My spouse and I were both brought up in homes where religion was important.He is Italian Catholic and I am Jewish, so there would be some issues down the road once we had our child.

I am in charge in this household (well, I do everything after all!) so I had the ritual circumcision set up before our son was born. And how convenient, the “moyel” was also a pediatrician. I don’t take no chances!

I knew this first part of entry into the Jewish religion would not be an issue for my spouse, and my folks flew out from NY to Arizona for this, no way was he going to fight the 3 of us! This is a super important tradition in the Jewish religion. And wouldn’t you know it, my mom was the only one who didn’t cry!

My spouse made it clear a Christening was very important to him. So at the 3 month mark, we had that as well. He had to interview with the Priest at the church he attended 2 blocks from our house. The Priest agreed to do the Christening, I do not know if he ever had this situation before.

My spouse had all his siblings be godparents so I did the same! My son has 6 godparents. I thought that was silly in case we were going to have another kid, but alas, my eggs have since dried up! It all works out.

I could tell from the Priest’s behavior that he was surprised when we all showed up in suits. Maybe it was his first christening of a child of gay parents, but he found out we really are normal and so are our families! And of course all my in-laws knew how this thing worked, they were practicing Catholics. I am sure that impressed the Priest as well.

And no, I did not agree to the christening just to get checks out of my in-laws! That was just a happy by-product!

My brothers first wife never converted to Judaism as she had promised, so my brother had to take the steps of convert his first son. I am grateful for that, otherwise I would not have known all the steps I would need to take. There is a ritual dipping in water called a “mikvah.” (Let me just point out that I forgot what that was called and I asked my spouse who of course knew right away.) At 11 months old I had set this all up with a Rabbi from a synagogue a few blocks away. My folks again came for this ritual.

My job was part time until I lost it when my son was 2 1/2 years old. I then took over the responsibility for his religious training. I took him to various holiday celebrations at the synagogue on the corner.

When it came time for a Hebrew education I ended up at the synagogue that the Rabbi from the “mikvah” came from. The timing of this extra schooling was important, I knew I had to make it amenable to my spouse. The synagogue on the corner had classes Sunday mornings form 9-12. That would be too much for a 5 year old and interfere with our weekly trips to the in-laws.

So, for the last 4 years my son has attended Hebrew school down the block from his public school. 4 other children from his grade are in his class. This is just one more thing that adds to our sense of community in NYC. And my spouse, who grew up with so many Jewish kids (including my cousin who he met in High School, 10 years before I met him!) that he would occasionally speak Yiddush to me, was OK with this as I keep reminding him of the educational aspect of Hebrew School, my son is learning another language after all. My spouse did want him to have some Catholic education and I just said sure. Sometimes in a marriage you have to agree to things that you know will never happen. Game playing? Not at all!

My son is in 3rd grade. What that has meant so far is increased homework, from 45-60 minutes a night and weekends.

I was not happy this year when we received our first assignment for the weekend, read for 25 minutes and then write about it. Do kids ever get a break? Does non-stop school work help or hinder the learning process? When does it begin to feel like a huge chore and not an assignment?

The answers to those questions occured the Thursday immediately preceding the “Christmas” vacation. Call it whatever you like but in America, even when they decide it is too religious to put a tree in the Staten Island Ferry terminal, it is still Christmas. A menorah is usually included so I have no issue.

Christmas break, winter vacation, the name is unimportant. On that fateful Thursday we received a homework package. I was furious. Does anyone think torture is the way to educate? Because while we have a week day routine to do homework without complaint (93 % of the time), I could not defend the need to work continuously through a holiday. And, to further infuriate me the vacation homework was more than a regular nights worth of homework.

You know me to be a man of action. When I emailed the teacher she told me this homework was mandatory. All I cold think about was our friends who were already out of town, did you expect them to stop while in Disney to do book reports? I immediately wrote to the parent advocate at the NYC Board of Education. Her simple reply was that it is a school choice, but I could certainly call her the next day to discuss it. This is a helpful office and I appreciate their work.

