Things you have an excuse to do, now that you're a dad

 

1. Go to Toys R Us, thoroughly “evaluate” GI Joe, Star Wars, Hot Wheels and Transformers toys – and actually buy them!
2. See movies that would otherwise occupy last priority on any date, like X-Men, Fantastic 4 and Transformers.
3. Get excited (for the kid, of course) for the spring 08 release of Iron Man
4. Eat Mac 'n Cheese (“you gonna finish that?”)
5. Chase the ice cream truck
6. Laugh at noisy bodily functions; and produce more to prolong the fun
7. Get a Dukes of Hazzard horn for your car
8. Play with Legos
9. Drive through mud, puddles and construction sites (“Dad, go off road! Go off road!”)
10. Board first on the airplane
11. Plan a family vacation centered around the Monster Jam World Finals
12. Dress up on Halloween
13. Re-read “Where the Sidewalk Ends”
14. Have random women start talking to you. Sorry… they really do just like the kid.
15. Wait at KB Toys or Sharper Image while your wife shops for shoes because “Marcus will get bored at Nordstrom.”

Not Your Father's "Dad"

I'm too old for MySpace... I'm like the "old guy at the club" there.  I'm embarassingly under-connected on LinkedIn.  I'm proud to say that I have never even seen Facebook.  Second Life just looks like it would be way too time consuming.  And I'm sick and tired of getting "pwn3d" by 15 year-olds on the Sherdog forum...

That's why I decided to start this blog.  Although I've never really run into any "Dad" sites out there, I'll venture to say that Dads need a website of their own.  Not necessarily a parenting how-to site, but a site that looks at parenting from a typical male perspective.  A parent-oriented site that dares to say "toy guns are cool... NO, toy guns without orange tips are cool."

Dad-hood as we know it has no precedence. Our dads wore a different hat.  They divvied out the allowance, set up the Christmas tree and played the detached benevolent ruler. Today’s dad harbors that same genetic inclination to protect, provide and lead, but must manifest it within a far less glorious, far more practical, in-the-trenches context. Now where’s that damn 20% Bed Bath coupon…