Group Hug - Get you one
What if we started the day with our kids with a group hug? Get to them early and ask them to bring it in close. Try this for a week until they try to get away from you and god forbid reject the group hug. In this case you need to switch immediately to the bear hug. Both are effective and both will make your days better and off to a great start.
Try this: This is a friendly reminder to try Ryan Holiday’s book The Daily Dad. It is full of reminders and inspirations regarding the course you are on. It reminds me to add in hugs, I love yous, and affirmations to my day as a dad. Pick the things you want your kids to say later in the life that their dad " always” said and say it with feeling all the time. My favorite is something I tell my kids when I am sure they can hear me and we are alone which is, “I feel lucky to be your dad.”
Take away: Start your day with a squeeze of some sort. Feel free to move to wrestling or the game “Taco" where you take a blanket and try to wrap your kids up like a taco while they are trying to escape. It’s a hoot.
Try this: Pick your misogi
What is a misogi? A Misogi challenge is an annual, self-imposed, and extremely difficult physical or mental feat designed to push you to your limits and break you out of your comfort zone, ideally with a 50/50 chance of failure.
What do you need to change? What would be fun to see if you could do? Pick something to try, write it down, and get to work dad.
Cook This: Thai style vegetable stir fry (you can do it I promise)
One of my favorite pastimes is watching cooking videos that I try to reproduce for my family. I love Life by Mike G @lifebymikeg and all his scratch cooking ideas. He has a garden, chickens, and bees on Long Island. Try any of his recipes or ways to make cooking for your family doable.
Dad Fun - Plan a garden
February is the perfect time to start sprouting your vegetables. There are so many ways to start plants. It is also a great activity to do with your kids. They will LOVE watching plants sprout and helping you move the sprouts to the garden.
Try this:
Draw a garden map with your kids and ask them what they want to plant.
Get a container or secure a community garden plot. This can be a set of buckets or pots or a whole backyard. Google your area for spots that are available to garden.
Plant some seeds now - they won't all make it but some will and you can plant those in your real garden.
Use the care of the sprouts to talk to your kids about how you will work on the larger garden project.
Dad Magic: Jokes
Why do crabs never volunteer? Because they're shell-fish.
What kind of shoes to frogs wear? Open-toad sandals.
This newsletter is not professional in nature but intended to be real things to try. They won’t all work but this is a process and I’d love for you to join me on the way. Thanks for reading and we hope to see you next week.
Send this to a dad that needs to get his Sh&# together.
Send me a note or your best dad joke @ [email protected]