Getting Started

The idea for this blog was born years ago when my second child was a newborn. After years of telling myself that I would start on this project, the chaos and 24 hour attention required to raise children and finally transitioned into a more manageable routine. After all, one of the key ideas behind this book was to assist new parents in finding a way to convert udder pandemonium into something resembling a routine, finding more time for fathers and mothers to regain their passion for life beyond parenting, and rekindling the feelings that brought children into their home to begin with. As I began to write this as a book (literally, the first sentence) I heard a noise from upstairs. As fate would have it, my then six-year-old daughter had made her way into the bathroom and was throwing up into the toilet. My first night of writing was officially over before I had finished typing in the title. This incident reminded me that although the privilege of raising children becomes more ingrained and much more manageable as children grow up, the unpredictability can bring about chaos at any time. The good news, aside from the fact that my daughter recovered quickly, is that as we improve at coping with unexpected and less controllable events we are better able to bounce back from short-term setbacks and enjoy rather than endure our daily lives. It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father. -- Pope John XXIII