Be a Fun Dad 101: the cardboard box, reverse limbo, and TP

You came home from work late, again. You feel like a bad dad. What can you do?


Find a cardboard box. Make an imaginary vehicle for your kids with a marker. Include controls for rocket thrust, transforming mode and shields. Tow them around the room. Make a hide out. Or, let the kids hide in the box and go get mom to come in the room so the kids can surprise her...over...and over...and over again.

Cut a hole in the cardboard box and reach through it, then let your kids open the box and surprise them by grabbing at them. They'll love it. And they'll do it to each other ceaselessly for days on end.

You'll be the best dad, ever.

For dads who really want to score the points, there are those big cardboard drums you can roll kids around in. I think they use them at paper mills or something. We once had one of those. It was the best. If you know where to get those, add it to the comments below. Those are like cardboard boxes times a billion for fun.

If you have a lot of boxes let the kids put them together to make a maze or a spook alley. They can even charge neighborhood kids to come through the haunted box tunnel. At least thats what we did.

All it takes is the cardboard and some sharp things to cut with--what could be more fun?

Using things in a way they weren't designed to be used is a basic principle of being a fun dad. Check out my girls spinning on a lazy Susan and Micah diving through the hula hoops, playing "reverse limbo"--it ends in a magnificent faceplant. (The next day he asked me why he had sand in his ear.)

If all else fails, there is always toilet paper.