Category: fatherhood

Daddy-Daughter Dilemmas

readingI love reading to my daughters. For the last couple of years my wife and I have been reading Young Adult novels with/to our oldest, the Elder Extroverted One, who is a mature ten year old. It blew up after she tackled the Harry Potter series. For awhile it was difficult to get her to read anything that wasn’t Harry Potter but she reluctantly allowed us to help her branch out a bit with the help of the list of fine girl-empowering books from A Mighty Girl. The Elder Extroverted One enjoyed The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (I did, too. But I’m a fan of his anyway). I have read The Hunger Games and figured that she could handle it so I read it to her while she read it to herself. Then she gobbled up Catching Fire after I read it first. These last two books have more violence than anything else that I was worried that she would not be quite ready to deal with those situations.

The thing with all of these books so far is that I have read them first and then deemed them to be okay for her to read. At the moment we are reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. Which is a fine book, by the way, it’s just that I haven’t read it before allowing it to be read to/by the Elder Extroverted One. The other night as I was reading to her it was getting into the budding relationship between [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] (no spoilers here, folks). As I was reading one particular rendezvous between the unnamed two it got a little heated up. So much so, I felt that I had to stop and skim ahead because I wasn’t sure how far it would escalate and if I wanted to be reading it out loud to my ten year old daughter.

As parents, my wife and I are forthcoming about the birds and the bees with our daughters. More my wife than me but mostly because I’m a dumb, stinky boy and don’t feel qualified to scientifically discuss such things (I may have just turned forty but I have a mental age of twelve). So, I’m not too worried about the sexy stuff in books. But, as a ten year old, she may not emotionally be ready to deal with the not-so-scientific way of these kinds of relationships. Plus, it’s just kind of weird reading that out loud AND to my daughter. Hell, I think it would be weird to read the kinds of books they read over on Vaginal Fantasies out loud to my wife.

So, this may be just my own hang up that I have to deal with but wonder what other fathers do as they continue to read with/to their daughters as the daughters grow in age and reading level.

I can’t wait for the day the Elder Extroverted One will just read all of her books to herself. Which would leave me to read my own books or watch TV…probably TV.

I Am Disappoint

*nerd alert* Last night as I was reading a comic book to the Extroverted Ones the Elder Extroverted One decided to tell me that she likes Superman more than she likes Batman. This was a serious blow to me. I am a Batman guy and have been since my early teens. I dig mostly comic book Batman but I do enjoy other incarnations of the Dark Knight as well. Well, this declaration from my eldest daughter was like a dagger to my heart. I had no idea she felt this way. Under my own roof! It, certainly, evoked feelings of disowning her. To me, Superman is too easy. He’s good at everything and vulnerable to very few things. Boring. Batman on the other hand doesn’t have super powers and must use his brains, his body and huge amounts of wealth to become a super hero. That and dead parents. All Superman had to do was show up under our yellow sun and he’s set.

Ace the Bat-houndAs we continued to read the Elder Extroverted One says, “I like Ace.” You know . . . the Bat-hound? As in Batman’s dog. I respond by saying, “Wait. You’re telling me that you like Ace but not Batman?” It doesn’t make sense to me. But I have to love her no matter what and we will make it through this hardship. Imagine, her rebelling at age ten. I’m not sure I want to see what she rebels against when she’s older. Next thing she’ll tell me is that she likes Marvel more than DC! I shudder at the thought.

No Child Left Inside

Here is something that is near and dear to my heart. I haven’t done a whole lot of outside stuff with the Young Extroverted One (and more recently the Mullethead) since we’ve moved away from the Black Mountain/Montreat, North Carolina area. However, Chattanooga may lend itself to more outdoor fun for me to experience with my kids this summer.

So, check out the link. Find out what you can do with your kids (or neighbors’ kids | with permission of course) outside! Cool video after the jump!

No Child Left Inside: Home Page.

Please join us in this national effort to highlight the importance of environmental education.  As part of the NCLI Days campaign we are urging environmental, education, conservation, and all other interested organizations to work with schools in your community to showcase engaging, environmental education activities.  Use the “No Child Left Inside Days Action Packet” to work with teachers to develop a lesson plan, generate press coverage, and educate Members of Congress about the benefits of outdoor environmental education in your area.


A New Year…Some New Stuff

Holy cow! I believe my wordpress.com page has changed three or four time since I last posted something of unimportance. I am a huge slacker in the blog world. My Twitter account is seeing all the action these days. Maybe I should look back on my ‘tweets’ and consolidate them into some sort of narrative longer than 140 characters.

Here’s the update: The Elder Extroverted Holy One is now the Reverend Elder Extroverted Holy One. Damn, her alias is getting longer. Maybe I’ll just call her “The Chosen”, or “The Truly Better Half.” How about “The Reverend Extroverted One?” That works for now…Well, The REO (awesome! “I can’t fight this feeling anymoooooorrrrrrrre”) was called to a church in Chattanooga and has since been ordained in the Presbyterian Church(USA) and is now serving that church. It’s a pretty cool small thang but with some great potential and I do believe that The REO is the youngest person there. tee hee

The Young Extroverted One is now firmly planted in a new school which is near our new house. It was a totally different experience dropping her off for her first day than her first day at the old school in east Nashville. But that’s for another post I suppose.

