The Cast of Dads were cooking with gas in this week’s show as we stir the pot around the discussion of dads as the family cook.  There has been some heated discussion about this topic on the Interwebs, prompted by an ill-fated attempt by a well known spaghetti sauce brand to reach out to “daddy bloggers.”  While we do recap some of the events of “Spaghetti Gate,” we don’t dwell on it and actually spend most of the show sharing our thoughts on cooking and food. In fact, I am getting hungry just thinking about it…

You can CLICK HERE to LISTEN TO CAST OF DADS EPISODE 44.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

• Ragu Hates Dads?
• Stereotypes of dads still being embraced by brands
• Cooking is a life skill that all kids should learn
• Where did WE learn to cook?
• Baking vs. Cooking
• The difference between BBQing and Grilling
• Beautiful time of year for sports
• Maker Faire
• The panic of losing a child for a few minutes
• Chuck E’ Cheese
• Oregon’s new high school sporting event rules upsetting many
• Footloose (the original, not that remake crap that is coming out)
• Anyone want a Beagle?
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Hillbilly Tea
• IdeaFestival
• ABC Kids Expo
• Pappy 23 Bourbon
• We’d LOVE to go to The Kentucky Derby
• Animals peeing

If you have been enjoying the Cast of Dads podcast, please tell your friends about the show and have them subscribe to either our direct feed or via iTunes.  Also, please leave us a review in iTunes!

Cast of Dads is a group of podcasting and blogging dads who gather to gab about fatherhood. The cast of dads includes C.C. Chapman, Jeffrey Sass, Max Kalehoff, Michael Sheehan, and Brad Powell, who collectively represent 13 kids from the youngest of babies to full grown adults. Each of them brings a unique perspective to being a father.

Jeff Sass is the proud dad of ZEO (Zach, 23, Ethan, 21 and Olivia, 20).  He is also a seasoned entertainment and technology exec and active social media enthusiast.  You can see more of Jeff’s writing at Sassholes! and Social Networking Rehab and you can listen to Jeff on the Cast of Dads podcast.

No the Cast of Dads haven’t fallen off a cliff, though some of us have had to face the wrath of hurricanes and wildfires.  Even “the Mother of all Daddy podcasts” is subject to the whims of Mother Nature.  To make matters worse, we actually recorded a show before this one and it was eaten by a lion.  OS X Lion, that is.  Newly installed on C.C.’s computer, lion didn’t like our file and when we were done recording we found out we were done without recording.  C’est la vie.  We still enjoyed yapping together, we’re just sorry you can’t enjoy that particular conversation as well.  In any event, with summer over and everyone back to school, here we are again with a new show.  Did ya miss us?

You can CLICK HERE to LISTEN TO CAST OF DADS EPISODE 44.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

• Texas Wildfires
• Hurricane Irene
• Devastation in Vermont
• NY Gets Hit
• Long Bouts of No Power
• Hurricanes vs. Earthquakes
• Back to School
• FOOTBALL!!
• Summer Recap
• The Cast of Dads Dream Get Together
• Listener Feedback
• We Will NOT Podfade

If you have been enjoying the Cast of Dads podcast, please tell your friends about the show and subscribe to either our direct feed or via iTunes. Also, please leave us a review in iTunes!

Cast of Dads is a group of podcasting and blogging dads who gather to gab about fatherhood. The cast of dads includes C.C. Chapman, Jeffrey Sass, Max Kalehoff, Michael Sheehan, and Brad Powell, who collectively represent 13 kids from the youngest of babies to full grown adults. Each of them brings a unique perspective to being a father.

Jeff Sass is the proud dad of ZEO (Zach, 23, Ethan, 21 and Olivia, 20).  He is also a seasoned entertainment and technology exec and active social media enthusiast.  You can see more of Jeff’s writing at Sassholes! and Social Networking Rehab and you can listen to Jeff on the Cast of Dads podcast.

Photo courtesy of medigerati on Flickr

I don’t know how many of you work from home but the challenges that come with it are monumental, especially when you have a 3-year old running around. Shortly after my son was born, I decided to return to college to pursue a long uncompleted bachelor’s degree and my wife and I made a decision that I would stay home with my son to save money on day care. So basically I have been a stay-at-home dad and full-time student for the last 25 months and as my son has gotten older I have learned a lot about working from home with kids present.  As I near graduation I’m also trying to develop a business from home so it looks like this will continue until my son starts school and I wanted to share what I’ve learned to see if it can help others.

You need to work when they sleep

When he was little this was easier but as he got older the nap periods got shorter and my productivity suffered. It helps if you set a schedule early so they know when nap time is and you know when you will be able to knock out some work. You can also get more work in at night after the kids have gone to bed.

Get out of the house, often!

A couple of days a week I work from a coffee shop after my wife gets home from work. I’m writing this now from one of those coffee shops. If you can afford it, hire a babysitter for a few hours a week during the day to get some free time. Sometimes a local church may have a Mom’s Day Out program that offer’s inexpensive childcare during the middle of the day. I found one near my house that is $20/day for about 3 hours of childcare from 11-2.

Find other people to interact with

When you work in an office you get to bounce ideas off other people. You learn from interacting with your peers and you lose that when you work from home.

The last point is a big one for me. I’m not a very social person and don’t work well in an office environment. I don’t do office politics well and I tend to be more interested in working for me than a boss or a company, but I digress. I need a group of like-minded people that I can learn from and bounce ideas off of. Social networks are great for this but they can be huge time waster, too. How many times have you gotten on Twitter or Facebook and 2 or 3 hours went by? I found something better. Forums!

Now I can see you saying, “Chris, forums are so Web 1.0!”. Yes they are, but they were the original wiki. The knowledge contained in a forum centered around a specific niche or industry is astounding. You can drop in when you want and search all the discussion post for an area you are stuck on and you wil likely find an answer. If you can’t find the answer, you can post a question to the forum and get input from all the members. This allows you to learn from other people and get that back and forth of bouncing ideas off each other that is so beneficial.

Another problem area is motivation

When you work from home you need to be self-motivated. It’s real easy to lay on the couch and take a nap or turn on a good action movie on Netflix when the kid is sleeping. No one is going to make you write that blog post or browse the forum looking for info on how to draft up a contract. I get around this with personal development products.

I’m a really big fan of personal development. I watched The Secret, read a few Tony Robbins books, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and they have really helped me figure out why I do certain things. Once I knew why, I could plan for that and work on changing that behavior.

I recently started an internship for a company that is doing a Groupon-style site that sells personal development products. I only bring it up because this week our product is Chris Brogan‘s (Dad-O-Matic’s founder) Kitchen Table Companies(KTC). This site is the forum for people like myself, people building a business from home. Whether you are working from a home office or the kitchen table while the kids are sleeping you can now get advice from other’s doing the same.

KTC is place where you can go to get that motivation and the forums are a place to interact with other work-at-home moguls like yourself. Normally Kitchen Table Companies is $47/month but right now at DailySuccessDeals.com we are offering the first month for $9.97. I’m not going to go into a sales pitch you can go check out the site yourself and see the testimonials from current members. I think for the price of 2 cups of Starbucks you get a chance to try it out and see if you get value from tapping the knowledge of others who have gone before you.

(Disclosure: I am an unpaid intern for DailySuccessDeals.com and Dad-O-Matic is not being compensated in any way for running this post.)

Hello Dad-O-Matic readers. If you are new here or haven’t read my previous articles then welcome and let me give you a bit of background about who I am and What I am doing. Almost a year ago I started a project, I called The DADvocate Project. The objective of the project is to better understand today’s dads and help push media to represent dads in the positive light they should be shown in. I decided the project should include a survey that looks at how dads spend their time and effort related to life and their children, a series of interviews talking about how each man relates to his role as a husband, father and provider. The final step in this adventure will be to write a book on today’s dads. As I mention above the first step is the survey. I’m trying to get 1000, dads to complete the survey and I have no budget to do that so I’ve been using social media to get the word out. To date we have had over 330 dads complete the entire survey.

Last month I presented on my early findings at the M3 Summit. If your interested in the info checkout my presentation below:

At the conference I was also part of a pannle of dads that were interviewed by CNN check out the clip below:

So if you would like to take the survey here is your chance:

The Whole Family Out Together

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to being a dad. I have two kids, one boy and one girl and for a long time I looked at my kids as something that got in the way of me achieving my dreams. Something that kept me from being a great scientist. I had a dream to be geologist and for whatever reason I never was able to achieve that dream.

I currently work helping small offline businesses use the Internet to get customers. It’s not as awesome as doing field work in the Grand Tetons or inside the Yellowstone Caldera but it puts food on the table and allows me an incredible opportunity.

You see, I work from home and I get to take care of my son. My daughter is currently on summer break from school so for the next few months I get to take care of her too. I get to see them grow up and have a direct impact on the values instilled in them. I get to teach my son how to read, hit a baseball, and catch. I get to have an impact on my kids so they can reach their dreams. Does it make working from home harder, sure. Are there days I just want to go to an office and get away from them, absolutely but those bouts are short-lived and then I remind myself what a special opportunity I have been given. I remind myself how many other people would kill for this opportunity.

