Rob

We read all the books and we go to classes and we take the advice of well-meaning experienced parents, but really, first time parents take it all one day at a time. My baby is just over a year old, and I can't begin to guess what he will say or do later today.

While I enjoy reading the blogs of experienced fathers, it's good to read the blog of someone who shares my confusion and constant sense of wonder.

Rob, writing at Paternal Prose, writes the way I assume I will write when my own baby reaches his son's age. Knowing all babies reach those dreaded milestones, each one is still a cause for celebration and pride. Knowing that anyone can be a father, we still try to do the best we can to be the best fathers we can be. And secretly, we try to be the best fathers. Period.

And his son has just learned to say "I love you."

What more could a father ask for?

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Tim

It's a short distance from Vegas to L.A.

Unfortunately, Tim from L.A. Daddy doesn't live there anymore. He's moved away to Ohio, and is now experiencing something not many in L.A. have ever heard about: weather.

I have to agree with him. Bill Hicks used to make fun of L.A. people, calling them lizards because they couldn't handle the idea of putting on a coat. But really, I could do without this whole weather thing. You know, I don't mind a little drizzle, even a once-a-decade snow, but I'll be the happiest man with an above-60 degrees for about 350 days.

And there's more we agree on. Like this phone. I don't know who came up with the idea that toys need to be annoying. And it's not just the noise--I'd love it if my kid played the drums all day. It's this digital, fake-child-voice, faux-educational stuff they have in toys.

Not all toys need to teach you how to count to ten, is what I say.

Anyway, good luck in Ohio. Look at the good side: at least during the election the candidates come to visit. (That's the best I could come up with?)





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Vegas Dad

A year and a half ago I met some distant relatives who lived in Vegas. They loved it. They got to see great shows, and it was always sunny, and they had a pool in the back, and the city was always expanding, and they even loved their corrupt mayor. My pregnant wife and I looked at each other and thought the same thing... "But is it a place to raise a baby?"

We don't live there now, but that's not because of the sin-full Vegas; it has more to do with inertia that keeps us in our beloved, but always insane Baltimore. All it takes is one crazy winter and we'll be gone, forever suntanning, forever winning on Blackjack (for the college fund, obviously).

Vegas Dad, writing in iVegas Family, has other things on his mind. Once he manages to ignore people like me who can't help but ask, "But is it a place for children?" he frees himself to ask the real questions we all ask, and proves the universal nature of this fatherhood business.

And I'm not just talking about To Cut, or Not to Cut. I'm talking about our role, about our need to define ourselves as the best fathers history has created at the same time we try to preserve our individuality and our space. Should we get a Master's Degree? Or were they all correct in saying our lives were officially over?

Things aren't that different in Vegas, after all.