Sweet Words

Tonight our seven year old son Caden made a very clear and cute comment to his 21 month old little brother Levi. It went like this:

Caden said,  “Levi, would you please be quiet? I am trying to read.”

These are truly sweet words for a parent of a child that has endured delays in almost every area of development. Caden actually is reading some simple words and learning to spell through homeschool phonics instruction provided by my wife. We are still working with Caden to develop his speech. He has been getting speeh therapy 1-2 times per week since birth. At age four he was communicating almost exclusively with sign language. Here is a video of Caden speaking when he was 4 years old.

 

 
Learn more about Caden and his brothers at Caden’s Page.

Special Needs Education at Home

When your family rom turns into a hospital roomMy beautiful wife has shared some awesome tips for parents with a special needs child that is also homeschooled. Check out the latest podcast on the Home School Support Network to learn how we deal with tough times with a special needs child in our home.

Podcast Episode 7 – Mommy is a Wife, OpenDNS, Passwords


Mommy is also a Wife

– stay home moms especially need to be reminded and protected by dad (husband) in this area
– Dates
– Send mom out
– Do something special

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman (affiliate link)

Security Tools

New security tools page with a link for OpenDNS.

Review 10 Simple Security tips for Mac – Creating separate logins on your computers for your kids. Also included are some tips on passwords and pass phrases that are easy to remember but difficult to guess.

Daddy Life on Twitter

Voice Mail: (864) 372-9833

DaddyLife.net Podcast

Podcast Episode 4 – Filters, Porn, Pooh, Marriage and School Choice

This episode covers the following topics:

Intern FiltersInternet Filter Review web site

PornWorld Magazine Story with statistics on porn prevalence in pastors and Christians in general. XXXChurch, TopTeReviews – Internet Pornography Statistics

Winnie The Pooh Movie Review – Great for the whole family.

Marriage – Priority Relationship, dates, couch time – Babywise(aff link)

School Choice – Public, Private, or Home School? This subject was inspired by Andy and Cory over at Becoming a Better Dad podcast. If you are going to home school you absolutely must join the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

Podcast Improvements – Learning from Cliff Ravenscraft at Podcast Answer Man

Feedback: Email me – hank {@} daddylife {dot} net
Voice Mail: (864) 372-9833

DaddyLife.net Podcast

Dads – Stay Home or Work Outside the Home

The stay home dads seem to be well represented and encouraged on the Internet. A fairly large percentage of the more popular dad blogs that I read seem to be written by dads who stay home. There seems to be a deficit of encouragement specifically for dads who work outside the home.  Even harder to find is encouragement in blogs for dads who work outside the home while mom stays home.

This blog will help fill in that gap. We will provide encouragement for all dads in terms of parenting tips, finances, family fun, marriage, but will provide an extra dose of encouragement for dads who work outside the home.  To take things a step further we will help encourage dads who desire to be the sole bread winners of their families so that mom can be provided the best opportunity to stay home with the children. There are few things more discouraging for a young couple than having a desire to allow mom to stay home but being stuck in circumstances that just will not allow for this to happen.  Allowing mom the opportunity to stay home is a great goal and there is hope to make it happen.

My wife and I both graduated college and entered the workforce as a two-income household. We originally (before children) planned on her going back to work after maternity leave.  Our plans changed and we are glad they did. But we were not prepared for the change in plans…especially from a financial perspective. As this blog unfolds I will share some of our challenges in transitioning from a two-income household to a single income household.