Have you ever tried to put a sock on a baby? Sure, that sounds easy...How long have you ever had said sock STAY on? And have you ever been sliced by a baby fingernail?
These are things that are part of people who can't do much for themselves...How in the world do they CONSTANTLY find a way to kick something as simple as a sock off? Seriously...I'm starting to think maybe I'm backing the wrong pony trying this comic strip thing...Maybe I should be finding a way to keep baby socks from falling off.
And back to baby fingernails? If you're not careful with some babies (one of our twins in particular), you end up with an infant who looks like they've slid their face down a cheese grater. I've had paper cuts that were more difficult to acquire...AND less painful....
Raising children is hard. Raising multiple children is harder. Raising multiple children that includes multiple babies is one of the hardest things ever. But at the same time, it's also probably one of the most rewarding.
For every night of lost sleep, for every minute of lost sanity, there's a smile or a moment you'll have together that you'll never want to forget.
Sure, there's frustration and chaos, but even in your most sleep deprived state, even though you can't see it, you're still happy you're where you are.
I've commented on this on more than one occasion. But have you ever noticed the difference in infants from the middle of the night, versus the middle of the afternoon.
Honestly, there's absolutely no difference whatsoever in them. Unless of course you've been one of the luck ones whose infants have decided to get nights and days backwards. THEN there's a slight difference. But usually, the biggest difference is how much (or how little) sleep you've actually had.
But that's the difference that turns them from dastardly villains, or gremlins at 2 A.M. to the beautiful little angels at 2 P.M.
This fall, our oldest child finally became of age to start playing sports. My brother and I grew up playing soccer, and all of my brother's children do the same. So, this October we signed our oldest daughter up for U4 (Under 4) soccer. And being that my daughter's team had no coach, I volunteered myself so that she could play. It was one of the most frustratingly hilarious experiences I've ever been through.
Our first game, at the first whistle, 2 of my 4 kids on the field just threw themselves on the ground and starting doing snow angles (with no snow anywhere around), one ran off to a different field, and the other ran off into the weeds, while my 5th kid ran to his parents and cried.
The final game things got a little better, none of my kids cried, and they all tried. Except the last team had an older 4 year old, who ran loops around my kids. Eventually getting tired of the shenanigans, my daughter grabbed that ball from him, ran it down the field, and threw into the goal, and had herself a little celebration. Everybody got a kick out of it....Except my daughter, who we had to tell her goal didn't count....She didn't really accept that.
Working in "IT" has ups and downs. And depending on where you work, and the age range of the people that you work with, it may be up or down. Obviously, the older generation has a few struggles with technology that the younger generations don't.
However, that's not always the case. I don't claim to know everything, in fact, I don't claim to know a whole lot. But I do know enough to be dangerous. And then there are those out there, who should not be allowed around a toaster, yet alone a computer. I've used that analogy so often since I started working in IT, that I've finally decided to put on paper, so to speak.
Some cases are worse than others, but there seems to be always at least one person a week, who should be nowhere near any form of technology. If only we were allowed to give out toasters to those individuals...But then, again...That would probably be quite the fire hazard...And I don't want to be responsible for burning my work place down by providing the inept with the means to do so...
Have you ever tried to put children to sleep? PLURAL - chil-DREN... On top of that, have you ever tried to put them down SOLO? My wife and I have very different work schedules. I leave for work very early in the morning; like an hour before the sun's alarm clock goes off. And my wife, often times has to work later in the evenings. So more times than not, one of us is trying to wrangle the zoo while they're waking up, and other is trying to get the zoo to go to sleep.
I don't know which is the bigger pipe dream...Getting the children go to sleep...Or getting them to go to sleep WHEN YOU WANT THEM TO. And when you get a victory over one of them, one of the others have plotted against you, and they WILL wake up the others. They shouldn't have called it "chaos theory"....They should have called it, "You Have More Than One Child Theory".
