For the last two nights, you have been waking up between ten and eleven o'clock at night. Something is scaring or waking you. I was just up with you in your room, holding you and rocking you back to sleep. I gently pushed the hari back on the side of your head, and gently rubbed your temples until you fell back to sleep. As I watched you there, I realized that I don't write to you often enough -- In fact, it's been months since I have. I;ve got lots of stories to tell you about little adventures that you (and we) have had. Stuff like your first teeth, beginning to pull up, and the "word" that your mother and I think that you say -- but aren't really sure.
Today your mother and I began the school year, and you returned to your Grandmama and Pa's for daycare. Your cousin Nixon was there, and he grinned at me for the first time. I remember when you did that, and how it lit me up inside. It still does. Everytime.
Your mother read you my favorite story tonight. Both times that I've heard it, I've cried. It's called something like "Do You Know How Much I Love You?" I suspect that I'll read it to your children.
I hope that I will.
I will always love you -- and always wish for nights when I can rock you to sleep and listen for your breathing. I wish you could always stay this little.
I read a story in my local paper Sunday morning that gave me pause. By noon, though, I'd forgotten about it -- until Dave Winer linked to the same story. The story is about blogging and young people, and how what they say as a teen can come back to haunt them later. A good reminder, actually, but that's not what caught my eye. The bolded red text below did:
"I would bet that in the 2016 election, somebody's Facebook entry will come back to bite them," Steve Jones, head of the communications department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says, referring to thefacebook.com, a networking site for college students and alumni that is something of a cross between a yearbook and a blog.
More traditional blog sites — which allow easy creation of a Web site with text, photos and often music — include Xanga, LiveJournal and MySpace. And they've gotten more popular in recent years, especially among the younger set.
In my paper's version of the story, the section on Facebook didn't appear, which made the adjective "traditional" seem really weird.
Since when were blogs traditional? When will they become so?
I've got a daughter who will eventually enter this stage. The stage where anything and everything goes into her mouth or wherever else she can place things. I hope we never, ever make a contribution to this jar.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Bud TITLE: Sleeping through the night STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 CATEGORY: Parenthood DATE: 03/04/2005 06:17:06 AM ----- BODY:Two nights ago, Ani slept through teh night. I didn't think it was legitimate, though, because she was sick and feeling horrible. Last night, after a normal day, Ani slept from 10:45pm until almost 6am!
Hooray.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Bud TITLE: Sickness STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 CATEGORY: Parenthood DATE: 02/14/2005 05:21:16 PM ----- BODY: My daughter went to the doctor today for what I thought might be a small crisis -- but turned out to be absolutely nothing. Thday was the first time that I cried at work -- when my wife called to tell me smoething was wrong. It took all of two minutes for me to figure out my priorities -- I like my job. I love my baby.
I didn't even ask permission before I left.
For several day now, I have been learning about blogging by keeping a blog on my teaching.
But there's a far more important experience that I am having right now -- and maybe I should be blogging about it, too.
On December 28th, 2004, my daughter was born. She is my first child, and she has changed my life. It is cliche -- but it's also true. I will be forever different, because I am and forever will be, someone's father.
I am typing this one-handed as she is sleeping in the crook of my left arm. I also am constantly startled by every move or snort or start from her these few sentences have taken almost ten minutes to type. I am looking forward to fatherhood, as I have enjoyed this last month. But I don't know if I am ready for this.