Elementary school began yesterday, and on the one hand it seems hard to let the summer go, but on the other hand there were some moments I could have done without.  For instance, all summer long I put off getting my bi-annual haircut/head shave because my eight year old told me, “You’re ugly enough as it is.”  Don’t kids say the cutest things?  When I finally came home with my new ‘do,’ Skylee literally screamed, “NO!”  Then she added nervously, “Will it grow back?”

Others didn’t hold back with their honest opinions.  Skylee’s neighbor friend was with her and said, “You look weird.”  Fortunately my six year old Sabrina was there to pick my esteem up off the floor and actually said she liked the cut.  I’m still getting comments about the haircut, including one yesterday from a peer, “Your hair looked better the way you had it.”  Maybe I need to grow it out again and get a job as a rock star?  Regardless, after my experiences of the summer, I’m hyper conscious of what I say about people’s haircuts.

Andy surfing with friends by D. Kadah Tanaka

Skylee broke her wrist camping, after the third of a series of six scheduled nights.  I knew it was broken when I heard the cry.  Parents just know.  The banshee wailings is a big hint.  Needless to say the camping trip ended at that moment, but we salvaged some nights outside out.  I ended up pitching the tent in our backyard and we spent several more nights sleeping in it before I finally broke it down on the last day of summer.

Speaking of nights outside, Skylee and Sabrina saw their first shooting stars during the big meteor shower on August 12.  At about 11pm we went outside, sat in chairs and glued our eyes to the night sky, which is something we don’t do enough of in life.  I saw three, Sabrina two and Skylee one before we went in for the night.  The bulk of the activity wasn’t anticipated until after midnight, which was just too late.  So at 3am I awoke to catch part of the show.  I tried to wake both daughters, who wanted to get up for it, but they just didn’t budge.  So I went outside alone and witnessed more than a dozen stars streaking across the sky.  It was pretty damn cool.

This summer I shed weight and got fairly toned as I have been gearing up to surf the gladiator pit known as San Francisco’s Ocean Beach this fall.  My stomach right now reminds me of the body of a boa constrictor I had as a pet as a child.  No, I’m not talking about right after the boa swallowed its rats, when there was a big lump in its body.  That was my pre-summer look.  The lump is mostly gone, digested if you will.  I might not have the best haircut in town. but my body feels and looks better than it has since I stopped surfing regularly over a decade ago.  You can’t imagine how happy I am to be back in the water!

I figured if I didn’t get back into surfing now I probably never would, so I worked myself in shape.  As a result Skylee acknowledged my commitment to getting back in the water the other day.  “My dad is really good at exercising.”  She and her friend were talking about what people are good at doing.  At least they weren’t talking about my hair.

Title image credit: Vivek Chugh

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No, I’m not writing about the movie or its wonderful music. Instead, this column will contain lists of random things that I think fit those three categories. I was driving to Mammoth, a ski resort we frequent, alone and early in the morning and began reflecting on my life. I had a rough period recently and was feeling a bit blue.  I know that that feeling is fleeting, and I have much to be grateful for.  In fact, I know that gratitude is the key to happiness.

So, I started making a mental list of the things that I have to be grateful for, but I couldn’t help but also think of some of the ca-ca (a good parenting word, don’t you think?) in my life and the world, as well.  I’m going to try and stay focused on “The Good” though acknowledging and recognizing “The Bad and The Ugly.”

