I just read about this post on Parent Hacks. If you want to donate some toys to Iraqi children, here's what you can do -- as I quoted from the post:

Edmay Mayers is coming home after a long tour in Iraq with the US Army Corps of Engineers. But two of her comrades have agreed to take over her "duties" as volunteer distributors of toys to Iraqi children there. Michael is a geologist from Buffalo, NY and a 20 year veteran of the Corps. Natalie is an archaeologist from Montana, who also worked to help people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I've heard from them both, and they are ready and excited to continue Edmay's work. So keep those gently-used toys coming, and keep spreading the word!

Edmay left their contact information in the comments of our original post, but here it is, right up front. You may now send toys to:

Michael Fellenz or Natalie Sudman
USACE-GRS
APO-AE
09331

I go to my mum-in-law’s place for meals often as her place is only 5 minutes walk away from my place. My nephew, Xavier, came over to my mum-in-law’s place on weekends to catch up with his grandma. He would also pop by my place once in a while during those visits.

On past visits, he knew that we have Lego sets in my home. It was given to us as a gift and our one-year-old son is still too young to understand how to play.

4-year-old Xavier came over to visit his grandma again last weekend. I met him during lunch and he requested to go to my place to play Lego sets. I offered to bring the sets over to him as I didn’t want him to mess up my place.

So I walked back to my place and back with the Lego sets after lunch. He was so happy when he saw them that he dived into the sets immediately.

After a while, he encountered problems putting together one of the models that he wished to complete. So he requested me to help him. I was kind of reluctant at the beginning as I was enjoying my afternoon laze on a couch watching TV. But I relented at the end after his repetitive requests.

So I helped him with his construction and completed what he wanted.

An hour later, we decided to go out for a walk. I asked Xavier to keep the Lego sets and many of his toys while I packed up things for my son before we made the move. Like many other kids, Xavier refused. He just wanted to go and leave all his toys behind. I said firmly that he should keep his toys first especially the ones that I just brought for him.

Guess what he said next?

“You also played the toys, why aren’t you keeping the toys too?”

His question infuriated me. I raised my voice at him, “That was rude. Who is the one who wanted to play first? Am I not the one who brought you the toys? On whose request that I played together with you?”

“Go and keep those toys!” I shouted.

He followed my instruction silently. I don’t know whether he understood what I said. Or he just did it out of fear.

I didn’t know how to better explain the situation to Xavier. I was angry because I felt manipulated. How can a four-year-old be so cunning? When I explained what happened to my wife, she didn’t think Xavier did it on purpose. He probably has a faint idea of what fairness is. He had applied it inappropriately. What do you guys think?

“But they’re not yours!”

My wife bought a set of pajamas for my son, K. But my elder daughter, J, wanted them instead.

Put it crudely, it’s kind of like forced possession. The pajamas were hijacked when J said, “I want to wear the pajamas!!!”

The triple exclamations mark the unfriendly tone.

She continued, “The pajamas are too big for K. Let me wear them first until he’s big enough for them.”

If this happened some time last year, I’d have used my authority to lecture J by telling her this was not the right thing to do.

If required, screaming and yelling would be applied to a certain extent.

But, guess what, I am a different person now. My resolution is not to instill unpleasant and hostile feelings in my children – towards me.

Instead, my wife and I did the following.

• I hugged her and acknowledged her feelings:
  

• My wife explained to her that why she didn’t buy for her.
  

• It's time to come up with an agreement.
  

My friend, Leo Babauta, of Zen Habits and his gang (Collis and Cyan Ta’eed of FreelanceSwitch and FlashDen) are teaming up for a good cause.

  They are holding Blog Action Day. A day on which participating bloggers write about the same subject -- on October 15th.

The topic for this year is environment.

This is a great idea, indeed.

I have signed up.

And so have many other bloggers. Such as Lifehacker, Web Worker Daily, Lifehack.org, Dumb Little Man, ProBlogger, FreelanceSwitch, Get Rich Slowly, Copyblogger, The Simple Dollar, Scott Young, Chris Garrett, Unclutterer, Wise Bread, Life Learning Today, Natural Family Living, Chief Family Officer, A Mama's Rant, and many more.

For the latest list of participants, click here. And I urge you to follow suit by signing up.

A little effort makes a big difference. That's the power of teamwork and it's your opportunity to give back.

I might be wrong but I always have the feeling that in the virtual world, moms are more outspoken than dads. You always see more blogs and websites by moms than dads.

Anyway, I’m excited that there are more dads writing about being a better dad online nowadays.

Aaron is one of them. He writes "31 Days To Becoming A Better Dad" this month.

