We're Adopting - You Can Help

Save for a mention in a previous post I haven't talked about it much here at 'Luke, I am Your Father', but we are in the process of adding to the size of our family. We are doing it through adoption.

Given Mrs. LIAYF's history with adoption (her mother and uncle are both adopted) we had always planned on having one biological child and then adopting another. However, this outcome was not easy to achieve. Before Lukas was born, we spent four years, multiple thousands of dollars, and countless hours of 'practice' (yes, we could be qualified as Outliers in that field) trying to nudge along the process of conception. But, sadly, this was to no avail. We were eventually told by our doctor that we would most likely never have a biological child of our own.

As it is with many would-be parents, this was a frustrating, heartbreaking, and at times demoralizing experience for both of us. We couldn't fully comprehend why we were having these difficulties, especially when we knew we had so much love and happiness to give. Finally there came a time, after riding the emotional rollercoaster for so long, that we had our closure moment. Now, we would simply adjust to adoption as our primary option to start our family. And, we were very happy with our choice.

Then, miraculously, Lukas picked us as his parents. We literally found out Mrs. LIAYF was pregnant the same morning that we were sending our profile to an expecting mother who we had found was looking for adoptive parents. We were shocked. We held each other for what seemed like hours and cried tears of joy. Despite the stories you may have heard, statistically this almost never happens.

We quickly contacted our adoption attorney and had him refer this birth mother to another family looking for a child to love. Our plans for adoption would be put on hold.

Fast forward nearly five years. The parenting experience has been every bit the amazing journey Mrs. LIAYF and I had envisioned. We count our blessings each and every day to have Lukas in our lives. We laugh and love more than we could have ever imagined, even five years earlier.

If you read this blog, you will know that I write a lot of self deprecating humor. I often poke fun at myself, my age, and many other things. But all joking and humility aside, Mrs. LIAYF and I are pretty fantastic parents. And Lukas is a pretty amazing kid. We realize that, but we also realize that we are far from done. We have plenty of room in our home, and in our lives, to share with another child. And that child will be extremely well loved.

Since earlier this year, we have been completing all the necessary steps, including background checks and a lengthy home study, to bring that child into our happy home. Like we were pursuing before Lukas came along, we are opting for a process called Domestic Infant Adoption. This means we have an adoption attorney and are staying local, while waiting for a birth mother to pick us as the adoptive parents to her soon to be born beautiful baby.

With this path we are not contracting with an agency, but rather opting to find our child through other avenues. This involves networking. In essence, getting the word out about who we are, and most importantly that we are looking to provide a loving home to another child.

This, readers, is where you may be able to help. You, as the readers of 'Luke, I am Your Father' are perhaps our biggest network when it comes to locating the child who has picked us, and is waiting for us to find him/her. And networking, in the form of getting the word out that you are looking to adopt a child, it has been told to us by the professionals who we've been in contact with, is the key to speeding up the domestic adoption process. In fact, the first young birth mother we were made aware of 5 years ago was the daughter of a friend of a co-worker of Mrs. LIAYF's. That's usually how it works.

So readers if you have heard, or do hear in the future through your personal grapevine about a expectant mother who may be looking at adoption as a means of giving the child she is carrying the chance at a secure and loving home, please think of the LIAYF family and the healthy, happy home full of laughter and learning we could give that child.

In the off chance this does happen, please contact us using the email listed on my profile page. You can click 'View my Complete Profile' on the upper right hand corner of this screen. You can give my e-mail to any prospective birth mother. You can also give her our attorney’s contact information – Albert Lirhus in Seattle, Washington (206) 728-5858. The birth mother can ask to speak to Joan and request the adoption profile for our family – “Jim, Anne and Lukas.”

All that being said, and certainly this is the tricky part, we would prefer that birth parents not be referred here, to LIAYF. At this stage of the process, there would simply be too many yet unanswered variables to consider. That would be a decision left for another time. So, if in the off chance you do know of a prospective birth mother, please hold off on giving out this web address, or blog name.

So, there you have it, the story of our journey to adding a fourth member to our happy family. Thanks for reading, and for keeping our story in mind as you go about your daily lives.

Who knows?  If you were actually able to help, I may even give you creative license in choosing a psudonym for LIAYF's newest edition. 

That is, as long as it's not Jar Jar.

Top 10 Funniest Movies - In My Dreams

"What? We weren't included?"

