I can’t admit to being an expert at toy picking, except that once we get it we know. (Or should I say, he knows.) Here are my five:

• Fun or learning? I think its a combo. Kids need to be able to explore and have fun while their doing it. A good part of that exploration is learning new movements, doing new activities and saying new things. My little guy has gone from picking up the drum to batting it to hitting it to hear the sound. Pretty cool and fun.
• At age level or ahead of the curve? Age level is based on an average and doesn’t necessarily represent where your little one is. So, while I will not disassemble his crib and ask him to build it back (with the instructions), I do think trying some things ahead of the curve can help you see where your child is developmentally, and help him excel in those areas where he shows an aptitude.
• Toy or the box it came in? When I see a box, I tend to fold it down and take it apart for recycling. When my little one sees a box, its hours of fun. Now the ego side of me says that we paid for the toy so play with it. But the dad side of me just wants my little one to have fun and to learn. And if its with a box, then that’s OK.
• Wood or tech? I love wood toys. They can look pretty cool, are made pretty well, they don’t destroy the earth (unless swung around wildly by little ones lacking in the coordination and presence to avoid the inevitable collision), and may make it to another generation of little ones. Tech? It has the added advantage of being the thing that Dad has (that makes it pretty desirable) and it often comes with wires (great for pulling and chewing). I love tech, but not for my little one.
• Batteries or no? In my life batteries are everywhere… both chargeable and the one-use kind. When my wife asks me to charge and sync our three iPods, there is no way to deny this is true. So, for my little one, I tend to be, for the most part an advocate of battery-free toys. Mainly because the loudest most puzzling toys seem to have batteries. They also tend to be cheap and plastic. Plus, does every toy really need to come with its own soundtrack? Enough said.

With a second baby on the way (in a few weeks), its time to look for a new stroller. The first time around, we found a pretty good one. It has a removable seat that attaches in the car, it folds to a reasonable size, it has storage, it has a cupholder (woohoo!), and it looks reasonably contemporary. However, now we need one that can hold both the younger members of the family, and has some of the features we missed the first time.

It needs to be lightweight. The current one, with seat is probably in the 30 to 40 lbs range. My arms are getting stronger from holding my son in one arm while the second arm takes care of the errands, but I am trying to avoid the need for steriods. It needs to fold down to nothing. I want to forget its there, instead of regretting its there every time I struggle to load groceries in the car. It also needs look cool.  While I might, under duress, admit that I am a dork, who wants their stroller to prove the point? It also needs to be a tandem. I think they look nicer, and, do we really want to take up all of the sidewalk?

So we are looking at Phil and Ted’s (sounds like Keanu Reeve’s company) and Kolcraft. Phil and Ted’s Dash has a nice cool athletic look, folds down smaller than the current one we have and is a bunch lighter. (It also significantly lightens your pocketbook.) Now if I wanted to spur the economy on even farther, I would get the even cooler looking Vibe. Even the name is cool. In the other corner, the Kolcraft Contour Options seems to be a virtually Swiss Army knife of stroller. For half the price of the other one, the Contour Options can use the baby seat from our first stroller, can orient the seats in any number of forward and backward facing combinations, and has storage to handle a big shopping trip. It folds down to slightly bigger than Bill and Ted’s stroller, but fails the weight test, coming in around 50 lbs. It also is fairly long, appearing to carry the added feature of blotting out the sun and throwing your neighbors into total darkness.

Although time is running out – baby two should be here towards the end of June – there’s still room to maneuver. And, despite a few well-formed stroller thoughts, my wife and I are still open for suggestions, so let us know if you have a gem that we may not have considered.

Hot versus cold. In my household, this is a pretty common topic, even a heated topic. Here are my five:

