It is interesting to see what traits of yours show up in your kids. Will they have blue eyes? Will they like mushrooms? Will they like sports? Things like eye color you find out pretty quickly, while others take years. As soon as my daughter turned two she started taking after me in her hatred of pants.

It started with her being able to zip and unzip her own jammies. After getting her diaper changed she’d ask to zip them back up herself. It wasn’t long until she realized that the skills needed to zip up are remarkably similar to those needed to zip down, and her legs were suddenly free. Every time we’d put her to bed in zip-up jammies we would find her in only a diaper in the morning, greeting us with an enthusiastic “I’m naked!”

At first we thought it was the novelty of her newfound mastery of the zipper that encouraged her to take off her jammies, and we started putting her to bed in two-piece shirt and pants style jammies. It was quickly confirmed that it was not the zipper. She had experienced the unencumbered freedom of sleeping without pants and there will be no going back. Every night and every nap time for the last few weeks she ditches the pants within minutes of getting put down. I couldn’t be prouder.

It took me into my twenties before I freed myself from the confines of pajamas, and this little smarty no-pants has figured it out in two years. At first I was a little worried that is would become an all day thing. Kids will be kids, but it would be strange for her to develop the habit of depantsing to go on the swings. Though now that I mention it, that sounds absolutely fantastic. So fill that scenario in with some other odd place to not have pants. Anyway, she has kept her pants-free lifestyle to sleeping only. Not once has she even tried to take them off anywhere else. She understands the joy of an unrestrained lower half and the importance of boundaries. How soon can you test for Mensa?

The majority of parenting is telling your kids not to do stuff, but this is one behavior I will certainly encourage. I have the chance to develop a trait of mine that has manifested in my child, I can’t pass this up. This must have been what Ken Griffey Sr. felt like the first time he watched his kid take batting practice. When it comes to hating pants, my girl is a natural.

The only obstacle I can see coming is nap time at school. Then again, every class has a little kid that shows his butt, so is a sans pants nap time any worse? I don’t think so. Compared to kid who shows their butt, kid who picks their nose, or kid who eats glue, being the kid who understands the proper way to sleep isn’t a bad thing to be at all. Class role model if you ask me.

If you were able to pick the best time to have a baby, during a major public health crisis would not be at the top of the list. Higher than while being in high school maybe, but definitely in the bottom three. This wasn’t something we could have planned for nine months ago, and as we got closer to the due date and the virus spread a lot of people asked me what our plan was now. Honestly, our plans were exactly the same – have a baby.

When we were having our first child we went to all the birthing classes and heard about creating your birth plan. Popular suggestions we heard were to create a custom play list, bring a calming scented candle, bring pictures of your loved ones as a focus object. Popular responses we gave were eye rolls. My wife’s birth plan for all three kids was this: she was to have a baby with the help of medical professionals, and I was to refrain from touching her face in any and all circumstances while she was doing so. And you know what, its a great plan. Worked every time.

Some people are into home births. Some people are into putting ketchup on a hotdog. People are weird. I’m not here to judge the crazy things people do, but home birth was never going to be an option. I get that people used to give birth in their homes for much of history, but I’m going to go ahead and put hospital births in the same column as indoor plumbing – a positive advancement that there is no going back from. Though our plan did not change, there were some noticeable differences with this birth.

I Didn’t Know What Anybody Looked Like

Everybody had a mask at all times. All I saw of the nurses and doctors that came in our room was there eyes and ears. I grew slightly suspicious when the eyes of the doctor who would be delivering the baby in no way looked like they belonged to the full-faced person on her ID badge. If there is suddenly an outbreak of stolen babies during this pandemic, I know who my top suspect is.

Light on Staff

Maybe it was due to the time of day (baby was born at 2:00 a.m.) and the hospital just staffs a little lighter for the overnight shift, but there were less people attending to my wife this time around. With our first kid it felt like there were people in and out of the room constantly – a nurse, a doctor, a different doctor, a medical student there to observe the doctor, the anesthesiologist – but this time there was one nurse and one doctor for the majority of the time. A second nurse came in just for the birth.

We also didn’t get a ton of attention. Again, perhaps the time of day, but maybe they were actively trying to limit the amount of time we were actually with other people. Also, once the nurse found out this was our third kid, I kind of felt like she assumed we had it all under control, showed us where the remote for the TV was, and assumed we could take it from there.

