My older daughter, Archer, has taken an interesting turn in our communication. When she's done something bad - like oh, eating chocolate syrup in her bed. This morning, we noticed some chocolaty evidence. When we asked Archer where it came from, she adamantly refused to talk about it with her Mother.

I took a look at the evidence and immediately realized that it was chocolate syrup. (Somehow I just clue into these things pretty easily) My initial concern: how was she eating chocolate syrup by herself? In the meantime Archer had even blamed Swiper the Fox for doing it. Asking Archer how she'd eaten the chocolate didn't work, so I tried another tact - I asked how Swiper had eaten the Syrup. She calmed down and started telling me just what Swiper had done. Then we established that Swiper had used a spoon - that he'd placed back in the drawer (Yuck!)

My wife's immediate reaction was understandable - Archer was using Swiper the Fox to avoid responsibility for her actions. My darling wife wanted Archer to take responsibility, but she has the unfortunate tendency to act like gasoline tossed on an open fire in situations like this. Trying to avoid a ball of flame, I mollified them both a bit to buy some time and I did a bit of reading up before deciding what to do.

It turns out that using an imaginary friend as a scape goat is pretty normal. It's actually a good sign of a developing conscience. Once I chucked some reading material at my wife about the issue, she was happy with the way I'd handled things. Personally, I'm more concerned with my daughter telling me the truth than anything else. If she has to use Swiper the Fox to keep a calm perspective, then I'm willing to work with it.

One thing I took from my research: If you do go down the imaginary friend path, remember to ensure that the source of theimaginary friend is their imagination. Having your daughter tell the imaginary one that they were bad is a great way to discuss a situation without upsetting her delicate persona.

Hate seeing anyone smoke around children? I always hated seeing it. When I was about 9 years old, I even offered to steal my best friends mothers cigarettes once. Bangor, Maine (Just don't insult their size, mkay) has recently banned smoking in cars in the presence of anyone under 18 years of age.

Part of me rejoices at hearing this sort of news. My town recently upped its hand against smoking within 20 feet of any publicly accessible building. Previously it only applied to government buildings. Now it'll take effect at the mall. Honestly, I hate that we actually have to have laws against this sort of thing.

At this point, I've just seen way too many people smoking around children to feel any real remorse. If it takes a $50 fine the keep second hand smoke away from kids, I'm all for it. Oh, and my best friend from childhood? Last time I saw her she was working her way through a pack of Camels.

Corn syrup is one of the hardest things to avoid. It's used as an inexpensive sweetener in 90 percent of the processed food on grocery store shelves. Virtually every regular soda uses it. A majority of breads even contain it. We've been avoiding it because it's one of the three major allergens. (Wheat(gluten), Corn and Dairy)

Archer's recent allergy test didn't show much in the way of corn problems, but our allergist noted that the test isn't very sensitive. Believe it or not, food allergies - even mild ones can cause behavior problems in children. Today we took a chance and checked to see if corn really was a problem. We let archer have some gluten free cookies that use quite a bit of corn products to replace the wheat.

Tonight she was definitely not acting like herself. She was hungry, but before she even got her food she ran off and slammed the door behind her. It's hard to say that corn is definitively the problem, but when we cut it out of her diet she barely ever behaved like this. It's safe to say that we're going to keep avoiding it for now.

Today Archer (my four and a half year old) had her first desensitization treatment. These are a series of oral treatments given in a series. The idea is to reduce reactions to allergens by slowly increasing the levels.

Sounds like a great plan eh? Except for one little, tiny problem. Last time Archer went to that doctors office, she got her allergy tests. Remember all the little pin pricks from the tiny needles? She sure as hell does. I spent a good half an hour offering all sorts of enticements this morning. Chuck-E-Cheese, a trip to our local playground, ice cream... but she wasn't to be bought off. I had to head off to work and leave it to my wife. Apparently, It took about an hour just to get her to the office.

The first mistake was telling Archer that she was going to the doctor this morning. I think we should have pumped her up for it for about a week before it ever happened. After I left, she tried to hide in her room and lock the door. Then it took a small army of ninjas to get her into the back of the car, where she needed some personal time to recover before allowing my wife to buckle her in. (My wife called me with updates every five minutes or so)

Once they actually got to the office, Archer was about as helpful as a waiter on his first break after a five hour shift. Eventually she took some water in place of the medicine. Later on it took a bit of trickery - she refused the medicine, but tried the water again. A bit of slight of hand and the medicine took its place.

After all that, she didn't even notice the difference. Who bets that a certain four year old who grunted at ever offer I made this morning will be telling me that I have to take her out later.

A few years ago, I was in the mood for pumpkin. Being a lifetime fan of the pie, I wanted something else. After a bit of searching, I discovered a wonderful recipe for pumpkin pancakes.

Fast forward to today, we've isolated that my daughter shouldn't eat wheat or dairy - as confirmed by her allergy testing. Suddenly cooking something like pancakes becomes less trivial. Being the adventurous sort, (and having some backup cantaloupe in the fridge) I set out to make an allergy friendly version of our favorite breakfast.

My daughter loves to help me make pancakes, but I didn't want to disappoint her. I distracted her with a morning cartoon movie and pulled up my recipe. I swapped in brown rice flour for the wheat, and grabbed some soy milk. The result was still tasty, if a bit gritty from the brown rice flower. My daughter still loved them.

