Volume control for toys

I think that there should be a requirement that any child's toy that produces sounds electronically should have volume controls.  You could say that it is to protect children's hearing, but in reality it is protect parental sanity.

Walking with Dinosaurs

Tonight, I took our son to Walking With Dinosaurs.  We had a blast.  I would recommend that anyone who has a child over 5 take them to see it.

Retail parenting?

This is a interesting article about how Target is not selling Manhunt 2, becuase it is possible for some one to modifiy some code (a config file I assume) and reburn the disk, and then be able to get access to some filtered content.

I don't know why Target is bothering with doing this. I will parent my kids, and don't need some store to do this for me.

The Wild

Yesterday evening, we had family movie night.  The kids picked out "The Wild" from Blockbuster.  This was a bad movie.  There are several things wrong with it, but the major problem that I have with it is that it really is just a knock-off of Madagascar the movie.

There are several other problems that I have:

1. In the movie, a tugboat follwed an ocean going cargo ship to go across the Atlantic.  Tugboats are not meant to be ocean going ships.


2. One of the minor story lines is that the lions ae trying to get there "inner lion", and the thing that they are trying is to "dig deeper".  The way that they are "digging deaper" is by making a louder/deeper roar.  I think that what is meant by "dig deeper" is to dig claws into prey annimals when bringing them down.

 

Road Trip Games

This article has a list of 27 games to play with your kids while on road trips.  Our kids do like playing "I Spy".

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: roadtrip, games, kids

Wii for Families

This review of the Nintendo Wii talks about how well it is for families.  Our kids love playing the on the Wii.  Our son is getting very good with the bowling game in Wii Sports.  (I am going to have to get used that at some point soon he will be able to beat me in video games.)

Job description

The kids and I were playing around the pool today.  Our son said that he had to go to work on the other side of the pool. I asked what he does at work, and he said that he "fixes bugs".

 Makes a dad proud!

Sent back lead toys

I finally got around to sending back the Thomas the Train toys that were involved in the recalls. (The toys had been bagged up in the office closet.) Hopefully they will send the replacements soon.  (Not because the kids have played with trains recently, but because I want to make sure that we keep the sets relatively intact.)

When I mentioned this to some coworkers, they mentioned that they had some Thomas the Trains sets, but they are not sending them back, because their kids have grown out of the toys.  This concerns me, becuase as soon as people forget about the recalls, these toys may be passed down to younger kids.

 If you have some of these toys, please have them replaced.

[via Strollerderby] 

Circle of teeth

One tooth in..... One tooth out.

This past week our daughter's first tooth broke through, and our son lost his first baby tooth.

School Web Site Safety

This post has some very good tips on securing web sites for schools.  The concern is that these sites could make personal information about students available publicly.

[via CNET News.com]

diaper blow out

I wish I had thought of this before with the diaper blowout that our kids have put us through.  Parent Hacks has a post that describes a way to better handle when poop goes up their back.  The tip is to pull the onesie down, instead of up.  This keeps the poo off their head and hair.

Dwink Box Holder

Our daughter tends to squeeze her juice boxes after we hand them to her.  (With the straw already inserted.)  This usually causes juice to be squirted everywhere. 

The Dwink Box Holder is a cup that holds a juice box and should help prevent these types of spills.

[via drool.icio.us]

San Jose Grand Prix

My father-in-law and I took the two older kids to the San Jose Grand Prix on Saturday.  We had a great time.  We saw one of the Champ Car qualifying races, and a Formula BMW race.

The thing that the kids liked watching the most was the Mini Grand Prix with the processional remote control race cars.

BlogHim Conference schedule

This post describes a proposal schedule for a BlogHim Conference.

Time off

I have had the luxury to take this week off from work.  We didn't have any travel plans, and the two older kids had school, so I have spent the week with my wife and the little one.

I have enjoyed this time a lot.  Feeding and holding the little one, during the day is wonderful, in addition to just when she is going to sleep at night.  Also being able to spend time with my wife, without being interrupted by the kids has been incredible.

My wife has been great putting up with me being around and screwing up the usual schedule. :)

Watermelon - the latest earworm

I have had an earworm for a while now. I have had song Watermelon, by Billy Jonas, in my head for about a week.  I usually hear it when it is played on XM Kids when driving the kids around.  Billy Jonas is the singer songwriter that sings "What Kind of Cat Are you?", which was also got stuck in my head.

I figured that I would share the songs, to spread the love.

