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  • Hey TechCrunch, Computers do not produce bad grades!
    I'm aghast. Over on TechCrunch, a site known as much for its gossip-mongering as its tech reporting, John Biggs is reporting (sort of) on a study that he claims demonstrates children who get computers in developing nations get worse grades in school. Here's the link: Study: Mixing School-age Kids and Computers makes for Bad Stuff. I'm a researcher and there are so many things wrong with John's throwaway piece that my head is reeling.........
  • UC's Survey on Multimedia Children's Books (or is it vendor research?)
    I constantly get queries from academics asking if I can help them disseminate information about a survey they're doing on some subject or the other, often without indicating critical things like the topic of the survey or -- for those of you that understand the nuances of research -- the source of their funding. This is another in that vein, a research project from the University of Connecticut exploring the impact of multimedia books. "The......
  • Dating Men With Kids
    I was chatting with my pal Nora a while back about dating and how things change when the men she meets are fathers, not just bachelors, and she proposed writing a little guide for us single dads and the nuances of dating from a woman's perspective. This is it, with the names changed to protect the privacy of the men mentioned. Enjoy. Dating after the age of thirty-five (let alone after the age of forty)......
  • Parenting as we wished our parents had done
    I was chatting with a friend last night and the conversation shifted into how we are with children versus how our parents were with us when we were kids. It struck me that I make decisions on how to father my children with that very idea in mind: when my son wants to do something that's out of my comfort range, do I say "yes" or "no", and why? There's a deeper thought underlying this......
  • Funding the kids toy stash at your ex's house
    One of the turning points in my ex and I stabilizing the situation with our kids after we separated and then divorced was for us to agree that things we bought the kids were their property and that they could take them from one house to the other without us intervening. It's a recommended philosophy in co-parenting (e.g., parenting after a divorce) books too and saves the kids lots of stress about "toys at mommy's......
  • Traveling with my son: restaurant choices
    Okay, tonight was a great test of my ability to stay focused on the important things and practice that zen-like calm I try to have when things get frustrating. I managed it, but not without a tiny cry of despair inside... I've brought my 10yo son G- to Chicago for a week's holiday with me, we've been to the amazing Museum of Science and Industry, the very cool Field Museum, tomorrow we're off to Navy......
  • Fun dress-up costume from TotallyCostumes.com
    It's funny the things that pop into my mailbox as a daddy blogger. Too often the messages begin "Dear mommy blogger", demonstrating a really lazy PR firm or someone who just hasn't figured out that I'm not the one who birthed my fabulous children but their Dad. :-) Actually, it usually just amuses me, but occasionally it is a bit annoying, especially when the gist of the marketing message is how moms have such a......
  • A Very Personal Walking Tour of Boulder...
    I seem to drive everywhere, so I'm making a concerted effort to walk more and to take the bus when I feel like it's too far from point A to point B. This morning I was going to jump on the bus downtown so I could spend the morning working, but just started walking instead. As I walked, I thought about how what you see on foot, when you have time to process information rather......
  • Solo holidays are a mixed bag
    It's inevitable when you're divorced, I suppose, that some holidays you'll be celebrating (if that' the right word) without your children around. Generally we do pretty well with our parenting schedule and it's a rare holiday that I don't have at least one kid in the mix, and frankly, with three to go around, we should be able to pull this off, right? :-) Still, it's Memorial Day and my kids are with their Mom......
  • Help A Mom: My baby's waking up hourly at night!
    As someone who writes about attachment parenting and general parenting from the Dad's point of view, I get email. A fair bit of email, actually, and it's great stuff, but sometimes I really don't have much of an answer. One of those messages arrived this morning from an exhausted mom: I need to find someone to connect with. I practice attachment parenting and my 6 month old sleeps with me...but he wakes every hour...I need......
  • Interviews, interviews: let's talk!
    On any given week it seems like I'm either launching an interview with someone interesting I bump into or receiving a query from a Web site asking if they can interview me. It's fun and it's a great way to build content for your site and get on the radar screen of some cool folk. And after all, who doesn't like to be interviewed in a format where you can take your time and come......
  • My son is finally having a deep night's sleep
    My son and younger daughter are with me for a few weeks while their Mom travels with our oldest, and it's been an interesting time. They're fabulous and terrific company - as always - but my son's sleep patterns have been increasingly affected by allergies, to the point where we had four nights in a row where he didn't get to sleep until after 10pm. Not good when we're trying to get to school and......
  • Is Attachment Parenting relevant as kids grow up?
    I was reading through the great material available at Attachment Parenting International, the "parent' corporation (or, perhaps better, "mother ship") for those of us that follow intentional or attachment parenting, and was struck at how few of the Eight Core Principles of Attachment Parenting are relevant once your joyous little bundle grows up and isn't a little baby any more. To wit, the eight rules are:Prepare for pregnancy, birth and parenting.Feed with love and respect......
  • My blog and guest posts...
    When I got two emails in the same hour from people offering up guest content on topics that aren't related to what I discuss here on the Attachment Parenting Blog, I started to wonder... Here's the first of 'em: "I have been looking for parenting blogs that are interested in guest content. I like the honest approach that you implement in your posts. Very refreshing. I feel that I could add to this through a......
  • British soldiers escaped WWII POW camps with Monopoly?
    Got this fascinating story via email and it checks out, as far as I can tell. Very cool and ingenious! Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape... Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where......
  • How do you establish a post-cosleeping bedtime?
    Reader question time: I would like some suggestions on having a bed time with the family bed. My daughter who is almost three has been co-sleeping with us from the first day we brought her home from the hospital. I would like her to sleep in her own bed in our room with a bedtime. This has proven to be very difficult. She can't fall asleep without me next to her. Any tips would be......
  • The problem with hiring a chauffeur for your kids
    Yeah, kind of an odd title I admit, but this weekend I attended an Internet marketing event and there were a couple of high-powered "motivational speakers" (I use quotes because I didn't find them very motivating, personally), one of whom made a very interesting comment... To set this up, the guy, cut from the Tony Robbins Type-A mold, had spent the previous hour on stage telling us how successful he was, how much money he......
  • The importance of friends & family in your baby's life
    So I'm typing in a comment responding to a query from a gal about her tiny baby being very attached to her and how she can get ready for when she goes back to work, saying "get her used to friends and family holding her and being safe too" when it struck me how poor a job of this Linda and I did with our kids and how that really adversely affected our ability to......
  • Review: fun, huge building blocks: Brik-a-Blok
    A rather surprising email arrived in my inbox a few weeks ago from a PR company that represented a toy inventor in Québec, Brik-a-Blok Toys. Seems they have a sort of human-size Lego set and were interested if I'd like to have a look. Here's a pic from their site: Looked pretty cool and my 6yo girl is always pushing things around to make forts and hideouts, so I answered their query "sure!" and dutifully......
  • Looking for an über-chic hotel in San Diego?
    I was in San Diego a week or two ago and rather than just check out Expedia to find a place to stay I contacted a friend at Bailey * Gardiner who arranged for me to get a journalist rate at the Sé San Diego, downtown in the center of urban San Diego, California. Just as well, too, as even with the special room rate, it cost me over $150 for a single night's stay.......
  • Weird Pic Caption Contest
    I hosted a panel last night on the future of television, for the DaVinci Institute, and as part of it, I continued an amusing tradition of presenting the weirdest pictures of the week and offered up what I hope were amusing captions for them unrelated to the original context of the pictures. Seems to me that'd be fun to do here on my blog to, so without further ado, here they are... The first one......
  • Research: Why your match.com email doesn't lead to dates
    I know I'm a research geek with lots of academic background and even a stint as a research scientist at an R&D lab, but still, this kind of data really fascinates me to no end: Online dating site OK Cupid has released the result of some semantic analysis that it did of the aggregate emails that people on the site sent each other, comparing what they wrote against whether or not they actually went on......
  • The Story Behind Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE
    If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I write about all sorts of stuff, not just parenting (though as a single dad with three kids parenting is pretty much always on my mind!), including some of the shows that I have a chance to see as I travel around. About a year ago I got to see Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE, and wrote an extensive review on this blog......
  • Finding your sex appeal after divorce
    This amusing piece was sent to me by the gal who wrote the book The Laptop Dancer Diaries and I thought I'd share it, even though it's a bit, um, explicit. It's written from a woman's perspective, but with a few tweaks I think it addresses universal issues of self-image and self-confidence post-divorce. Read on, but you've been warned. Oh, and it's okay to laugh a few times, even if it's in embarrassment. :-)You're a......
  • Should your ex show up at events when it's your time?
    Since I post questions for other people with some anonymity involved, I am finding that more questions are showing up in my mailbox, asking me for advice. I'm happy to help, but I do have to be candid that I'm hardly an expert parent nor am I any sort of expert on attachment parenting. Nonetheless, here's the question of the day: Dave, I'm struggling with a co-parenting issue and looking for a fellow attachment parent......
  • Honey, it's our fetus on the phone again!
    I am just so entertained by this phenomenally wacky hardware add-on to our handy Apple iPhones: the Ritmo Advanced Pregnancy Sound System, which, according to its makers, "was created to provide a convenient, comfortable and safe way for families to share the sensory and emotional experience of bonding through sound and music with their developing baby." Marketing talk, for sure, but the basic concept is just hilarious: it's a sort of two piece belt that......
  • Avoiding stress while raising two 4mo boys?
    As is not uncommon, I received an email from someone who earnestly hoped that I was an expert on attachment parenting. I'm not. I just play one on TV. Oh, no, I turned that offer down (it's true, I was invited to come on the Dr. Phil show to talk about attachment parenting!). More seriously, I've just been using an attachment parenting approach first with my children when they were young, and now as best......
  • How do you refer to "the person you're seeing" when you're an adult?
    As a single man again, after almost two decades of being in a relationship, I'm finding that dating in my 40s is very different from dating in my 20s. One huge difference in me is self-confidence: I'm far more self-assured than I ever was back then. Just as importantly, I know what I don't like and am comfortable saying so. Want to go ski the black diamond slopes in Aspen? I'm not your man. Want......
  • Reality TV Show Casting Call!
    Generally I am not a big fan of reality shows as I know from the inside that they're manipulated and designed to create drama and interest rather than the actual boring humdrum reality of our day to day, minute by minute lives, but sometimes things do come along that are a bit different. This casting call, from an LA-based freelance casting associate, does sound kind of interesting, with its emphasis on " America's most outgoing......
  • Sleepovers: our place or theirs?
    Had an interesting experience last weekend with my 13yo daughter, A-. All day she'd been talking about having her pal over to our place for a sleepover, and her friend had joined us for the day's activities (she's a delightful addition to the family and always welcome). Late afternoon we talked about how we were one bed mattress short for things to work: We have three mattresses and one air mattress but adding her would......
  • Attachment parenting and babysitters
    I don't know exactly how we ended up in this situation, but I find that one of the toughest things about being a single parent with three varied age kids we've raised with attachment parenting ideals is that they're not babysitter friendly. What do I mean by that? Simply that they aren't responsive to babysitters, don't listen, and generally are anxious and upset if they're with someone other than Linda or I. Not during the......
  • Fighting H1N1 with a cool soap dispenser
    I'm not a big fan of vaccinations. I think that it's one of the reasons that we're seeing more and more extreme allergies and auto-immune deficiency illnesses, a path that only seems to have one direction for us to travel: to a world where people are more and more sickly, more reliant on the vaccinations and big pharma medications. Probably makes me sound a bit paranoid. Ah well, can't be helped, I'm just being transparent.......
  • Dad + daughter's hair: an inherent disaster?
    I'm lucky, I know. I'm a single dad to two girls, 12 and 5, and while it'd be a bit odd for the tween to be asking me for help with the latest hair style, it's a miracle that my 5yo daughter can do her own hair and never asks me for more than finding those darn hair bands. Most dads don't have it that easy, and there's little more intimidating than a little girl......
  • Jif Peanut Butter is gluten-free, but ...
    The PR agency behind Jif peanut butter has a promotion where they're asking for the best recipes that include Jif peanut butter. Okay, not a bad idea. When I got a copy of the query I responded that to me the real question is the quality of the food: two of my three children are on gluten-free diets. To my surprise, they informed me that Jif actually is a gluten-free product. Now, before you say......
  • The economics of driving a taxi in Las Vegas
    I'm in Las Vegas right now for the Blogworld and New Media Expo and took a cab, as I often do, cruising around from hotel to hotel, party to party. This time the driver, Frank, was in a talkative mood and revealed some very interesting information about the economics of being a cab driver here in Las Vegas. Wondering how these guys get paid? Turns out that one of their biggest sources of revenue is......
  • For me, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare numbers didn't end up working
    A pal of mine emailed me a few days ago asking: Do you have a hilton grand vacations hgvc timeshare? Which resort do you usually go to? Are you happy with it? We went back and forth in email, including me explaining some of the math behind time shares and why they're such a bad idea for most people (myself included, in hindsight) and so I thought I'd publish the back and forth here, add......
  • The challenge of finding appropriate girls Halloween costumes
    I might have missed the memo, but when did Halloween turn into a holiday focused on girls showing off their, um, feminine charms? I'm astonished that there are more and more costume shops that pop up in my area each year, and when you go in all the costumes for girls over about eight seem to suggest that they're college co-eds hoping to get laid that night. I mean, really, have you gone into one......
  • Ah, those fun phone calls from your kids...
    It's a lovely autumn afternoon here in Colorado and I'm working: the kids are with Mom for a few days, as is our regular weekday schedule. Imagine my surprise then when fifteen minutes ago my cellphone rings and it's my older daughter, A-. "Hi Daddy. Can you come and pick us up?" "Um, what? Where's mama?" "I dunno. We've been standing here in the cold for ten minutes and I can't get ahold of her......
  • Teaching Internet Safety: I need resources
    After becoming fairly alarmed at my 7th grade daughter's requests for a Facebook account "because most of the kids in my class are already there", I brought up the subject of Internet safety at the most recent parent evening. From what I could tell, most of the parents were completely clueless that their kids were using Facebook, let alone the other sites they're doubtless visiting. My comment was "From what I can understand, about 1/3......
  • My thoughts on the new 2010 Ford Taurus
    Had a nice party invitation yesterday via Facebook: a reception introducing the new 2010 model year Ford Taurus redesign, with Ford Exec Director of American Products Frank Davis in attendance. Now, I'm not a big car nut (like a few friends of mine) but I am still interested in cars and concerned about the long-term health of the American car industry as a bellwether for the national economy, so I RSVP'd yes and showed up......
  • How do you add a second baby to the family bed?
    I received this interesting letter from a reader that's a core puzzle for family bed families: how do you add baby #2 to the mix? I'll let her speak for herself, then afterwards I'll add my two cents and invite you, dear reader, to do the same... My name is Kristin, I have a two year old son, Myles, and am expecting another baby in November. Myles has always slept in between my husband and......
  • Standards of Positive Sportsmanship
    My 12yo A- is now part of the school volleyball team, which is awesome. What's not so awesome, however, is that there are apparently a lot of parents who have no idea how to be supportive of their children in competitive sports and we get to live with these idiots at almost every game. Our coach sent out an email message about his rules for positive sportsmanship and suggested conduct at a game, and with......
  • President Obama's address: are your kids going to listen?
    I'm a bit confused by the reaction to the upcoming speech that President Obama is planning on delivering to school children on September 8th, encouraging them to stay in school and, no doubt, mirroring JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." According to the Department of Education, "the president will speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school.......
  • 7 Essential Resources to See If Your Neighborhood is Safe
    A guest post... With the number of crimes being on the rise, it's no wonder that people worry about their safety. Understanding the level of crimes and their intensity and frequency can be important to ensure that you keep your family safe in your own home. Fortunately, there are some great resources to check into to be sure that you are doing whatever you can to keep your family safe. The reality is that you......
  • Review: Panasonic ES 8249 electric razor
    Yes, I'm serious. Panasonic sent me its high-end electric razor to try out after I complained about needing to learn how to shave again when I transitioned from a rather scraggly beard to a neatly trimmed goatee. As I've said earlier, it was a sort of strange thing to be a forty(cough)-year old man having to learn how to shave smoothly again after having a beard for over a decade, but ask I did, and......
  • Ten days without my kids and...
    Hmmm.... after having my kids solo for two weeks my ex took them to their family compound in Missouri for their last hurrah of summer before school started. There wasn't a specific duration to the trip planned, however, so rather than being able to plan out my solo time and slip in a trip or anything, I just hoped they'd last a week before coming back to hot late-summer Colorado. It's now been ten days......
  • Win some free Bach "Daydream Remedy"
    I've been parenting, non-stop, for almost thirteen years now, first with one, then two, and now three wee folk who live emotionally complex lives in their little bodies. It's been a challenge because Linda and I have always tried to minimize the allopathic drugs we've used and continued to try alternative remedies. One of my mainstays has always been "Rescue Remedy", whether it's for myself, to chill out or smooth out an emotional wave, or......
  • The sublime pleasures of hot summer days and a pool
    We've been on a holiday in Southern California this week and it's been pretty darn hot, i gotta say. Typical mid-afternoon temps are in the 90s and that just gets beastly, with the heat just lingering and wearing everyone out. Between sweating and getting cranky, it's dangerous to be out in public around 3pm in this kind of weather, and short stints in air conditioned buildings don't seem to help. What is helping with the......
