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How To Dad

February 1, 2012 //
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Cover of "How to Dad"

How To Dad By John Boswell and Ron Barrett

I received How To Dad By John Boswell and Ron Barrett as a gift.  It’s a fun book that I’m not ready for yet.  I mean Gavin isn’t ready for yet.  He’s almost 10 months old, and even though he’s big for his age, I don’t think he’s ready to catch a baseball at this moment.  (But, it won’t stop me from trying to toss one at him…)

Steph and I received a ton of books from our family before Gavin came.  (Maybe our parents agreed that she and I needed some serious guidance on parenthood.)  One day, about a year ago, I was sitting beside myself waiting for my clone baby to be born.  So, I read How To Dad from cover to cover.  It’s a short read and is 80 pages.  (I read slowly, so it was 3 weeks of reading for me.)  After going through the book, I could say that I was pretty excited for Gavin and I to start doing these fun things together.  Almost excited enough to start pulling the baby out of Steph’s body myself.

Boswell and Barrett know how to strike a chord with fathers in this book.  I kept flashing back through my own memories of my dad doing lots of these things with me.  I love my dad for spending this time with me and I hope that one day I will get to do this with my son.  With this book, I’m sure I won’t miss any of the finer father-son teaching moments.

The book is written well enough for both parents and children to read.  It’s a fun book and has cute illustrations on every page.  It touches on how to perform various life tasks (like whistling and snapping your fingers) and just as important, how not to perform them.

I enjoyed reading How To Dad before Gavin was born and I will be sure to dust it off and review it once Gavin is old enough to start doing cool stuff with his old man.  This book makes a great gift for Father’s day too!

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Overall Rating:  8 Worms

Readability:  9 Worms

Usefulness:  8 Worms  (This rating depends on how much you already know.)

Manliness:  10 Worms  (Nothing makes you more of a man than spending time with your kids.)

Retail Price:  $9.95

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Pros:

Lots of cool things that you can (learn for yourself as well as) teach your kids.  Teach them how to: throw a football, bait a hook, ride a bike, build a campfire, and lots more.  It’s geared towards kids that are a little older.  I would say this book is great for ages 4 and up.  This book gives some pretty nice techniques on HOW to teach your kids to do something.  It is an excellent guide for you to review if you tend to have difficulty explaining things to your children in a way they can understand.  In fact, you can even let your kids read it!

Cons:

Nothing.

Things I would modify:

Nothing.

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Categories Product Reviews

I’m Creeped Out Already About My Blog

January 30, 2012 //
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WordPress is a great platform for me to blog from.  On top of being laid out nicely, there’s a page that provides statistics on how many views I get, how many people clicked my pictures, where people are visiting my site from.  This last statistic is interesting for me.  Facebook seems to be where viewers notice my MVG blurbs and click through.  That’s great!  And thank you from the bottom of my heart.  There are also Google (I can’t believe that I’m getting a spelling error for ‘google’.  The google came way before the Google!  Get it right WordPress spellcheck!  Sorry, I digress.)  search terms that people use to find my webpage.  It even lets me know what people are searching for when they click to my website.  For instance, if I do a Google search for funniest dad blog in the universe, the results don’t even show mevsgavin.com.  But, let’s imagine that my blog shows up on the first page and I click through to get to mevsgavin.com.  That is a statistic that I can see.

Well, last night I was looking at the stats for MevsGavin.com and I saw that someone came through Google search engine.  The search terms were ‘child pornography’.  Yep.  If that creeps you out, then you’re probably not a pedophile.  But if it doesn’t creep you out, then maybe you should seek out some counseling.  Ok, you should seriously seek out counseling.  (In case you were wondering, on one of my other posts, I typed out those two words.  Google spiders find everything, huh?)

Anyhow, it got me thinking about what Steph told me when I started to blog about our life.  (She’s a savvy blog reader and has about 100 of them in her Google reader thing…so I defer to her opinion on all things blog-related.)  She said that I would be attracting some disturbed as well as normal people, especially as more readers get interested.  I just didn’t realize how soon the crazies would start knocking on my blog.

This is one of those things that you know happens on the internet, but you don’t really think about it until it affects you.  And it slapped me in the face last night.  After doing a double take at the WordPress statistics screen, I looked a third time.  Yep, there it was under Google search terms, correctly spelled.  I got the weird butterflies in the stomach feeling.  And then I wondered about my blog and whether or not I should keep doing this.