It's almost an absolute: Whenever you NEED to or HAVE to be somewhere at a certain time, SOMEone in your multiple-child family will make sure that you NEVER get there in time. You can have every intention in the world of packing up and getting out of the door with time to spare. You could have all day to make said plans. But unbeknownst to you, each child is subconsciously hatching an evil genius type plan to whittle away the time that you have to get where you need to get to in the amount of time that you have. And the more children you have, the more time you are going to need to get ready. And of course, if there is ever an infant in that mix, they will be absolutely silent and still....Until you are on your way out the door....That's when they decide to unleash all of their unholy power....
We have LOTS and LOTS of bibs. And the biggest problem with bibs is that they DO NOT SIT where you want them to, or need them too. And when you have one infant with REALLY bad reflux, and spits up like it's her job, and when the bib doesn't sit where you need it to, you end up with a really big mess that leads to other problems. The things seem to have magical gravity powers and defy the laws of physics. I really don't know what to do or how to fix it...Maybe if I invent some sort of bib suspender system, I'd be able to make a ton of money...
I understand that this isn’t in my usual comic
format, and for this blog in general, this isn’t really even going to be
comic, or upbeat. But, this is something I feel compelled to do for no
one else other than myself.
As I’ve mentioned briefly in a short post last month, on Tuesday, August 7th
of this year, my father passed away. It wasn’t entirely unexpected,
but being so also did not make that fact any easier to bare. It’s been over a month since his passing, and I still have
trouble with it. In the typhoon of responsibilities that washes over
you when an immediate family passes away, you really do not get a chance
to breathe, let alone given the chance to grieve
in a way that is best for you. Nothing about my father’s passing has
been easy, or “Traditional”. Even though nothing was in writing, his
wishes were well known that he did not want a funeral, and he did not
want to be buried (one of the last conversations
I had with him on the subject he had quipped “Just throw me in the
woods” – we will be doing no such thing, by the way); as such, he was
cremated. Though we did have a “Memorial”/Open House event dedicated to
his memory, he was never truly eulogized. And
since we’ve been so non-traditional throughout this whole ordeal, I see
no reason why we shouldn’t continue in the vein of being
non-traditional, so I would like to attempt to do so here on my blog.
It feels almost fitting to do it here anyway, as he always
encouraged me to do what I loved (as both of my parents always did, and
my mother still does), and here with my little corner of the web I’m
doing just that. Even though it’s (my comic) not the most polished, popular, or
depending on your point of view, very good, at
least I’ve finally started to try. In a way, with every strip that I
put out, I put it out with his encouragement (and hopefully, somewhere
out there, his approval).
And that was Dad, even though he had a penchant for
self deprecation, he always wanted his family to shoot for the stars,
and be happy. He loved nothing more than his family; his children, and
even more so his grandchildren. Nothing meant
more to him than they/we did. My earliest memories of Dad were before I
was of school age, while he was still a social worker; working with
less fortunate, abused, and/or troubled children. My days were just
fine, I had fun, I played like any normal child,
but when the front door would open upon his return home, I would
immediately drop whatever it was that I was doing at that moment, and
make a sprint for the door, and like every parent, he would lift me into
the air and give me just the biggest hugs. To this
day, I repeat that ritual with my oldest daughter, and when they are
old enough, I hope to continue with our twins.
Eventually my parents got divorced, and those daily
hugs had to eventually be replaced by weekly hugs once he moved into
his own living arrangements. Throughout Elementary school, and until I
was a teenager, I would spend Friday nights,
and the majority of Saturdays with him. We had good times on those
weekends, just the two of us. We would watch our favorite sitcoms
Friday nights, eat pizza, or quite often he would fix me some of the
best (albeit not very healthy) dinners a kid that age
could want. My favorite food as a child was Kraft Macaroni &
Cheese (still is now that I think about it), and he would fix a box for
us every Friday night, but he would tweak it to make it as cheesy as he
could. He would add more butter, use more milk, or
I sometimes wonder if he didn’t just open up another pack of cheese
powder from another box. I have no knowledge of how he did it, but
along with that, he would always buy a giant pack of ground chuck
hamburger, pound it all up into paddies by hand, fry it
up on a skillet, and top it off with two or three slices of cheese. It
was some of the biggest “homemade” cheeseburgers you would have ever
seen, which he affectionately called “Monster Burgers”, well before
Hardee’s coined the term for their own burgers.
