Etsy...

In addition to her many talents, one of my wife's hobbies is to make bead work jewelry. She has made several bracelets, necklaces and earring sets for both family and friends, as well as for gifts etc... She has even made, at my urging and as a challenge, a "man's" bead work necklace for me that I have never taken off since she gave it to me.

Below is a link for her Etsy shop...I would encourage you to check it out.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/babydragonflies?ref=ss_profile

Tie Dye Shirts

Not long ago, I came home from work for lunch and as I walked in the door, things were as I would have expected, Tiffany, my wife, was tending to our 2 year old daughter Gabby and our infant daughter Evie.  However, it did not take long and my attention was drawn to a large green bucket sitting in the kitchen sink.  My curiosity peaked, I looked inside the bucket and saw it was filled with  dark colored liquid with what looked like towels or some kind of cloth bundled up, soaking conspicuously in the bucket.  Pointing at the bucket, I asked Tiffany what was happening in our kitchen sink?  She, without any hesitation or any type of indication that what was occurring was strange, matter of factly stated she was tie dyeing T-shirts for the kids.   

As it turns out, every year my kids school has "theme days" where they have to wear certain themed clothing on different days.  One day they have to wear camouflage.  Another day they might have to wear mismatched socks.  Apparently, there is also a tie dye shirt day, and that day was tomorrow.  

So, I immediately started thinking about what I would do in a similar circumstance.  I think a visit to Walmart would have sufficed to obtain the necessary tie dye attire for my kids.  However, not my wife.  It was easier in her mind to break out the Rit Dye and grab some older white T-shirts in the kid's drawers as opposed to gathering up our two year old and infant daughters and heading to Walmart to buy some tie dye apparel.   Maybe it is just me, but that is one loving, dedicated, amazing mommy.  

My Wife, the Poet...Computer Woes.

For the longest time I have been of the opinion that since computer technology changes so fast, we should buy the cheapest possible computer and when it stops working, just throw it out and buy a new inexpensive computer again. This way, we always have the most recent and up to date technology. Well, we currently have a Toshiba Satellite laptop computer that we bought a few years ago on Black Friday. At first, it worked really well, it was fast, loaded with new features, and a dream to use...however, that changed after about six months. For the last 12 to 18 months this computer, essentially my wife's computer as I have my work laptop and my iPad, has slowed down, takes forever to open programs, freezes up, the cursor disappears, and is consistently running updates. Most mornings, while my wife and I are sitting downstairs prior to her getting the kids up for school, and while I am happily checking email and surfing the web on my iPad, my wife is accross the room waiting, sighing and making snide comments as she waits for our computer to respond. I have defragmented the hard disk, run anti-virus software, adware, spyware and any other type of "ware" available to clean the computer up and get it to run faster...we have updated the hard drive (thank you Gabby, my daughter...that is a story for another day), added more memory, deleted all unnecessary programs, cleaned out the start up menu, but NOTHING has worked. So fast forward to the other morning, when I receive an email while at work entitled "Computer Woes". I was really impressed with what she wrote (particularly given that she has little time in the morning before she must get the kids up for school) but I keep getting this nagging feeling that she is, in a not so subtle way, trying to tell me something...

Computer Woes

Need a new computer cuz it doesn't work at all,
It doesn't need a battery, it needs a wrecking ball.

When I'm in the midst of typing, the cursor will disappear,
"I'm going to lose all my work", is my constant & daily fear.

I hardly accomplish my work when the clock begins to chime,
I'm so tired of sitting here, wasting all my time.

My husband is so tired of hearing me bi*ch and moan,
As he sits there working fast on his darn smart phone.

I'm so frustrated, expected to perform,
It's sad that such inefficiency has become my daily norm.

After all this, there's only one thing left to say...
Honey, do we have to wait all the way until Christmas day?

Pretty good, isn't it...not bad for probably taking all of five minutes to write it. She is one amazing mommy... Needless to say, two things have happened since I received this. One, I have started to question my computer purchasing strategy. Maybe there is some truth to "you get what you pay for". Maybe there is some middle ground? In March I purchased an iPad 2. It cost me more than any laptop I have ever purchased, actually it was twice as much as any laptop computer I have personally purchased. However, that 0.38 inch thick piece of electronic hardware has been a dream and a joy to use. The user experience has been unbelievable, it is fast, feels good to hold, has amazing functionality, and has become one of those pieces of technology that I did not know that I could not live without. Which brings me to the second thing that has happened since I received my wife's email...we have ordered a brand new MacBook Pro laptop which should be arriving any day...

The Dual Income Household...Not the Model for Financial Security

Over the last two posts I have provided my opinions regarding both the decision to have a stay at home parent to raise your children, as well as the reasons why I think we see such a rise in the two income family household.  In my third and final post about this topic, I would like to provide a few more statistics about the two income household, and in this case the decision to have a two income household as opposed to a single income household with a stay at home parent.  I will also discuss some thoughts on how the return to a prevalence of single income family households can positively impact our economy and improve the solvency and financial security of the family.  

Let's take a look at some of the numbers (some of which originate from Elizabeth Warren's book "The Two Income Trap").

1.  The current unemployment rate is published at about 9%, or roughly 14 million Americans are out of or searching for work (this does not include those who have "given up" searching for work).

2.  Per my prior post, there are 5 million two income households with children under 5.

3.  There are, on average, 4 million births per year in the U.S.

4.  In 1970, a family of four with a single income dedicated approximately 1.5 % of their disposable income toward short term revolving debt such as credit cards.  Alternatively, today, the average two income household with two children has approximately 15% of the household income attributable to short term revolving debt.  

5.  In 1970, a family of four with a single income earned approximately $32,000 per year on an inflation adjusted basis, the two income household of four earns an average of $75,000 per year today.  

6.  In the 1970's, the personal savings rate was about 10% to 12%.  What this means is that families, on average, we're saving 10% to 12% of their disposable incomes annually.  As late as 2010, following a much deeper recession than experienced in the 1970's, the personal savings rate was at roughly 4.2% which was a huge improvement over the preceding decade, where the personal savings rate was less than one percent and more frequently than not, was at zero or even negative.  

7.  In 1970, approximately 50% of a households income was spent on "the big five"...housing, healthcare, automobiles, taxes and child care.  Today, these same five categories are approximately 75% of a household's income.

8.  A single income family in the 1970's had more disposable income, on an inflation adjusted basis, than a two income family today.

Numerous references indicate, and the data above show that two income households spend more, consume more, borrow more and save less than their single income household counterparts.  One thing to keep in mind is that the increase in spending seen with two income households is not a function of the purchase of food, clothing or other basic necessities.  In fact, on an inflation adjusted basis, food and clothing have actually remained relatively flat or in some cases have even decreased since the 1970's (thank you Super Walmart).  The biggest hitters regarding the increased spending for two income households (other than housing, which I will address later, and healthcare, which has increased for everyone) are child care, taxes and transportation.  

Let's first look at taxes.  There is an interesting dynamic within a two income household as it relates to taxes.  The dynamic is that first dollar of the second income is taxed after the last dollar of the first income.  See, every dollar that we earn is not taxed at the same rate.  The first dollar is generally taxed at a lower rate than the last dollar.  So, the second income in a two income household is taxed after the last dollar of the first, meaning that, the second income begins being taxed at the tax rate of the last dollar of the first income, effectively "missing out", if you will, on the lower tax brackets for the first portion of the second earners income.  The net effect of this, to return to my 1970's comparison to today, is that a two income household today pays about 25% higher taxes than a single earner household in the 1970's.  And, just in case you are curious, the tax rates in the 1970's we're much higher than today.  The bottom tax bracket in the 1970's was 14% versus 10% today, and the top tax bracket was 70%, versus 35% today. 

Now let's look at child care...this is an easy one.  With a stay at home parent, the need to shell out thousands annually for child care just goes away.  In 2007, on average a family would spend about $7,000 per year for one child to be in day care.  