But, then I started thinking even without the involvement of rum.  I’m not going to stop writing this blog because some wacko wants to see naked pics of my kid.  I’m going to keep writing this blog so that my friends and family can share in watching my son grow into a lovely human being.  I’m going to keep writing this blog so I can share my family’s struggles and victories with child rearing.  I’m going to keep writing this blog so other parents can see Gavin doing the same zany stuff their kids do.  I’m going to keep writing this blog so that people can see that raising kids is a wonderful experience.

So, if you have a desire to look at fatherhood from a stay-at-home dad (SAHD), you are always welcome here.  If you have a desire for lewd behavior with children, you’d better knuckle up.  Someone may want to sit you down and have a “come to Tebow” talk.

You Want Somma Dis!?!

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Categories Random Thoughts

Bright From the Start

January 30, 2012 //
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Bright From the Start By Jill Stamm

Every new parent wants to get their kids on the right track to learning.  Finding a way to give your children the best opportunity to feed their brains has fueled an enormous industry in baby learning products.  Are they really necessary?  Is one better than another?  The vast number of products available can cause you to lose your mind trying to figure out which educational toy is best.  Bright From the Start by Jill Stamm is a great starter book for people looking to figure out what is really important in nurturing a child’s mental growth.

Bright From the Start is easy to read and contains fundamental ideas from which you can build a solid learning platform.  (Parents are always looking for that magic secret to unlocking those extra IQ points in their kids, aren’t they?)  The book stands by its principle, ABC, or Attention, Bonding, and Communication.  The entire book is written around this simple philosophy.

Stamm discounts the hype associated with the latest and greatest products to boost your child’s brain development.  (And rightfully so.  Do you really think that your child playing with a jump rope is worse than playing with a talking multi-lingual stuffed toy?  Not necessarily.)  In the beginning of life, there are more important things to work on, hence the ABCs (see above).

Now, I know that different parents have different ideas about the early years of a child’s development.  So, please understand that this is my opinion.  I agree with Jill Stamm’s ABCs.  Babies need attention.  Attention from you.  That is how they learn.  Babies want attention from you and obviously their verbal skills haven’t developed yet.  So, they use their face, hands and voice to get your attention.  This interplay between you and the baby is probably the most important aspect of learning.  (Stamm also talks about the TV being a problem before the age of 2.  I agree.  Staring at a TV teaches your child to, um, stare at a TV…even if it is an educational show.)  Bonding is also important.  Your baby is a living creature.  It naturally wants needs to bond to a human.  That human should be you.  A strong bond with you lowers stress hormones in the baby.  When the baby feels safe, he or she can explore and learn without fear.  Lastly, there’s communication.  We need to learn to communicate with the baby as much as the other way around.  Adults are so used to verbal communication that many have lost the ability to recognize non-verbal cues.  Babies provide a nice refresher course for us.  When we work on communication with our baby, there’s less frustration on both parties.  You’ll probably notice yourself starting to “read your baby’s mind” which may result in less frequent crying.

Jill Stamm has written a nice book with general concepts for us non-neuroscientists.  She briefly explains brain development from a neural connectivity perspective and then goes into the Attention, Bonding, and Communication strategies.  For some parents, the ABC philosophy makes complete sense.  For other parents, it may take a little convincing.  (I believed in the ABC philosophy from the beginning and Stamm gave some great reasons why the philosophy makes sense.)  I enjoyed reading this book as it was not densely filled with data.  But, it left me wanting a little more substance to bite into.  (Personally, I would have liked to see a bit more technical information.)  If you are looking for an instruction book on how to manage your child’s learning from 0-3 years old, this is not it.

Bright From the Start gives you, the reader, some games that you can play with your baby.  Stamm talks about how these games work on the baby’s brain.  There are also tables on how your baby should progress, developmentally.  It’s a great book to learn about how YOU can assist in developing your baby’s learning from birth until three years of age.  I recommend this book as a reference for parents who want to understand how the time they invest in their babies is more important than anything else.  If you already understand how important spending time with your baby is, then this book may be somewhat rudimentary.

———-

Overall Rating:  7 Worms   

Readability:  8 Worms

Usefulness:  7 Worms 

Manliness:  7 Worms 

Retail Price:  $17

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Pros:

Easy to read.  General concepts.  Simple games to play with your baby.

