Random Fatherhood Ramblings (& More)

* You know how I spent the holiday weekend? Taking my 2 year old (Pedro Tulo) to the bathroom every 15-30 minutes or so. We are in full potty training mode with him wearing underwear, and honestly, I'm scared to take him too far from the house in case he has an accident. After the first 10 days or so, it seems to be going okay, but there is no consistency. It would be fantastic if he could tell us when he needs to go potty rather telling us that "he's wet" immediately after doing his business no where near the toilet.

* Staying on the subject of toilets, Pedro Tulo put both his and his brother's toothbrushes in the toilet this weekend and flushed them before we could stop him. I was able to recover one toothbrush, and I just hope that the other one made it through the pipes without incident. I really don't want to call a plumber over this. Oh, this was the conversation after I found the first toothbrush.

Me: I was able to find one.
My five year old (The Moose): What color is it?
Me: Pink.
The Moose (excitedly): That's mine.
Me: Yes, but you're not using it anymore.

* Meanwhile, The Moose celebrated the 100th day of the school year on Tuesday. He is convinced that he graduated from kindergarten and will begin 1st grade on Wednesday.

* My high school classmate Ramon is an artist and art teacher and is a finalist for the 2017 Pittsburgh Marathon poster design. Please vote for him/his poster here!

* My friend Sarah of Smart Bitches Trashy Books was recently on CBS Sunday Morning discussing romance novels. Check out the 5-minute video at the CBS website.

* Finally, two links from my friend Rob

Former Pittsburgh Penguin Jim Paek is now the coach of the South Korean hockey team. [CBC]

* I want this jersey. [Yahoo]

State Of The Ramblings

Wednesday marked the 9th anniversary (yes 9th!) of Sean's Ramblings, so it's time for my annual State of the Ramblings. Although I had fewer posts in 2013 compared to any other year of this blog, I still averaged slightly more than a blog post every other day. Not too shabby.

(Get it? For 9 years of Sean's Ramblings.)

A big part of this blog over the past year was community. I got more involved with the Pittsburgh blogger community by participating in a Pittsburgh Guest Blogger event, becoming the Commissioner of the Pittsburgh Blogger fantasy football league, and I was encouraged to do NaBloPoMo in November from some Pittsburgh bloggers. Meanwhile, while I didn't hold the Best Pittsburgh Sports Blog tournament this year, the Pittsburgh Sports Blogger Interview Series was fun and something that I'm proud of. I plan on continuing the series in 2013. Meanwhile, I attended my first ever Northern Virginia blogger event (since I don't actually live in Pittsburgh anymore), and I questioned if the DC blogging community is dead.

Fatherhood posts continue to be a big part of my blog and with a second child on the way (let's call the baby Jim Paek or Jack Wilson for #2), there's a good chance that there will be more fatherhood posts in 2014. Of course, with a second child there may be fewer posts in 2014 since I expect to be a little busy and a lot tired.

2013 was the year of famous visitors. Sally Wiggin, Edgar Snyder, John Ross Bowie (aka Kripke on The Big Bang Theory) and at least one of The Birthday Boys all read a post on Sean's Ramblings. This was confirmed based on Twitter correspondence. Unconfirmed visitors to my blog last year included President Obama, Mike Tomlin, Mila Kunis and Kevin Pittsnogle's mom.

On a completely different topic, these are some of my favorite blog posts of 2013:

Paul McCartney Concert Review
Return to Pittsburgh
Hockey Road Trip

So what will 2014 bring? Besides fatherhood posts, I hope to have entertaining posts about the Olympics and World Cup. I also hope to write all about winning my fantasy baseball league for the first time in the 20+ years I have been in the league.

I'm also contemplating making Sean's Ramblings its own site instead of using the Blogspot address. However, I want to make sure that I keep my archives and I don't really want to pay for a domain. Plus, I feel like making a new site could be a lot of work. Basically, I probably won't do anything about this.

Finally, I want to thank you for reading and for commenting over the past year and past 9 years. I really appreciate your support, feedback and encouragement!