A Night Without the Kids

I spend quite a bit of time with my kids on the weekends and I value every minute, but sometimes my wife and I need some time for ourselves. When my wife was pregnant with our first child we had to attend a couple of classes about parenting. Most of the classes were boring, but there was one thing I took away from the classes that I should share with other parents. The instructor of the course stressed the importance of keeping the flame in the marriage after kids. To keep our relationship fresh my wife and I go out once a month on a date. There is one rule on the date: no talking about the kids. It is harder than you might think to stick to the rule since work and kids are all we have going on and work is never fun to talk about on a date.

Last night was one of our dates. We went out to the Melting Pot and then attended a show at the Pioneer Center. The fondue restaurant was very nice and the pace of the meal was just right for combining talking and eating. There were many options on the menu for not only the food, but the wine as well. The menu should please anyones discriminating taste with all of the options they provide. The show was also a nice experience.

I would recommend the show dinner combination to anyone looking for a nice night away from the kids.

Four More Travel Games for Kids

In  a previous post I mentioned my wife purchased a vehicle activity package from Usborne to make car trips more enjoyable for all of us. I was going to stop after that post with the three top picks of mine from that package. The top picks turned out to be games we all played prior to purchasing the package so I guess we didn’t need to buy anything, but then I found the following four games.

End to End- The person who goes first says any word they want like rainbow. The next person has to use the w from rainbow to come up with a new word like walrus. Third person would says something like snake and so on. If you want to make the game more challenging you could say the words must be verbs, nouns, or fall into  some other category.

Rhyming Nonsense- The person who goes first says a word like boat. The second person would say goat or any other word that rhymes with boat (Coat, Moat, Etc.). When the group has come up with as many words as possible try to come up with a sentence containing as many of the words as possible.

I Spy- This is a game I am sure you can remember from childhood that will also entertain your kids longer than you will be willing to play. You start by saying “I spy with my little eye something …….” and then either the first letter or the color of the object. You go around the group letting each person have one guess until the object is revealed. The person that guessed the object gets to go again.

Careers- You come up with a job and let everyone ask you a yes or no question. The first person should ask a question like do you wear a uniform? The second person might ask do you work inside? The questions continue until someone gets the job you thought of. You can decide at the beginning if a guess disqualifies the individual from asking a question or if everyone gets to guess after asking their question before the next person goes.

I haven’t actually tried these games out yet, but I am willing to bet they are going to be a hit with my little ones.

Daddy Daughter Dates

My daughter and I have been doing something that I hope other dads share with their daughters. Once every couple of weeks my daughter and I go to Denny’s or Ihop for some one on one time. It might seem a little strange right now since she is only five to need alone time, but my expectation is that continuing this tradition will matter more as she grows up. We never let a month slip away without going out together at least once.

I have found that most places like Denny’s and Ihop have certain days of the week where kids eat free. Sometimes I happen to land upon one of those days when we go out and that is how I found out. You can click on the links above to find restaurants in your area as well as promotions. Honestly though, the cost of the dinner is minimal when compared to the return you will get through building a stronger relationship with your daughter.

I know my daughter is only five and there are a lot of changes she will go through, but making a point of getting together at least once a month hopefully allows me a chance to be a part of those changes. I dread the day when our dates turn into her talking about boys since I am obviously one myself and I know what value girls hold for guys before our late twenties. She’ll probably have her little heart broken more than once and I’m sure I’ll want to kill the boy that breaks it first. As much as it might bother me to hear some of the challenges she will face as she grows up I want her to feel like she can tell me anything. I am hoping these daddy daughter dates as she calls them will keep the line of communication open between us as we both grow up.

Living Green Everyone Benfits

I blog a lot about spending time with my kids and trying to instill the morals and values my parents passed on to me. I am trying to teach them the best way to live I possibly can, but I am not sure I am practicing what I preach. I used to joke around saying I wish everyone drove a hybrid so gas would be cheaper for me to fill my gas guzzling truck. I think it is time to change that view. I don’t know if we are really able to screw up the globe; not sure if we are over estimating ourselves thinking we have more power than God. Just hearing that we might be devastating the environment is enough for me to start taking more of a proactive approach to preserving the environment for my kids.

I bring my kids to earth day each year. We are friends with a few people that are extremely involved in clean green living. I know I should do my part to help reduce my carbon footprint, but at the end of the day all I really do is bring my recycling bins to the corner. It sad really, I want to do everything I can to raise to healthy happy kids, but I am not trying to leave them with much of an environment.

I am not about to run out and sell my truck or move into a straw bail house off the grid. What I need to do is start spending some serious time understanding different types of green energy. I have a unique opportunity working in construction to work towards building green projects. There is legislation mandating set percentages of energy generation in Nevada are in place within defined time frames. Looking into these projects in the development stages to offer assistance would be a good use of my civil engineering degree. Once projects are ready to be constructed my employer could directly benefit as well.