Transportation is an interesting one, particularly for my wife and I given that we just, within the last year, bought a second car.  Part of the reason for a second car was that our other vehicle was too small to handle our growing family.  However, the other reason was the realization that as our children are getting older, we need to "divide and conquer" and frequently need to have different children in different places at the same time.  The reason I mention this is merely to point out that I am not necessarily saying that a family with a stay at home parent can get by with only one car.  I recognize and see the value of needing two cars, if one can afford it.  However, the statistics about transportation are interesting, and speak very strongly to priorities and choices we, as consumers (and parents), make.  Today, on an inflation adjusted basis, two income families spend 50% more annually on automobile expenses than in the 1970's.  Some of this increase can be attributed to insurance and maintenance on two cars as opposed to one, but I would submit a larger portion is attributable to fuel consumption and vehicle choice.  With both parents working, the "mandatory" fuel expense is arguably double that of a single income family.  Additionally, with the decision and tendency to purchase bigger, fancier cars with "all the options", people are choosing to buy more expensive vehicles that translate to higher monthly payment obligations, despite the fact that, on average, the average cost of cars on an inflation adjusted basis has decreased from 1970 to today. Additionally, the move to larger homes (I will touch on this in the next paragraph) is effectively pushing people into suburbs of cities and has increased the average daily miles traveled, further exacerbating automobile expenses.

As far as housing is concerned, prior to the real estate bubble we experienced in the most recent recession, housing costs had grown exponentially since the 1970's on an inflation adjusted basis...in many cases well over 100%.  Today, with housing prices having fallen substantially (put aside the fact that real estate prices are highly localized), on an inflation adjusted basis, housing is actually comparably priced to that of the late 1970's.  However, prior to the recession, and despite the materially higher housing prices, what the price inflation does not take into account is the increase in square footage and amenities of the average house over the last 40 years.  In 1970, the average size of a home was 1,400 square feet, compared to roughly 2,700 square feet in 2009.  Thus, when comparing costs of housing on a per square foot basis, the cost of housing has actually remained quite flat.  The main difference is that we are buying bigger homes, regardless of the need for the space, which are more expensive to insure, heat, cool, maintain etc...  

So, where am I going with all of the above?  What am I getting at?  That can be boiled down to the following three conclusions...

1.  The dual income household with children is an unsuccessful model to achieving financial security.   Dual income households with children (and again, my focus here is specifically households with children under the age of 5), despite making significantly more money than single family households compared to a generation ago, spend more, consume more, borrow more and save far less (on average) than their single income household brethren.  These same households also have a far higher likelihood of filing for bankruptcy than their single income household counterparts.  The primary drivers for the increase in spending, and subsequently the reduction of financial stability, are a combination of the paradigm of consumption, which I addressed in an earlier blog post, as well as a function of increases in taxes, transportation and child care, all of which are a direct result of the decision to have a dual income household.  Additionally, I would also submit that the two income household is less able to respond to the loss of the primary earner's income, since a single income family essentially keeps half it's earning potential "in reserve" for a "rainy day".  A dual income family does not tend to have this option.

2.  Dual income households with children are contributing negatively to unemployment.  As previously discussed, there are 5 million dual income households with children under 5.  That is 5 million people in the workforce, that were they to be stay at home parents, would free up, theoretically, 5 million jobs immediately, potentially reducing the current unemployment numbers from 14 million to as low as 9 million (this would put the effective unemployment rate at 6%).  However, on an ongoing basis, there are 4 million births per year.  If we assume that 50% of these births are to households with a stay at home parent, with at least one child under the age of 5 already, and 50% are to dual income households with older or no children, there would be an additional 2 million jobs per year that would be immediately available (and 2 million fewer people in the labor force) on a sustained basis, if that later 50% chose to have a stay at home parent.  This would further reduce unemployment, all things being equal, to a sustained rate of 5%. 

3.  A return to the single income family household with children would have a net effect of raising the financial discipline of families with children, increasing, as opposed to decreasing the number of households actually achieving the financial security that dual income households are trying to achieve in vain.  

The Decline of Stay At Home Parents...Part 2

Depending on your source of information, one can argue if we are seeing a decline or an increase in families choosing to have a stay at home parent.  Certainly the recession has resulted in, most likely unintentionally, an increase in the number of stay at home parents.  However, regardless of the direction the trends show, there are, in my estimation, at least 3 key reasons why we see so many families choosing to be two income households (at the expense of their kids, in my humble opinion), and to avoid the suspense, it is NOT because two incomes are needed to raise a family.  

First and foremost, the United States has become a society fixated on consumption.  We have become a society of immediate gratification, one that prioritizes wants often times at the expense of needs.  Keeping up with the Jones' has become a way of life.  This paradigm of consumption leads to the predisposition that both the Mom and the Dad must work in order to provide for themselves and their children.  Case in point, let's look at an extreme case of how fixated, we as a society, are on consumption.  Recently, the Heritage Foundation (a think tank focused on conservative public policy)  released  a series of statistics that profile the typical "poor" American household.  In 2010, the poverty line was drawn at $22,314 (pre-tax and not including any governmental "handouts") for a family of four.   Now, putting the definition of poor aside (they use the current definition utilized by the Social Security Administration which unfortunately, is a complete joke and is an insult to the truly poor Americans, but that is another story), here are some statistics about the average poor household in the United States:

1.  The typical "poor" household in America has a car
2.  78% of "poor" households in America have air conditioning
3.  64% of "poor" households in America have cable or satellite TV .. most have two TVs, along with a DVD player and  VCR
4.  Most "poor" households in America with children have a gaming system such as an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii
5.  38% of "poor" households in America have a personal computer
6.  Most "poor" households in America have a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. They also have other household appliances such as a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
7.  The typical "poor" American has more living space than the average European.
8.  The typical "poor" American family is able to obtain medical care when needed.
9.  The average "poor" household in America claims to have sufficient funds to meet their most basic needs.

Is this the image you have in your mind when thinking about the American poor household?  It is certainly not the image I had, hence why I think it does a disservice to the real poor Americans.  That aside,  according to these statistics, the things that the "poorest" Americans are struggling to pay for are pure luxuries, the game systems, the cable bill, satellite t.v., electronics, etc..., not the necessities such as food, shelter and clothing.  My point with all of this is that our desire as Americans to have the "luxuries" in life materially distort our perceptions of what is necessary to live and more importantly, to raise a family.  

Second, somewhere along the way the role of stay at home parent has become viewed as less desirable, a "choice of last resort" or even subordinate to, and less rewarding than, a career outside the home.  There seems to be a belief that a stay at home parent is not contributing to society to the same degree as a person who works outside the home. I think there are likely several reasons why this has become the case but certainly some of the roots can be traced back to the second wave of the feminist movement during the 1960's to 1980's.  This part of the feminist movement was arguably kicked off by a book written by Betty Friedan called "The Feminine Mystique".  In this book, writing as a housewife and mother, Friedan talks about the "problem with no name", the dissatisfaction of educated, middle class women in a post war era society that denied women the opportunity to develop their own identities and encouraged women to confine their roles to housewife and mother, forsaking all of their other aspirations.  Regardless of the validity of Friedan's research in the book (I am not critiquing her work here and certainly not trying to engage in a discussion about gender and the expectations in society, etc...) it called into question the role of a stay at home parent, inviting the connotation of being a narrowly defined role that was unfulfilling, unrewarding and unsatisfactory.  

