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Dad Blogs Exposed! ~ Dad For Beginners

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This week on Dad Blogs Exposed, we are chatting with Colin Reed from the blog, Dad For Beginners. Here’s what he had to say about fatherhood and the blog life.

CD: Why did you start blogging?

CR: Obviously, I started blogging for the money, women, and fame. I repeatedly attempt to exploit my son and amateur parenting techniques for seemingly limitless income on my site! More seriously, blogging for me is a coping mechanism. It is a way to vanquish any guilt I harbor from mistakes I’ve made as a father by writing about them in the hopes someone will learn something valuable. Having a child alters more than your day-to-day lifestyle, it alters your worldview and sometimes the only way I can express the bizarro world that is my new reality is through writing.

CD: What can people expect from your blog? Do you have a specific goal or do you write whatever you feel?

CR: I didn’t set out with goals for my website. As I’ve gone along, I’ve incorporated recurring themes or motifs that help me maintain consistency but overall, I just want to be engaging. Readers of dadforbeginners.com can expect a healthy helping of cynicism with subtle traces of hope for the future as I morph from a furry and confused caterpillar into a butterfly of fatherhood…albeit a pitiful, sickly, and decidedly non-majestic butterfly.

CD: What has been your biggest challenge as a father?

CR: My biggest challenge as a father has been vacating my former lifestyle in favor of the lifestyle of my newborn mass of fleshy tissue a.k.a my son. My wife has an expression in her native Romanian describing someone who’s perceived to be the center of attention. The phrase “Buricul Pamintului” loosely translates into English as “the belly button of the world.” It is a term used to more appropriately describe someone who requires all the attention of those surrounding them. My son is now the belly button of my world and that has been challenging.

CD: What one piece of advice can you give to a new Dad?

CR: My best advice for a new father is don’t take advice from new fathers. And make sure you’re at the birth. It is truly an amazing sight to witness your child being born.

CD: Do you have any long term goals for your site?

CR: I believe that my site can be long-lasting and fruitful. I’ve experienced more in the last 6 months than I could have ever imagined. My son unknowingly provides me endless material to write about. My goal is twofold: maintain whatever is left of my sanity and maybe influence someone who’s not yet experienced what I have.

CD: What is your social media weapon of choice and why?

CR: Facebook. This is a no brainer. Facebook posts have 3 to 4 times the lifespan of Tweets and Stumbles and a far greater likelihood of being shared. The Facebook crowd is far more family oriented and serious than any other social medium.

CD: How has blogging affected your life?

CR: Since I’ve been blogging, I’ve become rich beyond my wildest dreams. I’m a Southern California celebrity and I’m taking it nationwide. In other words, I’m straddling the poverty line and my mom thinks I’m funny.

I want to thank Colin for his time in answering all my hard hitting questions and hope you’ll stop by to check him out on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Dad Blogs Exposed! ~ Ask Your Dad

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Welcome back to another exciting episode of Dad Blogs Exposed! This week I am talking to blogger extraordinaire and funny man, John Kinnear, from the blog Ask Your Dad. Here’s what John had to say about blogging and fatherhood.

CD: Why did you start blogging?

JK: I started blogging at the urging of my wife. I have been writing since before I can remember, but most of it was filed in various shoe boxes and stored in the garage. After I got married and had a kid, my wife urged me to share some of the writing I had done with our friends and family through a blog. It grew from there.

CD: What can people expect from your blog? Do you have a specific goal or do you write whatever you feel?

JK: I hope that people can always expect a laugh. I try and stay funny whenever possible. My kids make that pretty easy. I don’t really have an agenda per se. I do have a rule that I try and follow. I try not to give advice. I just talk about what has and hasn’t worked for me, and if people can laugh at it while finding pieces here and there that help them through their own parenting journey, then I think that is awesome.

CD: What has been your biggest challenge as a father?

JK: Two things. Putting my phone away. Letting go of fear.

CD: What one piece of advice can you give to a new Dad?

JK: Decide what kind of dad you want to be before your kid arrives, and then work every day to fail less. I fall short of being the dad I want to be every single day, but my kids don’t see that. They don’t see the ideal dad that I see in my head. They see me. They see me trying. And that matters more than what I see.

