Mr. Mom (1983) Directed by Stan Dragoti Shown: Michael Keaton It’s been nearly seven years that I became a dad.Seven years and I’ve done the best I could to avoid being the bumbling dad stereotype on tv shows. You know the one. He pours orange juice in his coffee and puts sticks of butter in
“Father?” Said the almost five year old. “Listen, there is something I’ve been thinking about. You and I have been watching a lot of classic television programing lately. Shows like Tom and Jerry and Dumbo and I’ve noticed that in them, often a Stork drops off a baby to Moms and Dads.” “Yes?” I answer
The meetings are held in the basement of a church near an all-night donut shop. Although both are helpful, the location is more about the donuts than the man upstairs. The chairs are arranged in a circle. The donuts are placed on an end table in the middle. They are a focal point. The embers
Every memorable event in my life that happened before the spring of 2010 is filed away in my brain with a five-year buffer. My mental calendar from the era before I had a child is ordered in half-decade increments.When did I graduate college? “I was done wearing flannel shirts by that time… mid to late
Many days during my college decade were spent studying the Beat Poets and experimenting with stream-of-consciousness prose. We turned words cut from the newspapers into dialog and had nonsense talks over wine. We verbally riffed and let our talks ebb and flow on a course of their own often ending where they began… with a
How different his world is in 2014 than mine was when I was his age in 1978. This is the blessing of the late blooming father. Had I begun the child rearing phase of my life a decade or more ago things would be different. We could enjoy the Hunger Games together, we could both
For a few years now (well, specifically since January 2010), I’ve been quoting a particular scene from a particular horror movie during a particular time in the post-bath pre-story time portion of my son’s evening. I realized today this could come back to haunt him in two possible ways. One… asylum. Two… a perfect flashback
I’ve been home for too long and apparently have had too few conversations with adults. I’ve been off for a few weeks and have spent the majority of that time with a child who only utters a few simple things… more like breaths with some noises attached. He’s experimenting with passing air over his vocal
Several times between now and the era of the stage 2 Huggie overnight diapers, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of sleep deprivation, awakening in the land of disproportionate proportions with oversized talking caterpillars, four-key colorful pianos, and airplanes whose propellers spin with a psychedelic glow not too far off from the St. Elmo’s fire
