L is becoming quite the animal lover. She adores our cat, Coomer. She smiles every time she sees a dog. And when the girl sees birds—forget about it—she yips like a hyena and bounces up and down with excitement.
Perhaps this is why L was happier than I’ve ever seen her Wednesday night when a bunch [...]

We’re closing in on a big moment here in the Villano family: The day when we get to turn around L’s car seats so they face forward.
Here in California, the law states that babies must face backward until they weigh more than 22 pounds AND are at least a year old. Since L now tips [...]

Today I agreed to become a blogger for The Good Men Project, a four-pronged effort to build and sustain a national discussion about being good fathers, sons, husbands and workers.
We’re still ironing out specifics, but it’s a good bet I’ll be blogging about a lot of the same subjects I have covered (and will continue [...]

It was an eventful weekend for little L here in the northern part of Sonoma County. She saw her first vulture (it scared the heck out of her). She said, “duck” while looking at a painting of a duck. And she went on her first official hike in the woods.
OK the woods weren’t the 100-mile [...]

I can’t listen to Martin Sexton’s new song, “Shane,” (off the new album, “Sugarcoating”) without tearing up.
According to a January article in Billboard magazine, the song is about Sexton’s (now) two-year-old son, Shane. In it, the singer/songwriter tells his boy everything the youngster needs to know about the big, bad world into which he has [...]

Today I finally got around to reading Caleb Gardner’s post on Edelman Digital about the rise of daddy bloggers. It’s good stuff, and if you’re a stay-at-home or work-at-home dad (or if you’re in PR), I highly recommend you check it out.
In a nutshell, Gardner predicts dads are about to become a major force in [...]

I’m not ashamed to admit that I still purchase compact discs when I buy new music. I’m also not embarrassed to reveal that I’ve got my favorite 300 organized alphabetically by artist on a metal shelf here in my office. The group includes Martin Sexton, Lucinda Williams, Josh Ritter and Emmylou Harris. There’s some Richard [...]

One of the downsides to L’s newfound mobility is that I spend hours upon hours quite literally chasing her around the house on all fours. One of the upsides: When exhaustion catches up to her and she face-plants in a fit of narcolepsy, I get to nap right there alongside her.
Today was no exception. The [...]

As my daughter’s personal chef, I privately vowed around her six-month birthday to feed her only organic foods until she was old enough to drink whole milk (in other words, her first birthday).
Apparently, she had other plans.
She made her intentions clear last weekend. We were out and about with some of my friends, lunching and [...]

Despite the fact that parents and kids spend more time together nowadays than ever before, quality time is on the decline, according to an article in USA Today this week.
The article, titled “Working at home: Family friendly?” ran in Thursday’s paper.
The story culled research from a number of studies, citing two reports in particular that [...]