I am happy to share with you my redesign. I still have some work to do on it, some tweaking, but Gem finally told me to stop worrying about making it perfect and get it up here. Thanks to the folks at Ciao! My Bella! for creating the incredibly gorgeous banner of our Okapis.

As I love to say you can not only find me here today, you can also find me at DadBloggers talking about what it was like when I found out Gem was pregnant and when I found out we were having twins - the first time I ever saw an ultrasound of our Okapis.

I cried when I found out. Actually, that’s not quite true. I was hysterical. Eleven months of being unemployed. Eleven months of looking for work and even starting a business and feeling like I had failed at everything. Eleven months of dealing with the financial, emotional and mental stress associated with all of this. So when my wife told me the test was positive, I felt my world crashing down upon me. Was there any other way to make life harder than it already was except by having a baby when you’re unemployed?

Thankfully, I was able to recover. The post is called, I Wanted to Show it to the World after the feeling I had walking out the door from seeing their ultrasound. As always check it out and let me know what you think.

Also, don’t forget to read my first foray into the world of the Perfect Post Award and to read Jared’s post and check out his site.

I am honored and excited to be participating in the Perfect Post award for the first time. I would like to thank Suburban Turmoil and MommaK for creating this process for recognizing some of the best posts by parents.

One of the main reasons I wanted to participate is because I felt like the Perfect Post award has been a great way for mothers to receive recognition for their excellent efforts at articulating the challenges and rewards of being a parent; but I noticed that fathers were almost never involved – either nominating or being nominated. In fact, for quite some time I thought the Perfect Post was exclusively for mothers until Suburban Turmoil corrected me. So while it is possible I may nominate a particularly powerful mother blogger, I will be focusing my attention on the incredible father bloggers out there, showing both other fathers - and mothers - the breadth of strengths fathers bring to the challenges parents face and the benefits we experience.

My first Perfect Post award goes to Jared over at Total Depravity | Fatherhood for his piece entitled, The Penultimate Sacrifice. He is a wonderfully devoted father, but also a very good writer – even writing poetry once a week. When I started Two Okapis a few months ago, he was one of the first fathers to give me encouragement and support – that was when I realized there was this great community of fathers out there, other men like me, who cared tremendously about their children and about being a good father, but were still proud to be men. That is often hard to find outside the virtual world.

Jared wrote a great post about a little boy standing in line at the amusement park. They were all waiting for a ride and the line was long. All of a sudden the little boy turned to his father and said he had to go to the bathroom. Jared described what happened and how the father dealt with it. But what I liked most was the way Jared described his own reaction. Maybe because I have felt that way myself many times. Maybe because I believe it is a brief look into the isolation that seems to exist for, and between, fathers in the physical world. This isolation is a weight many fathers bear because being a good, loving, involved father goes against so many societal stereotypes of being a real man. It is an isolation many fathers feel because they are traveling a road so different from the one their fathers took and they have no role models to follow. It is the same isolation that brought me to the blogging world in the first place.

Thank you, Jared, for writing such a nice piece. I hope you will read his post, but I also hope you will check out his site and spend some time exploring. It will be time well-spent.

It’s as simple as this. She says “My” and I say, “Our.” Is that really enough to have a fight over? Probably not. But it feels bigger to me than just a choice of words, though she completely denies there is any meaning behind it and I believe her. She means no harm whatsoever. Yet harm is being done.

Yesterday we were at a neighbor’s house so our kids could play together and the two mothers were talking while I was just sitting on the couch feeling like an idiot; too old to play with the kids, too male, apparently, to talk with the mothers.

During the entire conversation, while I was sitting right next to her, my wife talked about “my house,” “my kitchen,” “my living room,” “my bedroom,” etc. We’ve discussed this many times before – most of the time me teasing her about it. I actually didn’t get married (it was her wedding) or even had children (for a long time they were hers, too). After some time I realized it bothered me, it felt exclusionary, as if I wasn’t a part of our family, our life together. I know she does it when I am not around and there is nothing I can or want to do about that, but sitting there, already feeling on the outside, just made things worse for me.

For those loyal readers of Two Okapis, you know I very often say “my okapis.” Honestly, it is something I have intentionally tried to do because this place is about me, for me. In my daily life, I almost always say, “our” even when she is not around. Is this a case of what’s hers is hers and what’s mine is ours? Do I have nothing? Is this why it bothers me so much?

Last night she said that pretty much everybody talks like this, which I agree is true. I just don’t think that is good enough. A lot of people are unhappy in their relationships or not satisfied in their relationships and are okay with that. But I am not. I believe we can be better than that, be closer than that, model something much better for our own children.

I don’t disagree that I am being too sensitive, but I also feel like there is something bigger here. I know she means no harm, but I feel like it is a sign of potential harm if that makes sense. It is a view into a perspective that could be troublesome for us. But maybe I’m just blowing this out of proportion.

What do you think? Do you say “my?” Does your partner? Do you think it is a sign of problem or a meaningless use of language? I want to know what you have to say.

Jordyn sometimes really seems like she can read. Her memory is so good and her ability to use context to “read” words from a book or menu are quite impressive. Last night at Friendly’s (have you noticed many of my special moments with my Okapis are at restaurants?), I had this interaction with her.

J (“reading” the children’s menu): Ffffr-iend-ly’s (as if she was sounding it out)

Gem and I looked at each other because she even ran her hand under the word as she sounded it out.

Me: You still can’t read, right, Jordyn? (This is an ongoing joke I have with her)
J: No, Daddy, I can read. I went to school today.

And she looked at me with a face full of pride.

Me: You did go to school today! You’re right!

I wrapped my arm around her and gave her a big squeeze.

Gem just called and told me what happened. It went something like this…

She told me that two of the teachers were young and adorable. That was something we were really hoping for because Elijah (where does he get this from???) loves pretty girls/women. We knew if his teachers were pretty he would feel more comfortable.

Apparently, when they walked in they were both pretty nervous (which seemed absolutely appropriate to me - heck, I was nervous and I was many miles away). But seeing pretty teachers helped and then they said they wanted to play with Play-Do and they have that kind of stuff at camp, thankfully.

After a little bit, Gem realized she should leave and kissed them both good-bye.

“I’m going to miss you, Mommy,” Elijah said, but didn’t cry or get too upset.

She walked out the door, into the parking lot, sat in the car and gave me a call. It is a better start than we could ever have imagined.

We both cried anyway.

Last night at dinner at our local pizzeria, Jordyn was sitting across the table diagonally to the right of me. All during dinner we were talking and having fun (they both ate pretty well which was nice). After she finished she asked if she could get down. Then she walked all the way around the table…right to me and started to climb into my lap. We sat together for awhile and then she looked at me and said,

“You shaved! Yeah Daddy! Daddy wins!” Nobody cares or notices more whether I shave or not than my little girl. And I love it!

…

I didn’t get to see the Okapis this morning because they were still asleep when I left. My train is delayed and by the time I post this they should already be in school.

I hope they’re okay.

All three of them.