Wow

It's pretty unbelievable how big Cambra is already. I think she looks so big because she started so small and also because all of the baby weight she has added has been in her belly.

One of the things that I find fascinating is how blatantly interested people are in giving me advice these days. Even people who don't have kids find ways of making comments and suggestions for how to best raise a child. And, until you are having children, you may never know the whole "raise children the right way" industry that exists to profit off of your new found joy. How to this and how to that books, CDs, web pages, DVDs, and even Blogs! Seems like we as a species have survived for mellinia without all of this....I guess it is just capitalism at its finest.

I ask myself why is it that if we spend all of this time working so hard to be perfect parents, that our society does not show any signs of making significant improvements. I mean, college kids (who I work with all of the time) are certainly incredibly bright, motivated to do well, and knwoledgable....but they are also incredibly sheltered and totally unable to put into practice many of the indeals that they hold dear. I look at the new hipness of parenting and suggest that the outcome is not totally good....my students care more about being accepted than almost anything else. The highest virtue they hold is connectedness to each other. Everything else is an incredibly distant second. Not all good, not all bad either.

One of the "how to parenting" books that I like the best has a web site I linked to this blog called "Be Prepared". It is a McGuyver like book about fatherhood and I enjoy it, mostly because it is useful info presented in a way that makes me laugh out lowd. For example, there is a whole section in the book devoted to "Returning to Sex". This is, of course, a really important topic and a sensitive issue for many couples. One of the points it takes great effort to lay out is the one about my spouses breasts. It says, "I know it is ironic that when your spouses breasts are at their largest, fullest, and most tempting, that they are off limits to you, but they are. Your wife's breasts are on lease to your child. Treat your wife and your child well and after three to four months, you may be able to negotiate a time share arrangement with the ownership."

Wow, now that's good advice.

Anyway, all of this to say that I have decided to stop reading too much about being a perfect parent. It is already drawing my attention away from actually being a good parent/husband. I figure I have had great role models and I have a fabulous wife, how can I go wrong.

Cambra at 24 weeks pregnant 

So, here I am starting this Blog. I've done so because my wife is currently six months pregnant with our first child. I am hoping to use this as an outlet to write about my experiences as a new father and to provide to our family periodic updates on our progress.

One of the things I do in my spare time is officiate high school football. I enjoy this activity very much, but I have a bad habit that I can't seem to fully shake. Several times in a game, I will be so intense and so focused on making sure that I cover a play, that I move in too fast and get to close to the players and the action that is taking place. Ideally, I would be stationary and taking in the entire action of the play at a reasonable distance. Ideally, I would be taking the "wide angle" viewpoint. When I rush in to try to make sure that I have everything under control, I miss out on all of the important action taking place just outside my field of vision. In an effort to control my circumstances, I lose the perspectrive I need to do my job as an official.

So, the wide angle view on life right now, as I prepare for fatherhood (which is really all ready upon me, it's just that the baby is locked up in the womb currently), is that I sure hope that I allow myself to not be too controlling, too involved in my son's life. I want our son to take chances, make mistakes, and develop into a well-rounded and independent adult capable of making a contribution to this world.

Another wide angle thought is that I sure hope to be half the dad that my father was/is to me. My dad always had time for us and that did not come easy. He made us a priority and it was not something that he just talked about, but he lived it every day. My dad taught me how to love...my God, my family, my wife. I learned it not by listening to my Dad, but by watching and being with my Dad. As Mario Cuomo once said, "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week." That was my Dad too.

The last wide angle thought I have is that I don't want to get so consumed by our son (at least not over any length of time) that I forget to keep my relationships and priorities in order. God, Wife, and then family (another valuable lesson I learned from both of my parents). I can't be a the Dad I want to be without having my relationships in the right place.

So, these are some of the thoughts running through my mind these days as I think about the impending birth of our boy. Interesting how football teaches all of us incredibly interesting life lessons.

On the top of Whistler mountain, February 2003