Being a father makes me:

• busy
• proud
• cuss

One of my great saviours when the frustration and cussing come out has been the knowledge of those who have also experienced the massive changes of being a first time parent. Some of this knowledge comes from my own parents and my wife’s parents, some from friends and some from the glorious internet. And do you know why I love the internet… because the internet does not judge, the internet does not have an opinion of how we should raise our child and the internet does not get offended if we want to try a parenting style different to yours. But the internet can be full of a magnitude of crap and self-righteousness  that few people could (or would be willing to) express face-to-face. But that is another glorious thing about the web: I get to filter out as much of that crap as I want and just stick with the good stuff!

And babycenter.com for the first years of our daughter’s life has been “the good stuff”. It isn’t one person’s option; it is a collection of many voices and many experiences so it balances out well. AND it respects (enormously) that all children are different and the parents choose to parent differently.

Here are the recent articles that have saved my sanity… or that I am working towards using more regularly to save said sanity.

• Making errands fun - great ideas to keep getting groceries from being a huge fight or a massive time suck.
• Beating the whines - dear lord, do I need this right now.
• Prime time fun: Alternatives to TV - yea, I use TV as a babysitter, especially to cook dinner. Or sometimes I let her treat the bathroom near the kitchen as a giant water table and just deal with the large wet cleanup later. Here are some really awesome ideas, that are mostly a lot cleaner than bathroom destruction, that I am going to be trying for the next fews weeks!

So, thanks babycenter! You’ve been great!

Now you just need to also have a wine delivery service!