Daddy Talk: Road Trip

Having a Thanksgiving celebration on the road can be tough on the participants involved.
Thinking about the details, you have something like a 1 in 140 chance of dying in a car accident on America's roads. Add to that a screaming baby and the whole idea of a road trip seems like a bad idea. But it wasn't.

The boy is still pretty unreasonable when he gets cranky, but mostly you know what's coming down. It's food or he needs to take a friggin' nap and won't. The nap is the killer as you can't spoon up a nap. Seeing family after driving 8 hours on the road really has its own fun and sense of relief when you reach your destination. In this case, mostly relief as the boy went to sleep. Surprisingly enough he didn't wear down quite enough and was up bright and early the next day.

Add the stress of travel to and from the location as well as cooking Thanksgiving dinner and you have the makings of at least one or two blowups. I am proud to say with all that we had only one and a really tasty turkey and a pretty good Thanksgiving celebration.

Daddy Talk: Separation anxiety

Today wasn't the first time I had to leave my family for work. But this one seems to be the most difficult. Every day this little guy gets more and more interesting and I get so easily impressed with his accomplishments.

Right now it's the walking that's doing it for me. I get so happy when he grabs my two fingers and grabs a pair of his moms and we walk hand in hand. Pretty soon he will shed our fingers to make his own way without parents in tow. I doubt that it'll happen in the week that I am gone, but it's a week I lose with him.

That being said, it's only a week. Some of our friends have had to spend months at a time away from their kids. I know that when I was young, my dad was gone for a year at a time to Germany and Korea while in the army. I am not sure how it affected me. I'm sure it wasn't great. I remember lots of fighting with my mom as she kept the family together. Army wives are some of the toughest.