The last time Powergirl and I few with L, the baby was six months old and still perfectly content with plopping on our laps for hours at a time. Now, however, the kid is one, and she’s just about as squirmy as a seal out of water.
Naturally, then, we grownups are somewhat wary of taking [...]

As if it weren’t a big enough deal that today is L’s one-year birthday, she commemorated the milestone today by accomplishing something even bigger: She walked.
Granted, it was only three steps. And granted, yours truly didn’t actually witness it first-hand (sadly, I was out running when the incident occurred). Nevertheless, look out world—our baby girl [...]

With a major vacation bearing down on us, my whole stay-at-home dad thing has taken a backseat to pressing deadlines as I’ve been ditching the baby with Powergirl (whose school year has ended) to cram hours of work into each and every day.
The upside: the plan is working, and I’m getting stuff done. The [...]

Look out, professional poker community: I introduced L to playing cards this weekend and she loved them.
Since the moment of truth, the girl has been absolutely obsessed, learning the word, “cards,” and playing with them every chance she gets. Yesterday, she spent 20 minutes inspecting every member of a 52-card deck, over and over and [...]

The week of L’s first birthday is upon us, and here at the Villano ranch we’ve been spending inordinate amounts of energy thinking about water.
The good news: Today Powergirl took the baby for her first-ever swim lesson at our gym (she loved it and didn’t want to get out of the pool). The bad news: [...]

I spent most of my Friday night installing a metal gate in the doorway between our kitchen and our living room. This means we’ve taken a giant leap toward making our house “baby-proof.”
For me, a self-admitted neurotic freak, the rest of this process likely will be incredibly fulfilling.
Over the next week or so, I’ll install [...]

Between a crazy workweek and an increasingly demanding baby, my hygiene has suffered this week, to say the least.
I wore my pajamas (mesh shorts and a t-shirt) all day Monday and Thursday. I didn’t brush my teeth at all on Tuesday. And, in perhaps the most disgusting development, I haven’t shaved since May 12, making [...]

NPR did its part to advance thinking about fathers suffering from post-partum depression this week, with an “All Things Considered” story about a recent study on the subject (thanks to my father for the link).
The story, which reported on a study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed 43 [...]

We’re not sure what kind of person L will be when she grows up, but one thing about the girl’s personality has become abundantly clear: The kid has a healthy sense of humor.
This characteristic has been emerging gradually over the last few days; most of the time, it manifests itself in the form of laughing [...]

Amid all of her talking and near-walking, L took a wonderful step back in time today, presenting me with a gift that hearkened back to the era when she was three months old and still fit between my shoulder and my bellybutton.
To wit: She fell asleep on my chest while we sat on the couch.
The [...]