CD: Do you have any long term goals for your site?

JK: Not really. I have long term goals for my writing, but not necessarily my site. I’d like to write a book or five. Not necessarily short form or memoir like I am doing now, but something with a bigger story to it. I haven’t found that story yet, but I am toying with one that revolves around teenage Frankensteins that fall in love and then get to go to a magical wizard school where they are selected to fight other classic movie monsters in an arena death match. You know, something simple that will relate to a larger audience.

CD: What is your social media weapon of choice and why?

JK: I enjoy Facebook Pages a lot. I’m on Twitter and I dabble on Google+, but most of the conversation outside of my blog takes place on the Ask Your Dad Facebook Page.

CD: How has blogging affected your life?

JK: Ha. Someone actually recognized me the other day. This really pretty lady and ran up, gave me a hug, and thanked me for a post I wrote. That will probably never happen again, but I felt pretty good about it as soon as I was able to get my wife to stop punching her in the face. Kidding… Stevie, my wife, thought it was just as cool as I did. Speaking of my wife, I think that is the other strange, and a little unfortunate way that blogging has affected my life. I get way to much credit and she doesn’t get enough. (My opinion, not hers.) The truth is, out of the two of us, Stevie is the parenting rock star. I’m an active and engaged dad, but she is a freaking jedi-ninja-parent. If I am a practitioner of good parenting, then she is the alter at which I worship. But even with her level 99 mom skills, at the end of the day, we both just try and fail less.

I would like to thank John for his time and hope you will take some time to check out the Ask Your Dad Blog. You can also find John on Twitter and Facebook. Later!

john-and-stevie

Dad Blogs Exposed! ~ Puzzling Posts

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Dad Blogs Exposed! I had the pleasure of interviewing a fellow Canadian Dad and new friend of mine, Mike Reynolds, from the blog, Puzzling Posts. Mike and I were members of the same Movember team that crushed it last year and are working together again on this year’s campaign. He’s a great guy with a good heart and I’m excited to be able to share his story with you all.

CD: Why did you start blogging?

MR: I actually started blogging as a way to get myself writing more. Puzzling Posts originally had nothing to do with parenting, it was a spot I tried to write Stephen Leacock inspired stories on. For the first year I write a new story every day for 365 days and once that project ended I let the writing slide for a bit. then came kids and I found all kinds of new material. My girls inspire me to be creative and keep me young at heart which makes blog writing extremely fun.

CD: Can you talk about how you got started with writing children’s stories and maybe share a couple of your favourites?

MR: I’ve always loved writing stories but for the longest time I’d take weird news headlines and create some piece of fiction around them. Last Christmas my wife bought me a set of writing prompt cards that showed a bunch of robots. One night my oldest daughter and I came up with a story about one and the idea of bedtime stories was created. Since then, we’ve stopped needing the prompts and have written stories about giants who play hopscotch and soccer playing dinosaurs as well as many others.

One of the highlights of my story writing career came when I got feedback from an elementary school teacher who mentioned her class had read my stories and were inspired to write their own afterwards. That’s why I write–to inspire kids to be creative.

CD: What has been your biggest challenge as a father?

MR: I get most frustrated with myself when I find myself telling my kids “I’ll do things later.” Being tired is part of being a parent so I don’t feel bad for sometimes running out of gas, but I want to take advantage of every moment my kids want to play with me so I don’t regret it when down the line they don’t want to play with me any more. I also cry a lot and it’s hard to hide tears at work sometimes.

CD: What one piece of advice can you give to a new Dad?

MR: Treat every smile like it’s the last one you’ll ever see and then work as hard as you can to find the next one anyway. Also, the immense love you feel the first time you see your child somehow only grows over time, take advantage of every moment you get to sit down and talk to your kids. Building a relationship and an environment where they feel they can talk to you about anything is essential.

CD: Do you have any long term goals for your site?

MR: At this point I’m very happy writing our bedtime stories and the adventures we go on and I don’t think that part is anything I’d ever give up. It’s also the bedtime stories I’d like to grow seeing how they’re what sets me apart from a lot of other smaller sites like mine and because it’s also something attached to active parenting. If the stories weren’t being written with my children I’m not sure I’d be as interested in them finding a wider audience.

