The Rogue Parent

Teach Your Kids About Life, Build a Fire

As a follow up to my post on the Five Dangerous Things for Kids to Do here’s just a handful of things your kids (and you) can learn from an evening under the stars building a campfire.  You can wrap up just about everything a fire can teach you in the motto of the Boy Scouts of America, “Be Prepared.”  From respect to imagination, a fire is a great tool to teach your kids to be prepared.

For starters, my daughter is too young for the campfire and is now content to just watch the glowing embers.  So this is more about my experiences and what I learned from the ultimate caveman tool, fire. Read the rest of this entry »

Rogue Review: Ultimate Guy Toys, The PlayStation 3

I’m now officially changing the phrase “The best thing since sliced bread” to “The best thing since PS3.”  This thing is awesome.  Aside from the video games, it’s a great BluRay player.

I’m not a big video game guy, though I do definitely enjoy sacking out on the couch for a little bit and playing a shoot-’em-up game.  Once I did start playing, I was blown away by how amazingly crisp and detailed the games were.  I just finished Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and the way the character interacts with the environment is incredible.  If you walk through high grass, it moves around so naturally that at times you think you’re watching TV, not a game… Read the rest of this entry »

Rogue Review: Dusty the Talking Vacuum

You can read this review later.  First, go out and get this toy.  Our daughter is 21 months old and was getting tired of her younger toys; so we got this for her on our last adventure to Toys ‘R’ Us.  It’s only been a few days, but all she’s done since then is vacuum.  She loves the voices, swirling lint, hand tool and don’t get me started on the moving eyes… Read the rest of this entry »

When Mom is the Target: Protect Yourself from Theft

Last September, I got a call from a number I did not recognize.  Sometimes I’ll let unknown numbers slide over to voicemail since I’ve got just about everyone I’ve ever known or done business with in my phone, but today I answered the phone.

My wife was hysterical on the other end of a Good Samaritan’s cell phone.

She was at the grocery store with our daughter, 9-months old at the time, unloading the shopping cart into her car.  Just minutes before she strapped our little one into the car seat and quietly slid her purse onto the center console of the front seat… Read the rest of this entry »

Five Dangerous Things For Kids to Do

When I saw this video, I instantly realized how great of a job my parents did with my sister, brother and me.  We grew up in a rural area where my grandfather gave me my first pocket knife when I was barely in school, had a bb gun and played outside.  What I didn’t realize was that I was learning all kinds of great life lessons that would help shape me into who I was going to become.  I found this article on Digg and was immediately drawn in by the title, 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.  After watching, I think I’m going to go get my 21-month daugher her first swiss army knife, but that’s a job for a grandfather.

I GUARANTEE that this video is the best thing that you will watch today, perhaps this week… Read the rest of this entry »

Does HGTV Recommend Spending Home Equity for Vacation?

After our daughter went down for her nap, we slumped on the couch before i had to go out and tackle the grass.  My Home is Worth What was on HGTV, so we thought we’d give it a shot.  This episode was about a family that wanted to pull some equity out of their house and put it into a vacation cabin.  The owners were their home was worth around $610k - $625 and called in expert Kendra Todd to help them get the answer.  Unfortunately the home ended up being valued at only $580,000, which was 10k more than they had invested.  Not the return they had hoped for, but a positive increase.  What surprised me was at the end of the show the host said, “You won’t be able to get the cabin, but that’s still a great vacation.”

WHAT! Are you telling me that they’re suggesting we pull out home equity to pay for a vacation! Read the rest of this entry »

Applying the Web 2.0 Concept to Parenting 2.0

This is not my blog…

This blog is a combination of the template designed by bob, the widgets designed by Matt Mullenweg and others, the backend structure designed by WordPress, plugins designed by hundreds of designers, and content added by me.  I’m in the web business and I’m always getting asked about what I do and what the term “Web 2.0″ means.  In short, it means participation and collaboration.  Using all the ideas and content at your fingertips to create something that is uniquely you.

As I started really thinking about it, I realized that the concepts used to create a great site are not much different than what it takes to create a great family.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Dial-up Modem & Other Things My Kids Won’t Know

I’m in the technology business and am always pushing the envelop of what’s possible online and in my personal “techie” life.  This got me thinking, our kids are so lucky they don’t know what we had to go through to get to where we’re going.  Perfect example, I was in a meeting with an intern and we made a joke about the sound of a dial up modem and she just stared blindly at us while we made that weird noise.  Come on, how can you not know that wonderful, ear-piercing, sound of a modem connecting.

So in an effort to preserve the great moments in our technology lives, I give you the list of things my kids will never know.  With special thanks going out to the Yahoo! Answers community for helping with my research.  Please jump in here and add some of your own.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Official: My Daughter Loves the Show Hi-5

Every morning when I wake up my daughter (20 months) runs in the bedroom and tell me that Hi-5 is going to be on.  There’s nothing amazing about this post, but as excited as she gets, I’m sure your kid will too.  Hi-5 is a pretty cool kids show that’s on every weekday at 7:00 on Discovery Kids.

I will offer a word of caution, you will be stuck singing their weekly song all day after you watch the show.  Over the last two weeks, I’ve had either their “Some Kind of Wonderful” or “Action Hero” in my head non-stop.  You know, before our daughter came around, I’d have the White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army” bouncing around my skull.  Now, I’m at work reciting the full lyrics to “The Wheels on the Bus” verbatim.  Aside from Hi-5, let’s look at the official, “My Daughter’s Top 3 Favorite Shows” list… Read the rest of this entry »

Rogue Review: Summer Video Baby Monitor

Do you need to spend $180 on a monitor?  No, but this thing is so cool and it’s the only handheld unit that has color video + day/night vision and is built like a truck.  There’s a few reasons that you’ll want this, most importantly, you’ll save trips to the nursery.  There’s been a ton of times when we would have rushed into our daughters room to see what was wrong if it wasn’t for this monitor…  Read the rest of this entry »