What you think does matter

Ever wished reading could feel less like a chore and more like a thrilling adventure? As a fellow parent and educator, I know how magical it is when a story truly grabs a child's imagination. That's why I'm super excited to share a fantastic, engaging idea that transforms any book into an immersive, problem-solving game: creating your very own "Breakout Book" game! Think of it like an escape room, but instead of escaping a physical room, your child is "breaking out" of a book's mystery by solving puzzles tied directly to the story. This isn't just about reading words; it's about becoming a literary detective, digging for clues, and cracking codes hidden within the pages. The Big Idea: Turning Reading into a Real-Life Mission! A Breakout Book game is a series of puzzles and challenges that your child solves by using clues found within a book. These games are brilliant because they reinforce key reading skills like comprehension and finding te...

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Apparently I'm not! My daughter has the "are you smarter than a fifth grader" board game and the Ds video game [ no surprise she plays the video game version more than the board game]. But my shame lies in the fact that I'm a full grown adult and though I've only watch a few of the game show episodes [ and like many other Americas - have thought to myself - i could do that easy ] I have yet to win one game of "are you smarter than a fifth grader". That's right not one. What a ditz.... To be honest I feel a bit embarrassed to even admit this. It looks so simple and after all - all the question are suppose to be no harder than 5 th grade level questions. Can you imagine my surprise when I get a second grade question wrong... give me a life line please.... Well, I guess I can always tell my kids... I've forgotten more things than you'll ever know... you think it will help??

Parenting: Things I hate about you [ wife & kids ] Parenting is a give and take kind of thing. For all the things your kids give you - love, joy, hope... any real parent knows that there is a lot that parenting takes away from you. So to be fair I thought I would mention some of the things I hate about you [ kids & wife ]. I know parenting deals with kids - but since the significant other is part of the parenting process - I thought I would include her. .... LOL Stealing Hot Water : As any parent knows getting your kids ready in the morning is a chore - but I hate cold showers and it doesn’t matter if I’m first in the shower or not - some how they find away to steal all of my hot water. If it’s not washing dishes, it’s turning on the washer - it’s always something - I hate cold showers I said..... Wet Towels: It never seems to amaze me [ it annoys me ] but it’s never a surprise to find that all the towels in the bathroom are wet. Not humid or moist - I mean wet... If I forget ...

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....

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...

Parenting Advice: Build your children’s self esteem with Rap Music? Here is a "Parenting Advice" and "Parenting tip" - It’s a bit unorthodox so hear me out. I used a little Nelly rap song to teach my child [ daughter ] to build her self esteem. " I am #1, 2 is not a winner and 3 no one remembers… What does it take to be #1 - hey, hey, hey ..." This method of “Parenting advice” may sound a bit off, but please - give me some time to completely explain my madness. I know most people hear the words “Rap music” and they think - degrading, thug, junk... So how did I teach my daughter about having good self esteem with a rap song? Well, one day I heard this song and it was so catchy - I spent days humming the chorus and singing the chorus to myself. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. Then came a conversation with my wife - she was expressing her concern over our daughters “shyness” and her fear that our daughter may have low self esteem. So an Idea ...

Don’t try to grow up so Fast! I tell my daughter all the time - "don’t worry about growing up, that will happen. Enjoy being a child now, because when you do get old [ grow up ] you’ll wish you were a kid again". This leads me to a conversation I walked in on with my daughter and wife. I walk into the kitchen and bang the conversation stops [ clear sign I should get involved ]. So after poking my nose in - I find out that my eleven year old girl wants to "shave her legs" - so first I get defensive and ask why and throw in a "your too young". Then I get logical - I break it down for her with a series of questions: How old are you? Who are you trying to impress? Are you a model? Are you going somewhere other than school? What hair on your legs? [ still has thin small almost invisible baby hair. ] I told her look, I can’t see any hair to shave and if you start shaving now, the norm is that your baby hair will grow in thicker and then you will need to shave. S...