It was one of the first questions he would ask me after picking me up
on a Friday, “Should we get pizza for dinner, or make MONSTER
BURGERS?!” And we would drive off to his apartment, or eventually, his
house for our time together.
On Saturday mornings during those years, we would
spend either watching my Saturday Morning Cartoons together, or
depending on the time of year, he would take me to my soccer games. And
that was another thing that Dad loved: sports.
He loved to watch sports, and for a period of time, would love to play
sports, and always, always wanted his kids to play and succeed in
sports. My older brother did just that; and he played lots of them,
and for most of them he seemed to excel
with ease. Dad was always so proud of that; whenever my brother’s name
made it into the paper for whatever sporting accomplishment, he would
always find some way to work that into a conversation with his neighbors
and co-workers as often as he could. I sometimes
wondered if he wasn’t a bit disappointed in me as I wasn’t the athlete
my brother was. I didn’t enjoy sports very much; at least not as much
as my brother, and the ones that I did attempt to play, I wasn’t very
good at them. I also spent a period of time a bit overweight as a child.
However, like a good parent, instead of forcing his
beloved sports on me, instead, he found out what interested ME, and he
shared THAT with me. Sports were what he and my brother shared. What
he eventually shared with me, was my love
for art, and my favorite form of art: Super hero/science fiction comic
books. What was eventually entered into our weekly rituals were trips
to the comic book store to pick up the latest X-Men or Wolverine books
(yet again another ritual I continue to this
day with my own children). When I got to be old enough, he eventually
shared with me his own penchant for art, and showed me how he could
sketch and draw, and something I had not known until then, was that he loved
to write (and in the early 90s) was a published
poet. On our weekends, if our shows weren’t on, or if they were
repeats, while I would sit at his kitchen table and draw to my heart’s
desire, he would work on his poetry across from me, or in his chair.
When he thought something was finished, he would have
me read it, and asked what I thought. It was wonderful to share
that with him. It’s something that I miss dearly; as we both got older,
our weekends together were shortened to just a few hours of a visit
maybe on a Saturday or Sunday.
For a long time
I stopped drawing altogether, and of course he stopped writing. Like
other things, I sometimes wonder if he stopped writing because I stopped
drawing. Drawing got replaced by other High School “things”. Going
through some of his books for the memorial, I found in one
of the poetry books he was published in, an “About The Poets” section. It had mentioned that one of his long term goals was to get
an entire book of just his own writings published. That never came to
fruition, and I’m sure that was something that
he would have loved to have done.
Dad of course was not without his own problems,
problems for whatever reasons he had, he tried his best to shield me from. I
don’t know if he thought I just wasn’t able to cope (as there are so
many things that I do not cope very well with), or
if he was just ashamed. To this day, I still do not honestly know what
was there. Words that I’ve caught over the years have been “chemical
imbalance”, “bi-polar”, “schizophrenia”….I am no psychiatrist, and I
don’t know all of the details of those particular
phrases, but I do know that Dad did have his demons, and when he had an
“episode”, there was nothing behind his eyes. Growing up, the episodes
seemed to be once every couple of years. Most recently, though, he had
not had one of those episode since before
my wife and I were married, 8 years ago. I don’t know if it was
finally under control, or if he just seemed to learn to live with it.
But even with all of those demons and issues, there
was one constant: His undying love and devotion to his children, and
grandchildren. During my senior retreat in high school, I had received a
letter from him apologizing for what he
had called “his crazy” and extreme regret that he hadn’t been with me
more during my childhood. But growing up, every sporting event I
participated in; (almost) every soccer game, every track meet, he was
there. He did not like being around large crowds
of people, so he always hid himself off in a corner, but the fact
remains. He was there. And he was always there. And I swear at every one of his grandchild's soccer game, he will always BE there.
He lived his own life as a pauper, so that in case
his children or grandchildren needed any help, he could afford to give
us that help, no matter how much it cost. If we ever needed anything,
we knew we could always go to Dad for help.
