What you think does matter

Aw this was so cool - The funny thing is that it's all true and it's everything I hear at my house each and every day .. God children drive you crazy... Thank you, Rick Demeri. for sharing this....

No, I didn't take this video - just found it in one of my computer file folders. I'm not sure what they were thinking or if my wife just wanted to record my son doing a little jig or something.

Parenting: The great Imagination ! There I was watching my son play in the back yard. This boy has way to much energy for me and even a greater imagination [ gets it from me ]. There he was running to and fro with his army helmet on and a drummers stick for his weapon. Pow, Pow, shoot, shot... Spitting as he pretended to be shooting a machine gun. Ofcourse he had his imaginary enemies but most of all - he had his imaginary troops. He’d run to one side of the pool and yell go over there! Then run to another spot and scream "look out here they come!" all the while making his shooting sounds. But what was most interesting was when he some how went to save a friend [ imaginary one ] and was shot by the bad guys [ I don’t know if it’s aliens or nazis - he just calls them bad guys ]. To my surprise he had a wonderful death scene..... Yet, when he noticed my camera the theatrics came to a complete stop. It's getting harder and harder to get this kid on film [ or digital camera

Here I was looking thru the thousands of pictures I have of my children and I started to notice something weird. You know - one of those odd things only parents do with their children. I don’t know if this was planned [ by my wife ] or if she just subconsciously did it but I found photos of my son sitting on the toilet. Now it might not sound odd at first - but she took one in 2005, took one in 2006 and then another in 2007...? I have a few of the pictures here on the blog - ain't he cute? Now yeah, she was probably proud of my little man and his progress with his “poddy training”... but these pictures are 3 years apart ? Ofcourse these are the kinds of pics we all wish Mom never had - because they most certainly will come out of the closet when we bring our date over to visit.. Boy, I remember the day my Mom brought out some baby pictures of me to show my girlfriend how cute I was as a baby [ never mind I was 3 years old in a crib and sucking a pacifier ] Couldn't she have fou

My duaghter apparently recorded ue having some fun with my son. Yes - I like to toss the boy around. no - it doesn't hurt him. Unlike his mother who believes that I'm going to hurt him some how. Me, I just love to hear him luagh! The Wild Luaghing kid

Your too OLD to drive ... Don’t take this as an offence or a sign of cruelty - but “when are you too Old to drive ?” I have friends who always bad mouth Senior [ old ] drivers. They make fun of them - they point out the fact that their unable to drive because of their age. ofcourse I always come to their defense. Not because I don’t think they are great drivers - but because it’s a right - a privilege to drive and I count that as one of our American freedoms. No one should be told they can’t do what they want - when it is within the law, their rights and sanctioned by government. So if they have a car, a drivers license, who am I to tell them no. I certainly wouldn’t want someone to decide for me when I couldn’t do something. My problems is - they make themselves easy targets. - Senior [old] drivers that is. Take for example: Here I am at the turning lane - it’s only one way and no room for anyone to pass me on the side and here comes this car. Forget that my truck is 300 times bigger

Riding the Bull & the bull won… Ok, So I admit it, it wasn’t a real bull - but a mechanical bull or a real one - I am ashamed to say I failed. I saw the bull ride from more than twenty yards away and I wanted to ride that bad boy. Flashes of all the cow boy movies I’ve ever seen danced thru my head and for a minute - I thought I was going to break the record. I convinced myself that this was my day. I was going to ride the mechanical bull and I was going to be better than everyone else. Yep - me, city slicker turned country boy - today I would ride into county fair history. NOT! When I got to the line and saw what some of the first bull riders had gone thru - flailing around on that mechanical monster - I thought - "is this thing safe"? I noticed how the mechanical bull operator was more gentle on the kids than she was on adults - and again I thought, is this safe? Then I got to the sign up sheet and just before I wrote my name down I read the fine print that was way abov

My duaghter is the most preciouse thing in my life. By now, anyone who follows my blog should know that my children are everything to me. And being one who grew up in the mean streets of new York city - in the ghettoo and surrounded by crime and so much more - yes I am over protective. It's not becuase I'm to clingy - it's becuase I know what can and does happen out there in the "REAL WORLD". What is my point? I ran across this article titled : How to protect your children. Good read and informative - But I think it would fall on deaf ears for most parents. I watch parents act like the minute thier child turns 4 years old they should be able to fend for themselves. Even worst is those parents that for no reason I can comprehend act like thier children are to much work and effort and should just be left alone to do what they want becuase hey - if they can walk and talk they should be able to "leave them alone"... ok so I'm being harsh. But really...