Though she was much more present than the doctor, who I am pretty sure came into the room twice – once to introduce herself and once after the baby was born.

Wait a second Pat, did you say after the baby was born? Yes, yes I did. The nurse was allegedly monitoring my wife from the nurses’ station, but as the contractions intensified nobody seemed to be in any big rush to come into our room and have a look-see.

Let me take a minute here to give a shout out to my wife who has had three kids naturally. An absolute trooper. Nevermind not getting an epidural, she didn’t even so much as buzz the nurse to ask for ice chips.

Having said that, because she isn’t needy and didn’t want to be a bother, we got to the point of the baby being seconds away from coming out before she asked me “should you ring for the nurse now? I feel like they should be in here.”

When the nurse got there (after what had to be the longest 10 seconds ever), my wife was ready to push and the baby was ready to come. Noticeably un-ready was the doctor. The nurse was catching the baby while the doctor was still getting her gloves on. Not that I would have cut it anyway, but I thought it would be a nice gesture for me to let the doctor cut the umbilical cord so she could feel involved too.

After mom and baby were all settled the nurse let us know that this was the first baby she ever caught. What a terrifyingly charming anecdote!

No Visitors Allowed

Responsible social distancing does not lend itself to cramming grandparents, aunts, and uncles into a hospital room. This was communicated to us as soon as the hospital made the policy change that only one designated visitor was allowed, so its not like we had to leave disappointed relatives on the other side of a highly sanitized velvet rope desperately trying to explain to a hospital security guard that their name should definitely be on the list. “Are you sure it’s not there? Check under Nanna.”

This affected us most in the fact that I was technically a visitor. My wife was a patient, she needed to be there. I was non-essential personnel. I’d argue that water cups don’t refill themselves, but I was a visitor none the less and therefore was subject to the stricter set of rules. The biggie was that once I was in, there was no leaving. With our first two kids I would leave to go get food from the outside all the time, but now I was subject to hospital food.

Speaking of hospital food, given the fact that I was held a culinary hostage we were told that my food would be included at no extra cost. Which felt like getting a free keychain when you buy car. But hey, free food is always good. Except when it isn’t free. Upon placing our first order for food delivery we were informed that a meal for me would be $8. I understand that cost of food is relative to the location, but there was a zero percent chance that anything I could get off the hospital menu would be better than a Hot and Ready. This is my measuring stick for all value-based food purchases.

For us, I’d have to say some things were more inconvenient, but not drastically different. The birth plan worked fine. A baby was had. No virus of caught. Crappy hospital food was shared.

For the last week and half I’ve been working from home. Luckily, my job can be done anywhere with WiFi, so in terms of my work only the scenery has changed. I went from a nice ergonomic desk in a nice new office to an old table in my basement. But hey, at least there are florescent lights! Before I left the office I packed up my essentials and took them home, which I now realize all have my kids faces on them.

I knew I had stuff with my kids faces at my desk, but for some reason it never stood out in the context of a normal office. There are other people in the office and most of them had pictures of their kids, spouses, and pets. Now that I am in an office of one, it feels a little strange to have my kids faces all over my makeshift workspace when their actual squishy little faces are right upstairs. It feels like wearing a t-shirt of the band to their concert. We get it, you’re a fan.

But here I sit with a mouse pad that is a collage of their pictures, a lap top and second monitor both of which having a wallpaper that is them, and drinking coffee out of a mug that has one of my kids baby pictures all over it. This mug is actually a back-up mug which I needed to use after I left my other kid-face mug in the office. Good thing I have to, right? I haven’t had to wear them because I’m yet to change out of my pajamas, but I also have a pair of socks with kid faces all over them. I recognize that wearing those around the house would be too much, but is the rest of it?

Or is this my brand now? Should I go all in on plastering my kids on stuff? I don’t have them on a hat yet. There is at least some appropriate real estate on pants where you could put a kid’s face. Custom made bobble heads. Golf club covers that are their heads. The options are practically endless. Expect underwear.

Though I wonder, now that I am home with my kids, should I have things on my desk of people from work? I’m fairly certain the answer is no, but these are crazy times. If we’re not actually going to interact with our co-workers, maybe it’s acceptable to put up a poster of the person who used to sit across from you and talk to it Wilson the volleyball style. Seems ridiculous now, but we’re only a week into this. Conversations with nobody will only get more normal from here might as well be an early adopter.

