It was another great weekend. I wrote a post about last weekend over at dad-o-matic. You can check it out if you’ed like. This weekend’s post goes here becaus I’m ending it with looking for funded flights for Haley’s surgery. I had no idea how many options there are out there to help with flights. I hope one of them will decide Haley’s case is worth it. For anybody who wants to know more about the various organizations that are available I found this wonderful web site that lists all the organizations you can find it here.

In all honesty the weekend started out kind of sucky, I had some kind of stomach virus accompanied by fever and chills on Friday night. It lasted for about 8 hours and then I basically felt better. Saturday was Haley’s birthday party. We celebrated it at a brand new local yogurt shop called Yougli-Mogli and they did an awesome job and the kids had a great time dancing, singing and making their own yogurt Sundays.

After the party my wife and I celebrated our ninth anaversary. We didn’t have any specific plans but it was a wonderful date. We drove over to the movies but didn’t see anything we wante to watch so I suggested we head over to the park. At the park we went for short walk and then sat down in the grass. in the sun. It was supprisingly relaxing and neither of us could remeber the last time we sat down and relxed in the grass. It’s absolutely amazing how much life has changed in the last nigh years. After sitting in the park, neither of us were hungry so we headed over to Big Lots and walked around. For dinner we went to Texas Roadhouse. It was a nice meal and we enjoyed eachother’s company. We had finished dinner by seven and were trying to think of something else to do so I suggested roller-skating. I went last weekend with Haley and thought it might be fun. It was, although we are debating how cheesey it may have been to go roller skating on an anniversay date. Regardless we had a blast and it was a fun date.

Today I demonstrated that it was okay to pick up worms and I convinced my younger daughter to touch one. I probably should have done this eariler so my older daughter wouldn’t think they are too discusting to touch. My recommendation to dad’s is show your daughters worms when there young so they won’t think there discusting when they’re older. We also watched movies, played on the swing set, picked up sticks and had a great family day.

FYI for all the DADvocats – The new site is starting to come along. You may have seen the web site actually changed over the weeked but I’m very much experimenting and changing things right now. I’ll ask for your thoughts as I move it along. I’d still like to get some feed back on the braning.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

This weeks’ podcast was awesome. I got to meet Chris Singer a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD) by choice. Chris is a great guy and in this podcast we learn about his volunteer work with kids even prior to becoming a dad. Chris has a consulting business helping non-profits and even brings his daughter Tessa to meetings on occasion. During the interview Chris and I find out that we grew-up about 15 minutes away from each other and I went to school with his step-brother.

If after listing to the podcast you want to know more about Chris you find out all you want to know at his blog sahdinlansinge.com. Shortly after starting this blog Chris was recognized as an attachment parenting expert. Find out why he thought this was so funny in the podcast. You can listen via iTunes.

You definitely should follow Chris on twitter @tessasdad

And if you want to find out more about Chris’ work check out Hambree Consulting.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

WOW! I know I start out a lot of my posts that way but seems like I feel that way often these days. I’m going to hit around 4500 hits this month. I’m pretty excited about that number. I really have no idea what I should expect at this point but that feels pretty good. I know that number may dip a bit in April when I draw some users over to the New DADvocate Project blog. I have to get some branding videos out that Havana and I did over a week ago. I’ll try to post those tomorrow along with my podcast from last week with @tessasdad from sahdinlansing.com and fellow former NEPA resident. Tonight I wanted to write a quick recap of today and tell a little story about my girls.

Haley and I have been doing a “Saturday’s with Daddy and Haley” video. I haven’t been publishing them but there cute and perhaps I will. We actually didn’t do the video today but we got to spend the whole day together which was awesome. I woke up early today and fed Isaac and then Haley and I got ready and I took her to horseback. While Haley was riding I went for about a 3 mile walk in the country. It was very pleasant. After horseback Haley and I went to a friends rollerskating birthday party.

The idea of a roller skating party had me really nervous. I knew it would be difficult for Haley but I’m of the mindset that if she puts her mind to it she can do it. Turns out that this has been the biggest gift I’ve been able to give Haley because she really believes it and just worked her tush off to skate. For anybody who is somewhat new to this blog Haley has Cerebral Palsy. The CP gives her stiff mussels which affects her balance. Haley really kicked but and we fell together a few times but we both had fun and I got an incredible workout.

