DADWAGON

With all respect to Matt, I could do without Father’s Day, at least on my behalf (as opposed to my dad’s, that is; he deserves any recognition he can get and then some).

It kinda snuck up on me, which is surprising–one year in, and I’m already jaded? But I guess I don’t particularly care about having a Day. As I’ve mentioned here, my wife and I took a pretty casual approach to Mother’s Day: just spent time with her and my own mom, pretty much, and both mothers asked us to skip present-giving. This time, we headed to my in-laws’, which–I am incredibly grateful to say–is always a pleasant experience. So the special celebration, such as it is, was just the usual dose of weekend daddytime. (Though my wife did bring me a bag of treats from the unbeatable Doughnut Plant.) When he’s old enough to make a little arts-and-crafts project at school, I will happily tack it up over my desk. Till then, everyone’s getting a bye.

Am I just being sour? Maybe a little. I should be giddy–I’m a dad! This is my Day! And who says no to a nice meal?–but honestly, the major life force I feel during this stage of parenthood is being a little overbooked, all the time. I am an enthusiastic parent, and my son is a sweet little guy to be around, and god knows I could not be happier that he’s here. But the fact remains that I am always playing catchup: on sleep, on housework, on work-work, on everything else. Adding another holiday into the mix, even if it’s meant to commemorate me, is just … one more commitment. If I were to spend the afternoon relaxing with a beer on the patio I don’t have, it’d just dump even more caretaking than usual on my wife, and anyway, I’d probably spend the evening doing double-duty, catching up on everything I’d ignored all day.

Call me a churl, write me off as a grouch, but the best celebration, at this moment in my life, is not taking time out to celebrate. Maybe when he’s old enough to join me with that beer, it’ll be actual fun.

Some day we won’t all have Jon Gosselin to kick around, but until that day comes, KICK AWAY, I say, and apparently, so too does Babble, which ran this short item from Famecrawler on the infamous father-of-many, on the five best show ideas in service of his perpetual pop cultural infamy. I won’t include the entire post—the writing is so exquisite you should all click through on your own to see it—but the titles tell you most of what you need to know:

America’s Biggest Loser Dad
The Bachelor Survivor
Big Stoned Brother (Bro)
SuperManny
Extremely Needed Makeover

Now that’s comedy.

Two weeks away, trotting the globe from Costa Rica to Tunisia, and this is what I come back to? Actually, it’s hard to say whether DadWagon itself changed while I was gone, much as it’s hard to say whether Sasha grew into an adult at the same time.

But clearly, something happened in the past couple of weeks! For example, my fellow wagoneers brought in a temporary replacement, Gabe Soria, who is apparently not a manny. Which is a good thing because apparently he’s constantly hungover and letting his kid watch hallucinatory YouTube videos.

Christopher, who’s most comfortable bringing to our notice dubious scientific studies (e.g., men lie!), took a dip into an atypical slice of pop culture by defending Sean P. Diddy Puff Daddy Combs from the evil Martin Bashir, although he did somehow find a way to bring up his devotion to public transportation.

Nathan, meanwhile, has gone completely over the edge, perhaps from too much sun exposure in the Dry Tortugas (side note: don’t ever give your girlfriend/wife/mistress a Wet Tortuga without plenty of warning; she won’t soon forgive you). Lately, he’s taken to writing Silversteinische doggerel, which he claims is simply a translation from a Weimar-era German named Ringelnatz. If you believe that, then perhaps I can interest you in purchasing a nice river-spanning piece of iron in my neighborhood?

Oh, and would you believe that that guy Theodore used the blog to vent his spleen and piss people off? Apparently, telling middle-aged women they shouldn’t have kids, or don’t have to have kids, or, well, something about not having kids ever, at all, somehow makes said middle-aged women upset. And as if that wasn’t enough, he shat on Parents Magazine, which generously dubbed our beloved Website “a little better than most blogs.” Thank you, Theodore, and thank you, Parents.

(Incidentally, it’s nice to note that you readers didn’t exactly change your behavior during my absence. This search term, for example, cropped up just over the weekend.)

Anyway, now I’m back at the helm of this wagon, so you should expect a bit more from us in the next couple of weeks. But don’t get huffy if there isn’t a post up at 8:30 a.m. sharp every day. If you do, we’ll sic Theodore on you.