It is not fair to my kids to simply place a couple of recyclable items on the curb every other month and think I am doing everything I can to leave them better off. Getting into green building trends will benefit everyone in my life from my children to my employer.

Three Travel Games for the Kids

If your childhood was anything like mine there was a lot of time spent in the car. Every second of a car trip felt like an eternity and more than once my father had to yell out “do you want me to pull this car over?” We all get angry sometimes, but I think a key to making the ride more enjoyable for both parents and children is finding activities that will occupy everyone. My wife has recently purchased the Usborne Activity Cards to help us keep the kids entertained on car trips. Three of my favorite activities are listed below.

Hungry Alphabet- Someone starts by saying “I am so hungry I could eat an avocado.” The next person repeats the same “I am so hungry” and throws out something that starts with a B. To make the game harder you can have the second person first repeat the A word before adding their B word. People that don’t recite the list prior to contributing are eliminated. The forth person to go for instance would say “I am so hungry I could eat an avocado, banana, chocolate cake, and a date. There are hundreds of variations to this game like if you are going camping what would you bring, if you had a party who would you invite, etc. Before you start you should exclude letters like q and x since they are really hard to use.

Blue Car, Red Car- Each player picks a vehicle color and once everyone agrees on colors the game begins. Each car that you pass is a point for whichever person picked that color. The first person to count to a predetermined number wins. I have found this game works great on a two lane road where everyone sees the cars approaching so keeping track of the score is easy. A line of cars approaching is especially fun. We frequently play this game on the Mt. Rose Highway between Lake Tahoe and Reno. With so many variations of greens, blues and other colors there are always fun disputes. The best part about it is that your you have no advantage over your kids unless you talk your child into selecting pink or some other strange color.

ABC Spotting- I have been playing this game since I was a kid. The best part of this game is you can all work as a team. The idea is that you start on the letter A. Your group needs to find the letter A on a street sign before proceeding onto the letter B. Billboards are generally very helpful for locating most of the letters. We play this game whenever we hit the highway. We try to find all of the letters before we exit or we all lose. A variation is starting with 1 and counting to twenty. We have to mix it up since after a while you will remember where key letters like Q can be found.

An Indoor Fort for the Kids

Browsing my Google Reader this morning a quick and fun activity was posted in one of the websites I follow. The web site if you are interested is http://kids-indoor-activities.suite101.com and the activity was building an indoor fort. I remember building forts when I was a kid both indoors and out as well as the fun involved.

It only takes a couple of seconds to grab a couple sheets from the linen closet and throw something up. For the half second it takes to make it happen and the time it occupies the kids I think it is worth hearing my wife complain about the dog hair that will surely be all over them when the fun is over. Luckily she isn’t home right now to stop us from raiding the linen closet.

As soon as I proposed the idea to my kids my five year old was all over it. With just two sheets strung from the coffee table to the couch the fun began. Once the main tent was up my two year old started to understand what we were up to and he grabbed his b-b (blanket) to contribute to the structure. My five year old also came up with ways to build the fort.

The limits are only as broad as your child’s imagination. I encourage you to grab a sheet or two and start them off on a journey in their imaginations. If you also want to be a part of the fun offer to have a camp out in your living room. Activities like these are not only free, but they leave lasting memories in your child’s minds.

Rained Out Activity – Wii Sports

We were planning to go to the Rink on the River in downtown Reno, but it rained all afternoon so we canceled the plans. Instead we decided to have a family game of Wii bowling. I have never been much of a bowler so I don’t know if the video simulation is realistic or not. I am hoping it isn’t real since the second game of the night resulted in my five year old beating both my wife and I. A lot of people probably think I’m old for blogging about a video system that came out a while ago, but it is new to us. We just got the system for Christmas. My two year old is a little young to get it, but the rest of us really get in to it.

If you want to get into it I have a couple of tips for you. First of all don’t just let your kid win. I think it sends the wrong message to your kid. Sports are not win-win situations someone has to lose and losing isn’t fun. A tie is also a loss. I think the people who easily accept defeat most likely suck at most things in life. Competition is how the world works anyway so you ought to teach them correctly as early as possible to give them best chance in the long run. If you challenge your kids on a regular basis you’ll probably be surprised how quickly they improve. My daughter wasn’t very good the first game she played, she is only five after all, but now she is tearing up the virtual alleys. The reason you need to make it competitive is so you have fun playing too.

Another way to make it fun is by dressing the part. Don some goofy bowling clothes like the characters in the movie Kingpin. I wouldn’t stop there though. Give each other silly nicknames too. We have a couple of good ones our family uses, but I am not going to share. You will need to come up with a few of your own. Just coming up with the nicknames is fun in itself. Your kids will have a great time for a fairly reasonable cost.

