Since I quit paid employment, I'm pretty sure I've filled in a few forms using the term "unemployed" instead of stay-at-home dad. Which, when I think about it, it is quite strange.

Even those rare guys who are completely at peace with their place in the family and world routinely bump up against assumptions that they secretly resent their wives, tolerate their children and down deep, kind of hate their lives.

Being a stay-at-home dad, I have man-danced a time or two with insecurities about (not) making that sweet coin. Stacking paper. Procuring pork products and delivering them to my domicile. Um, money.

We all talk about how much we want to change in the new year, but things usually end up pretty much the same as in years past. But there are some things that HAVE to change in the new year.

This idea that two kids playing together has to be an event is altering the spontaneity of our children. It has become too formal, with set dates and times, rendering my son incapable of calling his friends because he feels awkward asking, especially when a grown-up answers.

We might be less than a week away from the Fourth of July, but Sienna's been in the throes of a sudden independence streak.