chroniclesofanewdad-blog

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Greatest line in the history of writing... "Now I hate it even more for making me feel so judgmental."

I saw these shirts today at H&M and I was so disgusted, that I needed to take pictures of them and write a blog about it. The lack of creativity is sickening, but what’s worse is that high ranking people at this company actually thought these were good enough to get approved and sent to a...

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"Friends are the family you chose." #EmmaAndJax #BFF

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I had to wait until I was 30 to meet my idol... Jax got to hangout with Rickey Henderson at 7 months. Awesome day! Thanks to Rickey and Walt!

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Who had a fun filled, non stop, no nap, go to bed thanksgiving.... And then was up at 4AM the next morning w crazy BedHead? ^this guy

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He's either speaking #MorseCode or to am #Alien Spacecraft #JcPhoneHome #StallionThatMountsTheWorld #GOT @triciak0524 @peterfragola @scpf2001 @chenkune

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11.23.14. - Sunday Morning Show Review

Sunday morning is for the Green Bay Packers, football, fantasy football and the RedZone channel.  However, when you get up at 6:30 you have to wait a few hours before you can watch anything NFL related.

So today we gave two shows a shot:  Harry Bunny and VocabuLarry.

Here are my reviews:

Harry Bunny:  Harry is a weird little rabbit who refers to himself in the third person.  The dude is a total creep.  He looks like a ’70s style Muppet that tried to hard to be cool.  I bet he was shunned by the other bunnies in his group because he thought he was cooler than he really was.  He is that kid that you knew in high school that tried way to hard to be funny.  He always took the joke too far.

The biggest problem with this show is the fact that I am unsure of what its purpose is.  What are viewers supposed to get out of it?  Today he took out a carton of milk and had a glass of milk next to it.  Mind you the carton said MILK in giant letters.  Harry spent 15 minutes trying to determine what the white liquid was in the glass… really?  Earth to Harry, it’s MILK… my six month old son knows what milk is… it was the first thing on earth he could identify.

The Grades: Main Character:  Grade: D- A scary looking, gigantic rabbit that talks in the third person.  If that was not bad enough his voice is a mix of a twelve year old boy going through puberty and that Rebecca Black YouTube chick that “sang” Friday. Learning:  Grade: D (Teach my kid some colors or something.  He already knows what milk is, he’s been drinking it since he was an hour old.) Intangibles: Grade: D (No friends, refers to himself by name, voice that could shatter glass… He’s lucky he got a D.) Overall: D

VocabuLarry: Larry is a cute and curious parrot with an appetite for learning new words. Every environment into which he flies features one recurring item, e.g. a piece of furniture, article of clothing, a toy, etc. With the help of a narrator, Larry learns the name of the object of the day, and staying true to his parrot nature, he repeats the name over and over again, using humorous animated gestures along the way. 

  How can you not love this little guy?

The Grades: Main Character: Grade A- (The only reason he gets the minus here is because he is missing a pirate friend, no parrot is complete with out a pirate to talk to.  )

Learning:  Grade: B+  (Larry teaches vocabulary words through humor.  His grades get a bump because he teachers the words in a multitude of learning styles, the words are written, spoken and have pictorial representations as well.  He also teaches the plural form of the words too… BONUS!)

Intangibles: Grade: A+ (VocabuLarry’s theme song is Grammy worthy… very catchy. http://youtu.be/ZVBd5u1N0Gk) Overall: A

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11.22.14. - The Brown Tidal Wave

Over an hour to get ready.  Mommy showered, daddy showered (surprisingly)... everyone got changed.  Don't forget that getting changed for a six and a half month old means a diaper change, 17 layers of clothes... fitting a tight pair of jeans on over his butt, fitting a onesie, shirt and sweater over his massive head... etc, etc.  

As he is about to get comfortable in the car seat... the tsunami hit.  The dreaded poo up the back on the arms and tummy... and through EVERY.LAYER.OF.CLOTHING.  To the point where he needed a full out bath.  

Three hours later... literally three hours after we began getting ready, we we are all set to go... again.  

