Both the kids have been spending a lot of time playing pretend lately. Everything they sit on immediately turns into a train or a boat or a rocket ship. Once we even had a flying house boat with a seven story hotel on it. The other night, however, things took a slightly different turn. The […]
Read MoreA few Christmases back, it occurred to my wife that we should have a children’s manger scene for the kids to play with. The idea was to keep them away from the delicate grown-up one, and it worked really well. All the figures (Jesus, Joseph, Mary, shepherds, wise men, etc.) are made of hard plastic, as […]
Read MoreFor the past several months, N has been having fun experimenting with the different phrases that we use. Like all kids, he runs the gamut between understanding things we don’t expect him to, and not getting the ones that seem obvious. At times, I’ve felt as if he’s intentionally being dense just to get a […]
Read MoreToday’s tale is in the Chronicle. Click here to read it. Words for searchers: swing, glider, tummy, rule, bad idea
Read MoreWhen it comes to getting kids to sleep in the car, parents will try just about anything. We have a “Sleepy CD” that works wonders. It’s one lullaby after another. The only problem is staying awake while you drive. Unfortunately, we used that CD a little too much, and the kids figured us out. Now […]
Read MoreWe have a couple of large black labs that the kids have a love/hate relationship with. The “hate” part of that relationship comes in because the dogs used to have no compulsions about knocking them over to steal their food. We’ve mostly remedied that situation, but the kids still get nervous. I don’t blame them. Each dog […]
Read MoreI’m sure you’ve played duck, duck, goose before, right? We’ve played it a lot. Too much, one could say. The kids played it so much, in fact, that a couple months ago they became bored with the game. This is stranger than you realize, because it’s not a case of the adults making them do […]
Read MoreTypically, my Halloween story is a scary one. This morning’s event, however, has superceded my regularly scheduled Halloween moment. This morning, the boys dressed in their halloween costumes for school. C is going as a policeman, and N (the three year old) as The Flash. We’ve been talking about The Flash a lot since we […]
Read MoreA little while ago, I wrote a tale about how the name Octavius became a part of our family lexicon. The result of that wandering tale has been that the boys frequently ask to pretend that I am “baby Oc”. One of them pretends to be daddy, and the other grampa. I talk in a […]
Read MoreDuring dinner last night, J reported a story that I simply have to relate… She teaches at the school the boys attend, and occasionally runs across them there. Yesterday, she saw our youngest walking across the playground, followed closely by a girl who was a few inches taller than him. Naturally, J walked over to […]
Read More
