The Digital Dad

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. We had our ultrasound last Friday. Looks like it’s gonna be a girl!!!

Time for Daddy to buy a shotgun.

I’m trying out yet another web 2.0 media portal thingy. Let me know what you think.

I used to read.

I mean, I read now: emails, menus, traffic signs, technical manuals. But I used to read. When I was younger I kept up with Steven King, John Grisham, Michael Crichton and many others. I loved to read. In fact, I still do. I burned through Dan Brown’s first few books right after the wife and I got married, but by the time I got to page 50 of Deception Point I was a few months into my current career, my first child was on the way, and the stress of life began. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now, 5 years later, and I can still see the bookmark, still at page 50, sticking out of the top of Deception Point.

I want to read. There are so many new books that have dropped lately that I’m extremely excited about. But the harrowing ordeal of personal and professional life always seems to get in the way, not to mention graduate school. Reading a book doesn’t come as easy as it used to. What I need is a tool; something like a book, but not really a book, that can help get me reading again. I need an easy-to-carry, easy-to-use reader that can keep track of what I’m reading and where in the book I am. And it needs to make getting books simple, too. There aren’t any good bookstores within 30 miles of home, unless you count Wal-Mart, and often the stuff I’m wanting to read isn’t exactly on a shelf with toilet paper and tackleboxes. So I need a gadget. (I do love gadgets.) What I need is a Kindle!

If only I didn’t have a second child on the way for which I’m already purchasing cribs and bedding and clothes and diapers and everything else you have to buy when your first child is a boy and your second is a girl! So what I really need is a free Kindle. Thank goodness for people like Julie Stratford. Julie’s website, juliestratford.com (link) is giving away a free Kindle at random. While I obviously think she should give it away to the most deserving individual rather than at random (I mean after all, who’s more deserving than an expecting father?), I’ll take random chance over no chance at all. So thanks for the chance Julie.

And I’ll make you a deal. If I win the free Kindle, I promise to read Curious George and The Cat in the Hat and countless other tales to my new daughter from my free Kindle. And if I win, I’ll even name my precious newborn daughter after you. (In the interest of full disclosure, my wife very much wants to name our daughter Juliette. I’ve been more in favor of a few other names. But if I win, will give up my struggle and, in effect, name the child after you.) So you get the full joy of knowing you aided a young(-ish) father in his quest to raise literary children in a Nintendo world and were granted a legacy as a result. Wow. I mean wow. I’d call that a good day. Plus, my 30th birthday is next month and I really want a new Kindle.

Fatherhood is great. Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different. There is nothing in the whole wide world like being a dad. Mom’s are cool, too. Obviously. But Dad’s are the heroes. We scare away the ghosts. We squish the spiders. We get Nerf darts down from the tippy top shelf. (Let’s see Mom get those down.) There’s nothing Dad’s can’t do. We are immovable, unbeatable, eternal. We are the defenders of the realm, protectors of her people. But we can’t always be everywhere. The one major place we can never help our children is in their dreams. And let me tell you, for a Dad, for a real spider-squishin’, ghost-scarin’, tippy-top-shelf-gettin’ save-the-day kind of dad there’s nothing that breaks my heart any more than bad dreams. But the term “bad” can often be a matter of perception.
Liam, now 3 and a half, awoke Sunday morning before sunrise with a scream the likes of which would melt the flesh from your bones. And when this kid wails, banshees take notes. Missy was already at work and I was still in the early morning, haven’t had my coffee haze, the kind of blur that ensures you’ll always fall face first down the stairs if you’re required to move in any form of urgency, like, say if your 3 and a half year old banshee is startled from sleep with a nightmare. So there I am, ankles over ears at the bottom of the stairs with the Li’l Tike version of Tina Turner bellowing to the belfry. I managed to make it to his bedside just as he was really coming around and scooped him up for a big Daddy-saves-the-day kind of hug, knowing full well I hadn’t bested the stairwell, much less any ethereal Bogeymen. But nevertheless, Daddy was there and that made it all better.
As I hugged him close and rocked him I told him everything would be all right and asked if he wanted to tell me about his nightmare. It often helps him recover to talk it out. Through sobs and gasps he began his tale of darkness and woe, of evil and all its faces. He began…
“There was a sandwich.”
“There was a sandwich?” I replied, trying full well now to stifle a giggle.
“Yeah, there was a sandwich. And there was jelly and there was butter.”
It’s at this point I’m truly grateful his head is buried in my shoulder. I don’t think I could have explained my expression to him. After all, he was truly mortified… by a sandwich.
“What else, buddy? What was the sandwich doing?”
I’m no longer trying to help soothe his pain. (So shoot me.) Now I’m just prodding for material.
“The baby took a bath. He was in the basket and took a bath.”
“The baby? Was the baby ok?”
“Yeah, the baby was ok. He was takin’ a bath.”
“Well, ok, then, I’m glad the baby was ok. It was just a dream”
“Yeah, I had a bad dream… and there was a sandwich.”
I believe in my heart of heart’s for the rest of eternity I may face trials and tribulations far beyond what mortal man has dared dream but I shall never, ever come as close to doom and destruction as my 3 year old the night he faced off with a sandwich.

It’s Fat Tuesday, people! Mardi Gras! Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent for many of us. The season of Lent is the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter where many Christians fast in spiritual preparation for the resurrection of Christ. It is a wonderfully emotional and spiritual journey that can result in a greater understanding of God in our lives. But again, that’s tomorrow.

Since the wife has to work today and I’ve got a couple night classes, we celebrated last night with our 3-year-old at Chuck E. Cheese’s. It’s not exactly the libacious debauchery intended for the big day but hey, we’re parents. And let me tell you, to a toddler, Chuck E. Cheese’s might as well be the Moulin Rouge. He’d never been to Chuck E’s before, and it’s been 20 years since my last visit. But I’ve seen Saving Private Ryan a few times and felt prepared for the barrage. To be honest, it was an amazingly stress-free time. All the games are now only 1 token (25 cents) and the place is really well organized. Sure it was loud and hectic, but it was an orderly loud and hectic. Liam even won us some Cotton Candy (which was really good)! At the end of the night he came home with a great prize, a great smile, and memories we’ll keep forever (which is good since I can never remember to take the camera). For us, it was a perfect Mardi Gras.

So relax, cut loose, enjoy the night. Now is the time to celebrate life and love. As they say down in the Big Easy, laissez les bons temps rouler!