badass dad blog

hi. i moved.

2009-11-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

This blog has moved. If you're seeing this, you have an old bookmark or an outdated feed.

Please go to badassdadblog.com or subscribe to this feed.

The new digs are nice, come visit, see you there!

shameless plug — iCaroler for iPhone!

2009-11-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hey. A bit off topic from my standard blog fare, but it's my blog, and I say what goes here!

My company, Seismic Games, just released our first app for iPhone: iCaroler! You can find out more about it at iCaroler.com, or go directly to the iTunes App Store and pick it up for yourself!

If you love any of the following, iCaroler is for you: Christmas music, vocal harmony, cute holiday animations, multi-phone sync, original vocal arrangements of favorite Christmas carols, me. :)

Best of all, iCaroler is only $.99. An easy way to get into the holiday spirit!

Here endeth the plug.

bam bam

2009-11-24T13:32:00.001-08:00

We've never been really big on nicknames for our kids. I mean, we call our kids by pet names — Owen is often "O," "Little Dude," "Big Guy," while Nicholas is "Baby," "Little," etc. But neither has really had an official nickname. Now one of them does. From this point forward, Nicholas shall officially be known as Bam Bam. You know, like Barney and Wilma's little cavekid on the Flintstones? Lisa came up with this, and it's pretty much perfect for him. He's small, cute, is a man of few words, and smashes the hell out of anything he can get his hands on.

As I wrote in a post back in September, our kids are so different from each other. They have stuff in common, too, but in some fundamental ways they are just very different people. Owen is curious, but cautious. Careful to avoid risks, he weighs unknown situations and challenges before trying anything new. This has been his M.O. pretty much forever. He wasn't too quick to start walking, waiting till he was sure he could pull it off before getting up from the safety of all fours. Once he was up, he took it slow, measuring his steps, making sure there was was something or someone to grab if things got wonky. He's the same with food, new activities, school, and just about everything else. Especially anything physical - he'll try stuff, but he thinks about it first, analyzing the situation, and occasionally needing encouragement or help if he decides it's not within his reach.

Then there's Bam Bam. He started walking at 10 months — a full 4 months before his older brother. I think he crawled exclusively for about a week. Having mastered that, he was up on his feet, cruising around holding onto whatever he could get his hands on. Not long after that, he let go and went for it — look Ma, no hands! BAM! He'd fall down and bash his head/eye/nose/face/whatever. Short pause to cry, then up again. And while Owen walked slowly at first, Nicholas pretty much just fell forward until his legs couldn't keep up anymore. He was a festival of bruises and scrapes, mostly on his face. I sometimes felt compelled to tell people, "Really, we don't beat him, I swear," but it never took long for them to see for themselves where all those little injuries were coming from. Now, at almost 18 months, he's unstoppable. He runs almost as fast as his 4-year old brother, climbs almost as high, and is within inches of learning to really jump, which scares the shit out of his mother and me. To his credit, he's amazingly strong and sturdy with great balance, so he does fall a lot less than he used to. Or at least, when he does, he falls well, catching himself with his hands, rolling on his shoulder, or plopping on his diaper-padded bottom instead of faceplanting into the concrete, hardwood, or wherever he happens to be. If there's a natural athlete among us, it is Nicholas.

I have visions of who my kids will be later in life, and Bam Bam is so clearly going to be the trouble maker. While Owen stares up at the ball lost on the roof, working out whether there's something he might throw at it or a stick long enough to knock it down, Nicholas will be dragging over the ladder, or whatever's handy to give him enough of a leg up to climb up and get it. Since he's three years younger and bound to be shorter than his brother for a while at least, I can also easily imagine him talking Owen into doing the climbing. "C'mon, dude, it's not that high. I'd totally do it but I can't reach. Dude, you'll be FINE!" This will translate later in their lives to Bam Bam convincing Owen that "Mom and Dad TOTALLY won't mind if we take the car out for just a minute to go pick up girls/get beer/drop in on a friend's party. We'll be back before they even know we're gone. It'll be totally cool."

But we've got a few years until then, I hope. Meanwhile, it's great to watch little Nicholas give his all to keep up with his brother. In addition to being the destructor, Nicholas is also the total clown. Owen's funny in a verbal, occasionally mugging face kinda way. Nicholas is Charlie Chaplin. Well, maybe that's crediting him with more finesse than he currently has. Maybe he's more like a one-man Marx Brothers. He's the total physical comedian, and loves to dance. Let's take it out with a little video of Bam Bam rocking out with Ernie. If Bam Bam doesn't stick, we can always just go with "Trouble." And yes, that's a wine refrigerator in the background. We almost always wait till the kids are asleep to unlock it. Almost always.

losing the baby weight

2009-11-15T14:35:00.001-08:00

{Note: I don't know what's going on with the fonts in this post. Blogger and I are not getting along today. Apologies for the visual weirdness.}

This is kind of an update on a post from mid-October about getting in shape and barefoot/minimalist running. I'm still at it!

Before Owen was born, I was in the best shape of my life. You know those guys who are like, "I was in awesome shape in high school but as I got older things started going downhill." I wasn't one of those guys. I wasn't fat in high school, but I was, uh, soft. I didn't play sports. I did choir and drama and it pretty much showed. But in my early thirties, I got serious about getting in shape. I picked up a copy of Body For Life, started working out 5-6 days a week, eating 6 small balanced meals a day with an emphasis on protein, avoided sweets, gave up soda, and pretty soon I was looking and feeling badass.

Then ... we had a baby.

You've heard this story (or lived through it) before. Sleep became a luxury, food was something shoveled in whenever possible, often whatever the kids didn't finish, and if there was an option for comfort food, you took it. Cookies? Sure. Ice cream? OK. More wine? Yes, please! In addition to the food, I stopped going to the gym. Pretty soon I was back up to the weight I was at before I started working out.

So for the last 4+ years I've wanted to lose my baby weight. Lisa has since been pregnant again and given birth to our second child, but I've been struggling to drop the 15 pounds I added after the first one.

I mentioned in a previous post I've been working with a personal trainer. While that workout is very effective, it requires one to be pretty disciplined about what one eats. Truthfully, so did my 6-day-a-week workout routine. I was eating really well then, so I can't pretend exercise alone EVER did the trick to take and keep weight off. I have to exercise AND eat right if I want to lose weight. Fuck genetics. (Sorry, Mom and Dad).

So after I stopped going to the trainer, I started doing other things. I seem to be at a place in my life where almost every activity involves some sort of gadget. So I picked up a few.

First, I got Wii Fit Plus. This wasn't really planned. My friend and fellow blogger Kim invited me to a yoga party. I wasn't sure what to expect. Or what to wear. But Kim said I would be the "token man." I said I'd be there. Turns out the party was sponsored by Nintendo to let people (mostly bloggers) try their new Wii Fit Plus. [Full disclosure — I got a copy of the game and a Wii Fit board as gift for attending the party. I already had a Wii.] The Wii Fit Plus is Wii Fit, Plus some new stuff. I didn't do all the new stuff, but I did a little yoga and checked out the new games. They're fun and, like most Wii games, challenging but not super hard, a little goofy, and family friendly. The new "My Wii Fit" feature lets you save personalized workouts. They've added the ability to weigh your babies and pets. Cute, but if they think I'm picking up my 90 lb Black Lab to get him on the Wii Fit board with me, they're insane. My favorite of the new games is Wipeout, or whatever they call it. It's basically like that show where people make idiots of themselves going through an obstacle course. You get to do that without actually getting wet or injured or humiliated beyond the spectators in your TV room. Good times.

But if you want to do serious exercise, the Wii only goes so far. It doesn't really qualify as what I consider a vigorous workout, especially compared to what I did in my trainer's gym for the last year, which felt as close to weekly childbirth as I ever want to get.

So next I got a free iPhone app called "Lose It!" It lets you log everything you eat and any exercise you do. You tell it what you weigh, what you want to weigh, and how fast you want to lose it. It tells you how many calories you can eat daily. Everything you log is tracked against that goal. I've found logging what I eat to be the single best way to eat better. When I have to write it down, I think before I stick something in my mouth. Food. I'm talking about food. But come to think of it, if I have to write it down, it might work for other stuff, too. I've been using Lose It for about a week, and I give it a thumbs up.

After that, I got this:

When I broke up with my trainer (I hope it's a temporary separation), he kindly gave me a home version of his workout to try and help me stay in some sort of shape. It requires almost no equipment. The problem is it doesn't really have a good exercise for the large muscles of your back. The Iron Gym Xtreme takes care of that. It's a fancy chin-up bar you stick in a doorway. No hardware required to attach it, and it'll hold like 300 lbs. Thankfully I'm a few stones shy of THAT number.

Finally, I'm doing the thing I said I'd NEVER do: running. On purpose. And kinda far. For me, anyway. I've mostly run in my Vibram Fivefingers, and once totally barefoot. It's fun. Despite being one of the lowest tech activities one could do, running has still resulted in acquisition of several gadgets. I got another iPhone app to track my runs – a fancy pedometer called iTreadmill. I also started logging my runs on Dailymile.com. It's a social media site for runners and athletes. It's cool. If you use it, friend me. I'm even considering signing up for a race or two. I'm not ready to start training for a marathon yet, but for the first time in my life the idea of doing that at some point doesn't strike me as completely insane.

And for the last gadget, because I am a dad, after all, I got this baby:

The BOB Ironman Sport Utility Jogging Stroller. I got mine on Craig's List, so gratefully I paid slightly less than the crazy money they want for one of these things new. Still, for a cheap hobby, running is starting to get expensive. It's a cool chariot for the little dude, though. Nicholas has been out with me a couple times and he loves waving at the other runners (especially the ones with dogs), chatting, and kicking his feet.

The quest for a fitter me continues. I've also started singing more again, but this post is already way past too long, so that'll have to wait for another day.

nearly wordless wednesday: school picture day

2009-10-21T09:22:00.001-07:00

This is my nice smile for mommy.

Don't I look innocent?

Uh ... gotta go.

Dude, are you still pointing that thing at me?

I'm telling you, man, we're done.

Seriously? Do I have to tell you again?

Dude is gonna rock picture day.

oh how many feet you meet

2009-10-16T23:03:00.001-07:00

In July I wrote about fighting the urge to sit on the couch. About getting out and enjoying the outdoors, breathing fresh air, and generally being more active. I think we've done reasonably well these last few months. We haven't been camping, but there's been a lot less video game playing and a lot more time outside — even if only in our own backyard. The kids still watch too much TV, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

For myself, I committed few years ago to make regular exercise part of my life. My family history is littered with men having heart attacks (and occasionally dying) in their 40s and 50s. I intend NOT be one of them. For a little over a year my main exercise has been training at an amazing private gym called Myogenics Fitness. They aren't giving me anything to say this, but for any of you who lives within driving distance of West Hollywood, you owe it to yourself to check them out. Their program is 30 minutes of incredibly intense weight training with a personal trainer once a week. Tack on some nutrition coaching and that's it. There's no other exercise involved, and the results are pretty remarkable. I'm not genetically predisposed for rippling muscles so I don't look that impressive, but I honestly think I'm in as good shape as I was when I used to work out 6 days a week. The only reason I don't weigh less (and consequently look better) is I cheat too much with the food and wine. Sue me.