Now I've managed to tune the recipe a bit. I use a half and half mixture of brown and white rice flour. Toss in a dash of xanthan gum and they come out great. The pancakes cook a bit slower with the new ingredients, but they come out great.

After dealing with eczema for a while, we finally set out to get our daughter allergy tested. I missed the real action, but I'll try to recreate it for you from what my wife's eye witness description.

The test isn't pleasant. At the doctors office, they briefly placed a series of strips on my daughters back. Each strip has several tiny needles that have samples of allergens on them. After a while, they look as the skin and check how far the skins reaction spread from the test prick. Sounds awful doesn't it? Archer did pretty good - she didn't really want the last series, but she allowed them to do it. (She got some safe chocolate ice cream that night.)

The results? Now we know for certain that she's allergic to wheat (gluten) and dairy. There wasn't much of a reaction to corn, but the doctor suggested avoiding it anyway due to low test sensitivity.
I've learned something new - food allergies can be a cause of behavioral problems. We've definitely noticed a decrease in tantrums since we've enforced the new diet.

Buying a house is one of those big steps that becomes inevitable when you've got kids. My wife and I started out in a rental duplex with our first daughter. After a couple of years and a totaled car in the nearby intersection we moved into our current rental house. It was a huge improvement. We got a fenced back yard, an unfinished basement and some decent appliances.

Our second year in the house will pass in a few months, and we're finally ready to get our own house. Today I started working to get an idea of what kind of loan we can get into. The paperwork used to be pretty scary. Years ago I was in on a refinance - we had to provide tons of paperwork to prove ourselves worthy.

So far, things seem different. I filled out the online application with my favorite bank, and visited lendingtree.com just to get a feel for the state of things. Once again my bank showed off - I received an email asking me to call them and managed to get a pre-approval at 9:45 at night. Whoa - that's right. I said 'bank' and 'night' in the same sentence. Seriously, these people are just a pleasure to deal with.

I don't know if things will continue on their smooth path - I hope so. For now, I think the bank will be happy as long as we keep our tax refund in savings for closing.

Every year we bring home a christmas tree, I end up with a problem. Pine needles. Cleaning them up has always been a bit of a loosing battle. They clog up the vacuum cleaner, they stick in the carpet and sweeping just doesn't get them up. I invariably end up on my hand and knees picking up little bits of pine. Six months later, I'm still finding them finding them. It's like owning a secret herd of pine needle bearing porcupines

This year I found myself on my knees again, picking bits of tree after hauling our monster pine inside. (Note to self: Don't pick trees under 12 inches of snow) After an hour or so, I decided to do something about it. I've been meaning to pick up a big shop vac for a project, and so I figured that I'd give it a shot. I trekked over to sears and scored a giant shop/canister vacuum on sale for about $70. (Five horsepower motor, 12 gallon canister) After shocking my wife with the sheer size as I slapped the wheels on it, I put it to work. It easily sucked up every pine needle I pointed it at. To top things off, I can even use it for spot cleaning the carpet when I want to use some Rug Doctor solution.

In a way, I'm almost disappointed that it was so easy. If I'd known how well it would work, I would have gladly bought one years ago. If you've been stuck in the foot by a pine needle or two, and you value your sanity - get one.

We're planning to visit some relatives over the holidays. Just like many trips before, I'll be returning with more furniture that when I started. Since we'll be pulling a trailer, I've decided that we'll be taking my Jeep Liberty, since it's actually a very good tow vehicle. (These things are rated to pull 5000lbs, and can actually do it.) I like my Jeep, it's just big enough for my family, and I'm not driving an aircraft carrier around town.

In preparation for my trip, I made one of those purchases that (it would seem) are one of the true marks of being Dad. No, not a mark of fatherhood, I mean a right of passage for Dads. I bought a car top cargo box.

Which one did I buy? I picked up a Yakima Blacktop Pro 12. I like these because they're long and narrow - you'll get better mileage than the big square boxes. I managed to get the store to knock around $60 off once I convinced the sales minion to actually ask a manager about it. It's a huge improvement over my Dad's old box. It hinges open in either direction and clamps to the crossbars I already had. (It looks like it'll clamp to most roof-rack crossbars, excluding those giant things on the Nissan Xterra)

In the past, my rooftop accessories included Yakima racks, bike racks, ski racks, and even kayak racks. Only a parent can appreciate how disturbingly satisfying it is to have finally purchased a cargo box. Before I had two daughters, I would have never been so happy about buying a box for the top of my car. Honestly, I would have preferred to buy a new climbing rope any day of the week. Man, I love being Dad.

If you remember, we were planning to take Archer (our four year old daughter) to an allergist. The results have been great. I wasn't there for the appointment, but the improvements since have been dramatic. Because the eczema was so bad, the doctor wanted it cleared up before she proceeded with allergy testing. We came home with some Zyrtec to help prevent itching and a different topical blended with eucerin cream.

Her skin cleared up incredibly fast, and we couldn't be happier. Aside from the new meds (which are to control breakouts) we've made some changes to Archer's diet. After Halloween, we cut out Wheat, Corn and Dairy. Fortunately, this change is only until she gets her allergy testing done. This is a challenge, but my pumpkin pancake recipe comes out pretty good if the flour and milk is swapped for rice flour and soy milk.

We've found that group environments are terribly at remembering about her allergy issues - the only way to make sure that others remember is to send along an allergy friendly snack just for Archer. We've had good luck with this at parent co-op pre-school. In the meantime, I've got a pumpkin full of candy to give away at work.