Last night, Kat had an interview with one of the teachers who is leading her delegation to Australia. I was working, so I wasn’t here to stand over her shoulder and make her even more nervous. She feels that she did very well. She got the impression that the teacher liked her, and she was told that her application is ‘pending approval’. Part of that process is getting letters of recommendation from teachers, which she has already talked to the amount of teachers she needs and is just waiting to get them back and send them off.

I can not relate to you through these words how proud I am of ‘The Teenager’. Too often, I make fun of her here, on twitter and facebook, and at home. It’s all in good fun and easy. After all, she’s a TEENAGER! But truth be told, I am amazed each and every day at the young woman she is becoming. I remember utterly failing at getting in to Honor Society in high school because I couldn’t work up the courage to ask a teacher for the recommendation, something Kat has no problem with. I’m almost jealous of her courage, but also extremely proud.

She is creative and smart and fun, and I am truly proud to be a part of her life. I’m sure she’ll teach those Aussies a thing or two this June!

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

Now, did you notice anything? Kids? Ok. A big yellow 7 year old bird? Good! Notice anything else? Were the kids outside?! AND they were PLAYING!!!! Keep this in mind as I continue to rant…

Yesterday, Christina Warren of Mashable.com wrote a piece praising Sesame Street and their Elmo iPhone app. Take a look:

Christina begins her article by saying:

Sesame Street is one of my favorite brands, not just because Grover is amazing, but because over the last 40 years, it has never been afraid of innovating and embracing new technologies.

To which I thought, absolutely! A quick search on my blog for ‘Sesame Street’ will reveal my love for all things Sesame Street as well! Calli and I have spent countless hours on the laptop watching and playing with our Sesame Street friends on sesamestreet.org! Even my very first column for Dad-Blogs was about Sesame Workshop‘s panwapa.com. (Feel free to visit the column here: Can You Tell Me How To Get To Panwapa Island?) So yes, I agree that Sesame Street is worth buying in to.

She goes on to talk about the app, and then this statement caught my eye:

On my running route, I see children in their strollers playing on iPhone or iPod touch devices. It’s amazing.

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

The squeal of screeching tires sounded in my head and I did a spit-take. WHAT?! ‘Come on kids, let’s go to the park. You can play on my iPhone!’?

When I first saw that, I wanted to rant about the evils of technology and how Sesame Street shouldn’t influence kids to sit around playing with it. But then it hit me. Sesame Street is just taking advantage of how we as parents utilize technology in order to get their brand out in front of as many young eyeballs as possible. And it’s still a good brand. Sesame Workshop does a lot for our kids, and I would never discourage anyone from participating in that.

But iPhones in strollers?! Parents, please. What are you doing to your kids?

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. I can’t rail against technology as I type my blog in to my laptop while I listen to Pandora and munch on my freshly microwaved breakfast. I’ve been known to hand my Blackjack II to my kid with a cartoon or game on. But I do that while we’re waiting at the doctor’s office or the DMV. And if we are at the doctor’s office, I look for toys. The dirtier the better. Builds up the immune system with antibodies. But I digress.

When at the park, dear parents, what ever happened to ‘Look, Junior, isn’t that a cute puppy?’ or ‘My, what a tall tree that is!’ If a kid is dexterous enough to navigate an iPhone app, I’m willing to bet that he/she is able to walk and explore the world around them. Why would you hamper that?

What do you think? Am I just flying off the deep end? Has my year plus of Daddy Blogging finally given me a self-righteous need to judge all other parents and find them inferior? How do you utilize technology in your parenting?

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

I’ve spent all morning working on today’s post, well, the bits of the morning where I wasn’t taking The Teenager to school. Then there were the times I was holding the baby, which is a chore, let me tell you. Every time I hold that warm little snuggly body against me I can’t help thinking that I’d much rather be in front of my glaring blank white computer screen instead of throwing the baby in to the air and hearing his sweet, genuine giggle as I tickle under his ribs with my nose. Who wants that?

