This past weekend I was surrounded by old friends at my 20th high school reunion. I went without my kids, and I can say without question that was the best decision. Who wants to be reminiscing with friends until 3 a.m. and then be woken up at 7 a.m. by the sweet sounds of the Wiggles and demands for chocolate milk?

While I missed my kids, I was thankful that my mom and husband had them instead, safe at home. That feeling was reaffirmed when I saw a dear old friend after she had just spent the day at Animal Kingdom (the reunion was in Orlando). She was exhausted.

The next day, as we all gabbed and dished about our lives and about our classmates, she talked about her own family (she has two boys, ages 4 and 6) and made a confession:

"I have a four-hour tolerance with my kids," she said, somewhat sheepishly, waiting to see our reaction.

She didn't have anything to worry about.

I often have guilty feelings about my weekends at home with the kids. I always schedule a trip with the kids to Target or Publix -- gotta break up the day some way. I let them watch a little too much TV on Saturday and Sunday mornings. And yes, we play ... but it gets old!

My friend said after four hours, she's done. She's got them fed, bathed and in bed well in time before she's too tired to watch a movie and have a glass of wine with her husband. She's not necessarily on the floor with them playing trains every minute of those four hours either.

I think I like this kind of plan. I spend so much time with the kids on weekends that all I feel like doing at night is collapsing on the couch. Can't even clean the kitchen sometimes. So if you let the kids entertain themselves a little more, you'll be less tired. Sounds good to me. Gotta try it.

Moms, dads ... what's your limit?

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We've probably all had the experience of our young ones making some kind of rude observation that is best kept to oneself. (Such as when Lily looked at a woman in the Publix checkout next to me, and asked, "Mommy, is that a man?''')

Adults who don't have a self-censor have no friends. But we have to expect this kind of embarrassment from kids.

This weekend we went to visit the grandparents. They're in their 70s.

Lily and I and her grandmother were sitting at the kitchen table.

"Are you going to live in this house forever?'' Lily inquired.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe,'' her grandmother replied.

Lily paused for a great while.

And then she said, so innocently:

"How do you spell die?''

Great question, Lily. And why do you ask?

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Well, looks like I was right - about being wrong.

Yesterday I wrote about not being able to shake the feeling that my stepdaughters don't like me. But I did wonder whether I was being overly sensitive.

This morning I noticed a game on our kitchen table. It's called "Visual Eyes," and it apparently involves rolling dice with images on them and using those images to come up with common expressions. Never played the game before, but that's not really the point. The point is, it's a family game. It's a game that's no fun unless we all play it together.

Gametime is tricky in our household. Their talents are very different from mine. The girls are great at games like Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution. I'm much better at Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. So we need to find games that we can all enjoy, which is not always easy.

Card games work, but the games we play are really designed for more than four people, so they're better at larger family gatherings. Scattergories is a big hit with us, too. We've got Yahtzee but haven't played it yet. Now we have Visual Eyes.

When I asked my wife about this new game, she replied, "The girls got it for you."

Maybe they sensed something was off in how I was feeling Sunday. I just thought it was a very sweet gesture on their part. And shame on me for thinking they don't like me.

What games do you play? And how do those games draw your family together?

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As a child, social networking involved a red kickball. All it took was the sight of the ball being launched in the air by a neighboring kid's foot to get me outdoors and socializing.

How pedestrian.

These days kids socialize by logining on to a MySpace, or Facebook or uploading a video of said selves to YouTube.

And in this new social structure enters TotSpot, a place for pre-school kids to swap virtually boogers.

Does your wee one use TotSpot? Lifestyle reporter Liz Doup would like to hear from you. Send her a note at ldoup@sun-sentinel.com.

Or perhaps you frequent the site, famzam that is geared more to families wanting to share photos, videos, recipes, etc. Either way, Liz would love to talk with you.

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I'm getting this feeling, and I can't shake it.