I believe the serenity prayer (and I’m not in AA) really says it all about how to view the world. We all get handed our pile of challenges, we just have to choose when to accept them, when to try to change them, and when to just let them go. I hope these lists give you a giggle and some good reflective thought as well.  So, with that lengthy preface, here they are, in no particular order, in each category:

The Good:

1. My two boys, Will and David.
2. My three dogs, especially Simon who we almost lost.
3. My good health.
4. My best friend Marty.
5. Boba, Pizza, and Coffee Ice Cream.
6. Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Sinatra.
7. Computers (yeah, they also belong in the bad category), MP3 Players, and cell-phones (truly, they also are a mixed blessing!).
8. Skiing, always near the top of my list.
9. Hiking in the hills and parkland, right outside my front door, with my dogs.
10. Our new home theater with its amazing sound and picture, which makes going to the movies at home almost better than going to the theaters.
11. My good fortune in my former work-life and my luck in being able to retire so young.
12. My further good fortune in meeting my new wife, Loren (we just married this past Dec. 27, 2008).
13. My boy’s acceptance and love for her.
14. Our incredible honeymoon in Africa and its reminder of just how lucky we are, here in America, however much our economy is presently suffering.
15. My Men’s Group and the amazing support they provide during the challenging times, along with the wonderful friendships that have developed there.  These are friends that tell me the truth, not what I want to hear.  We need to hear the truth from our friends more often.  I credit them with making my marriage happen and work.
16. My growing second career in writing and the blessing that so many papers, online and hard copy, have taken my column on in a time when their industry is in such decline.

The Bad:

1. My parents’ death in the past three years.
2. My ex abandoning my kids, and the subsequent psychological effects that has created.
3. My moods and occasional whining (Loren will debate the use of the word “occasional”).
4. My impatience (especially with Will, my teenage know-it-all).
5. Hollywood and movies, reality television, and network news nowadays.
6. Lawyers.
7. Lawyers.
8. All the cruelty in the world.

The Ugly:

1. Radical Islam.
2. Bad parents.
3. Addictions.
4. Renee Zellweger (we call her lemon face, due to her puckered lips).
5. Dating (thankfully a thing of my past, now).

In looking back at these lists, I’m proud to reflect that the total of “Good” exceeds the total of both “The Bad” and “The Ugly.”  Yes, it is how we choose to react to life’s challenges, not whether we have them or not.  We all do.  And, in most cases, if given the opportunity to switch lives with someone we know well, we’d opt to keep our own bag of challenges.

A final and important reflection on this was beautifully and poignantly written about by Viktor Frankl, in his powerful book Man’s Search For Meaning.  I will paraphrase him when I describe his story of surviving the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.  He said that, of course, the Nazis had full control over every aspect of his life; what he ate, where and how long he slept, work, punishment, and life or death.  However, the only thing they had no control over was how he reacted.  That is our choice, too, when we face far easier challenges, even now.

Image credit: Tijmen van Dobbenburgh

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Face it. Doctors are pretty lame with practical advice on stuff that should come naturally to babies. So here are a few tricks we’ve picked – none risky, we promise – that might help you get your baby to sleep or back on track sleep-wise.

1. Dads, take charge. This is one area where dads can really add some value. Sadly, it’s because we have nothing more to add than just being odd and different though. Send dad in to do the final diapering and reading and baby won’t get distracted by the thought of mommy milk or the comforting sensations of the mommy aura. This goes also, unfortunately, for midnight diaper changes when you’re weaning the baby off breastfeeding. Babies won’t think “food!” when they see daddy’s breast-less chest and dad has a better chance of getting baby back to sleep.
2. Pump up the volume. Don’t let your child get used to a completely quiet house, or you may be subject to a baby who wakes to every siren or dog bark. Usually, yes, babies sleep through anything, unless they are conditioned to complete silence. If you’re using complete silence as a tactic in the sleep wars, you may be doing more harm than good.
3. Be all business at night. While moms and dads often can’t resist a cuddle with the baby or even trying to get the baby to smile or laugh while changing and feeding, everyone will get back to sleep faster if you are calm and efficient in the semi-dark, getting the baby back in bed with as little distraction as possible. This way, baby knows that daytime is playtime and nighttime is “get back to sleep as soon as possible.”
4. Let the baby fall asleep on his own. Every doctor or sleep specialist will encourage strict routines to help the sleep ritual. What some won’t think of though is making sure you put your baby in bed when he or she is drowsy rather than completely asleep. Falling asleep on your own is an important development step for a baby, which you can help by getting your baby in bed when you sense he is getting drowsy.
5. Treat your baby like he or she has jet lag. Experts recommend that when adjusting to new time zones, you should spend daylight hours in bright sunlight and keep out all light at times you should be sleeping. The same goes for babies. Make sure his or her internal time clock knows it’s nighttime.
6. Turn down the baby monitor. If you’re so sleep-obsessed that you have to check on your baby every few minutes, you’re going to end up teaching the baby that every gurgle or whimper gets mom or dad’s attention. I am definitely not a “let them cry it out” dad, but I do know that giving in to the temptation to just peek in on them usually reset the timer on my efforts to get my kids to sleep.
7. Skip the diaper change? Yes, maybe, if you don’t smell #2 and you think the diaper isn’t really full. A full diaper change, complete with baby wipe hitting warm skin in the night air, will definitely wake up a sleeping baby. Wake up a baby for one last feeding before you go to bed. This might be the one trick that scores you some extra sleep. While it might be risky to wake up a baby for more stimulation, if you can accomplish the feeding to a half asleep baby, it might mean your baby remains full and satisfied all the way until morning. This means you get some much needed baby sleep of your own.

