I haven’t started this post with a theme or a thought, and I’m trying to write it while a three year old is singing a freshly minted song at full volume four feet from my head.

Anyone that has spent any time with a three year old knows that as soon as I typed that, the song and location changed.

She’ll be back.

I know that there are “daddy” blogs. I get irritable because all the links that seem to cross my attention are on all of the “mommy” blogs. You know, because dad’s too busy watching football, or bench pressing a truck, or working 90 hours a week. It’s irritating, and in my opinion, quite lazy. Look – I get that everyone has different perceptions of the “ideal” family. I get that sometimes the “traditional” roles make sense. What I don’t get are the generalizations that the only thing the kids do with dad is going to the ball game or vacation or fishing or something.

I take my role as a father pretty seriously. I’d like to not screw this up. I think that’s why it bugs me when the inept dad puts on a diaper backwards or calls for “mom” as soon as something isn’t easy to deal with in a commercial or movie. I need help from Amber, but we’re a team – it’s not the expert and the apprentice. We’re both figuring this out as we go.

There are some places where we break on traditional lines; she handles medical and I handle electronic. But, during the typical day, she handles the morning, and I handle the evening household responsibilities. Both of us handle the “emergency” bathroom requests which are less about emptying a bladder and more about checking out a new bathroom.

All this isn’t to say that I can’t poke fun at myself or the stereotypes. I’m not some humorless robot. Although I will be asking if you’ve seen Sarah Connor recently.

I’m all about stealing ideas and trying stuff that sounds like it might help make a few decent people. That’s pretty much the point of things like our international days. If we can start with an understanding that everyone starts out as a kid that wants to play and break things and irritate adults, and everyone eats food.

I’ll chime in more later.