July, 2011 -

Dear Nathan

Dear Nathan Comments Off

Jul 292011

I’m going to start a series of posts that I am going to write where the intended audience will be my son Nathan. I don’t know when he’ll be old enough to read these words, or be old enough to understand or appreciate them. But when he is, I hope that he finds them comforting, illuminating, funny, and poignant. I hope he finds some small wisdom in them, delivered to him from his old man when his old man wasn’t so old, and maybe he’ll see what his Dad’s thoughts were and even how they may have changed over the years.

Mr. Milker. Seriously?

Dad Stuff Comments Off

Jul 292011

I’m all for sharing in the raising and caring for your child together with your wife and sharing in the responsibility of feeding the baby and all that, but really? Seriously?

This is what their product blurb says on their website:

“"Breast-Feeding Envy" is what Psychology Today says is the most common and least-discussed concern among today’s young parents. Young fathers are quietly suffering the effects of envy over not being able to breast-feed.. it’s happening everywhere, and the fathers are not speaking out… but, maybe they don’t need to. Announcing the latest Great Invention, Mr. Milker….”

“…Using a classic sports bra design, Mr. Milker includes two bladders, stitched into the chest, capable of holding 10 ounces of milk in each. These two bottles are also BPA-free.”

Yeah, I’d have to say this is one product I most definitely will not be endorsing.

So You’re Gonna Be A Dad (part 1)

Lessons and Info, To Be A Good Dad, To Be a Good Husband Comments Off

Jul 282011

“You’re going to be a daddy!”

Well congratulations, bub, and welcome to the hardest, most rewarding, and most mind numbingly awe inspiring job you’re ever going to have as the male member of the human species.

I’ve noticed that getting that news from your wife/fiance/girlfriend can lead you to have either one of two reactions. Either you feel it as the single most world changing event in the history of the universe, or it feels all very abstract. I have to confess, I was of the latter persuasion. I knew what it meant, I understood the responsibilities and the implications on an intellectual level, but it didn’t really hit me emotionally until maybe the 2 to 3rd trimester and I started to actually feel the baby in my wife’s belly. THAT was freaky. I had visions of Aliens and V going off in my geek brain – there’s a lifeform in my woman’s belly! – while at the same time it no longer became a theoretical little blob on an ultrasound.

2011 must be a banner year of Kieun’s friends and reproduction because quite a lot of my friends and my wife’s friends (aka our friends) are having children. It occurs to me that I haven’t really gone into the 9 month process leading up the D-Day (that’s D for delivery, pal). I could write a tome about it, but who’s gonna wanna read that? So I thought I’d put down some thoughts, observations, and other highly opinionated advice for anyone who may have just recently heard those fateful six words.