  • Are stupid people more likely to die from a heart attack?
    I'm still chewing on the extraordinary flame-out that is the medical research from the British Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, as reported in BBC News under the headline Lower IQ 'a heart disease risk'. The problem? They have committed the cardinal research sin of taking correlational data and concluding causality. It's a classic logic problem as illustrated by this: smokers have ashtrays in their houses. Smokers get lung cancer. Therefore ash trays cause......
  • How my iPhone helps me use the public library
    I don't know if I'm the only person who has figured this little trick out, but I thought I'd share how I use my iPhone to save lots of money on books... When I am at a bookstore (which is quite common, actually) and see a book that I think I'd like to read, but am not particularly enthused about paying $20-$30 for a copy of my own, I use my iPhone to take a......
  • Surviving the summer with my kids
    I don't get it. When I was a kid I remember summer as the time when I was up and out of the house every morning, cruising on my bike to my pal Mitchell's house about 2/3 mile away, or, later, my friend Ivan's house to get into some trouble or other (if one or the other of us wasn't working). Sometimes they'd come over to my house and we'd spend the day building strange......
  • Stepping out of my comfort zone on Father's Day weekend
    We signed up weeks ago, my 9yo son G- and I, without me really thinking about it. A Father/Son basketball camp at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with CU Coach Jeff Bzdelik running the camp and all the CU men's basketball team players involved. Sounded like a great "bonding experience" with my son, right? It was great fun. Really great fun. What I didn't think through was that just maybe I wouldn't be ready for......
  • Strategies for coping with gestational diabetes?
    A close friend of mine is rather panicking right now as her pregnancy has progressed because she's been diagnosed with rather serious gestational diabetes. Here's what she told me: "Was diagnosed at about 28 weeks and we are having trouble getting it under control. Diet changes and all - the #'s are still high. They were concerned at the Doc's yesterday about baby's tummy being ahead two weeks than the rest of his body -......
  • Activities for you to do with your baby on a rainy day
    There are plenty of low cost activities that you and your baby can do together as a family on a rainy day. When the weather is not at its best then this may mean you stuck in the house with nothing to do other than watch TV or a DVD but that need not be the case! A bit of imagination and fun is all that is required in order for all of you to......
  • "Imagination Movers" and the quality of children's music
    Somehow, I'm not entirely sure how, I have landed on the promo list for Disney Music and every month or two get a music CD aimed at the 3-7 set. Most of them are pretty good, but I have to admit that the latest disk they've sent us is quite astonishingly good and very worth a listen. The disk is Disney's Imagination Movers: For Those About to Hop and it's songs from the hit......
  • Are slings a simple solution for babies with colic?
    If your newborn cried for more than 3 hours, more than 3 days for more than 3 weeks then your pediatrician was likely to hold colic responsible. While it can be comforting to know why your little one is in such distress, the diagnosis of colic still leaves much to be explained since there is no one proven cause of colic. Without knowing what is causing the problem, it can be quite difficult to prevent......
  • Photo Shoot: Colorado Railroad Museum in Miniature
    Last week my son G- and I went to Golden to visit one of my favorite places, the Colorado Railroad Museum. There are tons of trains in various states of repair (and disrepair) on the many acres of this museum and it's a great place for kids to climb around and generally get a bit of the train bug. It's also in Coors town, so it's not far to drive for a beer after wandering......
  • Memories of our journey to NYC on the Queen Mary
    I mentioned a while ago on Twitter that when my family emigrated from England to the United States, we actually took the rather famous ship The Queen Mary, and to my surprise, the PR team at the Queen Mary (which is now a floating museum permanently docked in Long Beach, California) contacted me and asked if we had any pictures. The RMS Queen Mary We took the trip in 1963, so I have no memories......
  • Share an offbeat NBA stat, win tickets to the All-Star game!
    I'm a big fan of basketball and am usually up for a pickup basketball game when I'm at the gym or just playing "horse" with a kid or two. I can sink a fair number of three-pointers too, but I have to admit that half-court games are more fun than the ceaseless back and forth of a full court game. Yeah, that's what happens when you get older, I guess. :-) As a basketball fan,......
  • Is co-sleeping a barrier to divorce?
    I received a very interesting query from a reader: I am looking for a little advice. I am contemplating divorce and one of my many concerns is the fact that I co-sleep with my 9 year old boy and 6 year old daughter (in my daughters room). I love sleeping with my kiddos, but, I fear I have made them a little too dependent on me. If I were to go through with the divorse,......
  • The 100 Hour Test Drive: 2009 Ford Mercury Mariner Hybrid
    Since I started driving, I've owned 10 cars: a Chevy Nova, a Chevy Malibu, a Mazda RX4, a Toyota Tercel, a Toyota Supra, a Chrysler Town & Country, a Volvo C70, a Volvo XC90, a Toyota Prius and now, a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. That's a lot of cars. I've been to auto shows and certainly have the basics of car ownership down, though I'm definitely not a car nut or fanatic. In fact, there are......
  • Do you have a college trust set up for your kids?
    My children are young still, but I've been thinking about college expenses for many years now, wanting to both stash some money away each year to help me from panicking if one of them says "hey, Dad, I've been accepted into Harvard!" or "Yes, Dad, the London School of Economics looks like my best bet." Each of which will be inevitably followed by... "You can pay for me to go there, right, Daddy-ums?" What I......
  • Learning how to shave again?
    A few weeks ago I took the plunge and after almost 20 years of sporting a beard and mustache, I switched to a goatee, which means that the edges of my jaw are now exposed to people in a way that hasn't happened in a long, long time. The reaction? Almost no guys noticed, and almost all the women I know immediately knew what had changed. I'd say it's been 95% positive and I have......
  • Can you still be considered an attachment parent if you use a stroller?
    I often wonder when it comes to parenting styles; do you have to choose one way or the other? Can you still be considered an ap parent if you occasionally drift over into mainstream parenting practices? For the most part, my parenting style seems to be in line with attachment parenting. I have always been very attentive and responsive to my daughter's needs which has included breastfeeding, co-sleeping and frequent carrying her in a sling.......
  • Review: "State of Play" with Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams
    This review has moved over to my movie blog: Review: State Of Play......
  • Mama needs help: baby wakes her up every night
    Got this query: "I am a 30 week pregnant mum of a 20 month old toddler. I was at home for the first year and have worked for 6 months. I co sleep withmy toddler who is still beastfeeding ..... but he wakes so regularly at night .... I am the only one who can feed him back to sleep. He is struggling with excema that seems to be getting worse and the advice that......
  • Babywearing: it's not just for babies!
    If visions of infants in slings and wraps typically come to mind when you think of babywearing, you might be pleasantly surprised to find out that your carriers can still be quite beneficial for toting your toddler around. You may not be able to carry your (slightly larger) bundle of joy as long as you once did, but nevertheless you can still get plenty of use out of your carrier. Just like younger babies, toddlers......
  • What's more important, a parenting schedule or the needs of the kids?
    As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a single co-parenting divorced Dad to three children, a 12yo girl, a 9yo boy and a 5yo girl. My ex and I are blessed to live within about a mile of each other and each of us has a place with sufficient room for all of the children to stay with either of us. Linda has stayed in the house bought in 2002, almost seven years ago,......
  • Why I like living here in Boulder, Colorado
    Okay, so this is a bit afield from my day-to-day challenges as a single dad, but I look at this as optimism therapy. Ya good with that? i thought you might be... Boulder, Colorado, looking West We moved from the Santa Cruz mountains above Silicon Valley to Boulder, Colorado about seven years ago now, a bit after 9/11, though that wasn't our motivation for moving. We'd loved living in the mountains and had a fabulous......
  • The dreaded evening call from the ex's house
    I don't know if this is a common issue with recently divorced families, but my ex and I have been wrestling with this issue since we first separated over a year ago: the first night our 8yo son is at her house after being at mine, he'll call and tell me how he wants to switch and be at my house instead. It's fairly regular and I know he's having a hard time there when......
  • Secret skill: I can paint ceramics!
    If you know me, you know that I am incessantly doodling and scribbling pictures. Put me at a table with a paper tablecloth and crayons or a pen and you'll soon find that it's covered with random drawings. Rather than call myself any sort of artist, however, I think "cartoonist" is probably more accurate, and a little known fact is that I did have a short-lived underground comic strip that circulated while I was in......
  • The winning wry Valentine's Day haikus!
    If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know that I ran a competition for the most amusing, wry haiku's in honor of Valentine's Day. See: Win a $70 gift certificate from Proflowers. Today is Valentine's Day, however, so let me start out by wishing you a happy day and by saying that everyone should receive at least one valentine's day wish. Now you've received mine. And with that, on with the winners!......
  • Interview with former AMC TV host Bob Dorian
    A while back I wrote an essay comparing the two primary classic movie channels on cable/satellite, Do classic movies need to be censored? AMC versus TCM. In the article I talked about former AMC host Bob Dorian and lamented his departure from the channel which, I still believe, was the beginning of its downfall. You can imagine my delight when a few months later I noticed I'd gotten a comment from Melissa Dorian, AMC host......
  • Does Attachment Parenting "Break" a Child?
    I received an email from a mother who is clearly in a difficult situation with her 5mo boy: she's been raising him with the basic tenets of attachment parenting, but is now starting to get negative feedback from her family and friends. So she's not sure she's doing the right thing... please, read through what she's written and, if you have some words of wisdom, add 'em here. Thanks. "Hi. My name is Anita and......
  • Review: Cirque du Soleil "O"
    Rather to my surprise, I've become a bit of a Cirque du Soleil junkie and find myself going to a new show each time I'm in Las Vegas. I've already written about The Beatles: LOVE, which I found a wonderful experience. Last time I was in Vegas the Cirque team was generous in providing tickets to "O" at the Bellagio and offering my friends and I a great behind-the-scenes tour and chance to meet some......
  • Leave a wry haiku, win $70 gift cert for Proflowers for Vday
    Valentine's Day is coming up and this year my thoughts don't turn to the fabled massacre (which is good) (I'm just kidding, take it easy!) but I am also quite aware that it'll be just about the 30 day anniversary of my divorce decree being signed in the local courthouse. So I'm not exactly ready to send anyone a beautiful bouquet of roses. On the other hand, I have been given the chance - perhaps......
  • The First Sleepover: Success Strategies?
    I'm so proud of my 8yo son G- who last weekend tried to have a sleepover at a friend's house. He ended up calling me at 9:45pm asking me to come pick him up (which I did, no problems, no judgment, no criticism, of course!) but I still think it was a success at some level. What I'm wondering is if there was some way I could have helped set things up to be more......
  • Cirque du Soleil "O" -- Behind the Scenes!
    Kismet and good living, that's all I can figure was how I ended up being friends with Jessica Berlin, social media publicist for the wonderful Cirque du Soleil performing troop in Las Vegas, Nevada. Well, social media helped, but I have very much enjoyed the time we've spent together talking about the online world, performing arts, and much more. I have a bit of a background in stage productions, I've done lighting and sound for......
  • Talking with your children while at a trade show
    I've been on the road for a week now here in Las Vegas, first for the Consumer Electronics Show, then a geeky event called WordCamp Las Vegas (focused on Wordpress users), and finally at the Affiliate Summit. That's a long time to be hanging out in Las Vegas, breathing in clouds of second hand smoke and listening to the incessant bing! bing! bing! of slot machines. It's hard to remember the kids at a trade......
  • FDA approves Latisse: drug to lengthen your eyelashes
    No, I'm not making this up. WebMD reports that the US Food and Drug Administration has issued approval to Allergan to market and distribute a new drug called Latisse that promotes longer, darker, thicker eyelashes. Turns out that eyelash growth is a rather surprising side-effect of the glaucoma drug Lumigen, also made by Allergan.......
  • Are Chore Charts the Answer to Holding Children Accountable?
    This is a guest post from my friend Kevin Savetz. There comes a time in every family in which the debate over chores begins. How old should a child be when he or she is first assigned chores? Should the child be rewarded for completing these household tasks or does pitching in just come with being part of a family? If there is a reward, what should it be: cash or privileges? Many parents believe......
  • Do you publish photographs of your children online?
    Look around you at the different photographs that make up the distinctive design of my blog (if you're reading the RSS feed, just this once click on this link -- The Attachment Parenting Blog -- so you can see what I'm talking about). Maybe it seems a bit odd for me to write about whether or not to publish pictures of your children online when I have a Web site design that's built around photos......
  • Is Gluten-free food and cooking just a fad?
    It seems like everyone knows someone these days who is ‘gluten-free’. Is this a fad? Why is ‘gluten’ all of a sudden such a buzzword? One reason is because (some) American doctors are finally considering gluten intolerance and Celiac disease as a culprit for a host of maladies in children and adults such as indigestion, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, mouth sores, failure to grow and thrive, inability to concentrate and mal-absorption. It can also cause......
  • A working mom's perspective on attachment parenting
    I asked a friend of mine, Susan, who is one of the work-at-home mom bloggers behind 5 Minutes for Mom to share her thoughts on attachment parenting. Susan, her twin sister and their mother together own a pedal car store, a rocking horse store and a network of blogs. She has two little girls -- a one year old and a three and a half year old. My first baby taught me about attachment parenting.........
  • Are movies too violent, or is cinema just evolving?
    This article has been moved over to my movie blog and can be found: Are Movies Too Violent, or is Cinema Evolving?......
  • The fun little pond rug I got for the kids room...
    First off, fair disclosure: the rug I'm writing about was sent to me gratis by my friend Ed Shapiro who runs the attractive online children's store Sensory Edge.com. When my kids were quite young, they each enjoyed playing with small toys in a constrained area of their own making. Whether it was a corner behind the couch, a "fort" made of towels or blankets thrown over chairs and other objects, or even somewhere in the......
  • What's with streamers being thrown at MLS soccer games?
    My son and I had a rare evening to ourselves tonight and flipped on Fox Soccer Channel to watch a US Major League Soccer (MLS) game between The New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake. The game was pretty good and the play was exciting but it's the first time in watching a lot of soccer that I've ever seen streamers thrown on the playing field by fans and it sucked. I'm not a......
  • Attachment parenting and Waldorf school helps keep your kids slim?
    Among the waves of email I get from my blogging efforts are some that are targeted to this parenting / daddy blog, which is definitely cool. In fact, sometimes the messages are from vendors or PR agencies who are hoping that I'll write about their product or service. Some are cool (I have some samples of a new product from the company that makes Emergen-C, for example, coming in the mail) but some, like this......
  • What will Halloween look like in twenty years?
    I know, I know, this is going to be a bit of a rant. Hey, it's my blog and you've been warned. :-) I remember when I was a kid our Halloween costumes tended to be more improvised than purchased at the local Halloween costume store and the entire holiday had a rather underground "harvest festival" sort of feel to it, with benign scares and very little that was truly frightening. That picture on the......
  • How you can really help eradicate global poverty
    Today is Blog Action Day with a focus on poverty, but I have to admit right up front that I'm not a big fan of these "action day" events because they mostly feel like a way to alleviate guilt rather than an avenue to really help anyone. I think having hundreds of people write about the same topic on the same day is just overwhelming, not particularly effective. Nonetheless, since there are lots of bloggers......
  • My son gets his tonsils removed, and it's a success!
    Today was a momentous day in my son's life: he went under the knife and got both his tonsils and adenoids removed. Why? Because his tonsils had become infected and swollen and a source of infection in his body, making him have a never-ending level of ill health. Me, I also had my tonsils removed when I was 8, and have almost no memories of it other than how cool it was to be in......
  • Film Review: "Eagle Eye"
    This article has moved over to my film blog: Review: Eagle Eye......
  • Review: Cirque du Soleil: The Beatles LOVE, Las Vegas
    While attending Blogworld Expo last week in Las Vegas, Nevada, I had a wonderful Twitter experience that resulted in my friend Klaus and I being given free tickets to see the hottest show on the Las Vegas strip: Cirque du Soleil The Beatles LOVE. I'm going to go into the show in depth, but let me start by giving you a one word summary: fabulous! Having said that, let me also say that prior to......
  • I don't want to meet Candace Bushnell's Sex And The City women as teens
    I bumped into this article a few days ago: Sex and the City' gets teen spin in Variety.com and have been thinking about it every since. Now, I'm a guy, but I want to say that, at least in the first season or two, I thought that HBO's Sex and the City was edgy, funny as heck and sexy. Linda and I both enjoyed watching it and were occasionally shocked by what they addresses but......
  • How did my 4yo learn how to do this stuff?
    Maybe this is just me being a proud papa or something, but I'm pretty blown away by what my 4yo has been doing lately. I know that younger siblings tend to learn faster because of the influence of their older siblings, but still... Today while we were driving around, K-, my 4yo, wanted to write a letter to a little pal of hers. So she took a pad of paper and a pen and, as......
  • My visit to the Democratic National Convention in Denver
    Since it was just a few miles down the road, I took the afternoon off and went with a good friend to the Democratic National Convention in downtown Denver, Colorado. We didn't have any sort of pass or ticket to get into any events, but we figured, ah, what the heck, let's see what we can see. And see we did... The following are the pictures I took on our afternoon of wandering around, starting......
  • How to ensure safety while letting my daughter get her own email address?
