The Launch & Discussion of Why Is Daddy Crying – the film

Just a mere few days before the hallowed holiday of Father’s Day, my dear friend JC Little (AKA @LittleAnimation on Twitter) and I are pleased to launch the highly anticipated 3-minute animated short based on this blog. I hope you all enjoy it and happy Father’s Day world!!

As we launch it, JC Little and I have a quick discussion.

Me: So, I wish we could do this over a few bottles of wine with cameras rolling like a professional DVD extra interview. But, we’re stuck to a conversation via my blog.

I can’t even begin to thank you for creating such an amazing animated short inspired by my insane family. And we’re launching it today!!

So, let’s take a quick gander back in time and talk about what brought us together. I believe it was the hatred for the Snuggie that made our paths cross...

JC: Actually I was new on Twitter and I did an #FF on a Thursday. You caught me!

After that I found your anti-Snuggies blog post and we tried really hard to make #sayNOtoSnuggies trend. We almost succeeded too. Remember how you over-tweeted and got booted off Twitter? You left me holding the baby - me - a Twitter newbie! That was SO FUN. Met a lot of cool tweeps that night.

Me: It wasn't fun..it was frustrating!!! We were rocking the #sayNOtoSnuggies and then...I was gone. Shunned from Twitter.

So, I'll never forget when you DM'd me and said, "I wanna do an animation based on your blog."
I immediately said, "that's so awesome…but I can't pay you." Then you said you would do it pro-bono.

So I want to hear it from you....tell me about the making of this kick-ass film!!

JC: WHAT??? I never said I'd do it for FREE??? ARE YOU CRAZIE MAN!!!!???

I'm kidding of course! You can keep your first born. Hah. You've already made me laugh so much with your crazy blog, I consider it already bought and paid for. I can't resist a good story, and you inspired me. I decided it was a film that needed to be made.

Me: So tell me a couple good tidbits from your experience making this animated short? Like your brother screaming his head off for hours!

JC: My brother? Oh yeah, well I obviously needed to cast someone to do the voice of the crying daddy. I remembered how I used to make my brother scream when we were kids, heheh.

He actually never did any voice work before, but he did an amazing job when we went into the studio. He responded really well to direction too. The voice work came out so well, I had trouble deciding which takes to use - they were all so funny. And he's about to have his first baby, so now he's got a head start on the crying.

Me: I think you captured the look and attitudes of my family absolutely perfectly. My kids love it. The wife laughs every time, and her favorite part is that you made her about a foot taller than she really is!

JC:  Hey, it's a challenge to make stick figures look like people you never met!  It was great to have their feedback throughout the process, from script through storyboard and animation. Especially the kids.

Do you think your character looks like you?

Me: I think it does…except you did miss the incredibly huge ears I have, the gap in my front teeth, and the fact that I randomly break out into the robot. Other than that it was brilliant! The entire film is brilliant…from beginning to end.

I can’t thank you enough for sharing such a great experience with me. I can’t wait to see what people think!

JC: Me too! I hope it makes them laugh and touches them enough to want to share it with their dads. It's a great Father’s Day gift no? Thanks for the chance to talk about the 'making of' with you; I gotta go animate you doing the robot now ;-D

Me: Oh, I’d love to see that! Oh…and we should be sure and leave the proper cliff-hanger before signing off! There is an alternate ending to this animated short masterpiece. Stay tuned!!! My dear friend JC is going to bless us all with that in the coming week or two!

Enjoy the film!

Birthday Cake & Boobies

Last night I laid in bed with the boy like I always do, shooting the shit, making him laugh, making up stories...

Ten minutes later the wife hopped in bed to say good night. One minute later the daughter jumped in too.

For the next 10 minutes “boobs” were focus of this unique impromptu family gathering. And here’s how it went:

Daughter: “Grayson, you remember the story about you pooping and getting a birthday cake?”

Me: “You mean when we promised brother we’d give him a whole cake if he ever pooped in the toilet instead of his diaper?”

Wife: “And he did!”

Daughter: “Why didn’t I get any of that cake daddy?!!”

Me: “You did. Trust me…you were a baby, mommy chowed down on that cake and you got it through mommy’s milk!”

Son: “Hahaha you drank birthday cake through mommy’s boobies!! Haha”

Me: “Umm soo did you chief. For 13 months you drank from mom’s boob.”

