Somebody is desperately trying to start walking before her birthday party this Saturday. Somebody is also very distracted by the camera. Stick with it. It’s worth the wait.

The Past

Prior to this year, I had a Father’s Day routine. Since my dad’s death in 2005, I would spend an entire week (I called Father’s Week) writing stories of my dad on my other, much messier blog. Because I had that kind of time. Well, I did this twice. I would also watch Big Fish and call a couple friends I have who also lost their fathers. My dad was an enigma of sorts to me with a sordid past that he kept distanced from me for good reason. He was a bookie and a back-room poker dealer until the year he died, so who knows what kind of a grifter he was before I was born. This is why Big Fish reminds me so much of him.

But more to the point, I had decided to forgo watching Big Fish this year – or at least I decided to celebrate my father’s life – on his birthday, freeing up Father’s Day for a new routine. I will also move my Father’s Week to his birthweek. However, I will still do my best to reach out to my friends with deceased fathers on this day every year. It seems weird to do that on my dad’s birthday.

The Present
Obviously, Father’s Day has an entirely new meaning for me, and happily so. I love spending time in the past reminiscing about my dad, but I am a father of my own now. And to that point, I get to finally reap the benefits of this new holiday. And when you’re a stay-at-home dad to a baby who can’t appreciate what Father’s Day means yet, that means a day off. But when you’re married to my wife, who graciously spent all of her first Mother’s Day on the road, driving home from seeing my family, you don’t want to push it. I played my football game in the morning and eventually got to see Man of Steel, which Zach Snyder predictably zacked up, but there were errands I ran in between. So I didn’t get to spend my entire day at the movies doing the theater-hopping-on-one ticket thing that I’ve still never done. Still, this Father’s Day, it felt nice to say “I’m going to the movies” and then actually go to the movies.

The Future
One of these years, my daughter will be able to appreciate what Father’s Day means. And when that day comes, I’ll be happy to spend it with my daughter doing whatever it is she thinks will make me feel special (with mommy’s help of course). I don’t want her thinking that I always want to spend this day – which is only a holiday for me because of her existence – in a dark movie theater by myself with 250 strangers. If she wants to take me to the zoo, I’ll let her take me to the zoo. But until then, I look forward to stocking up on Raisinets and hiding in a dark theater for a couple hours, appreciating myself for the hard work I do the other 364 days of the year. Next year, without Zach Snyder.

I got my first Father’s Day card in the mail Wednesday from my Nana and I honestly didn’t see it coming. Yes, I’m in a show for Father’s Day (maybe you’ve heard?) and already have plans for the day (kinda), but I completely forgot other people know that I’m a dad and I might actually receive recognition as such. Maybe it’s because the CEO’s first birthday is the following Friday and I’m all geared up to receive presents and cards (do babies get cards?) for her that I ceased to remember that I have a day of recognition coming up too, even if I did feel like “Every day is Father’s Day” or some nonsense like that. Which I don’t. At least not enough to turn down a day off.

So it felt good. Not just to get a card of recognition for having inseminated my wife two years ago, and not even because I feel like I’m doing a good job as a dad, but it felt good that I didn’t even see it coming – that I didn’t think so much of my job as a dad that I expected anything. Of course, now that the gate has been opened, I do have some expectations. So the next card might not be met with such reverence as this one. So thanks, Nana, for starting my Father’s Day off on the right foot. You win. I win. Mabel wins. Pretty much everybody wins. Except Jenn. Because she has to take care of Mabel and plan her party while I go hide in a movie theater all day.

Happy Father’s Day to me!

Hello again, fellow surfers of the interseas. I know I mentioned my show, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home already, but what I may not have said is that I demand all of you come to see it. If you cannot, you should buy a ticket anyway. If you tell them you’re not coming, you may get a discount. If not to hear a touching, funny story about a former day camp director quitting his job to hang with his daughter full-time, then to see this picture projected on the screen behind me the whole time.

It will totally be worth it. Check out more info and buy your tickets at this website. Thanks and I’ll see you all there.

Hey friends and random dad blogging fans (you people are my favorite!). Sorry about the recent hiatus. I will explain that at a slightly later time.

But now is not that time. Now is the time to promote a show I will be in called “Wait Till Your Father Gets Home” this Saturday 6/15 (Father’s Day Eve) in DC. It’s a storytelling show with 8 dads telling live true stories about their kids. The stories range in scope from funny to moving, but they’re all worth the price of admission.

This show has definitely taken the cake as far as production value. There will be photos and videos of our kids on stage, an upright bassist and free massages for the first 50 people (that one was a lie). I will be telling the story of how I came to be a stay-at-home dad and life after that decision. Just to give you a taste, here’s a line from my story.

