parenting

Today, my wife, two boys and I just went on our very first road trip in a long time - and I am writing this sitting in a hotel room in center of Syracuse. Tomorrow morning, we are driving about 30 miles north to pick up Bowie, our new Australian Labradoodle puppy. She is supposed to be hypo-allergenic, we’ll see what happens - but we’re keeping her no matter what.

Kids are not climbing fences as much as we did, though they still need to get into situations that provide tension with a tinge of risk - not necessarily physical risk, but risk that physical tension and being uncomfortable. Let’s figure out what sort of fence we can build for our kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but adults need time away from kids more than just once in a while. It needs to be structured and it needs to be a regular occurrence. Last few weeks of summer convinced me!

Lochlan, from the back seat of our car the other day: “Daddy, what is Intimacy?”. This led into a wonderful series of conversations lasting several days and I could not be happier.

When Luke was an infant, I thought it was cute he watched YouTube videos of kids playing with trains. He’s now 11 watching YouTube videos of kids playing video games.

On our trip to Lake George, we all got temporary tatoos and were saddened to find out that The Magic Forest had been sold and the fiberglass figures were no longer frolicking through the park.

My new parenting technique of forcing my kids to write paragraphs & read chapters to earn back devices, is actually carving out time for me to be more creative. Check out my initial sketch of Fred our papier mâché Octopus and his fun adventures.

Before I set up this workshop, which keeps me busy every weekend, I used to take my kids out on Saturdays and Sundays to get them out of the house and spark their sense of adventure. Here are a few of their favorites, plus updates on a few upcoming workshops.