There are lies, regular goddamn lies, and then the things people tell you about having a baby. Whether it’s a relative, a cashier, somebody else’s grandma, a stranger on the street or a fellow parent at the park, it doesn’t matter; they will tell you something about parenting or babies and they will say it with such conviction and authority that when you hear it over and over again you will begin to believe them, regardless of the overwhelming anecdotal evidence available to you in your own everyday life. Before you believe their lies and go down a path you cannot come back from I urge you to consider these commonly held baby myths and watch me destroy them. 1. Sleeping Like a Baby: Whoever thought up this phrase should be shot. Or, forced to sleep next to a baby or two for a couple of months. Babies don’t sleep like babies unless you mean for a couple of hours at a time with a pacifier in their mouth and being gently rocked by a loving grandparent. I would love to sleep like that, although I don’t think my grandparents, were they still alive, had the requisite strength to hoist this big boy in their laps for a split second, let alone a couple of hours. Of course, if you mean do I wake up scared and/or hungry every couple of hours, then yes, I’m sleeping like baby thank you very much. 2. You Will Become a Morning Person: No you will not. You will get up in the morning. In fact you will get up in the middle of the night. Does this make you a middle of the night person? No. You will get up in the morning because your baby or...

I’m not a film critic. I’m not even an overly cruel film reviewer posing as a film critic, but last week I watched Brave with my wife and three-year-old son and it got me thinking. Having just returned to being a full-time stay-at-home dad after the birth of my daughter, now three months old, I was curious to see what this Pixar film, with it’s first female protagonist, was all about. I vaguely remember some criticism of the girl being a princess and having to possess predominantly male attributes in order to succeed. Of course, I went into this film with an open mind and an open heart. Who I’m kidding? No I didn’t. Quick, name the superpowers of the family members in The Incredibles! Strength coupled with a secret life he can’t tell his wife about for DAD. Flexibility coupled with patience, compassion, and intelligence for MOM. Speed coupled with a love of sports for BOY. Ability to disappear coupled with a force field ensuring she never gets hurt for GIRL. Oh, wait, those aren’t super powers, those are just the stereotypical traits of a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter, and if there’s one thing Pixar does extremely well it’s stereotyping. But, is that wrong? Wait, what? Spoiler alert! Lots of spoilers coming up. The mom/Queen in Brave turns into a bear after the princess goes to see a witch. Didn’t see that coming. Now Princess Merida is a Princess and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. She could be a boring princess or an uninteresting princess or any kind of princess that people don’t like, but just being a princess is not a knock, any more than Lightning McQueen being a racecar is a knock. McQueen happens to...

Love is full of shit. That was the original title of this post. A rough draft sat on my computer while my computer waited at Melrose Mac to be brought up to date. Seems like the whole world got connected via iCloud, twitter, and Mountain Lion while I was still using Leopard, MySpace, and a home phone. The post centered on the potty training of my three year old and the endless diaper changes involved in having a newborn. There were some funny comparisons between the romantic loves that border on lust we are saturated with via advertisers (see the Carl’s Jr. Super Bowl commercial where a bikini clad young woman on a beach makes love to a fish sandwich) and the reality of having two kids shit themselves at the same time and only having one changing table. For those of you who don’t have a changing table, a changing table is a place of calm amongst the storm. It’s where you put a kid that needs a fresh diaper or new undies. It helps contain the mess. There’s lotion, wipes, disposable bags, diapers, underpants, wash cloths, blankets, burpies, binkies, changing pads, anything and everything you need to get the job done cleanly and efficiently. It allows you to operate like a surgeon who graduated from one of those medical schools in Puerto Rico or the Caribbean, you know with the same basic training as everyone else, but an undying need to prove yourself. When both kids poop at the same time it’s def-con five. The end of the world is imminent. At the very least something that’s not supposed to have shit on it is going to get shit on it. The carpet, the stairs (and we don’t even have stairs), other...

Did I really write a piece about wanting, needing, liking a morning commute? Six steps.  That’s how long it takes to walk from my side of the bed to the baby monitor.  No alarm clocks, roosters, or cell phone ringers – just the sounds of a baby boy waking up to a brand new day.  It takes less than 3 seconds to clock in.  I turn off the monitor, hit the bathroom, and free my son from the confines of his crib.  I change his diaper, put him in a new outfit, feed him breakfast (which sometimes entails another outfit change), and get him his milk.  By the time this is done I’ve already logged over an hour on the job.  No shit. I’ve had horrible commutes in my life, especially in Los Angeles.  Try to get from Los Feliz to Westwood in less than an hour during peak traffic times if you don’t believe me. I’ve seen road rage, car accidents, motorcycle crashes, bikers hit, crazy people standing in the middle of the road, lanes closed, roads closed, flat tires, rain, hail, fog, photo shoots, tv shoots, film shoots, celebrity sightings, paparazzi, tourists, old drivers, young drivers, new drivers.  You name it, I’ve seen it on the streets of LA and so have you. The difference is that I miss it.  Unlike other jobs being a stay-at-home parent is a seemingly never-ending endeavor.  I’m my own boss, I guess, but I don’t set my own hours.  I get breaks.  I don’t take breaks.  And even if I’m not “working”, I’m always on call. What I miss most about commuting is that it was my time.  I’m driving my car to my job with my thoughts running through my head.  My most productive writing...

*names, dates, and locations have been changed to protect the guilty Click here to catch up on the first part of this field trip adventure. “Don’t run,” I hear everyone over the age of 5 saying as the kids sprint, or toddle like a drunken duck in my son’s case, once inside.  I don’t know what “don’t run” means.  Is it literal, like everyone, I mean everyone except for me, thinks the kids should not run in this big park?  If I were a kid I’d want to run so I let Oliver and my boy hit their stride.  It’s easy to keep up with them, but we’re soon lost.  I have a map.  It’s useless.  I’m not sure it’s to scale and I’m not sure where North is.  I’m not even sure it’s a map as much as it is a picture of all the stuff we’re not going to do. While I’m studying the map the kids split up in different directions.  I can’t prove they planned it while I was distracted, but I have my suspicions that they did.  My son is going downhill towards what appears to be a lake and Oliver heads uphill towards I have no idea what.  This specific scenario was not covered in any training brochure or pre-game talk.  It occurs to me that I could run down and pick up my son and fairly quickly turn around and go get the other kid, although then I’d be running uphill second.  Maybe I should dash uphill and grab Oliver and then head downward with speed to pick up mine.  I wonder if it’s appropriate to run while holding someone else’s kid.  What if I fall?  Time is passing I need to act. “STOP,” I shout.  They...

*names, dates, and locations have been changed to protect the guilty The field trip starts at 9:15 Monday morning. That’s 45 minutes later than I usually drop off my son, which means I have 45 minutes to fill. The hard thing to do is a high yield activity (Doctor’s words) like going to the park, reading, or playing with blocks, trains, trucks, etc. The easy thing to do is to put on Thomas and Friends and relax on the couch until it’s time to go. I chose the easy thing to do, lost track of time, and the next thing I know it’s nine a.m. and I still need to shower and pack lunches.  I quickly do both, which leaves me with wet hair and lunches that consist of plain turkey and cheese sandwiches, crackers, and a small bowl of blueberries. The lunches are supposed to be in paper bags and we’re not supposed to bring any Tupperware. I lock the door and carry my son to the car because we are running late. Still carrying my son I hurry into the school as parents, teachers, and kids head out. Several parents volunteered to drive one or more kids to Descanso Gardens. I am one of those parents and I have no idea who my assigned kid is. Turns out his name is Oliver (wink*). He’s taller than my son, but slimmer and not white. I don’t know why that pops in my head considering that most of the kids in my son’s preschool aren’t white, but it does and I wonder what challenges our cultural differences will present. Probably none since I assume all I have to do is drive him there. The scene is controlled chaos. It appears that everyone is moving in random directions, but I sense that many, if...

