When you first discover that your wife is pregnant and going to have a child, there are number of doctor visits and tests.  Sooner or later, and with modern science it’s sooner that it used to be, you get the question from your doctor, do you want to find out the gender of the baby?

Like most couples, my wife and I had the debate, and we decided to find out.  Our goal in finding out was to have one special and private moment where we could celebrate finding out the gender.  I was reminded of that moment again when I saw this video on Twitter:

The biggest shot of my life. #7 at Pebble Beach. #GenderReveal pic.twitter.com/JAptoL1L3q

— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) April 24, 2017

This was an exciting moment the father and mother got to celebrate, and they did it in a really cool fashion.  For my wife and I, we were a little more subdued in how we did it.  We did the traditional cake with the gender:

We jazzed up the moment if you will by using the cake cutter and server from our wedding and by using a tea set we got from a trip we make to London.  It was a moment that the two of us will never forget.

And trust me, finding out the gender didn’t rob us of any joy in the delivery room.  When our son was born, the gender was the last thing in our minds.  When your child is born, all you are thinking about is whether or not the baby and the mommy are healthy.  That’s the joy.  While I don’t speak from experience, finding out the gender then, really takes a massive backseat.  If anything goes wrong in the delivery room, as it did for us as it does for many other parents, the gender will be the absolute last thing on your minds.

Keeping that in mind, find out the gender.  Create another special moment for yourselves and your family.  I know when we found out the gender, we had some fun with it.  We bought a boy’s pink polo shirt to trick my parents.  When they opened it, it had a note pinned to it saying, “Real Men Wear Pink!”  For my mother in law, we sent balloons and flowers to hear at work.  Everyone had their moment, and it was great.

There are three more added benefits to finding out the gender.  The first is if you are stuck on a name, you get extra time to focus on figuring out the name for just one sex.  When people send you gifts, you get gender specific gifts instead of the “neutral” stuff.  That neutral stuff is terrible, and it varies from year to year.  Overall, I still maintain yellow is not a boy’s color, nor is green a girl’s color.  And no baby should wear gray or brown.

There’s another factor to consider.  When you find out the gender, not everyone is happy.  Sure, they’ll give you the line, “We just hope the baby is happy and healthy!”  They’re lying.  Most are not like my father who came outright and said, “I want it to be a boy!”  Hint, most grandfathers want their sons to have a boy because it means the name lives on.  Long story short is everyone has their preference, and some will get crushed when they find out the gender.  Letting them know early let’s them work out whatever it is they need to work out before the baby comes.

One last note, and this is perhaps the most important.  Finding out the gender allows you to bond more with your unborn child.  It’s not just a baby.  Now it is a boy or a girl.  If you have a name picked out, it’s not a baby in there, that’s John or George or Patrick or Jamison or whatever name you have picked out.  If it’s a girl, that’s Olivia or Eva or Katie, etc.  That’s a powerful moment, and one that makes the decision to find out the gender worth so much the more.

So for parents that are debating finding out the gender of their baby, I fully encourage you to do so.  It was one of the greatest moments in my life.  I hope it will be one of the greatest moments in your life as well.

For the third straight year, I’m having my son pick out his very own NCAA bracket. Surprisingly, he won a big pool the first year as he picked Duke to win it all. It was a nice chunk of change to go into his college fund. 

The obvious question was how I got a four month old to pick the brackets. Well, it wasn’t easy. 

What I did was I went online, and I printed out pictures of all the mascots of the 68 teams in the tournament. I then put them in front of him, and I asked him to pick one. It took a very long time, more time than I care to admit, but it was a fun experience. 

Now that my son is three, it is much easier. He can better identify the pictures, and he can ask different questions. 

With his eagerness for St. Patrick’s Day, it’s of little surprise his far he had Notre Dame going. Basically speaking, if a team had some type of animal as the mascot, my son had them going further in the tournament. Having personally run pools in the past, I’ve seen worse methods of picking brackets. 

I had fun doing this with my son this year, and I look forward to watching the games with him. Hopefully, his bracket will win a pool or two like it did two years ago. 