At the same time, I’d love for my blog to turn into a resource for parents to turn to when they’re looking for an honest review of some simple family activities. I like reviewing places and things for families because in addition to being able to help out other families, it gives me the chance to get my kids doing all kinds of fun things like visiting toy stores and pumpkin patches etc.

CD: What is your social media weapon of choice and why?

MR: Part of my day job is monitoring the many social media channels of my organization and with them Twitter is the best tool because of the quick interactions with our audiences. I assumed that would carry over to my own site and I certainly do love Twitter for Puzzling Posts but Facebook has been the far greater driver of traffic and engagement with others. I’d love to grow my Facebook page more so I can stop annoying my friends with my daily doses of Puzzling Posts.

CD: How has blogging affected your life?

MR: What I’ve liked about blogging is that it’s made me do things I normally wouldn’t do. I’m not a crafty person but I’ve started a feature on my site where me and the kids work on crafts we’ve found on Pinterest. There’s a good chance these Puzzling Pinterest Projects would never have come about were it not for the blog.

I’ve also always struggled with thinking I’m worse at parenting than others because sometimes (a lot of the time) I find parenting difficult. But it’s not me, it’s that parenting is just damn hard. I like sharing this with others just in case they’re somehow under the impression it’s just them struggling.

Really, blogging is my way of releasing creativity.

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That’s it for this week on Dad Blogs Exposed. Thanks to Mike for his time and I hope you’ll check back in next week for a new Dad and a new story.

Mike and Charlie and Leah

Dad Blogs Exposed! ~ Fodder 4 Fathers

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Dad Blogs Exposed continues this week as I interview fellow Canadian, Adam Dolgin, from the blog, Fodder 4 Fathers. I recently had the opportunity to meet Adam at an event in Brampton and can tell you that he looks much better on the internet than he does in person. Of course, I keed! Here’s what Adam had to say about fatherhood and blogging.

CD: Why did you start blogging?

AD: Truth? I was bored. Not a lot to do when you’re sitting on the couch holding a sleeping 8-month-old around the dinner hour. Sure, you can watch the news, but that will only make you cynical. So I was playing on my Blackberry and thought I’d look in to this whole blog thing and I started one called “The Evil That You Know” (which is better than the evil that you don’t know). But I had no clue what I wanted to write about, so I wrote about what I knew, or was learning about, and that was Fatherhood. Changed the name to Fodder 4 Fathers a few weeks later and the rest is history.

CD: What can people expect from your blog? Do you have a specific goal or do you write whatever you feel?

AD: Honesty, open-mindedness, sarcasm, humor, some great links about parenting, and a lot of reality. Mostly, I like that people can’t say that I write the same thing day in and day out. I mix it up a lot and when people think I’m one way I’ll throw them for a loop by tackling something a totally different way than I had before. In the beginning I was planning out posts days ahead, now I just post about things that bother me, or I respond to things I’ve read, or ideas come to me out of thin air. Anything is fair game for me. And everything is good “Fodder” for conversation. Personally, I write best when I’m pissed off about something, and those are the posts my fans tend to like best too.

CD: What has been your biggest challenge as a father?

AD: I like the challenge of fatherhood, but it’s not really a challenge to me, yet. I think I’ve very well suited to parenting infants and toddlers. Diapers, screaming, tantrums and sleepless nights don’t bother me. I’m more afraid of the tween and teen years. I think everything my kids do now is funny, but when my kid comes home telling me she got kicked out of hockey for spearing some other girl, I’m going to be pretty pissed that I can’t get my deposit back. But I guess if there is a challenge for me being an active dad to a 3-year-old and an 8-month-old it’s getting both kids in to the car by myself when I want to go to McDonald’s on a Sunday morning while my wife sleeps in. Actually, the real problem is getting them and my coffee out of the car when we get back home.

CD: What one piece of advice can you give to a new Dad?