I sat in a brown, pleather medical chair staring at a poster for chronic sinusitis when the doctor came in. He was nearing seventy with white hair and a build and complexion that suggested regular exercise on the golf course. He tipped my head back, had a peek up my nose and before I knew it blasted me with Afrin, a steroid. For the first time in months, maybe years, I inhaled through both nostrils for as long as I possibly could until I slowly let that sweet air go. I thought I was cured. I thought I was in heaven. “Surgery,” said the Doctor. He said other things, but that’s what stuck. He ordered a CT scan. I took it. I came back to see him, but he wasn’t there. Golfing I guess. His son, the surgeon, saw me. From the son’s looks and demeanor I’m sure he could’ve been anything, an astronaut, a Senator, a successful businessman. It comforted me that he followed in his father’s footsteps. My sinuses were almost entirely blocked and my septum was deviated he told me. He showed me the pictures and presented me with my options. Surgery. Have you ever wondered if the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train? I have. That’s how I originally started this piece. I thought it was clever. It’s something I use to say to myself before I met my wife, before I had a kid. It had a lot to do with my father constantly pulling the rug out from under me. The last time he did it to me I was in college at the University of Minnesota. He told me he was paying my tuition, room, and board. With a couple weeks left...

Kids are not cost effective. In fact, they are a financial liability. It would be much cheaper for my son to die now then it would be to feed him, clothe him, school him, care for his health, teeth, overall well-being, put him through college, and send him on his way. That’s why we don’t have life insurance on our kid. It’s even funny that life insurance is called life insurance since it’s insurance in case you die. Why not call it what it is? It’s death insurance. If you die, we’ll give you some money. Of course, that money is measured against your earning potential and likelihood of death. Kids don’t earn jack unless they’re on the WB or Disney, but that comes with its own set of problems. My wife has life insurance. At least she will shortly. It’s been a process of determining what her loss means to the overall financial health of our family. Do we need one year’s salary, two year’s salary, or three to keep things moving along as we recover without her? Can we still send our son or children, if we should be so fortunate as to have another child, to college? Can we stay in LA or do we have to move? Thinking about it is thinking about the worst of all possible outcomes of our marriage and even writing that makes it feel distant and yet, and yet, it is possible. What makes these end-of-the-world scenarios difficult to deal with is that I don’t want to put happy faces on the awful endings. Oh great, my son is dead; now at least I don’t have to pay for college seems like a an extra kick in the nuts when you would be willing to...

My son made a break for it. He cried when I pulled up in front of his new preschool and as I carried him inside he cried, “home, home, home,” while pointing in the general direction of our house. He tried to wiggle free of my grasp and I had to set him down to sign him in. That’s when he broke for the front door. He earned the name toddler by wobbling left and right as he stomped down the concrete path that led back to the car. I signed him in anyway figuring I could close the distance between him and the great outdoors before he got too far, but I was wrong. Fortunately, a second impenetrable gate proved to be his undoing. I scooped him up, told him it was going to be okay, and watched him cry “daddy” as I gave him off to his new handler. That was the third day of school. On day one he didn’t see it coming. We’d visited the school a few times and every time we did he managed to find something to play with. He was happy to be there. New toys. New kids. New people. I’m pretty sure he just thought this was another outing we were taking together. I said goodbye, told him I would pick him up later, and left. It was hard not to look back, but when I left him he was more interested in Legos than anything else. I have no idea when it occurred to him that I wasn’t coming back, but at some point on that first day he got sad. When I picked him up he was so relieved to see me that he attempted to run up a small set of stairs...

Instead of posting my 3,000 word FINAL TAKE manifesto on sports talk that spiraled into a full blown analysis of all things Tebow, I’ve decided to share my “instead of” list. This list is posted on my wall and on my computer and is meant to keep me on track for the new year.  All of us made New Year resolutions even if our resolution was not to make a resolution, but most of us will fail because we don’t have a plan.  At least that’s what the experts will say.  Those same experts will then sell you their no-fail plan, which would really cost a thousand dollars if it never failed, but is usually available online for $19.99. Instead of buying a plan, I made my own simple plan.  I will share it with you now and let you know how successful I am. INSTEAD OF WATER                       instead of                      WINE FRUIT                         instead of                      SODA WORKING OUT       instead of                      FAST FOOD WRITING                   instead of                      INTERNET SLEEPING                  instead of                      WATCHING TV Please share your plan for the New Year.  I’d love to see how other people tackle their goals. featured image credit:...

My wife lost her pregnancy on a Monday. I held out hope ‘til Tuesday, but by then it was over. The disappointment I felt was real, although for me, the pregnancy hadn’t quite felt real yet. We’d just begun telling family and close friends. My wife wasn’t showing. We didn’t know the sex of the child to be. We didn’t have a due date. We hadn’t even gone to the doctor. In hindsight I guess we did this as early as we did (less than 2 months in) as a way of sharing the joy of being pregnant and establishing a support system should anything go wrong. Still it was awkward receiving messages of congratulations from people who found out about the pregnancy, but hadn’t learned of the miscarriage. And it’s always weird to have someone you haven’t seen in a while ask how you’re doing when you haven’t told them about either. Various people had various reactions to the news. Most just said they were sorry for us and hoped we were okay. My sister was particularly upset because I think she’s done having kids and she loves being an aunt. It hit the grandparents hard as this would be their second grandchild, or third in the case of my mom, and they’re a huge part of our lives and the life of our son. Some friends shared their stories of miscarriages. Some we knew. Some we didn’t. All of them, though, went into the big melting pot of feelings we experienced that week. None of them, however, helped explain the panic attack. My wife took the week off work and mostly we held our son closer than usual and stayed together as one. If it weren’t for the miscarriage, it would’ve been...

When asked where I’m from I usually say “Wisconsin” with full accent intact.  If pressed about my home state I often say, “It’s a great place to be from.”  The implication is that I loved growing up there, but wouldn’t want to live there now.  I’m not sure either of those sentiments is true. Although I didn’t know it growing up, I know now that I hate the snow. I hate the cold. I hate humidity (unless I’m on vacation). I hate flies. I really fucking hate mosquitoes. I hate not having breakfast burritos or avocados readily available. I hate that sushi is a foreign concept, that parking is guaranteed, that… I ran out of steam.  There really isn’t that much to dislike about Wisconsin, and I’d be happy to raise my children there, but if I try to list what I liked, what I really liked, about growing up there I can only come up with the following: I liked my friends, many of who still live there, although others have gone off to Seattle or San Diego or even joined me in L.A.  I use the term friend loosely – not as loosely as Facebook – but loose enough to say that if I liked someone in high school and they needed their tire changed I would help out if called upon. The second, and really only other, thing I really liked about Wisconsin were their sports teams.  I lived and died with the Green Bay Packers, followed every pitch of the 1982 World Series against the Cardinals, and loved that the Bucks were, back then, a perennial playoff team in a small market.  I also followed the University of Wisconsin basketball and football teams especially after Barry Alvarez made them relevant...

