Scott from DIYFather and his Daughter Pyper are on the Good Morning Show (04/09/2009) to talk about fun activities for dads and kids.

Good Morning is a 9am Show that features on New Zealands TV Channel One.

Watch the interview and Pyper giving Brendon a flower

Pyper and I usually do our grocery shopping together. The other day we got home a little later than usual and when it was time to put the groceries away I thought “ why not let her put some of the food away! The idea was to save time and keep her close by ... and it worked a treat. We had meat, vegetables, fruit and dry goods plus we also had some sundry items.

So I would just say "put in the fridge", "put in the cupboard" or "take to mummies room", and she loved helping and felt like she was part of making things happen.

I figured, little children/toddlers love to be included and unless the items are too heavy or dangerous to handle, why not! It's a great way to make sure they contribute to doing things around the house from an early age. Obviously it helps if you ask them to put things in easy places - bench, cupboard, etc.

We went away last week for a few days, to a place called Lake Taupo, of which we had done hundreds of times, but this time we decided that we might look at taking out a sail boat and it seemed like a really great idea. We got down to the marina where the boats where and then my wife asked me the question “Do you know how to sail one of those” and I said “of course I don’t – can’t be too hard” and with her and Pyper there she decided that we would take out the – yep you guessed it row boat.

Now this isn’t as easy as it sounds – I am usually co-ordinated and I have done some rowing before but with Pyper on board in her cute little life jacket it really was harder, and I was mindful of making sure she was safe and we did everything close to the shore line!

We set off and basically went out around 100m off the shore line and played around really ,she didn’t really care at all and just ate little snacks the whole time.

Pypers mother (Renee) is a hairdresser with the hair salon at the bottom level of house, and Pyper is a frequent user of the dust pan and brush using it to pick up hair.

For more than 18 months Renee had been waiting for Pypers hair to grow so that she could give it her first haircut , Pyper has my fine hair – so its taken a lot longer than expected for her to grow it.

2 weeks ago Renee finally said that ok im going to give her the first trim – OMG this should have been a ceremony with some digntries invited at least, but there wasnt it was just her grandmother, her mother and I.

She sat perfectly and didnt even flinch, she was very well behaved and believe you me I have seen and heard some real little screamers.

In a flash it was over – a few snips here and there and it was done. Hmm luckily we didnt have speaches ready or anything....

This weekend has seen us looking at redecorating the bathroom. It's been a little while since we thought about doing this and now that we put some energy into it to actually do it we realised that we hadn't done any decorating with a toddler in the house. I'm a great believer in preparation ... it's the most important thing, especially when you have another set of hands (little ones) to help out. So why not get your little champ to help out – under controlled supervision of course. So I let Pyper come in the room when I was just pulling off the old wall paper and she decided straight away that this looked too good to pass up as an opportunity to contribute.

I found she loved helping me with all the redecoration jobs and I loved the smile on her face as she clearly thought she was doing an important job helping out (which of course she was!) In fact I don't think I could have done it without her :-)

Pyper got a couple of spots last weekend and then by Monday they were already fully out and ready for action. She looked terrible but seemed ok, we took her to the doctor and they confirmed yes it was chicken pox – well what do you know!!!

So ... lovely red spots all over your child's body, but what do they mean and why do they come along? Chicken Pox is a highly contagious illness caused by primary infection. It generally begins with a skin rash appearing in two or three waves, mainly on the body and head (rather than the hands or legs). The rash generally becomes itchy quickly with raw pockmarks and small open sores developing which heal mostly without scarring.

We were prescribed the following: Lorapaed as a syrup to help with irritation, Calamine lotion to put on the spots and then Pinetarsol to help with itchiness and to put in the bath.

Pyper turned 1 year old on Sunday 27th July. It has been an amazingly quick 12 months, and I still find it hard to believe how quick my little lady is growing up.

She has such a little attitude of her own and is very independent. So having a party for her was out of the question so what we did was to take her to her grandparents and invite a few people there. We didn’t want to have a big party that would require thousands of little people running around and parents alike trying to control them. So we just had a quiet party with a few family members which was great as well.

I think once you have a one year old the fun really begins, because they really start thinking like adults and they want to do everything that you do, and they are so helpful, and I love that also. They have their own little personalities and they know what they want and don’t want!

The other day I was slightly late in picking Pyper up from day care, I got there and she was just playing by herself and so I asked “how did she go today?” as I do every other day, and they said look Pyper has done some painting for you, now she has done one other painting and this was basically someone holding her hand while she painted, which i think is awesome by the way. But this time they said that she painted on the plastic bottle all by herself, which i think is amazing and at 10 months old I’m really proud and so we decided that we would give it to mummy as a gift because she couldn’t be there to pick her up. Renee or myself both didn’t even think to do painting with her but for next time soon we will, and since its water based anyway it just washes off.

Good luck with a new adventure with your child. Renee called her a little artist and I hope she is a lot more creative then I am.

- Scott