The stress and commotion of the workplace can attach to you like a leech. By the time you get home from another long work day, any desire you had to do anything with your family can suddenly become the lowest of priorities. You kick your feet up and reach for the remote, but ... You know dang well that your kid and family need you. They want you to play, help with things around the house, and plan for the future. But you are just so exhausted. So how does one find the "life" in work-life balance? I've been on a constant search for that during the past few years. I look to determine … [Read more...]
Friends and Family Plan: Bedroom Edition
The distance between them is a mix of years and meters, measures in degrees of space and sound and time. Two boys joined at the bloodline, bound by fate and floor plans, my sons have shared a bedroom from the beginning, their bunked barracks always a common ground. That changed last week. For the first time ever, the boys are each in their own room. They believe they have gained freedom and independence, which is true. But I cannot help fear a paradise lost in nightly confidants and the whispers between them. Also, a place for potential guests should any care to visit. This change in the … [Read more...]
Special Moments Happen When Children are at Their Most Frustrating
Raising a child requires the patience I can only imagine the bar patrons in Cheers had for Woody. You love the guy, but if he sings that "Kelly song" again you’re going to jab a fork in your eye. I’m just a dad; just a regular guy who still craves time to himself. I would love to go wherever, whenever. I do not miss going out all of the time, but I do miss going in to renew my vehicle registration without having to explain to my oldest son why pancake mix is not something to put in your pockets whilst trying to block my youngest son from eating it off of the ground. Frustration builds over … [Read more...]
Stopping by Forts on a Sleepless Evening: A Parental Bedtime Story
It is evening. Townes Van Zandt is playing through a scattering of speakers, each calibrated just right to replicate the scratch of a weary needle upon the endless spin of a tattered record, despite the glow of technology designed to hide just that. The song, whiskey-laden perfection sweetened with melancholy twang, is a digital version played through a popular app on a pricy computer, not an album sleeve in sight. I sold my phonograph over a decade ago, my stack of wax shortly after, and while I have regretted it ever since, I have yet to partake in the vinyl renaissance of modern-day … [Read more...]
‘Happiest Baby’ Pediatrician Wants to Help Dads Calm Baby
Like nails on a chalkboard, the sound of a crying baby is one of the most irksome known to humans. Lucky for you, the latest Modern Dads Podcast features the author of The Happiest Baby on the Block, Dr. Harvey Karp, who joins us to talk about his approach to calming crying babies and the crucial role dads play. We also discuss his groundbreaking SNOO Smart Sleeper crib that took him five years to create with MIT-trained engineers and designer Yves Behar. Karp, a pediatrician who practices in Los Angeles, is on the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Medicine and a … [Read more...]