Archive for category Opinion

A New Focus

Have you ever felt that your life has been out of your control?

That’s where I’ve been lately. It feels like I’ve had no time for anything lately. I’ve been just going through the motions, not giving 100% effort or focus on anything, and it’s time for a change.

I’m talking about all areas of my life: my marriage, fatherhood, work, my health/fitness, budgeting/financial ficus, organizational skills, and even blogging.

This blog will now focus on all of these areas. Posts will focus on what I’m doing to improve on each of these areas of my life. There will be a wide range of posts, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride, join in on the discussions, and improve areas of your life with me.

If you have any specific topics you’d like me to write about, please suggest them in the comments!

It’s going to be fun.

Great Toddler Christmas Gifts – 2008 Edition (Part 1)

The Fisher-Price Sing and Go Choo-Choo is a fantastic gift for kids 1-3.  It’s a three-car train that comes with a giraffe, and elephant, and monkey.  The train moves and plays songs and is very easy for a toddler to start up.  The train plays music when you put the animals in the front car.  You push the smokestack down to get the train moving.  Works on any floor, even on thick carpet.  The animals heads and legs move and make sounds too.  Babito still plays with this on a near-daily basis.

Fisher-Price Bounce & Spin Zebra – For about a year, this was The Babito’s favorite toy.  When the toddler sits on the zebra it makes a bunch of silly sounds and the child can bounce and spin the zebra around.  It cracked Babito up every time he rode it.  There are some great safety features with this toy.  The zebra will not turn unless the child’s weight is on the seat, which helps them get off and on easily.  I highly recommend this one.  It also allows you to lower the sound effect volume to a tolerable level if it starts to drive you a little nutty!


Lincoln Logs Woodland Express – 290 PiecesThe classic Lincoln Logs are always a great gift.  The Babito loves playing with this, especially since it contains a train and train track as part of the set.  I must admit that it is a little difficult for him to build things with the interlocking logs at his age (27 months) and he can get frustrated, but I think this set is a great gift for children 3 and over.  He plays with this simple train as much as he plays with his much more expensive Thomas train set.  The Lincoln Logs are also a lot of fun for the parents.  I’ve been known to get annoyed with The Babito for having fun knocking down my beautifully built log cabins.  =)

Melissa and Doug Cutting Food Box – I can’t really explain the appeal to this one.  All I can tell you is The Babito LOVES to cut up the wooden food in this high-quality set from Melissa and Doug.  The set comes with various wooden fruits, vegetable and breads that come in several pieces each, held together by velcro.  The set also comes with a cutting board and dull (obviously) wooden knife.  It’s fairly easy for toddlers to “cut” the pieces apart.  The Babito seems to get a true sense of accomplishment when he’s completed cutting all of the pieces.  It’s a truly inexpensive gift that will get a lot of use.

Melissa and Doug Band in a Box – The Melissa and Doug Band in a Box is another great gift.  The set comes with ten persussion instruments, including a tambourine, maracas, cymbals, triangle, and other noisemakers, all in a handy wooden storage box.  The Babito loves music (and noise in general – lucky Mommy and Daddy!) and love to play “Marching Band” throughout the house with these instruments (again, lucky Mommy and Daddy).

Come back later in the week where I’ll recommend some great books and DVDs for that special toddler on your Christmas list!

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Terrorism

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai were horrifying to me.

So many innocent people killed, some tortured, some shot execution-style, and for what?  Radical Islamic terrorists are, it seems to me, here to stay.  What is the solution to this problem?  How are we going to deal with it?  How will it be stopped?  I don’t think there’s any real answers.  Innocent people, just going about their daily lives, will continue to be killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It scares me to death thinking about how easily it could happen here.  It amazes me that there’s been no terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11.  Absolutely amazing.  And I don’t think it’s entirely because of our beefed-up security and intelligence.  There’s no way that all of the terrorist plots can be stopped by security and intelligence alone.  I fear that the terrorists, who are probably already somewhere in our country are planning some major attack again.  It’s just a matter of time, don’t you think?  I pray that I’m wrong.

Sometimes I wish that we lived in a simpler time.  I wish the Babito could grow up in the era I grew up in.  We didn’t have wars, terrorism, global warming, etc. to worry about.  The world we’re leaving our children really sucks, doesn’t it?

I hope that this recession we’re going through has a silver lining.  I hope it makes our Big Three auto makers get really, really serious about developing alternative fuel and electric cars.  We really must do more to get over our dependence on foreign oil.  I hope that Barack Obama pushes this much harder than President Bush did.

When we can stop relying on Middle East oil we can just leave that area of the world alone and let them fight things out among themselves.

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Boo Hoo!

There is an article in today’s New York Times that just had me shaking my head.  Is this what our nation is becoming, a big group of whiny, spoiled brats?

Read the first two paragraphs of the article:

Come Christmas, McKenna Hunt, a gregarious little girl from Safety Harbor, Fla., will receive the play kitchen and the Elmo doll she wants. But her mother, Kristen Hunt, will go without the designer jeans she covets this season.

For Ms. Hunt and for millions of mothers across the nation, this holiday season is turning into a time of sacrifice. Weathering the first severe economic downturn of their adult lives, these women are discovering that a practice they once indulged without thinking about it, shopping a bit for themselves at the holidays, has to give way to their children’s wish lists.

Heaven forbid that mom has to give up her new designer jeans to be able to buy Christmas presents for her child.  Should we take up a collection for her?

Why is this even a story in the New York Times?

I’ve always thought that Christmas (beyond the whole Jesus’ birthday thing) was for the children.  I know my wife and I could care less about gifts for each other.  The whole magic of Christmas is to experience it through The Babito’s eyes…..just like that Gloria Estefan Christmas song.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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