Image credit: Csaba Magdo

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Your kid wants to stay up late, avoid homework, hang out with friends, and watch TV and play video games. In short, your school-aged child wants to do everything but go to bed early and do schoolwork. What’s more, he has lots of clever ways to wear you down and get his way.

Here are six ways school kids manipulate parents, and what to do about each one.

Emotional Blackmail: This is when your child deliberately demonstrates an emotion that she knows will cause you discomfort. “I just wanted to watch the new episode, then I was going to do my homework. How come I can’t have at least some fun before I do homework? You don’t care about me!”

What to do: Her emotional outburst is either a manipulative display, or she is genuinely sad and angry. Either way, acknowledge her feelings so she knows you care, but stick with your demand. Emotions are part of life.

Shutting Down: Your child will attempt to avoid dealing with an issue, such as getting in bed on a school night, by simply not responding. You tell him to turn off the video game, but ten minutes later he hasn’t moved. This will go on indefinitely until you stop it.

What to do: It’s normal for kids to do what they want to do, and delay what they don’t want to do. Give him a consequence and follow through with it, such as, “If you don’t turn off the Xbox in five minutes, there will be no video games tomorrow.”

Irrational Logic: This is when your child or teen tries to soften your reaction to a particular behavior by introducing irrelevant information into the discussion. “Why can’t I stay out till eleven on a school night? I got all A’s last year.”

What to do: Don’t take the bait. Don’t waste time explaining that one isn’t related to the other. Stand firm.

Negotiation: Children are great at getting their way through striking a deal with parents. “Let me go to Sally’s after school and I promise I’ll do all my homework–and that book report too.”

What to do: Tell her you know she wants to have time to play, but she hasn’t yet earned it. If she satisfies her end of the deal–homework and book report–she can earn that playdate.

Divide and Conquer: This is when your child attempts to get what he wants by exploiting weaknesses in your spousal relationship. “But Dad said I could watch the game with him as long as I do my Spanish vocab during the commercials.”

What to do: Discuss with your spouse ahead of time which types of decisions you want to share (e.g., homework, money, social activities), and then either consult with or defer to your spouse. If it falls in a grey area, tell your kid you need to think about it first.

Playing the Victim: Children are great at getting what they want by making you feel sorry for them. “I’m the only one in the house who never gets to go to a movie on weeknights.”

What to do: You need to separate the emotional content from whatever short-term goal the child is trying to obtain. Get her to talk about what that feels like to be the “only one” and let her know that you care about her feelings. Her short-term goal–of staying out late, however, is separate and unrelated. Don’t back down.