Third, and tied strongly to my view that the decision to have a family and subsequently raise your own children are not mutually exclusive, we as a people have lost our sense of personal responsibility when it comes to the choices we make, when it comes to our actions.  We have become a society with little to no personal accountability.  We continually seek to place blame on everything but ourselves for our problems, choices and actions.  This is a very disturbing trend given that we were a nation founded on the ideals of rugged individualism.  We see this trend demonstrated in all facets of life, from people suing fast food chains for making their coffee too hot or for making their food too fattening.  If you end up stealing something, it is a function of socioeconomic forces.  Unplanned pregnancies and young mothers blame poor sex education or lack of access to contraceptives. Murders have been blamed on race, easy access to weapons, violent movies and video games, etc... If your child does not make the soccer team, or does poorly on a test, it is the coaches fault or the teachers fault, not that your child is just no earthly good at soccer or did not study hard enough for the test.  To bring the issue closer to home, to be more relevant to the purpose of this post, a child must go to daycare because you cannot raise a family on one income due to socioeconomic factors, due to not being able to find a better job, due to the high cost of living where you live, etc...   Rather than accepting personal responsibility and accountability for raising your own child, people blame outside forces as the reason for putting their children into daycare.  Rather than choosing to move to a lower cost area, doing without certain luxuries, postponing the decision to have a family, etc... we as a society would rather just place blame as opposed to making the hard choices required to take responsibility for our actions and decisions.  So, why is this the case?  What can it be attributed to?  In my opinion, it is tied to the lack of appreciation for our roots, for the origins of our country and for the origins of our ancestors, our grandparents and great grandparents.  The younger generations currently living in this country, in the wealth of the post WWII era, have had it pretty easy (relatively speaking), we have had a lot "given" to us rather than having to struggle for it ourselves.  Generally, we have not experienced the hardships that our grandparents suffered, and as such when faced with hardship, the tendancy is to blame something or someone else.  

It is with these three factors in mind and the resulting decline in the prevalence of stay at home parents that I will discuss (in my next post) my theory regarding how this decline and the increase in two income households has harmed our country's economy and exacerbated our most recent recession.  

Stay at Home Parents...Grim Statistics & Additional Context on my Views...Part 1

A few posts ago I shared a high level view about our decision to have my wife be a stay at home mommy while our children are young and not in school.  I also indicated that my beliefs regarding the importance of a stay at home parent run pretty deep, and that I would expand on them in a future post.  This will be one of several posts that attempts to provide my point of view and opinions on how the decision of how a stay at home parent is ultimately the best possible outcome, not only for the parents and children, but also how stay at home parents contribute to the economic stability of our nation.

First and foremost, I want to clarify some things about my position on this topic.  I am an advocate for there being a stay at home PARENT.  While in the case of my family it happens to be the mommy, I am in no way against or not advocating for all those stay at home dads out there.  My hat goes off to them, it is the toughest job you will ever love. Dad or mom, the important thing is that the parents of the child are making a decision to have one of them (whom it ends up being is a personal decision) stay at home with their children.  

Second, I do not equate a stay a home parent and permanent homemaker as one in the same.  What I mean here is that once the children are in school full time, I think that it then becomes optional regarding whether or not the stay at home parent continues to choose to stay at home during the day.  The one caveat here is that if the parent does choose to return to work, there needs to be an appropriate accommodation made such that one of the parents has the flexibility to be home when the kids leave for school and when they return home from school.  In fact, it probably becomes even more crucial (for a variety of reasons), as the children get older, for there to be a parent home when they return from school.  So, given this, the timeframe to be a "full time" stay at home parent is about 5 years (the time between the birth of a child and when that same child goes to school full time).  Thus, a five year commitment (obviously longer if you have successive children) for couples to plan for one or the other to be home with their child. 

 Finally,  as I discussed during my prior post, the decision to have children and the decision of whether or not to have a parent stay home with those children is not, and should never be considered mutually exclusive.  I am pretty black and white about this one.  If there is a decision to start a family, one of the parents stays home with the children...end of story.  If the belief is that you cannot afford to, or are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to allow for one parent to stay home, then you should not start a family at that point in time...period.  A bit harsh, perhaps...but part of the responsibility of having a family is to raise your own children, and make a plan, prior to having children, to allow this to happen.  This does not mean you pay someone to watch / raise your children so you can go to work.  It means that you make the required sacrifices so one parent stays home to care for the children.  Mother nature is even kind enough to give you about 9 months to prepare (or in the case of adoption, couples can often have longer) or from another viewpoint, time to adjust to living on one income prior to that bundle of joy coming home.  

Now, there is likely great debate about the factors that contribute to the lack of stay at home parents in today's society.   But, before I tackle those factors (I will do so in my next post), let's review some of the statistics...

There are, per the most recent 2010 census data:
120 million households in the U.S.
34 million households with children
23 million married couple households with children
18 million married households with both parents working
10 million married households with children under the age of 5
11 million households with children, single parents
5 million married couple households with a stay a home parent

Regarding the children under the age of 5:
20 million children under the age of 5
10 million children in the care of either their mother or father
10 million children in non parental or organized daycare.

Out of all the households in America with children, less than 15% have a stay at home parent.  If we look at just the married households with children, that jumps up to about 22%.  Looking purely at the data, and assuming that all the married households with a stay at home parent have children under 5 (likely a gross over estimation), about 50% of the married households with children under 5 have a stay at home parent.  That translates to roughly 5 million married households with children under 5 where both parents are working.  Framed up another way, 50% of all children under the age of 5, or 10 million children, are in some form of organized daycare or non parental care.  

That is 10 million too many in my view...

A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work

I thought this video was pretty cute...it is also possibly a little "eye opening" because it is a reflection of how modern day electronics (and how one man's ability and vision to create beautiful products, that people want to use, that fundamentally have changed how we utilize, share and consume information...thank you Steve Jobs) have impacted our lives and the lives of our children. It is not a bad thing necessarily, after all, my entire blog is being written and published primarily from my iPad, and I am admittedly, to my wife's chagrin, a technology junkie, but instead it is a reality check for the amazing times we live in, and a window into what life will look like for our children.

A Motorcycle's Impact...

Back in the spring of 1999, I rode out of the Honda/Suzuki dealership in Waterville, ME with one of my largest purchases since graduating college the spring before...a brand new motorcycle, a Suzuki Katana 750.  At the time, it was the only thing that I owned to which I held the title.  It was mine...  My wife and I have a lot of fond memories on that motorcycle, from just going for a leisurely ride around town to "flying" down interstate 95 (I think we might have broken the 130 mph mark a few times..., yes, this was BC - before children).   When we were married in the fall of 2000, several of our wedding pictures were taken on that bike.  We rode it to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, ME.  I even got my mother, the woman that told me once that it would be over her dead body when I got a motorcycle, to ride on it with me during one of her trips to visit Tiffany and I in Maine. (granted it was just in the hotel parking lot).  We enjoyed riding with friends of ours, who also had bikes.  When my wife and I were buying our first house, we rode the motorcycle by the house nearly every evening while we were waiting for the sale to close.  

The motorcycle was a symbol of independence.  Thinking back there was probably an element of maturity to it (believe it or not) regarding a young man (although that does suggest that I may not be a young man any longer...bummer) who was starting to forge his own path in life, make his own choices, control his own destiny...

Now, fast forward 12 years.  Between getting married, full time employment, starting a family (a child born in each of the following years, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011), enrolling in an MBA program in 2000 and finishing in 2005 (the "one class per semester" plan), two corporate driven moves and all the rights of passage and other life events that occurred in between, I found myself looking at my motorcycle this spring (2011) and reflecting on the mileage on the bike and realizing that despite all the memories, we really have not ridden this motorcycle all that much.  There was only  6200 miles on a 16 year old bike (the model year was 1995, it was a dealer holdover when I bought it).  Yet, we were paying to insure and maintain it every year...was it for nostalgic reasons only?  Did I truly believe that I would  ride it more this summer, like I had been telling myself every spring for years, or was I kidding myself?  I think the final straw was taking the bike in to be serviced this year.  About $450 later (damn ethanol fuel...) I decided that there is a season for everything, and this was not necessarily the time in our lives where a motorcycle still made sense.  So, I decided to sell it (note that I said that I decided to sell it).  

