DadCentric

Charming the Pet Cobra

I promised my wife Beth that I'd let her have some uninterrupted Bejeweled Blitz time if she did a guest post and told you all how awesome I am. Also, since I've made the transition to Stay/Work At Home Dad and I don't really make any money and she's earning six figures, I told her that I'd shower at least twice a week. Give and take - the key to any good relationship! So here's her post, with a few added notes from me for clarity.

People are always asking me about my relationship with Jason, aka your beloved PetCobra, or @PetCobra as I've started to call him just for shits and giggles. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Talking to each other is sooo 2007. We now communicate solely via Twitter.) My first question is: do other women get asked about their relationships as much as I do, or am I just lucky because my husband is so...so...um...interesting?

Yes, life with Jason is just that. A roller coaster of irony and sarcastic comments - and I wouldn't have it any other way.

We've definitely had an eventful past few months, a life-shift, a death and a huge-ass birthday...all on top of the day-to-day insanity of raising a 5-year old and toddler who is mature for her age, hitting the terrible twos at 19 months. But these are the things that bond us. Being able to mutually agree that we can't share an office all day like we thought we could, getting through all other the shit together, all the challenges that we've faced since we both left the regular corporate world - and still being able to laugh tells me that we are what a "good marriage" is.

When I was told I was going to be guest-blogging here, or more like when I came up with the idea 3 months ago (EDITOR'S NOTE: Credit where credit is due - she did come up with this idea 3 months ago. I wrote down. Honest. Ok, I wrote it on the back of a Starbucks receipt, but I did write it down), then noticed the other wives blogging this week and screamed( across my office into the kitchen (aka Jason's office) "Hey, am I supposed to write also?!", I had really hoped to have a funny conversation or story to tell. But, alas, I don't. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks a lot, Dead Michael Jackson. You sucked all of the fun out of today.) So I will just say how much I love and appreciate my husband for being the man he is - and tell the world how proud I am that he is the father of my children.

Now, excuse me while I get back to my Bejeweled Blitz addiction. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks, baby.Here's a token of my esteem.)

Our Sweet Little Pillow

My wife is a total sweetheart, no doubt about it. She's so full of the sincerest and realest kind of sweetness that it can be easy to take for granted and get all pissy when said sweetness is not as forthcoming as usual. So it's no surprise that when I asked her to write something about me for the DC, she did it with, well, sweetness. The story she relates below is not one that I remember, as you'll see, but it's one from our early parenting days that always makes us laugh. Enjoy

It was opening night of the husband’s play when I did deliver unto him the phrase that altered the course of his life: “I’m pregnant.” Now I know I probably should have said “We’re pregnant” because that’s more P.C., right?  In that phrase lies the implication of Fatherly involvement. Of shared late-night wakings, poopy diapers and little league. “We” together as a parental unit. This game ain’t just for girls.

Three people were born in that delivery room on October 21st and one of them screamed a lot (Editor's note: There was actually a lot of screaming all the way around). From the screaming demands of that little colicky baby was born the mother and the father. Sure, we were and still are a version of whom we were before, but at that moment we became exactly who that screaming baby needed us to be: his parents.  Like so many nuggets in a fresh diaper, pieces of our past experiences, extensive research, and unabashed love formed together into a mass of Us as Parents. And The Holmes is a kickass Dad.

My Wife On Me (But Not That Way)

As I've been suffering from a sweet, sweet hangover as a result of the overdose of dad love I received this Father's Day, I asked my wife (you know and worship her as My Love on my personal blog Always Home and Uncool) if she could do me a solid and write this week's DadCentric post for me.

My only instruction to her was that it had to be about me as a father.

Her only response to me was "Mix me a martini and I'll think it over."

Yeah. She is the best.

* * *

You know you are an Always Home and Uncool father when …
Submitted by My Love

You find yourself up at 3 in the morning all hot and stiff … only because you were walking the halls all night trying to put your newborn baby back to sleep.

You hear your kid make that awful regurgitation sound and, rather than run away, you rush forward with hands cupped trying in vain to catch the projectile before it hits the carpet or bed sheets.

You own a green-striped Steve rugby shirt and aren't ashamed to admit it.