The price of the system is somewhere around 200 dollars and you can pick them up anywhere. We got our system at Costco and it came with the sports package. If you don’t have a membership there you can also get the system at places like Walmart or Target. You could also go on ebay and try to pick one up for a great price, but to tell you the truth I prefer physical stores.  I might go on-line to pick up games since they run about 40 to 50 dollars apiece for good ones. The price might seem high, but for the hours of in home entertainment your family will enjoy the cost seems reasonable to me.

You might not agree with my ideas on competition with your kids. The cost of the system might seem a little high, but once the game is on in your house decide for yourself the real value of competing with your kids. My daughter cries when she loses, but she also feels the excitement of winning since there is no faking when the game is on at our house. She is experiencing pure competition in the friendliest environment I can provide and we are both enjoying every victory. I love to lose to her when I know I didn’t just give it away.

Kids Activities in Reno

It is typically hard to find fun and entertaining activities around Reno that interest both kids and adults alike. I scan several sources for events with my Google Reader on a daily basis. There is generally stuff going on all of the time around town, but I am not looking for events that will only please either myself or my kids. The events I try to find have to be entertaining for both of us. There is nothing worse than sitting through a boring kids movie or getting stuck in some other activity that only pleases the kids when there are so many things  available for both of us with a little searching.

Searching can really burn sometime though and that is why when I find an activity that will likely entertain both groups I feel compelled to pass along that information. I want to pass along any information that will help other Dads in my position more easily locate activities. Posting events to my blog might not really get them out there, but by reposting someone else’s blog I am hoping that their site becomes easier to find in a Google search.

I was told in a class at UNR that by posting information from one site to another site increases “Google Juice”. It is my understanding that if someone searches for an article that several people have posted on their blogs the article should appear at or near the top of the first page of search results. I am not sure how many links need to be attached for a Google web crawler to locate an article and list it.  I don’t know any of the technical stuff about how search engines work; regardless, based on what I have learned and armed with just enough understanding of social media to be dangerous I have started reposting information centered around my values. I am hoping that it helps dads with similar values and equally limited time more easily find good information. If it all works like I was taught the sites I tweet about and blog on should be propelled into a more favorable position on a web search.  Well enough rambling on about why I am reposting information and on to the content.

This Is Reno has recently posted a new activity that I hope other dads in my position easily find: Something Really Gross is Coming to Reno. The event seems like it would be fascinating for kids and entertaining for adults. The event runs from January 30^th through April 18^th so if you are finding this blog after the 18^th I am sorry you missed it. Hopefully there are other activities more recent you will enjoy. If you have found this in time I encourage you to find a child even if it isn’t yours and attend. Don’t kidnap one or anything, but a niece or a nephew I am sure would love to spend some time with an Aunt or an Uncle. As a parent I can tell you I wish my Sister In-Law was a larger part of my kids lives, but that is a different story.

Next Outing With Kids In Reno

I think for my next outing with the kids I will bring them to the Reno Rink on the River. I have lived her for years and I have never been. I grew up skating on ponds back east where everybody played hockey after school every single day. We all dreamed of being Ray Bourque or Wayne Gretzky. I look back on those days in a way I hope my kids look back on their childhoods.

I remember several years and at least 50 pounds ago racing to the nearest pond after school and throwing our sticks into a pile. Someone would split up the pile tossing sticks to one side of the pond or the other to decide the teams for the day. An old pair of tennis shoes would mark the edges of the imaginary net. Once the puck hit the ice the game never ended. It wouldn’t be over until it was dark and everyone had to rush home for dinner. There were no slap shots, mild checking and a lot of bad passes. We all wanted to get into the NHL and maybe some of the kids did, but on a whole it was just a good way to waste an afternoon in Tewksbury, Mass.

We won’t be able to bring our sticks on the ice at the Rink on the River and my kids don’t have nearly enough friends for a game yet,  but I at least need to teach my kids how to skate. I guess it is because I am from New England I think every kid needs to know how to skate.

http://www.rinktime.com/skating_rinks/nv/reno_rink_on_the_river_skating_rink_arena_reno_nv.cfm

The Value of Spending Time With Kids

I am not an expert, but I think just paying a little attention to kids goes a long way. I have volunteered at schools all around Reno and Sparks in a number of programs. I even decided to Chair the Associated General Contractors of America Reno Chapter Education Committee to become involved with children and share the construction industry with them. I get a thrill showing off tractors to young kids that eat them up just like I did. It is easy to connect with kids that share the same interests as me. My kids are into tractors and stuff like that too, but not all the time.

I struggle coming up with activities to do with my kids. I try real hard to figure out stuff to do that will be enjoyable for both of us. Luckily I found a website that I would like to share: http://kidsactivities.suite101.com/ I am sharing it because if you are like me it is difficult finding things to do that interest you as much as your kids. I love building things and my kids like playing with stuff. This site has a ton of ideas and even if you don’t find exactly what you want to do I hope it helps you brainstorm.