Son: “NO I DIDN’T!!!”

Daughter: “Haha Grayson drank mommy’s boobie!”

Wife: “So did you dear…for six months you drank from my boobies.”

Son: “Yeah!!!!! See Macy…haha…you drank on mommy’s boobs, too!”

Daughter: “Yeah, but I got birthday cake!”

Son: “Daddy did you get any birthday cake through mommy’s boobies?”

Despite my natural desire to want to answer the question with exaggerated stories surrounding the glories breasts of my wife, I (for once) looked at my wife and reacted accordingly to her “say one word and I’ll cut you” glare.

Me: “No son…I have never, nor will I ever have cake from mommy’s boobies.”

Wife: “That was one of the most painful things you’ve ever done wasn’t it?”

Me: “You have no idea. I need to be alone for a while.”

Wife: “Just make sure you clean-up afterwards.”

Son: “Why does daddy need to be alone mommy?”

Wife: “Your daddy really really LOVES birthday cake and talking about it really made him want some.”

Daughter: “Do you have birthday cake in your boobies right now mommy?”

Wife: “No dear, mommy’s boobies have all dried up and are purely ornamental at this point.”

Son: “Your boobs are like ornaments on a tree?”

Wife: “Ummm…yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it.”

Son: “You’ve got big ornaments mommy.”

Wife: “OK…and with that let’s go to bed kids!!”

To My Wife On Our Anniversary

Twelve,

Who’d have thought?

I still remember each laugh.

I still remember each tear…and why.

On the pier we laid, vulnerable, ignorant, surrounded by nature and the love we now raise our children in.

I knew then what I know now,

Your strength is envious.

Contagious.

Our lives are far from perfect.

Our beliefs stray from the norm.

Our love has been more than challenged.

You’re undying kindness and devotion,

Is humbling and heart-warming.

The mornings we laid dreaming of years from now,

In the place we’ll call home,

Returning back to nature,

Together,

The two of us.

The journey getting there will be ours, remarkable, painful, revealing…

You are my hero.

You are my best friend.

You are my children’s mother.

You are my wife.

You are…everything I wish I was…

Time To Get Off This Spot

It’s been some time since I last updated on my current situation.

The summary…Big-eared, gap-toothed freak gets job in Chicago, lives in empty house on air mattress alone in Chicago while his family tries to sell their house in Virginia, four months later said family moves to Chicago, freak works at new job for exactly18 months before being given a choice to stay at half the salary or leave and get full salary for three full months…gap-toothed freak decides to leave after searching soul and talking with friends, colleagues and family.

December 1, 2009, was the first day of unemployment and the beginning of a pretty incredible internal journey. I woke up and had nowhere to go. The kids went to school, the wifey headed off to her job, and there I was…disheveled, hung-over from feeling sorry for myself the night before, scratching myself, and looking around the house thinking, “OK…now what?”

I had a brief explosion of support from my kick-ass Twitter peeps. I pimped my resume far and wide, and met and talked to some really great, helpful people.

This is a really bad comparison, but I imagine this is kind of what it’s like when you lose someone close to you. You find out who your true friends are and they rally around you. And, for a short time you feel like you can conquer the world. But then they leave because they have their lives to live. They have their families to take care of…

Then I found myself one early morning seven weeks later standing there, disheveled, hung-over from feeling sorry for myself the night before, scratching myself, and looking around the house thinking, “I have absolutely no place in this life.”

What used to be 5 a.m. daily runs have turned into 6:45 a.m. snooze-bar workouts.

I drink more than I should at night because…well because fuck it, I don’t have to work tomorrow.

I didn’t shave or cut my hair for weeks and was introduced by the wifey to the term “beard funk.”

My son was sitting on my lap the other day and reached out and poked my stomach.

I find myself regularly and randomly telling the cat secrets and make him “pinky-swear not to tell!!”

After interviewing for what would be my dream job, I got an email letting me know they’re “pursuing another candidate.”

Last week I spent the day with the executive director of a great organization here in the Chicago suburbs. I’ve worked with her since I’ve been in Chicago and she wanted to discuss a new position being created that she wants me to take. She has to go through the motions associated with advertising it, but when all is said-and-done, she says the job is mine. Of course I won’t consider it mine till the paperwork is signed and I’m on board, but still it’s a huge relief.