Think back on this Father’s Day and reflect on what a great opportunity your kids have given you and appreciate and give thanks for that.

It’s funny how everything “old” is new again.  I recently dusted off my copy of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People.  Inside I found a passage I marked that resonates with me as a father.  With hopes the Carnegie folks won’t mind, I’ll share the passage here.

Father Forgets by W. Livingston Larned

Listen son; I am saying this as you lie asleep, on little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead.  I have stolen to your room alone.  Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.  Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you.  I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face a mere dab with a towel.  I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes.  I called you out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too.  You spilled things.  You gulped down your food.  You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread.  And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon.  As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles.  There were holes in your stockings.  I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house.  Stockings were expensive-and if you had to buy them you would be more careful!  Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you can in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes?  When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at your interruption, you hesitated at the door.  “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither.  And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped form my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.  What has habit been doing to me?  The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding- this was my reward to you for being a boy.  It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth.  I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character.  The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills.  This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.  Nothing else matters tonight, son.  I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours.  But tomorrow I will be a real daddy!  I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh.  I will bite my tongue when impatient words come out.  I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy-a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man.  Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.  Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder.  I have asked too much, too much.

Have you ever felt like this? Do we place too much pressure on our kids to behave like little adults?  Perhaps.  Maybe we just need to read this every now and again, to remind ourselves that these little children are just that; little children.

Photo credit: satakieli

Benjamin Strong is the Director of Marketing for the United States Coast Guard Amver search and rescue program.  He is the father of three boys, the oldest with Down syndrome.  You can follow his professional exploits on the Amver blog or on Twitter. His personal thoughts are here.

This weekend was awesome. I got to spend a lot of time with the kids and on Saturday I was mainly with my oldest. We went to Horseback early in the morning. The ride to horseback is almost an hour and we talk and sing songs and sometime record a video we call “Saturday’s with Daddy and Haley.” This week while she was riding I went for a nice long walk in the country. It was beautiful.

After Horseback Haley had a birthday party to attend. The party was at a roller-skating rink and I was honestly very concerned that she would have a hard time on the skates.  (For new readers, Haley has Cerebral Palsy and has some difficulty with balance and walking.) I was also concerned because the last time I was on Roller-skates had to be in the late 80′s. Turns out I’m not half bad on skates and Haley did awesome. She did spend most of the time on the carpet because it was slower and softer but we got some rink time at the end and she just impresses me so much. Plus we had a blast falling together.

After the party we decided we wanted to go to the park. She actually rode her bike there. It’s a little over a mile and Haley rode herself most the way I only helped with the hills. When we got to the park I was pushing her on the swing but then asked her to try on her own. I’m not entirely sure how we got to it but somehow she began completely refusing to swing by herself and I was refusing to push her. My thought process was that I needed to push her to do it by herself so she could discover the fun of swinging independently. She says she knows how to swing independently but it isn’t more fun.

Thankfully Mommy showed up a few minutes later and took over with Haley. She got her calmed down and on the swings then she ever so subtly started teaching Haley to pump and swing. The whole while pushing her but in a sense holding her hand. I think I was just pushing. Thank God for my wife. I was stuck because I had committed to the stance and I was probably wrong after she had worked so hard during the day. I have since told her how proud I was of her for everything she did during the day. She mentioned the swing incident but I told her that it was okay and that she did an awesome job with everything that day.

So the lesson is sometimes it takes pushing and sometime you just need to hold their hand. How do you know when to push and when to hold hands?

“…You can’t be too careful.”

These were the words of a somewhat strident middle-aged lady at Dungeekin Minor’s ‘football’ training session on Saturday, as she vocally and agressively demanded to see the (female) coaches ‘paperwork’.

The trouble is – I rather think you can be too careful.

When you’re not the parent, and you turn up at week five of a six-week course for 4-year-olds, and you behave with such suspicion, you don’t look like you’re acting in the best interest of the child. You look like an idiot with chronic knee-jerkitis.

Especially when said session is attended by all the other parents, all of whom are within sight of all the children for the duration of the session YOU’VE just cut short with your paedospicion.

Reality check. Despite the railing and screeching of both Government and tabloids, not everybody who has even tangential contact with your child is a predatory paedophile, desperate to deflower and subsequently devour your little angel. Surprisingly, at a nationally-accredited and franchised kids’ club and with the parents supervising, your little boy’s somewhat more likely to learn football than fellatio.

His innocence is safe with the football coach. Sadly, however, with a relative such as this the child’s innocence is somewhat less secure within the family.

Children need to grow up learning to be safe, that’s for certain. They need to learn, as they mature, that there are people and things that are a risk to them and how to verbalise their concerns if they have them.

All that acknowledged, though, they still learn to be able to trust.

Everyone is a stranger at first. If you teach your child that any non-familial adult is a rampant kiddy-fiddler, then quite aside from skewing their sense of risk-awareness they will learn only to treat every adult with suspicion.

Have you considered how this will affect their long-term ability to develop relationships? Is their ‘protection’ in childhood worthy of potential damage to their adult life?

Because the way I see it, the attitude of the lady in question has the potential to be no less damaging to the child’s long-term development than the actions of the very individuals from whom she wishes to protect him.

My favorite show on TV these days is without question MAD MEN which has won best drama Emmy for its first two seasons. I love the era they cover, the early 1960s and the look back at American families from that period of time. The thing that comes to mind right away is just how fortunate we parents are these days when it comes to taking care of babies. Back then, diapers weren’t disposable so you had to wash them and reuse them! The same goes for just about everything else we take for granted these days. Everything has been improved tremendously since then, like baby bottles, strollers, cribs, changing tables, clothes, etc. etc.

Anyway, I came up with this revised version of the Mad Men logo while thinking about all this. What do you think?

I put this video together yesterday to share with my friend and family. As the Dad-O-matic dads are quickly becoming part of my online family I wanted to share it here too. Merry Christmas.

WOW! I’m so excited to join the Dad-O-Matic community. I just wanted to introduce myself in my first blog over here. I guess I share two things in common with everyone on this blog. I’m a Dad and I’m a bit of geek. I guess I’ll start with the Dad stuff and then cover the geek stuff.

I first became a dad Seven Years ago when we lost our first child at 22 weeks. I only mention that because the article I wrote on that experience won me the 2009 East Cobber Father of the Year. In the seven years since we lost that first child I have had three more. The oldest Haley has Cerebral Palsy and was the inspiration for me to start blogging regularly. My second child Abby is 3 and is an absolute trouble maker. The other day she made up the song:

Wiggle your tushy all day long.
wiggle your tushy sing a song.
wiggle your tushy go outside and play.
wiggle your tushy its a beautiful day.

And now I have a 10 week old boy named Issac. As I mentioned Haley inspired my first consistent blog MySpellingSucks.com an unedited discussion about my ADD and Dyslexia and my daughters CP. I generally cover topics about how my disability helps me in raising a child with a disability but I also cover inspirational stories about folks with disabilities and just Dad/parenting stuff in general. I even started The DADvocate Project this past Thanks Giving.

The DADvocate Project is a project to write a book about dads by dads. We’ve created a survey that covers family, fun, work, finances, religion, time spent with kids and family, how often you have sex with your wife, do you have tattoos, have you done recreational drugs etc. We cover the gambit. We are then going to interview a subset of the dads and look for interesting correlation in the data to put together the book. Ideally we’ll have stories about ,what you were like in college and high school, how you developed as a person and how kids changed you. We’ll go deep and it will be fun. The DADvocate Project is currently hosted at the MySPellingSucks.com website but can be reached through TheDADvocateProject.com We certainly can use more entries so come help us reach 1000 entries now.

Finally as I said I’m a geek. I finally convinced my dad when I was eleven to buy a computer. It was 1986 and we bought an Apple IIc. I still love that thing and wish we had kept it. I bought a programming book and wrote a down hill ski program that had two lower case l’s as skis and they were maneuvered by the arrow keys through the * trees. I also was absolutely obsessed with the game Lemonade stand.  Thus was born my profession as a business analyst, half in computers and half in business. Today they call me a Business Systems Architect and I’ve held a number of titles over the year but I’m basically always doing the same thing helping the business find answers for how to make more money, and do it better, faster, cheaper with technology. I do it professionally for larger corporations and I like to help smaller companies with it too on the side. I love technology and I love educating people on it’s use. Therefor I only occasionally cover complicated topics because I want the small business owners who read my site to be able to implement the free and cheap tools available to them to help optimize their business.  If you are interested in this blog you should check it out over at MetzgerBusiness.com .

I’d love to know more about each of you, who read this blog. Tell me about yourself and your kids and how you got into technology.

 

As Christmas draws near, I thought I’d share some fun online sites you might like to share with your children this holiday season. Of course a quick Google search will yield you thousands of results, but here are a few I’ve enjoyed with my kids.

My 4 year old especially likes these. For him as a child that is growing up with on-demand video and the internet, it seems only natural to incorporate some of what Santa does online.

