Im totally aware of how long it’s been since i’ve written anything here. I assure you it’s not been because I’m lazy. Quite the opposite…

The more I wrote here at WriteToMean, the more I saw what was happening: my posts on dadly things were becoming more and more important for myself… and for others. The content was important for me to write, and the comments and conversation started getting better and better.

But I felt like WriteToMean wasn’t the best place for this kind of content, like there was something more I could do with it. A picture was forming in my head, a thought.

So I started thinking. And it was good. And then I started working, and it took longer than I expected, but, i’m finally ready to announce something I’m totally proud of!

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Father Apprentice is an online community of new and used dads who want to be great. It’s a place where myself and others will (and already do) write about all the fatherhood stuff in hopes that we all become better dads, more involved, more understanding, more vital and healthy in our relationships with our kids and life in general.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it, subscribe, pass along to your friends and become a part of the community through your comments, emails, stories etc.

So, What Of WriteToMean.com?

I will not be blogging any more at WriteToMean… but, alas! I will be blogging at, of course, FatherApprentice.com, as well as BeChase.com – a place for the rest of me. So, effectively, I’ve split WriteToMean into dadly-things and non-dadly things. The dadly stuff is at FatherApprentice, the non-dadly is at BeChase. Get it?

So, THANKS all… WriteToMean has been the factor in getting me to start up FatherApprentice.com… If it weren’t for the comments and general luv around here, I wouldn’t have had the confidence I needed to dream about and work towards FatherApprentice. I hope you

Yours Truly,
Chase Wardman Reeves

]]> http://www.writetomean.com/father-ness/an-important-announcement/feed 0 http://www.writetomean.com/plainlife/1-year-anniversary-some-updates-some-clarity http://www.writetomean.com/plainlife/1-year-anniversary-some-updates-some-clarity#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:12:16 +0000 http://www.writetomean.com/?p=734

I was making some changes and updates to this site when I realized that Write To Mean has been online for just over a year now! It took me a bit by surprise to realize that almost exactly a year ago I wrote How to Start, a simple, unassuming post on a blog about putting some f*cking ink on paper.

And now I have this huge online legacy… oh, wait. A year later I don’t have much to show in terms of “moneys”, but this blog has accomplished some cool stuff…

I got to thinking quiet a bit about becoming a dad… and I got to bitch about putting together baby furniture.

Remember that baby that was born? This blog was the information channel throughout the whole labor process. People still talk to me about how they were refreshing the page every couple of minutes and getting pissed at me when I didn’t update it. That was some heavy shit, and this blog was at the middle of it! Maybe it will still be around when Aiden is writing a blog, and i’ll be like, “Oh son, why are your search rankings so bad? Maybe it’s cuz i’ve been around for, like, ever and I’m drinking all the SEO juices! WHA!?”

Then there’s, like, all this fallout from actually being a dad. Which is a mess.

My wife and I started another new chapter of our lives by getting into a new house, the one that will, hopefully, grow Aiden till he’s old enough to take care of us… like 13 or so. And I wrote a little poem that I love about what a house is.

And then there’s the killer community of commentors that I’m SO grateful for. It’s a great thing to dig up some stuff, put something out there, and see others come around it, enjoy it, add to it, correct it. It feels like being vindicated in a way, like you’re not alone, and like you played some role in putting something true and hard to define into words.

What’s To Come For WriteToMean?

I’m happy with some maintenance I just finished on the site. I made some updates to the design and code behind the site and updated to the very killer Thesis 1.7 framework for WordPress. So, I’m feeling good about that.

It seems that there’s a lot of interest around the whole dad/father/man/son/relationship/taco theme, so I’d like to spend some of this next year on that stuff. Luckily I find myself right in the thick of that – just beginning a very long career as a dad – so I’ll have plenty of content to pull from.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if we spend some time on the whole husband/wife thing… I feel like I need to write about that to remind myself that Mellisa and I aren’t just a couple of people who laugh at each other and think our kid is f*cking hilarious.

Ultimately, it’s becoming clear that WriteToMean is the place where I try to discover how to say what matters, so that in saying those mattering things I might live better. It’s not about my everyday life; you can check out BeChase.com and follow me on twitter for that. The posts aren’t always simple to write, and I’m not exactly making any money on this thing, so I wouldn’t expect posts every day… but I want to grow my vocabulary of things that matter.

So, may your cups be full. May your tables be messy. May many happy drinks be spilled on your hardwood floors. And may you find some sort of meaning on this site for yourself.