Part of being a stay-at-home parent is answering the phone and the doorbell when it rings.  It’s very hard (some say impossible) to do those things from an office somewhere, but as someone who is fortunate enough to “work” from home, I’m here when the carpet guys, and the painters, and the delivery guys show up.  I’m also here when DirecTV calls me to tell me I’m late with a bill or AT&T calls to “upgrade” my service. I’m not sure how people with 2 out of the house jobs actually handle this.  Do you burn a vacation day to wait from noon ‘til 4:00 PM for the cable to be installed?  Do you take a half-day, that invariably turns into a full day, when the plumber runs late to fix a defective dishwasher?  With the United States being well behind the rest of the world in average paid vacation days (13 days per year as opposed to 42 in Italy, 37 in France, 35 in Germany, and 25 in Japan) I find it hard to imagine that anyone would willingly want to sacrifice his or her precious free time with such mundane life maintenance. If you’re going to make the sacrifice, though, then at least let me provide you with my 4 part proven method to get the customer service you deserve.  It’s simple, really. PLAY DUMB PLAY NICE BE SMART BE AN ASSHOLE Why is it this way?  Because there’s no turning back.  Once you’re the smart guy with everything figured out it doesn’t really matter how nice you are.  You’ve made your case and you will win or lose your battle with it.  You could get angry if things don’t go your way, but you haven’t built any empathy with the...

This was supposed to be part II of my rant against the current state of customer service in California.  I wanted to share with you some sweet tips for saving money and getting the service you deserve.  Part of my rise to guru status was the new and FREE wireless router I got from AT&T.  However, my step by step guide to getting what you want, when you want fell apart when said router failed to meet minimum operating standards.  The big issue: it doesn’t connect to the server.  (In case you are wondering, yes, it is a Gateway 2Wire.)  I will put my proven methods to the test once more and be back in two weeks with my foolproof method for getting the customer service you deserve. Until then, I will ask you for your thoughts on something I’ve been ruminating on for the past few months and that’s memories.  We all have them.  If you’re following the beating of Brian Stow story then you know how unreliable eyewitness testimony of a crime is.  But, what about simply being an eyewitness to an event that only holds significance for you and you alone? I ask this because this past weekend my wife and I took our son to a Huntington Library Members event.  The event included live music and the option of picnicking on their lavish grounds during sunset after regular hours.  It was beautiful, but that’s not what I’m going to remember. My wife, mother-in-law, and I set a blanket down and had fruit, sandwiches, chips, and cold pasta salad, unfortunately forgetting the wine and dessert at home.  My blue-eyed, blonde-haired son grabbed a peeled banana, one of his favorite fruits, and simply walked away.  After about ten feet he dropped his...

“A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy.” Glengarry Glen Ross That quote is from one of my favorite plays written by one of my favorite writers. It concerns the lack of production a certain sales force is facing and is a poke to motivate them. I’ve always appreciated the quote from the other side, you know, the guy on the fucking lot looking to buy. In the internet age, if that’s what this is, it is easier to window shop than ever before. It’s also easier to buy over the web for less money than the physical store. Most of this is due to online retailers like Amazon not collecting and paying sales taxes due to some legal loopholes. Thanks dickheads. I think of you every time an LAUSD student graduates without the ability to read because our high schools are underfunded. But, that’s not the point of this article. I have a question and I don’t know the answer. Maybe you do. And if you do, please leave it in the comments section. Why does customer service suck? I’m trying not to name names here, but I make no promises. Like me, you’ve probably needed to actually buy something in the past six months. My typical experience goes something like this. I walk into a store where I’m not greeted. (Yes, this even happened at a Wal*Mart in Paso Robles where they supposedly employ seniors with a second career in greeting. I won’t go into them not having the camera battery charger I needed, although they did have it online.) After walking into the store and not being greeted, I look for the merchandise I intend to buy. More often than not the store has been “rearranged” in...

I almost bought a house today — I shit you not. I was born into a duplex, lived in rentals most of life, and have inhabited just over thirty places in just over thirty-five years.  But, if you live in LA, read the real estate section of the LA Times (online, of course), DVR HGTV shows like Property Virgins, House Hunters, My First Place, and know what the hell Trulia, Zillow, Movoto and Redfin are for, then you know what I’m talking about. My son was born into a condo.  My wife and I bought the condo when she was three months pregnant.  The economy had bottomed out, or so we thought, interest rates were super low and with grants from the federal government for first time homebuyers and grants from the state government for purchasing new construction, we were able to secure a condo that we could conceivably live in for 10 or more years.  That was then. Now that we have a kid, a boy to be exact, a boy who loves to be outside and run and play and get dirty to be more exact, we want a yard.  It doesn’t have to be huge, but it does have to be big enough to toss or kick the ball around.  It also needs a driveway that is perfect for hanging a hoop.  During a brief four-year stint in my youth my parents managed to buy a house, before losing it after a messy divorce.  I hung a hoop.  My friends and I all played on it day and night.  It was awesome.  I want a hoop.  My son will have a hoop. I could, but I won’t, get carried away with my list of housing must-haves, wants, tolerables and unacceptables.  What...

Co-Ed. Note: We obviously chose this one because it was super-controversial. Also, because every time I go to put on my skinny jeans, I now think of this post. Ugh! Originally published 01/20/11 It should be noted that I’m not a fashion expert.  I don’t have a degree in fashion from one of those institutes you hear about on TV late at night.  My idea of dressing up, now that I’m a stay at home dad, is putting on a clean t-shirt.  During the week you’ll usually see me lumbering around in shorts or athletic pants, depending on the weather, and the aforementioned tee which may or may not have a witticism on it.  My experience and so-called expertise in this area is limited to the occasional Project Runway rerun, several episodes of What Not to Wear that were penance for all my sports intake, my daily walks and weekly errands with my son.  These tasks include, but are not limited to, strolling through the mall, shopping at Target and stocking up at Costco.  It’s not a coincidence that these places also seem to attract moms, or more generally, women.  Which brings me to my point: Skinny Jeans. There are some fashions that go out as fast as they came in.  Anyone still wearing parachute pants or acid washed jeans or tie dyed shirts?  I mean anyone other than those who still have their Michael Jackson Thriller poster up, or those getting the band back together, or those homemade honey sellers at the farmer’s markets.  Other fashions stick around forever.  The little black dress, the power suit, comfortable jeans are just a few examples. There are also some fashions that come out, reach a Tipping Point, and seem to take over the world. Juicy...

Don’t get me wrong, I love books – have all my life, but if you took my quiz last time (and by the way you really should) then you would know with some degree of certainty that the last book I had read at the time of the posting was HIPPOS GO BESERK by Sandra Boynton. I’d like to say that the last book I read has changed over the previous two weeks, but I can’t.  That’s not to say I haven’t read anything else in the meantime.  I have.  I’ve read THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR by Arthur Phillips, I FOUND THIS FUNNY edited by Apatow (yeah, that one), and WILD CHILD AND OTHER STORIES by T.C. Boyle.  Great books all around, I assure you.  However, they don’t have the stick-to-it-iveness of say 44 hippos and a beast attending then leaving a party.  I’m not even sure it’s premise driven.  What it is, though, is a children’s book, in case you haven’t guessed, and children’s books all have one thing in common: the children who read them  (and by read I mean have their parents read to them), the children who love to read them again and again and again.  I’ve read that book more times in one day than any other book I’ve read in my lifetime.  In fact, I’ve read that book more times in one week than Stephen King reads in a year (about 80 according to his book “On Writing”, which I also read some time ago.  Now I don’t know if I ever got up to 80 books a year even in my prime as I’m more of a film guy, but I would like to say that a book a week is quite normal.  Couple that with the...