AD: “GO BACK!” Sorry, that was Ione Skye’s speech from Say Anything. Actually, my advice to new dads is pretty straight-forward – if you want to be an equal partner in the parenting of your child, do it. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to do it, just do it. Read a parenting book, change a diaper, feed a bottle, take the kid for a stroll by yourself and get a coffee. Take your rightful place in your child’s life. Often parenting is a battle of supremacy for many couples from the beginning, especially as moms want to take the lead with an infant, but don’t let her. Tell her you want to be an equal partner in raising your kids (if that’s what you want— and you should), and work out between the two of you how to split it up in a way that works to both of your strengths.

CD: Do you have any long term goals for your site?

AD: I went from a small fatherhood blog to a full-service website full of resources and advice for a wide variety of parenting issues for both fathers and mothers. Was it planned? Hell yes. My website is far more serious than my blog, or my Facebook presence for that matter, and I always wanted to turn it in to a place where parents could get real answers to real problems without any fluff. Webinars and online courses will be coming in the future and we’ll be writing a book or two as well. I have it all mapped out on a piece of paper that I keep in my sock drawer (and in a big file on my laptop desktop). But I’m always willing to change as the wind does. Who knows what the future really holds. All I know is right now I’m helping people talking about a subject that I love and making some extra pocket change off of it talking about products I liked regardless. It’s a good start. When all is said and done, I just want to help people find the information they actually need without having to read through a lot of BS. If I can do it and make a living, well, that’s would be nice too.

CD: What is your social media weapon of choice and why?

AD: Facebook! Hands down. I like how it allowed me to create a community and doesn’t force me to talk in a limited number of characters on each post. I like to talk, and sometimes I have a lot to say. That’s not to say I don’t have all my Facebook posts connected to my Twitter or LinkedIn feeds. I just use Facebook as my home base. It’s where I’ve been able to grow a very large following of faithful fans and make a lot of page friends who support me and help my little idea – that parents can talk as equals- grow.

CD: How has blogging affected your life?

AD: One day I was a guy with 30 people, all close friends and family, reading my stuff. Two years later I’m a guy who has 18,000 people reading my stuff and my name is all over the Internet linked to newspaper articles, National magazines, podcasts, corporate campaigns and hundreds of blog posts. The other day my website was ranking 2nd on Google under Websites for Fathers. And the coolest thing is people actually come to me for help with their parenting problems, not because I’m an expert, but because I have created a community of very smart, and very knowledgeable parents who have been there. They trust me to get them help, and to keep their secrets, and that’s something that I never expected when I started this whole thing. It really took on a life of its own and its taking me in directions I never thought I would go… but I’m that F4F guy now. That involved dad guy. That guy who talks about making the world a better place for our kids. And it’s a pretty cool thing to be. Sure, I’m also hated by a lot of people for speaking my mind on a myriad of topics, but at least it has people talking about them. Having a blog gave me a voice (an International one) I would have never had otherwise.

A big thanks to Adam for taking the time to answer all my questions. Don’t forget to stop by next Wednesday to read about another amazing Dad!

About F4F Page - Dad and DD

How About Another Dose Of #AwesomeDads

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After a great response to last week’s Awesome Dads post, I’ve decided to keep it going as long as I keep getting photos submitted. I’m also working on a design for the main photo, so it doesn’t look like I’m implying how awesome I am from week to week, haha.

My goal is to feature Awesome Dads doing awesome things with their kids. Whether it’s hitting the slopes, helping with homework or snuggling them back to health, I want to showcase the changing face of Dad. That said, here are this week’s Awesome Dads!

 

 

Here’s Oren Miller from the blog, Blogger Father. This isn’t the first time he’s appeared on my site and the write up I did on him for Dad Blogs Exposed will tell you more than I could write now. To follow Oren’s journey, you can check him out on his Facebook Page! Thanks, Oren!

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Mike Reynolds from the blog, Puzzling Posts. I don’t really know how else to describe Mike, except to say that he is one of the really great ones. I’m not talking just Dadding here either. He just seems to be a genuinely kind person and I’m happy to have met him and his family. Of note, Mike just single-handedly raised over $1800 for our recent Movember campaign. Not an easy feat. You can catch him on Twitter at @PuzzlingPostDad.

 

 

 

 

This is Kevin, who I only know as @KevinSky on Twitter. The best thing about pictures is that you don’t need to know somebody to appreciate them and I love that Dad and Grandpa are present in this amazingly patriotic shot.