And for good measure, here’s a quote I used at the end of my first post here:

“Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him…It knows we can’t sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.” (Page 75 of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield)

He’s looking up at me… Holy shit, man. Here’s this little boy, this son of mine, pulling himself up on a pile of dishes in the kitchen to show me how he can stand. And it really seems like he’s looking up at me with a “hey dad, are you looking at this” kind of look.

Naw, he can’t be thinking that. He’s only 8 months old. I’m sure I still look like some blurry tree to his developing eyes. Emotional father-son connections haven’t formed yet. His lizard brain is the only thing that’s really functioning; the one that says, “eat eat. Mouth mouth. Me me. I’m going to stay awake forever!”

But, shit, man! He’s really looking up at me with that look… On this loosely stacked column of dining plates (my, that’s looking awfully unsafe), my son has pulled himself up to create a leaning tower of chubbiness; a sort of meat turret topped off with this f*cking charming grin, eyebrows pulled up, head cocked a little to the left and backwards to face me, little chubby nubbins’ of toes fatly fixed on the slate floor.

Is he really looking at me to make sure I’m noticing him? Have we started that already?

There Are Consequences

What it flicked on was the idea that there are consequences; from this point on how I am with my son has consequences. My inattention and attention will color his world differently.

This is kind of where the rubber meets the road for me. I’ve learned a lot about what I call “Father Wounds” over the past 10 years as I’ve dug into my own character, history, and story. To put it simply, father wounds are the scars on who you are which are directly related to who your dad was. I have these father wounds, just like you do. And I think everyone has father wounds, no matter how awesome your dad is/was. It’s a part of being alive, conscious, in relationships, as a human.

My father wounds have colored me one way. Some good, some bad. We’re dealing with it. And I’ve spent a lot of energy and attention over the years discovering and dealing with these wounds. The truth is: I don’t want Aiden to have to be 28 for him to start to understand me, feel valued by me, feel that I’m interested in what makes him tick.

So, suffice it to say: Aiden looking up at me that way from his little, leaning meat turret was startling because it signified to me this “what does dad care” wheel is beginning to turn in him.

Before, There Were No Consequences

If I’m honest with myself, this moment was startling because *I have sort of been on auto-pilot up till now with Aiden.* I’ve loved him deeply, but I also always looked for a way to hand him off to mom, or distract him with something that would keep him on his own for a few, short-lived, oh so short and not-nearly-long-enough minutes so I could finish fixing something, designing something, coding something, writing something, etc.

Mr. “pre-leaning-meat-tower-giggle-grin-incident” dad had it pretty easy: not much guilt, and when there was guilt it would be coming from mom, not self-assigned guilt… Which is the worst!

The post-meat-grin dad now has an internal engine forcing him to engage, pay attention, get involved, be there, be there, be around, be there, be looking, be on the ground, be on the ground there, be covered in drool, play, be covered in what I can only hope is mashed avocado, be… You get the gist.

So, What Are These Consequences?

#1 Aiden’s character

A serious consequence of my inattention to Aiden now could be Aiden becoming someone he’s not proud of or happy to be. The spectrum of possibilities here is pretty wide, so I’ll just leave it at that.

#2 The kind of relationship Aiden & I have

I don’t want something standoffish with my son. I want a healthy, “Hey dad, what do you think of this” kind of relationship (i.e., he asks me shit, and cares about my answers because I’m not an idiot, and I have a history of listening well to him).

#3 Being old and regretful

There’s a short passage in Steve Martin’s autobiography about one of his last conversations with his dad. Steve Martin, sitting on his dad’s hospital bed, hears his dad say through tears (the first tears he can remember seeing) that he was regretful for “all the love I received and couldn’t return.”

I don’t want to be that dad. And I don’t want Aiden to be Steve Martin. I do want Aiden to accomplish amazing things, but I don’t want him to do them all just to with the affection, appreciation, and attention of a dad who wasn’t looking at a leaning, meat-flesh, chubby tower.

(Steve Martin’s autobiography is amazing, btw. Get it! )

The Consequence of Every Decision, All Day Long

Ultimately, I don’t want to be a dad who wasn’t “all there.” None of us dads want to be that, of course. But it happens. It probably happens more often than not. Though I’m a total n3w8cak3s when it comes to dadding, I do know one secret to this whole dilemma:

The decisions I make all day long effect how I am for those 2-4 hours I get to spend with my child after work.

