Storytelling

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

Dear Jack: The Transition From The Dadabase To Family Friendly Daddy Blog

3 years, 7 months.

Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Dear Jack,

Well, it’s been a week since I finally revealed to you that for the past 3 years, I had been the officially daddy blogger of Parents.com.

I wanted to make sure that in the midst of enlarging my blogging territory by sharing new parenting infographics, reviewing cars, and writing about life as a plant-based family here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog, that I don’t neglect continuing my letters to you.

(To differentiate my letters to you from my other posts, I will be including “Dear Jack” in the title of them.)

Because to me, that’s the heart of what I do as a daddy blogger. In other words, you personally are the heart of what I do as a writer.

Right now I’m halfway through transferring my thousand Dadabase posts over toFamily Friendly Daddy Blog.

Sure, I could Google some easy way to transfer it all over at once, but somehow that’s not tempting to me.

Evidently, it’s therapeutic for me to be forced to read through every single one of my thousand or so daddy blog posts for the past 3 years, remembering the stories our family has lived through; making us who we are today.

Seriously…

Go back to the year 2012 and see how horribly cheesy (!) I was back then. I really must have thought I was some cool 80s game show host or something.

The clothes, the hair, the corny catch-phrases.

But I understand, that’s how life is: I had to live through these experiences to become who I am today.

Looking back, it’s like I had to play this character I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable playing, but I only thought I felt comfortable at the time.

However, now, I truly am comfortable in my life’s roles.

It took 3 years of writing for Parents.com to graduate to this version of myself. I’m grateful Parents.com put up with a cornball like me for 3 years!

As for where we are now, I feel good.

I feel this change to Family Friendly Daddy Blog was important for us. The timing is right.

I’m just as curious as you are to see where this takes us, but I know this- wherever we go, we’re going to have a great time together.

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

Thanks And Goodbye From The Dadabase: The Series Finale

June 27, 2014 at 12:06 am , by

dadabase

3 years, 7 months.

Dear Jack,

There is something I have never explained to you this whole time. But today, I officially “break the 4th wall”…

Part of this will be a surprise to you and part of it will be a surprise to the audience.

I’ll start with the part that is a surprise to you: There is an audience.

In fact, just a few hours before publishing this post, I posted this picture telling them about this final letter to you.

Here are some of their responses:

Jack, for the past three years, since May 2011, I have been an independently contracted writer for the website for Parents magazine.

The Dadabase has served as the official “daddy blog” for Parents.com this whole time. In other words, your life (and mine) up to this point has been in front of a “live audience”.

And now, the surprise for the audience reading this final Dadabase letter today…

This is the last Dadabase post there will ever be.

I am going back to my original website which I have operated since 2009, now rebooted as “Family Friendly Daddy Blog.” All month, I have been transitioning in preparation for the switch.

While I still will be writing weekly letters to you, there will also be a much stronger emphasis on reviewing things from a “family friendly” perspective.

The direction of The Dadabase has, by default, been heading in that direction for a while now.

I’ve now lost count of how many vehicles I have reviewed now, from a “family friendly” perpsective.

And there’s no denying that our plant-based lifestyle is something I enjoy sharing with people. So I will bereviewing vegan friendly food products and recipes as well.

But it’s not just about cars and food.

I also will be reviewing movies and toys and even travel destinations, all from… you guessed it… a “family friendly” perspective.

As a way to celebrate this past 3 years, I have collected these videos of you, which I think do a good job of showing your life, as documented, here on The Dadabase.

I am so grateful and thankful for the staff of Parents.com choosing me to begin with to be their official daddy blogger; not to mention, for keeping me around through all the learning curves I’ve been taught by immersion.

Now with 1,018 posts published since 2011 on their site, the folks at Parents.com have given me major credibility to my “aspirations to be a writer” from when I started regularly blogging back in 2005.

While today definitely serves as an ending, the series finale, it also serves as the doorway to where our family goes from here.

This is simply the last Dadabase post, not the last post from Nick Shell to his son. I’ve got plenty more to say as a writer and as a parent!

Our family will continue living our lives, documented in blog form as I’ve been doing since the day Mommy and I went public with her being pregnant with you: at Family Friendly Daddy Blog.

For those following me on The Dadabase’s Facebook page, I plan to transition the name over within the next couple of weeks once readers are used to the name change.

So now that we’ve had a chance to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come in these past three years since May 2011, let’s look to where we are going at this point…

Which again, in case you missed it, our family’s story continues at Family Friendly Daddy Blog. Starting…right now!