So, I listed the bike on Craig's List and it was only a few days and interest was being expressed.  After about a week, I received a text message from a "young kid" (18 years old) that was interested in the motorcycle.  He came by, looked at the bike and asked if he could come back with his father a little later.   After thinking to myself, "yea, right..." I agreed and to his credit, he came back a few hours later with his father and they bought it on the spot.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself, having sold the bike so quickly, as I came inside the house (with a big wad of cash in hand) to get the title and print the bill of sale.  I returned outside to complete the sale and after the new owners drove off with the bike, I came back into the house and only then realized that my wife was in the kitchen, holding our newest daughter, with tears in her (my wife's) eyes.  

Immediately, I asked what was wrong, thinking that maybe my wife just hurt herself somehow, maybe she banged her funny bone, cut her finger or god forbid got some bad news on the phone.  But, something told me it was none of those.  It turned out she was upset over the sale of the motorcycle.  She was upset that she did not get to take one last ride on the bike (aka...say goodbye).  I did not recognize until that moment that while I saw a motorcycle that despite some good memories, was underutilized, was costing us money and taking up space in the garage, my wife saw it as an "end" to an era, the "death" of a piece of our past, one of the last mementos of a part of our history as a couple.  The sale of that motorcycle represented one of the last symbols of a time in our life that we will never get back.  

Through the last 12 years, our lives have experienced an immense amount of change and as a result, we have (right or wrong, good or bad...) changed along with it.  That bike was from another time in our lives, a persistent symbol that has remained static while the rest of our lives have been in never ending flux.  It had become more than just a motorcycle to her, it was part of us, a piece of our history, a symbol of a time in our lives where we as individuals became an us...arguably a simpler time in our lives where we had our entire future ahead of us.

Despite the occasional reminiscing of those times, I think Tiffany would agree that we would never give up what we have today to go back to that time, but the motorcycle, like a trophy you earned as a kid, or like a college yearbook was a conduit to the past, to a different time where there are fond memories, and now it is gone.  

A Daddy and His Bed Rite...

You see it all the time on TV shows or in the movies, a married couple is fighting and inevitably, the husband ends up sleeping on the couch.  However, this is not the case in my house.  It does not matter how angry my wife and I might be at each other, it does not matter how at odds we are, nothing, and I mean NOTHING will keep me out of my bed at night.  There are probably two fundamental reasons why I am a stickler about this...

1.  I value a good nights sleep...I get about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night, on average, which is probably less than I need if I were to listen to all the "experts" out there.  So, when it is time to sleep, I want to have the best conditions possible, and that begins with my bed.  

2.  In my opinion, the bedroom needs to be neutral ground...the demilitarized zone.  It should never become a place that is associated with anger or resentment.  It is the place where the promise of "...for richer or poorer, in sickeness and in health, till death do us part" is always meaningful and sacred.  I have always felt that if the bedroom becomes anything but that, if two people who are married cannot maintain that, major trouble is on the horizon.

So, my rule is that I will not give up my bed for anything...however, that was until the other night.  

My 3 month old daughter still sleeps in our master bedroom in a  co-sleeper next to my wife's side of the bed.  Usually, Evie (our daughter) will wake up to eat at 4:00 AM and I will typically get up, feed her a bottle and she will almost always go right back to sleep once she is fed.  The other night she jumped the gun and woke up fussing at 3:00 AM.  She was acting as though she was hungry, so I got up with her (I take the overnight feedings usually) and went ahead and mixed up a bottle.  Upon trying to feed her, she bucked, kicked, screamed, cried...basically she had no interest, no desire to eat, and she was telling me in no uncertain terms that this was the case.  So, figuring that she just needed a diaper change and then be re-swaddled (several of our babies have loved to be swaddled at night) maybe she would just drift back to sleep.  I awoke Tiffany to change  Evie (read my post about diaper changes) and then I swaddled her (my wife and I are swaddle masters thanks to a nurse in Maine who taught us the best technique imaginable) and laid her down to sleep.  For a moment, Evie was quiet...but just for a moment. 

We tried everything to get her to settle down and get her back to sleep, we tried to feed her again (got the same result as the last attempt), hold her, rock her, etc...  Finally, out of desperation, I knelt down along side of the bed (in "prayer" position) and laid Evie down, on her side (since birth, she has always been a "back to sleep" baby), on my side of the bed.  Two things then happened, first, she pulled my hand up to her face, and was lightly  "mouthing" my index finger.  Second, she quieted down almost immediately, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.  It was 4:00 AM.  There I was, kneeling along side the bed, dog tired, my hand held hostage by my daughter, with her sleeping soundly in my spot on the bed.  

At 5:00 AM my alarm went off to wake me up for the start of my work day.  As I got up from my makeshift bed on the floor (a pillow) I looked over and saw our angel Evie sleeping soundly, and I could do nothing but smile.  My daughter did something that my wife could never do, displace me from my bed.  

Lily's Hair...

There are many things I never imagined myself having to do as a father...there always seemed to be those things that mommy would always be in charge of doing.  Over the years however, I have found that one by one, those things have slowly been coming off my list as I have been "required" or strangely enough, challenged myself, to do.  The most recent example that comes to mind is styling my daughter Lily's hair.  Now, I use the word styling very, very loosely here.  What I am really referring to is either putting her hair in a pony tail or into a braid.

Over the years, it has slowly but surely become my responsibility to bathe all of our kids.  While I do love the one on one time with my kids that this has provided me, it was also out of necessity as due to my children all being relatively close in age, there was always a pregnant belly that would make it difficult or nearly impossible for Tiffany to lean over the side of a bath tub to bathe our children.  So, long story short, I bathe the children.  Now, my daughter Lily, who just turned 5 this summer, has very long hair.  I mean really long hair.  Her classmate this year referred to her as the girl with the hair like Rapunzel in the movie Tangled. Except for her bangs, we have never had her hair cut in all 5 years that she has been on this earth.  She has beautiful long hair.  However, following her bath, all that wet, often times snarled hair needs to be combed and either put in a pony tail or braided to prevent her hair looking like a rats nest the next morning.  Combing or brushing I can do...although she might argue that Daddy does not go "easy" like mommy does.  But a pony tail, that took me a long time to master.  Usually I would send Lily downstairs to see my wife to have her do her hair.  But inevitably, for example, when Tiffany was in the hospital following the birth of our daughter Gabby, the job of the pony tail fell to my inexperienced, nervous, trembling hands.  Long story short, after many failed attempts and a few acceptable efforts, I figured out how to put Lily's hair into a pony tail.  I made it through, Lily's hair survived (albeit there were times where I am positive that people thought I was severely intoxicated when I did her hair) and the teachers at her school all very kindly would send Lily home with her hair looking far better than it did when I dropped her off at school.

Most recently however, after watching Tiffany braid Lily's hair the day before (for probably the millionth time cumulatively), I decided, following her bath, to take a stab at braiding her hair.  I am still not sure why I determined it was something I should try at that very moment.  I think I just convinced myself that I needed to see if I could do it.  If there was success (which I highly doubted would happen on the first go around), I could send Lily downstairs to her mommy with pride, following her with my head held high, beating my chest, awaiting the accolades that would no doubt follow.  Conversely, if it was a miserable failure, no one needed to know about it, and I could buy Lily's silence with some extra dessert, or maybe a little extra T.V. time.

However, much to my surprise, my first attempt was borderline flawless.  The braid actually came out pretty darn well.  I was a braiding master, I was able to slay the hair braiding dragon with precision.  And while the accolades were not quite as elaborate as I pictured in my head, I think I did earn a few points from my wife that day...

What do you think?  How did I do?

Fireproof

I wrote a post not long ago talking about a book that my wife and I read called "The Five Love Languages". Tiffany and I recently watched this movie and it echos one of the main tenants of the book...that love is a choice, it is an ability, love is not a feeling.  Regardless of any expectation of personal gain, regardless of how your spouse may respond, you can choose to show love to your spouse in the way that he or she needs to be loved. A must see in my book...

The Decision to Stay Home...