I feel as if the girls simply don't like me. I'm probably being overly sensitive, but the feeling has been growing lately. Yesterday was our first anniversary, and the girls said nothing to me about it. They wished my wife a happy anniversary, but I was on the other side of our car at the time. Maybe they felt their well-wishes to her counted for me, too. I don't know. When they reached me, they asked me to get a video game out so they could hook it up and play.

Maybe I didn't do enough. After all, it's their anniversary of being in my family, too. Maybe I should have gotten them a card or something.

All I know is that lately I've felt less like a "dad," step or otherwise, and more like "that guy who married their mom."

Any advice for shaking that feeling?

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My wife, Shola, and I see doctors differently. I avoid them; she sees them as a resource. To me, it’s a challenge to stay out of the doctor’s office; she sees a doctor's visit as a faster route to good health. Neither is wrong, but they inevitably conflict when it comes to parenting – as they did this week.

Rowan, our 7-month-old, gets sick regularly. He has bronchiolitis, and the pediatrician says he’ll get sick on and off until he’s 2. The tricky thing is to figure out when his routine illness is turning into something else. And this week Alexander, who’s 2, got a double ear infection. Then Rowan started pulling on his ear. And just to make matters more complicated, Rowan is teething. So the question arose: should Rowan visit the doctor?

I said no. My reason wasn’t medical. I was falling back on my hardy Midwest upbringing. I’m sure I went to a pediatrician as a kid, but I have no memory of it. Heck, I wonder if our “gentleman’s farm” in Central Illinois even had heat. So I protested that Rowan didn’t need to see the doctor, and cited the evidence from my childhood. Yes, Shola responded, “that’s why you can’t hear now.” Fair point, I thought: I do like the TV much louder than she. So I relented, given that winning this argument essentially involved putting our child at risk.

So I took Rowan to the pediatrician, which thankfully did not take all morning. She checked him and pronounced ears “perfect.” He was sick, but in the familiar way. So I enjoyed a moment of pride – we didn’t need a doctor after all! (This reaction, of course, is nothing to be proud of.) But then the pediatrician offered this line: “It’s hard to tell when his congestion gets more serious, so you were right to bring him in.” Ah, so close to victory!

Later that day, as I gave Rowan a bottle, something else happened. He pulled at his ears.

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A plastic gallon of milk has always been too unwieldly for a little kid to pour. But I'm afraid a newly engineered jug might be even worse.

According to this story from The New York Times, the new shape, being sold at some Wal-Mart and Costco stores, saves the grocer storage space and needs less washing, thus saving water. Fewer truck runs also need to be made because more milk can fit in the cab.

The new shape, apparently the wave of the future, is supposed to save us consumers money: 10 to 20 cents a gallon.

I'm all for saving gas and water. But I'm skeptical those savings will be passed along to us.

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I walked in the door from shopping the other night, and Lily had a little office set up on the floor in the foyer.

She had her pink telephone, a stack of computer paper, the kind with the green and white stripes, and Bob's old computer keyboard. She was "typing'' furiously.

She got up and came to me in the kitchen. "My boss said if I don't get my work done, I'm going to lose my job!'' she told me.

"Wow, really?'' I asked.

"And my house. And my kids!'' she added.

Ummm. I guess Mommy and Daddy should not be talking so much about the bad economy, pending layoffs in various industries including our own, and the price of gas and food.

Whoops.

Then last night she asked me as I tucked her into bed: "Do we have enough food to eat? Are we going to run out?''

"Yes, we have enough food, and we have jobs so we make money and can buy more,'' I assured her.

"Good'' she said, "because I have $100 in my wallet and I want to buy a giant toy.''

I had never thought of raiding her little pink mermaid wallet to buy groceries. Until that moment.

Let's hope and pray we never get that desperate!

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By Cindy Kent
Sun-Sentinel

This is our vacation -- right here, right now.

I would like to think this was a great strategic plan on our part, that considering the cost of gas, food and the expense of eating out we decided the best way to enjoy the summer was at home.

But really, it required no planning whatsoever.

My son Tom will visit family in Miami frequently over the summer months including a few overnight and weekend stays at his grandparents and his sisters' place. A day trip to a water park hanging out with his older brother and some other stuff will fill out his time with friends.

