So much has happened since 2010. I’ve gotten even older (or, as one of my much younger friends said to me at dinner on Saturday, “Jesus, you’re old!”) my daughter is mutating into a tween before my eyes, my style has gotten better, and a bunch of major things have happened… and, I hope to tell you about a bunch of those things, in my own strange, rambling style.

So let’s see what happens here!

Tuesday night, my daughter is safely in bed, stuffed puppy curled in an arm, one pillow under her head, one to the side, a pink elephant by her side.  She’s six years old now, she’s with me quite a bit, and I couldn’t be happier.  Actually, that’s a lie; I could be happier, probably, but… right now, how?

Funny.  It doesn’t seem like it was long ago that I worried about when she would start reading, when she’d show interest in things besides eating, hiding behind a pant leg, and watching cartoons.  Now she’s concerned about overeating, taking ballet and making new friends, and watching Disney “tween” shows.   Now I worry about things like her spelling, if she has enough kid friends in the summer, and where we’ll go on vacations that would have some practical value.

A few months ago, someone told me that these I’m reaching the point of my life, as a parent, where time will move impossibly fast, and that it would seem as though one day I’d wake up and years would have gone by in my daughter’s life, and I need to pay special attention to what I do, what we do, and now I have no doubt.  My daughter remembers everything now.  Working days slip by, and I barely know where they went… but go they did.  Culture has changed; Britney Spears became Lady Gaga, Harry Potter begat Twilight.  So I stepped up, too.  Insurance has been bought, college funds are growing, major project established, plans have been made.

Yet, still, I walk by my daughter’s room, as often when she’s here as when she’s not, wondering if I’m succeeding.  Wondering if she really minds the dresser that could use a fresh coat of paint.  Wondering if she really liked what I had to throw together for dinner at the last minute.  Wondering if she’s always like those Dora brand yogurt that can be so hard to find.  Wondering if she really still appreciates the fact that I still make sure that every night before she goes to bed, the last words that she hears from me are, “I love you, Gracie.”  And wondering if she still does appreciate it now, will she always?

My every night is filled with questions with no answers.  None yet, anyway.

Only time will tell the tale.

It’s an amazing journey, this one of being a single parent, and it’s one that I’m still learning as I go.  I suspect that I still have so much to learn.

But I’m not just watching the wheels turn.

Maybe what I’m attempting to say today is that perhaps none of us should.

Somehow, though, through this, I managed to pick up and read a book called The Power of Half by authors Kevin Salwen and his fifteen year old daughter, Hannah, on their family’s unusual quest to give away half of their assets to fight poverty.

Hannah is the spiritual leader of this often tumultuous journey, which in some ways validates a belief that has at times has ruled my life, which is this: if an adult listens carefully enough to a child, teen or otherwise, sometimes their seemingly innocent observations can spark profound positive change.

From the quest to sell their opulent home and move to a house half it’s size to the Salwens’  interactions with adult and younger friends and co-workers, this story tells a frank, humorous, and altogether human tale of one way that a family begins to grow, communicate, and share on a different level than many of us will ever even attempt.

Inspirational,  remarkable, and to some people, no doubt, ridiculous, the story recounted in this book just might have the ability to give the reader the spark and gumption necessary to change the world for the better in their own way; perhaps not on the scale that the Salwens’ hoped to achieve, but in a way that’s appropriate for them.  In my world, the steps to a better place for us all is measured not just by miles and feet, but by inches.

I enjoyed the The Power of Half, and whether you are like me and believe that giving hope is one of the most profound gifts, or if you are often disappointed at the lack of positive stories that the world occasionally has to offer, I have to think that you would enjoy this book as well.

Certainly it isn’t because I have more time than I’ve had in the last several months, I’m not bored,  not depressed, nor morose.  I’m happy.  Why?  Not because Grace has begun to really show aspects of her personality, and I’m sure over the years, I’ll see things that I don’t like, although I haven’t yet.  It isn’t because I’m satisfied, because I’m neither that nor overly comfortable.  Life is still a challenge; I still have many, many goals to fulfill.  So why the quick change?

I’d like to think that I’ve embraced my life and that is the reason for my attitude.

I am a parent.  Like many of you, I’ve faced roadblocks and problems.  All single parents do.  I suspect, also, that there will be many, many more to come.  However, I am a parent; a single male parent, with a ex, with a girlfriend, with a home, with a job, with responsibilities that often times seem to be more than I can keep track of at one time, but I’ve learned, managed, and will continue to get even better at being the best parent that I can be.

Better yet, I have embraced my destiny, and for parents, non parents, and people, I truly believe that there may be no lesson more important than this.

I might only have my daughter half the time or sometimes a little less.  Bills will continue to grow.  School problem might loom.  Anything could happen.  But right now, my daughter’s room is not empty, and my skills will continue to grow, and I might not be totally prepared for the future, but I am working on it.

Some people are forever changed by a religious conversion, or a marriage, some other life changing event.  I, however, believe that at this moment, the path that began when I first saw my daughter’s face six years ago in the hospital was the ultimate jumpstart to realizing exactly who I was, who I could be, and how I could get there.

I am a father.  And I am working towards exactly what I need to do, which is to bring a wonderful contribution to our world in the form of my daughter, who I hope becomes a truly remarkable young woman.

It’s the ultimate job, and it’s the most difficult vocation that I’ve had yet.

But I think that I like it very much.

I have seen other types of relationships happen and be fulfilling for others, though.  I think this is where I give a shout to Yelp and Meetup.

Take the poll!

I began Single Dads for a couple of reasons.  One was to serve as a constant reminder what it was like to be a single dad with daughter, from the beginning, and the other was to have a first hand source of the thoughts, emotions, and trials of a single parent available for my daughter to read when she became old enough to view it.  For quite a while now, it’s done exactly that.  I believe, however, that this blog enters a new age, as tonight, I came to some realizations that I’m finally able to share is some intelligent way.

A long time ago I wrote a post called The Empty Room, about how I felt walking by my daughter’s empty room when she was away with her mother.  Grace’s room isn’t empty any more.   As I write, her room is filled with stuffed animals, music boxes given to her as gifts from me and her grandparents, Barbie dolls used and unused, woodland fairy and princess outfits, and the best children’s books (she loves Kitten’s First Full Moon – seems like I read it 3 times a week).  These aren’t the signs of an empty room, but a room filled with memories and love.

So finally I have realized, it wasn’t the room that was empty, it was, in fact, a metaphor for my emptiness.

Now, here I am: a self-aware, semi-actualized single dad, who, between running his daughter to dance class and movies, still hasn’t figured out how to find and spend quality time with other people with whom I have parenting in common.  Still having single friends without children who have to be tired of attempting to relate to my personal struggles, still woefully lacking in age appropriate play dates, still trying desperately to figure out what’s next for me.  That all is getting ready to change.

Now I know.  Now I know why that woman with the two young boys was so nice to me in line to see that kid’s movie.  Now I know why the singular mother is always so nice on the playground when we go.

I understand why I miss going to single “social events” less and less, and why like the Disney Channels more and more.

I get it.

I think it might be time to start filling up my own room.

From one single dad to another, rest in peace, Michael.  I might not have “gotten” everything that you did (I never believed some of the more disgusting allegations), but damn, did you leave a legacy.  Thanks for that.

Then they came for Strawberry Shortcake (making her hair long other cosmetic ‘grown up’ changes, but I said nothing, because I still had the old Strawberry Shortcake videos.

Then they came for Dora.

From the Washington Post:

The original Dora the Explorer was an adventuresome girl who appealed to kids regardless of gender. She first aired on television in 1999 and is known for loving baseball and her untraditional pet monkey Boots. She’s an outdoorsy girl who wears shorts and is always exploring.

This fall, though, Dora won’t be the girl many kids have grown to love. She’s growing up. And in the Mattel/Nickelodeon world, that means dumping her shorts for what Dora’s marketers call “a whole new fashionable look.” Though they aren’t revealing Dora’s new look officially until fall, Mattel and Nickelodeon gave a glimpse in silhouette. She’s got longer hair and is wearing a short skirt and pointed shoes. Gone are the shorts, backpack and sneakers of little girl Dora.