A lot of people I know are wrestling with the decision whether to have kids or not.  Based on the responses to my last blogumn it seems there are many good reasons for each path.  However, the question I’m most asked is how did I know I was ready to have kids.  Every time someone asks me this question I laugh a little because I wasn’t ever ready to have kids.  I’m not ready now and I won’t be ready for the next one.  I don’t know what ready means.  The longer you wait to have kids the more “free” time you’ll have to focus on your career or your hobbies or yourself, but the longer you wait to have kids the less time you will have to be with them.  The younger you have them the more energy you’ll have and the older you have them the more wisdom you’ll have.  Those dualities will always exist, but they don’t help you decide if you are ready to have kids.  Fortunately, I have designed a quiz called the Are you ready to have kids? quiz which you can take below. Are you ready to have kids? In your blu-ray player right now is… Physical media storage is dead, bro.  I stream everything. You mean DVD player, right? PIXAR short film collection. Oatmeal! The most expensive thing you own is… My drum set. My first new car. My house/condo My dreams (I can take them anywhere) Drinking wine is… For the ladies. Fun. How kids are made. Necessary. Your hobbies are… It’s not a hobby.  I just don’t get paid. Drinking wine. Watching the real estate market in order to trade up. I don’t remember. You see a baby and you… Punch it in the...

Once is an aberration.  Twice is a coincidence.  The third time it happens, it’s a pattern.  When I was a kid my mom had friends who were DINKs – that’s Dual Income No Kids for the uninitiated.  I thought that was strange.  Who doesn’t want kids, I thought, kids are awesome. Back then I did not fully realize that this sentiment would stick with me my whole life.  I still believe kids are awesome and as my wife and I try (is there a better word?) for baby number two I can’t imagine not having any. Apparently not only some, but a lot of my friends, can.  The first time one of my friends said that he and his wife  were thinking of not having kids, I gave my canned response: It’s not for everybody.  Later. a married couple that we love to have dinner and go wine tasting with said that, they, too were thinking of not having kids I gave my lengthier, but still clichéd retort:  Well, it is a lot of work.  You’ll be more tired than you’ve ever been.  You’re constantly worried.  They take up a lot of your time and they sure do chip away at your retirement savings. The third time it happened I got scared.  I can’t remember what I told them actually, but I do remember what they told us.  Bear in mind that these are good friends of ours, and my wife and I had been looking forward to them having kids one day so we could swap war stories.  They looked at our life and wondered if they could do it, and more importantly wondered if they wanted to do it.  My wife and I used to travel as much as possible.  She has a...

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens have an address, I’m sure of it.  If I googled it, went to their website, or even looked at my membership card I’d probably find it.  I could even get the exact location and directions from my front door to their front door online, plug them into my phone thereby turning it into a GPS and assuring that I got to the Tea Room at the Huntington in a timely fashion to enjoy mother’s day finger sandwiches and scones with my wife’s mom, sister and her fiancé before we lost our reservation.  But, where’s the fun in that? We were somewhere on the 210 headed east when my wife asked if I knew where I was going.  Of course I knew where I was going – we were all going to the Huntington.  What I didn’t know was how to get there.  Not exactly, anyway.  It’s roughly in Pasadena (San Marino), and there’s some street that runs right to it (Alan as it turns out).  Not knowing where to exit my wife got a bit impatient until we saw a sign that said “Huntington Library” next exit.  The great thing about not knowing where you’re going is that you’re constantly looking for signs and you’d be surprised how often they appear and get you where you need to go. There were no more signs once we got off the freeway, though.  If there were we missed them.  We drove South on Hill for a while until it was apparent we were lost and by lost I mean we were here while the Gardens were somewhere over there.  So we doubled back and headed in that direction.  I was content to drive through this neighborhood of luxurious...

People make decisions for one of two reasons: economics or aesthetics.  Aesthetics, broadly defined, is anything that creates a feeling.  You drive a convertible because you like the wind in your hair even though it sucks gas and comes with an inflated insurance premium.  Economics, narrowly defined, is anything that has to do with money.  That same convertible is, say, five years old because it’s not feasible to buy a new one every year even though that would certainly be fun. Sometimes these decision-making apparatuses work harmoniously like when Sharon Stone paired a Gap shirt from her closet with a Vera Wang dress at the 1998 Oscars.  Other times, for instance when buying a house, it appears the two are irreconcilable.  No matter your budget there is always a price point beyond your grasp that has a feature you long for if only you had a few thousand dollars more at your disposal.  If you don’t believe me, just watch any of the following porn-centric titled HGTV shows: First Time Home Buyer, My First Place, and my personal favorite, Property Virgins. Of course, there’s nothing like a housing market collapse to illustrate this point.  The whole sham was built on the faulty premise that you could somehow mortgage your future for the house of your dreams now, and should it not work out you could always and easily sell the house for more money than you ever imagined because, you know, its so goddamned easy to sell a house.  I don’t blame Joe Homebuyer for this problem at all.  Home ownership is such an ingrained family value that it almost seems socialist to still be renting after a certain age, so when the opportunity to buy presented itself in the form of shady, formerly illegal...

I had a very, very, very long piece written about how I became a stay-at-home dad and after I gave it to my wife to read she said: “Yeah, but what’s the point?”  She also asked if it was necessary for me to chronicle every job I ever had from mowing lawns, delivering papers, making subs and bussing tables as a kid, to managing video stores and working at banks while I endlessly paid my way through college, to the Literary Management and UCLA Extension Writers’ Program jobs that eventually led me to pursue a writing career.  I told her that, yes, of course it was important for everyone to know every intimate detail of my work history so that they would understand how I came to be the stay-at-home parent I am today. Then I reread what I’d written.  At 2,037 words it did seem a bit long.  I’d also hit page 4 without making much of a point, at least not one that clearly emerged from the self-deprecating jokes about getting kicked out of two colleges, and couch surfing my twenties away.  The point I wanted to make and will make here is this:  I love writing and I want to make my living as a writer.  It’s a weird thing to say out loud and even stranger to write down for others.  Those that know me know of my successes: After three years working with my writing partner, Scott Honea, we finished five and a half feature screenplays, landed an agent, optioned two scripts, had two other scripts in development, and were finalists in the Slamdance screenwriting competition.  They also know of my failures: the writer’s strike killing one movie, our scripts in development are still in development, Slamdance garnered us...

I was a latchkey kid before they were called latchkey kids.  At 5 years old I would walk home from kindergarten and stay with my great aunt for a few hours before my mom came home from work.  My great aunt was great because she was really old, not because she was anything special.  Her apartment was decorated with yarn crosses and other religious paraphernalia that did nothing to inspire my faith.  In fact it was all quite depressing and somewhat scary.  One time she stepped on a plastic castle of mine.  It was a castle I had spent considerable time constructing, and seeing it smashed to pieces by an ogre who constantly wore slippers and clutched a rosary was the last straw.  I told my mom I didn’t need someone watching me. She caved.  All I had to do was promise not to use the stove.  Fine by me.  We lived in the apartment across the hall from my great aunt. I came home the next day after school and knocked on my great aunt’s door.  She said hi.  I said bye.  Next thing I know I was sitting in the comfort of my own living room, watching cartoons on the television, and eating sugar bread, which like the name suggests is bread with sugar poured on it.  Was this heaven? Not really. I picked up some pretty bad habits during those years.  The time was unstructured so I wasted much of it.  I wasn’t on a sports team, learning an instrument, or participating in any group activity.  I received no certificates of achievement.  I had friends, but they obviously weren’t allowed to come over and play.  My eating consisted of sugar bread, syrup bread and soda, a habit I’ve yet to break. ...

