Nostalgia

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These Are The Years You Get To Be A Kid

June 6, 2014 at 11:12 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

Back around six years ago when Mommy and I got married, I read a book by John Eldredge called Wild At Heart.

It presents the concept that everyone, at some point in the their life, endures a psychological wound.

That “wound” ultimately ends up defining some people; though for others, it makes them stronger.

I experienced mine a while back. It’s that moment in life where you realize life isn’t actually as innoncent or simple as you thought it was.

The older I get, the more I feel like Hans Solo and less like Luke Skywalker.

Or maybe it’s that I feel more like Darth Vader and less like Hans Solo.

As your dad, there’s a part of me that hopes you never have to experience your wound.

But if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to reach that level of understanding and maturity that is so crucial as you will eventually grow into true adulthood.

For now, though, I hope it’s something that’s far away. These are the years you get to be a kid.

You get to live in an innocent world where part of you still believes dinosaurs still exist and that Grover from Sesame Street might actually be your teacher next week at school, as I keep teasing you about.

As for me, I’ve lived long enough to have to fight off cynicism. I have to fight off being jaded, at times. I have to remind myself to be positive, despite how blessed our lives are.

The concept of working hard to earn a good living is not something you have to think about right now. You get to sleep all night and play all day.

Seriously, how awesome is your life right now?

Let’s keep it that way. But let’s face life together- with all its blessings, its curses, and everything somewhere in between.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

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Family Friendly Road Trip: Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con

June 5, 2014 at 8:51 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

I have learned that there are certain things that are just so much better once a child is introduced to the equation.

Swimming would be a great example. The only times I’ve bothered stepping into a swimming pool in the past 3 and a half years has been because of you.

Having a child has also introduced me to new experiences that I might not have otherwise been exposed to.

When I was invited to attend the Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con, to my surprise, Mommy said she wanted to go too, and of course, we brought you along as well.

Turns out, it was a really good idea to take a 3 and a half year-old little boy who loves Spiderman and Captain America to a place where there would be a lot of people, many of them who were dressed up as Spiderman and Captain America.

So we loaded up the Prius and took the fun drive from Nashville to Atlanta. When you’re in the presence of so many adults dressed in impressive costumes of comic book characters, it’s only natural to want to get your picture made with them.

In fact, I got the feeling that’s part of the culture at Wizard World Comic Atlanta Con: It’s as if there is an unspoken contest going on the whole time in which those who show up in costume are seeing who can get the most “uncostumed” people to ask to get their picture made with him.

And of course, we helped many costumed attendees gain points from us.

In addition to the array of Captain Americas and Spidermen, we also saw many scary looking villains and zombies. The funny thing is, they were some of the friendliest to speak with.

You just went along with it, no matter how scary or creepy; Mommy and I explained to you beforehand that the Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con was kind of like Halloween.

Our road trip proved thatAtlanta is a very friendly and fun place to visit, and this was easy evidence of that.

In fact, Mommy suggested that we go to the Wizard World Comic Con when it comes here to Nashville in September.

Only, we wouldn’t be going as spectators… we’d be going as a family dressed up as comic book characters.

I think Halloween might come early this year for us…

 

Love,

Daddy

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Hungry Hungry Hippos Is A Toy, Not A Game

June 1, 2014 at 11:17 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

Last weekend your Nonna gave you a $20 bill to spend on anything you wanted at any point in the future.

To my surprise, that money actually lasted an entire week!

This past weekend while we visited Atlanta for the Wizard World Comic Con, we discovered there was a Target that basically shared the parking of the Le Meridien where we were staying.

You had been asking me for months now about the classic game, Hungry Hungry Hippos. It just happened to be on sale for $13, compared to its normal price of 20 bucks.

I was amazed that Mommy and I were able to convince you to keep it in the box during the 5 minute journey back up to our 8th floor hotel room.

Going into this, I knew from past experience not to expect you to play by the rules.

Yeah, that would be an understatement this time around.

The blue hippo was your favorite. You manually opened up his month and directly placed the plastic marbles in.

Even still, after the 2nd time of playing Hungry Hungry Hippos mostly the way it was intended, you proclaimed, “I don’t like losing.”

It’s not that you suddenly lost interest in it once you learned how to play. It’s that you decided that Hungry Hungry Hippos is much more fun as a toy.

By the first night in the hotel, Hungry Hungry Hippos became your “bulldozer airplane.” Apparently, when turned upside down, the platform can fly and hover through the air.

Despite that, it seems that the collection of hippos are becoming categorized like stuffed animals:

“Mommy, can I bring Hungry Hungry Hippos to bed with me tonight?”

Even the plastic marbles have another function besides actual game use. You’ve been using them as freight for your Take-n-Play Thomas the Train sets.

