Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Will's expressions of love

Our oldest child will be 3 years old this week.  He's at the age where he's coming up with his own thoughts, stories and just hilarious sayings.  He tells us stories about his day that include things that actually happened and then things that happened in his imagination.  It's pretty funny once you get him going.  He also has interesting ways of showing that he loves us.  Sometimes, his simple expressions of love will come while we are just sitting on the couch and he'll ask if we will hold his hand, or put our hand on his tummy.  

This morning, after I had been up with our 6 month old for 2 hours trying to get her back to sleep, I finally got back into bed.  I had only been there for just a minute when around 5:45am Will came upstairs from his room to our bed with me.  By then, my wife had been at work for a couple of hours, so I didn't mind him coming into bed with me.  We laid there, and I asked him if we could sleep a little longer.  He said yes, but asked if I would hold his hand.  I have to admit, it was very cute, and when I pulled my hand away for a second to scratch my face, he ordered my hand back. 

Eventually, he fell back asleep, changed positions and ended up with his bum in my face. 

Then he farted.

Yes, these are Will's expressions of love.

Monday, November 18, 2013

A new direction

Lately there seems to be a trend of blogs getting a lot of "viral" attention these days.  Mainly these blogs are written by women, listing reasons motherhood is hard yet rewarding, or how to be better in their marital relationships.  Trust me, I've read them all.  They have amazing advice, and there is very good insight into many different subjects of life.  I'm not entirely sure why I'm drawn to reading these blogs - perhaps it's the fact that I'm a sucker for lists of any kind - but I end up reading a lot of them.  And while I am reading all of these blogs, there is something that has really stuck out to me.

Women are writing the majority of these blogs on parenting and marriage but men aren't.

I'm sure there are good reasons for this.  I know there are men who write blogs on parenting and some on marriage.  They exist.  They just aren't getting much exposure. 

As I was reading another viral blog today on parenting, titled "15 Things Experienced Moms Really Want To Say To New Moms" I thought to myself, "Where is a dude's perspective on something like this?" (I really said that out loud to myself.) I immediately took to Twitter and said I was going to start a similar blog from a male's side of parenting.  

I'm not looking to be some big time blogger.  I'm not looking to go "viral".  I'm not professing to be the world's best father or husband by any means.  I'm even having an internal struggle even typing the thoughts in my head about parenting and marriage in a blog form.

I just think there are thoughts, ideas, and advice that could come in handy from a male perspective, and as I searched around the internet for advice on a sick 6 month old these past 2 weeks, I found the only places that I was reading information from was from moms.  Believe me, as a married husband who turns into a single father after 7:30pm every night (that story coming in a future post) I rely heavily on those blogs and advice from other moms out there.  Their advice is golden and it's helped me immensely.  That being said, I do know that I'm not the only guy out there looking for advice on parenting from another guy.  

So my purpose in this post today is to say, I'm going to give it a shot.  I'm going to write about being a "hands on" dad and a good husband. As I get more into this, I'm going to try to have better content and interesting stories on my attempt at parenting and trying my best to be a good and supportive husband to my wife.  

Here we go.