We hated to do so, but if we did not, or if we kept it from him, it would
anger him more than dropping a large sum of money in our time of need. It was actually
because of his enormous generosity that my wife and I have been blessed
with our twins. The year before our oldest daughter
was born, we were told we could not have children, and our only hope
other than adoption was to go through one of the most expensive forms of
IVF. We were unable to afford it, and because Dad was who Dad was, he supplied us with the money for the procedure. After our first attempt failed, we ended up having our first daughter completely on our own. When we tried to return the money, he refused to accept it. "No, you take that money, and get ready for that baby" he had said. So, when
we were ready, we went back for the embryos we had left at the clinic, and I now
honestly believe it was fate that they both survived,
and we now have our twins. All because of Dad. Paw-Paw to his
grandchildren. There are so many other things that I wish I could say, conversations I wish I could have had with him, things I wish we could have done together. I wish the twins would have had more time with him, and that they could have known just how much he loved them, even though he only saw them twice before he was gone. Three weeks before he passed, we actually almost lost him from COPD, due to his heavy smoking. And there he was, with all of the wires and all of the tubes, scratching things down on a scrap of paper with a pen, asking how his grand kids were. "How are grand babies" he had written. I assured him they were well. I am at least thankful that our oldest daughter got the time that she had, though it saddens me that she will eventually lose those memories as she has just turned 3. I try to talk to her about him as much as possible to keep his memory alive in her for as long as I can. She may have already forgotten how she used to wait at our front door on Saturdays when Paw-Paw would drive out to our house for us to go get "chicken and tatoes" (mashed potatoes). She would get beside herself with excitement upon seeing his car finally pull up. How she would throw her arms up for him to pick her up, and he would hold her up in their air....The same way he did with me when I was small.
Above is my favorite picture of Dad with Olivia; my mother, Olivia and I had gone to his house to pick him up and take him to breakfast with us. Olivia forced him to hold her hand and walk her down to the car. For me, this picture sums up the love that existed between Dad and his Grandchildren. Though he was uncertain he could keep her safe as his health had already started to decline, one of his Grandchildren had asked him to do something. So he did it.
Below is the song that has come to embody the grieving that I have done, and continue to do. It may not be the most fitting, but a lot of the content seems to mirror what I've felt and been through during this whole ordeal.
This is not the end, this is not the beginning
(So my Catholic Faith would have my beleive)
Just a voice like a riot rocking every revision
But you listen through the tone and the violent rhythm and
Though the words sound steady, something empty’s within ‘em
(Recounting everything to guests at the memorial somehow seemed scripted and robotic)
We say yeah / with fists flying up in the air
Like we’re holding onto something that’s invisible there
(Perhaps Dad's hand, wishing to reassure us everything is okay, as he always would)
‘Cause we’re living at the mercy of the pain and fear
Until we dead it / forget it / let it all disappear
Waiting for the end to come / wishing I had strength to stand
(Self evident - something like this takes the strength out everything)
This was not what I had planned
It’s out of my control
(Even with failing health, I had planned and hoped for him to see my children grow up to at least school age...But obviously, it was not up to me.)
Flying at the speed of light / thoughts were spinning in my head
(The Flurry of responsibilities that washes over those left behind is dumbfounding)
So many things were left unsaid
(SO, so many things..)
It’s hard to let you go
(Harder than I anticipated)
I know what it takes to move on
I know how it feels to lie
All I want to do is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what I haven’t got
Sitting in an empty room / Trying to forget the past
(Sitting in the front room of his now empty house, surrounded by Dad's things, remembering the times from those weekends long, long ago...And then trying to swallow them before they destroyed me)
This was never meant to last
(Whether his heavy smoking or his over-eating, we all knew it was coming, but...)
I wish it wasn’t so
(See end of last sentence)
What was left when that fire was gone
I thought it felt right but that right was wrong
All caught up in the eye of the storm
And trying to figure out what it’s like moving on
And I don’t even know what kind of things I said
My mouth kept moving and my mind went dead so
(Back to the scripted, robotic responses when recounting the situation to various people)
Picking up the pieces now where to begin
The hardest part of ending is starting again
(Returning to "normal" life...Nothing will be "normal" again. Something always seems to come up that will remind me of Dad, and a fresh waive of grief will wash over me.)
