Author: Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Jack and Sophie: Baby Buddies in Crime

November 17, 2011 at 9:44 pm , by 

One year.

Jack is currently the only boy in his age/stage group at KinderCare. Since this recently became the case, I have noticed a new dynamic between him and his classmate, Sophie Culpepper. (What a cool name, right?)

Don’t get ahead of me here. This is not a post about Jack’s first daycare crush. We’re not there yet.

It’s becoming the norm now that when I drop off Jack in the morning, he will stand up next to the toy sink, and Sophie will walk up to him. Standing just inches away from his face, she stares at him as if to say, “Good, you’re here now. Entertain me.”

His sigh and blank stare back at her seem to translate: “Hey, I just got here. Give me a minute to see what kind of trouble we can get into today.”

Their “partners-in-crime” relationship is especially funny because of how much they look alike. I instantly think of the cartoon show, Rugrats, where the only obvious difference between Phil and Lil is a hair bow and a dress. In other words, it’s like they are twin brother and sister, who if they were the same gender, would be identical twins.

It somehow helps their buddy status that both Jack and Sophie are currently two of the most popular American names for babies. In 2010, the year they were both born, Sophie (Sophia) was the #1 most popular girl name and Jack was the 13th most popular for boys; for what it’s worth, Jackson/Jaxon was #3.

According their current KinderCare teacher, Ty, the two of them follow each other around and often want whatever toy the other is currently playing with.

So when they’re not making messes together by scattering the neatly placed toys all over the floor, which I’ve been informed they do on a daily basis, they have this assumed sibling rivalry going on.

I love it that at only a year old, Jack is getting a good idea of what it’s like to have to share with someone who is similar in age and personality. Sophie, who was born just a month after him, is his perfect match.

Jill (my wife, in case you’re new to The Dadabase) and I are especially smitten by Sophie. She usually walks up to us to get a hug whenever she sees us. As you can see from the pictures, she is an adorable little girl.

I knew she was officially cool when she started staring at me one day and I responded by making my scary Freddy Krueger face at her: Just like Jack, she instantly laughed. That’s when she won my heart.

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

5 Reasons This Dad Despises MTV’s 16 and Pregnant

November 17, 2011 at 8:37 pm , by 

One year.

“How many train wrecks do we need to see?” -Jack Johnson

In the midst of the recent highly publicized false accusations of 17 year-old Justin Bieber being a dad, I can’t help but keep thinking of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant. I’ve made several random jabs at the show, vaguely proclaiming my passionate hate for it; but I figure today I should explain why exactly I hate 16 and Pregnant more than I loathe Two and Half Men.

1. It glorifies teen pregnancy. Granted, I want no part in casting stones against a teen mom who is willing to keep her child as opposed to aborting him or her. But it’s pretty hard to deny that the producers of the show find ways to make the event girly, using a cutesy diary theme with cartoon drawings and voiceovers from the teen moms.

2. It makes stars and role models out of the teen moms. I personally know a 20 year-old girl who is pregnant with her 2nd child. She had her first child when she was 19; different fathers for both babies and I’m pretty sure she never really loved either of the baby’s fathers. About a year ago I remember her bragging to me: “Maci from 16 and Pregnant was here in Nashville a few weekends ago. Some people said she was at the mall…”.

The fact that it makes headline news when a 16 and Pregnant couple gets arrested unfortunately demonstrates this.

3. It doesn’t prevent teens from having unsafe sex. Sure, I can’t prove this; but I assume that there is some underlying message that the show somehow scares teenagers into being more careful about their actions. I’d say if anything, the show is more likely to promote abortion as 16 and Pregnant goes through great lengths to show how a baby is an inconvenience.

4. It capitalizes on the unfortunate. I personally believe that a lot of these teen moms subconsciously get pregnant on purpose because they are so deprived of love and attention in their lives. They are living a sad story which they are desperate to improve somehow. Like much of reality TV, the show draws in millions of viewers who secretly want to watch a train wreck to make themselves feel better about their own lives.

5. The teen dads are usually awful fathers. Of course they are; they’re still in high school, playing football and hanging out with their loser friends. On the show, the teen dads often admit to their (ex)girlfriend, the mother of their child, that A) they are not in love, B) are only still together because of the baby, and/or C) wish they didn’t have a baby. As if dads didn’t already have a bad rap in the TV world, these guys aren’t helping.