    The tempest has come home: my 11yo daughter A- has begun communicating via email with her out of state cousin. Nothing amazingly new, except we've kept our children off the computer completely so it is a brave new world. To date, email from the cousin is sent to Linda, who then shows it to A-, who then uses Linda's account to compose a response or new message. Alright, I say begrudgingly, maybe, just maybe it's......
  • When you need to keep track of your nursing schedule
    A few days ago, I was surprised and intrigued to see an application show up at the Apple iPhone Application Store that helped women keep track of when they were nursing their baby. I communicated with the program author and found out that it was actually a team: a woman who had the need for the application and a man who actually wrote the program itself. A bit of discussion and I ended up with......
  • Why do people divorce, and how can you heal from a divorce?
    I recently had a chance to interview Jeannine Lee, facilitator for Fisher Rebuilding divorce recovery seminars, about divorce and why the workshop can be so valuable for people who are getting a divorce or already divorced. Fair disclosure: I have gone through this course myself and am now a volunteer for the Fisher Rebuilding Divorce Recovery Seminars. This article is long, but I think it's well worth reading. Q: Based on my own personal experience,......
  • Hey Dads, don't give up on your kids!
    I don't know if it's just complete coincidence or something more curious, but in the last ten days or so I have had three conversations with men about how some men who leave a relationship leave not just their wife or partner, but their children too. Most recently, someone named "David" left a comment elsewhere on this blog saying: "She took her rings off over two and a half years ago. I haven't given up......
  • The dangers of going off-schedule: The day from Hell
    One thing I am learning as a separated / divorcing parent of younger children is the consequence - the really bad consequence - of going off schedule after finally establishing a routine. Today, I'm sorry to say, was the poster example of how family dynamics can add up to drive everyone crazy rather than establish harmony when things get too far off track. And yet, somehow this is the inevitable result of summer activity, with......
  • Finally, my kids are ready to enjoy art galleries!
    I am so, so psyched! We've been visiting my folks in Southern California (yes, we were here for today's 5.3 earthquake. We were in the car and thought the engine was misfiring!) and staying at the lovely Ayers Hotel. They're very nicely appointed hotels, super comfy beds and lots of classic paintings (reproductions, obviously) hanging in the hallways to add a touch of elegance and class. This evening G-, my 8yo, A-, my 11yo, and......
  • Hey Mattel! Now you can put Bratz to sleep once and for all
    After a hotly contested court case between huge toy conglomerate Mattel and MGA Entertainment, it looks like Mattel might actually be given back profits and the intellectual property that comprises the entire Bratz line. Here's the thing though: I hate the entire concept behind the Bratz toys and am frankly aghast that any parents buy it.......
  • Good adventure books for 8yo boy?
    It's very exciting to see my son G- learn how to read! Six months ago he was proud to sound out rudimentary street signs and newspaper headlines, and now he's leaped straight to "level 4" beginning reader books, skipping the first three levels. Important caveat: my kids are in a Waldorf school, and the Waldorf educational approach has them starting reading later than more traditional pedagogical approaches, it's typically not until 2nd grade that they......
  • Flip-flops for a good cause, spread the word
    In a tragic event last May, our friend and neighbor Steve Parrish lost his college-age son, and Lesley, his daughter and our occasional babysitter, lost her brother, in a mugging gone wrong while he was on spring break in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Watching them come to peace with the terrible occurrence has been an amazing thing. I'm not sure I would ever have the grace to manage even half as well, and certainly hope never......
  • The power of reflective listening
    This last weekend was a rare treat: five days of solo time with G-, my 8yo son, and it was a delight. Five days of "dude time" with lots of bonding. We both really had a great weekend, and a busy one too, including hanging out with friends watching the final match of the Euro 2008 soccer competition. Most of the time, of course, A-, my 11yo, and K-, my 4yo, are in the mix......
  • How we're managing Video Game Time
    Okay, this is an update following my earlier plea for help metering video game time. You should start by reading that blog entry and seeing what I wrote about and, more importantly, the great comments people left with their own ideas and practices. I took the different suggestions and thought a lot about the dynamics of my own children and what they do and don't need, and came up with the following.........
  • How do you meter video game playing time?
    It might be a sign of us buckling under to cultural pressure or perhaps the ongoing weight of constantly feeling like we're saying "no" to our children as they too process the divorce and changes in their lives, but Linda and I have agreed to let the kids have some Nintendo Wii play time this summer and each of us bought a unit and hooked it up. First off, the Wii is one amazingly fun......
  • Press Release: Divorced Women's Dating Styles
    [ this is one of the more peculiar press releases I've received in rather a while... ] From Debbie Nigro Chief Executive Girlfriend and Founder First Wives World.com Approximately 30 million women are transitioning thru divorce in the United States. There are many different stages. Debbie put this friendly list together so both women and men can better identify the different levels before venturing into the dating scene. DIVORCED WOMEN'S DATING STYLES Damaged Daters -......
  • Signing "Ask for ID" on my credit cards invalidates them?
    I had a weird experience at the Post Office this afternoon when I tried to buy a roll of stamps and am hoping some of my blog pals can offer up some thoughts... When I got the latest wave of credit cards I decided that this time, instead of signing them, I'd write "Ask for ID" on the back, as a bit of a fraud protection and identity theft prevention. So far, it's distressing to......
  • ... and still, sometimes bedtime just stinks
    Last night I was at a workshop until 10.30pm, which wouldn't have been a big deal if my kids would have cooperated with the babysitter and gone to sleep when they were supposed to. But they didn't and when I walked in, there they were, sitting in the living room, lights low, like zombies, waiting for me. I chalked it up to the exacerbated separation fear brought on by our separation and the two different......
  • Taste Test: Hansen's Junior Water
    Sometimes being a blogger is crazy fun, like when the PR agency from Hansen Beverage Company contacted me and asked if they could send along some product samples for the kids to try. The product? Their new "Junior Water" product. I said "sure, but no guarantees anyone will like it, that we'll write positively about the product or that we'll ever actually write about it in the end." They were okay with that clause and......
  • I'm a movie geek, I admit it
    So here's something weird: I'm a huge fan of the cinema, both for the classic films and the latest big productions. I average a movie a day and have seen thousands upon thousands of movies in my life. I have seen about 95% of the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, for example (I blogged a while back about having seen only 89 of them, but have seen more since). Go to the Internet Movie......
  • How do you explain sex and "Free Condoms!" to your kids?
    Rather an amusing situation happened over the weekend: I was in the touristy downtown area of Boulder with G- (8) and K- (4) having a good time wandering around. We'd just stepped out of Ben & Jerry's after enjoying some delicious ice cream and G- spotted someone across the pedestrian mall with a basket and a sign that said free condoms It didn't take more than a second or two for him to ask "Daddy,......
  • The Secret Joy of a Proper Child Residence Arrangement
    Without doing any research or checking with anyone, when Linda and I separated, we decided on a quite complicated two-household arrangement that maximized the solo time each child had with each parent. We did check after a month or two with a local psychiatrist and her comment was basically "wow, if you can do this, it's good for the kids, but I think it's going to prove difficult." Our arrangement, on a typical week, was:......
  • How do single dads (and working mothers) cope with summer holiday?
    I feel a bit trapped right now. Linda and I are changing our parenting time arrangements so that all the kids are with her some days and then they're all with me on other days. If you've read parenting post divorce type books, we're probably going to be moving to a 2-5-5-2 arrangement. Prior to this we had a more complicated 2-2-2-1 sort of arrangement, staggered, so that each child had solo time with each......
  • Fun, random photographs from our Hawaiian Holiday
    First off, I will apologize that I'm not going to post any pictures of my kids here. I know that most daddy bloggers and mommy bloggers have a different perspective on things, but I don't have pics of my kids online because it's important to me that I put in all possible effort to protect their privacy. That's also why I don't refer to them by name but rather by using the admittedly Victorian convention......
  • Overheard: exactly the wrong way to tutor someone
    I am hanging out at one of my favorite haunts, The Cup, in downtown Boulder, Colorado, sharing a table with a couple of guys who are working, laptop adjacent to laptop. From what I can glean, one of the guys is a tutor with a local group of some sort, while the other guy is either a senior in high school or a freshman at CU. Yup, a buddy just stopped by and the tutor......
  • AudibleKids: Fun new site for kid's audio books
    I dunno about you, but my kids really enjoy listening to books on tape / audio books, and so I was pretty excited to see that Amazon.com's new acquisition Audible.com has launched a site specifically focused on children's material called AudibleKids. What's interesting is that the material is broken down both into categories (Animal Stories, Biographies & History, Classics & Poetry, Fables, Fairy Tales & Myths, Fiction, Mysteries, Nonfiction, Parenting & Teaching, Sci-Fi & Fantasy,......
  • When did shopping online become such a drag?
    Hmmm... should I admit that I like shopping? Well, shopping online, but even the local neighborhood mall is a comfortable space and one I enjoy visiting, probably because my teen years were spent in "The Valley" (yes, that valley, the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, home of "valley girls", etc :-) Shopping seems like a fun social experience mostly, a chance to people watch and see a much wider variety of folks than I......
  • Singing my children to sleep....
    It's a routine we've been in for over a decade now, me singing my children to sleep. From when they were wee ones to now, when my oldest is 11, they enjoy listening to me sing and it helps them easily drift off to dreamland. What's curious, however, is what they most like me to sing: The Beatles. Maybe it's because I'm a boomer myself and so I am quite familiar with all their lyrics,......
  • Inventing kinder, gentler games for the kids
    We were playing a family favorite, Pirates of the Caribbean Life, the other evening, and I noticed an interesting phenomenon that's so common I usually don't even notice it: my kids modify game rules to make games more friendly and cooperative. In Pirates of the Caribbean Life, there's a "RAID" square you can land on, which then lets you attack another player and, if the spins are in your favor, steal their ship or otherwise......
  • Tourists and product stickers...
    At the risk of sounding like a cranky guy, I have to say that I am completely baffled by people who buy consumer electronics and then don't peel off the product feature stickers. You know what I'm talking about, they used to only be on "display" or "demo" units at the store, but now for some reason we all get to enjoy stickers all over our TVs, DVD players, stereos, computers, and cameras that tell......
  • Finding the balance between "honoring their voice" and avoiding chaos
    So our story begins with me going over to Linda's house to get K-, our 4yo, who I had agreed to have over at my place for the night. Originally all three kids were going to be with Linda, but she's been telling me how overwhelmed she's been lately so I thought taking the little one could be helpful. I'm also cognizant that I'm going to be totally unplugged for three nights at a conference......
  • The anniversary of my daughter's conception...
    A few days ago was the anniversary of the night we conceived A-, our first child, who is now 11 years old. I can remember everything about the evening, where Linda and I ate and were staying, our laughter-filled visit to Victoria's Secret and what we bought there, all of it a crystal clear memory that's unusual for me. Twelve years later, I am quite in love with the little nipper, she's the proverbial apple......
  • Q&A with Spain Dad: Daddy Blogs and The Issue of Privacy
    Though I have been writing this parenting blog / daddy blog for years, I have to say that I don't really feel like part of the daddy blog community. In fact, I only read 2-3 dad blogs at this point. That's why I was so delighted when Kelly Crull, who blogs as Spain Dad, reached out and sent me a lovely email to initiate a friendship between us. But Kelly blogs about his family in......
  • Single rooms and single parents: travel logistics in hotels
    Since I haven't yet won the lottery, I can't afford to get two adjoining rooms each time we travel, and more and more I'm finding that it's a real drag to share a room with little ones. Not because of the chaos, not because they wake me up - all of that is [begrudgingly] okay - but because of what to do after they've fallen asleep.......
  • Like poison in a well: of kids and bad moods
    Just when you think that we're autonomous and able to determine our own emotional response to situations, you realize that we can be affected - and sometimes profoundly affected - by the moods of those around us. You know what I mean, where you're in a good mood and happy until you bump into a friend who is down in the dumps, moody or angry. Then your bubble bursts and the bad mood infects you.......
  • Should children be paid to do chores?
    The latest bone of contention ("bone" of contention? Why does that make me think of the seminal opening scene in the brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey when I hear that phrase?) in our little universe is around chores. We've tried chore charts, we've tried "gold stars", we've tried family meetings where we all talk about the chores we like to do (and yes, kids like some chores in my experience), but they all end up......
  • Why the caucus system leaves me frustrated and disenfranchised
    Here we are on Super Tuesday and since I have children, I am left out of the American democratic electoral process in a way that I have never felt left out before. In case you don't know, Colorado is one of many states that is using a caucus system to begin the process of selecting both a Democratic and Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States (an election that won't take......
  • The weirdness of visiting the old family home
    Separation is an emotionally tough experience. This is not only something I'm learning personally, but definitely something that friends have also shared with me too, and separation --> divorce, well, even when it's a cut-and-dry situation where one party has done something unacceptable (like have an affair) it's still damn tough emotionally, a rollercoaster of highs and lows. What's rather surprised me, however, is the ambivalence I feel when I walk into the "old house",......
  • The wisdom of Solomon: splitting up with animals
    I seem to recall -- and I am resisting the siren song of Google to dig into it and find research! -- that in the Bible there's a famous story about King Solomon and his wisdom in solving challenges and arguments brought before him. The specific story I'm thinking about revolves around two women who came before the King, continuing their heated argument about who should have possession of a baby: both had given birth,......
  • What's the proper protocol for a sleepover?
    I think I'm doing well here, but I wanted to check with the blogging world at large: my 11yo A- has one of her best pals over for a sleepover tonight and I think all is going well, but ya never know. Truth be told, this is the first sleepover I've "hosted" for my girl at my new place too. Which leads to an interesting concern: I made sure it was very clear to the......
  • Is having "cybersex" cheating on a relationship?
    A friend of mine has a poll up where she asks is having cybersex cheating if you're married? I voted - my answer was yes - but I wanted to spend a little time talking about my answer here on my own blog and have my own informal survey of readers about this topic. First off, you'll note that I changed the question to be about relationships, not just marriage, because I think that it's......
  • When do you take your wedding ring off?
    As Linda and I have continued to travel down the road from married to divorced (we're maybe 30% down the road legally, and probably about 50% emotionally) one of the issues that seems to have been the most challenging hasn't been splitting bills into two, figuring out who gets the kids for specific holidays or anything like that. It's been the more pedestrian question of when do you take off your wedding ring? As I......
  • Where does dryer lint come from?
    This is a rather weird question, but as I have been washing and drying little hand towels from my son's first grade classroom I can't help but wonder where does dryer lint come from? That is, if you look at how much lint is collected after a single run of the dryer with socks, towels, etc., it can be rather impressive. Run those clothes through the dryer a couple of dozen times and it seems......
  • Riding out the waves of a bad mood...
    I imagine I'm not alone in having children who seem to have waves of emotions flowing through them, sometimes without any external events triggering the change from one emotional state to another? If your kid suddenly gets gloomy or mad, then a few minutes later is all sunny and happy again, seemingly without anything causing the change, you know what I mean.......
  • New Age Psychobabble or not? You decide
    Just saw this come into my mailbox from an unnamed mailing list:"Does anyone have or know of a survey of staying in a state of love, light and bliss while being authentic with the shadow emotions within us. i.e. maintaining equanimity and calmness, while able to express anger, hurt, etc."Maybe it's just me, but what does this actually mean and do any of you know anyone who has accomplished this trick of being completely disconnected......
  • Kitty etiquette question...
    Just bumped into this query on a public relations service and thought it was interesting:I'm seeking an etiquette expert (someone who has an etiquette-related Web site, foundation or book) who can provide smart advice about the following situation for a reader Q&A page: "A friend's cat is extremely affectionate and always curls up on my lap when I visit. The problem is, it makes me feel uncomfortable. How can I tell her to restrain her......
  • Does anyone have an MP3 version of "Parenting with Love and Logic"?
    This is driving me batty: I bought the audio edition of the popular book Parenting with Love and Logic directly from the Love and Logic group and they've encoded the content in such a way that the disks won't even mount in my computer. They whir for a bit and are then spat back out by my cranky Mac. I called the organization and.........
  • Innovation: A stuffed animal with a built-in pacifier?
    Got this from a public relations firm:"Pacimals are pacifiers that attach to a plush stuffed toy. Created by an MD and a mom, the patented attachment on the Pacimal gives your baby's favorite stuffed animal a special role in his or her soothing experience. It helps boost baby's motor skills at a much younger age by encouraging hand and arm use to reposition. It's also easier to hold onto, unlike typical pacifiers. MSRP is $19.99.......
  • Ah, I screwed up: How would you resolve the problem?
    Alright, I admit, sometimes I get caught in the middle and find that just about any possible solution to a situation is going to inevitably cause unhappiness with one of my children, and that's just where I am this evening. Read on, and tell me if you think my proposed solution is best, or whether you have a smarter idea... First off, G- and A- (7yo boy and 11yo girl, respectively) are both very concerned......
  • The kids definitely say "Happy Hannukah!"
    My parents scored big-time with the kids this year as we had a rather disjointed Hannukah but some happy little ones. G- (7yo) got a youth golf glove (he loves spending time on the driving range) and a Cranium game called "Ballpark Blast", A- (11yo) got "Herd Your Horses!", a fairly complicated board game that she was thrilled about since her best friend has the game and they love playing it, and K- (the 3yo,......
