DadJack.com Blog

As you know, I just moved.  I have found some stuff that has been packed away for awhile and have more room to “decorate” now.  I spent this last week trying to get everything unpacked and the apartment livable for when the kids got here this weekend… And I think I did a damn good job!  I even got a bunch of photos hung around the house.  The kids have caricatures that were drawn of them hanging in their room and the great painting Big Daddy’s son did of our little family graces a wall in there too. The living room has a bunch of photos of us from throughout the years and other pics are scattered though out the house… I even got our shark photos up in the bathroom.  But I had one old photo, in a weathered frame with cracked glass that I didn’t know where to put.  There in black and white silver halides, slightly yellowed from 39 years of wear, surrounded in an inch wide white wood frame is “Little Jack” (That’s what I was called when my Dad was still in the picture, I’m a junior.)  Dated February 1971 on the back, I was one month old.

I didn’t know where to put this image of a bright eyed, young man that had no idea what was in store for him.  That innocent baby with everything ahead of him.  I opted for right near the door of my bedroom, above the light switch.  Now I see it everyday… As I wake at 1:30am and flip on the light, there is Little Jack.  It’s only been hanging for three days, but I’ve looked at it a lot, I’ve thought about it a lot.  when I see it, I want to grab up my kids and hover over them making sure everything goes perfectly… Making sure they don’t make the mistakes this baby made.

Tonight, I was sitting on my bed with Bing waiting for Lucy to pick out some books to read before going to sleep… This is our routine, bath, jammies, read books, brush teeth, toddlers snoring 15 to 20 minutes later.  As we waited Bing quizzed me on some of the stuff in my room, ultimately fixing his gaze on the baby photo… He asked “Is that Lucy?”  I told him no, “Is that me?”, again the answer was no.  He was lost, he knows because I tell him all the time, I only have two babies.  I told him, “That’s Daddy when he was a baby.”  He stared at it for a few seconds longer, looked at me and says “Where’s your mustache?”

From this day on that photo will make me laugh every morning at 1:30a.

Only 11 1/2 left!

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Ok, back to the blog, So I got a call from a resume I sent out for a radio producer position in Los Angeles!  It’s not until the middle of next week, so all I can do is stress for 5 days!  I did go get a haircut tonight… I told the stylist I needed something that would get me a job, so now I look respectable… Well, as respectable as I can!

Here’s a fun idea for you part-time parents like me, when I know I won’t see the kids for a while (there is a point in the month where I don’t see the kids for 7 days), gather up their favorite toy or blanket.  At my house we keep “New Baby” and a duplicate of Lucy’s “BoBo Blankie”.  Then, depending on how soon I get working on it, I either take them to places the kids like to go (The park, our favorite restaurant, the pool, etc.) or I pose them with some of their things around the house (their books, in their beds, playing with their toys) and I snap some photos.  Then I use my home printer to make postcards (They sell postcard backs that adhere to 4×6 prints) and right a message on them from the blankie.  I never own up to taking the pictures, in fact I never bring it up at all, I wait for them to tell me “New Baby went to Panera” or “BoBo was reading my shark book”, they get a huge kick out of it… And it passes some time when they’re not here.

I was explaining to my friend the other night, I’m “unsettled”… In fact I was forcefully unsettled.  What I meant is that I was really happy being settled down, having a wife and kids, spending Friday nights getting caught up on the shows we TiVo’d after the kids went to bed.  Now I have been thrown back into being single… I’ve been unsettled!  I need to reacclimate to being alone, not having a partner.  It’s weird going from being the single guy, all alone, to family man, to right back where I started (Only worse off).  I guess it’s just something else I have to get used too.

This one requires a little solo Dad work, but the results are great!  Taking photos is a must if you have kids ( I may go a little overboard, but digital photography has made it cheap and easy to capture almost every moment!)  The downside to this digital photo revolution is that many of us don’t print the pictures, they sit on a card or hard drive, un-viewed and unappreciated, or on your Facebook page, where friends can see them, but the kids don’t really have access.

So What I do, is every 4 to 6 months, I make a photo book of our “Adventures” (We’re on volume 4 right now.)  You may be asking yourself, what the heck is a photo book?  Think old school, yellowing pages, plastic sheet pulled over your pics, photo album… Only way, way cooler.  You get to place the photos, design the pages and the best part, write the captions. (I’ll explain why this is the best part soon).  Sites like Shutterfly, Snapfish and Photoworks are great places to start… And if you get on their mailing list they’ll sent you promotions (which often include huge discounts on photo books.)   A side benefit is that when you upload your photos to these sites they store them for you… Just another way to back-up your precious memories.

If your kids are older you can have them help with the whole creation process… But if they’re small like mine, it’s more fun to surprise them!  The end result looks just like a real book you would buy at the book store, so the kids are amazed their pictures are in there.  This is where the captioning comes in, I try to write the captions at the reading level of the kids, it’s a great way to promote reading, nothing is more fun than reading about themselves and the places they have been… And I throw in a wacky few that Bing will latch onto.  When we go through the books, Bing will remember certain captions and yell them out.  We read ours as a bedtime story or when we’re sitting on the couch in the evening.

And knowing that you are not all single losers like me… They make a great gift for the spouse too!  I had a dear friend surprise me with one filled with photos that they had taken while our kids were hanging together and I love it.

So get that camera out and start shooting!