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

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.

Let me start off by stating that I HATE THE DENTIST! There I said it! If you’re a dentist reading this blog, I’m sorry, but we could never be friends (don’t stop reading the blog though, lol). Dentists perform hate crimes against humanity and I refuse to subject myself willingly to their torture. I took the stance that I would never subject my kids to the demented hands of a dentist either; luckily I have a level headed wife who vetoed my ruling. Yesterday was Tre’s first visit to the dentist and it appears that he’ll be following in his Daddy’s footsteps. He wasn’t too pleased, and surely let it be known during his visit.

When it comes to parenting, working Dads get screwed, as do working Moms.  Now that I think about it, Stay At Home Parents can possibly be getting screwed too.  So I guess I should have named this post “Everyone Gets Screwed”, but then it would have sounded like a porno entry and that’s not exactly the first thought you want in your head when coming to a Daddy Blog.  Therefore, since I’m a working Dad, we’ll just keep it at how us working Dads get screwed out of quality time with our kids.

Santa's Little Helper?

Hey there everyone, how have you all been doing? These past two weeks have been rough, everyone being sick and all, but for the most part things are better. I’m still not 100%, but I couldn’t stay away from blogging for too long. So did you guys miss me? Ah, why do I even ask, I know you missed me! lol.

So while Fefe & I were sick, battling colds, a new Ty emerged from the darkness and tried to nurse us back to health with kindness and generosity. It wasn’t really from the darkness, I’ve just always wanted to say that, you always hear it in movies and cartoons, but can never find an appropriate place to throw that phrase out. So anyways, Ty has been uncharacteristically good these pass few weeks, cleaning up after himself, taking naps like he’s suppose to, etc. It all seemed kinda fishy to me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He swore up and down that he was only trying to be helpful and make things easy since we weren’t feeling well. In part, I believe him because the kid does have a big heart; I mean a BIG heart, watermelon size. But really though, how good can one kid be without incentive? Until yesterday, I was starting to buy into Ty’s genuine nature, until he slipped up and gave me a glimpse into his true motives.

Elmo & A Ninja (A Deadly Combination)

Happy Halloween!!! Oh wait, I guess I’m a little late huh?  Well, I’m just like “The Simpsons”, remember how they always aired their Halloween special on the Sunday after Halloween? Okay so here we go.  First off, I’m writing this post from the hotel room in Clemson, S.C. so I’m away from my normal blogging locating and it feels a little weird.  I’m out here on a business trip (which will probably end up being a blog post of its own) but I didn’t want to leave you guys without some delightful eye candy (get it? halloween, candy, eye candy, lol) to get you through your Monday!

Tre going in for the kill

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.

Alien or Human?

This one is going to be pretty short, but after the last post, I needed to write a feel good story to brighten the mood of the site.  As you guys know, in order to obtain a feel good story, I have to look no further than my own kids.  Yesterday, Ty and I were playing and he noticed a blue dot on my foot and asked what it was.  I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, it looked like a spec of dirt or something that I picked up from the floor.  So I did the most logical thing, I made something up.  Now I could have been like any normal parent and just told him that it was some dirt or lent from the floor and kept it moving.  But where would the fun be in that right?  So instead, I fabricated a story about the origins of the blue dot, which led to a 30 minute battle of wits between Ty and myself.  Why am I matching wits with a 5 year old? Because it’s great bonding time and listening to his logic is hysterical.

I’m really big on nicknames for the kids; part of the naming process when we have children is to ensure that a ready made nickname is available.  This is partly because growing up, I never had a nickname.  I was always plain ol Keith! Keith, Keith, Keith, do you know how boring that is?  I desperately wanted to be called something else; I thought it would be so cool to write “keith” on my homework, but have people refer to me by some other name (no, jackass wouldn’t have worked).  But alas, that was not the case; I was Keith and only Keith, so I vowed that once I had kids, I would ensure that a nickname was built in somehow.  This is a vow that I’ve so far kept and one that is now coming back to haunt me.

Geocaching's Next Superstar

Are you wondering why my kid is in the middle of the woods with a large Tupperware container?  It’s because he had just concluded his first geocaching excursion & was proudly basking in victorious glory.  What is geocaching you may be asking?  Well I’ll tell ya, it’s basically a treasure hunt using a gps device and it’s totally freaking awesome! Well, now that I’ve actually found something, it’s awesome.  I’m kidding, that’s not true; it took me a while to pop my cherry, but even when we weren’t able to locate the “cache” (official word for treasure) we still had a good time just being in the great outdoors and spending family time together.  I have to send a thank you to my buddy over at The Life of a Father of Five, the post that I’ve linked you to is the very reason that our family has now become involved in geocaching.  I foresee our family participating in the sport for a long time to come, the kids love going treasure hunting and it’s also pretty good exercise.  If you’d like to learn more check out the official geocaching site here.

Happy Birthday Ty

Today our oldest boy turns 5 years old; well actually as far as he’s concerned, he’s been 5 for the past 3 days already.  Ty was having a tad bit of difficulty grasping the concept that the day we were celebrating his birthday, wasn’t his actual birthday.  After going through a few mental exercises to drive this point home to him, we finally conceded and decided that it’d be best to just let the kid think his birthday was on Saturday; the day of his party.  It worked out pretty well, until yesterday that is, when he went to his “Kindereadiness” class.