Almost 4 years after buying this house, I finally decided to patch that hole behind the front door the movers made.

I love having a little helper around!

Now I know there’s lots of guys out there who wouldn’t want to be caught dead riding a minivan, much less driving one–I used to be one of them, but no more.

The outside	For starters, the van has a lot of power. Looking at it, it doesn’t exactly scream DRIVE ME, but with 250 horses under the hood, this isn’t your mama’s minivan. With traction control, sportmatic transmission, anti-lock brakes and the turn radius of a much smaller car, this thing is actually a lot of fun to drive! Oh, and it still averages 18mpg.
Power sliding doors	The doors slide open so even in a tight parking spot, you have plenty of room to maneuver so you can strap that cranky 2 year old to his seat without bruising your elbows, bumping your head, or putting a dent in the car next to you. And there’s so plenty of room all around for toy bins. And diapers. And wipes. And towels. And change of clothes. For all of us.
Spacious trunk	The 3rd row of seats doesn’t take over the trunk–you actually get a real trunk. And because the vehicle doesn’t have to be so high off the ground, the trunk is actually 12 inches deep–you can haul a whole lot of junk in this trunk!
Lots of space	The 2nd row has so much space around the seat that someone can get in the car and walk to the 3rd row without you having to play musical chairs. Tried that in an SUV lately?
Plenty of leg room	The third row can actually seat normal sized people. No wheel wells or drive shafts taking over the space–the floor is actually flat. And look at the amount of space between my knees and the 2nd row of seats.
Lots of cargo space	Pull out the 2nd row of seats and stow away the 3rd row seats, and in 2 minutes you have enough cargo space to haul two couches.
Kick ass stereo	A 6-disk MP3/WMA player with a 16-speaker surround sound system with a wide screen DVD player ensures your toddler will never be bored in the car. Ever. Okay, so my kid doesn’t get to watch TV–but I’ve been known to watch a movie in the drive way from time to time.
Seats that remember you	My wife likes the seats all the way up while I like them all the way back. Programmable seat, brake pedal and mirror arrangements mean no complaining about having to rearrange things every time I drive. And when you turn the engine off, everything moves out to give you more room to walk out. Also, when you put the thing in reverse it lowers the mirrors so you can see the lines, and sonar sensors on the rear bumper ensure you don’t hit anything. Oh, and it came standard with side curtain airbags.
His and Hers temperature controls	My wife and I can never agree on the temperature–one of us is always hot while the other is cold. Three-zone climate control solves that problem. More impressive than flying cars, if you ask me.
View of the sky	“Jack, do you want to see the sky?”That question has ended several upset spells with my little guy.
A workout for your fingers	Buttons to open every door in the car. Yeah, it seems a bit ostentatious, but when you have a toddler in one hand and grocery bags in another and it’s raining outside, they sure do come handy.

Okay, so maybe you’re saying, man, this guy is laying it on thick! Well, yeah I am. I hated the idea of getting a minivan. I was a dick to the minivan salesman when we went to test drive one while my wife was pregnant.

> So what do you think, Mr. Shah?
>> It’s a minivan…
> Yes, and a really good one. You test-drove it. What did you think?
>> It’s a minivan…
> Okay… so what’s it going to take to have you take it home today?
>> Make it not a minivan.

Right. But we had four large dogs and two cats when we had Jack. There was no way we could all fit in the same vehicle once we put in the baby seat. It was either a minivan or a massive SUV, and the minivan is way more practical. And safer. And fuel efficient. And cheaper.

So yeah. I love having a minivan.

Make Him a Part of Your Plan

My wife had been wanting blinds on East-facing bay windows in our bedroom because the curtains weren’t keeping the room dark enough, for over a year. I planned on installing them every weekend, and every Sunday night I’d realize it would have to wait another week. Installing five sets of blinds on the same window would take at least a couple of hours, and there would be a lot of noise with the drill and the saw and it just can’t be done with the baby there. But the weekend is the only time I have with him so I don’t want to send him off somewhere. But I can’t do it while he’s there. And so on and so forth.

So finally last weekend I decided to try it out with Jack there, and you know, it actually turned out really well!

We measured the windows together–I let him hold the tape measure. Then we went to Home Depot to pick out blinds–Jack was still having fun with the tape measure. We walked around the store while the blinds were getting cut. The next morning, we got started on the blinds. One very important thing I learned is, it’s going to take you longer than you had planned it would. Little kids have shorter attention spans, and no matter how interesting what you’re doing is to you, they’re going to get bored. So I did everything in short bursts. Take the blinds out of the box, and play with the box for a while. Hang one of the blinds, then let him play with the blinds. Get a snack. Put up another set of blinds, while he plays with his toy hammer. It only took a half an hour more than I had planned it might and we both had a great time!