I’m not saying the show should be taken off of the air; the banning of anything is typically the best way to promote it. In fact, with the link below, I’m technically promoting 16 and Pregnant myself. But ultimately, I believe I have shared 5 solid reasons why even the mention of the show makes me cringe.

Is it just me?…

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting, Storytelling

Happy 1st Birthday to My Son, Jack-Man!

November 16, 2011 at 6:18 am , by 

One year old, today!

Exactly a year ago today, after 22 and half hours of “coaching” my wife in labor, which consisted of me proclaiming stock phrases like “Oh look, here’s the head!” for the final three hours of the delivery, along with, “Baby, I’m so proud of you!” my wife finally gave birth to our dark Mexican baby. I will always remember the way he was silently starving for air as soon as the doctor pulled him out. He looked so mad.

Granted, he eventually morphed into the Norwegian little boy we know today as “Jack-Man.”

A few weeks later we moved him to Alabama, suffered mutual unemployment, then singular employment but still couldn’t afford to pay the bills, Parents.com contacted me about switching my daddy blog “Dad from Day One” to their website and so The Dadabase was born, then we moved back to Nashville and got our old jobs back, we had to buy my wife a new (used) car, then tried to move back into our townhouse but realized there was serious water damage that destroyed part of our living room ceiling, and I guess that leads us to where we are today: Finally, we have sense of normalcy that we’ve been desperate for.

And Jack has been along for the ride the whole way through, both oblivious to the chaos and eager for more excitement.

I admit, I don’t exactly know how to act. I mean, everything’s actually going pretty well right now. We’re officially moved back into our home and made it ours again. And I’m nervous to even say it- what if I jinx it?

Wouldn’t this be such an appropriate time to learn, “Surprise! We’re having another baby!” For the record, that is not the case. All I mean is that I’m so accustomed to life being crazy with some kind of constant fiasco, that I almost expect some kind of shocking surprise like that.

Wow, we as parents, have survived our first year! Sure, it’s awesome that our son is now a year old; so cool. But seriously, we not only survived raising him thus far but we made it through a lot of wacko stuff since then.

We as a family have made it through; thank God. Going through a whirlwind year like this has surely left us with unsettled psychological issues that we need to sort out with Jason Seaver (the psychiatrist dad from Growing Pains) but until then, I’ll continue using my writings here on The Dadabase to serve as my own psychiatrist.

Oh yeah, and in the midst of all this, my wife and I both turned 30. What a year to turn 30!

Okay, back to my son… He’s a year old today! Happy Birthday Jack!

Man, I am so in love with him. He’s the best baby/puppy/robot/Ewok/Red Hot Chili Peppers fan/gummy bear I’ve ever had for a son.

I think we’re all gonna be okay.

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Spirituality

The Stress of Getting to Church on Time with Kids

November 14, 2011 at 9:19 pm , by 

Eleven months.

I wonder what it’s like for a family with at least one kid to arrive to church A) on time or even early and B) not get stressed out in the process while C) actually looking put together. Even if it’s a well-crafted illusion, there are families at our church who appear to fit this description. I have a feeling that I’ll never know what it’s like to be them.

We happen to be members of a megachurch in the Nashville area called Brentwood Baptist. I admit, the place is literally the size of a mall. No exaggeration: You could actually drive two SUV’s side by side from one end of the building to the other. Need another comparison? Sometimes it reminds me of the spaceship from the Will Smith movie, Independence Day.

While I can easily see why the idea of a church that monstrous would intimidate a lot of people, the place is a welcoming magnet for newcomers to Nashville. In fact, my wife and I were both attending service there for months before we actually met back in 2006. Instead of feeling out of place in a church that huge, we have always felt its size and diversity has actually helped us both individually and as a married couple find our place.

There is no need to go through the tired routine of why it’s so hard to get to church on time with a kid. If nothing else, it’s just harder to get out of bed on time knowing it’s not a workday. We really have no excuse: Our church has four different services! Even an additional one in Chinese if we ever felt so daring…

My wife and I found an awesome Sunday School class for couples with young kids. It starts at 8 AM. We hardly ever make it, though.