Having 3 small children has once again interrupted my ability to successfully put strips out in the schedule I set for myself. Going to have to abandon that schedule and I'll be back with new strips as soon as my own sanity returns!!!
There's always a bit of uncertainty when bringing home new babies. Especially if you already have a child. How is "Big Sister/Brother" going to react when you bring the baby home? Or in certain cases, babies (PLURAL).
We really tried to play it up with our oldest, and tried to point out as many babies as we could find when we were out in public. We also continually reminded her that we were going to need lots and lots of help once the new babies got here (boy was that ever an understatement).
And she's reacted fairly well, she's very interested in her sisters, if not just a TAD bit jealous. But the jealousy only really seems to come out in the most inopportune times.
The older ones like to play it as if they really don't know what they're doing, but they have a devious little plan in their young, but evil genius-type minds. And that plan leads to no good....Always no good.
Seriously; why do it? Or why fight with any of your children, of any age? We all know how it is going to turn out. One minute, they're behaving like they're the spawn of Satan, and you can't understand what is keeping you from throwing them out of the windows...And then the very next minute, turning on a dime, they've completely flip flopped, and they do something that just melts your heart, and now they're your gift from above again.
Ironically, this particular situation is what kept me from posting on time this week. All the children decided that it was a good idea to conspire against the parents and their sanity and do their absolute best to make us question on our sanity and ability to successfully parent what seemed to be little monsters. But when the dust settled, we looked at them, and all of the screaming seemed so far away...As if it never happened....
But, then again, there's always tomorrow, where it'll probably happen...Again....Oh, the joys of parenting, but would we really have it any other way?...............Of course we would...We want those happy children, who behave 24 hours a day that we see on the TV diaper commercials....
I continue to commentate on parenthood and life with three children...Life has happened, and due to technical difficulties, there will be no new strip Tuesday.
"Technical Difficulties" being three children who haven't stopped throwing fits long enough for my wife and I breathe.
We all know that new babies will keep you up at night, and you won’t get much sleep at the beginning. For those of us with more than one child, we also know that EVENTUALLY things will get better. However, when you’re back at the beginning again, and in the middle of those sleepless nights, it’s sometimes hard to remember that sleep IS coming back…Eventually.
And one thing that we’ve definitely found out, is that with twins, sleep is even MORE rare…At least with our twins. Their sleep schedule is apparently they sleep only when the sun is out, so that’s fun. But with having another, older child in the mix, the sleep schedule is even smaller, because when the older sibling wakes up in the morning, there’s no going back to sleep once the little ones are down.
Luckily there’s this magical time sometime during the day called “nap time”….Now, the biggest dilemma a parent has comes during this time….What do YOU, as the PARENT do with this small chunk of time, where everyone under the age of 5 are all FINALLY unconscious together….Do you do chores? Do you take a nap yourself, and get rested; become human again?…Or are you part child as well, and choose to entertain yourself????
Going off to college was the first time that I really did laundry on my own. At the time, being of the age where you know all the answers to the world's problems (18), it felt as if laundry was one of those giant pains in the neck...You know....The whole ONE TIME a week that I did it....Man, one time a week was just so much.
But, you know, then you grow up past that age where you know all the answers, and you find out that you really don't know everything...For instance...One time a week for laundry? NOT that much.
Add a spouse....And then add a child....And then another child....And then another child.....And when that happens....Laundry....IS NOW YOUR LIFE.
For the uninitiated, the acronym “MMO” or “MMORPG” stands for “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game”. That particular genre of game happens to be my favorite; and my favorite game of the moment, the aging, but yet still fun for me – World of Warcraft.