? ? ? Honey what’s that Smell? So here we are watching TV and the kids are doing what they always do [ argue about something trivial ] and this weird smell hits me. It just seemed to fill the air. I didn’t notice it before so I was a bit confused - ofcourse at first I thought someone let one rip [ you know, silent but deadly ]. After much debate [ it was daddy, no mommy, no Isaac, oh that smell...] we soon realized it was coming from that small little creature called general. Our visitor was starting to smell, it’s normal after all he is a dog [ literally ]. So the time came for my wife to give her first "doggy bath". Hey that’s what you have to do if you have a dog. I expected this to be a disaster, a real nightmare - but it turned out to be a mild inconvenience.. The dog was no trouble at all, my wife on the other hand was acting like the dog was a new born baby and she was a first time mother. Can I do this, will this hurt him, is it the right soap... On and on.... it’s ...

A friend and a blog fan made a request for new material.... read more below, below A Friend and a blog fan asked me to try and do [ use ] new material for the blog. She told me just last Wednesday that she checks her email for my "email updates' with a giddy expectation to see whats new on the blog. She says she loves all the jokes, the pictures of the kids and the dog - but she was wondering if I had anything new, defferent. Well, this put a lot of pressure on me to create something new. after all - the blog is about the insanity that is my world - meaning my kids and the spouse. And if I don't want to sleep with the dog, the spouse is off limits.... So after several hours of thinking and thinking - I cracked, I could not perform under this pressure. So I created the above photo gallery slide show for you, yes you Betsy - hope you like it..... it's something new! See you sunday ...

A lesson in Humility from a King. I am sure we've all done it, I know I have. You sit there upset because you know you deserve better. In fact you expect better - after all - your special. My kids do it all the time - they act like things are a given - they forget and I occasionally have to remind them that my love for them does not make them deserving of everything. You still have to work for things and you can't get everything you want. But I ran across this news video [ posted below - excuse the ad ] - it reports on this African King who is in New York and he drives a bus. Unlike the Eddie Murphy movie "coming to America" he isn't rich - but he is humble. He doesn't want people to know that he is a King. In fact he is here working hard to help 20,000 people that live in his tiny kingdom village - he's trying to build a well for drinking water. Which surprised me. You see, my first thought was - hey a bus driver who learns he's a king - boy he has it...

Oh look out generals back!! Well, guess whose back? Yep that little dog with the big name "general". General is cool but he just has a weird effect on my family. My wife treats him like a baby, probably gives him more attention than me. My daughter - she treats him like a china doll - afraid that everything will hurt the dog. look out here, look out with the dog... no he'll get hurt... leave the dog alone Isaac.. My son is the funniest of them all - this kid of mine spends most of his time calling general to him only to run in fear when general comes near him. It only gets worst in the morning when my wife lets the dog loose, my son does not want an excited pup jumping on him at six thirty in the morning - lord help me. Don't let these pictures fool you - it takes all the nerve my son can muster just to be this close without getting hysterical... Well, general is going to be here for a while [ helping out a friend ] so I better get use to the insanity. Look at me...

The end of the first week of school and his 1st report. If my son is enjoying school, he sure isn’t letting on. I ask him the same question every day after I pick him up from school. How was school? What did you learn? What is your teacher's name? Have you made any friends? What is his response - nothing! The most I get out of the boy is that he eats "coconut cookies" for snack time - whoopee... Of course, he has found time to tell his mom that he has made two friends at school and has been playing games there. I finally received his "end of week" school report. I am glad to see that he has a good report on behavior and work habits. I was afraid he was going to run the teacher ragged since he can’t stay still at home. But I am a bit confused about why they have “ability to open and close door” as one of their study units???? I get the games that use grouping and identifying items. I understand using games and play to teach kids their numbers and alphabet… but ...

First Day of school - first trip of this school year. I don’t know what was worst - being all torn up and trying to be tough or watching my little boys eyes well up with tears as we left him at school all alone. Well not alone - but with out us. I’m sure by now he has a friend and doesn’t remember we exist. It was a hard day for the wife - little girl in middle school [jr high] and little boy starting school - driving her to school was tough - she’s holding back the tears and I’m trying to be strong. Imagine if we both would have broken down..... Here I am - alone at home thinking of when I have to pick him up. Who knew I would miss him so much. Man that kid has me all messed up. Excited but always playing Little girl - first day of Jr High [ middle school ] Have to look good you know - my kids......