As if our son Jack doesn’t spend enough time in the care of others during the week, it’s difficult to part with him another couple of hours on Sunday. So the reality of it has become this:

Typically we just show up in time for the main service and sit near one of the many corners of the massive hallways where the service is playing on a TV. That way, Jack can run around where there is plenty of space and soft carpet; not to mention plenty of friendly strangers who love to pay him a lot of attention.

Sure, we’d get more out of the service if we took him to our church’s child care, but even if he’s ready for it, we’re not. Besides, I might not have been able to have shot this video of him walking, which first appeared on The Dadabase  Facebook Wall.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, People, Storytelling

6 Things This Dad Got Wrong During Pregnancy

November 12, 2011 at 10:07 pm , by 

Eleven months.

Above photo credit: www.joehendricks.com

Now that my son Jack is just days away from turning a year old, I’m having these flashbacks from when my wife was pregnant with him. I remember how people were constantly asking me about our plans for his delivery and postpartum care. Looking back now, I wish I would just kept my mouth shut.

My wife and I are planners. Sure, so much of life (especially when it comes to parenting!) is unpredictable; but still, we like to be able to take control of little we can in our lives. So we had plans on how Jack would be born and raised. But as John Lennon sang in “Beautiful Boy,” “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” And that is exactly what happened in our case.

Life (our son) happened while we were busy making other plans. Here are the Top 6 plans that didn’t work out:

1) No epidural. We watched The Business of Being Born and wanted to do this thing as naturally as possible. We knew that statistically, a woman who is given an epidural has an increased chance of needing a C-section. So my wife decided (on her own) that she would not get an epidural unless it become absolutely necessarily.

After enduring 17 and a half hours of labor naturally, we were told that if my wife didn’t get an epidural, she would definitely have to have a C-section because she wouldn’t have enough strength to deliver him.

Five hours later, our son was born. In case you’re keeping up with the math, it was a 22 and half hour labor, only five of those hours being drug-induced. Just for the record, I could never have done that! That’s why I was born a man.

2) Breast milk only; no formula.  Jack was born tongue tied, so breast-feeding wasn’t much of an option because he couldn’t latch on properly. We did have his tongue clipped when he was three weeks old, but at that point we just decided to continue pumping and supplemented with Enfamil until he was nine weeks old; at which point we switched him entirely over to formula.

3) That he would be born early or on his due date.  I knew I had to be ready, so I was; as ready as I could be. All that anticipation caused me to actually think he would come out on time. But of course, though he was due on November 11th, he was born five days later on November 16th.

4) Cloth diapers. Yeah, that would have saved us a lot of money. But I guess we’re just not disciplined enough of parents to raise an exclusively cloth diaper wearing baby. They were too bulky, they leaked if they weren’t on just right, and they made Jack smell bad by the end of the day.

5) Co-sleeping. Mainly, Jack just didn’t want to. He fell asleep better in his Pack ‘N Play, so that’s what we let him do. I admit, I’m glad I was wrong about this one. Because it sure is nice that since being seven months old, he has slept 11 hours a night in a separate room down the hall. I love my Jack-Man, but I don’t think my bed is big enough for the both of us.

6) Pacifers. Evidently, Jack thinks that pacifers suck. He experimented with one for a brief amount of time, but ultimately, he couldn’t pretend enough to even care about having it. Granted, he has put his mouth on a whole lot of other stuff, including a closed water bottle, a pumpkin, and his own foot.

In the midst of planning this blog post, Shawn Brook Williams, one of the graphic designers for Comics Buyer’s Guide magazine, sent me a copy of his graphic novel, Five Pounds and Screaming. His comic book style novel covers those subtle and understated moments a dad goes through, from the realization of pregnancy up until the child’s first birthday. So that’s why reading Five Pounds and Screaming was so perfect in writing this post; it conveniently jogged my memory.

I feel that Shawn and I share a very similar perspective and narrative on fatherhood. The book doesn’t cover being a dad in the cliche ways that Eighties sitcoms typically did. His approach is fresh, original, charming, and warmly familiar.

One of the most memorable scenes in the book, for me, is when the protagonist brags to a supermarket cashier, “I’m a dad!” This stood out to me because I remember doing the same thing the first couple of weeks after Jack was born.

From the telling of the family of the pregnancy, to the anxieties of expecting, to the frustrations of breast feeding, to the child’s first birthday party, Five Pounds and Screaming is like an illustrated version of The Dadabase.