DadCentric

Florida Life

We got home from a family grocery shopping trip this morning and spotted an alligator sunning itself next to the pond across the street. He was just lying there, enjoying a nice morning nap, so of course we had to take a video.

The boys wanted to adopt him. He's a cute little guy, so I said sure. But he had to live in the pond and we could never, ever touch him. And his name will be Grendel. Oh, and believe this: We'll be keeping an eye out for Grendel's mother. They don't stay little and cute for long.

 

Ahmet Zappa Scores Daughter Points With "Because I'm Your Dad"

I've noticed a trend with kids' books that are about Dad: they're either cloying sweet, depicting Dad as Kindly Protector, or they swing the other way, depicting Dad as The Fun-Loving Goofy Parent. Within these two categories, there's another equally disturbing trend: Fun Dad books tend to be aimed at boys ("Hi son! Let's play baseball and fart together!"), Guardian Dad books tend to be aimed at girls ("You are my daughter and I will protect you, teaching you from an early age that henceforth you'll need a man to lord over you.") While I freely admit to occasionally conforming to both archetypes - and practicing the gender bias that goes along with them - I do my best to treat the kids equally, and not reinforce the idea that boys do this, and girls do this, and never the two shall meet.

When I agreed to do a sponsored post (yes, this is a sponsored post: I'm being reimbursed) about Ahmet Zappa's new book for kids Because I'm Your Dad, I didn't want to do a review (the book's great, and yes, Ahmet Zappa is Frank Zappa's son, and from all accounts it sounds like Frank Zappa was a really good dad). Instead, I thought it would be interesting to have Zoe test drive it. The Dad in the book is a goofy AND protective monster (literally - he's a green furry monster), and the book does what most of us do in real life - balance the fun stuff with the actual parenting. But which aspect would she gravitate toward?

Folks, this is my daughter we're talking about. Please. There should be no mystery here.

 Loud rock music? Yes please.

Loud burping? Yes please. (That's my girl!)

 

Apart from advocating rock music and belching, she also appreciated the fact that the book's easy enough for a five-year-old to read (as do I; we're flying to Florida in two weeks, and I need all of the easy-to-read books I can fit into an overhead bin). The book's now one of her favorites - and I will say that she liked the parts about Monster Dad always being there for her. That's a feeling that kids share regardless of gender. As for bathtubs filled with Rocky Road ice cream, she and I will have to have a discussion about that. Rocky Road? Not in my house. A tub full of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia - that's a different story.

Someone Recreated The Opening Scene Of Casino Royale With Legos Because Sure, Why Not

Dear People Who Recreate Iconic Movie Scenes With Legos: never, ever stop.

 

(For more nerdy goodness, check out this post I wrote at MamaPop about the Geek Life.)

The Water Cycle

Of the many things I hadn't done since destroying my right knee last year: a barefoot run on the beach. I woke with the intent of doing just that - it was a Saturday, daylight was shining through the apartment's slats, and I needed to get outside. Sun and sea and sweat. 

I parked on Grandview and headed down the somewhat treacherous wooden stairs to the shore - it would be worse coming back, of course, inflated calves and stressed arches. There were a few guys in the water. Surprisingly glassy for midday, a slight swell pushing waist-high mush. The shortboarders were frustrated. The longboarders were feeling it. I hadn't surfed for...a year? Must've been that long. The knee, of course. Life. I'd paddle out tomorrow, I decided. Maybe dawn patrol it and grab a coffee after. Maybe spend the whole day in the water, floating, drifting, seeing where the tides take me. Who knew. The reset button had been pressed. The program was recycling. There wasn't an instruction manual. No playbook. These were the things that I'd need to figure out on my own.

Constants. The bones and muscles remembered the dry sand, pads of my feet digging into substrate, pushing me down the shoreline. I don't like to listen to music when I run on the beach; it's as good a place as any to retreat into my head. That morning I had been working with Lucas on some homework - a report he was writing about the snow leopard, and of course I told him that I had a book for him by a guy named Peter Matthiessen, and he probably wouldn't like it now, but wait until you're in high school, dude, you'll love it. I remembered another homework session, the year before, talking about the water cycle. How water goes from Ocean to Sky, turns to rain, falls to the land and runs back down to the ocean. He was so excited to tell me that he knew this, that age when science really does seem like magic. He'd mention it every time we'd come to the beach. I'm sure he'll do it the next time. Constants.

I ran and ran, past Stone Steps, a few miles, there and back again. Sometimes when I run on dry sand I do so with eyes closed. I think that if I do this it'll help my strengthen my ankles; they'll automatically adjust to minute changes in topography, minature dunes on a small desert, shifting below my feet. Shutting my eyes I thought I remembered what I used to look like when I'd do this run back in my 20's, young dumb and full of come, as it were, slight smirk on my face as I passed slower older guys and hurdled over girls lying on towels, yet another shirtless cocky asshole loping down the sands of Pacific Beach. I smiled and remembered a line from that Tennyson poem about Ulysses: though much is taken, much abides. I guess we'll see if you were right, Al. 

