Our family loves to read. Since my kids were young I have read aloud to them as well as encouraged them to read independently. When we travel, we always pass the time listening to our favorite audiobooks. So it’s safe to say that books are an integral part of our family life.

This is exactly why we were so excited to get the brand new book Hand That Rocks The Cradle: 400 Classic Books for Children by Nathaniel Bluedorn. In this slender volume is a concise reference of the best books to read together as a family or for your children to read independently. Each entry includes a brief summary of the book, the time period in which the story takes place, geographic setting of the story, publication date, and the reading level. There is also a topical index in the back that makes it easier to identify books on various subjects. In addition, the book has been cleverly shaped to make it an easy reference tool to carry to the bookstore or library when looking for new books.

Most of the selections listed tend to be older books. Mr. Bluedorn states in the introduction that his family is more conservative and so the selections tend to reflect their preferences. However, he has also included a few more recent books that may come as a surprise to a few readers.

When the book first arrived in our mailbox, my youngest daughter, who is 10 years old, immediately started going through to see what books she had read were included on the list. On her very next trip to the library she started checking out books that she had seen listed in this book.

These days finding suitable books to either read to children or to let them read on their own has increasingly become a challenge. With this book, Mr. Bluedorn (and his parents, too) have done a tremendous service to families everywhere. Homeschool families will also particularly benefit from this book as it will make selecting appropriate books to incorporate in their curriculum a much easier task. I highly recommend Hand That Rocks The Cradle as it is one of the best resources I’ve discovered in quite a while.

Every month or so, someone posts to one of the triplets-and-more themed boards asking The Minivan Question. It’s usually a dad-to-be or a brand new dad (though not always), wondering if it’s really necessary to get a minivan when you have multiples, and has anyone had luck with a sedan, or maybe a cool SUV? Anything—anything but a minivan?

Most of the responses say that yes, it’s necessary and no, hardly anyone has had much luck with anything else. The problem is that when you have three (or four or five) babies, it’s hard to get everyone maneuvered into the rear-facing car seats and latched into place in an SUV, even if it’s one of those behemoths with a third-row seat. A minivan’s big sliding doors and low ground clearance are perfect for wrestling lots of 1-year-olds into place.

Many parents probably have minivan aversion because it represents the desperate tendrils of their youth strangled by responsibility. When you have a minivan, you are officially settled down. Obviously, having children also means you are (or at least should be) settled down, but with a sporty car or SUV you can pretend you’re still hip or rugged as you drive to the grocery store for diapers and Butt Paste.

So far, the Wilson clan has done well with a crossover vehicle—meaning a station wagon with a cooler-sounding name. But now that we’re coming out of RSV season, the triplets will get to see that there’s a world outside our old four-square house (woo-hoo!). We’ll be taking trips to the zoo, to stores, visiting family and friends; you know, all the places “normal” families go with their kids. So I have a feeling our life sans minivan is coming to a close.

I’ve been telling myself that I am fine with the minivan thing. And then a few weeks ago, my parents bought a new minivan. I took a ride in it with my dad, and I realized that I am not fine with a minivan. I want one.

It had what they call a conversation mirror. Right...in a couple of years that will be a “who is pulling whose hair” mirror. Five years ago, I would have thought the stow-and-go seating in this minivan might be handy for hauling my bass amp around. Now, I just imagine how easy it would be to get two of the car seats into the back seat. And the built-in hard drive in the radio for storing mp3s? A few years ago I might have wanted to upload Flood by They Might Be Giants. Lately, it’s more like Here Come The ABCs by...well...They Might Be Giants. I saw everything in dad terms. And from a dad’s perspective, it seemed like the perfect vehicle.

It’s strange to be envious of something so many people dread. Maybe it would be easier if they came up with a cooler-sounding name than “minivan.” Maybe X-Treme Transport?

The Home Depot hosts free Kids Workshops on the first Saturday of each month. Kids and parents can build kit projects like bird houses, helicopters, pirate ships, and, oddly-specific enough, ‘Declaration of Independence frames’. We’ve missed the last two workshops since learning of the program, but my wife and I pulled one out of our good-parent hat this weekend, and made a special effort to get Ian’s hands on a hammer and nails.

We missed the pirate ship, but this weekend the kids were building planters. I don’t build, but the project kits are non-threatening: shrink-wrapped, pre-cut, starter holes pre-drilled, and other hyphenated adjectives that help men like me maintain our thin veneers of masculinity in front of our children. The kids are given Home Depot aprons to wear for each session, and a project pin to commemorate the event.

Ian did a fantastic job, holding his hammer to balance force and accuracy, and taking careful aim of my thumbnail. He talked throughout the project, his mind focused on the outcome rather than the process. What should we plant? What can we plant? Will the flowers die? Can I keep them in my room?