Fisher-Price Private Connection Monitor

We've gone through several baby monitors.  The ones that we had with our two older kids always got a lot of interference, or tended to pick up our neighbors cordless phone conversations.  The interference got so bad that we usually turned the volume down all the way.

The Fisher Price Private Connection monitor is the best baby monitor that we have had.  We hain't had any problems with interference.  Also, the reception has been great even through multiple floors.

[via modern day dad]

My Cubicle

Honeydone

Today my wife and I installed a closet organization system in our daughters closet.  I is an Elfa closet system that we bought from The Container Store.  We had installed these systems in two of our other closets.

The kids helped out as well.  Or son, was measuring everything that was in his reach, but he was also very helpful handing me bolts.

I really do like the results, and it will definitely grow with the kids.

PetsWelcome

For the 4th of July, we took a trip to Sacramento with our dog.  Since this is a relatively short trip, there wasn't really a concern about finding pet friendly accommodations.  But, for longer road trips this is more of a challenge to find hotels along the way that are pet friendly.

PetsWelcome.com helps solve this problem.  They have a driving directions page where you can plan the route so pet friendly accommodations are within a certain distance of the route.

It would be cool if they also listed other pet friendly destinations, like outdoor cafes and dog parks.

[via Lifehacker]

Jumping Monkeys

I just heard the Jumping Monkeys podcast, and I like it.  This podcast covers various topics of parenting in the digital age.

30 second rule

A while ago, I mentioned a study that states that bacteria gets transferred even with a 5 second exposure.  A new study now shows that wet foods like apple slices are good even after 30 seconds, and hard food can stay on the floor even longer.

It looks like we were right when we were kids.

[via Strollerderby]

Pachelbel's Canon for Parents

[via Left Coast Mom]

Fitted baby bath

I am surprised that I haven't seen a contoured baby bath.  Our daughter tends to list to the side when giving her her bath.  If the baby bath is contoured, like a racing seat, she would remain secure.

Cool kids bedroom

This is a pretty cool bedroom.  They separated the two beds from a bunk-bed and built a loft.  I am looking forward to doing something like this when the kids get older.

[via Daddy Types]

Potty-Training Anime

Our daughter has decided that she is ready to potty train.  Maybe she will like to see this hilarious video:

[via Strollerderby]

Biking to Independance

We just got our son a "big kid" bicycle.  After he helped me with putting on the training wheels, we went out for a ride around the park.

While out there, I envisioned him getting older riding his bike.  I can see him riding around the park, while we play there.  Then when he is older, I can see him riding his bike with his friends through the complex.  Then I can see him riding around the block, not crossing the streets, when he is a little bit older.

I think that this is one of the major milestones of childhood, where they become more independent.

120 foot water baloon

This page has a fun project that you can do with kids.  Using 50' of surgical tubing, you can make a 120' water balloon.

[via Geek News Central Podcast]

Cozi Central

Cozi Central looks like a pretty interesting site.  This site is targeted towards families to help organize schedules and communication.  Cozi Central reminds me of the next generation of the 3Com Audrey, which we had one of.

On Cozi Central you can see and edit the calendars for each family members.  This will help you find times to make appointments for multiple family members.  Also you can use the site to send messages to each other.  You can configure the messages to be sent through SMS or email.

Cozi also lets you share and manage shopping lists.  This in itself is not that interesting, but when you are away from your computer, you can have the list read to you or sent to you as a text message.

You can also sync these calendars with Outlook on Windows

World's worst Father's Day gifts

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article that lists the worst gift ideas for Father's Day.  I do remember giving my dad bottles of Old Spice.  (I do need to call him later today.)

[via Strollerderby]

Father's Day Gift Guide from MAKE

The MAKE: Blog as a post with some ideas for Father's Day.

Mama Jams

This is hilarious!

http://www.funnyordie.com/v1/flvideo/fodplayer.swf

[via Strollerderby]

Tired Dog

Today, I decided to check out the Guadalupe River Park, so I packed our daughter into the stroller, and got the dog on the leash, and we headed out.

We ended up walking a little over 6 miles.  The walk was great, but the interesting thing was how these breed traits started appearing acting towards the end of the walk. 

Pointer:

Look... Over there... Don't you see it....  No, you have to stand in the shade to see it, you can't see it while you stand in the sun.

Bloodhound:

Smell.  There in the shade near the bench.  So interesting.... Smells so...  No, I'm not ready to go, this is too interesting

He is not any of these breeds, but was just very tired and hot.

Perfect Father's Day Gift

I was watching Unwrapped, and I saw the perfect Father's Day gift.  The Tastes of Chicago Ultimate Taste kit gives you a good variety of foods from Chicago.

