Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

I know, I know, I promised you guys 3 lists this week and the last one was suppose to be a gift guide for husbands and wives. Well as I started making that list, I got to thinking, how can I possibly publish this thing without compromising the many surprises that I have planned for Fefe? There was no way around it, so I decided to cut the wife portion of the list and just put out a gifts for Dads guide. After creating the “guys only” list, I thought it would be a bit selfish of me to put that list up without a counterpart for my female readers. I didn’t want to be accused of 1) Only looking out for the fellas or 2) Trying to “hint” at things I wanted for Christmas. If you knew some of my readers like I do, then you’d know that accusations fly freely, lol! Therefore, there will be no last gift guide, instead I’d like to hear some of the things that you’ll be shopping for this holiday season and some of the things that you’re hoping your significant other will be buying for you. Please share, I’m always interested to find out how closely my gift choices align with other individuals.

Welcome back to day two of Daddy’s Fish Bowl’s 2009 Holiday Gift Guide.  I hope you enjoyed the options presented yesterday for toddlers.  Today we’re shifting gears and taking a look at some options that your preschooler is sure to enjoy.  Shopping for this age group can become a tad more difficult as you attempt to balance fun toys and learning toys, our list contains a good amount of both, but as always, if you have suggestions that should be added or comments on any of the items listed, be sure to let it be known in the comments section.

Hello all, in the spirit of Black Friday coming up, this weeks posts will be dedicated to holiday gift guides.  There will be a separate guide for toddlers, preschoolers, and a combined guide for husbands and wives.  The gift guides will feature some items that the boys already own, as well as items that we plan to purchase for them this Christmas.  The items are in no special order, they are all gifts that I find interesting and think the kids will enjoy playing with.  Please feel free to add items to the list in the comment section, or if you already own a particular item, share your experience with it.  I hope you enjoy, talk to you soon.

Tre is ready to combat the Swine Flu

Some of you may have noticed the lack of posts last week, well that’s because we were all sick. Wait, let me rephrase that; my entire family was sick, and I was stuck taking care of them. That of course led to me being sick towards the end of the week. Fun times right? It’s always like that in our house, sickness is a domino effect. Once one person gets a cold, it spreads like wildfire to each member of our household until it has crippled each and every last one of us. No matter what we do to try and prevent it, there is no stopping the wrath of sickness! I have a few tips that may be able to help you, avoid the domino effect. In our home they never work completely, but I do think that they contribute to a quicker recovery.

Ever since Tre was born, people have been telling us that he needs to be a baby model; and as soon as they spend 5 mins around Ty, we hear “he was born to be on TV”.  At first, I just figured people were being kind, you know those are the type of things you’re supposed to say about kids.  After hearing it time and time again, I reconsidered the validity of what friends, family, and complete strangers were saying and thought, maybe so.  I went on a personal crusade to find a legit, reputable, modeling agency to represent the boys and needless to say, I came up empty on more than one occasion.  But yesterday, I thought we hit gold with the American Mall Model Search; sadly, in the end, it turned out to be just another rip off (in my opinion).  But this time, it wasn’t just Fefe & I who wasted our time and energy and got our hopes up for nothing; the kids were involved and lead to believe that they could be “stars”, and that pisses me off.  When I started this search about a year ago, I did tons of research that allowed me to determine that something just wasn’t quite right with the American Mall Model Search and I’m thankful that I was able to spot it out and not waste any money or additional time.  At the end of this post I’ll share some of the top things I’ve learned about the “industry” with you future Mommy & Daddy managers out there to hopefully save you some time & trouble.

No, this post isn’t going to be about some newly discovered venereal disease that I contracted during a recent trip to Tijuana.   I haven’t been to Tijuana in years, so that would be old news (I kid).  Instead, this post is about turning even the smallest event into an educational opportunity that can be used to teach kids something new and exciting.  These chances pop up every so often and if you’re not careful you can definitely miss them.  So keep your creativity hats on at all times; because to the untrained eye, bodily fluids may not seem like the best tool to use for teaching a pre-schooler, but by putting a little spin on it, they can learn something new and have fun doing it.

This is gonna be a tough one to write; not so much because of myself, but more so for Fefe.  But she felt it was necessary, as did I, that we spread the word and express some valuable information regarding the IUD & pregnancy, that we’ve come across by being put in a not so ideal situation. In short, for those of you that found this post specifically for that information: yes, you can become pregnant with an IUD inserted AND yes, it can produce false negative results for your pregnancy test!!!  Now if you’d like to learn more read on, if not, I hope the information serves you well.  For my regular readers, don’t fret, there is a good story to be told here and although it is a difficult subject, I tried to make it somewhat entertaining. So here we go.

Fefe’s body and contraceptives have had a long going feud for the past few years.  Maybe I shouldn’t say feud, maybe I should just say “misunderstanding”.  It’s like they can play nice together for a year or two and then they get into an argument or something and all hell breaks loose, with the outcome being a brand new unplanned bundle of joy.  In the past, this massive “misunderstanding” between Fefe’s body and the contraceptives has happened not once (Ty), but twice (Tre).  Each time while using a different method that was supposedly 99.9999999% effective.  Okay, maybe not that many 9’s but still, you get the point.  How could something that is supposed to be so good at its job screw up two times in a row?  I thought lightning didn’t strike twice.  Well apparently it can strike twice, and can also strike a third time as well!

Before becoming a father, I was like literally “Mr. Clean” himself.  Seriously, I was the guy with the big sign on the door stating “If you can’t remove your shoes, don’t bother knocking”.  If I got a stain on my shirt, I’d just throw it away. Yes, it was that bad.  I remember distinctively one time my buddy came to visit from out of town and I had my grocery list on the counter; he was shocked at the fact that the list contained more cleaning supplies than food, even though I barely had anything in the fridge.  I guess at that point, I’d rather be hungry than have a dirty house.  Maybe I was a little borderline OCD, but hey, who knows.  Fast forward a few years and oh how things have changed.  Kids can have that type of effect on you.  I’ve gone from leaving no spill un-cleaned to being peed on, pooped on, scrubbing marker out of the carpet and everything in between.

Tre in his new bed

Not to long ago we were placed in an unfortunate situation regarding Tre’s sleeping arrangements.  We were notified that there had been a recall on his crib (click for recall information) and advised to stop allowing him to sleep in it immediately due to risk of suffocation, etc.  I remember being very angry, upset, and frustrated at the fact that my little boy was in harms way for 18 months and I was just now finding out.  At the same time, I was happy and grateful that I was at least informed and given the opportunity to do something to prevent anything bad from happening.  After being alerted of the recall, we found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma: Tre was close to outgrowing a crib, but not completely ready for a toddler bed.  I wasn’t thrilled about buying a new crib that would only be used for a few months and then having to buy a new bed as well.  Fefe suggested going straight to a toddler bed: that’s what we did, and that’s when the fun started.