Disclaimer:  The decision to raise children with at least one parent being a stay at home parent is a personal choice.  This post reflects the choice that my wife and I made and the reasons for doing so...

Many years ago, when my wife and I were first married and we were discussing the desire to have children, we both agreed that there would be immeasurable benefits for our future children and the happiness of our household if we could make the sacrifices necessary for one of us to be a stay a home parent.  For me, this was an easy decision.  When I grew up, my mother stayed home to take care of myself and my three other siblings.  That is the way it was.  I knew nothing else and I believed (and still do) that this is the way it is supposed to be (I have a theory on this that I will share in a later blog post).  My wife is also a firm believer in there being a stay at home parent.  When she was a child, her mom stayed at home as well, only returning to work when her children were all in school.  Even then, she arranged her schedule where her children never had to be latch key kids, she was always home to greet her children when they got off the school bus. 

 In our case, we decided that Tiffany would become a stay a home mommy.  There were several reasons that ultimately drove us to choose the more "traditional" roles, with the wife /mommy being the homemaker and stay at home parent while the husband / daddy went out into the workforce.  Truthfully though, it can probably be boiled down to two main reasons...

1.  As I have described in prior posts, my wife absolutely loves children and babies and is a born nurturer.  With every fiber of her being, she believes that all children are a blessing, and it is an honor and a privilege to be the primary caregiver to help them grow, develop, and become independent, self reliant, responsible people.  She believes that her most important job while on this earth, and certainly the most rewarding one, is to raise her children to the best of her abilities.  She was meant to be a stay at home mommy...

2.  We both, but especially Tiffany, have a deep seeded belief that if a couple decides to have children, part of the responsibility of starting a family is to make every accommodation so at least one parent can be the primary care giver.  In our estimation, the decision to have children and the choice to have a parent home to raise them are NOT mutually exclusive.  They must happen together.  

I recognize that "every accommodation" is a pretty broad statement, but my intention is to point out that you exhaust every possibility to make sure that you, the ones deciding to have a child, are the ones that will ultimately raise your children.  "Every accommodation" could mean potentially giving up a certain career path, downsizing to a different size home, living in a different area, driving older cars, foregoing completely or going on less extravagant vacations, cutting out cable or satellite, wearing clothing that you buy on consignment or even purchase at Goodwill, eating out less, making less trips to Starbucks, avoiding the temptation for the latest electronics, gadgets, fads, or trends, etc...  Many of these can be very difficult decisions but bottom line, you make the sacrifices necessary to develop a lifestyle that will allow you to support a family with only one person working outside the home.  If the sacrifices are too great, if you cannot "do without" to make the numbers work or if there are certain things that are of a high enough personal priority that you cannot see your way to giving them up, then it might  mean that the timing is wrong or you are not ready to start a family.  

Nothing baffles my wife and I more than couples who choose to have children, only to subsequently pay a daycare provider to raise their child while they are at work.  Let's look at a quick example... assume that there is a theoretical two income household with two children.  The children are three years old and one year old.  The parents, assuming they work a stereotypical 9 to 5 work day have to leave the house at 8:30 and return home at 5:30, including the time to drop off and pick up their children from day care.  Let's also assume that the children awake at 6:30 AM and go to bed at 7:00 PM.  So, for five days a week, the parents will see their kids for a total of 3 1/2 hours a day, maybe 4 hours if you count the time in the car.  That is roughly a total of 18 to 20 hours between Monday AM and Friday PM...20 hours out of a total of 60 awake hours and this does not include the time taken for eating, preparing meals, bathing, brushing teeth, dressing, etc...  

Those are hours that as a parent, you can never get back.  You cannot reverse the clock.  For Tiffany and I, it was important for at least one of us to be there for as much of that time as is humanly possible.  The first four years of a child's life are very formative years, your child's personality blooms, there are numerous milestones and rights of passage that occur.  We chose to have one of us there to capture those moments, to personally experience  the "firsts" in our children's lives as opposed to potentially hearing about those same events from a third party.

The Jack Sprat Theory

So, we have all heard the saying "Opposites Attract"...I have to be honest, I never really knew if that is a good thing or a bad thing as it relates to human relationships.  There are so many examples of human relationships that have gone wrong that the hope for long lasting relationships originating from opposites attracting seems a bit hopeless.  Surely, compatibility is more a function of similarity that opposites, right? However, after 11 years of marriage, I think I might have started to figure out the key behind the opposites attract theory.  I think the key is that there is strength that is realized when two people can leverage their respective differences, where the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.  My theory is that the differences must be complementary, even if only on the simplest of levels.  

When I think about my "theory" above, I am reminded of the old nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife (everyone knows that one, right...he could eat no fat, she could eat no lean, blah, blah, blah...).  In that light  I think it is appropriate to call my theory the Jack Sprat Theory.   In the spirit of Jack Sprat, below are some ways in which my wife and I are opposites, but those differences actually are quite complementary...and actually serve as good cocktail party fodder or are at least good for a laugh...

1.  Cake v.s. Frosting

What is the goal when given a piece of cake, be it for a birthday,  wedding, anniversary, etc...?  Aside from it being traditional celebratory fare for particular events, I would argue that the main goal is to eat the cake and leave no trace of the sweet delicacy behind.  However, that is not my goal...to put it very simply, I generally do not like frosting on my cake, so my goal would be to eat the underlying cake without polluting any of the bites with frosting.  So, any piece of cake I eat will result in a glob of frosting being left on the plate.  Those two layer cakes pose a challenge with there being frosting in the middle.  I am usually forced to perform a little "cake surgery" to make sure the frosting component does not interfere with my cake eating experience.  I just do not care for frosting.  I find most frosting formulations far too sweet for my taste and I would prefer to just eat the cake.  My wife on the other hand, could care less about the cake part and will immediately go after the frosting, leaving nothing but the cake behind.  She has become very proficient at carefully removing the outer layers of frosting off a cake, leaving the inside cake portion almost completely undisturbed.  She also is very adept at securing the corner piece of cake as it has the most surface area covered with frosting. 

But, it is all good, for the combination of my dislike of frosting, and her dislike of the underlying cake creates a beautiful dance between the two of us where ultimately, the entire piece of cake is eaten.  Only together (or alternatively if one of our six kids is around to mooch our cake) can we hit the goal of eating the entire piece of cake...as weird as it sounds, I actually love this about my wife and I.

2.  What's for dinner...broccoli 

Few vegetables have the reputation that broccoli has.  You either love it or hate it, and I am not convinced there is any middle ground on this one.  Tiffany and I happen to both like broccoli.  I would categorize my wife as the more typical broccoli consumer, she would much rather eat the florets as opposed to the stems.  When she buys frozen broccoli in the store, were it not for yours truly, she would go for the bag of florets.   However, at my request, she buys the "regular" bags which are usually full of the stems and stalks, with a few florets mixed in.  If fresh broccoli is on the menu, I suggest that we do not waste our time picking the bunch with the smallest stems.  Why you might ask?  Is it to save money (the bags heavy to the stems are cheaper generally)?  The answer would be...No.  Actually, the real reason is that my preference is to eat the stems, not the florets.  I know, it sounds a bit strange, but hear me out on the advantages of the stems over the florets.  First and foremost, it is pretty hard to overcook the stems...they generally always remain a bit on the crunchy side and there is nothing worse than soft, soggy, limp broccoli florets (in fact, over cooked broccoli may very well be the reason that so many people do not like it).  Second, they have a slightly milder flavor and less "grainy" texture than the florets.  Third, and possibly of the utmost importance, the stems do not leave bits of green in your teeth the way the florets tend to do.  

All these advantages aside, and much like the cake and frosting scenario (except my children would not be mooching our broccoli), this is yet another example of a "collaboration" between my wife and I where our respective differences complement each other, albeit in a very strange, odd and possibly disturbing way.  

