The only way I was able to sell the idea of a Wii to my wife, and even to myself, was the idea that we would only use it to play games together. There will be plenty of time later for the kids to hide themselves away to play video games. If we were to get a Wii, I wanted it only if it would be a better alternative to playing another game of Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders.

When we got the Wii, we got two games:

Wii Play, the free game that comes in the box, and Wii Sports, a game that really makes use of the Wii’s technology. Wii Play is somewhat pedestrian, with simple games that I find a bit boring. Billiards and golf move to slowly in video form for my tastes. The table tennis is hard to maneuver, but maybe I say that because my son consistently beats me at it. Wii Sports is a far better selection of fun games including the famous Wii Tennis. This game selection is a crowd-pleaser. Even my wife will play a few games because it gets everyone out of their seats to hit the ball. Even young kids can play, though it’s frustrating when players are too mismatched.

Video games teach short attention spans, and we quickly got bored with our two games. I was a bit sticker-shocked when I found out how much games cost. The only good choice is rental when you realize that it’s going to be hard to milk $20 or $30 worth of value from most new titles.

So I joined Gamefly with the idea that we could try lots of movies, à la Netflix. We then tried Mario Kart Wii. What a game. Lots of excitement and fun cars. Four players can play, though my wife only joined in one time before pronouncing it too stressful. However, for the rest of our merry band, we had a great time. My four year old was oblivious to the fact that he was always last. I cribbed by reading all the on-line cheater

notes I could find, and within a few games, my daughter was wiping the floor with us in every race.

This was so much fun, I increased our subscription to two games and ordered
Ratatouille, in Wii form. This was a mistake. Despite a description that it is good for four players, the game basically allows only one person at a time to solve the little rat’s puzzles. Small mini-games exist, but can only be accessed once you reach certain levels, which we appeared to be too incompetent to achieve, except by using cheater codes (thank God for the internet!). We never figured out how to remove ourselves from whirlpools, which rendered the game pretty much useless after a while. I finally sent it back.

We moved on to
Decca Sports. It looked fun, but again, we could find no way to play with mulitiple players at one time, so we sent it back.

Wacky Races was next. This is a fun game, especially for little kids, and even for dads for a while. Unfortunately, it requires that everyone has a nunchuck to play. We only invested in two nunchucks and I’m not about to buy a third, so Wacky Races was gone in two days.

We then tried Mario Party 8. Here’s a game that’s good for the whole family. Lots and lots of 4-player games are available right from the start. To access them, however, you have to play a simple roll-the-dice style game that gets a little tiring. It’s pure chance and low on skill, but the graphics are kind of fun and little kids will love it.

Another good game for multiple players is Super Monkey Ball. The multi-player games are quickly accessible and easy to play for one to four players. Many require a nunchuck as well, but not so many that you’ll feel cheated.

If you’ve ever been to a fair or carnival, you will recognize every game in Carnival Games. The rules are easy, the instructi

ons intuitive and the games are very realistic. It’s so simple, you may find yourself bored after a few plays since how many times can you pitch a ring at a bottle without the thrill of wasting a lot of cash to win a useless stuffed animal. While we were able to wile away two afternoons with this game, both of my kids were happy to send it back in favor of playing Wii Sports. As a dad though, I enjoyed the fact that this game was really easy to set up and use for 3-4 players and we all had fun discovering the different parts of it.

If you”re trying to find non-violent age-appropriate games for little kids (mine are 4 and 8), this list is a good start. You’ll have to try them out to see what works best for your family and strikes a balance between simple enough for the youngest child and hard enough to keep dad involved.

Sure, they say that New Year’s resolutions are never kept, but that doesn’t stop us from writing them up. And, I swear, this year, I’m really going to try. The ones I have in mind aren’t that big a stretch. I’m not going to finally “write that novel” or run a marathon. I just want to make a few simple changes. And, I have a new system to try to keep me on track.

• Spend ten minutes alone each day with each of my two kids. This won’t be too much harder. The only the trick will be to separate them when I’m doing the daddy-focus time. I usually read a 10-12 pages of Harry Potter to my eldest each night, so check that one off the list. For my four-year-old, this will take a lot more “get-down-on-the-floor” action. This may be the most important one of the bunch and something everyone can do.
• Try to reduce the number of times I say “Don’t” or “No!” to my four-year-old. He’s naturally more rambunctious than my eight year old and he’s starting to protest that we yell at him too much. I want to try to limit the yelling to when it’s really a safety issue or when he’s about to tip over the TV.
• Gotta get the little buggers eating better food. I paged through Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, though I was scared off by how she puts sweet potatoes into everything. This one will be the trickiest in the book, since I’m usually overjoyed that the kids want pizza (again!).
• Do 25 push-ups a day, and 30 by March. I’m a sucker for easy fixes like this, but I found this article in the New York Times on the value of push-ups quite compelling. Push-ups are great exercise and a good barometer of overall health. I WILL get to the gym every other day and do my stretches. (It’s January 12th and I’m already doing 30 - onwards to 35).     
• Go greener. Okay, I’m sticking this one in because I’m already doing it, but still there are lots of places to cut. I bought myself a pedometer and just that step has me thinking again before taking the car out to drive ten or twelve blocks rather than walk. My goal is to make all the kids’ lunch biodegradable or reusable. Out with the plastic bags, in with reusuable containers. I just got these stainless steel bowls for lunches. They are a little clunky and could be used for a jail break, but they are durable and a convenient size, especially if you make circular sandwiches.

