Category Archives: Public Service

Dec 29 18 comments
Papa Prattle, Public Service

Christmas 2007 – Lessons Learned

In the project management world there is a document called, “Lessons Learned”. This document contains just what you would expect, the lessons learned while working on a project, and is done when the project is completed. While I don’t consider the Christmas holiday a project, the lessons learned methodology still applies.

familytable My wife always does a wonderful job of making any family event as special as she can and I don’t mean this in the annoyingly over the top and occasionally pushy way that some people make their family events “special”. She does it through the small things like making sure the right kind of food is around. She lights candles at just the right time so a pleasing scent can waft through the air almost unnoticed. She pays attention to the detail. The detail I always ALWAYS forget and almost no one appreciates. I love her dearly.

This year my wife had to work on Christmas day. She works third shift a couple of times a week and naps with the little ones in the afternoon on these days. Late in the evening, after all the kids had gone to bed, she called home and we talked for several minutes. She commented that she doesn’t think she’ll be going right to bed when she gets home in the morning because she misses her girls. She goes on to say that she doesn’t feel like she got to see the kids enjoy their gifts and would like to just spend some time playing with them.

A little later I head upstairs on the way to bed and look around. The toys are mostly organized in the living room. There isn’t any packaging to be seen. The kitchen is nice and clean. There is one candle left burning in the corner. As I walk over to blow out the candle it dawns on me (yes, I know I can be a bit slow) that I got to see the kids enjoy their gifts. I played on the floor with them and helped them discover their new treasures. I did do some picking up throughout the day but couldn’t take too much credit for the house being as put together as it was. My wife deserved the credit.

rearview Looking over the day I should have paid more attention to where my wife was, and wasn’t. I should have noticed her spending too much time in the kitchen and taken her place so she could play and visit. I think as Dads we tend to gravitate toward play-time with the kids but we need to remember that mom needs this play time as well.

This was my lesson learned this holiday. If this hits a little close to home it might be your lesson too.

Nov 21 21 comments
Papa Prattle, Public Service

A Little Bear’s Influence

While I understand, and agree, that a child’s place is not in front of the television, I also know there are times when setting them in front of the television is the only thing that works. We have found this to be especially true since bringing our second little girl into our day to day household.

Of course, this power comes with great responsibility.

We’re fans of Noggin, and occasionally PBS and Disney. We only own one DVD of any of the shows on these networks and that is Little Bear – Rainy Day Tales. These days you find Little Bear playing on Noggin and quite honestly this is the only show that can captivate the whole family (Mom, Dad, Big sis (3yr) and little Sis (16mo)).

lb1

The Little Bear episodes manage to pack a great story in the space of about seven minutes. The stories are so good that my wife and I, on more than one occasion, have said we could do a lot worse than aspiring to be as good of parents as Father and Mother Bear. I know you’re thinking, “This is just a cartoon dude!”, and you would be right, but it’s also a cartoon we are choosing to put in front of our children and that makes it a little bit more.

The thing with Father and Mother Bear is you can relate to them.lb2 Father Bear is a fisherman and he spends a fair amount of time away from home. Mother Bear holds down the fort while he is away and comforts Little Bear while he’s missing his Father. Sound like any of you? When Father Bear is gone the story line doesn’t only revolve around Little Bear. You also get a glimpse into how Mother Bear is feeling when Father Bear is away. This is a very big deal to me, as the show is not preaching the mice will play while the cat is away, but rather it is showing that there is a lot of work to be done when the whole family unit isn’t together and everyone needs to pull their weight, children included.

lb3

There are several other things that relate to your real life. In a couple of episodes Little Bear has to take his playing outside because Mother Bear needs to pay the bills, or because Father Bear is preparing for a trip.

In others Father Bear is tired and just wants some quiet while he reads the newspaper. Imagine that.

Most of the episodes focus on Little Bear and his adventures with his friends, real and imaginary. They are like magic in how they draw you in. I know this sounds silly but these shows really are special. Several times my three year old daughter and I have sat on the edge of our bed, each with a belt in our hands, as we fished off the side of the bed and waited for a bite from Mighty, the whale that occasionally partakes in Little Bear’s day. This is great stuff for spring boarding the imagination of a child and I for one appreciate it.

So, if you are a parent of a small child around the pre-school years I’d encourage you to check the show out. If you don’t have kids but have the privilege of being an Aunt or Uncle use this as a gift idea. No thanks necessary. :)

One last thing and I promise I’ll close this post. I don’t think television, even when it’s quality material like this, replaces the act of reading a book to your child. Books open a whole new dimension to a young persons imagination that a TV show simply cannot touch. Oh, and that cuddle time while reading together? That can’t be beat either.

Nov 08 3 comments
Humor Central, Public Service

HallowThanksMas

HallowThanksMas I was walking through Wal-mart with my kids on the Sunday after Halloween. My daughter was getting the hunger cranks so I allowed my son to hang around the toy area until I finished feeding her.

I plopped myself down on a bench set up for display and started to feed her a bottle of milk.

