My three-year old son has a lot of stereotypical little boy tendencies. He likes looking at big trucks. He likes to play with cars. He’ll walk up to you and randomly punch you in the leg. Not to be pigeon holed into traditionally assigned gender-based interests, he also enjoys the aesthetic of having freshly painted toe nails.

For over a year now, any time his older sisters are getting their nails painted, he insists on getting his pained too. At first it was just him not wanting to be left out of something his sisters were getting. To help him feel included, my wife would paint one of his big toes. He would look at it. He was proud of it. He was happy to have it. Over the last few months, he’s become less pleased with only having one pained nail, and I’m pretty sure its not just the inclusion he enjoys. I believe he genuinely likes how he looks with a full compliment of pretty toes.

At first, the sight of my little guy with one pink toenail was odd, as was the idea that I had a little boy with one pink toenail. The visual quickly became the norm. To be fair, as an adorable toddler, there isn’t much that doesn’t make him look cute. Pink toenails, giant uni-brow, prehensile tail, wouldn’t matter. That handsome little pudgeball could pull it off. The idea on the other hand, is something I’m not sure what to do with.

I’m not not locked into some antiquated way of thinking that says a boy can’t do this or has to do that. If my my son wants to get his toenails painted once a month and it makes him happy, then good on him. Who am I to ruin the happiness off a three-year old? But what about the happiness of a nine-year old? How long does this last? How does this play out?

His sisters have already dressed him up in tutus and princess dresses. He doesn’t seem to mind (I have pictures of course, so I guess we’ll see how much he minds when I show those to people when he’s older). Again, he’s just happy to be included in playing dress up with them. His hair isn’t long enough to really do anything to, but his sisters have put various clips in his hair, he likes it. On one such occasion, he walked up to me with two of those kinds of hair clips that kids inevitably clamp on their lips and said, “I’m pretty.” Yes buddy. Yes you are.

As I’ve previously discussed, dad is not pretty. If my son is developing the self-confidence to believe that he’s pretty, then good for him. But like I said, how does this play out? Will being the guy with painted toenails become his thing? Will he be a trendsetter in men’s fashion? Or will he be a middle schooler who gets made fun of because his toenails are orange and middle school kids are the worst?

Another possibility is me or my wife putting a stop to it. I can’t help but think that would make me a bad parent. My kid’s happiness is all that matters, right? Or would gently nudging him in the direction of having normal, ugly, man feet ultimately be protecting him. And isn’t protecting my kids all that matters? I’d like to think I’d let him do whatever makes him happy. Be that having pretty toenails, a handlebar mustache, maybe both at the same time. As long has he’s got the confidence to pull it off. So maybe that’s all that matters – helping my son feel confident.

If playing with trucks helps build his confidence in playing with other kids, then I’ll buy him all the Tonkas. If hitting a baseball helps him feel confident in his abilities, then I’ll throw him batting practice until my arm falls off. If having his toenails painted makes him feel confident in his appearance, then I’ll get him a Caboodle filled with all the colors of the rainbow. Its hard to know if you’re parenting right, but if my son turns out to be a guy with beautifully painted toes and an expertly trimmed handlebar mustache which he rocks confidently as hell – I’ll know I did something right.

I never really wondered what my kids thoughts of me. Then again, I never had to. They are open about telling me I’m the best dad ever after I perform such incredible feats as blowing on their hot oatmeal or being done with work for the day. Low as the bar to impress them might be, I sure did clear the hell out of it. Though being deemed the best dad ever is neat, it’s also pretty cliche. Any schmuck with the ability to buy a t-shirt or coffee mug can carry that honor. It is far more rare for your kids to think you’re cool.

Parents are many things, but they are almost never cool. Parenting (if you don’t count the part where you make the kid) is pretty inherently an uncool act. There is nothing cool about wiping another person’s butt. Enforcing a bed time is not something cool people do. Remember that time a really cool person drove a mini-van by choice? No. You don’t.

However, something I have done has made the impression on my kids that I am cool. How do I know? Because they drew it on my car. They saw the dirty lift gate on the back of my Jeep as a canvas, and chose to use it to tell all those who are in traffic behind me that the guy driving in front of them is a cool dad. Though anybody behind me would already know I’m cool because of my Batman trailer hitch cover, but this third party endorsement of my coolness absolutely seals it.