So, while Myogenics is great, and I recommend them, as of last week I stopped going. Great though they are, it's private training, they take one client in the gym at a time, and it ain't cheap. I bought a year's worth of sessions in advance, and when they ran out I couldn't justify buying more while I still have essentially no income. So, as of now, I'm on my own.

If you've met me or seen pictures of my feet on Twitter, you know I have a thing for odd shoes. More specifically, I wear almost exclusively what I call barefoot shoes. For me these take two forms. There are my relatively normal looking (but in fact revolutionary) Vivo Barefoots from Terra Plana. I have three pairs of these, and unless you look really closely you wouldn't know these were not "normal" shoes. My wife has two pairs, and also loves them.

My other barefoot shoes, pictured here, are impossible to miss, and so far my wife hasn't bought any. They're called Vibram Fivefingers, and they are anything but normal looking. They have toes, a thin flexible sole, and are as close as you can get to being barefoot while still having some protection from the elements. I have two pairs of these, and I want more. I almost never leave the house in them without having at least one conversation about them with a complete stranger. "What are those? (They're barefoot shoes) Are they comfortable? (Yes) Do they have any arch support? (No) Are they socks? (Not really)" Etc. A certain NY Times columnist referred to them as gorilla shoes.

If you've been paying attention, you might have seen Christopher McDougall making the rounds plugging his new book Born To Run. I haven't read the book, but it sounds like an amazing story. Thing is, even without reading his book I'm convinced about the benefits of barefoot, or at least minimalist footwear. Ever since I read this New Yorker article about how shoes are ruining our feet and generally doing us harm, I've been on a quest to find alternatives to traditional shoes.

Until this week, though, I wasn't sold on actually running in my minimalist shoes. It wasn't the quasi-barefoot part that put me off — it was the running part. I don't like running. I have never liked running. Running hurts. And not just the muscle soreness that comes from hard exercise. I'm OK with that. Running hurts my back, and my hips, and my knees, and my ankles. But two things changed my mind, or at least started to. First, there's being broke and stopping my personal training sessions. I now need to create my own exercise program. Second, there's all this discussion of barefoot running. Largely inspired McDougall's press blitz, suddenly everybody's talking about running barefoot.

In one of many "I love the interwebs" moments, I've discovered this great and (mostly) supportive online community of barefoot or minimalist runners. Sites like birthdayshoes.com and runningbarefoot.org, and a discussion group on minimalist running have opened my eyes to yet another great community of people online. Like any group of humans, there are the bad apples — people who want to tear others down instead of build them up — but of those I've seen on other sites, not the ones linked above.

So this week I started running in the Vibram Fivefingers Classics pictured above. First I walked/ran 2 miles. My quads and hip muscles were sore for a few days, but no joint or back pain. I let few days go by, and yesterday I ran 2.5 miles. Now my calves are sore, but no joint pain, and my quads and hips feel much better. I plan to keep extending my distance until, well, I don't know what. The thing is, running this way isn't like any running I've done before. The sites above have helped me learn things about running form I never knew, so the running isn't as punishing and jarring as what I've always thought it had to be. And I'm still learning. So far, this kind of running is fun. I don't know where it will take me, but I'm enjoying the journey.

But this isn't a fitness blog, it's a dad blog, right? Yes. Mostly. I refuse to be pigeonholed! But in fact this does relate to dadhood. First, it's about what I wrote about back in July — being active. It's about doing things for recreation and fun that are physical, outdoors, and generally unlumpish. Second, it's about staying healthy so I can play with my kids now and for years to come. And about setting an example for them to become healthy and active themselves. And, finally, it's about community. Like blogging and Twitter and all of the amazing people I've met through those avenues, there's a whole world of runners and barefooters and other wacky folks to connect with out there. I don't know how much we have in common, but I'm excited to find out.

So, while I don't intend to turn this into a barefoot running blog, I may update you from time to time on this toe-wiggling adventure of mine. And if you too are a runner, barefoot or otherwise, I'd love to hear from you. Take off your shoes and stay awhile.

risk

2009-09-30T11:26:00.003-07:00

Our boys are so different from each other. They're similar in some ways, too — they look a lot alike, they both wake up at the asscrack of dawn, they're both pretty happy kids. But in many ways they are just very different people. One such difference is how they approach taking risks.

Owen — four years old — is cautious, thoughtful, and sometimes downright fearful. (He's also smart, verbal, goofy, stubborn, sweet, and hysterical; but that's not what this post is about). When he was a baby, we learned not to worry he'd put something unauthorized into his mouth. The kid would never put anything he didn't know was food (and food he LIKED) in his mouth. This hasn't changed (much to our consternation at the dinner table). With physical stuff, too, he talked early, but didn't walk until he was pretty sure he'd be good at it. He wasn't a big climber, jumper, run-headlong-into-wall-er. While I sometimes worry he'll hold back too much and miss out on things, I also take comfort knowing he isn't likely to do a swan dive off the jungle gym. I see a lot of myself in him here.

Nicholas — almost 16 months — is crazy. The dude has no fear and does not hesitate to do pretty much anything that strikes him. Partly this comes from being the younger brother. He sees Owen do things and he wants to do them, too. Never mind Owen's three years older and generally able to do a lot more stuff without risking death. But even when Owen's not around, Nicholas does things Owen never would have. Whether climbing onto tables taller than his head, running headlong down our steep driveway, or sticking anything he can get his hands on into his mouth (apparently chalk is now a snack food?) the kid just knows no fear. And pretty much always has at least one good facial bruise to show for it.

In this photo I imagine Nicholas struggling to free himself so he can stick that chalk back in his mouth and leap to the concrete below while Owen tries to take the chalk away and hold him back from certain doom. Is this who they will always be?

Watching Owen over the years, he's changed. Grown is probably a better word. He's overcome some fears, while others have surfaced. I used to think he was going to be a kid who wasn't afraid of the dark, but as he got older and his imagination started to bloom, so did his capacity for fear of the abstract unknown. At his core he's still the same kid — cautious, thoughtful, a little scared about things he's unsure of, especially physical danger.

Owen's gymnastics coach — the always amazing Coach Scott — tells him fear is your body's way of telling you to be careful. When you do something even though you're scared, that's bravery. Being brave doesn't mean not being afraid. If you're facing something truly dangerous and you're not scared, you're not brave, you're stupid. The key is to listen to that fear, allow it to heighten your awareness and proceed with care, but don't let it stop you.

So I guess in a way I hope Owen will continue to conquer his fears, if thoughtfully, while Nicholas learns to be at least a LITTLE BIT scared of things that are potentially life-threatening.

I find myself taking some new risks lately. I've decided not to look for a "steady" job like the one I left (note my inaccurate but self-affirming choice of verb here) and instead go to work for a startup I think has great potential but which at the moment has no money to pay me. I hope I'm striking a healthy balance — being thoughtful and conscious of the risks I'm taking, without being too afraid to take a well-considered leap now and then. I hope I can learn from BOTH my kids and show them how to blend the best of each of their strengths.

No matter what, they'll still be way cuter. I'm learning to live with that.

mute monday

2009-09-14T08:29:00.001-07:00

I'm too impatient to wait for wordless Wednesday. Credit to Lisa for this awesome series of photos.

dear badass dad

2009-09-02T15:32:00.001-07:00

Dear Badass Dad,

Hi! Remember me? It's been a while so I just thought I'd make sure you hadn't forgotten about me! LOL! Like you would! Ha!

Luvs,

Your Blog

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Dear Badass Dad,

Hi, again. I don't want to be a pest - LOL! - but since I didn't hear back after my note a couple weeks ago I thought I'd write again, just to make sure you got that last note. Can't trust email, you know! Ha ha! Anyway, drop me a line, or even toss some photos my way for a Wordless Wednesday. Whatevs! Just wanna stay in touch.

Totes lurve you,

Your Blog

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Badass Dad,

Hi. Uh, this is awkward. I know you got that last email because I sent it return receipt and I saw you opened it like one minute and 38 seconds after I sent it, so since it's been almost a week I'm really wondering if I did something wrong. Was it that thing a while back where people couldn't leave comments? I swear that wasn't my fault. I have NO IDEA why that happened, but it won't happen again, I swear. Please, just post something. ANYTHING!

Your Blog

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All right, Assclown. WTF? It's September, dude. You posted like TWICE in the WHOLE MONTH OF AUGUST! You expect people to just keep checking their reader or clicking the bookmark to your blog to find the SAME OLD SHIT!!!??? They won't, dude. They'll fucking punt your ass and move on. You may think you're some hot shit dad blogger but man you are a DIME A DOZEN! Anybody can put up a blog, dude. It's not hard. It's totally easy and FREE, so seriously, ANYBODY can do it. I mean, you didn't even customize your fucking blog template. You used some stock Blogger bullshit theme and expect people to give a SHIT ABOUT YOU!? Whatever, dude. They don't, and neither do I. I'm done. I give up. You can fuck off for all I care.

Your Former Blog

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I'm sorry. Please write.

Love,

Your Blog

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Seriously, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean those things I said. Of COURSE people still care about you! You're a GREAT blogger! I mean, you've got like 47 followers! And I'm sure that's just a drop in the bucket since most people don't even know what following IS! I'm sure you totally have HUNDREDS of people who read EVERY POST you write, and would read every day if you posted more. Not that you need to post more. You totally don't. I mean, three weeks seems like a long time to go without a post, but that's totally just my opinion. I'm sure you have some brilliant cunning plan or whatever (LOL!), and your next post is probably going to be huge! EPIC!!! Not that all your other posts aren't. They totally are!

Friends? I hope so. Please write.

Love,

Your Blog

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Now I'm worried you might be dead. Are you dead? Please write.

Your Blog

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Dear Blog,

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Just been busy and haven't felt inspired to write. Don't worry, I'll write soon. Thanks for checking in. And, uh, chill out, ok?

Sincerely,

Badass Dad

who am i?

2009-08-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

There are many mes. (I refuse to use an apostrophe for a word that is neither possessive nor a contraction, but the plural of "me" does look very strange.) I don't mean in a clinical, multiple personality disorder sort of way. Rather, I wear different faces/hats/pants in different aspects of my life. Maybe it's more accurate to say there are multiple versions of me (also doesn't look so weird). They are more alike than different, but they are distinct. They sometimes overlap, they occasionally collide, and I find myself struggling to decide how separate I want them to be.

