the tindog coffeehouse

Today our baby turns 10. I still can’t believe it. It seems like yesterday when she was first born, all six pounds six ounces of her. From Day One, Erin’s been a spitfire, stubbornly independent and free-spirited with her own sense of style. As a toddler, she’d roam around the house in her jewelry and diaper and announce her presense with a funnel-turned-megaphone, and even today she can’t go anywhere unless she’s properly accessorized and treated like the queen that she is. Most of the time I think she’d prefer sleeping in a fancy dress and high heels rather than pajamas.

A few years ago, Christy and I started tweeting the hilarious “Erinisms” that she’d rattle off, brief glimpses into the mind of this curious little diva-rock star-comedian. What started as the #stuffmy7yroldsays hashtag has grown into #stuffmy9yroldsays and now #stuffmy10yroldsays. Below are all those tweets (so far).

Continue reading…

As a father I’ve tried to prepare for the delicate, difficult, and even sometimes embarrassing questions that my kids will inevitably ask. Ask me anything related to religion, morality, or the human anatomy, and while I may not have all the answers, I’m at least not surprised to hear the question. But nothing — and I mean nothing — could’ve prepared me for the question Megan asked me last night:

“Daddy, what would you do if I went to Texas A&M?”

Continue reading…

As if I didn’t feel old enough already, today is the 30th anniversary of the launch of MTV. Let that sink in for a minute.

Of course, trivia buffs know that the first video ever shown on MTV was The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star”. But the first video I ever saw on the basic cable network (you know, back when they actually showed music videos), was “Centerfold” by The J. Geils Band.

Continue reading…

It was exactly one year ago today the I broke my leg. One long year ago. But I’m still reminded of that moment daily.

Our house backs up to an undeveloped greenbelt, and we have a 4-foot wrought iron fence along the back. Because the HOA wouldn’t do any landscaping behind our house (like they were supposed to), we had a hard time keeping the grass trimmed along the fence, so I took matters into my own hands and decided to trim it myself, which required climbing over the fence because we didn’t have a gate at the time. While Christy was busy studying for school and the girls were watching TV, I climbed up onto the fence and hopped over. And that’s when everything went to hell.

Continue reading…

While I don’t have a son, I do have two young daughters, and any father of young kids can instantly relate to the lyrics of the song below, “Follow Me” by Remedy Drive. There are times when kids ask deep and complicated questions that are difficult to answer, but more often than not, they just want to spend time with their daddy.

I try to be the best father I can for my kids, and as the song says, I don’t want to let them down. In the end, I hope I will have done enough and set the right example for my kids to follow. But more importantly, I pray that they’ll keep running toward “this hope that I can’t see”, Jesus Christ.

Continue reading…

About a week ago, we finally got around to seeing the animated movie How To Train Your Dragon. It’s a great movie, and the kids loved it. Of course, when it first came out, I couldn’t help but to joke that it looked nothing like the book, that book being Donald Miller’s To Own A Dragon.

Interestingly, though, I think there might be some thematic similarities between the two.

Continue reading…