After being sick last week you might imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up and felt a little queezy.  What?  Are you kidding me?  Sick again!?!?!  Or maybe its from lack of sleep.  It may be a part of it...any other night I would have slept just fine.  But no, not last night...because my wife and daughter have caught what I had.  And most dads know, if either your wife or child is up- you’re up.

The more I thought about it, I realized its nerves. I’m overwhelmed...again.  So I decided I’d use my post today on DadBloggers to talk about it.  To share what’s running through the mind of a working dad, who is about to move back home to Chicago, on the verge of starting a new job (in theory), and has a phone interview this morning at 11am.

This feeling has come and gone a lot this last month...ever since my wife got into grad school at UIC.  The past 4 weeks have been a roller coaster ride around confidence, up and down freaking out, and back through a loop of calm.  All the pressure has shifted to me and yeah, sure I’ve put a lot of that on myself, but its pressure none the less.  Right now it centers around my job hunt.  Its up to me to support the family for the next 4 years....so I can’t settle for any job.  I need to make enough money, while at the same time finding a job I like- to keep me from ending up on the roof shouting at people most likely in a drunken stupor.  I also want a good enough job to take care of my wife and daughter...I’ve had visions of us gathering around a fire, in our cardboard box, eating ramen, while I pluck away on my ukelele to try and entertain the family.

That gets compounded with the home hunt, daycare hunt, doctor hunt, and you can see where it might make a guy physically ill.  Don’t get me wrong, this is exciting too.  The chance to move back home, near our family and friends is fantastic.  Today though, it seems like a lot has to happen before we get to all the fantasticness.  Yeah I know everything will work out, we’ll be fine.  I know that...I just go through mornings like today once in a while.  I’m fine...I’ll go have some coffee, and attack the day.

Heck, we’ve found a new place- so we won’t be homeless. 

As many of you know, Madeleine McCann (age 4) was abducted from Praia Da Luz, Portugal on May 3, 2007. As parents, kidnapping is one of our many fears...one of the biggest. I really feel for the McCann family and hope they find their little girl.

As terrible as this situation is, I’m quite amazed about two things. First, I’m impressed with how the McCanns have used the internet to their advantage. In Google alone, there are 1,810,000 search results for Madeleine McCann. All over the web, there are sites, news stories, and blog posts about the missing girl. There’s even a Wikipedia entry and Squidoo lens for little Madeleine. Is there anyone online who hasn’t heard Madeleine is missing?

The McCanns have done a great job leveraging the Internet. If my child was the one who was kidnapped, I would have searched for her and called the police. Even though I consider myself web savvy, I’m not sure if I would have thought of creating a web site for her and launching a viral campaign to generate awareness. Even if the idea occurred to me, I doubt I would have the time to launch a big online effort.

A second thing that has amazed me about Madeleine McCann is the amount of attention and support she has received. For instance, two strangers contacted me last week to post pictures of Madeline on my dad blog. In addition, several high profile people have offered rewards for Madeline’s safe return. If my daughter was missing, I don’t think JK Rowling, David Beckham, or Simon Cowell would be offering us financial support. And I doubt people outside my community would even know about my missing daughter.

Don’t misunderstand me, I think the McCanns deserve all the help they can get and I wouldn’t want to trade places with them right now. I just think that all families deserve the same support and help in finding a missing child. Let’s face it, for every Madeleine that goes missing, there are many, many more people who are missing that we are not aware of. Don’t they deserve a safe return too? Where’s the big support for these people? If your child was missing, wouldn’t you want the whole world behind you too? I know I would.

I hope the McCanns find their little girl and pray that none of us ever have to go through what they are experiencing now. If you would like more information about Madeleine, or have a lead, please visit their site.

As you may have noticed, it looks a little different around the neighborhood.

The last version of DadBloggers was online for just a smidge over 1 year so I felt it was time for an overhaul. As with any redesign, there is always the possibility of bugaboos so be sure to contact me if any part of the site acts a little wonky.

Constructive criticism is most welcome. A great and innovative idea for improvement is even more welcome.

So what do you think?

My family recently attended a dinner party at a friend’s house. Although we had been to this house several times and know the family well, there were two or three other families invited that we did not know at all.  I was looking forward to meeting one of the men coming to the party because I had heard a lot about him and understood that we may have had similar business interests.

So the kids are running around when this family comes in.  The host quickly introduces me to this man I’ve been looking to meet.  I reached out to shake his hand and that’s about the last thing I remember…

From out of nowhere, my 7 year old son - who was standing right next to me - hauled off and punched me directly in the cajones, if you know what I mean.

