Howefitz Blog

G’Day, Mates! This Fatherhood Friday, I wanted to give you the update on Kat’s Australian adventures!

We’ve been communicating through text and the leader has been emailing us, so unfortunately, there are no pictures yet. They are in and out of phone service, and don’t have access to email very often, but here’s what I know so far:

They have repelled off of the Blue Mountains, swam at the Olympic Park, toured the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Aquarium, visited the Opal Museum, took a cruise of Sydney Harbor, visited the Parliament House, swam at Edith Falls, visited Aborigines, and Kat wrestled a sheep.

After much deliberation, it has been decided that Joanne Owens (@hangglided on twitter) is the winner of my Sweet As Sugar Milk contest. She’ll be receiving her copy of Sugar Milk in the mail soon, I’m shipping it today! Congrats, and thank you so much Joanne!

With that, I am pleased to announce that through the generosity of my blog readers, friends, family, and a few impromptu garage sales (not to mention most of my tax return), Kat’s trip to Australia with People to People is now reality! She flies out on the 16th for 17 days in the Land Down Under. I can’t believe that it’s that soon! Incidentally, on the graphic above, I found a font on Artweaver called ‘Australian Sunrise’. What else would I use? Here’s a glance at Kat’s itinerary while she’s down there:

It’s Fatherhood Friday once again, and I’ll get right down to business. I would like to take this heightened traffic opportunity to once again ask for your help.

We just recently found out that Kat needs to finish raising the money for her People to People delegation to Australia by May 14th! If you are able, please make a donation of any comfortable amount by clicking on the Chip-In button to the right of this page. Kat and my wife are working on hand drawn thank you cards that will be sent to you from Australia, time allowing, or when she gets home. If you’ve already donated, you’re already on our mailing list!

Saturday, we went to the Denver area to see what this People to People thing is all about. If you’ve missed it in previous posts, Kat received a nomination to a People to People delegation to Australia. The mailings we’ve received say things like ‘cuddle with a koala!’ and ‘swim a corral reef!’ so we were certainly curious. The informational meeting certainly peeked my interest. Kat will not only be given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but also will come back with 120 hours of elective social studies credits, which looks great on a college resume.

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?

When I first started watching Glee, I was skeptical. I thought it would be just another teen drama that would send me running to the kitchen sink to deposit my dinner for the sheer sappiness and unbelievability of it.

Glee has sappiness.

Glee is, more often than not, unbelievable.

But there’s something about the show that I did not expect: the positive portrayal of fathers. Or at least, fathers-to-be.

I’d like to focus on two fathers-to-be in particular: Will Schuester and Finn Hudson.

This FatherHood Friday, I want to start off kind of heavy and then lighten the load. Bear with me, but I have to say something.

In Christopher Moore‘s hilarious book, ‘A Dirty Job‘, his main character is a ‘beta male’. Moore describes a beta male as the guy that wasn’t all that popular in high school that, when something does go his way, he feels like it will be snatched away at any moment. The beta male’s imagination is constantly shifting to the worst case scenario.

I’m pretty sure that I am a beta male, and I have a pretty active imagination.

This post is a part of the glorious event that is FatherHood Friday. That’s where Dad and Mom bloggers come together on Friday and discuss what FatherHood is all about. Be sure to click the link on the left for more fabulous contributions. Isn’t this header thing like the top of the first page of an old comic? “Bitten by a radioactive spider, young Peter Parker….”

OK, I finally get to catch a breath. Ok, not really. But I’m stealing this time to catch you all up anyway.

Every site about blogging you’ll find will tell you not to write a ‘sorry I haven’t blogged in so long’ post, so I’m not apologizing.

I’m just explaining.

So the past couple of weeks have held a move to a new house, a birthday, and an upcoming birth. That’s a lot to squeeze in to two weeks!

This doll will help Calli learn to potty ... right?

OK, I’m pretty sure around the time that Calli was born I read somewhere that girls generally start potty training at 18 months. ‘Woo-hoo!’ My inexperienced father’s brain cried. Only a year and a half of foul-smelling, foul-colored, unidentifiable, unexplainable messes in diapers? I can handle that!

Nearly three years later, I’m still changing diapers. I’ve failed. You can see pictures of the wife and I in the parenting Hall of Shame. There’s a failed potty-trainers wing, and we’re the star attractions.

Then again, maybe not!