At one point he was the only child in the room, and he had the staff’s full attention. They complimented his handling of the hardware, and praised his use of safety goggles. He rewarded them with tips on the proper care of house plants.

‘They need dirt, lots of sun, and water. And love.’

My three-year-old has created her own language.

She and her sister (4) like to sit on my lap and, as they call it, mess up my hair.  They mess it up and then try to fix it with brushes and curlers and the like.  As they do so, they act as if they are working in some salon.  They are constantly telling me to relax and close my eyes and they will fix my hair.

During one of these sessions, my three-year-old started jabbering some gibberish.  “Close your eyes and relax and shimony shu flabytre honnto goshey.” Holy crap.  I hadn’t heard anything like this since I saw a bunch of strangers in a generic born again church in Philly break into what they claimed to be the Speaking of Tongues. 

(That incident scared the crap out of me.  I ran from that building, completely ooked out, with one the members following me asking what I thought about the whole deal.  Freaky, that’s what I thought of it.)

Anyway, my daughter’s gibberish isn’t freaky like their gibberish was.  It’s become quite humorous.  When she is lost in her own little world, she will hold full on conversations with her dolls and toys in this made up shimony shu.  Watching her, it’s obvious she knows what she is saying.  And so do her dolls.  Okay, maybe it is a little creepy.

This daughter has much more of an internal imagination than my other kids have had.  They all have great imaginations which I try to encourage, but my three-year-old’s imagination is much more in her head, if that makes sense.  She could sit alone for hours entertaining herself by producing worlds and characters galore.  My other daughter has a good imagination, but she needs other people to play off of.

I only mention this because it so reminds me of myself when I was a kid.  Sure, some of my other kids show interest in things that I have interest in now, like acting.  But this is the best example from all of my kids that I can point to and say, “That was me at that age.” It’s kind of cool to see myself in one of my children.

What traits of yours do you see in your kids?

A favorite pastime of mine (besides blogging) is catching the media making fun of us bumbling fathers. If we’re not almost dropping our kids on the floor, we’re bleaching out the family’s clothes and begging for our spouses to come bail us out. Truth is, most guys I know are as equally adept at household work and parenting as their spousal counterpart is.

This weekend, MLI (my little introvert) had two birthday parties to attend. One was smack dab in the middle of a baby shower CareerMom was having for her sister, so I took MLI and MLE (my little extrovert) to the party. It was at a place called, “My Gym.” If you don’t have these, they are wonderful little indoor playgrounds, full of plastic ball pools, monkey bars and zip lines. After an hour and a half of playing here, the kids are blissfully wiped out. It’s the best venue we’ve found for a party yet, and that includes the places with the big jumpy things.

When we arrived, I had MLI offer up his birthday gift and he took off to play with his friends, while I and MLE headed off to find a seat where I could let my little one wander around under my watchful eye. The father of MLI’s best friend wandered over and we struck up a conversation. He’s in a similar situation as me. He works full time, as does his wife. His wife frequently travels, as she is somehow involved in sports broadcasting. After we had the, “You play golf? We should get together...” conversation where we are both kidding ourselves about having enough free time, we inevitably turned to a talk about our kids.

Me: “So you got moved into your new house today huh? Congrats! Ethan (MLI) is sure going to miss your son when he changes daycares.”

Him: “Oh, we’re not sure we’re gonna move him now. We’ve heard some bad things about XY Daycare.”

Me: “That’s too bad. We went there for a while too and came back. It just wasn’t right for us either.  Hey, is your wife doing the NCAA games?”

Him: “Nah, she took off for a few weeks. It’s been great because I can go into work early, work late if I need to; it’s gonna be tough when she goes back to work. Which is part of the reason we were going to change daycares, since this one is a bit far for me to drive every day. Otherwise, the only other thing I don’t like about our daycare now is the merry-go-round of workers.”

Me: “Yeah, the class our youngest is in drives me nuts. The head lady there acts like I’m a total buffoon and talks down to me like I have no clue what I’m doing. She’s pretty annoying!”

Him: (Animatedly now!) “Oh, I know. People don’t think I know how to take care of my kids, but truth is, they are better with me than they are my wife and she doesn’t believe me. But the other day we had some friends over and the kids were misbehaving and my wife was trying to get them settled down and our friends told my wife, “Oh, those kids have you snowed! When it’s just them and Joe, they are completely different.”

He just smiled that knowing fatherly smiled, and I of course, launched into my “Me too” speech.

It’s funny though, but before I had kids if you had asked me what would make me the most proud, I would probably have said, “Being a successful and respected writer.” But now, I might have to say, “Raising respectful and well-rounded children.” Oh, I still occasionally let MLE get too close to the stairs, or I let him wander into the dog room knowing full well he’s putting his hands in their water bowl and then licking his fingers, but overall, I think I’m doing pretty well.

I bet most of the dads who bother blogging about their kids are doing pretty well too. What do you think?