June 1, 2014 at 11:17 pm , by Nick Shell

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

May 23, 2014 at 9:26 pm , by Nick Shell

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

March 15, 2014 at 11:14 pm , by Nick Shell

3 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

My main role when our family goes grocery shopping is to distract/entertain/keep you from knocking over the fruit stands.

Fortunately tonight, we had just come back from the Monster Jam truck show and you were occupied as long as I could keep helping you find new places to crash your toy monster trucks into each other.

As we finally were checking out at Whole Foods, you instinctly grabbed on to the end of the grocery shopping cart, as if it were understood you wanted to ride out to the car while the helpful Whole Foods staff member pushed you.

This is not something you had ever seen before- like I said, it was simply an instinct.

After gaining a quick nod of approval from me, Emily, the girl who eagerly and kindly helped us take the groceries out to the car, began pushing you out to the parking lot as Mommy and I escorted you.

That is a classic childhood memory that every kid should have. Emily, the Whole Foods girl, was very cool about it.

As you can see from the photo collage (above) I made of the event, you loved it!

Just yesterday I wrote to you about how there were certain freedoms that I got to enjoy as a child, that you won’t be able to.

Well, fortunately, riding on the end of a shopping cart was not mentioned.

The way I see it, it’s your right, as an American little boy, to enjoy riding on a shopping cart.

It’s a right of passage.

I feel as your daddy, it’s sort of my responsibility to help set the backdrop for these little adventures.

Granted, you can’t wander around the neighborhood aimlessly like I did back in the 1980s… but you can ride a shopping cart like I did back in the 1980s.

At least there’s that!

Love,

Daddy

March 14, 2014 at 11:50 pm , by Nick Shell

3 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

This week I happened to read a really cool article that is going viral right now, called “Things I Did As A Kid (But My Kids Won’t)“,  by Amber Dusick.

She explains how parents born in the 1980s, such as myself, were basically the last generation of children to enjoy no seat belts, no helmets, no childproofing, flying attempts, (certain) playground equipment, sledding, and freedom.

What I see that all 7 of the things have in common is that they all are related to safety.

In other words, if I raised you by the same standards of safety that were okay in 198os in the mountains of Alabama when and where I grew up, I would be considered (by some, at least) as a bad parent.

That sounds weird to say because in no way is it to discredit the parents who raised Generation Y; it’s just that things are a lot different now.

Out of the 7 things that Amber Dusick describes in her article, the one that jumps out to me as the most valuable is… freedom:

“Perhaps the most striking contrast is the freedom I remember having. I’d eat breakfast and then leave.

I’d wander around. Aimlessly. Sometimes with neighborhood kids and sometimes alone. I’d cross our creek with homemade bridges. And catch turtles without ever hearing of the word Salmonella.

I’d put roller skates on and skate down sidewalks. And stop myself by crashing into a bush, just before the street.

I never stopped to eat lunch. Because I remember being out all day long. Only to be called in for dinner when it was getting dark.

My kids? Yeah, right. At least not until they are older. Like thirty.”

During my own childhood, I had the privilege of riding my bike, as well as my moped, through nearby neighborhoods. I explored the woods with my friends. I went around shooting my BB gun at power poles and metal fences.

I totally know what the author means when she refers to wandering around aimlessly as a kid. I loveddoing that!

Almost seems almost like taboo now.

I want you to be able to have the kind of adventurous boyhood I had, and you will, just in a different format… somehow.

We’ll have to make a few changes, but we’ll find a way to make it work.

Even then, it’s hard to imagine you ever wandering around in the woods like I did. Double standard, I know.

Love,

Daddy