• Countdown to Christmas features a daily video message from Santa, and a chance to ask St. Nick questions in real time.
• Santa Update features daily “press releases” from the North Pole keeping everyone up to date on the days leading up to Christmas Eve.
• Portable North Pole lets you create a custom video greeting from Santa featuring your child’s name, photo, and location, a sneak-peek at the Naughty/Nice List, and even an update on the toy the wished for.
• Santa Live features live webcams from inside Santa’s office, and outside the workshop.
• NORAD Tracks Santa is the granddaddy of them all and features real-time tracking of Santa, with video updates and a Google Earth option. You an also follow the Twitter Stream, Facebook Page, and Picasa Web Album. If you are an On-Star user, you can even get hourly updates in your vehicle on Christmas Eve.
• Track Santa on your mobile device – Google Maps offers NORAD’s Santa Tracking on supported phones.

Merry Christmas!

Chris Webb is a book publisher, father, husband and geek, (although not always in that order) and often buys his kids Star Wars toys for Christmas so he can play with them. He blogs at ckwebb.com, and can be found on Twitter as @chriswebb.

(CC licensed image via The Sierra Club)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and the whole family settled down to watch The Hannah Montana movie. While I’ll admit that I think her show is actually funny and entertaining, I have to say that I was not thrilled with this movie selection. So I tried to make the best of it by making my crowd-pleasing home-made kettle corn and decided to give the movie a chance.

Well, much to my surprise, I actually found myself enjoying this story. Sure, it had lots of silly juvenile moments but over-all it was a good movie for young and old alike. The kids enjoyed the music, dancing and comedy and us grown-ups liked that stuff to some degree but mostly I loved the heart-warming moments between a daughter and her dad.

This scene was my favorite moment of the movie when she sings a new song she’s written about her relationship with her dad. I know I was biased because there I was experiencing this beautiful song while holding my four year-old angel Rachel. As I embraced my little caterpillar I kept thinking of the day she turns into a butterfly and flies away to chase her own dreams. I have to confess that tears were streaming big time. So glad it was dark in the room.

Here are the lovely lyrics to this magical song and such a memorable scene

Butterfly Fly Away lyrics
Songwriters: Ballard, Glen; Silvestri, Alan;

You tucked me in, turned out the light
Kept me safe and sound at night
Little girls depend on things like that
Brushed my teeth and combed my hair
Had to drive me everywhere
You were always there when I looked back
You had to do it all alone
Make a living, make a home
Must have been as hard as it could be
And when I couldn’t sleep at night
Scared things wouldn’t turn out right
You would hold my hand and sing to me
Caterpillar in the tree
How you wonder who you’ll be
Can’t go far but you can always dream
Wish you may and wish you might
Don’t you worry, hold on tight
I promise you there will come a day
Butterfly fly away
Butterfly fly away, butterfly fly away
Flap your wings now you can’t stay
Take those dreams and make them all come true
Butterfly fly away, butterfly fly away
We’ve been waiting for this day
All along and knowing just what to do
Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly, butterfly fly away
Butterfly fly away
Butterfly fly away

The other highpoint came at the end with the big hit single “The Climb” which I didn’t love when it came out. However, I really like it now that I’ve experienced within the context of the movie and the story it told. What a great message it tells… to enjoy the view DURING the climb… I know I sure am enjoying the view of this climb each and every chance I get.

Here’s the full version of the Butterfly Fly Away song

Image by thelastminute

This is my daughter’s third Halloween.  Every year, she is a tiger.  She is a tiger because we live in Memphis, TN and the mascot for the University of Memphis is a tiger.  You might ask yourself what that has to do with my daughter’s Halloween.  We recycle, reuse, and re-purpose the costume for multiple uses.  This won’t work for every costume out there but we purposely made her a tiger for these reasons.

She wears the costume for every party and trick or treat event we go to.
We live near both sets of grandparents.  We go to both their neighborhoods.  She also wears it to school and around or neighborhood. Times costume used = 4

It doubles as a coat.
Halloween is usually cold.  The tiger costume works well as a coat or a full body jump suit.  Add in the hood and it is perfect protection.  We attend college football games into December.  The tiger costume works for game day.  It doe not matter if we go to the game or if we simply go watch the game somewhere.  For added effect, we throw a cheer leading outfit on top of it and instant tiger cheerleader. Time costume used = 4 or 5

Pajamas
As it gets colder and colder, the tiger costume makes great PJs.  My daughter loves wearing the costume to bed so this works out well.  In years past it has been a one piece but this year it is a separate jacket and pants.   Time costume used = 5 or 6

Total times the costume is used = at least 13 times.

This will probably be the last time that I get to decide what she is.  I think princess costumes are on deck for next year.

Buck blogs almost daily at BuckDaddyBlog.com where he blogs about being a dad, sprinkled with some product reviews and giveaways, with a whole lot humor and self deprecation.

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 #3: Are you proud of who you were today?

The photo of Zachary with Rule #3 on his bedroom wall.

So you blew it today.

That wasn’t a smart thing to say. Your friend is mad at you. You fought with your sister. You got caught in a lie and got punished. Today was not a good day.

Rule #3 is simple. Ask, “Am I proud of who I was today?”

If the answer is ‘yes,’ congratulations! What did you like about your behavior today? Is it something you can repeat tomorrow?

If the answer is ‘no,’ why? Can you do something differently tomorrow? Can you apologize or do something to make someone else feel better?

The point of Rule #3

Nothing’s permanent. You have another chance tomorrow. Don’t beat yourself up about a bad choice you may have made.

If there’s something you didn’t like about today, do better tomorrow.

What are your life lessons?
I’ve come up with a dozen or so, some I discovered in the last two years. What are some lessons you’d impart on your kids? Perhaps something you’d be willing to share here?

…

Good luck from a fellow Dad,
:: Joe Hage ::

P.S. 7,000 kids in America die from sudden cardiac arrest each year. I donated an AED defibrillator to protect my kids at school. Consider doing the same for yours. Email me for details at joe@joehageonline.com. Thanks.

Sunday was National GrandParents Day. It was started in 1978 so this little known holiday has been around for over 30 years. Even though we’re called Dad-O-Matic and focus primarily on dad stuff but we all understand and appreciate the priceless contributions that grandparents make to our families. We also know that, God willing, we parents might become grandparents someday in the future. We look forward to being important pieces in our grandchildren’s lives in that idealized future. So, let’s all reach out to our parents and their parents or any grandparent for that matter and tell them how much we appreciate them.

image credit DailyInvention

The winners of the “I’m a Bus” give-away that was announced in the Buck Daddy book review on 8/10/2009 are as follows:

Susan Mayer is the grand prize winner of a Back to School kit and the picture book
The other three winners will receive a copy of the picture book

Thank you to everyone who entered. We had a tremendous response.

As parents, one of our jobs is to prepare our children for the future so we do our best to teach them how to be self-reliant and independent. Unfortunately, we sometimes get so focused on that one particular mission so much that we tend to lose sight of the fact that they are just kids. We have to remind ourselves that they are ever evolving tiny tykes that need to be silly and immature and yes even mischievous.

Bill Dean’s “Let Them Be Little” captures this sentiment so well. He sings about the importance of not rushing things and letting our beloved little cherubs be little because all too soon they will be all grown up and gone. We must savor and relish every moment we can, no matter how crazy and hectic things get. We need to not only let them be little but allow ourselves to do the same every once in a while and remember the sheer joy of youth and join them in their state of bliss.

Let Them Be Little

I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand.
You felt so good in it; no bigger than a minute.
How it amazes me you’re changin’ with every blink.
Faster than a flower blooms, they grow up all too soon.

So let them be little,
‘Cause they’re only that way for a while.
Give ‘em hope, give them praise,
Give them love every day.
Let ‘em cry, let ‘em giggle,
Let ‘em sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little.

I never felt so much in one little tender touch.
I live for those kisses, your prayers an’ your wishes.
An’ now you’re teachin’ me how only a child can see.
Tonight, while we’re on our knees, all I ask is:

Please, let them be little,
‘Cause they’re only that way for a while.
Give them hope, give them praise,
Give them love every day.
Let ‘em cry, let ‘em giggle,
Let ‘em sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little.

The so innocent, precious soul:
You turn around, an’ it’s time to let them go.

So let them be little,
‘Cause they’re only that way for a while.
Give them hope, give ‘em praise,
Give them love every day.
Let ‘em cry, let ‘em giggle,
Let them sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little.

Let them be little.

The other day I heard my middle son say to my wife, “Mommy, I love you as fast as an airplane and as high as the moon.”

We should all love that hard.

Photo credit: Originally uploaded to Flickr by Wilson17(newly remarried!)

Benjamin Strong is the Director of Marketing for the United States Coast Guard Amver search and rescue program.  He is the father of three boys, the oldest with Down syndrome.  You can follow his professional exploits on the Amver blog or on Twitter.