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah! I’ve spent all morning on a post that I can be proud of. This is not that post. I’ve decided to postpone that post until next Fatherhood Friday in order to do more research and obtain further photographic evidence.

So for today, please enjoy this peek in to my random fatherly brain, and I promise, next week will be a post more worthy of your precious time.

• My wife is the best editor/reviewer that I could ask for. She is the one person that I would allow to give me advice on my writing. She nails it every time, and is the reason the real post for today is postponed. I felt like something was missing, and she filled in the blanks. Man, I love her.
• Pandora just played Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zoroaster), Tone Poem For Orchestra, Op. 30‘, which was the theme for ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘, and I had to stop what I was doing and turn it up. I lowered myself to the level of my desk and imagined my laptop was a monolith. It did not, however, make me more cosmically aware. It just wanted to tell me not to use teeth whiteners or drink acai berry juice. The search for cosmic enlightenment continues…
• Last night, my considerate Calli gave my wife an astute warning about the window sill: ‘Don’t touch that,’ she said, ‘I put a booger there.’ She’s so thoughtful!
• Tristin’s asleep in his bouncy while still holding tightly to his knobby bouncy ball. He’s so cute!
• My wife hasn’t missed a day on the Wii Fit since we started, while it just yelled at me for missing four. My Mii is now sentenced to wear a hoody to sweat it out. Come on, Wii! I’ve been busy!
• We’re still wrestling with exactly the right punishment for Kat after she dented the wall with the Wii remote, and then didn’t tell us… Any ideas out there?
• I am pleased and honored to announce that I have 42 fans on Facebook after starting my fan page four days ago! Thank you all for the support! If you haven’t fanned me yet, there’s a convenient badge on the right for you to do so! My hope is that the page will add another level of interactivity to this blog, and sometimes I’ll be using it as a testing ground for upcoming posts, so be sure to check the discussion board! (Hint, there are a couple of discussions up now…)

Aaaand… my brain just stopped working. Hope all is well with you, and have a great time reading all the other Fatherly posts on this Fatherhood Friday!

My favorite TV dad has been ‘dead’ for three seasons. ‘Dead’ in quotes because: a) The actor that portrayed him his very much alive, and b) It’s a show based on a comic book, and who stays dead in a comic book?

I am, of course, talking about John Schneider’s portrayal of Jonathan Kent on Smallville.

While some aspects of Smallville seem hokey to me, (such as the fact that we’re nine seasons in, Clark’s a reporter at the Daily Planet and flirting with costume ideas, shouldn’t the show be over by now? At least change the name to Superman and be done with it…) Jonathan Kent struck a chord in me.

Imagine what life must have been like for Jonathan and Martha Kent. You find a baby in the burning wreckage of an unidentified spacecraft. You take the boy in, knowing that one day you will have to tell him of his amazing arrival into this world. Sooner than you’re probably ready for, the boy starts exhibiting amazing powers. Powers beyond those of mortal men. You feel the boy slipping from you. All you can hope is that you’ve instilled in him the values that will make him more than just a productive member of society, but someone who will make the world a better place.

Jonathan Kent on Smallville is obviously out of his depth. What does a Kansas farmer know about raising a super being? Although the challenge terrifies him, he meets that challenge head-on with grace and the patience of a saint. Anyone else would have probably given up when Clark was taken over by Red Kryptonite or Jor-El threatened his life, but Jonathan had the unconditional love that a father has for his son. He loved that Kryptonian as if Kal-El were his own.

Before this gets too goofy (too late), let me just say that there’s something about fiction, and science fiction in particular, that can cut to the heart of a subject matter and tell it like it truly is. Orson Scott Card often says that science fiction is the one fiction genre that can be about something. Rod Serling created The Twilight Zone to explore controversial topics without sending censors through the roof. Smallville, for all it’s action and adventure and pretentious super model poses at commercial breaks, still fits within the science fiction mode of showing us something about ourselves.