It seems like Hungry Hungry Hippos is everything you had hoped it would be…

To a 3 year-old boy, it’s not a game. It’s a toy.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

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With Great Blessings Come Great Responsibility (And Stress!)

May 27, 2014 at 8:12 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

In my extremely limited ability to understand the concept of eternity and life after this, sometimes I subconsciously and erroneously tend to think of Heaven as a place where I could just exist in a state of unconsciousness and it not affect anyone else; void of responsibility or pressure to perform.

Sounds like I’m not the only one in that boat, after reading the comments on the Facebook page for Parents.com when they featured my story, “Daddy’s In His Quiet Place Right Now.”

Many fellow parents (understandably) laughed at the concept of a modern day parent having any escape from the overwhelming pace of life that kicks in once you become a parent.

I used to be extremely optimistic, like all the time.

But those were the days before… responsibility happened.

That was before I was truly feeling the pressure of what life (AKA “the real world”) actually demands from a person.

Of course, I also remember feeling lost, alone, and unfulfilled back when I was still single. Not a coincidence.

That’s because with great blessings come great responsibility; and therefore, stress.

A job, a wife, and child are all blessings. However, I’ve learned to begin equating the word “blessing” with “responsibility.”

Now, before I sound like I’m going off the deep end, I want to balance this with the other side of the story.

Earlier last week, I was at of one of my good friends’ house, hanging out with him on his front porch, while his family was out of town. We talked about how nice it was to be able to “unplug” for brief moments at a time like that.

Then we talked about how if life weren’t this chaotic, and if we as dads and husbands weren’t overloaded with responsibilities like we are, we would go crazy.

Without a regular dose of being stressed out, I get stressed out.

It makes me think of a line from one of my favorite Dave Matthews Band songs, “So Much To Say”:

I say my hell is the closet I’m stuck inside.

If in this exhausted (and limited) state of mind, a seemingly reasonable version of Heaven would be a state of unconsciousness, void of responsibility or accountability, then it makes sense that my concept for understanding hell would be a place where I was conscious, alone and bored out of my mind, with no responsibility or accountability.

I’ve heard the saying, “too blessed to be stressed.” Yeah, I’m not sure I agree with that.

Because the way I see it, if I am stressed, then I am blessed.

Otherwise, I would be searching for a life without responsibility, which is what I had before I had you, Mommy, a full-time job, and two part time jobs.

And back then, I felt incomplete.

These days, I can honestly say I never feel incomplete, or alone, or not needed, or unloved. I say stress is a good thing, if it traces back to responsibility and blessings.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

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Man, I Really Used To Be A Cornball (And Still Might Be!)

May 23, 2014 at 9:26 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

It was three years ago today that with great excitment, I saw my WordPress daddy blog,Dad From Day One, get rebooted  and placed on a much broader stage, asThe Dadabase on Parents.com.

Just for fun, I decided to go back and read the very first official Dadabasepost, entitled, “Welcome To The Dadabase.”

Yeah, about that…

I do think I made some good points in that post, as I made it clear men think differently than women and that one of my objectives was to positively rebrand fatherhood despite all the classic sitcom cliches of idiot dads and husbands.

However, I feel like I was pretty cheesy about it:

I am a guy, so I don’t do “cute.”  I do practical. With the name of this daddy blog, I wanted to allude to the idea that a man’s perspective of parenting is a bit offbeat when compared to the more easily recognizable viewpoint of the beautiful and poetic female mind.  So for you moms out there who wonder what your hubby is really thinking about this whole dad thing, I might be able to shed some light on the subject.  Granted, I’m not claiming to represent all or even most husbands and fathers, but I’m sure I will often hit close to “the dadabase.”

Wow. I must have really thought I was clever or something. Of course, that was back when you were only 6 months old and I was still writing to a social media audience, instead of you directly. That narrative change didn’t occur until your 2nd birthday, which I definitely think improved my writing style as a daddy blogger.

For me, it’s so much more natural and real to write about parenting when it’s to the very kid who is the reason I am a parent; if that makes sense.

I also had to laugh when I read my unofficial disclaimer from my first Dadabase post:

Sometimes, you will totally agree with my opinions and my take on fatherhood- you will appreciate what I have served up that morning for “blogfast” (note to self: copyright the destined-to-be-trendy word, “blogfast”) and you will “like” it on Facebook, and/or Tweet it.  Other times, you may feel I am so quirky that I’m kooky; disagreeing with my “wrong opinion” so much that you throw your shoe at your computer screen.  In either case, I’m still the same guy you either liked or didn’t like the day before.

But here’s the thing. While I see the 2011 version of myself as a bit of a cornball, I am very mindful of the fact that there’s a very decent chance that 3 years from now, I’ll be saying the same thing about the 2014 version of me.

Let’s find out.

 

Love,

Daddy