When we got home we decided to go to the park and Haley rode her bike all the way to the park. She did awesome. Then we played at the park. I tried to get her to practice swinging by herself but that went a little sour on me and she started crying. Once we got over that and mommy came to the park to save the day, mommy actually got her swinging. Super mom saves the day as usual. But then we played tag for a while with Abby. Oh yeah Abby saw four older girls and decided to become their friend. She introduced herself and even danced. Every time she got shy she ran away to the slides.

Speaking of Abby, Haley’s birthday is coming up. Abby, got Haley a gift. It’s a movie that Haley has been asking for. Well Abby decides to tell Haley what it is and Haley doesn’t really believe her. But what’s really funny is Abby says “I’m not supposed to tell you but we got you ” then someone says to Abby not to say that and she says under her breath “but we really did”. If you know Abby you can picture her saying this in her Elmer Fudish way.

God it’s crazy but Isaac actually went for his first swing today and he eat a whole jar of peas. Last night he actually puked on my head. I though he was going to give me a big open moth babby kiss and as I brought him towards my face BAM! puke on Daddy’s head. He just smiled at me…that little disgusting twerp is so cute. Hes getting strong and I think he’ll be sitting up and crawling before we know it.

Just felt like writing a little tonight and capturing these thoughts before they faded away. Haley if you ever read this some day in the future I want you to know, how very proud I am of you today. You took it to the next level and kicked some but. I Love you and you had fun the whole day. Oh yeah I feel asleep with you tonight too. You were talking about how much nicer it is to sleep in your own bed than it is to sleep anywhere else. Finally, I also helped your mommy pack your party favors. Hopefully one day she’ll start a birthday party business. She comes up with just awesome ideas.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

A friend of ours makes these wonderful dresses and bows. She asked Abby to help model. I love the video. Also I just saw that I was featured at Dad’s of Diva’s as a Father in the Spotlight.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

I’ve been a little overwhelmed and slightly depressed lately and as such you have not seen the content that you have come to expect. I have actually written drafts of 5 posts in the last week but haven’t published any of them.

I’d like to share some of what is going on in my life right now both good and bad. Luckily most of it is good, it’s just that the bad feels some what overwhelming and I’ll get to that at the end of this post. Frist lets start with the good.

The DADvocate Project:

We are now more than 10% of the way to our final goal of 1000 participants.
We have started the PodCasts and the first podcast was with Drew Bennett. It was a great experience and Drew was awesome. We ended up doing the interview twice because of technical difficulties. I’ve very happy with the final podcast and spent a lot of time editing it and getting it added to iTunes. Drew if you read this thanks again for your help and flexibility.
I was interviewed yesterday by my friend Justin Lukasavige on CoachRadio.tv yesterday. We were live on uStream and the replay of the interview is scheduled to be posted April 12.
The really neat thing about the interview replay being posted April 12th is that is the same week I expect to have the new TheDADvocateProject.com web site going live. We’ve been working hard on that and Havana has been doing awesome work. You can have the opportunity to have her do a Twitter background for you simply by leaving a comment on any post that is up on the branding process.
Finally you should watch for my next podCast with @tessasdad later this week. We are recording tonight and I expect to post by the podCast by Sunday.

All the above said I am scalling back on my frequency of posting until we have the new site up. I have a lot of work to do to get the new site ready for launch. You should expect to see a weekly podCast, and occasional othe articles until after the site launch.

MySpellingSucks:
I’m excited to return MySpellingSucks to it’s origins and focus on specific issues related to my ADD, Dyslexia and my Daughters CP. We have the SDR comming up in May and we are all nervous. I’m also hopeful to be joining the board of a new Non-Profit Let’s Cure CP. They have an awesome mission and are gathering an awesome board. I’m excited to see what we will be able to do.

Also don’t forget an Awesome new book has been published by an inspiring new author. The book is called “I Am Not Weird!” and it is about Cerebral Palsy. The book was inspired when a little girl named Haley (My Daughter) went into the first grade and was called weird because another child thought she walked funny. The book talks about what CP is and how my daughter is just like everybody else but does some different things. It was written by Haley with the help of my Mother-In-Law and you can puchast the book here.

My Running:
Many of you will remeber that prior to Isaac being born I had been running. I had finally run a mile non stop. I was quite about the fact that I stopped running for 7 weeks just after he was born but then a friend started training for a half marathon and I decided to join his efforts. It’s been tough but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to complete the entire half by the end of april. I am now able to run 3 miles non stop and I hope to run a large portion of the half. I know I’ll have to stop to walk some of it but that is okay my goal is to finish 13 and slow jog most of it. I’m currently thinking I’ll be pretty happy if I can make the following schedule: 2 mile run. walk 1 mile. Run 3 walk 1, Run 3 walk 1 run 2.1 We’ll see how it goes.

