age

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Dear Holly or Logan: Your First Family Pictures, in the Womb

14 weeks.

Dear Holly or Logan: Your First Family Pictures, in the Womb

Dear Holly or Logan,

Last October, our family started a new family tradition. For about two months of each year, our family has matching ages.

Mommy and I were born within a year of each other, as were your Aunt Dana and Uncle Andrew, as were your brother Jack and your cousin Calla; and now, most recently, as will be you and your cousin Darla.

So the tradition is that during that 2 months of each calendar year, we take a picture together in Alabama where everyone else lives, to recognize this.

As you can see, your Aunt Dana is 8 months pregnant with your cousin Darla. Mommy is 14 weeks pregnant with you right now; nearly 3 months pregnant.

Dear Holly or Logan: Your First Family Pictures, in the Womb

The next time we’re all planning on being together is Thanksgiving weekend, which is about 2 weeks after your brother Jack’s 5th birthday.

But as for right now, Mommy and I are 34 years old, your Aunt Dana and Uncle Andrew are 31, your brother Jack and cousin Calla are 4, and you and your cousin Darla are still in the womb; which I labelled as “0” years old.

Your Aunt Dana is due with your cousin Darla on Thanksgiving Day. There’s a very good chance your cousin will have just been born by the time we arrive there for the holiday.

But at the same time, there’s even a chance we may not even meet Darla at all during Thanksgiving weekend; that is, if she is born a week past her due date, like your brother Jack was.

This week Mommy officially bought maternity clothes to accompany her body changing, as you grow inside the womb.

Hopefully, some of her nausea will cease as we enter the 2nd trimester.

As for you, you are having a party in there; rocking the boat for Mommy inside.

Love,

Daddy

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dad from day one: Today I Become a Thirty Year Old Dad (Plus, Why You Should Watch “Wheel of Fortune” A Week From Tonight)

Week 22 (5 months).

I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t want people to know my age.  I think it’s because I’m such a chronological person- I love to keep up with dates.  It’s important for me to remember where I was and what I was doing at each stage in my life.  For the first months of Jack’s life, I was 29.  But at 8:37 tonight, I will officially turn 30 years old.

Amidst all the other major age milestones like 16,18, 40, 50, and 60, I vote 30 as the most monumental.  Being thirty means not being seen as a kid anymore- it’s a true milestone of adulthood. It means I have now lived through three decades and have made enough mistakes to learn from them and live wiser accordingly.  Being 30 means having graduated through a decade of “notknowingness” (my 20’s) and being propelled into a life of definite direction.

I don’t know that I would call this a bittersweet moment.  Sure, I’m a deeply nostalgic person so I always miss the past, but I say despite all the blessings so far, it only gets better from here.  I couldn’t have known that 30 would come during such a transitional time in my life.  Aside from the big move and welcoming my first child into this world,  it’s now that my writing career is officially beginning.

Since August 2005, I have been “blogging for free.”  (Though actually, during my 4 months of unemployment I was hired to write a few stories in a publication format, like this story I wrote about a local businessman.)  But this morning, on my 30th birthday, I will be mailing back two contracts to Parents.com up in New York City for two different stories they assigned me to write.  They gave me the titles, now I write the entire bodies.  And how did they find me?  “Dad from day one.”

I thank God for this opportunity.  And at this point, I still haven’t gone public with what all is going on with my secret “dad from day one” spin-off.  But it is why, in case you haven’t noticed, I bought the web domain names “nickshell.com” and “dadfromdayone.com”.  It’s part of an important effort to establish my name as an author, as my name will soon be part of a well-trafficked  byline.  (The reason I originally bought “scenicroutesnapshots.com” is because at the time, in December 2009, “nickshell.com” was already taken- but it recently and conveniently just came available again.)

A few weeks ago on my Facebook wall I asked my friends for their help with naming my upcoming “dad from day one” spin-off.  The winner was Diana Jung Taub, who sent her idea to me privately.  Though the time isn’t prudent now for me to reveal the name of my spin-off, the time is prudent for you to meet her, on national television.  A week from tonight, on April 27th, Diana will be a contestant on the legendary game show, Wheel of Fortune.  So go ahead and check to make sure what channel and what time it comes on in your area.

Coincidentally, her son was born just a few weeks before my son Jack William. Diana’s son’s name is Jake William, and like the genetic miracle which my Jack has encountered, her son also has blonde hair and blue eyes, despite the fact that both parents have dark brown hair.

Her son, Jake, again.  Not Jack.

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Constant Time Travel: Is There Such a Thing as “Right Now?”

When waking up from a dream I don’t want to be in, there is that pivotal moment right before my eyes open that I realize how wonderful life is.  Because I return to the comfort of reality.  Not trapped in an eerie sub-world with a grey and pink cloudy sky.

Similarly, I sometimes forget how old I am.  I often hesitate when people ask.  In the milliseconds before I answer, my mind travels through different ages I could be.  The most common:

“Am I seventy-five years old, with most of my life behind me?  Is my body aged and limited by decades of wear and tear?  Have I truly lived my life?  Have I been the giver I need to be?  Or have I lived my life selfishly?”

A millisecond later, the wheel has spun, and the arrow points to “28”.  I say out loud, “I am 28”.  Over a third of my life is finished, but that still leaves two thirds.

Like waking up from a dream, I realize I am still young, and I’m so grateful.  The problem is, despite hearing “hold on to your youth” and “enjoy this while you can” from older adults, especially starting once I graduated high school, I can’t do it.

I can’t appreciate “the now” anymore than I already am and have been.  In fact, I try to hold on to the present too strongly.  And then it becomes the recent past.  So then I’m holding on to the past and the present at the same time.  Almost to a fault.  It’s always been a part of who I am and how I think.

My senior year in high school for our “class prophecy” read aloud at Class Night, the day before graduation, my peers predicted that in 10 years I would still be living in Fort Payne, wishing I was in 1983.

I am a person known for my desire to want to freeze time.  Or ideally travel back to my younger years.  All my classmates were aware that even as a freshly turned 18 year-old, I romanticized about the 1980’s more than is humanly normal.

I feel time is going by too quickly and I’m not even 30 yet.  Like the forced moving screen on certain Super Mario levels, all I can do is keep moving forward.  And like love and money, there will never be enough time.

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Some People Never Change No Matter How Much Time Goes By, Like James Dean, For Example

Forever 24 years old.

The legendary James Dean only made three movies and then died at the age of 24. That’s how old most of the cast of Friends was when the show premiered. That’s really young. Yet James Dean lives on forever as a 24-year old young man. We never saw him begin to lose his hair.

Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison (lead singer of The Doors) and Janis Joplin all died at the age of 27. They will always symbolize youthful rock-and-roll. But we never saw them in their 30’s or 40’s. We never saw them make a few flop albums or experiment with doing other kinds of music other than what they were known for. They died in their prime.

 

In the likeness of Barbie taking on several different personas (Beach Barbie, Nurse Barbie, School Teacher Barbie, etc.) and in the likeness of the many available different versions that Ninja Turtle action figures came in (I had three Leonardo’s: regular, hockey playing, and storage shell), all of us have lived different versions of ourselves throughout life so far- including high school version, college version, post college single version, married version, with-kids version. Then there are all the minor phases in between.

 

What’s funny to think about is that the people you were around only during that time of your life may only know you as that version of yourself. For better or worse, you’re still that 18-year high school senior, or the “what will I do with my life?” college student, just an enhanced version. But the perception of yourself and perception of the way others see you is often different. To some people, you may be forever frozen as a version of yourself you no longer are.