What I've learned...BONUS FATHER'S DAY EDITION!

Dads, Moms, Friends, Family and more,

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

To celebrate Father’s Day I’m sending out a BONUS EDITION of the surprisingly popular “What I’ve Learned” series to celebrate 15 months of me being a dad. Even though it’s only been short time since the last installment, believe me, I’ve learned so much more since then and child services have only been called twice! I still have much to discover but the last year and change has been a crash course in patience, time management, humor, budgeting, prioritization, communication and selflessness. It’s been hard but man oh man is it fun. And with a wife as great as Emily it’s been a real cool adventure.

Ernest Hemingway once said "To be a successful father there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years.” Funny, but I couldn’t disagree more. Being a successful dad is all about being involved. I have loved every second of Logan’s infancy and I know all the other dad’s would agree with me that there is NOTHING cooler then your child giving you a hug, a high five or just having their little hand wrapped around your finger while taking a walk. That’s what I’ve learned, along with all the following…

- It’s hard to raise a child when I still feel like one myself. Logan and I are 30 years apart and enjoy the same things. We both dance to the same bad rap songs and both wear funny t-shirts. My favorite foods are macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers and watermelon, so are his. Logan burps, I smile. Logan farts, I laugh. He enjoys being naked as do I. He pees in his pants regularly, me too. Emily, god bless her, must feel like she’s raising two little boys some days.

- Babies who’ve just learned to walk look exactly like drunken midgets. Not only are they stumbling and bumping into things but with the drooling, the falling down and the nonsensical mumbling they may as well be holding a beer too.

- Babies constantly need to be entertained. I’m always making up silly songs with impromptu melodies and lyrics for small tasks like wiping his face, putting on his shoes and buckling his car seat. Some of these ditties include “putting on your shoes, putting on your shoes, everybody wears them, except for kangaroos” or “take a little nappy, so you don’t feel crappy, when you wake in two hours you’ll be happy, happy, HAPPY!”

- When your wife’s been with a cranky baby all day and she’s tired, stressed out and overwhelmed and then you walk in from playing a long round of golf it’s not really a good idea to tell her you’re going to take a shower then catch a quick nap.

- Grandparents, although wonderfully loving and incredibly kind, don’t ever abide by any of your parenting rules at all. They pretend to listen to what you tell them and then simply do it their own way. They never follow your nap schedule, don’t listen to any food or drink no-no’s and spoil the baby all the time. Then when your baby is overtired, full of sugar and has been coddled and held all day they give them back to you and go home.

- Sometimes when our son is in a bad mood, which doesn’t happen that often, my wife and I will make up funny nicknames for him to make the situation better. I recommend this to all parents, it’s just fun. Some of our favorites nicknames for Logan when he’s irritable are Dr. Whiny McCrabbypants, Forrest Grump, Admiral Van Grouchenstein, Professor Cranky Sourpuss III or my personal favorite, Moany de la Groany from Arizony.

- Logan just had his first haircut, a very big deal in a child’s life. Apparently the tradition is to keep some of your baby’s hair for posterity, a job that my wife Emily put me in charge of. Not knowing any better I just grabbed a clump of hair from off the floor after his haircut without realizing that many other people had also gotten their hair cut that day. So now my wife’s scrapbook has a few strands of Logan’s blonde locks along with the hair of two Mexican kids, a Chinese girl, some punk teenager and an eighty-year-old woman named Madge. Shhh, don’t tell Emily.

- Our boy says hi to everybody. I mean everybody! We go shopping and all you hear is this smiling little boy saying “hi, hi, hi, hi, hi” to every person he sees for hours. People love him and he loves people and he’ll say hi to anyone who walks by. He’s so good at it that they offered him a job at Wal-Mart as a greeter and is now working 4 days a week. Its way better then day care as it comes with full benefits and a cool blue vest. Child labor, child shmabor.

- Baby TV shows are just awful. All have bad titles like The Wiggles or Doodlebops, weird characters named Captain Feathersword, Twinkle or Mr. Noodle and the “intricate” plots usually involve something stupid like finding a ball, going to the store or eating lunch. Real deep stuff. Come to think of it, those shows are probably still more complex and better written than 90% of primetime television.

