“Did you see the new ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ trailer with the ‘Dudes Group’ in it? What do you think? You must be pretty outraged, huh?”

I’ve been asked variations of the above question a lot recently. Clearly because of my recent accidental activism about the Huggies commercials, and general willingness to opine on the bigger issues of how dads are portrayed in the media, this makes sense.

But it’s been happening so often, and my answer taken people so clearly by surprise, that I thought it was time I write about it here.

The short answer? No.

I’m not outraged at all. At first I was simply “withholding judgement” for the time being, but the more I’ve watched the trailer, and thought about how feel about it, the more encouraged I am at how the film seems to be portraying active, involved dads…

I’m happy to announce that I am partnering with LifeChurch in Allentown, PA to get copies of my educational kids’ ABC books The Animalphabet and Now I Eat My ABCs into the hands of children.

The idea is simple: buy one of my books, and a second copy will go to a child in need.

Initially this will be children in Guatemala and Haiti, with plans to expand wherever the opportunity comes.

You read more about the Buy One, Give One promotion and the charities it will be supporting here.

Every day it seems like my toddler becomes more loquacious, which is a fancy-schmancy way of saying he dun talk reel gud.

Well, better than the day before, at least.

There are still some struggles. The letter “k” is something he seems to have personally taken a point in working on a lot recently. (Which is good, because when you can’t do the “k” sound very well and you try to tell someone your name is “Tucker,” everyone just ends up thinking that your parents were really big fans of Hervé Villechaize’s Fantasy Island character.)

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking lately of how much I am actually going to miss some of the adorable mispronunciations and general toddler-speak that I am so accustomed to now. Sure, I take great pride in how clearly my little boy can talk and love that it’s increasingly easier to actually have great conversations with him. But dang, toddler-speak can be cute.

A few of my favorites (see if you can figure them all out):

What things does (or did) your toddler say that you are going to (or already) miss?

Over the last few years my wife and I have really loved having so much great local produce available to us from some wonderful farmer’s markets, roadside stands, CSAs and co-ops in the area.

It’s been particularly nice because, despite big dreams and great intentions, our ability to actually grow food ourselves has been . . . well, not without its highs, but mostly a bit of a gong show.

While I wouldn’t exactly say we have green thumbs, it’s not that we don’t know what we’re doing. What it really comes down to are the twin problems of a lack of space (we live in a small apartment, with only a small patio available for us to use) and that what space we have is not very conducive even to container gardening, as it gets very little direct sunlight (maybe 5 hours on a clear, sunny day). Herbs do okay, and we’ve been told we could grow lettuce (OH BOY! LETTUCE!). But anything more than that has just not really done very well. . .