Sunday, January 30, 2011

Worth 1,000 Words

This basically wraps up around 2-3 separate posts that I’ve never gotten around to writing.  This picture captures some of Bugs latest obsessions and interests.

Bugworth1000words

Lets see what we have here in this one picture.  Wearing 2 separate boots/shoes (she had been stomping around in my flip flops about 5 minutes before I grabbed this picture.)  She’s wearing hair bands and my Power Balance band on her wrist.  Not sure what has gotten her started on this, but anything she can find to wear on her wrists, she puts it on.  Silly bandz, hair bands, rubber bands, my Power Balance bands; we even bought her some jelly bands hoping she’d stick to just them, but she has just incorporated them into her collection.  In no exaggeration, if we let her go wild, she could have 10-15 on each wrist.  She’s even starting putting them on her ankles too!

Finally we have her talking on the phone too.  Now admittedly I have fun with this one, if I catch her playing on the house phone or a cell phone, I’ll call it for her to answer and hear me on the other end.  If she brings me the phone, I’ll even act like I’m her stock broker or something, asking if she wants to buy or sell and relaying  her responses until she grabs the phone and starts yelling into it as if she’s bossing someone around.  I realize I won’t find it as funny if I get a bill and she’s called Australia or something and left he phone off the hook without me realizing it, but until then, I do have fun with it.

This is definitely one of those pictures to save and show her when she’s older, as it captures her at this age in a perfect way.  In a time where she wants to play with everything and her imagination is racing, I grabbed her doing 3 of her favorite things right now.  A perfect example of a picture worth a 1,000 words, and one I couldn’t save until the next Wordless Wednesday.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Managing Children's Screen time: There's An App For That!

screen-time-app-for-dads.jpgIn an increasing digital age, our children are becoming digitally dependent.  Something that can easily slip our minds, but shouldn’t be ignored is the amount of time our children spend watching TV or playing computer games.  That’s where “Screen Time” comes in and saves the day!  More

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Saturday, January 15, 2011

My 2 year old Picasso - Bug colors the wall

Bug's ArtworkWell, it's happened. Something I thought had the chance of occurring but I was hoping I might be able to avoid. Bug has now drawn and colored on the wall. It happened the other night in just a blink of an eye, but none the less it occurred, in all it's black ink pen and green crayon colored glory! (I swear, back turned 15 second, 20 tops!)
I've had a hard time deciding how I wanted to handle it. Of course, initially I rushed over to her, told her no, grabbed the crayon (pen was on the ground already) and proceeded to point to the wall where the offense had occurred and tell her no, she doesn't color on the wall. My initial internal reaction was to be harsher but I quickly realized it's not her fault. Before this moment she didn't know she shouldn't draw on the wall. She just knows Daddy praises her when she draws and colors on paper.  So naturally, why wouldn’t she want to do it on something bigger?  Fortunately since the other night there has been no repeats, and she has had chances, but has opted to come sit in Daddy's lap and help highlight his notes, or write down her own opinions.
My biggest debate on this is how do I react or handle it when it happens again? Yes I said when, not if. If she's anything like her Daddy it'll happen again. There is still a drawing I did when I was around 3 on the inside of one of my Granny's doors that she still talks about to this day. So what do I do? I want to be sure she knows she's doing wrong and I want to discourage the behavior, but not to the extent that I risk taking away any enjoyment she has in drawing or coloring (self admitted selfishness on my part here too). Its something as a parent I knew I'd eventually face, and had yet until now. And now that I'm faced with it, I'm at a bit of a loss as the course of action I want to take. I guess I have until next time to sit and stew on it, between now and then though, hopefully I can keep my mini Picasso to work solely in the paper medium, and avoid drywall.

Below:  The aforementioned artwork of yours truly at a much younger and more innocent age.

mine

For this post and other posts more related to fatherhood then tech, checkout the new blog: ID Link

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Wordless Wednesday–A Family Tradition

Maybe one day I’ll explain this in detail in a post, only family will understand the significance right now.

photo

Monday, January 3, 2011

Early success or just a tease?

Bug officially used her potty for the first time tonight!  She came into the bathroom while I was in there shaving.  Typically she laughs at me because I have shaving cream on my face, but this time was different. She had her laptop with her and went straight to her potty and lifted the lid.  I sat and watched her, even offering to hold her laptop as I watched her negotiate how to sit down on this seat with a hole in it.  Eventually she had both feet in it, so Daddy decided to intervene.  I picked her up and thinking that while she showed interest in sitting on it, I’d take her diaper off while I was in there just to give her the whole concept.  So, I took her diaper off, sat her down, put her laptop in her lap, and watched as she sat there like she knew what she was doing and looking happy as a lark.

A few minutes later, she stood up and handed me her laptop. I at first just brushed it off as she was already bored, and was ready to go back out from the bathroom. Daddy wasn’t entertaining anymore. When to my surprise, I saw that she had in fact used her potty!  I was so excited and overjoyed I started cheering and clapping, and I believe the initially reaction actually startled her.  After a few moments, she realized I was in fact cheering for her, so she proceeded to start clapping and giving her typical “yay!” in excitement.

She teased me with acting like she was interested in using her potty on my birthday, and now 3 weeks later, she’s used it for the first time!  Now do I expect a sudden change in behavior?  A daily use of the potty?  No, I’m not near that optimistic!  I am however excited by the possibilities!  Maybe potty training won’t be so bad?  One can hope!