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a bully in person.  I guess there were some in my grade school, middle school and maybe even high school, but I can only vaguely remember getting bullied once.  It was my first or second day at a new school and some kid (he’s a facebook friend of mine) supposedly pushed me into the dirt.  I say supposedly because I don’t remember it ever happening.  Maybe I was traumatized or maybe it was a good story by him that got etched in my brain.  I wouldn’t say that kid was a bully, though.  We actually played on soccer teams together, and by high school we’d occasionally see each other at parties.  I have no idea what that kid is up to now, and I can’t say that the supposed event had any long lasting effects. My son, who is a little over a year now, got bullied for the first time this past week.  We were at the play area in the mall.  You might have seen this place before.  It’s jam packed full of sugar-fueled kids and stressed-out moms with the occasional dad lording over his kid to ensure his fun and safety.  Personally, I’d never noticed the play area before I had a kid, but since Los Angeles has turned into the frozen tundra it is an awesome place to burn some time and energy. Since my kid can’t walk yet, he usually crawls from climbing apparatus to climbing apparatus and stares at the older kids in awe.  For the most part they ignore him, although a few will try and talk to him.  A couple of kids have tried successfully and unsuccessfully to give him a hug.  And he even got a kiss on...

I’m going to get straight to the point and let you know that I rarely use a diaper bag.  I see them everywhere and every time I see one I wonder what the hell could possibly be inside.  Don’t get me wrong, I use one occasionally.  If I take my son to the zoo, I’ll pack a bag.  If I’m out about town for more than a few hours I’ll bring one.  If I went to a single friend’s house (read: baby unfriendly) I’d probably bring one.  The fact of it is, though, I don’t spend a lot of time at single friends’ houses with my baby and I rarely go out for more than a few hours.  Why would I need a bag? My baby poops his pants is the first reason that comes to mind.  He does poop – it smells.  That’s worth carrying a diaper and maybe some wipes, except I tend to go places after he poops.  That way I don’t have to change him out in public.  It’s not that I mind. For instance, I just changed him in the back of my SUV on Sunday before heading into see the new Asian Elephant Exhibit. It’s just that it occurs so rarely that I don’t feel obligated to load up on diapers and wipes.  He did poop at a Buffalo Wild Wings once.  He may not be ready for the hot sauce.  My bad.  I ran home in the rain to change him, but I probably would’ve walked had I not seen the UPS truck heading up the hill to our condo with a wine club shipment in it. My baby barfs is another reason.  That could happen.  It’s only happened twice in the last six months so I’m...

Michael Wilbon of Pardon the Interruption fame has often said since Big Ben won his second Super Bowl that if his life depended on it and he needed one quarterback to win one game he would take Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  I have no idea why his life would ever depend on such a thing, but I guess it’s more interesting than saying I would pick Ben first. Sports talk is filled with such hyperbole, of course.  Expressions like if I was starting a team, if I was GM, if I could have only one player, if I could trade for anyone and the like are part of the ritualistic canon that go on to become the water cooler talk and sports bar smack for those of us relegated to fandom.  It’s become so ridiculous that the most trusted of news sources has now started it’s own sports network simply referred to as The Onion Sport Dome with the sole purpose of elevating such hyperbole to … what? Parody?  I have no idea. There isn’t room in my mind for a show that already does what I regularly do with my friends, which is to take today’s sports topics and turn them into spirited conversations and drunken exhortations.  Nowhere will be this more on display than this Super Bowl Sunday, the forty-fifth and perhaps finest.  You see I am a Cheesehead, yes one word.  I’m from Milwaukee, but that’s not why.  My father wasn’t into the Packers or the NFL or me for that matter.  Watching the NFL and specifically the Packers on Sunday was my escape. It started with James Lofton.  The Pack wasn’t any good, but that Lofton guy was brilliant.  God, he made it look it easy.  I suffered through...

My son was born the week between Christmas and New Years in 2009.  That made him an excellent tax break then and makes him a year old now.  That also means that I have been a stay at home dad for an entire year.  Here’s what I remember. Labor and Delivery: My wife went into labor some time after seeing Avatar on Christmas Eve.  Maybe it was 3-D glasses, I really don’t know.  Whatever it was, it was something different, something new and something scary.  We called the on-call doctor that night.  He said not to worry – it was early labor.  We called the next night too.  Again he said not to worry, get some sleep, and have a glass of wine.  We did.  Monday we were in the Hospital at 5 AM and shortly after noon we had a son. In between I was mostly responsible for getting my wife whatever she needed, snapping a few photos and wrangling friends and family in and out of the room.  It was exciting, scary, exhausting and ultimately worth it.  I can’t imagine not being there, which I think is a part of what allows me to be a stay at home dad. The Fourth Trimester: By far the toughest time on new parents.  If you don’t know by now the fourth trimester is the three months after the baby is born that only occurs because our melons are too big to stay in the oven.  Imagine taking out a roast and letting it finish cooking in the pan, only the roast needs to be fed and changed every two hours for three months.  I have a vague recollection of this being one very long day with occasional naps. Some people call it baby amnesia,...

Babies suck.  A lot.  Anything they can get their grubby little hands on will end up in their mouths.  Left your old tennies out?  Consider them sucked.  Shoelaces?  Sucked.  Old bag of potato chips?  The same. It really doesn’t matter what it is they will suck on it.  Someone told me that until they are like two or something their mouths are their hands.  I don’t know what that means other than that almost everything I own is wet. Ordinarily this isn’t a problem.  No one and I mean no one cares if the bottom of your shoe has recently been licked.  However, my cell phone and more importantly my cell phone provider (Verizon) do care.  It seems that on the back of my droid (yes I got one) there is a little indicator that turns pink and then red when my phone suffers unusual water damage.  No, I didn’t drop it in a fish tank.  Although, that would be a good story.  What happened was that my son took an interest to it and in a moment of desperation (you know babies cry and shit) I gave him my phone.  That calmed him.  No harm no foul. Well apparently there was some harm.  I can receive texts, but it might take me upwards of twenty minutes to respond.  The keyboard no longer works, nor does the word fix.  If you get a text from me that reads Pssfftrrtyo then just know I tried my best.  That’s not the only problem of course.  I can’t turn my phone off which leads to a dead battery every four hours or so.  I also can’t send emails because my send button doesn’t work.  I’m not complaining.  At the time I gave him the phone I needed...

How scary are babies?  Very scary.  Very, very scary. My baby has the nasty habit of waking up just as I fall asleep.  It doesn’t matter if I’m going down for the night or stealing a nap it’s always the same.  My head hits the pillow I close my eyes, pull the blanket tight, turn to my side, and take a deep breath that I let out slowly as I relax into a state of heavenly slumber.  That’s when the crying starts.  He’s hungry or it’s time to get up.  When I try for the nap there’s usually no assistance available.  As soon as my nap starts, his is over.  I rescue him from his crib and feed him or just watch him play as my heavy lids beg to be closed.  At night it’s different.  My wife is there and she goes to bed before me.  I usually go to bed after his first night feeding to avoid him waking me up this way, but that doesn’t always work.  And, it really didn’t work this past Monday night. There is a certain kind of parent tired that simply doesn’t compare to cramming for college finals, staying up all night as a kid or even pulling an all-nighter for work.  It’s the kind of tired that makes you think of doing bad things to good people.  I was that kind of tired on Monday and I imagine my wife, who still gets up to breast-feed our son twice a night after 10 months, feels that way all the time.  I’d ask her but she’s sleeping as I write this.  God bless her soul.  Anyway, Monday night I was that kind of tired.  I lay down to sleep and the little bugger woke up.  Thankfully...