 

 

 

 

Here is a photo of Chris, helping his daughter learn how to swim. This one strikes a chord for me because it’s one of my favourite things to do with my kids. It’s great when you can capture pride in a picture!

 

 

 

 

 

Last but certainly not least, meet Ryan Sanders from The National Fatherhood Initiative. This photo has me missing our Expos and even more so because he’s cheering for the team that they left for. Ryan has also been kind enough to offer me a guest post on his blog and I’m grateful for the opportunity. You can also follow him on their Facebook Page.

That’s it for this week! Thanks to all the Dads and wives who submitted pictures. They were all great! If you’d like to submit your great Dad pics, please send them to [email protected], along with their name and a link, if any, to your site. Til we meet again!

Cheers!

Dad Blogs Exposed! – How To Be A Dad

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I’m not sure why it took me so long to get to this one, especially considering it was the first “Dad Blog” I ever read. This week on Dad Blogs Exposed, I bring you the funny and talented Charlie and Andy from the ever popular, How To Be A Dad.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, How To Be A Dad is a site that aims to bring you the lighter side of parenting, through hilarious videos, info-graphics and amazing photo shop work. Even though their About Us page states, “If you were looking for a website telling you how to be a dad… You didn’t find it“, I feel like I have gained from being a regular reader of their site.

In fact, earlier this month, Charlie posted about his son’s 3rd birthday, and had a great idea to ask the readers to leave his son some advice/wisdom/funny stories, that he would turn into a journal to give him some day. It was one of those posts that I got jealous over not thinking of it first because I really liked the idea. Please note, I have a problem with my comments going into people’s spam folders, so if you read the comments on this post, you’ll notice my name pop up a couple times. I willingly accept all mocking and newbie jokes that come from this.

Although they haven’t done too many videos lately, I always enjoyed watching them. I know how much work putting together a video can be, but that doesn’t stop me from reminding them constantly, that some us really enjoyed them, haha. Here is one of my favourites:

I think my favourite thing about Charlie and Andy is that they are visible and personable. They skyrocketed to success very quickly and with 126,000 Twitter followers and counting, it would be easy to just sit back and enjoy the ride. That’s not the case with these guys; they are out there answering questions, making conversation and connecting with their community of followers. I have yet to come across another blogger who doesn’t have great things to say about the two of them, and that’s the highest form of compliment.

The guys have something exciting happening right now as they prepare to launch their very first book! You may have seen their Baby Sleep Positions diagram, if not, here it is:

This diagram has become a huge success, getting stolen and claimed all over the place, by some very big sites. The book, titled “The Guide To Baby Sleep Positions” features some of How To Be A Dad’s best posts and info-graphics and is available right now for Pre-Sale on Amazon and also at Random House.

Bottom line is, although I’ve never met Charlie & Andy, they have never been anything but kind to me; and as a newer Dad blogger (and a Canadian one), it’s nice to not feel like we are all competing against each other. Putting out a book is the top of the blogging Everest and I wish them all the best with it! There will definitely be a copy of it at my place; probably in the bathroom but there’s no insult intended, it’s just where I get my best reading done.

If you want to catch up with Charlie & Andy, you can visit their site, How To Be A Dad. You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook, and pretty much every other social media platform there is. Seriously, these guys are everywhere and active on all of them!

I Saw A Million Faces; Well, You Know The Rest! #BlissDomCA

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Where do you even start in formulating a proper recap of the weekend that was Blissdom Canada? I could write about all the great people I met, but listing only a few would be unfair and listing them all would be way too much! I want to write about the experience but speaking about the experience would pay it far more justice. That way, you could see my smile and my arms flailing wildly as I describe each session, interaction and excursion.

That still brings me back to my original question, “How do I accurately describe my time at Blissdom Canada?”

I guess I’ll start from the top. Being of the male persuasion, the thought of heading to a 500 person conference, where the ratio of women to men is 490:10, was a little overwhelming. Nightmarish thoughts of walking into the room and everyone glaring at me with disapproving eyes, filled my head in the days leading up to the event.