Image credit: D. Sharon Pruitt

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Editor’s note: THE FATHER LIFE is pleased to welcome David Paull to our pages.  You’ll find his column, Fresh Brood, appearing regularly right here at thefatherlife.com.  Leave David a comment and make him feel welcome!

I’m one of those people for whom things are rarely simple. Don’t get me wrong, I like simple. I strive for simple. But the more I seek simple, the more things get complicated. My latest installment of “nothing’s easy” started with what should have been a simple-enough trip to the “big-box” store for my son’s first bicycle. I first considered trying to find one from a private seller online. Then I decided I didn’t really want to risk ending-up dismembered in some guy’s basement and decided to go the safer, albeit ultimately more complicated, retail route.

Things got complicated early on. My son is big for his age, and as a result, he doesn’t fit on the small “first” bikes that readily come with training wheels. Instead, he needs a larger bike, of which there are very few with training wheels. So we find a pretty cool one (sans training wheels) and I proceed down the stuff-to-keep-your kid-from-killing-himself aisle for a helmet and, of course, a pack of after-market training wheels. The bike, by the way, ran me only 80 bucks. My extreme satisfaction over that, however, lasted a very short time.

Everything went rather smoothly down the keep-your-kid-alive aisle. My son picked a pretty sweet-looking orange helmet that fit him quite well and I grabbed a pack of $7.99 training wheels that were supposedly so simple to install, even a one-eyed possum could do it. Now, I should have seen the red-flag waving, because $7.99 seemed awfully inexpensive for training wheels, but I figured, “what the hell.” Well, I got them home, tried to put them on the bike and quickly learned “what the hell?!” It turns out my “so simple even a one-eyed possum could do it” training wheels can still stump a relatively intelligent (term used loosely) guy. Actually, three relatively intelligent guys because I wasn’t exactly silent in my rage and my neighbor buddies came around to see what all the fuss was about. So there we were, three dudes, all of whom have built various things to varying degrees of success in the past, and none of us could figure out how to get those damn training wheels on that damn bike. I later figured out that it was the training wheels, not me,  that were defective, but in that moment I finally said f*** it and decided to bail on the whole big-box-bike experiment. But that’s not the end of the story… oh no.

Before I proceed, let me tell you that before going to “big-box” I went to my local bike shop to see what one of their bad-ass bikes would run me. Turns out, a bad-ass bike for a mucho grandé six-year-old will set you back $200 and that was the end of that… or so I thought.

So this is where my “nothing’s simple” life got complicated yet again. After deciding to bag the big-box-bike and training wheels-from-hell I did what I always do – I went for the overly fancy and ridiculously expensive Plan B (which, if I would just accept how I know the story is going to end anyway, could have been an equally expensive, but far less hassle, Plan A). While my wonderful wife agreed to return the bike and accoutrements to “big-box,” I took my son back to the bad-ass bike shop. We selected the wicked-cool, lime green, overly expensive, bad-ass bike and in about two-seconds the nice bike shop pro guy had a spanky set of training wheels installed.

OK, so we finally got home with a bike that: a) fit my son, b) had training wheels that were actually attached properly, and c) looked bad-ass cool. Check, check, and check. Now it was time to ride off into the sunset, right? Wrong.

Tune in next week for PART 2…

Image credit: Joachim Bär

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First, a disclaimer.  It seems the reactions to my family’s nicknames have been mixed from readers.  I respect my readers, and I also got the same feedback from a new friend, via this column, in Australia.  Isn’t the Internet amazing?  So, hereafter, I will dispense with the nicknames.  My wife is Loren, my older son is Will, and my younger one is David.  And I love them dearly.

I’m sure you catch just a little sarcasm in the title of today’s column.  Patience has been and is my biggest personal struggle — with me, with others, with the world at large.  You’d think that having kids would moderate that poor characteristic.  And, I suppose, to some degree it has.  But, in general, this is my Achilles’ heel.