I saw stars.  All I heard from this man - still holding my hand - was “Wow, that’s quite a way to start off the evening.”

Right then I had to make a split second decision.

My son is NOT like that at all.  He had never done anything like this before; it was completely out of character.  Maybe he was overwhelmed by all the new people around him?  Who knows?  Do I discipline him right there or take him to a remote part of the house?  Do I just leave with my family??

Truthfully - at that moment I wanted to grab him by his neck and drag him to the car.  I could not do that because, well, I could barely move, but also because it’s not in my character to lash out in anger.  It’s just not in me.

I believe I made the right decision and am curious what other dads here would have done.

I came to my senses, excused myself from the conversation, and asked him to follow me down the hallway.  We went into a bathroom and he was terrified.
I could see it in his eyes.  He knew he swung at the wrong Johnson.  We talked.  Well, I talked.  He listened.  He won’t be doing anything like that again.

I didn’t bring up the incident to this man again the rest of the night. I wonder if he formulated opinions about me and my family after seeing my son act like that.  I can see him telling his kids, “stay away from that Elijah kid....he gives new meaning to ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’.”

The whole work thing has been kind of rough recently.  There’s a lot of change, a lot of new responsibilities, and it takes a little adjusting to.  It can be stressful, but if there is such a good thing, it’s good stress.  I’m learning, growing, and I really enjoy it.  Still, I’ve had to work late, and there’s always a sense of guilt.  I spend 20 hours a week just getting to and from work.  So it’s not like I’m even working that much, it’s just that it takes so long to get there.

The routine is monotonous.  Mondays and Wednesdays, get home, hand off keys with DearWife (who goes and works out), throw down some food, put the kids to bed, veg in front of the TV.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are the same, but I work out. 

And up until recently, the weekends have been a drag too.  It hasn’t really been warm enough to get outside.  But this weekend really is a microcosm of why being a father is so great.

On Saturday, the kids crawled into bed and we hung out for a half hour before going downstairs.  DearWife made a great breakfast.  As she went to work out, I did some errands, ending at Toys-R-Us buying a foam Alligator (Snappy), and a T-Rex (which the kids named goo-goo-ga-ga). 

After lunch and naps, we walked across the street to the forest preserve.  We walked through the trees pointing out rabbits and birds and squirrels.  It was sunny and warm.

The kids were in heaven.  They’d run as fast as they could to get ahead of us, and then completely run out of steam.  As we caught up, they would catch their breath and start running again.  We threw rocks and sand into the ponds.  We watched a bullfrog and baby turtles for a long time. 

As we left the turtles, we made a turn, and DearWife stopped us.  “Be very quiet, do you see behind the trees?  Do you see that deer?” We froze and saw a deer no more than 15 feet from us.  We kept walking, and the kids were completely silent, not wanting to break the moment.  As we cleared the little stand of trees, we saw that there were actually two deer.

The kids didn’t say a word until the deer were out of sight.  They were just awed.

On Sunday, I took BigBrother (our 4 year old) to his final soccer ‘game.’ We were playing before it started, and he said “I’d rather keep playing with you Daddy.” We did a bunch of drills where the kids beat the dads and moms.  We played a game, and BigBrother could barely contain himself.  “Daddy, isn’t this so EXCITING?” He’d run up and hug me about every 2 minutes.

We got home and BigBrother and I laid in bed and turned on the ballgame.  When DearWife and LittleBrother got back, we changed the channel to “Planet Earth.” We lazily watched it for about an hour, with the kids just in awe of the sharks and monk fish and all the other amazing animals.  We were having such a great time, we decided to let them skip naps.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

We had to run out to get some milk.  But, DearWife was with us, and DearWife is not physically capable of going to just a single store.  “While we’re out, we should pick up some...” So we ended up at Target.  And by the time we were done, I was in starvation mode. A tad crabby.  So we went to the new noodle place.  Except it was busy.  And then we tried Panera.  Except they were out of what I wanted, so DearWife came back out for my backup order.  As soon as she went back in, BigBrother HAD to go potty.  We went in and ate there.  BigBrother was just slightly rambunctious, but LittleBrother was literally trying to climb over the booth.  Before we got out of there, it was about 45 minutes of whining and crying and dirty looks from the middle-aged manager.

It was a little ugly.  But really, I know that I’m going to remember the soccer game and the walk in the forest preserve a lot better and a lot longer than a crying jag at Panera.  It was a great weekend.