Jonathan Kent, while exaggerated, points out some of the treachery of being a parent. ‘How would I deal with that?’ you find yourself asking. And while your child will probably not fly or burn holes in the school when he’s hot for teacher, you will have to deal with raging teenage hormones. All you can do is try to be that anchor.  Guide your child to the best of your abilities, and pray that he/she gets it.

'The look'

As for John Schneider’s portrayal? All I can say is, when Clark screwed up and John gave him ‘the look’, I felt like I was getting the lecture. But there were also several times that the love for his son almost seemed too much to bear, and that spilled off of the screen and into my heart as well.

So here’s to Jonathan Kent, may he rest in peace. Until he somehow miraculously returns at the Fortress of Solitude from an alternate dimension, as a clone, or an evil doppleganger.

The father cherishes his son in that moment, trying to commit every detail to memory. Even the blemishes, even the flaky cradle cap, is precious to the father.

A flash.

Vertigo.

The son is much older. An adult. Father and Son are having a heated debate. What they argue the father can’t say. All the father feels is anger, devotion, and sadness.

The son is a little younger, and the father has found something in his son’s room. Something that makes him chuckle in reminiscence, but is also some cause for concern. How is he going to tell the son’s mother?

The son is younger still, playing tee ball. The father never had any interest in sports before, but he never misses a game.

The son is much older and looking down at the father. The father is laying very still. He is wearing a suit he has never seen before. He can not turn his head, though he’s certain he is laying inside a box. A single tear falls to splash on the father’s clasped hands.

A flash.

The father finds himself gripping the side of his son’s crib. He looks down at his white knuckles and finally gets one hand to release and wipe the sweat from his brow.

Was it all a dream? It felt so vivid, so real. Had it been a product of his active imagination? A vision of things to come?

Or was all of this happening at once?

Head spinning, the father turns to leave. Glancing over his shoulder one last time, he whispers one more ‘I love you’ before pulling the door closed.

I’m always looking for new ways to express myself. I thought I’d try to wrap some feelings into a fiction story. Let me know what you think, and have a great FatherHood Friday!

I tweeted this pic recently with the caption 'The world from my POV', and truly, this is what matters most.

This is not a pity post by any stretch of the imagination. All my co-workers and I can talk about is this exciting new change. Nothing’s set in stone, but if we go with the ‘plan’, I will have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas off this year! Of course those days will shift next year, but really, we can celebrate things a day or two before or after, right?

Anyway, another reason I’m looking forward to this is that I have some big things planned for this blog and my column over at dad-blogs: Kids Play On The Net. The column has really gotten sacrificed for a couple of months, and the blog is only truly alive Wednesday and Friday.

I’ve been networking and have had someone offer to guest post. I have interviews in the works. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even have a giveaway or two.

AND! I’ll get a lot more time with my family. Simply put: I. Can’t. WAIT!

Stay tuned folks!

Registration is on the 10th, so even though Wal-Mart is already pushing the last of the school supplies out the door, it hasn’t even sunk in for me that it’s back to school time at all!

Another weird thing is that even though she’s a Sophomore, this will be her first year in a real high school.

I probably shouldn’t say ‘real’. How about ‘traditional’. Last year, she went to an ‘expeditionary high school’. This meant that the students didn’t always stay in the classroom. If they were studying geology, they’d climb a mountain and find rocks, they took a trip to Denver to explore different careers, etc.

The teacher to student ratio was somewhere in the ball park of 1 in 12, meaning that no kid really got lost in the pack.

The classes were pretty cool, too. They would study a topic and the teachers blended subjects in to that one topic. For example, they could be studying World War 2. Naturally, there’s history and social studies in there, but you could also discuss the workings of the Bomb and nuclear energy in science. Pretty cool.

The thing was that it actually seemed to not challenge Kat enough. She did great, but it was a small school with really no extra-curricular activities.

So this year she’s going back to a traditional environment, where the teacher to student ratio is probably 1 in 30, classes are completely separate from each other, and Kat can spend all her time after school staying after for play practice or whatever other interest suits her fancy.