  • Is there such a thing as "REM motion"?
    Last night while putting my 3yo daughter to bed, I noticed once again that as she fell asleep, her hands twitched slightly for a minute or two. If was definitely different than her "I'm not asleep yet, just breathing slowly" hand motions that she had exhibited just a few minutes earlier, trying to get comfortable and slow down. I know about the stages of sleep, and I've certainly seen my dogs twitching and moving about......
  • Very cool job: Executive Director of the Men's Leadership Alliance
    I've been slowly but surely getting involved in a local Boulder organization called the Men's Leadership Alliance and it's proven a great organization. I've attended two retreats, one camping, and one in a local mountain lodge, and the quality of interaction and depth of discussion far outstrips anything else I've done with other men. By itself, it's well worth checking out if you're looking for an avenue to connect with other men (or if your......
  • Should children face their fears, or avoid scary stuff?
    My 11yo daugher A- had a really hard time going to sleep last night because she had been reading a fairly scary book (well, a fairly innocuous book with a scary passage. I mean, how scary can a book about unicorns be?) and was afraid she'd have bad dreams. This lead me to wonder about something: when should we encourage our children to do things that are scary and might stimulate nightmares and when should......
  • Michael Medved and I are pretty aligned on favorite films
    I'm actually in Las Vegas today helping organize Blogworld Expo, and one of the things happening tonight is a screening of The Kite Runner movie in advance of its national release. After the film, we'll have film critic and nationally syndicated radio personality Michael Medved conducting a Q&A with The Kite Runner's lead actor, Khalid Abdalla! Very cool. More cool is that I am hoping to grab a beer with Michael afterwards, so I thought......
  • Yech! Men never wash their hands in the bathroom!
    I haven't spent much time in the women's room at airports or restaurants (which is probably one way I've avoided going to jail! :-) but I have to say that it's pretty gross how infrequently men wash their hands after going to the bathroom. I'm not just talking about one guy every so often finishing up and walking out without a quick rinse, I've observed that at least half the men I see after they've......
  • Fun magazine for 2-5 year olds: Tessy & Tab Reading Club
    A few months ago we were approached by a small children's magazine publisher and asked if we'd be interested in receiving a complimentary subscription to The Tessy and Tab Reading Club, their twice-monthly magazine aimed at very beginning readers in the 2-5yo age group. Given that K- is 3 (though she'll be 4 in January!) we thought we'd give it a whirl. Three months later I can report that K- just loves the magazine, and......
  • Do most kids actually eat all the Halloween candy they get?
    I know it's not just us because I've seen some cartoons in the comics poking fun at children and Halloween candy, but holy cow, it appears that people are getting more and more generous each year with their handouts. Last year our kids went around the block and got about half a plastic pumpkin worth of candy. This year, for more or less the same amount of territory, they were full to the brim, an......
  • Custody and separation: Where do the children play?
    A startling number of my friends are going through separations or divorce currently, and I'm surprised at the variations on child custody that seem to be cropping up. I realize that like many things, there's no "right" answer, but I thought it would be an interesting discussion to talk about different arrangements and the benefits and disadvantages of each. First off, I should say that I believe that the parents sticking together is always best......
  • How to deal with the no-TV versus TV parents?
    One of the more common topics of discussion here on the Attachment Parenting Blog is the issue of media. Should kids watch TV? Should they use computers or play video games? We have pretty strong feelings about the topic and even our ten year old only watches about one movie a month, if that. That's why when the following comment from a reader who has a rather unique situation of her own appeared on our......
  • Lots of TV viewing correlated with ADD. Well, duh.
    Reading one of my favorite geeky Web sites, Slashdot, I came across a very interesting article entitled TV Viewing Linked to Attention Problems. The gist of the original source article in British publication New Scientist is that: "Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a large long-term study." While the researcher part of my brain, trained from years of graduate school,......
  • Dress up as a "dementor", screw up your soul forever
    While looking for something completely different, I just bumped into some of the halloween costumes for the upcoming All Hallow's Eve celebration this year (it's only two months away!) Along with the usual pirate, fairy and princess costumes are some Harry Potter theme costumes, including one that just left my mouth hanging open. Yes, you could dress you child up as a dementor from the Harry Potter universe. Not a fan of the books? Let......
  • Of classes and birthday party invitations...
    School is just starting up and one of the questions that's arisen in our new first grade class already is the whole question of party invitations. If you have young children and they go to a school where the teachers consciously try to create an optimal environment, I bet you already know what I'm talking about. The core question: if you have, say, 25 children in your kid's class, who do you -- and don't......
  • Finally, school starts up!
    At the risk of sounding like a parent who doesn't enjoy my kids, I have to say that I am so glad to know that school is starting for all three of our kids. It's been a great summer, but it's also been a long summer, what with travel and various family issues. Further, this is a big transition year as our 7yo, G-, is going into first grade this year, so he's leaving the......
  • Why is that name so familiar? The serendipity of blogging
    Got a great story from my sister about blogging and how it expands your reach. She runs the terrific Artdolls weblog and relates: "Something fun happened to me today. I received a comment on my blog and I thought the name was familiar so I checked out the person’s website. She is a ‘professional artist’ and I knew her name but why? No bells went off. Then after an hour or two a bell did......
  • True confession: I prefer English candy bars too
    A wonderful article in today's New York Times entitled The World's Best Candy Bars? English, Of Course where they talk about why those British chocolate bars are so far superior to the crummy American candy we get in this country. Couldn't agree more. In fact, I'm quite a fan of chocolate bars and sweets myself and my 10yo daughter has definitely inherited my sweet tooth from what we can see. The other children seem a......
  • Family game night? Our take on some of the best...
    I should probably admit up front that I'm a complete board game fanatic. In fact, board games, card games, anything that involves sitting at a table and playing a game with friends is going to score very well on my personal charts. As a kid, my pals and I would spend countless hours playing games like Monopoly, Stock Market and we just about wore out the tiles in our Rummykub game. Heck, I've played Mah......
  • Are we the lone holdouts from the Nintendo generation?
    The more we travel and the more I interact with kids of other families, the more I wonder whether we have a pocket of quasi-Luddites, veritable Amish families who are actually hurting their children by turning our collective backs on the marvels of modern technology and electronic gizmos. From restaurants to hiking trails, us parents seem to be moving into our own bubbles with our cellphones, PDAs, portable Internet devices (read "iPhone") and other gadgets.......
  • Is "Agents for Home Buyers" a Real Estate Scam?
    I'm trying to figure out what's behind a letter that I received today from a local Boulder company called "Agents for Home Buyers, LLC", in which they coyly suggest that they might have someone who is interested in buying our house (which, of course, isn't on the market because we have zero interest in selling and moving). What's curious is that they boldly say "we are not interested in listing your property" and explain that......
  • Is it possible to set nursing boundaries without actually weaning?
    This is a user contributed article. As my daughter’s second birthday is getting closer, the subject of weaning has popped into my head a couple of times. I believe that making it to the two-year mark will be a remarkable goal for us, and I have a hard time believing that she’ll be willing to give up breastfeeding simply because she has another birthday. Which led me to wonder if I should plan to wean......
  • Cosleeping, Age Appropriateness and Nudity
    I was just reading through the many comments on my earlier blog entry about cosleeping and bed space and am struck with the frequency of people asking about when children are too old to cosleep and issues related to the parents sleeping without pajamas. As far as I know, there's no "official cut-off date" for when children shouldn't cosleep and I have certainly heard of friends who have their children still sporadically sleeping with them......
  • Life in the 'burbs: babysitter poker?
    Without naming any names, I have to say that I find it highly amusing that the latest here in the suburbs is what I'll call babysitter poker, though it's mostly all about bluffing more than anything else. The situation came to my attention because we're desperate for a babysitter for an upcoming evening and all of our usual babysitters are unavailable. Ugh, what to do? My thought was to simply ask the neighbors for a......
  • We heard back from Norwegian Cruise Lines. Sorta
    If you're a faithful reader of our blog, you know that it wasn't two months ago that we took a terrific Mexican Riviera cruise with my parents, sister and brother in law. We had a good time until we tried to get off the ship, and that disembarkation experience was so terrible that I not only blogged about it (see Norwegian Star Cruise Embarkation, Yech!), but wrote a letter to Colin Veitch, President and CEO......
  • Back from holiday, drowning in bad juju?
    This is just weird. We just a few days ago got back from a glorious three weeks in Hawaii and the last two days have been extraordinarily difficult, with tons of things going wrong. Just before we left, I bought a new Apple MacBook Pro laptop, and wouldn't you know it, the power button's now akilter, the trackpad button is acting flakey, and today suddenly the battery just vanished from the computer. Literally, one moment......
  • Of videotaping school plays and burning DVDs
    My older daughter's school is big into performing arts and her fourth grade class just recently put on a hilarious play about the Norse Gods, Valhalla, and the mischief of Loki. Weeks of practice, original songs, costumes and even a basic set. Great fun and at about 40 minutes long, a complicated and involved production. When they're ready, they perform the play for the other grades in the school, a few mornings in a row,......
  • The dark side of our Norwegian Star cruise: embarkation and disembarkation
    It's been a few weeks since we returned from our Norwegian Star cruise to the Mexican Riviera and we still have lots of great memories and have enjoyed looking at the over 800 photos we took between the four of us who had cameras. If you haven't read my previous articles, I encourage you to start there before you read this one, however: Part I: Our Cruise to Mexico and Part II: Food, Norovirus and......
  • General Pace says homosexuality is immoral. So?
    I'm a bit baffled by the rabid response people are having to a recent statement by General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington DC. In an interview he was asked about the rather daft "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows homosexuals to be in the United States military if they keep a sufficiently low profile. His response was that he thought the current policy was inappropriate: "[It] to......
  • Of Food, Norovirus and Excursions on our Norwegian Star Cruise...
    Hopefully you've already read the first installment of my writeup of our recent 8-day cruise on the Norwegian Star to the Mexican Riviera. If not, you should probably read it first... Avoiding Norovirus and Scary Germson our NCL CruiseThis time I want to talk a bit more about our dining experiences, about our one organized trip off the boat in Puerto Vallarta, and most especially about germs. Yes, if you haven't been paying attention to......
  • Our Norwegian Star Cruise to the Mexican Riviera
    A few days ago we returned from a totally unique experience: we boarded the massive, beautiful Norwegian Star ship and embarked on an 8-day cruise out of San Pedro, California (LA harbor) to the so-called Mexican Riviera. Our ports of call were Acapulco, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, and also on board were my LA-based parents (who are cruise experts: this was their 17th cruise by their count) and my sister and brother-in-law,......
  • Do kids in Waldorf schools start reading too late?
    There's an interesting discussion happening on a Waldorf education mailing list I'm on about the relatively slow speed at which children in Waldorf learn how to read. While public schools are pushing reading to earlier and earlier grades -- to the point where kindergarteners are now expected to gain some rudimentary reading skills -- a typical Waldorf curriculum doesn't have the children begin learning how to read until second grade. As you might expect, this......
  • Do News Stories About Breastfeeding Help or Hinder?
    In the past year, several stories about mothers breastfeeding in public have made it to the national media circuit. Who would have thought that infant feeding would be such a hot news topic? From movie theaters and Toys ‘R Us to Victoria’s Secret stores and a Freedom Airlines flight breastfeeding moms were being told to cover up or leave. The mothers in these stories are so often made out to be renegades when they are......
  • Do you have to breastfeed to be an attachment parent?
    I received an interesting question from a reader and know exactly where she's coming from, but thought that in addition to my own answer, it'd would be interesting for her to read other opinions too. So what do you think? Do you need to be breastfeeding or nursing your baby to be a "good" attachment parent, or can you practice the basic tenets of attachment parenting regardless of if you use the breast or bottle?......
  • Internet access and cell phone service on the Norwegian Star?
    Okay, so we're planning a big adventure in the near future: we're going on an 8-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the Norwegian Star cruise ship. Should be fun, my parents and my sister and her husband are joining us for a true family reunion cruise! Since I like to plan at least a bit in advance, however, I've been digging around trying to figure out both Internet and cellphone access, and, oh, how......
  • Best foods to help kids get to sleep
    [I bumped into this amusing and interesting article on my friend Tom Frey's Impact Lab weblog, and thought it was sufficiently useful that I'm republishing it here. If you're having problems getting your wee ones to sleep, perhaps part of the problem is dinner and post-dinner snacks, anyway...] What is the secret to getting a solid 7 to 8 hours of sleep? Head for the kitchen and enjoy one or two of these 10 foods.......
  • Today was the Day From Hell with our 2yo
    Oh. My. God. Today was the most amazingly out of control day with our two year old, K-. Seemingly from the moment she woke up, she was a little spitfire, doing her own thing, being belligerent (shouts of "Never!" when asked to do even the simplest thing), being unable to stop or slow down, and just having far, far more energy than any little one should have in their body. In our terms, she was......
  • Adventures in Weather: The Blizzard of 2006
    When I helped organize an Internet marketing event in San Antonio in mid-December (the very well received Elite Retreat) I had no idea what an adventure it'd become... While we were sitting in a cozy room sharing our inside marketing secrets with attendees, a big storm was wreaking havoc on the Pacific Northwest and barreling down on Colorado. By the time I was ready to leave San Antonio I knew we'd be flying into some......
  • Why I don't like gift cards as presents
    I'm sitting watching TV mid-December and it's staggering that of five advertisements I just saw, three of them were for gift cards, for Home Depot, Lowes and McDonalds. The more I think about gift cards, though, the more I really don't like them and continue to hope that I won't receive any this year for the holidays. The problem is that it's really reducing the thought of gifting down to its crass commercial component, with......
  • Nursing, Breast pumps, and travel plans
    This is a reader contributed article. Lately I’ve been hearing plenty advice for breastfeeding (or pumping) while flying, but for me and many other moms car travel is a far more frequent occurrence. When traveling with baby in the car, I’ve heard many people say that you can lean over the baby and nurse him or her while in their car seat. However, this can be virtually impossible for a smaller busted mom to do......
  • Do you ever lie to your kids?
    It's coming up to Christmas / Hannukah and as a two-religion family, we celebrate both holidays, with different grandparents. We figure why not celebrate holidays as often as possible? Anyway, holidays with presents mean that presents for our children start to show up on our doorstep weeks beforehand, sometimes in bright logo boxes, other times in dull brown cardboard, but huge. Last night.........
  • Can't get her kids to sleep, she needs help!
    [ Received an interesting and distressingly common complaint from a reader about being unable to get her young children to sleep at a rational hour and, with her permission, I am posting our back-and-forth here. If you have any additional comments or ideas, please do leave them and help this poor couple out with their perpetually awake little ones! --DT ] Hi Dave, You have info in your attachment parenting blog about sleep patterns and......
  • Children maturing too fast? Control their media exposure
    An interesting article on the Associated Press wire this morning about how children are growing up too fast: 10 is the New 15 as Kids Grow Up Faster. The quote that most jumped out at me is: "Some of them are going on "dates" and talking on their own cell phones. They listen to sexually charged pop music, play mature-rated video games and spend time gossiping on MySpace. And more girls are wearing makeup and......
  • Can breastfeeding and formula-feeding moms remain friends?
    The following is a contributed article... Since my friends and I have become parents, I've noticed significant differences in the ways we have chosen to raise our children. In the early months of my pregnancy, I didn't it would have much of an impact on us because we had all been friends for many years. However, I soon realized that being the first breast feeder (amongst other parenting firsts) would introduce some new qualms within......
  • Should younger children say "sorry" after doing something wrong?
    My friend and fellow Dad blogger Jim Turner (aka Genuine) and I had an interesting discussion this evening over a rather extraordinarily long and delicious dinner away from the wee ones where we talked about whether children should be required to apologize if they break the rules or hurt someone. It sprang out of a relatively minor incident at Jim's house, but we see something transpire every day with our three that might warrant an......
  • How do you deal with aging, sick dogs?
    We're a bit stuck on this issue so I'm turning to the blogosphere for advice: we have two old dogs that we've had for many, many years, since we got them as 10 week old puppies from a breeder. They're both standard poodles, smart, funny dogs, but they're also both old now, about 13 or so. The problem is that their health is failing. One of them is basically blind and half-deaf, has arthritis and......
  • Japanese "Gender Equality" minister opposes maiden names?
    In the name of "family values", it appears that the Japanese are going to be taking a step backwards and surprisingly little is being written about it here in the United States. This is all thanks to Sanae Takaichi, who was just appointed as (ready for this?) Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs, science and technology policy, innovation, gender equality, social affairs and food safety. Yes, you read that right. Gender Equality......
  • We Survived Chickenpox!
    Oh man, what a few weeks it's been. It started with me in Las Vegas, speaking at a conference and having Linda tell me on the phone that "Oh! G- has the chickenpox." Now, unto itself, that was actually good news: since we're not proponents of vaccination, we were glad to know that a common, relatively harmless childhood disease was going to run through our children while they're still young and more easily able to......
  • The flower fairy waits for no-one
    One of the things I really like about Waldorf education is the attention that the teachers spend on creating a warm, inviting, classroom. Every class I've seen has a "Nature Table", for example, where students bring in interesting or cool things they've found in the great outdoors, be it a rock, stick, leaf, snake skin, or whatever else catches their eye. In our school, parents also take turns being the flower fairy, which is what......