This can only end badly. Was there a memo that I missed saying that Dora needed to grow up? Was there an intense national debate on the beautification of female toddler icons? Is this Dora next?

Since I’ve been regularly writing on this page, just a few things have happened:

– A new president was both elected and inaugurated, who happens to be African-American, in the truest sense of the phrase,

– The economy has tanked,

– I put a freelancing gig on hold,

– I moved, and am getting ready to move again,

– Grace got a weird case of strep through the skin,

– My family discovered the lunacy of Facebook and Twitter (and some of the ultimate time wasters of all time),

– New jobs, new legacy,

– Read a heck of a lot of books (man, you have no idea how many, but to find out, look at my Library Thing stats and then consider how many books I’ve actually forgotten),

– And I’ve connected with several extremely successful bloggers, on sites such as Zen Habits (thanks, Leo!), Divorce 360, and others.

All of this means that this site is going to undergo a few changes.  I have a host of fresh new ideas, a lot of new organization and integration is going to take place, and, most importantly, I’m fresh, because I haven’t been writing a heck of a lot.  So I’m ready to come back into the fold.  I’d do a Hello World, but I’ve been here for quite a while already.  I’m going to grow this site and go to the basic reason that I started writing this in the first place: for my daughter.

But not this week, because two weeks from now, my daughter turns 5, which means that one and a half weeks from now, I will have having a series of gatherings and parties just for her, and involving friends and family.  Really, I’m just letting everyone know that I’m going to start writing again, even if I have no idea where on earth I’ll find the time.

Thanks for everyone’s support!  It’s good to be back.

In all honesty, though, I have been a bit busy lately, and posting suffered a bit. 

Expect a real live update here soon!

Of course, doing these things usually takes time, for researching the various activities, and money, for paying for them.

Or, at least one would think.

In my sidebar you’ll notice a link to KidsPages.org, an organization that has a website with various tips, hints, and activities both paid and free for families. They have become my weekly lifeline to largely free stuff – perfect for a guy like me that is busily trying to save money for his daughter’s college choice, lose money from my 401(k), and still maintain a relatively happy techno-geek life with his girlfriend. Yes, it’s all a challenge, but KidsPages.org makes it much easier.

Take a gander over there this weekend. I’m pretty sure that they have a dead tree (paper) version out there as well.

Well, single dads and single moms, here’s my thoughts.

First, let’s be realistic.  Breaking up with a longtime partner or spouse is bad.  Really bad.  I’ve heard it be described as everything from feeling like you were in a serious car accident every day for years to, in one friend’s words, “simply worse than you can possibly imagine.”  I never knew what he meant until a few years ago.

Now, however, I know.  It’s bad.

Feeling of abandonment and guilt, whatever the prior situation, are bound to occur at some point, especially if you have kids, assuming that your family life held a high priority to you.  To put it bluntly, you can’t avoid it.  I might argue, even, that you shouldn’t.  Divorce and separation can feel like a death in a close family; sometimes, you just need to mourn.

But don’t go crazy.

In the situation where you left a spouse or loved one and left children behind, STAY ON TOP OF THE FAMILY SITUATION.  You love your kids, most likely, your kids love you.  You’re a parent, and become no less of a parent because you’re not there 24/7.  The dirty little secret is that very few of us are actually there 24/7 anyway.  But don’t lose track of what your kids are doing.  Ask questions: about school, friends, home, what their likes and dislikes are, everything.  If your kids are too small to answer back, play with them.  Watch movies.  Read with them.  Take them to parks.  In short, be an active parent.  You’ll be amazed at how much less sulking time that gives you.  I still get fidgety if I don’t see my daughter within a certain time period.

Another suggestion I would give would be to learn to tune out the noise.  Obviously, if you’ve been with your partner for any appreciable amount of time, they are going to know you alarmingly well, and one of those things that they will most certainly know and will almost positively take advantage of is which buttons to push.  Listening to the pertinent information and eliminating the noise is a skill that takes time to master, but it will be necessary for your mental health – and it will be your mental health that will allow you to thrive without your significant other.  Remember that, and achieve a zen-like comfort level.

Finally, and this might not seem to be obvious, but get a lawyer if you can.  This person is more than just a person that knows the law, it’s a person that knows the law that you are paying to be on your team.  This simple knowledge will give you an important, and at least in my situation, unexpected emotional boost.  Really it helped.  Also lawyer will give you all sorts of information that you knew, but somehow forgot about when it comes to separation.  It sounds strange, but it works.

Those are a few things that come to mind.  I know that I’ll come up with more.  I’ll keep thinking.

Hang in there!

Watch yourselves and the ones that you are with. Please.

The National Enquirer is reporting that 17 year old Jamie Lynn Spears is now expecting for the second time just three months after giving birth on June 19 to baby Maddie Briann.

And before you say anything about it being from TNE, just remember, they were right about her being pregnant the first time….

They say that Jamie Lynn is desperate to keep the shock­ing news secret and some people close to her are urging her to consider ending the pregnancy.

This newsflash comes courtesy, which probably isn’t the right word, of the Daily Stab.   If true, and one must consider carefully the source, then there are two responses that a responsible Single Dad could give.  One is:

The second thought?  Men, teach your daughters something, please.  PLEASE.  It’s impossible to relay how important being a good father really is to the welfare of your children, and especially girls.

This is not to say that Jamie Lynn doesn’t have a good father; I’ve never known or talked to the man.  But we know for a fact that at least some information on babies didn’t sneak through the adolescent filter.

Family is all important, so much so that I now tend to measure my wealth in familial terms.

Somehow, I doubt we’ll be seeing any more books on the raising of the Spears’ children anytime soon.  I hope not.

It’s no coincidence, and yes, I’m still alive. I’ve just been busy. Besides doing some writing for Divorce 360 and my own blog, POW – The blog (although that’s been suffering recently – I need to go back to my roots), I’ve been hanging out with the four year old, working quite a bit, and now… reviewing books. As a member of the website LibraryThing, I signed up for the Early Reviewers program. It has its perks.

So, here’s my first review – that I’m going to put with my first freelance paycheck stub and my first volunteer freelance letter. Be kind, because God knows that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Yet.

But all is falling into place. I think.

—

To say that I fancy myself a poet is not exactly accurate; somewhere in a trunk at home there is a folder with Lord only knows how many pieces of poetry that I wrote in the 80’s and 90’s, when things for me were much bleaker and introspective. I even had some success writing a poem that was published a very long time ago.

Therefore, I looked forward to reading How To Write A Suicide Note by Sherry Quan Lee, a multicultural womanwriting about her grappling with suicide, growing up different, and finding herself. To say that I “liked” the series of “poems” (many of which read more like prose than poetry to me – that seems, in retrospect, apt) is not quite the correct word. This was a great series, but in some ways, was so emotional and passionate, that I actually had difficulty reading them. But then again, I’m often dramatic when it comes to topics of this nature.

This was a very good book that I would recommend to people interested in mental health issues, multiculturalism, self-help, poetry or real-life essays, and if you are a parent, read this and learn.

—

Let me know what you think. The curiosity is killing me.

I could probably type until my fingers were sore on what I’ve been doing lately, since I was such a regular blogger and all for such a long time, but I won’t. Not because it’s boring (it isn’t), but it’s late, and I’m a bit tired, a bit sick, and a bit blue. But only a bit.

The thing that I forgot, though, was that writing always helps, and so, lo, again I’m here to write to you all, apologizing for my long absence from blogging. Hope that you all are doing well!

Here we are, in the midst of the American Silly Season (others might call it Election Year), and I’ve been spending a lot of time with the 4 year old, Grace, to whom this blog is dedicated. It’s been a trying year, but one of change, and that is, I think, a good thing. But my thoughts turned to post that I wrote quite a while ago called One Of The Talks That I Hope To Give My Daughter and, by jove, I think I have another one.

That post was about drugs. This one is about a topic just as dangerous: relationships.

Being that I’m a single dad, one might surmise, correctly, that my luck with women has not been the best. But, as this man approaches 40, I’m beginning to catch a whiff of what might be a working theory. I’m pretty sure that it would work for women, too.