Oh, I must be stupid.... I thought that the easiest thing to do with two children who fought over the Ds game was - to simply buy my son his own game. After all - then they would each have thier own game and the fighting would stop. No, not so. Now they fight about the DS consoles and the games. First my duaghter wanted to see [ see means use his blue boyish game] which my son didn't want to do becuase blue is for boys only [ considering he has been playing her pink girlish game for months. Now they spend thier time fighting over the games - dinner dash, indiana jones, sims kingdom and how my son [ who granted is not proficient in setting games up ] keeps erasing his sisters memory [ it may be on purpose who knows....] All this fighting and they each have thier own DS game - wow, that $130 dollars on my sons own DS that was suppose to make life easier - only made it worse. Maybe I could make my money back - is anyone interesting in buying two slightly used children. Thier great ki

Show and tell One of the favorite things my son likes to do in school is - participate in "show and tell". Sometimes I think he spends the whole week thinking about what he will bring to school on friday for show and tell. One night he was searching around and under the couch [ don't ask cuase I don't know ] and he told me he found the perfect show and tell item.... what you ask? Well, a green slimy frog. That's right a frog. Some how a frog sneaked into my house and under my couch and my curiouse son found him [ bad for the frog ]. The funny thing about it was what I did not get to catch on video - it was halariouse watching him trying to pick the frog up and hold it while the slimmy little thing kept jumping up into the air. I don't know why, but first it was a mouse running around my house, I have this small dog visiting and now, I have a frog.... is this some kind of Biblical plegue????

What do you do when all the family shows up at your house two weeks before thanksgiving? You have thanksgiving early - really - really early. We had the family from New York come down for two weeks - so we had thanksgiving dinner before they went back to NY. Talk about hecktic - I guess the one good thing is that we may have saved some money on shaopping - supermarkets always hike up the prices before the holidays. We also avoided the mad rush at the stores... but boy, having that many people at your house - way to much work. If I counted right, there were about tweenty people at the house more if I missed some of the kids.... Here take a look: see video

I've been working on teaching my four year old son how to ride his bike with out the training wheels. Ofcourse his Mom didn't help by putting the training wheels back on the bike - talk about a giant step backwards. This last week I had some time to spend with him and I went thru the process of teaching him from scratch - again..... After I built up his confidence - in that I wouldn't let him fall - I had one single thought in my mind... God I hope he doesn't crash or hit the ground hard ???? I couldn't help but picture him going down in a blaze of glory - blaming me for not stopping him from falling... Maybe it had to do with the fact that I made the same promise to my duaghter a few years back and I couldn't keep it.. She didn't trust me for a while when it came to the bike... Or maybe it was becuase I was holding a video camera - and hey, it would make a good you tube video... if he falls that is [ people love to see others suffer - sick world..] But all

I was made to love you Ever wonder what you were made to do in life? I figured out a long time ago that I have one very important job, position, duty in life - to love my family. Yes there may be the occasional argument. Yes, they can be a chore and a pain - at times [ too many times ]. They can even cause you to wonder why you even bother - but at the end of the day when you put them to bed and all you can think about is how sweet they are and how you can’t help but smile as you watch them sleep peacefully in their bed... You realize - you were made to love them.

Is it me or is my four year old trying to get rid of me?? Here I was happy to have a day off where I could hang out, do as I pleased and in fact - was happy to go and pick up my four year old son from pre-k school. But boy was I in for a surprise. I go and pick him up a half hour earlier than his scheduled time - out of love [ or because I didn’t want to waste the gas driving back and forth - you judge ] and when I signed him out early - he only had one thing to ask of me... Why are you not working??? What, did I hear you right? So I asked him, what do you mean… and he said.. What are you doing home, aren’t you working today?? Hey, come on - can’t a dad get a break… It’s my day off and I want to spend it with you. Why would you want to bring up work and are you trying to get rid of me kid??? Come on, maybe the next time I have a day off I’ll just disappear and not come home - see if you like that one buddy. Life is so strange - and kids their even stranger. Imagine that - a four year o

