At the park



1000th Page View!

I launched this blog on August 15th with the aim of writing about being a dad and staying positive about the unexpected twists and turns life takes. Yesterday the site got it's 1000th page view. Thanks for the support. Finn has a smelly ball on a plastic shovel for you too.
T

Nastalgia for the REALLY Simple Things

Lately I have been noticing some things that I miss only now that I am a dad that I never new I was taking for granted. I'm not talking about the things you expect, like lack of sleep, lack of money and lack of time. I'm talking about the really simple things you never thought you would miss because you never knew you had them. Sort of like civil rights in Iran before Facebook.

Essential skills you never thought you'd need

I am constantly reminded of how the skills needed for parenting are totally different than anything I learned in school or at work. No algebra or American history needed here. A little psychology and some civics maybe. What parents need are a whole different set of totally unexpected skills.

My list of the 5 most important unexpected skills after the jump.

Mommy groups are the new daddy groups

I've been jonesing for a daddy group. To me, spending a day with Finn while talking about craft beer, fly-fishing and the Packers with a couple of dudes sounds like a perfect Sunday. If I could find a way to do this everyday, I would have the perfect work week!

Plus, you just can't do this stay at home gig all on your own. I don't mean in the single parent kind of way (and my hats off to you single parents, including my mom). I mean you have to have some adults in your life so that you can spend at least some part of your day talking in complete sentences with real words about things other than toys and/or poopies. Certainly, I spend some of my time with parent-friends talking about toys and/or poopies... Truth be told I spend a lot of my time talking with them about poopies. But I use complete sentences and very large words... like defecate, explosive-diarrhea, prostate-buster and poo-nami (rhymes with tsunami).

What to do on a rainy day?

I'm cool with being messy outside. Dirt, sand, water, sticks, cobwebs are all par for the course at any playground. But inside... inside I like things to be neat and tidy. It's getting tough these days as Finn's favorite thing to do is to dump out buckets of toys. More photos after the jump...

Music Monday... err, Tuesday: You can't rock without sticks!

Finn started out as a very auditory learner. I'm not sure if that is the natural starting point for all kiddos, given our proclivities for language and all, but his learning style has become more kinetic over the last year.

When he was about one, I wanted him to have a real pair of drumsticks. There are lots of cheap, plastic toy drumsticks available. But I wanted him to have some genuine stix. For proper rocking.

Quiz: What type of dad are you?

Yeah, there's a quiz for that.

1. When your kid makes a brown biohazard you:
A) take a deep breath, scoop him up and discreetly change his diaper in the next room without requiring a parade.
B) say, "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew," and look for Mommy. Only after not finding her do you change the diaper. You know exactly how many no. 2s you have changed in your life.
C) pretend like you didn't notice the obvious stink bomb in your kids drawers, discreetly shuffle him towards someone you know will notice, then shout, "Not it!" when they figure it out.

More after the jump

Dad bikes and baby seats

Sorry for the blogging radio silence, but I don't get paid for this so... tough.

Anyway, I am a bike guy. I'm not a hardcore, single-speed, fixie-bike, disregard-all-traffic-laws-while-wearing-a-pink-tank-top,-a-pair-of-cut-off-skinny-black-denim-girl-jeans-and-dock-shoes. But I like bikes.

Bike psychoanalysis... after the jump

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I am hoping, perhaps naively, that we can avoid with Finn some of the unwelcome, yet common, behavioral phases most kids go through. Right now I am most concerned about avoiding the No! No! No!s, the Gimme! Gimme!s and the the Mine!s.

My strategy is simple: display the behaviors that I expect of Finn and treat him respectfully. Weird. I actually heard someone out there snicker...

Compassion is the basis of all morality

I'm about to drop some heavy on you. If you want light, go to YouTube and search for "sneezing puppy".

This blog post will contain ellipses, colons, semicolons, liberal (and correct) comma usage and artistically rendered incomplete sentences...

Also, the thinly veiled political nature of this post is intentional. That is the political nature is intentional, not the thin veil.