We are proud to announce a new member of the Dad-O-matic team, none other than Good Morning, America’s anchorman, Chris Cuomo! I first ran across Chris on twitter after some very strong recommendations to do so from my wife who said he was a very devoted dad like our guys on here. So I checked out his tweets and sure enough the very first thing I see him sharing is how he and his daughter Bella know all the words to the movie “Finding Nemo”. I then shared a post I had written for Dad-O-matic, ironically enough, about “Finding Nemo” called “Lessons Learned from Finding Nemo”.

Much to my surprise, Chris replied and we began to communicate on Twitter as proud dads and loving husbands. I also learned that there was much more to the reserved anchorman we all see on television. He’s actually a regular guy who enjoys the same things we all do such as fishing, sports (He’s a big Cavs fan) and doing handyman work around the house.

I was thrilled when he told me that he had checked out Dad-O-matic and said he liked what we were doing. Ultimately, I got the crazy idea (and a lot of nerve) to ask Chris if he would ever consider contributing some of his experiences as a dad in a high-profile position with our readers. Once again, he shocked me by agreeing to join our daddy club! We look forward to sharing Chris Cuomo’s sweet and funny stories about his beloved Bella and little Mario.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come. This is the wonderful Father’s Day tribute to Chris on GMA in front of a national audience from his children thanks to his wife Cristina who coached them well. Bella and little Mario sure know how to tug at the heart strings! My favorite parts are when Bella says she enjoys her daddy’s company very much and when Mario says his dad is his best friend. I don’t know how Chris managed to maintain such composure. I know I would’ve melted into a great big ball of mush but then again I’m not a big time anchorman.

If that didn’t get to you, then you must check this out. Here’s Chris on “GMA’s The Hot Seat” where he shares some very open and honest feelings about his children. I have to be honest and admit that it’s a truly touching piece.

The Straight Truth About American Potty Training

Before parents were able to easily acquire disposable diapers in any warehouse store across the country, the vast majority of children in the United States were potty trained prior to blowing to their first birthday.

But that all started to shift in the late 1950s and 1960s when American parents first started to dance with the idea of putting off potty training until after their child’s first year, the idea being that they would take care of potty training their child prior to age two.

At the time, this was a radical philosophy. The new notion was first introduced by a Dr. Brazelton, the good Dr. arguing that children aren’t really ready to be trained until after they are able to walk by themselves. Since children generally don’t start walking until around one to one and a half years old, the entire American potty training paradigm experienced more than a subtle shift.

Though Dr. Brazelton’s philosophy was considered a substantial delay at that time, jumping through five decades now finds the majority of American parents being advised to postpone the potty training of their child until they have the verbal and motor skills more often associated with a 3 year old toddler.

Is this postponement considered progress?

In the meantime, the rest of the world continues to happily potty train their children without the use of readily available disposables – or pressure, undue punishing, or any other form of psychological damage. When you consider that throughout the history of the world children have been trained far earlier than what is now commonplace in the United States, you have to ask yourself, “Are we doing the right thing in this country?”

Here are a few potty training facts to consider:

• The average age for potty training in this country is steadily rising. In the 1940s, the average was 18 months. Today, it has jumped to 35 months for girls and a staggering 39 months for boys.
• Potty training a child early has no effect on the development of their personality, as clearly demonstrated by countless studies.
• Parents can start the process of potty training at any age.
• Teaching a child to use the potty can be as easy as teaching them to manipulate a stack of blocks.

If you would like more information on the potty training in the US vs. the rest of the world, you can download this free report, “The Truth About Potty Training in America.“

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter and dad. Subscribe (for free) to his feed here.

Ciao! I’m just testing the WordPress app for the iPhone to see how it publishes blog posts from here.

I’m also going to attach a photo taken from my iPhone.

This week marks the one year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. At 99 years old he lived the most remarkable life of anyone I’ve ever known. He taught me a lot about being a man and showed me how to love my wife. He was married to his own beloved for 74 years.

Earlier in the week I wrote a poem for my grandfather, but I would like to honor him by repeating it here.

A Poem for my Papí

Jose Ramos, Daddy, Papí. A man impossible to copy.
He had a one and only inclination to live his life with such elation,
joy and mischief, mirth, and cheer; too much for one century, minus a year.

Papí was gentle, and impossibly funny. He valued his friendships far above money.
He always looked forward and without regret. He never walked away from a window to bet.
He meant so much to me in his immovable place. I can look in the mirror and stare at his face.

Ever since that time when I was small – a sassy little know it all -
he and my Honey guided me, to the best that I could be.
Every weekend of my youth, with conduct ungrateful and a little uncouth,
they took me in and taught me well. But more than simply to speak and to spell.
They taught me other messages, a lot more essential, like meeting and making my moral potential.

They trained me not to cheat or lie, to never quit and always try,
to speak my mind and wait my turn, to show compassion and concern,
to all my neighbors, lend out a hand or maybe an ear to understand.

The best from all these lessons learned, a powerful example burned
(in my mind like it was branded), they both taught me single handed
how to treat my only other – as though the world could hold no other
soul who could ever compare, no matter who and no matter where.

They loved each other without doubt, without dearth, and without drought.
Even though I was only a kid, I know exactly the good that it did.
It showed me what to want from life, then led me toward my perfect wife.

If I could ever travel back, take the years and flip the stack,
I’d look them in their younger eyes and thank them true for being wise
and providing me a perfect picture to follow like a written scripture.

I grew up, and added years, a bigger nose and longer ears.
By the time I was mature, walking tall and talking sure.
I saw Papí from a different position, with what I’d already seen plus another addition.

It’s not the years in our life but the life in our years, the gray in our hair and the salt in our tears.
The smiles we carry and people we meet, the flavors of life from sour to sweet.
Papi’s a man who met wisdom with age, by living his life like he lived it on stage.
I’ll never forget him if I’m a hundred and five. In my heart I will always keep Papi alive.

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter and full time father. Subscribe to his (free) Writer Dad feed for awesome thoughts twice a week.

As advertisers climb over one another to suggest Father’s Day gifts, it is wise to consider Emily Dickenson’s poem, A Book.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

The gift of a book is unlike other gifts. Like Dickenson’s poem, it has the power of words to lift the imagination and embolden action. But where does one begin?

If Dad has a penchant for poetry, Favorite Poems Old and New is a rich anthology which includes poems of Wordsworth, Yeats, Blake, Stevenson, and Dickenson’s A Book. However the book that I recommend most frequently, and give most often is Gladys Hunt’s Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Literature in Family Life. It is a breathtaking view of the beauty of literature that the role that it can play in the family – replete with an anotated bibliography of great books for children at each age. I have yet to find a more inspiring book that makes reading with my kids a true joy.

Books, great books, have the ability to inspire awe and wonder in a Dad and his children. There are few gifts that should be higher on a gift list.

Graham Scharf is a father of two, and co-founder of Tumblon.com. He blogs at Essential Questions and produces a podcast series for parents of young children. You can follow him on Twitter @tumblondad.

Over at my primary online home, I have the tagline that “Life’s better when you have the right words.” I truly believe this. I think the right syllables strung together can stick with us for our own personal eternity.

In celebration of Father’s Day tomorrow, I thought it would be nice to list a small handful of my favorite fatherhood quotes.

Enjoy!

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
~ William Shakespeare

“Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.”
~ Ruth E Renkel

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
~ Mark Twain

“I’ve had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.”
~ Bartrand Hubbard

“By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.”
~ Charles Wadsworth

“A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.”
~ Enid Bagnold

“It is much easier to become a father than to be one.

”
~ Kent Nerburn

“One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.”
~ Anonymous

“Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is “soap-on-a-rope.”
~ Bill Cosby

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply.  ‘We’re raising boys’.”
~ Harmon Killebrew

“He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”
~ Clarence Budington Kelland

“A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.”
~Author Unknown

“There are three stages of a man’s life:  He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.”
~Author Unknown

Writer Dad is also a Ghostwriter for hire and occasional potty training expert. Subscribe to his feed here.

I  have been reading aloud to my daughter from Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic, stories of growing up in Michigan in the early 20th century, recounted by an aging Grandma. In one chapter, she expresses her recollections of her father, who had said he would confiscate her things that she left lying around the house and yard:

On the way to school, I talked it over with Sarah Jane.
“Do you think your pa would really do that?” she asked.
“I’m sure of it,” I replied. “He doesn’t say stuff unless he intends to do it. Once he told me that if I slammed the door one more time, he’d teach me how to close it.”
“Did you slam it again?”
I nodded. “And he taught me how to close it. I opened and shut the back door for half an hour. I don’t think I’ve slammed it since.”
“Half an hour!” Sarah Jane exclaimed. “I would have cried until he let me stop.”
“Then you’d still be doing it if you had my pa,” I told her. “He thinks you should cry because you’re sorry you did it, not because you’re being punished. He can tell the difference too!”

I couldn’t help chickling as I read. Kids are perceptive. They know who the people are who speak only when they intend to do something, and those who care more about character than crying.

What insights do you think your kids would share on your parenting?

Graham Scharf is a father of two, and co-founder of Tumblon.com. He blogs at Essential Questions and produces a podcast series for parents of young children. You can follow him on Twitter @tumblondad.

