Brief Bio
I’m a father of twin toddler girls and a middle school assistant principal. I’ve been married to my wife, Holly, for over seven years now and I enjoy watching sports, reading, running (I don’t enjoy it, but I do it sometimes), cooking, and even playing some XBox 360 (GT: Angry Principal). I am also on Twitter @TwinDadTalks
What do you like most about being a Dad?
I like watching my girls do new things every day. I think as they get older, it will be attending their functions and cheering them on in everything they do, but right now it’s just watching a developmental explosion. With twins, it’s even more unique because they hit milestones at different times. I have one who is speaking sentences and the other is much further behind in her speech, but will make a mess just to have an opportunity to clean it up.
What’s been your proudest moment (so far) as a Dad?
My proudest moment has been proving that a father can take care of two kids at one time without having to call six family members to help. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have help from family, and of course, my wife keeps us going, but I am not intimidated by being a parent. I don’t typically take the girls out by myself unless we are just going for a ride where they won’t be getting out of the car, but we also rarely go anywhere unless we are all together. Having twins is a moving circus, particularly in stores.
What do you want your kid(s) to remember you for the most?
I want the girls to remember that I loved and respected them. I think if those things are in place then everything else will follow suit. I am a dry, sarcastic person by nature, and even though that type of humor has it’s place (particularly in the blogging world), I have to tone that down a lot as a parent, particularly with toddlers. Eventually, they will get my jokes and may even have been blessed with the wit to banter back, but they will remember more that they grew up in a household where love and respect were shared freely.
When did you start blogging?
I started blogging three months ago. My wife has been blogging a little over a year now, and she has published a couple of articles with Multiplicity Magazine and has been able to do some campaigns here and there for nominal money. I started because I thought I had interesting thoughts that I’m not able to share anywhere else. I also thought that I would be an interesting read for people because of my occupation and my life as a twin father. I’ve enjoyed writing my blog, but I’m still very small in numbers…my blog only has 3600 page views since August 1 and I’ve had 46 likes on my Facebook page. Even though it’s easy to get discouraged by numbers, I know that what I write is genuine and with time, it will be noticed by more people. Even recently, I’ve joined the Dad Bloggers group on Facebook and held conversations with really interesting people. I’ve published an e-book on Amazon called “TwinDad Talks: Help for First-Time Fathers Navigating Pregnancy” and I’ve published two articles on the Good Men Project. Somehow, I’m going to be on the Life of Dad After Show podcast in the near future, so some cool things are starting to happen and I’m just going to continue working hard at this.
What’s your biggest challenge in balancing life/work/blog?
How do you manage it?
My biggest challenge is the work/life part. I think blogging has helped me chronicle this balance, but my job requires at least 55 hours a week, and my commute to my job is 45 minutes each way. Realistically, I don’t get a lot of time with my girls during the week, so we tend to make the most of it on the weekends. My wife works too and is the one who picks them up from preschool and her parents live very close to us, so they help a lot. I think this was one of the challenges to the blog, though, because I want to publish material that is well-written and worthy of an audience. There are guys who do this professionally and how am I supposed to compete with that? Also, the guys that stay at home, who I have a boat load of respect for, have the best blogs because they can write about a ton of experiences. My posts tend to talk about how I can’t spend enough time with them and how guilty I feel about that. I had to find humor in odd things to make my posts less sappy. Even though I have a career, I want to build my blog to where I can see cool things happen, and I think that’s starting to come to fruition.
Current City/State (nearest major city is fine)
Greensboro, NC
Blog Title & URL
Twin Dad Talks – Thoughts on Raising Twins, and Everything Else. URL – http://twindadtalks.blogspot.com. Check it out, it’s great.
Cookie or Brownie?
This could be the toughest question you’ve asked…it’s kind of like the Barbara Walters interview that makes everyone cry, I really like both. I’m going to give the edge to brownie, because you can pair it with ice cream for a delicious dessert.