Living as a man, dad and husband in New York City. The joy, pain and insanity of fatherhood and married life.
Contents:
Empire City, My City
In New York, Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There's nothing you can’t do, Now you’re in New York, These streets will make you feel brand new, The lights will inspire you, Lets here it for New York, New York, New York...
It's the city that made me Man, Dad and Husband...
Congrats to the New York Yankees! Enjoy your parade. Be safe out there New York.
Last week, after being handed their first defeat all season, my son claimed a W for his last football game of the season. Because the team had been previously undefeated, his coaches lobbied the school for a night game and got it...on a Tuesday. Last night the team won a decisive 28-14 victory and finished the year with a 6-1 record. I shot 115 photos. Half of them were a complete and utter disaster. I'm not even going to bore you how many stupid mistakes I was making with the Canon Rebel XT I was shooting with. I was fussing with it when my son snatched a Hail Mary pass out of the sky and crashed back to Earth in the endzone for his first touchdown of the season. I won't let that happen again.
Finally, I figured out my settings and the other half came out nice. So nice, that I now know I need a better camera. Here are my favorites from my son's Tuesday Night Lights experience.
In the huddle. My boy (#15) and crew figuring out what to do.
Awww...yeah...
The blur is #13, the scoringest running back on the team. I spent the entire season trying to catch him with my camera. Clearly it's not happening.
For The Love Of...Halloween
Last Thursday the wife went to New Orleans on a business trip that would keep her out of town until Sunday. She was pretty busted up about missing our daughter's first, definitively self-aware Halloween. I was too.
It meant I was going to have to do everything by myself.
As the Dad in this operation I take the pictures, I drive, I do the lifting (literally), I pick up the rear. I typically don't initiate activities and from what I understand many fathers don't. On the docket was a Halloween Party in my building, Trick-Or-Treating in my neighborhood and somehow figuring out how to keep my son reigned in.
Yippee.
It's not that I didn't want to experience this with my daughter but I don't initiate conversations. I don't attend children's events to make connections. My focus is solely on my family and their enjoyment. Of course I make nice with other kids because as a father I've now learned how to talk the talk and kids can smell the father on me the same way pets smell animals on humans that own pets, but I'd be lying if I said I eagerly anticipated these events. I honestly think it hails back to my days of being a shy young man from Chi-Town. Beyond that, I have a 14 year-old I had to keep out of trouble and entertained. And attending a kiddie party wasn't going to work for him.
I'm happy to report that I was saved from the apartment building Halloween party thanks to the kindness of a fellow-father-acquaintance who invited me to the Halloween Celebration at the American Museum of Natural History. I rounded up the kids, snagged a teenage niece (by friendship on my wife's side) from Yonkers to come along for the ride and headed to the City.
The streets were teeming with little ones and their parents in costumes. I was most impressed by a mom and pop duo who were dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia and had their son covered in faux fur as Chewbacca. And then there was my fairy princess...
She and I spent our time in the City as an inseparable pair. She was the star of the show and I was her handler/PR person. I was on hand to repair one wardrobe malfunction after another, to hold her hand when she got scared by the darker rooms at the museum and to just realize that besides being the most challenging and rambunctious 3 year old I know, she is the very breath I breathe. And where was my son during all this love? After taking all my money to buy a bunch of food he didn't even finish at the food court, he and his cousin took off running and I didn't see them again until the museum closed.
By evening's end I was still tending to my baby, trick or treating back in my rain-soaked neighborhood. I walked behind her with my umbrella over her head while I kept pace one step behind her, stinking of wet wool thanks to the sweater and pageboy cap I wore. And where was my son and my niece? Running the streets of my new suburb with about 30 other teens having the most boring Halloween ever in the pouring rain.
That night my lil' bit and I baked Halloween cookies, carved a pumpkin to look like Dora the Explorer (something I proudly did by freehand), and I went on to single-handedly toast some of the nastiest pumpkin seeds ever in the history of pumpkin seeds. Oh well. It was my first time.
As the weekend came to a close, I realized once more how much I love my job as Dad. But it's not my job. It's who I am and what I do. No matter the challenges nor what I don't want to face nor what I might actually fear, I do it because I love them. Not because I'm supposed to (I mean I am actually supposed to) but because I love them and I need them just as much as they need me.
My son (#15) and his cronies on the sidelines at sunset near the end of another team victory.
Shoelessness: A Father's Shame
In my growing quest to remain calm, no matter what, when dealing with my teenage son he seems to have ramped up his efforts to make me dropkick him in his chest...