Over the past week or two, I’ve spent a lot of time parenting and gardening – and reflecting on both. I have been doing kindergarten outside in the garden with my five-year old daughter every morning (that it hasn’t rained). She waters the plants, and I pluck the weeds. And, of course, we read, talk and write together.

Watering and Weeding
It strikes me that that there is a parallel between parenting and gardening in concerted cultivation. If I want the garden to thrive (and not the weeds), I need to be diligent about watering and weeding. When I do those two things, I can enjoy the beauty of the garden. Likewise in parenting, I need to be diligent in nurturing and correcting. When I do those two things, I enjoy the beauty of our relationship. If I fail to nurture, my daughter will wilt like a flower without water; if I nurture without correcting, she’ll grow, but her character will be laced with weeds. If I correct without nurture, I may get rid of the weeds, but her character won’t blossom.

What wisdom can you share in cultivating your relationship with your kids?

Graham Scharf is a father of two, and co-founder of Tumblon.com. He blogs at Essential Questions and produces a podcast series for parents of young children. You can follow him on Twitter @tumblondad.

For the past week and a half my wife has been away in Montreal taking a course.  This has left me as a temporary single father.  Now, I realize this is nothing at all like what real single dads go through, but it may have given me some insight.  It also has allowed me to understand how much my wife does around here.

We have two kids, Jon who is 8, and Maddie who is 15.  John has high functioning autism, so he is always a bit of a challenge, whether his Mom is here or not.  Maddie is perhaps the most low maintenance cool kid ever (and that is not bias, it is the truth, seriously…).

Isabelle has gone away before and I have done this before.  That said, this one is for a month, so this is a bit more of a challenge.  

First off the good.  You know, there are things I just love to eat.  Two of those things are chili dogs and pork chops.  These are not really in Isabelle’s culinary wheelhouse, so well, you know, it is not that big a sacrifice to not cook these items (I do most of the cooking at home).   The first night that Isa was away,  chili dogs, to which Madeleine let out a “wOOt”.  The next night, grilled pork chops, and Maddie and I polished off about oh 2.0 kg of pork…  Jon was impressed with neither, which was no big deal, but he did sit down to dinner with us, which was pretty cool (usually he runs around at top speed yelling about helicopters and recon planes as he is a bit of a Call of Duty fan…)  I attribute Jon’s behaviour to the fact that he cannot play one parent off against another.  It would be the same if I was away.

That night though, well, things were a bit, oh shall we say, different.  Maddie came to me and told me she needed, oh what is a good euphemism.. let’s go with “feminine hygiene products”.  So, off to the store, about 1.5 km away I went.  Now, the thing is, I am legally blind, so no driving, so I walked.  The cool thing was, you know what?  She was totally comfortable asking me to go, and I was comfortable talking to her about something that I imagine she would usually ask Isabelle.

The next day Maddie and I recorded our podcast with Jon talking in the background.  This was our first episode together (Maddie just replaced Isabelle on the show) and it seemed fitting that we do our first show while Maman is away.

So far so good.  That said, Maddie just left for a school trip to Chicago, so I am on my own with the boy for a few days.  However, let’s leave that to my next post.

Dr. Dave Brodbeck is a professor of psychology at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie ON.  He is married, and has two great kids.  Dave is the host of Why? The Science Show For Kids, thunderbird six, and co hosts Broca’s Area and Tangential Convergence. He can be found on twitter, usually making sarcastic comments.

Open the trunk of my car and in about three seconds you’ll know. Inside are a gigantic mesh bag of soccer balls, boxes of spare uniforms, and scads of orange cones, air pumps, roster sheets, and all the other impedimenta of youth soccer.

 

Yes, I am a soccer coach. Twice over, actually, as I coach two of my kids’ teams. I am also president of our local youth soccer league, a job that gets passed down with all the pomp and circumstance associated with electing a new pope (and one that, like the pope, you’re stuck with until you die).

 

Historically speaking, it has always fallen to dads to coach their kids’ sports teams. Not to say that moms don’t get involved – they do, and in a big way – but most of the time, in my experience, it’s the dad who takes on the role of coach. And that’s not a bad thing at all. It’s good for us to get involved with our kids this way, and it probably keeps us out of more trouble than we know.

 

I have been coaching one youth sport or another (soccer, tee ball, baseball, etc.) for more than a decade, and in that time I’ve managed to learn a few things. These, I think, are the three most important:

 

(1) IT AIN’T ABOUT YOU, COACH

There is power in being a coach. Granted, it’s power over a bunch of grade-schoolers, but it’s power, nonetheless. When I am holding that clipboard or blowing my whistle, I am King of All I Survey. Fourth-graders cower in my presence. Young girls in pink soccer jerseys and plastic shin guards perform wind sprints at my very command. For that one-hour practice or game, I am all-powerful.

 

And yet – I’m just being honest here – no one is especially impressed, nor should they be. Donating your time to coach your kid’s team is an admirable thing, honorable even. But if you don’t make sure it’s all about the kids, then you’ve failed. If practices and games aren’t fun for the players, you haven’t done your job. If you’ve made it ALL about winning and losing and stroking your ego as Mr. Undefeated Little League Coach, you’ve fallen short of the mark.

 

Speaking of which…

 

 

(2) LOOK AWAY FROM THE SCOREBOARD

Kids get into sports because they enjoy them. They’re fun. Structure and rules are good things, don’t get me wrong, but unless you’re a Romanian gymnast (and even if you are, come to think of it), no adult should be teaching an 8-year-old to measure success and failure by how much they win or lose.

 

Unlike some, I have no problem with the idea of keeping score in youth athletics. Being exposed to competition at an early age is a healthy thing, I think. What’s NOT healthy, however, is an over-emphasis on the final score. Acknowledge it when the other team wins, maybe even mention a few things you could have done better or differently. And then praise the kids for their effort, their hustle, their well-pressed uniforms…whatever. For every bit of criticism you offer, you should give out five items of praise.

 

 

(3) LIFE LESSONS ARE IMPORTANT

You know how, when you first became a parent, people warned you that your kids would watch you like hawks, and that your example would be one of the primary factors in shaping their values and character? Yeah, well, it turns out the same holds true for youth athletes. They take their cues from you, coach. If you yell at the ref, they’re going to assume it’s OK for them to yell at the ref, too. If you yank a player from the game and berate her for making a mistake, they’ll start criticizing their teammates. If you throw tantrums after a loss, they’ll become that pariah of the American sports experience – the sore loser.

 

Look, it’s not like you’re grooming these kids for the pros, right? I mean, I’ve coached hundreds of kids over the years in various sports, and I think I can safely say that not one of them will become a professional athlete. So what do they take from their time on the soccer field or the little league diamond? It’s all the corny stuff you may never think about, but things that should be the cornerstones of your approach to coaching: teamwork, discipline, dedication, etc.

 

Whatever Charles Barkey might say, you ARE a role model. And a more important one than you may realize. Teach the fundamentals of the game, yes, but more importantly, consider the example you set each time you step onto the field with those kids. You owe them (and their parents, who shelled out a hundred bucks for little Johnny to play) no less than that.

 

By Bryan Person

Looking for an easy way to capture and chronicle moments in your children’s lives, even when, like me, you don’t have the discipline to either round up those stories regularly on a blog or jot down thoughts in a baby book?

Consider creating a parent-controlled Twitter feed for each of your kids, as I’ve done for Amani (2) and Viola (14). I keep my two feeds private and share updates only with a handful of close family members on Twitter, but the system plays right into my daily workflow (i.e., lots of time on Twitter).

I routinely tweet from my iPhone, using a nifty app called Tweetie that enables posting to multiple accounts. For my kids, I can publish, say, the latest addition to my two-year-old son’s growing vocabulary in one update, and then painlessly switch accounts and tweet a note on my newest daughter’s dance routine (I can hear her working on some new moves just outside my office door)

Export private tweets to Google Reader via FreeMyFeed

And imagining the day in 2011 when I’ll want to know exactly when Amani said the word “slippery” for the very first time (it was yesterday, for the record), I’m also also storing and archiving every tweet in Google Reader, which features powerful search functionality.

I needed a workaround when I first added the feeds, though, because Google Reader doesn’t read private RSS feeds directly. Enter FreeMyFeed, a free service that “free[s] your feed from authentication or invalid SSL certificates for use in the feed reader of your choice.”

I encourage you to copy the idea, and would love to hear from you if you do!

My eldest daughter has Shirley Temple golden curls and a winsome smile. She’s the kind that often garners comments from strangers like, “You have such a beautiful daughter.” And of course, as a father, I glow with delight. But that glowing has gotten me thinking. What do I want most for my daughter? And what am I communicating to her about the value of physical beauty?

Upwards of ninety percent of parents, when polled, say that they want their children to have integrity. And I’d count myself in the vast majority here. I want my daughter to be honest and virtuous. But what attention do I give to her character on a daily basis? Do I commend her honesty more often than I tell her she’s cute? Do I care more about the condition of her heart than how she looks when we walk out of the house together? Does the way that I discipline her inspire and demand honesty, or does it encourage her to hide her tracks?

