I’ve been asked upon occasion about a strange little tradition that has developed between the boys and myself. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of traditions – particularly intensely personal ones. The more unusual the better. In this case, the routine goes like this: I stand arm’s reach away from one of […]

Having just returned from a great vacation, I’m going to go in a slightly different direction than usual today. Last Wednesday found us at Hershey Park (a very large amusement park in Pennsylvania). We arrived at 11 am and stayed pretty much until closing (9 pm), with the kids taking a brief stroller nap in […]

There will be a temporary interruption in Daddy Tales this week. I’ll resume on 8/8. Sorry for the outage! A big part of our nightly routine with the kids is reading bedtime stories. We started doing this very early on – even before C was old enough to talk. The point back then was to […]

A few weeks ago, the whole family went shopping at the local mall. At one point, J wanted to do some clothes shopping in a department store, so I took C off to explore while she and N shopped. We ran around for a bit, and then found ourselves in the bed department. I flopped […]

This past weekend, I found myself with the kids at a play area in the mall. A play area is basically a large area with a soft floor and a whole bunch of nonmoving kids’ toys: giant plastic airplaines for them to climb on, small slides, and so forth. It’s surrounded by barriers the kids […]

Last night, J had a "ladies night out". Normally, this is a chance for us boys to have a lot of fun, but I’ve been fighting a cold. So, instead we just did a "movie night". Movie nights are a tradition that started the first time I found myself alone with C and couldn’t come […]

You may remember my earlier story about time outs. Despite that, they are a very effective method of punishment. C hates them – which is good. Even better, he understands them. He’s so accustomed to them now that sometimes when he’s caught being bad, he’ll look up and say "I go to time out. Need […]

C caught himself a bit of a sniffle on Friday. For those that don’t have kids, when a toddler gets a sniffle it’s not a polite little thing that is kept behind handkerchiefs. It’s a full-face juicy extravaganza of snuffling, honking and spray. Very much because of that, Saturday morning found C getting some alone […]

In our kitchen, we have a plastic kid’s table. It’s a single piece of plastic molded into the shape of a little picnic table with benches on either side. Amazing the things you can find at garage sales! In any case, one of our big challenges with N has been that he loves to climb […]

There’s a dark little secret about new babies that most non-parents don’t know about: meconium. Meconium is a black tarry substance that is what newborns produce as part of their poo. Pardon the word poo, but I don’t know what else to call it. Changing a meconium diaper is a real hassle. The stuff really […]