An honest confession – I probably complain too much. To some that may come as a wild shock – utterly unbelievable. To others (likely a larger crowd), you could remove the word “probably” from the first sentence for improved accuracy. I love my 8-month-old son more and more each day, and I’m elated with our new home, but I’m sure that those around me were aware of the fact that I spent much of 2013 stressed. Whether it’s a list of unexpected fix it projects, the high pitch of a baby’s cry, or a life dominated by someone else’s feeding patterns and bodily functions, it seems there’s never a shortage of complaint fodder. It is easy to become self-absorbed. It’s easy to look at whatever’s annoying you, distracting you, or flat out pissing you off, and wish it would go away. I do it all the time. It’s a little more challenging to look at those things and realize that maybe it’s you. It may simply be that your perspective needs changing. Nothing reinforces this theory like the smile or laugh from an 8-month-old child.  That smile or laugh can quickly negate the air raid siren pitch of the “I’m hungry” cry, and make things right in the world again. Whether you’re a new parent or not, you probably have those moments, too. It’s easy to take what’s right with this world and find the reasons that something drives you nuts. How about the phrase “first world problem?” Anything that would fall under that category is probably a good start. These are all great things to gain perspective on before the upcoming holiday. Before we throw the tent in the car and go on an urban camping trip for the latest and greatest technology, maybe we ought to stop and appreciate the people that we’re buying it for. Call me crazy. Call me un-American. I prefer celebrating my holidays in the order they appear on the calendar. So here’s my public service announcement: How To Celebrate Thanksgiving Step 1) Eat Turkey (required) Step 2) Watch Parade (optional) Step 3) Watch Football (required in our house) Step 4) Then go shopping on the next day (Strongly discouraged by me. That discouragement is however ignored by the female members of my family.) I want to use this upcoming holiday to express my thankfulness for my wife who’s already a great mom, and my 8-month-old son celebrating his first Thanksgiving. I don’t believe it should take a day on the calendar to slow down and appreciate who and what is around you. But since it’s there, I will acknowledge it before I begin the process of holiday shopping. I also prefer my...

Just a few short months ago, my idea of home improvement consisted of changing light bulbs and occasionally dumping something known as Liquid Plumber down the drain in an effort to unclog the bathroom sink. Ask me to do much else, and I’d become utterly useless. My eyes would gloss over and my mind would start drifting to other more useful things like when the Cubs would next win the World Series. This aversion to actually completing a home improvement project came about for two main reasons: I didn’t care to expound on this type of knowledge. I lived in apartments my entire adult life from my 20s through 33. This all changed with the purchase of our first home last April. Now, all of a sudden I’m mowing lawns again, and physically unclogging sinks with a drain snake (Evidently the liquid stuff corrodes pipes. Who knew?). I’m also learning how to refinish tables and repair gutters. Soon, hopefully, much more. During my teenage years, I made a silly bet with myself, and lost. I bet that this whole home improvement knowledge base would become as useless as algebra (I’ve still yet to find the reason to include letters while doing math.). Growing up, I had a good teacher for this kind of stuff, but a strong lack of interest. My dad’s an extremely handy person, and largely self taught, himself. None of that matters when you couldn’t have cared less about the class. I never saw the end-game for how a lot of that knowledge could be applied, especially living in apartments where there was no work area, and no need to do much more than call the landlord. How can lowering a drain snake to clean the previous homeowner’s gunk from our bathroom sink possibly give me a strange feeling of satisfaction? Because yesterday I could have taken a sponge bath in the bathroom after simply running the faucet and today it drains just as fast as it comes in. Mission accomplished. Results evident. It feels oddly good to be able to fix things around here without needing the landlord or a plumber. Maybe I’ll utilize Google, read a few books or take a class or two to learn a bit more. Anything’s possible. Look out world, and look out family. Here comes a new dad, and a new homeowner, who may soon know just enough to be...

My wife, my infant son, and I were all in the car with my parents a few weeks back, as we made our way home from Midway Airport sometime after 1 a.m. The mood was a little dour after a three-and-a-half hour weather-related diversion to Milwaukee more than doubled the length of our travel day.   Nobody really wanted to speak on that car ride, because nobody really had any nice things to say. At the time, my son Jamie was 10 weeks old. As we made our way out of the airport and toward the Interstate, Jamie let out the biggest giggle, cutting the quiet tension. After that we all had to laugh.   If he could stay loose in a diaper full of his own excrement, while he’s passing all his previous thresholds for hungry and tired, why couldn’t we just loosen up for the rest of the car ride?   Tomorrow he already turns three months old. Those were some of the quickest three months I’ve seen. I’m so new to this parent thing, it’s not even funny. When the nurse handed me that little infant, I held him so awkwardly in my arms, careful not to somehow break him. Babies are a little more durable than I initially thought, and my comfort threshold is slowly but surely on the rise.   I’m nowhere near an expert at this, but here are a few things I’ve already learned from (or about) my son:   Stop taking things so seriously. You have to be able to laugh at the situation once in awhile, even when you don’t want to. Take a deep breath and just enjoy things. It’s amazing how perceptive babies are. If they sense you’re anxious or just in a bad mood, they’ll keep crying, and your ears just weren’t built to handle that. Nothing cures a bad day like a baby smile. They’re so full of passion and so genuine. If that full smile doesn’t melt your heart, you might not be human. There’s a reason God made babies so darned cute. They cry and poop A LOT. Years of listening to rock music at full volume couldn’t prepare me for the shrill wail of a baby’s cry. They don’t just tell you when they’re hungry. They tell every neighbor on your street in hopes that someone, anyone (especially mom) will come to their aid. Also, nothing says love like getting farted on, pooped on, peed on and spit up on (sometimes all nearly at the same time). Whatever you do, don’t stand still. Jamie loves motion. This can come in a stroller, the car seat, or even a plane ride (he was remarkably...

The journalist in me is tempted to begin this blog post starting with all the conflict and torment that came with my wife’s emergency C-section last week. Instead I will give you the disclaimer that wife and baby are happy and healthy, and dad couldn’t be prouder of both. Just as soon as the doctor and my wife Meg settled on a C-section and began investigating the options for surgeons, the experience was expedited. Monitors kicked into overdrive beeping at a hurried pace. A handful of doctors and nurses swirled around Meg, as my son Jamie’s heart rate dipped. “Get down here now!” our soft spoken doctor yelled over the phone to the surgeon. They wheeled Meg into the operating room, leaving our previous room barren, except for the beeps reverberating in my ears. Meg told me things would be OK, as they wheeled her out. While her intentions were good, being consoled by my wife, who is about to undergo surgery, left me helpless and confused. A nurse sat me down on the couch, looked into my eyes, and told me that my son and my wife would be OK. The same thing happened to her child when she gave birth, she said. Jamie’s heart rate decelerated earlier in the day but rebounded. He also had meconium in his amniotic fluid, a combination that could have resulted in the need for a breathing tube, if inhaled. I processed these complications and thought of my parents, who dealt with my brother’s frequent asthma attacks as a child. The nurse pulled together a set of scrubs, and I quickly changed. We made our way to the operating room and Jamie’s heart rate had already rebounded. I sat with Meg holding her hand, as they made the incision and extracted Jamie. The earlier complications stemmed from Jamie having the cord wrapped around his neck. He had also changed positions enough, making it difficult to come out through natural child birth. There were a quiet couple moments as the doctors worked. Meg’s body contorted with the pressure of the extraction. Soon we heard the loud, jolting cry of our startled son, and couldn’t have been happier. I followed the nurses to the other side of the curtain. They left a length of the umbilical cord for me to cut. He measured in at 9 pounds and 7 ounces, and 22 inches long. Our Transition Every time we stress out about the crying or the lack of sleep or the chaos of balancing paperwork, household chores, and diaper changes, there’s a little trick we’ve learned. Just look at that smile. It’s a great thing that God made babies look so cute. It melts...

A post-Valentine’s Day story about falling in love with the wrong things.   Meg and I went out for our Valentine’s Day dinner last night, and we decided to try something a little different. OK, a lot different. When we sat down at the table, she put her phone and her purse down on an unused chair. Then looked at me. In a moment of insanity, I willingly handed her my phone as well. What was I thinking? An entire meal without my trusted lifeline? What about those moments of down time? What about when I knew what I wanted off the menu, but she didn’t quite have it figured out yet? What about when she had to get up and go to the bathroom??? I’d sit in silence. Twiddling my thumbs. Alone with my thoughts, and a bad people-watching habit. Here’s the thing. I didn’t hate it. I know, I expected to. I mean, what if people retweeted something of mine? What if somebody tagged me in a Facebook post? What if I got an important email? All of those things would be there when I was done. For the two hours we sat at that table, there wasn’t an electronic interaction that couldn’t wait. It defied my expectation. As a business owner and journalist, I tend think of myself as more important than I actually am. The lesson learned is that I can step away from my lifeline for a couple hours and survive. I might even enjoy it. I won’t tell you it was easy. But to be honest, I’m a little embarrassed that something as simple as a two hour dinner with my wonderful Valentine (minus phone) is even worthy of a blog post. My computer and my phone are vital instruments for running my business. On their own they’re necessary tools for good. Used to the extreme, they can be highly addictive forces that cause us to miss so many things that are right there in front of us. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what type of dad I want to be. Meg’s due in less than a month now. The first answer to my question that comes to mind is that I want to be the present type of father. I don’t want to go through sporting events or concerts or other activities married to my smart phone. I want to enjoy the family moments as they happen, and not be distracted worrying about what 1,000 loosely affiliated “friends” are doing in that same moment. I definitely think it’s something that a lot of us could improve on. I saw a Facebook post recently where someone suggested placing all phones in...

When you’re less popular than NFL replacement refs, you know there’s issues. Every time I read another story  about the 9 percent approval rating for Congress, I begin to do the math on the number of friends and family that each member must have, and extrapolate that out in terms of the poll. They’re that unpopular because nothing can EVER get done. A couple weeks ago, Meg and I watched the Ken Burns documentary on Congress. The whole time I’m watching, I’m struck by this sage wisdom being shared by the former journalists and pols alike: If you want to accomplish something within this body, compromise is essential. It’s almost like the people talking on camera were from another century. OK, bad example, but their experiences and their ways of doing things are most definitely antiquated. How do I know? Because there’s 535 people in power in D.C. who would rather lose a limb than compromise with the other side. The country and its leadership have grown more hyper-partisan than ever before. Careers have been staked on ensuring opponents do not return. The problem is that nothing good can happen this way. You end up with a Congress passing fewer and fewer bills, becoming an entirely dysfunctional branch of government. It makes me sad thinking of the future. No wonder why cockroaches are more popular in the polls. All of this becomes even more disturbing when you think about the work that needs to be done with the economy, education, and immigration just to name a few issues. Today’s politicians underestimate their constituents by positioning themselves to never vote against their convictions. I’m more inclined to support politicians voting for the greater good over the party line, even if I don’t always agree with them. I’ve got to think that the majority of Americans want to see progress, even if it means not getting their way 100 percent of the time. At some point, tackling the sausage’s taste has to become more important than how it’s made. It’s the only way for our country – and their approval rating – to...