Tell me readers, is it a sign that you blog too much if you are actually dreaming about gathering information for a post?

Yeah, I thought so.

As you might have guessed, that is precisely what happened to yours truly last night.  I woke at 3:30 AM from a very intense dream I was having.  In that dream I was actively debating with some unidentified person (probably Mrs. LIAYF) what the funniest movies ever made were.  Naturally, many of the details were a bit fuzzy, but I distinctly remember that I had to refine my list because I was going to post about it.

I also remember being adamant that, NO, Sister Act would definitely never be included on the list.  (What can I say? I'm not a big Whoppi fan. Sorry.)

Anyway, I think there were some fairly interesting choices on my dream list but...unfortunately I couldn't remember most of them. 

All that being said, I thought "What the hay" I should just post my actual, not buried in the far reaches of my mind, list.  With any luck, it'll resolve some 'issue' I'm having.

Without further adieu, here are SeattleDad's top 10 funniest movies:

1.  The 40 year Old Virgin

2.  Planes Trains and Automobiles

3.  Dumb and Dumber

4.  Old School

5.  Monty Python's and the Holy Grail

6.  Animal House

7.  National Lampoon's Vacation

8.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

9.  Napoleon Dynamite

10. A Fish Called Wanda Little Miss Sunshine
 
So, tell me readers, do you ever dream about your posts? And what movies would make your 'Dream List'?

Here's to Good Times

Today is my Birthday.  YAay.... Okay, it's not that exciting once you start creeping up into the mid 4(cough)0's.  It actually kind of sneaks up on you, and at my age that is not always a good thing.

What is exciting though is getting to spend quality time with my family and friends - which I did a lot of yesterday.  It was a gorgeous sunny Seattle evening last night, and I was fortunate enough to be joined for a dinner party on our deck by the lovely Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and several of our closest friends. 

In addition to an abundance of good conversation and plenty of laughter we had grilled Coho salmon, corn on the cob, fresh baked bread, fresh picked blackberries, ice cold craft brewed ale, and a sinfully good chocolate cake with blackberry jam filling, made fresh with love that afternoon by my two favorite people in all the world.  I even got to lick the spatula.  It was what every birthday party should be.

Plus, earlier in the day Mrs. LIAYF surprised me with a very cool gift.  It was a Pearl Jam concert poster from a show we attended together way back in the mid 90's when we were dating.

Apparently we had intended to frame it but never did.  Not a big shock.  But then she found it in a dusty box in our garage the other day and thought it would be a great gift.  Which, of course, it is!

Last night when the sun had gone down, the kids broke out their flashlights and got to explore the backyard.  They were all having a good time until Lukas told them about the raccoons we had seen on our deck a few nights before.  Mrs. LIAYF had seen one actually washing it's paws in the cat's water dish.  To which my response was "At least he's being hygienic."

Once they heard about the raccoons most of the kids were a bit weary about leaving the deck.  Most, but certainly not Lukas. Typical of his personality, he immediately ran into the house and came out fully outfitted to do battle with a herd (what do you call a group of raccoons?) of the beasts.  He had a Lego headlamp, winter gloves, a toke, his soccer shin guards, elbow pads, and finally his cardboard shield.

"Let's go!" he told everyone.  Thankfully for the raccoons, no doubt hearing all the commotion I think they decided it would be best to steer clear of our backyard for the night.

We have a few more things on tap for tonight to celebrate, but yesterday will definitely be hard to top.

Mermaid Spotting

This sounds a bit funny to say, but you can go right ahead and judge us if you will.  And I'm fairly positive some of you are about to form certain opinions of us be they positive or negative, but Lukas is 4 years old now and Mrs. LIAYF and I have never taken him to...er, hmmm (wondering how to put this diplomatically), well let's just say we can safely pass any local pair of golden arches without the slightest hint of begging or pleading to stop coming from the back seat.

That's right, we have never taken him to a McDonald's restaurant before.  Not even once.

There have been no Happy Meals.  No McNuggets.  Nary an Apple Pie, Fillet O' Fish, or Shamrock Shake.

He has no idea who Ronald McDonald is, nor Mayor McCheese, or the Grimace, or even the Hamburgler. He hasn't once been through one of the drive-through windows or became at all familiar with a local Micky D's Play Land. 