It would go something like this, I think:

“Grace, you’re getting older now, and I’m sure that you’ll want to date, if you haven’t already. Most of those you might not even tell me about. I hope that you do, but you might not. Before you do, though, let me give you a little advice from an old dad who has been dating for a while.”

“You’re going to meet a lot of people. Some of them will like you for who you are, and some, compulsively, will try to change you. Of those two types, realize that once you realize who you are, and you probably haven’t yet, you won’t change too much. You might pick up or lose a habit; you might gain or lose an interest. Fine. But the whole of you, the person that is you, won’t change, so finding someone that you have something important in common with might be…big.”

“But that isn’t the lesson.”

“The real lesson is to try to not be that person who tries to change the other. That path will not make you happy, and I doubt that it will make the other person happy. Be the best person that you can be, care about the one that you love, respect the relationship that you have, never be afraid to communicate with that person, but be ready to drop and run if you have to.”

“Grow together, improve together, encourage each other, and share everything. EVERYTHING. From the dash of your hairspray, to the bills in the mail, to the joys in your lives. Share it and relish it all. Because, Gracie, if you don’t share it all, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, you’ll have secrets, and you will not be a couple. You might be a relationship, but not a couple. In the end, that will probably not make you happy, when your being happy is the only wish that I will ever have for you.”

I think, think that is what I might say.

I don’t know, though. Seems a bit long winded. What do you think?

Now what the Hell do I do with myself?

At some point in everyone’s post-divorce aftermath, this bitter but realistic question rears it’s ugly head, and idleness is the Devil’s playground.  Here’s what I do to stem the tide of emotional trouble.

1.  Sign up to and attend functions for Meetup.com.

Meetup.com is a website that helps you to arrange actual face to face meetings with others that share your situations, hobbies, or interests.  I’ve been to a couple of meetups for a couple of groups myself.  I’ve yet to regret it.

2.  Attend local festivals and events.

Summer in Denver is the height of the festival season.  I missed the People’s Fair this year, but if you know where to look, you can always find cheap and free events that have the added bonus of helping you to forget the ex that ran off with the waitress from the bar down the street.  In Denver, you can find these amnesia-producing nuggets at the Denver.org site, and in many cites, you can look for free gatherings in your local independent newspaper of choice.

3.  Spend time with friends and family.

If you are like me or a lot of the people that I know, friends and family FREQUENTLY get kicked to the curb when things start to go sour in your home life.  Now that you’re divorced, there’s absolutely no reason to let that continue.

Reconnect with family and friends.  In the end, they will help you more than you thought possible.

4.  Read a book, then go see the authors of the books that you enjoy.

I’m way behind on my book reading lately, but if you’re so inclined, book reading is a great diversion from ex-spouse wallowing.  Here’s a list of books that I’ve read in the last year or so, and as you can see, I’ve done a lot of diverting.  Even better, you can get your social on and then buy the book and go to a book signing, class, or meet and greet at places like Barnes and Noble, the Tattered Cover, and even your local library.

5.  Enjoy the outdoors.

As the brain becomes addled with breakups, pain, economic hardship, and all, people tend to forget about the wonder of nature – that force to which we are all connected, like it or not.  When was the last time that you walked barefoot in the grass?  Ran in the surf?  Went for a hike?

If you find yourself not remembering when the last time you noticed a fragrant, growing and living flower or watched nesting birds fly overhead, then you haven’t been outside in the air enough.  Make time to do it.  You’ll feel better, I can almost guarantee it.

6.   Spend time with your kids, if you have them.

Perhaps I’m fortunate here.  I get to spend a LOT of time with my daughter.  Plus, she’s an absolute joy to spend time with, which makes life even easier.  But I believe that spending time with your progeny is extremely important.

Here’s a pic to share with you to prove my point.

I call it Grace with Bear.  I believe we had come back from a fair that day.

Years from now, I will have the pictures to prove that I was there.

7.  Get a hobby.

As much as I love surfing the Internet (and this site in particular,) that is not a hobby.  Photography is a hobby.  Scrapbooking, although not recommended, as thoughts of the ex will surely pop up, is a hobby.  Mountainbiking is a hobby.  These things keep your mind engaged, and will keep you from dwelling on the past.

8.  Align yourself with other similarly situated people.

Shameless plug:  I joined Divorce360 for exactly this purpose.  I get information, support, and sympathy from people.  Sometimes that helps.

There’s eight things that I do pretty regularly that help me in my post-breakup life.  Perhaps you can add to the list!

Notice, though, that nowhere did I mention the idea of “exacting the perfect revenge.”  I must be better off than I thought.

Yesterday, I was at the park with my daughter, Grace, her half-sister Noelle, and their mother.  It was a gorgeous day, and the playground was relatively close to the kids’ school and two other schools, but when we arrived, there were no other children there.  We stuck close and let the kids play in the sand.

I scanned the area.  Nothing particular was out of whack; it was, quite simply, a very simple park, with playground, a port-a-potty (yuck!) and a large, fairly well restored plantation-looking house that I could only assume was some sort of neighborhood gathering place or clubhouse back in the day.

At about the time that I started explaining to Grace that the loud pecking that we heard on the house was simply a very loud woodpecker, I noticed one thing out of place.

One middle aged man in a lawn chair.  Sitting about a block away from us at the other edge of the park looking at nothing in particular.

My parental instincts made a loud buzzing sound.  It was very similar to the sound the inside of my head used to make when a good-looking woman was within some distance of my personal space, but I hadn’t seen her yet.  I used to call it a Spider Sense, after the character.

While watching and playing with the kids, out of the corner of my eye I kept looking at this pudgy, middle aged man.

After a while of only having one other kid come to the playground, my ex and I watched as two children, then three, of about third grade or so came from the public school nearby and start playing… with the parents nowhere in sight.

We made plans to leave.  However, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere with these kids on the playground, and some grown man across the park, who was still looking… wherever.

Finally, the man folded up his chair, after sitting in the park for what had to have been an hour and a half, packed it into his van (which I know sounds cliched, but it’s true, it was a van) and drive away… after circling the park for a block.

It wasn’t until the van was out of sight until we finally picked up the kids and left.

People.

You might be a single parent.  You might be a couple of parents that both work.  I don’t know what scenarios you might have.  However, the lesson here I think is a good one:  pick up your young children from school.  You never know who might be watching, and if that individual – who might have been no more than a person watching cars drive by in the park, mind you – had harmed your children because they were vulnerable and you were simply too busy to pick them up from school on a regular weekday… well, where would you be then?

Just a story with a happy ending.

Today.

Get a new checking account. Be honest and start thinking about your family’s shared cash. Is it possible that your soon to be ex will drain your joint accounts? If the answer is “maybe”, then you have a problem, especially if it’s a contentious situation. Get a new bank account.

Start looking at your credit card situation.  If you’re at all like me, you’ll find that you had a lot more than cash tied up in your ex – you’ve got credit tied up in them as well. Unfortunately, anyone will tell you that credit can be your death if things go sour.  Divorce is death on your credit.  I immediately stopped using my cards that I shared with the ex when I had that “feeling”. You should too, if you know what’s good for you.  You are going to need that money, probably to pay lawyers.

Closing vehicle loans.  Seriously, do you really want to haggle over who gets the SUV if the dreaded thing goes down?  How about do you want to haggle over the SUV loan?  Please.  Get rid of the payment if you can.

Those are just a few ideas.  You’ve got to consider wills, insurance, and other financial matters as well.  And most importantly, know where you are going to LIVE.  You need a place to hang your hat.

Well, I have a secret.

I didn’t know that for sure.

Sure, I can talk a good game, but in all honesty, I didn’t know for a fact that forgiveness was the key.  After all, I was in a situation where things were relatively contentious between myself and my daughter’s mother; we would argue or wouldn’t speak at all, and the relationship was strained, to say the least.

So.  It’s would great pleasure that I tell you that I was actually correct.  Tomorrow, with the blessing of the State of Colorado and Grace’s mother, my daughter will be having an extended, meaning weekend, stay over at my apartment.  I would jump for joy, but my legs are a bit sore from an rigorous workout today (ouch).