I have to thank my friend David Price for the reminder. We were having a conversation on my back porch and I was telling him that I’m starting to see consequences everywhere, especially with my son. And he mentioned the quote above.

When I swallow this truth with the sour-sweet fact that we’re bombarded by thousands of advertising messages every day (see a great blog post on commercialism by Don Miller), I start to feel like I may not be able to do this… At least not on my own.

But then again, maybe he wasn’t looking to see if I was noticing him. Maybe he just wanted to see what a blurry tree looked like while leaning against a stack of very unsteady, very breakable not-eatables.

Have you had to navigate this sort of thing before? What can you tell me!?

We just moved into a new house. It’s a house we could very easily stay in for the next 10-30 years. As we’ve been preparing for the move, I’ve been thinking about the kind of “thing” a house is. I wrote the following as a sort of benediction, a prayer of thanksgiving, and a request for all the life to keep coming on down the pipes…

I’d love your feedback on how I can improve it, so I can turn this into something I can hang on a wall in the new place. Cheers!

It is a house, nothing more than a plot of land and a few bricks.

Just a house, a roof held up by a few walls to keep the rain out. A corner of the world to warm ourselves by a little.

Just a house… A place to keep things and hang pictures and park cars… A place to find space hidden away for golf clubs to cob-web and toys to be played with and forgotten and left behind.

It is just a house, except for a few subtle differences.

For one, there is a georgeous lady in this place who brings all the meaning and truth to my world. It’s because of her that I am not some miser building a house on top of a lonely hill.

Secondly, there is a small son here who finds love in me I had never known about. It is because of him that I come away from my building and storing and keeping at all.

And thirdly, there are the faces of friends. The presence of people who breathe the same life as we do… In… Out… The sounds of ease and trial and challenge and support… And love… Their presence fills this place like birds fill the empty morning; and the sounds of their glasses clinking fills me up. If it wasn’t for these people, the glass would always be half empty.

It is just a house. A plot of land, some walls and a roof. And I, I am just a man in a house. And yet because of you people… My wife, my son, our friends… I am a king and a giant in the presence of gods, and I am rich and grateful.

I want to write more betterer, so I read some books on it. And the writing books, they told be to be a better readerer. So I’ve taken up a new interest in the readings. Here are a few that I’ve recently enjoyed.

Stephen King – On Writing

This was the book that told me to read more. I’ve read a lot of books on writing now, and this one is my favorite.

Stephen King’s style is unpretentious and humble as he explains his processes, muses, trials and successes in writing. He also exposes a bit of his personal life, which gives the reader a bit of a story to follow as we learn more about the writer’s craft.

No book on writing is going to give you a magic solution, but if you want to learn a bit more about writing, you could do A LOT worse than this book. Give Stephen King’s On Writing a try →

Stephen King – The Stand

After reading the previous book, I knew I wanted to try out one of Stephen King’s novels.

I did a little research and found that many of his avid supporters believe The Stand is his best work.

OMG. It was awesome! It’s not a scary thriller like many of his other books, with suspense and monsters and creatures and stuff; though there is certainly some suspense and thrills. It’s simply an excellent story.

It won’t let you down. Give Stephen King’s The Stand a try →

Donald Miller – A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Don is a friend of mine, but that doesn’t color the way I feel about this book. It’s such a simple, life-altering idea: that we can craft our lives around what makes a good story. The effect on me was immediate.

Don’s style is easy and subtle, luring you into epiphanies.

The book reads like an easy road trip and goes down like americana truisms. If you haven’t already read this book, give Donald Miller’s A Million Miles  in a Thousand Years a try →

Bill Cosby – Fatherhood (Book) & Himself (DVD)

Ok, both of these are required reading/watching for dads. Everything I know about being a disgruntled and loving dad, I learned from the guy in the sweater.

“But dad, I’m Jesus Christ!?”

In this book and DVD you’ll learn so much amazing and awesome that your heart will simply burst with delight.

“Because, we’re dumb, but we’re not so dumb.”

Get Bill Cosby’s Fatherhood book right now if you don’t already have it. And the same goes for the hilarious Bill Cosby Himself stand up comedy DVD.

Anne Lamott – Operating Instructions

Speaking of amazing parenting books, here’s another must-have. Anne Lamott is insightful, touching, and hilarious as she chronicles her first year of parenthood.

“I woke up with a start at 4:00 one morning and realized that I was very, very pregnant…”

I’m still only about half way through this one; I’m practicing refrain so as to not find myself prematurely without parenting medicine…

If you’re a parent, do yourself a favor and read Operating Instructions →

Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere

This was an absolutely lovely read. Read my lips: I LOVED THIS BOOK.

