My Quest to be a Single Dad

Grade: 3 out of 5 stars

Price: $12.99

Summary: “My Quest to be a Single Dad” is a journal like record of Gary White and his experience with the adoption process. The book starts off with a brief detail of Gary’s childhood in the 50’s & 60’s and quickly speeds through to his adult life. On the night before his new adopted son was set to arrive, Gary has a panic attack and checks himself into the hospital. Due to this incident, he loses his son and negatively effects his future attempts to adopt. The book continues to the present day, with Gary continuing his attempts to adopt a child. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that you never know what to expect with this story.

Thoughts: After I finished this book, I felt pretty “meh” about it. I wasn’t particularly moved by it but I didn’t hate it. One of my biggest problems with this book is the writing style that Gary uses. In the summary I said this was a “journal like record” and I feel that phrase really captures the author’s writing style. This book is written much like a journal with big events being condensed down to a few sentences. “We talked for a few hours about adopting”, “I cried on my bed and thought about my loss”. It’s phrases like that left me craving more details and ultimately failed at delivering. There lies the biggest flaw of this book. Gary wants to present the facts but didn’t bother to keep hard records at the time (could you blame him? Some of these events happened over 20 years ago). So in the end we’re left with a vague idea of what happened which left me wanting more. I personally wouldn’t have cared if he made up some dialogue if it gave us an idea of what happened. If no one kept a written record of what was said, then the only people who could argue the truth would be Gary and who ever he talked with. As a removed 3^rd party, any dialogue would only enhance this book.

The book does have some redeeming qualities as you get deeper into the story. The first half of the book is devoted to Gary’s younger days and roughly covers 50 years. The second half of the book covers a much smaller time, roughly 5 years. Due to the space that Gary takes in the second half of the book, he puts in much more information including case documents, official responses and more. I feel like the first half is more of an outline while the second half has a lot more meat to it. We spend chapters on specific adoption attempts as opposed to a few pages.

So if you’re looking to adopt or you want to read about one man’s rough journey through the adoption process then you might pick this one up. Just don’t expect any huge revelations or life altering changes.

Purchase this book on Amazon.com here.

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Strollers: Aura Select Travel System from Evenflo (product here)

• Rating: (4 stars)
• Thoughts: The Evenflo stroller was our choice because it comes with a car seat plus lots of storage space below. It has locking wheels, a place for wipes, 2 cup holders and a sliding cover for our baby. The design feels rather sturdy without being too heavy making it easy to remove/pack into car trunks. Our biggest complaint with the stroller is how it unfolds. The latches are easy use but it unfolds in a strange way. When you release it, the stroller starts to transform but there is no place for your hands, so you have to move them around to avoid getting pinched! What I normally end up doing is laying it down on the ground, release the latch and then pull up the seat (the one meant for bigger kids facing forward). About half way through I have to switch to the handle which has enough leverage to complete the transformation. Like I said, not a big deal but something that’s annoying that we did not think of before we got it.

Bouncy Chair: Woodlands Friends Bouncer (product here)

• Rating: (2 stars)
• Thoughts: This was one of the most useless baby items that we got. We did use it every night until we realized the power of a swing chair. That fateful day that Diane brought that out of storage, the Woodland Friends became obsolete. And that my friends is why I’m giving it 2 stars. We literally used it for about a month and now it sits in storage. As for the features it offers, it also comes with a vibrating option that was never effective, some brightly colored animals that hang from a removable cross bar and straps to hold your baby. Overall the craftsmanship was solid, I never hard to worry about our daughter falling out or flipping over in the thing. She was also to young to really enjoy the animal creatures so that was useless in the end as well. I’m not saying this is a bad product, just our time that we used it versus the cost was not equal in any way.

Diaper Bin: Diaper Champ from Baby Trend (product here)

• Rating: (5 stars)
• Thoughts: We love this diaper bin so much. It is an amazing product that is great at keeping the smell to a minimal but still is easy to use. The design is simple and clean and requires minimal effort to work. What you do is easy, just place a diaper in the top and flip the top unit over. There is a weigh in the top which is pulled down by gravity and pushes the diaper into a bag. The weight has rubber around the edge creating a snug fit and helps prevent odor from escaping. The only problem we’ve encountered is when the thing gets close to full, the flipping motion gets stuck and you either have to really put some muscle into it or remove any diapers that are stuck on the weight.

Baby Bottles: Soothies from The First Year (5 ounce and 9 ounce)

• Rating: (3 stars)
• Thoughts: Baby bottles. Yes, I’m throwing in something about the baby bottles. I’m doing this because people often don’t think about bottles because they’re cheap but you use them a lot (if you’re bottle feeding, otherwise it doesn’t really matter)! We originally got our Soothie bottles and a few special other ones from friends and family. The specials ones can be found here (Ventair) and they were really nice at first. They didn’t drip at all until pressure was applied meaning the little one would only get food when she sucked on the nipple. It also had some sort of suction tech on the bottom that allow air to flow into the bottle and make milk flow easier. All of these things made it an amazing bottle until it got stuck. We found this out when we were shopping one day, using the bottle to feed and the little one was not getting any food! She was getting really upset since she was getting no food for her effort and it took us about 10 minutes to figure out what was going on. Now, the Soothies don’t have this issue, infact they have the opposite. The nipple will drip milk actually (do to a larger hole) but the flip side is they never get clogged. In this case, we just need something that works and that bottle is the Soothie.