Excited as I am to be considered cool, I now wonder what it is about me that makes them think I’m cool. I know they like it when I give them piggyback rides to bed at night, but does being a reliable form of transportation make me cool? I don’t think so (see previous comment about uncool mini-vans). I put on Michael Jackson when they ask to listen to it in the car. 40 years ago that would for sure make me a cool dad. Today? Not so sure. I bet it’s my insistence on feeding them vegetables. Kids love that, right?

I realize though, that by wondering why they think I’m cool I am actual being uncool. Cool people don’t wonder what makes them cool or even care if other people think they are cool. They just are. You think Dave Grohl is worried about if his kids think he’s cool? Probably wouldn’t give it a second thought if one of them wrote “cool dad” on the site of his tour bus. Then again, maybe he’d go write a song with Paul McCartney about it which would further reinforce his coolness. Me questioning my alleged coolness is inherently uncool.

But uncool to who? Whom? Who? The fact that I don’t really know the appropriate time to use whom makes me at least kind of cool right? A nerdy person would have paid enough attention in English class to know when to say whom, cool kids couldn’t be bothered with trivial grammatical details. Not that I would have been considered a cool kid in school either. I wasn’t some anti-social weirdo or anything, its just that looking back there is no way that a cool kid in 2003 would have been driving around with Jim Croce’s greatest hits playing on his truck’s cassette player.

Anywhom, if I am uncool to other adults (or even uncool to myself) does it matter as long as my kids think I’m cool? I’m 38 years old and pretty much done trying to make new friends or meet people. I could care less if my neighbor thinks I’m cool, but if my daughters think I’m cool then my day is made. And if they think I’m cool when they’re six, they will surely think I’m cool when they are sixteen. That’s how it works, right?

Even if for some completely unforeseeable reason my teenage children no longer think I’m cool, I’m not going to worry about that now. As much as I might not want to admit it, the day will absolutely come when they don’t call me cool, or even call me Daddy anymore. But that day isn’t today. Like the pine trees lining the winding road, I’ve got a name. And that name is Cool Dad.

I had always heard there was a special bond between dads and daughters. Of course I’ve never been a daughter, but I did watch a lot of Full House growing up so I’m pretty sure I got it. Now that I am on the daddy side of the daddy-daughter relationship, I can affirm that there is a difference in the relationships I have with with my daughters than I have with my son. Not that I love them more or anything, its just different. Subconsciously, I probably do end up treating them different than my boy. Extremely consciously, they love me. A lot. Sometimes too much.

Ok, maybe “too much” isn’t the right thing to say. Perhaps too completely would be more accurate. They love me like a daughter loves their dad, but they also love me like a cartoon princess loves a cartoon prince, and the way a teenage girl in a rom-com loves a teenage boy. Right now they are too young to grasp the difference between the different types of love, so they model not only the love they receive, but also the love they see, and lump it all together in a big awkward love ball. (Which by the way is a great name for a band.)

When they see my wife and I hug or kiss, they have two reactions – eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww, or jealousy. They are either completely appalled that mom and dad would smoochy kiss, or feel the need to run over and insert themselves between us to break up a hug because “hey, that’s MY daddy!” And I get that. It’s all playful and fun, and it has been and forever will be weird for a kid to see their parents being romantic. However, it starts to get weirder when they start to confuse being romantic with what an appropriate goodnight kiss is when I tuck them in.

My younger daughter is almost five, but since the time she was three (or whenever she saw her first prince kiss a princess), she developed the habit of wanting to kiss like in the movies. She’ll take one hand and put it under your chin as if to guide you in. In a way, adorable. In a larger way, kind of creepy. Especially now that she is getting older. It would send a really weird vibe if she leans in to plant one on me when I’m dropping her off for her first day of kindergarten. Kid that eats glue is just a doofus, kid that wants to make out with her dad is whole new set of problems.

