the Wry Baby Blog » Wry Baby Fun Parenting Ideas

Have A Ball with Uncommon Goods!

Wry Gang — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:19:55 +0000

Wry Baby teamed up with long-time-fun-friend, UncommonGoods, to make them some special, exclusive treats. Introducing Have-a-Ball Babysuits™! The perfect gift for the ultimate Sports Dad, both Baseball and Football babysuits also come with a 5″x 6″ instructional card illustrating how to best “get maximum enjoyment out of your new plaything”. Take one to your next sport-o baby shower and watch the crowd go wild! Now available only at uncommongoods.com for $28 ea.

Dragon Justly Vanquished In Time For Birthday Cake.

Wry Gang — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:24:02 +0000

Ahh, Summer! When the Wry Baby clan’s attentions turn to Birthday celebrations. July is the month of our Boy and as is custom, his parties are always fraught with peril. Last was a birthday-crushing Robot Attack and this time, a smoke-belching Dragon came to ruin the fun! Luckily, the party-goers came fully armed!

The Dragon appears in the clearing! Blissfully unaware of it’s impending destruction.

As far as prep goes, these shenanigans involved a few things: About 3-5 hours of time, a Bunch of Recycling-Bound Cardboard Boxes, Paint, Duct Tape, Masking Tape, a Smidgen of Imagination and the Willingness to Throw The Best Birthday Party EVAR. Seriously, that list seems long, but it’s really a piece of birthday cake to make this alternative to the hit-or-mis birthday pinata.

Partygoers come face-to-face with the Dragon’s fury!

The Dragon is vanquished and the hunt for Dragon Eggs begins!

Here are some detailed instructions: Gather your various cardboard boxes and tape them into the form of a Dragon with the duct tape. Cover the duct tape (for strength) with masking tape (for paintability) and then paint. When finished, it’s pretty tough to get into, and that’s where the beauty lies. We were so tired of typical pinata’s being so unpredictable. Either they fell apart instantly or were only accessible via chain-saw in the end. While durable, these cardboard creations succumb after about 5 rounds of 10 kids. We usually start the first round by giving everyone one whack each and then the next turn 2 whacks and so on from there. Oh, and for the sword, you can make one out of a stick or whatever. As long as it can eventually penetrate a cardboard box eventually, it’s great.

As with everything made by Wry Baby, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the extra credit! Our birthday Dragon happened to be filled with treat-filled Dragon Eggs!

Dragon Eggs discovered!

The Dragon Eggs, hidden away in the head, body and tail, are just a matter of some paper machéd balloons, some treats for inside and a couple more hours of your time and a little extra paint. All being well worth it when you watch the Slayers carry off their prizes to break open.

In the end, you’ve pulled off a super memorable birthday party AND got rid of a bunch of cardboard boxes you had laying around. Yay!

A post-distruction birthday photo opp!

Appropriate But Also Wholly Inappropriate Father’s Day Cards

Wry Gang — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:02:46 +0000

Father’s Day is your chance to really show your Pop how much he means to you. One of the favorite Father’s Day pastimes at Wry Baby has been to send a special Father’s Day card that is wholly inappropriate. It’s funny, on message while leaving the reader slightly uncomfortable. It’s a hoot!

The trick is to look for your Father’s Day card in the “sender” section that is as far away from your personal situation as possible. “From Wife” is always a favorite of mine (this is Wry Baby Dave writing, btw), and this year we found a doozy. Check it out.

The cover (pictured) says…

For The Man I Love.

We’ll, I do love my Dad. It gets better…Inside it says (in flowy script)…

The longer we’re together, the more I think about what really matters in life. So many things I once thought were important don’t even make the list. What matters to me now is us – sharing a life, being a family, loving each other. You’re a good man and a wonderful father. You mean the world to me. I love you so much. Happy Father’s Day.

See? Heartfelt and more than a little awkward at the same time! It’s a win-win. Have fun choosing YOUR Father’s Day card!

