Triple The Dad

I haven't been posting regularly because I’ve been stuck trying to come up with a way to post about how I hope my kids won't grow up to be like me - without it sounding like I hate myself or making people worry that I’m depressed.  Essentially, a way to say what I’m about to say without sounding like I’m fishing for a “its all going to be OK.” I've written before about  Live Like Daddy Syndrome , the idea some Dads have that their kid must grow up liking the same things they do/did.  But this was a little different.   As if in answer to my conundrum, I poked myself in the eye while getting my daughter out of her car seat hard enough I worried I dislodged it.  As if that wasn’t enough, I then spilled a three-gallon can of paint all over the bedroom floor.  As my wife says, these things just seem to happen around me.  Like the time I spilled a large Dunkin Donuts iced coffee in the exam room of the fertility clinic.  So, yeah, I don’t w...

I saw, again, that raising a child from birth to 18 costs somewhere north of $300,000 . That puts me at nearly a cool million. One million dollars over the next 16 or so years. Having raised my triplets almost to the age of 3, I can confirm that a hefty portion of that $300,000 per child cost is diapers and formula.  You can breast feed and pare that number down, and good for you because you'll save something like $25,000. Not exactly chump change, but not exactly living frugally, either. You can try to cut down on diaper costs, but good luck with that. Its pretty much a fixed cost. You can't exactly leave your child in a single diaper all day. That doesn't work out well. You can potty train as early as 1.5 years, but good luck with that, as well. I'm somewhat convinced that potty training during the time when your kid is forming his own opinions about what and when and how he will do things is an evil trick played on parents just to see how far...