And as phenomenal and fortunate as that is, I’m still here in this spot. The spot where I’ve stood since the day I was let go. Watching life pass by each day. A ghost of me interacting with my family and friends. Self pity lurking in every corner ready to be grasped as an excuse when needed.

So why am I not happy with this very fortunate news? And I realized, I’m ecstatic with the news, I’m just not happy with myself and how I’ve handled this situation. And even more so—I think I’ve been waiting for someone to come by and pick me up, fix things, show me the new course to follow, then pat me on my ass and say, “now go get em tiger!”

But life doesn’t happen like that. Life’s going to continue with or without me—that much I have learned. And I’ve got such a great group of family and friends—but they all have their lives to lead too.

All you parents out there who’ve seen Nemo 4,398,219 times remember the scene when Marlin and Dory are with the turtles riding the East Australian Current and little Squirt gets tossed out into the still water. Crush, the father, says, “let us see what little Squirt does flying solo.”

It’s time for me to move off this spot. It’s time for me to cut the hair, trim the beard, get back in my regular routine, and leap back into the wild ride of the current of life I’ve ignored for too damn long. No one’s going to come out there and grab me and pull be back in. I’ve gotta do it on my own.

What I Learned In Two Weeks

Two weeks. I survived two freakin’ weeks as a single, stay-at-home dad. No, wifey hasn’t left me…yet. She does work part-time though. So, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. I was the lone individual responsible for keeping two, insane children alive and from killing themselves, or me.

So here are my thoughts and some snapshots of what went down:

1)  Stay at home moms fucking rock. And! Single parents should be given full-tax breaks and awarded Pulitzer Prizes of Awesomeness made of diamonds.

2)  My daughter is absolutely head-over-heels in love with Patrick from SpongeBob.

3)  My kids watch too much SpongeBob.

4)  Watching my boy interact with strangers on a sledding hill brings the biggest, dumbest smile to my oversized face.

5)  Checking out the view from the top of the Sears Tower is kick-ass and makes wifey poop herself.

6)  It becomes painfully difficult to find time to masturbate when children are in your life 24/7.

7)  Wait…I mean…#5 is something I heard on Oprah.

8)  Shit – I swear I did not start watching Oprah over the past two weeks. I hate that woman!!! But seriously, her holiday episode…I mean…SHIT!

9)  I get my period when I’m alone with the kids for that long of time.

10)  I found myself standing in a room at least once a day, with absolutely no idea why in the fuck I walked into it.

11)  I went grocery shopping twice with a list of over two dozen things and came out with only beer and popcorn.

12)  My daughter thinks she’s iCarly and wants to kiss a boy.

13)  iCarly is banned from this house for the next 13 years until she goes off to college.

14)  Parenting with a hangover is really really really hard.

15)  When my kids are lying on the couch, entranced with a movie, and not moving—they are the most adorable fucking things on this planet.

16)  My wife wonders what I “do all day?”

17)  I’ve learned how to turn my phone off all day, then when the wifey asks “what’s up with your phone,” I use my brand-new, off-the-shelf mid-western accent and say, “Ohh geeze…the battery died so I had to plug it in to charge and forgot to turn it back on-okay! Sorry yah!”

18)  Trying to do a cartwheel when you’re naked and alone to celebrate the children going back to school is not a good idea. The cat attacked Mr. Small-Time and almost made it Mr. No-Time.

19)  I hate…hate…hate my fucking cat. Lazy, furry, cozy, snuggle buddy. I mean..that asshat.

20)  My son and I became closer than we’ve ever been and it makes me weak in the knees.

21)  All I have to do is look in my daughter’s eyes for a split second, and she’s scrambling to sit next to me…grabbing my arm and laying it around her and across her chest.

22)  My wife has the ability to make me do whatever in the holy hell she wants me to do and I have no control over it. I painted our bedroom and hallway, and went to Ikea all in a two-day span. And I didn’t even know it happened until it was over.

23)  Three days is the limit for me not taking a shower. After that…even I’m writing myself hate-notes and slipping them under my pillow.

24)  A lot of employers don’t post available jobs during the holidays.

25)  Despite all that’s absolutely and totally fucked right now…I love my life and those who are in it.