  • Does Mom's Diet Affect the Quality of Breastmilk?
    Breastmilk is undoubtedly the best source of nutrition for infants. But what if mom doesn’t eat all the right things? Will her breastmilk not be good enough for her child? For years it was thought that the foods in a mother’s diet would affect the quality of her breast milk. Mothers were often encouraged to increase their milk or dairy consumption in order to maintain an ample supply and to avoid eating certain foods like......
  • Kids don't need to know how to program computers
    My friend Brad Feld has an interesting article on his blog asking Where has BASIC gone? He's talking specifically about what programming language to use when teaching children how to program, but what I kept thinking about subsequent to reading his article is why most children don't need to learn programming. Note that I'm not saying that interested kids shouldn't learn to program if they're so inclined, but taking a "left turn" from what Brad......
  • I thought we'd eliminated DDT, but ...
    Did I miss the memo explaining how DDT wasn't really such a bad thing for the environment and so therefore it's not such a terrible thing that the World Health Organization is now encouraging third world nations to expand the use of DDT? But that's just exactly what's happening, according to the LA Times: WHO May Allow More DDT to Fight Malaria, about a report that "[highlights] DDT as a safe, effective and cheap option......
  • Fun holiday activities: bicycling and bowling
    I will resist the urge to go all alliterative on you, so I'll simply note that it's not always easy to find an activity that appeals to wee ones and older kids at the same time, but we're really lucky to have a 2yo that's a confirmed "sidekick" of the older kids, ready and eager to try whatever is in the cards. Heck, at 2, she's already jumping off the high-dive at the pool, jumping......
  • Why does it take lawsuits for companies to listen?
    I'm not a fan of lawsuits and often read about people suing companies and shake my head at the visible signs of the decay of our society. Generally they seem to be frivolous or a result of adults being unable to take responsibility for their own actions (for example, the lawsuits that caused the company that made "lawn darts" to take their product off the market, or the more recent boat towing toy that behaves......
  • Got a cute book about breastfeeding
    We're such slackers, busy with the actual day-to-day of parenting rather than dealing with our professional responsibilities. Oh well. We've had the most delightful children's book sitting on our desk for months now, sent to us by the author to review, and we're only now getting to it. You'd think that it's a busy life being parents to three active children, three dogs, a cat and miscellaneous friends and neighbors! :-) Anyway, Near Mama's Heart......
  • How to avoid overscheduling your children
    I was recently interviewed for a national parenting magazine about ways to avoid overscheduling your children, a sort of counterpoint to the "soccer mom" crowd, and thought it would be fun to also share the Q&A here on our blog too. Note that while this represents my - Dave's - view, it doesn't necessarily exactly represent Linda's view. But I'll let her speak for herself. :-) Q: Tell me about your family. Three kids, A-......
  • We must be the only parents who dislike Tinker Bell
    I was at Walt Disney World a few weeks ago, enduring the intense July Orlando humidity and nimbly avoiding the storms that blew through just before and after my visit. Since I was staying at one of the off-property hotels across the street from Downtown Disney, a huge shopping and eating area designed to part visitors from their cash even more effectively than the parks themselves, I naturally had plenty of time to browse their......
  • In-dash DVD players for cars gain in popularity? Are they insane?
    Did I miss the memo that went around saying that driving would need to become increasingly dangerous in the next decade to make sure we can prune the population and generally make sure that only the fittest and toughest drivers survive? I mean, isn't it enough distraction that people chat on their little cellphones with one hand while driving, eat, drink, shave, put on makeup and generally do as much as possible to deny that......
  • Do your kids need more exercise?
    I'm so unsurprised by the latest report over on the BBC News entitled Children need even more exercise, in which they suggest that modern children watch too much TV, play too many video games, and generally get far less exercise than they should. Their bold suggestion, well, the bold suggestion of researchers in the prestigious journal Lancet, is that children should get at least 90 minutes of exercise each day.......
  • The secret to happy moms: plastic surgery?
    Linda and I are just aghast at the following media query we received: "Mothers everywhere know that "she looks good...for a mom" is not the ideal compliment. Women want to look and feel attractive with no disclaimer attached. This bikini season, instead of hiding stretch marks and sagging skin with a full coverage one-piece, why not get rid of that problem pouch with a tummy tuck! Or, let a breast augmentation give tired, baby-feeding breasts......
  • Where can I buy our kids new ears?
    This must be some ritual of summer that I don't remember from when I was a kid, but is there something about the temperature, the humidity, the lack of classrooms that causes children to lose their listening? Not their hearing, I'm sure they can hear just fine. It's whether they actually process what they hear, whether it sinks in or not. If you have children I bet you know what I'm talking about. It's as......
  • Banning cell phones in cars: good idea or bad?
    I don't know if it's just me trying to compensate for having gone to an undergraduate school where we didn't have a community around us (UC San Diego), but I've always really loved college towns. From my experiences in West Lafayette, Indiana where everything was Purdue-centric to our current home town of Boulder Colorado, built around the University of Colorado, college towns are my favorite sort of places. That's one reason that a story about......
  • 80% of children under two watch HOW much media per day?
    I realize that we're an outlier in the entire TV and media discussion because we don't watch any TV at all. That's right. When they're deathly sick we might okay a video once in a blue moon, but I estimate that our three children, ages 2, 6, 9, watch less than twenty hours of TV/movies annually, and zero video or computer games. Usually when I tell people that they gasp and act uncomfortable, immediately trotting......
  • Children's Tylenol with Flavor Creator: Drug or Candy?
    This is just so disturbing on a number of levels: McNeil Consumer Healthcare has released a new version of its popular Children's Tylenol pain reliever that includes a set of flavor packets that let children produce the flavor they'd prefer for the medicine. One Web site reports that the package includes "a bag full of tiny packets filled with powdered "crystals" representing four different flavors: Strawberry, green apple, bubble gum and chocolate." [src] On one......
  • Trapped with abusive parent in airplane for five hours!
    Alright, it's maybe not the worst situation in the world, but we just got back from two weeks in Hawaii on holiday and I experienced a distressing situation on the five hour flight back from the Big Island to San Francisco (where we overnighted): an abusive parent and her child in my row of the plane. As is common with airlines, we booked months in advance but couldn't get our five seats together, so we......
  • Journaling the Joys and Fears of Pregnancy, A Workshop
    The following is an announcement for a very cool workshop that's going to be run by a friend and neighbor of ours and should be of interest to a number of Attachment Parenting Blog readers. Expecting a child can be an overwhelming time in your life, one of physical and emotional change often complicated by outside pressures. Take this four-week journaling class to reclaim your initial joy and excitement about the journey, or take it......
  • Why do so many people use F$#@$# obscenities?
    There are times when I'm really glad that my children aren't with me when I'm out and about, and today was one of those days. I went down to the main shopping area here in town to buy a couple of pair of shoes and had to walk past some homeless folk, general riff-raff and scruffy college age kids. Each and every one of these groups was speaking in loud voices (or so it seemed......
  • Disney Mobile: The first innovation out of Disney in a long time
    I admit it, I'm a closet Disney fan and am delighted that I have an excuse this summer to visit Disneyworld (I'm speaking at a conference in Orlando). Having said that, though, I also have found Disney to be going through a real dry spell with innovations and truly family-friendly products and services. Sure they've expanded the theme parks, but just about all the expansion has been thrill rides like Kilimanjaro that are aimed much......
  • Wal*Mart expands into natural and organic foods
    It's a truism that smaller companies quake in their virtual boots when one of the market leaders decide to pay attention to their niche, but even with the overall increase in so-called natural food sales, it's darn interesting to see that the original 800 pound gorilla of retail, Wal*Mart, has announced an aggressive move into organics. According to an interesting story from the Associated Press: "Putting new items on the shelf this year, from organic......
  • Who knew blacksmith work was so darn fun?
    I'm part of a local men's group that varies in size from about six of us up to twenty or more, depending on the phase of the moon and various other mysterious factors that I haven't yet figured out. Every other Thursday night we meet and share our experiences as fathers, husbands and men, and it's reaffirming, often amusing, and always valuable. While some of us are more on the geeky end of the continuum......
  • Who buys this stuff for their kids?
    Linda and I were in Target this afternoon and were appalled to see children's shirts with slogans like "Cuter than you" and "Isn't it cute that you think I'm listening". These go along with jewelry that proudly proclaims the wearer is a "bitch" and similar. Here's what I don't get, though: who the heck buys this kind of thing for their children? There's a mean spiritedness in these slogans and many modern items of clothing......
  • Driving with a whiny baby must be the third circle of Hell
    I consider myself to be far more tolerant of the full range of emotions in children than most dads and can handle unhappy kids, angry kids, and even depressed kids with the best of them, but when we decided to play hooky today and go to the Denver Aquarium, I had no idea that I was going to be transported directly to the third circle of Hell within minutes of leaving our house! Our plan:......
  • My daughter the knitting machine!
    I'm sure it's a waldorf thing, but I'm just so thrilled to see my 9yo daughter A- be so enthusiastic - and skilled - in her knitting and crocheting efforts. She's made herself a beret, lots of doll clothes, and is now learning how to do granny squares. It's part of her lessons at school but it's clearly not just homework: she just loves doing it. And then there's her cello. She's been playing for......
  • Learn how to swim in a spa?
    When we decided to rebuild our back deck and add a spa, we figured that we'd all enjoy a hot soak and that the baby would get more comfortable around water, but we never expected that our 5yo G- would learn how to swim because of it. As recently as two months ago, when the spa was installed, he hated to get his face wet and when we were all in a pool he'd paddle......
  • Distance needed between doctors and Big Pharma?
    Here's one of those "duh, of course that's true" sort of stories: The Washington Post has an article exploring a piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association that suggests the drug industry is exerting too much influence on doctors and diagnosis. The article's entitled Distance Sought Between Doctors and Drug Industry and here are some of the highlights: "Declaring that the pervasive influence of drug industry money is distorting doctors' treatment decisions and......
  • Ways to know whether your infant could be teething
    This guest article was contributed by Sandra and John Hall, who have a site dedicated to teething, teething products, etc. called, logically enough, teething teeth.com How can I know that my precious infant is teething? Quite a few new parents have contemplated the question, "how do I know if my baby is teething"? This thought universally is the causal agent of quite a flurry amongst perturbed families that actually need to know the tell tale......
  • Teach your baby sign language
    I came across this Associated Press article and while it's not anything new, it's a nice summary of teaching sign language to babies. We didn't, but sometimes I wish we did... Sign language class helps babies communicate By LINDA HANSON If you've seen a baby wave bye-bye, it shouldn't surprise you that babies can use their little fingers to communicate before they can speak. Monica Butche of Duluth taught her son American Sign Language and......
  • Why don't companies stick behind their products? Maclaren Strollers, Inc.
    I wrote about the lack of quality in the toys our children received for Christmas a few days ago (see What happened to quality control with toys?) and since then I have dutifully queried the various companies trying to figure out how to return or repair some of the new additions to our playroom. Of the two queries I've sent, one was answered splendidly (kudos to the customer service team at Collectibles.com, who are willing......
  • What happened to quality control with toys?
    Alright, it's a few days after the joint Christmas / Hannukah rush and the frenzy of opening up presents to find cool new toys and games, and while I haven't yet thrown all the wrapping paper away (last year we had a recycling option. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) I have had a chance to see our kids acceptance of new toys that failed or broke within hours - or even minutes......
  • Could we all just buy a bit less each year?
    While I'm a big fan of the holidays and even tune in radio stations that play Christmas music while I'm driving without the kids in the car, I'm not so much a fan of the overwhelming level of consumerism that is not only pushed by retailers everywhere, but presented almost as a national imperative, our individual contributions to the well-being of stores near and far. Don't you get that same feeling when you read about......
  • Coke and Pepsi: Liability from selling soda in schools?
    While I'm an advocate for the consumers overall, I often have to supress the urge to roll my eyes at some of the daft lawsuits that are brought against deep-pocket corporations. I mean, really, if you get hot coffee, does it really make sense to tuck it between your legs and pop the lid to add cream while you're driving down the road? (McDonald's lost a huge lawsuit over that one) There are plenty of......
  • Acupuncture for Children and Adults
    This informative article was contributed by acupuncturist Kevin Doherty and offers some valuable insight into how this traditional treatment modality can help both with treating our children and ourselves as parents... Acupuncture: An Effective Treatment Option for Both Adults and Children Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine have been practiced for at least 2,500 years throughout the Asian world. In the past 30 years, acupuncture has finally begun to surge in popularity here in the West.......
  • I survived my day at the zoo with five 9yo girls!
    I'm fairly confident in my ability to be a good Dad, I have a good rapport with children and just enough whimsy and wackiness to usually do a good job of keeping them amused. I've also learned to not take myself too seriously - most of the time, at least - when around kids because, after all, they're going to be blunt with you anyway, so ya better not be too touchy. Even with this,......
  • Why comic books aren't so terrible for kids
    Bumped into this comment on a Waldorf-related mailing list from someone writing in, anxious about the fact that her son enjoyed reading comic books rather than "real books": "What he DOES seem interested in (here we go, collective groan everyone) is the Sunday comics." There's no reason for a collective groan about the Sunday comics, in my opinion. We all enjoy the comics in my house and I have a shelf full of Calvin and......
  • Kids as philosophers, or finding meaning in skeeball
    My kids are obsessed, I admit it. There's a mini-golf place down the street from us and within it they have an arcade with skee-ball. My kids love the place - even the baby proudly says "but but!" (putt-putt, their name for the mini-golf place) - and especially skee-ball. Not a weekend goes by without us somehow either taking them or having our babysitter take them to play a few games. You've seen these, I......
  • What would happen to your children if you died?
    Finally, after weeks and weeks of schedule conflicts, I was able to go to my men's group this evening and was surprised, taken aback, and finally thankful for the topic of discussion: death and grieving. We talked about different experiences we've had with death and especially about how children deal with the loss of a parent and how we as other parents in the community can help them and the surviving spouse, validating their own......
  • When did Halloween become so darn dangerous?
    A couple of things I've read today, All Hallow's Eve, have really stuck with me and made me really wonder about the state of our society. First, I was reading through a local guide to Halloween events and was struck by the fact that each of those listed had the word "safe" in its title. But why do we need to know that the event is safe in the first place? Because, of course, there's......
  • Why it's foolish to underestimate your children
    I couldn't possibly be prouder of my five year old, G-, than I am this evening. Let me tell you why... As attachment parents, we're strong believers in being a constant and steady presence in their lives, perhaps even an omniscient presence. I travel on business so he's had me missing for a few weeks every year, but in my son's five years of life, he has never spent a night away from his mother.......
  • One big reason we don't take our kids to the movie theater
    Linda and I went to the local cinema over the weekend to see Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and really thought it was a delightful, inventive and darn witty movie. We even thought briefly about bringing our children to see it in the theater so they can enjoy the big screen and the "cinema experience". Until we remembered the previews that were shown prior to the movie. Most of them were......
  • Of cheating spouses and spanking parents
    We've written about quite a range of different topics here on our Attachment Parenting Blog, so it's interesting to see which garner the most comments and controversy. In particular, we will often think that a posting will generate lots of discussion just to be surprised when it doesn't, while others that we think are simple, obvious statements of fact prove to be surprisingly controversial. The article that's generated the most discussion of all is Why......
  • Research shows prolonged crying lowers IQ in babies
    Here's a fascinating research project coming out of Norway, in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health, focused on the cognitive consequences of prolonged crying in young babies. As you'll see, the conclusions very much bear out what we attachment parenting advocates have been evangelizing for years: Research on long term cognitive development in children with prolonged crying. BACKGROUND: Long term studies of cognitive development and colic have not differentiated between typical colic and prolonged......
  • Why are ex-husbands sometimes such jerks?
    I'm just aghast at the latest information I heard from a friend: seems a couple we know who was an important part of a neighboring school-based community broke up a few months ago, and now the ex-husband is specifically insisting that the child not go to the school any more. Why? Because it's the main support community for his soon-to-be ex-wife, a place where she's valued and has other moms with whom to share her......
  • Why we don't hit our kids
    I don't recall ever being hit when I was a child, and I know that Linda was never hit or spanked as a child either. For us, the very idea of hitting a child has a sense of wrongness, of unfairly taking advantage of our physical superiority. As a result, one of the tenets of how we're raising our three children is no hitting. Now I'll be candid, because not hitting them doesn't mean that......
  • Is there anything cuter than baby talk?
    No, I'm not talking about the nauseating "goo goo gaa gaa" of well-meaning but ultimately clueless adults who think that imitating baby sounds is going to amuse the baby. I'm talking about that great period when the baby is around two years old and just starting to have the vocal control and interest in imitating the words everyone else are using. Parents know exactly what I mean, and there's really no sweeter music than having......
  • Can children survive without corn syrup?
    School has started and that means that instead of us being able to struggle over cooking food that is both healthy and something our children will actually eat, we get to have the considerably harder task of trying to figure out what we can prepare for their lunches that they'll then eat in school. As is typical each year, we scour the local market's shelves looking for food that's able to survive in a lunchbox......
  • 5yo boy + pair of scissors = scary haircut!