Most people have some separation of church and state, don't they? Separation between who they are at work/school/church/bingo and who they are at home/the bar/online/bowling, or where ever they feel at ease. For some these lines are bright and clear. For others they might be blurry, even nonexistent. I do have lines. They fade in and out, sometimes to my detriment, but they're there. Here are a few of the mes (there's that word again) I know.

Work me: Veneer of professionalism. Moderated sarcasm and snarkyness. Confident. Capable. Reduced use of profanity. Somewhat detached. In the course of my working life, more of my true self has come out, but work me is still several steps removed from who I think I really am.
Real life me: Who I am with people I know well. More relaxed. Funnier (I think). Laugh easily. Cry sometimes. Say fuck a lot. Give hugs. A bit self conscious. Avoid confrontation. Keep things light.
Blog me: Not so different from real life me. A bit more thoughtful. Certainly better edited (I think!). Brave enough to say things I might not say elsewhere. Wise enough to hold back some I might regret. I explore things I rarely talk about, and no one gets to interrupt me. I crave ~~attention~~ comments. I like to know you're there, and what you think.
Twitter me: Almost no filter. Self-assured (mostly). Flirty. Hilariously funny (I'm certain). Brave in my relative anonymity, yet supportive and (mostly) friendly. As long as you can read sarcasm.

Identity is funny. Mercurial, you might say. No one is who they were yesterday, yet we remain who we are (witness protection and sex changes notwithstanding). Identity and blogging have an interesting relationship. Some bloggers create a persona completely separate from who they are in life. A nom de plume. Their blog world is completely separate from their real world. Friends and family may not know they blog. Blog readers don't know their real name or their families names. Mr. Lady and BHJ are in this camp. Mr. Lady recently flirted with taking down the wall and revealing her real name on her blog. BHJ, by contrast, shut down his much loved (by me, anyway) blog and started a new one after being discovered by some folks from life he did NOT want knowing about his blogself. I respect this path. Sometimes I envy it. They can write anything they want, yet all the while flirt with potentially damaging exposure. It's a bit like working for the CIA. Ok, only a little, but still.

Others take the opposite approach. Heather's last name is in the title of her blog. Dooce, the most popular "mommy blogger" there is(?), shares her name, her city, photos of herself. I presume these people started their blogs to share their lives with friends and family. It made no sense to hide who they were. The fact they've become widely read and followed was not part of any plan, it just happened. In any case, they chose the path of openness.

I'm somewhere between. I use our real first names, but not our last name. I talk about where we live. There are photos of us on the blog. My parents read and comment regularly. Many friends know I blog. I link to my blog on Facebook. I don't hide it.

You might think Mr. Lady and BHJ's recent musings on this topic inspired this post, and perhaps they did. But the real trigger? Business cards. Yes, business cards. You see, I'm faced with another question of how separate these worlds should be. I'm looking for new employment. Do I put my blog on the card I'll use to look for a job? In exploring what I might want to do, writing comes up as something I enjoy and would like to do more. This blog is an example of my writing. For now, it is the best, certainly the most readily available example of my writing. Yet I hesitate to reveal it to prospective employers, at least initially. I blog about my kids, but also drugs and kids toys that look like vibrators. I say fuck a lot. The name of the blog is badass dad. How seriously can anyone take THAT?

I've already faced some consequences of the various versions of me intersecting. A comment I made on Facebook resulted in a talking to from my boss about setting a professional example as a manager. An email I got from a friend, misdirected to a colleague I didn't know, which just happened to mention ass fucking, also got me in some trouble at work. And my comment on Twitter about how in California we can buy booze anywhere and have all the anal sex we want raised some eyebrows when a coworker discovered it. (No it seems like I'm obsessed with anal sex. Another blog post for the resume!)

I don't like having to hide. But again, perhaps this is what everyone does, to a degree. This blog, Twitter, and Facebook have created a scenario where things that would traditionally have been semi-private are now quite public, and can have real consequences. This may have worked out well for Dooce. Not sure I want to bank on the same happening for me.

When I was an adolescent searching for meaning in the universe, I came upon Richard Bach's Illusions. New agey, yes, but exactly what I as a curious, thoughtful, lovesick, non-religious youth needed. There are many things about that book I still believe and work to hold in mind. One in particular I do my best to live by:

"Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world. Even if what is published is not true."

I think it means own who you are and what you do. Be secure in your self-knowledge, and unconcerned with the opinions of others.

But how do you do that in daily life? How does that stand up to the need for a paycheck? I'd love to work for someone who knows and embraces all I am. But I'd also like to pay my mortgage and feed my family. Can these things be one and the same?

The answer I came to was no, for now. No blog address on the cards. Name, phone, email. There's plenty of room to write on the card. If it makes sense, I can always scratch it in.

How about you? Are you friends with your mom on Facebook? Does your boss know you blog? Are your yous fully integrated, or are there streams you just don't cross?

girls and their toys

2009-08-01T11:57:00.001-07:00

As a father of boys, I consider myself lucky. When it comes to buying toys for my kids, I know if I get them something I think is cool, they'll be totally happy. Spaceships, super heroes, dinosaurs, pirates — none of this is a stretch for me. But what about all the fathers of girls out there?

I have a friend. A single father of an adorable little 4-year old girl. He loves her, and of course like any father wants her to be happy. He mans up and doesn't balk when she wants unicorns and princesses and frilly dresses and all manner of girly things. So he didn't think twice about buying her a pink princess bubble wand. All hearts and flowers and little stars, it looked perfectly innocent and completely girly. Everything seemed right in her little pink princess world. Then he turned it upside down.

curling

2009-07-21T22:18:00.001-07:00

I like saying parenting is like curling. You know, that sport in the Winter Olympics where they push a big heavy polished stone across ice and then frantically sweep in front of it with brooms to try and guide its course and make it go as far and as straight as possible but they can't actually touch it? I think parenting is like that. We can try and clear the way, but mostly kids go the way they're gonna go.

Lately I've been wondering how well that analogy holds up. There have been a lot of pretty major changes at our house lately. Not counting babies being born, I'd say these are the biggest changes we've gone through as a family. Definitely the biggest Owen's seen besides his brother being born and changing schools. Here are some of the highlights.

I got laid off, which means I'm home almost all the time versus being at work 50+ hours a week.
Lisa has a break from work until October, so she's home, too.
We let our nanny go. She was here five days a week for about seven months, spent more waking hours with the kids than either of us, and we all loved her. She was amazing and we miss her.
Owen took three weeks off preschool then went back for summer school (at the same place). But some of his best friends aren't there, and some won't be coming back.
Michael Jackson died.
Nicholas turned one, and got serious about walking. He's a walking machine now.
Owen turned four, and has agreed to wipe his own butt for a whole month in exchange for the most coveted toy of his young life - Ahsoka's Starfighter Lego set.

The Michael Jackson thing was mostly to see if you were paying attention, but Owen did come home from school one day and said "Who died?! Michael Jackson died!" Seriously, no idea where that came from.

But besides that pop quiz, the passing of MJ has been a blip compared to other recent milestones. It's a lot of change for kids to absorb, right? I mean, they're resilient and probably more durable than many of us when it comes to bouncing back from hard times, but they're also creatures of habit and routine, and changes like this don't go unnoticed.

Not surprisingly, Owen's reaction is the most noticeable. He's been much quicker to cry lately. When we ask him to do something, he ignores us about 80% of the time. He continues to refuse to try new foods, and completely loses his shit if we try to push him to do it. He's quicker to get frustrated with his little brother.

But I have to wonder - how much of this is because of what's going on with our family, and how much of it is just who he is at this moment in his ever evolving and developing life? The level of stress and uncertainty is unquestionably higher than usual. Most of this comes from me and being out of work. I try to keep my sharing of this mostly between Lisa and me (and my blog, of course), but sometimes I'm sure the kids get a taste of it.

Like the day we had this fun family outing to the La Brea Tar Pits (which, by the way, is totally repetitive, since translated it means The The Tar Tar Pits) which stopped being fun when we returned to our car to find it had been towed away because I didn't pay attention to the "No Parking After 4pm" sign that apparently everyone in LA but me knows are all along Wilshire Blvd. But I'm not used to parking on Wilshire Blvd at 4pm on a weekday because I'M USUALLY AT WORK AT 4PM ON A WEEKDAY!!!! It was a stressful afternoon. I tried to keep my shit together as Owen peppered us with questions the entire way home, in traffic: "Why'd they take your car away?" "Why'd you park in the wrong place?" "Why didn't you read the sign?" "Why couldn't we take a taxi to get the car?" "Why couldn't I go with you to get the car?" "Why was there a man in the only stall in the Koo Koo Roo bathroom when I suddenly had to poop as if my life depended on it while Mommy was off finding us a ride to the impound lot so I crapped standing up while you attempted to catch it with a paper towel while imploring me to hold it just a little longer please?" (Ok, he didn't ask me that, but he could have, since it did happen.)

But there haven't been that many days like that. Mostly we've kept things pretty even keeled. So how much should we worry about what this is all doing to our kids? I don't think we're scarring them for life, but how can I be sure? The only thing I can think to do besides trying to keep my own cool is talk about what's going on openly and honestly with them. I don't think pretending nothing's changed is the answer, but I also don't want to make more of it than it is. I remember when my dad told me and my brothers he and mom were getting divorced. It wasn't long before I was like, "OK, that sucks, can I go play now?"

If my curling analogy is right, I'd say we've hit some rough ice, and the brooms might be showing a little wear and tear. Is this going to dramatically alter the course of our kids lives, or will they come through more or less unscathed? I suspect no one knows for sure, but I'd love to hear anything you care to share about how you've helped your kids navigate when the ice gets a little less smooth.

OK, break's over.

2009-07-16T00:23:00.001-07:00

Today I embarked upon my search for a job. This is not within my comfort zone. Many people, likely many of you, have changed jobs many times. Sometimes by choice, sometimes not. I have been at the same company for 12 years, and fully believed I'd have the option to be there for my entire career. As those who read this blog know, this was not to be, and not by my choosing. So, I set out in search of the next thing.

(Remember that show In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy? It was Twilight Zone meets Nova meets The X Files. It has nothing to do with this post, but that was a trippy show, man.)

Throughout my time at my former company, at least once I accepted it was more than just a day job, I always said if I left it would be to do something completely different. Not to find a similar job at another company, but something truly new, something I was really passionate about. Though I didn't choose to leave, the fact is I've left, so why not look for the job I really want as opposed to the thing that might be easy to get but not that exciting? As I start looking for the next thing, I've been advised to search for a job I will love. A job I'll have fun doing. Because such a job will give energy instead of sapping it. It will be fun, and won't feel like work. I'll be better at it and happier doing it because I'll really want to be there.

Sounds good, right?

