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State of the Blog Address: Why I (continue to) blog
Sure, I picked a strange time to start this blog: just weeks before the birth of our third daughter. But I had good reason(s) to, as I enumerated here. Looking back on that blogging minifesto (you...
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The family bedtime rules
Not long ago we began instituting “the bedtime rules” for our two boys. The idea was to have a sequence of rules (steps, really) for the boys to follow once in bed that would provide consistency and...
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Traveling Mercies
Thing 1 and Thing 2 The first thing I noticed when we got to my parents’ new home in South Carolina was the smell of the pines. The boys spent time outside there almost every day these last two...
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Apocalyptic Dialogue with my 5-Year-Old Son
It went like this: Me: These Duplos have eyes all over them. It’s like a creature from Revelation. He: What’s Revelation? Me: It’s a book in the Bible. There are all sorts of creatures in it. Dragons,...
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How to Effectively Use the 2nd Person “We” (Parental Communication Tip #427)
You’ve heard of the royal We? It’s all too present in seminarian papers with just a single author: Careful consideration of the textual data leads us to conclude…. Or: We read with the majority of...
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A New Friday Night Family Tradition…
…is homemade pizza and a movie. The kids love it, and so do we parents. So far we’ve watched: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Mr. Rogers (Season 1!), and Wall-E. And the pizza is delicious. Last week our...
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6:00 a.m. Muffins, by 2-year-old
Here he is, waiting for his morning’s work to bake. Filed under: children, Family, Family Fridays Tagged: children, Family, Family Fridays
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Tough Guise: Violence and Masculinity in the Media
This last week I was part of a panel for Gordon’s Faculty Film Series for the film Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity. Narrator and anti-violence educator Jackson Katz talks...
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A Perfect Song
“North American Field Song,” by the Innocence Mission: Lyrics: Raincoats, Finlandia, Raincoats and lakes. The best words, I take along in my field bag. Across the morning, the beautiful air, I will be...
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Five Kids’ Magazines We Enjoy
Here are five children’s magazines we particularly enjoy reading to our two-year-old and five-year-old: 5. High Five “My First Hidden Pictures” and “That’s Silly!” are two favorite features of the...
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Christmas at a Child’s Pace
Been spending lots of time with these Last Christmas a day full of opening presents was overstimulating for our kids, who were at that time all five and under. This year we got a little smarter (or...
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A Six-Year-Old’s Quick Take on Angels
The Angel Appears to Balaam, byGustave Doré (1832–1883) Tonight my wife and I (with her taking the lead) were talking to our six-year-old son all about angels, trying to navigate his series of detailed...
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A six-year-old and three-year-old bake a cake for Martin Luther King
Happy Birthday, MLK! My six-year-old suggested over the weekend that we make a birthday cake for Martin Luther King, Jr. So today, while our 1.5-year-old slept, my wife and I and two sons all went into...
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12-Word Lexicon of My Children’s Speech, February 2014
The 1.5-year-old BAH-yull BAH-yull (bottle): that dispenser of water that also doubles as a cuddle friend in her crib, without which SHE WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP. KEEEEEE-koo: cracker, anything crunchy,...
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The LEGO Movie
A couple weeks ago I took my six-year-old son to his first ever movie at a theater–The LEGO Movie. He loved it. There were a couple scenes that were maybe a little too intense for a six-year-old, and a...
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Scientifically Unproven But Pragmatically Effective Parenting Bedtime Pro Tip
I don’t remember where we first read this parenting advice, so I can’t guarantee its scientific backing, but here it is anyway. When your (hypothetical) six-year-old child is talking and singing to...
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Book Notice: How Toddlers Thrive
I’ve recently received for review How Toddlers Thrive: What Parents Can Do Today for Children Ages 2-5 to Plant the Seeds of Lifelong Success. I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet, but wanted...
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A 6-Year-Old (re)Learns Some Hebrew
My now six-year-old has been asking again to learn more Hebrew. We started last spring (see here and especially here), but the Hebrew learning has been largely on hold. We have some materials from...
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What My 3-Year-Old Thought I Was Going to Feed My 1-Year-Old
Apologies in advance for the scatalogical nature of this post. But I’m trying to get back to Family Fridays on this here blog, and nothing says family (at least our family) like this actual...
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First Ice Cream and Lyle the Crocodile
Yesterday was a momentous occasion: the first all-family ice cream outing of the summer. (Shhh… it’s summer in my mind.) We did the almost-impossible-to-beat triumvirate of ice cream park used...
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