Neil Gaiman is hilariously sarcastic and dark, and this story is charming, funny, adventurous, funny, awesome, and hilarious… and funny.

If you haven’t read any Neil Gaiman, I also suggest Good Omens… an utterly stellar story about how everything just goes wrong during the apocalypse.

Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already and give Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere a try. Or listen to it on audiobook →

So There You Have It…

So there are a few of the best books I’ve recently finished. Coming up is Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up Stephen Lawhead’s King Raven Trilogy and Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner.

Have any other books you’ve recently read that you loved? Please comment and let me/us know what you’re reading!!

PS. the links in this post, they all go to Amazon.com. And if you purchase anything from one of these links at Amazon.com, daddy get’s a couple quarters donated to his coffee fund… just saying.

I’ve heard people say having kids alters your friendships, that new parents start gravitating away from current friendships and towards friendships with other parents.

I can see the logic in this: I know first friggen hand how life-altering children are.

But, I don’t want to watch my friends fade out of my life just because they don’t have kids. Hell, I only have like, 2 friends who have kids… I’m supposed to sit back as the other 20-60 closest friends start to fade away?

Bullshipt. I’ll have none of it.

So, I’m writing this little diatribe on behalf of all new parents who don’t want to lose friends. Below are 5 tips that will make you a kick-butt friend for people with child-things.

#1 Pay Attention

Honestly, I love you, AND you have no idea what it’s like to raise a kid.

Heck, many of you don’t have any idea about what it’s like to be married!

Your internal gauges and empathetic imagination won’t be able to guide you very much as you try to anticipate our needs.

And that’s ok! This isn’t information you’re supposed to have pre-built; it’s learned over arduous weeks and months, mind-numbingly confusing and beautiful experiences, and a good deal of schizophrenia.

So, pay attention. Pay attention to me here in this post. Pay attention when you’re hanging out with us. Watch the crap we do all day and night…. incessantly.

When you pay attention, you’ll see things you didn’t see before: a mom blowing the hair out of her face as she holds baby and stirs pasta sauce; a dad lifting baby and smiling big into it’s face; playtime on the floor putting toys just out of reach of the child; lots of movement, lots of never ending, o-god-please-make-it-stop-and-give-me-five-goddam-minutes-of-rest movement.

Watch what parents do, and then maybe help out with that stuff… Think you can help out with any of that? Cheers!

#2 HOLD THE FRIGGEN BABY!

A knock rapped out on the door, and Jacob walked in, “Hey! What’s up guys!”

“Jacob! Welcome! Let me get you a stiff drink” the host said and moved towards the liquor cabinet.

“Oh, that would be great! Say, where’s that baby… I’ll hold him for a little while” Jacob replied.

Jacob wins in this little scenario: not only does he get to hang out with the baby, but he also get’s the best f-ing cocktail in the house!

Why? Because if you walk into my house and ask to hang out with the baby for a little while, I’ll be treating you like royalty!

Why? Because I won’t have to be hanging with the baby; because my wife will be able to keep cooking your friggen dinner without one-arming the child-thing; because we’re new parents and our baby is hands on all the time!

Ask to hold the baby. Hang out with the it-thing. Remember some of the ways you saw mom and dad playing with the baby and do that stuff.

Not only will you probably have a good time with the little raptor-spawn, his little dimples dimpling and tail wagging, but you’ll be giving the new parents the rarest commodity of their new life: time without immediate baby responsibility.

Honestly, you will get great cocktails… It’s worth it for this alone! I mean, you’re getting top-shelf when you walk in asking to hang with the up-chucker!

#3 Don’t Stop Holding The Friggen Baby!

“WHHOOOOWEEE! What a great cocktail! Thanks!” said Jacob to the hosty host.

“You’re welcome man… anything for you… Pillow? Dates?” replied the host.

“No, thank you. I’m perfect,” Jacob said as he put the cocktail down and continued playing with the small-thing-person.

He lifted it up in the air, and placed it’s feet on his knees, and tickled and made faces and the whole nine yards… And for several minutes the poop-factory had the time of it’s life.

But soon it started to get a little fidgety, looking around the room and reaching towards things away from its ripping-tearing talons.

“Ok, little guy… looks like you need a change of scenery. Let’s get up and move around a little bit,” Jacob said… his stomach warm, defenses down from the superb top-shelf cocktail the host had masterfully prepared for him.