• “And all this is totally worth it when we go to pick up my wife at the Metro and after being away from her for 11 hours, our daughter will see my wife, wave her hands very excitedly and say “Da-da!”

That’s enough of a taste. Come out Saturday at either 7pm or 9pm to see the rest of it along with 7 other awesome stories about what it means and what it takes to be a dad these days.

Check out the Event Website for more details. Or the facebook event, if you’re into that kind of thing.

I will be taking a week or so off from writing for reasons I’ll explain later. In the meantime, here’s a picture of my beautiful daughter sleeping peacefully.

My beautiful and brilliant daughter has successfully navigated the first 11 months of her life, often times in spite of her full-time caretaker. Thankfully, skulls are pretty solid. Now only one month sits between her and the Big 0-1. We’re looking forward to her first birthday party so she can see all the older kids and so mommy and daddy can figure out all the stuff that isn’t toddler-proofed yet.

Listen up, pal! I don’t care who you know or how long you drove or what your dad does to put food in your whiny little mouth. You’re not on the list. And if you’re not on the list, you’re not gettin in. Capisce? Comprende? Yo ablo anglais? No list-o!

As all new parents do, I live daily with the confidence that something I do either directly or indirectly will result in my daughter’s brain damage. In 35 years, she’ll be working third shift at the Gas N Go or maybe only become the first female vice-president and I’ll be able to pinpoint the exact day that either by neglect or gross recklessness, I caused her brain damage. And I’ll think to myself – or more likely say out loud to a therapist – “Man, Mabel really could have been something if only it wasn’t for _____.”

Maybe I was tweeting and didn’t realize she could climb the stairs yet. Maybe I underestimated my strength during a round of superbaby. Or maybe all that dice I had been playing, leaving her on the bed while refilling her bottle in the sink, would finally come up seven.

For the uninitiated, the baby dive bomb is one of the biggest motivating factors behind the need to sleep train babies. Even if you like having your baby sleep with you, it becomes dangerous once they know how to crawl. I was no longer able to sleep in my own bed if she was in there for fear that she’d wake up and find her way to the end of the bed and lemming herself off, filling in that blank. I started to sleep – or at least lay down – in the shape of an “L” so that between me, my wife and the headboard, we had all four sides covered. But then I just lay awake uncomfortably contorted in the shape of an L. And putting the mattress on the ground is such a pain on an adult’s back, getting up and down, often while cleaning and jerking 20 pounds (that sounded a lot dirtier than I meant it to). Not to mention, it doesn’t solve the problem, it only lessens the maximum amount of brain damage that could occur. It’s not like babies know how to get off mattresses instinctively. Our mattress is now on the floor and just the other night, Mabel crawled right off without breaking stride like an Oompa Loompa. One that lands on her head. Thankfully, it’s now only an 11 inch drop and she didn’t lose consciousness, which is my new barometer of how guilty I should feel and whether or not I should take her to the hospital. But let me tell you why our mattress is on the ground.

A few months ago, I was refilling Mabel’s bottle and since she started crawling, I’d run out to check on her after every step. Rinse the bottle, check. Fill up with 2 ounces of water, check. Add formula, check. Well, I had put Mabel in a makeshift baby jail, made out of pillows and blankets I stuffed around her, so I had at least the requisite 30 seconds to do all those steps uninterrupted. When I finished and walked out of the bathroom, I found Mabel on the far edge of the bed, reaching for my night stand. How the hell did she break out of pillow jail? That’s when I thought to myself “This is it. This is the brain damage.” I am quite proud of the dive that I made to grab her, dropping whatever it was that I was carrying without thinking. I had always hoped that would be my reaction in this situation, but I know on occasions when I’ve REALLY needed to swerve out of the way of a car that doesn’t know the rules of left-turning etiquette, I’m reluctant to drop my McFlurry first. Suffice to say, I got to her mere microseconds before the brain damage. This time.

Since then, I developed a little makeshift contraption out of my belt and a 10-pound weight to temporarily prevent the baby dive bomb. I don’t recommend using it for longer than a minute or two, and anything under 10 pounds is just kind of asking for it, but it should keep your baby from those pesky edges of the bed long enough for you to make her a bottle of formula. You can try to shower if you want, but don’t complain to me when he or she gets the brain damage because of a bad knot or a Herculean baby effort. There are therapists for that.

 

What’s the point of it all? You wake up, poop, nap, eat, poop, nap, eat, sleep and do it all again. What does it all mean? What is my purpose? Why can’t I go outside? Where do cats come from? Why can’t I walk already? I’m tired.