On Tuesday, the Northeast is supposed to be slammed with a Northeaster.  This means that every old lady in your neighborhood is going to be running to the grocery store to stock up on the three staples of milk, bread, and eggs.  If you have a child, you will also need to run to the grocery store to get milk.  I do not want to know what would happen around here if we ever ran out of milk.

However, my shopping list isn’t done.  With the promise of a lot of snow coming, there is the potential that there will be enough snow to build a snowman.  Now, you could go the Frosty route and try to get away with a button nose, but you’re not going to see that button, nor are you ever going to find that button again.  No, instead, you are better off going the Olaf route and getting carrots for the snowmen.
I doubt there will be coal in your local supermarket this time of year.  Hopefully, you can use a couple of rocks and jam them in there.  If you want, color them with a black Sharpie so they stand out.  In fact, you can use a colored Sharpie if you want.  Ask your child what color they want the snowman’s eyes to be.  They can be blue, brown, or green like your child, or just the traditional black.

And with that, you should have enough stuff to build a snowman in your own backyard.  Hopefully, the snow sticks well enough to build a snowman instead of having to pile snow up to make some sort of snowman like creature.

If you’re ambitious, you can make a quick and easy chicken soup with your child in the slow cooker.  Pre-cut the remaining carrots with some celery and onions.  Get a roaster while you are at the grocery store and tear up the chicken.  Allow your child to combine the ingredients with broth or stock into the slow cooker.  Add some salt and pepper, and you can then let it run while you are outside playing with your kid in the snow.  When you come back in the house, you can have a quick and easy chicken soup.  It may not be the greatest, but at least it is hot, and it’ll be easier to get your child to eat it because he made it.

By the way, while you are out there shopping this weekend, make sure you get a sled if you don’t have one already.

When I think back to my youth, I fondly remember shows like He-Man and Thundercats.  As a father, I wish my son could enjoy these shows like I once did.  Once my son began watching shows like Paw Patrol, I really wanted my son to begin watching shows like He-Man and Thundercats.

With He-Man on Netflix, it is certainly possible for him to do so.  And yet, I don’t sit down and watch He-Man with him because that was my show growing up.  Paw Patrol is his.  When he goes and he plays with his friends, they all want to do play and talk about Paw Patrol.  The other kids don’t know He-Man, and I don’t want to make my son the outsider of the group.  So, with that, I eschew He-Man in favor of Paw Patrol.  It’s not pleasant.

Recently, I discovered there may be some middle ground for my son and I.  Growing up, I also watched DuckTales.  It was a great cartoon, and perhaps an even better video game.  To this day, I remember every line to the DuckTales theme song.  Who doesn’t?  It was catchy.

The diving into the money pit and the whole ordeal.  It was great.  It is a show I would love to share with my son.  That goes double with him loving Mickey’s Christmas Carol as much as I did.  At this point, my son knows all of those Disney characters, and I think he would love DuckTales.  Again, the problem is his friends don’t watch.

But maybe they will start this summer as apparently Disney is relaunching DuckTales.  Naturally, it isn’t going to have any of the original voices, but that’s not a big issue.  What’s important is they are going to relaunch DuckTales.  There’s a trailer for it and everything now:

So yeah, about that.

Maybe I’m just being a bit too nostalgic, and maybe I’m being too much of an old man. But man, that doesn’t look great. It certainly doesn’t look anywhere near as good as the original. And yet, I think I’d rather watch this than Paw Patrol again, and again, and again. So, in that sense, beggar’s can’t be choosers.

Still, I wish this looked better.  Here’s hoping it’s a giant success and not the equivalent of the remake of The Longest Yard.

Look every kid is different, and accordingly, they are going to respond differently to different parenting techniques.  This is no more true than potty training.  Regardless of what anyone told you, there is no one size fits all approach.  There is just whatever technique works best for your child.  With that in mind, I’ll only offer one piece of advice to parents who are in the process of potty training their children.

Buy Crocs.

When you are in the process of potty training, there are going to be a lot of accidents.  As a result, you may very well find yourself doing laundry near the levels you once did when your child was an infant.  Underwear, pants, shirts, socks, and even shoes will get wet on at least one occasion.  The underwear, pants, shirts, and socks are easy to clean.  The shoes are a different matter.

