SuburbanDaddy

Considering the name of this website, it’s no surprise that my kids are 100% suburban.  They are very much at home in a Target or Home Depot.  They know the difference between Panera and Starbucks.
We are only about 30 miles outside of a large city, Washington DC, but it may as well be 300 miles [...]

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The parenting mystery is solved.  There were several partial correct answers, but monoceros came closest.  The garbage can wasn’t a difficult one to guess.  It’s an obivous object of interest to little kids.
The key in my situation is that Thing 3 has just learned to walk, so objects that used to be out of his [...]

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OK parents, let’s see if you can figure this out.
Here are two images of ordinary objects in our house.  One is a garbage can on top of the kitchen counter.  The other is a kid-sized picnic table on top of a porch table.
This is the way we keep these two items every day.  Can you [...]

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Kids are always complaining that there are too many rules to follow.  No running in the house.  No fighting with your brother.  No putting your fingers up your nose.
As I picked up the Things at daycare one day, I realized there are an awful lot of rules that I have to follow, too.
Rule #1: Bring [...]

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After such a restful vacation last year (see Vacationing With Kids Is No Vacation), we’ve decided to do it again. This year we’re going to Bethany Beach in Delaware. Bethany is known as The Quiet Resort but I don’t think there will be a lot of quiet in our house.

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When a three year old is in tantrum mode, the laws of reason and logic don’t apply.
SuburbanDaddy: When you calm down, you can have it back.
It doesn’t matter what “it” is. Could be a toy, pillow, or piece of dirt.
Thing 2: Stop talking. Stop taaalkiiing [whining]
SuburbanDaddy: I can talk if I want. [...]

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I read an interesting article that suggests parents are less likely to report being happy than the childless.
In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book “Stumbling on Happiness,” the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has [...]

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