Honea Express

Posts Tagged ‘fatherhood’

If I’ve learned anything from the wonderful video that Philips Norelco has created to showcase the New Face of Dad (without product placement!) it’s that most of us would be better off making wonderful audio. Don’t hate us because we’re not pretty.

We, meaning Jim from Bobble Head Dad, Clay from Dad Labs, Jon from Blurbomat, and Seth, The Didactic Pirate are, however, a good group of guys doing our best to support fatherhood, bust stereotypes, and love our kids with everything we’ve got. I’ll take that over good looks any day.

The video can be viewed below (or on YouTube):

And that’s not all! The guys spent countless hours (really) sharing their stories for you (they’ve been edited down), the audience, and they are touching, funny, and great examples of the new face of dad, which, as far as I know, is not proprietary.

Please check them out: Jim Higley, Clay Nichols, Seth Taylor, and Jon Armstrong. They are the new face of dad. I have an extended dance-mix, too:

Philips Norelco and Doug French, the man that helped make it all possible, hosted a Twitter party last night to launch the video, and the response was humbling in its support. That’s a good thing for dads.

I want to thank Philips Norelco for sponsoring this post and the videos above. If you are on the Facebook you should visit them and give them some Like.

If you have ever seen me speak publicly on the topic of fatherhood then you probably noticed, just before you demanded your money back, that I am an emotional guy. In fact, my heart is tattooed on my sleeve, where the heart is actually an apple with my boys’ first initials carved into it, and the sleeve is actually my arm.

There’s a story there, but that’s a different post.

The good people at Philips Norelco (you may recall their kind contributions during Movember) invited me to work with them (despite this video) on a campaign showcasing the New Face of Dad — or in this case, five tired old guys with faces. It’s all relative.

I was joined at the virtual hip with Jim from Bobblehead Dad, Clay from Dad Labs, Jon from Blurbomat, and Seth from The Didactic Pirate, and each of us was asked to film a video explaining what it feels like being a dad.

That’s right, feelings.

You can guess where it goes from there. They say there is no crying in baseball, but dad blogging? You bet.

No refunds.

The videos will be released on Thursday, June 14 with a Twitter Party from 8-9 pm EST. I’ll be there with the other New Faces of Dad (it’s like an old boy band), and so should you. Use the hashtag #NewFaceOfDad and let your face be heard — at least 140 characters of it.

I hope you can join us.

If you want to talk about your feelings on fatherhood, please do so in the comments below. Crying is totally allowed.

A very special thanks to Philips Norelco and new faces everywhere. I am being compensated for this campaign.

The boys are home sick today. One is legit. One is an opportunist. The sick one is actually feeling much better (UPDATED: Now the fever has turned into a bunch of snot and a hacking cough, which is awesome), but the school won’t allow him to return until he goes 24 hours without a fever (Pringle lovers excluded). The opportunist played the right card at the right time, and seeing as the dealer was fighting his own fits of fever, he took the hand. I’m the dealer in this scenario (see, fever-induced ramblings). Stay off drugs, kids.

Basically, we’re going into extended weekend mode, indoor version. Put Flood on repeat. Release the Legos.

An aside — This literally just happened as the song Istanbul was ending:

Z: If they leave why can’t they go back?

A: Because Istanbul changed its name.

Z: To what?

A: I don’t know. New York maybe.

Stay in school, kids!

When I was at the Dad 2.0 Summit in Austin (my recap, DadCentric recap, and the one where I was quoted) I had the rare opportunity to meet a LEGO Master Builder named Chris, a second-generation Master Builder no less (there are only seven people holding that rank). He told me about his passion for building with Legos when he was a kid and, I’m totally paraphrasing here, how his dad was so supportive that he went out and became a Master Builder himself (Chris followed when he was older). That is so much more refreshing than the stereotypical parent response about being practical and the confines of reality. It was downright inspiring.

He told me about a new Lego website called Build Together which has all kinds of activities for parents and children to do together. And then we did them. Apparently Chris has Jedi-like powers.

Our favorite part of BuildTogether.com is that it gives instructions on additional items that can be built from existing sets. That is, if you own a LEGO set that builds A, they give you instructions on how that same set can also build B. My only suggestion to LEGO is that they list items by set required than additional items created as we kept clicking on things that looked cool only to realize that we didn’t have the set needed. If we could click on the sets we know we have and then see the additional items that would save a lot of apologies and heavy sighs.

I do like that LEGO is featuring fathers in a non-doofus role, which is something of a hot topic these days, rightfully so. However, I feel that I must go on record as saying that my wife does a lot more of the actual LEGO building than I do. That is, she’s more of an analytical type and helps the boys with items straight from the box. I’m more of a “hey, let’s make random stuff out of whatever bricks happen to be in front of me” kind of guy. It takes all kinds.

And we’re the kind that build together. Which is a good place to stop writing and get back to the fun.

Disclosure: Would you believe this post is not paid for or sponsored by LEGO? Sure, I told them I would write about BuildTogether.com, and we do have some very awesome things planned together, but this post was all me — and the kids. True story.

His face is pale against the flush of his cheeks. The red is rosy and perfect, like it was painted on. His eyelashes are long and fluttering. His hair is full of fever sweat and tussle. He takes no notice of me in the doorway. He notices only the nothingness and whatever dances upon the edge of distance. He is a few feet and a million miles away. He coughs. He sleeps. He is burning.

There are waking hours on the couch and the meeting of needs. Start the movie. Stir the soup. More fluids. Thermometers. Medicine. Tissue. Blankets. The movie is over. Start the movie. There are other things that I must do, and they are all ignored in equal fashion.

He escapes through sleep to sweet relief. This is when I should attend to matters that should be done, but I do not. I clean the room. I play soft music. I dump the tissues and restock accordingly. I hit reset and then I lean against the doorway and watch him breathe.

They say don’t get too close. They say that germs are best kept at bay. But I am a parent. I cannot sit on the dock armed with life preservers and gentle whistles. I wade chest-deep and let him float against me. His burn becomes my burn and I try to take it all. I want nothing more than to soak it all in and open my arms to a bay gone dry. I want to watch him run across rocks and starfish and so many sponges, free of fever and free of pain. The only sounds should be waves retreating and the lingerings of health and laughter.

But there is a difference between giving and sharing, and fevers read the fine print. I fear we will float out to sea upon a brown pleather raft, a foolish father and his somber son, with rosy red brushstrokes like stains on our faces.

The music is soft and the dance in the distance.

Morning is a game they play. It is the crossroads of grumpy and hijinks, and there are shoes to be tied, teeth to be brushed, and a number of things that really should have been done the night before. It is the kind of chaos that lends itself to immediate cursing and a lifetime of fond, sweet memories. It starts too early and ends on a dime.

Sometimes there are too many metaphors to bother.

The boys are sleeping now, between mornings and the shadow of them, and the world is quiet save the sound of frogs in the stream outside. The stream was dry just days ago and the frogs were dehydrated and forgotten like so many sea-monkeys on the cusp of greatness — covered in leaves, dust, warts and all. Now the frogs are awake and alive and they want us to know it.

We know. We know.

And the boys sleep on while the world spins constant around them. There are late night projects, glasses of whiskey, promises kept and those unfulfilled. Their breath is a bass line beneath the songs of the night and my keyboard types out like a broken-down piano. Every sound is clear and haunting, every breath a melody. The notes between are soft and silent. They linger until the moon fades, then the sounds are soon to follow.

Morning is a game they play. They will win every single time.

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Illustration by Arnold Lobel