• Food: I tend to be relatively stateless when it comes to food that’s already been prepared. I will eat food whether it is hot or cold. I am known to go into the refrigerator and not even heat food up before eating it. Insane! And, I have been known to drink cold coffee. Why? We may never know, but, I do believe that food temperature is a losing battle. Cold things want to be warmer and warm things want to be colder. With each always thinking the grass is greener, and leaving its comfort zone, I feel a laissez faire attitude is best. Temperature is not important.
• Cooking/ Grilling: This one is pretty obvious. Hotter is better. You can’t cook without heat. Well, you can microwave. That may not be heat in the burner or bake sense, it will get your food warm. And, there is ceviche… but that’s off topic. Heat changes flavors and textures, and combines ingredients. Less heat makes things cook more slowly.  Warmer is better.
• House: I tend to keep the house colder rather than warmer. This causes my wife no end of consternation, and has lead to a world class collection of fleece. (This also leads to comments about her husband being a lizard or a puffin…) My philosophy stems from a belief that its easier to get warmer than colder. For instance, as I carry my son around the house or work in the yard I’m likely to get hot. If the temperature is already warm inside, I can’t take anything off to get to the right temperature. However, if it is colder, I can be styling and profiling and the right temperature in fleece or a sweater. Colder is better.
• Showers: Cold showers are well named and should be banned from the milder climates. My wife agree on that and, generally on shower temperature. Warmer is better.
• Weather: As I like to say, the benefit of living in California is that the weather does not come to you, you go to it. So, if I want snow, there’s a place for that. If I want to see leaves change, there’s a place for that. If I want really hot… you get the picture. Having lived back east and had leaves, snow, ice and bugs the size of Buicks showing up in my front yard, I can tell you that I’d rather live with mild weather that doesn’t require the introduction of a parka periodically. Warmer is better.

I’ve always be interested in video. I worked in the TV lab in high school. I helped start a cable channel in college. Did some post college video work, and, since then I’ve always had a Mac around to help out. And with that Mac came instant video baby conferencing. After all, not everyone can be there to see the little guy, and they don’t want to miss anything. Sometimes I’ve been on the other end of the video conference, but typically its been grand parents. Usually there’s a PC on the other end of the conversation, so Skype was the conferencing tool of choice. With my portable Mac, we can conference call from pretty much anywhere in the house that the little guy happens to be.

So, one day, my wife and I set up the conference call with my parents (we were on the east coast at the time, and they were on the west coast). Our boy was in a particularly squirmy mood, so I handled the computer and she handled him. Shortly after kicking off the broadcast, I had to run downstairs for some baby supplies. As I left the room and headed down the stairs, I heard a commotion, which, quickly died down. I grabbed the desired supplies and re-entered the room. Nothing seemed wrong, but, I noticed that the computer was wet. Hmm. I asked my wife who casually informed me that an emergency diaper change was required, and during said act, the baby peed on the computer. A quick check revealed that most of the pee seemed to be gone, the keys worked and the computer was still on. Yes! All is good.

Later that evening as I settle down to use the computer, I noticed that the “J” key sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t work. Hmm. Was that a result of the pee incident? Well, how many times do I use a J anyway. Then, the “P” stopped working. Cutting and pasting from other documents solved that one. Lots of Ps to choose from. Then it was the right half of the keyboard. Time to admit it, I either had to fix this thing or start sounding like the Lolcats.

Now, I’m at the Apple Store. This is probably going to get it done… except if I’m too honest. “Your baby peed on the computer?” That phrase stuck with me as I sat down and removed the case from my laptop and started the repairs. (As a wise man would know, baby pee adds a lot to the cost of a computer repair.) A hour later, good as new. Now, I think about Marine World when my computer and my son are close. If you’re inside the blue line, you’re liable to get wet. I can be there, but maybe the computer should hang back.

If I weren’t an Apple fan I might not have gotten an AppleTV. But, I am, and I did, its pretty great (mostly). Here are my five:

