Category: Lists

Six Great Things About Being a Dad I Didn’t Expect
15 Sep
Posted in Lists 2 comments

Six Great Things About Being a Dad I Didn’t Expect

Today is my son’s birthday.

This day doubles as the one time a year I allow myself to get a little bit cheesy on my blog, or, if you read my post last year, a lot cheesy. When you write stuff like this, the occasional corrective is a good thing. But don’t get used to it! I do it as a gift to my son, reassurance to the readers out there who think I hate him, and an eff you to my friend Tim who thinks I’m betraying the Dad and Buried mission statement.

Don’t worry Tim, I’ll get back to pretending to hate my kid tomorrow. Especially if the Dolphins lose while I’m at the park cutting his cake.

Today, we celebrate!

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Fantasy Parenting Draft
04 Sep
Posted in Lists 4 comments

Fantasy Parenting Draft

It’s football season! And you know what that means: it’s fantasy football season!

Bore everyone to tears with game recaps! Anger wives and girlfriends by spending too much time doing research! Turn leisurely Sundays into stress-filled angerscapes of regret and frustration. I can’t wait!

I’ve written about my relationship with fantasy football before, even going so far as to consider skipping the birth of my child to attend my draft. That was a choice I didn’t end up having to make, thankfully, and it resulted in one of the best day’s of my life: the day I won it all.

These days, almost everyone in the league has kids, and since everyone with kids wishes they had better kids, I thought I’d imagine what the top picks in a Fantasy Parenting draft would look like. Read more about Fantasy Parenting Draft …

(Driving Me) Mad Skills
13 Aug
Posted in Future 14 comments

(Driving Me) Mad Skills

My son is closing in on his third birthday, and he seems to be developing at an astonishing rate.

I’m not much for tracking development via checkpoints and milestones, but hardly more than a day goes by that I’m not impressed by something he says or does.

Unfortunately, not every ability he acquires is something to write home about. He’s good at a lot of things, but some of the things he’s good at are bad.

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Ten Ways Having a Toddler is Like Being in Prison
08 Aug
Posted in Fear 35 comments

Ten Ways Having a Toddler is Like Being in Prison

As a parent, your schedule is often dictated by the needs of your child, especially when that child is young.

The necessity of getting a toddler home for a nap – as well as the need to get them to bed for the night before the sun has even gone down – can cripple your day. Being sequestered in your home for a few hours is usually better than dealing with a public meltdown from an overtired toddler, so sometimes the trade-off is worth it. Still, raising a toddler can be rather suffocating.

In fact, it’s uncanny how many aspects of the parenting experience are reminiscent of prison. Complete with a sadistic little warden who harbors a Napoleon complex.

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Parenting Milestones
24 Jul
Posted in Learning 41 comments

Parenting Milestones

According to my son’s birth certificate, I became a father in 2010. But becoming an actual parent took longer. In fact, I think it took until last week.

When we imagine having kids, most of us have similar daydreams. Most of them focus on big moments: choosing a name, putting together a crib, going through labor, changing diapers, playing catch, taking off the training wheels, the first day of school, etc.

When I finally, actually became a dad, many of those milestones remained significant, but dozens – hundreds! – more piled up around small, everyday stuff. Every single first is a capital-F First: first burp, first smile, first poop, first solid poop, first roll-over, first sit-up, first crawl, first fall, first steps, first words…

But after a while, and folders full of pictures, you realize that those aren’t your milestones. They’re your kid’s. Here are some actual parenting milestones.

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