Quirkee.com

Before you all get excited that I am about to go into graphic detail about the parts of my body, let me assure you that kind of information is not what this article is about. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yesterday I went up to the new health club for my Graphical Summary and Body Age Analysis. This a free session with a personal trainer that you schedule when you join the club and pay them money...

So it's not really free, I guess, but it didn't cost extra!

Now I'm just as curious as the next guy as to what my "body age" really is compared to how many years I've actually been alive and kicking around the planet. I made my appointment for the second day at the club so I could find out how "old" I am before I start exercising on a regular schedule. The session was to last about an hour, which I figured out to be just about the length of time I could take the humiliation I was to receive in front of the entire workout floor.

Dennis is one of the many dads I have virtually met in the DadStaysHome.com forum. After the birth of my first child I joined the forum back in 2003 but never really got connected with the other dads. I then went back to work part-time away from home so dropped off the site until earlier this year. It was then that I realized what I had been missing for the last couple of years. It's not all about bottle feeding vs. breast feeding or the best way to get poop stains out of your kid's clothes. It's about dads having someone to hang out with and have conversations about beer, cars, bar-b-que, the occasional (mostly) good-natured debates, sports, advice on parenting, and the weekly poker games after the kids are asleep.

Thanks to Don-Dad for starting the site back in 2000 when he began staying home with his kids. Maybe I can get The Don here in the Daddyshack for an interview someday in the future.

My daughter will be two years old soon. Where has the time gone? She is sitting in a "big girl" chair at the table, can navigate up and down the stairs without falling, scoots around on a tricycle, attempts to climb out of her crib, and can handle anything her big brother throws at her - literally.

She is also learning a ton of new words and singing along with the alphabet song and "Rainbow Connection," which is a nightly request in her rocking chair before she goes to sleep. "Daddy!" she screams from the top of the stairs after her bath. "Rainbow!"

The Internet is full of at-home dads. Some dads have jobs that allow them to work from home while the moms go to the office. Many dads left their careers altogether to raise their kids. The rising popularity of dad blogs and dad sites brings many of these men together to swap stories, give advice if needed, and recommend a good beer to pair with the night's dinner.

Whit Honea is one of those men. He is an at-home dad and a writer for Dadcentric , Dad Bloggers , FameCrawler , The Disney Blog , and his own blog, Honea Express . Whit likes to keep himself busy while his two boys are napping or swinging from the chandelier. I discovered his blog earlier this year when I signed up on MyBlogLog , a blogging community site where I have found many funny and interesting dads, moms, and other bloggers carving out their piece of the Web one post at a time.

Ever since turning thirty I have had this thing about my birthdays, like not wanting them to come. I have indifferences about getting older and my birthday is just another reminder of that. Maybe it's because I am happy with my life where it is. My kids are still nice to me, I am healthy, I have most of my hair left, and I don't have any unsightly nose or ear hairs to pluck. Yesterday, my wife got frustrated with me because I didn't really care if we had friends over to hang out for my birthday. She said, "I'm not mad at you; I just wish you'd be excited about your birthday instead of moping around about it. It's something to celebrate, and you're making it kind of blah."

Like 99.9% of the time, my wife is right. I have been moping around about it for five years now. I wasn't interested in everybody making a big deal out of me getting older so I just shrugged off the birthdays like they were any other day. But she is right - it is something to celebrate and I am happy to have lived another year and will hopefully have many more to grow on. So let's party!

This summer has come and gone in a blink of an eye. Each one seems to go faster than the last and they all end with my birthday as a reminder that I am one more year closer to retirement or death, whichever comes first.

The last few months have been a big Summer of Firsts in this house. My son had his first jump into a pool from the side (with a life vest on), his first trip to Dallas Cowboys Training Camp, his first time bowling when we had to go two days in a row, his first strike at the bowling alley, his inaugural trip to Peter Pan Mini Golf on Barton Springs Road, his first movie in a theater when we saw Ratatouille, his first bicycle, and his first team sport experience playing kickball at the recreation center. It has been a busy summer for the little guy despite the six weeks of rain that kept us indoors away from the flash floods and millions of hungry skeeters looking for a tasty snack from our legs.

It was a warm and muggy Sunday afternoon. Not even a cold chocolate milkshake could quench the thirst of a four-year old boy on the way to his first Dallas Cowboys Training Camp.

"Are we at the game, yet?" he would ask more than a dozen times in less than an hour.

"Pretty soon," was my repeated response. "And it's not really a game, it's practice."

The anticipation was killing me, too. It had been five years since I had been to a Dallas Cowboys Training Camp. In 2003 my son was only a month old and I wasn't able to make the trip to San Antonio from Austin to see them again. Then they pulled out of Texas in 2004 to hold training camp in California. One of the worst things you can do to a Cowboys fan is take the team to California for practice. This year they made it back to San Antonio to the delight of over 135,000 fans.

We have all told a fib or two, or twenty. Don't lie. You know you have. Lying is a way for the human race to stay out of trouble, land a great job, call in "sick" at said job, maybe get a date, and many other things. Lying is bad and we know it because that is what we tell our children.

"If there is one thing we will not tolerate in this house, it is lying."

The Little Mr. and I had our 2nd Annual Guy’s Weekend last week while Mama and Little Bit were out of town for their 2nd Annual Girl’s Weekend. Last year for the inaugural event, my son and I went to the FedEx Kinko’s Classic golf tournament. This year we had a whole lot more planned!