Practicing Math and Saving Money with 5, 6, 7, and 8. These two things are near and dear to my heart.  The idea of saving money is really more about maximizing our money, particularly in light of the Sports Daddy’s job status change.

Our local Target was having a great deal.  In spite of my views of the 5% penalty, the deal is a good one and worth the trip.  It’s a buy any 7 frozen items and get a $5 gift card special.  No limit to how many gift card or multiples of seven. Read more…

After the dramatic extraction of our 6-year old son’s tooth last night, the Tooth Fairy blew it. The current snowstorm in Minnesota might have something to do it.

It started a few weeks back, when our boy started wiggling his bottom left incisor, stating that it was “really loose.”  He’s a hockey player, so we encouraged him to keep working on the tooth so he could  look like one of the players on the Minnesota Wild.

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Since the letter of the week is ‘i’, Nolan interviewed family members to create a list of favorite ice creams. It was a very simple task.
1. Chocolate Chunk (Mommy)

2. Butter Brickle (Daddy)

3. Chocolate (Hazel)

4. Superman Ice Cream (Nolan)

In creating this list, in the mind of our boy, it was extremely important that #4 also was denoted as ice cream. In my super parent role, I tried in vain to explain that there was no need to write ice cream since the list was of ice cream types. Instead what should be done is to write ‘Ice Cream’ at the top of the page. The was unacceptable to the child.

It’s shocking what occurs when Mommy goes head to head with her persistent 6 year old version of herself! In the end, the adult version of me gave up and decided that a title on the list was irrelevant. Creating a legend was completely out of the question. Pick your battles.

We have two sick little kids with a flu-bug this evening, and the work of a parent never stops. There are no practices or rehearsals, or game simulations or walk-thrus for parenting or life events. But there are good games to talk about and break down after they occur. Funny thing though, there is no press to write about them.
Read on…

Birdhouse in Your Soul by the band “They Might Be Giants” is one of my all time favorite sings. I almost forgot about this song, until a recent episode of Showtime’s Weeds reminded me of how cool it is.

I remember jammin out the FLOOD album back in the early 90′s, and putting this song on almost every mix tape I made for that era. From Wikipedia I learned that Birdhouse it “tells the story, in very abstract terms, of a nightlight with the appearance of a blue canary, from the point of view of the nightlight itself.”

It’s definitely a happy song with a positive psychological message. As the song fades, the line “while you’re at it, keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul” echoes the chorus, essentially telling the listener to keep all the good things that provide light in their soul protected.

It’s a great tune for your kids to jam out with, and provides a parent the opportunity to read the lyrics with their kids, and help them find that “Happy Place.”