The Daddy Daze guide to more better blogging

So, I’m sitting here, staring at a blank screen in WriteRoom, and I can’t think of a single thing to write about. Just a blinking cursor. So, I’m going to write about what to do when there’s nothing to write about.

When I’m in this situation, I often turn to Chris Garrett’s “10 killer post ideas.” I’ve added one of my own (#11), but it’s really quite specific to what I like to write about. Anyway, here we go.

1. Write a how-to
2. Write up a list
3. Campaign. Spread the word!
4. Conduct an interview
5. Product review
6. What’s trendy and new?
7. Research results. Create a poll, look at the response.
8. Case study. This is an interesting one. For me, it could be, “How I got my kids to eat veggies,” “Ending the bedtime routine nightmare” or “Successfully surviving a day at the beach.”
9. Go on the attack! (those darn Pussycat Dolls!)
10. Ask for audience feedback. What are you favorite kids’ shows? Is there music that you and your kids can both enjoy?
11. Old photos. I’ve found that browsing old photos of the kids has sparked several great stories/post ideas.

So there you have it. All I have to do now is…heed my own advice.

What has happened to oatmeal?

I don’t want this to sound like one of those “…back when I was your age” type of stories, but I’m afraid that’s impossible.

I gave the kids oatmeal for breakfast this morning. When I was a kid, there were two flavors of oatmeal available: Cardboard Box and Cardboard Box with Apple. If you were lucky enough to get one of those shriveled, dehydrated, chicklet-sized shreds of apple, you knew it was going to be a good day. You chewed that thing for every last bit of sweetness it was going to give up.

Flash forward thirty years. Grace’s oatmeal this morning was “Cinnamon Roll.” William had “Banana Bread.” I had to try each one and they tasted just like a cinnamon roll and a slice of warm banana bread. Lucky dogs.

The Nation

My sister from NYC is coming to visit tomorrow. My sister the Yankee fan. I’m just sayin.

The Parenting Post goes live

The Parenting Post (TPP), the weblog of Parenting Magazine, has gone live today. Hooray! I’ll be adding something new to TPP every Friday (you’ll find an archive of my posts here), but don’t wait until Fridays to check it out. The four other bloggers are terrific. I’m actually a little intimidated by their writing, to tell you the truth, as they’re all very talented. Perhaps the experience will prompt me to kick things up a bit (or, more likely, take some writing classes).

Anyway, check it out! I’m really excited about the whole thing. I hope you like it. To all the new readers who found their way here from TPP, welcome! I hope you find something you enjoy.

Daddy Daze joins Team Noodad to benefit The Jimmy Fund

When we were taking our first baby class at the hospital prior to Gracie’s birth, the nurse played a trick on all of us. First, she spread several index cards on a table in front of the whole class (about 25 of us). On each was written something like, "Easy labor," "No colic," "Sleeps through the night" and so on. Next, she told us to pick five cards each. Once we had done that, she said to eliminate one, so that we just had four. It was fun to see what people put back, and what they weren’t willing to give up. Eventually, she got us down to one card each, and amazingly, we all had the exact same card in our hands:

"Healthy baby."

I’ll be joining some of the blogging dads at Noodad (call them "Team Noodad") on September 17, 2006 as we walk the Boston Marathon route to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Imagine me on heartbreak hill! Of course, I’ll be walking, but still…Better yet, why not join us? Don’t you want to watch me sweat profusely for several hours?

Seriously, though, it’s a tremendous way to lend a hand and thank your lucky stars for how good your own life is. You can find more information on the official site of the walk, and you can support me via my donations page. Maybe we’ll see you there.

And thanks!!

3 year olds don’t know subtlety

When I was a young undergraduate psychology major, we spent a lot of time with the “nature vs. nurture” debate. What roles do heredity and environment play in shaping who we become? Is the child truly father of the man, or are we set on auto-pilot from birth? The answer, of course, is somewhere in the middle, as Gracie demonstrated this weekend.