She has also started applying movie quotes to show affection. Pretty much all day long my kids run around and shout stuff from shows or movies while they play. Quotes from Super Kitties, while annoying, are fine, and I’m pretty sure 60% of what my six year old says is song lyrics. But quotes from the gold-digging bitch fiancé from The Parent Trap? Not so much. I didn’t notice the first time when she leaned in for a kiss in her usual hand-under-the-chin style and said “oh Nicky.” I figured she was just being silly. Then it happened several more times and I was officially creeped out. I mean sure, it’s a little flattering my daughter sees me on the same level as a young(ish) Dennis Quaid, but I was creeped out on out on two different levels.

First, she wanted to kiss me, her father, the same way that romantic interests in movies do. Again, she is still little and doesn’t grasp that the love between us is different from the love between a mom and a dad or a fat kid and cake. But still, ew.

Second, and this part actually bothered me more, is in the little story she’s constructed in her head she has cast herself as the antagonist in somebody else’s love story. She wasn’t acting like the person who actually gets married to Dennis Quaid at the end of the movie. She was acting like the pretty lady who wore pretty dresses – who just so happened to be the worst person in the movie. Do better kid.

My older daughter is pretty much in the same love boat, except it is not so much exciting and new as it is awkward. While not outright mimicking a single character, she is definitely confusing the love she sees with the love she feels. Starting a few weeks ago, she has been wanting her goodnight kisses on the lips. At first, ok, little peck, no biggie. Now its like she’s a high school boy on a crappy date and I’m struggling to turn my head so she lands on my cheek at the last second. And even when she does land on the cheek, she lingers. And clings. Like an adorable lamprey.

Now I’m in an awkward position. I don’t want to tell her she can’t kiss me. I want her to be able to express appropriate affection and see that as a healthy part of our relationship. So I tell her that’s not how you kiss your daddy, but so far that nuance hasn’t sunk in. She knows she loves me, and she knows she wants to kiss me.

I always wanted to make a point of showing my kids affection, but did I do too good of a job? The next time one of them leans in for a kiss do I offer them a hearty handshake instead? Replace a hug at school drop off with a wink-and-a-gun? What new confusion would I create then? They’d go from thinking I’m the male lead in their personal little rom-coms to wondering if daddy doesn’t love them anymore? Maybe I’ll just get rid of the external influences. No more movies or shows where people kiss. Or hug. Or fall in love at all. But also nothing with fighting – they watch Raya and the Last Dragon and they are sword fighting around the house for a month. So, I hope they like Winnie the Pooh.

I get that in a world where there are dads and daughters that legit have terrible relationships, that this is a parenting first-world problem. My daughters think I’m a proper man. So funny and handsome that they can’t help but love me (clearly they take after their mother), boo-hoo, right? But the next time one of them sandwiches my face between their tiny hands and starts to lean in for a smoochy kiss, would it be too much to pull a Billy Madison and scream “No, I will not make out with you! Did you hear that? This girl wants to make out with me in the middle of story time! Ya got Piggy and Gerald over here talking about god knows what, and all she’s talking about is making out with me! I’m here to read everybody, not to make out with you! Go on with the Gerald!” Unless its Piggy and Gerald getting them all riled up? Maybe they need a mood killer. Maybe next time I’ll read them the latest musings of…*picks random name from list of writers*…ah yes, Mikhail Solodovnikov for a change of pace. Somehow I think that may make them love me more.

I’m curious to try that, but my luck they would think its hilarious, would insist on making it part of the bedtime routine, and they’d beg for it the next several hundred nights in a row. I’m just too damn lovable.

While playing a game of “Would You Rather”, my daughter asked me – would you rather cry glue or sweat maple syrup? My initial response was sweat maple syrup. While it would make exercise more challenging, It’d be delicious. However, when I thought about it for a few seconds I changed my answer to cry glue. I said that I sweat most days, but I never cry, so crying glue would be a non-issue.

My wife was not as impressed by my logic as she was appalled by what she perceived as a lack of emotion, prompting her own follow up question – “What is wrong with you?”