Sure, I’m quite sure that working hard, paying child support, providing health care, and participating in school events had something to do with it too.  But in the end, my head had to change – and once that it did, everything else fell into place.  And there it is – in the end, I did what needed to be done.

Forgiveness works, people.  Fight when (and if) you have to, but seriously, as the phrase goes, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

Dante Brown is a playful, rambunctious toddler growing up on the city’s West Side.

TraJanae Sanders is the same kind of kid, growing up on the East Side.

A lot separates these 2-year-olds, but in some important ways, their young lives already echo with similarity. Both are poor.

Both are being raised by young women who bore them as teenagers.

And neither child has a dad at home. Dante and TraJanae are two faces of a change that’s deeply affecting many neighborhoods in Buffalo — where today 43 percent of children live below the poverty line.

These two children, and at least 18,450 others in the city, are growing up in low-income homes headed by women alone. This is fatherless Buffalo.

Nifty.  Nice job out there in Buffalo, guys.

Look, men as a whole are dumb enough; I don’t think that I know one person that wouldn’t agree with me, and I do know a lot of people.  However, there’s no reason to make us look MORE dumb by not sticking by your kids.  YOUR KIDS, GENTLEMEN.

I’m not with my daughter’s mother, but I’m definitely with my daughter, Grace, and by God, she knows it, and will know it, for the rest of her life.  I’m not going ANYWHERE.  Shoot, it’s hard enough to not see her for a weekend.

I have a million stories to prove that.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, on behalf of the millions of men out there that love their kids and would never abandon them, mothers of the world, I apologize.

WASHINGTON – Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.

MSNBC gets the cite.

Let’s see.  I live in Denver.  It’s one of the most highly educated cities in the nation, I’ve heard somewhere.

Denver:  Denver County School District – 46.3 percent graduation rate.

43.6 percent graduation rate?

So I’m going to have to try to send my daughter to private schools for the rest of her days?

Public education.  My wallet.  I weep for them both.

Well, giving thanks for what you have is a great reminder for what great things you have and for the great things that you have yet to do.  Everyone needs a refresher every once in a while.

With that in mind, here is my list:

I’m thankful that I have a wonderful family, with parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and cousins all in town within a short distance.

I’m thankful for the fact that my daughter is growing up to be a wonderful little girl.

I’m thankful that I love to cook and can afford to buy some of the good stuff.

I’m thankful that I live in such a wonderful apartment in such a great part of town.

I’m thankful for the view from the living room balcony.

I’m thankful that I at least try to quit smoking, and especially thankful that: 1.  My daughter has never seen me smoke, and 2.  This time, it may take.

I’m thankful for my health insurance.

I’m thankful that I have pets (parrots).

I’m thankful that I have enough space in my apartment that my daughter can have her own room.

I’m thankful that I’m not the only one in my neighborhood that recycles.  So many people are doing it that the recycling bins are continually full.

I’m thankful for this and countless other things.

What are you thankful for?

Wrong. Not in New Jersey.

TRENTON, N.J. – Paternity doesn’t count when it comes to a Hunterdon County man’s bid to lower child support payments for a child that’s not his.

An appeals court upheld a lower court which denied the man’s request in 2006 after he said he discovered he was not the father of the 10-year-old girl.

The appeals panel found the judge put the best interest of the child first.

Via Newsday.

So, wait. Married couple has a kid then another. Couple gets divorced. Man pays child support, then finds out that one of the children isn’t his. He wants his child support reduced, and they rule against him? Really? I would think that the ex-wife committed a crime in lying to the ex-husband in the first place, then his acting on that crime would nullify the child support responsibility.

This story is filled with so much wrong. Women should hate it too. Doesn’t this one individual basically make a bunch of women who deserve child support for their children look bad?

I’m quite sure that I don’t have the whole story, but my, that sounds ridiculous. I can’t imagine how screwed up that poor child is going to be as well.

What’s the lesson to learn here?

People. People. Let me enlighten you on one irrevocable fact.

You WILL be dealing with your ex for the rest of your life, unless you are in one of the extreme cases where it’s unsafe for you, or your children, to be near the ex. You can’t avoid, ignore, or otherwise shut them out. You may think that there is, but there is not, because the kids are involved, and will be forever.

What does this mean for you, the traumatized, or on the other hand, insufferable other parent?

It means that you will have to get over it. Deal with the other parent. When you have to, converse with the other parent. In fact, consider the other parent, as distasteful as it might be for you or them, part of your family, because when it comes down to it, that is exactly what they are. Not a conventional family in the way that you might like, but a family, nonetheless. Existing children will guarantee this fact. Surely, you will still recall what it is that made you so unhappy with them, fine. You can remember that if you like.

But the key emotion, and the hardest to learn, is this, with all apologies to Don Henely:

Forgiveness.

Even if you don’t love them anymore.

Sadly, my anecdotal evidence probably bears this out. I meet quite a few dads and moms, with and without “custodial” care of their kids, and probably close to half the single parents that I know with kids get little or no child support at all. However, there is a lot more to this statistic than meets the eye.

The first item that leaps to mind is the thought of “custodial”. By definition the custodial parent is that parent that has the child or children half time or more. By tradition, this means “mother” in this country. Even though the number of fathers that have the custodial tag applied to them is surely on the rise (ask Kevin Federline), still, Mom still rules the roost, and the courts, when it comes to parenting. In fact, I’ve seen a case where a father actually HAD his son living with him full time was still paying child support to his ex – at the same level he was when his son was staying with his ex-wife.

Hopefully that was an extreme case, but somehow, I don’t think so.

The realization, however, that I finally came to over some time is that the statistics are not the complete story, and that these individual stories are the most important facts of all. No stat can give you enough information, for either divorced men or women. Before you jump to conclusions based on the raw facts presented here, think critically about circumstances as well.

Many, many years ago, my father used to take me to the window of a place that I lived to look out on the city below at night. He would gesture at and talk about the seemingly endless number of lights that we saw, flickering on and off and tell me something along the lines of “there are millions of stories in the naked city…you are just one of them.” Years later, I was told that he was referring to a classic radio program from his youth, and I realized exactly the lesson that he was trying to teach.

The world is a very big place, he was saying. All things in context.

I’m still no fan of deadbeat dads or moms.

But my father is a very smart man.

Lately, my daughter has been spending a lot of weekends here, which, I have to admit, is wonderful for me. In the past, I’ve heard of a lot of other co-parenting fathers taking their time with their toddler kids to do the fun things, like go on trips, go to playgrounds, and just simply play. The very first excursion that I took Grace and her sister on together when I was still with their mom was to the Art Museum – and Grace was still a little, little baby at that time.

I like to do “fun” things with Grace but I love to plan activities that count towards her future development.

Our most recent weekend adventures involve the “learning” Leapfrog videos. If you’re not familiar and have a toddler, I can’t recommend them enough. Right now our family is a little obsessed with the Letter and Word Factory DVDs, which are fun for me and for her no matter how many times we see them. Better still, the DVDs come equipped with learning games that teach your kids skills, like recognizing words that rhyme, or letters. She gets to acquire skills that she will be able to use for the rest of her life; I get to swell with pride at her increasing ability to communicate like a big kid.

You can’t get a better win/win situation.

Being that I have no idea what she’s learning when she’s with Mom, I figure that exposing her to as many opportunities to learn while she’s with me is the best thing that I can do for both of us.

But we also went to the playground.

Ah, the wonders of the toddler attention span.

My present girlfriend had the wonderful experience of being stalked by her ex. He started a website solely for the purposes of trying to make my girlfriend look bad, put her down, and talk about personal information. He would put pictures on his site and allude negatively towards her work habits, personal experiences, and et cetera. Absolutely a prince, you might say. Eventually, it took a threat from the FBI, local law enforcement, and various websites being pulled from free sites for violations of terms of service to make him cease and desist.