Listen, no matter how long you’ve held the baby, maybe just try to hold the baby a little longer. I mean, you don’t have any requirements on you, or parental responsibility to hold someone else’s baby, but these parents, these poor souls reaching, grasping for every shred of vitality they can muster, these fools, are your friends.

So, when you’ve held the baby for a few minutes and the soul-eater starts to fidget and look unhappy, just get up and move around with it.

This goes back to #1 – watching and learning. See how we play with the creature, how we change positions and the playing setup. After playing with the life-sucker a few times you’ll start to pre-empt these changes in mood and get creative with playing.

Your drinks just got better… I hide liquor just for you in a special place now.

#4 WTF!? Why Are You Still Holding The Friggen Baby?

Listen, you don’t have to hold the baby all night. I mean, a 5 minute stretch would be awesome. All that matters to us new parents is that you’re trying… making the effort rather than pretending everything’s the same as the pre-baby days.

So when your creativity and elastic soul has been used up, don’t be afraid to abruptly say, “All right, it’s time for someone else, isn’t it!? Yes, you little lovely-lump,” and give it back to the eaten up, spent, and exhausted ones.

It’s important you know your boundaries, what you’re willing and able to do and not do, so YOU don’t get burnt out. Just like it’s important you feel confident enough to outright ask to hold the baby.

As long as you make the effort, and maybe push yourself a little bit to get creative and play, your drinks will be good all night long… and your new parent friends will be so grateful. So, so grateful.

#5 Take The Daddy Out (Moms Sometimes Too)

That pre-dad, best friend, party animal dude is still in the new fathers out there; it just doesn’t get much play time.

So, make some time to get that old school party animal out…. away from the nom-nommer and the mommy and the chores, and into the sweetness of the open night sky, the dank, dim bars, and the siren call of the moon…. oh… god… the moon.

And you know what? You couples can team up on us: men going out to drink and get teary eyed about the good ol’ days; women staying in to put the life-taker down for bed and drink white wine and chat. Maybe once you’ll get to switch that around, but I think you’ll learn from your mistakes and never let a pack of men put the baby down for bed again.

Here’s a couple of things which might have changed about that moon-howling party animal turned dad:

• Get it on the schedule: You’ll definitely need to put those nights out on the calendar so he can have plenty of time to remind the wife of “the night of his non-responsibility” coming up on friday. It might be new for your wolfpack to schedule something, but do it for the sake of the new dads among you.
• Don’t bitch a dad out: If I do meet you out at a bar for one of your “every night we don’t have children or wives” meetings, don’t bitch me out for having to retire at 9:30. Chances are good I’ll be up at 5am with the rain-taker trying to give mommy a few more hours of sleep. Remember, for the big nights out, get it on the schedule.

Conclusion: It Takes A Village!

That’s just a simple little starter list of things you can do to be a better friend to new parents.

I mentioned above it’s common for new parents to gravitate away from friendships with single and un-childed couples towards friendships with other parents. People say that.

But people also say it takes a village to raise a child. Now that’s the kind of thing I can get into.

Dear friends, you will play a huge role in our kids’ lives. Your laughter and patience and support will create the world we want to raise our little poop-factories in.

Lend a hand, help us out, because this is our life now, and some shit has changed. We don’t want to feel isolated from you, and we need you to be aware of exactly how shit has changed and help us out a little… cuz, like, we love you and stuff.

Your Thoughts

Have some ideas or stories about how your friends helped you in early parenthood? Or how you were a good friend to someone? Or anything else that’s relevant? Please comment… I <3 your comments… srsly.

Here is part two of the 11 things I’ve learned in my son’s first 6 months. It goes to eleven.

Lesson #6: You Will Become A Master Ninja In Your House

It became painfully apparent on the day we brought the baby home that we had some real friggen loud creaks in our floor. We had no idea who put them there, but sometime between when we left for the hospital, and when we returned home, someone injected 32 different squeaky floor spots on our main floor.

What? You think it’s ridiculous to know the exact number of squeaky floor spots? It’s ridiculous — indeed, suicidal — NOT to have an exact blueprint of every single squeak and creak in your house when you have a baby in residence.

What’s more, you have to know exactly how to navigate each of the passages without triggering a squeak. In this way you become like a master ninja, tip-toeing, spinning, leaning, jumping, rolling, taking whole flights of stairs in a single bound…

You will assert dominance over your domain, even if doing so in cowering fear of a waking baby.