But what is that job? And what if that job doesn't pay the mortgage? What if that job doesn't allow us to send our kids to the schools or camps or classes we want to send them to, or to go on vacations or do the things we want to be able to do? For all that I've never been exactly passionate about the work I've done these 12 years, I've worked hard, I'm good at it, and I've done pretty well. And I've grown accustomed to the things that's allowed us to have and do. We aren't so well off we can have everything we want, but we certainly have everything we need, and a lot of what we want. How much can we give up and still be comfortable? Still be happy?

I know if I can find a job that truly connects to who I am I will be happier doing it, vs. doing something I may be good at but don't really enjoy. In theory my family will be happier if I'm happier. I'll be more fun to be around, more engaged in everything I do. But if that means we have to live in a smaller place or scale down to one car or take fewer trips, will we really be happier? I want to believe the answer is yes, but who knows?

I've been told to search for a job I truly want for as long as reasonably possible. Then, if that doesn't materialize, shift gears and look for something to just pay the bills. And if I do settle for a job that is basically more of the same simply to make ends meet, I should keep looking for my ideal job. Sounds logical. Sounds good. It also sounds like a lot of work.

How many people really love what they do? How many have turned away from the safe thing to embrace that which was less certain but held great promise, great hope? And how many of them have succeeded in doing it? I have so often been a victim of inertia. And now it us up to me to create my own energy and venture out into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory to find that which is truly right for me. This is a true opportunity, one I may not have again.

I hope I have the strength.

could there be a cuter evil laugh?

2009-07-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day I did an interview with Tatiana over at It Was A Very Good Year. One of her questions was what badass things my kids have learned from me. Here's one.

fighting nature

2009-07-08T14:05:00.001-07:00

I see myself in my kids. This can be good and this can be bad. Something I'm seeing now in Owen, who will be four in a couple of weeks (and again, where the hell did four years go?), is my tendency to sit around like a lump. Watching TV, playing video games, generally avoiding physical activity. Like right now, as I sit here, writing at my computer. When it's gorgeous outside. (But, baby Nicholas is napping, and Lisa and Owen are out running errands, so I can't really leave. So gimme a break). Once we actually get him out of the house he's happy to run and climb and jump and play. But ask him what he wants to do? The answer will almost always be Lego Star Wars.

This is my fault on several levels. First, there are my genes. He's his father's son and his father is at his core a sedentary being. When I was a kid it was books, and also TV. Now it's the computer, iPhone, TV, Twitter, my blog, other people's blogs. And occasionally still books. Second, there are the things I've introduced him to. TV, movies, video games. I didn't have to buy them. I didn't have to let him use them. But I did, because I like them, and thought he would to. And boy, does he.

When Owen was a baby Lisa and I talked about making sure he saw us doing physically active things for fun - walking, hiking, sports - going outside and moving around. These things don't really come naturally to me, and I already see my son developing what I can only describe as a serious video game addiction. Luckily, so far, he doesn't have his father's tendency to eat constantly while sitting around not moving. This gives me hope that in some ways he'll be better off. And it's not that I think he should never play video games again, or watch TV or movies, or, eventually, read books! These are things I enjoy and sometimes ya gotta do stuff inside. But when it's a beautiful sunny day and all the kid wants to do is play video games? It just feels all too familiar.

So again, here before you all, I commit to going outside more. We'll go for more walks. We'll go to the park. We'll hang out in the backyard instead of the living room. And I will stop fighting my wife's desire to take the family camping. As long as there is indoor plumbing nearby. And WiFi.

dangers of re-entry

2009-06-30T22:45:00.001-07:00

In high school I experimented with various mood-altering substances. There was alcohol, naturally, but also marijuana and one really lovely afternoon on hash trying to play it straight in front of our friend's mom as she drove us home. To this day I don't know if she knew how high we were, but I can't imagine how she could have missed it. But I never did a LOT of drugs, and never tried anything harder than the aforementioned. Also, incidentally, I've never bought drugs. I wouldn't know where to get them. I suppose I could find my way through people I know, but I've never been that inspired to try. I basically gave up smoking pot after college. At some point I started to have rather strange reactions to it. Like my whole body going numb and noticing I couldn't feel my heartbeat or my stomach and I might actually be dead but not know it and that's just not a feeling I really wanted to seek out, you know?

So I admit it was a little random when, the other night, while hanging out with a bunch of parents from our son's preschool, I decided to try it again. Before I describe what came of all this, I should probably back up a little. There were a few factors which contributed to this turning into a particularly festive evening.

There was the decision to postpone our roadtrip until after Kate's housewarming party. We were supposed to be out of town, but wanted to go celebrate her new place. Next, walking instead of driving. The party was nearby, and we figured if we walked who'd care what state we're in by the end of the party? If we're on our feet, we can get home. In hindsight, had we driven, the car outside might have served as incentive to control the intake of alcohol and other substances. But this was not to be. There was also the bottle of wine we shared over with dinner before the party, the several glasses once we arrived, and having almost no water. When one of the other preschool moms mentioned she'd brought some really good pot, and then one of the dads fashioned a bong from a Coke can and the screen from the sink faucet and started passing it around on the back porch, I was like, "meh, why not?"

So I took a hit.

Having done this a few times before, the technique came right back to me - inhale deeply, hold it in, talk like Tommy Chong, let it out slowly.

That went fine, so I took another hit. And another.

And the thing I remembered much later was that unlike booze, I don't feel the effects of pot right away. With wine or liquor, I basically get drunk as I drink. There's not much delay, so I know when to slow down, and when to stop. Pot is different. I took three (really large) hits because I wasn't really feeling it after the first, or the second. When I started feeling it, I stopped smoking. That was so too late.

First things got a little fuzzy. Like my head. I poured another glass of wine, but didn't finish it before realizing water was probably the better choice. Pretty soon, things became outrageously funny. That is, laugh my ass off funny. Someone said something (do not ask me what it was because I have zero memory of it) that sent me into complete tearful hysterics. I had to leave the room, weeping with laughter. Around that time I lost track of most of what was going on.

This is another thing about being high versus drunk. When I'm drunk, even really really drunk, I can still kinda see, through the haze, what's going on. Not like "I'm in complete control, no really I can drive, no problem." Not saying that. But it's almost like I can watch from outside myself what's happening and still have clear pictures of it in my mind. I can tell roughly how drunk other people around me are, for example. When I'm high, I have no idea. Everybody else could be totally sober, or just as fucked up as me. No clue. You're all fucking hilarious.

Some time passed. I probably did some stupid things. At some point I might have casually suggested a threesome with my wife and the hostess. That didn't happen. We walked home. I vaguely remember this. I was none too steady on my feet. I know we walked home because eventually we arrived home, paid the babysitter, and I started tweeting. This began with "Dude, I'm REALLY fucked up." Progressed to "I should go to bed. Anybody know where to find the "off" button for the spinning?" And arrived at the classic, "Dude, fuck cottonmouth." There was some other stuff I think my followers on Twitter found quite amusing which I won't go into here. My parents read this blog. But I'm not sure broadcasting my state was the best idea at that point. Of course, now I'm posting this. Whatever.

In the end I managed not to throw up, got myself into bed and closed my eyes and next thing I knew the kids were up at 6am. Which was when our 8-hr roadtrip was scheduled to begin. That's a whole other post, one that may not even be worth writing, so I won't go into it. Suffice to say I did not feel well, it was surface-of-the-sun hot, and one-year olds do not take kindly to being strapped into a car seat for seven hours.

Is there a lesson here? I will say there are indeed some nice things about the weed. Different things than with wine or booze. There are also some downsides. If I do try it again, I'll probably stop before I start propositioning my kid's friend's moms. Hopefully.

father's day is for idiots

2009-06-19T11:07:00.001-07:00

I write a dad blog. It says so right up in the title. (A title which, I realize, is not very imaginative. When I started the blog I called it "The Once and Future Badass Dad." But was both pretentious and totally nonsensical, so now it's just Badass Dad Blog. Which is lame, but tells it like it is.) So I think the fact I write a dad blog means I have to write a Father's Day post. So, here it is.

Father's Day is stupid. As are Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Boss's Day, Administrative Professionals Day, and Arbor Day. Actually, I kind of like Arbor Day. Trees are cool. But all those other ones are stupid.

First, they aren't really holidays. The word holiday is derived from "holy day," so by definition holidays are days of religious observance. In this way Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, and Labor Day are also not actually holidays, but I give those a pass because they're patriotic and that's almost like religion to some people. But the others, especially Father's Day and Mother's Day, exist for two reasons. Reason 1: To sell greeting cards and gifts. Reason 2: To remind people to appreciate people in their lives that no one should need to be reminded to appreciate.

I mean, c'mon. If someone has to tell you to love your mother and give her flowers and tell her she's a great mom, you are an idiot. She's your mom. She gave birth to you, and raised you, and refrained from killing you at any point during your young life. Rest assured, there were many times she wanted to. And she didn't. She is to be honored and admired.

Likewise with dads. They spent their whole lives loving you and caring for you and playing trucks and trains and dolls and house and catch with you and most of them never even ordered up that DNA test that would once and for all prove you were actually their kid. That's true love. And you need Hallmark to tell you one day a year to tell the guy you love him and buy him a card and an Amazon gift certificate? You suck.

Thing is, I also suck.

I don't call my parents enough. I don't visit them NEARLY enough. They come to us much more than we go to them, which I know makes a sort of sense because they don't have small children to cart around but still, we should visit our parents more. I rarely get them really great birthday presents. I have almost no idea what they would like, and am too lazy to put in the effort to find out. I love my parents and appreciate everything they have done for me through my life to support me and care for me and raise me, and I don't say those things to them enough. Because it's mushy and sappy to say that stuff and how often do you really go there in day to day life?

Which I guess is why we have Father's Day. Do tell us it's OK to go there. It's OK to tell your dad you love him, and you appreciate him, and he did an awesome job because you're still alive and basically doing OK. We shouldn't need the greeting card industry to remind us to say these things, but the truth is we need to be reminded.

So I still think Father's Day is stupid, and is basically a day for idiots. Trouble is, I'm an idiot, so I probably need to accept that in the end, I need it. Crap.

I love you, Dad. And Greg. And Thom. All you guys are awesome dads in your own way. And if it's possible you're even awesomer grandpas to Owen and Nicholas. Those kids love you so much, and seeing how much you love them makes me tear up with the joyful humanity of it all. Like I'm doing a little right now.

Happy Father's Day.

p.s. Also in honor of Father's Day, I was interviewed on It Was A Very Good Year. Have a look and also check out what my fellow dad bloggers have to say over the next few days.

as one door closes

2009-06-10T20:45:00.001-07:00

I learned Monday I no longer have a job.

I'll spare you the technicalities and simply say that after 12 years at the same company, working up from an entry level job through the ranks to Senior Manager, in a few weeks I will be unemployed. In fact, other than cleaning out my office and possibly a few transition discussions, I'm essentially no longer working as of today.

So, what does this mean?