It is easy, “on paper”, to list my values and priorities for my children. But if an anthropologist was to observe our family for a week, would she or he observe the same list . . . and in the same order?

If you, like me, count yourself among those who prize integrity, how do you show your kids that it is far more valuable than how they look, or perform?

Graham Scharf is a father of two, and co-founder of Tumblon.com. He blogs at Essential Questions and produces a podcast interview series for parents of young children. You can follow him on Twitter @tumblondad.

I 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 I was naturally excited when my three-year-old son, Grant, had his first organized sporting event last month. He is playing YMCA basketball. The first practice was very satisfying for me as Grant made six out of 10 shots (far better than anyone on the team) and generally listened to his coaches. He needs to work on his dribbling and bounce passes, but he’s three. He’s got time.

I won't force him to play. I will force him to root for my alma mater. Heh.

A week later the first real game was scheduled and a couple of boys who weren’t at the practice session showed up. One of them was a tad taller than Grant and was making several shots during the warm-up. I was excited. If the team had two good shooters, we would outscore the other teams with ease, though in three-year-old ball, they don’t really keep score. Timmy (name changed to protect the innocent) was hitting shots from 10 feet out, had great form and hustled after rebounds. Even at three-years-old, you knew the kid had some potential.

But Timmy was very timid and kept looking toward the crowd after each shot. He would put his fingers to his mouth like he was nervous and ready to bite his nails. He had a look on his face like he was afraid of something.

I shrugged it off as just a three-year-old. When I met up with my wife after (I was helping coach down on the floor and snapping pictures with my iPhone), I figured out what Timmy’s problem was.

“You should have heard the people behind me,” my wife said. “They were yelling at their son the whole time, like he was in college. ‘Rebound,’ ‘Shoot the ball!’ They were awful. At one point, the grandmother said, ‘Well, it appears Timmy’s playing like a big sissy today.’ Can you believe that?”

Unfortunately, I could. One of the down sides of working with college athletics over the years is having to deal with a small portion of college athlete’s parents. Timmy’s parents. They force their children into a sport, then force them to practice, never accepting failure and always drilling perfection into them. Whether it’s transferal of what they wished they had done or unreasonable hopes the child will become the next Michael Jordan or Derek Jeter or Mia Hamm, they hammer their kids with relentless criticism and cruelty.

Perhaps the worst example I encountered in my time was a college softball player’s father who insisted on arguing my rulings as the official scorekeeper for the team’s home games. He was so incensed at one play I called an error which he thought should be a fielder’s choice and thus help his daughter’s Earned Run Average, he accosted me in the press box during the game. His poor daughter routinely apologized for his behavior to which I always replied, “You don’t owe me an apology for him. I know he’s nuts.”

Sadly, most of these parents don’t realize they’re being such animals. They love their kids more than anything and think that driving them to succeed will somehow make them better people. They’re blind to the reality that they are behaving poorly and setting horrible examples for their children. I don’t know what to say to Timmy’s parents or grandparents. He’ll probably play too aggressive one day and I’ll snap and say something to them, but it won’t do any good. They won’t be satisfied even if he winds up getting a full scholarship to play for their favorite college team then makes millions in the NBA. They’ll never be satisfied.

I know a lot of children of parents like that from my years working with athletes and one truth rings through when thinking about them and Timmy. My son may not play professional sports. He may not get a college scholarship. Heck, he may not even play high school sports. But I’ve got a lot better odds that when he grows up, my son won’t hate me.

What would you say to Timmy’s parents? Believe me, I’d love to find a way to save the kid from what lies ahead.

(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 not as familiar with Shel’s other works, but any parent who has come up against the formidable task of reading “Runny Babbit” to their child knows the evil of which I speak.

“Runny Babbit had a hurple pat,” of course, means “Bunny Rabbit had a purple hat”. That’s pretty straight forward. Then try reading the page where the waiter tells Runny Babbit all the specials of the day, and do so without pulling out any hair, asking your child if they don’t really want to read a Sesame Street book, or running screaming into the night. The other thing standing in your way, of course, is maniacal, uncontrollable laughter. The first time I read “Runny Babbit” with most of the family in the room, it killed. It does get old over time, particularly when your children start trushing their beeth with pooth taste and you have to figure out what the heck they’re talking about.

Fortunately I don’t consider this a problem; it’s a measure of what this post is really about — the power of words. Some people have magic in their rhymes and nonsense, while others attempting the same jibber jabber manage only to frustrate or irritate readers. When my daughter asked me to put pooth taste on her toothbrush, I had an epiphany. Her mind had been altered. She’d managed to take the story I read her and apply the logic to her own words, coming up with a line altered just as Mr. Silverstein would have done it, and at age three. How many books have you read in your life that gave you such a dynamic, mental shift?

How many of you can recite at least a part of one book by Dr. Seuss without really giving it any thought? Apply that same question to other books you read, and other authors, and I’m willing to bet that it’s more difficult to find quotes that stuck with you as long, or as well, or that come as easily to the tongue.

Another point is the level of difficulty in reading these books aloud. I can tell you that, when I was still in the US Navy and had a bunch of friends over for a party one night, I got them all to try reading passages from “Fox in Socks,” and it wasn’t pretty. I could do it, though, and I still can. In fact, I can read it about twice as fast as most people I’ve met, and change voices as I go, because I’ve practiced. This has come in handy more than once when asked to read something unfamiliar or technical aloud, because I’ve trained my tongue to respond under duress.  I think it’s like typing words that aren’t words as a typing exercise. You have to concentrate on exactly what is in front of you – if you try to think ahead you stumble over what you believe it should say and misinterpret what it actually does say.

“I can’t say such flibber flubber, my tongue isn’t made of rubber”

Indeed, Mr. Knox, sir, but mine apparently is.

The magic of word puzzles and rhymes is truly mystical. I don’t know what makes one attempt work so well, and another fall flat, when they seem similar in style, structure, and even content, but whatever that factor is — it exists. It makes children and adults smile. It sticks in the memory and latches on to the funny bone with sharp hooks. It gives me more pleasure to read some finely tuned children’s rhymes than any ten good novels can provide, and I can read them again and again without losing all the magic – another feat that prose seldom accomplishes for me (though on occasion I run into someone like Coleridge, or Poe, or Byron that can make me read and mumble and mutter verse over and over until people beg me to stop). I am hoping, along with enjoying the children’s rhymes we share, that the father-daughter readings will contribute to an interest in poetry and reading on Katie’s part, but if not, I’ll know she still remembers not to eat Green Eggs and Ham on a train or on a plane, in a box or with a fox, she does not like them, Sam, you see, so go away and let her be. And miracle of miracles, her BROTHER likes to read to her too – same brother who used to hate to read for any other reason.  Now he reads long novels for pleasure.  Maybe the magic is in Katie, and the rest of it’s all “flibber flubber.”

Another thing that has haunts me in Dr. Seuss’ universe is the messages thinly veiled in some of his books and stories. The Lorax – who will ever forget him? I actually started (and may complete at some point) a sequel to this to try and follow what our society would have done with the characters after the Onceler chased them out of town. Here is a short snippet of what I had in mind…

They clean out the sewers, the rivers and ponds,
And invest what they earn in cheap government bonds,
They clean up the garbage in big yellow boots,
In their hazmat resistable barbaloot suits

The Swanee Swans never go swimming these days,
They once found it fun, but they’re changing their ways,
They all work in factories cranking out thneeds,
From synthesized cloth that is woven from weeds

They aren’t warm, they aren’t comfy, they scratch and they smell,
But the Thneed sellers say they are doing quite well,
When the thneeds with white beads fail, they sew on black collars,
And raise up their prices a couple of dollars

The Lorax enlisted with liberal glee
In the left-wing extreme of far fiddle-de-dee
A place that is farther than most folks will go
Just to hear the poor Lorax expound on their woe
____________________________________

…. You get the idea…but that is too depressing…

In honor of this off-the-wall topic, I’m going to add in one of my own works with a more positive spin — one that evolved from my love of Seuss. I hope, one day, to figure out the oddball market of children’s books and do something with it.

This one is one of two that I wrote a few years back for my son Billy. I’ve written others for my other children, and a few that are just for me. This one is actually available in a beautiful art print suitable for framing and illustrated by the talented Mr. Keith Minnion…I have framed copies for Katie when she’s old enough to appreciate them.

The Eliphajaunt

By Wave Dilson

A Boy and an elephant both went out,
One with a football, the other a snout
As long as a boa constrictor, and grey,
To the field by the river to frolic and play

The boy threw the football quite high in the air,
And he caught it again, as it fell back from there,
While the elephant wandered a little behind,
They were out for a jaunt, it was time to unwind

And again with the football clutched tight in his hand,
The boy flicked his wrist like a taut rubber band
And the ball took off flying up up, and away,
And he reached out to catch it the very same way

That he’d caught it a hundred and ten times before,
And expected to catch it just that one time more
But his hand came up empty, the air was the same,
Something was very much wrong with his game.

