So please pop over to the brand new One of the Boys for Dadic family antics, reviews, giveaways and more!
We’ve Moved!
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It’s moving day!
And by MOVING, I don’t mean to our new house … just yet.
Nope, what I mean is that I have finally plucked up the courage to let you all know that One of The Boys (dot)co(dot)za is now up and running! How VERY exciting!
I still have to copy over some buttons, do a bit of tweaking and obsessing over widgets, plugins and themes … but the general move is done.
This blog will stay open for a while, allowing people to slowly trickle over to the new site. Please spread the word … I don’t want to lose any of my AMAZEBALLS readers!
Raising boys – a dad’s advice for moms
I absolutely ADORE this article, written by Thomas Matlack, founder of The Good Men Project. Thanks to my husband, the most amazing father of my two boys, for sharing this with me.
“Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. I’ve had three kids across two marriages and I am undoubtedly the weak link. My 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son trust their step-mom more than they trust me, which proves that I married well but am still getting the hang of being a dad. Most of us are.
That said, there are a few subtle nuances that I have picked up along the way as a dad that might come in handy for moms raising boys.
Ladies, here are some things to think about with your boys:
Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy. Don’t project your complex emotional life on your son. His issue of the moment might not be that complicated. He wants to eat, poop, or run. On a really bad day he wants his toy back after some other kid took it from him. He doesn’t want to stare out the window and have lengthy discussions about the meaning of life, as my eight-year-old daughter often did.
Watch his body not his mouth. Again, like adult men, the clues to how your son is doing will show up first in his body language. Jumping up and down with six-inch vertical leaps is the natural state of being and is good. Slumped shoulders are bad. Yelling is good. Quiet needs attention.
When in doubt, hug. Boys will often have a much harder time than girls verbalizing their problems. My 5-year-old son will sometimes burst out into tears after seemingly trivial events. I know there is something deeper going on, but I am not going to get it out of him, at least not at that moment (whereas my daughter would not only tell me what went wrong but in no uncertain terms why it was my fault, which was generally true enough). So the solution is physical not verbal. I spend a lot of time just hugging my boys. I usually have no idea why. But as a default cure-all, it seems to work wonders. A minute later they are all patched up and ready to rumble again. This even works pretty well with my 14-year-old, who is a 6-foot-tall linebacker at Boston College High School.
Yes, it really is all about poop. Girls potty train 6 to 9 months before boys, but once boys make it onto the throne, there is no stopping them. Moving their bowels is pretty much the highlight of their day (true confession: it still is for me, too), and they are going to want to talk about it. Bathroom time is a participatory sport. My five-year-old likes to head to the bathroom just as the family is sitting down to dinner, sometimesduring dinner. It’s the first time he has been still long enough to realize he has to go. And he wants me to come with him, not just to assist in the wipe but to have a leisurely conversation about the status of his poop. As much as I found this inconvenient at first, now I just go with it. Quality time is quality time.
Batman lives forever. Boys, even at a young age, realize the importance of super powers. They want to be good and believe in the existence of ultimate good in the world. Boys sort out their identities in relation to the mythical characters they hear about. My son is obsessed with Batman. He wears a full costume, even through the airport and down Madison Avenue. What amazes me even more than his dedication to the superhero is how the guard at LaGuardia or the guy hanging off the back of a garbage truck sees him and shouts, “Batman!” My boy nods his head just slightly, acknowledging his public before moving onto the important work at hand, like going to kindergarten.
Pointless physical activity is perfect. My brother and I once convinced his two sons and my older boy, when they were all around the age of 10, that they really needed to build a structure out of rocks. The rocks were on one side of a beach, but the perfect spot where the structure had to be built, according to our sage advice, was on the other side of the beach. Each stone weighed between ten and thirty pounds. The boys started moving the boulders one by one, working together to lift the heaviest ones. My brother and I set up our beach chairs midway from the rock pile to building site. We read the paper most of the morning while the boys tired themselves out moving rocks and then assembling a tremendous cathedral. By lunch they were tired and happy, and my brother and I had enjoyed a peaceful morning.
Winning does matter, but less than you think. Boys — perhaps even more than girls — put themselves under extreme pressure to perform in school, in sports, and in social situations. They talk about it less, so the sting of failure can run even more deeply than with girls. With boys it’s important to emphasize the lessons to be gained from failure, instead of trying to win at all costs, and to emphasize the development of the whole boy. Too often in our culture, boys are pushed to become one-dimensional robots. Goodness isn’t about winning at youth soccer or having the most friends or being the smartest kid in class; it’s also about being kind. That’s something as a mom that you can particularly help your son understand.