My Dad:
If you look at when my posts started to drift off you’ll notice that it closly corosponds with the date March 7th. On Sunday March 7th my dad visited Altanta for the first time since he left the area three months ago. We hadn’t been talking for an additionl two monts prior to that. There are a series of incidents and occurances with my Dad deciding he would and then wouldn’t speak to all of us children during the past 5 years or so and he has been dealing with depression for probably the last fifteen years.

This latest occurance of not talking with my father began on the day of my Son’s bris. He had said he really wanted to attend eventhough he has a very hard time with crowds of people. I had agreed really wanting my father there but fearing that he would back out. The day befor the bris he got in a fight with my sister and subsiqunetly called me to say he would not be comming to the bris. This was consistent with past behavior so at first I just said okay, but after thinking about it I called him back and asked why he would let his fight with my sister interfear with the bris. He just hung up on me. We had the bris the next day and he didn’t show. This was pretty much expected.

I was going to bed around 10:30 that night and checke my email one last time. There was one there from my father and I’m sure I have it somewhere but all that matters is how it ended. “Fuck YOU! Have a nice Life!!” I was devistated. Less than one month previous to this I had finally convince my father to talk with us again but asked that he never pull this kind of crap no matter how upset he is. Cutting us off and saying nasty things was not okay.

We’ll he never really apoligized for his behavior but he did relent and say that he must have misinterupted since everyone told him he had. When he came in the weekend of the 7th he called me for the first time and asked if I wanted to visit. I told him initially I wasn’t sure and I wanted to know if the invitation was just to me or for the whole family. He said whatever I wanted and I told him I would let him know.

I finally decided that I did want to see him but I wanted to establish some ground rules before he visited with the family. So I called and told him I wanted to see him but it would just be me. When he called me back he asked why and I said because I wanted to be sure everything was okay. He promptly told me well maybe we shouldn’t talk for another two years until you are sure and hung up.

I love my dad. He’s been a good dad my entire life but I believe this behavior is abusive and I won’t stand for it anymore. Unfortunatly that doesn’t make it easy. I have been very hesitant to write about this but I decided to share to see if anyone else has delt with this type of serious depression and these types of issues and please don’t be judgemental if you haven’t dispite my dad’s current state he was a good man and a good father while I was growing up. It’s just hard to loos someon before you have actually lost them.

Needless to say I’m CRAZY busy and things are good and thing are tough but Im happy I have my family, my health, my job, this blog and this community. thanks for being here.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

This podcast has been two weeks in coming and should have been posted as a video but alas I had technical problems with the video and truthfully really enjoyed producing my first podcast ever. I understand that successful podcasts are typically 20 minutes or less but the purposes of these interviews are to gather data for a book so you should expect them to last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Listen in give us your feedback and let me know what you like and what questions you have for the dads.

As I mentioned the first episode Drew owns BenSpark.com, Read To Me Dad, and started I’m not a Famous Blogger.

There are a few posts mentioned in the episode. You can check out Gods Promise and Faith is in our hands.

I hope you enjoy the podcast DADvocate Project Episode 1- Drew’s Interview

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Dear Friends,

Most of you already know that at the beginning of the school year one of Haley’s classmates called her weird. That event set off a spark and Haley with the help of Raye Lynn decided to write a book about Cerebral Palsy and explain what it is and how she is not weird. The book turned out to be wonderful so we decided to publish it.

The book is being published as an 8.5×8.5 hard cover.

The time has arrived and the publisher is ready to print. We are taking initial pre-orders for the book.

If you are interested in pre-ordering your copy the cost is $19.95. This is $5.00 off the cover price. We will be donating 10% of the proceeds of the sales of the book to the ALC. The (ALC) Adaptive Learning Center was instrumental in helping Haley achieve her current abilities and confidence and we love the program.