Tom and his friends play lots of card and video games; they go bike riding and to the park. Tom loves archery and martial arts both of which also keep him busy. For other ideas on how to keep busy without leaving South Florida, check out the Sun-Sentinel story about "staycations."

We like to mix all that fun stuff up with chores: taking out the trash, washing the dishes, helping with laundry and yard work. And believe it or not we throw in a few grammar and math worksheets! (He finished this year with a 4.0 average.)

Now, we're working on getting him to enhance his summertime adventures by picking up a book.

Cindy Kent is a Fort Lauderdale mother of three.

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I wanted to believe. So did my wife. So did the girls.

But when a modeling/talent agency told us our girls had been “chosen” to be represented, and all you have to do is pay $500 per child plus $40 a month (per child), forgive me, but I got skeptical. My journalist’s instinct, dormant through the early steps of the process, kicked in when the modeling agency started asking for fees up front. One Google search later and I was on the phone with my wife telling her to get out, with the girls and with her money.

If you’re about to enroll your child in a modeling or talent agency, do your homework. I’d have to do a little more journalism homework myself before naming the agency in this space. From what I’ve been able to gather, agents are supposed to get paid when they find work for you. When they start asking for fees up front, start sniffing. If there’s any hint a bovine has been to the bathroom, run.

I did, and I trust the girls may someday forgive me. But not on Friday evening. Not at first. And who can blame them? Seemingly nice people were telling them they have what it takes to be a model. They were on the brink of being discovered, and these nice people were going to help.

“They’re cheats,” I said after their mom pulled them out and tried to explain my reservations. “They’re not going to help you. They just want your money.”

“You don’t know that!” they each replied, and they were right, in a sense. I was going by my gut, by a few web sites in which people who had dealt with the same agency warned other prospective customers to head for the hills.

I realized, with too little tact, that in their eyes I was not protecting them – I was doubting them. I was doubting their beauty, I was doubting their talent, and I was doubting their marketability as models. None of that is true, but it is what they were feeling. A dream was within their grasp, and I yanked it away from them. I felt an ache in my heart. It has not gone away.

But if they’re going to be serious about modeling, acting or dancing professionally, we are all going to have to realize that there’s hard work and investment involved. No one’s going to knock on our door and hand us the opportunity of a lifetime.

Worst of all, there will always be people and companies out there eager to exploit our hopes and dreams.

I know I made the right decision. If the people we were dealing with are running a legitimate agency, they weren’t acting like it. And maybe I’ve only been a “father” to these girls for a year, but I’ll be cursed if I’m going to let some vultures break their hearts.

I’d rather have them angry at me.

If You've Got The Look, Look Out! Avoiding Modeling Scams

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My son is finally at the age where he can enjoy (and sit through) a movie at the theater. We've seen Kung Fu Panda, Speed Racer and Horton Hears a Who in the past year.

Now the movie my son has been waiting for opens this weekend -- Wall-E, a lovable little robot tasked with cleaning up the mess that is Earth in the distant future. Judging by the review, it should be well worth the wait.

Will let you know what my son thought of it next week. At what age did you start taking your son/daughter to the movies?

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There's nothing better than when I walk into the house after work and Ana Isabel runs up to me yelling "papa."

I usually pick her up and give her a kiss. I ask her if she has been a good girl and ask about the day's activities. It's usually a short conversation, aside from the fact that she's not even 3 yet, I usually arrive just before bedtime.

There are other times when I pick her up and carry her around. At the mall, during walks to the store or when she wakes in the morning. But since her brother, Lucas Emilio, arrived two months ago Ana wants me to carry her all the time. She was 35 pounds at her last doctor's visit. So my arm hurts after a while.

My wife says Ana has me wrapped around her little fingers. Maybe so. But I see the time when I'm going to have to stop just because my arm is about to be pulled out of its socket.

Any suggestions on how to encourage my daughter from making that same request over and over and over. My arm would sure appreciate it.

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