CreativeDad

My son recently decided to play cello and I couldn’t be happier about it. My memories of learning violin as a 5th grader (Max is in 4th) are of a lot of pain but also a lot of fun and camaraderie.  Feeling like a geek because I was in “orchestra” rather than with the kool [...]

Robin:  Holy Humongous Hand!! - where’s Batman when I need him!?!?
CreativeDad:  Your childish costume and props won’t save you now!  Prepare to be torched!
Robin:  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!
I can’t remember when I thought about torching Robin AND videotaping it but my son and I did this several times last summer.  Maybe I was thinking about magnifying glasses and [...]

In the U.S., we’re conditioned to believe that public or private schools are the only viable option for educating our children. After all, two-income families are the norm rather than the exception today. How could anyone consider homeschooling their children when there’s no one home to teach them?
However, many families do opt to [...]

It’s not easy being creative - sometimes off-the-shelf just doesn’t cut it.
When we were expecting my daughter to come into the world, we decided to move Max into the room next door. Molly would take over his (then) current room. I looked at the move as an opportunity to exercise my creativity.
Within a day, I [...]

On Easter day, my son and I skipped church and went snowboarding.  This season he’s shed the training wheels (it would be nice if ‘boards actually had them) and has begun to shred.  It’s been a lot of fun letting him lead.
On one run, while he was ahead of me, I treated myself to a [...]

In our home, my wife is the good cop and I’m the bad cop.  We naturally fell into these roles because of our personalities and it seems to work well for us.  Of course, I can be nice, too. But there’s nothing like having the power to shut down my kids quickly when I need [...]

Like this post at GeekDad, I’ve had conversations with my 9-year-old son about life’s deep questions.  Unlike Matt Blum at GeekDad, we haven’t talked about reality, existence, and perception.
We have talked about life and death and ethics.  The death conversations are particularly poignant. The prospect of losing any family member is heart-wrenching.  Rather than post [...]

After the big layoff of 2001, I suddenly got the urge to make stuff.  Looking back, the creative spark that had been buried for many years finally got a chance to catch flame.
One of the first things I made was a dump truck bed for my son.  I knew that, if we wanted to keep [...]

My daughter just handed me an ant.  “I’M STILL ALIVE!” screams the ant.  She treats it like a pet.
Around my house, the ants are mild cousins to those I grew up tormenting in West Texas.  We did have these cute little black beetles that I’d pick up and then flick off their heads.  But that’s [...]

One of our earliest videos is of my 7-month-old son and I having a smackdown in bed. He was quite a heel - with his sharpened pacifier, he bladed my face. Giggling uncontrollably, he then squatted on my crimson mask with his gloriously full diaper. I still have scars - some you’ll [...]