I can’t help but wonder if we’re doing the right thing. This was a choice we all made together, and Kat is excited about it.

But is all this change good for her?

Then I think of all the changes that have felt forced upon me in my adult life. My job has been restructured so many times that I’ve lost count. I adapted and evolved, albeit begrudgingly. At least she’s getting a choice, and this is what she chose. I trust her and know she’ll excel in whatever she does, I just like to be the worrying father every once in a while.  ;)

Good luck, kid!

The darkness was thick as chowder. The audience sat in nervous anticipation. Not a child stirred, nor adult clear their throat. No event save the royal croquet match was as anticipated as the Mad Hatter’s Carnivale and Cavalcade. A drum roll began like the faintest, distant roll of thunder. A crescendo and a cymbal crash. A spotlight sliced the darkness like one of the Red Queen’s executioners taking off a head. In the beam of light stood the Mad Hatter. His green pants and jacket shimmered with rainbows in the spotlight. His large bowtie did not flop as it usually did, but stood proudly horizontal. His head was bowed as much as it could be with such a bowtie, and the spotlight glared off of the tag: ‘This style 10/6″. The wide brim of the hat obscured the little man’s face, but his large front teeth protruded like white monoliths. When he spoke, the nasal voice echoed from the wall of the big top though there was no evidence of a microphone or anything else.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, March Hares and Doormice, It is without any further ado that I present … the Greatest Show In Wonderland!”

The big top lit up as if it were daylight to reveal an extraordinary array of colorful characters. Mice danced on large colorful balls, angels danced on pins, a magnificent elephant carried a Persian Prince who waved to the crowd that exploded with cheers of gratitude and excitement. The Red Queen applauded despite herself. A Cheshire Cat juggled his head. The Doormouse was wide awake.

The Mock Turtle sang, “Now I will, Now I can, Join the dance!” The only tear on his face was one of sheer joy.

The griffin spread his wings that glistened in the theatrical lights like stars in a sky with no moon.

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum shook hands and danced and fell over each other, laughing all the while.

The White Rabbit, of course, had to hurry to catch up.

Just as the procession really got going, the music ceased and the lights went out. The audience, dazed and with ears ringing, fumbled for their seats as the Mad Hatter’s voice was heard.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, little crowd

Your applauding was much too loud.

Up above the show you sit

Don’t make a peep, not one bit.”

The crowd did not move. Silence took over once more. The blinding light illuminated the Hatter once more.

“Thank you.” The Hatter said, removing his hat to reveal long rabbit ears and a rabbit face. The crowd gasped. Beady black rabbit eyes turned, examining the crowd. “As you can see, I’ve been through some… changes.” Everyone remained still and quiet. “My attempts to bring Alice back to Wonderland have gone unsuccessful. But the March Hare and I …

Well, we put aside our tea and bisquits and spent quite a long time searching. We became so engrossed in the work that we began to think as one.” He quickly turned to the left, and seemed to take on another voice. A familiar voice. The voice of the March Hare. “So we literally became one!”

The crowd gasped. It was grotesque. It was horrifying. It was exactly something those two mad creatures could and would do.

The Hatter’s head snapped to the right. “Do not be alarmed. We really just wanted Alice’s attention.”

Left. “Are you getting this, Alice?”

Alice awoke in a cold sweat. She clutched the bedclothes to her chest. She looked over at her husband, who seemed to bear the slightest resemblance to a Mad Hatter she had once met as a child. She shook her head and looked again. There was her handsome husband. She slipped out of bed without disturbing him and looked in at her kids. They slumbered peacefully. There were no white rabits or doormice or any Wonderland creatures hiding in her home.

Alice went back to bed. She put her arm around her dear husband and drifted back to sleep, swearing that she or her family would never ever know the horrors of Wonderland again.

She hoped that they wouldn’t.

But her dreams were always there, pulling her back. The March Hatter had been wrong.

Alice would never be able to leave Wonderland…

‘Wait!’ I exclaimed. ‘Since everyone is here, I’d like to announce a decision I’ve made!’