Once I arrived on site, it took about 30 seconds for those fears to disappear. That’s because 30 seconds is all it took for me to get my first warm welcome. The next one came at 45 seconds; and then at 60 seconds, it happened again. In fact, every single interaction I had the entire weekend was positive and welcoming.

Not one time did I feel out of place, as a blogger or as a man. I got nervous; and anxious; and overwhelmed at times, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. It’s a lot easier to say you’re going to go up to someone you idolize, than it is to actually do it. I was lucky to have some people watching out for me and making sure that I felt included in the fun and for that I am eternally grateful.

I went to Blissdom Canada to learn how to become a better blogger but I left with so much more than that. I left with a sense of belonging. I left with great connections. I left with a new found confidence in my abilities as a writer. Most importantly, I left with new friends. Not “friends” in the Facebook sense either, but real friends who are willing to help you when you have questions and who genuinely want to see you do well, as I do for them.

I could write a book about how fulfilling this conference was. I won’t, but I could! I sang, I learned, I laughed, I cried (Let’s not get into that, I am a man after all and I was watching a family video), I gangnam styled, I interpretive danced (see above), I connected, At Blissdom Canada, I saw a million faces…

And I rocked them all!

Thank you so much to the organizers, community leaders, sponsors and attendees. You made this experience one I will never forget and I am going to make it my goal to let the other male bloggers know that this is a conference that will accept them for who they are and not judge them based on their gender.

I’d also like to say a special Thank You to my wife, who was nothing but supportive of my time away and never made me feel like I was doing something wrong by being there. She is a great woman and my family is incredibly lucky to have her!

Cheers!

Oh yeah, I also got to spend an afternoon with Canadian Family Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief, Jennifer Reynolds. It was incredibly rewarding!

I Am Not Super Dad; Not Even Close

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While taking some good natured ribbing from my friends about my new found voice as, “Canadian Dad”, it occurred to me that the perception of what I’m doing might not match up with the goal of why I’m doing it. My goal is not to portray myself as some kind of Super Dad for spending time with my kids. In fact, I hadn’t even really thought about that side of it until recently.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends and take absolutely no offence to the, “Just tell them you are Canadian Dad” and “I blocked you so my wife won’t think I’m a terrible Dad” jokes. We have all been trash talking each other for years and it’s just the way we all interact together. Plus, there’s the fact that they don’t even read the blog anyway, so it’s hard to take any kind of literal offence.

I started this blog as a vessel to feed my addiction for writing, as well as a way to keep a form of living record of my journey through fatherhood. The fact that the domain CanadianDad.com was available is a major reason why I decided to stop procrastinating about it and actually start writing. Truthfully, the writing was the major reason for the blogging idea in the first place. I went through many different topic ideas before settling on the fatherhood niche.

This blog could easily have been, FantasyHockeyGuy.com or RealityTVJunkies.com, and I would have been happy at the time, just to be writing. I am, however, eternally grateful to have chosen to write about parenting because something funny happened along the way. The blogging has opened my eyes to a whole new world of fatherhood, where it’s okay to express your feelings and emotions about being a Dad. It doesn’t make me a better father than someone who doesn’t blog or share their inner most feelings on parenthood, it’s just a different avenue and one that I appreciate and can relate to.

There are a million great Dads out there who are better at it than I am, but I find that writing and sharing my experiences is helping me to become a more attentive father. I still spend way too much time on the computer, when I should be outside spending more time helping my son learn to ride his bike. I’m not always excited to go on a family trip that requires over 4 hours of driving, even though it is a “family” trip. One time, I even pretended to take a picture of the kids with my iPhone, even though I was actually checking my twitter feed…

The point is that I am not a perfect father and I am going to make mistakes, just like everyone else. I don’t write about my life as a Dad so you will think I am an amazing father. I do it so I can share my stories and learn from my mistakes, while also being a part of an amazing community of parents, who are always supportive and more than willing to share their suggestions and ideas.

The biggest benefit I have gained from this blog, is that I am much more self aware when it comes to my habitual lazy ways. I spend a lot more quality time with my kids these days, where I may have just popped on a movie in the past. Instead of dreading the thought of my wife leaving me with the kids for the day, I am actually excited when I get to plan some fun time with Daddy; And not because it’ll make for a great story either, but just because they are so much fun to be around.