    I supposed we've been living on borrowed time for the last almost nine years, having children who all have beautiful long hair and having lots of pairs of scissors around, but in fact, today was the first time we've had a chance to learn what happens when the two combine without supervision. Linda took the kids over to Grandma's house for the afternoon and as my 5yo son G- relates it, he was busy playing......
  • Don't forget to tell your kids you love them!
    As a Dad with both a boy and two girls, I know how busy things can get, and sometimes I feel like we're all so busy doing stuff -- even just playing or bicycling around or swimming at the pool -- that sometimes we parents forget to say something nice or do something nice for our kids. In particular, when was the last time you hugged your child or told them that you loved them?......
  • "Amazing Amanda" crushes imagination with servos and RFID
    Today's New York Times has a fascinating article about Amazing Amanda, a doll that can apparently recognize voices, identify objects around it and even show rudimentary emotions. Built atop technologies like speech recognition and RFID radio frequency identification tags and even facial robotics, am I the only parent in the world who finds this all rather creepy? On the one hand, the use of technology is brilliant - having RFID tags in each of the......
  • Jury duty scam leads to identity theft
    As if there aren't enough things for us to be worried about as parents, I just read on my friend Audri Lanford's Scambusters site about a new identity theft scam that is exactly the kind of thing that'd work with a harried parent... There's a new twist that scammers and identity thieves are using to commit identity theft: the jury duty scam. Here's how it works: The scammer calls you claiming to work for the......
  • The lure of being single again?
    Had an interesting experience... a friend of mine a few weeks ago looked pretty down, so I asked him what was going on. His response was that there was some "pretty serious sh*t going down in his life" but that he couldn't really tell me about it for a few days. A week passed, and then another, before I finally saw him again. And this time he opened up.......
  • A curious travel question: irons in hotel rooms?
    Alright, this isn't hugely parenting-related, but I'm at a blogging conference -- Blog Business Summit where I'm actually co-chair and a presenter -- and am staying at the beautiful, historic Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. When I got here, I opened the closet to hang up my clothes and was surprised to see an ironing board and, sitting on the floor, an iron. But, um, who actually irons in a hotel room?......
  • EPA tacitly endorses testing pesticides on children?
    It's not quite a published guideline yet, but the Environmental Protection Agency is apparently poised to issue some new guidelines about testing pesticides that are predictably more pro-business and pro-chemical company than they are protecting our citizens. The Washington Post, for example, is reporting on this in its article entitled EPA Devises Rules on the Use of Data From Pesticide Tests on Humans, wherein they note: "Much of the controversy centers on whether it is......
  • What is Attachment Parenting?
    After all these years of writing about attachment parenting on this Web site, it dawned on me a few days ago that we've never actually defined the phrase "attachment parenting". This point was reinforced when a new friend of mine commented that he'd read through the articles on this site, but that he still didn't really get what attachment parenting actually was, even though he agreed completely on what it appeared we were using as......
  • Why can't we buy or sell a used carseat?
    We have lots of carseats in our household, the inevitable result of having three little kids who have overlapped carseat needs at different times. I look at the ones we don't need any more, and they're basically in perfect condition. A bit dirty, but structurally they're perfect. So why can't we buy or sell them legally? Maybe it's just an oft-repeated myth that's become accepted as law, but when we talk to local charities about......
  • An Ethical Dilemma: Someone in your school is a registered sex offender?
    I was talking with a friend from Florida about schools and he shared a dilemma he's facing, one that he really doesn't know what to do about. I suggested that we could cast it out to the net and see what others thought. Here's the situation: while poking around one evening he went on to the National Sex Offender Public Registry and found someone who is a fellow parent at his school. He was so......
  • FTC touts kids see fewer TV ads selling food, but the study is predictably bogus
    In a wonderful example of an overly myopic study result, the U. S. Federal Trade Commission announced that, hurray, kids see a lot fewer food ads on TV nowadays than they used to twenty years ago. In 1977, the typical kid saw more than 18 food advertisements each day, while today they are only exposed to 13. This announcement comes from a two-day government sponsored workshop exploring the effect of kids' marketing on obesity and......
  • I'm proud of my sister's beautiful art!
    I just had to share this: My sister, who blogs at art dolls.info, has been working on merging dollmaking with soft sculpture, with remarkable results. Her work has appeared in books, magazines, she's been in art galleries, and now she's the featured doll artist of the month at Doll Street Dreamers Please take a minute and check out her art: Doll Artist of the Month, then find out how she makes her dolls (and give......
  • Avoiding work at home scams
    We don't usually write about issues surrounding paying for the attachment parenting lifestyle or career choices, work at home options, etc., but I was reading an article at SF Gate about the dangers of leaving your resume online and it dawned on me that one of the scams they mention might well be something that well-meaning AP parents might fall into. At this point, we're all familiar with the fact that bad guys are constantly......
  • Bras designed for girls growing up fast
    This Reuters story is pretty interesting reading. I can only wonder how long it'll be before there are brands like Nick at Night Lingerie and MTV Hottie Gear and similar, but for now, it's Sara Lee, of all companies, that appears to be leading in this, um, blossoming new market segment... NEW YORK (Reuters) - As parents lament that children grow up too quickly, lingerie companies are spotting an opportunity to market bras especially for......
  • Babies have personalities!
    We have a 15 month old and one thing that never fails to amaze me, as it has with our previous children, is how frequently people are surprised that our baby has a personality, senses of humor, and the ability to engage and play with people. Our baby K- runs around playing hide and seek, mimics behaviors with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, and has facial gestures that make it darn clear that she's......
  • Those darn too long days of summer
    I don't know if we should travel so we can follow the short days throughout the globe, but I need to keep reminding myself that summer equinox is supposed to be a great time of year, where all the sunshine restores us and sweeps away the last cobwebs of winter. Right? Yeah, well, when it doesn't even get to be dusk until 9pm, we're having a hard time remembering that the summer schedule for kids......
  • Breast is still best, even if it's Dad's??
    This is a darn interesting, and, yes, amusing article perfectly timed for Father's Day, from the UK-based Times Online... BREAST IS STILL BEST, EVEN IF IT IS DAD'S By Alexandra Frean Times Online June 13, 2005 A man's nipples are perfectly suited to soothing a crying baby until it can be fed, according to a report on fatherhood. It names the Aka Pygmies, a hunter-gatherer tribe from the northern Congo, as the best fathers. When......
  • Travel tips for families this summer
    Bumped into this nice, helpful article... Travel Tips for Parents Another summer is fast approaching and families are once again looking at travel opportunities. Whether it is visiting grandparents, playing the tourist, or even taking your family along on business, traveling with the family is not the same experience as traveling alone. Here are some simple tips to keep everyone smiling during your summer excursions.......
  • How Computers Make Our Kids Stupid
    This is a bit more strong and alarmist than I personally view the situation, but it's still a darn interesting article from Macleans Magazine: How computers make our kids stupid by Sue Ferguson There's growing evidence that too much cyber-time dumbs down our children The first thing you notice opening the door to Les Black's classroom is the smell. It's a dank, earthy aroma from a dozen planters perched on shelves or suspended from the......
  • Why parents associate summer with spending
    Just in case you haven't realized "how things work" with parenting and the media, I note that the following crossed my desk this morning, from Kids Tips Magazine by way of Media Map: Media Outlet: -- Kid Tips Magazine Circulation/Reach: -- National Weekly Medium: -- Television Industry: -- Technology Subject: -- Kids in the Summer Outdoors......
  • Dave's secret trick for calming a hysterical child
    Tonight's bedtime was about as bad as it gets. My parents are visiting from out of town, so we had unusual disruptions from the routine, but more importantly, A-, our 8yo, has terrible allergies this time of year, so she was sneezy, sniffly and generally cranky and miserable this evening. Usually we try to get the kids into bed, lights off, by 7.30, the latest, but tonight we didn't get to bed until about 8.20......
  • Sometimes being right is far less important than just having fun
    I admit it, sometimes I feel like I'm so caught up in trying to be a good, consistent father, always able to look at what I'm doing and relate it to some good parenting strategy or another that I forget to just have fun and relax. Today was a perfect example of this inanity. We'd spent the day at a friend's house, lots of fun, but my 8yo daughter A- was highly disappointed that the......
  • Warning: never let your baby play with the phone!
    What are the odds, I ask you! Our 1 1/2 year old baby K- somehow got ahold of the portable phone this evening and before we could retrieve it, she'd dialed         9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Which just so happens triggers the emergency system here in Colorado. Linda hung the phone up immediately and told me "the baby just dialed 911 but I hung up before......
  • Parenting as talking to a brick wall?
    I think that the more conscious you are as a parent, the more frustrating situations become when you can just see that things aren't working, your standard tricks aren't fixing the problem and it's all devolving and degrading before your eyes. For me, there's no situation that pushes me over the edge more than when my kids just plain aren't listening, but it's remarkable to me how often talking to your children is eerily akin......
  • Another of those "only a parent would laugh" moments
    This evening I was fielding all three of our kids, 8, 5 and 1, while Linda was out having sushi with some friends. I whipped up some pot stickers, turkey rollups and french fries (yes, I was cooking for little kids: they loved it) and we ate at the kitchen counter, as we always do when Mom's away. Dinner was going well - though K-, our 1yo, didn't last long before she started playing the......
  • My journey to becoming an Attachment Parenting Dad
    I originally wrote this for "The Compleat Mother" but realize that it'd be nice to have it on my own weblog too. Enjoy, and please feel free to add your responses, reactions or comments at the end. Thanks. Journeys start with a single step. Sometimes that step is easy and other times it’s more akin to standing in front of a very long staircase going up. I can still remember my first step to attachment......
  • Should a man wear a wedding ring?
    I bumped into this interesting article on the Web and, with the kind permission of Peter Crump, the author, am including it here. Fair warning: he designs wedding rings for men, so he's biased, but it's interesting reading nonetheless. Strange as it may seem the use of a wedding ring by men was not common until recently. Whereas women have worn wedding rings for eons, men have not. The use of rings as a symbol......
  • An AP parent on the benefit of no-media children
    While reading a Waldorf education related mailing list, I came across this thoughtful and interesting message from Kimberley Weaver, and, with her gracious permission, I'm reproducing it here for your reading enjoyment. I had a similar experience with my kids when I was pregnant. I had severe morning sickness through most of my pregnancies and during my third my husband was working full-time *and* doing his PhD. So, my kids watched more TV than normal......
  • The perfect washer, or social engineering at its worst?
    I'm reading through the BBC News this morning when I bump into this article: Washing Machine Fingers Lazy Male A Spanish designer has come up with what could be the perfect solution for the woman who feels frustrated that she has to do all the house chores. It is a washing machine called "Your Turn", which will not let the same person use it twice in a row. It uses fingerprint recognition technology to ensure......
  • Take your Parents to School Day?
    Today is apparently Take Your Children to Work Day, and lots of different company weblogs are sharing photographs and amusing stories about children getting a taste of work life, presumably without the boring meetings, frustrating budget cuts and office politics. But I'm a work-at-home Dad and even if I wasn't, can't imagine the appeal of this particular event. I mean, if you're highly involved with both your job and your family, then aren't your kids......
  • First week of weight gain sets lifelong weight patterns? I don't think so.
    Another news entry from the hall of mirrors today. The story is Baby's First Week May Set Lifelong Weight Patterns wherein they state: "The first week of life may be a critical period for establishing lifelong patterns of body weight. Infants who gain rapidly in those first seven days may be more likely to develop weight problems as young adults, suggests a new study published in the April 19 issue of Circulation, the journal of......
  • EPA cancels pesticide tests on Floridian babies
    This is just such a shocking story from the New York Times that I am letting it speak for itself. This is what our tax money goes to fund and how our government acts in what we foolishly believe is "the best interest of the people". Did I wake up in Oz or something?? EPA Halts Florida Test on Pesticides By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK WASHINGTON, April 8 - Stephen L. Johnson, the acting administrator......
  • Standing your ground with discipline
    A while back I wrote about the challenges we were having with bedtimes, particularly with our five year old son. The article was cheerily titled When does bedtime become something other than a nightmare. I'm glad to report that we've made some changes in our nighttime routine and they are paying off wonderfully, with easy no-fuss bedtimes and considerably less stress about the house. The first change we made was to recognize that since it......
  • Jack Welch says: forget it. You can't balance business and personal life
    If you haven't heard of Jack Welch, he's the famously successful former CEO of General Electric who created a world class corporate culture that helped GE remain one of the most successful companies of all time. He retired, then flamed out when he had an affair with Suzy Wetlaufer, editor of the Harvard Business Review. Bad move, Jack. That's not what I want to talk about in this article, however, I just want to share......
  • PBS introduces "PBS Kids Sprout" a new digital babysitter
    I imagine that many people read the new news announcement from Comcast and PBS and think that it's good news and a great addition to the television lineup, but as someone who eschews media for my children completely, I'm not impressed. Here's the announcement, as reported by the Washington Post: "Accompanied by Big Bird and Barney, Comcast Communications Corp. Chairman Brian L. Roberts on Monday announced a new Public Broadcasting Service option for preschool children......
  • Why are kid-friendly bathrooms so hard to find?
    There's some sort of conspiracy going on, or people who design restaurants are just blithering idiots or something. After going to literally hundreds of different restaurants around the United States, restaurants that have spent millions of dollars on packaging or themeing their decor as family friendly, depressingly few of them have even remotely kid-friendly bathrooms. You know what I mean if you have younger children. Toilets are all at adult height and -- what bugs......
  • When does bedtime become other than a nightmare?
    It's just amazing to me. We can have the most enjoyable, busy day, full of physical activities, 10 solid hours of fun and action, but when it rolls around to bedtime, all of a sudden our nice kids vanish and *poof* it's the whiny can-I-have's that show up. Honestly, it's the main time that I feel completely inadequate as a Dad and think about just throwing in the proverbial towel and going back to a......
  • The Little Boy and the Monkeys: Children's picture book, needs pictures....
    For years and years I've been told by people that I should be writing children's books. I am an imaginative and engaging storyteller and can think very fast on my feet and weave just about any random set of ideas together. I also have some long-running serial stories that I tell my children that typically involved unicorns, dragons, koala bears, and, sometimes, tea and little cakes. A few days ago, after having told a long......
  • More schools are saying "no" to brands and logos
    Here's a snippet of good news from an unlikely source: The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that more schools are asking their students to eschew logos, brands and clothing with phrases or sayings on them. I agree completely! Here's the full story.........
  • Why do so many men cheat on their spouses?
    I admit it. In addition to spending about 24.8 hours each day being the best parent and husband I can be, I also try to find a little time to remember what it means to be a man in today's society too. One way I accomplish this is through a local men's group, and it's great. But, of course, what we have in common is that we're all Dads too, so the discussion is just......
  • What's the toughest thing about being a father?
    I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks thinking about how parenting is about patience, about listening, and about letting things go. But, y'know, I can watch my wife and marvel at how well she does with our three children, while simultaneously knowing that I could probably do pretty well in her place, but not as well. If you're a Dad, you know exactly what I'm talking about. All I can think......
  • Breastfeeding and the Law
    Bumped into this very interesting article and thought it'd be worth reprinting here... 50 State Summary of Breastfeeding Laws Updated December 2004 More than half of the states (37) have enacted legislation related to breastfeeding. Thirty two states allow mothers to breastfeed in any public or private location (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode......
  • Waldorf Schools and the challenge of values-based organizations
    One of the many mailing lists in which I participate is one discussing Waldorf Education and, sporadically, Rudolf Steiner. Our children attend a Waldorf school and we are very happy with the program and curriculum and find that the underlying precepts of the pedagogy to be quite aligned with our own beliefs and views. However, as with any values-based organization, the Waldorf community has a tendency to sometimes split into an "us versus them"......
  • We'll help you pick a great baby name!
    Before our third baby K- was born, Linda and I spent lots of time looking through baby name books and even phone books and professional directories, seeking inspiration. We also tried online baby name directories, but were uniformly unimpressed with their search technologies or how their results were displayed. None of them really helped us find a great name, though. So I built my own name search tool, which is now, only 13 months after......
  • How come parents never talk about parenting?
    I met a fellow father this morning for tea and we chatted about what we were working on and shared the ups and downs of fatherhood, but afterwards it struck me that we didn't talk about parenting itself. We talked about being parents and about our children, yes, but not about parenting. So i spent today thinking about the difference, and then just happened to get a message from a new reader who asked "what......
  • Another reason to be suspicious of parenting book authors
    Ever wandered into the "parenting" section of your local bookstore, just to be amazed at how many different books there are on the shelf? You name it, from books that have Dads sharing sneaky and underhanded tricks they did as boys (presumably the book isn't intended as a primer for my son!) to books that are stories about crazy things that happen in the hospital delivery room (including my favorite: A woman who went to......
  • Scholastic succumbs to the siren song of corporate sponsorship of education
    If you've been to a public school lately, you can't help but notice the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut signs in the cafeteria, the Pepsi machines in the hallway, the Harry Potter posters in the library and the Bratz book covers, all "to make school a better place". Now one of the last bastions of children's publishing has clearly been unable to resist the urge to shove their own advertising down the throats of......
  • What would you suggest to this tired Mom?