You take your minivan instead of your wife's convertible to run an errand because otherwise you'd "have to shower, shave and put on better clothes."

You walk into the elementary school and all your son's classmates hug your pant leg and say excitedly “Hey, Mr. Uncool” … before asking you why you are never at work.

You spend several weeks trying to keep everything together in your sick child's hospital room then go cry your heart out in the parking lot.

A good weekend is defined as rain outs for all the youth sports teams you coach, relaxing with a few uninterrupted pints of fine beer and getting busy with the wife more than once -- but one out of three isn't too shabby.

An Awfully Big Adventure

We got the call this morning. Then, a conversation I'd been dreading.

"Lucas...remember when we told you that Nana was very sick?"

"Yeah."

"Well...last night, she died."

"Oh." He suddenly looked very tired and a little frightened. A whisper: "I'm sad." He hugged us, first Beth, then me.

"It's ok to be sad. Mommy and I, we're very sad. We all loved her so much. And when I went on my trip last week and saw her she told me to tell you that she loved you very much too."

He looked up. "When will she be alive again?"

"Oh, honey." Beth and I looked at each other. "She won't be alive again. But some people...some people believe that after you die, you come back as something else. Others believe that when you die you go to a place called Heaven and you live there, forever. We don't really know, but we do know that she lived such a wonderful life, saw so many amazing places and did so many amazing things, and had so many people that loved her." 

She wrapped him up in her arms, I rested my hand on his back, and we sat like that for a while. Through the open window came the sigh of an ocean breeze. 

A Belated Happy Mother's Day From Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg

Why not give Mom the gift that keeps on giving?

Did You Forget Something? Hint, It's Mother's Day

You're reading DadCentric right now which is always a good call, but do you feel like you might be forgetting something?  Should your attention be elsewhere?  Look around you.  Is there a woman covered in children giving you some serious stink-eye?  Yes, that one.  What's her deal?

Perhaps you had a big day planned of NBA playoff action, beer and couch.  That's not happening.

Today, you poor sap, is Mother's Day and if you've made it this far you're most-likely screwed and you need our help. 

Say Goodbye to Hollywood

My life is spread across Craigslist and packed tight in so many boxes.  Every breath is a dollar spent and every memory a melancholy moment.  We are moving to pastures greener, literally- the greener part, not the pasture. 

We are leaving Los Angeles in a matter of weeks and I'm already over it.  Our corner of the county is for cowards and meth labs, hate crimes and crimes of hate.  This isn't the life of movie stars and swimming pools.  It is a life unfiltered and the daily grind has left us stained and lethargic.  

Say goodbye to Hollywood.

ABC News Reveals The Truth About Me: I'm Cheap

Ever hear of Push Presents? Yeah, me neither. Apparently there are husbands out there who go out and buy their wives presents after they've had a baby. (After the wives have had the baby. Not the husbands. Shit, if I pushed out the baby, the first thing I'd do, after my ass had healed enough for me to walk, is go out and buy me one of these:

Like I said, I'd never heard of Push Presents until I got an email from Emily Friedman, a writer for ABC News, asking if I'd like to be interviewed on the subject. 

For Maddie Spohr

I don't know the Spohrs. I don't know Heather or Mike or Maddie. I know of them, via their blog. I know that there is Wrong; it's a tangible thing, alive yet mindless, a dark singularity that manifests itself in horror, consuming lives with an entropic randomness. I know that this Wrong is without reason, pity, or remorse. I know that no parent should ever have to bury their child.

If you can, please go here and make a donation to the March of Dimes, for Maddie and all children who've been taken too soon.

DadCentric Mom Week: Jason's Long, Meandering and Revealing IM Chat with Sweetney

We conclude Mom Week with my chat with Tracey Gaughran-Perez (it's pronounced "GAH-ran, BTW), aka

Sweetney. Sweetney is a blogger's blogger; along with her killer personal site, she runs the show over at MamaPop and also co-runs We Covet, which my wife is not allowed to read. I had proposed a formal interview, in which serious questions would be asked and answered. She countered by saying, dude, that sounds like too much work, and I said, yeah, there's a reason why I didn't go into journalism - the whole "asking serious questions" thing seems way, way difficult. So over the course of the week we carried on an IM conversation. It went a little something like this: