And, I'm spent

So, this weekend I have spent almost all of my time up on campus because we opened our halls. Last night, Cambra went out with some lady friends of hers from church and I got to spend the first quality time with Will that I have had in a while. He is really developing a personality....and he is incredibly curious. I think all of dady's drumming on Will's tummy while reading him the drumming book (one thumb, two thumbs drumming on a drum, dum ditty dum ditty, dum dum dum) may end up impacting Will to be a drummer because he loves to beat on pots and the coffe table with objects.

Will can now crawl under the coffee table and through our chair we use to pen him in with us so we can play in an enclosed area. As well, he can now open drawers and has several times powered off the TV or totally started a reorganization project of mommy and daddy's movie collection.

So, I am hear for another long day of work today. I hope my Cowboys can bounce back and beat the Redskins tonight. OSU killed Cincinnati yesterday. All is right with the world.....

So I have to be the worst blogger in the world

I have to say, it has been an extremely long time since I wrote last. This has to do with a few, small details, namely:

1) A son who is so darn adorable and fun that any "free" time I used to have is spent playing and being with Will

2) My grandfather passed away this past Spring. He was the last living grandparent....I lost my last three in the last two and a half years. Because of some work committments and do to cost issues, I was not able to make the trip to W.Va. with the family for the funeral. My family was very gracious with me for not being there, but they were also hurt and disappointed in me for not making it happen. Nothing said outright, but I know it's there. Hell, it's there from me about myslef too. I think I have been avoiding writing on the blog to avoid openly dealing with the feelings of hurt and loss.

3) The fact that I have had six new full-time staff members start over the summer. The training and development of my staff team has taken as much energy and time as I knew it would (they are all fantastic by the way).

4) The final preparations for opening our residence hall system with 150 more students than we planned to have. (Can anyone say, triples?1$&%^)

5) Football season has started. OSU killed Texas this past weekend. Dallas choked. I have been working my officiating assignments and having a ball.

6) A trip home to Oklahoma and the St. Louis area this summer. Three weeks in the midwest during the June/July heat. Fun. Actually, it was a great time....a little long. Lots of good times with family...got to see a Triple A ballgame in OKC (really nice ballpark) and also got to watch a game with Dad in the new Busch stadium. The Royals did in the Cardinals in extra innings.

7) Have I said that we have an 8 month old running around the house?

8) Have I said that football has started?

I guess the other two reasons why I have not had time to write is that things that used to be sooo easy to get done (dishes, taking out the trash, vacuuming, picking up the dog's poop in the backyard) now seem like herculean tasks with everything else that is going on. And then, of course, things stack up and the job gets harder. We have definetly initatied the "it's clean enough" rule in our house!

The second reason is that every minute I am not over working on the job or playing with Will is spent trying to continue to have a coherent and somewhat connected relationship with Cambra. This is the one piece I did not fully expect...I thought going through the child raising experience would almost automatically draw us closer together. In many ways it has. But the sheer time and attention demands make it difficult to find alone time...mental, physical, spiritual alone time with each other incredibly difficult. We are working hard to make this a priority and things seem to be going well/better....every aspect of my life is so much better when I am fully connected with Cambra!

So, I hope this serves as a good update. Check out the pics of Will. He is getting so big, so expressive, so hilarious, and still so beautiful! I hope to write more regularly as I try to figure out a way to make all of the rings in the circus work together better.

Gender Matters?

I have been reading a fascinating book written by Leonard Sax called "Gender Matters". It is the first truly compelling book on the subject I have read to date. Typically, books on similar topics either bash cultural influences on gender roles (and some even say everything to do with gender is nothing but a social construct) to trying to convince you to use gender stereotypes, both positive and negative, in raising and educating children. What I find fascinating about this book is that it does neither. It also does not bemoan the beleaguered state of male education or the cultural stereotypes that still foster pay inequities for women, the glass ceiling, etc. It acknowledges all of these things as forces, but the content is focused purely on the scientific and biological difference in all primate species between men and women. It does not preach absolutes....Individuals are individuals. It does, however, lay out a series of scientific facts about the ways men and women are different (it goes to great lengths to use the word different....not better or worse, but just different) such as:

*The construct of the type of receptors in Male and Female eyes and how this impacts how we see color, shapes, objects in motion, etc.
*The differences in male and female ear construction that lead to more acute senses of hearing at different volume and wave lengths between the two
*Differences in behavior around risk taking
*Differences in how we interact in single gender groups (How male monkeys play with male monkeys, females with females, etc.)
*Differences in aggression and the effects of brain chemistry
*How sexual orientation has no impact on many of the biological differences in gender (gay men see and hear the same as "straight" men, for example)
*And more

All in all, it is a fascinating book and one I highly suggest all parents read. It talks a great deal about how to use both single sex and mixed gender classrooms, using what we know about gender differences in learning, to make math and science more accessible (generally speaking) to women and writing and art more accessible (generally speaking) to boys. In general, it talks about how to continue to improve the educational experience for both females and males. It also talks about how to work with children who don't seem to fully fall within the pattern being described. No overt political agenda have I found yet, which also makes it an truly enjoyable read.

Responsibility and Fatherhood

It has been a while since my last post. I am not sure why it has taken me so long, but I think it is because I have literally been thinking about the topic I am posting on today. Will is six weeks old tomorrow. He is changing so incredibly fast as anyone who is paying attention to our family photo album knows well. I have been thinking a great deal about the responsibility I have as a father. It's a lot and on somedays I feel up to it and on others I don't. I guess if all I had to worry about was being what our more "sensitive popular culture" defines as a good father (supportive, participative, coddle them, give them memories, teach the citizenship, expose them to the world, etc.) things would not be too bad. And, it's not like culture's list is a) a bad list or b) an accomplishable list. In many ways it is a spectacular list that outlines the resurrgence of the necesarry role of fathers in the lives of their children. In many ways, it is almost undoable.

Here is my issue with what culture is currently defining as fatherhood. It focuses entirely on the role of the father in the life of the child rather than a set of outcomes that we would like to see for the child. It's not: "raise children who play well with with others" but "spend time with your child". It seems prescriptive to me. If we take care of our responsibilities and make sure to do everything right, things will work out fine for the kid. In many cases, this may very well prove to be true but it makes you wonder about what society has in mind when they think about the outcomes we want for the children we raise.

This takes me to my last point and the real reason I am writing this message today. As a Christian, I have a much larger calling as a father than what society has stated. I am responsible for the spiritual upbrining of my son. That means that on my day of judgement, God will hold me accountable for my actions in this most crucial role. Of course, God is gracious and we all make mistakes, and yadda yadda. I guess the bottom line is that as I have been thinking about how I can work to raise a son who loves Jesus, I have become extremely aware of two things 1) How weak I am spiritually and 2) How little I actually have in terms of an intimate and intensly personal relationship with Jesus. I have great belief and faith in Christ and His promises and glory. I have great knowledge about His word and commandments. But do I love, really love, the being that is Christ. What do I do that seeks out a real relationship with Christ? Isn't that the whole point? And, to this point, how do I help my son have a real, meaningful, alive, thriving, and personal and loving relationship with Christ?

I think this is my highest calling as a father. I'm not sure how to do it. I'm not even sure where to fully start. I'm not sure that I can even fully commit "everything" in this pursuit yet. But, this is a pursuit that begins as I open myself up to Christ each day and it is one I will begin pursuing with earnest.

Things with Will are fantastic. He is verbalizing more and moving around more. He has amazing head strength and is already holding his head up pretty well. He is also going a little bald on top....I hope it is not a sign of things to come. It is absolutely amazing to me how much I love him. I did not think I had this much love in me to give, but God has given us this wonderful gift of a son and with it he gave us the capacity in our love tanks that we needed.

Well, that is all. Sorry for the soapbox. I am in football withdrawal by the way :o).

Joining the Darkside

Dad was Right is please to announce that Michael Houston, a father to be in a few weeks, has himself turned down the dark side and started a blog. You can find Not OK anymore at:

http://notokanymore.blogspot.com/

He writes in one of his initial posts about how Iraq has really been all about Iran. We have long agreed and actually surprised each other that we had come to the same conclusion. Iraq and Afghanistan places us right next to and surrounding the two largest and longest state sponsors of terrorism.....Syria and Iran. Hence our desire to go into Iraq.

Dad Was Right welcomes Not OK Anymore to the blog world. Excellent......(Mr. Burns voice)

Settling In

Things are beginning to settle in. Will is falling into some fairly normal routines. He has been known to sleep for 2.5 to 3.5 hour chunks of time at night and in the late afternoon, so all is good. My Mom and Dad are in town and it has been fun to visit with them and to see them interact with Will.

It has been particularly challening trying to balance work with home. Working halftime is kind of a joke....I have meetings for the entire time I am in the office (10 am until 3 pm) and have no time in the office to accomplish anything. My meetings stayed with me and I lost my get stuff done time. Yuck! My parents leave on Tuesday evening and so I will be taking next week off completely so that Cambra can have some more time to adjust before she is home with Will for extended periods of time by herself.

On a completely different note, I find it quite amusing that John Kerry announced today his plan to try to garner support for a filibister of the Alito nomination for Supreme Court. It is clear the votes are not there to support the filibuster and numerous recent polls showed that the between 65-75% American people believe that Alito should be confirmed by the Senate. You can't get 65-75% of the American people to agree on anything it seems. And, it is clear by the vote counting that the filibuster has no chance. Ed Kennedy has also joined in in vocal support of the filibuster. So, either Kerry and Kennedy can't count or they are simply interested in propping up a Kerry 2008 presidential bid by blatantly pandering to the extreme left wing of the political spectrum. As if the Democrats have the guts to nominate anyone other than Hillary in 2008. Mark it down folks, it will be a Hillary Clinton running with either Barak Obama, Henry Ford, or Mark Warner as her VP nominee. If the DNC had half a brain in its strategy, they would understand that the current electoral map is so tilted to the South (where the Republicans rule the day) that they simply have to nominate a candidate who can break that block. The Dems have not been able to elect anyone who came from outside of the South (LBJ, Carter, Clinton) since JFK. If the Dems had vision, they would nominate a ticket of Mark Warner (Moderate Democratic governor (socially progressive, fiscally conservative) of Va and pair him with Barak Obama from Illinois (pacify the extreme left flank of the party) or Bill Richardson from New Mexico (Richardson could help break into the Mountian West....New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada). The Dems just don't have that kind of vision (at least it does not look like it right now). They would rather run a true blue, Northern, urban liberal and lose than run a moderate and win. They are making the same mistake the Repubs did when they ran Bob Dole.

Enough politics for now. Will needs to go to bed.