The stairs back up. I stopped, slightly winded. The surfers were still out there. I thought about jumping in. It looked cold - probably would be a bit chilly, since May had just begun. Half the guys were in wetsuits. Half were trunking it. No way of knowing, really. Just like everything, one supposes. I thought again about the water cycle. Water falls, goes to sea, returns to the sky. A reset. "Do it", I said aloud. 

It was cold. But it felt fine.

 

Where the Parent Blogosphere Should Be Directing Its Rage

How can we talk about who's facebook pictures are sexist, which mainstream media outlet is dissing bloggers, or which bloggers' marriages are ending, when we are being robbed blind by an arts and crafts industry that has no concern for our families?

A Completely Biased "Review" Of The Excellent Parenting Book Minimalist Parenting

When my friend Asha Dornfest asked me if I'd like to review Minimalist Parenting, the new book that she co-authored with Christine Koh, I laughed in her face. "Review? No. I'm not gonna review your book. I will, however, endorse the shit out of it, because I'm sure it'll be awesome."

See, the word "review" implies that there's some professional objectivity on the part of the person writing the review. There's none here. I've been a big fan of Asha's for a while; her site Parent Hacks is one of the absolute best how-to sites for parents out there. She and I have been Internet pals for a few years, and when we finally met face-to-face at the Dad 2.0 Summit earlier this year, it was like bumping into a buddy who I hadn't seen in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, I was predisposed to be completely biased in regards to Minimalist Parenting. Fortunately, I don't really have to be. The book is full of extremely useful tips, strategies and advice that Henry David "Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!" Thoreau himself would've doled out (well, except for some stuff about social media, because Walden did not, as far as we know, have WiFi). Featuring contributions from parenting bloggers, Parent Hacks commenters, and real-world parenting experts, the book is a quick and easy read - and dads will appreciate the emphasis on gender/role neutral advice and the liberal use of the word "we" in reference to who exactly does the parenting work around the house. 

So there's my "review". If you'd like a more polished, professional, and neutral take on Minimalist Parenting, may I suggest noted Atlantic writer Andrew Hinds' piece on the book, which recently appeared in the New York Times' Motherlode blog. You can trust him. He's a professional.

A Good Boy

I took a deep breath and began. "Mom and I went to the Encinitas shelter - it was a Super Bowl Sunday, and we were having people over to watch the game, and we really weren't going to get a dog, we were just going to stop in for a look. We walked around for a bit, and one of them - he was Duke then - was standing at his cage door, looking at me and barking. Wagging his tail, too. He was trying to get my attention. So I got the volunteer girl to let me meet him. She warned me that he didn't really like his butt rubbed, so of course when I walked into his pen he turned right around and backed his furry butt right up to me, and gave me a look. I knew right then that he'd picked us. Not the other way around. He picked us."

I paused. Deep breath.

"The thing with good dogs is that...as much as they know how you're feeling and what you're thinking, you know what's going on in their heads. I can't explain it, there's no science behind it, it's nothing more than a feeling you get, but you just know. So last night...when we brought him to the vet, I knew. We had him for 13 years, and I knew that he was ready to go. He wasn't scared, he wasn't sad - he'd said goodbye to you and Zo' and I think...no, I know that he was ready. He loved us and he was ready."

I looked out the window, across the canyon. 

"Dad? What are we going to do with his...ashes?"

"I was thinking we'd take him to the dog beach. He loved it there. Next to your room it was his favorite place. We can spread his ashes there and he'll always be a part of it, the sand and the ocean."

He thought about this. "That would be nice. And he'll still be in our hearts. Maybe we can find a nice rock and write his name on it and keep it in the yard?" Such a good boy.

"Sure. Sure we can."

 

 

(Son of) DadCentric Review: Henry and the Incredibly Incorrigible, Inconveniently Intelligent Smart Human

Rather than let my kids just be my blog fodder, I'm going to let one of them do the actual writing today.

Don't judge. Isn't child labor what cemented our country's superpower foundation during the Industrial Revolution?

And look at those Chinese, pulling ahead of us every day in every financial measure. It's because while we overschedule our kids' social lives (outside of the five hours a day we let them be mesmerized by the Disney Channel, natch), the Chinese have their tweens and teens sweatily soldering iPhone 5s for the liberal bleeding-heart arugula-eating elitists of the First World. 

That rant is actually totally appropriate for this post, written my hardcore reader of a son, 10-year-old Excitable. 

Read on as he reviews L.A. Messina's Henry and the Incredibly Incorrigible, Inconveniently Intelligent Smart Human, a novel for the fourth- to seventh-grade set about robots who use humans for their menial tasks.

Like writing blog posts.