Haley, a first grader, never thought of herself as different because she has cerebral palsy. When a new classmate told her she was weird because she wore braces and walked funny, Haley was upset. She did not know what to do or what to say as a response. With help from her parents and grandmother Haley decided to write a book explaining that she was not weird-cerebral palsy is not weird. Haley tells what cerebral palsy means and tells all that she does, just like everyone else. Haley brought her book to school and it was read to the class to help the children understand. Haley is proud of herself and hopes her book will help others to understand about cerebral palsy

Haley is an incredible girl who’s just like anyone else except she walks differently. Haley’s writing guide is RayeRaye, her grandmother, the director of a pre-school where she helped to facilitate a model inclusionary pre-school in Atlanta. Haley lives in Marietta, Georgia with her parents and sister and brother.

If you live in the Atlanta area and we can hand deliver the books to you choose the local pay pal button. If you are not local, do not know us, and we will have to ship the books to you please choose the pay pal button labeled “With Shipping.” The shipping charges are $2.99 and we will send the book via USPS media mail.

With Shipping	Local

Please note book will be ordered on Monday. Delivery time will depend on how quickly the publisher is able to deliver.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

This blog My Spelling Sucks was initially put up to discuss my oldest daughter’s CP and my dyslexia/add. We will be getting back to that core mission soon. I’ll be moving the DADvocate work to it’s own blog hopefully by the end of the month. In the meantime today’s post is all about original intent.

We are getting closer to Haley’s operation and quite frankly I’m very nervous. Haley keeps telling us she is scared and I have a hard time not responding with I am too sweaty. Mel and I talked for a while tonight rehashing our decision and while we both know it’s right for us to make the decision we still are nervous. I decided to link up some of my old posts tonight so I had the opportunity to review them and so I could provide a central resource on Rhizotomy info on this blog. I also recorded Haley’s exercises tonight which I’ll post as soon as they upload. Note: I am not posting the entire routine as YouTube will only take a 10 minute video.

Rhizotomy DADvocate I’m Not Weird
Rhizotomy Next Steps
Rhizotomy Surgery is never an easy answer

The video is still uploading and I’m tired. I’ll add Haley’s exercise to the post in the morning. In the meantime Here are some before and after videos from St. Louis Children’s Hospital:

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Today I received a review copy of Deb Ingino’s hot off the presses book “The Discovery Adventure Club” book. This is a children’s book written for children 2-8 years old. The very fist thing you notice as soon as you look at this book is the incredible Illustrations. They are bright, vivid, cheerful and interesting. I’ll admit that I don’t always look at dedication pages but Deb is a friend so I was pretty observant and the second stand out factor in this book is that 100% of the proceeds of the sale of “The Discovery Adventure Club” go to The Prodigal House. The Prodigal house is a wonderful charity and you can learn more about it by visiting prodigalhouse.com.

Before reviewing the story it’s important to understand that the book is written to help children and parents understand where the child’s natural strengths based on the DISC personality profile.

There are two parts to this book. The first part is the story and the second part I’ll call a workbook. I read the story to my three year old tonight and while I feel like the story is a little long for a three year old it held her attention the whole time. She also asked questions about the characters in the story, while she tried to follow along with the pictures. At the end of the story Deb asks the reader/listener a question, “What character are you most like?” Abby listened to the descriptions and identified her personality type easily. All in all it was a good story and I think she’ll ask to hear it again.

When I got to the work book section of the story I was going to put down the book but she wanted me to keep reading. So I read here the statements from her personality type and she listened through that as well.

I think this book will be useful will both my girls and will give us a basis to discuss how and why people act differently and how we can use our strengths to achieve our goals. I look forward to reading it to my older daughter tomorrow to see what her reactions are. I’ll keep you posted.

Finally if you would like to learn more about Deb and The Discovery Adventure Club visit MyWiredStyle.com Please note purchase of the book “The Discovery Adventure Club” is not an affiliate purchase as all proceeds go to the Prodigal House. Also please note that I did a review for Deb’s program back in November and I only became an affiliate this past Friday.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

There are two blogs below. I initially wrote the fist blog, read it, and then re-wrote it in the second. Funny how a change in your point of view can really change how you feel about a topic. I hope you enjoy.

I apparently have set some pretty hefty goals for myself this year and at the beginning of March I’m feeling the pressure. If you read this blog you know I’m dedicated to the DADvocate project and while it’s going well I really thought I would have many more responses to the survey by now. As is I’m 10% of my way to the goal of 1000 participants. I feel like I probably should have had many more responses but the initial survey design which I pushed out to all my old friends was designed poorly and many of them thought they completed the entire survey even though they only answered the first page of questions. I suppose it’s time to reach out again and ask one more time. I’m just hesitant to appear as if I’m being too pushy.