The family looked at me expectantly. I had thought about it all day. If I were to act, it had to be soon.

‘I have decided to celebrate, actually celebrate, Christmas in July! I want turkey and stuffing and each of us can even have a present!’

‘Turkey? Shouldn’t we have something summery?’ Kat asked.

‘Nope, I want Christmas food!’ I said.

This is completely self-indulgent. I have worked retail for twelve years, which has completely ruined the holidays for me. I always have to be at work at something like 4AM the day after Thanksgiving, and this past year I even had to work Christmas night, essentially to make the store look like Christmas never happened by the time we opened on the 26th.

Who says this has to happen in December? Feh.

I’ve got vacation coming to me starting the 23rd, so on July 25th, my family and I will turn off the phones, leave the computer turned off, lay around in our jammies, open presents, and stuff ourselves with turkey and all the fixin’s. I’ll probably throw on some Christmas MP3s for good measure.

Working retail will not ruin Christmas this year!

Calli can help you conquer the world!

Yesterday I was stressed at work. The day before that, I was stressed at work. Last week: yeah, more stress. I don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t blog but once a week (FatherHood Friday, as seen at dad-blogs.com! Be sure to check out all the cool moms and dads who selflessly share the lives of their families for your entertainment and delight!) I can hardly take making a decision anymore, because somehow it’ll be wrong to someone.

So. After a stressful day at work, I walked through the pouring rain to my car. Generally, when it’s raining and I feel blue, I imagine myself as David Banner, put my hands in my pockets and whistle the ‘Incredible Hulk’ theme, but this time it wasn’t enough to make me feel better. I had to stay later than I wanted, causing us to miss the performance of Alice in Wonderland I really wanted to take Calli to. I popped the trunk and realized I’d left the laptop back in the office. Perfect. Only I didn’t think ‘perfect’. I try to keep my blog family-friendly, so I’ll leave out what I really thought.

I drove home, rain crashing on the windshield. I did NOT turn on the radio. I just sulked.

So I come home to the family. Calli is inconsolable. She REALLY wants to go outside. But she doesn’t want to wear her raincoat or boots. We plead with her and essentially wrestle her to the ground to get her to don her rain acoutrements. I try real hard to tuck in the raw nerve she keeps stepping on. It’s not her fault I had a bad day, week, and month. She’s just being her precocius two-year old self. And judging from stories I’ve heard, she’s not even all that bad!

Raingear on, Calli, Kat, and their Mom go outside. I pace the apartment, not wanting to be rude to my family, but feeling like I need a moment alone. The half hour in the silent car wasn’t enough. Aw, heck, I’ll go see what they’re up to!

I stepped outside my building in my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robot pajama pants and Legion of Super Heroes t-shirt (a sign I truly don’t care. I normally don’t set foot outside in something like that! I usually match the pants to the t-shirt, come on!) and turn left, so absorbed in my sulking that I don’t notice the family off to the right.

“Justin!” I hear my wife call. I turn to see her jogging back to our apartment. “I gotta get the camera! Wanna go watch the kids playing in the mud?”

I looked over, and there they were: the two ‘sissies’ (sisters, not cowards) were splashing and playing in the mud.

Calli looked up with her big baby blues and said, “Try it, Daddy!”

“I don’t know, maybe later.”

“Peeeeaze? I wanta you to try it!”

“OK.”

Good times...

I kicked off my sandals and let the mud ooze between my toes. I watched Calli and Kat stomp around in the mud. We laughed and splashed and played. I began to think of when I was a kid, and rain was almost magical! Rain was when you went outside and splashed and played and delighted in your merry mess making. Rain’s not a literary symbol for sadness and depression. Rain is liberating and cleansing. I had forgotten that.

Kids will do that to you. Sometimes you have to shake off the cranial-anal disorder to see it.

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When I post Kat’s art, I get comments that say ‘Keep them coming!’ So, I’m happy to oblige!

Today we present some Kat-style fantasy!