How a Trip to the ER Made Me a Better Parent

How a Trip to the ER Made Me a Better Parent

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember a lot about it. But I remember the panic.

I remember the dark smudges on my son’s face. I remember sitting in the emergency room watching “30 Rock” on mute, desperately hoping we’d be able to go home soon.

I had accidentally spilled some prescription pills on the floor while my son played nearby. After cleaning them up and being unable to verify how many were in the bottle beforehand, we were terrified that he might have ingested one. It was just an accident. The bottle fell. It wasn’t sitting there open, it wasn’t within my son’s reach. It simply fell. But accident or not, it was still my fault.

Yeah, I definitely remember the panic.

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Valentine’s Nay

Valentine’s Nay

Valentine’s Day approaches.

Countless couples and would-be couples are, as we speak, scrambling to find romantic ways to mark the occasion. It’s stressful and time-consuming and expensive and, for those without sweethearts, frustrating and pathetic and why does God hate me?!

We all know that in its modern-day incarnation, Valentine’s Day is a holiday propped up by candy companies and card companies and restaurants and Yankee Candle, and yet even those of us who reject the concept often end up making some kind of concession to it, if only so our significant others don’t feel left out when the sheep in the office get flowers and they don’t.

Even the least cynical among us can see through the heart-shaped nonsense to the heartless industry behind it. So why do we get our kids involved?

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Development Hell

Development Hell

The beginning of parenthood is boring. Not uneventful – lots of shit happens (literally) – but repetitive and monotonous.

It’s hard too, but mostly because it’s new, not because it’s particularly challenging. (Unless your baby has colic, in which case just drop him into a volcano and start over.) You’re tired all the time, you’re stressed all the time, you’re concerned about things you’d never thought about before, etc., but that stuff’s mostly just inconvenient (and being an adult).

Of course, when you’re a new parent, you don’t always realize that merely being inconvenienced by your kids is about the best you can hope for. Welcome to development hell!

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Zombie Post: Lesson Not Yet Learned

Zombie Post: Lesson Not Yet Learned

For my latest Zombie Post, I wanted to check in on my own progress. It’s not looking good. Almost a year ago, I wrote the post below, about my realization that raising a good kid means I’ll need to retrain myself. Being a good parent doesn’t mean you have to change your personality but itRead more about Zombie Post: Lesson Not Yet Learned[…]

Don’t Read My Blog

Don’t Read My Blog

I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal.

Not only are my tweets regularly featured in the Huffington Post’s weekly list of “Best Parenting Tweets” – follow me at @DadandBuried – but they occasionally publish my blog posts, in which I put forth my genius-level understanding of the intricacies of expert parenting.

This affiliation with such a popular, influential website gets my writing a lot more exposure, which is great, in theory. The HuffPo audience is not necessarily familiar with my blog.

And, judging by the comments they’re leaving on my posts, they hate me.

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