overheard at the breakfast table.

Me: “Lyra is at the Far Side Golden Retriever stage when it comes to language comprehension. She understands a lot, but much of what we’re saying is just ‘blah-blah’ to her.”
Robin: “Much of what we’re saying is going to be ‘blah-blah’ to them until they’re about thirty, honey.”

gender, schmender.

Breda fires off the Quote of the Day (nay, the Quote of the Month) regarding feminism and gender roles:
Feminists, of all people, should realize that there is no "woman’s work." There is only work – and somebody has to do it.

I’ll borrow that one next time someone talks smack about stay-at-home Dads as doing “women’s [...]

the terrible, horrible, no-good, busy as hell day.

Whenever you have a house guest in a house with small kids, and that guest spends a lot of time playing with the kids, the days after the guest’s departure are usually fraught with discipline issues.  The kids have been bouncing off the walls today, and there was a little more than the Daddy-recommended daily [...]

that’s right, i take care of my children.

This is how we SAHDs roll:

(H/T to Borepatch, via Squeaky.)

slap my kid, pick up your teeth.

Here’s one for the parents among you:
You’re shopping at MalWart with your two-year-old kid.  Your child is a little fussy, and crying about something—not an unusual state of affairs for a kid that age.
Some stranger gets annoyed by your kid’s crying, tells you to ‘shut her up, or I’ll shut her up for you,” grabs [...]

the kind of stuff you find in your bathroom when you’re a parent.

Quinn’s completely matter-of-fact explanation:
“American Bear doesn’t know how to use the potty yet.”

performance art, in permanent pen.

This is the wall of my recently redecorated office, after leaving two kids out of sight for a few minutes.  It took them no time at all to discover the furniture touch-up pen I had so cleverly hidden underneath the ledge of the headboard in the picture.  When I walked into the room, they [...]

observation and emulation.

Meet American Bear:

American Bear is Quinn’s favorite stuffed companion.  She got her name from the knitted sweater she wears, which has an American flag on it.  (Quinn picked AB’s gender once he was old enough to understand the difference between boy and girl.)
A month or so ago, Quinn started to emulate Daddy’s kid maintenance [...]

the toughest job you’ll ever have.

A Father’s Day reminder:
Having sired a child doesn’t mean you get to call yourself a father…
…and not having sired a child doesn’t mean you don’t get to call yourself a father.
To all the real Dads out there, the ones who make the welfare of their children their personal concern every day, whether those children are [...]

toy gun control.

I know there are parents out there who refuse to buy toy guns for their kids.
As a responsible gun owner, I’m of two minds on the issue.  On one hand, I don’t want to encourage or even tolerate picking up the habit of unsafe gun handling.  On the other hand, I don’t believe [...]