My ex is similar, but does a different kind of stalking. On her MySpace page, (a page that which I read regularly) she describes how miserable she is and attempts to slam me as having a drinking problem and being an irresponsible and deadbeat dad… despite my regular OVER payments for child support – never missing a payment, regular visits, and general overall support. The reason that I am not with her is that we don’t get along. I DO want to be with my child 24/7. It’s a huge difference, and an emotionally and legally expensive one.

Solutions? I’m not sure that I have one, and if anyone has any great ideas, then I’m all ears. I’m already considering legal action.  However, if your breakup with your ex was acrimonious, then learn to use Google. Be your best private detective. Keep a journal It can be a little annoying and perhaps may cause you fume a bit, but make sure that you have all the possible information. At least that way, if you decide to follow through, then you’ll have all the information. Over at WiredSafety.org, they have a lot of great information about cyberstalking and a number of other Internet crimes.

Here’s one that you can write down; despite any odd thing that I might see in her behavior, actions, or choices, you will never see me slam her in print. That’s no better than gossip, and despite the fact that our relationship didn’t work out, she does have good qualities for someone else. That won’t stop me from being the dad of a three year old.

Remember as well; self improvement is the best form of revenge.

Over the years, it’s become more and more evident that religion is an ENORMOUS relationship bugaboo, especially since I tend to be vaguely suspicious of what I perceived as overly religious people due to:

1. Personal experience,

2. Education on the transgressions of self-described religious people,

3. The hideous war crimes committed by religious organizations in the name of God, and

4. The rise of televangelism.

Even so, I have nothing against religion in general and consider spirituality a good thing overall.

That said, I remember when my exes’ mother was staying in my house and we somehow got into a discussion on evolution. I asked her what she thought, and with some level of anger, she mentioned, “Well, we didn’t come from monkeys!”

I somehow resisted the urge to suggest that we came from space aliens instead, and made a mental note to watch Grace’s mother. Carefully. And I knew that religion would be one more nail in the coffin of our strained relationship.

Now, my ex goes to church between 4 and 7 times a week, and my daughter attends a religious school.

Just because one goes to church a lot doesn’t mean that they are a good person. The road to divorce can be paved with religious beliefs along with other good intentions. Take it from me, you and yours had better either be very open to different belief systems or in strong agreement.

I certainly didn’t get a whole lot of everything, but come to think of it, I don’t really need that much.  The real highlight of my holiday was spending time with my daughter.  Now, SHE cleaned up.  Is it a popular vice of co-parents that they completely and totally overspend for the holidays?  I think that Grace has every Princess toy known to mankind now.  Yet, I still am finding that I need to get her more.  She really needs a tent.  Also some new clothes, even though she already has quite a few.  but the temptation to keep buying clothes (she’ll be four in a few months, and she’s always growing) is ridiculous.  I’m never sure that her mother is going to buy her clothes.

Anyway, I’m back.

Many years ago, I knew a woman that I’ll call Jill. Jill was an attractive woman, more intelligent than most, who was at heart, a nice and relatively well meaning person with an interesting personality and a decent person. She was a good cook, a loyal individual, and a snappy dresser. In short, she was a great catch for just about anyone.

Unfortunately, she had one major flaw.

I’ll call it “The Cosmo Factor”.

Everything that she knew about men she seemed to cull from the pages of women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan, Elle, and others were a continual staple of her reading diet. If she wanted to know how to impress a man? Cosmo had an article with the goods. Why did men leave their girlfriends? The answer was in Allure. Any and all answers to all of the burning questions surrounding the classic, awesome, and continual Battle Of The Sexes could be found in a pop culture magazine geared towards women. Each magazine contained to the gospel to her. None of her male friends had the courage to tell her how wrong those periodicals were, though… much to our detriment.

Eventually, we drifted apart.

Enter 2007. To my horror, I read an Internet article titled 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner , and God help me, the first person that I thought of was her. Here’s the intro, via Yahoo.

Pride may be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but your lover’s lack of pride in how he looks can be even deadlier – to your love life, that is.

Sure, dedication, intelligence, and a sense of humor are what really stir the chemistry between you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want your partner to feel like they’re on top of their game, looks-wise.

After all, a confident partner is a sexually motivated partner, and sometimes an extra dose of sensuality is all a relationship needs to go to the next level. But beware: Goosing your loved one into taking better care of himself can be dicey territory, and even the most polite suggestion that “maybe you need to lose a few pounds” can lead to somebody sleeping on the couch for a week.

As I read this, I stifled a scream. Please, not the return of women again trying to change their men. Aren’t divorce rates high enough in this country and others? Isn’t the level of resentment, among men and women, high enough, finally? Doesn’t anyone believe that men can read?

People, people. If you’re getting involved, and the thing that you want to do is CHANGE your partner, I can promise you you’re not doing it right.

And guys, before you start thinking that you are all clever, “Maxim” is a man’s answer to Cosmo.  Both magazines give false hope to clueless individuals.  I could have called this the “Maxim Factor”quite easily.

So, for this article, I award this comment on the article 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner:

You have failed.

At no time in recent memory, has an article failed more than this one.

Please, never do this again.

If you’re a divorced parent looking for a new job for the holidays, or even just after the holidays, there are a few things that you should keep in mind for your hunt, besides just money.

1. Health Insurance

My new employer gives me the opportunity to cover my daughter as well as myself at no cost to me. This might be a benefit that you might be looking for as well – especially if you have an ex where the health insurance situation might be suspect. All kids need health insurance.

2. Life Insurance

Does your employer, or perspective employer, offer life insurance? In today’s times, you definitely, DEFINITELY need some life insurance, especially if you care about what might happen to your children were something critical to happen to you.

3. Family Friendly Policies

These have REALLY come in handy for me. My employer doesn’t mind me working from home, or taking time off for school functions. This can be a real boon for a divorced parent, as things tend to come up that you don’t know about necessarily until the last minute. Health situations, holiday parties, last minute pick ups, and other situtations can and will occur. How does your new employer (or old) look at these situations?

4. Other Benefits

Some employers offer benefits such as health savings plans, flexible transportation plans, and 529 plans directly deposited from your paycheck. Any or all of these can be a big help to a divorced or even NOT divorced parent. Does your prospective employer offer any of these or other less popular but just as valuable benefits?

Take a look at the full benefits offered by your prospective employer, and consider those before you make a leap into the unknown.

A 529 plan is an investment vehicle for future educational expenses that grows federally and state income tax free that has various rules and regulations based on the state in which you live and the specific plan in which you want to enroll. In Colorado, the plan that I enrolled in was found at CollegeInvest.org, and I can tell you from experience, it definitely pays to shop around for a plan, as fees and past performance can be vastly different. Also, in my plan, my ex has no claim to the money invested and my donation to the plan is state income tax deductible up to $250.00 as long as I donate that amount to my daughter’s plan before year end. Nice. Another bonus is that if your children don’t use the 529 money, you can use it yourself for qualified expenses, and in other cases, for unqualified expenses, although a tax hit would probably occur. If my daughter doesn’t use the plan that I started for her, I’ll buy a boat and give it her name instead. Probably.

Naturally, before you were to invest in such a thing, you definitely want to do your research or talk to a financial planner or another tax or financial professional before you jump. For me, though, it’s perfect. Better, I feel like I’m doing something positive for my daughter, as I suspect that college expenses in the future will be astronomical and I have no indication that my ex is doing any planning for my daughter’s educational future, period.

But now is a great time to look at some sort of educational planning for your kids. Take a look at it.

So, with some shock, at present, I respectfully disagree with those assessments.

I submit that while some may believe that they stay in terrible relationships and marriages because of their children, it’s actually due to a much more subtle reason that I can only describe to you now, after some time removed from the situation.

When I first broke up with my ex, naturally, I hated being away from my daughter and her half-sister. But after spending a good part of three years with a family unit, and changing diapers, reading stories, going to parent/teacher meetings, brushing hair in the mornings, I was a little surprised to notice after a short time that not seeing the kids on a continual basis was not the thing that bothered me most.

Nope. After the ex, I went out and got an nice apartment that had a lot of room and a spare bedroom for my daughter, grabbed some furniture, and almost immediately started having Grace over, which was great. Also, I had a chance to meet and spend time with other people, which eventually led to my present relationship. But I would notice that when I walked by my daughter’s room , filled with her playpen, some clothes, some blankets, toys and books, when neither of the kids were at the house, I would get a chill. Even seeing her door from my master bedroom was bothersome.