First please do not worry about me or my family. We are and will be OK. The upside of being with the same company for 12 years is I will get a generous severance package which will allow me to conduct a sane and thoughtful search for whatever is next. You won't see my pulling shots at Starbucks. Unless the baristas are slow or try to put water in my grande nonfat dirty chai latte. 'Cause then, outta my way.

Before I even think about my next job, I'm going to take a little time to regroup. That may mean I'll be doing a lot more writing on the blog, tweeting in Twitter, and whatever the verb is for what people do on Facebook. (Does that have a name? Is "Facebooking" a thing now?) So for those who read, follow, ~~stalk,~~ or are "friends" with me, this could be a good thing. Or it could be very bad, as it may rapidly devolve into even more mundane minutia than it already is.

Possible tweets/status updates during unemployment:

Ate breakfast. Can't believe how many calories are in cheese. So good though.
Staring at breakfast dishes. Knife and fork perfectly aligned. Is this plate REALLY dirty?
Thinking about clearing breakfast dishes. They look so peaceful there, though.
Can this microwavable container be recycled?
Have an itch.
Are those ants? No, crumbs. Sherman!
Where are my pants?

So, be looking forward to that.

Before too long I'll need to find another job. I mentioned my severance was generous, and it is, but not "never need to work again" generous. Besides, even if I thought we could go for months without me working, I honestly think I would lose my mind, both from boredom and the anxiety of needing to support my family. I never thought of myself as the caveman type, but when faced with the possibility of prolonged unemployment and lack of income, with the idea that I might not be able to continue providing my children the things they want and need, I start feeling very Cro-Magnon. "Ugh. Must protect woman and man-cubs. Grg. Must hunt and gather. Mmm. Need more cheese." They probably didn't have cheese, I guess.

Some have already asked me what I want to do next. Truthfully I'm not sure. I'll need to refine my ability to describe what it is I do (and want to do). Not "where do you work," but "what do you do?" Because clearly people are hired to DO things, so there must be a way to tell people what I DO that will make them want to pay me generously to DO that thing for THEM. I'm not sure "I write emails and talk to people and go to meetings" is going to get me very far.

Is there such a thing as a job where I can be at various times focused, silly, raunchy, serious, irreverent, lazy, brilliant, dedicated, aloof, committed, creative, annoyingly specific, argumentative, fiercely logical, self-contradictory, all the while doing something that excites me while still having some time and energy for my family and my non-work life and being handsomely compensated both monetarily and emotionally? That job exists, right? Hm.

So, for now, I'm brielfy hitting the pause button on my working life. I'm thinking about what I want and what should be next, and starting to casually talk to people I know in a slightly less casual way than before - realizing all these people I know are, in fact, a "network," and that before long I will need to "activate" them. Hopefully that isn't grounds for divorce.

There will definitely be more to come about this nascent next phase of our lives. I hope it's more interesting than what I had for breakfast. Though, seriously, really good cheese.

what a badass eats - at eatdrinkandblog.com

2009-06-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

I put my recipe for turkey burgers with brie and grilled apples up at the awesome new eat drink and blog. Want to know how to make turkey burgers badass? Here's how.

guest post at a day in the life

2009-06-05T22:55:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day? Crazy, right? One here (see below) and one at Pamela Perez' A Day In The Life. That one is one of our best dog stories.

the birthday party conundrum

2009-06-05T15:55:00.001-07:00

What do you do for a four-year old's birthday?

Every parent faces this, right? Do we have a party or take them someplace special with a friend? If we have a party, who do we invite? How big should it be? Do we have to invite the whole class? Do we have to invite THAT kid? Do we have to invite that kid's PARENTS?

We are facing this now. Owen will be four in July. He's old enough to be fully aware of this. He knows the date and will tell you if you ask. At his age, birthday=party. They are the same, inseparable. It's not your birthday if there is no party. I'm already anticipating psychic chaos when we tell him his birthday PARTY is on a different day than his actual BIRTHDAY. His little mind might crack.

But once we're past that, and assuming he's still functional, what are we going to do? Owen and Nicholas are three years apart. Nicholas will turn one about a month and a half before Owen turns four. We're not going to have a big blowout for the one-year old. I mean, he has zero clue. He'll be stoked about cake and ice cream, as this child lives for food. Other than that, who are all these people, and why is that thing on fire?

But for Owen it's a different thing entirely. He's a birthday party connoisseur now. He's been to so many he could plan the fucking things. He has strong opinions, some of which he has expressed out loud, some simply through his actions. Here are some of Owen's rules, as I understand them, of what makes a proper birthday party:

Bouncy house? Yes.
Cool toys and stuff scattered around for everyone to play with? Yes.
Open presents at the party? Yes (we'll fight him on this).
Organized party games? No. Absolutely no. Get that parachute away from me, I'll show you where you can pin the tail, and why is that dude wearing makeup?

So at least we have some clear dos and don'ts if we go the party route.

But is a party the best idea? Parties are expensive, and messy, and stressful. Somebody will end up in tears. Probably one of the kids, and quite possibly also me. When it's over we have to clean up and manage our exhausted children who live in our house and don't leave at the end. We could do it at an indoor playground, but we've done this twice before. Owen seems almost old enough to graduate to the next level of pay-to-play fun, but I refuse to take a child to Chucky Cheese who will not eat pizza. We've told him this. He says he'll eat pizza when he's four. We'll see. We could go to a park, but it's mid-July in Los Angeles. If it's 100 degrees, nobody wins.

So that brings us to Plan B - amusement park with one or two friends. I happened to land four free tickets to Legoland through work. I've never been, but folks tell me it's a cool place for young kids - better in some ways than Disneyland (less commercial and more age appropriate, and hopefully less crowded). So we're thinking we might invite a friend or two of Owen's to come along and spend the day there instead of a party. We'd still do cake and presents and stuff with the family, but no big thing. Lisa floated this idea to Owen, and he was into it. But I'm not sure he understands this would be INSTEAD of a big party. We'll see.

Whatever we do, I'm sure he'll have a good time. And the truth is, he's four - is he really even gonna remember this birthday? I sure don't remember my fourth birthday. I don't really want to try and out-party his friend's parties, and ultimately I'm not sure anything can top our day at the LA Department of Sanitation Open House. The day he got to ~~drive~~ sit in a garbage truck. They even let him blow the horn and run the thing that lifts the cans. I don't know about your kids, but next to spaceships and dinosaurs, garbage trucks are about the coolest thing ever.

Wish us luck with the birthday celebration. Whatever we do I expect you'll hear about it here before long.

happy birthday, little brother

2009-06-02T09:37:00.001-07:00

Hi. This post is a bit messy. I don't want to start with an apology, but I think an explanation is warranted since this is so different from what's usually on this blog. All this happened 14 years ago. Though I think about it nearly every day, it's doesn't haunt me like it used to. I don't dwell on it. But when Heather and Mike lost their little girl Madeline this year, and so many rallied around them to try and prop them up in their darkest time, many things came back to me. What I went through is not the same as losing a child. My point of view is different. But there are enough parallels that I wanted to get all this out in writing. This also ended up being a lot more about me than I intended, but that's just where it went. So, thanks for reading, and I'll understand if you'd rather not.
___________________________________

Details are fuzzy. I'm not sure this happened the way I remember it. Probably not, considering how scattered my memories are. Time does that to memory, and it's worse when the events themselves were surreal, as these surely were.

I was in San Francisco, on my way back to LA. My stepfather got in touch with me at SFO as I was heading to get on the plane home. I think he called my friend Nate who showed up to tell me I needed to call home. This was 1995, before cell phones were everywhere, and certainly before I had one. So somebody walked up to me and said I needed to call home. I called from a pay phone. Greg sounded serious, worried, and tired. Jeff wasn't doing well. I should be there. I should come now. I was worried, certainly caught off guard, but he was probably overreacting. He can be a bit dire. Sure, I'll come home. But I was sure it'd be OK.

I changed my plans and flew east instead of south. Jeff was in a hospital in Roseville. My dad picked me up and we went from the airport to Jeff's hospital room. What Greg said on the phone was right, he wasn't doing well. He looked like hell - puffy, pale and rough. His breathing was fast and shallow. I think he was asleep when I first got there. He was clearly having a hard time. I remember nudging him to try and get him to breathe normally. I wondered what they were doing to fix it. To fix him. He'd been having problems with his kidneys for months. Something to do with an illness he'd had several years before plus damage from lots of painkillers after surgery. He'd been on dialysis. There was some talk of a transplant, but it didn't seem very focused. Maybe they were talking more to my parents than me. Or maybe it was confusing and vague for everyone. It started with his kidneys, but now his heart was enlarged and he had water on his lungs. Congestive heart failure, they call this. Which is weird, because heart failure sounds like you're dead, but really it means his heart wasn't working efficiently. Did you know when your heart doesn't work well you start getting fluid on your lungs? Apparently they're related. Also, it's weird how when your heart is weak it gets bigger. You'd think a bigger heart would be all strong and shit like The Hulk but it's more like it's swollen and trying hard but just not doing its thing. He wasn't doing well.

I was having a very hard time processing all this. I was in college, missing classes to be there, but clearly needed to be with my family. I spent the next few days hanging around the hospital, sitting in Jeff's room, talking to him when he was awake. Sometimes just sitting. It was an awkward time for us. We hadn't spent much time together recently, and didn't have a lot to talk about. I was 21, he was 18. I'd been out of the house more than a year, off at school, thinking myself very grown up. I had all these plans. Or visions of plans. I didn't really want to hang out in a hospital with my sick brother. I'd rather hang out with him when he got better and we could do stuff. Like have a beer or go to the river or get high or watch TV. Whatever. Not this. I didn't understand how sick he was.

After a few days, I went back to LA. Back to school. Back to my life. It looked like he was doing better. They'd decided to transfer him to a bigger medical center in Davis. That seemed like a good sign. They were better equipped to help him, and I figured they wouldn't move him if they didn't think he had a good shot at recovering. Before I left I went to Jeff's room and we talked a little. He was sleepy, not saying much. We talked about how I'd see him in a few weeks when I came home for Thanksgiving. We hugged. He held onto me a little longer than I thought was normal. Or maybe I held onto him. Maybe both. I don't know.

I flew back to LA. There was this guy from out of town that I barely knew staying with me. Long story why, doesn't matter. My girlfriend (now wife) was at her parents' place in New York. So it was just me and this guy I didn't know. As I said, my memory of the timeline and series of events is fuzzy, but I think I was home for like 12 hours. I got home, said hi to this guy, went to bed.

The phone rang. Woke me up. It was around 3am. It was my dad. Jeff had passed away. He'd died. He was dead. I should come back.

I went back to LA thinking I was going back to school for a few weeks while Jeff recovered, then going home to visit for Thanksgiving. By then we'd know more about what was going on with him and be able to talk about what was next and make plans. And hang out and have turkey.

I fucking left.

