Cheating

He's certainly got a Daddy belly

I judge my parenting success the same way that all other literary fathers judge theirs:  by the number of blog posts that I put up each month.  By this measure, July was not a good parenting month for me.  Only one post with any text and two cheating picture/video posts.

I have a really good excuse though:  beer tastes DELICIOUS in July.

But that won't come through in the Google Analytics reports that my children and  I are sure to be reviewing over the dinner table in twenty years, so I'm going to cheat and backdate this post (written on August 1) to July 31, so I can at least have four posts up in July.

Don't judge me.  I judge myself already.  Which is why I drink.  And why we subsequently don't have any blog posts.  It's a vicious circle.

Another reason that we lack posts this month is because we've been having too much fun.   And not just with our cross-country family excursions.  Just in the last week, Kitty and I have been having WAY too much fun, reliving our younger years at a couple of Phish shows.  It's too early for the kids to develop addictions to hacky sack and hemp jewelry, so Grandma flew out for the week to watch them while we went off to destroy our livers.

Boy was that a mistake.  Recovering from a debaucherous weekend is hard enough, but it turns out that it is significantly complicated if you've got a baby at home and are therefore not getting any sleep.

Whoops.

On the plus side, over the dinner the other night, my mother mentioned that while we were gone, she asked Finn what he wanted to be when he grew up.  After pointing out that I had wanted to be a volunteer firefighter or policeman (my wife can work!), Finn said that all he wanted to be was a Daddy.

After the requisite "awww"ing was done, I asked him why.

"Because Daddies have all the money."

Thank goodness.  I was worried that I had become a role model, which would be a lot of pressure.  Good to see that I'm still just the guy that buys Legos & ice cream.

Although after a weekend at the Gorge spending $13 per beer, if Finn were to see my wallet now, I'm not sure he would want to be a Daddy anymore.

Summer Trip

2013 Summer Trip, a set on Flickr.

Good times. Good times.

Suspicious Package

This arrived in the mail yesterday.  I need to figure out what list we're on so we can get off of it.  I don't need any more of these.



(Can also be seen here)

Travelin' Light

There's nothing like a family vacation to make you need a vacation.

Notes from the last two weeks, spent cruising the east coast and checking in with the families:

• Both kids traveled very well, which I can only attribute to the soothing smells of Daddy Travel Sweat.  Works every time.
• A 100% increase in children results in a 300% increase in crap that needs to be toted to and from the airport and between each house stop.  Huge props to the lovely folks at Hertz for driving us to the airport in our rental car, thereby removing at least one repacking effort from the tally.
• After a rough start in NY, Edie made liars out of us all with nothing but sleep & smiles for the rest of the trip.  This is the second consecutive year in which a child has deliberately contradicted the behavior documented in the blog, thereby calling into question my credibility.  Which is not difficult.
• Finn continued to prove that he is a master of travel with exactly zero issues, even though he had to spend hours in the car listening to his sister cry next to him.  Thank goodness for the lovely hot pink gun club ear protection that helped him drown out the sound, though it did result in a new car rule that people wearing ear muffs cannot ask questions.  Apparently, we can only take so many questions, immediately followed up "What did you say?"

More pictures will be coming along soon, but there were three other highlights that must be called out:

• This trip provided the much-anticipated Meeting of the Edie Parkers, with five-month-old Edie Parker facing off against her 98-year-old great grandmother, Edie Parker.  Handbag maker Edie Parker and former Jack Kerouac spouse Edie Parker were unable to attend but sent their regrets.

• This was also the first time that all of the Finn grandchildren were gathered in one place, which only proved that the rest of the world better watch out.  This is one good lookin' group. 

• And finally, we all got to wish MeMa a very happy birthday at the greatest lake/BBQ place on Earth, Winding Trails in Farmington, CT, where all of the lifeguards appear to have been ripped directly from the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.  I'd include pictures to prove this, but I wasn't quite sure how to approach them as a group for the photo op without sounding ridiculously creepy.  You'll just have to trust me on this one.

It was a blast, but I sincerely hope that we don't have to do anything like it again any time soon.  Really.  Any time soon.

I need a nap.