I’m not here to stand firm on some antiquated concept of manliness and that real men can’t, don’t, or shouldn’t cry. I’m saying that I don’t, or at least don’t often enough that I’d be worried about gluing my eyes shut should my tears to Elmer’s. Do I get sad sometimes? Sure. Is the average thing that makes me a sad enough to move me to tears? No. Some people (men, women, whoever) are more expressive with their emotions, and the bar to clear for tears to fall is set lower. I demand olympic high jump quality of sadness.

Though it’s probably more accurate to say I’ve adapted to a higher crying threshold. I look at my kids, and my two year-old son will cry if you give him the cup that he asked you to get for him. Not the wrong cup mind you, but upon receiving exactly what he asked he’ll get so upset that he’ll cry. My four year-old daughter won’t cry about getting a cup, but she will cry about not being able to sit next to her Mommy at dinner. My six year-old daughter won’t cry about a seat (thought she will yell about it), but she will cry about being blamed for something she (allegedly) didn’t do.

I get that kids cry over just about anything, and I try not to hold that against them. My first reaction when my kids cry isn’t to tell them to stop. It’s my second reaction. I at least ask what’s wrong first. If they have a legitimate reason, then I’m there to comfort them. If they are crying because they can’t get the cap back on the marker, then I politely invite them to get their shit together.

If we carry that emotional evolution up to a grown man, and odds are that unless somebody died, I’m not going to cry about it. My mom passed away when I was in my mid-20’s, and since then I think I’ve adapted to set that as my threshold. So in your average day, the saddest possible thing that could happen doesn’t come close. Outside of family funerals, I’ve maybe cried three times in the last twenty years.

• One instance that comes to mind is after my last game of high school baseball. Yes, I understand the irony that there is no crying in baseball, but baseball was over.
• Another is watching the movie My Life with my college roommate. Just two dudes hanging out on a Saturday night enjoying some fruit salad and crying about Michael Keaton. Wild college nights, amiright?
• One that I would describe as a more of a heavy mist than crying, but the one my wife brings up most often, is one lone tear falling from my eye when Jim said goodbye to Michael on Steve Carell’s last episode of the Office. I mean, they were a regular part of my life for seven years. Lots of pets die faster than that. If somebody can cry about their dead cat, I can drop a tear for Michael Scott.

Sure, I’ll get a little misty eyed listening to the Jimmy V speech, and it may seem like every time I watch It’s a Wonderful Life somebody starts cutting onions. I mean, I’m not a robot, but no actual tears are falling either. And yes, I understand the irony of Jimmy V saying you should cry everyday, but if I laugh and think then I figure two out of three isn’t bad.

People have asked if I cried when my kids were born, and no, I didn’t. I was happy when my kids were born. One of the things my wife hates most about me is that I didn’t cry when she was walking down the aisle at our wedding. I found the fact we were about to spend the rest of our lives together as something joyous and not so sad it was worth crying about. What an asshole I am.

I’ve been so happy I could do a lot of things, but cry hasn’t been one of them. I fundamentally don’t understand the concept of “happy tears.” Same goes for the notion of “having a good cry.” A good cry sounds about as good as a good colonoscopy. As I’ve mentioned before, when my daughters get married I suspect I’ll be emotional enough to cry then, because part of that will be sad for me. But in most cases, the emotional response my kids generate is either joy or anger – neither of which are tear producing.

So I don’t think there is anything wrong with me. It’s not like I have no feelings at all, or that I don’t recognize the feelings in others. I’m not a sociopath. If anything, isn’t it a good thing to feel an emotion, understand it, but not get carried away by it? Isn’t that kind of self awareness something we want to instill in our children?

I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking I’m emotionally distant or cold-hearted or anything like that. They know when I’m happy, when I’m proud of them, and yes, when not mad at them – just disappointed. Of all the emotions they’ll see from me, is it so bad that sadness wouldn’t be one of them? Is the fact that they don’t see dad cry going to somehow stunt their own emotional development. I dunno, maybe? But I’m certainly not upset enough about it to cry.

A few weeks ago I had something of a medical concern. I am usually one to take a wait and see if it goes away approach, but this caught my attention in a way that I thought would be best not to wait and see. I’m sure you’re curious what it was. Don’t worry, it wasn’t something weird or gross. Just some blood in my urine. If it turns out that actually is weird and gross for you to read, imagine how I felt.