The problems with games of this nature is that to really get any sort of accomplishment in these games, it takes a certain amount of time each time you log into the game. These games are literally a virtual world/universe that behaves almost like the real world. There is no “winning” an MMO; but you can win Missions and Quests, and rewards, and equipment for your digital avatars. Certain quests in these games require more than one player at a time to complete as the difficulty has been raised. I consider myself both a gamer, and a parent (amongst lots of other things). A “Garent” as it were. No, that’s just lame, we’ll leave it a Gamer and a Parent. My fellow gamers out there can understand how difficult it is to not be able to finish certain quests in a timely manner, and of course, my fellow parents are well aware, having children is a full time job, with lots of overtime hours, with no overtime pay.
However, the flip side to this coin, if one were to play their cards right, and their offspring can be taught a certain amount of computer skill….An online gamer need never have to PUG (Pick Up Group – ask a random stranger who is also in the game to help with Quests or Missions In Game) again! The only real obstacle is to get the other parent to see such an exercise as quality bonding time!
Part of growing up, is of course, getting a job. We gotta pay those bills, and let’s face it: once we’re “done” with schooling, we’ve accrued quite a large amount of them.
When we’re young, we all do that “When I Grow Up (heheh), I’m gonna be”…I believe when I was young, the things that I thought I would like to have been were a Zoo Keeper, or as I’m trying out at the moment: A cartoonist. I’m not really sure how that’s panning out, but I’ve had a semi – positive reaction to my little experiment here.
But a flip side to actually growing up, is that often we end up “being”, or more accurately “doing” things that we didn’t really think we’d be doing, or plan on doing. It often times feels like we’re the only ones in that camp, when really just about everybody is doing something they didn’t really plan on. Things just kinda….Happen.
Dad. Paw-Paw. Del. Delbert. These were the names that my father was called from various members of our family. Tomorrow will mark two weeks since he passed away.
He requested no funeral service, but tonight we will be holding a memorial in his name at the Edgewood Senior Center at 550 Freedom Park Drive from 5pm - 8pm.
As such, I am delaying today's cartoon until tomorrow.
Like most males of my generation, the majority of our knowledge on the subject of pregnancy, we learned through watching cheesy '80s sitcoms. Or really just sitcoms in general.
When our oldest was finally on her way, I obviously experienced first hand what "Real" pregnancy was like. And being around "Real" pregnancy, shattered my poor delusional world.
To avoid really digging myself a hole so deep, that the woman who was pregnant with my twins will only be able to pull me out, I'm going to stop today's introduction early.
The biggest lesson that I've learned being around "Real" Pregnancy? Well, that's my own personal lesson to have learned, and I learned it well enough to not go spouting off at the mouth.
We've all been there; it's one of the main staples of having children. You find the neatest, most expensive and impressive toy in the store for your child, and 9 times out of 10....They want to play with the box.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I remember being young, and doing the box thing; there were just so many possibilities with a box. It could be (and would) be anything and everything from a secret base of operations, to a space exploration ship.
Things get kind of flip flopped as adults; it's as if our imaginations get beat out of us as we grow up. And let's be honest....That super neat, impressive and expensive toy that you get for your child. We really get those for ourselves. Because....Well, darn it....We want a super neat, expensive toy.
Growing up, I was never a really big sports fan. I played Little League, and I played soccer, but I was never really that good at either of them. When the other kids were collecting and trading baseball cards, I was collecting X-Men and Wolverine comics. Sports just seemed kind of boring to me. To be honest, if whatever form of entertainment was in front of me, if it didn't have some sort of monster, or super hero in it, I didn't really care for it.
As an adult, sports have a little bit more appeal and I find them a bit more interesting. I even enjoy outings to a professional sports game now and then. But is it just me, or does it seem that what you're expecting and what you get when you go to certain outings aren't always the same?
One of my favorite books is Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, which in and of itself is something of a miracle. I didn't want to read the Harry Potter books at all, and I started reading them kicking and screaming in protest. Anyway, from that book, one of my favorite quotes I've ever heard comes from that book:
"Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young..." - Albus Dumbledore
That quote hits me almost daily since I've become a father, as my children think and do the very same things that I did when I was their age. The biggest one I can think of; when I was young, I was ABSOLUTELY terrified of the dark. I could not bare to be alone in the dark; I was convinced there were things lurking in the shadows that I could not see that were just waiting to do unthinkable things to me if I let my guard down.