The Mullethead is now one year old and is doing great. Cruising around and standing on her own. We’re waiting for her to take some steps any day now. Look out world! When she can walk by herself I’m getting her a job! She needs to start earning her keep around here.

Speaking of earning one’s keep, I am no longer earning mine. I am back to being a full-time stay-at-home dad. My frequent tweets have changed dramatically from ‘doom and gloom’ to ‘rainbows and unicorns’. Sort of . . . those of you who follow me either on Facebook or Twitter would understand.

Selling our house in Nashville has been another issue entirely. The economy bit the big one right around the time we were getting our house on the market. And there it sits. All alone and empty. Waiting for someone to move in. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Something-d-o-o economics…anyone?

We are in a house that we really like in Ooltewah, TN but it’s only under a lease/purchase agreement. Basically, we’re renting it until someone buys our house and than we can buy this house. But since we’re renting the owners didn’t want us to have our pets here. So, Bosco, Maya and Aine (pronounced “anya” yeah, we’re weird) are living the good life at grandma Lucy’s house until we can buy this house. I don’t care much about the cats but I miss my dog. Sigh . . .

So, that’s us in a nutshell. Boring I know but that’s all I got for now. I would like to write more regularly on things that interest me in the future and hopefully I will. Until then? Just read this over and over again.

New Video from Dads & Daughter.org

As a father of two beautiful daughters I find this organization very important. It seems more geared for dads and step-dads of girls that are a little older than the Young Extroverted One, but, at least I’m getting as prepared as I can. I know that we’re all in for a very bumpy ride as she gets older I’m just gonna strap in, enjoy the ride and love both my girls no matter what happens. Wheeeeeee…

Updated the ‘About’ Page

Yeah . . . so . . . um . . . a lot has happened since I first wrote my about page in January of 2007. Yikes. So, I had some time this morning to make an update. Check it out. If I had a mac at work I would update my family’s newsletter page. Wow, December 2007. No excuse other than I blog more than update the newsletter page and Twitter more than blog. I have some sort of hierarchy going on here. Considering that I don’t call my parents and brother very often at least they can follow me virtually like everyone else. So there!

The Giggle Heard ’round the World

I’m very proud to say that I got the Bobblehead to giggle yesterday. It was just a little one but any giggle will do. I’m just happy she knows who I am considering how much I’m at work and how much time she spends with the Elder Extroverted Holy One (who graduates soon!!!).

It’s kind of funny that the EEHO can’t get her to laugh yet. But, then again, I am the goofy one.

I’ll have to break out the video camera and tape her giggle and post it here.

From the ‘Why Didn’t I Think of This’ File

Stephen Moseley over at CoolPeopleCare twittered his experiences of being a single parent for 36 hours. I am coming to the close of my time being a single parent and it is extremely hard especially when work and school is a factor. I would much rather have had the weekend to be the full-time daddy. Today, alone, I believe my head almost exploded three or four times. And that was just this morning getting ready to take the Young Extroverted One to work with me to get some things done before I took her to school.

Alright, the Elder Extroverted Holy One just called and said that she and the Bobblehead are leaving Montreat now. Hopefully, by the time I pick up the YEO we’ll be a complete family again. Single parents out there need some sort of huge award. Monetary in nature would be preferable.

My TV Girlfriends

As a parent, one watches a lot of children’s television. As the Young Extroverted One calls it, “Kid TV.” Through watching these shows one develops connections or revulsions with the hosts of certain shows.

Tahra of Tahra Time on NPT? I wanna punch her in the neck. And don’t get me started on Barney.

However, there are three hosts that hold a special place in my heart. And the fact that the YEO likes to watch these shows makes it easy for me to get my crush on. A quick note to the YEO and the Bobblehead: I love your mother very much. As Buffett says in ‘Little Miss Magic,’ “Your mother is the only other woman for me . . .” This is just a fun little crush and maybe a little unhealthy and creepy as well. Just relax and play along.

First up is a classic. The kids have never watched this show. Heck, I can’t even remember when it was on TV. xuxa15.jpg But, here is Xuxa.  I guess she was on around the late 80’s early 90’s. I don’t remember much about the show. I just remember her.

Next up is my buddy Jenn from Hi-5 fame. The show is actually kind of annoying. I’m not a big fan of bubbly people just bubbly beverages. But Jenn stood out among the cheese.

jenn.jpg

She has since grown up and is now a ‘big’ country star. Regardless of the genre, the crush remains. country-jenn.jpeg

Last but not least is the lovely Nina from the Good Night Show on Sprout. She is soft spoken, sweet and multilingual. nina.jpgMaybe she can teach my daughters some Spanish because us white folk love to have multilingual kids!