'Henry' the Incredibly Interesting Read

A robot in his 13^th upgrade named Henry Jacobson gets a human not like any other. Humans usually just do easy, simple tasks for their master robots. This ETC-420-GX-2 can read, make new words, and lots of other tasks that no other human could ever do.

Henry befriends this intelligent human boy called E. When a magazine writer says the human is a secret government weapon that could destroy all robots, the two friends run away from home to try to learn about E’s past. Then they run into their hero. Will he help them or turn them in?

I would recommend Henry and the Incredibly Incorrigible, Inconveniently Intelligent Smart Human (Tater Tot Books; 2012) to a 9-11 year old child to read because this book has a great plot and keeps a reader interested all the way through.

Like                                  

• Good characters                  
• Well-established plot           
• Great fluency                          
• Good organization                 

Dislike

• Too long a title
• A little difficult to understand robots are in control.
• A small lack in detail

We Are All Made Of Stars

The rains were still hanging around, and it was a shame, because it would have been a good night to see the moon. "Watch out for puddles," I told her. That needle swings wide; usually, she either avoids them as if they were small pools of acid that would eat right through her precious Target ballet flats, or - if wearing her Hello Kitty rain boots - she'll jump into them as if her feet were aflame. (Yes, I know from ballet flats. I'm a father to a daughter.) There's a focus on the shoes either way. Tonight, though, was the Daddy - Daughter Dance. Everything else was a peripheral blur. 

The school cafeteria was packed with dads and their daughters, which would have been a surprise if you hadn't been paying attention. Dressed for the occasion, sportcoats, suits - one guy had dyed his hair pink, and I told him that I wish I'd thought to do that. The daughters danced with the dads, and each other. There were plates full of cupcakes and cookies. A ten-gallon hot cocoa dispenser. Zoë was in awe. She moved close to me, clutching my hand. "Look at everyone, Daddy!" "Would you like to dance?" I asked. We were interrupted by squeals; a few of her classmates encircled us and began to chant. "Zo-EE! Zo-EE! Zo-EE!" Then they all took off, running into the shimmying mass of dancers. I took off after them, shouldering my way through dads, trying not to step on daughters. She'd made her way up to the stage, and was jumping up and down with her girlfriends to some Justin Bieber song. It begins, I thought. Welcome to the rest of her life. 

The music slowed, segued into some country song about (you guessed it) a dad and his daughter. "Would you like to dance?" I asked again. "I don't know how to slow dance," she replied. "It's not hard. I can do it. I'll teach you." I picked her up. "Here. We'll just do this." I rocked back and forth. "Am too heavy, Daddy?" "Nope. Not at all." The song ended. "Now I have to curtsy," she said. "I read it in Fancy Nancy. Here is my best curtsy." It was flawless. "Now you have to bow, Daddy." I did. "That was a very nice bow, Daddy." "Why, thank you, Zo'." I pulled out my phone to snap a picture; I got a good one and began texting Beth. The music picked up. When I looked up from my phone Zoë had disappeared.

Disappeared. Odd choice of words, considering that she was in a gym full of dads, about as safe a place as one could be. And yet. I dove back into the crowd, looking for a flash of that familiar red hair, listening for that squealing laugh. I made my way to the stage. She wasn't there. I did another lap around the gym, the cupcakes, the hot cocoa, back to the stage, back around again. Disappeared. The doors to the playground were open; they'd set up more snack tables outside, under tarps to keep the cookies from getting soggy. I stepped outside.

The clouds had parted. Above were stars, shining as they do after the skies have rained out out all of the smog and there's nothing between them save that particular mix of nitrogen, oxygen, and inert gases. The other day I had been talking to the kids about the sun. "All of the planets spin around it, in orbit. There's reasons for that - gravity and what scientists call the law of attraction." "What's the Sun, Daddy?", she had asked, one of those questions that five-year-olds ask, simple and yet profound. "It's a star, just like all of those other stars. And there are planets around lots of those other stars, just like there are planets around the Sun. Those planets spin around their stars. And the stars? Space is so amazingly big, endless, and you would think that the stars would just drift off, this way and that. But that doesn't happen. They're drawn to each other in space, and form galaxies - huge groups of stars, millions of them - and they all spin around together."

"Daddy!" I snapped out of it. She ran up to me, cookie in hand. "Want one?" "Sure. Thanks!" We ate our cookies. Above us, the Universe wheeled on, as it should. 

 

To Spank or Not to Spank?

That is the question.

The topic of discipline and how parents choose to discipline came up over the holidays while visiting my parents. I'm not sure how the discussion started but I remember standing around in the kitchen with my brother, his son, my boys, my father and, most likely my mother, when he mentioned being "beat" as a kid.

"Beat". Now that's a harsh word, to be sure. And I don't recall my brother getting "beat." I do recall him maybe getting slapped by my mom or my dad taking a belt to his ass. But those are fleeting memories at best. Probably because I am the youngest of four and by the time I got to the age to get in trouble, I knew what not to do because of the shit my two older brothers did.