This Mother's Day, skip 1-800-FLOWERS Posted by Unknown on 4/29/2009 9 comments

Before it's too late, I wanted to share an email I got from a 1-800-flowers rep. It started like that (and I'll spare you the rest):

Hi, my name is Allison Blass and I wanted to drop you a note about something I’m working on for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. They recently launched a new movement for Mother’s Day called Spot a Mom. The Spot A Mom movement celebrates all the unique types of Moms in the world.

Now, as long as we're talking about 1-800-flowers, let me just say that I will never buy anything from them, and I don't recommend anyone else does.

Last year they had a different Mother' Day campaign, which also included all the unique types of Moms in the world, one of which was this guy in the middle:

Mr. Mom

And if you hovered over that picture with your mouse, you'd have gotten this:

I'm fabulous!

So good for them for not including the fabulous fella in this year's collection of mothers, but they still haven't replied to the email I sent them last year, which means they haven't apologized yet to fathers who don't necessarily see themselves as fabulous or as "moms."

So Ms. Blass, thank you for your email, but I'm going to pass this year and the next. There are plenty of local flower stores that don't portray me as a stereotype of a fabulous fella called "Mr. Mom."

Read More »

28 months Posted by Unknown on 4/24/2009 9 comments

I was in the supermarket the other day, and a mother asked me "How old?"

"16 months," I said. "And how old is your boy?" I asked, because it's part of the protocol.

"28 months," she said.

Which got me thinking.

At what age can I stop doing the whole month-thing? 28 months seems excessive, to be honest. I actually had to do a little calculation when she said that.

So I told my wife about it, and she said we could probably tell people our son is a year and a half, even though he's only 16 months.

But that's a different problem, because we were in a restaurant, and a couple with a baby asked us The Question. My wife immediately jumped on the opportunity to say "A year and a half," and I immediately panicked, because now people were going to think he was slow to develop, maybe even say, "Ours talked a lot more when he was that age."

But that's what we do. We panic. We panic when we wait for the milestones, and we panic when the babies take their time reaching the milestone. And we panic when we compare our babies to other babies. And we're scared of the idea that someone might look at us and think, "That baby would have been better off with other parents."

Or maybe it's just first time parents.

Or maybe it's just me.

Read More »

Brian Posted by Unknown on 4/16/2009 5 comments

Looky, Daddy!

You know what, I don't even know how I find these sites anymore. I guess it started with one site linking to another, then another, then I followed some comments and found other sites . . . and before I knew it I landed at Looky, Daddy!

What did you do before you became a stay-at-home dad?

I taught middle-school Algebra. It's one of the few professions in the world that makes raising kids seem preferable.

I don't know what else to write, because everything I write, this guy can write better. It's a really funny blog, and it's touching, and it's full of love, and it's politically correct (in the sense that his politics are correct), and he writes things like that sentence below, which is honest and real and painful while being funny and accepting and taking things in perspective (because what else can you do?) at the same time.

Last year we discovered she had epilepsy, which was very rude of her but what can you do? Kids today have to have hobbies.

He's so funny, I might even forgive him for having a Twitter account and a Blogher ad. I don't get Twitter.

I looked fora while for a picture of his children, and only managed to come up with his daughter's self portrait.

But then I found this one.

---

<a href="http://www.bloggerfather.com/2009/04/27-brian.html"><img border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1pINz6H54Ys/SU3gBkuXWFI/AAAAAAAAAuI/JwZ-_jZYtkQ/button.jpg" /></a>

Read More »

James Posted by Unknown on 4/03/2009 5 comments

Luke, I Am Your Father

I can see where Luke's dad is coming from. I read one post and then another, and the similarities are everywhere. Like me, he has the best son ever and the world's best wife to boot. And like me, it seems he wasn't ready. I imagine him, like me, dismissing those who said, "Everything is going to change." And then I imagine him, like me, admitting they were all correct, but in a totally different way. Because it does change everything, but it also allows us to experience an entirely new dimension in the world.

I think Luke's dad gets it.

He understands that although we don't have time to do the things we did before, when we do find the time everything becomes special. And of course doing something I like to do is fun, but doing it with someone who's experiencing it for the first time is so much better.

So he complains every once in a while. But even while his son is running headlong into the Terrible Twos, Luke's dad knows to keep things in perspective, take a deep breath, and say, "Ahhh, this parenting gig is a hell of a lot of fun...."

---

<a href="http://www.bloggerfather.com/2009/04/26-james.html"><img border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1pINz6H54Ys/SU3gBkuXWFI/AAAAAAAAAuI/JwZ-_jZYtkQ/button.jpg" /></a>

Read More »