Thursday, March 27, 2014

I spoke in my last entry about being irrationally emotional, and after speaking to my main man jazzbrew, it is clear that trait isn't going anywhere fast. But there also times when I am justifiably emotional due to the magnitude of the moment, and this picture causes that to happen:



This picture doesn't even capture the true emotion of last weekend. When Nyles woke up, he shunned his morning beverage and attention from his parents, and he made a beeline to Carlton's bed so he could call his name and wake up him. Carlton, bless his heart, would be knocked out with cold in his eyes, but he still would wake up just to say hi to Nyles--even if Nyles said hi 456 times in a row in just 30 seconds, Carlton still said hello right back. It warms my heart to see my two sons talking, joking and interacting. Nyles may not understand that Carlton is his older brother, but he seems to know they bond for some reason and he runs with it. Carlton knows that's his little brother, he embraces that role, even though he's 16 years old and knee deep in hormonally-charged emotions.

I put that picture on my facebook page, and jazzbrew wrote, "Me and Baby Brother", which I have mentioned several times in this blog when referencing me and younger brother Jamal. But that song fits the picture perfectly...

Sunday, March 16, 2014

I don't know what it is, but being a father magically makes you lose control of our previously stable emotions. I cry at the drop of a hat these days, and if I told you the types of thing that provoke those tears (and I will shortly) you'd think I was a pregnant woman, not a 39-year old father. During the past month, I've shed tears during Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Despicable Me. And I'm not talking the type single tear that falls down the statue of Native American statue, these are real, plentiful tears that usually are reserved for births, deaths and funerals.

Nyles is completely oblivious to this, and my wife has always been emotional, so this is nothing to her. But me? I don't know what happened. I had an awesome cryless streak that extended over a 2-3 year span at one point, and now I'd be lucky to make it through an episode of Sesame Street without reaching for the kleenex. This is yet another aspect of fatherhood that my dad warned me about, and I slept on. Other things that make me emotional:

1) Fathers and sons walking together
2) Old black ladies struggling in the grocery store
3) My grandmother's failing health
4) This song by John Coltrane:



This may seem like a silly reason to blog, but for the 400th time I am refusing to kill this blog dead, and opting to kick start it, by writing a series of short entries. This is SO working.