Cons:

Not enough technical information.  I would have liked to see some studies and scientific evidence, etc.

Things I would modify:

Not much.  This book is a casual read.  I think it is targeted towards a parent that is interested in building a strong relationship with their child, but could use a little guidance.

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Categories Product Reviews

Missing the Milestones

January 30, 2012 //
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When people describe other people’s inadequacies, they may say to you…”So and so has a great personality!”  which translates into “So and so is ugly as sin.”  Or…”So and so is an incredible athlete”  which means “So and so can’t think his way out of a paper bag.”  Well, we think Gavin may be the athletic type.  (Which is disappointing for now, unless we can later exploit his athletic prowess for millions of dollars.)

Pediatricians have developed a way to measure mental growth in children.  There are milestones for you (and them) to observe and chart your child’s progress.  It is based upon the average age at which babies learn to do things such as giggle, wave, make eye contact, turn when called, etc.  This milestone checklist is partly so doctors can catch abnormalities early in baby brain development.  More importantly though, milestones are used for parents to quietly rank their own child against their friends’ kids.

In the beginning, Gavin was smarter than average.  Smiling, laughing, rolling over, fetching  (or was that Duncan?).  Gavin was passing the milestones early by weeks, if not an entire month.  We would visit with the pediatrician and made sure she knew how advanced our prodigy was.  She would check off the milestone boxes on the Worm’s medical chart and we would make sure she documented the additional parlor tricks of our young Einstein.  Oh, how we enjoyed weekends at the park, jeering and throwing yogurt drops at all of the ‘normal’ kids falling off swings and tripping over themselves in the grass.  Our child was so much smarter than THAT!

Durp.

Well that’s changed, and not for the better.  Gavin’s almost 10 months old and has missed a few milestones already.  He doesn’t mimic any sounds we make (except for burping and farting).  He doesn’t say mama or dada.  He uses his forehead as an extra limb.  There’s no baby sign language coming off his hands even though I’ve been teaching him how to sign “eat” for 6 months now.  (At least, I’m learning sign language…)

Let’s just say that if licking the sliding glass door, dragging your face over the carpet, and chewing power cords comprised the milestone checklist, the Worm is in the 99th percentile.  But alas, he is doomed to be either an athlete, or worse, a reality TV actor.

 

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Categories Education

Beco Gemini Baby Carrier

January 27, 2012 //
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Ready to go for a walk!

The Beco Gemini is one of a few different baby carriers available from Beco.  I bought this carrier because I knew I wanted to carry my son during his non-walking years.  I don’t like strollers for the people traffic jams most of them create and I like to travel light.  I figured I could keep Gavin strapped to me while I clean, vacuum, do chores, er, um, I mean while I work on my truck and build things in the garage.  Also, I would be able to strap Gavin to me and walk the dogs at the same time.  (Multitasking!)  It really allows me to have both hands free to do things around the house or elsewhere.

NOTE:  If you’ve got no interest in having a baby carrier and are one of those people that push an enormous stroller around while oblivious to everything and everyone around you, then this is probably not the product for you.  It takes a certain type of person to want to carry a baby and I’ve found these people to be more minimalist in nature.

Given the opportunity to try on and test different baby carriers, I found the Beco Gemini able to carry baby: facing out, facing in, on the hip, and backpack style.  These options were in my desired list.  The only style of carry I haven’t used up to this point is the hip carry.  (I’ve got no hips for now, but I’m working on the middle age spread!)

The instructions for the Gemini were pretty easy to follow and there is ample padding for the different methods of carry.  I started carrying Gavin when he was about 6 weeks old (facing in).  Beco claims that the carrier can hold 7-35lbs.  Gavin was 7lb 13oz when born, but I didn’t feel at all comfortable trying to carry Gavin at that time.  It was just my personal preference and I waited until he got a little bigger.

At this time, Gavin is 9 1/2 months old and about 20lb.  He’s easy to carry with the Gemini and there is still enough padding to keep him comfortable.  We’ll see if he’ll still wants to be carried like this at 35 lb.  Either way, there’s room for him to grow.