Nerf Gun Targets Made from Christmas Debris.

Wry Gang — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:46:23 +0000

Nothing spells trouble like the gift of a Nerf shooting device and no targets. I picked up my son’s gift from Santa, the Nerf N-Strike Raider Rapid Fire CS-35 (the longer the name the cooler the weapon), and even I almost got into trouble as I eyed the delicate, thin glass of our chandelier bulbs and the cat. So, quickly, I got to work making some targets for the Boy out of all the Christmas debris spread all over the house. It took only an hour and in the end the house was clean and the Boy stays out of trouble. For a while at least.

Tools needed: Trash. A Pen. Tape or Hot Glue. A desire not to have stuff broken all over your house.

Here’s how easy this is. Draw some bad guy Monsters on sheets of cardboard trash and cut them out. Oh, don’t give me tha”But I can’t draw!” stuff. That’s why they’re Monsters and not horses. Now horses are impossible to draw. Anyway, at the bottom of each head or whatever, leave some cardboard to fold back like a little stand. Then take another piece of cardboard trash, cut it into a strip and tape or hot glue it to that stand piece and the back of the target (see photo below).

IMPORTANT: They don’t have to be pretty! After all, this is all about keeping your stuff from being all shot up and not about winning a prize at the fair. Anyway, look how slapdash mine turned out. Basically at this point you’re done. BUT there are still some other fun things you can do from here:

Have your child color them in. Thereby keeping them out of trouble for at least 30 more minutes!
Name and Rank them. Which is the leader? Are there drones that need taking down first? Write their info on the backs of the targets and create a fun back story with your child.
Imagine up some fun games. Get the ball rolling by hiding the targets all around the house while your child hides their eyes. Send them on a mission to take down the alien home invasion! Or maybe set them all up in one room and time your child to see how fast they can clear the room of the alien menace. What’s their best time?

You get the idea! Have a great holiday and good hunting from the pals who got your back at Wry Baby.

Looking for more fun things to do with Junior & Juniorette? Check out our New Parents Fun Book for more unique games and crafts and, for some soapy fun, pick up our Pirate Hooded Towel. A secret code on the label will get you access to some great bath time papercrafts. Exclusively from the brainiacs at wrybaby.com.

Baby Websites by Wry Baby & BabyJellyBeans.com

Wry Gang — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:25:51 +0000

Looking to make a super baby website? Wry Baby has teamed up with BabyJellyBeans.com, the premier baby website creation platform for parents, to bring new parents fun new website templates for Junior’s first Interweb experience. Designs from our funny baby clothes and baby shower gifts make perfect frames for your baby’s photos, videos and more.

BabyJellyBean’s baby website templates are not only easy to work with, but they’re also super fun to build. Add hilarious parenting flair to your baby’s website by choosing your own Proud Parent Pins to post, pick and choose your family’s line-up BFFs or simply enjoy the baby hairdo slideshow in the Hairdo Maker baby website template.

Stop by BabyJellyBeans.com for the funnest baby websites ever!

Fun, Easy Halloween Craft! I Know, We’re Totally Early.

Wry Gang — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:56:38 +0000

Our son’s elementary school asked us to throw down and organize a “station” for their Fall Festival. We decided to do a photo booth, where kids stick their heads into a painted scene, we take a snap and print it right there on a portable printer. It was a fun project and didn’t take long at all. The only hang up was, in the deep South, Halloween is a seriously verboten topic. So out went our plans for the way fun Headless Ghost scene and in came our treacly, less threatening Scarecrow in the Field scene. Either way it was a blast and the kids loved it. Try it for yourself when you celebrate “Fall, not the Devil’s Birthday” this year.

Our preference was to do this fun headless graveyard scene. But then, we’re weird.

Just an idea, some paint and some plywood is all you need for this fun, Fall craft!

