On Blue Bloods, Ever notice how Danny Reagan may get the living crap beat out of him, but still gets the bad guy? He can outrun anyone, always catches the bad guy, and executes the perfect hood slide.
A Little Bit About Me…
Random Stuff about me…
I use “…” A LOT
I’m not a professional writer.
Go Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks!
I love golf…The best wood in my bag is my pencil.
Amazon > any other store.
I like to sell stuff on eBay.
I collect autographs and ball cards.
I recently got my MBA.
I love a good stereo system, but I’m not an audiophile.
I’ll do anything for my kids… but I won’t pay for them to get on the crew team.
I believe… whatever you’re going through, someone is or has gone through it too.
Christian Fellowship is the key to life balance and faith.
I like to learn about personal finance. seedtime.com is a good faith-based personal finance website.
I have a man cave, but Barbie took it over.
Bedtime Strategies #2– Plan Your Attack
Bedtime Strategies # 2 – Plan Your Attack. How often have you tried to initiate bedtime, only to be thwarted by the “I’m hungry” defense? It’s easy to dismiss if we’re sure they ate a solid dinner, but on those nights, that dinner was light or a little early, and there’s a chance the kid is actually hungry and he/she may have a point. Of course, we give them a bowl of cereal before bed, but you’ve just conditioned the child to get a 20-minute extension just by faking some hunger pangs. Yes, Pangs… (I recently learned its pangs and not pains and don’t know why). This leads us to Bedtime Strategies – Plan your Attack
That’s Dad Stuff @thatsdadstuff
SOLUTION:
Consider the hunger argument before you announce bedtime. If there is a chance that they could be worthy of a nightcap, then ask before you even mention bedtime. You’re likely to get a more genuine answer from them and they will learn that “bedtime” is bedtime with no excuses.
We invite you to share with us your strategies for getting kids more shuteye (besides Benadryl).
Clif Bar Math
Clif Bars
Ok so one day in AP Environmental Science someone brought up the floating garbage island and started to wonder how many Clif Bars you would need to sustain yourself for your whole life. So being the person I am I calculated how many Clif Bars an average US male would need to survive for life (including infancy).
The average US male lives for 81 years. 81 years is 29,565 days. 29,565 days X 3 (meals per day) = 88,695 meals.
Average calorie intake for an adult is 2,000. There are 270 calories per a single Clif Bar (builder bar to be exact).
Take the 2,000 and divide that by 3 (meals per day) and you get 666.666 calories per meal. Roughly you would get 9 Bars a day, 3 per meal (270 X 3 =810 (yes, it’s over slightly))
Multiply 9 by the days (29,565) and you get 266,085, which is how many Clif Bars you would need to sustain you for 81 years (without adding other factors).
So, how much would that cost?
At 192 Bars per pack on Clif Bars website for $239.68 USD it would cost $332,162.93 USD for 81 years.
(Feel free to double check it (the math), knowing me I fucked it up)
Impressive
Bedtime Strategies #1
Bedtime Strategies. Strategy # 1 – The Bell ~ From a Dad in North Carolina. Kids don’t like surrendering control of their situations. Since they can’t tell time you can imagine how their stomachs drop when we announce “its bedtime!” Sure, giving them a 5-minute warning helps, but when that 5-minutes turns into 30 minutes because we got distracted then you’ve conditioned the child to understand that “5-minutes before bedtime” could be 1 more commercial break or could be an entire episode start to finish. So when you finally try to round them up for bed they are more likely to be surprised and defiant and put up their defensive maneuvers.
SOLUTION: If you give them an X minute warning, set a timer. When the bell rings, that’s it. There’s no arguing with the bell. If YOU respect the bell ALWAYS, then THEY will respect it too. There can never be a bell reset or you’ve undermined the authority of the bell forever.
Bedtime Strategies
Trying to get your kid(s) ready for bed? The following series comes from other Dads… What works for you when trying to get your kid(s) ready for bed… I welcome your feedback, and please comment on what methods you use…
That’s Dad Stuff @thatsdadstuff
Bedtime Strategies for Dads Intro
My son suffers from a syndrome not yet recognized by the American Medical Association which I call BTB. It stands for “belligerent time bomb” and goes like this:
The Mornings
The instant my son wakes up in the morning around 6:30am, he is the most even-tempered kid you’ll meet. Patient, kind, well mannered, he’ll even obey our instructions from the Friday night before and play quietly in his room while mom and Dad sleep in a bit. On school days, he rolls out of his bottom bunk (top bunk is currently subleased to thirteen stuffed animals and 3 pillow/light projector things) with a smile and doesn’t even fuss if the first words he hears from me are “clean your room and meet me downstairs for breakfast”… 90% of the time I’ll get a “Yes Dad” and he’ll spring into action. Boy, do I love that kid.