Because of school. And because bad things don't happen to us. Bad things happened on TV and to other people, not to us. People got better. People were OK.

So I went home. Except in November 1995 things didn't get better. They got worse. They got worse fast and they tried to save him and there was nothing they could do and he died. And I think maybe he knew when I left, somehow, that things weren't going to get better. I think maybe that's why he held onto me a little longer than usual. Maybe he knew even though we were saying "see you at Thanksgiving" we were really saying goodbye.

Or maybe he didn't know. But that's what we were saying, whether we knew it or not.

Things start spinning. This guy is in our apartment and my brother just died and I have to buy a plane ticket or maybe my friend Chris did that for me because I think he flew home with me though I'm not really sure and I had to leave pretty much right away so I threw some clothes in a bag and told this guy he probably needed to find another place to stay because I didn't know when I'd be back and it was weird for him to stay there alone and I left and my girlfriend still wasn't there and I remember when we came home after what seemed like years after the funeral there was leftover macaroni and cheese in a pot uncovered in the refrigerator and honestly that bothered Lisa way more than seemed logical but what the hell did logic have to do with anything at that point and he'd just left that there in the refrigerator of these people he barely knows and who the fuck does that?

When Jeff died I called Lisa's parents in New York to tell them what happened. I called her dad at work because I wanted to talk to him before I talked to her. She was there for an audition. That day. So we decided not to tell her right away but make arrangements for her to fly to Sacramento after her audition to be with me. But let her do the audition before telling her. I still think that was the right thing to do, though she was pissed about it. She said we should have told her. She didn't get whatever she was auditioning for so maybe it wouldn't have mattered, but we didn't know that then, and we'd only been dating about a year and who knew we'd get married and have two amazing kids and it didn't seem right to disrupt the whole reason for her trip when there wasn't anything she could do except make plans to come home which we were doing for her.

A lot happened in the next few days. A funeral. Many, many people. More than we expected. More than would show up for my funeral. Jeff was an amazing person. He touched a lot of people. He'd been seriously dating a girl for a while and we listed her in the paper as his fiance. What the hell difference does it make now? Clearly they're not getting married. Listing her as "girlfriend" seemed strange, less than the truth. So we rounded her up. I think her parents were bugged by it but who cares. We created a custom headstone with a guitar on it that was supposed to look like his guitar which was all 90s metal. He loved Metallica. I still have that guitar. It's almost unplayable but I won't get rid of it.

I stayed home for a while - I'm not sure how long - before coming back to school in LA and going back to school. Most people at school knew what had happened and they were cool about it but those first few weeks back in LA were the strangest part of this whole thing. Because my world had a huge hole ripped in it but for everybody else it was the same world it had been a month ago. When we were home for the funeral everything was about Jeff and how awesome he was and how crazy and horrible it was that he was gone. And for me everything was still about that but it wasn't about that for anyone else. Except my girlfriend who was incredible and my close friends who were amazing about all of it. And really everyone was pretty great but there's no right way to be at that point. No right thing to say.

And it's been almost 14 years. Jeff was 18 when he died. The way time is speeding up (it is, you know), in a few blinks he will have been gone longer than he was here. That's crazy. I wanted this post to be not just about his death but about his life. But I guess what I needed to write about first was the end. And maybe that means there will be other posts about his life. I think there will be.

Today is his birthday. Jeffrey William Blanchard was born June 2, 1977 in our house on Hughes Road in Grass Valley, CA under a rainbow my father painted on the wall of our little eat-in kitchen. And today he'd have been 32. And I have no idea what he would have done or who he might have become, but it would have been awesome. I wish I could see it.

Happy birthday, little brother.

to my wife on our anniversary

2009-06-01T13:24:00.001-07:00

Dearest Lisa,

We've been married seven years today.

Seven years ago we stood up at West End Collegiate Church in New York City and pledged our love for each other in front of everyone. And we didn't mention Jesus because I didn't want to and you said that was OK. And then we walked/floated out of the church to the theme from Star Wars on the pipe organ. That ruled.

Seven years has gone so fast. People talk about the seven-year itch, but we cleared that hurdle by living together seven years before the wedding. When we got the seven year itch, we got married.

We've flown by the seat of our pants much of the time. We've trusted the Force, Luke. We weren't sure we wanted kids. Then we decided we did. Owen was the most amazing thing that could ever be. He was incredible and we were happy and we weren't sure we wanted to have more. Then we decided we did. And Nicholas was also the most amazing thing that could ever be. And it shouldn't be possible for two things to be the most amazing anything, but they both are.

Now we look ahead. There will be new adventures. Uncharted territory. Not sure what, exactly, but things will change. They have, they do, and they will. And we'll do it together.

I'm so lucky.

You are my best friend. You're beautiful. You're fiercely loyal. You like almost all the stuff I like (except Twitter.)

You're a great listener. You're an amazing lay (sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Kable). You're an awesome mother to our kids.

We share things. We work together. I take the cans down to the street and you bring them back up. And it works.

I love you so much.

Happy anniversary, my love.

tuesday and everything after

2009-05-26T20:30:00.001-07:00

It's Tuesday.

That means I should write a blog post. Tuesday is blog post day.

Why Tuesday?

Well, weekends are out - I'm usually too busy to write, and everyone's too busy to read. Monday is too "back to work" and Friday is all "weekend's here!" Wednesday is "hump day" and Thursday is "almost Friday!" So, Tuesday.

But yesterday was a holiday, so this feels more like Monday. We had a lovely long weekend. I took Friday off and went to see Star Trek with Lisa. Much fun. We had sushi for lunch and had a nice relaxing time with no kids in tow. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were family days. Hanging out with the kids. Seeing friends. Going to the park. Bailing on plans to go to the beach (sorry, Pete). Putting a bench around our tree in the backyard. Other than a marked shortage of naps for me, it was a wonderful long weekend.

Today the California Supreme Court upheld the ban on same-sex marriage put in place last year by Proposition 8.

I 100% expected this, but it still makes me sad.

I expected it because the court wasn't ruling on the merits of same-sex marriage. They did that already. In spring 2008 when they said it was legal under the state constitution for same-sex couples to marry. So a lot of gay couples got married. Friends of ours. And family. Then some folks with lots of money put an initiative on the ballot last fall and changed the state constitution. So gay marriage was no longer legal. So today the court ruled on whether the process surrounding that ballot initiative was legal, and they said it was, so gay marriage is out. But, since it was legal for a few months, anyone who got married then is still married. Which is nice, I guess. Also, confusing.

This isn't a political blog. It's a parenting blog, basically. Which means it's a family blog. And this is about family. Very close friends and members of my family are gay. Some of them are married. So far this has not caused the destruction of a single straight marriage that I know of. I've seen several marriages fall apart recently. It's terrible to watch friends go through the deconstruction of everything they thought they would be doing for the rest of their lives. It's heartbreaking. And sad. And not one of them blamed gay marriage.

Prop 8 proved what I've believed for a long time: the California ballot initiative process is a disaster. Lawmaking shouldn't be left to the general public. Politicians are far from perfect, but we elect and pay them to do a job: make laws. We give them that authority and responsibility to understand the implications of the laws they make and to do the right thing. They screw it up a lot, but it's their job. It's not our job.

Even if you think we should vote on how to spend money or on taxes or bond measures, civil rights should not be subject to majority rule. The very concept of civil rights hinges on protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. If left to voter approval, we'd still have racial segregation in certain parts of the country. There are many more persuasive arguments for gay marriage than any I could make. I doubt I'm going to change anyone's mind. Sadly, I'm not sure minds can be changed on this issue. I hope I'm wrong. Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love. We need our leaders to lead. This shouldn't be about what people think. It's about what's right.

So, I'm disappointed in California, the only place I've ever lived.

But Star Trek was cool. So there's that.

sublime, ridiculous

2009-05-20T21:52:00.001-07:00

I saw two performances yesterday that were as far apart as they could possibly be in almost every way.

First I watched my almost-four-year-old son Owen sing and dance and play and yawn and smile and wave his way through his preschool music concert. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen. I don't know if anyone whose kid wasn't in it would agree, but for me it was amazing.

Then last night I watched the almost-but-not-quite season finale of American Idol. It was horrible. Mr. Lady summed up many of the ways it was horrible quite well in this MamaPop review, so I won't rehash all of that. I just want to explain how seeing these two things in one day made my head hurt and my heart ache, not necessarily in that order. It was everything that's amazing and wonderful about music held up against everything that's wrong with the music industry.

First, why is there music? I think because of how it makes us feel. Good, bad, happy, sad, excited, scared. Music triggers emotions. It's both personal and communal. You can experience music alone, and it can be fantastic, and then there's this other thing that happens when you're part of a group hearing the same piece of music together. It can transcend the individual experience. It's not always better, but it definitely has the capacity to be more, certainly different.

Watching Owen and his schoolmates perform was the second thing - the community experience, and it rocked. We were all there living in this amazing moment of musical expression and togetherness. The music was all right, but the connection between the performers (our kids) and the audience (we parents) was powerful. It felt really good. We were happy to see our kids up there, and nervous for them to do well and have fun and not be freaked out, and overwhelmed by how they're growing up and what it all means and we're all feeling all this together. And it was awe inspiring. It inspired awe.

Then there was American Idol. This thing costs millions of dollars. It's tarted up like a showgirl in Vegas, and many millions of people are watching it on TV. It's down to two guys after months of basically weekly auditions, watching their fellow performers fall one by one around them. And they're up there jumping through vocal hoops yet again for the judges and the audience and the cameras. And then they bring out a quasi-established guest "star" and she sings some crappy song as a "big finish" and you know what? It sucked. Not them, really. They're ok. Pretty good, to be fair. They can sing, each has his thing, and they've clearly been working their asses off and they're basically pretty good. But what they're doing up there is the exact opposite of what music should be. It's all showing off and trying to create a personna and nailing some kind of style. It isn't about communicating. It isn't about sharing. It's purely commercial. It's sales. It's which of these guys will sell more songs/albums/tickets/t-shirts/action figures. That might not be what it's about for all the people watching, exactly, but that's what's it's actually about.

And I think about Owen up there creating this amazing experience for a few people in a room through music. And I think that is what music is really for. And I struggle to work out how to fold music into my sons' lives in a way that makes them cherish that. The community, the feelings, the making of music. While rejecting the artifice and glitz and bullshit that is American Idol.

As I listened to "No Boundaries," I longed for "Goodbye Now and Thank You."

Edit: I just realized this is my 10th post on this blog. Hurray for round numbers! Now, let's see if this one goes to 11.

kid's eye view

2009-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Owen loves taking pictures. Lately he loves taking pictures with my phone. We bought a new digital camera recently and offered Owen our perfectly good but somewhat older one. He wants nothing to do with it. He wants my phone. Of course, when not being used as a camera, my phone also doubles as a lightsaber, so can you blame him really?