• No need for DVDs: I can load movies into it via my computer and store them. So, for those movies that need to be shown again, its like a 30+ DVD jukebox. My wife would dispute the importance of this as she still, outside of children’s movies, wonders why I’d need to see a movie more than once.
• Movie rentals: I love movies. I don’t love theaters so much. With all the talking and phone ringing, I feel like I’m in someone’s living room watching the movie of the week. (Take a breath…) Well, none of that matters with a one year old son. I rarely see the inside of a movie theater these days. So, rentals are the way to go. I was an early adopter of Netflix. Its a pretty good deal, but, the equation has changed. Netflix beat Blockbuster by increasing the selection and removing the late fees. Rental downloads beat mailed DVDs because there is no delay. I can get the movie right when I want it. And, true, Netflix has a movie download service, but, it doesn’t do the other stuff that’s on this page and that ship has already sailed.
• Music and an extra set of speakers: A house filled with music is a pretty cool thing. It used to be that I had a five CD CD-player, and I could only listen to it in the room where the stereo was. (In my old house, I drilled a hole in the floor and ran a cable under the floor to enable two rooms worth of music.) Then, I went AirTunes, and was able to send music to any room with an amp and a pair of speakers. And, I could control it all from one place. Well, with the AppleTV, I can send music to that room to, and convert the TV into a stereo. I have an insane five zone house meaning I can send music to one or all five zones, or listen to different music in each. And, with my iPhone, I can control it from anywhere…
• Weans me from my cable company: I’ve been bad and added Boxie to my Apple TV. Boxie is an unofficial add-on (not approved by Apple) that allows me to watch recent TV shows and news via Hulu, CNN and a bunch of other web channels. I can watch 30 Rock, Family Guy or a whole lot of other shows. Combined with all my music, movie rentals, my DVD collection, and home movies, TV makes the AppleTV pretty compelling. So, as I get increasingly frustrated over an ever-climbing cable bill, I can start to think about options, and ponder what a post cable life might look like.
• Photos of my son: I have almost a billion pictures of my son (and no, I won’t force you to look at all of them). But, my wife and I (and my son) like to look at them. Having them on the AppleTV makes them pretty accessible. They are not locked up in a box or photo album or computer somewhere. The AppleTV frees them to spark memories of wonderful times.

I have the morning shift. I love it. I get to spend quality time with my wonderful son. I get to see his great smile, and I get to see him grow up one day at a time. What could be better?

Every morning, we get up, change his diaper, get dressed, eat, make coffee and head upstairs to play. Its around this time that I get anxious about business happenings and issues that I might need to attend to, so, I grab my iPhone.

We spend time with books – I read, he turns to his favorite pages. We spend time with blocks – I build things, he knocks them down. We spend time playing the guitar – I play, he grabs my hand as I play. And we spend time with the iPhone – I check my email, he chews on it. That’s ok. Afterall, how much damage can between 4 and 8 teeth cause? Well, as it turns out quite a lot if you are a finger, a book, a cat or a piece of paper.

He understands the mischief that he is perpetrating, because he will look at me, wait until I’m looking back, smile, then bite. He’ll stop when I shake my head. Or perhaps he relents because of my panicked expression. Overall, though, I think I have this under control. I even encourage him to play with some of the music programs. But, then there’s the coffee.

I can’t survive the morning without it, and most who know me would not be able to pick me out of a lineup without the cup. But might I be better off with a sealed cup? Well, while I am not sure, the scattered coffee stains point to a different answer. In my defense, I have noted spills with closed cups (not properly sealed) and feel they give me a false sense of confidence.

But the real issue is not one or the other, but the two of them together. Its a game of cat and mouse that involves peripheral vision and a lot of luck. Two items that he wants. Close enough to see. He knows that I only have two hands, and that he is quite a speedy crawler. And, he is smart of enough to go where I’m not. Coffee behind me. He will take the long way to get the pacifier and just happen to go for the coffee. Coffee in my hand, he climbs on me. Coffee on the shelf, he’ll wait me out. How long can I really go without it? So if I am checking messages, he’s in pursuit of the coffee, and if I have the coffee, he has the iPhone. Maybe we can strike a deal… I’ll give him my old iPhone when the new ones come out in June. Do you think he’d take that deal?

I’m a work at home entrepreneur. Made a software product for parents that may liberate me from the corporate world. I’m a west coaster who many think is really from New York. I am often quoted as saying “Here’s how I’d do it…” when looking at all manner of things. I have a hard time not checking something or other on my iPhone. Like one of my many email accounts, Twitter accounts, or Facebook accounts. I’m the one my family calls if they’re having a computer problem, and my friends talk to about iPhone. I have wireless music, movies, printing, etc. You get the picture.

I also am a new parent and am gaga over my son. He has been with us for about a year, and is making the most of it. He has a great, stop people on the street smile, his favorite word is “Bap”, and these days he is learning how to walk. He likes to play my guitar (he likes to hold the frets and strum), and has a knack for remembering where everything is, especially if you try to keep it away.

So, how do these things fit together? Not quite sure, to tell you the truth. But I am learning a few things along the way. And, that’s why I’m writing this blog.

I hope you find it interesting, entertainment, informative.

- David