In all seriousness, my wife and I actually complement each other in much more meaningful ways (they are just not as much fun to write about).  Whether it is the qualitative versus the quantitative tendencies my wife and I have respectfully, or the differences in parenting style (Dad tends to be a bit more playful, and a bit more strict with discipline whereas Mommy is much more nurturing and even-tempered with discipline), the point is that these differences complement each other and produce an outcome that neither of us could produce alone and likely have a better outcome than we could individually accomplish.

Love Languages

My wife and I recently finished a book (for the second time) called "The Five Love Languages" (www.5lovelanguages.com). The premise of the book is that each of us communicate love in different ways (the author, Gary Chapman, has broken this down into 5 main love languages) and the key to a fulfilling, happy marriage is to make sure you are speaking your spouses love language.  Each of us has a "love tank", and when our spouse is showing us love by speaking our primary love language, then our tank fills up.  If love is not being communicated in the right language, our tanks remain empty, and as a result, we become unhappy, withdrawn, or worse.  Unfortunately, we usually tend to speak the love language that fills our own tank, the one that would be most meaningful to us, regardless of whether or not it is the language that fills our spouse's tank.  This is why a man, who thinks he is showing his wife that he loves her by mowing the lawn, painting the hallway, unloading the dishwasher, washing the car, etc... (the love language Acts of Service) is surprised when she tells him she does not feel loved (her love tank is on empty), that he never spends any time with her (Quality Time) or he never brings her flowers unannounced (Receiving Gifts).  The man was not speaking her primary love language.  
The five love languages that the author describes are as follows:
1.  Acts of Service - such as making dinner, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, paying the bills, etc...
2.  Words of Affirmation - saying thank you, saying how appreciative you are for things your spouse has done or is doing, compliment their appearance, provide encouragement, praise, etc...
3.  Receiving Gifts - gifts for no reason such as flowers, a love note, a small trinket, the gift of time, etc...there is no need for it to be expensive.
4.  Quality Time - spending one on one time together, focussed attention on each other, even if for only 10 minutes, talking a walk, going to the movies, going out to dinner, etc...
5.  Physical Touch - holding hands, a touch on the small of the back, a kiss, a massage, a foot rub and yes, cause I know what I thought of the first time I read the book, other "extra curricular" bedroom activities.

Perhaps the most interesting, and maybe the most surprising premise of the book is the assertion that love is not a feeling, it is actually a choice, an ability that is demonstrated by choosing to love our spouse in a way that fills up their "love tank" by speaking their love language.  It is a choice that we make every day, a choice that allows for personal growth and for us to affect the growth of another individual.  Alternatively, being "in-love" is a feeling, a feeling that does not contribute to personal growth or the growth of another individual such as our spouse.  Being in-love gives us the false sense, the illusion if you will, that we have no further to grow,that we have arrived.  

We have all experienced the in-love feeling, think back to when you first met your spouse.  Think about the flutters in your stomach, the undeniable feeling that you have met "the one", that you have met the person you were going to marry, the excitement and nervousness before a date, the anticipation felt prior to seeing him or her.  When in-love, we often times overlook or just cannot see some of differences we might have with our significant other.  Our sight is clouded by the in-love experience.  However, as most of us have probably experienced, the in-love emotion is usually temporary.  It is superficial, it wears off as the trials and tribulations of life unfold, as life's responsibilities take over in the form of children, work, a mortgage, bills, etc...  

However, in successful marriages, in flourishing relationships,  what replaces the in-love experience is better.  It is a deeper emotional connection with another human being that the in-love experience cannot even begin to touch.  This book provides a roadmap to finding that place, and the key is being able to identify what your spouses primary love language is, and then make the commitment to speak it. 

Loss...Part 2

My wife is a very sensitive person by nature who is extremely tuned into her feelings and emotions.  The extent to which this is true has become clearer to me every year that we have been married (going on 11 years).  When we experienced loss, there were so many different emotions that she was experiencing that, at the time, I just did not understand and frankly, was unable to comprehend.  I found it very difficult to appreciate and empathize with what she was going through.  Probably the most difficult emotion that I struggled with was the severity with which my wife applied her coping mechanisms for dealing with loss, the duration that these mechanisms remained in force,  even if we were actively trying to conceive again and despite the fact that neither of us were decided that we were done building our family.  

At the time I felt that her actions were avoidance tactics and while understandable when the pain of loss was fresh, after several months it seemed it was excessive and completely unreasonable.  I thought that she was just avoiding dealing with the pain, avoiding doing the "tough stuff" to get on the road to healing.   Looking now through more "seasoned" eyes, I am amazed and often feel ashamed that I had such a hard time seeing her actions for what they were, that I was so hard on her by condemning her for her actions, that I blamed her for her actions.   I did not realize the depth of the pain that she felt, I did not realize that some cuts are so deep, and so raw, that extreme measures are needed to slowly heal the wound.  I did not see that her actions were not avoidance, she was not putting off dealing with the pain or repressing her feelings.  She was surviving as best she knew how, she was using every tool available to her, even if only temporarily, to numb the pain of loss just long enough to start the tough climb out of the cavern that loss put her into.  

I would never want to go back to that time in our life, the feelings and emotions just cut too deep, but I also have regrets that I would give anything to rectify.  I regret that I did not listen more, and I mean truly listen to the pain she was in, and look for more cues from her for how I could have helped.  I regret that I contributed to her pain rather than helped her through it, despite the fact that I thought I was helping via my actions at the time.  At a time where she needed support, someone to back up the way she felt, I did not fill that roll. However, I take comfort in the fact that, despite the length of the road traveled, we got through it and are stronger people, a stronger couple as a result, and I think Tiffany would agree.

As a final thought on loss,  my wife and I were discussing this the other night and we both agreed that the pain of a loss never really goes away.  You do move on, but you never really fully get over it.  The cuts heal, but they leave scars that serve as little reminders of what might have been.  Following a loss you are a little less naive, perhaps a little more guarded, the experience forever changes you as a person.  You develop a different perspective, take certain things a little less for granted, and truly earn an appreciation for the miracle that life is.

Loss...Part 1

This is a very difficult topic, both for me personally, as well as for many couples out there, and especially my wife.  I would love to be able to say that our journey to build our family was without experiencing the feelings and emotions associated with loss, but unfortunately I would be lying.  I would also be lying if I told you I felt qualified to discuss this particular topic.  Nevertheless, having personally experienced loss with my wife, I have some thoughts and perceptions that I would like to share.  My hope is that somewhere in my ramblings another husband might glean some understanding about what his wife might be going through, or conversely, perhaps a woman might gain some insight into what her husband might be feeling.

This is directed towards my fellow males out there.  A loss very early on in pregnancy, regardless of how many weeks pregnant your wife is, be it four weeks, six weeks or more, you are still loosing a living being that is your baby.  This is not a religious, life starts at conception, argument.  The fact of the matter is that in a woman's heart, mind and soul, she knows that there is a child growing in her belly, and she is already formulating in her mind what life will be like with a baby, the dream that is a child has come true, even just days after finding out that she is pregnant.  In the event of a loss,  that dream has been violently disrupted, just a few moments prior your wife was on cloud nine, now she feels a void, like something is missing, like something has been unfairly or unjustly taken away.  She has lost something that was very real to her, she as lost her baby, and with that comes very deep feelings of grief, confusion and possibly even guilt.  This can be, for some males (me included), very difficult to comprehend, albeit understandably so, particularly with a loss that happens very early on in pregnancy.  While your wife is starting to feel changes in her body, she is making not only a mental connection, but a physical one as well to the new life growing inside her.  We as men are just observers at this point.  We do not experience the same emotional and physical connection that our wive's feel at this stage.  Those feelings of attachment typically come a bit later for us when we can see the changes in our wive's body, when we can see her belly has grown, feel the kicking and squirming, see the baby on the ultrasound.  If for only this reason, the emotions a husband and wife feel, are in my experience, very different during and after a loss.  And both husband and wife should accept that this is okay.  I think the key to helping each other navigate this difficult time is to understand the above reality.  With that understanding comes the compassion that will be necessary to make it through.

In my case, I remember feeling as though my role was to be the strong shoulder to cry on, the one that ensures that life moves on, and as such I did not take the time nor make the effort to share in the emotions my wife was feeling.  I thought that being the "voice of reason", being emotionally void, was the best way to help her. I was wrong. At the time, I did not understand or appreciate what I  wrote above, and as such we experienced not only the pain of the loss of our child, but also the loss of the emotional connection that a husband and wife share.  This was a difficult time, however we learned a lot about eachother, how we respond to difficult situations as well as what each of us needs to grieve. We got through it and I can say that we as a couple are stronger for it.

Ultimate Mom "To Do" List Song

Have to admit, I get an absolute kick out of this every time I see it...and according to my wife (and I generally agree), it is all true

Some Like it Hot...

A few posts ago I wrote about one of my wife's "super human" powers, aka her night vision abilities.  If that alone is not impressive enough to us mere mortals, she has yet another amazing ability which defies all odds.  

But first, allow me to digress.   We have all seen in the movies these people that are able to walk across hot coals.  Have you ever asked yourself how in the world do they do that?  Some claim it is all about mindset and attitude.  While that may partly be true, the ability is actually strongly rooted in physics.   The temperature of hot coals can often reach roughly 1000 degrees F.  While that is certainly much hotter than the melting point of a person's foot, the actual temperature of the coals is only one part of the equation.  Another aspect of what is going on is the relationship between thermal energy and temperature.  Basically, the human foot and the hot coals have two very different heat capacities.  Heat capacity, or thermal capacity, is the amount of heat it takes to change a particular substance's temperature by a given amount.  The human foot, which is mostly made up of water, has a much higher heat capacity than the hot coals.  So, the same amount of thermal energy that is flowing away from the hot coals will lower the temperature of the coals much more than that same amount of heat energy will raise the temperature of a human foot.  Now, if the foot remains in contact with the hot coals, energy will continuously flow to the foot until the coals and the foot are the same temperature, and will subsequently burn the foot.  However, this takes time and the amount of time that it takes is strongly correlated with  heat conductivity.  There are substances that are good heat conductors, such as water or metal (metal is actually a great conductor and has a very high heat capacity too), but there are also poor heat conductors (or insulators) such as air (think about how you can put your hand into a 450 degree oven without getting burned, so long as you do not touch anything metal) or in the case of the hot coals, ash.  So, as the feet are marching across the hot coals, they are actually cooling the coals (remember, coals have a lower heat capacity, so they will cool faster than the feet will heat up) and it takes time for heat to flow from the rest of the fire to the cool spots.  Additionally, the feet are mostly made of water, which is a good conductor of heat.  So the heat will quickly be conducted away from the contact points between the feet and the coals, thus preventing (subject to time, of course) the temperature from reaching the burning point. 

So, you might be asking yourself how is any of this relevant to my wife?  Well, she does not go around walking across hot coals (at least not that I know of...), but she does have an unbelievable capacity to touch and handle things that are really hot.  Now, there are certainly limits to this ability, after all, even Superman had his limitations, but we have been able to determine that my wife's personal heat capacity is greater than that of a typical human (for argument's sake, I will play the role of a typical human, although some might argue that I am anything but typical).  Through extensive trial and error we have discovered multiple things / situations that my wife is able to handle (without a flinch, grimace or any other usual reaction to really hot stuff) for relatively extend periods of time, without the aid of any typical kitchen insulator devices (aka pot holders) or other type of heat protection.  Here is a select, but not exhaustive list of the things we have discovered (in some cases on purpose, in other cases by accident, you be the judge):

1. Chicken nuggets freshly out of a 450 degree F oven
2. Fish sticks freshly out of a 400 degree F oven
3. A ceramic dinner plate that has been in a 350 degree F oven for 15 to 20 minutes
4. Hot candle wax
5. Walking across white beach sand at 2:00 PM on a sunny 95 degree F day in St. Augustine, FL
6. A shower with the cold water turned all the way off (FYI, our water heater is set to 140 degrees F)
7. Squeezing out hot tea bags (Bengal spice is her favorite tea)
8. Hot glue from a hot glue gun

Were I to attempt any of the above for the length of time my wife is able to do so and trust me, I have, I would find myself nursing my singed appendages with ice, cold water, basically anything that would dull the pain, but not Tiffany.  She would not miss a beat.

Disclaimer:  Please do not try this a home, or at least if you do, be mindful that when you smell burning flesh, let go.  

The Most Important Seven Words Ever...

There is never a lack of people out there willing to give parents, new or otherwise, advice on just about anything.  At the risk of being one of those people, I want to pass along a piece of advice that my wife and I were given very early on and it has stuck with us ever since.

When my oldest son was about a week old, my wife and I were at our wits end.  We were new parents, my wife was new to breast feeding, and our son did not seem to want to eat.  He would initially latch on to the breast very well, but would quickly pull off in an absolute flurry of anger and frustration.  The crying would start and would only end when he cried himself to sleep out of pure exhaustion.  The feeding routine was unpleasant, exhausting and  exasperating, and my wife and I were terrified because our baby was not eating, not flourishing.

We were at our one week appointment at our pediatrician's office and we were seeing the nurse practitioner that day.  She was a wonderful woman and was definitely one of the reasons we liked the practice as much as we did.  Upon telling her the challenges we were  having with our son, sharing with her the exasperation, the frustration, the feelings of being at a complete loss, she said something that we have never forgotten.  Her exact words were "A crying baby is a breathing baby".

These seven words became tremendously important to us and completely changed our perspective as parents.  No matter how bad things get, no matter how frustrated you become, no matter how at a loss you feel because everything you try to comfort and console your baby just does not seem to work, that baby being here is a miracle, and the act of crying means that your child is alive and well enough to cry.  It is with those seven words in mind that has made so many situations that would seem unbearable, bearable.  Those seven words have played a vital role for me, and particularly for my wife, on our journey to build our family.  Perhaps we would still have ended up where we are today had we never met with the nurse practitioner that day, but I can tell you that those words have made the journey infinitely easier, far more rewarding and if nothing else, they have made us far better parents for the perspective they gave us.

The Calling

There are some definite rights of passage that parents go through as you grow your family.  Your first diaper change, the first trip outside the home with your new baby, the first words, the first tooth, first steps, and numerous other firsts that just solidify your role as parents.  All of these are very special and are events that you will never forget.  However, there always seems to be certain ones that stick out above all others.  One of the more memorable rights of passage for me was when we went from two children to three.  Until that point, I thought we had the parenting thing down pat.  But, that all changed upon the birth of our third child.  All of a sudden, we were no longer playing man to man defense.  Zone defense became a necessity and completely changed the parental dynamic.  Triage became our life.  My wife and I were outnumbered, and there was no going back.  No longer could we attend to every whim of our 2 year old and 1 year old at the very minute they needed something.  We were forced (for the better, mind you), to evaluate needs versus wants and prioritize our efforts to attend to the greatest need(s) at the time.   

It was going through this right of passage that solidified, at least for me, that my wife had found her calling.  Don't get me wrong, her parenting and mothering abilities shined with our first two boys, but the moment we were out numbered, when things seemed to get infinitely harder, the level of patience, the sense of calm she exuded,  was, and still is one of her unbelievable and enviable talents.  I, being wound a little tighter than most, have realized that it will be a lifetime quest to try and reach even a fraction of the patience she has for our children.  She brings calm to our house, and I love her for it.  

Now, the arrival of our third child also brought about another right of passage, it was the point we went from having two boys to having two boys and a little girl.  This was a magical time for both of us, but I could see a little extra glimmer in my wife's eyes.  Now, she loves our boys like there is no tomorrow, but I think the arrival of the first little girl, for a mother, immediately fills a space in a mother's heart that a son just cannot fill.  All the visions of princess tea parties, cute little dresses, hair bows, earrings, American Girl dolls, pink and purple clothes and mother - daughter days out all of a sudden are no longer a dream, but are real.  My wife is proud of all of our children (as am I), but the day our first little girl was born I saw a sense of pride that I can only equate to the same sense of pride that I felt when we realized our first child would be a son.  

Myth Busters, Rods and Night Vision

In the evenings, after the kids go to bed and we finally have time to ourselves, my wife and I often will fire up Netflix and search together to find a movie to watch via instant streaming (absolutely one of the coolest technological advances ever...).  We went through a phase where we watched the show Myth Busters quite a bit (for those that do not know, the show focuses on either proving or disproving common myths).  There was one episode in particular, that oddly enough is relevant to my wife.  This was the "pirate episode" where Jamie and Adam attempt to navigate a "pirate obstacle course" in the dark,  fist with their eyes adjusted to bright sunlight, second with their eyes "pre-adjusted" to the dark.  The myth they were trying to prove was that pirates wore an eye patch so that they always had one eye that was adequately adjusted to darkness.  This, they argued, would give the pirate an advantage particularly when going from the bright light on the deck of the ship to the darkness of the bowels of the ship.  Here is a portion of the Myth Busters episode



Now, a quick science lesson, there are two forms of receptors in a person's eye, rods and cones.  The rods are principally responsible for scotopic vision (night vision), as they are far more sensitive receptors and will respond to even a single photon of light.  However, while rods respond to much less light than their cones counterparts, they respond much more slowly, thus it takes much longer for them to adjust to the specific light conditions (hence the myth that pirates wore a patch to have the advantage of always having an eye adjusted to low light / dark conditions).

So, how does this relate to my wife? She has an uncanny ability to do almost anything in the dark.  I would argue that there are some things she does even better in the dark (any guys reading this, stay with me here, I know what you are thinking!!).  Our youngest child is just three months old, so she spends the night in her co-sleeper in our master bedroom.  So, as many young babies do, they need to eat in the wee hours of the morning on occasion, or in our case, every morning at 4:30 AM sharp.  My wife, without any sort of luminary assistance can mix up a bottle of formula, pick up the baby (I could probably not even find the baby were it not for the sound of her crying), feed her, burp her, change her, swaddle her, lay her down back to sleep and get herself back into bed all with ease.  I on the other hand, should I not turn on the light in the next room, thus providing a "sliver" of light into our bedroom allowing me to actually see what I am doing (much to my wife's chagrin, this is exactly what I do, although she might argue there is more than a sliver of light) would have spilled the canister of formula, stubbed my toe while searching in the darkness for the baby, attempted to feed the baby's ear (hard to see where her mouth is in the dark), get coated with formula when trying to burp her, stub my toe again while trying to find her swaddling blanket and last but not least, bang my knee trying to get myself back into bed.

Obviously I am exaggerating somewhat...maybe I would only stub my toe once, but I am dead serious regarding my wife's night vision abilities.  The day rods were handed out she got her fair share and then some...as for me, who knows, maybe mine were handed out at night...

For the Love of.....Diapers

As you can imagine, with six kids, we have (and are still) going through an unbelievable number of disposable diapers.  If I had to hazard a guess, the oldest 4 children went through about  26,000 diapers in total, with our two youngest having already gone through about 5,000 thus far, oh, wait a minute, make that 5,001.  By the time we are through with diapers, we will have gone through a whopping 39,000 diapers.  I will be the first to admit, although we still have two of our children in diapers, I am "done" with diaper changes.  I am completely burned out with diapers.  That is not to say that I do not change diapers from time to time, but if there is a way to not change one, I will usually find it.  Now, my wife knows this about me, (and here is the part that will make other fathers jealous), my wife is completely okay with it and actually will immediately step in to change a diaper, even if I have already begun the deed.  Now, I know what some might be thinking...maybe that my wife is overly controlling when it comes to the care of our babies, maybe that I am inept at diaper changes, maybe she is just tired of me constantly trying to get out of changing our babies.  I can tell you, all couldn't be further from the truth.  She will be the first to tell you that I am a qualified caregiver, and I can change diapers like the best of them.  She would also tell you that she holds no anger or resentment when she steps in to change a diaper, there are no feelings of ill will regarding my avoidance tactics.  She just absolutely loves to change diapers.  I dare say she might even go as far as saying it is an honor.  The fact of the matter is that my wife believes with every fiber of her being that next to holding your child, changing his or her diaper, keeping a baby dry and clean, is likely one of the most basic comforts that a mother can offer her child.  This coupled with an unbelievable love for babies and an unwavering belief of how blessed she is (we are) to have the children we do, you just begin to scratch the surface on understanding how diaper changes become a labor of love.

Thoughts on the Journey to 6...

Depending on your beliefs, some could call it fate, some might call it "His will", perhaps some may call it sheer insanity.  In my humble opinion, while some of these reasons may have had a role,  they have not been the driving force behind our journey to having 6 children all 8 and younger.  I will admit however, there are days where my wife and I probably both feel that it must have been insanity!!  I am not sure that it can be pinpointed to one specific thing, but in my opinion it can be explained by the following...
1.  My wife is a woman who truly feels she is the most beautiful person she can be when she is pregnant (and frankly, I am a guy who finds the pregnant shape of a woman extremely attractive).
2.  A unwavering belief on the part of my wife that she was put on this earth  to bring these children into this world for a purpose unknown to her or I, but undoubtedly for a reason that is greater than she or I are able to fathom or dare to speculate.
3.  A realization by my wife that of all her gifts as a woman, and of all her talents, pregnancy and the ability to carry and deliver a child is without a doubt one of the most important accomplishments (next to raising and nurturing our children) that she will undertake in her life.
4.  The desire, the "calling" and potentially in the case of my wife, the need (enter Abraham Maslow)  to nurture another human being into a self reliant, strong, confident, independent person.
As for me, I have been the benefactor of my wife's determination and desire to build our family.  Years ago would I have guessed that I would be the father of 6 children, probably not.  Have there been times along the way where I may have been the voice of uncertainty, the one arguing against bringing another child into our family, I am afraid, yes.  Do I have any regrets ultimately putting my faith in my wife and her desire to build our family... Never, not once...

Reflections on a Large Family...

Without my wife's persistence, fortitude and if I may be a bit bold here, stubbornness (I say that with the utmost love and affection) I may very well have been sitting here with a very different story to tell.  There is no arguing that she is the driving force behind our large family and little does she know it (until now of course) but rarely is there a day that goes by that I don't secretly thank her for it.  Being a father is rewarding, being a father of 6 wonderful, healthy children...it is beyond words.  I would not have experienced these feelings without her unwavering determination though the years to build our family, and the kids would not be who they are today without her patience, desire to teach and calm manner in which she interacts with them.

Now, make no mistake, it has not always been easy along the way and no doubt, as our children grow, there will be additional challenges ahead, but the grace in which she has handled every challenge that has come our way has been impressive to say the least.  

The Birth...of an Idea

At first it was a curiosity, then a simple comment, an off the cuff idea, mentioned in jest with a bit of sarcasm. Then a few days went by. Then a few weeks...the idea never strayed far from my mind, until one morning I decided it was time. That was this morning, and it is the story of this blog...

This is not intended to be about me, hopefully that is clear given the title...it is instead about a woman, someone who is of the utmost importance in my life, someone who also happens to be the mother of 6 small children all under the age of 8, of whom I have been blessed to have fathered with her. I suppose this could be considered a tribute of sorts, perhaps merely a chronicle of a person's life, a biography, but I prefer to think of it as a testament to the amazing abilities of a person who, on a daily basis, continues to prove to me that she is a special breed of individual, someone with a strength that cannot be measured by any earthly means.

This is not about any unbelievable or tragic trials and tribulations, we have been blessed in that regard, it is about the daily grind, the culmination of all the little daily challenges that create a life, and those that are expertly managed by the woman I call my wife.