Great athletes talk about wanting the ball. When time is running out, when there is only one chance left to win the game, they want the ball, they demand the ball. They want their number called so they can make the play to win it for their team. I think we parents experience the same thing at night and I have realized, I want my number called. When my Okapis are asleep, I want to be The One who takes care of them.

When my Okapis are most upset, I want to be The One to help them.

At DadBloggers today is a post called, Do You Want To Be “The One?” about being there for my Okapis when it is the middle of the night and they are upset. Do you like to be The One?

I walked in the house last night and heard the beautiful sounds of my Okapis, “DADEEEEEEEE!” There is nothing like that sound – especially in harmony.

But then I noticed our accordion door - separating the stairs to the basement from the kitchen - was no longer in its track.

“Guess who did that?” my wife asked me, clearly unhappy.

“Jordyn,” I looked at her. “What happened?” and she started to cry, something she had been doing a lot of it was easy to see; the red, puffy eyes, the tear streaks, the mucous. (more…)

I am on Amtrak, heading back to NYC from Philly, after having spent about 25 hours here. I am tired, but I feel like I did good and it is a nice feeling.

My dad seems to be doing fine and won’t know the results of his biopsy until Tuesday. After he picked me up, I talked to him about the issue of being more “forthcoming” with his medical situation. (more…)

I’m going to Philly this afternoon without Gem and the Okapis. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with any of the stuff I have written about this week. Unfortunately, it is because my grandfather and father both had surgery this week.

My grandfather had hip-replacement surgery earlier in the week and then had a too low hemoglobin level in his blood so had a blood transfusion yesterday. He also is not recovering as quickly as they expected and will have to be moved to a Rehabilitation Center, which I am pretty sure my grandparents were not expecting and will be a blow to them.

My father had a biopsy to determine if he has Prostate Cancer. I knew he was having a procedure and even knew he was having a biopsy but didn’t really understand why. I only found out yesterday that it was to determine if he had Prostate Cancer. Maybe I missed something, maybe I was told but didn’t register it. But I also feel like the word Cancer was not used to explain to me what was going on and this is not the first time my father has withheld information to “protect” me. (more…)

Walking to the train this morning, thinking about what to write about, I started focusing on this sense that I take so much of what Gem says to me personally – even negatively – whether she means it that way or not. It’s like we have an adversarial relationship.

Then it hit me. I don’t feel like we’re on the same team.

I have a theory about relationships (okay, I have several, but you know what I mean). (more…)

Things have been better for me lately at work – my day job, I’ve been making some progress on my business, and I am in the midst of a MPM with my Okapis. Heck, I’m even thinking positively about many things if you can believe it. But things have been tough with Gem and it is the one area where my negative thinking is only making things worse.

Last night, I was nebbying our Okapis and starting to cry because I couldn’t imagine not seeing them everyday. I don’t know how I would be able to deal with that, a couple of weekends a month and maybe some phone calls during the week.

What do I mean? (more…)