^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com June 13, 2014}

I often have imaginary conversations with my 18-year-old self. The 18-year-old version of me is a kid who is stuck in the worst year of his life, suffering through an abusive relationship, and in a spiral of depression that he is not getting any help for.

He’s also a smartass who thinks he knows everything there is to know about life.

^{Originally published March 7, 2014 on BabyCenter.com}

Thanks to the Internet, parents have access to a lot more data these days. The problem is that it’s hard for a lot of people to tell the good data from the bad data.

One of the big errors that people make when evaluating reports floated around various blogs and news sites is the mistaking of correlation for causation. I’m pretty sure that most people reading this have heard the phrase, “correlation does not imply causation” at some point. However, I think it’s worth going into again because so few people seem to realize exactly what it means.

^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com February 22, 2014}

Today marks one full year since I started blogging at BabyCenter. My first official entry was about reading to your kids. Since then, my son has turned two and we’ve added a baby girl to the mix. Reading still remains important, and there’s a lot more I’ve learned over the past year.

^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com January 24, 2014}

My wife had a singing engagement, so I was left alone with two kids who took turns crying for two and a half hours straight.

Uncontrollable sobbing is a good way to make a parent feel useless, especially in men since we lack the magic boobies that calm infants down. But in the end, it’s not that big a deal.

^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com October 10, 2013}

You need to talk to your kids about sex, and you need to do it earlier than you might think.

^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com January 21, 2014}

My son was in a particularly whiny mood one night and wanted a story about dinosaurs and trains. Our e-copy of All Aboard the Dino Train by Deb Lund and Howard Fine was unavailable and everybody in the house was exhausted. Desperate for the sweet release of bedtime, I crafted the following impromptu story, which has since become a big hit with my son. (It turns out that two-year-olds have odd tastes.)

^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com November 15, 2013}

I’ve been in hibernation for a couple of weeks as my body adjusts to the sudden lack of sleep and deprivation of freedom that accompanies any newborn.

It is, of course, totally worth it.