It always amazes me how, for a toddler, just about anything can become a toy. Some of L’s favorites over the last few months have included an old cell phone, a wooden spoon and the tassel on a pillow at the cottage we rented in England (of course yours truly named the tassel, “Furry Tassel,” [...]

All my life, my father has regaled me with stories about moments during my childhood where his role as a father truly hit home.
One of the stories I remember most vividly (which means he remembers it most vividly) involves a hot dog, an upset belly, puke in a new car, and dad catching all of [...]

Turns out L had a new friend join her in the tubby tonight: a turd.
I wasn’t present to witness the incident first-hand (hey, I had to run sometime today), but Powergirl provided all of the gory details.
Happily playing in the tubby, our daughter suddenly got “the face” that we’ve come to know and love. She [...]

After a long night with L (she was up from 2 to 4 a.m. in major tooth pain) and an even longer morning of work, I escaped for an hour today to grab a quiet lunch in town.
The escapade started out swimmingly. No traffic between home and one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants. Grabbed [...]

It’s amazing how much we parents tolerate in the name of love. Poopy diapers and cranky afternoons are the least of it; my personal least favorite is the act of cleaning up the various messes that L leaves throughout the day.
Normally, I share these duties with my wonderful wife. Considering that she left this evening [...]

Leave it to L to find stuff I thought I had lost forever. The object of her eureka moment this afternoon: The only foul ball I’ve ever caught during a live Major League Baseball game (which, oddly enough, happened to be exactly ten years ago today, at the old Yankee Stadium, on July 6, 2000).
Some [...]

Heading into this week, perhaps my biggest shortcoming as a father had been my inability to perform every component of L’s pre-bed sequence by myself. Sure, I had managed each of the tasks adequately, but never all of them in succession, and never in the same night.
That is, until Wednesday.
Tonight, while flying solo with the [...]

As you readers know, my wife and I had a terrible experience on a recent United Airlines flight between San Francisco and Lihue, Kauai. In a nutshell, the plane had no changing tables and we were told, basically, to improvise. Infuriated by this heartless policy, I wrote a letter of complaint to United last week. [...]

Now that she’s a strapping one-year-old, L has decided she’s tired of sitting (or laying) still when Powergirl and I change her diapers.
As such, the process has de-evolved into a sort of baby wrestling match; a game in which she tries to see how many times she can flip from her back to her belly [...]

Following our United Airlines/changing table debacle from earlier this month (still no response to my complaint letter, in case you’re keeping score at home), my angst is growing about the way airlines treat parents with young children.
All week, friends have been emailing me with sob stories about their own experiences on airplanes without changing tables.
Then, [...]