Gummy Bear and My kids - Lord help me... I wrote a post a day or two ago about making sure my kids watch intelligent stuff and the challenge I face with them watching what I call ‘dumb programming”. I also wrote about how as parents we have to be diligent protecting our kids from “improper things” on the internet. I was watching TV in the living room and as usual I decided to sneak up on my kids and take a look at what they were doing online. Normally my daughter gets online to play on kid friendly social sites like Penguin. But what really caught my ear was the singing - especially the catchy toon I heard coming from my computer. Like I said - I wish my kids would watch only intelligent programming - but sometimes I even get caught up with some of these catchy silly videos. I’m not happy she was on Youtube but relieved to find her watching this silly Gummy bear video [ it’s had 10,405,136 views ] That didn't stop me from giving her the parential speech....

In poor taste? My significant other saw a video clip [ part of a video ] I was creating and said that it was done in “poor taste” on my part. Well, I’ll let you be the judge of the complete work. The goal behind this video was to help me talk about the “Effects Movies can have on children”. You see, we let our kids watch just about anything on TV, videos, internet or in the movies. I don’t mean you personally or I myself - I personally try very hard to shield my kids from a lot of programming on TV. But I will admit that America as a whole - parents don’t really concern themselves with what their kids watch. I also admit that there are times I let them watch things they really shouldn’t. Not because it’s bad but because it can effect them adversely. I know this will sound silly and it’s embarrassing to me - but I a grown adult can’t seem to take a shower or use the bathroom without wondering if someone is just on the other side of that shower curtain. Really, Psycho [ Hitchcock's o...

It's amazing what children will do when your not watching them..... Here I am doing some work on the computer and taking phone calls - and I notice that my kids are quite - way to quite. so like any good parent i raise my antenna and I hear them whispering and getting things from their rooms. So being the nosey parent that I am - I went to check on them. I don't know about your kids, but it's amazing what crazy ideas pop into my kids head..........

I can’t believe what I just said - I think I had a brain fart. “Go watch TV or I’m going to hit you!” Did I just say that? I can’t believe this. I know I said this because I wanted my son to watch some educational television and yes I was in the middle of something and found it easy to just send him to watch TV. But it hit me after I said it - I was going to hit him if he “didn’t watch TV“ ??? Boy does that sound wrong in so many levels. I hear people talk like if the television is a baby sitter and how others believe TV is bad for kids [ too much tv that is ]. But in this case - I just wanted him to take time to learn. I have always made it a habit to have him watch educational television in the morning because #1 - I want him to learn and #2 - after a certain time there is nothing very educational after 12 noon. So I got a bit frustrated because he’s been watching “junk” tv with his sister and I wanted to make sure he got in the educational stuff like sesame street, Dora, Diego, Arth...

Oh the Hypocrisy of fathers Day ! I hate Days like Fathers day - it’s so fake, so hypocritical. You know, the one day out of the 365 day year where your family takes the time to show you how much they care for you as a Dad. Well, the hypocrisy goes toward all days - mothers day, valentines day, even birth days. I love my family and they love me. I know this not because they gave me a nice fathers day card and some very nice cloths [ better than a tie .....] But because they show it too me every day of the year. On fathers day, my wife went out shopping for five hours with the kids, ate lunch out at Paneras restaurant and came home and didn’t have to cook. What was my reward - that I had peace and quite for five hours and had to cook my own meal. yea, like I said I got the fathers day card and nice clothing. But I think my wife got the better end of this deal. My point - I hate it when I am obligated to give someone something on a particular day - and if I don’t, it’s taken as a sign of...

Day 6 th of Summer Oh the joy of being right.. I told you so............................ This morning [ as early as it is ] I arose to the sweet smell of victory. And all I could think to say was " I told You...} But I didn't. It seems that my wife is a bit upset becuase my duaghters room smells bad - ofcourse it does. The dog has been sleeping in her room and it's dog she smells. *** Surprise *** Not happy at all she orders my dughter to clean her room and spray that smelly princess stuff called Freebreez ???? Oh then she orders her to walk the dog. Oh joy what a wonderful morning this is! Now my duaghter is upset becuase [ already used to waking up late in the day ] she has to get up at 7 am to walk the dog [ well it wasn't going to be me ]. Ofcourse I couldn't help but document the disgruntle little girl walking the dog. Ofcourse this only means that I have to put up with a "angry little girl" for a couple of hours early in my morning - but since I...