Lesson #7: You’ll Never Want To, But You’ll Always Be Glad You Did

Every single time that it’s my turn to put the midnight baby back to sleep I moan and groan and hate it. Everything in my body and mind resounds with a single: “This is going to suck.”

And then I get to the crib, and pick him up Put-Down 2.0 style and start gently bouncing… I’m 45 seconds into it and my back already starts to hurt; light perspiration in my armpits.

I’m looking around the dark room at nothing in particular and winging petulantly in my mind, begging the poor sleepy child to give in and retreat into unconsciousness.

My eyes start to adjust to the faint glow of the hall light coming through the cracked door and I realize that Aiden is looking right up at me. Looking directly into my face; not moving, not arching his back and barking, not flitting his head side to side, or any of that. Just perfectly, peacefully staring into my face.

I stare back. It’s lovely. I’m in the moment with my son. We’re having a moment! We’re just there together staring at each other… And I’m not even thinking about my back pain.

It’s simply amazing.

This happens just about every time I put him down. I never want to do it, and I’m always glad I did.

Lesson #8: Don’t Trust Your Baby’s Smile

This baby's smile will eat your soul

It will seem like a miracle, like a farce. You’ll double-take and time will stop. Inevitably your heart will skip a few beats when, at some point in the first few months, your baby cracks his/her first smile. Not just a twitch of the facial framework, but a real, honest to god smile!

This is an amazing time! It’s the first little bit of feedback that your baby is actually having an alright time. (It is no small wonder that babies are born with this little mechanism pre-installed, off the shelf, ready for playback.)

Your baby’s smile feels like a bolt of electricity going right through you. You’ll be so goddam excited about it you might drop the kid and call your friends and throw a party. “MY KID LOVES ME AND HE’S HAVING A GREAT TIME WITH ME!!!” you’ll want to say.

But don’t. Don’t call anyone. Don’t schedule a party. Don’t even let your baby know you enjoyed his/her smile. Oh, God, please don’t.

Your baby’s smile is a ploy; a test. He/she is trying to feel-out your boundaries, your character, your values. Once they find out where you’re willing to go, they’ll gnaw, chortle, lick, and dimple their way into breaking your boundaries, devolving your character, and turning your once vibrant values into a brown and crackled picture of what used to be.

Of, course, I have no confidence that you’ll be able to defend yourself. In the desert of early parenthood your baby’s smile is like water flowing underground from some immeasurable depth; sweet, sweet water…

That’s how they do it, you know… That’s how they break you down. With their smiles. That first smile is the nail in your f-ing coffin, man. In no time your children will be making you look like a friggen idiot; the bane of the salon; the fashion-less chowderhead.

You’ve been warned… Your baby’s smile will seem innocent and fun, but it is the gateway drug, dear reader. That randiest of all rousts. The gateway drug!

Lesson #9: They Know What You Want, They Won’t Let You Have It

So, it sounds all beautiful and lovely to be putting down the baby like that… But sometimes, I don’t get lost in the moment. Sometimes I’ve got other shit to do.

And Aiden always knows when I’ve got other shit to do.

If you have other shit to do, you might as well forget about putting that baby down for sleepy time. They know you’d rather be elsewhere and they’ll make you pay for it.

“But I’ve got to go do the work that will pay for your college, your wedding, your first car, the unicorn!”

It doesn’t matter. The child will not understand that. All they understand is how to thwart and pillage your plans until your will is broken and your eyes are dry and red.

The only answer to this seminal problem, dear reader, is to not have other shit to do. Or, to master the art of getting lost in the moment even when you have other shit to do.

Lesson #10: A Lot Of Shit Becomes A Lot Less Important

I used to want to get a PHD. When I asked a professor about what it was like to get a PHD, he told me that he had two kids when he was going through his program. He said that he finished his PHD before anyone else in his session because of his kids. Other students who didn’t have children took an extra year or more to finish the program.

I asked him how that could be… How could having kids make you finish something quicker when they’re such time vampires. He said it was because of the way kids make some shit important, and some shit totally unimportant. And also because, when you have kids, there’s no possible way you’ll get away with doing unimportant shit.

Well, now I know a little about what he meant. I’ve got a lot of ideas, and a lot of things asking for my attention. Business ideas, current businesses, blogs, friends, family, wives, personal sanity requirements…

Now that we have an Aiden, I innately understand that some of this shit is shitty, and I’ll have no possible way to get away with it.

