Archive for December, 2009

Welcome to my mini-series entitled Dustin Vs. which follows the adventures of me, Dustin, as I go out to the cold city of Milwaukee to meet Diane’s parents, but I like to think of them as the in laws. Today I will be covering Diane’s mothers name and our wonderfully boring events around the house.

So yesterday I promised to explain how I don’t know Diane’s mothers name and I’ll start there before I go into the boredom. As it currently stands, Diane’s mother has 2 names: one for formal/distant relationships and one for those who know her. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never met these people so I was unsure which name to use. I mean, I did father her grand child after all. Anyway, so which one am I? According to Diane, her mother would introduce herself and that would settle the whole situation. Well, I’ve been here for a few days and no one has yet to say her name! Her husband refers to her as “wife” and her daughter affectionately calls her “mommy”. Diane goes with “mom” most of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

This holiday season is almost over but I have yet to tackle the biggest hurdle. No, I’m not talking about Christmas shopping or carving some dinner ham. What I’m talking about scares most men senseless and prevents many of them from ever having a happy life. The subject of my holiday dread is, yes, visiting Diane’s parents for the first time. While previous “meet the parents” type situations have gone over smoothly, I have a feeling this one is going to be a bit differently. “Hello sir, nice to meet you. I knocked up your daughter” Yes, I can see nothing going wrong with this plan…

What follows will be a daily mini-blog experience as I travel from my cosy North-West life towards the snow covered fields of Milwaukee to Meet the Parents.

So far the trip hasn’t been that bad. It’s now the evening of the second night here and we managed to make it through the day in one boring piece. My initial experience with Diane’s mother, father and sister has been limited at best. It’s not like we don’t get along, it’s just that everyone is doing their own thing. To say that this family is a bit recluse would be an understatement. They have a particular way of doing things and they will be damned if that balance is thrown off.

For example, Diane’s mother (who’s name I don’t know, but I’ll get to that later) was nice enough to make us dinner tonight. I was playing with my daughter on the couch and thinking of the wonderful meal she was making for us when I heard her announce rather casually that it was ready. By the time I got up and over to the table, Diane was the only person there. It was then that I noticed behind us that her mother and sister were escaping up the stairs to do their own thing.

“No one wants to eat with us,” Diane said. Well damn.

In their defense, her family doesn’t have company over to much so I’m sure our presence is just as awkward for them as it is for us. I can only hope that they warm up to us before we leave it could be a fun couple of days here.

Check back tomorrow for more updates.

The other day I was having one of my regular play sessions with my daughter. During this session we were playing with some stacking stars when she started to get fussy. Noticing that we were approaching nap time I reach for her pacifier and said “Dustin has your pacifier.” Shocked at hearing me say my own name to our daughter, Diane turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. For me, it was simply a slip of the tongue, referring to myself by my name and not the tradition “Dad”. So this got the gears turning and I started thinking about names. In all reality, names our just labels we give things so we can easily organize people, places and things in our brains. But does it go deeper then that? So join me on a journey as I explore the the word Dad and labels in general as I ask the question: what’s in a name daddio?

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