Last Tuesday or Wednesday (I've done my best to block the day out of my mind) I pick this kid up from football practice. He moseys over to the car as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. After receiving my normal blah greeting from him I run down the handful of errands we have to do before we go home. He looks straight ahead through the windshield as I'm speaking when he suddenly seems to process what I said.
"Can we go home?" he asked with alarm.
Figuring he had a date with the toilet I told him he can use the bathroom at our next stop.
"No, I need shoes."
I asked why. We weren't going anywhere special.
"No...I need to put on shoes," was his reply.
My face twists up and I swerved a little on the road as I try to make sense of what he's saying to me. My logical mind fought against the insanity of what my son was suggesting until finally I gave in.
"You don't have shoes on?!"
"No, cuz you told me to leave my running shoes in my football locker. And I wore them today."
"Huh? (half-second pause) What?! Lemme see."
He lifted up his leg a bit and he truly wasn't wearing shoes.
"Yeah, and I thought I had my shower shoes but I didn't."
"So you left the school without shoes?! Yes, I told you to leave your running shoes at school, but not if you were wearing them! You actually left the damn school without shoes?! Are you out of your mind?! Un-(oh, how I wanted to curse, but didn't)-believable!"
At this point I have one hand on the wheel and I'm no longer looking at the road at all. I thin my gaze on him and said, "Not even your country cousins would do something this country."
He began to laugh, completely tickled by his buffoonery.
I took a deep breath, collected myself and returned my focus to driving. "I'm going to need you to not speak to me until we get home," I told him. He continued trying to explain but with every attempt I yelled gibberish over his words until he finally gave up.
When we arrived home I should've done the right thing by going upstairs to bring down a pair of shoes and continuing on with the errands we needed to run.
Nope. I told him his mother and I spend too much money on him for him to be walking around without common sense and looking homeless in our presence. But he was welcome to do so on his own. I sent him on his way and waited in the car until he returned with his shoes. And he was astonishingly okay with that. I called the wife and let her know how her son left school.
I do remember being a teen...but not like this.
When my wife arrived home, she kissed our daughter, gave me a kiss, calmly walked up to our son and smacked him in the back of the head.
"You are needy and dumb... Go buy a dog or have a child..."
Uhh...well...I do have both. That's actually the point of this blog.
The internet is sometimes a dirty gas station bathroom filled with people who talk nonsense in seclusion in front of a computer screen knowing they'd never have the cohones to say a word to anyone face to face.
I actually HATE the fact that to date, this particular post is the single most popular post that ever came from this blog. For those who actually read past the title they know I was actually expressing my resentment for my wife's holding onto an animal her entire household was allergic to.
Oh well. Despite my repeated efforts to erase this post off my blog my wife insists that I keep it because I wrote it and clearly it made an impact with readers. I still haven't made up my mind if I'm going to kill it or not, but considering that I wrote it over a year ago, the comments are now officially closed. There's also another reason why I want to kill the post.
At the end of last month my wife and a friend of this blog and a friend in the flesh found a new home for Tiger. Letting her go was tough as I fully expected it to be. It had always been my hope that a family member or a friend could keep her, but none could. But I'm very thankful that we were able to find the cat a loving home. I would like to thank each of you who sent me suggestions and ideas regarding finding Tiger a new home.
Link Updates:
I'd also like to send out some link love to the latest group of blogs that are now linked to me. You can find a full listing of my links by clicking the LINKS button at the top of this page.
Every so often I get the opportunity to step out and treat myself to a good dose of grown up fun.
Just one of these occasions took place yesterday evening when I attended the launch party for Volkswagen's 2010 GTI (Twitter Hashtag #gti2010) held in lower Manhattan at the uber-sexy Classic Car Club Manhattan. With G4TV’s Olivia Munn hosting, ?uestlove of The Roots DJing and surrounded by shiny 200-horsepower vehicles, my testosterone level returned to it's appropriate mark. And did I mention the iPods? VW has become the first automaker to launch a vehicle exclusively on a mobile device by providing the new Firemint Real Racing GTI game available now for free for iPhone and iPod Touch at the iTunes App Store. It solely features the brand-new 2010 GTI (in multiple trims and configurations, course). For those of you who follow this blog, you know my fondness obsession for the iPod touch, so I was immediately sold. At the event there were plenty of iPod Touches on hand for game play. I spent most of my time on the game hugging the wall with the 4-door GTI I drove (couldn't go with the coupe for the simple reason that I have to stuff 2 kids into the back).
But I intend to play until I'm a master and I would highly advise anyone who loves this car to do the same. Six U.S. players will each win one of six customized limited-edition GTI MkVI (Mark 6) Vehicles now through December 2! For the exact rules and regulations please visit www.VW.com/RealRacingGTI.
