When my younger son asked for Aqua Sand for his upcoming fourth birthday, I gave him one of my best non-committal dad answers to give me time to think it over.  I had seen the commercials, so I was familiar with the basic concept.  I had seen enough to realize that I needed to do a mental pros & cons checklist before I committed to the gift.

On the plus side, it isn’t all that expensive.  The starter kits clock in at under $20 at my local Wal-Mart.  Checkmark for affordability.  It also got a checkmark for not being a video game or DVD.  Anything that doesn’t involve staring at the TV set gets an automatic bonus point on the pro side.

On the negative side, it looked like it would make a real mess.  I decided to hold my ground against the Aqua Sand, thinking he’d forget it quickly.  Too bad his grandparents didn’t get that memo.  He is now the proud owner of an Aqua Sand set.

The gist of the toy is that you can build underwater sand sculptures.  The commercials promised that the sand would dry instantly upon removal from the water, which I was far too sophisticated a consumer to believe.  Turns out that their claims are 100% true.  I don’t know how it works, but the water beads off the second that you remove the sand.

That doesn’t make the clean-up quick, but it is pretty neat to marvel at.  My son had fun playing with the Aqua Sand for a while, but I think the clean-up took longer than the total play time.  And the clean-up is definitely a job for an adult.  You have to scoop out the sand one little sifter-full at a time and pour it back into the bottles via a tiny funnel.

The set came with a bottle of pink sand and a bottle of purple sand.  That didn’t last long.  Since the sands coalesce in the water and there is no practical way to re-separate them, we’re left with two bottles of pink & purple sand.

Final analysis – not as messy as I thought it would be, not as fun as he thought it would be.

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“Wah, Wah, Wah!” are the sounds flooding the baby monitor as we jump from the bed at 1 am.  I rush into the bedroom to find her fast asleep but crying frantically.  I pick her up and rock her, check her diaper and nothing gives.  Finally, I give her a pacifier and she is off to dreamland once again.

After a couple of nights of doing this, my wife and I decided enough is enough.  Our daughter has become a pacifier junkie.  We had gotten her so used to taking naps with it, that she would wake up in the night wondering where it went. (more…)

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Every child has the need to be loved, this is something that every parent should know. Every parent should be a nurturing parent. But how do we make our children know that we love them? Things as complex as love easily can get lost in translation in the equation of human relationships. That is why becoming a nurturing parent is not really easy to achieve. It takes many different interactions over the course of time to develop a healthy and nurturing relationship with your child. There is no fixed rule in parenting because every family is unique, so parents need to have a “feel” for how it’s done. But some general tips could help parents navigate through the difficult years of nurturing a child, here they are: (more…)

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The one certainty in parenting is that anything can happen. Some days just don’t end up the way you thought they would. Case in point: when I got up Thursday morning, I never imagined that it would be almost 36 hours before I saw home again. If I’d known, I’d have packed a change of clothes, or at least a toothbrush.

It all started early in the morning, so early that I’d call it late at night.  Our almost-9 year old son found his way into our room at 2 a.m. complaining of a stomachache.  Unusual, but nothing too troubling.  It was bad enough that we let him stay home from school without the standard third degree grilling. (more…)

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Every year, after Christmas, families rush to the mall to return unwanted, unloved, or duplicate gifts.  Now, this seems normal, but many kids don’t tell you what they really dislike, and others are just rude when they tell you this.

Many kids don’t tell anyone if they received an item they did not like, had another of, or find goofy.  Now, kids do this for a variety of reasons.  Some kids are afraid they’ll hurt the gift giver’s feelings for telling anyone this, and they don’t want to do that to anyone, especially family.  My younger brother, for example, didn’t tell my parents he didn’t want Tony Hawk Ride because he thought he would hurt their feelings. (more…)

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