    A few days ago we received a comment on one our discussions from a "tired mom" who related a situation that I suspect we can all sympathize with as tired, tapped out parents who don't have the resources to always be perky and engaged with our children. We've since gone back and forth a couple of times, but I thought that the collective wisdom of the Attachment Parenting community might offer even more great......
  • What dreams have you dreamt today?
    Living in a college town with a university known for its sports teams -- the University of Colorado, Boulder -- is mostly a benefit. Sometimes traffic near the university can be a bit out of control, but we have a great bus system here to compensate. There are some very interesting upsides, too, however, one of which I encountered just a week or so ago when I took my family out to the local "Old......
  • Vaccinations and the fear of getting sick
    Maybe it's just me, but we seem to live in a society where people are getting more and more afraid of being sick. There are billions spent on finding vaccines for even the most benign illnesses and a shortage of flu vaccine is treated as a national health emergency and shows up as the cover story in all the major news magazines.......
  • The challenge of being The Toy Police during the Holidays
    An interesting thing happened upon opening our Hanukkah presents a few days ago... our son and daughter were given cute, if somewhat wacky, slippers from a relative who knew that we do our best to avoid visible, overt characters and brands on our toys. When we looked, however, we realized that the slippers were Hello Kitty and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We were surprised, needless to say!......
  • Eventually, just about every kid has homework
    Unless you're one of the few who practice unschooling, there will come a time when your kids are going to have homework from school and are going to need assistance from you to complete the assignment. In the earlier grades it's fun but as they proceed in the years, the material becomes more sophisticated and, frankly, harder.......
  • The essence of good toys
    Every year we have the same challenge, trying to identify what toys and games we can purchase for our children that aren't junky, horribly, ugly, plastic trash (obviously, that's a value judgment. :-) One place I thought I'd start this year was with Amazon.com, since they have a huge range of toys and games, and with partners like Toys R Us, I figured they'd have a good organization too.......
  • Giving up on Privacy as part of Parenting
    It's not news to anyone who is a parent that when wee folk are afoot your sense of privacy has to be modified, somewhat forcefully. It's not so much that you can't have privacy, it's more that you need to redefine privacy to encompass the new members of your family.......
  • Five million reasons per year to discourage your kids from smoking
    Our children are still a bit young to worry about this, but I was shocked to read a report from the BBC that documents research from Harvard University and the University of Queensland where they calculated that almost 5,000,000 people were killed in the year 2000 from smoking. Yes, you read that right, five million people in one year.......
  • ... And on Halloween, the Candy Fairy Visited Our House!
    While I'd like to think that I'm not a complete curmudgeon, I have to admit that many of the most popular holidays in the United States aren't ones that I enjoy or particularly want my children to participate in. For example, I've already written about how Mother's Day is a bit daft - see Happy Mother's Day? - because people should be thankful of each other every day, but given the time of year, the......
  • A house full of sick children
    Is there anything more difficult to handle than when all of your kids get sick at the same time? Maybe: not only are our kids all sick, but we're both sick too. It's "just a cold", but I haven't been sick in bed for two days since, well, I don't even remember when.......
  • More Dads are spending more time with their children
    I won't say that I'm startled by this data, but I am pleasantly surprised that BusinessWeek (of all publications) has a report exploring how fathers are spending more time with their families and less at work. Indeed, they cite data that suggests there are plenty of men now who are willing to eschew promotions in return for the ability to have a more flexible schedule.........
  • Are all children inveterate collectors?
    As a father, it's hard to know how unique your kids are versus all the other similarly-aged children in the world. It's kind of the problem that Garrison Keillor pokes fun at when he talks about the fictional world of Lake Woebegon, where everyone is "above average", but applied to individual behaviors. Be that as it may, I'm convinced that my kids collect more stuff, more often, than any other kids in our neighborhood.......
  • How loud is too loud? How much should children be protected?
    One of the basic tenets of attachment parenting, as far as I can tell, is that childhood is a time to be protected, a time to be nurtured, and a time to grow within a safe and sheltered environment. Not to some obsessive degree, necessarily (though some people seem to go to extremes, as with anything else in life), but the idea is really that children should be allowed to have a childhood. There are......
  • A Conference to Attend: Waldorf in the Home
    If you're even curious about attachment parenting, you should already own a copy of Rahima Baldwin Dancy's excellent book You Are Your Children's First Teacher. What you might not know about Rahima, though, is that she hosts a couple of excellent AP/Waldorf conferences each year and this year, this October to be specific, she's hosting Waldorf in the Home at Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado.......
  • Our long-term birth control option of choice: a vasectomy
    To some extent, birth control might seem like a rather oblique topic for a site discussing attachment parenting, but to me, there's no topic more central to the issue of parenting than parents figuring out how big their family should be and coming up with a healthy, compatible and comfortable solution for continuing an intimate relationship after that point. More to the point, it's been something that the two of us have wrestled with since......
  • What's one word that never shows up in parenting books?
    I was thinking about the different books and magazine articles I've read recently on various parenting and fatherhood issues and realize that there's one major topic that no-one ever talks about, and it's a topic that's incredibly important for any parent to realize.........
  • Kindergarten Boarding School
    I'm not kidding. According to BBC News the newest trend for middle-class families is to send their kindergartners to boarding schools and some programs accept children as young as two for their programs. Seems very Brave New World to me somehow, particularly when the principal of the school explains "the boarding experience fostered abilities in the children which day attendance was not necessarily able to do."......
  • Breastfed babies make happier adults?
    British Researchers at the University of Manchester, England, have released a terrific new study that draws a correlation between breastfed babies and happy adults. I say "correlation" because in typical sloppy research fashion, the researchers appear to have identified two factors, correlated them, and then presented them as causal. I imagine that the research is true, but ..........
  • Is Your Adoption Agency Legit?
    All children attach to their parents, whether they are birth parents or not, so when I bumped into a very interesting article about how the Web makes adoption easier but more risky, I thought it would be a good item to mention here on Attachment Parenting too........
  • Coming soon: Articles from "The Compleat Mother"
    We're very, very pleased to share that after some discussion with magazine editor Jody McLaughlin, we've been granted the right to replicate any of the excellent articles from The Compleat Mother magazine.......
  • Father's Day and the Conundrum of Modern Economics
    I'm venting here: Why must everything in our society be about consumption? I receive SourceNet bulletins every morning, typically requests from reporters for interview subjects and quotable experts, and was excited to see that Kid Tips Magazine was seeking suggestions for what children can give for Father's Day. My immediate thought: "Great! Can we encourage kids to make something rather than buy something?"......
  • The real challenge of cosleeping: bed space!
    One of the basic tenets of attachment parenting is that babies sleep in the same bed as the Mom (and, hopefully, the Dad). This is a great thing and we're definite enthusiasts of this facet of attachment parenting, but there's a challenge involved.........
  • Happy Mother's Day?
    I have to admit that I'm a bit curmudgeonly about Mother's Day: I feel like as a family we honor the role and never-ending job of motherhood every day and don't need a commercialized holiday originally started by Hallmark Cards to tell us that it's important to say thanks. But, somehow societal pressures are effective and while we're not doing much to celebrate Mother's Day, our children are, and, of course, we do have the......
  • Update on bicycles and training wheels
    It's been almost 10 days now, and G- continues to amaze and impress with his bicycling skills. We went on a 1.5 mile bike ride this morning, including some dirt trails and he did fabulously. He kept up, made it up The Big Hill without having to stop and walk, and this on a little "Pretty Puppy" bike (a hand-me-down from his sister) with no gears. Amazing. One tip: when it's time to pull off......
  • Win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate for adding a link!
    Since we'd like to increase our readership here on Attachment Parenting, we're offering a great promotion that you'll want to take advantage of: add a link to our site and if you bring in the most visitors in the next 60 days, you'll win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com! No small print. Well, one detail. The link has to be exactly:   <a href="http://www.APparenting.com/">attachment parenting</a> That's all there is. In sixty days, the Fourth......
  • When is a baby too young for a stroller?
    I'm visiting the discussion communities on social Web site Orkut this evening and found an interesting discussion in their "Parenting" community. It's a community that has a lot more in common with Parent magazine than Mothering magazine, that's for sure. The discussion of the evening was about when a baby is too young to be in a stroller. The person asking the question was asking about a baby that was only three weeks old. Of......
  • A key attachment parenting virtue: patience
    A most amazing thing has occurred in the last two days: G-, our four year old son, decided that he didn't want training wheels on his bicycle any more, so he took them off and *instantly* knew how to ride without them. It's quite a remarkable sequence of events and hard to realize that it's only been 48 hours when he zips down the driveway, turns onto the sidewalk and confidently rides up to the......
  • Taxes, Money and Debt. The big three?
    We survived what everyone else has also hopefully survived in the last few weeks: we finished and filed our taxes. On time. We're also trying to look at our taxes (and trying to avoid tax scams) within the context of our overall personal finances. Which reminds me: if you haven't checked it out yet, you might be interested to know that we're building on a debt management information site called real life debt. If you......
  • A biological reason for teen laziness?
    Here's a fascinating article I bumped into on Newsday that, while it doesn't directly apply to us since our oldest is only 7 1/2, eventually will: Biological Reason for Teen Laziness If you're a teenager, don't read this. Federal scientists may have discovered a biological excuse for laziness. Studies conducted on adolescents and young adults show significant differences between the two age groups in the brain region that governs "drive," the internal momentum to work......
  • Is a toy without a microchip heresy?
    Perusing the latest reports from the American International Toy Fair and I came across a depressing report from Wired News, where they state that "At the 101st annual American International Toy Fair, held this week in New York, there were very few toys that didn't include computer chips somewhere in their innards. But vendors promise the singing, puking, engine-revving, chatting, TV-interacting toys will be easy to assemble and play with" What most saddens me, I......
  • Can't get your baby immobilized at night? Now there's a solution
    I'm really appalled at a Web site I've just visited, for a company called Safe T Sleep. Check it out for yourself: they're selling a baby straitjacket. No kidding. A device that you wrap around your mattress and then around the midsection of a baby (age 0-3, they say) and they're then immobilized. If you can handle it, they even have a movie of how the product is used... This has got to be the......
  • Google likes Shining Light Books
    I'm happy to share that Linda and I have been working on an online Waldorf bookstore called Shining Light Books and Google's not only seen it, but we're the #1 match for the search "waldorf books". That's great, because once we get everything built and our final design in place, our intent is to share a percentage of our profits with one or more Waldorf organizations, starting with AWSNA, the Association of Waldorf Schools of......
  • Dealing with irrational fears
    The addition of a new baby to the family has proven interesting. For the first two weeks, while Mom was in bed recovering with the tiny one, everything went smoothly. The last week, however, Linda has been up and about, much more involved in the day-to-day of our family life. And our daughter A- has had a really hard time with it. Not directly, however. She's thrilled with the baby, eager for maximal Mom time,......
  • New Babies and Baby Names
    Well, the big news in our household is... it's a girl!. We had our third homebirth - in a birthing tub this time around - it went swimmingly, and she's a healthy 7lb, 6oz newborn, cute as a button, but no name yet... And after being unimpressed with the baby name Web sites on the net, I built a new one for us to use as we explore almost 10,000 different names, and you're certainly......
  • Happy New Year!
    It's 2004. Do you know where your children are, and what they're doing? :-)......
  • Things really do unfold when it's time
    Two weeks ago we had both kids sleeping on the floor in our bedroom, having gradually moved from family bed to "family bedroom". That was nice, but as part of our whirlwind of home improvements, we repainted and bought all new furniture for both our kids, G- (3 1/2) and A- (7). The night we put it all together, the two of them slept - for the first time - in A's room. And oh,......
  • Safe Surfing for Your Children
    One of the most insidious problems on the Internet today is the same thing that makes it a remarkable and fascinating place: it's completely egalitarian and everyone has a voice. Everyone, including lots of people that I want to protect my children from encountering. And that, of course, brings up the topic of online pornography: whether or not you think it should be online, and whether or not it's legal, it's quite likely something you......
  • The Ebbs and Flows of Attachment Parenting
    As the days get shorter we are starting to really see a change in both of our children, a change for the better. A- just turned 7 a few days ago and is acting more and more like a young lady (and part-time comedian), and G-, who has been so difficult at times in the last few months, is really starting to mellow out and become a much more enjoyable companion. Linda actually took them......
  • Sometimes you get a brief glimpse of what will be...
    This morning, my daughter A- (almost 7) and son G- (3 1/2) were sitting in the kitchen preparing to eat waffles for breakfast. In our house, rather than syrup, we tend to put a nut butter on the waffles, so this morning it was almond butter. Except A- couldn't open the jar. She handed it to her brother and asked him to help out and... he opened it for her. A glimpse of the future,......
  • Funny Waldorf Lightbulb Jokes
    Q.  How many anthroposophists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A.   I don't know.  Steiner never gave an indication. Q.  How many Waldorf teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A.   Seven: One to read the verse, one to light the candle, one to sound the chime,  one to compose the request to the administrator, two to review the request to the administrator, and one to lead the closing song.......
  • Australian debate on breastfeeding
    As if there aren't more important things to worry about in the modern world, apparently a newswoman had the temerity to breastfeed her newborn baby while on television, and now Australia is embroiled in a great discussion on the matter. You can learn more about it at the BBC World Service, where they've an article appropriately entitled Australian breastfeeds live on TV. The only good thing is that because they're Aussies, the people against the......
  • Scary bike accident, resilient children
    Riding home from dropping A- off at school this morning, G- and I were biking along quite happily when he suddenly and without warning stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I was riding along closely and smacked into the back of his bike, to my horror. His bike was pushed out from under him and he flipped backwards over his bike, ending up tangled in the bike and quite shocked by the sudden turn......
  • A week of firsts...
    This is an exciting week for us. G-, our 3yo, started preschool this week, an in-house Waldorf-inspired program from a teacher who lives just around the corner. It's only two days a week, but that's alright, we can start slowly. He's been doing really great and I can't help remembering how when A- (who is now 6) went into preschool one of us needed to be physically on school property for almost that entire first......
  • Attachment Parenting Thought for the week
    James Twyman is a fascinating fellow who has been spending years looking at what he calls "Indigo Children", and now they're making a film about these extraordinary children called Indigo. One of the young actresses in the film, Angelina Marie Hess, who plays five-year-old Grace, recently shared the following question with James:"Do you know that God loves you no matter what choice you make, because if you really, really knew that God loves you, you......
  • The Joy of Consistency
    We've been having a pretty hard time with the little guy, G- (3), with his kicking, hitting, and general bursts of explosive energy when things are going just how he wants (or when he's tired). Our strategies over the last month or two haven't worked at all, though, we've been mad sometimes, gentle and loving sometimes, permissive, weak, you-name-it. It was driving us all crazy! About two weeks ago I'd had it with his craziness,......
  • More on rhythms and summertime
    When I was a kid, I never realized how difficult summer holidays were for my parents. I figured "hey, nothing to do, I can hang out, eat, play, and generally be a full-time nuisance!" and likely was just that for 2.5 months every summer. Now I'm a parent and, well, it's clear why structure and rhythm are so important to a kid's life, that's all I can say. After the first week or two of......
  • The importance of schedules, even in the summer
    It's summer vacation and all, but in the last fortnight we've really had a chance to see just how incredibly important a consistent schedule and keeping the rhythm of the school year are for our family. About two weeks ago we drove about 500 miles or so to get to our summer retreat in Missouri. Not horribly far, but with lots of stops for restrooms and runaround time (a great way to deal with cranky......
  • "Eating your own dogfood"
    It's an odd title, but that's a common expression in the venture capital industry, referring to the fact that most successful companies service themselves as customers: they eat their own dogfood, quite literally. Think of it this way: would you want to eat at a restaurant where the staff sneaks down the road for dinner every night? So I was thinking about this after talking with a midwife this afternoon who commented "I really knew......
  • Strategies pay off, sometimes
    Over the last few months, we've had a real challenge with our 3yo son, G-, who is a very sensitive fellow. When he gets frustrated, he gets quiet, then he finds a little core of energy inside and thrashes out. He'll hit, punch, kick, whatever. Not in a flailing maniac sort of way, but just a single act to convey to whomever upset him that he's not a happy fellow at that moment. He's scratched......
  • Chaos is sure to ensue!
    Tomorrow night should be an interesting experience; our daughter's best pal, who is also six years old, is spending the night. A- is already primed and excited to share her bunk bed with her pal, who gets the top bunk, the place of honor because that's where our cat sleeps! We're expecting late night giggling and random thunks and sneaking into the kitchen late into the night (at least 9pm, which is very late to......
  • When they're not ready to sleep...
    Tonight was pretty frustrating: I took care of G- while Linda went out for the evening, and he'd had a nap, so wanted to stay up late. Well, there's little point reasoning with a three year old, but by about 10pm I'd had enough of reading books and waiting for him to stop yawning long enough to tell me he wasn't ready to go to bed. So, I took him to bed. The little nipper......
  • Sleep Deprivation: The Essential Attachment Parenting Experience
    I don't know what's been going on lately, but I have been getting less and less sleep over the last few weeks. Part of it is that I have so many different projects and ideas buzzing around in my head, but much of it is little folk issues. Last night, 4am, G- was pestering Linda to nurse and she wanted to sleep, so I groggily said "no worries, I'll get him something to drink". The......