As time went on, I noticed myself closing the door to her room when she wasn’t at home. This didn’t help. Still I could feel that empty room calling out to me. I tried sleeping in her room on the floor, and found that didn’t help either. I even tried moving the bed around didn’t work. The couch in the living room was even less comfortable.

It occurs to me now that it wasn’t just being away from my daughter that was painful, it was that haunted, empty room, and I submit that is the dark secret for many parents, men and women, that keeps us from that necessary divorce or split: fear of that empty room.

As time as gone on, I no longer fear the empty room. My daughter shares a room with her half-sister at her mother’s house; here, she has a room all to herself. Within that room I have pictures, a bookcase, two beds and a dresser. All match. All of her toys are exactly where she leaves them when she leaves our home; her dolly is in her crib and covered with her blanky, gloves are in the wrong drawer, birthday balloon still in the closet, Elmo in my daughter’s bed, piggy bank (with change), still sitting on the bookcase, and puzzles strewn all about, and the scribbled picture she drew me in crayon as a present… and I can look at all with a smile.

Don’t be afraid of the empty room.

Happiness can still follow. Believe it.

Well, hold that thought. Perhaps before you pop the question (or accept a question that is popped), consider the future, and do it carefully, because the last thing that you want to do in the long run is end up in a situation where you’ll think about divorcing your spouse, because divorce is not fun and you want to avoid forever if possible. Here are some guidelines to help you find your mate, and keep them.

On Compatibility

Here your question is this: do they like what you like? Are they a geek? Do they like to write? Is your prospective mate a hard worker, or lazy? Do they like wine, beer, or milk? If you and your prospective spouse are employed professionals, would you hire your spouse, given their personality? Your best bet is that the person that you want is into what you’re into. In the famous words of Chris Rock, whatever they’re into, you’ve got to be into too. If your hobbies, work ethic, and activities jibe, you’ve got a much better chance.

On Finances

Is your mate a well organized financial person? Are finances important to them? This is interesting, because in many families, one person or the other picks up the other person’s financial slack. In that case, is the person who is the “slacker” willing to make an effort? Is money something you discuss, not scream about? What is your combined debt situation, and is that a deal breaker?

In most of the successful marriages that I know, the man is the one that needs the organizational help the most. Make of that what you will.

On Emotion

Are you in love? Meaning, can you look into the future and envision yourself with this person for the next ten years? Do you trust this person’s opinion and cherish their advice and support? In short, are you committed?

If not, you’ve got trouble. If so, there’s a shot.

On Children

If either of you wants children and the other doesn’t, then you’re going to have a problem. If you’re a woman and want kids when he doesn’t, won’t, and isn’t ready, resentment will set in. If you’re a man and you want kids and she doesn’t, you’ve got a similar situation… and she will have a lot of competition from co-workers, acquaintances, and strangers. Neither position is at ALL positive for future of your relationship.

If one or both of you already has children, how does your future spouse treat their existing children or your existing children?

On Family

Not a lot of people remember that if you’re marrying someone, you’re marrying their family as well. Not only that, but the way that your prospective partner treats their existing family is a window into how they might treat you down the line. Look at your partner’s relationship with their mother, father, brothers and sisters. Do they have a good relationship? Beyond that, keeping in mind that every family is just a little crazy to begin with by definition, how crazy is your partner’s family? Is it something that you can live with?

On Filling The Gaps

One of the most attractive things relationships in general is the ability to fill the gaps: those things that people aren’t good at, but are activities where their partners excel. Did you want to me a stay at home dad, and your prospective spouse the breadwinner? Do you hate to cook while your spouse loves to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday?

These are great examples of filling the gaps. If you’re aware of your gaps, vaguely aware of your partners, and are comfortable with those differences and are willing to accept those without trying to change their personality to be like your own, then you have a darn good thing going.

The biggest reason for divorce is not cheating, money, or domestic abuse; it’s MARRIAGE. Therefore it’s reasonable to consider carefully your situation with your significant other before you take the plunge, because divorce is a cause of poverty, suffering, and heartache. Think, if just for a minute.

Well, in spite of my calling of “dibs” on the idea, someone did it.  I find it sad that no one in America respects the power of dibs anymore.

The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys, which is available to the public at http://www.healthytoys.org, shows how the commonly purchased children’s products rank in terms of containing lead, cadmium, arsenic and other harmful chemicals. It comes in time for holiday shopping — and amid the slew of recalls.

This is for your information, you parents out there, single or otherwise.

The main problem now is what, exactly, to buy my daughter for Christmas?  There’s only so many clothes that I can buy, and books, although great for three-year olds, get a little boring after a while.  I’d love some suggestions; feel free to leave some ideas in the comments.

This writer mentioned a few fears: failure, success, rejection, mediocrity, and risk. Think about the possibility of a divorce that looms. What are your fears with divorce?

There is the fear of success, meaning that you won’t have to deal with a painful relationship any longer, which also means that you won’t have the certainty of knowing who you’re coming home to at night.

There is the fear of failure, meaning that you broach the divorce solution with your spouse and they reject that, which could mean, if you weren’t resolute in your feelings for a divorce prior to the conversation, that you might change your mind and be stuck in terrible relationship.

There is the fear of separation of family, meaning that if you have kids, you might not be able to see your children whenever you might like.

There is the fear of rejection, meaning that after your successful divorce, other people might find you to be a poor relationship risk.

There is the fear of the unknown, meaning that you might have been together with your ex for so long that you have no idea what it’s like out in the single world again, and that you have to start your search for your true love all over again, and you might fail at that.

If those fears aren’t enough to terrify you, there are others: fear that the ex will sully your reputation, fear that you’ll lose mutual friends, or fear that your ex will leave with your money or possessions that can also come into play.

If you are truly ready to get a divorce, seriously consider your fears. Only after serious contemplation will you be able to conquer those emotions that hold you back.

Adults in the real world have to consider the warning signs. Those indications will tell you either that it’s 1. time to leave your spouse, or 2. do the serious legwork necessary to make things better for yourself and your family.

Here are some rather obvious clues:

• You are spending more time at work, not because you love work, but because you don’t want to spend time with your spouse.
• You and your spouse no longer go to bed together.
• You dread weekends (or other times when you have days off) because you know that you’ll be at home, and your spouse will likely be with you.
• You or your spouse is cheating.
• You don’t want to do the things that you liked previously to do with your spouse.
• When you attend social or work-related events, you tend to or would prefer to leave your spouse at home.
• You or your spouse are ignoring your physical appearance or personal hygiene.
• Your kids are your only incentive to stay married.
• You or your spouse are drinking or using drugs much more than usual to achieve some altered state.
• Being with your spouse makes you unhappy, depressed, or indifferent.
• You or your spouse is physically or emotionally abusive.

Many couples go through some of these from time to time, but lingering problems such as these are all strong indications that something serious is wrong. Ask yourself some questions and provide some answers. What led up to your present feelings of doubt? When did the behavior start? Where do you see you and your spouse in the future? When you see yourself or your spouse slipping into any of these behaviors, seriously consider getting some additional, and hopefully professional, help. But if that doesn’t work, rationally consider the all your options before making additional life-changing decisions.

Don’t be too confused at all. I do believe that men, or now increasingly, women, who don’t pay child support for their children when asked by either their significant other or the legal system, are a low class indeed. Truly, who but the most trifling of society wouldn’t want their children to be taken care of when they aren’t there? I know that I do.

However, I’m torn about the punishment for those neglectful people. In my state, the most popular punishment for failing to pay child support? Revoking their driver’s license.

Now, at first glance this seems ok. After all, driving is a privilege, not a right. Surely this would entice people to pay their child support, so that the state doesn’t have to take up the slack with welfare programs, right?

I say wrong. In this particular case, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, and I think that it’s easy to see why. A reasonable person can see that the people that most likely to pay their child support are the those that are most able to pay. Therefore, it’s easy to infer that those are least likely to pay their child support are those that are LEAST able to pay, meaning, the poor.

