Recently in Kids Category

Where's the Freakin' Milk

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There is a reason a kid should have two parents and being a father of multiple little ones I can give pleanty of examples. Take for instance yesterday, when I asked Shane, our 5 year old, to go to the basement and bring up a gallon of milk. After a minute of silence he casually walks up the stairs and screams, there is no freakin' milk in the basement!

Of course Mom was plenty mad and was about to lay into him big time. On the other hand Dad thought it was about the funniest thing ever and spit milk up through his nose. And that middle ground between those two reactions is the measured response you need to give to your children. If it was just mom there he would have been on the steps in timeout crying. If it was just Dad there we'd be high-fiving and saying good-one. With both of us it is a stern warning (strike-one) and a correction on the best way to say there is no more milk...

Mom, get your ass in the car and go get some milk!

Piggy Bank

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The two younger boys have been very interested in their piggy banks lately. Mostly it has been to empty them out, fill them back up and ask Daddy for some more money. This got me thinking, is a piggy bank the best way to teach a child to save? Sure it is, if, when you really empty it you take most of it to the bank and use a little bit to buy something fun.

Then I saw this piggy bank and I think it describes everything we should be teaching our children about finances. Save. Spend. Donate. Invest. Now instead of going to the bank and Toys R' Us when emptying the piggies we'll have to stop by church and T. Rowe Price. The only thing I see wrong with the pig is the portion sizes. If it is supposed to mimic reality the entire pig would be Spend and the the snout would be split between Save, Donate, and Invest.

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Reward! Missing Nite Nite Animal

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Each of the kids has their favorite stuffed animal to go to sleep with. Some are bears. Some are tigers. Some have more than others. The animal responsible for this particular post is highlighted in the picture above. As you can see, "Bear" is old, tattered and missing lots of stuffing, but he still gets his job done.

For those of you with kids I'm sure you know what nite nite time is like when a sleeping toy is missing. Well this happened to us and I was so proud of our 6 year old. When we gave up searching he didn't cry and he didn't pout. He just walked off to have some quiet time by himself.

It is when he came back that things changed. He calmly asked me to help him hang these pieces of paper around the house.

I wasn't too sure what to say, but I think it is about the cutest thing I have ever seen:

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There is a Happy Ending. We found "Bear" hiding in a toy container the next day.

When you have little children you just never know what is going to come out of their mouths. While watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition last night with our 6 year old, he said "Mommy, I really want to go away so when we are gone somebody can fix up our house." What do you say to that?

Well you do what any good parent would do. You try to explain the concept of the show. How they pick disadvantaged families and that the odds of that happening to us are pretty low. Problem solved...right? Try again.

"Mommy, I wish our house would explode so they can rebuild it." Back to square one.

Updated, I have to fix typos.