Blog

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

Remember to visit Aaron’s blog for future updates on this series.

Next up is a blogger I admire. He has written a guest post on PW on quit smoking. His name is Leo Babauta.

A while back, he has a wildly popular article on How to be a Great Dad – 12 Awesome Tips. Go read it now.

Enjoy and a toast to a better dad!
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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

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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.

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