She and my wife arrived safely home from their trip out west yesterday afternoon. Shortly after getting out of the car, my wife did what most people have to do after spending three hours behind the wheel. She visited the john. When she had finished, I went in to take a shower and…I’m just going to say I needed to light a match.

In order to spare my wife some embarrassment, I waited until she went into another room, and quickly pulled a pack of matches out of the candle box on the fireplace. My plan was to sneak into the room, light a match or two behind the door and and get on with my shower. That way, no one would go red-faced. Grace had another idea.

As I made my move from fireplace to bathroom with the matches, Grace called out, “Are you making a birthday?”

“No, Grace, I’m just going to the bathroom.” “Are you making a birthday cake in there?” “Gracie, honey, shh.”

My wife appears. “What is she talking about?” She sees the matches in my hand. I flash my best don’t-feel-bad-I-just-like-to-take-matches-into-the-bathroom smile and disappear behind the door.

Chalk subtlety up to “nurture.”

My wife left me

For the weekend. Specifically, she and Grace have gone away for a long weekend (Thru-Sun) and William and I are here at home. So, what to do? I called all of the local libraries and they’ve got nothing happening. Grr.

Well, I forgot to turn in my time sheet yesterday, so we can drive to work to get that done (that will kill a whole twenty minutes). I’ve been wanting to get him a tiny Red Sox hat, so maybe we’ll go to the mall.

Gee, doesn’t that sound thrilling? Good thing he’s only 1 and too young to realize how boring dad is.

Losing my baby fat, Pt. 2

If you’re one of my nine regular readers, you may know that I’m trying to slim back down, and improve my cardio health. I used to run 5K’s. Lately, I’ve limited my running to and from the freezer. That’s changing.

My Nike+ iPod Sport Kit arrived late last week, and it’s amazing. For the uninitiated, the kit is comprised of a small device that, when placed inside your sneaker, transmits information to another small device that attaches to your iPod nano. As you run, you can get immediate feedback on your performance at any time, just by hitting the iPod’s center button. Total time spent running, current pace, calories burned, distance to go before you reach your goal. It’s really quite motivating and useful.

First, select the type of run you’re interested in completing, either time or distance. Both are fully customizable, and your distance options include 2 miles, 5 miles, 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon and finally a user-defined distance. As you run, the little voice chimes in to tell you how you’re doing (“halfway point,” or “300 meters to go.”). When you get home, just connect your iPod to your computer and all of your info is uploaded to Nikeplus.com, where you can compare runs, set goals for yourself, graph your performance and so on. It’s really cool.

So anyway (informercial over), for the past three days I’ve had to run with William in the jogger stroller. I’m sure you’ve seen those fit moms and dads pushing their kiddies merrily along. Well, let me tell you something, that sucker is heavy. William weighs 25 lbs, and let’s be conservative and say the stroller is 5 lbs. Suddenly, I weigh an extra 30 lbs. I’m about to expire while he sits there like the King of the World.

At the end of yesterday’s run, I got a bit of a surprise. When you finish your workout, the iPod announces your final statistics (time, distance, calories and so on). Then I heard, “Hi, I’m Paula Radcliffe. Congratulations, you just set a personal best for the mile.” Holy crap! Not only was it cool to unlock the surprise message from Paula Radcliffe, but I set a personal best record while pushing the jogger! Talk about motivation. Thanks, Apple and Nike!

Back in the iTunes Music Store

My podcast is back in the iTunes Music Store [link]. Have at it.

I’m only trying this one more time

Are you a Cape Cod/Southern Mass. blogger? Aren’t you just dying to hang out with me, as well as a bunch of other bloggers from the area? Let’s get together and have some fun. I tried this once before and it failed miserably. This time it’s just me organizing the thing, so you all have nothing to worry about. Prove to me that The Cape isn’t the technological/cultural vacuum that I believe it is.