Camping on the Great Lake of Erie

  My wife and I recently took our son on his first camping trip. We had been tossing the idea around for a couple months and finally we pulled the trigger and went.



Corinne watching Ryker doing laps around our modest campsite in the early morning.



It was last Friday at about lunch time that we found a site in Erie close to the lake and we decided we would go right after I got out of work. Usually the drive from our house to Erie is no more than 2 hours which would have placed us at the site pitching a tent at 7:30, no later. Traffic had other plans for us that day and after spending an hour sitting still just north of Pittsburgh we finally arrived at the campground at about 8:30. 

Since we were ill prepared for the trip (being that it was impromptu and we had little time to pack), the plan was for me to set up the campsite while my wife took to the grocery store for supplies so we would have drinks and snacks (and s'mores of course). That is how it went. Dada, Ryker and the dogs setting up the tent in the dark (because someone forgot to pack a flashlight) while Mama made a mad dash for supplies. All was well.

Typically when things go so wrong in the beginning of a journey the journey itself is doomed. Thankfully that was not the case here. I was prepared for us to pack up in the middle of the night searching for indoor life at 3 a.m. due to an unruly child or a storm but we had clear skies, one happy kid and two relatively calm pets. The only dark spot on the night was our campground neighbors and their middle of the night antics. I believe I awoke at one point to howling and bird calls. 

In the morning we walked down (94 stairs to be exact) to the rocky beach and fun was had by all. The dogs fetched sticks in the lake and Ryker got to play in the sand and throw rocks. I tried to teach ryker about the stone age and how some cultures used to use rocks as weapons and tools but all he wanted to do was throw them and laugh when the dogs tried to chase them down. We even went to The Isle of Presque (that's Presque Isle to the layman) to see some boats and do some swimming before grabbing lunch and heading home. 

While I didn't get to teach Ryker how to really rough it for more than a night I think the trip was very good for us as a family. It was nice to live a night without having the T.V. on before bed. We got to sit around the campfire and really enjoy our time together. It also gave us encouragement to know that he really loves to camp. Next time it will be a weekend trip rather than one night and we will be more prepared (hopefully) than having to go to the grocery store at 9 o'clock the night of for supplies. You live and learn sometimes and luckily we learned without having to suffer too much this time around.

Next time I hope I can spend a little more time in the great outdoors and away from the trappings of city life for a bit. Until then I gotta get a new tent, and a lantern, and a camping stove, and a camping coffee maker. Maybe a truck and some fishing gear (who am I kidding I hate to fish) and a little ax and................ oh god what have I started?

Teaching Children Sarcasm ...

sar·casm - [sahr-kaz-uhm] noun. 1. harsh or bitter derision or irony. 2. a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark.


I am very sarcastic. I always have been. I guess it is a byproduct of the environment I grew up in. It seems everyone in my family has the sarcasm bone and we tend to (over)use it everyday. It is a way of life; being a sarcastic person.

My wife doesn't get my sarcasm sometimes and she tends to get angry with me every now and then.  Sometimes even I have to retract my statements because I use my sarcasm when I respond to questions from my two year old without even thinking about it.  It's a sickness I know.

Part of me thinks that my nonchalant attitude and quick witted remarks will rub off on my son in a good way and make him less prone to being upset by peoples words in the future. Then there is another part of me that wishes he wouldn't have to build a tolerance for harsh statements. It isn't that I am particularly harsh towards him but sometimes I answer questions with questions and I say lighthearted things to him that could seem like insults.

One example is that when he wants to be carried rather than walk I say "sure I'll carry you ya lazy bum". I laugh when I say it and so does Ryker. My better half doesn't like that at all because it may be hurting his feelings. I totally understand her logic, but I can't stop myself from saying the phrase(It's just so funny when he laughs and says "my no lazy bum dada"). Maybe I should explain to him (when he is capable of understanding) that I don't really mean to hurt his feelings when I say things like that. It is just my way of getting him riled up and hopefully spur him to want to walk on his own just to prove me wrong.

Realistically he will have to build some sort of tolerance to the world and maybe I should be the one who helps him construct these "defense mechanisms". I can't in good conscience allow him to become vulnerable to beat downs from verbal bullies, so I should guide him in some way to become mentally strong.

I guess what I am getting at is that I want him to be strong while still retaining his positive mind. I want my son to still believe that people are filled with good intentions as a whole and that he can trust people; but he needs to be able to decipher the difference between good and bad.

How do you help your children become impervious to outside threats while still allowing them to maintain innocence? Is sarcasm a viable coping mechanism? Am I crazy for thinking that this is important? Like I have said before, dads just think differently. We can't help it.

The Overzealous Dad ... ?

I recently bought my son a pair of ice skates. He is two. I always said I would never be that dad that pushed his loves or past yearnings for life onto his children but I still bought him skates at the age of two. I suppose I am guilty of the cardinal sin of fatherhood; pushing sport onto my child with the expectation of greatness.

I was never good enough at hockey for it to take me anywhere in life. I am good but not good enough, period. I blame this (in my mind) on the fact that I did not start playing until late in life. I found hockey on my own. It was not pushed onto me by my father or anyone else. Using my tilted logic I can only assume that I never became as good as I could have been because there wasn't someone there forcing me to go to 5 am practice at the age of 8.

