I Love Being a Dad

This corner of the interwebs is a pretty serious place.  We’re attempting to learn from each other, but unless you’re mostly in a good place to begin with like Ian Underwood (who for some reason I always get a positive vibe reading his writings, and its not just from his pinup girls) it seems like there’s a jaded undertone.  It makes sense though, as why do people stumble down the rabbit-hole unless they were looking for answers to some hurt to begin with?  And sure, there are funny bloggers like Bronan the Barbarian , but most are pretty serious including many of my own writings, with the exception of some random turds…er.. gems that shine through the muckety muck.   Because of the serious nature of the Manosphere, we family men tend to lose sight of the positive, and why some of us are here to begin with (benefit of marriage and subsequently our family and children).  Today I simply wanted to share just a few random quick, light and happy things that are not intended to provide much great insight or revelations but maybe lift up a few hearts.  A quick shout-out to our i-friend Ben who’s struggling with some major life decisions directly related to having kids.

A) When Holly is traveling, I find my bed tends to get a little crowded most nights as Birdsnest and LoudBoy like to sneak in and snuggle. I love those moments since Holly tends to get a lot of the snuggle attention when she’s around.  However, after falling asleep on Sunday night, I found myself with about 4 square feet of real estate to find shut eye after both kids steamrolled me nearly off the bed.

B) Birdsnest is a really great kid.  Here’s what she wrote me for Father’s Day this year (click for full size):

C) Doing kid stuff makes you feel like a kid again, which is something we take for granted living in the grown up world.  Holly found a preying mantis for LoudBoy, so him and I spent some time catching spiders and other bugs for the mantis to eat.  LoudBoy was super excited and not at all intimidated by decent sized wolf spider (just like me, now Holly is another story).  Unfortunately the mantis didn’t make it, but was subsequently replaced today by a grasshopper. So now we get to see who’s going to survive in the “Cage”: Grasshopper or Wolf Spider.  Let the battle begin!

Oh, the kids test my patience and manhandle the puppy (who I’ll refer to as “Dum-Dum” and will have to write about at some point), but honestly I can’t help but have a soft heart and a warm smile most days as a direct result of who they are.  The fact that this window of loving innocence is so small makes it that much more special when you can stop and reflect and enjoy the brief time when they believe in Santa, their largest desire is playing after school with the neighborhood kids and they really have few worries in the world.  When you read so much about how kid’s childhood impact who they are as adults, you want to do whatever you can to impart values, love, comfort, security and wisdom so that they can grow up and be good people.  For me, most days are a balance of giving them routine, discipline, freedom and love and hopefully it’s the right mix.  I know that mine and Holly’s approach to parenting are mostly on the same page, but what we bring to the table is different but complementary.  I think the kids would have an unbalanced view on life if one parent were allowed to dominate the parenting.  That alone is a strong incentive to work towards fixing weak areas individually and to establish a loving and strong marriage if its possible.