Why, Blog, Why?

OK - So, I've been a stay at home dad now for over a half-year and I should have plenty of time to post, yar? Nar! Honestly, the only reason why I have any free time right now is because Mom has the kids for a few minutes so I can finally finish up this post that I've been working on for literally months. So what have I been up to?

1. Fatherhood
2. See #1

Honestly, that's about it. My plan to aggressively code for freelance projects in the off hours took a sever hit within the first few days of this role change circa January '08. Office work left me mentally drained. Full-time fatherhood leaves me physically drained.

So how has it been so far? No doubt it's been fun. As I tell anyone who will listen, whether you're a stay at home dad, a normal working-man, or even a divorcee with visitation writes, fatherhood is an excuse to act like the 13-y-o dork that still lives inside you. Cracking fart jokes, wrestling on the floor, wearing a clown wig - fatherhood, to me any ways, is about showing your kids the fun side of life and being a kid again, recapturing that sense of wonder from discovery and that lackadaisical, hakuna matata sense of time. Well, that and screaming your head off because the kids seem to have lost their ears/brains over breakfast. That is fatherhood.

I guess I can't say that's all that's been happening around here. Since the Summer months have come (at least according to the calendar if not the actual weather...) things have ramped up. People talk about having Seasonal Mood Disorder, but honestly I think it should be called "You Live In New England". Summer makes me want to stay here forever. The other 11 months remind me why I probably/hopefully won't...

Any ways, Summer has ramped up our social lives. We went to an awesome wedding at a summer camp (marshmallows and weird-smelling cabins included!), went to Maelin's first dance recital, celebrated our 6th anniversary, saved a bird from certain death-by-cat (not once but twice!), have been to the lake a few times, had the family over, etc., etc.

Freelance work has actually been pouring in as well despite my time for completing said work. That has resulted in all too many 20-hour coding binges during which I still managed to neglect some of my favorite clients (Sorry Steve!). My Mom's off for the summer though and taking the girls a few days a week for the next few months so hopefully I can catch up. Oh, and Firefox 3 launched last week but while I managed to get an updated Clean & Close patched to work with it, it's currently still waiting for someone from Mozilla to review it so it's not available for auto-update yet. (But you can download it directly here)

OK, I got code's to write. Until next year...

As a follow up to my last post, I am proud to announce that Sarah has passed her NAPLEX exam!!! She was so worried about this for the past week, and I know it's a huge relief to know that it's over with and she doesn't have to think about it. Not to mention that it means she gets an immediate pay raise (she was working at 50% of her salary previously). I'm so proud of you, Sar!

Dear Blog,

There's so much I have wanted to tell you over the last few months, but couldn't because things were still so uncertain and I didn't want to alarm you or any family, friends or colleagues. I think now is a good time to clear the air.

Sarah and I are very indecisive, we know this. It's not really that we can't decide out of a given set of choices, it's that we can't stop adding new choices to the pile. We suffer from a habit of trying to discover every possible outcome to a problem.

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Tim McKeon, an old friend of mine, has co-produced a TV show movie called Re-animated that will be debuting on the Cartoon Network this Friday (December 8^th) at 8:00 PM (EST). The preview looks funny, sort of like Roger Rabbit meets Boy Meets World. I'm sure he would appreciate your personal network share if you're not busy.

Update: There is a more descriptive summary at The Futon Critic website which makes it sound a bit more bizarre, more like what you'd expect from the Cartoon Network. Tim previously wrote for the CN series Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends and The Life & Times of Juniper Lee.

So, I went into this thinking “We have one kid already, so a second one should be easy…” OK, the truth is that it’s not so easy, no sir. In fact I had completely forgotten (or blocked out) how difficult the first few months were with Maelin when she was born 2-1/2 years ago. The sleepless nights, diaper changes at 3:00 in the morning… Well, that’s it really, just those two things, but man-o-man do they wear on you after a week.

But that has nothing to do with the subject of this post, which is about me being a stay at home Dad now.

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