On a typical MLK day, the kids accompany their mom on the march in downtown Austin. My observations are made from the office, unfortunately. Today, however, the weather is miserable, unfit for small marchers. So the little ones are imprisoned at the daycare, and Bubba is bunking in here at DadLabs.

Generally, I love having the kids here at the office. This should, technically, be a really kid friendly place – we actually have a coloring table and some markers. Brad’s eaten all the dum-dums, however. They worked.

My main strategy for childcare was bringing in an old laptop and a stack of DVDs. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong power source out of the Snake Pit (aka the tangled mess of a drawer stuffed with cords of various kinds and vintages – anybody got a hack for that?). Dead laptop. So I lost most of my morning buying a couple of shows, erasing and re-synching his iPod.

He’s being a good sport, but basically bored as hell. He’s used the stapler about a thousand times, and dusted my touch-activated desk lamp – which created a strobe effect that gave Daddy Troy a grand mal. It was such a cute gesture, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that nobody cleans up around here.

What is your secret for those occasions when you just have to bring the kid into work? What’s the best way to keep little kids occupied and at least keep up the appearance that you are being productive.

See there, I wrote a blog. Not making much progress on the freelance piece that was due almost a week ago, however. At least he’s got Destination Imagination practice all afternoon, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get all likkered up at the Monday afternoon production meeting. Kids are great but…