The next days school email from a different 3rd grade teacher, representing the “team,”very carefully told us this homework was not mandatory. Great, I got my way and knew now that I would have to participate, that’s my crazy logic!

Needless to say we spent 2 different days doing some of the homework. My son perceived this to be torture and I could not disagree with him, he was not going to turn stupid if he had a break from school work for 10 days. In my humble opinion cramming education down his throat does not make it a positive experience, and that was how I perceived this.

No break from school work ever? My spouse and I go on vacations and don’t have to do office work on those weeks off. I see vacation time for adults and children as a time to refresh. I believe it is more important to give the kids a break from the ever increasing amount of school work they already receive. I seem to be in the minority with this, I await nycsinglemom’s response to this, her daughter and my son are finally in the same class!

I get it, this is the first year of testing, everyone is nervous. But I also have nieces who don’t have this issue and complete the vacation homework in the first day. That defeats the whole purpose of a week’s worth of homework, doesn’t it?

I was angry and will probably continue to be as we continue our education. Overloading the children does not seem to me to be the best way to educate them. Vacations are important, they are required at all American businesses that I know of, give the kids a chance to refresh as well!

My son is a typical boy. He loves math, he is OK with reading, and he does not like writing.
You can deny this type of sexism all you want, but there are inherent traits in boys and girls, that is why they are different. Why do girls prefer pink and boys do not? DNA!

My son was given extra writing work to help him keep his marks on grade level in 1st grade. By 2nd grade he was unable to maintain the grade level standard (even I agreed with this even though his 2nd grade teacher was so abysmal that I filed a complaint with the NYC Board of Ed!).

We are now in 3rd grade. Yes we! His writing is still not on grade level, and I could let my denial be fed by the fact that his math is above grade level and that evens things out, but that won’t help him on the state wide tests that start this grade.

And I have tried everything, but the love I see when it comes to math (he will ask for math equations to solve when we are walking in the street!) is not there for writing, and I have cajoled, bribed, and even threatened. I have even used the blog hook! He loves to join me at blog events, he loves the fun venues (Dylan’s Candy bar for goodness sakes!), and he loves the swag (like father, like son!)! I told him he could start his own blog, I think the time is ripe for tween blogs, and I told him he could fire me as soon as he becomes successful (that’s a lie!). Crickets. He wants his own blog, but he thinks he thinks he can hire writers!

So, should I spend the money and hire a tutor? Do I give in to the school system that is pushing these kids farther and farther every year, way faster than it was in my day (that would be when we were still writing on rocks!). I have heard several of my friends with children of varying ages using tutors so I decided the expense might be well worth it.

So I started researching tutors. He has one at Hebrew School with a few other kids and the increased individualized attention works well for him. We are not allowed to use a teacher from our own school so I asked his current teacher if she had a recommendation. Her person teaches at the neighboring school where we know a lot of students. I did my due diligence and found she had rave reviews.

We had our first session this past week. I wanted to start the new year off right! Turns out this teacher lives right across the street from us and is super flexible scheduling wise. All the signs pointed towards success! I hope I am not jinxing it, but the first session was great. My son is bright, but he is also pigheaded. I tell him to write about what we did the day before and he has writers block! Well, the one to one instruction from a 4th grade teacher who knows the system was fantastic! I am so happy I made this decision. Hopefully this will make a positive difference for this years test and more importantly for the rest of his academic career and beyond.

After all, he needs to support his dad in the lifestyle I am ready to become accustomed to when he grows up and gets a job! All kidding aside, I am glad I am able to take steps to help my child, to smooth out the road before him when possible.

The Saturday preceding Christmas I got the boys in the car and we headed to Astoria, Queens, NYC for a meal of Greek food. Astoria is the capital of Greek food in NYC and we have a favorite restaurant where we have been going for years.