Upon noticing this symptom, I naturally immediately assumed I had cancer. Maybe prostate, maybe bladder, maybe kidney, maybe all of the above. Wanting to give myself the opportunity to catch it early, I made a doctor’s appointment. I tried to anyway.

After initially being told it would be several weeks until the doctor could see me, I was told to go get blood work and a urine test done and they would schedule something from there. Clearly the scheduler at the doctor’s office did not have the same sense of urgency to find out why my insides were bleeding that I did. The next day I went and filled the cup and got my blood drawn. They told me the results would be available within a day. The wonders of modern medicine! However, there is a big difference between results being available and results being understandable. The wonders of modern medicine.

As soon as I got the notification email that my results were in I went to my patient portal to see the news. Most of the results were normal, but a few things on the list had a big yellow caution icon next to them. My white blood cells were low, my bilirubin was high, and the specific gravity of my urine was low. I’m no doctor, but I have seen every episode of ER, and know that low white count is bad and high bilirubin means your liver isn’t working. I have no idea what specific gravity of urine means, but having piss that defies gravity actually seems kind of cool.

Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I Googled what that combination of results couldn’t mean. Even though I knew a medical professional is more reliable than WebMD, I was now convinced my liver was failing.

A few hours after the results were available, I got another notification. A message from the doctor – “Call my office to make an appointment so we can discuss the results.” I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t say anything about not having liver cancer. The soonest I could get an appointment was in two weeks. You can sure do a lot of thinking in two weeks.

Naturally, my first thought was how soon would be too soon to take the once in a lifetime trip for my kids to Disney World? Am I too old to qualify for Make-a-Wish? Do I go now while I am still feeling healthy, or wait until I’m more sickly and and use a wheelchair to skip to the front of the line at Space Mountain?

My second thought was I need to be more intentional with the time I spend with my family. Have I been wasting my time? Have I been spending it rather than investing it? Is this whar Tim McGraw was singing about? Should have been living like I was dying for my next thirty years instead of still getting down on the farm? Mostly I thought how strange it is that we only start to look at our time critically once we realize we might not have as much of it as we thought.

Why do we wait for some huge news or some major life event to look more critically at what we do with our time? I get that it seems completely depressing if you were constantly aware of the fact each day of your life is more day closer to your death, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore it. I am sure on some level our minds purposely block those thoughts for us as a way to keep us happy, and we shouldn’t dwell on the fact we are all going to die someday. However, should thinking about our mortality depress us or motivate us? Deflate us or inspire us? Momento mori the Stoics say – remember you must die. Not to make you sad about dying, but to make you excited about living.

I tried not to dwell on anything until I talked to the doctor, and over the passing days I found myself not thinking about what might be wrong with me, but about what kind of life I want to live. I thought about how to focus on the things that matter (even started reading a book about it), about job fulfillment beyond a paycheck, about about what I really wanted to do with my time, and yes, about how long could it possibly take to tell me what my test results mean.

After waiting slightly less than patiently for my appointment to come, the day arrived and I went to talk to the doctor. Thankfully, the first thing she said was that while some things where high and some things were low, nothing was too far from normal to indicate something serious. No cancer. No liver failure. While it was good to hear that, I feel like that she could have just told me that in the comments she left in the test results. Or at any point in the last two weeks. We can talk about whatever else we need to talk about in the appointment, but leaving a quick voicemail to let somebody know they don’t have cancer should be standard practice. Hell, shoot me a quick text – “No prostate cancer *eggplant emoji*” would have been great.

Turns out my body is breaking down red blood cells faster than my liver can filter them out. It is exercise induced and mostly harmless. Runner’s bladder they call it. I always loved the quote from Steve Prefontaine, “Somebody may beat me, but they’re going to have to bleed to do it,” but I never thought I would take it so literally. I guess that’s the price I pay for the “free” t-shirt that comes with running a 10k.

I can relax my mind and not think about the worse case scenario anymore. Or at least what the worst case scenario was at the time. Now I know the worst thing I can do is waste my time. My talents. My energy. My life. Apologies to Tim McGraw, but I am still not going to live like I was dying. Rather, I’m going to live like I’m living.