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Besides the fact that Buster looks like a cyborg, I love this picture! #BrotherlyLove #SnugglePuppy

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11.22.14. - 3:14AM - 5 Minutes

How do you know how long 5 minutes has been when you keep forgetting to check the clock to see what time you put the baby back down after rocking him because he was screaming ? Who came up with the five minute rule anyway? Let them cry for five - ten minutes before going to rock them again? OK... I guess we'll try anything at this point.

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11.21.14.

So I sorta had this moment tonight… Nothing crazy… Nothing earth shattering. Just a moment. Steph was out (she deserved a night out) and I was on baby duty. I watched him sleep on his monitor, relaxed and watched a movie and then headed up to bed.

I went through my night time routine. Brushed my teeth, brushed my hair 150 times, smiled in the mirror, flexed my tattooed bicep three times in the mirror, and told myself You’re Good Enough You’re Smart Enough, and Doggone it, People Like You.

Then I looked over and saw the above picture. The two week old, I’m going to pose like I’m a model picture. The steel blue eyes picture, the I still have tiny infant wrinkly skin picture. One of my favorite pictures.

I looked at it and realized how fast time goes. It goes too fast.

Love you little man.

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#CopyCat #LikeFatherLikeSon @scpf2001 @triciak0524 @peterfragola @chenkune

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11.19.14. - “Lost time is never found again.” -Benjamin Franklin

On my way home, I have to stop and pick up the dogs.  I still have at least 40 minutes of driving ahead of me… so even though I (guiltily) left work at 4:30 p.m., I know I am going to miss dinner with the wife and Jax. After getting home just in time to finish the last few words of another Dr. Seuss book, Ill finally make my way into my bedroom to try to put on some sweatpants.  I’ll probably fall asleep at the dinner table and soon, groggily rouse to check my work email, through together tomorrows lunches, if someone remembered to stop at the grocery store, empty and reload the dishes into the dishwasher and feed the dogs.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Maybe the fact that I’m lucky to get a half an hour with my wife and son on work days. 

Funny is really my specialty, or at least in my own mind funny is my specialty.  Yet, every now and again, I can really come back to reality and focus on the more serious issues that my wife and I are confronted with as new parents.  Beyond the normal questions we ask ourselves every day, “Why is his poop orange?”  “How long did he even nap for?”  “Are the dogs eating another dirty diaper?!!!”… We are constantly faced with the question of how we balance family time with our jobs. 

I love what I do, I love the district I work for, I love helping students realize their full potential and support them in their journey to becoming lifelong learners.  I have no complaints about being an elementary school administrator… yet, there are times I feel like I am missing out on so much of my son’s life and that makes me wonder how do you balance your work with being a father?

The thing is… I don’t know… I’m not sure how I am supposed to do this.  I’m pretty sure I know what not to do… I’m pretty sure that I have made my share of mistakes over the past six and half months.  As part of this “blog thing” I try to read as much as I can by other dad’s out there.  I’ve read a few that list all these unrealistic ideas and I’ve read some blogs that talk more about the abstract.  The idea that quality is better than quantity when it comes to spending time with your family, is one that is generally common sense.  So if it… why is it so hard?

 Here are some of the things I struggle with the most:

Not just “being there”… When I am home, I often get calls from work or have to answer emails from staff and parents.  There’s always something to do.  There is always a problem to fix.  Isn’t this the bane of every working parent’s life?  For Stephanie and I to make sure that our attention is on the present, not what we have to work on tomorrow, we have been leaving our cell phones in another room.  It is hard to just unplug, but sometimes it is exactly what he need.

The commute… I spend more of my day in my car then I do with my family.  THIS IS A PROBLEM.  DO I really need to spend 2+ hours driving to and from work?  Is it necessary to live out of my car?  No, and for the past six months I just could not figure what to do.  I try to live by the philosophy of, “Worry about the things that are in your control to change.”  I had to make a change, I could not miss out on days of my son’s life because I was sitting in traffic on 84.  Sometimes the biggest changes in life happen for another reason than you originally planned… but often times those changes are for the best.  I knew I needed to make a change at work, and circumstances presented themselves and I did.  I made a move and in the process shaved almost 45 minutes off my commute.  I cannot- CAN NOT- express how much of a difference 45 minutes each way makes when you have a six month old!

