Child: Handle with Care

My day started off on a bit of a sad note... As we were walking up to the place where I leave my daughter for Before-and-After-School Care, she asked me, "Who's at the door?" I looked up and there was, in fact, a lady, with a baby in a stroller, standing on the stoop and talking to the caregiver. This may not seem weird, but it was because I drop my daughter off about an hour before anyone else does.

Now, I'm not the nosey type, so I just stood at the bottom of the stairs, out of earshot, waiting for the conversation to end. At one point, the caregiver leaned out, gave the lady a quick hug, then indicated that I was waiting to drop off my daughter. The lady moved aside to let us pass and, as we did so, I noticed the lady was crying and I heard her say, "...daycare is starving him. I was just hoping you had a spot open..."

The next couple of minutes were filled with me getting my daughter in the door and talking to the caregiver about the pick-up and drop-off arrangements for the new school year. The whole time, the lady with the baby stood on the steps outside, sobbing. If I'd had a bit more time to think about it, I'd probably have been quite uncomfortable with the whole situation (I don't usually know how to deal with "emotional people") but, as it was, I had a bus to catch and was feeling just a little rushed. As I made my way back down the walk, I turned to give my daughter a wave good-bye and saw that the caregiver was inviting the crying lady inside.

Once on the bus, I had some time to reflect on what I had just witnessed. Obviously, this lady was having a very difficult time with her current child care solution, based on the "starving him" comment and her being desperate enough to knock on the door of a complete stranger at 6:30 in the morning just because there was an "Approved Child Care" sign in the front window. Although I've never been pushed to this point myself, the whole scene reminded me of the few times that I've had similar predicaments and how helpless I felt. I once picked my daughter up from daycare (she was an infant at the time) and was told by one of the staff, "You should take her to a doctor. She's had a fever all day." What?!? And I'm hearing about it now? At the end of the day? Needless to say, I completely lost it and my daughter was out of that daycare faster than you can blink. It's a horrible feeling when you find yourself without someone to watch your child so you can go off to work. Worse still is having to leave your child with someone, then spending the whole day wondering if they are okay.

When I was a young lad, things were different. Most families had one parent who worked and one who stayed home to take care of the kids. Mom was always there to see us off to school, to have lunch waiting for us, and to make us do our homework before we went out to play. Nowadays, though, it's almost impossible to raise kids on a single income. Sure, I manage well enough on my own with my daughter, but it's still the same thing: Every parent in our house has to go to work. In turn, that means the kids have to go with someone in the meantime... someone that can be trusted and counted on to take decent care of them and see to their basic needs.

I don't know what's going to happen with the crying lady and her little baby. I do know that the dayhome I'm using is pretty full. Of course, I also know that my daughter's caregiver is a woman with a big heart and an amazing reputation in the neighborhood. Hopefully, even if she can't help the lady out personally, she'll be able to point her in the direction of someone who can.

Wee Wisdom

At the tender age of seven, my daughter is already beginning to question the constructs and immutable laws of her little universe. As we were walking to the store yesterday, she watched her feet for a while then turned to me and said,

"I step on cracks all the time, but when I go to Mommy's, she never has a broken back."

No One's Laughing Now

For years, the jokes and satirical impressions have made us laugh. In the end, though, it's just not funny.

(Thanks to Adem for the heads up...)

From Digg: Digg's Mysterious Ways

I have to admit... I'm relatively new to the whole "Digg scene". That's not to say that I don't know what it's all about, just that I haven't made as much use of it up to this point as many others have. And that's not because I don't think highly of it... But I'm getting off track here. Let me start again.

Digg is one of the coolest offerings on the web today, in my opinion. It's right up there with Google (the God of all Cool Web Offerings), blogging, and YouTube. It's one-stop shopping for surfers interested in the latest, coolest, most newsworthy items of the day. It's a dynamic, evolving collection of stories, links, and opinions on just about every topic imaginable. It's the way to keep your finger on the digital pulse of the world.

But does it work?

