First we hung out at the airport Observation Deck, which was lots of fun.

We played with a kaleidoscope.

We played the Wii.

Went to the playground.

And a Durham Bulls baseball game.

Then relaxed, after a long weekend.

I think we both had a fun weekend, and were both very happy to see Kate again.

Ted also decided to wear a neck tie for father’s day.  We did a pre-museum lunch in the car.

Ted in the Rodin garden, doing his best imitation of a statue there.

Ted pretending to be a statue, again.

We measured Ted yesterday and he’s 39″ tall now, so you know, there’s some scale.

Kate and Ted in the rings.

Ted did great the whole time.  He really liked the sculptures and said he wanted to go home and “paint arts”.  I really liked it, too. It’s recently been redone and looks great with lots of natural light and a great walking trail.

With his first birthday just a few weeks behind us now, I realized that I’ve been a dad to a little boy for just over a year now.

A few thoughts about what being a dad has meant:

1.  Diapers
They don’t really tell you this when you arrive at the hospital, but apparently being a dad (or a mom) involves the swapping out of old diapers with fresh ones.  And by old, I mean anywhere from I just put a clean one on three minutes ago and these are not free to all the way overnight.  There’s no predictability with them.

And really, I am grateful for the existence of diapers in that they prevent the terrible things that fly out of Ted’s butt from getting all over our stuff.

I’m kind of surprised at how I’m mostly nonchalant about the whole diaper thing. I mean before Ted was born, I couldn’t conceive of wiping a poopy-butted child.  Now, you know, you just get it done.  That smell will not fix itself.  No amount of Febreeze is going to fix it.  The cats also refuse to render assistance.

Which isn’t to say that it isn’t totally gross, because it is. Totally.  Gross.  And I think Ted sees it as some sort of challenge, like What kind of face can I get Dad to make this time?  Can I get his eyes to cross from the smell?

2. Toys
Ted’s toys are way more fun now that he’s a todler.   While his toys were fun six months ago, they have only gotten better with his age. As a dad, its fun to see him play with a toy car and stack blocks and things like that.

I can’t wait until he’s old enough for real lego’s.  I have a considerable stash of them, just waiting.  I can’t give them to him now, or they’ll just end up being added to the bulk of the diapers.

3. Free Time
One thing I’ve learned quickly is that being a dad makes you prioritize how you spend your non-parenting time.  Working is important, as parenting is substantially easier with electricity and food. Spending time with Kate is important.  The act of paying bills is important.  Cleaning up after things is important.  I’ve discovered that, for me, video games, washing my car, and idly surfing the web are somewhat less important than they were pre-Ted.

Freelance website work is also less-important, but in a different way.  While making money is important, I’ve cut way back on the freelance because there is much less value in that kind of  time versus time spent with Ted.  I would rather either spend time with him and Kate or sleep, rather than make a few bucks.  I still do the occasional project, but since each new website implies a certain long-term time commitment, I have learned to be choosy.

4. Speed and Physical Fitness
One thing I wasn’t expecting was the sort of speed this boy is capable of.  He’s like a Mini Cooper… small, highly maneuverable and fast. And fuel efficient… he converts his food to high speed toddler activity! Kate and I have both gotten in better shape and lost weight. It’s helped us keep up with his moving and shaking. Also makes piggy-back rides easier.

5. Blog Posting
Thanks goodness Kate is around to pick up my blogging slack.  In case you haven’t noticed, she’s been putting up most of the content on this site lately.  I’d love to write more and post more photos, but there are only a certain number of hours in the day.

The first step was explaining the whole “10 and 2″ o’clock hand positions.  Ted countered that he couldn’t see out the windshield, and that he really wants to eat the ‘cruise control’ buttons. 

In traffic, Ted got a little too confident and kept looking at his mother.  I had to shout ‘Keep your eyes on the road!‘ more than once.  That boy!

Soon he learned to focus.  It’s tough to tell in this shot, but he’s actually parallel parking our car into a really tight spot.  He’s using those side mirrors to his advantage.

Ted seemed to really like driving, and agreed to take a leg on our trip up north next month… but says he doesn’t want to drive through Jersey because he hates the tolls.  Fair enough, I said.

ps – We would never, ever drive without Ted completely secured in his car seat.  The car was off, keys in my pocket. 

Normally Kate writes the weekly entries here, but since today’s entry happens to fall upon Father’s day, I thought I’d take a shot at it.  Ted and Kate got me some cool father’s day cards, a new tie, and this pretty excellent coffee mug with Ted’s mug on it.  A mug-mug if you will:

The photo is one of my fav’s, shown in this post.  That’s definetely one of the things I like about Ted; he’s an expressive little guy.  Sure a good deal of the time he’s expressing emotions by filling his diaper, but he’s got no problem bringing goofiness and curiosity to non-poop conversations.

He and I got to spend some time alone yesterday while Kate did some shopping.  We napped for a little while, then played on the floor for a bit, and then had a snack.

In Ted-news this week, he slept through the night every night this past week. This accomplishment makes his parents way happy.  I know I was in a total fog the first few weeks where he’d get up every few hours, so it’s been nice to get more then six consecutive hours in a row of sleep for several nights.

His babbling continues to progress.  He’s very chatty first thing in the morning now, like he wants to tell us about the things he dreams about.  Apparently our baby is a morning person.  Maybe he’ll start making the coffee for me before work.

A short list of things I would have written long blog posts if I wasn’t so into the whole parenting thing*.

1. The iPod Touch.  I picked this up as one-last-toy-for-me before Ted was born and can’t seem to not have it with me, ever. It’s like the iPhone, but without the phone part (and without the $60/month fees). Music, movies, Gmail and wifi internet in a tiny little package.  It’s awesome all around and has totally changed the way I think about the mobile internet and UI’s.

2. The new Portishead album called Third.  I listen to it all the time now, it’s great at-work music.  It’s been nearly a decade since they put out music, and the wait was well worth it.

3. The inevitable and long overdue demise of the giant SUV as daily driver.  Unfortunate that it comes with the price of declining economy, soaring food prices and a certain sense of dread every time I fill up.  It is exciting that the capitalism around it is spurring innovation and futurist thinking though.  Ted will no doubt fly his jetpack over homes made from recycled Tahoe’s.

4. Web technologies I’m learning about.  The past few months at work (and in freelance work) have filled my brain with new exciting knowledge about web design and the construction of websites.  I’ve spent a bunch of time learning about WordPress (the system that powers this blog), Drupal, and the jQuery javascript framework.  Learning is good, and I feel more confident about my skills with each passing week.

5. Fatherhood as subject matter.  I like writing and would like to write more about being a dad to Ted.  It’s the new highlight of my day, coming home to a family and hanging out with Ted on the weekends.  He’s high-maintenance, but every time he smiles at me I know what we’ve done is totally worth it.  I also know that its probably also diaper-change time.

Hopefully going forward there will be lots more posts on fatherhood.

* Full Disclaimer: I took a two hour nap after coming home from work today. Clearly there’s some time out there, just not as much for blogging.