Winning Christmas Like A Dad

This is the first post since we celebrated Christmas and it took a few days to build up the energy to do so.

Gifts have been played with, garbage has come and gone and the fridge is full of leftovers and booze. Sounds about right.

This year was also the first Christmas with the two boys.

Harrison (3) is at the perfect age to truly love Christmas and he did so with gusto this year. Giving and receiving gifts, the kid was on fire and hardly slept or ate.

He is back at preschool today which is part of the reason I have time to post.

Seeing that true, unadulterated love of Christmas in a kid’s eyes is what did it for me this year. He was speechless with excitement at certain points.

He listened for Santa, remembered who got him what and did not have one meltdown or misbehaving moment. Blessed.

Our Son Is A Christmas Double Agent

Ah the secrets. The secrets get pretty heavy at Christmas, especially for the kids who end up going shopping with mom or dad.

Today, both my wife and myself grabbed our 3-year old and took him out to shop for the other parent. Both times he came home saying, mom/dad said not to say where we went or what was bought and it was a secret.

My son the double agent. He knows too much.

The mean thing to do would be to interrogate him. He would fold in 30 seconds. But that is no fun. I did not ask, I did not bring it up, nor will I.

Same goes for my wife. At least the boy keeps secrets now. Before when we have tried this, he would run in the door yelling just what I had told him not to say.

So there is progression. He is learning the tricks. It was so much easier when he was a baby and you could tell him anything and he was the ultimate vault.

Blogging Like A Dad – Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012

As an experienced and somewhat successful blogger, taking on the daddy genre was  next on the list of challenges. I have figured out what it takes to grow and explode a blog and in the last three years, I had gotten dad experience first hand with my two boys. So it only seemed natural to mix the two.

Time was the challenge. I was always saying, when I have time, when things slow down etc. But as any working parent knows, things NEVER slow down.

So I just did it. Started up the new blog from scratch and have been adding content for a month.

Recently Babble.com put out their annual list of Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012 and I was very excited to go through each and every one to first, read about other great dads and their thoughts and secondly, size up the competition.

I have to say, way more impressive than I first thought. I knew the Mom blog world was full and just assumed dads would be too busy to blog. Silly me. The list only touches on 50 and I can think of several not even on there that I read almost daily.

I salute all the dad bloggers on this list and all the ones so close. What does this list do for me personally? Well it gives me motivation to work hard, pour my dad thoughts out and entertain all of you. Then maybe I will join the ranks of these dad blogs.

Here are the Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012

The Morning Routine With Boy Wonder

So what does a normal day look like at our house? Well in terms of boy 1, our 3-year old, it is very routine.

Here is a look at how our weekday mornings go.

6:30am: Dad’s alarm goes off. Now this can go a few ways. First, kid’s light is already on and he has been reading since 5am.

Second, kid is already in room looking at me in the dark waiting for alarm.

Third, kid has already woken us all up to say he has to pee or wants to get into bed.

6:33: Dad has a shower. I go and do my thing, shower, shave and get dressed. Kid has either stayed in his own bed reading, still sleeping or stays in our bed and keeps mom awake. Keep in mind, the 2-month old rarely wakes up.

6:40: Shower and dressed: If kid is not up, I go and wake him up and start the slow process of peeling him out of bed. Some mornings it is like trying to get a teen out of bed. If he is awake and reading already, he shoots out of bed to start the day. If he is in our bed, well I get him out of mom’s hair so she can go back to sleep.

6:45: Change the night-time underwear for fresh and we head downstairs for breakfast.

6:50: Feeding the farm. Before I do anything, I need to feed the cat and dog. Otherwise they are pretty annoying. Kid usually is okay with this and goes and reads or plays.

Like A Dad Remembers: Transformers – More Than Meets The Eye

Thank you Netflix. Thank you for offering the original Transformers. Today my son and I started watching the classic 1984 Transformers cartoon that I watched when I was a wee lad.

There  is nothing better for a dad than watching old cartoons with your kid. The best part, he is hooked. What little boy does not like cars and jets that transform into robots. The team that came up with them sure were on the ball. Even before Michael Bay brought them back, the Autobots and Decepticons were doing okay at the bank.

But as I watch Transformers almost 30 years later, there are a lot of questions that come to mind that did not when I was a kid.

The Monster Sleep of Charlie Bear

This morning I woke up around 6:45, waiting for the 3-year old to come down the hall to start the day. It never happened. In fact, it did not happen until just before 8am. What a treat.

What was even a bigger treat was that our 2-month old was still sleeping and had been sleeping since before midnight. 8 hours sleep almost.

I was under the assumption that this was the first over night sleep for Charlie, but he had one a few weeks ago. Anyways, it was the longest and that is that.

It is always an exciting feeling when the baby starts to sleep through the night. Not only do you get to have a good sleep but it is a sign you are moving forward.

Today’s Shooting Really Puts Things In Perspective

I won’t go into what happened today, you already know that. Opinions are flooding the Internet and TV screens everywhere. We get it, guns are bad. Why are these tragic moments still happening? It is just so messed up.

It is Christmas. All of the hustle and bustle does not seem to be that big a deal anymore. So what if that one perfect gift is sold out. Who cares of there is a long line at the store.

There are parents that no longer have the kids they started the day with. Going home to a house of what was to be Christmas cheer.

It makes me so mad and so sad all at once.

Yes, it was touching to see President Obama get choked up about it. But is anything going to change? Doubtful. The news cycle will run the course and we will go back to normal until the next shooting.