My ten-year-old, just now (10:45PM): I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to build a block tower in my room, and now it's all the way to the ceiling. So, can I have my tablet to take a picture of it?
Son: What's Frogger?
Me: 
It's Crossy Roads with a frog.
I've failed him as a parent.
My five-year-old decided to put out milk and pretzel sticks for Santa, and some carrots for the reindeer.
Caption
A couple Christmas presents in bags on the floor. In front of them are two bowls and a cup. The bowl on the left is sea blue and contains several carrot slices. The bowl in the middle, colored purple, curtains pretzel sticks. The cup on the right is blue and half full. The contained liquid isn't visible.
Parents used to have to look through their kids text messages to find out what they're up to. Now, we can check our kids' ChatGPT history.
My five-year-old describing an echo: When we say our voice, it copies us!
My kids are going to be terrible neighbors when they have their own apartment.
#WhatIsThatNoise #HerdOfElephants #LordOfTheDance #Parenting
My 5-year-old just saw a picture of two turkeys and said "Dinosaurs!"
I'm so glad I've taught her so well.
Me: Evelyn, it's time to get your bath.
My 5-year-old: Noooo! I'm watching K-Pop!
#Netflix #KPop #KPopDemonHunters #Parenting #KidsSayTheDarndestThings
I'm having heart surgery this week. It's a pretty common procedure with low risk and high probability of success, but they are cutting my chest open and tinkering with my heart, so it's not nothing.
But, my five-year-old, since learning that I was having trouble with my heart, and the doctors were going to help it, has been super adorable. Multiple times a day she comes up to me and kisses me on my chest, because she wants to kiss my heart to make it feel better. She brought me some water last night telling me it was good for my heart
If anybody is curious how this conversation actually went, it was something like this:
Me: Hey, bud, time to get up for school.
Some back and forth whining and complaining.
Him: Why do I have to go to school?
Me: Well, René Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." That means that people are thinking creatures. More than any of the other animals, we have the capacity for learning, and reasoning. And school is going to teach you critical thinking skills that will serve you well in your life and generally give you a more fulfilling life.
Him: I don't want to go to school!
Me, my voice faltering: Can you please just get out of bed and get ready for school‽ I just want to move on with my morning. Please, just give me a break!
Him, begrudgingly: Ok.
Here I am at 6am, sitting on the floor of my 8-year-old's bedroom, quoting René Descartes, in an attempt to convince him to get out of bed and get ready for school.
My 10-year-old has been strangely interested in the Cartesian coordinate system lately. Today in the car, he asked if there was an x and y coordinates for where we are on the planet.
So I'm explaining latitude and longitude to him, and after explaining the concept, I say to him, "For example, right now, we're probably somewhere around 90° west and 30° north."
My wife turns to me and says, "how could you possibly just know that?"
"
I don't know. It's just a thing I know. It is a very rough approximation."
Turns out my guess was about 5° too far east, but only about 0.1° too far north, and I think that's pretty close.
My wife and I are not particularly gregarious people. So we have no idea how our ten-year-old son learned it.
Case in point: today we were at the pool. We were enjoying our time when the local college soccer team showed up and monopolized a large portion of the pool, and doubled the volume. I was finding myself a little annoyed at their presence, but they weren't doing anything really objectionable besides being a lot of people.
And then my dear little boy worked his way into the middle of this group of twenty-something men, and organized them into a game of Marco Polo with him being the first Marco. They were all having so much fun and he caught one of them in just a few minutes.
If he weren't also a sweet, kind-hearted soul, I'd worry about him growing up to start his own cult, because he would be wildly successful at that.
My nine-year-old son, randomly, apropos of nothing: "Dollar Dollar bills, y'all!"
My sons (ages 7 and 9) share a room, and have been difficult going to bed lately. They're often up well after we send them to bed, making a lot of noise and keeping everyone else awake.
They're a little old to be reading kids' bedtime stories to them, so I tried a different approach tonight.
I read them The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, with as much pathos as I could muster.
It seemed to work. They are quiet now, and I expect will be fully asleep soon.
My six-year-old has expressed an interest in learning how to program. I'm not really sure where to start. He definitely has the right kind of inquisitive mindset for it, though.
I taught a high school class for a little while, but that had a specific, very set curriculum.
And I taught myself when I was just a few years older than he is now. But that was with a Commodore 64 in BASIC. So I don't really want to start him there.
Anybody have any experience teaching young kids programming? I do know of the MIT Scratch language, but aside from that?
I'm glad I took two additional days off after Thanksgiving. The kids will be back in school and I can have a vacation from my vacation. #Parenting
If there's one piece of #parenting advice I could give to people who don't yet have children, but plan to, it's that you should give your children two middle names.
Sure, it can be annoying when a form doesn't allow for a space or whatever.
But you remember when you were a kid and your parents called you by your first and middle name, and you knew you were in trouble?
Imagine how much more intimidating it would be if they escalated from one middle name to both? You could hear yourself getting on progressively more trouble.
It's a great discipline technique.
My three-year-old had a meltdown when I put Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the TV, when she actually wanted to watch Mickey Mouse Funhouse.
How dare I commit such a grievous faux pas.