Dumb Dad Stuff

I have no idea what I'm doing or what I've just got myself into

[dumbdadstuff]

Don't worry, #Santa brought both the #twins gifts.

[dumbdadstuff]

Things I'll Teach My First Kid Or, 14 Reasons Why I Suck

If you're becoming a parent for the first time, these are the lessons you need to immediately start memorizing.

[pbsparents-deactivated20190820]

This dad draws all of the absurd, hilarious, adorable and ridiculous things said in his house… with his 2 yr old.

(via)

[befitzgeraldwriting]

I swear to every heaven ever imagined,if I hear one more dead-eyed hipstertell me that art is dead, I will personally summon Shakespeare from the grave so he can tell them every reasonwhy he wishes he were born in a time where he could have a damn Gmail account. The day after I taught my mother how to send pictures over Iphone she texted me a blurry image of our cocker spaniel ten times in a row.Don’t you dare try to tell me that that is not beautiful.But whatever, go ahead and choose to stay inyour backwards-hoping-all-inclusive clubwhile the rest of us fall in love over Skype.Send angry letters to state representatives, as we record the years first sunrise so we can remember what beginning feels like when we are inches away from the trigger. Lock yourself away in your Antoinette castlewhile eat cake and tweet to the whole universe that we did. Hashtag you’re a pretentious ass hole.Van Gogh would have taken 20 selflies a day. Sylvia Plath would have texted her lovers nothing but heart eyed emojis when she ran out of words.Andy Warhol would have had the worlds weirdest Vine account, and we all would have checked it every morning while weSnap Chat our coffee orders to the people we wish were pressed against our lips instead of lattes. This life is spilling over with 85 year olds rewatching JFK’s assassination and 7 year olds teaching themselves guitar over Youtube videos. Never again do I have to be afraid of forgettingwhat my fathers voice sounds like. No longer must we sneak into our families phonebookto look up an eating disorder hotline for our best friend.No more must I wonder what people in Australia sound like or how grasshoppers procreate. I will gleefully continue to take pictures of tulipsin public parks on my cellphone and you will continue to scoff and that is okay. But I hope, I pray, that one day you will realize how blessed you are to be alive in a moment where you can google searchhow to say I love you in 164 different languages.

b.e.fitzgerald || Art is a Facebook status about your winter break.

[newsweekscience]

Evgeni Plushenko - Pony Bomb Routine (by Brian Floyd)

Quite the remix.

[realchrisilluminati]

4 Parenting Skills I'm Better At Than I Thought I'd Be

I thought this would be the hardest habit to break. I’m the son of a bartender, a man who uses curse words to increase the impact and ferocity of another curse word. Not quite an adjective, nor descriptor, it’s just an extra curse drizzled on top.

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[dumbdadstuff]

The First Appointment

You'll have to excuse my language but holy shit, we're having TWINS!

Our first appointment was last Tuesday and I think it's taken this long (and then some) for it to sink in for me. I am certainly not going to act like we are the first to have twins, God knows there are many more who have triplets or more but when you don't really prepare yourself for having more than one baby going into the office, it really catches you off guard.

Although, I did call my shot to my wife (I wish I would have mentioned something on here for proof) about having twins. I had no real rhyme or reason for it, maybe just the way she was acting but it was about two weeks after we found out that I looked at her one night and said "Honey, I think we're having twins". She tried to throw something at me I think and we both just sort of laughed it off but when the doctor told us the news on Tuesday, she looked at me and said "You're to blame". Which, lets face it, I was to blame. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

Everything went well, we heard the heartbeats and the doctor said while schedule wise we would be at 10 weeks, seeing the ultrasound though, moved my wife back to 9 weeks (which she was just thrilled about given how she's been feeling). Due dates would be towards the end of August.

I like our doctor, while saying it jokingly, she said "well, maybe I should look around to make sure there aren't any more in there". While my wife and I were too busy freaking out to get the joke, we both quickly agreed. Yep, only two in there.

My wife has already spoken with three in-home day cares in our neighborhood. Apparently there are a ton, which has somewhat driven the cost down in our neighborhood and we are more than ok with that. Hell, when we moved in there were 2 in our circle, one down the street and another around the block. Apparently there are quite a few mom's who don't like to leave the house in our neighborhood.

Almost all of this was done by using an app/website called Nextdoor. It's a nice little app that you much have a valid address to see your neighborhood(s), keeps it from being too easy to get on there. It is helpful to see if people are selling stuff (by the way, if you'd like an elliptical, I have one for ya), day cares, general information on good repair guys. We've already been able to get an activity mat and a high chair from a couple who has 16 month old twins. All stuff like that, which even with living at our house for a year, we still don't know much about our neighbors, like their names. Turns out, they're all on this thing. So long are the days of calling them House #1, House #2, ect.

The downside to the Nextdoor app/webiste, "Someone has decided to shoot a BB gun at my son today in our back yard. So if someone's son has one please make sure they are using it properly. I'm not a very nice person when it comes to someone purposely hurting my children". Certainly a concern, don't shoot anyone's eye out but it's made tattling that much easier. Ugh. I'm telling my kids to shoot back.

Anyway, we let our parents know, most of our immediate family, some close friends. All had about the same reaction as we did, "Twins?!" We'll still wait to find out the sex on the day they arrive. My wife pointed out that if we wait to find out, people won't be trying to get matchy matchy outfits because they don't want to get one for the wrong sex and would hopefully just give us diapers and wipes and actual stuff we'll use.

So needless to say, the wife and I will have our hands full come August/September (pun intended).

-B

[dumbdadstuff]

Great advice

[dumbdadstuff]

Sh*t Every New Parent Should Know

People who tell you "it goes by so fast" do not have babies or small children at home. It goes by so slow. But you know what? That's good! There's more room for error! Be grateful.