You've been warned

Thanks for the unexpected

I was going to spend today's blog  anonymously flaming a couple of parents I keep running into at the local kiddo hangout. But I have decided not to... at least not today. Instead I am going to end my week on a high note. Because I am that kind of guy. I am. Yes, I am.

Feelgoodness after the jump...

The cost of playing football

I played soccer, hockey and baseball as a kid. I told my mom I wanted to play football when I was in middle school. She just flat said no. I get it now. She didn't want me to get hurt. And while I did play hockey, which is a full contacy sport, there are far fewer per capita injuries to hockey players than to football players.

More bad news about football injuries after the jump.

Wake up!

A fun way for a dad to wake up his lazy-bones son circa 1990. Thanks for sharing this Kayla. I wonder if the son got the reference?

Upgrade your life: Dads, dump the diaper bag

When we were expecting Finn, I had a hard time caring about all the baby shower hoopla. We needed SO MUCH STUFF, but registering for it was an exercise in tedium. Which color bottle warmer do you want?; What should the theme for the nursery be?; I honestly don't give a crap. My clothes barely ever match and when they do I walk out of the house looking like one of those little green army men dressed head to toe in slightly faded shades of drab green.

What is your brand of diapers? We have not met him yet... so I have no idea. What kind of bottles do you want? There's more than one type? You guys are killing me with the questions.

Not to mention, baby shower are for women. They are. Yes, they are.

More on this, and my pick for the best daddy diaper bag after the jump...

Music Monday

Finn is finally at the age where NPR is not cool. That means every car ride is filled with the music of his choice. Even when I get him good and saturated with radio pop, and try to make a subtle switch to Science Friday, he starts squawking and whining. A man can only take so much Rafi! So, since I control the CD player, I control the music. Luckily Finn and I have a few albums we can both agree are great.

Pappa Dadda picks music after the jump.

Vegetarianism

I am a vegetarian, yes I am. But my kid is not. Nor should he be. And while my wife (a velociraptor at heart) and I have had a few discussions about what this means for Finn, they might not be the discussions you think they are.

We both agree that Finn should eat meat. It is easier for his body to build muscles as well as the thousands of enzymes, proteins, organelles and other cell structures if he has a consistent source of animal protein (which provides a reliable source of all essential amino acids) and fat. If he will actually eat it is a different story... but we try.

Hot Sauce Mom

Is using hot sauce and cold showers to discipline a lying child a fair punishment or child abuse? That's what an Alaska court will have to decide in the coming weeks (watch the ABC news coverage here).

My first thought was that this isn't such a big deal. Kids in many cultures eat hot pepper laden foods. An anthropologist friend of mine who did research in Wahaca, Mexico told me he often saw very young kids huffing and puffing to cool the spicy burn in their mouths while eating family meals. No one would arrest a parent for letting their child try a spicy curry, right? True, not all hot sauces are the same, but it appears in the video that the hot sauce that was used was similar to Tabasco sauce.

What really gets me in the video is the anger the mother is expressing. Was this a punishment or payback? The parent is supposed to be the rational, level-headed Jedi to his/her immature padawan.

Which leads to a more important discussion about discipline.

The Forward-Facing Car Seat Debate and an Endorsement

Learning that the American Academy of Pediatrics changed its recommendation for when children can face forward while riding in a car from one years old to two years old was kind of a blow. We found out a few weeks before Finn's first birthday. He was still riding backwards and so doesn't know the difference.

I'm a stay at home dad

Why does that feel like a dirty thing to admit?

Partially it's because I just earned my doctorate; it feels like a bit of a waste to have spent so many years in school only to do something I could have done without graduating high school. And partially it's because this wasn't our family plan. I was never going to stay at home with our 1 year old, Finn. In contrast, Danielle was looking for an opportunity to do so. I was supposed to be the career hot shot. "Say bye-bye to Daddy! You'll see him on Friday!" This isn't to say Danielle is chopped liver--she is an important, integral part of her office and has had solid bites from prospective employers in her job search. It is to say however, that THIS WASN'T THE PLAN!