This baby carrier was one of the few that did all the styles of baby carrying that I wanted.  It didn’t look too girly, but couldn’t they print bullets or knives on at least one of their carriers?  I don’t want to discourage anyone from this carrier because it is great, but I’ve seen plenty of use with it and I’ve got a few small issues with it.  I can’t get the waist support around my waist.  I’ve got a 29″ waist (31″ after eating a steak) and the waist strap doesn’t cinch tight around me.  The problem comes when I put the baby into the carrier and he sinks down into that space between me and the strap.  When this happens, his chin ends up resting on the top lip of the carrier.  After walking for a while, it rubs his chin skin and gets red.  Either have the top part fold down further or make the thing for skinny dads.  We do exist and we do carry babies.  Another issue I have is that there’s no storage, not even a place to hold a nickel you may pick up on the side of the road.  Lastly, washing the material, even once, causes it to fade slightly and look worn.

On the bright side, the safety buckles are great and the stitching of the material seems to be holding up quite well.  I like having the top part to fold up for shading Gavin’s head from the sun or supporting his head when he’s tired.  The Beco Gemini has enough support to be functional without being a problem to fold up and travel with.

I guess the real question is:  Now that I know all the ins and outs of this product, would I buy this again?  Yes.

———-

Overall Rating:  7 Worms   

Ease of Use:  7 Worms 

Performance:  7 Worms 

Features:  7 Worms 

Durability:  8 Worms 

Manliness:  6 Worms (No guy looks manly carrying a baby.  Though, he does look sensitive and caring!)

Retail Price:  $130

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Pros:

Safety clasps, 4-way baby carrier, lightweight, quality stitching, packs tightly into my suitcase for travel

Cons:

No pockets.  Doesn’t cinch tight enough around my waist.  Could use more adjustability in padded portion for different size babies.

Things I would modify:

Add pockets or bags that you could velcro to the straps.  Just something small to carry a pacifier, diaper, and a couple wipes, so I don’t have to carry around a diaper bag everywhere I go.  I’d like to see the top fold down portion able to fold down further.  My baby isn’t small, but his entire head still doesn’t clear the top flap. (It may also have to do with the loose waist strap.)  I’d also like to see more adjustability in the padded section, like possibly more button fasteners so that I can fine tune the comfort for baby.  Maybe breathable fabric?

Where to find:

www.becobabycarrier.com

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Categories Product Reviews

Please Drive Forward and Enjoy the Fruits of Your Wife’s Labor

January 27, 2012 //
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750 mm by 1050 mm (30 in by 42 in) Preferentia...

Image via Wikipedia

Forget what I said in an earlier post about losing 30 minutes of my life.  I wasn’t in my right mind.  Today, Tebow shines on my brain and blesses me with a stroke of genius!

I’m driving along and I see the usual signs on the local freeway:  merging traffic, exit only, carpool – 2 or more…wait, 2 or more?  I’ve got two or more in the car.  In fact, I’ve got three in the car at the moment!  Me, Gavin and Duncan = 3!  I can’t believe it!  I’m 2 or more!  I’m 2 or more!  The sign doesn’t say anything about the description of 2 or more, just 2 or more!  The pint-sized progeny finally has a purpose.

Wow!  So, now I’m entitled (well, aren’t all Californians entitled?) to a new entitlement!  I can use the carpool lane!

I see myself saving minutes of freeway driving every week now.  Added up over the course of a few months, I may save enough time to go for a good mountain biking excursion!

All I need is to do is bring the baby wherever I go.  Rush hour traffic?  No problem.  Put the baby in the car.  Morning traffic?  No problem.  Put the baby in the car!  (What else has he got to do?  Nothing!  He’s a baby!)  Minutes saved from traffic will become hours and hours will become days!  This baby isn’t a time vortex anymore, he’s a time machine!

I finally understand why having kids is so rewarding.  Thank you, Tebow!  Hallelujah!

Gavin is the gift that keeps on giving…on the freeway!

Gavin – 5; Dad – 3

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Categories Random Thoughts

First there was Steph and I. Then at 12:45am he showed up…

January 26, 2012 //
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You want me to do what?

Separating mommy from baby was my first job as a father…Does that face say “I’m clueless about fatherhood” or what?

Due to the high demand for baby pictures on this blog, we have started a new category called GPOD – Gavin Pic of the Day.  It’s a way to shamelessly promote the adorability of our son Gavin.  We will be starting from his very first breath of air.

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Categories GPOD
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