rule #2: Negative thoughts eat away at your brain. Don’t let this happen. On seven-year-old Zachary’s wall is a picture of an acidifying apple. A …
Continue reading Dad's Life Lessons: Rule #2Health isn’t a goal, it’s an ongoing work. You can’t just eat healthy once. Running a few laps won’t put muscles on your legs. It’s just not that easy. Oh if only it were. Lots of dads and moms out there are all about getting healthy these days. They forget those few simple truths above. …
Continue reading Work in progressWelcome 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! A few weeks back I wrote about our school system and the closings …
Continue reading Worst of the Week: The Bloomfield School District In A NutshellAs I walked out of the gym this morning, I passed a woman walking 15-20 feet in front of her toddler. He was young, probably 2 1/2 at most. He had a pacifier in his mouth and he was happily distracted by some flowers. The Mother turned and said: “Hurry up! Your going to make …
Continue reading I'm Talking To Myself(with a nod to Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss) Currently, one of the greatest pleasures in my life is reading stories to my five year old daughter, Katie. One of the things that make this fun is the work of some very clever authors. My two personal favorites are Dr. Seuss, and Shel Silverstein. I’m …
Continue reading Fox in Sox and Runny Babbit – Kid's BooksThe following post is a sponsored post, brought to you by ProFlowers. The opinions are my own. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, ProFlowers has given Dad-o-matic five $70 gift codes for our readers. We could have setup some elaborate contest for you to qualify to win one of these gifts but decided to make …
Continue reading Sponsored Post: $70 Flower Gift Certificate GiveawayIt seems every father of a daughter, when she is born, has some joke about never letting her date until she’s 30 years old. Whether it involves standing on the front porch with a shotgun to keep boys away or sending our little girl to a convent when she turns 13, the urge to protect our …
Continue reading The Dating GameGordon Ramsay, watch out!  Zachary Sass is going to win HELL’S KITCHEN one day.  I mean it!  He is already my favorite chef in Hollywood (ok, Hollywood, Florida…). ITS THEIR DREAM, NOT YOURS Last night I had the pleasure of dining at the Terra Bite Cafe, in Hollywood, Florida where my 20 year old son, …
Continue reading Cooking Up A Dream!