Makes Me Wanna Holler - Man, Dad and Husband (Lifestyle, African American)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION PAGE: Makes Me Wanna Holler - Mom, Dad and Husband , published by Eric Payne

WEB ADDRESS: http://makesmewannaholler.com

BLOG DESCRIPTION: The evolution of a family man in NYC and all the joy, pain and insanity that comes with the love affair I have with my wife, my thirteen year-old boy who's growing out of control and eating me out of house and home, and my three year-old evil-genius princess intent on having her way at all costs. It's all about living life from the father/husband lane (and laughing a lot) --- one day at a time.

MY REVIEW: Another blog that I enjoyed reading, for all that it isn't really my cup of tea. I have no kids (and find life so much easier that way).

But it's a joy to read the writings of parents - in particular dads, who get so little credit sometimes for what they bring to a child's life - who so obviously love their kids, and bring them up right.

This is another blog that all parents will enjoy reading, and maybe even kids, too, who want to see just what parents go through to bring them up.

SAMPLE PARAGRAPHS

I'm typically very cool under pressure. However the one thing I cannot endure is my child not being able to get a full breath of air. I get angry quickly and begin to bark. Why? Because I've had bronchitis more than once as an adult and unless you've actually felt what's it's like to not be able to bring air into your lungs, you can't relate. I can call 911, I can tell someone or write out (to conserve air) what's wrong. My daughter, nor any child for that matter cannot. And for this reason I hate cigarette smoke, cat dander and anything else that can trigger such a thing as if they were the Devil themselves. What made matters worse, is we were out of medicine and I had overlooked refilling the prescription because it's almost been a year since her last episode.

Tuesday night I didn't sleep. I sat in her room on my iPod Touch, surfing the Net and watching the rise and fall of her chest, regulating the heat and the humidifier in her room, sitting her upright if she coughed, patting her back and rocking her (as my dad did me) back to sleep when she awakened from the discomfort of it all. At sunrise I picked up her prescription, her symptoms subsided and somehow I made it through the day with no sleep, a bit of personally disappointing news and the threat of the snowstorm of life being flashed on every channel on television.

Yesterday afternoon I took her to a park in my neighborhood where, armored from head to toe looking like a pink Stormtrooper (or pink mercenary), she pelted me with little snowballs, chased her grandfather at 1 mile per hour and made snow angels, laughing through all of it the whole time. I had to literally pick her up off the ground to get her to leave.

When I dropped my daughter off at pre-school this morning, my heart swelled as it does every morning. I lose a piece of me every time I part ways with her. But I don't own her. Despite all of what I described above she is NOT my human. She is my child and what I own is the responsibility of raising her and her brother, who currently believes he is God's gift to women and football, (Update: he managed to pull up all of his grades to a modestly respectable level for his 2nd quarter of high school. Now his challenge to to continue to pull them up even higher), protecting them and teaching them as much as I can until they leave the nest.

RECENT ARTICLES:
-Touching Robes (musing on ambitions past and present) (Feb 24, 2010)
-The Winners - The Soldier of Love CD (Feb 23, 2010)
-I (Didn't) Invented Sex - (talking to his son about music) (Feb 18, 2010)
-Make it wearable (comment on custom t-shirts) (Feb 16, 2010)
-Will it be Yours? (Valentine's Day) (Feb 14, 2010)