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If My Son Were a Girl

October 2, 2011 at 10:49 pm , by 

Ten months.

From the time we found out we were going to have a baby, up until the moment we actually discovered out the gender of our child, we never questioned the fact that we were going to have a girl. It somehow simply made the most sense in our minds: We’re not into sports, we’re nearly vegetarians, and most importantly, we had had our perfect girl name picked out since before we were even married.

Then, to our hilarious amazement, we were told we were going to have a boy. We weren’t at all disappointed, just in complete shock. That huge element of surprise actually made the pregnancy that much more exciting.

Fast forward to over a year later, and now whenever a stranger sees our son in Whole Foods Market or our church, the most reoccurring phrase we hear once they take a quick look at him is, “He’s all boy!“.

This past weekend we were having dinner with some new friends, who have a daughter several months older than our son, Jack. As they were both standing up, holding onto the same toy, the girl’s mom asked us if Jack is big for his age.

My wife Jill responded, “Yeah, he’s kind of a giant: 90th percentile for height and 75th for weight.”

It’s one thing to have a boy when we were expecting a girl, but another to have the baby equivalent of a 6’4″ linebacker. Or at least Will Ferrell. I love ironic humor; it makes life so interesting.

Despite being a very creative person, it’s not easy for me to imagine having a daughter, instead of a son. Jack is all I know. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I love his deep baby voice, his grunts as I wrestle with him and chase him around on the carpet, and the way that he and I share “deep thinking time” as I carry him on walks while my wife is preparing dinner. I love him so much.

If my son were a girl, the toy basket would be full of pink toys that play girly songs. I would probably use the word “princess” a lot. And I would have a child that passes a lot less gas… I  (incorrectly?) assume.

So the day may come when my wife and I have a daughter and get to use our cool secret name for her. But as for now, we don’t have a little princess. Instead, we have an adventurous Gummy Bear named Jack who is somehow the perfect balance of masculine and adorable.

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I Survived the Warrior Dash in Manchester, TN

September 24, 2011 at 8:56 pm , by 

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Ouch, Jack! That Really Hurt! Jack Bit Me!

September 19, 2011 at 7:49 pm , by 

Ten months.

Jack officially has 8 teeth; not little white bumps starting to grow through his gums, but he literally has teeth. They really sprouted up so quickly.

It’s fun to feed him Cheerios because he’s like a baby pirana or maybe even Pac Man, knowing the exact moment to chomp (!) down on his food.

I couldn’t help but think of the most viewed non-commercial YouTube video ever: “Charlie Bit My Finger!.“

Admittedly, I am not daring enough to stick my finger in Jack’s mouth to see how hard he will bite down. But my wife, Jill, is.

Having seen the “Charlie” video, she stuck her finger in Jack’s steel trap, and sure enough, Jack knew right away what to do:

“Ouch, Jack!”. Just like Charlie, Jack started giggling. He thought it was pretty hilarious each time Jill did it, until her finger hurt too badly; and that didn’t take long.

Do baby boys come preprogrammed knowing that painfully biting someone’s finger is universally funny?

I’m thinking so. It reminds me of the way that babies like to “accidentally” drop food and/or toys off their high chair repeatedly, looking down at the floor until a cooperative adult picks it up for them.

Babies are funny. But it’s not always that they actually understand why what they did is humorous.

Evidently, a ten month old boy can comprehend that hurting a family member is funny. No blood, no fowl.

 

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Like Teaching a 10 Month Old New Tricks

September 16, 2011 at 7:06 pm , by 

Ten months.

My wife and I accidently taught our son Jack to do something weird this week. We taught him to “be a chicken.” Sort of.

For most of his life, my wife Jill has done this bit routine with Jack where she rushes up to him, acting like a mutant chicken. His typical response has always been to start hysterically laughing when she does.

But this past Wednesday night when Jill pretended to be a chicken, Jack decided he wanted to try to be a chicken too. He started opening his mouth really wide, hoping the “bahk, bahk-bahk-bahk” sound would come out. But it didn’t. So he just simply kept opening his mouth and closing it in the hopes that a chicken sound would magically be there.