That, in essence, is the question asked by Napfisk in his write-up, "More of Digg's Mysterious Ways". Are we really seeing the best of the best when we click on a highly-Dugg story, or are we seeing the results of a web-based popularity contest? How much sway do the posting user's contacts and connections have over the actual "coolness" of the content being Dugg? And, most importantly, is Digg a vehicle for the sharing of interesting content (as I originally thought), or is it simply the latest web-game with users vying for spots on the front page?

Whatever the answers are to these questions, I'm pretty sure Digg will only continue to grow in popularity. That's the way it is with all good tools, which is (I believe) what Digg is meant to be. Perhaps, as with most "fads", this one will find it's own balance and we'll see less bias and more true social networking.

Here's hoping.

Anyway, if you're not already a Digg user, go sign up and give it a whirl. And be sure to let me know what you think.

read more | digg story

Photo of the Week:National Geographic, Here I Come!

An iguana perches on a rock by the ocean in the Virgin Islands. I couldn't have planned a more perfect shot.

Click here to see the complete Caribbean Cruise Vacation Photo Set.

Happy Birthday, Blondie!

I'm having a hard time believing it, but I guess the calendar doesn't lie... My little girl is a whopping seven years old today!

I hope you're having a great birthday party, hanging out with your Mom and brothers and sisters. The kids, the games, the cake, and, of course, the presents... Yeah, I'm sure you're having a blast! And just think... When you come back home to Dad, we're gonna do it all over again!

How awesome is that?

(And now for the mushy part...)

Thanks for being the best kid a Dad could ask for, and for making the last seven years the best ones of my life. I love ya lots, Kiddo!

(This concludes the mushy portion of this post)

Okay. Now, get back in there and show those kids how to party!

Boring Childhood Stories: Grin and Bear It

He refuses to discuss the incident. What he was thinking, I'll never know. How it happened, I can only guess.

Sssssst.

That was the sound I heard. No more than half a second, and I was alone in the room. But before I even had time to wonder what the sound was, a tickle in the back of my throat grew to a pinprick to a scratch to a spasm in the span of a heartbeat. Through the ensuing coughing fit I could hear others in the house having the same problem.

That Christmas, my brothers and I had driven 15 hours down a deserted, icy highway to reach our parents' cabin in the middle of nowhere. Actually, one of my brothers drove, the other slept in the back seat, and I rode shotgun, forcing myself to stay awake to make sure the driver didn't nod off behind the wheel. A couple of times, the exhaustion was just too much for the two of us and he'd pull over, shut off the car, and we'd grab a little shut-eye. Eventually, the car would cool off enough that our shivering brought us around and he'd start the car back up and we'd be on our way.

The trip ended at a hunting and fishing lodge high up in the mountains of British Columbia, closed for the season. The lake was frozen solid, snow had been blown into 8-foot high drifts, and the only people within 50 miles of the place were a few lumberjacks and a cook holed up in a logging camp down the road. The main lodge where my parents and sister lived was warm and inviting though... A rustic log cabin style building with great big windows and a deck overlooking the place. Inside, my stepfather kept a blaze going in the fireplace and there was almost good enough reception on the TV in the corner to make out who was playing on Hockey Night in Canada. Mom made sure there was a steady supply of hot coffee and the kittens chased each other or little balls of Kleenex across the hardwood floors.

One of the simple realities of living in such a remote part of the Canadian Wilderness is the presence of bears. Maybe not so much in the dead of winter, but certainly during the warmer months. So, I wasn't the least bit surprised to find a can of bear spray in my mother's kitchen. For those unfamiliar with this product, it's essentially pepper spray, but powerful enough to deter a 7-foot, 850lb mountain of teeth and claws. But how strong is that, exactly?

From what I now understand, a half-second burst (which tends to sound like "Sssssst", by the way) packs enough punch to inflict coughing fits in 6 people in 3 different rooms, render the brother who pulled the trigger teary-eyed, red-faced, and sullen, and inspire jokes for something like 11 years now.

(That's pretty strong.)