 

Love,

Daddy

 

P.S. Thanks for reading! Our story is far from over…

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

I Found A Trail And At The End Was You

June 26, 2014 at 11:11 pm , by

3 years, 7 months.

Dear Jack,

While on our summer annual vacation in Lake Tahoe this past week, we stayed at a resort called The Village at Squaw Valley; where they held the 1960 Olympics.

I’ve never been an athlete or even into watching organized sports. I mountain bike and run- those are my weekly physical activities.

And whenever I get the chance, I love to hike!

It just so happens that where we stayed was surrounded by huge, hikeable mountains. So for a couple of mornings, your 19 year-old cousin Matt and I decided to scale the face of the mountains; along the way of the ski lifts. Sure, there were service roads and “official” trails, but for us, they simply served as landmarks for us.

As you can see, we helped save a baby snake from most likely being soon run over by a service vehicle. We even hiked high enough to touch the snow at the top of the mountain; as well as to the very “spaceshippy” ski lift operation building.

After you heard about all the excitement, you began asking me, “Daddy, can I go on a hike with you? Can we find a trail?”

Granted, there were no trails appropriate for a 3 and a half year-old little boy, but you and I found some anyway.

One included the entryway to a restaurant called Plumpjack’s, which had a cool waterfall and a bridge. There was also a “spaceship” at the base of the mountain that you and I were able to check out.

We also “hiked” along the stone pathway leading to a small pond where you got to throw rocks until your heart was content.

It was one of the most memorable parts of our vacation, spending that father and son time with you.

Of course, the flattering part of this story for me is that you wanted to “hike a trail” with me because you observed that’s “what the guys are doing.”

I love it that you wanted to follow the model I unintentionally set for you.

Just like the lyrics of the theme song to “Who’s The Boss?” say, “Found a trail and at the end was you.”

That line not only serves as the perfect way to summarize the end of our summer vacation, but also something else…

Make sure you don’t miss my next letter.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

Leave a comment Posted on movie reviews, parenting, Storytelling

The Lego Movie Is The Boy Version Of Frozen

June 15, 2014 at 7:50 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

It has been well established that you and I are huge fans, as well as advocates, of The Lego Movie.

Not only did I write to youback in Novemberabout how excited I was that the movie was coming out, but then in February I wrote a letter to you (which got over 1,200 likes on Facebook) telling all about the two of us going to see your very first movie in a theatre; which obviously, was The Lego Movie.

So that helps explain why I was asked by Lego to do an “unboxing and review” of the Everything Is Awesome Edition of The Lego Movie on my other blog site, Family Friendly Daddy Blog, where I review cars, movies, food, travel destinations, etc.

With a release date of June 17th, it’s just in time for our annual family vacation to California which is coming up soon, so you can watch the movie while on our trip.

Seeing The Lego Movie again, after having recently seen Frozen for the first time as a family, I can’t help but compare the two.

It appears as if The Lego Movie is the boy version of Frozen.

By that, I don’t mean at all that the movies share similar plot lines. Instead, I mean that the themes that The Lego Movie deal with seem a little more relevant to boys; while the themes of Frozen are more feminine, in my opinion.

Maybe the best way to word it is that The Lego Movie is an action movie, while Frozen is a chick flick.

I still can’t get over the fact that in Frozen, the whole thing could have been prevented had the parents of Elsa and Anna, the King and Queen of Arendell, not taught their daughters to close off communication with each other.

Seriously, what normal parents decide to basically lock their daughter in her room for most of her whole childhood because she has a superpower? As the King and Queen, could they seriously not have found some kind of wizard dude to cure her before coming to such an extreme decision?

Frozen is worth all the hype, but it just bothers me that the whole plot was a result of the parents teaching horrible communication skills to their kids, as well as setting them up to hold in their emotions.

Meanwhile with The Lego Movie, while the whole thing is a fantasy, at least it doesn’t hinge on some easily preventable premise.

The plot instead is more like Die Hard and Braveheart, in which a regular guy ends up outsmarting and overpowering the bad guys and their whole system by recruiting average Joes to join the cause of the underdog, therefore freeing his people.

I’m not saying that Frozen is definitely for girls and that The Lego Movie is definitely for boys, but I do feel that your fellow dude friends at your preschool seem a little disconnected while “Let It Go” plays over the speakers at the end of the day when I pick you up.

But if it were “Everything Is Awesome” playing instead, there would be a class of full of little boys jumping around, singing the words at the top of their lungs.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

The Rise Of Legitimate Dad Ads: Calls For Dad By Dove Men+Care

June 11, 2014 at 9:40 pm , by