My daughters book is being published. We are working with Publish America to bring “I’m Not Weird” to market and I’m very excited that the book should be available by the end of the month. However that book should be the biggest thing on this blog right now and because I started the DADvocate Project here I’m afraid that it will lose some of it’s impact. I’m working on designing a new blog for the The DADvocate Project but it seems to be taking a long time and I don’t seem to have all the time I need to get it done. I also want to do a strong media drive on Haley’s book but that takes time as well and I just don’t know where the time is coming from.

Finally I have been training hard for a 1/2 marathon that is scheduled for the end of April. This past week I’ve run a total of 14.5 miles. That is more than I’ve run in a single week ever but i’m still pretty far off schedule and to say I ran 14.5 miles is probably a bit of an untruth. Maybe it’s better to say I’ve traversed 14.5 miles this week most of it running, all of it breathing hard and hurting. I do feel good about the distance but my left leg hurts pretty badly after my runs and I just don’t see the end in sight.

Oh yeah some how I’m trying to maintain my relationship with my wife and kids, do well at work, pay bills, participate in a number of communities, and blogs, occasionally attend services, see my family, maintain friend ships and sometimes get a break and watch tv. Oh did I mention that I maintain another blog and guest post on DADomatic. I also have two dogs that are being neglected but still love me because I feed them. I wonder if I’m crazy?

On Saturday I did my first video interview of the DADvocate project. It was with the founder of “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” crew and BenSpark.com blog, Drew Bennett. The interview was great and I really look forward to the day I have the chance to meet Drew in person. As for the video I’ve had a space issue on my computer. I’ve spent a large part of yesterday and much of this afternoon and evening trying to get files moved to the correct places so I can actually edit the movie. It turns out I’ll probably have to use much of tomorrow evening to finish moving files, formatting drives, and making everything work the way it should. I’m hoping to have an edited video by Wednesday for publishing but it may be Friday depending on how tomorrow goes.

Now looking back at my complaining I’m going to re-write this post:

Wow! We are already 2 months into this year and things are going great. I’m finally getting into the swing of things at work after having been there for 9 months. I’ve been doing a good job of bringing my wife flowers regularly and the flow with 5 people in the family is starting to feel right. As you know I have a few huge goals this year and I’m really on target for achieving them.

First and most exciting – Haley’s book “I’m Not Weird” should be going to print this week! It’s extremely exciting. I’ll post a button for sale on the blog as soon as I have firm dates. I’m also excited b/c she is already lined up for an interview with Deb Ingino from MyWiredStyle.com who has created a wonderful program that helps families learn all the personalities and how to interact. We also have some hopeful meetings set up to publicize the book which really is a must read for every 4-8 year old. The book helps children understand Cerebral Palsy specifically and differences in general. I’m very excited for where this book will go. I’m creating a mailing list for when the book is finally launched. If your interested in joining please complete the following form.

Secondly, I can’t believe I’ve run 14.5 miles this past week. I ran 6 miles last Saturday, 3 miles on Wednesday and then 5.5 miles on Sunday. That’s 14.5 miles in a week. I still have a long way to go before my 1/2 marathon at the end of April but I just might be able to make it there. By the way you can read about my training on the comments at Intrepid Runner.

Finally the DADvocate Project! What an exciting project. We’ve had 100 people complete the survey which means we are 10% of the way there on the survey. This weekend I completed my first video interview. The interview was with Drew Bennett of BenSpark.com and founder of “I’m Not a Famous Blogger” fame. Drew is truly awesome and I really enjoyed the interview. I hope I have the opportunity to meet him in person some time soon. On top of this exciting news I will also be interviewed by the Geek Dads Weekly and Cast of Dad’s pod casts in the next few weeks. Things are going awesomely and after completing The DADvocate Project blog redesign I’ll be making my next moves reaching out for sponsors, and trying to do some traditional PR. I’m also thinking about asking the mommy blogger’s to mention my work in their circles.

I have had a technical set back this week which will hopefully be fully resolved by tomorrow. In the meantime it is pushing back my ability to publish the interview with Drew. Look for it sometime between Wednesday and Friday. Sorry I can’t be more exact but I’m not out of the woods yet with my tech issue.

Thanks for reading this blog and following our progress on the DADvocate project. We appreciate your input and feedback and love your comments. Feel free to post here or on any article on this blog. I do my best to respond to all comments so thanks again for reading and participating.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post