As a child, I can remember looking forward to special events like going to Disneyland for my birthday.  Disneyland, in those days, was actually fun and much less crowded.  Then, we had individual tickets for the rides, “A – E” tickets, with “E” being for the big ones like the Matterhorn; hence the by now forgotten “like an E-ticket ride” expression.  I couldn’t sleep the night before, and once we finally got there, I’d be the first kid to run in and get in line for whichever ride that we were heading towards first.

When I was a kid, many things that we take for granted now required patience.  All of television was only available when it was broadcast, and if you missed it, you were out of luck until and if it was shown again.  No DVR, VCR, or any sort of video recording device.  Listening to music required a radio or going to the music store and buying a record.  No instant downloads.  And long-distance phone calls were saved only for emergencies.  We wrote to long distance friends and relatives and waited for answers, in many cases, for days and weeks.  Imagine that!

So, now with the world moving almost literally at the speed of light, and after raising two boys from infancy, you’d think that I’d mellow a little.  Nah, I still want it now!  Whatever “it” is.

But, as a parent, I wonder how our children are learning patience?  David, my younger son, bought some manga magazines on eBay the other day and was informed that they’d be sent by U.S. postal mail and to expect them to arrive within 3-9 business days.  When they hadn’t arrived on the third day, he began pouting.  By the ninth day he was practically apoplectic.  They did arrive.  On the eleventh day.

He also is a big movie fan and needs (I use that word facetiously) to see the big, important movies, without fail, the first day or weekend that they open.  Do you remember when movies actually played for months on end?  I remember buying tickets, at the box office, to The Sound of Music as a Mother’s Day present, weeks in advance, for my mother.  How quaint.

I asked Will (my teenager) where he thought I was impatient with him, and he said that I was impatient about anything and everything I ask him to do (e.g. chores).  I have to own that as completely true, because I’ve grown to expect him not to do them in a timely manner.  So, like the boy who cried wolf, I’m extra-sensitized to when he does or doesn’t do a chore, and I’m looking for him to fail.  That, naturally, doesn’t help matters.  He’s got a teen brain; it won’t mature until he’s 35 or so.

David said that I’m always rushing everyone when we go skiing: to get up there early, to get going, to move faster in the line, etc.  Again, I have to own that as I sometimes still feel like that kid rushing to get in line at the Matterhorn at Disneyland.  I learned, with David that going at his pace actually allows me to have some influence on him, while pushing him to keep up with me only creates distance.

The same sorts of things happen between Loren (my wife) and me. Wow, the more I write this, the more I sound like a creep.  Maybe I’d better distort the truth a little and tell you all how wonderfully calm and zen-like I really am.  Nah, no one who knows me would believe that.  I suppose the simplest example with my wife is when we walk.  I walk faster by nature and by having a 10-inch advantage on her. I need to consciously slow down or she practically has to jog to keep up.  At restaurants, I’m the first one done and the first one asking, “Okay, ready to go?”

So on this subject, I guess I’m the culprit in my family, for the most part, and like so many of the stubborn things we do, it does me no good nor does it promote harmony among us.  I guess I should utilize more competently my often-said mantra about getting older, that the only good thing about getting older is the possibility of getting better.  And, by getting better, I mean getting better in our relationships, knowing how to moderate our behavior and comments, and just maybe having a little patience.

Image credit: Richard Dudley

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Boy, when you need laughter, go call up
your grandfather.  He may be as rusty as
a 1948 Buick Eight convertible, but his
jokes will be as fresh and new to you as
each pair of sneakers your mother got
you for the advent of every school year.

Boy, when you need guidance, go knock
on your grandfather’s door.  He may be
as traditional as a Swiss Army knife, but
his words will resonate within you, like
the very first time your father read you a
bedtime story in his favorite rocking chair.

Boy, when you need company, go walk
right through your grandfather’s door.  He
may be as outdated as a Johnny Mathis
record, but his presence will inspire you.
Was it not he who informed you that even
in times of solitude, you are never alone?