He doesn't even have the concept of fallen fries, and what a treat they are to find at the bottom of your grease stained white paper bag as your vehicle is perhaps miles from where you procured your salty meal.

In fact, when we are out driving around and Lukas happens to see the ubiquitous Golden Arches, he is 100% more likely to be impressed that he saw a giant yellow M out the car window, than to immediately associate them with hamburgers, nuggets, and french fries.

To those who ask why.  "Why have you denied your offspring one of the fundamental vices of childhood?"  I have one simple question to ask that really speaks volumes.  "Have you not watched Super Size Me?"  Talk about horror movies.  That was one scary flick.  What happened to Morgan Spurlock in just 30 days was crazy.

Seriously though, we try to always pack healthy snacks and meals for Lukas so that we won't be tempted to stop in and buy the unhealthy option at McDonald's.  We have just been very good at enforcing this policy.  So good, in fact, that he really doesn't have any clue, ANY, that McDonald's even exists.

Sure, Mrs. LIAYF are a teensy bit proud of that fact.   Once in a while we will even slip it into conversation, not at all to be judgemental of other families meal choices (we don't judge), but more to show the other like minded people in question that, yes, we care deeply about the health and well being of our child and we have been able to find better options for the past 4 years.

That all being said, I nearly spit out my coffee and laughed out loud a couple of days ago when, as we were driving somewhere around Seattle, Lukas pointed out his window and excitedly exclaimed:

"Look, a Starbucks!  Can we stop?  Can we? PLEASE!"

That was just Golden.

Wordless Wednesday: Smile Like You Mean It.

Hunting Bunnies and Batting Rocks



We came from over there.

Good September to you loyal readers.  It's been about a week and a half since my last post.  (Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a confession. All I need is a dark box to sit in.  Oh yes, I forgot where I am writing this from).

For those of you who read my last post, you will remember that we were on our "Camping" vacation last week.  I have to tell you, cabin camping is the perfect kind.  Very civilized.  Heck, if you throw in a washer and dryer, access to the Internet, and a place to get Happy Hour close by, I could've stayed there long term.  Yes, It was that nice. 

Seriously though we all had a terrific time hiking, biking, boating, grilling, roasting marshmallows, sleeping in, and hunting bunnies.  Check that, we didn't so much hunt the bunnies as try to feed them pieces of lettuce.  But hunting them sounds much more 'outdoorsy', which is the kind of trip this was so please forgive me the slip.

Despite our wishes, there was no bear around this corner.

The boating part was especially fun as Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I rented an outboard and crossed Puget Sound and the shipping channel to motor over to 'Baby Island' , which is a small rock with some sand beach where the local seals have their pups.  We were able to turn off the engine a couple hundred yards offshore and eat lunch as dozens of seals popped their heads up around our wooden boat to check out what we were having for lunch.  (I'm pretty sure they were disappointed to find we were eating Peanut Butter and Jelly rather than fish sandwiches, but they were polite and didn't say anything).

Those are Seal heads.  About to get much closer.

Do you want to know what the best part of the trip was?  We were completely unplugged for 5 days!  No Internet, television, or even radio permeated our family unit for the duration of the time we stayed at our destination.  This made things amazingly peaceful and nice as we spent most of the time just hanging out with Lukas.  If you have ever wondered how many rocks and shells can be collected and deposited back into the ocean in 5 days trust me, it's a lot.

Along those lines I was lucky to find the perfect baseball bat shaped chuck of driftwood floating near the shore one day, which I used to hit a ton of rocks far out into the ocean water.  This was a lot of fun, and Lukas sat and made "Oooohs" whenever I was able to connect especially well with one of them.  I brought that piece of driftwood home with me, though I'm fairly certain I'll never use it again.

Finally, on the way home we stopped off at a local farm and picked a load of blueberries.  Mrs. LIAYF used them to make jam yesterday.  Along with several jars of blackberry jam she made from a recent picking closer to home, we are now stocked with enough delicious jam to last us through most of the Winter months.

Mmmmm, Jam!

Lukas started Pre-K on Tuesday, while Mrs. LIAYF and I are back to work. Thankfully our little guy was placed in the group called The Red Tigers rather than getting stuck in The Rainbow Butterflies.  As a dad, I care about those things.

Yes, we are back to the grind now, but it was a great 10 days off.

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin

Happy Friday Readers.  Indeed it's happy here because Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I will again be on vacation next week.

