If you are a smart parent looking to fly with children on Southwest Airlines you might come across some not very detailed information about a child fare on Southwest Airlines. There is also an infant fare on Southwest, although you can hold a baby on your lap instead of buying a ticket for the infant until the child is 2 years old.

What you will not find is how much the usual Southwest Airlines child fare is. You won’t even find information about how much cheaper than regular fare child fare is on Southwest, or how affordable are southwest infant fares?

Here is a Southwest Airlines credit card rewards review.

Actually, the answer is there on the Southwest website, but you have to speak travel agent in order to understand how much a child fare ticket is going to cost you.

Child Fares on Southwest Airlines

The official Southwest Airlines website says that there is a special child fare ticket that you can buy to fly on Southwest with kids. It also says that children’s fares are “unrestricted” and that you can change the ticket at any time. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Of course, if you speak travel-ease, you might have noticed that the child fare is not going to be cheaper than a regular adult passenger fare. In the heavily B.S. laden world of travel, there is an ongoing lie perpetrated by every airline there is.

When you buy a plane ticket, you might call a travel agent, or check Expedia or Travelocity or even go directly to the airline’s website. There will be different plane tickets you can buy. There will be different itineraries, different departure dates, different departure times, non-stop, one-stop, and so on. Each of these different options creates a different plane ticket, and each different ticket has its own airfare charge. However, at no time will you ever see the “regular” airfare price.

The “regular” or “standard” or “full fare” airfare is the price you would pay if you walked up to the counter at the airport an hour before the plane left and bought a seat. In other words, it is the overpriced airline fare that used to be charged to business travelers who had to get on a plane today and fly to Chicago, or whatever. In reality, even those travelers rarely pay full fare. In other words, full fare is a phony fare.

But, if you want to get that discount child fare on Southwest or any other airline, the supposed discount is off of that full fare ticket. That means that it will be WAY more expensive than the adult fare you found online.

This is the same scam that travel rewards credit cards use to offer a “free companion” airfare or plane ticket. It’s free, but ONLY if you buy the heavily overpriced full-fare ticket. Nine times out of ten, you’ll come out ahead by buying two normal plane tickets instead.

Basically, don’t bother with a child’s fare ticket. It will cost you much more than buying another ticket like the one you are buying.

It is not a scam, per se, but it is a false hope extended to parents who are hoping to get a cheaper ticket for their son or daughter to fly out to see Grandma and Grandpa.

Everyone in Denver knows about the Colorado Rockies fireworks games near the Fourth of July holiday. But, that is not the only Rockies fireworks game. The Denver baseball team also puts on a fireworks display at the end of the regular season as part of its fan appreciation day. The 2010 fireworks game for the Colorado Rockies is on September 24th, 2010.

Of course, getting tickets and going to the see the baseball game in downtown Denver is one way to see the fireworks. If you can’t get tickets, or hanging around at a baseball game after dark with your kids doesn’t sound like fun, there are plenty of other places to watch the fireworks for free.

The Rockies fireworks shows feature shells that are shot up from land west of the stadium, not from inside of Coors Field itself. If you can see the sky over Coors Field, you can see the fireworks.

This is one of the last chances for moms and dads to take their children to fireworks before the colder winter weather sets in and such shows become less common.

Check out the Colorado Rockies fan appreciation fireworks with your young ones for a fun time with kids in Denver, Colorado this fall.

We ordered this baby books collection boxset for our newborn son because it was on a huge sale and we figured if just one or two of the things were worthwhile it would be worth it. Turns out that this is a really great high-quality set of various kinds of books and cards for reading to young kids. As it turns out, this is very important as latest parenting tips suggest that the more words you say to your baby, whether talking or reading, the smarter they are likely to be. (See the book  What’s Going On In There)

I find that the most useful reviews are those that make it more clear exactly what you get when you order something and what makes those things useful or worthwhile instead of some vague notion of how we loved it or our kids played with it for hours, or whatever.

What you get inside of a sturdy cardboard box that can be reused, but is too complicated to close for a young child, is six different types of reading books. One is called First Words and is a standard board book made of thick cardboard. Each page has a single picture and a word (or two words). This is a great way to read to babies who don’t want to sit and listen to actual page text. One page is “Chair” and then “Ball”.

The next book called Colors is a fabric book made of cloth. Again, each page has a single item and word.

The book Baby Animals is a touch-and-feel board book. Heavy cardboard with a picture of an animal where part of the animal is fuzzy or something.

The ABC book is a cardboard board book with a bead filled plastic area that serves as a rattle and two rubber “ears” (the orange and green things on top) that can be chewed on. The book opens up-down instead of left-right like a steno pad, so it is a new experience for some babies who end up looking at it sideways like a “normal” book.

Bathtime has plastic pages that can be gotten wet. Again, each page has one word like Duck.