Here are a few of the shots Owen took this weekend.

Starbucks with Dad

Playdate

Little brother's snacks

Little brother

Little brother!!!

Feet

mother's day 2009

2009-05-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

Owen picked his own gift for his mom this Mother's Day. He's almost 4, and was excited about a secret mission with Dad to pick out a surprise for Mom. I tried to drive home how we shouldn't tell Mommy what we were getting her because we wanted it to be a surprise on Mother's Day. Any guesses how that went?

If you haven't known many 4-year olds, you may not realize that a gift chosen by a 4-year old is really a gift FOR said 4-year old, cleverly disguised as being for someone else. This works especially well when the recipient is a member of the same household, as it gives the 4-year old unfettered access to said gift after it's given. 4-year olds are adorable, charming, and unequivocally selfish, especially when it comes to presents. Since getting a Transformers toy (Optimus Prime, if you're keeping score) for Christmas, Owen's been intent on acquiring additional Transformers for ~~himself~~ the rest of the family. I got Megatron for my birthday, he wants to get Bumblebee for his brother "when he's a little bigger" (he's 11 months) and has been saying Mommy should have Prowl. So that's pretty much what Lisa expected for Mother's Day from Owen. Every mother's dream.

So I was pretty excited when we got to Target and spotted something else he'd wanted to get "for her" that hadn't come up for a while. She wouldn't expect this, so we might actually have a shot at surprising her. Though still basically a bowling ball with "Homer" written on it, it did have a slightly better chance of being something Mommy would even have fun with than a Transformer. After getting it gift wrapped at Paper. stopping so Owen could pee (and Daddy could pick up a case of wine) at Colorado Wine Company, and picking up lunch at The Coffee Table, we headed home.

We sat down at the table to eat. Owen and I had worked out a plan to leave the presents in the car until tomorrow, so Lisa could open them and be surprised on Mother's Day. Owen seemed cool with this, but when she asked him if he'd had fun on our adventure, it took abut 10 seconds before he chimed in with "I can't tell you what we got for you, but when you open it you'll see it's the Mace Windu one." We smiled at each other and started laughing. Mommy knows her Star Wars characters. Element of surprise, gone. Cat, say goodbye to bag.

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. Hope you like your lightsaber.

p.s. Mommy will also be getting something from Daddy, something which is actually for her and which I think she'll like quite a lot.

will walk for shoes

2009-05-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to share some video of Nicholas' early bipedal adventures. This video is from yesterday and I swear as of today he's talking twice as far. He has on fear, which is very different from Owen at that age, who was very cautious.

Speaking of Owen, notice him adjusting a scarf on the blue alien riding creature he calls Cloudy. He may be a budding fashion designer.

keeping our kids safe

2009-05-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

A friend (who is currently childless, incidentally) sent me this link: Stop worrying about your children! Maybe she thinks I worry too much? It's an article on Salon.com by Katharine Mieszkowski, profiling Lenore Skenazy. Here's the summary:

Kids today are just as safe as they were in the '70s, says "Free-Range Kids" author Lenore Skenazy, and what's really distressing is an alarmist culture that refuses to let them grow up.

I tweeted this link (that's twitterspeak. if confused, see this post) and set off a really active and passionate discussion about how best to keep our kids safe.

What we all seemed to agree on was this: we must strike a balance between raising our kids in a bubble and letting them run wild without constraint. But the space between those two extremes is vast, and enough to leave this parent scratching his bald head wondering what to do.

I don't know the answer, but of course I have some thoughts. Here are a few that came up during the discussion, and after.

I had a lot of freedom as a kid, and spent a lot of time hanging out unsupervised with my friends. My parents worked when I was young. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I started getting myself to and home from school on my own, but I think it was around 10. Well before that I was riding my bike or walking all over the place with my parents not really knowing where I was.

My wife grew up in New York City. She was riding buses alone by age 8 and subways by 11. This was when the crime rate in NYC was much higher than it is today (she'd rather I didn't say EXACTLY when this was), yet many people who read the article thought it was crazy for her to let her 9-yr old ride the train alone.

The subject of sex offenders came up. Are we better off knowing about registered sex offenders in our neighborhoods? At least the ones that have been a) convicted and b) honest about their current location? It is probably better to know than not know, but it's also hard to know exactly what to do with the information. I also suspect it's more important to teach our children how to behave with people they don't know (and those they do) than it is to keep a constant watch on this house or that apartment building.

I want to be logical and level headed about how I raise my children. But I'm terrified that anything bad might happen to them, and want to do whatever I can to prevent that. At the same time, I want them to be self-reliant, independent, and not live in fear.

And that's really the biggest issue here: fear. I think we're much more afraid of all the horrible things that might happen now than our parents were, yet I think the chances of those things happening are generally no higher. In some cases they're actually lower. But what are odds when it's your own kids in question? The chances of getting attacked by a shark are ridiculously low. They're even lower if you never go in the ocean.

Are we more realistic and better educated about the dangers of life, and protecting our kids accordingly? Or are we irrationally influenced by the scare tactics of the media (swine flu, anyone?) into sheltering our kids beyond reason?

I don't know the answer. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please comment.

Edit: After I posted this last night I spotted this story about a mom in New York who spent the night in jail after dropping her kids on the side of the road for misbehaving in the car. It reminds me that in addition to the moral, ethical, and just general right-minded parenting questions this issue raises, there are also legal issues to consider. Jeez, as if we didn't have enough to worry about!

old school

2009-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Owen is already learning you can't go home again, even if he doesn't understand that yet.

We've had pretty good child care luck. When Owen was born in 2005, Lisa took seven months off.

(Before you get all excited and start applying for her job, this was seven months without pay. Lisa's an opera stage manager who gets contracted per show. So basically she took no contracts for seven months. So didn't get paid. So we lived on one income, which was not the most fun thing ever, but that's not what this is about.)

As I was saying, we've been lucky. Lisa stayed home longer than many can, and the single income thing didn't kill us

(Although I'm not super excited we may be doing it again soon. And no, Lisa is not pregnant.)

When she did go back our moms each came to help for several weeks.

(Which also didn't kill us, though in some ways came closer.)

And with Lisa's sporadic work schedule and piecing together babysitters here and there (that sounds like we dismembered them. we didn't) we didn't put Owen in daycare until he was over a year old. Having seen many friends hand their kids off to infant care at 6 weeks, we were happy we could wait, and Owen thrived (and continues to, thankfully).

When the time did arrive to start him in daycare, we found a place close to where we work in Downtown LA that we were really happy with most of the time he was there. When we did have issues, they addressed them (mostly. took way too long to get me a new keycard for the security gate.). Their hours were RIDICULOUSLY convenient (6am - 6:30pm. That is not a typo.). The location worked well for us (and was right near the train station which Owen loved). The director and staff were friendly and caring, and the teachers Owen had really seemed to love the kids and what they were doing. Oh, and it was cheaper than almost everyone else I knew was paying. I still don't really know why, but I'm not complaining.

This is the Old School.

(We've always called it school with Owen, even when it was really just daycare. Also, I feel strange posting the name of the place, but if you're in LA and interested email me and I'll share. If you still want the info by the end of this post.)

Owen LOVED the Old School. Once he got over being left somewhere besides home, and apart from the inevitable tough days now and then, he loved it. He made friends before we knew he was old enough to HAVE friends. It was a strange experience visiting friends whose daughter was in his class and seeing they had something going on which had nothing to do with us or time they'd spent together while we were around. They were tight, and that happened all on their time, not ours. He loved his teachers, and often he didn't want to leave when one of us showed up to take him home. How could our house compete with all these toys, kids, and a playground right outside? We saw his social skills blossom, and get this - they basically potty trained our kid for us. No kidding, one day they were like, "start sending him in underwear, he's ready." I felt like tipping them.

Then we got pregnant with Nicholas.

(Clearly, it was my wife who actually got pregnant, but we're a team, so I say "we got pregnant" even though I realize she is the one with the uterus and did all the actual gestating and pushing the baby out and it makes me sound like kind of a new age parenting hippie to say "we got pregnant" but there I said it so whatever. Again, this is not what this is about.)

When we started contemplating how to handle the logistics of a second child, we decided two things: We were getting a nanny, and we were moving Owen to a school closer to home. We'll call this the New School.

The New School is four blocks from our house (Old School: 10 miles). The New School has been lauded by friends since before we had kids as the best thing that ever happened to their kids. It's only slightly more expensive. Having Owen at the New School would allow the nanny to pickup and dropoff (Car Talk, anyone?), and meant he'd be in school with neighborhood kids, some of whom might end up his classmates for years. Also, as Kindergarten started to loom, we wanted him to have a slightly more academic atmosphere than the Old School provided. Theirs was basically structured play, with crafts and stories and circle time, which is great for little ones, but lacked the beginning reading and math we think is important to at least start introducing somewhere around age three.

(This makes it sound like we've spent much more time thinking about educational theory and approach than we have. We basically play this thing by ear and try and do what Owen's ready for. Honestly, the way notes home from his teachers at the Old School were spelled, I was not sure I wanted them teaching my kid to read, sweet and well meaning as they were. Also (and this probably bothers me the classically trained musician more than most), his teachers could not sing. I don't mean they didn't have beautiful voices. I mean they couldn't carry a tune in a fucking bucket. Owen still has trouble matching pitch and I blame them. We sang to the kid, but they had many more waking hours with him in those early days, and how the hell can a kid learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when it sounds like there are only maybe 3 1/2 notes in the song and their relationships to each other are entirely arbitrary and vary from one verse to the next? Does that song even have verses? Whatever, you get the point. And again, this is not what this is about.)

So we decided to move Owen to the New School. We thought a lot about timing this move. Knowing he liked his Old School, we didn't want him to associate leaving there with the arrival of the baby (fucking baby you came and I had to change schools and I hate you!), so we decided to wait and move him several months after Nicholas was born, while Lisa was still off work (she couldn't take quite as much time off with #2, further reason why we went with the nanny option). We actually made the switch while out of town on vacation, so when we got home, Owen started in the New School. If he were older I think we'd have wanted him to have a chance to say goodbye, but at 3 we just thought that wouldn't make sense to him. He'd probably think we were saying goodbye for the day and coming back tomorrow.

The good news is I think we succeeded in making the school move not about the baby. Owen loves his brother and has never connected his arrival with changing schools, that we know of. That said, the school move was a little rough at first. The first few days were great. He was all caught up in the novelty of the new school and the differentness of it all. We naively thought we were home free. But about a week later we heard:

"When can I go back to my Old School?"

My heart sank. Because of course he couldn't go back. We'd structured our lives around him being close to home, not to mention paid money to the New School and given up his spot at the Old School. It was time to move on, but how do you tell that to a 3-yr old? We told him the New School was his school now, and he was going to keep going there. Thing is, I wanted him to WANT his New School, and by extension to have fond memories of his Old School without actually wanting to go back there again. Which is totally unrealistic, especially since I also have my moments of pining for my past. And I'm 35 - he's 3.5. I'm a whole power of 10 older than him.