  • Welcome Aboard!
    Welcome to the APparenting web site and web log. If you're not familiar with attachment parenting, then one excellent place to start learning more about this loving, fun, and instinctive approach to parenting is to check out Attachment Parenting International. There are also a number of books on the subject, with two primary references that we recommend: Dr. William Sears' succinct book The Attachment Parenting Book : A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your......
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All The Weblog Entries
 •  Hey TechCrunch, Computers do not produce bad grades!
 •  UC's Survey on Multimedia Children's Books (or is it vendor research?)
 •  Dating Men With Kids
 •  Parenting as we wished our parents had done
 •  Funding the kids toy stash at your ex's house
 •  Traveling with my son: restaurant choices
 •  Fun dress-up costume from TotallyCostumes.com
 •  A Very Personal Walking Tour of Boulder...
 •  Solo holidays are a mixed bag
 •  Help A Mom: My baby's waking up hourly at night!
 •  Interviews, interviews: let's talk!
 •  My son is finally having a deep night's sleep
 •  Is Attachment Parenting relevant as kids grow up?
 •  My blog and guest posts...
 •  British soldiers escaped WWII POW camps with Monopoly?
 •  How do you establish a post-cosleeping bedtime?
 •  The problem with hiring a chauffeur for your kids
 •  The importance of friends & family in your baby's life
 •  Review: fun, huge building blocks: Brik-a-Blok
 •  Looking for an über-chic hotel in San Diego?
 •  Weird Pic Caption Contest
 •  Research: Why your match.com email doesn't lead to dates
 •  The Story Behind Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE
 •  Finding your sex appeal after divorce
 •  Should your ex show up at events when it's your time?
 •  Honey, it's our fetus on the phone again!
 •  Avoiding stress while raising two 4mo boys?
 •  How do you refer to "the person you're seeing" when you're an adult?
 •  Reality TV Show Casting Call!
 •  Sleepovers: our place or theirs?
 •  Attachment parenting and babysitters
 •  Fighting H1N1 with a cool soap dispenser
 •  Dad + daughter's hair: an inherent disaster?
 •  Jif Peanut Butter is gluten-free, but ...
 •  The economics of driving a taxi in Las Vegas
 •  For me, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare numbers didn't end up working
 •  The challenge of finding appropriate girls Halloween costumes
 •  Ah, those fun phone calls from your kids...
 •  Teaching Internet Safety: I need resources
 •  My thoughts on the new 2010 Ford Taurus
 •  How do you add a second baby to the family bed?
 •  Standards of Positive Sportsmanship
 •  President Obama's address: are your kids going to listen?
 •  7 Essential Resources to See If Your Neighborhood is Safe
 •  Review: Panasonic ES 8249 electric razor
 •  Ten days without my kids and...
 •  Win some free Bach "Daydream Remedy"
 •  The sublime pleasures of hot summer days and a pool
 •  Are stupid people more likely to die from a heart attack?
 •  How my iPhone helps me use the public library
 •  Surviving the summer with my kids
 •  Stepping out of my comfort zone on Father's Day weekend
 •  Strategies for coping with gestational diabetes?
 •  Activities for you to do with your baby on a rainy day
 •  "Imagination Movers" and the quality of children's music
 •  Are slings a simple solution for babies with colic?
 •  Photo Shoot: Colorado Railroad Museum in Miniature
 •  Memories of our journey to NYC on the Queen Mary
 •  Share an offbeat NBA stat, win tickets to the All-Star game!
 •  Is co-sleeping a barrier to divorce?
 •  The 100 Hour Test Drive: 2009 Ford Mercury Mariner Hybrid
 •  Do you have a college trust set up for your kids?
 •  Learning how to shave again?
 •  Can you still be considered an attachment parent if you use a stroller?
 •  Review: "State of Play" with Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams
 •  Mama needs help: baby wakes her up every night
 •  Babywearing: it's not just for babies!
 •  What's more important, a parenting schedule or the needs of the kids?
 •  Why I like living here in Boulder, Colorado
 •  The dreaded evening call from the ex's house
 •  Secret skill: I can paint ceramics!
 •  The winning wry Valentine's Day haikus!
 •  Interview with former AMC TV host Bob Dorian
 •  Does Attachment Parenting "Break" a Child?
 •  Review: Cirque du Soleil "O"
 •  Leave a wry haiku, win $70 gift cert for Proflowers for Vday
 •  The First Sleepover: Success Strategies?
 •  Cirque du Soleil "O" -- Behind the Scenes!
 •  Talking with your children while at a trade show
 •  FDA approves Latisse: drug to lengthen your eyelashes
 •  Are Chore Charts the Answer to Holding Children Accountable?
 •  Do you publish photographs of your children online?
 •  Is Gluten-free food and cooking just a fad?
 •  A working mom's perspective on attachment parenting
 •  Are movies too violent, or is cinema just evolving?
 •  The fun little pond rug I got for the kids room...
 •  What's with streamers being thrown at MLS soccer games?
 •  Attachment parenting and Waldorf school helps keep your kids slim?
 •  What will Halloween look like in twenty years?
 •  How you can really help eradicate global poverty
 •  My son gets his tonsils removed, and it's a success!
 •  Film Review: "Eagle Eye"
 •  Review: Cirque du Soleil: The Beatles LOVE, Las Vegas
 •  I don't want to meet Candace Bushnell's Sex And The City women as teens
 •  How did my 4yo learn how to do this stuff?
 •  My visit to the Democratic National Convention in Denver
 •  How to ensure safety while letting my daughter get her own email address?
 •  When you need to keep track of your nursing schedule
 •  Why do people divorce, and how can you heal from a divorce?
 •  Hey Dads, don't give up on your kids!
 •  The dangers of going off-schedule: The day from Hell
 •  Finally, my kids are ready to enjoy art galleries!
 •  Hey Mattel! Now you can put Bratz to sleep once and for all
 •  Good adventure books for 8yo boy?
 •  Flip-flops for a good cause, spread the word
 •  The power of reflective listening
 •  How we're managing Video Game Time
 •  How do you meter video game playing time?
 •  Press Release: Divorced Women's Dating Styles
 •  Signing "Ask for ID" on my credit cards invalidates them?
 •  ... and still, sometimes bedtime just stinks
 •  Taste Test: Hansen's Junior Water
 •  I'm a movie geek, I admit it
 •  How do you explain sex and "Free Condoms!" to your kids?
 •  The Secret Joy of a Proper Child Residence Arrangement
 •  How do single dads (and working mothers) cope with summer holiday?
 •  Fun, random photographs from our Hawaiian Holiday
 •  Overheard: exactly the wrong way to tutor someone
 •  AudibleKids: Fun new site for kid's audio books
 •  When did shopping online become such a drag?
 •  Singing my children to sleep....
 •  Inventing kinder, gentler games for the kids
 •  Tourists and product stickers...
 •  Finding the balance between "honoring their voice" and avoiding chaos
 •  The anniversary of my daughter's conception...
 •  Q&A with Spain Dad: Daddy Blogs and The Issue of Privacy
 •  Single rooms and single parents: travel logistics in hotels
 •  Like poison in a well: of kids and bad moods
 •  Should children be paid to do chores?
 •  Why the caucus system leaves me frustrated and disenfranchised
 •  The weirdness of visiting the old family home
 •  The wisdom of Solomon: splitting up with animals
 •  What's the proper protocol for a sleepover?
 •  Is having "cybersex" cheating on a relationship?
 •  When do you take your wedding ring off?
 •  Where does dryer lint come from?
 •  Riding out the waves of a bad mood...
 •  New Age Psychobabble or not? You decide
 •  Kitty etiquette question...
 •  Does anyone have an MP3 version of "Parenting with Love and Logic"?
 •  Innovation: A stuffed animal with a built-in pacifier?
 •  Ah, I screwed up: How would you resolve the problem?
 •  The kids definitely say "Happy Hannukah!"
 •  Is there such a thing as "REM motion"?
 •  Very cool job: Executive Director of the Men's Leadership Alliance
 •  Should children face their fears, or avoid scary stuff?
 •  Michael Medved and I are pretty aligned on favorite films
 •  Yech! Men never wash their hands in the bathroom!
 •  Fun magazine for 2-5 year olds: Tessy & Tab Reading Club
 •  Do most kids actually eat all the Halloween candy they get?
 •  Custody and separation: Where do the children play?
 •  How to deal with the no-TV versus TV parents?
 •  Lots of TV viewing correlated with ADD. Well, duh.
 •  Dress up as a "dementor", screw up your soul forever
 •  Of classes and birthday party invitations...
 •  Finally, school starts up!
 •  Why is that name so familiar? The serendipity of blogging
 •  True confession: I prefer English candy bars too
 •  Family game night? Our take on some of the best...
 •  Are we the lone holdouts from the Nintendo generation?
 •  Is "Agents for Home Buyers" a Real Estate Scam?
 •  Is it possible to set nursing boundaries without actually weaning?
 •  Cosleeping, Age Appropriateness and Nudity
 •  Life in the 'burbs: babysitter poker?
 •  We heard back from Norwegian Cruise Lines. Sorta
 •  Back from holiday, drowning in bad juju?
 •  Of videotaping school plays and burning DVDs
 •  The dark side of our Norwegian Star cruise: embarkation and disembarkation
 •  General Pace says homosexuality is immoral. So?
 •  Of Food, Norovirus and Excursions on our Norwegian Star Cruise...
 •  Our Norwegian Star Cruise to the Mexican Riviera
 •  Do kids in Waldorf schools start reading too late?
 •  Do News Stories About Breastfeeding Help or Hinder?
 •  Do you have to breastfeed to be an attachment parent?
 •  Internet access and cell phone service on the Norwegian Star?
 •  Best foods to help kids get to sleep
 •  Today was the Day From Hell with our 2yo
 •  Adventures in Weather: The Blizzard of 2006
 •  Why I don't like gift cards as presents
 •  Nursing, Breast pumps, and travel plans
 •  Do you ever lie to your kids?
 •  Can't get her kids to sleep, she needs help!
 •  Children maturing too fast? Control their media exposure
 •  Can breastfeeding and formula-feeding moms remain friends?
 •  Should younger children say "sorry" after doing something wrong?
 •  How do you deal with aging, sick dogs?
 •  Japanese "Gender Equality" minister opposes maiden names?
 •  We Survived Chickenpox!
 •  The flower fairy waits for no-one
 •  Does Mom's Diet Affect the Quality of Breastmilk?
 •  Kids don't need to know how to program computers
 •  I thought we'd eliminated DDT, but ...
 •  Fun holiday activities: bicycling and bowling
 •  Why does it take lawsuits for companies to listen?
 •  Got a cute book about breastfeeding
 •  How to avoid overscheduling your children
 •  We must be the only parents who dislike Tinker Bell
 •  In-dash DVD players for cars gain in popularity? Are they insane?
 •  Do your kids need more exercise?
 •  The secret to happy moms: plastic surgery?
 •  Where can I buy our kids new ears?
 •  Banning cell phones in cars: good idea or bad?
 •  80% of children under two watch HOW much media per day?
 •  Children's Tylenol with Flavor Creator: Drug or Candy?
 •  Trapped with abusive parent in airplane for five hours!
 •  Journaling the Joys and Fears of Pregnancy, A Workshop
 •  Why do so many people use F$#@$# obscenities?
 •  Disney Mobile: The first innovation out of Disney in a long time
 •  Wal*Mart expands into natural and organic foods
 •  Who knew blacksmith work was so darn fun?
 •  Who buys this stuff for their kids?
 •  Driving with a whiny baby must be the third circle of Hell
 •  My daughter the knitting machine!
 •  Learn how to swim in a spa?
 •  Distance needed between doctors and Big Pharma?
 •  Ways to know whether your infant could be teething
 •  Teach your baby sign language
 •  Why don't companies stick behind their products? Maclaren Strollers, Inc.
 •  What happened to quality control with toys?
 •  Could we all just buy a bit less each year?
 •  Coke and Pepsi: Liability from selling soda in schools?
 •  Acupuncture for Children and Adults
 •  I survived my day at the zoo with five 9yo girls!
 •  Why comic books aren't so terrible for kids
 •  Kids as philosophers, or finding meaning in skeeball
 •  What would happen to your children if you died?
 •  When did Halloween become so darn dangerous?
 •  Why it's foolish to underestimate your children
 •  One big reason we don't take our kids to the movie theater
 •  Of cheating spouses and spanking parents
 •  Research shows prolonged crying lowers IQ in babies
 •  Why are ex-husbands sometimes such jerks?
 •  Why we don't hit our kids
 •  Is there anything cuter than baby talk?
 •  Can children survive without corn syrup?
 •  5yo boy + pair of scissors = scary haircut!
 •  Don't forget to tell your kids you love them!
 •  "Amazing Amanda" crushes imagination with servos and RFID
 •  Jury duty scam leads to identity theft
 •  The lure of being single again?
 •  A curious travel question: irons in hotel rooms?
 •  EPA tacitly endorses testing pesticides on children?
 •  What is Attachment Parenting?
 •  Why can't we buy or sell a used carseat?
 •  An Ethical Dilemma: Someone in your school is a registered sex offender?
 •  FTC touts kids see fewer TV ads selling food, but the study is predictably bogus
 •  I'm proud of my sister's beautiful art!
 •  Avoiding work at home scams
 •  Bras designed for girls growing up fast
 •  Babies have personalities!
 •  Those darn too long days of summer
 •  Breast is still best, even if it's Dad's??
 •  Travel tips for families this summer
 •  How Computers Make Our Kids Stupid
 •  Why parents associate summer with spending
 •  Dave's secret trick for calming a hysterical child
 •  Sometimes being right is far less important than just having fun
 •  Warning: never let your baby play with the phone!
 •  Parenting as talking to a brick wall?
 •  Another of those "only a parent would laugh" moments
 •  My journey to becoming an Attachment Parenting Dad
 •  Should a man wear a wedding ring?
 •  An AP parent on the benefit of no-media children
 •  The perfect washer, or social engineering at its worst?
 •  Take your Parents to School Day?
 •  First week of weight gain sets lifelong weight patterns? I don't think so.
 •  EPA cancels pesticide tests on Floridian babies
 •  Standing your ground with discipline
 •  Jack Welch says: forget it. You can't balance business and personal life
 •  PBS introduces "PBS Kids Sprout" a new digital babysitter
 •  Why are kid-friendly bathrooms so hard to find?
 •  When does bedtime become other than a nightmare?
 •  The Little Boy and the Monkeys: Children's picture book, needs pictures....
 •  More schools are saying "no" to brands and logos
 •  Why do so many men cheat on their spouses?
 •  What's the toughest thing about being a father?
 •  Breastfeeding and the Law
 •  Waldorf Schools and the challenge of values-based organizations
 •  We'll help you pick a great baby name!
 •  How come parents never talk about parenting?
 •  Another reason to be suspicious of parenting book authors
 •  Scholastic succumbs to the siren song of corporate sponsorship of education
 •  What would you suggest to this tired Mom?
 •  What dreams have you dreamt today?
 •  Vaccinations and the fear of getting sick
 •  The challenge of being The Toy Police during the Holidays
 •  Eventually, just about every kid has homework
 •  The essence of good toys
 •  Giving up on Privacy as part of Parenting
 •  Five million reasons per year to discourage your kids from smoking
 •  ... And on Halloween, the Candy Fairy Visited Our House!
 •  A house full of sick children
 •  More Dads are spending more time with their children
 •  Are all children inveterate collectors?
 •  How loud is too loud? How much should children be protected?
 •  A Conference to Attend: Waldorf in the Home
 •  Our long-term birth control option of choice: a vasectomy
 •  What's one word that never shows up in parenting books?
 •  Kindergarten Boarding School
 •  Breastfed babies make happier adults?
 •  Is Your Adoption Agency Legit?
 •  Coming soon: Articles from "The Compleat Mother"
 •  Father's Day and the Conundrum of Modern Economics
 •  The real challenge of cosleeping: bed space!
 •  Happy Mother's Day?
 •  Update on bicycles and training wheels
 •  Win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate for adding a link!
 •  When is a baby too young for a stroller?
 •  A key attachment parenting virtue: patience
 •  Taxes, Money and Debt. The big three?
 •  A biological reason for teen laziness?
 •  Is a toy without a microchip heresy?
 •  Can't get your baby immobilized at night? Now there's a solution
 •  Google likes Shining Light Books
 •  Dealing with irrational fears
 •  New Babies and Baby Names
 •  Happy New Year!
 •  Things really do unfold when it's time
 •  Safe Surfing for Your Children
 •  The Ebbs and Flows of Attachment Parenting
 •  Sometimes you get a brief glimpse of what will be...
 •  Funny Waldorf Lightbulb Jokes
 •  Australian debate on breastfeeding
 •  Scary bike accident, resilient children
 •  A week of firsts...
 •  Attachment Parenting Thought for the week
 •  The Joy of Consistency
 •  More on rhythms and summertime
 •  The importance of schedules, even in the summer
 •  "Eating your own dogfood"
 •  Strategies pay off, sometimes
 •  Chaos is sure to ensue!
 •  When they're not ready to sleep...
 •  Sleep Deprivation: The Essential Attachment Parenting Experience
 •  Welcome Aboard!
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