If you are like me, you like the light-up sneakers because it gives you a (false?) sense of security when you’re in public.  Run those shoes through the washing machine, and they’re most likely no longer lighting up anymore.  Most likely, you will only have one pair of sneakers for your child meaning when those sneakers go through the laundry, you have to wait for them to come out before you go anywhere.  That is unless you want to put your child in water shoes, flip flops, slippers, snow boots, or whatever else you have on hand.  Depending on your child’s mood, this could lead to a temper tantrum or worse.

Now, if your child had the accident while wearing Crocs?  You just wipe ’em down, and move along.  That’s the beauty of these rubber shoes.  They don’t get soaked.  They don’t need to be run through the washing machine.  They’re quick and easy to clean.  It’s going to make your life so much easier during a process that can be very trying at times.

If and when you are going to start potty training, make sure you get the Crocs first.  Let your child get accustomed to them, so when the time does come, it is not too many things at once.

Overall, Crocs have made the process much easier for me, and I hope it will make it easier for you as well.

In December, we fantasize about the cold weather and the snow.  It’s all part of the magic and wonder that is part of the Christmas season.  You dream of sleigh rides, curling up in front of the fire, and of course, the White Christmases.  By the time January rolls around, the cold weather and snow is nothing more than anything that keeps you locked inside the house.  If you have a toddler, you’re locked inside the house without a real outlet to let your child burn off all of that energy they have.

With that in mind, my wife and I made a concerted effort to make sure we signed our son up for something this winter.  In the past, we had done Gymboree.  However, at three my son is way too old for it.  Frankly, around two years old, you are really at the point of diminishing returns.  So, it was time for something new.

We debated on a number of different options.  Swimming lessons in the winter are much too expensive.  Gymnastics seemed like a good outlet to run around and burn off some energy.  There were a few more options we inquired about, but ultimately, we decided to go with ice skating lessons.

There are a few good reasons for it.  The first is the ice skating lessons near us was reasonably priced, and it included free ice time so the children can practice what they learned in their lessons.  Second, ice skating is great exercise, and it is something more apt to tire our son out and lead to him taking a nap on the weekends.  Third, it is a unique skill set that is easier to teach now when he has no fear that when he is older and may have some fear of falling on the ice.  Fourth, unlike gymnastics, this is an activity he can do throughout his life.  Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, this is something I can do with him.

Two notes on that.  First, there is no way I’m ever going to try the rings.  Second, and this is important, ice skating is not like riding a bike.  I hadn’t skated in about 20 years, and when I hit the ice, it felt like it was my first time skating.

One added benefit we had in the ice skating experience was we spoke with one of our son’s friends, and his parents signed him up for the same class.  As with anything in life, it is better to have a friend go with you than to try something alone.  The lessons are going great.

The first lesson took place off the ice.  The children were taught by the instructors how to fall.  While off the ice, the children were also taught how they should get up should they fall.  Lastly, they were taught how to balance themselves while on the ice.  After that, it was time for them to hit the ice.

This is where an added benefit came into focus.  The children were out there on their own.  In fact, the parents were told to sit in the stands rather than hang out by the glass.  The reasoning was they wanted the children to be focused on ice skating and not distracted by their parents.  It is a good rule, but it was still odd to find yourself in the position of not being out there or being too close to your son.  Ultimately, that is a very good thing.  When my son fell, which was quite often, he didn’t look for me or my wife.  Rather, he just got up, and tried again.

That brings up another benefit.  Your child is going to learn how to do something without you.  Your child not only is becoming more independent, but they are also getting a sense of accomplishment.  This isn’t daddy holding his hands and skating him around the rink.  It is him going out there on his own, falling down, picking himself up again, and then trying again.  This builds character.  It builds confidence.  Utlimately, this is the exact reason why we want our children playing sports.

There is also the pride you feel in seeing your child succeed out there.  Certainly, it was great seeing how well he did in his first class, and how well he’s doing:

 ​

​I have to admit, part of me got way ahead of myself, and I was imagining him skating on the Garden Ice for the Rangers.

Overall, whether you have a boy or girl, ice skating lessons have tremendous benefits for both the child and the parent.  I know this is something we will continue in the future.