That’s enough! My other resolutions are professional and are overwhelming.

Don’t let this happen to you!

Wii Fit puts Dad in the Christmas dog house
By Patrick Matthews | January 07, 2009
Back in September of 2008, we joined the hordes of people who play the Nintendo Wii.

I quickly learned three things after making this purchase. First, despite never having played them before, my children are distressingly good at video games. Secondly, my wife had not actually been interested in the Wii. She had wanted the Wii Fit. Finally, and I should have seen this coming, every store in the country was sold out of Wii Fits.

[From Seminole Chronicle - Wii Fit puts Dad in the Christmas dog house]

Buying a Wii for your sweetheart at Valentines Day is not a good idea even if it proves you were able to fight through virtual crowds to get one. The scariest thing in this review is that the first time your sweetie gets on the Wii Fit and chooses her character icon, it’s girth expands on screen to match the amount she weighs. This can not be a good start to any game.

After many requests, we’ve finally gotten it together and put some of the articles on top subjects in a series of ebooks, downloadable in PDF so you can read them in a Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry, or old-fashioned PC. You can even print them out, and take them to the bath. They are available for top dad subjects:

1. Five toilet training tips
2. Six baby sleeping tips
3. Dad’s sex secrets for pregnancy and beyond
4. Baby names
5. Every Guy’s Guide to What to Expect When She is Expecting by Grant Eppler

All are free when you subscribe to our newsletters, except the last, which is hilarious and helpful, and significantly less expensive than the paperback version.

Here’s a fun dadventure for those in or close to Oregon. This is a newspaper recount of an expedition made by Jennifer Margulis and her husband, GreatDad contributor, James di Properzio.

If you’ve never been snowshoeing, you probably imagine you’ll crunch effortlessly atop acres of snow in your tennis-racket-like snowshoes, just like Yukon Cornelius, the blustery prospector who subdues the Abominable Snow Monster in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
But when my husband and I took our three children to Crater Lake on a squally Saturday in December, we grown-ups sank into the snow, flipping the powdery stuff into the faces of those who walked behind us.

The kids, on the other hand, had an easier time of it. They practically ran on top of the fresh snow. All three leapt up after falling, threw themselves down to make snow angels and buried themselves as if the snow were sand at the beach (brrr).

All of which helps explain why the free ranger-led snowshoe walks at Crater Lake are a perfect winter family activity.

The walks last 90 minutes and are different each time. We started ours near the Crater Lake Lodge.

[From A fabulous Crater Lake snowshoe trek - Outdoors - Oregonlive.com]

11 Birthdays is one of my favorite books of 2008.It is the story of a girl named Amanda who always has her birthday with a boy named Leo. For their eleventh birthday they don’t have their birthday together. Then, something odd happens: their birthday starts repeating over and over again. Why is this happening? Read this book to find out! This is a great book and a mind-bending mystery.I think this book is for ages nine and up. I think that Wendy Mass is a great writer and I think she should write other books too!

Hadley ( age 8 )

Sony MYLO Personal Communicator - (around $200) If you like to surf the internet and need a device that does it all better than most cell phones, the MYLO is a fun gadget. This “Personal Communicator” works on the 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi standard making it easy to join wireless networks. Unlike an iPhone though, it is set up to make free Skype calls (to other Skype users and for a charge to regular phones) right out of the box (iPhone users must download special software and configure).

The MYLO also has an MP3 player, plays MPEG-4 videos and has a 1.3 MP camera built in, which makes online photo sharing simple. But the best part is the integration with popular sites like AIM, YouTube, FaceBook (with Facebook Notifier) and ShoutCast, making this a fun electronic toy from the moment you open it up. The MYLO (for My Life On-Line) is definitely targeted to the younger user who is looking for easy integration to these popular social sites. Other devices can be rigged to do the same things, but few are set up to use them as quickly as the MYLO.