• Chicago style deep dish pizza


• Eli's cheescake


• 10 Chicago style Vienna hot dogs


• 1 Slab of Carson's Ribs

They will pack this up and ship it across the country packed with dry ice.

Now this is a great way to get some Chicago food when you are out of the area.

San Francisco Bay Family Activities

I always try to keep my eye out for activities that we can take the kids to on the weekend.  Sometime I forget the activities that I have seen, and end up doing a search while the kids are running around.

So I decided to add the activities to a calendar, to make it easy for me to remember.  I will add ativitites when I see them.

If anyone else is interested, I have shared the calendar.

Parent speak dictionary

This is a great post that translates many parenting phrases.

(The comments have some pretty funny ones too.)

Technorati Tags: dictionary, parenting prhase, translate

WD-40 to the rescue

Our son decided to draw on his window in the back of the van with a crayon.  I tried various cleaning supplies to get the crayon off.  None of them worked.  Later on, I was trying to fix some of the squeaky doors around the house, and then I noticed that the WD-40 can states the WD-40 can be used to clean off crayon.

The WD-40 easily to rid of the crayon, but it left a cloudy residue.  With a little Windex, the window came clean.

Technorati Tags: clean, crayon, WD-40

Bedroom Railroad

Here are some pictures of an installation of a model railroad in a child's bedroom.  I would love to do something like this.  I The kids would have so much fun watching an controlling the trains.

What I would want to do is have three connected track loops.  One in each of the bedrooms, and one in the connecting hallway.  I would install a switch in each bedroom which would cause the switch to change so the train would never be switched to that bedroom's loop.

[via Strollerderby]

Technorati Tags: train track, model railroad

5 Second Rule

This article in the New York Times talks about some research into the "5 second rule".  I guess the results show that bacteria gets transferred, even with only a 5 second exposure.

When I was a kid, there wasn't a 5 second rule.  It was either the 30 second rule or "God made dirt, dirt don't hurt".  Maybe if they said a chant like that, the results would have been different.

[via Sttollerderby]

Technorati Tags: 5-second rule, research

New Addition

Friday night at 8:40, our baby girl was born.  She is a healthy, beautiful little girl.  Mom and baby are doing fine.

Start Kids Gambling Early

A few weekends ago, we had a couple of birthday parties to go to.  One of them was at The Jungle and the other was at Chuck E Cheese's.  Both of these places have games that the kids can play and get tickets that can be redeemed for cheap toys.

The funny think about these places is that it reminds me of Vegas.  Seeing these kids walking walking around with cups filled with tokens or tickets.

I am sure that the companies that makes slot machines also make these video games.  I am sure that they want kids getting into these games, so they will feel comfortable with slot machines.

Technorati Tags: Chuck E Cheese's, slot machines, The Jungle, video games

Baby on her way

According to the "schedule" the baby will be here two weeks from yesterday, but the baby has dropped, and may come sooner.  Either way, the bundle of joy will be here soon.  Wish us luck.

Ultimate Baby Naming Spreadsheet

Here is a post that has a great spreadsheet of baby names.  It allows you to sort names by gender, how it sounds or popularity in each decade from the past century.

Technorati Tags: baby names, gender, soundprint, spreadsheet

Open Letter to Toddlers

This is a hilarious letter to all toddlers.  Now, if toddlers could just read.

Technorati Tags: kids, open letter, toddler

Brain Damage

Today, I was thinking about Bill Cosby's Brain Damage routine, on Himself, about how children are brain damaged. You know, when trying to call the kids: come here.... come here... Come Here.... COME HERE...

And the answers to why they did something being ... I DUNNO.

When I first hear the skit, I though that it was very funny.  But I never realized how true it was.

Technorati Tags: Bill Cosby, Brain Damage, comedy

Maraka

The real Dora the Explorer:

Pink Eye

I looks like our son is coming down with pink eye.  Yesterday, his eyes were a little bloodshot after using the computer.  This evening, his eyes were still bloodshot, but the eye goop started.

This brings back memories of my childhood, of when I had recurring infections in my tear-duct.  I remember times waking up, and being frightened because I couldn't open my eye since it was sealed shut with goop.

Technorati Tags: childhood, pink eye, tear-duct

SAHD Report

The Colbert Report had a pretty funny report on Stay at Home Dads.

I still would like to stay at home with the kids


[via Daddy Types]

Technorati Tags: Colbert Report, SAHD

Welcome

My wife and I are expecting our third child in a few months.  I decided to create this blog as a place to keep track of my thoughts as our family grows.