Here’s a guest post from a great writer and e-friend, Joana Hyatt. She is an author and speaker who focuses on dating, and relationship issues - she's one of my favorites! If you’d like to write a guest post for The Daily ReTORt, check out the guidelines here: ============================== Standing in line at a coffee shop the other day, I couldn't help but overhear the phone conversation of the man behind me. He was clearly upset and at the end of his patience when he blurted … [Read more...]
August 14, 2012 By 6 Comments
3 Things Parents Need to Stop Doing
Our two oldest daughters will begin another school year in just a couple of weeks. With that comes the annual ritual of obligatory school clothes shopping. Our girls are ages eight and ten respectively - clearly falling within the coveted marketing group called "tweens." Purchasing Power of Tweens Believe it or not, these youngster girls number more than 20 million in the U.S. and have an estimated buying power of more than $40 billion collectively. That number gets quadrupled by … [Read more...]
July 23, 2012 By 5 Comments
Parenting – The Tender Balance
There’s something growing inside my wife. A living, breathing, heartbeat-having creation. That creation is currently about 37 weeks. It has a name. He has a name. His name is Aidan Robert, and he’s scheduled to leave the comfort and relative darkness of my wife’s womb on August. Parenting Imponderables I wonder what he’ll be like. I wonder if he’ll have his mother’s eyes or his father’s lack of a defined chin. I wonder if he’ll be sweet like my wife or if he’ll have my … [Read more...]
July 16, 2012 By 18 Comments
Parenting Tips From a Friend – Guest Post
Tor, I know you've done this before. You have two beautiful young girls. You're a great dad. You've raised them well. But you're rusty. It's been a while since you've had a brand new young'n. I thought I'd give you some tips on what's changed since you've been out of practice. Poop No change. Still stinky and manages to get places you'd rather it didn't. Food It's not just Gerber jars of greenish goo anymore. The cool new trend is to make it yourself from purely hippie, er, … [Read more...]
July 12, 2012 By 21 Comments
Life Lessons Learned from Potty Training
Recently, my wife and I went through the process of potty training our toddler. It was a challenging, humbling, and emotionally draining experience. From this, I learned or revisited many life lessons that can be applied to absolutely anything, from writing to building a house. Patience is critical. Life is going to get very crappy sometimes, but it will get better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Things usually don’t happen as quickly as you’d like them to. With anything … [Read more...]
July 11, 2012 By 15 Comments
6 Secrets To Surviving Your Teenager
Recently, Tor shared twelve phrases a dad never wants to hear. As I thought about the additions that actually occurred in the past two weeks, I realized that being a teen these days is hard. I look at my single (adult) friends, and I think "not enough money or bad days in the world to make me enter into that fray." People haul around more baggage than Southwest will fly for free. And then I look at my daughters. Smart, funny, gorgeous, and insecure. Teen angst lures them to … [Read more...]