I want better for my son. I stealthily have engrossed him in hockey since he was born and he likes it already. He regularly asks me to play hockey with him on the front porch or on the sidewalk (he has a net and a bunch of sticks and everything) and of course I oblige as much as I can. This has encouraged me to step outside of what was my initial philosophy of just letting it happen. I am now a full fledged Tiger Woods dad in waiting. I am going to strap those skates on his feet and introduce him to ice this year and let it happen gradually. Once he gets the hang of it I am going to make it a weekly event of taking time to go skating. You know the old father son time routine of disguising skill building as fun time with dada just like my dad did with baseball (only with a lot less yelling and more positive encouragement as apparently that is more effective ... who knew).

Yes I know it is a sickness but think about it. What if Tiger Woods dad never pushed and pushed? What if Troy Crosby never set up a faux ice rink in the basement for his son? What if the Mannings weren't put through backyard passing drills? What if Joe Jackson never forced his sons to practice chords until their fingers bled? Okay bad example. Looking at that again really bad example but hey we aren't all perfect and yes there are downfalls to the philosophy but if you can find a philosophy without a potential downside let me know about it please.

The world really is a better place with crazy fathers pushing their children to be great. Sports don't just teach physical toughness but also mental stability and snap decision making. Maybe we should thank all of those crazy dads for being so tough on their sons. These somewhat unbalanced egotistical men can be teachers for all of us young fathers who want greatness for our children.

Pushing your children to succeed through hard work and practice; whether sports or in other arenas of life such as music, what say you?  Where do you think this urge to breed success comes from? Is it just the male ego projected down through generations or is it something else? I just know that I want a better existence for my son professionally. My life is great at home and I wouldn't change it, but professionaly speaking, I would much rather be doing something more exciting to earn money. I don't want my son to have to sit at a desk for his career unless that is absolutely what he wants out of life. I want him to have an option for something different.

Fathers think a little differently

We are men. We are self centered by nature. We get up in the morning thinking about how good it is to be a man and what we are going to do for us today. A wife and kids are good referees in this game we play with ourselves. They can build us up when we feel down on ourselves for not being manly enough or knock us down a peg when our manliness gets out of control.  We all deserve it now and then.
From birth we are men by nature; self centered and wild. It is only through life that we are domesticated to the point where we can control our primal urges to just be what we were meant to be. Through our sophistication these urges to be manly now often manifest through our interests in life. Some of us love cars, football, hockey or something of the sort. These are sports or activities that allow us to flex our muscles, whether they are figurative or literal, in a controlled environment. Many of us equate speed and power with manliness. What is manlier than skating up ice and crushing your opponent on the blue line, stealing the puck and scoring that game winner high glove side? What about taking that quarter mile in under 10 seconds or scoring a touchdown with a beautiful sideline catch over a defenders head?

What am I getting at you ask? I am obviously talking about fatherhood and the promotion of manly feats and features. Duh!!

I am a father. More importantly I am a father to a beautiful son who needs guidance in life. He needs his father to act like a man and help him become a man himself.  Call me a bit old school but I believe a boy needs his father more than anyone in his life to become a man. Don’t get me wrong. I was largely raised by my mother and I am proud of that fact, but were it not for the positive male role models in my family I don't think I would have ever come to be the man that I am. Only a man can show a boy what it takes to grow up and do the right thing.
One of my biggest pet peeves is this new philosophy that parents are promoting to their sons and daughters that it is okay not to abide by gender boundaries. I am a firm believer that boys should be boys and girls should be girls. Nowadays my attitude would be countered with the question, " what does that mean girls and boys are capable all of the same things in life you sexist jerk." My response is that you are totally correct save for a few minor details.  I, nor my son, will ever carry to term and birth a child. A woman will never be faced with the threat of prostate cancer or testicular cancer. By now you are picking up what I am putting down. Woman and men although similar in capabilities are inherently different and therefore think differently. I am here to be a voice for men and their thoughts about raising children the way we see fit.
Being that I have a son and only a son most of the things I will be saying will obviously be geared towards the things I do while raising my son. If and when I have a daughter I will become more balanced as I attempt to raise her to be a woman and to do womanly things with her life, but right now I don’t have to worry about all that stuff just yet.

I am talking about raising my son to become a man. I am not talking about being just a beer swilling, crude, foul mouthed and disrespectful man. I am talking about the fine line that it will take to not only raise my son to be a manly man but to also be a gentleman in the formal sense. I am talking about raising him to hold doors for women and elderly people. I am talking about saying please and thank you. I am talking about the things that make a man a man, not just an overgrown boy. Many of these things I learned from my mother. The man things I learned from watching and observing other men and how they conduct their business of life. Luckily I have had some good role models and I have been smart enough to be able to identify the bad ones.

If you are a father (or a mother interested in how us fathers think) please enjoy my rants and sometimes advice about being a father and what it means to our sons for us to be the best role models we can be while staying light hearted and manly in today’s world of gender ambiguity.

Your constructive comments are welcomed and appreciated.