Clothes matter. I know there are way more options for dressing little girls than little boys, so the tendency might be to just throw jeans and a t-shirt on your son and forget about it. But you better make sure they are the right jeans and the right t-shirt. The only consistent battle I have had with my sons is over what they wear. It matters way more to them than I ever would have imagined. They want to look cool; they want to be comfortable (pants that are tight but not too tight, warm and yet breathable). I do draw the line with clothes that have already been worn two days in a row, but I don’t discount the importance of fashion to my kindergartener.
Crowds, not so much. I have noticed that my daughter lights up when she enters a crowd, whether family or strangers. Mass humanity is something that gives her energy. With my boys, and, frankly, for me too, it’s the opposite. They get shy and tend to hide behind my legs. I try to protect them from these situations and not push them beyond their limitations.
Bedtime is sacred. Because boys are so active, it’s hard to get them to sit still. The best time of day is the ten minutes before they go to sleep. Crawl into bed with them, read books, and hold them while they fall off to sleep. If you don’t believe in God, you will once you have lain next to your overactive son while his body goes limp next to you, and he ever so faintly begins to snore.”
Love it … and so very grateful for such awesome advice on raising my own boys.
I’m so excited!
Thanks so much to Tanya and Saul for hosting this morning’s technical blogging workshop, showing me how to do it all!
And the winner of the #SnipSnap giveaway is …
Baby Reese does “I’m sexy and I know it” – A MUST WATCH!
What you talkin’ ’bout? SHOPPING! @NaartjieKidsSA
South Africa’s best known baby and children’s clothing brands, Naartjie, is launching it’s online store (registered with PayPal to ensure safe and secure transacting) soon and if you pop over to the website NOW and pre-register, you will receive a mystery online shopping discount!
I know I’ll be waiting, mouse-clicking finger and credit card (once my voucher’s been spent!) at the ready, when their online doors open on 15 March 2012!
So … what you waiting for?
Check out Naartjie on Facebook and Twitter to keep an eye out for specials and sales!
It’s all gone, but I couldn’t be happier :) #SnipSnap #Giveaway
Today was the final step from little toddler hair: soft wispy and long … to “big boy”: short back & sides. But I was adamant that I didn’t want Luca to have SHORT short hair. And boy, oh boy, did the lovely ladies at Snip Snap get it right 🙂
Luca sat, glued to the mini-DVD screen, watching Finding Nemo as Brenda worked her magic on his gorgeous golden locks. I don’t have a “before” picture, but you all know what Luca looked like with his longer hair.
At the end, I gasped. My toddler was gone. But is his place was a BEAUTIFUL little boy. Here is our experience at Snip Snap, in the best way possible … pictures!
Dave and I both LOVE how its first proper hair cut turned out … SO glad that we have found Snip Snap!
And now for the best part! If you’d like to win a children’s hair cut AND a blow-dry for yourself, you need to:
- LIKE the Snip Snap Facebook page
- Pop a comment and a link to this blog post on the Snip Snap Facebook wall, along with a comment here to let me know that you’ve done all of this
- Tweets linking to this post (@Nicki_Dadic and with #SnipSnapGiveaway) will earn you an extra entry
I’ll draw the winner next Wednesday.
Snap to it then!
Snip Snap!
There’s a new gem just off the Parkhurst strip … Snip Snap!
Owned and run by the lovely Debbie and Sarah, Snip Snap opened this evening, with bubbles and cupcakes. My favourite! It’s a gorgeous little shop just off the end of 4th Avenue in Parkhurst and it promises to keep your child entertained during hair cuts with their arcade chairs, magnetic wall strips and Scrabble letters. There’s also a shop, with cute hair accessories for girls, pirate back-packs for the boys and handmade canvas and felt name plates for moms to covet buy for their little one’s bedroom door.
If the warmth of the owners and gorgeously decorated salon are anything to go by, Snip Snap is going to be a raging success.
Luca and I will be back at Snip Snap next Tuesday to be one of their first clients! Will report back on our experience then!
In the mean time, you can make an appointment by calling Debbie on 079 278 6788, drop her an email at snipsnaphair@gmail.com or click on the Snip Snap logo below to go straight to their Facebook page!
*You can now also click here to pop over to the next blog post to enter the Snip Snap giveaway!
Facebook Timelines … I love you.
Facebook Timeline. Seriously. I am going back in time and loving it.
Completely forgot that I’d even made this … and it’s made me feel like we just got married all over again 🙂
Wow.
One of The Boys 