So, you’re a poor person who has been ordered to pay child support. What are your choices?

1. Pay. Unfortunately, you’re poor, and can’t pay. Does this mean get another job in today’s economy?

2. Don’t pay, and lose your driver’s license, which for a lot of people, means either losing their job, or busing or cabbing to work. For many poor, especially in areas without mass transit, this is probably a poor option.

3. Don’t pay, and flee to stay ahead of the legal system, leaving behind at least one poor child without one parent.

There are the options, and that’s exactly why yanking the driver’s license doesn’t work; it leaves an already relatively poor person with an actual incentive to abandon their children. Hence, you get the permanent underclass of a poor child and single parent, and legal scofflaws. Surely that can’t be the intended impact of the law.

It’s a poor policy, especially in our vehicle-centric society.
Let’s look for other options for deadbeats, please. But deadbeat dads still drive me crazy.

I am not a humorless individual, and quite often I can see the underlying humor in a lot of bad news.  Unfortunately this is not one of those times.  In my new role as an occasional entrepreneur, I think that someone could make a fortune on creating a website where a parent or other interested party could search and locate certain products such as:

• Toys proven to not contain lead,
• Medications that have been proven not to harm children,  and
• Child safety items that don’t harm children in any way.

I would, as a single parent would sign up for such a Internet site with great relish, indeed.

There are other items that I think would go well in a website such the one I propose, but at the moment, the news that proven influenza medications might make certain children convulse in their beds has dampened my ability to consider additional consumer products that might go on such a site.  I will, however, claim “dibs” on such an idea.

As a result, I thought that I’d share with you what I’m thankful for this holiday season.

Grace. Being able to be with my daughter on Thanksgiving is a blessing like no other. Just being in the same room with her is enough to put me in a good mood; this gets better when you’re watching Ratatouille, playing Chutes and Ladders (yes, that game from your long ago past), and feasting on sweet potato tarts. Ah, the joy.

My girlfriend. She inspires, helps to keep me grounded, and makes me feel better when I just feel tired of all the work. She is wonderful, and I was honored to spend my Thanksgiving with her.

My family. They are capable of both driving me nuts and keeping me sane. They taught me some of the best things that I know. And dang, can they cook a feast. My mother and father are great people, as are a brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, and a myriad of cousins, uncles, and aunts, my of whom I’m fortunate enough to have in the immediate area. Grace and I are very lucky indeed.

So, to all of them Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that yours was great as well.

Let’s face facts. Long before you accept that you and the soon to be ex are not compatible under any conceivable circumstances, you know deep in your gut that the relationship between the two of you is going nowhere. This is the exact moment that planning should begin. Here’s your template.

Get A Lawyer.

This is the first step, and possibly the most important.  Having a competent attorney can determine the all important issues of alimony, property division, and parenting time.  Attorneys are your advocates in the court that YOU pay; consequently, one of their main jobs is to make you look good.  Not having one is almost undoubtedly something that you will regret.  This is where I personally made my first mistake.  Pay the money and get a lawyer.

Steady Yourself Financially.

Getting a grip on your finances is almost a factor of step 1.  Lawyers cost money, and you need to have it to pay for them.  In addition, all kinds of items are taken into account during a breakup, especially if you have children.  Economics plays its role as well.  Don’t quit your job, don’t stop paying credit card bills, and pay down some loan debt if you can.  You might need that credit later; in fact, the messier your breakup, the more likely you’ll need credit.  If you have shared accounts, you might have a whole new set of problems, but get a grip of the money that you personally earned.

Lose The Bad Habits.

Warren Buffet once said his father told him that you should never do anything in public that you don’t want to read about on the front page of your local newspaper, and by God, the man is right. We’re not talking about habits necessarily as much as things that might embarrass you.  In other words, falling off the barstool in the singles bar trying to pick up your ex-babysitter might not be the best idea.  Try not to do that.  Instead, consider positive activities that would probably be good for you anyway, especially considering the fact that you are soon to be single:

Taking a class with other similarly situated people (meaning single or that share your interests in some way)

Developing a hobby (reading, writing, and exercising are especially good for the brain and body)

Spending time with supportive friends and family is good, since you’ve probably spent a substantial amount of recent time avoiding them.  Reconnect.

Breaking up is hard enough to do; making it harder on yourself than it should be is ridiculous.  Do the above three things first and spare yourself unnecessary suffering down the road.

This single dad mentions that because at the moment, the my inner space is a touch out of whack. If you were wondering why I haven’t written as much lately, it’s not because of writer’s block; it’s because item no. 3 from above has finally begun to intrude on my primary concerns. In short, I’ve been a very busy dad lately, meaning, yes, I’m working too much.

I would imagine that this is a common problem with parents generally, and possibly single dads – especially, ones that are highly motivated by the thoughts of their children’ present and future – in particular. We must make money to pay for added responsibilities. Child support, alimony, clothes, health care… all of that costs money. Tack on other items like college planning, private schooling, and other optional items, and suddenly, it might never seem to be enough. So, if you’re like me, then you must work, and work like a dog sometimes, to pay for it.

Lately, though, I have been noticing little warning signs: not writing as much as usual, not sleeping as well, appetite fairly suppressed, and I realized that work and life are out of balance. I started writing on this website because it was something that I enjoyed, and because I wanted to leave my daughter little reminders of how I was thinking when she was a baby. That’s a me thing, and to shirk that in even the smallest thing means that am not looking out for myself. Hence, it’s time to take a step back.

Goodbye, part time job. Oh, how so painfully well I knew ye. Guess I’ll have to find some other way to drop a little extra in the college fund.

Come to think of it, I suppose that I just got my daughter a new pair of shoes last month, and they were pretty inexpensive.  I bet she’ll make the rest of the year just fine.

In this anonymous posting, a forty-something man gives his 9 rules for dating, and I have to say that this gentleman has a few solid points. I’m not going to simply repeat his rant here, but I did have a couple of items of note to mention, namely:

1. I never seriously date a woman who terminated her last relationship because she wasn’t “happy”. Happiness is an emotional response to external stimuli. To break the vow of “til’ death do us part” over an emotional state that may or may not be another person’s fault, is shallow and shows a lack of emotional maturity. It tells me that woman is too self absorbed to be a reliable partner in the future.

5. “Independent” women. I never date a woman who feels the need to tout her own independence. First, independent entities by definition do not want or need to be in any type of union with another entity. When the United States declared independence from Great Britain, we dissolved the ties that had connected us to the British. I myself am independent and feel no need to tell everyone about it. It is called being an adult. Being able to take care of yourself doesn’t make you special, it makes you “grown folks”. Second, if you are that independent, why are you looking for a relationship in the first place? Independence is the opposite of dependence and being able to depend on others is why we get into relationships of any kind in the first place.

7. I don’t date women who have their children full time. Might come across as a shitty attitude to have, but I see no need to be a full time father to someone else’s children and a part time father to my own. This is a personal preference I developed after having discussions with my own children. Mine have been through enough already, I’m the Dad and feel I am doing what is best for my children, they were here first.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting about this man’s rules was the completely different perspectives that my girlfriend and I had on the same topics. My significant other found this guy to be bitter; I, on the other hand, didn’t. I found him realistic. But I didn’t agree with him on EVERY point. For instance, as a single father, I found the part about not dating women that have their children full time a touch… loathsome. I can understand that a person might not want to deal with extra people coming between you and your own children, but it kind of seems like a problem of time allocation. I also suspect that men that won’t date women that have their children full-time are eliminating a possibly fantastic pool of empathic mates. Personally, I’ve found most single mothers to be great people that are very appreciative of male attention.

Naturally, his results probably varied.
My rules were not nearly as complex – of course, I have a wonderful significant other and am so out of the single’s market that I’ve forgotten what the market is like – but yes, I do have rules, some of which were at one point probably a little similar to this person’s own. It’s an interesting perspective on the culture of fatherhood, being single, and dating later in life that exists in world today.