But those moments pass, and before long, he did get past it. Mostly. Pretty soon he wasn't asking about his Old School anymore, and was really having fun at his new school. He made friends, he likes his teachers, he's learning all kinds of cool stuff. And the logistics are working out great and we're really happy about the move.

But now and then, it comes up. We see someone from the Old School - at a birthday party, playdate, etc. - and he asks about going back. But the more time that's passed, the more his Old School isn't really the place he knew anymore. Almost all of his friends have moved on. Most of the teachers we knew and liked are no longer there. And, of course, he's not the same kid he was, either.

And maybe that's the hardest thing to accept.

He's changing.

And it's all good. It's what's supposed to happen. He's growing up. And that is both the best and the hardest thing to watch. He's the same sweet funny cuddly charming kid, but at the same time, he's not. He's different every day. And that is, as much as anything, why none of us can ever go home again. Because not only is home not the place it was when we left, but neither are we the people we were then. We change. And that's what's supposed to happen, but sometimes we think back and sigh a little about who we were, and will never be again. At least, Owen and I do.

my wife thinks twitter is weird

2009-04-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Public Service Announcement: This is where I start saying fuck on my blog. This will likely continue. You've been warned.

I ~~am obsessed with~~ like Twitter. Lisa thinks it's weird. Being honest, I thought Twitter was weird too before I figured out why it rules and ~~became obsessed~~ got into it.

I've been on Twitter almost a year, but most of that time didn't count because ~~I didn't know what I was doing~~ Twitter hadn't gotten cool yet. My brother suggested I join. He's techie and knows stuff so I thought sure, I'll try it. In the beginning I didn't get it. But once I figured some things out it got much cooler. Here are a few errors I made when I started on Twitter. I share them so that you may avoid them and learn from my mistakes. I'm a giver.

My 1st Twitter error: Tweeting (that's the verb for posting updates on Twitter) exactly what Twitter asks you to tweet, "What are you doing?" The lesson? No one give a fuck what you're doing most of the time. Be selective. Be interesting.

My 2nd Twitter error: Using it only one-way. I posted status updates mostly via instant message. This is like tossing messages over a wall to a crowd you can neither see nor hear. This is lame. Don't do this. Lesson? Twitter is a conversation. Read more than you tweet. Respond to others. Interact.

My 3rd Twitter error: Using Twitter like Facebook. At first I only followed (that's what it's called when you read what someone else tweets) people I already knew. It seemed weird to follow people I didn't know. What the fuck did I care what THEY were doing? The problem with this is very few people I knew were on Twitter, and most of them didn't tweet very much. So my Twitter feed (the stuff I saw going by on Twitter) was kind of dead. Lesson? Follow interesting people. And don't be afraid to unfollow (stop following) people who aren't interesting or who piss you off. Who has time for that shit?

With all these things working against me, I lost interest in Twitter.

About this time I started reading blogs. Mostly mommy and daddy blogs. I'll write more later about my journey into the blogosphere (how insidery and annoying is that word?). Reading these blogs, I discovered a lot of the bloggers I was reading were on Twitter. So I followed a few. And once I got over being annoyed about them constantly plugging their blogs (which of course I now also do), this was the beginning of ~~my obsession~~ what got me interested again, for real this time.

Here's something I discovered about blogs and Twitter - both are a conversation. At their best they're interactive. Comment on blogs. Respond to tweets. There are exceptions. Some bloggers and Twitterfolk (I use this because I hate the term tweeps, which many use to describe people on Twitter. I'm not a fucking tweep. I am Twitterfolk.) are funny one-way. They say stuff that makes me laugh, and that's enough. @badbanana is a great example:

Now that's funny. But much as I love me some @badbanana, he's not what got me hooked. What got me hooked was conversations. Conversations in 140 characters or less with people. Interesting people, funny people, insightful people. People with questions I had answers to, and answers to my questions. Twitter is like a massive water cooler conversation. It's the ham radio of our era. You can decide who you want to talk to, how often, and when.

And this is where Lisa starts thinking it's weird. I've made friends. Most of these friends I've never met in person. And I follow them on Twitter and I read their blogs and I know things about some of them I don't know about people I know IRL (In Real Life. That's more Twitterspeak. Or maybe it's blogspeak. Not sure.).

Her thinking it's weird could also have something to do with me tweeting during dinner. Maybe I should knock that off.

EDIT: For some rather more coherent and potentially useful tips on using Twitter, check out Matt Singley's post on 5 Ways to Follow Good People on Twitter.

do not underestimate the power of the tummy

2009-04-18T11:17:00.001-07:00

Owen is obsessed with Star Wars.

Owen is 3 3/4 (he'll correct you if you say he's 3 1/2), and obsessed with Star Wars. He's probably too young for this fairly violent (and completely awesome) series of films (and cartoons - did you know there were cartoons?!). But we love it, and thought he would love it, and he does, so yahtzee! The thing is, I couldn't take much more Diego. Or the Wiggles, oh my god the Wiggles. If you've managed to avoid this particular Australian import, count yourself extremely lucky. I thought we were so clever to have kept Barney out of the house, then the Wiggles flanked us and moved in. Clever Wiggles. Anyway, Owen has now seen all six Star Wars films, the Clone Wars animated feature, and many episodes of the Clone Wars animated TV show. He owns three very realistic, battery operated lightsabers, complete with lights and sounds, and has played Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga on PlayStation3. He's definitely too young for THAT. We're horrible parents.

But that's not the point. The point is, he's most obsessed with particular aspects of Star Wars. Much to my wife's chagrin ("I thought I had more time!") his fixation is primarily on the female characters who aren't wearing a lot of clothing. This includes Leia in the early scenes of Return of the Jedi, Padme Amidala after the arena scene in Attack of the Clones, and Asohka (Anakin's padowan learner) in Clone Wars. All have bare midriffs, shoulders, legs - you get the idea. He also digs Jedi and lightsabers, but likes them best if they are defending (or wielded by) scantily clad females. We think questions about whether he might be gay are pretty much answered.

When Owen wants to watch Star Wars, he usually asks by saying something like, "I want to watch Star Wars, where Princess Leia gets captured by Jabba, and has a tummy." Having a tummy means her tummy is bare. When he sees someone with their belly showing he asks "Why does she have a tummy?" When he isn't wearing shoes and doesn't want to walk on something without them, he'll object, "But I have feet!" We were driving one day and talking about the beach, and how he wouldn't need shoes and could run around with bare feet. From the back seat: "Silly Daddy, not bear feet, KID feet!" So it's just feet. And tummies. So back to that.

The tummy fixation isn't new. He will consistently notice and comment on anyone with a bare belly. He's into observing and pointing out body parts, and tummies are special, I suspect because they're less often spotted than say, heads. Visiting a local motorcycle shop with my stepdad, Owen spotted a poster of a woman in a bikini, leaning suggestively against a motorcycle. He took inventory: "She has legs, and she has a tummy, and she has those, and she has arms ..." That was a few months ago. By now I think he knows what "those" are called (his baby brother is breastfeeding, after all). He's nothing if not observant.

If you aren't already, you should be reading Tanis Miller's blog, Attack of the Redneck Mommy. She's funny, and smart, and Canadian, and often blogs about her boobs. What more do you want? Anyway, I follow her on Twitter and had her avatar up on my screen when Owen walked by. He stopped and looked at the picture for a bit, and then in a slightly shy but impishly smiling way said, "Why isn't she wearing a shirt?"

I think she might be, you just can't see it in the picture.

(Impish smile) "She looks like she's ... captured."

I told Tanis about Owen's comment. She says this is why she'll never change her avatar - according to her, her real photo? So not captured. I suspect we may have planted the seeds for a rich sexual fantasy life for our not-yet-four-year old once he's a bit (read: a LOT) older. I also suspect Redneck Mommy would be proud if that's true.

So, that brings us back to Star Wars, doesn't it? I'm king of the segue.

As I mentioned, in addition to the mostly naked women of Star Wars, Owen likes the Jedi. He wants to be a Jedi when he grows up. He holds out his hand and screws up his face and wonders why no people or objects move around the room from his powers. It's awesome and a little heartbreaking. I've given him no reason to think he can't be a Jedi when he grows up. I hope he never stops believing he can. As Yoda said about not believing, "That is why you fail."

Star Wars creeps into almost every conversation now. Last week Owen asked, "What kind of car does mommy have?" A Honda.

"What kind of car does daddy have?" A Toyota.

"I like daddy's car better ... because it has Yoda in it."

My faith in humanity bolstered, I now think introducing him to Star Wars was a pretty good idea. We're awesome parents.

elmo vs. the easter bunny

2009-04-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Some giant furry creatures we trust, others we don't. Why is not always clear. Honestly, I would have expected this to go the other way.

The Easter Bunny ... ok.

Elmo, not so much.

stuff that's hard

2009-04-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not good at sticking with stuff that's hard. I tend to start things then not see them through. Here is a list of things I've started and not really finished to my satisfaction.

guitar lessons
bass guitar lessons
voice lessons (yes, I got a degree, but more on that later)
blogging (see how sometimes I try again?)
working out (i'm back on this one, and so far so good)
losing weight (see above)
pyramid schemes (this was a bad idea. it's good I bailed)
writing thank you notes
cleaning up immediately after cooking

I get all fired up about something new. Then days, weeks, or months (ok sometimes a few minutes) go by and I've forgotten about it completely. Blogging is a good example. Last October I discovered a whole bunch of blogs by fellow parents I found inspiring, motivating, funny, and generally awesome. So I thought, hey, I could do THAT. So I started a blog. Because it was free, and because I could. I wrote a few posts. They were pretty lame. I couldn't think of much to write besides "hey, look, I have a blog!" So that petered out after a few weeks.

Today I'm starting again. We'll see how it goes.

I was inspired in part by two amazing people and the unbelievable community of love and support that has grown up around them. They are parents. They blog. They're on Twitter (I'm on Twitter to. @badassdad05. Come find me and say hi.) They're funny and warm and open and generally awesome. They are Heather and Mike Spohr. You can read about them on their blogs The Spohrs Are Multiplying and The Newborn Identity. Be forewarned, it gets pretty sad. Last week they lost their little girl Maddie, 17 months old. Lisa and I went to the memorial service today, and it was beautiful and positive and completely emotionally exhausting. I'm really glad we went, but man it was rough. And I'd never met Maddie. So I can't begin to imagine what her family is experiencing. Well, maybe I can begin to imagine it, but then I really want to stop imagining it because it's horrible.

So, I've decided that if they can stand up at their daughter's funeral and say things that are funny and moving and poignant then I can write a few words now and then. And pick up my guitar more often. And practice songs I don't already know.

We'll see how it goes.