Raising an infant changes your life in many ways.  Here are three I didn’t expect. Running Away From Home: I have no idea how many children imagine running away from home.  I just know I did.  Sometimes it was because of my father, whom I loathed.  Other times it was because I found a picture of a place in a magazine or a newspaper article that seemed too good to be true.  This was before the internet and I couldn’t just google cool places to runaway to.  Finding out about a place was almost as exciting as going there.  White sand beaches, black sand beaches, crystal blue water, 100 foot waterfalls, 1000 foot waterfalls, castles, lush landscapes, Eiffel Tower, Sears Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Roman Ruins, Greek Islands, Bull Fighting, Lions, Great Walls, Barrier reefs and more all existed outside of my reach as a ten-year-old in the tiny (one square mile) fishing hamlet (not really) of Shorewood, Wisconsin.  Of course, I got older.  By seventeen I had driven as far west as Steamboat Springs, Colorado and as far east as Boston, Massachusetts.  By nineteen I had ridden the rails coast to coast.  By twenty I had been to France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.  At twenty-one I added Mexico to the list and shortly thereafter a couple trips to Costa Rica rounded out my young adult passport. It’s not really running away, however, if you don’t leave something or someone behind.  As a child I would have left behind my father (part of the point), but also my mother and my sister and my friends.  That was too steep of a price.  Now that I’m a father I find myself dreaming of running away again.  It’s not because I don’t love my...

Whether I call my doctor, my son’s doctor, or my therapist the message is always the same: “If this is an emergency, please hang up the phone and dial 911 immediately.” I’d like to think I know the difference between a real emergency and say confirming an appointment. There is a gray area, however, between calling 911 and doing nothing, and it’s called poison control. For those of you who don’t know, the number to poison control is 1-800-222-1222. Do you have it memorized? Good. The first time I called poison control was the scariest. I’d just taken my infant son on a monster walk during a hot Southern Californian day. I was sweating, had drank a lot of water and really had to go to the bathroom. We were greeted inside by the luxury of central air and that cool breeze only served to make going number one the number one thing to do. Ordinarily I would leave my son safely strapped in his stroller while I took care of business, but he was hot too and cranky. I unfastened the belts and sat him on the floor. He picked up a toy block and looked at it like it was the most important thing in the world. I figured that kind of rapt attention would buy me at least the minute and a half of healing I needed. It didn’t. There is a certain kind of baby silence that warns parents of danger. The more time you spend with a kid, the more you come to depend on the everyday noises they make. At nine months old my son coos, da-da-das, smacks his lips, slaps his pancake-sized paws on the ground when he crawls, and provides a variety of other noises that...

My favorite comedians are the fat ones.  Give me Belushi in Animal House, Farley in Tommy Boy, and John Candy in anything, over anybody.  They eat a lot, drink a lot, sweat a lot and boy oh boy do they make me laugh.  For the longest time I wanted to be them, but I couldn’t.  I wasn’t a fat kid growing up.  I played soccer, football and golf in High School.  I spent most of my weekends watching the latest movies, playing Palladium, participating in sports or partaking in soda drinking contests with my friends in Shorewood, Wisconsin without ever packing on a pound.  I was as far from being fat and funny as I could be. Then things changed.  High School ended and my friends and I went in very different directions. I drifted.  A semester at the University of Minnesota educated me on Big Mike’s subs, hot wings, parking tickets, and Keystone Light.  A couple of semesters at UW Milwaukee introduced me to two-dollar pitchers, fifty-cent tappers, foosball, Oakland Gyros, and bad grades.  Community college and working for Wells Fargo taught me how to stretch my dollar over happy hour appetizers, drink specials, and the importance of quantity over quality. Go big or go home was my motto.  Why stop drinking at midnight when the bar doesn’t close until two?  Why stop eating when I’m still hungry?  By the time I got to San Diego I was twenty-five pounds heavier than when I graduated High School.  By the time I got to Los Angeles I was fifty pounds heavier than that.  And now seven years later I break the scale at a whopping 303 pounds.  That’s three pounds heavier than the playing weight of Reggie White, the first ballot Hall of Fame...