You can imagine, then, the horror that confronted me when I became a father, and realized that I was nothing like any of those fathers at all. There was no office in my house, where I could look important and mete out important insights. I certainly didn’t feel like I had an important job. In the face of a crying or morose child, I’d fold like a warm tortilla, so tough be fair was not a strong suit. Worst of all, my sweater collection was, and still is… lacking. Television parenting can be rough on real world self-confidence.

I might as well have had the word FAIL stenciled on my forehead.

Last weekend, though, something interesting happened.

My daughter’s 9 year old half-sister asked me, “Do you ever want to be somebody else?”

I told her not really, and she said that she wanted to be like my daughter’s godmother (we’ll call her R) and said that she wished that wished she was R.

Imagine my surprise when I told her that she shouldn’t wish that she was anyone else, that she should be her, that she was unique and special, and she was young, and had an awful lot to do before she could forget about what SHE could do. “You might not realize it now, but this is very important,” I told her, “you have a lot things to do. You have a lot that you can accomplish. Perhaps one day you’ll thank me for telling you that, but you certainly don’t have to.”

Then I turned to her and said one thing that rendered her completely speechless, and shocked me as well, since at this point, I was simply free thinking and had no concept what was going to come out of my mouth next.

“Honey, don’t think you have to be anybody else, even if you admire that person. You are wonderful all on your own. Just try to concentrate on being the best girl that YOU can be.”

“Now, you watch your little sister, and I’ll see you soon.”

Then I left, realizing with pride, and surprise, that this fatherhood thing might not turn out so badly after all. Here was yet another positive step in my parental development. With practice, I think that I can get this parenting thing right yet.

If only I had some fashion sense.

SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 19 — A Food and Drug Administration panel of advisers voted Friday to ban scores of popular over-the-counter cough and cold products intended for children under the age of 6 because they have not been proven to work and can cause injuries, a Food and Drug Administration panel of experts voted on Friday.

I find your lack of faith disturbing, says the US Government.

Actually, perhaps I am a little bit disturbed by the above news, especially since in the same article, one parent mentioned his belief that a pediatric cold medicine may have contributed to a brain injury to his child.

Possibly the worst thing about the article, though, was this quote:

Amy J. Celento-Stamateris, a patient representative on the panel from Nutley, N.J., said that she was worried that if the panel voted to remove all pediatric products from the market, parents would end up giving to their children products intended for adults, raising fears of overdoses.

“My concern is that by taking these medications off the market, parents have limited alternatives,” Ms. Celento-Stamateris said. “I’m not going to name names among my acquaintances, but people do use these medications to make their children get some sleep.”

I think that in the long, cold calculus of medications that can permanently hurt your children versus you, and them, losing sleep, the mathematics is clear.  Sleep loses.  I’ll bet that the person who gave their child that cold medication who now has to watch them go through multiple operations because of the side effects has REAL trouble sleeping at night.

I gave up on sleeping the first night my daughter came home.  I figure that I can make it up in, say, year 2018 or so.

Britney Spears can’t even visit her children now. The troubled pop star may not see 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James who are in the custody of Spears’ ex-husband, Kevin Federline until she complies with a court order, Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon ruled.

The order, dated Wednesday, does not spell out what directives Spears defied. A hearing in the matter was scheduled for Oct. 26.

Now, I’m no big fan of Britney Spears (really, I’m not) but I’d sure love to know what she did to warrant that kind of situation.  A male friend who I’ll call Hank long ago told me that the only way in this country for a father to get custody of his children is for the mother to be a

But here’s a shocking admission: I believe that courts have far too much power over private lives anyway.

drug addict.  Hank eventually got custody of his child, but in fact, his child’s mother DID have to be a drug addict for it to happen – it only cost him $50,000 and a declaration of bankruptcy – and sadly nothing that I’ve seen in the last few years would that his declaration was untrue.

But here’s a shocking admission: I believe that courts have far too much power over private lives anyway.  The anarchist in me thinks that hey, we already have enough laws and enough incursions on privacy.  Leave most families alone.

On the other hand, if you are a completely incompetent parent, perhaps you SHOULDN’T be around your kids at all.

But another fact is that I’ve never seen a completely incompetent parent.  Never.  I’m sure that they exist; I just haven’t met one that set the parental bar that low.  Perhaps that’s a factor of the people that I know, but I can’t be certain.  I know some pretty odd people.

So, in the end,  I feel kind of bad for Ms. Federline-Spears; I feel badly for her kids, and I feel badly about the system in general.  The legal system: in matters considering your children, avoid it like some parents avoid giving their children vaccinations.

Perhaps you might have perceived that I’m quite the reader.  Exercise for the brain is really what opening up a book and reading really is.  Not to say, all books are particularly enjoyable – they aren’t.  Some are awful, at least by my estimation.

But not all are.  On occasion, a good book will remind you of something that you can use everyday; there’s a lesson there that can make you a better person, parent, and teacher.  And today, I remembered this some lines from this poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools”

…and so on.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, that I believe is similar to a quote that Joy Behar attributes to Rush Limbaugh in the worthwhile book Got What It Takes? Successful People Reveal How They Made It To The Topby Bill Boggs.  That is, be bold.  BE BOLD.  Mostly I can get behind that theory.  Very few people accomplish things of note without some measure of risk and hard work. 

For my daughter and myself, I will reinterpret that slightly. 

The real lesson is this: in whatever you decide to do, sure, be bold, but don’t let that be an excuse to be stupid.

Yes, I think that’s a good plan for us all.

What bold thing have you done today for your children or yourself?  Perhaps today, more than any day, is the perfect moment to try something radically different.

If you’re a single mom who’s been holding it down alone or simply dealing with a hard-to-take ex, it’s easy to get caught up in tit-for-tat dynamics. But theres a price we pay when we allow bitterness to seep in and engage in no-holds-barred power struggles. Even if the anger is justified and we believe the other person had it coming. What begins to happen is that same bitterness spirals into the other facets of our lives causing a domino effect. And sooner than you know it, it starts to dominate your thoughts, consume your conversations and pollute your spirit.

How true, how true.  I was talking just the other day to a person similarly situated as I, as a single parent trying to get by.  Fortunately, I’m in a position where my day job is in a skill type position, and I have the ability to work more doing part-time work and freelancing.  For many, this isn’t the case, and this person’s situation with their child isn’t so great at all.  But an interesting thing that they said is that it “simply takes too much effort” to be a bitter parent – and they’re right.  Being a bitter parent is a net loss.  It comes out to family, friends,

Being a bitter parent is a net loss.

acquaintances, the legal system (which is so pleasant to deal with already) and others.  It steals your spirit, when spirit is one of the qualities that you need the most when you are a single parent.

High stress due to infighting with the ex over child-related issues?  Exercise.

Can’t sleep because you’re always thinking about the next move?  Read.

Don’t want to talk to the ex?  Fine, but don’t avoid the issue.  Your kids are at stake.

Being positive is the best, and most effective, form of therapy.  Bitter parents raise bitter kids, which the exact opposite of the result you should be trying to achieve.  Remember that.

However, the author at Zen Habits was recently interviewed by ParentingWonder.com about his parenting skills, ideas, and how he has managed to help raising six children (gasp!) and keep everything together.  Here’s a quick excerpt:

5.    Every parent wants a happy, confident and successful kid. What’s the best way to achieve this?

Show that you care about what they do, help them become competent, give them confidence in their competence, support them, love them. There’s no one answer, but if you do these things, I think you’ll succeed.

Spoken like a true believer; you can sign me up for his newsletter.  If he can handle six, certainly I can handle one.  If you take nothing else from his interview but love and priorities, then I think your reading would be a successful interpretation indeed.

I entered in this site’s information and was given, within minutes, a score and a few items where I can improve my site reach to my audience.

based on a few criteria that you enter into the site.  Being that I’m always interested in the reach that my website has, I entered in this site’s information and was given, within minutes, a score and a few items where I can improve my site reach to my audience. 

It would seem that I have a lot of room for search engine optimization improvement.  In other words, my scores were…lacking. I definitely will be working on that presently behind the scenes.  Successful networking is certainly something that I am all about these days.

How are you working on SEO? Feel free to email me, or drop me a note in the comments.