This week I tackle an issue that is always growing well to a certain extent – shoes!!

We have been blessed to have been on both sides of the equation from Bobux to Reebok.

Now we live in a world that is huge on image and that we all want to look a certain way, but making sure our babies look and act a certain way seems a little crazy to me.

Now when babies start to walk they have very precious and weak little feet so making sure they wear good shoes is imperative.

We were given some baby Nike shoes of which I must say are very easy to put on and take off, but at the end of the day, she should never walk in them and in fact she should only have them as a way of covering her feet. We have another brand of shoes call Bobux that we use for more practical applications, and they have a very flimsy leather base.

SO let’s put them to the test and see how they go:

Pros:
• Very cute and nice designs ... read more >>

Pyper has this habit since she is teething to cry around 10pm just as we are getting off to sleep and then cry until we either get her so she will go on for hours, it just drives us both a little crazy when you have had a “hard day” and the last thing you want is to get her up and then go and calm her down and play happy happy joy joy for another hour. I can understand it must be pretty awful for the little lady and that we are just trying to help her, I hope she doesn’t feel that she is doing this alone it’s almost as if we are all having our teeth come through!

We have tried a few different things one being Bonjela, the other being Waleada teething powder which to be honest looks like Cocaine of which we just put on a spoon for her and feed to her! And then there is Naturopharm Teething spray of which we have used before the teething really started and this is suppose to be great! ... read more >>

Well I have a little 9 month old that thinks that scratching my face whilst I hold her is fun, yeah sure is - NOT

I mean your looking your little girl in the eyes and then over comes the hands and wammoo I get this scratching on my face and like Steve Urwin would say “Crikey” that damn hurts.

I pick her up and play with her and I think, she thinks its a game and the out come is to hurt daddy well she wins alright.

SO what I started doing was running my fingers over her face but not my nails, and now she loves this and thinks its funny and starts laughing OMG I cant win.

Renee says to put her on the ground straight away so that she knows that it hurts and she wont do it. Good luck I would say!!!

Any thoughts how I might stop this???

Cheers scott

Ava has a birthmark not just any birthmark but one referred to as a Strawberry Birthmark. As a concerned and interested parent, I am interested in knowing more about this Strawberry on my baby girl.

What is it? How did it happen? and why did it happen?

- Eric

What are strawberry marks?
They are soft raised swellings on the skin, often with a bright red surface, and some may look a bit like a strawberry. They are also known as ‘strawberry naevi’ or as ‘infantile haemangiomas’. They appear after birth, usually in the first month, and can occur anywhere on the skin. They are more of a problem when they affect the face or nappy area.

What causes strawberry marks? ... read more >>

Found this on an Internet News site, interesting to note, I thought I was being original by picking Ava for my new baby girl, as it turns out Ava is in the top 4 girls names in the US for 2007.

- Eric

Planning on naming your baby Jacob or Emily? Be forewarned, those two names topped the US most popular list again last year -- Emily for the 11th year running.

The 2007 top baby names list released by the US Social Security Administration for Mother's Day on Sunday showed Americans consistent in their love for classical names: Michael, Ethan, Joshua and Daniel topped out the top five on the boys side, while Isabella, Emma, Ava and Madison were favorites for girls.

But the list showed that plenty were striving to be unique, creating wholly new names like Nevaeh -- "heaven" spelled backwards -- or sometimes just taking extreme orthographical liberty with better-known monikers. ... read more >>

It was one of the highest slides he’d ever seen complete with metal steps and a little dip in the middle. I did the typical help him up the steps thing except this time instead of waiting for me to sit down behind him, he just took off. ZIIIPPPPP down he went so fast all I could do was watch from above and pray. The slide was a foot of the ground. Just high enough for his momentum to swing his feet under and send him face first into the gravel. As I shot down to scoop him up and wipe away the tears I was met with a scream joy and the request to have another turn.

I’ve thought about this over and over. As parents we have taken on the task of teaching our children how to make it through this world safely. “We do not touch the stove!! It’s hot! No sir! Outlets are not toys! We hold hands in the parking lot.” ... read more >>

Parenthood has its trials as well as its joys and, perhaps because it’s February, during the coldest and snowiest winter in a generation, I’ll briefly touch upon the former. After our Maggie got through her latest bout of teething, we enjoyed a settled patch when she would go to bed along with the twins and permit us to sleep through the night. Amy’s schedule of evening meetings slackened over Christmas, so we were on a bit of a streak.

No more. Maggie’s throwing in the spanner by getting up around 2 a.m. and insisting on sleeping in our bed. I could give her a bottle and plunk her back in the crib but she’d yell the house down and Amy has work, the twins have to get up for preschool … ... read more >>

In his book Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, Dr. Kevin Leman writes: “The permissive parent essentially says, ‘Oh, do your own thing. Whatever you want is OK.’ My years of counseling parents and children have shown me that in a permissive environment, kids rebel. They rebel because they feel anger and hatred toward their parents for a lack of guidelines and limit setting. In one study involving elementary grades, the children were allowed to eat anything they wanted in the cafeteria over a period of thirty days. The study showed that although children predictably would ‘pig out on sweets’ and other junk food first, after a few weeks they tended to go back to a quite balanced diet.” A tangible lesson that children do indeed want rules and boundaries. Permissiveness is wimpyness, and your kids will end up hating you for it.

Be firm with your boundaries and guidelines, but be gentle as well — it’s the formula for happy, well-adjusted kids. Do it now — they deserve it, and so do you! ... read more >>

A Happy Mother's Day to all the women that made us boys and to the women that turned us into father's

And a very special Mother's Day to all the first time mother's, hope you enjoy your special day, that includes our partners.

Warm Regards

- The DIYFather team

I looked up from the open suitcase in front of me, then got up, walked over to the window, and leaned over the couch so I could see the street below.

In the glow of tail lights I could see the shadow of a man standing on the sidewalk in front of our building.

The buzzer rang again. This time I picked up the phone.

"Hello," I said.

"Airport shuttle."

I hesitated, glancing toward the bedroom.

"We're on our way down."

I hung up the phone and walked back through the apartment, stepping over the suitcase to get to the bedroom door.

"The shuttle's here," I said into the dark room. "I'm gonna start bringing things down."

After yanking the zipper around from one corner to the other, I drug the suitcase and our other bags to the front door and set them in the hallway. I slung the baggage over my shoulders and struggled to the elevator. ... read more >>