If you travel overseas, this could be a great option for portable telephony without outrageous roaming charges. While you’re limited to WIFI areas, these are more and more common, especially in Asia and in urban areas.

Strengths:

1. Fun form factor - slide open keyboard is big and easy to use and has a secret agent feel

2. Easy to use integration with popular online applications

3. Easy to integrate with other Sony devices (memory stick)

4. Finally, a simple device for making Skype calls for FREE

5. Takes advantage of more and more free hot-spots (rather than telephone)

Drawbacks

1. Skype can’t be used in hands-free mode.

2. Memory stick versus more common SD cards (this is not a drawback if you have other SONY devices). Also uses proprietary microphone cable and charger.

3. Limited functionality when away from WIFI hotspots. Fairly short range WIFI signal.

4. Tin-ny sounding speakers (but not any more so than most devices this small)

This may also be a good solution for kids who want portable internet access but don’t want to be tethered to a telephone plan.

Ghost Town is a very funny movie. If you like Ricky Gervais’ brand of dry, self-deprecating humor (he was the original Michael Scott in the British version of “The Office”), you’re bound to enjoy his character. This is the the story of a socially awkward dentist who has a near-death experience that allows him to act as a bridge between the living and the dead. Just the fact that he can see many people around us who are actually dead creates a lot of confusion and funny situations, as does the fact that they are dressed (or undressed) as they were at the time of their death. Also starring Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni, Ghost Town has an upbeat hopeful story line, despite the deathly subject matter.

While there isn’t any real sex or violence in this film, one of the main characters is open about his infidelity, there are some direct sexual references, as well as some infrequent profanity (f**k and s**t) , making this movie inappropriate for kids younger than twelve.

In about 90% of bird families, mom and dad bird share parenting duties. And now this earth shattering news from pre-historic days. It seems the 21st century dad has nothing on Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus.

DINOSAUR DAY CARE DADS
A new study shows some male dinosaurs may have been the primary caretakers of their young

[From Science News / Dinosaur Day Care Dads]

Here are some funny dad rules for surviving Christmas, especially the one about doing something really nice to kick things off, listen to people say “you shouldn’t have,” and then “don’t” for the rest of the holiday. I do wish I understood what a “lilo” (#6) is however.

Dad rules: surviving Christmas
Andrew Clover
Listen up. You’ve only a few days to prepare before you travel to enemy territory for Christmas. Here’s a checklist for survival:

1 The curse of Christmas is that there are always people more generous than you. And there’s always one random — eg neighbour, friend of Mum’s — who’ll shame you with chocolates. Be prepared: hoard bottles of something you can claim to be your favourite wine. Make cards with your children. My daughter Cassady, 5, did one that depicted the Christmas fairy. (“She does not like sitting on Christmas trees because she gets needles in her pants.”) I’ll be giving those to everyone.

2 Obviously, you want to arrive early so as to bag rooms before your sister arrives, but don’t drive children in the daytime, or you’ll arrive stressed and covered in crumbs. Tell your sister you’re arriving on the 24th. Drive up on the night of the 23rd.

3 Bring earplugs, holly and manners. A good idea is to wash up immediately after arriving. Everyone will say: “Oh, no, you really shouldn’t.” For the rest of the visit, heed their advice. A good ruse is to be the one who befriends the aged relative. When in doubt, sit on the sofa and nod.

4 Beware — there may be enemy children about, and you must show you’re a good sport by engaging with them. The trick is to delay this as long as possible, or they will seek you out as their special friend. Wait till the last day, then make an impression by flying them round the living room. Make sure you don’t trip, though, or you’ll crash-land them onto Granny.

5 Just accept it: all mums are insane throughout Christmas. There’s little you can do. Peel potatoes. Keep smiling. Ply with drink.

6 Steel yourself for siblings. You’ve not talked in a year; suddenly, you’re sharing a lilo on the floor.

7 Keep your discipline. Last year, we visited the in-laws, who are restrained, ascetic people, who drink moderately and snack on brown organic apricots. My head felt like one of those apricots, after I’d stayed up till 3am enjoying a one-man party of booze, fags and Bourne films. I arrived in the kitchen at 8am. Sister was making a sauce. Mum was chopping leeks while listening to a report on the Indonesian economy. There was nowhere to hide.

8 Go to bed early and don’t make festive innuendos such as “I’ve got to stuff the turkey”, or “I’d better get to bed. Later, I’m coming down the chimney”.

9 You’ll be under surveillance from mums determined that everyone should have fun. At all times wear a smile, a festive hat and the ugliest and most garish present you’ve been given.

10 Remember to enjoy yourself. If you don’t, someone will attack. ’Tis the season to be jolly. And if you can’t be jolly, get drunk.

[From Dad rules: surviving Christmas - Times Online ]