As parents, there are many times we are faced with the challenge of trying to determine the guilty party among our children. Who did it this time? With three daughters ages 10, 7 and 5, it can be daunting task for me to even begin to narrow it down. It isn’t impossible though. Through ten years of training I have come up with some methods for determining guilt, and probably more importantly not giving your young child a chance to lie.

Narrowing down the suspects:

Most of the time, the kid crime (a crime committed by a child that is actually more of an annoyance than an actual crime) itself is what helps us eliminate some of the possible suspects.

On the eve of New Moon, I have been inspired to voice my opinion on the Twilight series as it pertains to a dad (a stay-at-home dad at that) raising three daughters. This post is one of a series of posts from other dad bloggers as part of The "Twilight" Dad Bloggers Experiment over at Dad Blogs. First, let me begin by saying my daughters are young (9, 7, 4) and they have not seen the movie nor read the books in the Twilight series. As far as censoring what my daughters see, we don’t let them read books that aren’t age appropriate or see movies and TV shows that contain subject matter that is of PG-13 or greater in nature. As they grow up the question will be, what is my role as a dad in guiding them through the possible pitfalls that the teenage years present? Is Twilight one of those possible pitfalls?

My wife and I saw the movie and many of our neighbors (mostly moms and one teenage girl) have read the book. What we have learned about the series over the last several months is that Twilight has its good points and bad points as well. Overall, the message is of dark, vampiric/werewolf teenage love. The themes include the feeling of being an outsider as a girl and the awkwardness of the teenage years. More disturbingly, one of the bigger messages is that a unsuccessful and abusive relationship are OK.

We were almost three months along and on a vacation with the family when my wife told me that something wasn't right. It was just before noon when she started to notice blood. We raced home and the doctor sent us to the hospital for an examination and even though there was a lot of "spotting" they weren't overly concerned-we were though. My wife knew something wasn't right and her doctor told her to rest although there was nothing she could do if she was about to have a miscarriage. We Google'd it to death and found little comfort in a similar consensus-if she was about to have a miscarriage there was nothing we could do. That night she felt increasingly more ill and finally had to get in the shower to battle nausea and stomach cramps. It was just shortly after she got in the shower I heard her scream for me-it sounded very bad.

With so many changes to the traditional work environment and with the economy tanking, we are seeing a lot of families make the choice to bring daddy home. So, if you are a dad out there considering becoming a SAHD, I am here to scare you straight. It is tough being a full-time parent. I, personally, think it is more challenging staying home with kids then it is to work. This series is intended to show potential stay at home dads the reality behind the choice to become a full-time parent.