Writing about fatherhood is helping me to become a better father for my children, and anything else that comes with it is only gravy (unless you hate gravy, then it could be ice cream or whatever). I know so many great fathers out there and I hope that if you take anything from this post, it will be that just because I share my stories of fatherhood, I am not Super Dad. I am just one of the many Dads out there, trying to provide the best possible care for my children. Sometimes I am successful and other times, not so much, but I’m learning more every day and I’m happy with my progress.

I am proud to be a father and I hope that comes through in my writings about my family. I only hope that you will realize that for all the compliments and accolades I have received since I started blogging, I am far from being a perfect parent. I am just a Dad like most other Dads, except that I have chosen to write about it.

I think a fun exercise would be to take a minute out of your day to let a parent know that you think they are doing a great job. Even though I say I am not a Super Dad, I still enjoy hearing the kind words and think other parents would appreciate it just as much. I don’t know, just thinking out loud again.

Cheers!

Dad Blogs Exposed! – Luke, I Am Your Father

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Dad Blogs Exposed is back this week with a blog that gets my nerdy side excited just by reading it’s name. James is the blogger behind Luke, I Am Your Father and I can’t help but do the Darth Vader voice every time I see it…which greatly confuses my family.

I’m going to stop explaining where I met the Dad Blogger’s each week and you should just start assuming that I met them on Twitter, which is true for 99% of them, including James.

James has been writing LIAYF since 2008, a fact which makes me incredibly sad that I didn’t find out about blogging until this year. You can tell he’s been at it for a while too because his writing style is one that draws you in and leaves you wanting to read more. Then again, he could be an English major and I’m just blowing smoke…Let’s just go with my reason, okay?

We actually have a few things in common too, which is always a draw. Our sons’ names are both named Luke, him Lukas, mine Lucas. He loves bacon. I love bacon. We are both die hard fans of a sports franchise that hasn’t been any kind of good for the past decade. Me with the Montreal Canadiens and James with the Seattle Mariners. Sorry James, the M’s are terrible but the first step to recovery is admitting it.

One of my favourite things about James, is that he understands the value in leaving comments on posts from other bloggers. It’s such an amazing feeling, as a blogger, to open your email and see the “Moderate Comment” message and it’s something I try to do a lot of.

James finds and creates stories out of life’s everyday moments and it’s fascinating to read his take. For an example of this, you need look no further than his post from just this past week, Yard of the Flies. It’s a mirror image of the street I live on but it’s told in a way that I would have never thought of.

In closing, James is a good guy and a great father, and I encourage you to check out his blog at “Luke, I am Your Father“. You can also connect with him on Twitter, my weapon of choice, @SeattleDad.

That’s it for another week of Dad Blogs Exposed! Have a nice day!

Cheers!

Dad Blogs Exposed! – Manhood V. Dadhood

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Welcome to another edition of Dad Blogs Exposed! This week, I would like to introduce you to Joe from the blog Manhood V Dadhood.

As with most of my Dad blogger connections, I first ran into JB on Twitter, where he goes by the handle, @ManvDadhood. I knew we hit it off immediately due to our shared love of all things super hero.

It wasn’t until I saw his Justice League of Dad Bloggers post that I really understood how creative Joe was. I’ve been a follower since and have to say that his writing style is one that draws you in and keeps you coming back for more.

Joe started his own project called DADuary, which will run each January, and which he describes as “I want DADuary to be something that is open to dads, moms, and everyone else who wants to talk about their dads, or the dads they know.” I hadn’t started my blog yet so I didn’t get a chance to be a part of this year’s edition but you can’t bet I’ll be checking in for the 2013 DADuary!

If you’re looking for a Dad Blog that’s going to come at you from all emotional angles, Manhood V Dadhood is the one for you. JB writes from his soul but also gives you laughs and even a touch of geek. His Definitive Collection series is something that needs to be read. If this post hasn’t been enough to convince you to check out his site, maybe this tweet of his will put it over the top!

Yep, that’s what I’m talking about! You can visit Joe on his site Manhood V Dadhood, or check him out on Twitter @ManVDadhood and Facebook.

Cheers!