“A Grandfather’s Contributions” is one of several poems written by Jared Scott Tesler, who, having been blessed with three grandfathers of his own, knows just how special the relationship between a boy and his grandfather can truly be.

Title image credit: Sean Dreilinger – Article image credit: Sean Dreilinger

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Recently, I saw a really funny commercial showing a man leaping with joy as he pulled something down an aisle. It was revealed to be a couch, with his two sullen kids sitting on it, and the background music was the famous Christmas song which extols, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” It was a back-to-school ad and that dad was jumping for joy. It was very clever, so kudos to Staples. Yes, the kids are going back to school. We parents get our lives back–especially our evenings.

The job of parent revolves around the school calendar. Our chauffeuring responsibilities are different during the school year than during vacation times. One of the big differences, from my perspective, is the bedtimes for the boys. On “school nights” they have a curfew that gives us some quiet at night. However, during summer, the boys are allowed more freedom and Will, my almost-16-year-old, loves to stay up late and sleep in late. At least I get quiet time in the summer mornings. It’s said that the more they sleep, in the summer, the more they’re growing. Will is 6 feet, 2 inches already!

Television watching of any kind is also limited during the school year. In fact, none is allowed on school days. This policy has been in place ever since the boys began school, as I believe television is the biggest waste of time for everyone, let alone a total distortion of reality and an assault on many of our values. (This is, of course, ironic, given my former career was in television.) But during summer, vacations, and weekends, they’re allowed to watch. That means a lot of television in the summer. This, too, will end when school begins.

Summer also usually means a family vacation. Family vacations mean vacation for the kids and torture for the parents. It means fun, fun, fun for the kids and exhaustion for the parents. It means eating, running around, amusement parks, cruises for the kids, all of which they love–but an empty bank account for the parents.

Summer days means the boys are often hanging around the house, with or without friends, and always underfoot asking, “What’s for lunch?” or, “What are we doing today?” It’s like we’re the entertainment directors on this particular cruise of life, in our own home. But with school, they have to be somewhere every week day. They have homework. They have to go to bed before we do. And, as a result, we get some of our lives back. So, like the dad in that commercial, I’m doing cartwheels with anticipation and joy at the forthcoming end of summer.

School, of course, has its own challenges. How much should we push our kids for grades? How much independence do we allow them (with their schoolwork, choice of classes, etc.)? When do our expectations exceed their capabilities or desires? How important is college for every kid? Clearly, these are questions which I’ll address another time. In my case I have two different kids with two totally disparate approaches to school. So, consequently, I have to approach each of them distinctly and respect their individual strengths and weaknesses. And, of course, I have to remember that they’re not me. They don’t have my specific interests, nor my work habits (good and bad).

I remember with such fondness and irony how I viewed summer when I was a kid. The moment summer began, I not only rejoiced, but I saw this gigantic ocean of freedom and fun ahead of me. However, when school began again, I felt as if my life was over as the interminable school year began, my prison sentence resumed, and it felt like forever till the next summer would come around.

My attitude towards time has changed as I’ve grown older, and I now see summer as a blip of time. Our perspective on time is subjective, in my opinion. That is also why, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more patient waiting for those things I’m looking forward to doing. A vacation in six months doesn’t seem that far away while, when I was a kid, the weekend felt distant every Monday. And, like me before them, my boys do a countdown to summer and a sadder countdown to when school begins again.

So, it’s back to school and back to a regular routine, and that is the comfort of the school year for me. For me, it’s like having that assigned seat in “homeroom,” where at least I could count on one thing being within my control during my own tumultuous school years. I know what’s expected of me, as dad, and the boys largely have a schedule to follow. My wife and I can watch a movie at night without interruption and life feels normal. Until next summer.

Image credit: Emre Danisman

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As a driver, one of my main rules of the road is to avoid traffic jams. As a father, this is especially true during toilet training. Tempers can get frayed — especially mine — so this rule is right up there alongside buckling my son into his car seat.

