My wife declared that we were going to make this our own summer of awesome. Things are changing come fall; the kid's entering preschool and that really marks the end of an era. So we're going out with a bang. 

I intended to write a post about it. About how I was feeling about this period of transition. How I was coping with the evolution of my kid.

Then I saw the photo of my daughter that headlines this post and I figured, meh.

I'll write it later.

Back in January, the good folks at Clearblue commissioned a study — the Clearblue Consumer Fertility Insights Survey Among the findings, 14% of men said that "keeping the romance alive" was the most stressful thing about trying to conceive.

It's a question I get asked from time to time, usually either when catching up with someone I knew "back in the day" or when someone that knows me as a professional and family man finds out how I spent my early 20s. 

"Oh wow, are you going to tell your kid about your band days?"

Yummy Mummies, I have a confession to make. I am not a mummy. I'm not a mother, mommy or even a ma. I am, truth be told, a man. A dad. 

I'll give you a minute to let that settle in. 

I've always found it a nice bit of timing that Father's Day comes right around the time that hockey season is wrapping up. Granted, this year things are going a bit later thanks to the lockout and, as a diehard Ottawa Senators fan, I've still got plenty of hockey to watch, but generally speaking, Father's Day tends to mark the beginning of the offseason for hockey-loving dads. 

My daughter was only five months old when I celebrated my first father's day. My wife, who is far better at gift giving than I am (sorry babe), had a brilliant idea. She bought foam letters at a local craft store, one D, an A and a Y, and took pictures of my then-infant kid "interacting" with (read: biting) them. She got them printed and mounted them in a floating frame, arranged so the pictures spell "Daddy."

I may've cried a bit.

"Joe, I'm sick."

With those three words, my day instantly went off the rails. Not as badly as my sick wife's day, mind you, but it was 5:30 am on a work day and I was trying to muster the brain power needed to kick into contingency mode. 

"We could see if daycare will take her today instead of tomorrow," I offered.

"But her swimming lesson..."

It's been a hard week. A hard few weeks, actually, on a few different fronts, but it came to head this week with a death in my wife's extended family and some dental surgery for my wife that knocked her out of commission for a few days. It seems like there's a steady stream of grownup stuff to deal with lately. Stuff that, at 33, shouldn't really faze me anymore but nonetheless does because, well, adulthood, man. Adulthood.

Enter Mom and Dad.

I always wanted kids. My wife wasn't as sure. So when we decided to start trying for a child, she began reading and absorbing information voraciously. She immersed herself in the mommy culture online and, when our daughter arrived on the scene, she hit the ground running. 

My wife and I are both passionate about words. We both studied journalism and we both write both for fun and profit. Finding just the right word for any given situation gives me something approaching a rush. I love the way words can convey such a powerful and accurate meaning when used properly. This even extends to crude words and swears.

Several weeks ago the kid took a shining to knock knock jokes (remember the bit about being silly?). At first, she actually sort of got it. She hadn't quite grasped the comedic timing required to deliver interrupting cow but that's sort of the upper echelon of the knock knock œuvre. She even showed signs of mastering the complexity of banana, banana, banana, orange. I was, understandably, proud.

In many ways, my kid is her mother's daughter. The kid's a spitting image of her mom at that age and they share many of the same quirks and idiosyncracies. 

Parents of the 21st century:

I am currently living in the midst of women and girls' hockey central. The Women's World Hockey Championship is going on a few hundred metres from my house, and there seems to be a girls' minor hockey tournament going on at the rink a few hundred metres in the other direction. 

In the beginning it was all so easy.

The kid watched three, maybe four shows with any regularity. She had a handful of reliable toys. She had her go-to books. It was manageable. 

But now? It seems like she's discovering something new every day. "Daddy, can I watch My Big Big Friend?" What the hell is a big big friend? Wait, what's she watching now? And why does that rolling elephant sound like Fry from Futurama? 

I travel for work. Not nearly as often as I used to, when I used to try to parent via webcam several times a month, but even since changing roles earlier this year I still have to travel from time to time. This week was one of those times. And boy was it a poorly timed trip. The kid has been ... challenging, to say the least.

There's a lot that's great about being a dad. The joy and pride you feel when your daughter learns a new skill; the heart-swelling awesomeness of hearing her first "I love you, Daddy." You take your lumps as a parent, to be sure, but almost every day there's something that reminds you how freakin' cool this gig really is. But a lot of it is, really, kind of predictable. That doesn't take away from it's power, mind you, but it's sort of ... cliche. 

You're probably heard about the whole conclave thing that's about to get rolling over in the Vatican. First papal resignation in almost 600 years, second papal election in a decade... it's been in the news.

I didn't intend to do another Talking to Toddlers so soon after the Valentine's Day edition but given the kid's relentless obsession with Mommy as of late I figured the occasion of Mommy's birthday warranted another hard hitting interview.

I'm not going to say bedtime is a good time. Anyone who has ever parented a toddler or pre-schooler will know that is a pile of crap.