The guilty feeling that persists after having to sneak into Jackson’s room at 6:00AM kiss his head and tip toes out is real.  It’s one of those “guilts” that sits on your chest like an elephant from those CPD commercials.  The guilt can and will eat away at you, and no amount of “make up time” with the family can do anything about it.  “Lost time is never found again.”  You know, Benjamin Franklin had a point.  In all reality though… I try to remember that something I cannot change, and that I have to make do with what I have.  I have to work, I have to travel… but I can make the best of the time I do have with my little man.

But for now, this father can shrug off the insane work load that comes with being a working dad, because as I write this I am right where I most want to be at home with my family.

"Do the things you say you will do… do or do not, there is no try."

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#DadLife

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Holiday Photo Success… SORTA. another amazing photo shoot with Pink Elephant Photography (in Cheshire, check them out, they’re amazing!). Jax enjoyed being the center of attention as usual.

When you put together a naked baby and some randomly placed colored balls you get an extremely cute picture… You also get a large puddle of pee on a new grey backdrop, spit up all over mom’s sweater, a pregnant photographer rolling all over the floor for the perfect shot, and a Green Bay Packers pacifier lost under a pile of leaves.

I’ll post all the photos once we get them.

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6.5 month check up:

Couple of shots and a few measurements later all seems well:

16 lbs 6 oz 27 3/4 inches 17 1/2 head circumstance 90th percentile for height 50th percentile for weight 90th percentile for his head

Yes… 90th percentile for that watermelon. I’ve come to the conclusion that a big head is better than a little head. There’s lots of important stuff that goes inside a head. Like brains and neurons and protons, and you need all those things to make your brainwaves work. So the bigger the head the more room for your brainwaves to bounce around so that they can figure stuff out. And figuring stuff out is the key to life.

I love you little man. I love that gigantic melon head and I love how amazing you’ve made mine and mommy’s lives the past six and a half months.

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11.14.14. - Movember

I figured it was about time to teach Jackson about something that makes us men so manly… The Mustache.  Mustache growing is more than just facial hair, it’s and art form.  And what better month to do this than Movember.

In Movember, us Mo Bros, with their our new moustaches, become walking, talking billboards. Like a run or walk for charity we use our hairy ribbons to spark conversations around the often ignored issue of men’s health and seek to raise funds to support the work of the Movember Foundation.

In order to help Jax understand the importance of the Mustache I decided to take a look at the top 10 Mustaches in History:

10: Geraldo (Shirt off, selfie Geraldo… bc the bare chest really makes that shache shine).

9. Charlie Chaplain (The only reason he’s not higher on this list is because of the Hitler resemblance).

8. Will Ferrel as Alex Trebek (Can’t just be Ferrell or just Trebek; has to be Ferrell as Trebek.  A perfect example of a combination stache.)

7. Groucho Marx (simple… and looks like a piece of felt.  I bet it’s soft.)

6. The Hulkster (Just a gorgeaus All-American fu-manchu.)

5. Borat (Would be less impressive if it wasn’t so dirty and greasy.)

4. Rollie Fingers (Cool ass stache… even cooler name.)

3. Donnie Baseball (Screw you and your NO facial hair BS Steinbrenner.)

2. Tom Selleck (It’s a thing of perfection.  I think it’s because you know there is a beautiful little smile under there somewhere.)

1. Mr. Yosemite Sam (I wonder if he dyes it?)

So there you have it… the ten greatest mustaches in history… All amazing in their own way; all 100% manly.  I know one day Jackson will grow up and want to try out the Famous Fragola Mustache… I know he will grow it in in all its glory… I know he will look at it in the mirror and then, like I did, realize the only Fragola who can pull off the stache is the OG Mustache Man… Grandpa Pete:

Now… since the writing of this original blog I have come under a cloud of controversy for leaving out a few famous staches.  The following are two that were left off:

Manager Lou Brown from Major League (He only recives honorable Mention because his voice annoys me… PS: his stache looks like one of those straw brooms you use to sweep out the garage.)

And lastly… a mistake on my part… a complete and under travesty being left off the stache list:

Ned Flanders (Flanders is so deserving.  He is like one of those power conference runner ups who didnt get into the Big Dance because one of Mid Majors with a sub par record won their conference tourney and got an automatic bid.)

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So tired... just spent the past three minutes pissed off that the remote wasn't working