My assertion, boy scout that I once was, stood firmly grounded in some quasi-idealistic notion of shivering in the deep woods, wrapped in a blanket eating a poorly cooked meal from a tin plate around a low fire and nursing a collection of bug bites and sore muscles acquired on the day-long trek from where we left the car and where we eventually pitched our tent. This, of course, was contrasted with current so-called camping experience of playing card games in a heated trailer, drinking microwaved beverages, and occasionally updating our Facebook status on our cell phone…
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being a parent is often just the simple act of being a person: it’s messy, thankless, usually worth a story, and is the core of the skepdad blog.
ever mindful of the allure of positive parenting, in the world of rational child-rearing I’ve got a few things to say about the value of independent kids
creativity, fantasy, speculation, invention, and curiosity: where is the core of a mindful child if not weaved within and through the wonder of these things?
We’re very much a gamer family. We play games at home. We play games on holiday. We play games at our friends’ houses. Video. Board. Card. Yournameit weplayit. It an obsession, to a point and we’ll play pretty much anything. (Although, I will readily admit that my patience for repeated sessions of Candyland (TM) with The Girl is wearing thinner with each passing week.)
Of course, my current state of self-employ means I’ve needed to be a little more frugal on new acquisitions. But just recently, I was particularly excited: an …
A likely familiar tune, but bedtime at our house is borderline ritualism: Bath. Brush teeth. Story. Shine the flashlight on the ceiling to make the the glow stars light. Song. Some idle talking about the day past. At least three drinks of water. And a small peppering of parental nudges to “get back into bed!”
Ritualism, and in that order.
Lately, and this evening being no exception, we’ve been adding the list. I’ve been hearing the faint voice summoning me from down the hall, a tired little …
Sorry, about that. I’m retooling the blog and spending some time rethinking, rejigging, and retweaking what I write about. This post is just a placeholder to let you know you haven’t clicked in the wrong place… I just haven’t written anything here yet.
(Or, at least I haven’t posted here yet.)
But it is coming. Really.
Let’s start by saying its been a tough year.
I returned home from The Amazing Meeting 2009 a year ago today with a new perspective on why I was doing this, on why I was hanging out my thoughts as the skepdad blogger. I had clarity, purpose, and a new, motivation to not only do this right, but to do it as right as I could. I was brimming with all sorts of fancy ideas about what that meant, and how to pursue it with a higher ideal. But …
I could likely give readers a whole ton of excuses for why my promised relaunch of the site has been so delayed. I know I said I’d be dropping a whole collection of new content every couple of months (hence the “bimonthly” name) but… y’know… life. The truth is that despite life — despite all the hang-ups of maintaining a job and a house and all that fun stuff — I will be launching the new format on February first — next week — with four great articles based on my first theme: “Stating the Obvious.”