Strains of an unfamiliar melody quietly wafted throughout the store, barely audible above the clatter of wobbly shopping cart wheels and the occasional “price check!” on a walkie-talkie.

I started feeding my daughter, and as she went into her feeding trance I went into my quiet place, something I normally do when boredom sets in. I must have gone into some kind of “zone” because after about 3 – 5 minutes the once quiet songs over the store PA were now clearly heard above the rest of the din. I soon found that, although I had never heard them before, I knew the words to the songs but the melodies were unfamiliar.

I furrowed my brow trying to decipher the song when it dawned on me. It was a stinking Christmas Song! The difference was that it sounded like any upbeat pop song you hear on the radio today. No jingles. No bells. No chestnuts roasting.

Talk about effective subliminal messaging. I wonder how many other people waltzed in that store that day and had a compulsion to “buy presents before the rush” weeks before Thanksgiving, and at full price too. I thought the Christmas shopping hell-train didn’t leave the station until the day after Thanksgiving. What a crock.

So, to the sleazy Psychology Majors who are using their skills for evil instead of good, You suck!

Oct 29 11 comments
Public Service

The Unintentional Family Bed

The Back Story

It started when girl number 2 was just an infant. She was a terrible sleeper and the only thing that would calm her was to eat or cuddle with mom. Since mom breast fed the girls, eating and cuddling typically occupied the same physical space, our bed.

We didn’t begin this practice in the bedroom. The girl would be fed in a rocker in her room and after several weeks of her still not sleeping, and mom absolutely exhausted, the transition to the bedroom began.

Eventually we got her sleeping in her own bed, but never through the night. She would always wake at some point requiring coercing back to sleep. This was true in the crib months and into the toddler bed. Some things did change once she made it into the toddler bed.

Once free of the confines of the crib she took advantage of every opportunity to come into our bed in the middle of the night. We tried many things. A baby gate at her door to keep her in her room. Letting her “cry though it.” She was stronger than us in each of these trials and back in our bed she would be after several evenings of struggling.

The Conflict

What I’ve failed to mention thus far is that we didn’t hate having her in bed with us. We liked knowing she was safe and warm (not that she wasn’t in her own bed). We were comforted by the sound of her breathing and simply liked having her near us. The thing is we also knew that her waking up in the middle of the night, and waking us up in the middle of the night, was not good for anyone. No one was getting a good nights sleep and that just isn’t a good thing.

The Commitment

A few short months ago the girl turned three years old. The prior 6-8 months saw the occasional full night of sleep. This would occur maybe once every couple of weeks. By this time we had introduced girl number three into the family and at 6 months old or so she had her own sleeping and feeding issues that were keeping us up at night. I casually mentioned to my wife that we need to get serous about this sleeping issue, and get serious we did.

The Resolution

We put a digital clock in her room. Ok, we did a little more than put a clock in her room, but only a little. We explained that she could not leave her room and come into our bed until 5 AM. She was learning her numbers and was able to grasp the concept pretty well.

Three weeks into this experiment and she has not come into our bed once. NOT ONCE.

The Revelation

It wasn’t the clock. It was the rule. We had been too exhausted for too long to put together the answer to the problem. Once she had the boundaries clearly defined, she was onboard.

A week or so into this experiment my wife commented that she couldn’t believe we hadn’t come up with this sooner. Our daughter was behaving the same way we behave. Don’t tell us what should be done and try to force it upon us. Explain the situation and boundaries and we are right there with you. Duh.

Oct 16 NO comments
Public Service

I.C.E., what a cool idea!

ICE_In-Case-of-Emergency-symbol[1] In the midst our scout meeting this week the Den Leader, a Police Officer and therefore a first responder, talked to the scouts about I.C.E. (In Case Of Emergency). He handed out a list to each scout asking them to fill in the blanks. The list contained words like “Dad’s Cell”, “Dad’s Work”, “Mom’s Cell”, etc. This list was to be posted on everyone’s fridge at home. We already have a similar list, but that wasn’t the part that struck me as a great idea. At the very bottom of the list was the acronym I.C.E. He asked that every parent consider adding ICE to their cell phone contact list. In the ICE contact he wanted us to fill in the information of whom we would like contacted first in case of an emergency. The more information the better – Cell, Home Phone, Work Phone, Address, basically whatever the individual cell phone could handle. He also suggested that there be an ICE2, ICE3 etc., for the times when the individual in ICE1 could not be reached.

I was pretty impressed with this idea and will be filling in my ICE contacts as soon as I can. I know that some people have PIN codes to prevent unauthorized use of their phones, but what does it hurt to have that info in there anyway. For those of us with camera phones we could probably have our images in the ICE contact, or somewhere accessible, so the First Responders, or Emergency Room Personnel know who’s phone it is. We could also add the image in this post in each ICE contact to make things easier to find. The list of improvements to this already great idea could go on.

In closing, bravo to whoever came up with this idea. I just wish that they could have found an acronym that would have landed them at the forefront of the contact list so the boys in blue would not have had to scroll through to the I’s. Something like 1st Responders, or 0ICE (that’s a zero in front of ICE).