My wife and I broke the rule while on a trip to visit family. Beth and I are usually on the road by 10 a.m. for our traditional drive home from Virginia to New Jersey. We’ve managed to avoid major traffic jams that way for years. But this time, we decided to stay a few hours more on the last day of our long-weekend visit. We wanted to take our three-year-old son, Nicholas, to an aviation museum.

The Udvar-Hazy Center, the annex to the National Air and Space Museum, is a quick drive from my in-laws’ home in a Virginia suburb of Washington. Nicholas had ample time to stare wide-eyed at the planes, too enthralled to think about visiting the men’s room.

After the museum, we ate generous helpings of beef stroganoff back at my in-laws’ house and said our goodbyes. I slid behind the wheel. The drive got off to a good, uneventful start on Interstate 395 in Virginia, with Beth next to me and Nicholas in his car seat behind us. We listened serenely to “Peter and the Wolf” on CD because my son is addicted to it. We turned northbound on Interstate 95 and more or less coasted through Maryland and Delaware. We listened as Peter caught the wolf — again and again.

We crossed the New Jersey state line and soon reached the New Jersey Turnpike. That’s when it hit us: the Great Wall of China, the tsunami wave, the traffic jam.

At first, we saw the typical few hundred yards of bumper-to-bumper traffic ahead of us in the three northbound lanes. To our left, the southbound traffic whizzed by as if on a conveyor belt.

Being strapped down by rows of brake lights is strangely stressful. The pace is languid, but the ordeal demands constant attention, with no indication of when it might end. Patience is tested.

Toilet-training has been a similar experience for us: halting progress, uncertainty, and pleas for it to finally, finally end. On this trip, the training added a level of suspense. Would he stay dry or would he go? I didn’t want any suspense. I just wanted to get home.

The traffic didn’t let up. A road sign urged us to listen to the highway advisory radio station for the local traffic report. We tuned in. Traffic was backed up for 30 miles, it said through the static.

Thirty miles. At first, we refused to believe our ears. It’ll be over in just a few miles, we agreed; we don’t need to pull over by the side of the road for Nicholas.

But 10 miles crawled by, then 15 miles. A half hour, then an hour. All those planes back at the museum had harnessed all that speed and power through the years, and here we were averaging 5 miles an hour. Usually, on this drive we might see one road sign telling us: “Reduce speed, congestion ahead” in garish red neon. But on this day we saw at least a half-dozen of them. We started to believe our ears.

It got dark. I could barely see Nicholas when I checked on him in the rear-view mirror. He sat calmly behind us, like a rudder, and sought comfort in his thumb. Suppertime came and went. We had moved on to other CDs, but played them at very low volume. I sought comfort in The Band’s “The Weight.” My wife and I muttered our disbelief under our breath.

“Would it make sense to get off the Turnpike and cut over to the Garden State Parkway?” I asked Beth.

She looked at our map in the muted glow of the overhead car light. “No, it’s too far to the east. It would take us too far out of our way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Really sure?”

“Yes,” she said, but her firm tone translated that into, “Yes, I’m sure. I can read a map.” We weren’t familiar with the local roads, and decided it was better to be stuck than to be lost.

There was tension in our car, but no angry outbursts — despite the cliff-hanger in the back seat. “Do you have to pee?” we asked Nicholas repeatedly. “How about now?… What about now?”

“No,” he murmured each time, before slipping his thumb back in.

We crawled past the Trenton exit. Our exit was another 50 miles away. We decided we had held out long enough. I pulled over at the next rest stop, named after Woodrow Wilson (what better way to honor a former president and New Jersey governor than with a Roy Rogers and a Blimpie?).

Beth went inside to brave the restroom lines. I stayed with Nicholas. I placed his portable toilet next to his car seat. He shifted over – not easy in a compact Hyundai Elantra. We’ve gone through three different potty styles to find the right mix of performance and comfort. On this drive, we used the Fisher-Price “Royal” model, which plays jingles each time something hits the bowl. Much to my joy, he went. He had lasted five hours.

