Last year, a bunch of the teachers at my daughter’s school formed a team and participated in Movember. For those of you not familiar, during Movember men around the world grow mustaches in the month of November, to raise money and awareness to fight prostate cancer and other men’s health issues. Â All the kids rallied …
Continue reading 27 Dads, 27 Mustaches – A Movember StoryOur oldest daughter, now 7, asked me a question recently that set me back on my heels. “What’s special about me?” It took me by surprise because she has always been a confident, outgoing kid. The thing about this simple question that made me pause was that she wasn’t fishing for a compliment, she really …
Continue reading Building Your Daughter’s Self-EsteemA while back, I wrote 600 Days Without Solid Sleep. Well after yet another night marked by a 2AM wake-up call, I thought I would run the numbers, and what do you know? A nice round 1000 days! How could I not mark such an auspicious occasion? Pardon me if I appear a bit snarky, …
Continue reading 1000 Sleepless NightsMy mother is one of the strongest people I know. When I was a kid, I idolized my dad. He was the coolest, smartest dad on earth, and I wanted to be just like him. My mom, not so much. Mom and dad got divorced when I was 7 or 8. My mom was a …
Continue reading Happy Father’s Day, MomYesterday was Valentine’s Day, and while Jeff has provided some great ways to avoid disaster today, I wanted to talk about why I didn’t really start caring about it all, until our oldest daughter was born. It’s not that I’m not a romantic, quite the contrary. I think it’s more that, like most men, I …
Continue reading Valentine’s Day Reborn With MeaningWhen something like the recent horrific earthquake in Haiti occurs, parents of young kids are left with deciding how to talk to them about it. I’m not a psychologist, so this isn’t me giving you advice about how you should handle it. For my wife and me though, the simple truth is the only way …
Continue reading Talking Haiti, Death, Tragedy And Hope With A 6 Year OldSince tomorrow is Halloween, and it’s a Saturday, a lot of you will be carving your pumpkins. Please, don’t carve a boring one. We’re Dad-o-matic dads. We don’t carve boring pumpkins. You may think it is difficult to carve a cool pumpkin, but it’s not. Like most things, all you need are the right set …
Continue reading Stop Carving Boring PumpkinsOur youngest daughter turned 20 months old a couple days ago. That’s right, parents of babies celebrate birthdays every month. Not balloons, ponies and clowns celebrating, more a self-congratulatory rejoicing that we dodged another month without a domestic accident or ingesting one of daddy’s golf balls. For most parents, this is a day marked by …
Continue reading 600 Days Without Solid Sleep