On the same day a Wall Street Journal headline proclaims, "Are Alpha Males Healthy?" comes a news report on the involved parenting and testosterone. Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for … [Read more...] about Bad News for Involved Dads?
Review: Time Tracker Mini
I'm a pussy cat dad, a long way from being a Tiger Dad, but I have amped up my discipline on piano lessons, keeping my kids at the keyboard for up to an hour. We've been using Mark-my-time to keep the kids on track for their time commitment. Unfortunately, it is a pretty poor quality digital timepiece, poorly constructed and worn out quickly. So when I got a chance to try the … [Read more...] about Review: Time Tracker Mini
Review: Griffin Portable Security for Laptops
I've been reading way too many articles about laptop thieves in airports and especially coffee shops. The first step, of course, is to get a secure password and a secure encryption system (we like Macs for that reason), but the second, is to lock your machine down if you spend a lot of time working away from home. We tried out the Griffin Portable Security Techsafe locking … [Read more...] about Review: Griffin Portable Security for Laptops
Jungle Speed – fast game for dads and kids
Jungle Speed is a new game that combines fast pace card games like Spot It and Blink with an extra twist, a "totem" that you have to physically grab to win the mini-round. Game play is pretty simple though it does take a few readings of the directions while playing to figure things out. As usual, dads with short fuses should read the directions ahead of time instead of yelling … [Read more...] about Jungle Speed – fast game for dads and kids
Travel games to get the kids’ attention
I've been with my kids (7 and 11) alone in Paris for two weeks now. My wife didn't join until yesterday, so it's been just me keeping up a steady tourist monologue and trying to get the kids to pay a little attention to what they are seeing. After five days of repeating the same things without any nod of retention on their parts, I decided to make it more interesting. I told … [Read more...] about Travel games to get the kids’ attention