Saturday, August 2, 2008

Dad tip #105: Sometimes it's cool to just hang out with the baby

The title of this post isn't quite descriptive enough for me to get my point across. What I'm trying to say is, that while trying to keep your baby stimulated all the time is admirable, sometimes the best thing for your baby is to just hang out with him.

With your baby's happiness on your mind, it's easy to get caught in a loop where you're constantly taking your baby from activity to activity, from station to station, but sometimes all your baby needs is your company. In fact, we've found that one of our baby's favorite things is to just lay on the floor with me on one side and my wife on the other.

Give it a try ... it's also relaxing for you if your baby likes it.

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Dad tip #99: Don't be too impressed with yourself; babies are easily amused

So, my family is in town visiting -- my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew. My wife, my son, and I were all sitting around with our visiting family tonight and some how three practice tennis balls started flying around the room. At one point, all three balls ended up in front of me and I began juggling.

My nearly 8-month-old son broke out in full-on belly-laughter and my 19-month-old nephew seemed to giggle his agreement that the juggling was, in fact, impressive and entertaining. With this encouragement, I added in a couple of simple ball tricks and changed up the juggling pattern a few times. And the laughter continued.

Then my dad, the most practical human being on the planet, suggested, "I think he'll be just as entertained if you just move one ball up and down in the air while holding it." Sure enough, the "simplified juggling" of one ball was sufficient to keep my son laughing.

Oh well.

I'm SURE that juggling will eventually be impressive to my son. I'll just count myself lucky that he's easily amused right now because it would be a pain if I had to jump through all kinds of crazy hoops to keep him happy. I'm not saying I wouldn't do it; it would just be a lot more tiring.

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