After wondering what it would be like to be a parent, I finally got to hold a little pink girl in my arms, my first child. We thought she was going to be a boy, and it took two more children to persuade me to give up guessing what gender my unborn children were going to have. With all the drama that happened getting from California to Utah, and then attending to the birth of my first child at home (Tristi was in labor twenty hours) I was glad to have a child, but not in the position to feel … Continue reading →

I lost my job ten days before I married Tristi, and I had to scramble to get any kind of employment. Part of that employment, when Tristi became pregnant with our daughter, Caryn , was a part-time job with the Army National Guard. This had its ins and outs. For one thing, I was not paid very much, making about $8.00 an hour in spite of my bachelor’s degree. The Guard was good to me in other ways, one of them being willing to train me as an administrative clerk in a camp near Dublin, California. This made things exciting … Continue reading →

Shortly before I began dating Tristi, I read Arthur Janov’s book, “Imprints: The Lifelong Effects of the Birth Experience,”and began to understand why having children at home, without drugs, might be helpful to them and their mother. I didn’t necessarily agree with everything Arthur had to say, but his book did open my mind to the possibility that many children don’t need the full hospital interventions that often happen in America. According to Dr. Janov, babies born without drugs, whether at home or not, tend to be less irritable, and grow up with fewer psychological issues. When I asked Tristi … Continue reading →

When my wife, Tristi, told me she was expecting, I have to admit, I wasn’t very positive at first. I had been fired my job ten days before getting married, which was about two months before this, and had no way to support my family. I’d been looking for work ever since. We had moved to a tiny attic apartment close to the place of work that had laid me off, and we then had to pay for additional gas in order to get to other jobs. I didn’t realize this was an opportunity to make good the mistakes my … Continue reading →

While I’m still working towards my doctorate I seem to have found a hobby in computers. I use computers constantly for all sorts of wonderful things. I use them for research, chats with the grandparents, entertainment, planning classes, games, news, and just plain fun. Computers can do so many things. I listen to my music while writing academic papers. I show our son a video about a monkey while reading a post about whether or not highlighter fluid is toxic. All of these activities are done through this marvelous machine. Computers are amazing tools that help us with many aspects … Continue reading →

Spending time with our son at home has been a blessing. I truly cherish the times we are able to spend together. In truth, he will probably be the only child in this family to spend such a lengthy amount of the daytime hours with his Dad. The goal (and hope) is that this student-parent becomes a full-time-employee/father in the very near future. That, of course, will mean less daytime hours spent kicking a ball, changing diapers, reading stories with thick pages and few words (and lots of pictures), and gently setting a (finally) sleeping child into a crib for … Continue reading →

Today I’m sitting in my customary location (in front of a computer screen at my desk covered in half-read books in preparation for my qualifying exams) and every so often I shift my body to see around the screen. I’m not certain about what I truly expect to find beyond the screen. Could he be eating another highlighter? Might he be trying to dig into the garbage again? Has he found something of questionable edibility to consume from the floor? All of these possibilities are likely (especially when he’s being quiet) but none of them are correct today. Today our … Continue reading →

Yesterday I was sitting down to write this post and I noticed our son at the front door. His little hands were pressed firmly against the not-so-firm mesh wire of the front door on what turned out to be a heavenly day. My first thought was “Don’t fall out of the door!” I quickly headed over to prevent my son from what was sure to be a silent cry and a nosebleed to see what he was looking at. Beyond the mesh screen he was now pressing his face against were the neighborhood kids: and my son wanted to play … Continue reading →