I always hate letting a good idea go away. I can put it on the shelf, but that’s just about as good as forgetting about it in my book. So, it kind of sucks to “murder your darlings” as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch put it. But that’s one secret to good writing, and, apparently, to good living with childrens.

Here’s some tips:

• Find what actually makes money and do that. Quick ‘time to cash’ ideas only need apply.
• Find what actually gives you pleasure and do some of that too. A hobby or something… For me it’s cigars and reading. I’ve got to give me some of this stuff in the week.
• Give your marriage a priority spot. Do what you need to and keep that shit un-shitty. Maybe I’ll put a post together with some creative ideas on how to do this some time… when I get some creative ideas on how to do this.

Lesson #11: Love For Kids Is Worked Out Over Time

I’ve hinted to this before. It’s one of the most important lessons I’ve started to learn over the past 6 months. It goes like this: The more time you spend with your child, the more your love for them grows.

I first started to understand this when I watched Mellisa breastfeeding a few months back. She just sat there with him up against her, skin on skin, feeding him. He sucked and chortled and grumpled and made all sorts of sounds there are no words for, and then he’d stop and look up at her. He would stare into her face for a few moments, and then dive right back into the titties.

There was no way for Mellisa to be anywhere else. No place she could possibly be. She might have a whole shit ton of other shit to do, and she’d just have to wait to do it. (Though she does get through a massive amount of work on her iPhone while she breastfeeds)

That made me think about this bond that was forming between them. As he get’s what he needs from her and then stares up into her face, making the connection. Good stuff… Lady… Good stuff… Lady… Throw up… Lady… Good stuff…

I didn’t have a built in mechanism like breastfeeding. So if I wanted to create this kind of bond I would have to simply waste a bunch of time on him.

It worked. We would spend basically all weekend playing, and by the time monday rolled around, I’d be calling Mellisa on the hour wondering about how my little dood was doing.

And then the week goes by, work happens, and by Saturday morning I’m already trying to get away from playing with him to go write some goddam blog post, or design a client’s website, or something like that. All good stuff, all urgent, but maybe not as important as playing with my son during some prime play time.

So, what I’m telling you is this: as a dad, make sure you get in your time to waste on your kid. Schedule it, plan it, be surprised by it, call it by another name, whatever. Just get it in, because your bond will become more bondy only by time and attention spent — wasted with abandon — on your child.

Oh, and try to feed him/her with the bottle anytime that’s going on. That’s good time spent.

Conclusion

So there are some of the awesome and terrible things I’ve learned in the first 6 months of being a dad. I’d really like to hear about what you remember being hard or surprising to learn… if you don’t mind sharing.

My child is almost 6 months old now. And this young dad has learned a crap-ton of stuff in that short amount of time. I thought I’d put a list together for you. It goes to eleven.

Lesson #1: Daddies Dress Kids Better Than Mommies

Mom’s are always going to try to own this space and claim that you are making all sorts of horrible errors when you dress your child, but this is just their way of coping with raging envy.

Here’s your big advantage in this area: you could give a shit about a lot of shit that your wife gives a shit about. She’s passionate about dolling the kid up and parading it around with shoes that match his hat, gloves, and knickers.

And that’s why moms will never have the god-given talent that dads have.

She’ll never see that it’s a bit cold outside so we’ll just double layer the shark shirt on top of the onesie and wrap the scarf around his legs. Finish it off with some paper towels wrapped around his head and taped at the top (to keep the air from getting in… Damn you’re good) and you’ve got yourself a kid; a kid dressed for success; a kid with a bright future.

Your wife and her friends might give you crap and laugh about your dressing prowess. Just remember, you are an artist; they are not.

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind” (i.e., mindlessness… Dad’s win) -Eckhart Tolle

Lesson #2: You Can Live On Less

You learn early in your first few months of parenting that you’ll have a whole lot less time for… Everything; money, romance, reading, hobbies, happiness, everything.

But you’ll also learn that you can do with less. It all works out, because you’re adding a walloping dollop of child to your life. And that will end up satisfying you just as good as the other stuff used to.

Lesson #3: The Ultimate Sleeper Put-Down Move 2.0

The only faint wisp of accomplishment and productivity you can have is when your little one is passed out in some other room with 14 fans on and your car backed up against the window idling and gently vibrating that side of the house so he/she/it will sleep as long as infantly possible.

There is no time more special to a new parent than the time the baby is sleeping.

And one of the most goddam frustrating things in the f-ing life of a new parent is when you can’t put your child down to sleep because they keep friggen waking up.

