Being Cool Enough To Get Invited To Another Child’s Birthday Party

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

2 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

Until last Saturday, the only birthday parties you had been invited to were for either very close friends or family.

So as weird as this may sound, it was at least somewhat of a milestone as a parent to receive a birthday invitation from one of your classmates from daycare.

“Jack, do you know Joshua from your class?” I asked you.

“Yeah, he likes the trains,” you responded with no hesitation and full confidence.

So we bought 3 die cast Chuggington trains for your friend Joshua.

I didn’t even know who Joshua was, which added to the coolness factor of you being invited to his party.

“Who is this mysterious Joshua kid?” I wondered.

We arrived at The Monkey’s Treehouse, where you instantly made your way to the giant wooden train sets and began inching a train around each corner and up each ramp with careful precision.

A friendly boy with olive complected skin and black curly hair pushed a toy shopping cart by you saying, “Hi Jack.”

“Oh, that must be the Joshua,” I told Mommy. I was right.

It was his 3rd birthday. A cool, older kid wanted you at his fun birthday party at an indoor playground. Epic.

Of course, you were perfectly content hanging out at the train station the entire time, only taking a short break for birthday cake.

Trust me, I tried, but I just couldn’t get a natural shot of you and Joshua in the same picture. That’s okay, though.

Because I have a feeling that part of the reason Joshua invited you to his birthday party was that he liked you and wanted to make sure you guys officially became friends.

Kids’ birthday parties are a good venue for building relationships with not only the kids, but also the parents.

Sure enough, for the first time ever, when I picked you up from daycare today, you explained, “Joshua ate the apple.”

Yes, Joshua has now made it into your after-school conversations with me.

I like your new friend. He’s a cool kid, just like you.

Love,

Daddy

Making New Friends As A Married Couple With A Kid

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

22 months.

I don’t know why, but over the past couple of months, my wife and I seem to have been making new friends, in addition to our old ones.

Are we suddenly cooler than we were before?

Maybe it’s because our son is a little bit more independent now, so we can be a little bit more free spirited and outgoing; therefore attracting new people into our lives with a newfound positive energy.

Some of these new friends are like us- married with a kid. That’s natural and it makes sense that we would want to get to know each other better.

But also added to our list of new cell phone contacts are married couples who don’t have kids; or who are even single.

It’s a very interesting process to become friends with someone new at this point in my life; when it doesn’t involve my kid.

I’m sort of rusty on how this “making friends” thing works; especially since now it involves texting and Facebook messages more than it does phone conversations.

There’s like this unintended game of “I’m not stalking you” that you have to play with the person, at first.

They text you first: You get a point.

You send them a Facebook friend request: They get a point.

Basically, you’re trying not to be the one who creeps the other one out.

After a few rounds, if neither of you has weirded the other out, then it’s official: You’re real friends!

I think the most challenging part of making new friends these days is trying to make plans with them via text messages.

The art of discussion is dumbed down to caveman talk to where you can’t really offer up a hang-out plan then decide against it without sounding like a flake.

It’s not like you have the space in the text message to thoroughly explain the cons you instantly realized about the plan you just suggested.

But I’m up for the challenge. If people want to legitimately be my real life friend, whether they have a kid or not, I will do my darndest not to creep them out or be too vague like a hipster.

I would say, “I’ll just be me and if they don’t like it, then they’re not really my friend.”

However, I’ve learned that “be yourself” is the worst advice you can give some people.

Jack’s New Cousin has Arrived!

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Seven months.

A new character joined the cast of The Dadabase this week…

I’ve been mentioning that my sister, Dana, and her husband, Andrew, have been expecting their first child: due July 2^nd.  Well, July 2^nd came early this year… because at 2:07 AM this Tuesday morning (June 21^st), my sister gave birth to her baby girl.  She weighs 6.1 pounds and is 19.5 inches long.

Jack has always been a big boy and he’s all I know when it comes to babies.  After seeing and holding my sister’s newborn daughter, it is apparent she will always be a petite little girl.  How appropriate- she will have a strong, protective cousin to watch out for her; even if the two cousins never really look anything alike.

On my side of the family, the only cousins Jack will have are through my sister and her husband, since I don’t have another sibling.  (Of course, this is not the case with my wife’s side of the family, since she is number 9 of 10 kids!) So this is Jack’s first cousin through the Shell side of the family and this means I am officially an uncle, through blood.

For the past seven months, my brother-in-law Andrew has filled the typical uncle role.  He knows how to make Jack laugh better than anyone else. He’s the fun uncle.  Now, I get to be a fun(ny) uncle to his daughter.

Have you noticed yet that I haven’t given the name of Jack’s new cousin?  If not, that means I’m doing a good job of my goal.  Whereas I plaster Jack’s name all over every post I write and have no reservations in making it public, I respect my sister and her husband’s decision to keep their daughter’s name semi-private; meaning I don’t include it on The Dadabase.

It makes me wonder, though, in the likeness of the name “Emma” gaining popularity because of the sitcom Friends, if the name would at all increase in popularity if it was featured in a Parents.com blog.  Because right now the name is virtually unused- the last time it even made an appearance on any kind of popularity chart was the 1880’s.

“Emma” was the 13^th most popular girl’s name in 2001.  Then the following year Rachel named her daughter Emma on Friends.  Unsurprisingly, Emma was the 4^th most popular girl’s name of 2002.  And every year since then, it has either been the 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd most popular girl’s name.

Well I know I can pull this off.  I can feature Jack’s new cousin in my stories without ever saying her name or even using her initials.  It wasn’t until I had seen the movie Fight Club about a dozen times before I realized that you never actually know the narrator and main character’s name.

So this won’t be the first time a story is told without revealing a main character’s name.  What actually matters are the stories.  And for a guy who never suffers from writer’s block, I know I can provide the stories.

Unnecessary Bonus:

To cut down on reader confusion in regards to the resemblance that my brother-in-law Andrew (featured two pictures above this one) and I share,  I shaved my head this week. People are constantly mistaking us for each other.  So I hope the buzz cut helps.

That’s not really why I did it.  I mainly just liked the idea of saving 15 bucks instead of paying for a real haircut.  Plus, I probably subconsciously wanted to be as cool as Bachelorette contestant J.P. Rosenbaum.