Good tips at the top and interesting facts at the bottom. Who knew?

[dumbdadstuff]

5 posts!

[dumbdadstuff]

A good way to build a connection before the baby even arrives! Great idea!

[dumbdadstuff]

Flu Season

Well, our household got hit with the flu last week. My wife was the one who got it. She struggled with what we think was a little bit of a cold all that week leading up to Friday but then it finally hit her. I unfortunately had an event to work and managed to get home early but she had already thrown up twice. She spent most the rest of the night making hurried trips to the bathroom. 

The reason I'm telling you about this is because we were both scared. How does this affect the baby? Will it still be healthy from this? What can we find around the house to get some food into my wife? Why do we have no Gatorade around the house? Why is our damn doctor's appointment so far away?

It was scary, especially for me because I have no clue of anything thing to do. I'm trying to read things that I think will help. My wife found some "mother to be" blog entry of a week-by-week of what you should expect that actually takes a little bit of a humorous and sarcastic side to pregnancy. We both like it and so far it's been almost spot on. I would most certainly give it and the author credit but all she's told me is that she found it on Pinterest. It's hidden on some secret baby board that no one else can see, I'm assuming until we announce it. But nothing in that tells you what to do with the flu. And what can you do that would be any different form what you would normally need to do with the flu?

My wife has been feeling the morning sickness but just not getting sick. We think we've finally found a routine for her that's helped with some ginger ale and crackers. It's not much but it's nothing that would upset her stomach and it fits the other rule that we've found; she needs to eat something every 3-4 hours so she doesn't feel sick during the day. Then the trick is to find something that looks/smells/sounds appealing to her. She all of a sudden now has a Gus like super-sniffer. (have to be a fan of the show Psych to get that one) One minute something sounds great, and 30 minutes later it's the worst thing to have around.

Pregnancy is weird.

-B

[communitytv]

TRACE THE CALL!

[dumbdadstuff]

The Gift of Spreading Good News

So, we told our parents. We were able to tell my wife's parents first and this would be their second grandchild. Our plan is to stage a photo op with them and say "1, 2, (my wife's name)'s Pregnant!" and record the reactions rather than actually take the picture. I will post them eventually. We're going to do the same with our friends once we feel the coast is a little more clear and once we have their reactions as well and put them all together.

I'm hoping we get some good ones out of our friends. I think both parents thought it was an odd joke at first, neither really knew if it was for real or just to get them to smile but then they all would finally look at my wife and she'd just smile a big smile and they'd finally catch on.

We also made it through the holiday season with my wife faking it for drinking. Had to start will water in a beer can for our last holiday party. For New Year's we bought some non-alcoholic beer, I drank a six pack of her normal brand, washed them out and then poured in the NA beer into those bottles and put the caps back on. Pretty ingenious if we do say so ourselves.

I think it still doesn't seem to have sunk in for us or maybe just for me. I think it's almost that need for proof that would help make it real for me that this isn't just some dream. So now we'll have to wait out the longest, coldest, most boring month of the whole year until we can hear or see something. 

-B

[dumbdadstuff]

So I'm Going To Be A Dad

It's been 5 days since I've been shown those fateful Two Pink Lines. For as exciting of news as it is, there wasn't much to it. I mean I was expecting some sort of chorus line or a camera crew to bust in and all of a sudden my wife and I are a reality show. But there wasn't. Just a lot of hugging and misty eyes. Honestly my wife just passed me some papers she had printed out about 3 weeks ago after we had started trying and said, "Better start reading up!" I was expecting a little more since she has a Pinterest account. Goodness, Pinterest is crack for women. I gave her some grief later saying since we were opening her and I's presents that night, there should have easily been an extra gift bag around that she could have used. 

I'm very techie and social media savvy (or so I like to think I am), where as my wife is not. She's a small town girl (quite possibly living in a lonely world) and is used to keeping things private and not putting everything out in the open for all to see. Which to me is a bit ironic because most small towns are known for knowing everyone's business but I keep that to myself. So I'm going to do a blog of a process of becoming a dad (very original I know). But to keep all parties happy, it will be anonymous. Much to you're dismay I'm sure, I am not Danny Tanner or Bob Saget. I will do my best to make coherent sentences for y'all but no promises. I've tried blogging before and it goes well for about 3 weeks then I forget it's there or already run out of things to say. With all the reading and advice I'm sure to get, I should have plenty of content for you right?

Some background about me, I'm in my mid-twenties, working in a college athletic department while my wife works in a hospital. I'm an only child, she has a sister who is married and they just had a girl. So my wife and I have had some practice at babysitting at least and I've been able to work on how to change a diaper. I've always wanted to be a dad. May stem from being an only child. May be that I didn't feel my dad was the best he could be. He wasn't terrible and my parents have been married over 30 years so it's not like he wasn't around but I think he could even admit that he could have been better.

Which now starts the "oh god, we've talked and planned and plotted but am I really ready? What horrible traits might I pass along to this child? Will they be healthy?" My wife is definitely a planner. If this is any indication, the current guest room that will be the child's room is already painted how she would like it for the nursery. We actually just had one of her co-workers drop off a crib and a stroller and that was planned before we found out she's pregnant. Which is another thing I've learned so far, "we" are not pregnant, she is. We can be expecting, we are going to have a child, but she is pregnant.

So, to my non-existent followers, this is where I open it up and hope someone finds this and can offer some advice. We're guessing that we're about 4 weeks along. We've got an appointment made but it's not until February 4th. What is it that I should be reading right now, or any other blogs that are good for first time fathers?

Thank you for taking a look and I hope to be more entertaining and making this worth your time.

-B