The kid will be so damn tired. And yet, every time you try to put him down, when you make that final move to gently dispose of the body into the padded receptacle, he blinks and looks up at you. As if he was saying, “you’ve got to be kidding me… Right? That’s the best you’ve got.”

What’s even worse is when you get him down into the bed fine — your arms underneath him, his eyes relaxed close, mouth agape just a bit, little lower lip lithely whimpering, occasional phantom suck and/or deep belly dream sound — and you try to slowly, oh so slowly and quietly, remove your arms from underneath him… When BANG! Eyes open, all smiles, and it’s f-ing play time again!! FML.

But now I’m about to reveal to you a trick that can make you the master of the put down. It’s called the Ultimate Sleeper Put-Down Move 2.0.

Like all amazing life secrets, this secret trick hinges on reversing logic.

The Old, Bad Way: Normally you cradle the head in the nook of your arm, with your other arm supporting the bottom and legs. This is bad… and old. We’re going to reverse that.

1: The Old Bad Way: Arms wrapped around the baby

The Arms Are Trapped Underneath

The New, Excellent Way: Take the arm that normally supports the head, and move it under the bottom. Then, take your bottom arm and support the head. Now your arms are running parallel with the baby’s body, instead of wrapped around it (see pictures).

The New, Excellent Way: Arms parallel with baby's body

Now, when you put the child down, it’s a simple, quick, and silent open move rather than a put-down-and-slide-out move.

The Arms Easily Slide Away!

It will take a little while to get used to this, but you’ll be amazed when things get clear.You’re welcome.

Lesson #4: “This Too Shall Pass”

Wifee and I met a couple who’s baby was about 8 months older than Aiden, and they gave the best advice about parenting we had heard up to that point.

They said:

What makes being a first time parent the hardest is the fact that you have no framework or ideas about how long each stage will last.”

In fact, you don’t naturally think of phases at all.

Here’s how it would go: Aiden would have a few good days and life would be beautiful: we’d be floating on the accomplishment of a happy child.

Then, all of a sudden, he would have the worst sleep ever. This would catapult him into a week of horror, and Mellisa and I would say to ourselves: “well, we made a good run of it… He was nice for a while, but now he’s exposing his eternal self… This is the rest of our lives. I loved you too babe.”

When you’re a new parent, you don’t have any framework for how long or short things take for a child. You probably don’t even know what kind of “things” a child gets taken by! So, every new learning stage or shift in your kid’s disposition feels somewhat final.

But this couple in the coffee shop was telling us that every phase ends. That was the sweet secret that second time parents had which made the whole thing bearable again: the teething, the learning and forgetting of new motor skills, and the good and bad nap seasons… They all come to an end and move into something else.

And that’s true. All your baby’s phases will have an end and move into something else. And that brings us parents a little slice of sanity. Even if the next phase is worse than this one, it’s still progress; one more step towards that child buying you a yacht and some slippers.

Lesson #5: The iPhone Flashlight

Every morning I dress myself by iPhone screen-lighting. Around 6am or so, Mellisa will bring Aiden into our bed while she feeds him and he’ll pass out for a little while. I’ll get up when he’s still asleep and try to get what I need out of the room without waking him.

I know, right? A stranger in my own bedroom. I’m not proud about it.

Well, I can’t just go about turning on lights with a baby in the room can I? No. I have to get creative.

Well, one day I found out that the iPhone makes a great little handy flashlight. It’s just bright enough to light some parts of the room without lighting everything, and I always have it with me.

There are some disadvantages, however. Namely, in the glow of an iPhone every color looks like a version of grey. “Huh, I didn’t know I had a grey sweater… Perfect.” Wrong; it’s orange. And you know I never look at a mirror before running out the door in the morning.

But this goes back to the “artist always creates from mindlessness” thing again. You win!

Conclusion

So there’s the first part of the 11 awesome and terrible things I’ve learned in the first 6 months of being a dad. I’ll be following up shortly with the final 6 lessons learned.

In the meantime, I’d really like to hear about what you remember being hard or surprising to learn… if you don’t mind sharing.

A few years back a friend of mine needed to do some silly school project and we created an awesome version of Little Drummer Boy. We were quite proud of it then, and after listening to it for the first time in a while, I’m still proud of it!

Enjoy the righteous Phil Collins style drumming!

Or download this track →

photo credit: Jmodus

Here’s a lil’ number to kick off this whole holiday season thingy… You can listen here or download.  It’s a recording my wife and I made a few years back for a christmas album. Enjoy!

Download Here →