Overall we have some fairly decent products. The only one that didn’t pull it’s weight was the bouncer chair. But as with all things it was simply out grown. As a parent the Diaper Champ is a must own if only for the fact that it will save your nose. The other items are great but not necessary. It all comes down to trying out the products and finding out what’s best for you and your child.

Did I totally bash your favorite item or feel that something received to much praise? Feel free to leave comments below, I welcome the tech debate.

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One thing that Diane and I were unable to do was attend a baby class. Being the hip, new age and somewhat competent internet people that we are, we turned to the web to answer our parent questions. Before we jump into online baby sites, you should should always consult a doctor if you have a question and never do anything on the internet that you feel is wrong. A lot of the time, your natural instinct will let you know if a treatment seems bogus or if something might harm your baby. And as I stated before, if you’re unsure, please consult a doctor before trying home remedies.

So with out further waiting, here is the list of websites that we visited pre and post baby:

What To Expect.com: Like the famous book that the site is named after, What To Expect.com was our main crutch through the pregnancy and after. During the pregnancy, this was a great site for week to week updates on how our baby was doing. Along with the online weekly updates, they also feature a widget that can be placed in your iGoogle, Facebook, or dashboard pages that will pull the current week of your baby automatically (this came in handy when we didn’t want to lug ourselves over to the site but were still interested in our babies progress). They also have lots of articles for Dad as well (one of them is even mentioned in the comic here) which I enjoyed several times. The only downside with this site is the lack of depth in some of the articles. Some of the lifestyle ones (read: non-technical baby articles) felt more like quick snippets of information rather then an in depth article and as a father wanting to get involved, I felt a little cheated (example).

What To Expect Forums: This site I haven’t gone to too many times but Diane has an account and turns to these ladies with baby questions all the time. She often sites how fast they will respond, the support they offer with tough situations and the fun of sharing baby moments with other people.

Diane: They have specific forums for the month your baby was born. This has been a tremendous help as we’re generally all going through similar issues with our babies. Plus we swap tips on what we’ve found works on our kids. I highly recommend them if you have questions about something but it’s not an emergency. Not to mention, it’s a good place to vent to other people that understand your frustrations.

Babies Online: Babies online is a lot like What To Expect except but features articles more in line of technical writing. It’s not dry and boring by any means, but check out Babies online features for the 19th week of pregnancy versus What to Expect (here and here). There isn’t anything wrong with Babies, I just like the human aspect of What To Expect.

Exclusively Pumping: Since we are no longer directly breast feeding (we’re pumping and then feeding through a bottle), we’ve used this site to help us understand the world of “power pumping”. Seriously, I didn’t even know such things existed until Diane brought it up to me. My only complaints about this site is that it seems to take forever to load! Once you get past that you’ll be free to cruise the boards and chat with other woman who are exclusively pumping and feeding. Some of the topics include “what is power pumping?”, “how to pump on the go” and “proper storage methods”.

So that’s what helped us get through becoming parents and beyond.

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So with out further waiting, here is the list of websites that we visited pre and post baby:

What To Expect.com: Like the famous book that the site is named after, What To Expect.com was our main crutch through the pregnancy and after. During the pregnancy, this was a great site for week to week updates on how our baby was doing. Along with the online weekly updates, they also feature a widget that can be placed in your iGoogle, Facebook, or dashboard pages that will pull the current week of your baby automatically (this came in handy when we didn’t want to lug ourselves over to the site but were still interested in our babies progress). They also have lots of articles for Dad as well (one of them is even mentioned in the comic here) which I enjoyed several times. The only downside with this site is the lack of depth in some of the articles. Some of the lifestyle ones (read: non-technical baby articles) felt more like quick snippets of information rather then an in depth article and as a father wanting to get involved, I felt a little cheated (example).

What To Expect Forums: This site I haven’t gone to too many times but Diane has an account and turns to these ladies with baby questions all the time. She often sites how fast they will respond, the support they offer with tough situations and the fun of sharing baby moments with other people.

Diane: They have specific forums for the month your baby was born. This has been a tremendous help as we’re generally all going through similar issues with our babies. Plus we swap tips on what we’ve found works on our kids. I highly recommend them if you have questions about something but it’s not an emergency. Not to mention, it’s a good place to vent to other people that understand your frustrations.

Babies Online: Babies online is a lot like What To Expect except but features articles more in line of technical writing. It’s not dry and boring by any means, but check out Babies online features for the 19th week of pregnancy versus What to Expect (here and here). There isn’t anything wrong with Babies, I just like the human aspect of What To Expect.

Exclusively Pumping: Since we are no longer directly breast feeding (we’re pumping and then feeding through a bottle), we’ve used this site to help us understand the world of “power pumping“. Seriously, I didn’t even know such things existed until Diane brought it up to me. My only complaints about this site is that it seems to take forever to load! Once you get past that you’ll be free to cruise the boards and chat with other woman who are exclusively pumping and feeding. Some of the topics include “what is power pumping?”, “how to pump on the go” and “proper storage methods”.

So that’s what helped us get through becoming parents and beyond.

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