Finally, there is a set of 10 laminated cards attached to a ring. The ring can be opened but only by an older child. The different sensation of cards as opposed to pages is another new way to interact with pictures and writing. On one side of the car is a numeral with its word — 4 and four, for example — and on the other side is the same number of an object and the name of the object printed on the card.

All six pieces have proven as durable as any other childrens books and the simple pictures and words are perfect for baby reading. The day I watched my son pull out the First Words book and “read” it by making sounds that matched my cadence “chair, ball” … “ehhh, ahhh” I knew that we made a great buy.

Savvy parents know that Melissa and Doug make some pretty great toys, especially those quality, wooden toys like you had when you were a kid. Alex brand toys are also good high-quality children’s toy makers, but I didn’t really see them on sale.

Anyway, many Melissa and Doug toys are on sale at Amazon.com. To find them, navigate through Toys and Games menus until you can choose the brand. Then choose eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping to screen out all of the scumbag retailers that think it’s cute to list a rock bottom low price with a high shipping charge. I hope Amazon wakes up and bans these sneaky retailers, but until then, it’s your job to not get suckered. Watch out for companies that have a toy priced $9.95 with a $7.95 shipping charge when all of the legitimate retailers are charging $16.95 with free shipping.

Even if the high shipping cost retailer has the lowest price by a buck or two, you are better off sticking with the honest retailers that are straightforward and upfront with their customers. You can be that any online store that is willing to try and dupe shoppers with phony low prices is not going to be the best Internet retailer to deal with if there is a problem with your order or you need to return something. Weasels are weasels.

Have a great day and hope you find some top kid’s toys for your child’s birthday or occasion, or even just for fun.

One of the best parenting tips out there comes courtesy of the adult shopping world. Just like regular department stores like Macy’s and JC Penny’s, as well as clothing stores like Gap, Land’s End, and so on, start changing over their catalog of clothing to fall clothing lines during the summer, kid’s clothing stores like the Children’s Place and others start switching over to their Back to School clothes and winter clothing lines at the end of summer. That makes late summer (like now) a great time to get good deals on kid’s clothes.

For example, the Children’s Place store is having their “Last Chance” end of summer sale right now. Many items are just $2.99 ranging from t-shirts, to shorts, to pants, and even some shoes are available online for girls, boys, toddlers, and baby.  That is a great way to stock up on children’s clothing for cheap.

Add Children’s Place online coupon code BTSA7A (expires 9/1/2010) and save even more. That coupon code for Children’s Place knocks those $2.99 items down to $2.54.

Shipping is a flat rate of $5 during this sale, so if you buy more than two or three things and use the discount code to save on your order, that should add up basically covering the cost of shipping, so it’s like getting free shipping on your Children’s Place kid’s clothing store order.

Watch for sales like these at your favorite kid stores to find great discounts on child shoes and clothes, which is an important parenting skill considering how expensive buying kid’s stuff can be, and how fast the little kiddos outgrow it!

What are your favorite kid clothes and kids shoes websites to save money buying baby clothes and toddler shoes, as well as for those older children who have moved beyond the “T” sizes.

Good luck finding your own great deals.

My daughter loves seeing the pictures we take on the back of the camera and on the computer. In fact, the toughest thing about getting pictures these days is that I can only snap two or three pics before she is jumping up and asking to see them on the LCD screen on the back of the camera.

She also love playing with her pretend cameras. She points them at me and says click (for the ones that don’t click) and then looks at the back, whether there is a pretend screen there or not and then says things like, "Oh, that’s a good one," or "Oops. Your eyes were closed."

A very important parenting skill is encouraging your child’s creativity. Not surprisingly, we are thinking about getting her, her own kids digital camera for her birthday present. I started looking at digital cameras for children online and noticed some things right away that I thought I would pass along to Moms and Dads looking to buy a child digital camera for their son or daughter.

First, watch out for the Megapixels rating of the camera. While it is true that the digital camera specification wars have all but made megapixels meaningless as a way of judging quality on adult cameras, they are a very useful tool for weeding out junk toy cameras sold as real digital cameras for kids.

Let me put it this way. My five year old cell phone has a camera that takes 2 megapixel pictures. They aren’t the world’s greatest pictures, but from a cell phone that old, they are good enough. Just don’t ever plan on blowing them up or printing them out as anything other than a little 4×6 snapshot and it is all good. So, why in the world do some of these kid’s digital cameras come with the ability to take 0.3 megapixel pictures?

That is 0.3, not 3.0. In other words some digital cameras like the Little Tikes Kids Digital Camera takes pictures that are not half as good as my cell phone pictures, not one-quarter as good as my cell phone, but almost 1/10th as good as my cell phone! In other words, total crap. The only thing a 0.3 MP picture is good for is looking at on that tiny 1-inch screen on the back of the camera.