. a favorite blogumn by Joshua Pullin Josh Says: I like the below piece because it’s the one I get asked about the most. And the longer I live with taking my wife’s last name, the more it feels real. From January 21, 2010 Some day around the age of four or five my son will ask why we named him what we did. This is what I will tell him. Your mom and I knew you were a boy before you were born. We could’ve given you a family name. Only with one grandfather and zero brothers or uncles between us, there weren’t a lot of family names to pick from. So, we made a few rules. Popular names, even if we liked them, like Jack, Andrew or Ben, were out. Biblical names were out. Names that reminded us of anyone we didn’t like were out. Trendy celebrity names were out. We thought about naming you Joshua, but I didn’t want to turn my head every time your mom called out Josh. Besides, we wanted you to have your very own name. Ruling out names was taking forever so we decided what kinds of names were acceptable. Your mom craved one with literary significance. I sought a name that was unmistakably a boy, but fit for a man – the name of someone who could eat dirt and one day run for congress. It wasn’t long before we settled on the letter ‘G’. Maybe it was because you have a grandma Gayle and a grandpa Gordon. I really don’t know. Graham was the early front-runner and met both our criteria. Graham Greene was an author, playwright, and critic, and Graham by itself sounded like a little boy who might just grow up and...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin For some new parents it’s tempting to try and be perfect.  Don’t.  I believe that when it comes to being a stay at home dad, good enough is good enough.  No matter how hard I try, I find myself doing something wrong at least once a week, if not once a day.  My inner dialogue goes something like this: Do you want peas?  No, you don’t want peas. ‘crying’ Okay, okay I’ll give you more peas.  Time for a nap! ‘more crying’ Oops, I mean walk, time for a walk.  No way can he reach that plant. ‘crash’ Shite. However, not all mistakes are created equal.  While listening to your baby is an art developed over time, the following “mistakes” are avoidable.  Well, at least avoidable by everyone but me, since I’m the one who made them. Josh Pullin’s Top 5 Biggest Baby Related Mistakes (in particular order) 1. Measure Twice, Assemble Once: Jesus was a carpenter.  I don’t know if that statement’s true, but it rings familiar from my short-lived Catholic school days.  I do know that the first rule of carpentry is measure twice, cut once.  Well, despite what HGTV would have you believe, there are no more carpenters.  At least none that I meet.  Thanks to IKEA, today’s carpenter is anybody that can turn an Allen Wrench.  And, the first thing any new dad can expect to do is “build” nursery furniture.  I don’t mind the funny, yet lifelike, drawings of Swedes assembling furniture.  In fact I find them easy to follow and take some satisfaction in a job well done.  That said there is almost nothing worse than assembling a crib in the living room that doesn’t fit through the doorway into the nursery.  I may...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin A long time ago in a galaxy close, close by (this one) I traveled to Costa Rica.  It was there I discovered a universal truth.  After a couple weeks in Montezuma and a couple days in Quepos I headed to the national park in Manuel Antonio.  For those of you who haven’t been there it is absolutely gorgeous. White sand beaches with tiny island views are backed by rainforest, wildlife galore, and the spider monkeys play among the people.  One such set of people was your typical “American family abroad”. What makes them typical? Pasty white skin, a dad without a shirt, chubby kids and enough beach gear to storm Normandy. I myself had little more than swim trunks, a book and a towel.  Turns out I needed even less.  You see the first thing this family did when arriving at the beach was to unload their cooler full of food.  Young, poor, and hungry I admit to a bit of jealousy at their spread.  However, my jealousy soon turned to laughter as they left their food unattended and entered the water.  As soon as they were wet the monkeys descended upon their food en masse.  The dad charged out of the water shouting obscenities at the monkeys that are unfit to print.  The monkeys scattered and I stopped laughing.  That would be the end of the story had the dad not returned to the warm embrace of the water and his welcoming family while the monkeys returned to finish what they started.  The universal truth I discovered: you have to be smarter than the monkeys; otherwise what’s the point. I’d like to make it clear that I’m in no way inferring that my son is a monkey.  That...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin All successful relationships require a clear division of labor.  One of the more interesting questions surrounding this NBA off-season is where King James will land.  Will the bright lights of New York lure him, will he cash in his rubles and suit up for the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets, will he continue his legacy of post-season mediocrity in Cleveland or will he surprise everyone and end up in LA, Miami, or Chicago?  It doesn’t really matter where he ends up.  The bigger question is whom he will partner with to win his first championship? Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen.  Shaq had Kobe.  Kobe has Pau Gasol.  Even the Spurs had Duncan and Robinson before they had Duncan and Ginobli.  Go back further and you get Magic partnered with Kareem and Bird with McHale.  I have no doubt that LeBron will end up with a top tier teammate, albeit one who hopefully doesn’t sleep with his mother.  However, no matter whom he ends up with he will undoubtedly run smack dab into the “division of labor” problem. Let’s take Shaq and Kobe.  Shaq at the top of his game won 3 championships with Kobe.  Kobe, in turn, became the player he is today (arguably the best player in the game) and won 2 more rings of his own.  Why is this important?  It means that someone is the deciding factor on a championship team.  At first the ball, and the NBA title, went through Shaq.  Now it goes through Kobe.  Kobe can win the game on his own, or defer to his teammates.  It’s his game to win or lose and that’s why he’s mentioned amongst the greatest players of all time. I know what you’re thinking.  LeBron runs his...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin Since the most valuable commodity to any new parent is sleep, it should come as no surprise that the first item I endorse is a sleep aid.  Even though ten hours of uninterrupted shut-eye is the dream, you might still be getting up twice a night as a new parent.  Five months in and we wake at one and five AM to feed and change.  As much as I would like to knock back two Tylenol PM’s and call it a day, I’m afraid checking out for that long is just not an option. Also out are getting my own place and hiring a nanny.  I saw The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and, frankly, nannies scare me.  One woman I know watched in horror as her baby rolled off the changing table and onto the floor.  (Don’t worry.  She bounced.)  When she told the nanny about it the following day, the nanny said, “Oh, she’s been rolling over for days!”  Would be nice if the nanny filled in the parents on baby’s new behaviors.  Besides, the whole point of being a stay-at-home dad is to spend this time with my kid. I fondly remember the amount of sleep having my own place afforded.  However, any time I pass a “For Rent” sign in front of an apartment building in my neighborhood I get a queasy feeling.  In the abstract it’s fun to imagine a place where I can go and sleep for days on end with nobody looking to me for food, or comfort, or playtime, or bathing — and, that’s just my wife.  Add a kid in there and you see where I’m coming from. The truth of the matter is getting my own place would...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin Stop me if you heard this one, but “My son did the funniest thing today.” If you haven’t heard me say it, I’m sure you’ve heard a new parent somewhere say it.  I catch myself saying that or something like it all the time. Just yesterday I texted my wife, while she was at work, a photo of our boy sleeping on his knees with his behind poking up in the air.  It’s adorable and very funny to see your child do something they’ve never done before.  As a stay-at-home dad, I see something like this almost everyday. This week alone has brought backwards creeping (that’s when a baby tries to crawl, but ends up pushing themselves backwards), rocking (that’s when they get on their knees, push their chest off the ground and rock back and forth) and razzing (that wet sound that’s cute when babies make it and sad when old people do). I’m not telling you this because I have nothing else to say.  I’m telling you this because whenever friends, family, coworkers, teammates, or even people I meet ask, “What’s new?”  I have to pause and think.  It’s during this pause that my mind races through the achievements of my son and completely ignores my own doings. Frankly, at my age new things are incrementally obtained.  Weight loss takes time.  Vacations require planning.  Screenplays don’t write themselves.  This makes the newness of babies quite exhilarating and it’s tempting to share that excitement with the world.  However, I can tell from the look on some people’s faces that my kids excessive drooling and penchant for sticking anything and everything in his mouth is not that interesting to them.  Don’t get me wrong.  I completely understand.  There...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin Before my son was born, my sister (who frequently comments on my posts) gave me some advice that I will never forget.  She said, “Enjoy each moment because they grow up so fast.”  Even a self-proclaimed skeptic like I could feel the truth of those words, as cliché as they might sound.  She spoke from experience.  Her son turned thirteen this week and I have no idea where the time went.  It wasn’t that long ago that I was changing his diapers (occasionally), teaching him to ride a bike (by falling off it and getting up again) or shooting a basketball through the hoop (50 percent lifetime free throw shooter).  These are the advantages of being an uncle.  I get to hang out with my nephew and do fun stuff, while my sister is responsible for raising him. It doesn’t seem that long ago that my own son was an infant.  I’m not sure what you classify a four-month-old as, but infant he is not.  For starters, he rolls over front to back and left to right.  He transfers things from one hand to the other.  He laughs.  He follows you with his eyes as you walk across the room.  He reaches for a toy.  And, he holds his head up. Holding his head up is a big deal.  It changes his world and mine.  It used to be that I would put him in his stroller or his baby bjorn and he would face me.  His whole world was my face.  There’s a comfort there in being a parent knowing that your child is completely dependent on you and that you are always able to see what their needs are.  If he’s bored, his face tightens.  If...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin Here are 10 things I discovered about being a stay at home dad now that my wife has gone back to work and I’m home alone with the baby.  May they one day help you as much as they’ve helped me. 1. Shower before your wife leaves for work in the morning. If you don’t, you won’t.  You may turn on the shower once or twice or three times throughout the day thinking that this is the time your baby really naps.  You will be wrong.  You may even get in the shower.  I do not recommend this.  You will rush out wet, soapy, and wearing a towel when you hear your baby’s ear piercing plea for attention.  Holding a crying baby while you’re half showered is awkward even if no one is looking.  Showering the night before counts as showering before your wife leaves for work. 2. Know where your phones are at all times. Also remember to turn them on and off as necessary.  If you do not have a phone next to you and you are holding your baby, the phone will ring.  If your baby falls asleep your phone will ring.  If you turn your ringer off you will miss an important phone call.  If you manage to put your sleeping baby down and dash for the ringing phone you will trip over your babies activity mat and hit your head on your hardwood floors.  Yes, you will. 3. No naps. Babies sleep up to eighteen hours a day according to some books.  According to my baby that number is bullsh*t.  Today he took one twenty minute nap, one thirty minute nap and then “stayed up” ‘til almost 10 PM.  Of course, when I...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin It depresses me to see someone in Los Angeles run to catch a bus. I’ve seen the moment their faces change as they realize the ride they need is going to leave before they get there. Often times, they carry the evidence of their tardiness in plain view. Maybe it’s the untucked shirt of a hard days work, some oil on the hands from a broken down car, or the wrappers of fast food they could not go without. Whatever it is, there is a moment of panic, a moment of decision, a moment of no going back. Either they run for that bus with everything they got, or they shrug their shoulders, amble over to the stop and get ready to kill some time. Once in a while a guy or girl will seem to break out in a sprint only to manage a few steps before giving up. I commend their awareness of self. Other times people will go for it only to have their bodies betray them. I applaud the effort even if it results in sweaty pits, shortness of breath and twisted ankles. Very few go for it and come up short, but it does happen. Hands on knees, gasping for air, choking on exhaust as that bus gets where they’re going before they do. Having never run after a bus in my life I often wonder what the hell could be so important that someone would even bother to run. Today, as I was heading down Victory Place towards the Empire Shopping center in Burbank a forty-ish Hispanic lady with an untucked work shirt was chasing a bus turning right onto Victory Pl from Burbank Blvd. I didn’t see the moment where she...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin Along with being a new dad I’m a new homeowner, and by home, I mean condo.  The condo has three bedrooms, two baths, an open floor plan, underground parking, count them two patios and a gym room I haven’t used, although I will, I promise.  I’m telling you this because this is an awful lot of space for just one man.  You see owning property and having children are eerily similar, except for the fact that you can’t trade up with children.  While my wife and I consider the condo to be a starter home, our son is permanent.  I would love to say that my wife and I are enjoying our new condo and new son as she finishes out her maternity leave and for the most part we have, but recently, my wife took (is there a better word) our son to her mom’s house in Orange County for what looks to be a week.  No, there is no problem in our relationship.  The problem is in our condo. The heavy Los Angeles rainfall of the past month has led to a moisture invasion of our property.  Moisture causes mold and if left untreated, mold spreads and destroys homes, families, and fortunes.  In an effort to nip this problem in the bud we contacted our HOA, our property management company, the contractor, the home warranty company, and ultimately the developer.  We are of the opinion that a condo built six months ago should remain moisture and more importantly mold free.  Fortunately, the developer feels the same way.  This is why Filipe is on the job.   When I said I was home alone I meant I was home alone at night.  During the day Filipe, who...