When we deemed our oldest finally old enough to be taken out of the crib, not only did we change her bed, but we also changed her room down the hall. We hadn't remembered that she already had a history of night terrors. A month or so went by, and nobody was getting any sleep, and we just could NOT understand why she just wouldn't lay down and GO TO SLEEP. After all, we were only down the hall, and it was still just our house...But then we as older adults had absolutely forgotten what it was like to be that young, and have that much change thrown at you at once... Hopefully future therapy bills won't be that much.
When was the last time you ever held a "conversation" with a toddler? Did it seem as though they were talking about something COMPLETELY different than you were; or maybe even speaking a different language altogether? Our oldest could do more than "jibber jabber" by the time she was one. We lost count of how many words were in her vocabulary by the time she was one and a half. And now that she's almost three, she's constantly mistaken for being a four or five year old.
HOWEVER, when she gets really excited, or frustrated, or just doesn't understand how to put what's going on in her head into actual words, it's as if she becomes possessed by some sort of child spirit, and starts speaking in tongues that perhaps only children on another planet can understand....
ABANDON ALL HOPE - YE WHO HOLDS YOUR INFANTS LONGER THAN A FEW MINUTES!
That's the most common theme I've been given by other people once I became a parent myself. If you hold your infant, you spoil them, and you'll never be able to do anything other than hold the infant....UNTIL YOU DIE....Or at least that's the severity with which others speak of when referring to the evils that is holding and/or spoiling your babies....And they talk with such pride about not holding or rocking or snuggling with their children. This way the infants learn to be independent; do things on their own....So, if I follow this logic, if a baby is left to his or her own devices long enough, will they stop crying and get their own bottle at 3:30 in the morning? Because that would be awesome...
While preparing to become a parent when our first child was on her way, like every first time parent in the digital age, I began doing online research about all the various things I needed to be aware of that children and babies needed. I eventually stumbled upon a list of parenting...."Styles"....Styles that were becoming more and more popular among the trendy and metropolitan parents of the day. I guess it's that these styles have grown out of trying to get your child to be the most advanced during their development, and become ready for the world at hand as quickly as they can. Of course, being the simple man that I am, I already felt that I was a neglectful parent because I wasn't hooking my wife's uterus up to headphones and playing Mozart, or reading Dostoevsky to the fetus at the third day of conception...
The first time that you ever hear the news that you are about become responsible for another human being is something that is beyond comprehension. It's been almost 3 years since I first heard those words. It's awesome and utterly terrifying at the same time. You think to yourself, am I ready? Can I do this? Will I just mess this new person up so badly, that there's no redeeming them, or myself?......How long do I have to wait until they can log in to World Of Warcraft, and help me raid?.....
I am both excited, and a little nervous to be putting this experiment of mine out in the wild. This has been a LONG time coming. For what ever reasons I have, or have led myself to believe that I have or have had, this project has been in the works, one way or another, for about 11 years.
Who are you, and what is this place you ask? Well, to answer the first question, I am a father of three beautiful girls, and husband to an amazing woman. I love being a dad, and if I could, would be a stay at home dad in a heartbeat, without question. I am also quite a man-child, and giant geek. As the sub-title of my blog states, I am a dad who, in fact, has never really quite grown up. I am a huge comics/super hero/sci-fi/fantasy/video game geek. I still (lamely) head bang to rock and metal in my car when I think no one is looking. And lastly, one way or another, I sometimes consider myself an artist...I do have an art degree after all....But more specifically, I'd like to be considered a cartoonist.
As far as for what this place is, this is my attempt at becoming the cartoonist I've always wanted to be. I've always heard that to be the most successful at something, you should write what you know; that way, you'll always have material, and you'll enjoy what you're doing. The two things that I love and know the most about are comics, and the things that I've learned being a father who is just as much a child as the children I am raising.
So, if you care to stick around, every Tuesday and Thursday, as long as I continue to learn new things while raising my family, I will publish a new life lesson I have gone through.
Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy what is to follow!
.JPG)