Look, we all know that these are kids toys and that they have to take a beating. We also all know that for $50 we aren’t going to get Canon’s top of the line digital camera. However, I think we can expect that even a child’s camera should come with a camera at least on par with the cameras you get in the free cell phones that companies give away to get new customers.

In other words, leave the 0.3 megapixel toy cameras rotting on the shelves, and find one that has at LEAST 1.0, and realistically 2.0 megapixels. If you can’t afford that one, wait for a sale, because the other one is a waste of money, and you and your child would be happier just using your imaginations instead.

As a thank you to the Denver community for funding they receive as part of the SCFD District in the metro Denver area, the Denver Zoo offers free admission on 8 days throughout the year. The 2010 Free Days at Denver Zoo are listed below.

• January 9
• January 18
• February 7
• February 16
• October 13
• October 21
• November 7
• November 13

Don’t forget that members get discounted admission to Denver Zoo for special events and get general admission free every day of the year.

Finding online coupons to Denver Zoo is not likely. They don’t really promote themselves that way. If you go searching all over the Internet chances are you’ll just find a bunch of kid event pages or free stuff for kids type websites that have a page that says online Denver Zoo coupons, but won’t actually have any coupon codes for the Denver Zoo.

Denver Zoo coupons can be found occasionally in various magazines but are not very common. This is one of those locations that people are already planning to go to and they aren’t waiting around for a coupon to give them discounted admission to the Denver Zoo, so why give out coupons?

You can find good coupons for other Denver attractions and fun places for kids in Denver.

Have fun visiting all of the animals at the Denver Zoo

Good parenting skills are key to avoiding things like temper tantrums, sulking, and most importantly of all, disappointed children which leads to disappointment for parents too. As a dad, good nutrition is important to me and my kids, primarily because I know how important getting the right foods helps kids stay healthy and grow strong.

On the other hand, having fun is very important to me too. And, as a fully grown adult who not only got an occasional McDonald’s meal when I was a kid, as well as one who ate there waaaayyyy to much in his twenties, I know that a Happy Meal here and there isn’t going to hurt my kids. When you way the fun of a trip to McDonald’s to get a Happy Meal against any nutritional detriments, fun comes out way ahead.

The catch to the whole thing is that the toy in a McDonald’s Happy Meal is an important part of the fun. Nothing puts disappointment on a little kid’s face like a crummy Happy Meal toy. That’s why I always like to know in advance what the current Happy Meal toy is.

Here during July, 2010, the current Happy Meal toy comes from the movie The Last Airbender. Chances are that if you have seen the reviews, then you have not seen the movie. Chances are also good that this flick will not end up on the list of good movies for kids.

However, that does not necessarily mean that the current Happy Meal toys are no good. The cat with wings doll, for example, would probably be a big hit with my daughter.

Trick To Get Better Happy Meal Toy

If you have a younger child and the McDonald’s toy sucks when you go, there is a trick you can use to get a better Happy Meal toy free and easy.

The main Happy Meal toys are almost never “suitable” for children under 3. So, if you have a kid who is under, or even near 3-years old, just ask for the “under 3 toy”. This is a special Happy Meal toy that all McDonald’s restaraunts keep on hand for parents who have young kids that don’t meet the official age requirements for the main Happy Meal toy. Don’t worry about making anyone grumpy, they have to have those toys anyway, and it is all the same to them, as long as you aren’t trying to be a weasel and get two toys out of your Happy Meal.

Have a fun day with your kids.

I bit the bullet and updated Undefeated Daddy to WordPress 3.0. That took out the old theme that I had installed, so I’m going with the default Twenty Ten theme for now. Please let me know if you experience any problems while using this parenting skills and tips resource.

Also, feel free to check out my freelance writing blog at Arctic Llama if you are considering trying to be a work at home dad by starting up a freelance writing business out of a home office.

I know a good idea when I see it, and over at Backpacking Dad, I saw two in one really short article.

The first good idea is the concept of a "Father’s Year." Think of it as a fiscal year for dads, only for parenting instead of accounting purposes. It’s nice because it moves your year end and year begin as a father away from all the noise and hoopla around that other New Year with its Christmas, Thanksgiving, and bowl games neighbors.

The second good idea is the concept of Father’s Resolutions. Again, taking off of the new year theme, the idea is to use the start of the new dad year to make some resolutions about what you will work on as a dad in the coming Father’s Year. As an added bonus, Backpacking Dad has a good sense of humor and one that carries over into writing, so it’s a fun read.

Since it is late June now, I’m running a bit behind, but I’ll get to my Father’s Day resolutions before month end; that is if I can keep my unspoken resolutions to not turn into a zombie while staying up too late working, and getting up too early to play with my little alarm clocks, er… I mean children.

Good Parenting everyone.