Still feeling crafty? Check out our re-boot of the boring baby journal, The New Parents’ Fun Book. It’s chock full of fun games, crafts, sticker albums and all kinds of crazy crafty fun. Just $12.95 at wrybaby.com!

Wry Baby Ruins Formal Night.

Wry Gang — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:12:03 +0000

We took a company vacation over Spring Break to cruise down to Mexico to crawl around some Mayan Ruins. If you’ve never been on a cruise, they have formal nights in the dining room where you and the other 2997 of you dress in your fanciest of fancys. They take your picture before dinner against a beautiful backdrop on loan from the Sears Portrait Studio and it’s all very elegant. Unless you’re cruising with the Wry Baby family who takes every opportunity to goof around.

We do not recommend trying to eat through Lucha Libre masks. Also, we found them to be increadibly hot. Otherwise, a good idea for shaking up any stuffy situation.

iPhone + Parenting + Wry Baby = CONTEST!

Wry Gang — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:07:37 +0000

Kelly and I loves us our iPhones. It’s no secret that we also love being parents. So it’s only fitting we should meld our favorite life-changing things together: iPhone + Parenting = ?

Wry Baby’s been working super hard with the good people at Paze Interactive to bring you a little prezzie for your pocket. It’s in Apples approval hopper now and we expect to launch in Apple’s iTunes App Store in a couple of weeks. Anyone care to guess what our first Wry Baby iPhone App might be? The first person who correctly guesses what our iPhone app is (in the comments to this post) will be sent a FREE original, analog version of our Wry Baby iPhone app’s inspiration.* Go nuts and have fun!

• CONTEST RULES: Friends and family are totally excluded becuase they should be punished for being in our inner circle and because we probably already told them all about this. Entrants must supply us with their real email addresses because if you win, we’ll have to email you to find out where you want your prize sent. Contest results will be posted after our fun new app launches (approx. two weeks from 3/9/09). By entering, you agree that Wry Baby reserves the right to make (and own outright) an iPhone app of any guesses regardless of how ridiculous, physically impossible, fiscally irresponsible, pattently imporbable or plain, flat-out genius.

New Funny Baby Outfits Secretly Online and at a Store Near You!

Wry Gang — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:23:35 +0000

So what would you like your child to be? A savvy city dweller like yourself? A Rock Star? Perhaps in these economic times just having a plain old Rich Kid would suit the bill. Our Spring 09 line of new baby outfits are now available at a store near you and, secretly, on wrybaby.com. These classic cotton snapsuit and black legging sets will turn your baby into the Instant Rock Star (Let’s Trash This Place!), Instant Urbanite (Yo! Taxi!) or Instant Rich Kid (Ask Me About My Trust Fund.) of your dreams.

Be the first on your block to be the coolest parent ever…Instantly!

Each outfit comes in a snazzy gift box and are just $32 ea. at a store near you, or at wrybaby.com And if your favorite store doesn’t have them, let us know! Help us get in there and there might be something in it for you!

Fun Parent Thing – Paper Roses

Wry Gang — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:58:22 +0000

I spotted this a while back on the papercraft-world blog and now that I’m faced with wrapping all the clever little gifts I’m sending out, this is a perfect time to post it. Via papercraft-world, I headed to dozidesign’s blog for an excellent, insanely simple tutorial on making these perfect paper roses. I’m planning white wrapping paper, red ribbon and one of these roses in the corner. Only huge. And made out of bacon instead of paper.

How cute is this? If I had a little girl I’d fill her room with these easy-to-make paper roses. But I have a boy. So I’m stuck making paper DS systems and stuff that looks like boogers.

Got more time on your hands? Head over to wrybaby.com and pick up our New Parents’ Fun Book and you’ll find a little papercraft Father Figure you can construct to hold the little paper bouquet you just made! Cute!

The New Parents’ Fun Book is availalbe nationwide for $12.95 at almost any bookstore large and small as well as at little old wrybaby.com