St Patrick's day crafts.

When it comes to crafts, my specialty is crafts with pipe cleaners. I could make almost anything out of these chenille stems; from animals like baby chicks, or penguins to flower arrangements. (And yes, I am available for parties and workshops.)

So as St Patrick's day is just around the corner, I am going to show you how to easily make some pipe cleaner shamrocks that you can use as jewelery (pins) or to decorate homemade postcards or invitations to your St patty's day party.

For the shamrocks all you will need is a few bumpy green and white pipe cleaners.

1. Place the pipe cleaner on a clean work surface.
2. Bend the top bump into the shape of a leaf, twisting to secure.
3. Fashion leaves out of the second and third bumps.
4. Twist final bump around the center of the leaves once or twice to stabilize, then bend it into a stem.
5. Trim off sharp, pointy end of pipe cleaner.

Once you are done with the shamrocks you can turn them into anything.

Pin them to your Irish sweater using small safety pins, glue them on hair pins...just use your imagination and have a happy St Patrick's day!!

A terrible mix.

We have all heard about it, learnt about it and read about it. And no matter how much warning we got, nothing prepared us for the Terrible Twos. If you google "terrible twos" you will get 23,100,000 hits. Even reading every piece of material you can put your hands on will not get you ready for it.

Now, you finally made it with your first child; you managed to deal with the tantrums, the unwillingness to share, the indecisiveness without too much damage and absolutely no valium when child number two who is also your middle child steps right into it. All the terrible two's behavior is enhanced by an incessant need for attention (no matter how much attention you give).

Going through your middle child's terrible twos is an exhausting and trying challenge. It takes an enormous amount of patience and countless deep breaths. Keep in mind that you are his parent and that you are showing him how to deal with stress so try to have fun with it. The worst part of having a two year old is that he will grow up faster than we think and one day we will miss the toddler years.

As challenging as being a parent is, the reward is so great that my advice to every parent out there is to enjoy every minute of it. Of course going through a tantrum is anything but enjoyable but someday we will all miss it...

I am back.

I know, I know, I have been slacking (blog wise), I have not posted anything for about a month.

So I would like to apologize to all my followers out there; to all five of you, I am sorry.

So anyway, I will try to be more consistent from now on and post more craft ideas but mostly I will keep blogging about parenting and especially fatherhood.

And I will do that starting tomorrow because tonight I am literally exhausted.

So check back soon, DaddyO is back.