A Father as a Beacon to his children

I like lighthouses! The pictures that you will see through this article are a few that I have taken through the years. Recently I have been thinking of lighthouses in relation to fatherhood. Lighthouses have played and still play an important part in nautical safety as many are still in working order doing the job that they were made to do – safeguard vessels from a watery grave. (If you are interested in learni Read More...

Beating the heat in the city – Water Fountains

Even in the NorthWest we get some hot days. I know it’s hard to believe, what with the reputation of never ending rainy days and tall evergreen tress but we are at the beginning of 90 degree temperatures like the NorthEast. When the weather warms up like this the boys and I go out in search of water to cool ourselves down. There are a number of great pools in Portland but when it is just me and three kids a p Read More...

Sunday In The Park

Sunday in the park is the only place one can really survive in Manhattan when the sun starts to literally melt the asphalt. We pack the stroller with plenty of water and toys and head out to the Great Lawn in the heart of Central Park. I am very grateful that plans to turn this vital patch of green into more city blocks was scuttled in the mid-1800s. As a parent, I realize how important this resource is for survivi Read More...

I am Dad

My family and I decided to go to the playground this hot summer morning. It was a relatively quiet start to the day, all of us somewhat sluggish from yesterday’s marathon July 4th celebration activities. After quickly devouring breakfast in anticipation of their adventures at the playground, my children waited for my wife and I at the door like two coiled springs waiting to be sprung. I took my wife’ Read More...

Bowling For Life Lessons

Growing up, I didn’t like many sports.  I wasn’t good at baseball, couldn’t sink a basket and would be ignored on the football field.  One of the few sports I actually liked was bowling.  I have many great memories from the lanes. NHL had been bowling before but JSL hadn’t been.  On Father’s Day, we decided to take the boys to a local bowling alley.  During the game, two things be Read More...

Turning Off the Tube

It was just the other day that my son, who just turned three, and I were at a local library. “Look Daddy. Look what I found. It’s a duck. I’ll call it Duck Duck.” at which point he held up a medium sized stuffed Big Bird toy. Such is the life of a toddler raised without television. Anyone who reads my personal blog Luke, I am Your Father should know that we gave up tv before our son was bor Read More...

Is the Revolution just another form of Evolution

This week I’m sitting in my parents-in-law home in Texas trying to watch how much BBQ I eat, my manners, and really trying to watch the GDs, Fbombs, and all the other cursing that comes bonded in my DNA as a true New Yorker. Last week I was in Salt Lake City/Park City Utah for the Evolution of Women in Social Media Conference.  It was called EVO, I spoke on a panel of other dad bloggers being @BenSpark, @tel Read More...

What fatherhood isn’t

I’ve been reflecting on some things.  Post Father’s Day, I’ve thought about my own dad.  I thought I would write about that today.  It’s grim, I’ll warn you now, but it’s truth. Fatherhood. What can I possibly say about fatherhood? I suppose I could say that it’s many things, but I think I’d like to say what it isn’t. Much of my family and friends know about my site, Read More...

My brother-in-law Qualifies

We went to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law (BNL) last night. I’ve known for a while now that my sister is pregnant and I’m very excited because my kids will finally have cousins. We were on our way home from dinner and I was riding with them and my mom. Side note if you are ever in Atlanta and need to eat your full of southern food it’s worth the 1 hr ride north to The Smith House in Dahl Read More...

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen? Teaching Your Children to Love the Art of Cooking!

As a man, many people would make the assumption that the only type of cooking that I like to do is on the grill. For me, this is as far from the truth as possible. I love trying new things and making new concoctions, the problem for me is that I simply don’t have a lot of time to be able to do a lot of cooking with working full time, so J-Mom tends to do most of the cooking around the house (even though she is no Read More...

Teaching My Son What Is Cool

There are a lot of lessons a dad can teach a son–sports, fixing things, impressing girls, getting a job, how to drive, etc.  Some lessons can be quite serious such as the value of hard work or how to run a business.  There are also fun lessons like how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how to do an ollie on a skateboard or how to play football.  My son is only three years old so obviously he is n Read More...

Negotiating with the neighbor kids

Dealing with discipline issues with your own kids is difficult enough but when you add in other kids that are not your own you run into some dicey situations. In our neighborhood there are no shortage of little friends to enjoy a sunny summer afternoon with but when all the kids end up on my watch I have to think about how to handle the inevitable fights that come up. With my boys I’m pretty quick with the wh Read More...

Plan? What Plan?!

As summer officially gets underway so do plans for a family vacation. Please keep in mind that our vacation falls into the category of “bring your child on tour so everyone can see him”. This entails, flying to Italy (yes, I know, boo-freakin’-hoo) and cramming ourselves into a car the size of a stamp and chauffeuring our son around for two weeks to meet every single relative of mine and my wife. This include Read More...

Post Father’s Day Reflection

So yesterday was Father’s Day. And a good one at that. My family and I went to a pool party to celebrate. There were families everywhere, cooking, drinking, swimming, playing games. At one point I stopped and just slowly looked around to take it all in. What I saw were dads engaged with their kids. Baseball, games, swimming—you name it they were doing it with their kids. Keep in mind this was happening during a Read More...

Summer Day Trips

We don’t take many vacations. Most of the ones we do take involve going to see family. Still, it occasionally is nice to do something outside of our ordinary day-to-day routine. We’ve figured out a couple of kid-friendly getaways nearby to escape from the everyday. How Amusing The most common destination is a local amusement park. Now, I’m not a big fan of wild rides. NHL, on the other hand l Read More...

Raffle: Upspring Baby – milkscreen

It’s the week before Father’s day and the good folks at Upspring Baby have teamed up with DadRevolution to offer a lucky Mom or Dad the opportunity to win one of UpSpring Baby’s latest and greatest products, milkscreen™. What is milkscreen? milkscreen is a simple, two minute test to detect for alcohol in breast milk. milkscreen™ lets Mom know the volume of alcohol concentrated in her breast m Read More...

Backyard Camping

Despite the fact that the revelation of this may bring a few cat calls for me to relinquish my Pacific North-Westerner card, I hereby admit that I am not a camper.  Even though I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Southwest Washington state surrounded by high hills and abundant nearby campsites, I was always one of those guys who was too busy to get into the camping lifestyle.  Did I mention that I grew up on a da Read More...

I want my kid to be batman, ok how about just to like batman

I love having a little boy, sometimes I forget the fact he’s still a baby in a lot of ways… The term is toddler and that means he’s totally into Elmo, Mickey Mouse, and  Yo Gabba Gabba but that doesnt really work well with the cartoons I wouldnt mind watching… Yes, I’m a grown man and I like to watch cartoons – what you’re going to make a big deal about it?! My wifey hates Read More...

On the road with toddlers

Last Summer Beautiful and I set off on a road trip with our three year old and one and half year old sons, from Portland, Oregon to Indianapolis, Indiana. We needed to get back to the house we owned in Indy to turn it over for our new tenants and we also needed to get out of town for a little vacation. The thought of driving 36 hours in a small car with small children is enough to inspire night terrors in the bes Read More...

Bikes are fun? Probably not so much…

Playtime with my kids is somewhat precarious. What my kids deem as fun and what I deem as fun are two totally different things. The good news is that I can simply laugh jovially and they recognized that I may be enjoying myself, and that lends itself to having fun. Sometimes it’s not that easy. As a child of the consumer culture in which we live, and someone who adores pop culture, I often times find myself t Read More...