Since it's August, and this is the beautiful Pacific Northwest, we are staying local and enjoying the gorgeous weather Mother Nature bequeaths to us each Summer.  We will spend a few days north of Seattle "Camping" (quote marks used to signify that we are staying in a small cabin - with a bathroom), but other than that we will use the time to enjoy our fair city.

That means my posts here will be pretty sporadic for the next couple of weeks.  In other words, don't expect to notice much change.

Though I haven't made much fanfare of it, after a fairly long hiatus from working out - to have a child and raise him to the age of 4 - I am back in the saddle, so to speak.  I have been getting up before the birds for the last month or so, with varying degrees of success, to re-introduce myself to my old friend the treadmill.  Now I am not going to say that I have seen any dramatic results from these efforts, but I do feel like cardiovascularly at least my health is improving.

Along with working out in the mornings, with Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas (who long ago mastered his two wheeler without training wheels) I have been riding my bike a lot more this summer.  This has been a lot of fun, and actually inspired what I decided to attempt today. Or, I should alternatively say complete. 

This picture should give you a clue to what I am talking about:

That would be my bicycle parked in my office.  Yes, I biked to work Friday.  True, It was only about 15 miles round trip, but for those of you not from Seattle there are a lot of fairly significant hills here to navigate so for me this was a pretty big deal.

In fact, by the time I finished this is what my legs felt like:

+

Not that I didn't expect as much, but I'm pretty sure I will be sore for a few days afterwords.  Wish me luck with that.

Anyway, I have been really needing to get into better shape recently, especially with Lukas each and every day becoming more active and hard to keep up with.  I want to be able to be active with him as he grows, and keeping myself in shape is a necessity so this has been a big step in the right direction for me.

How about you readers?  As a parent do you find it hard to get your workouts in?  Did it become easier as your children got older?

Five Leeetle Rabbits

We got some good news yesterday. Mrs. LIAYF received a call from one of her sisters letting us know that we would be aunt and uncle LIAYF! 

Again.

Yep, we do currently occupy that role many times over.  In fact, this will be little hombre numero cinco for their family. (No, they are not of Latino heritage, but nearly as pasty white as we are. That one just popped into my head, so I decided to roll with it.)

Anyhoo, we are super excited for them.  Especially since this was a planned pregnancy.  Yes, I said planned. But hearing about it really got us thinking.  We are planning on a second child of our own - more on that in a later post - and we can kinda sorta imagine what it would be like managing a third child.   But five?  That's Cave Osborne territory right there.  All in!  Or alternatively known as "The Crazy Train".   Okay, just kidding JCO.

There is no way we, or anyone living close by us here in Seattle that we know for that matter, could pull off raising five kids.  Because It's too darn expensive here.

In fact, we know a lot of couples with kids.  A LOT.  And we tried to think of everyone we knew who had more than just two kids.  We literally sat there stumped for a few seconds.  Finally, we did come up with one or two local families with a third child including neighbors down the block with a stay at home dad.  But the vast majority of our peers had rounded out their families with just the second child.

I was actually amazed at how few people we knew had three or more kids.  I had heard an NPR story once a couple of years ago about how the average family size in the US has been shrinking in recent  years, necessitating immigration to keep the economy running.  I just looked it up and shockingly in 2010 it was 2.59.  Meaning on average families average less than one child now. Yes, there are a lot of families without kids who bring that number down, but by comparison the average family size was 3.7 in the late 1950's.

As I said, we are planning to add to the LIAYF family in the near future.  But chances are pretty small that at our age we will consider adding a third child to the mix, much less a fourth or even fifth.  The laundry alone would reduce me to a shell of  my former self. 

We will undoubtedly be delighted, come December, to get our first glance at Lukas' eighth cousin, a boy who will add to the abundance of love already in his household.  But, we'll also probably imagine the cost and workload involved in raising that child, and secretly be relieved that those are not our responsibilities. 

How about you reader?  How many kids can your psyche, and budget handle?

The Dad Foodie



Remember, the ears must be perfectly shaped!



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I was talking to a co-worker today who was celebrating her birthday. Apparently her husband was taking her to quite the fancy new restaurant here in Seattle to celebrate.

It sounded like an impressive place. Very hip and hard to get a reservation at.  I tried to remember if Mrs. LIAYF and I ever dined somewhere similar, but I was drawing a blank as it's been a while since we dined out without Lukas.  My co-worker then went on to tell me about how her husband is quite a foodie, and how they watch The Food Network quite a bit.

