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Showing posts from May, 2007

The fun is over, the fun begins

I am way, way off my stay-at-home dad routine. And a certain NBA team that wasn't supposed to be out of the first round of the playoffs is to blame. When the playoffs began, I volunteered to work extra on game nights. It'll be fun, right, and it won't last long. Six weeks and 17 games later, my schedule finally gets back to normal, rather than trying to catch up on sleep the next weekday (and subsequently subjecting the boys to more TV than I should) after working until 1 a.m. So I work Friday and Saturday, then get the next five nights off. Hopefully, I'll get the routine back on track, get out for more walks, start the adventures with the boys again (dinosaur museums are calling us), and get eight hours sleep each night (I'd be happy with even seven).

Numberz

I'd thought I'd offer a quick explanation on why I'm calling this blog "The 43" -- it's simply my favorite number. I admit it's an odd favorite number, but it's semi-unique as far as favorite numbers go. There aren't many notable athletes with 43, the only ones I found when I Googled it were Dennis Eckerlsey, Richard Petty and Brad Daugherty. I think I picked it up in high school when a girl I liked lived in a suburb that could be reached by taking Illinois 43 (Harlem, then Waukegan Road for you Chicagoans). The number stuck long after I wised up on the girl. Anyway, I chose "The 43" because it was a little more non-specific. I debated maybe tying in the stay-at-home dad angle into the title, or some '80s reference, but in the end, liked "The 43" best.

Memorial Day weekend

Summer, finally. So far so good. We had a good day, going to Day Out With Thomas -- a Thomas the Tank Engine extravaganza at a nearby historic railroad -- and later hitting the pool, where both boys, especially Eldest, had a lot of fun. I always liked Memorial Day weekend because it did signal the beginning of summer, though I'm amazed how fast May, generally one of my favorite months, went by. Hopefully June, another favorite month, won't be so zippy. As a kid, I used to like listening to the top 500 rock songs as presented by WLS radio in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, and usually a picnic, barbecue, or trip to Russell's (a rib place in the suburbs). There was invariably a couple days after Memorial Day of school, maybe a week and half, and then the school year ended and summer would be in full swing. Once you got to Memorial Day, the end was in sight. In more recent years, Wife and I used to take start a vacation around this time (not this year). After a long sports

Mild outrage, part II

Another item in a magazine annoyed me again today. A couple weeks ago in Sports Illustrated , there was a story on how girls' flag football is taking off as a spring high school sport in Florida. In the current issue, there is a letter to the editor from a guy in Oklahoma who writes a reminder to the high school girls forsaking track and softball for flag football, that although flag football might be fun, it won't get them a college scholarship. I can only imagine that the writer of the letter is a high school track or softball coach who feels threatened that his sport might get gutted if flag football is introduced in football-crazy Oklahoma. Wasn't the point of high school sports to build character, work as a team and, ultimately, have fun? Maybe this isn't a coach, but one of those parents so overinvolved in his child's athletic career who will sue the school district if his daughter doesn't get enough playing time, because it's ruining her chance to get

Kid gloves

There was an item in this month's Runner's World on children running, stating kids under 5 shouldn't take up regular running. The reason -- kids that young are still developing their gaits and sustained long-distance running might cause injury problems later. That's fine, but this is what peeved me a little -- the suggestion that toddler runs are OK, little fun races of 50 yards or so. I'm not trying to dismiss the advice that everyday distance running for kids is a bad idea. But isn't suggesting kids that young stick to 50 yards essentially discouraging kids from being active? There are longer kids runs -- I've seen them up to a kilometer or a mile -- why not let a preschooler try those longer noncompetitive races if they want? Eldest was in the stroller with us when we did a 5K (slowly) recently, at about the 2-mile mark, we let him out of the stroller, and I ran the rest of the race while Wife and Eldest were going to walk the rest of the way, then run a

It

To my surprise, I played It with eldest today. The surprise was he even knew the game. He must have learned it at his pre-preschool. We were playing outside, playing catch (I introduced him to the concept of diving on a loose fumble, I hope he doesn't try it on his little brother) and all of a sudden, he says "You're It," then ran off laughing. I'm waiting to see if he surprises me by offering to play chess tomorrow.

Dad 2.0

I am a stay-at-home dad. It's been about four months now since we made the big change. Though I still work part-time a couple nights a week, I am home every day, all day, with my two boys. I had been doing that before, just working five nights too -- I used to refer myself as a second-shift dad. It became too much, even before child No. 2 was born, and that, along with several other reasons, is why I racheted back. The transition has been all right. Not yet complete -- I'm still trying to get routines down, avoid going to bed too late on my more nights off (and not feeling the need for a nap the next day) and getting the laundry done more often. Nevertheless, it's been a good move for me and my family. Another goal for this blog is to chronicle my days and experiences as an SAHD. Even if I had kept working full-time, I had contemplated blogging just to write down my experiences as a dad. The kids are growing up faster than I can fathom -- Littlest just turned 1 today. Blog

Leading off

Yes, I am now a blogger. I've been trying to write more, and I even restarted a daily journal. It fell flat. I'd either be too tired after work to write or get too busy with other things on my night off. Same old me, start up some writing project, get too sidetracked to continue. So my solution was to start this blog. Yes, I might get sidetracked on this too, but I'm oddly optimistic. Here's why: With a journal, there's a pressure to update every day (in the past, I've updated days after, trying to recollect a past day, writing a play-by-play rather than what I was thinking that day) that doesn't quite exist with a blog. Yes, it's nice to update a blog as much as possible, but I doubt I'll feel guilty if I don't (unlike a journal, in which the guilt for not updating can keep building until you just give up). Besides, I'm not looking to journal here so much as to write. No fiction, not here anyway, but just writing. For several months, I'