While talking about the various fish for sale, the waiter mentioned that there were some fish that survived being cooked earlier in the day. They had been dipped in flour and instead of going into the frying pan, the fish were still jumping around, so the owner decided to put them in water to wipe the flour off. I would have thought she would have cooked them and bragged about the fresh fish she serves.

We went to check out these miracle fish and wouldn’t you know it, a few minutes later, the owner came over and gave the 2 survivors to my son. He was so happy. I was mortified. I had not been planning on pets!

Needless to say we drove home with 2 fish in a vase. How they survived that first night in the vase, I have no idea. Naturally we went and bought a fish tank the next day.

And the next week my son added to the tank, I have to make sure he doesn’t spend his college fund on things for this tank, these rescue fish may not live forever! Or will they?

My son has a Jewish dad and a Catholic dad.
So he gets 2 holidays from 2 families filled with presents, poor kid.

And Chanukah came first! We started it early as we ended up rescuing 2 fish from a Greek restaurant where they refused to be cooked. So guess which 2 schmucks went out and bought their kid an entire fish tank?

Then my parents and sister came over to celebrate the holiday early as we are all so busy and cannot get together during the week. (Plus I wanted to take my parents out for their 56th Wedding Anniversary! How the heck does anyone do that???)

My son got 2 large Lego sets from my mom (that I purchased on her behalf of course, I have to keep a running list of the thousand different sets that we have!). I also threw in a 2 wrestler pack from Target, it was on sale and Ray Mysterio, my son’s favorite wrestler, was one of the action figures.

My son is so funny – he didn’t even see the Legos, he just jumped right in and started playing with the wrestlers in his wrestling ring (thanks Kmart!) with my sister. The reason this situation is so funny is that on the first night of Chanukah I gave him 4 Lego sets, and I became his hero! I see I have to be careful when I mix gift genre’s!

Christmas Eve we exchange gifts at the in-laws for Christmas as all the cousins separate to be with the other side of their families. My son the drummer got light up drum sticks, you know he did not put them down all evening, even as we drove to an aunt’s house to continue the party! He also got some cash, so my new job is trying to keep him from spending every penny he has on his new fish tank, the interior designer in hm is starting to blow up!

Here is my in-laws tree, decorated perfectly as usual!

My son studies drums and singing at the local Boys Club. He was slated for several performances with the chorus at the various Christmas parties they had. As a parent it was so wonderful to watch his attitude towards the experience, he could not have taken it more seriously. And he was never nervous!

I love my son more than anything in the world. I want to say I don’t know how I ended up adopting and getting the best kid in the world, but I do believe in Gd and did a lot of praying before we met each other. A higher power is always responsible, it’s just recognizing that, that’s the hard part.

I have always wanted to be a dad. I am so glad the gay relationship did not prevent us form enjoying this miracle. I had been an uncle for over 14 years before my son was born, I knew from that I wanted more than being an uncle could offer, I wanted a child 24/7!

So now I feel like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a zoo keeper! I do study my son, I do watch how he behaves, I am always wondering why certain choices are made. It is the most interesting and thought provoking human study I can think of.

Today’s focus is my son’s ability to throw himself into a role. I have no idea where this comes from. On Halloween his school did “character” day. That meant the 3rd grade had to dress as a character from a book, no movies allowed. My son picked Jack from the Magic Tree House series, a Shakespearean era outfit. Or at least his interpretation of one. And he has an enormous attention to detail, everything must be just so, it must match the ideas in his head for the role. And when he talks about the character, he gets deeply into the mind set of the character. Fascinating.

Over the summer his camp put on some shows. He came off the camp bus one day and announced he needed a beard for the role he was playing. We searched high and low and finally found the appropriate one. I heard from the counselors and other camp mates afterwards that he had become the role. No one has prompted him in acting, when he gets into the role, and on the stage, he behaves like a professional actor and literally becomes the role and won’t break character. I love this about him! He is a natural! I’m not saying we are enrolling in acting school (we do take drums and singing lessons!), but as a sociologist, I thoroughly enjoy how my son reacts in situations, how he shows us what comes naturally to him.