For a ball that goes up as we all understand,
Cannot stay, it goes upward, and then it must land
So he spun in a circle and stared at the sky,
And he asked his friend elephant, “Do you know why?”

I have tossed up my football quite high in the air
But it did not fall down, and I’m wondering where
It could be, for you see, it is not in the sky,
And it’s not on the ground, and I’m wondering why

It is not in my hand where it landed before,
And the elephant couldn’t stand one second more
Of his secret and lifted his long, long grey snout
And he swished it around and he twirled it about

And the boy saw his football, caught snug as can be
In the trunk of the elephant, tall as a tree
And the elephant laughed, and he tossed the ball high,
So it sailed so far up it was lost in the sky

And though it flew higher than ever before,
The ball fell back to Earth, the boy caught it once more
And the boy and the elephant went on their way,
They continued their jaunt, and enjoyed the bright day.

It 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 daughters from the advances of hormone-laden teenage boys is pretty well universal. 

And even if we don’t come out and say it, we’re all thinking the same thing: “I don’t care how nice a guy he is. I know the way MY mind worked at that age, and it wasn’t good.”

Well, I’m living the dream these days, fellas. My oldest daughter, Elissa, acquired her first real boyfriend a few months ago at the tender age of almost 15. And darn it, the thing is, he really IS a nice kid. I like Dylan a lot. He’s polite, he’s funny, and he treats her really well.

But there’s just no escaping the reality of a teenage boy. I know what Dylan’s thinking because I thought it, too. I know the urges he’s feeling because I felt them, too. And often when I see them together, my overriding thought is, “Get away from my daughter, you filthy-minded dirtbag!”

Now I know a lot of parents have strict rules about their kids – girls AND boys – not dating until they reach a certain age, often 16 or 17. And I certainly understand that. But at the same time, Elissa is a good kid…absolute straight-A student, in the band, a lot of extracurricular activities, etc. She’s also very involved at our church and in our youth group, and there’s no doubt in my mind she knows right from wrong. Dylan, too, is active in his church, and his parents are great people whom I like very much.

And there’s also the inescapable reality that my wife and I started going out at roughly the same age Elissa and Dylan are now – we were about a year older – so it’s not like we can play the “If It Was Good Enough For Me To Wait Until I Was Older to Start Dating Then It’s Good Enough for You” card.

And then of course there’s the whole thing about being the most important guy in my daughter’s universe. When Elissa was born, I was in newspaper journalism and worked nights. My wife also worked at the time, but she had a regular 9-to-5 shift, so I was the one who was with Elissa all day when she was a baby. As a result, we’ve always had a tight bond.

And suddenly here comes this little punk suddenly taking up inordinate amounts of my daughter’s time? I know it’s a natural part of growing up, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I guess what matters most is that my wife and I trust Elissa…or at least, we trust her as much as a parent should responsibly trust a 15-year-old. We always keep tabs on where she is and where she’s going, and to the extent possible, we minimize situations where she and Dylan are alone. Whenever he comes over, Elissa knows she’s not to take him anywhere in the house that’s deserted (which is a challenge anyway, considering the fact that seven of us live here). Teenagers who want to be alone will always find a time and place for it, but we’re being as vigilant as we can in that department.

Still, in the end, there’s a part of me deep down that wonders whether I should take a trip to Wal-Mart and visit the sporting goods section….ya know, just to check out the prices of shotguns these days.

Our daughter Katie has been through some serious pet angst.  She loves animals, but at the same time she loathes being licked or chased.  She gets along with the cat because the cat requires nothing of her, and she only has to deal with him for a few moments at a time.

We are animal people, though, and we have dogs.  Katie’s first real dog experience was Rocky.  Rocky was a Malty-Poo – very fuzzy -but very fast and energetic.  She wasn’t quite old enough or strong enough to deal with him, so she pulled back.  We tried repeatedly, but it’s not the kind of thing that can be forced.  We lost Rocky to illness – Katie was as upset as any of us, but I’m not sure they ever would have bonded because she wasn’t ready.

In November we got Gizmo.  Gizmo is a black and white Pekingese.  Katie held him a few times, but he grew up and now – just like Rocky was – he is fast and nippy.  We thought the whole experiment was going to fail again, but we took a final shot.  We got Rocky a little female dog for a companion.  She’s tiny, and fuzzy, and Katie is bigger.  She is thrilled to hold the puppy, and now is even softening toward Gizmo, who actually laid in her bed with her this evening.

The lesson learned here is, you can’t force kids and animals to get along. It’s a trial and error process, and you have to be sensitive both to the child’s side of it, and the animal’s side.  If you try to hurry, you might cause a rift between your child and animals that never heals, or takes years to fade.  If you are patient, the lessons a child can learn from the responsibility of caring for a pet, and the unconditional love animals exhibit for their owners will last a lifetime.

Today is the day you just sit back and say “How in the heck did that happen?!”

It’s hard to escape the story of the US Airways plane that went down in the Hudson River yesterday and the remarkable activity that surrounds it. The more I read and hear about it the less inclined I am to say that all of these actions were heroic. Why? Because it seems to be that everyone involved in this story was just being themselves. The version of the person that we get to see in this circumstance is probably the best they can possibly be not really a hero. Here’s what I mean.

The pilot – Chesley Sullenburger. Is it right to say that what he did was heroic? On many levels I suppose it is. I think it’s better to recognize that it takes a person who thinks ahead, is prepared and truly cares to perform at all in this type of environment. Now this is purely conjecture on my part so take it for what it’s worth. I think that this man was built for this situation. I think he took all the necessary measures to be ready “just in case” and the people that were with him on this flight were blessed that he cared enough. He didn’t just ‘pull this one out’. He was ready. He has a consulting business in fact around airline safety. Hero? Sure, call him that if you want to. I would bet he would say that he was just doing his job. Here’s the question though. Could every pilot with US Airways perform the same way he did? I doubt it. This story may have been a lot different if he wasn’t at the helm.

The crew – Heroes? Sure, use the term. I think they would rather be known as people who knew their jobs and performed them to the best of their ability in a time of crisis. The term hero is for the media and the ego. I think that many people who were trained to do this kind of work put their heads on their pillows last night finally and were satisfied that they did their jobs so well that many people were alive that night that otherwise maybe shouldn’t be.

The passengers – Heroes? You call them what you will. I think these good people went into survival mode and simply kept their cool. It’s not heroic to keep your cool. It’s right to keep your cool. Thank God for the temperament of the passengers as a whole. It was truly amazing.

The rescue workers – Is there anything else to say about rescue workers in NYC that hasn’t already been said? Many of them bristle at the idea of being a hero in a circumstance like this. I think the heroic part of their lives was the day that they filled out an application to do the kind of work they do knowing full well they wouldn’t make the kind of money that some criminal on Wall Street does but that they would be tasked with helping people on a daily basis. Now that’s a hero.

So how does this impact being a dad? What greater chance do we have to show the good in people than at a time like this? We should sit down with our kids who are old enough to understand and take advantage of a news story that we can use for the good rather than having to explain away.

Face it, regardless of what we all do for a living we are just people. We may do things that appear to be heroic but I posit that anything we do is just an extension of who we are every minute of every day. If I am a self centered egotistical SOB I may not react in a way that would be helpful to others (remember George Costanza running over women and children to escape a fire on Seinfeld?). But if we live by the Golden Rule I think that in a situation like this we may all find ourselves with no other choice but to be ‘heroic’.

Our kids need to see the world at its best because most times it doesn’t present very well. Take the opportunity to explain some things to your kids this weekend based on what happened on the Hudson River yesterday. There may not be another example of people doing what they do, at the highest level and everyone coming out OK.

By the way, I will never forget or minimize the memory of those who have laid down their lives for others while simply doing their jobs. Firefighters, police officers, good Samaritans, soldiers and all others. Happy endings aren’t always available, I know. Someday if you believe you may have a chance to speak to those who sacrificed, I bet you they would say they were doing their job, not trying to be a hero. That’s a lesson we all need to receive.

The Government are frequently heard to proclaim that ‘families’ are the most important thing in life. We all know that a stable family environment is good for the development of happy children.

Some of you might know the name of blogger Dave Armano – he has a vast social network, is a regular contributor to AdAge and a frequent speaker at interactive and social media conferences.

Tonight, I watched Dave do something pretty amazing. With a short blog post and a tweet to alert the thousands folks who “listen” to him, he told a digital story. The story of Daniella and her 3 children. A story about how Daniella left her husband after years of physical abuse. And it included a photo. Just one. Of Daniella and her kids (they’re staying with Dave and his family).

Dave asked people do whatever they could financially to help them get an apartment. Enough to cover a deposit and rent for a few months.

So I pitched in and then sat back and watched others do the same thing, some folks noting how despite their challenging finances, they were still going to give, even if it was $1 or $5.

Dave’s goal was $5K.

In just over 2 hours, hundreds people have raised more than $8K for a family they don’t know and will probably never meet. Because someone they trust – a key influencer in their lives – asked them to help and made it very easy. Compare that with Tweetsgiving, a group that came out of nowhere and raised $11K in 48 hours around Thanksgiving to help expand a school in Nambia. People contributed generously and exceeded the $10K goal, but Dave’s relationship with the 200+ contributors is what has been able to drive this success in such a short timeframe.