- When you take a toddler out to eat at a restaurant you had better be a big tipper. Forget 15%, the gratuity ratio I use is “the worse the mess, the higher the tip.” By the time our son’s done eating he looks like the loser of a high-school food fight. There’s food everywhere! On him, on us, all over the floor, strewn about the table and even on the elderly gentleman’s back sitting at the next table. The last time we ate out I tipped almost 70% and had to buy that old guy next to us an appetizer. Dinner at Chili’s shouldn’t ever cost $94 for three people. We’re eating in from now on.

- Babies sometimes get hurt, it’s a fact. It’s how you react to them getting hurt that is the difference between whether they freak out crying or not. I haven’t perfected the art of reacting yet. I’ve found that softly and soothingly repeating “you’re okay, yes you are, you’re fine” after he crushes his tiny, bloody fingers in a cabinet door does not calm him. But neither does yelling “Oh my God! Why Lord, whyyyyyyyyy? We’re all gonna die!” when he barely bumps his head. I need to work on that.

- Our daily life revolves around Logan’s nap schedule. Regular naps make for happy babies and happy parents. We live for his nap. In those precious few hours Logan is napping my wife and I can each shower, do laundry, eat, pay bills, rest, clean up the house and more. We can get days worth of stuff done in that short time. But when he doesn’t nap? Well, it’s not good. We get nothing done at all; we’re dirty, clothing-less, hungry, money owing zombies living in filth. It’s truly amazing what a nap can do.

- We live in Arizona so putting sunscreen on our son is very important. Everyone tells me how vital is: our pediatrician, my wife, my mother, my mother in law, my pediatrician’s mother in law. I was so worried that our son would get burnt that the fist time I applied it I used almost the whole bottle of lotion. When I was done “applying the sunscreen liberally” as directed, the poor kid looked like a shiny white marble lawn statue or some sort of oily albino baby. Not only was he blocking harmful UV rays, he was also waterproof, bulletproof and visible from space. Now I just let him swim in a shirt and hat and leave sunscreen application to the experts.

- Don’t let your babies run around naked for too long. We sometimes let Logan run around nude before bath time – he goes crazy and we think it’s funny because, like all boys, he loves not wearing any pants. However there’s nothing funny about having to clean up little piles of poop on your new carpet from a crazed, diaper-less baby. What is funny though is seeing your wife unknowingly step in it.

- Toddlers like to steal things and then hide them. And they’re really good at it too. Our little kleptomaniac has taken and hidden my cell phone, Emily’s keys, our garage door opener, important mail, cutlery, the TV remote, large bills out of my wallet and even jewelry. We literally have to comb our house every evening to find our missing stuff. We’ve discovered our things underneath the couch, in plants, in the garbage and even stuffed underneath his mattress. I’ve asked for a metal detector for Father’s Day just so I can find my watch. Knowing Logan, he’s probably already fenced it on eBay.

- For parents, finding a good babysitter is one of the most important things you can do. It’s a cutthroat, secretive and ruthless competition amongst parents as every couple is looking for the perfect babysitter. Hell, I would kill my best friend to steal his babysitter if she was reliable, trustworthy and had her own transportation. Our current babysitter is so good that if she asked for six figures a year and a new car I’d probably say yes. Thank god though she only requires $10.00 an hour and an occasional bag of microwave popcorn.

- Giving a baby a carbonated beverage is hilarious! The face they make is priceless and looks like they ate a lemon mixed with poop, yet they just can’t get enough! Logan drank some Sprite recently and actually put his hands in his mouth and began furiously scrubbing his tongue to get it out – then he said “More!”

- Communicating with a 15 month old is hard. Parrots have bigger vocabularies then toddlers. Logan makes no sense at all. Up means up but it also means down. Hot is hot but it’s also cold. Mama is mama but so is any other person he sees. Dog sounds like duck and milk sounds like more. I’m sure it’s frustrating for him as well, but I’m the one who has to figure out if he wants me to “pick up the cold milk” or “duck down the hot more” or maybe even “pick up the hot mama.” I love my son and his learning to speak, but sometimes it’s like talking to an autistic caveman.

- Licking Cheerios and sticking them all over on your face like you have chicken pox, then having your child pick them off one by one and eat them makes everyone laugh, except mommy.

So that’s what else I’ve learned. I’ve learned a lot, huh? Imagine what I’ll know by the time Logan turns 2!

Happy Father’s Day to all my fellow dads out there! Stay strong my brothers – our day is near! (Actually it’s this Sunday. FATHER’S OF THE WORLD, UNITE!)

Adam