Beth returned to the car and smiled as she handed me a turkey sandwich: supper.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“Not a chance,” she said. “The line was too long.” She would have to wait till we got home, whenever that was. I took advantage of a nearby stand of trees.

We hit the road again, although cars were still slogging through the swamp of traffic. We had started our trip basking in the glamour of the Concorde and space shuttle Enterprise. Now, I longed for the gray, industrial, grimy Turnpike sights seen in the opening credits of “The Sopranos”: the refineries, Newark Airport, seven traffic lanes. More down to earth, perhaps, but they meant we were close to home.

I was frustrated by now, and said so: we had started our journey too late, we probably could have taken an alternate route, and we should have had more food in the car. But Beth reined me in.

So did Nicholas. He stayed grounded throughout the drive, not once throwing a tantrum. And he had lasted five hours. My little boy, half as tall as me, taught me again about grace under pressure.

Gradually, traffic speeded up, spaces between cars grew and more lanes appeared. We swerved off the Turnpike near Newark Airport, and pulled into our driveway 20 minutes later. The drive took three hours longer than usual. Instead of being home for dinner, we were home for Nicholas’s bedtime. We skipped his bath.

Image credit: T. Rolf

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My little girl loves me. In fact, the other day she told me, “I love you too much!”

And I just looked at her.

“Do you mean you love me so much?” I asked her.

“Oh yeah. I love you SO much!”

But it made me wonder if my little girl’s love for me feels like too much for her. Or maybe it is too much for me?

Her love is strong, so intense that sometimes I get scared about how much she loves me. Is her adoration, bordering on idolization, just setting us up for future problems? Sometimes as she caresses my face, seemingly memorizing every feature, I find myself wondering, will she end up with a completely unrealistic view of love based on her feelings for me? Am I destined to fail her, to never live up to the intensity and purity of her feelings for me? What would that mean for our relationship? Will she end up with unrealistic expectations of her partner because of how special our connection is? Am I making it impossible for her to have future relationships?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

So that self-doubt sits on my shoulder, like a little devil, telling me something is wrong here, that this isn’t love, but something evil, dangerous, and I should begin to break away from her, to save her from myself. That somehow rejecting her now is better than whatever future series of failures and rejections she will experience if things don’t change between us now.

But on my right shoulder sits my little angel, represented by all of the research I have done on the subject of involved fathers and by the belief that loving her can’t be wrong. The research into girls and women with involved fathers has shown that their self-esteem, their self-satisfaction, the length of time they wait to engage in sexual activity is in direct proportion to their feeling loved by their father and the health (from their perspective) of that relationship.

Isn’t that what I want for my little girl? For her to grow up and be intelligent, strong, independent, and healthy, to make smart decisions about her sexuality rather than act out because of something she is missing? Has there ever been any doubt about that?

No way.

This battle continued in my mind, back and forth, particularly fierce this weekend when my wife relayed a story to me.

She was driving our children to school and listening to Marc Cohn’s first album, the same album she and I listened to seven times in-a-row the night we decided we wanted to give our relationship a chance, to see if maybe there really was something special between us.  She told them the story and afterwards my little girl said to her, “I’m so glad you picked Daddy. I just love him so much!”

As tears leaked from my eyes after hearing that story, I thought to myself, “Can love that pure be bad? Especially when that love is returned ten-fold in my love for her?”

Maybe our love will have side-effects I can’t imagine right now, but my little girl will always be certain of one thing: she is loved. Hopefully, this will mean she will never have to worry about whether she is loveable or not, about how she deserves to be treated by her partner, about whether she is entitled to a healthy, loving relationship.

So while I still struggle with the intensity of her love for me, I plan to keep giving her everything I have right back in return.

Image credit: Carin Araujo

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