You can see Dave’s original post here:

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/01/pleas-help-us-help-daniellas-family.html

And see how Twitter is abuzz with it here:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=armano

And Dave’s use of video to say thanks:

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/01/thank-you.html

Dave’s generosity and first-ever request like this shows that success in social media continues to be based on real relationships with fans and advocates. And as dads, it’s a reminder that our #1 job is to be an example to our sons and daughters, to teach them by doing the right thing, not just telling them what it is.

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 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 the Top Ten Things I Wish I’d Done in 2008:

1. I wish I’d taken the kids to Disney World.  Let’s face it, I’m a bad dad.  The kids have gotten to a full decade and I haven’t taken them to the Mecca of Kiddom.
2. I wish I’d been able to take more vacation time with the kids. I was laid off in 2007 and didn’t get full time work until the very last day of the year.  That was on contract, so I didn’t start accruing vacation time until Memorial Day.  If I’d really been thinking, I’d have worked out a way to take more time off.
3. I wish I’d spent more time fishing with the kids. It’s the sport I shared with my father and grandfather and I need to spend more time sharing it with them.
4. I wish I’d realized earlier in the year how much my daughters are starting to grow up. They’ve learned to appreciate a real discussion with their father and their fathers friends.  Somehow I had deluded myself into seeing them as 6 year olds, and they haven’t been that age for several years.
5. I wish I’d replaced my small pickup with something the kids and I can be comfortable in. Too many trips started off with someone getting sent to the penalty box for elbowing before we arrived at the destination.  And too many times I had to utter the infamous words “Don’t make me stop this truck…”
6. I wish I’d taken the time to stay at horse riding lessons and watch the girls more instead of running errands.
7. I wish we’d read together more and used the Playstation less.
8. I wish I understood more how to reach my eldest daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome.
9. I wish I could better explain to my youngest daughter how much I appreciate that she is patient with her older sister, who doesn’t always understand social situations.
10. I wish that I took better care of myself and stopped trading my health for dollars by working like a dog. That translates into having more time in the long term to spend with my children.

It’s sounds pretty bad on the surface.  Yet I’m a glass half full kind of guy, so I pledge to turn that list around and make it my self-improvement list for the coming year.

One funny thing, while I wrote that list, I didn’t think once about how I should spend more time in the office.  Imagine that…but then I guess I’m not writing this for “Work-o-matic”.

(Mark Cahill blogs at http://www.allthingscahill.com on tech, social media, and online marketing)

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 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 questions that I’d like to share with the Dad-o-Matic community. This post is primarily intended to stimulate conversation at both philosophical and legal levels.

• Do parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit?
• If so, at what point should parents lose that right?
• What actions taken by a parent should allow the government to trump parental judgment?
• Who decides when a parent is no longer capable of caring for their child?

You may have additional questions, and I know that you will have opinions to share in the comments.  I look forward to reading them, and discussing.

Growing 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 smart can actually be detrimental.

No, we don’t speak to our children like Tyler Durden, but nearly two years ago, my wife and I adopted a new praise policy.  Rather than telling our kids how intelligent or special they are, we focus on the amount of effort that they expend to achieve their goals.

This is going to be difficult for most parents and grandparents; it’s still hard for me sometimes. Most of us love to praise our children, and telling them that they’re smart, brilliant, gifted or special is a natural response. Unfortunately, when your kids start believing how special they are, the “more likely [they are] to avoid tasks at which they may fail than children who are praised instead for their hard work. And they are more apt to lie and cheat well into their university years.”

Here are some new ways to praise:

• Nice job on the spelling test; you must have studied very hard to learn those words.
• Great catch! I can tell that you’ve been practicing.
• I’m proud of the way you’ve been working in your math class.
• Congratulations on getting the lead role. Your hard work has paid off!

I encourage all of you to give this method of praising children a try. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve seen an improvement in the amount of effort that my children expend.

Agree with this appraoch? Disagree? Let us know in the comments.

This video is part of an apparently successful marketing campaign launched by JC Penny.  My only criticism is that it’s a bit long, but definitely worth a peek.  While I’ve been in the doghouse many times I hadn’t thought of JC Penny as the way out … UNTIL NOW!

h/t to Dr. Val

Full disclosure:  Whenever I post online, be it my blog or Twitter, I’m just a little bit nervous.  Maybe nervous isn’t the right word – But I do experience a moment of hesitation before I hit the publish button.  Sounds strange but it’s true.  I work for a medical school and children’s hospital remarkably concerned about their brand.  And parents these days routinely Google their doctors before office visits – they’re concerned about who’s treating their kids.

So what I write and how much I show of myself impacts what people think of me.  And with my recent plunge into Twitter, I’m all the more transparent.  This is good for a social media thought leader.  But is it the same for a pediatrician?  Probably but I’m not sure.  Doctors like myself are struggling with the role of social media in their professional lives.  So far it’s been a kick and I haven’t found myself in trouble.  But I still live with the fear of being dooced.

So how do I stay safe?  How do I keep prospective moms and dads from canceling their appointment after reading my ideas online?

The Virgin Mary rule.  As a teen going out with friends, my grandmother would tell me not to do anything that I wouldn’t do in front of the Virgin Mary.  I’ve followed the same rule when self-publishing online.  While I’m typing in the privacy of my boxer shorts, the world has access to the end result.  So I’ll often picture my boss or certain select parents from my clinic reading what I’ve put together.  It’s a great check on my visceral emotions.

Avoid controversy.  While controversy is one fuel for a successful blog, I avoid it to some degree.  Much like Chris Brogan’s Tweets during the election (“I voted for a Senator, a male Senator”), I avoid issues that don’t promote my personal brand.  Confronting late-term abortion, presidential politics and other dicey subjects keep half of my readership and patient population from unsubscribing.

Remember what happens online stays online.  I try to keep in mind that whatever I write will live in infamy.  While there may be a day when I regret a blog post from 2006, it hasn’t happened yet.  Last year when I served as the national media spokesperson for a major infant product manufacturer, part of the vetting process involved the hiring PR firm scouring my online presence.  Scary stuff.

In the end I think that my online presence offers unique insight into who I am and how I think as a dad and pediatrician.  This is a good thing but not without an alternate edge.  So would a pediatrician’s online presence significantly affect your decision when choosing a doctor for your child?  Anything else I need to keep in mind?

Bryan Vartabedian is a kids tummy doc.  He blogs at Parenting Solved and Tweets @Doctor_V

As we approach this holiday season, it seems we have little to be thankful about.
Still topping the news are stories of death and dire.

• Abraham Biggs, a Florida teenager blogs that he will commit suicide and then webcasts a video of the event, live, while viewers on the Internet wonder if it’s a hoax. His family is despondent and livid, and his father “is now calling for more [government] regulation of chatrooms,” even though his use of the term “chatroom” clearly shows he understands neither the technology or the psychology involved.

• Ashley Dupre reveals on national TV the “details” of her involvement with former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, whose political career was destroyed in a scandal of such magnitude that when people talk about the “details,” they still can’t bring themselves to say what really happened.

• Al Qaeda is still in the news, and we’re still apparently terrified by terrorists, meanwhile Palestinian militants fire a rocket at Israel, which lands in an industrial zone in the town of Ashkelon.

• Rights activists are livid that California Proposition 8 passed, and they have stepped up their campaign to have it rejected. Whichever side eventually wins, this will turn out to be a ruthless and bloody fight.

These are just some of the stories I pulled out of the “top stories” at Google News last week.
Meanwhile, the financial markets continue to ride a roller coaster. We aren’t officially in a recession yet, but analysts are predicting one with such certainty that everyone accepts it as a fait accompli. President-elect Obama in a radio address claimed “we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions,” and he proposed massive, long-term federal hiring, spending, and hand-outs to compensate for the flailing economy. [Read more...]

I’ve always thought that the blogosphere is beginning to wallow in its own waste.  And here’s my proof:  Paul Boutin’s piece in this month’s Wired.  He’s predicting that the end is effectively near for folks like us and I half believe him.  Tweeter is what the blog was in 2004.  Most of us have witnessed the evolution from the unadulterated rant-form web log to the long-form industrialized post of 2008.  What’s the DoM of the 21^st century?

Bryan is found at Parenting Solved and tweets as Doctor_V

Mom’s and dads are different.  Moms are emotional, dads are physical.  You know, Venus and Mars.  More evidence:  The flying baby video that’s gone viral recently.  That’s no mamma swingin’ the baby.

As an obviously phony work of video creativity, perhaps I’m spared as a baby doctor from telling the broadcast audience what’s painfully obvious:  Don’t try this at home.  Earlier this video had been available on YouTube but an apparent crisis of conscience has rendered the clip unavailable.  Probably a good idea.  I’m concerned that the imbeciles who spend their days trolling web videos would actually think that the smiling, gurgling baby depicted at the end serves as endorsement of its safety.  All this carries the danger of Jackass, only for dads.