  It's a new year, and accordingly, I'm cleaning house in my blogs. On this blog there's not much of a change, on the other one I vow to finally complete the archival posting of the blog before blogger. The biggest change I'm making here is updating my blogroll. First up, or out rather, is urlLink Fishyshark . First, some history. Fishyshark is a blog ("an expectant father's journal") started by Kosmo, aka urlLink Daily Kos , a fantastic political pundit and a true member of the bloggeratti. This year, Kos' wife Elisa became pregnant and Kos started a separate blog solely on the topic of his new life as an expectant father.
It was pretty funny, sometimes crass but always witty. Since little Ari was born, Kos has only written a few times and his posts reflect a descent into bitterness that I can't really sympathize with at all. First, Ari was beautiful, things were tough, but fatherhood was still great. Then, Ari was difficult because he couldn't be put down and wanted to nurse too often. These days, Ari is demanding, eats too much, cries too much, rewards them with smiles too rarely, and keeps them awake too many nights. I don't know if Kos is being witty, or if he's just a bitter and unhappy person. Honestly, I don't think it bodes well for his marriage, much less his parenthood.
I mean, life doesn't hang on the good times, but rather the tough ones. And at the end of those toughest of tough days, if you can't look at your kid or your partner or even your life and find (even if you have to reach really, really far for it) more good than bad to focus on, you're kind of up shit creek. Besides, having a new baby isn't so hard if you resign yourself to holding and loving on your baby constantly for a few weeks!
I had Ella this year under very difficult circumstances, considering the space shuttle accident, but even then she was the joy in the hard time, not the hard time. Did I choose to look at it that way or was I lucky? Why is this guy so unhappy in fatherhood? A blog can be whatever it wants, I don't mean to editorialize Kos. He's got so many fans and readers anyway that the loss of me is like a drop in the bucket.
Dissing him on his turf would be flaming, which is wrong. But I do get to diss him here. I hate that he's adding to all those stereotypes I fight every day about our society's view of children. He's talking about his new son like a pain in the ass new employee, when we should be celebrating new life. I think a lot of people in our culture--probably him included--would be happier, more peaceful if their parents had loved them more, held them longer. I see what simple touch and massage does to reduce my own children's stress. I see people around me everywhere missing out on the great connection I have with my kids, simply because they didn't know they could give more of their hearts to their kids, and the results are far reaching from not being able to go out to restaurants, to crying all night.
It's so sad! I guess it comes down to this. Snide and crass make for better political punditry than parenting. I'm taking Fishyshark off my blog roll today. I still strive to link to more parenting blogs, I think it's a needed genre in our society.
I might be experimenting a lot, so don't be surprised to see changes. Today I'll kick it off with urlLink Like a Baby , a blog kept by a Canadian mother of an adorable little girl named Chloe, who is probably still sleeping it off from her raucous New Year's party (drinking's a good sign!). Here's hoping... 