. a blogumn by Josh Pullin If I told you it took 72 hours, incredible patience, nearly intolerable pain that resulted in blood, sweat and tears for everyone involved, you might think I was talking about my wife giving birth.  I’m not.  While she has her own labor and delivery story that we’ve shared with countless friends, neighbors, coworkers, and that guy at the video store, I’m not going to repeat it here.  I’m going to share my very own labor and delivery pains. Though my wife and I may have switched roles domestically (she the breadwinner and me the primary child care taker), I still maintain a certain Mad Men-esque responsibility for getting sh*t done around the house.  Unfortunately for my wife, my expertise does not extend to cleaning the commode and washing the shower doors.  In fact, I rarely notice when the toilet needs cleaning (I try not to look at it which may explain my poor aim) and do you have any idea how hard it is to get soap scum off of a glass shower door?  It’s really, really hard and involves some kind of magic lemon juice concoction. That said, my duties do include your run of the mill man chores like killing bugs, tightening screws, talking to contractors and repairmen when need be, as well as less “manly” activities like the laundry, vacuuming, taking out the trash and doing the dishes.  Granted I don’t touch my wife’s laundry and I have to be constantly reminded to do the dishes.  However, I find myself contributing more to the household chores then my father ever did. Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not complaining.  Not yet, anyway.  My definition of what it means to be a man, husband and father is...

. a blogumn by Joshua Pullin For those of you who have seen the film adaptation of David Mamet’s Glenngary Glen Ross, you are familiar with Alec Baldwin’s ABCs of selling. Namely, always be closing. Well the ABCs of newborns are actually ABSs and much like their acronym-sharing anti-lock braking system, they’re invaluable in emergencies. So, what does ABS stand for? A-always, B-Be, S-Swaddled. Always Be Swaddled. Seems easy enough. Want baby to sleep: swaddle him. Want baby to stop crying: swaddle him. Want baby to get an academic scholarship to Stanford: swaddle him. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it looks. The dare I say “perfect swaddle” above required seven refolds, two tucks, a pull, a sprained thumb, a mild case of dehydration and three days, fifteen hours and three minutes of practice to perfect. Fear not, though, there was a time I couldn’t even dream of swaddling. I was sure I could wrap baby in a blanket or hold him inside my coat, but the nurses assured me this wasn’t the same. So I practiced in the hospital. I firmly believed that there was a swaddling test and I was determined to pass it. I swaddled in the evening. I swaddled in the morning. Sometimes I unswaddled him just so I could swaddle him again. Eventually I was swaddling in my dreams. Fold over the corner. Place baby on fold. Top left to bottom, securing baby’s right arm. Bottom to top with a tuck. Top right down and across, securing baby’s left arm. Pull tight and tuck inside. Soon enough I knew advanced swaddling techniques like “The Burrito” and ” The Russian”. Then they released us from the hospital. We had no nurses, no back up. I also realized there was no...

. a blogumn by Joshua Pullin Some day around the age of four or five my son will ask why we named him what we did.  This is what I will tell him. Your mom and I knew you were a boy before you were born.  We could’ve given you a family name.  Only with one grandfather and zero brothers or uncles between us, there weren’t a lot of family names to pick from.  So, we made a few rules.  Popular names, even if we liked them, like Jack, Andrew or Ben, were out.  Biblical names were out.  Names that reminded us of anyone we didn’t like were out.  Trendy celebrity names were out. We thought about naming you Joshua, but I didn’t want to turn my head every time your mom called out Josh.  Besides, we wanted you to have your very own name. Ruling out names was taking forever so we decided what kinds of names were acceptable.  Your mom craved one with literary significance.  I sought a name that was unmistakably a boy, but fit for a man – the name of someone who could eat dirt and one day run for congress.  It wasn’t long before we settled on the letter ‘G’.  Maybe it was because you have a grandma Gayle and a grandpa Gordon.  I really don’t know.  Graham was the early front-runner and met both our criteria.  Graham Greene was an author, playwright, and critic, and Graham by itself sounded like a little boy who might just grow up and do something.  But, it didn’t stick.  We chose Grady. John Grady Cole is the heroic character in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses as well as the professor in Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon.  That satisfied any literary...

. a new blogumn by Josh Pullin 2008 was limbo.  Home prices were high.  So was unemployment.  Newspapers were dying.  The market was down, as were my prospects.  I’d left the warm embrace of a good job with excellent benefits at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program to pursue the high wire act of a screenwriting career.  I also enrolled in school for film editing, you know, in case the whole writing thing didn’t work out.  My wife beat a layoff with the floundering parent company of the Los Angeles Times and returned to her previous employer, a family-friendly ad agency that specializes in nonprofits.  This allowed us to move into a new apartment with more square footage in a less cool neighborhood.  It wasn’t the feature spec sale, South Pasadena home purchase, new parent living we imagined when we married at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood back in 2007, but we had dreams, damn it! All of a sudden it was 2009.  The screenwriting career, as often happens in Hollywood, stalled.  School came and went.  Even so, hope was in the air.  We had a black president and health care debate.  Home prices came down.  So did interest rates.  I can’t be unemployed forever we thought.  Against our better judgment we bought a condo in Burbank and we got pregnant.  I say we got pregnant because if you’re anything like me, then when your wife is pregnant you will experience sleepless nights, frequent urination, weight gain, mood swings and mild to severe nausea.  And that’s just from thinking about college tuition. The purchase of a condo earned us a federal tax credit (thanks Obama) and because it was new construction we garnered a state tax credit too (thanks Arnold).  Luckily, our 8 pound 11...