He had a different backpack for the first day of school yesterday, this morning he chose the Lands End backpack that I received at an event (poor little rich kid type of situation for my son – too many choices thanks to his blogging dad!)

I just sat back and watched as the backpack dictated the rest of the outfit. He had to match the style of the backpack. He started with green camouflage shorts but ended up with these pants when I wasn’t looking. I had gotten rid of the green camo shirt earlier in the summer, so he had to wear the black camo one and then get rid of the green camo shorts. And all this before 8 am in the morning.

When I asked to take these “back to school” pictures I received the perfect teenage looking attitude as you can see below. And he’s only 8! Everyone has been posting back to school pics and I wanted to get in on the act, maybe I should have waited a year!

Disclosure: I received the Lands End backpack at an event over the summer. No other compensation was received and all opinions are that of my son!

Get those city kids out of the concrete jungle!

My son just finished 8 weeks of Summer camp. Actually, 7 1/2, the NYC schools ended on a Tuesday and camp started on the next day, Wednesday. I feel it is kind of quick, but that is how it is.

The city kids need to get out and enjoy the country life. What that means is enjoying nature and at the same time complaining about all the bugs! We have very few of those here in the big city.

My son has been going to the same camp for 3 years. His first year was quite a tough transition for him but the camp had a wonderful staff that helped him through. Last year was good, but we did get a couple of phone calls.

This year, as expected, my son was a star! He has learned so many skills in getting along with people and controlling his impulses, that I am amazed. He has learned to be a team player and star in the show at the same time. He feels such loyalty for the groups he is involved in. It is a great pleasure as the dad to watch and enjoy his behavior and growth.

And the kids! His girlfriend from Hebrew class was in his group! His t-ball coach’s son from his group 2 years ago was in his group again. And another boy from that team. And this year’s coaches son. It was a great group of kids and counselors. I always look at the continuity because I feel that helps.

And the camp is phenomenal. He had several different electives this year because of the age group. A magic session, a performing session, extra basketball (I think, I signed him up but he never mentioned it!), and others. It is so well run, so well organized, the parent need not worry! And it is located 10 minutes from my parents and brothers’ house so I am extra happy about that.

So thank-you 92nd St Y, you guys did a fantastic job with my son and the other kids, we are very grateful!

No close-ups for privacy sake.

This was the email I received:

$99 for a 3DS?

It Must Be a PowerUp Rewards Pro™ Exclusive!

It’s a mobile gamers dream! For a limited time, PowerUp Rewards Pro™ members can get a brand new 3DS for only $99* when you trade in your old DS Lite, DSi or DSi XL between Friday, August 12, and Sunday, August 14.

This hot deal requires a coupon, but we’ve got you covered! Look for the coupon Friday, August 12* in the Active Offers section of your PowerUp Rewards account. Simply log in, print your Pro members-only coupon, and get to your nearest GameStop store to take advantage of this offer.

I fell for it!

$99 for a new Nintendo 3DS? That’s what I paid for my DS Lite 2 years ago! And this just came out in March for $249.99! Even though the price just dropped by $70, how could I resist? I couldn’t!

The funny thing is when I first mentioned this to my son he said no. Can you imagine? He has heard me say several times that it will make him dizzy. Well, I am not buying any new videos right away so we are only going to have Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean for 3DS which I had been sent 2 months ago by accident. He should be safe.

It is the cameras that interest him! I guess this is the end of the Leapster Explorer that I loved for him. Additionally, thank goodness all his old DS cartridges will play in here as well. I can’t afford to make obsolete the 200 video cartridges he has!

So, we did the trade in. I got $70 for the 2 year old DS Lite and paid the $99 difference for the 3DS. Not bad for a shopaholic parent of a spoiled kid!

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this post.