Stories, thoughts, and the occasional hard truth about fatherhood.
My kids are two and eight months, so I'm writing this one ahead of time. But everybody was a teenager once, and almost nothing that works on one involves sitting across a table.
It's been raining since Thursday. Your kid has pressed their face against the back door eleven times. Your wife has that look. You've got a whole Saturday and four walls. Here's what to do with it, sorted by how much energy you've actually got.
A hike is walking. Ask any kid. Walking is boring, walking is far, walking is 'how much longer.' A hike with a job is an adventure, and it's the same trail. Here's the one thing that fixes hiking with kids.
Most of us learned to change a tire from a YouTube video in a parking lot because nobody showed us. That's the whole reason this activity exists. Pick one thing your hands know how to do, and let your kid watch them do it.
Your kid asks for pancakes at 5pm on a Wednesday. The first answer is no. Try the second one: 'okay, but you're cracking the eggs.' One hour, one mess, and a kid who eats what they made.
The porch light off, the yard gone black, one beam swinging around looking for you. Nobody who played this as a kid forgot it. Here's how to run it in your own yard tonight, and the one rule that makes it work.
You need a box of wood screws. A five minute errand you've done alone a hundred times. Take your kid and plan on forty. It's the cheapest, easiest, least impressive activity I know, and it works better than most of the ones that cost money.
Things to do with kids after work when you've got fifteen minutes, a kid who's been waiting all day, and a brain still at the office. Nothing to buy.
It's 5:40 on a Tuesday. Your wife has the baby. Your two-year-old has been awake since nap ended and has already thrown a shoe. Now they're standing in the middle of the living room looking at you like, well? What are we doing? You've got nothing.
There's a stack of flattened boxes in your garage right now. Every week it gets taller. Here's what it's for: two chairs, a can of beans, one rule, and the best rainy-day hour I know how to give a kid.
A two-year-old in a car seat talks the whole ride. In fourteen years that same kid is in the passenger seat with headphones in, not saying a word. Here's the drive that gets a teenager talking, and the one rule you can't break.
She's two. She grabs your hand, walks you to the back door, and says 'outside.' No plan. No toy. Just you and her and the yard. You're about to say 'in a minute.' Don't.
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