Missing my children.?... It’s weird, maybe I’m not the typical dad or parent that rushes out the door screaming “yeah, I can get away from my kids now!”.. no offense… But I am close to my kids and I’ve been working 6 days a week at different hours of the day and between school and work - I haven’t been able to spend real quality time with my kids. I guess the real reason I’m upset is because today the first Saturday I have off to be with the kids [ and mow lawn and do home work… grrr...] my son is sick and my duaghter just wants to visit her friend…??? Hey, what about Dad? I was just taking a moment to look over some photos as I try to recover from my depression - take a look below.. Kids - can’t live without them and they can’t wait to abandon you....

Breaking Manufacturing rules for My kids Safety ? Well, I haven’t been able to write much about the crazy things that happen with my family, I’ve been busy working and my hours are speratic. One day I work mornings the next night - it’s crazy. But I just had to take the time to write this down. You know that everything you buy has a manufacturer guidelines, rules and all that. It’s there to keep you from doing something that would end up hurting you. Well, I broke the rules in order to help my little boy from getting hurt. Really - I broke the rules to protect my child? Well, the thing is my son wants to ride his bike without training wheels - unlike his sister who took several years up to the age of seven or eight to learn how to ride with out training wheels - he wants to be like her, compete with her and wants to learn how to ride his bike without training wheels. Ofcourse he is only four years old and learning will be tough - but my real problem is, I don’t want him to fall down an

How do you make politics simple enough for an eleven year old to understand - turn the TV off! Really, it’s hard enough explaining life and the every day things to your kids - why would a teacher give my child an extra credit assignment that requires her to stay up late past her bed time to watch something she has no knowledge or concept of? I was going to watch the Vice Presidential debate anyway - but it’s hard to really listen to the debate when your eleven year old child who wants to do good in school is asking you “what does that mean?” “why did they say that?”. How can I hear the issues when I’m busy explaining to my child why Biden said he opposes fraud from the mortgage companies, the big oil companies and how Obama will stop that [ despite that fact that Obama was taking kick backs from Freddie Mac and Fannie May when they were committing the fraud???] But hey - thank you teacher for making my day a bit more interesting! One good thing came out of last nights debate as I watch

Here I am trying to spend some quality time with my son before I have to go to work and all he wants to do is play halo. It's sad really - because I'm the one who got him hooked on playing halo. But I guess spending some time with him killing aliens and defending the universe from a horde of evil Aliens is better than not spending time with him at all. The odd thing is he takes his command so seriously - I mean he is only four years old and he is concerned about the men that follow him in the game. He has figured out that they can die and that he can do something to save and protect them. He just insist on making sure his fellow soldiers are doing good. He doesn't want to go to the next level unless he can protect his fellow men [ and women - they have female characters in the game]. The odd thing is, when he plays as the alien, he doesn't care who dies - his fellow alien horde could drop by the thousands and he lets them - but let one of his fellow human being soldiers

Some times I can’t help but wonder- is this really my life? Is this what I really wanted? What about my marriage, my kids - me??? Yeah life throws you some curve balls and your spouse and kids can drive you up the wall….. But then I think of all the laughs, jokes, fun and good times we’ve had and shared - and say … what a waste -- no, just joking. I can’t imagine my life any better with out them. Especially without my boy and girl…life wouldn’t be the same without them. So just incase your having a "need a smile" day - hear is an old marriage joke I revised and turned into art..

Parenting Advice: REACH FOR YOUR GUNS !!!! Before you think my “Parenting Advice” is abusive or comes from the NRA [ national riffle association ] handbook let me just say - it’s a figure of speech. My parenting advice is meant to [ Mom or dad - best both ] have a plan of action. Let me tell you a little story - here I am walking thru the grocery store and I notice a Mom with a small child [ looks to be 4 yrs old ] and she seems to be loosing it. Her kid is not listening to her, he is embarrassing her and she seems to be frozen - unsure what to do. Me, I would have smacked him up side the head [ figure of speech people ] and put and end to it. But many people think different. I had people say they don’t hit their child in public because they don’t want people talking [ clarification - nosy people calling child services ]. Some have told me that they just talk to their children they don’t hit them... Others - they just freak - their so embarrassed that their kid is acting up in public