I have two other co-workers who also label themselves as "Foodies".  Each has explained to me at length on more than one occasion about the length of time taken to prepare some of their elaborate and well thought out meals.  For example, one told me about the sauce for a side dish she made once that alone took 4-5 hours to prepare, including trips to the store to pick up missing ingredients.

You might have guessed that none of these co-workers have children.  Definitely not young children.

While their exploits are certainly impressive, I have a few exploits of my own, but generally keep those to myself.  Nope, I didn't let on to any of them that I am a foodie of sorts myself.  A Dad Foodie that is.
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Along with Mrs. LIAYF, I too will spend quite of bit of time doing research on particular restaurants before we decide to pull up our chairs and lay down our hard earned dollars there.   That's because, for a true Dad Foodie there are specific questions which beg to be answered before just any establishment will get our business.

Questions such as:

1. What is the noise level?  (The noisier the better)
2. Do they offer Peanut Butter and Jam?
3. How about milk, fruit cups, chicken strips, sandwiches, or hot dogs?
4. Are any of the items in #2 or #3 organic?
5. What about activities for the little ones? Do they offer crayons, coloring sheets, and/or mazes?

And, most importantly

6. Is the Happy Hour kid friendly, with decent food choices for the happiest among us?

Additionally, while preparing our meals at home, Dad Foodies such as myself will take great care with the presentation of said meal.  The temperature of soups must be a perfect luke-warm.  The meal also must include several options, including finger foods.  These options will always be well balanced between protein, starch, and of course fruit.  There must be milk and water available at all times, and by all means the fruit and vegetables must be organically produced.

Plus, as a Dad Foodie I will spend a large amount of time, and great care cutting Lukas' meals into bite size portions as well as giving foods interesting shapes - such as putting mouse ears on pancakes; or often cutting the crusts off of the bread of those aforementioned Peanut Butter sandwiches.

It's probably a good thing we don't have television in the LIAYF household.  That's because with the endless variety of programming available on cable TV, it's only a matter of time before someone catches onto the notion of Dad Foodies or Mom Foodies, and develops a Parents Food Network. I can only imagine the valuable time I would spend glued to, and mesmerized by, such a station.

Tell me readers, what kind of foodie are you?

That's all for now.  I've got the perfect PB&J to plan for.

Tweetcycling V

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Happy Monday Readers.  It's been months since I did my last Tweetcycling post, and since I'm suffering through a small bout of apapthy writers block, I thought this might be a easy way get some content out there way to kick start my creative energy.

For those of you new to LIAYF since last November, This is the series where I give some of my little used humor tweets a second chance at life. You can read the first four installments here I, II, III, IV.

Sure, if you look down my right margin at my Twitter Bites widget you may have read many of these already, but come on, who really does that?  Alright. Besides retired people, who really does that?

Anyway, you will find these tweets barely used and in decent condition.
 
4yo "Daddy's a big fan of Booze" My wife: "What!?" 4yo "Yeah, I jump out and scare him, and he laughs, laughs, laughs".
 
I wonder if Soylent Green Tea is full of auntieoxidents.
 
I am working on a sunless tanning method which would require nothing other than a rather large vat of Cheetos.
 
My wife just asked me if I knew what bunting was. Apparently she wasn't talking about baseball. Like I was supposed to know that.
 
My other cup of tea is a pint of ale.
 
Unfortunately, the two attractive beers I placed together in my fridge failed to reproduce. Maybe they were the same sex.
 
3yo: "Daddy, when I say 'to infinity' it means I have to go peepee. And when I also say 'and beyond' it means I have to go poop too"
 
My wife said she was looking for something mindless. "Where's the cat?" I asked.
 
Set down book Getting things Done to check twitter. Obviously I have a ways to go.
 
Got up from the dinner table earlier and did The Crane. Wife said 'What is wrong with you?"
 
Me in a parallel universe has a beer right now. Thinking of opening a door to there and stealing it.
 
For the next portrait I have painted of me, I'm going to wear a button up shirt so I can stick my hand in it. It's the cool thing to do.
 
He broke out the bin of dinosaurs tonight. I'm one giant strawberry from it being The Land of the Lost in my kitchen.
 
Installed flux capacitor on my Twitter. Oh no, here come the Libyans! Once I hit 88 char