Here's the thing though: I hate the entire concept behind the Bratz toys and am frankly aghast that any parents buy it.

Important caveat: my kids are in a Waldorf school, and the Waldorf educational approach has them starting reading later than more traditional pedagogical approaches, it's typically not until 2nd grade that they really get going. A-, 11yo, is an extraordinarily strong reader, so I have quite a bit of confidence in the approach...

Anyway, the problem is that G- wants to read books that are topically a bit beyond where I think he's comfortable...

Soles4Souls has arranged a program where 2 pairs of flip-flops will be donated for every pair purchased. This program is mentioned as part of the rotating headline banner on their site plus it is described more fully on the site under “Ways to help”.

Most of the time, of course, A-, my 11yo, and K-, my 4yo, are in the mix too, and while they all get along pretty well in the big picture, there are unquestionably moments when they aren't communicating clearly or their individual needs are, um, blinding them to the more harmonious path. (Did I phrase that elegantly enough?)

I took the different suggestions and thought a lot about the dynamics of my own children and what they do and don't need, and came up with the following...

First off, the Wii is one amazingly fun and brilliantly engineered device. With its motion-sensitive wireless controllers and the forced feedback mechanism, it's light years ahead of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, based on my experiences with all three.

From Debbie Nigro
Chief Executive Girlfriend and Founder
First Wives World.com

Approximately 30 million women are transitioning thru divorce in the United States.

There are many different stages. Debbie put this friendly list together so both women and men can better identify the different levels before venturing into the dating scene.

DIVORCED WOMEN'S DATING STYLES

Damaged Daters - You don't trust anyone anymore with your heart. You've been burned. You are not so quick to jump back into another relationship, but you go anyway because you think you are supposed to at least try. Your cynical vibes smell defensive and stink up the room. Wear extra perfume.

I Don't Care Daters- You are not interested. You're energy is focused elsewhere. You need time to to find out who you are. You go just because someone's very nice but you really don't care, but you don't let him know you don't care. He doesn't pick up you don't care so he calls you again and you go again...even though you don't care.

... continues

When I got the latest wave of credit cards I decided that this time, instead of signing them, I'd write "Ask for ID" on the back, as a bit of a fraud protection and identity theft prevention. So far, it's distressing to see how few people actually care about asking for my ID, even when I point out that's what I've written on the back. But that's another story.

This afternoon, we popped into the local Post Office and dutifully queued up until it was our turn, then asked for a roll of stamps, $42, and presented my credit card to pay.

I chalked it up to the exacerbated separation fear brought on by our separation and the two different houses that they now inhabit: in fact, it was the first time they had a babysitter at bedtime here, rather than an afternoon playmate.

Still, it was a drag, and it took until almost 11pm for G-, our 8yo, to finally pass out, and his usual bedtime is around 8pm (though it typically takes him 30 minutes or longer to finally go to sleep).

I said "sure, but no guarantees anyone will like it, that we'll write positively about the product or that we'll ever actually write about it in the end."

They were okay with that clause and sent us a box of little juice boxes and a nifty little USB flash drive with product pictures thereon.

Unfortunately....

"Hi, my name's Dave and I'm addicted to films". "Hi, Dave."

The irony of this is that even after our split and the resultant morphing of our relationship into divorced adults, co-parenting, Linda and I are still intent on raising our children as media-free as possible. So, no movies.

free condoms

It didn't take more than a second or two for him to ask "Daddy, what's a condom?"

Ah, well... Hmm....

Our arrangement, on a typical week, was: Monday: G- with me, A- and K- with Mom, Tuesday G- and K- with me, A- with Mom, Wednesday, A- with me, Thursday A- and K- with me, Friday A- and G- with me, Saturday no-one with me, and Sunday everyone with me. As a reminder, A- is 11, G- is 8 and K- is 4.

For those of you familiar with divorce and dual-household setups, what's wrong with this arrangement, over and above that each parent only has a single night where they're without children?

The question that looms before me now, however, is: what happens during the summer? As regular readers know, we have an 11yo girl, an 8yo boy and a 4yo girl and even during the school year, it's very tough when I have all three because the 4yo gets out of school at 12:30, so I end up with half-days of work unless I can arrange play dates or other afternoon activities for her. Worth noting is that our two houses are just barely more than a mile apart, so there's no distance or travel involved and the kids can easily keep all the same friends and social activities in either residence.

But summer vacation, stretching out a long twelve weeks, suddenly seems overwhelming to me because the days that I have the kids, I'm now thinking I will have to not work at all, effectively axing my available work hours by 50%, with a commensurate hit on my income.

Anyway, that doesn't change that we had a great time in Hawaii last month and are ready to go back (particularly since tonight we're supposed to see 3-5" of snow tonight here in Colorado). So let's jump in. What I'm going to do here is show a picture then have a commentary about it immediately following. The pics are big, enjoy!