To make this situation more hilarious, Jack has also been doing this new move where he smiles real big and shakes his head “no” as if to say, “I can’t believe these crazy people in front of me…”. It somehow remains me of Morgan Freeman playing the character of God in the movie Bruce Almighty.

Well, for the past couple of days now he has been combining his “no” move with his attempt at being a chicken. We should be teaching him things like how to pick up Cheerios with his index finger and thumb. Instead, our son can act like a silent chicken who is disapproving, yet very happy about it.

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Investing in the Undervalued and Underappreciated

September 3, 2011 at 7:38 pm , by 

Nine months.

On Thursday, October 5th, 2006, I looked across a large, crowded room and saw a beautiful 25 year-old girl who had no legitimate reason to be alone. In that wishful moment at The Factory in Franklin, Tennessee, I thought about how wonderful life could be if I could get that beautiful Puerto Rican stranger to fall in love with me. Turns out, she wasn’t Puerto Rican; it also turns out, she didfall in love with me- but it took exactly four months to the day for her to see me as more than just a friend.

Without knowing it, I applied a long-standing business principle of billionaire Warren Buffet, as explained in his son Peter Buffet’s book, Life is What You Make It:

“The idea is elegantly simple. Find something the world underappreciates, support it, don’t meddle, and allow time for the world to catch up in its valuation.”

I basically can’t stop obsessing over that very true concept. It doesn’t just apply to business; it appears to life in general.

How did a guy like me end up getting a girl like Jillanne Tuttle to fall in love with me? More importantly, why was this girl still even single, anyway?

Because she was underappreciated. So I supported her. And I didn’t meddle. Needless to say, it worked. That’s the only way I could have gotten a girl so out of my league like that.

I ignored the bad advice of well-meaning guy friends who tried to tell me I should come on strong and ask her out on a date from the very beginning. Instead, I privately vowed to be her friend first, not meddling with our friendship. Then interestingly, on February 5th, 2007, a switch flipped; she finally saw me in the romantic way that I had seen her from day one.

Is it crushing to my ego that she didn’t immediately fall in love with me for my weird and random conversations, not to mention my physical likeness of a plethora of Jewish actors such as Fred Savage, who played Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years? (Featured right, with his son.)

Not really. Subconsciously I knew back then that if I were to truly capture the attention, as well as, the heart of this girl, it would take more than all the culturally valuable assets I didn’t possess.

The truth is, I happened to be the right guy in the right place at the right time, making a conscious effort to invest in a person who others foolishly overlooked. So I made the most of it. Thank God it worked.

That same principle is how The Dadabase was born. I realized there was all kinds of information for moms-to-be, but not for dads-to-be. So a few weeks after we found out we were going to have a baby, I decided to start a weekly blog from my fatherly perspective. Sure enough, that was sort of a rare thing- unique enough that  American Babytook notice in their magazine in October of last year.

And when Parents.com started asking around in their search for an official daddy blogger, I happened to be the right guy in the right place at the right time, because their sister magazine American Baby had featured my blog on page 13 of their issue just five months before.

In other words, I found something the world had underappreciated (parenting advice and narration from the dad’s perspective), I supported it, I didn’t meddle, and the world began to catch up in its valuation.

As for using this concept in parenting, I’m already seeing how it translates. No other humans can see more value in my son than my wife and I can. So we will reasonably support him, do our best not to meddle in ways we shouldn’t, and wait for the world to catch up in his valuation.

It’s wild to think that we are surrounded by underappreciated things in this world everyday, just waiting to be supported and valued. What great things are we missing out on simply because certain rocks haven’t been turned over and certain doors have never been opened?

Some possible answers could include “flying cars like in Back to the Future, Part II,” “cell phone watches like Penny and Brain had on Inspector Gadget,” and “the comeback of Pepsi Clear.”