Make Your Errands Fun For Him

Let’s face it, you’ve got a ton of errands to run and there aren’t enough hours in the day on weekdays for you to do it. You’re completely out of soap, toothpaste, face wash and hair gel, and the dog raided the pantry on Wednesday so you’re also completely out of bread and salt. But this is the only time you have to spend with your kid and you can’t really watch him and do that, right? And you can’t take him with you because he gets bored and cranky. Yeah, that excuse worked when he was an infant but he’s a toddler now–take him with you and make it fun for him! Yeah, you’re not going to be able to stand in the condiments isle and ponder on the differences between ketchup and catsup for 15 minutes like you do when you go alone, but then if a frog could jump he wouldn’t bump his butt every time he walked. Put him in the shopping cart and run through the empty isles pretending you’re racing him (and he wins). Play peek-a-boo by crouching down in front of the card and popping out. While you’re at it, drift the cart around sharp corners while making car tire screeching noises. Put a bag of chips over your head and catch it when it falls down. Go nuts–trying to entertain a baby gives you the license to be as nutty as you want. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself looking forward to grocery shopping trips!

And it’s not just fun with shopping carts–you can give him things to do. Let him pick out cans of soup for you. Bring a snack trap full of cereal with you and let him snack as you go through the isles. I have found that the more fun he has, the more time I have to shop. Our weekend grocery shopping trips usually go over an hour now, and there’s 0-fussing. In fact, “Jack, do you want to go grocery shopping?” usually results on big smiles and an enthusiastic, “YAH!”

If you’ve ever had a toddler, you’ve probably struggled with this question many times: it’s 4 hours before lunchtime/naptime/dinnertime/sleeptime–what can we do? I struggled with this for a long time before I realized some things–things that may help save you some time.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Something Special

When you don’t get a lot of time with your child, you want to make the most of the time that you get with him, so there is so much pressure that you have to make this time count. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself for the first year of my son’s life to make all my time with him memorable, which is why this one came as a shock to me–you don’t have to be doing something special for it to be something special to your child. Some of the fondest memories of my time with my dad are surprisingly simple things–where he was paying attention to me. On days when you come home too tired to take him out to play in the park or for a long walk in the stroller, you could just hang out around the house with him–read him a book or  just sit with him and watch him play. Just the fact that you’re there, paying attention to him, may matter much more to him than a hasty trip to the park when your mind is somewhere else.

So go get a towel and play peek-a-boo with your kid. He’ll have tons of fun and you’ll forget about the crap you were dealing with at work earlier.

Mowing the lawn is one of those annoying chores that make the week seem too short. “It’s time to mow the lawn again? #@$#@!! Didn’t I just do that?! Well, might as well get something good out of it. Jack, you wanna come help daddy?”

Seeing as Jack says “yah!” to pretty much every question, he’s always ready to join me. For about 5 minutes, at least!

Jack’s going through a phase where he wants to do everything he sees daddy do–a phase I hope he never grows out of! The day before he saw me sweeping the floor and immediately had the uncontrollable need to sweep himself. I was using one of those Swiffer mops, and holding it almost knocked him over. Luckily, in order to ship it in a tiny box, they make it so the pole is actually made of 4 smaller pieces, so I just took two pieces out and it was instantly transformed to a toddler swiffer! Jack did a great job sweeping, for almost two minutes. Good times…

When Jack was first born, I was very nervous about giving him a bath because I was worried that I might do it wrong. As time passed, though, we came to realize that the whole, “I might do it wrong” excuse was pretty much keeping me away from most things related to the baby, and I soon took over as the bath master of the household. Bath time with daddy after dinner is a daily ritual at our house, and we’ve turned it into learning time.

A few months ago, the Super Mom bought a box of Sassy Bathtime Fun Appliques. They’re soft foam letters that stick to the tub when they’re wet. A really fun game (for Jack, at least), is to show him a letter, tell him what it is, put it in the tub and ask him to find the letter. When he finds it, lots and lots of praise. While he’s looking for the letter, lather-rinse-repeat. Good times…

UPDATE: Here’s a video of Jack learning a new letter in his bath. If your reader doesn’t show videos, you can view it here.