An easy to read daily nugget. You’re invited to participate in the discussion to share your thoughts too.

As of today, it’s in the 16th instalment.

Day 1 - Be Good To Your Child's Mom

Day 2 - Teach Your Kids Self-Esteem

Day 3 - Be Good To Yourself

Day 4 - Protect Your Children

Day 5 - Learn New Things

Day 6 - Be Their Biggest Fan

Day 7 - Always Be Supportive

Day 8 - Say No...In Moderation

Day 9 - Show Your Emotions

Day 10 - Spend Time With Your Children

Day 11 - Discipline With Love

Day 12 - Establish Routines

Day 13 - Learn From Your Childhood

Day 14 - Be Charitable

Day 15 - Encourage Your Kids To Follow Their Dreams

Day 16 - Put Your Children First

We always take things for granted. We only appreciate things when we lose them.

Before sleep, I always show my gratitude in silence for another day that is granted to me. I thank for the things that I have. Especially my wife and two kids, my health and wealth.

I do my best to focus on what I have rather than what I don’t have.

If you think you’re the worst person ever live on Earth, think again. There’s always something that you can feel grateful for. There’s always someone out there whose situation is worse than yours.

Seeing is believing.

Check out these photos and let me know if you don’t feel better off than them.

There are 10 of them:

Photo 1: Together, through Warm and Cold
Photo 2: Love
Photo 3: Grandpas’ Tears
Photo 4: Amidst Rain and Wind
Photo 5: Old Man Crying
Photo 6: Mothers’ Love
Photo 7: Coal Carrier
Photo 8: I want to go to school
Photo 9: Care for those forgotten
Photo 10: Spirit to live

My wife said, “We made a mistake. We shouldn’t have done this.”

And I agreed in silence.

This was the immediate response when our 18-month toddler made a fuss on the first and second nights we moved our children to our bedroom.

We came to realize that the previous bedroom was stuffy and the temperature was warmer. The bottom line is it was not well ventilated.

To make sure that our children have a better room (also for their health), my wife and I unanimously agreed to allow the two kids to share room with us.

My elder daughter was okay with the change. However it was a HUGE problem for our toddler son.

His routine was upset. He usually went up to the room smiling from ear to ear. For some reason, he was happy coming into the room. Maybe he could play and make some stunts on the mattress.

But somehow he could not do that in the “new” room. He was quite pissed off, to say the least, with the change. All the fun he used to have disappeared.

He pointed to his previous room and he was crying uncontrollably. It took at least two hours to calm him down before the rest of us got to sleep.

But I insisted the children to be in our room.

In the midst of shaking our heads in disbelief, I got an idea. I tried to make our room look like their previous room. What I did was to place an extra mattress on the floor, move some children’s books and toys over, and whatever we needed to simulate the previous room.

On the 3rd and 4th nights, so far so good. Fingers crossed. And our son looked forward to the room and he behaved like he used to (a.k.a normal and happy) when he was in the previous room.

Phew. What a relief!

Lesson learned?

Don’t disrupt a toddler’s routine for your own fancy (at least we’ve got a valid reason), especially a routine that he likes. Never ever change or remove it.

However, if you have no choice but to do it, do whatever it takes to make the changes unnoticed.

Just like what we did.

Now everyone can have a good night sleep… after a short battle.

This post is written specially for WFMW. For more tips, head on over to Shannon’s Rocks in My Dryer.

Digital cameras are everywhere. Even cell phones can be used to snap photos.

The side effect of this amazing technology is we don’t have the chance to display the photos – each and every one of them.

Reasons?

To be fair, even though we’d have printed them all, where do we hang them? Our little house has definitely insufficient space. Never mind about the costs.

Worry not, there’s a solution. We can solve this by using one of the many digital photo frames.

You upload a collection of digital photos to the memory of the digital photo frame. The pictures are displayed automatically and changed based on a time interval set by you.

Isn’t that cool? Now you can display all your photos with just one photo frame.

A quick check at Amazon.com reveals that the price range is from $70 to $200. Sounds expensive but this seems like a more practical solution.

Not only that, digital photo frame makes a perfect gift too.

Many say parenting is tough job.

Don’t take it too seriously and give yourself a break by watching this hilarious video.

"Mommy caught naughty Baby Maybelline red-handed going through her make up drawer. The kid got powder, eye shadow, and lipstick all over her face. Sitting on the floor in her mess, singing her sad song, the brat wonders how mom’s going to punish her this time."

Poor Maybelline...wonder what will her mother get her after this.

Watch: Baby Maybelline