I finish work between 2:30 and 3pm every day. Our son does not get home from preschool until about 3:45pm and my wife gets home a few minutes later.

Since I have no commute right now, that gives me about an hour alone with my daughter every day. We have been playing with Play-Doh, read stories, dance to Christmas tunes, talking to all of her babies, doing puzzles, and playing games.

When I first started working at home, she would get grumpy when my mom (our babysitter) left. She would not perk up for several minutes afterward. Now, she jumps into my arms as soon as I walk up the stairs.

We do not spend a lot of time planning something exciting. We do not turn on the TV. We do not leave the house. We just talk and play for about an hour.

Post from: Blisstree

Special time with my daughter

This weekend the toilet broke. It was actually just a little reocurring leak that I got tired of fixing. So, I decided it was time to replace the toilet. Instead of me rushing out to the store by myself, we all went to Menards together. The kids started to get bored while picking out the toilet, but their reward came a few minutes later when we went to the playland section to let the kids play for a while. Then, we picked out a few special Christmas ornaments together.

Also, this weekend we needed to pick up our sewing machine that was in the shop for repairs. My wife had big plans to take our son to the store to try and get him to pick out a present for our daughter. But, we needed the sewing machine because my wife is making some pajama bottoms for the kids. So, I took daughter to the sewing machine store and gave her the important job of carring the claim ticket and giving it to the lady at the counter.

Two unexpected projects in one weekend that we were able to turn into opportunities to spend time with the kids. How do you handle unexpected events that pop up when you were planning on just sitting around and playing with your kids?

Post from: Blisstree

Handling unplanned projects on the weekend

Now that Thanksgiving is finally past, we are getting in the mood for Christmas. Tonight we did a winter themed craft that almost anybody should be able to do. We made paper snowflakes.

The kids had a great time. We had to square the paper, fold the paper, and often had to hold the paper so the kid friendly scissors would be able to cut through all that paper.

We were perfectly willing to each make one snowflake a night until we had enough to decorate the front windows. If we had done that, it would have only been a few minute project which everybody has time for.

We got in a groove and we finished nearly 20 between the four of us (with only 4 of them being done by me and my wife) in about 30 minutes.

Since we finished all of the snowflakes that we need, we went digging through some craft books to get ideas for the next couple weeks. If we end up doing some good ones, I’ll pass them along.

Do you have any Christmas crafts that you do with your family?

Post from: Blisstree

Things to do with the kids – Snowflakes

As we wandered through the store, Pookie stopped in front of a Cars DVD display. It was a big cardboard cube with pictures on each side. All of the videos were either sold or moved.

He loves Cars so he just stared at the pictures for a few minutes. An employee came over and my son fought his way between the employee and the display. The employee thought it was pretty cute and since he was taking down the display he gave us a big cardboard Lightning McQueen. It is as long as the wagon we used to walk to the store.

So, now I am about as good of a dad as can be just because I was in the right place at the right time. Which never would have happened if we had not taken to time to take the walk.

What are you planning on doing with your kids today?  Even a simple walk to the store can turn out pretty special.

Post from: Blisstree

Sometimes busy dads need a little luck

They all have some really good features for story time.

The Crayon Box that talked goes through the colors and happens to be his favorite of all the favorites these days.

Duck for President has some really nice lyrical lists and the opportunity to yell, “Duck Wins!” several times. I don’t think the line every actually appears in the book, but we say it after each election.

Duck in the Truck has a really nice rhyme and meter throughout. You’ll find yourself nearly singing the story when you read it out loud.

I Spy books are a great way to get your kids to participate in story time. In addition to finding what you are supposed to be looking for, you can spend some time talking about the other things in the picture.

Curious George is a classic that our son has really latched onto. He loves the books and some audio recordings of the stories. He enjoys the new TV show but hugely prefers an old claymation VHS that we have.

I am looking forward to a few moments in their reading careers. First will be when they start recognizing words and start to read some of their simpler books without our help. The next is when they start reading chapter books. And the other is reading a novel at the same time as my kids and talking about the book as we go.
What kinds of books are you reading with your kids?

Post from: Blisstree

Reading to your kid