Afternoons
Afternoons are a different story. He arrives from school with a deceptively similar smile to the morning but if you look closely there’s a twinkle missing from his eyes. His backpack gets dropped on the floor so fast that it blocks the front door from closing. His shoes, if he bothers to remove them, land somewhere in the hallway next to the scuff marked wall which he kicked them into. Manners disappear as he grunts with hunger and demands a snack from the nearest parent. My wife and I are too familiar with the routine and carefully tiptoe around his every grunt for fear of agitating his volatile mood. We overcompensate with too much sweetness in our tone and almost sound like June Cleaver asking if he “would like some more milk with your cookies” and “How was your day”.
My Wife and I don’t recognize this boy who appears at our door every day at 3:10pm but we know it’s our son. We know because I used a marker to put a dot on his arm once before he left for school and I verified the dot was still there when he returned. So it’s not a different kid and I don’t believe in aliens so what is going on? We ruled out school being the cause because he pulls the same crap on the weekends. Mornings are fantastic, afternoons are progressively worse and bedtime is terrible. He’s irritable, aggressive, rude, sassy and mean. If we forget to tiptoe perfectly avoiding confrontation then he’ll go toe to toe yelling at us and we end up sending him to his room out of frustration. He stomps upstairs in his rage and he’ll throw toys while we try to regain our composure.
What’s the Issue?
Through trial and error, I pinpointed the source of the issue. Sleep deprivation/exhaustion. If we don’t get him to bed on time… – scratch that – …if he doesn’t fall asleep on time then he wakes up with half a tank of gas. Sure, he’s fully functional in the morning but afternoon his energy starts to taper down with his mood tracking down with it on a perfect slope approaching zero (where zero = head spinning, knife-wielding psychopath kid which I’m required by law to love and protect).
Getting a 6-year-old more sleep is easier said than done. I have developed some strategies which have helped us combat accomplish just that. This series presents my strategies to cure BTB and hopefully stop the spread from reaching your household.
We invite you to share with us your strategies for getting kids more shuteye (besides Benadryl).
My Yard Sucks…
Yard Work Help
I need some yard work help. My yard sucks. I am not remotely close to a green thumb. I need some yard work done! My neighbor’s yard is like carpet; no crabgrass, no dandilons, nice and green!. They also work at it… I… well, Don’t. Thats probably why I am in need of some major yard work help.
This fall I am going to start giving my yard a little TLC. Who knows if it’s the right time of year, but I figured I should do this now before the winter.
I recently had a tree cut down and had the stump grinded down. That area where that tree was located is now really torn up. I cleaned up the area and raked up the leftover tree shavings/bark. I filled the area with topsoil and seeded the area. After a couple months of watering on and off, and unfortunately, we had a really dry summer; so area didn’t grow squat. What did grow dried up and died in a hurry.
I also have a spot in my backyard where my dog always went pee and poop. It is about a 4-5ft diameter area that is absolutely TOAST- Burnt, dead, dug up; there is absolutely nothing left.
Since then, we had a little bit of rain, but now that fall is here, its cooler and there is more moisture in the air, I’m thinking I should have better results compared to what I did with the grass in the tree area. This time I wanted to use Scotts Patch and Repair…
What To Do, What To Use?
I have had great success in the past with Scotts Patch and Repair… Last fall, my kids raked up a pile of leaves, then failed to bag the leaves, leaving a nice 4ft diameter dead grass circle in the middle of my back yard. In the spring, I raked up the dead grass and spread an entire 3.75lb bottle of Scotts EZ Seed Patch & Repair over the area. It’s my backyard, so I really don’t care how it looks for the time being, so I didn’t bother throwing some straw on it. Well, I have you to know in only a matter of a few weeks, the spot was full of grass. Nice tall fescue! Even without covering the area in straw! I was really impressed.
This past weekend I bought 2 – 10lb bags of Scotts EZ Seed Patch & Repair. Yup! Two, Ten-pound bags!… and Yes, one for each spot, the tree area, and dog area. This go around, I also covered the area in straw. It is Fall, after all, straw is pretty easy to get, especially in October.
Let’s see if it works… Stay tuned, I’ll share my success.
Teddy Roosevelt: Did You Know
In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was shot just before giving a speech.
He began with: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. Fortunately I had my manuscript – I was going to make a long speech – and there is where the bullet went through, and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best…” then kept talking for 1.5 hours before finally agreeing to seek medical attention.
Now that’s a tough S.o.B
This is Customer Service
This is customer service.
We put our dog down last week… Canceled an order, told Chewy why, they refunded our money, said donate the item, then I came home to this… pure class. This is customer service.
About – That’s Dad Stuff
I’m a Dad of two daughters, and I’m lucky to be married to my bride for 15 years. I love 70 and 80s music and I’m a techie that’s always looking for a good deal. What is this site going to be about? It’s all about being a Dad and all the “Stuff” that goes with the job. What “Stuff” you ask? It’s all the “stuff” that a Dad likes or has to deal with. #thatsdadstuff. Have a look around, leave a comment! Follow us on twitter and facebook. Thatsdadstuff.com @thatsdadstuff Facebook/thatsdadstuff
