Lay-Z Boy

Lay-Z Boy

I don’t think I became lazy until I was a teenager. My toddler, however, has mastered it at three.

It’s a very selective laziness. He’s off the wall with energy most of the time, i.e., when you’re trying to get through the security line at the airport and he decides he wants to pretend to be The Flash; but when it’s time for him to actually do something? He’s less active than most of the people who work security at the airport.

Of course, if I had someone willing to carry me around everywhere, I’m pretty sure I’d let my legs atrophy until they melted off, so who am I to talk?

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10 Ways Having Kids is Like Writing a List About Things That Are Like Having Kids

10 Ways Having Kids is Like Writing a List About Things That Are Like Having Kids

I’ve been writing a lot of lists lately.

As a result, my friend at AskYourDadBlog – a far nicer, far more successful, far more irritating outfit – thought he’d be clever and insult my recent rash of list-making by suggesting a new one, called “10 Ways Having Kids is Like Writing a List About Things That Are Like Having Kids.”

Joke’s on him though, because I DID it. And it’s glorious. And it fills me with (more) self-loathing.

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Dress Road

Dress Road

This morning I helped my son get dressed for school.

It involved choosing superhero underwear (Green Lantern), choosing a superhero shirt (Batman), putting on superhero socks (Spider-man) and tying on a superhero cape (an inexplicably sparkly and inexplicably yellow Batman cape, which he was unhappily forced to take off before leaving the house).

It won’t be long before Detective Munch doesn’t need my help getting dressed or tying his cape on, which would be a little sad, if helping him put his clothes on didn’t usually devolve into a wrestling match at the end of which I need help tying something on (i.e., 500 beers). But that day hasn’t come yet.

Thankfully, there are a few steps before we get there.

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It Takes A Village

It Takes A Village

They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and I’m inclined to agree. Mostly because it’s impossible to prevent other people from having a hand in the education and development of your children.

Unless you home school and keep your kids sequestered in the bedroom and forbid all access to the news and pop culture and the internet and don’t let them have any friends and so forth – in short, unless the village you live in is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village – there’s no way your kids won’t be influenced by the outside world.

Most of us leave our kids in the hand of other people on a regular basis. whether it’s extended family or a nanny or a babysitter or the teachers at daycare and preschool and elementary school or even a neighbor for a few hours, there are countless other people involved in not only keeping our kids safe, but in their education, incidentally or not.

It definitely takes a village. But can you trust your village?

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The Art of the Toddler Pawn-Off

The Art of the Toddler Pawn-Off

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