Until then I guess I’ll keep surrounding myself with tiny versions of myself and cling to what used to be normal. Because socks with your kids faces on them are normal, right? Certainly more normal than your cat’s face, that’s for sure.

Since the dawn of pavement, there has been no greater threat to small children than any gap or crack in a sidewalk. Unofficial studies show that these relatively minor and completely avoidable obstructions cause roughly 105% of all skinned knees. All they do is ruin things. Once joyful walks get reduced to tearful treks home. Tricycle rides become a never ending gauntlet of speed bumps. Heaven help you if you hit one on a Big Wheel, that plastic front tire don’t stand a chance.

When my kids were first learning to walk it was not a question of if they would trip and fall on a crack in the side walk, but of how far away from home we would be when the tragedy would strike. The answer more often than not, was very. True, I’ve seen my kids trip and fall down doing such difficult activities as turning left, but a concrete obstacle course certainly isn’t doing them any favors.

Once walking was more or less mastered, next came the impulse to run. What could go wrong when a little person who doesn’t yet have the coordination to get a spoonful of yogurt more than 75% of the way in their mouth decides to flap their lower limbs to see how fast they go? They may not be able to run fast but they sure can go from giggles to tears in less than a second and you’re now carrying a screaming toddler down the street. Which is never a good look for a parent.

Most of the time when a kid falls they are completely fine. The sidewalk, however, is out for blood. Best case scenario there are just some scrapes, but sooner or later there is a cut with visible blood that will need a bandaid. This is the small child equivalent of an amputation, except I am fairly certain the amputee never demands the doctor use a princess bandage to close the wound after surgery.

Now we’ve started to graduate to tricycle. We recently made a trip around the block one crack in the sidewalk at a time. Every protruding piece of concrete stopping us dead in our tracks, my daughters weak little legs not strong enough on the pedals to force the tiny wheel over anything larger than, well, anything. Every few houses we’d come upon the dreaded slab that had been forced out of place by a tree root and now shot up a good 2 or 3 inches. Might as well have been the Great Wall of China.

It is equally frustrating for kids and parents alike. All the kid wants to do is be able to make their way around the neighborhood without being undercut a cement menace. All a parent wants is for their kid to look where the hell they are going. As it was in the beginning, and forever shall be.

It’s fun to think about what kinds of people your kids will be when they grow up, and not just what they will do for a living. Sure, the first time my daughter picked up a ball and threw it across the room on a perfect line right to my chest I immediately thought professional athlete. Same as any other rational father. But more important than whatever they will do to pay the bills is how they will live while doing it.

My daughter is currently learning about “community helpers” in preschool. She comes home with picture of mailmen and police officers. She colors pictures of teachers and doctors. She recently came home with a worksheet saying what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her answer was the most perfect response to that question I have ever seen – I want to be a happy face.

To some that might seem like a silly answer, but I can’t think of anything better. I’m sure it was probably unintentional. At some point in school that day she probably saw a happy face sticker or something and that is what popped into her mind in that moment. At least that is what my rational side tells me. But maybe she actually means it. There are definitely worse things to be. If all she wants to be in life is happy, she’s the smartest person I know.

I want to get that worksheet framed. I want to remind her of that when she has to make new friends at a new school. I want to show her that worksheet when she’s a moody teenager and everything sucks. I want to use it as a measuring stick when she starts bringing the dreaded high school boys to the house. I want to turn it into a giant poster and cover her dorm room wall with it.

And I want to be smart enough to learn from my kids. I want to get it tattooed on my person so I won’t forget. My kids don’t care what I do when I go to work, but they sure do know when daddy is happy or sad. I don’t get to choose how many people are ahead of me in line, or how the Tigers play, or how other people are reacting to a virus that’s going around. But I do get to choose to be a happy face.

Maybe one of my kids will be professional athlete. Or an interior designer. Or a park ranger. Or a weatherman. There are a lot of things my kids can do in this world, but there is only one thing I want them to be.

Full disclosure – at almost no point in my life did I listen to music that was currently popular. Outside of a few exceptions like MC Hammer when I was 6 and the Foo Fighters in my late teens/early twenties, the majority of the music I listen has always been at least 20 years old at the time. And while driving around in high school with a cassette of Cat Stevens in my truck might not have been “cool”, it was preparing me for how to listen to music like a dad.

Somewhere between Yacht Rock and Hard Rock lies Dad Rock. Easy listening enough to be kid friendly, yet rock enough to let you hang on to the illusion that there is still a cool factor to it. I assume there are some dads out there who listen to their music of choice regardless of if their kids are in the car or not. I suspect these are the same dads who place letters from the end of the alphabet in their kid’s names. Jaxon’s dad listens to Ozzy in the car. Landyn’s dad listens to Vampire Weekend. Blaze’s dad listens to Post Malone. For the rest of us there is Dad Rock, and at the heart of the genre lies Bruce Springsteen.

In the last two or so years I’ve listened to more Springsteen than I had in my life. Sure, I’ve always appreciated the hits, but never before had I heard “Rosalita” and had the impulse to turn up the volume. I never used to hear “Glory Days” and actually feel nostalgic. I once heard somebody refer to Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” as music dad listens to in the car when he’s sad. Clearly that person never heard “The River.” I listened to “The River” on my drive to the office this morning. Even if I impregnate my wife tonight, having The Boss make put me in a wistful mood will be the most dad thing I do all day.

I feel like Bruce himself has even become Dad Rock personified. When he was young he was cool. Some might even say sexy. Oh, the times he had. Don’t get me wrong, he looks good for man his age. But then again, he’s a man his age. And sure, he’s still out there touring but you can tell he ain’t what he used to be. He puts out some new stuff but it doesn’t compare to the old stuff. His music is not rebellious rock and roll any more. It’s safe. It’s reliable. It’s dad.

At some point I’ll expose my kids to a wider range of music, but not until the foundation is laid. Hopefully if they grow up listening to classics when they hear what’s new they’ll think “What is this crap? Put on some Phil Collins!”

And I know when they get older they will discover music on their own, some of it good and some of it Taylor Swift, but I feel like I can’t let that happen on my watch. So I’ll turn up “Spirit in the Night” and I’ll be sad to “My Hometown” if it means keeping my kids a way from trash like Drake or Billie Eilish, or, god forbid, talk radio.

Today my daughter threw a piece of burrito at me. She was promptly sent to her room. Her initial reaction was fear, she doesn’t like it when Dad gets mad. Then disbelief, as if being sent to her room was a completely unexpected result of throwing a semi-chewed piece of tortilla at one’s father. When she got to her room the water works came on and I thought to myself, she doesn’t know how good she has it.

Not in the sense that in a another time (or in this time with a different father) the punishment would have been a more violent one, but in the sense that being sent to your room is actually fantastic. I love it when I get sent to my room.

Every now and then my daughter sends me to my room. Usually because she sees me hugging or kissing my wife, and she has a zero tolerance policy on PDA. My daughter will walk over to me, grab me by the bottom of my shirt and escort me to my bedroom should she lay eyes on any form of physical affection between my wife and I, and I don’t mind at all. Sometimes she comes right back in a few seconds and I can’t so much as pick up a book off the night stand, but sometimes she sets a timer – which she has no idea how long she is setting it for – and I can get a few pages of light reading in. It’s delightful.

Yet here she is crying and laying on the floor. Does she not realize there’s a shelf of books three feet away from her? Or her CD player and her Disney’s Greatest Hits? Yes that’s right, she has a CD player. She has a few records too. Keeping it low tech keeps Alexa/Google out of the picture and allows you to stay in complete control of the music they listen to. Today its preventing the minor annoyance of “Alexa, play Jingle Bells” in August, but when they get older it will prevent “Alexa, play whatever garbage sounds kids are listening to these days.” I digress.

Anyway, she’s in there acting like I stole her ice cream when all I’ve really done is give her a gift. I wish I got sent to my room more often than I do. Forgot to fill the gas can and now I can’t mow the lawn? I better take a timeout it in my room. Got regular Cheerios and not Honey Nut? I better go think about what I’ve done. Its not even for the reading time, sometimes I’ll just stare out the window. No tears, just a little slice of serenity.

Makes me wish I got punished like a child more often. Not getting dessert seems like a pretty fair penalty for not paying your taxes. Then I’ll have a little bit of peace and quiet, I’ve learned a valuable lesson, and my pants fit better. Everybody wins.

Also makes me wonder where my kids will take this in the future. Maybe when they get older and they have a curfew they’ll give me one too. Home and in bed by 9:30? Yes, please. Don’t get to chaperone a school function? Sign me up. Well, actually don’t sign me up. You get it. Grounded and can’t leave the house? Dare to dream.

I think it could set a good example to show them that I wouldn’t do something to them I wouldn’t have done to myself. And if they don’t like it they can send me to my room.