“But soft! What art through yonder header breaks?” you may be asking yourself. Probably not. I’ll tell you anyway.
You see, I am fiercely giddy and openly jovial on this finest of fine mornings for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that brand new, fam-spangled banner you see up there. The one with the delicately doodled-on Dada in his royal, superhero garb, his angel-faced and crazy kids in tow. The sharp and artsy lettering. That wicked dropped tie effect. All custom designed and recently rendered by one Brent Almond, dad blogger, award-winning graphic designer, illustrator and all around arteest extraordinaire over at Design Nut. (The dad-antics, and often, but not always, lighter side of Brent, are chronicled, regularly, on his fathering blog, Designer Daddy.) Do yourself a solid and head over to check out his handiwork. Gorgeous. And the man is so amicable and receptive. He humbly humored my every whim and made every suggested alteration (You should’ve seen the intricate and elaborate craftings I graciously declined in favor of the banner above!)
If you couldn’t already tell by my lack of proliferation, I am brand new, and some might say late, to the blogging party. Oh, I knew it was happening. I could always hear the music down the hall. I even threw an outfit on the bed a time or two but never had the nerve to suit up and see what all the noise was about. But, as I wrote about waaaay back here in Fathering (and Blogging) Blind, I recently mustered the courage to knock on the door and start chewing the fat with the dad dudes around the punch bowl. It is one of the most fulfilling decisions I have made to date. The assistance and support I’ve received is nothing short of astounding. The extended family I’ve acquired, the strengthening of an already unbreakable bond with my children, the fine-tuning of my focus on “the moment”, priceless. I will, forever, be indebted to more of these men than I can name in these small spaces and that is not to say that I’m not also getting plenty of blogging support from women as well. (Attempting to learn CSS on my own, at a snail’s pace, during those elusive overlap naps, would be excruciating if it weren’t for the support of such a wonderful community.)
Michelan-J-Lo and T.T. O. Tanner channeling their inner-Brent Almond
Then there is the C word. (note to self: work on your transition sentences, guy!)
We know cancer. We loathe cancer. As men, we fear the internist’s icy probe and even hesitate to cup our own jiggly bits like they tell us to. (No we don’t). We are, daily, inundated with the myriad horror stories yet, unless we are directly affected by the snare of cancer’s poisoned tentacles- a loved one’s untimely demise- our own family’s narrative instantly turned to a tragedy, it is far too easy to look the other way. We sit idly by and wish the word, itself, away and in the grand scheme of disease eradication that is as effective as teaching our kids that doody-head and kaka-face are “bad words” and expecting them to never be uttered again. Fat chance, doody head!
Then I found THIS, an immediate and almost effortless way to DO something. So I DID something! I gave! I gave some of the At-Work Mama’s hard earned loot to help fund the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and help a friend reach a goal. I admit that my giving wasn’t entirely selfless and did result in the aforementioned and above-witnessed banner design via a sub-contest held in the dad bloggers Facebook group where the donating “winner” (yours truly) was to receive a personal and professional custom header, designed with nothing-short-of-love, by the above-plugged Brent Almond. Truly. But I gave, and felt immeasurably awesome about doing something so tangible toward the seemingly insurmountable task of sending cancer the way of dinosaurs and bundling beds. If you aren’t already reading John Kinnear’s blog, and I assume you are, you should be. He is easily one of the most well-versed and approachable wordsmiths and cancer-fighting superdudes you could ever hope to forge a friendship with. I’ve never even met the guy and I don’t hesitate to call him a friend. Read a post. You will soon see exactly what I mean. Here’s a great one, speaking of doody-heads and bad words. Sort of. But I digress. The C word!
So check out those websites! Ogle that banner up there! Click on the picture below and give what you can (if and only if you want to “help blood cancer patients live longer, better lives” and can stomach a healthy dose of feel-good for breakfast) because every little bit helps and because, well, kittens.
I love your enthusiasm!! Don’t lose it!
Thanks, Mike. The girls and I are having a lot of fun with this. Thanks for reading.