All Aboard the A-Train

I read the most heartbreaking story in a recent issue of Los Angeles Magazine about Matt Logelin, an L.A. local with a tragic story. His wife had just given birth to their first and only child after a fairly complicated pregnancy and C-section delivery. She’d been on bed rest for 5 weeks, a little wobbly still, but wanted to go see her daughter for the first time. As she was walking out of the hospital room, she complained of feeling light headed and suddenly collapsed on the floor. Moments later, she was dead, victim of a deadly blood-clot totally unrelated to the pregnancy.

When my wife was in the hospital bed recovering from her own C-section, and I was holding onto this tiny human no bigger than my forearm, all my fears came rushing to the forefront. Trepidatious to just about everything, if there was a tragic possibility, I imagined it, but my wife was fine, and my son was healthy and we all made it home from the hospital without incident.

As I read more of Logelin’s story, he talked about his need to continue his blog, both for him and his daughter. To him, it’s become her baby book, skipping the snips of hair and paper notecards and replacing with digital memories. The blog is her memory box and his cathartic release.

Long story short, I told myself I was going to keep this blog more about my art and my business despite my desire to share the stories of being a new father. This blog is about my life and since my son is the absolute top priority in my life, why wouldn’t I include him in it more? I’m not giving up the art and design posts, they are my bread & butter after all, but don’t be surprised if you see more posts about my most awesome son. Make way for “A-Train”.

Make Way for the A-Train

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , ,

My Wife is Holding Out on Me

So, today, while my wife is out running errands, I’m hanging out with my boy; just two guys chillin’, drinking beers, checking out chicks, you know how it goes. Suddenly, he starts repeating over and over “ma ma ma ma ma ma”. I’m sure the look on my face was utter disbelief, but he just smiled up at me and laughed. Gotta love this kid.

Since this would technically be the first word he every truly uttered, I was trying to get him to say it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. I coaxed him a little and sure enough, “ma ma ma ma”. Even though I’m not Mama, I was stoked that he was spoke his first real word but bummed that she didn’t get to hear it.

Jump ahead several hours, I’m at my computer working, she’s in the kitchen making dinner and A-Train, hanging out on the floor between us, says it again. Excited, I looked into the kitchen to get her attention.

“Did you hear that babe? He said ‘Mama’.”

“Oh yeah, I taught him that earlier today.”

Yes, that’s me, at the back of the line again.

Filed Under: Fatherhood

Small Milestones Make for Big Futures

Is this kid cute or what?

I don’t post up much about my son because I struggle with the duality of being a proud father and a protective one. I want to share this awesome kid with the world, but I don’t want him to be overexposed to the world. I also don’t want to be that guy that shares every single picture and story of his kid only to bore the crap out of anyone that happens to get caught in earshot. It’s a personal battle I go through every time he does something I think is cool. However, something happened this morning that gave me some perspective on both his life and a little of mine … he rolled over onto his belly while sleeping, twice.

Ok, nothing earth shattering, but when you watch it happen over time, it’s truly amazing. My baby is quickly becoming a little boy and each new day brings about new growth and development. He makes these tiny little changes and soon the become bigger things. It went from kicking his legs to twisting back and forth to turning on his side and then finally getting the arm strength to push himself over completely. Next he’ll be pushing himself up on his knees and trying to scooch across the room. I’ll be baby proofing the entire house in no time, I’m sure.

Although sometimes I just want my little guy to stay little, I also revel in watching him develop, learn and grow. It’s an amazing spectacle and I have a ringside seat, but what does this have to do with me?

Although I’ve dabbled in many different art projects, I’m really focused on Beach Cities right now. I look back on my first piece and even though some really like it, I realize how much my work has grown just in the few short months I’ve been doing it. I’ve been a professional graphic artist for going on 14 years now, so you’d think I would have my style and skill honed pretty finely but I am still learning with each new project. Some are better than others, but each piece gets me a little further ahead.

On top of that, as I progress with my work, I pick up new fans along the way. With the new fans comes new people willing to share my work with their inner circles, which brings about new types of fans and also new kinds of work. I just finished my first private commission (to be posted later) for a fellow artist and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my short career as a digital artist. I’m sure not all commissions will go this smooth, but the challenge of doing my work to the specific standards of another can only take me to new places in my development.

I know that my current work is pretty commercial and far from experimental. I realize I’m tapping into a general population of individuals rather than looking for avant garde collectors, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t get there eventually. I am currently working on a more ambitious piece than anything I’ve done to date and dealing with the challenge of pushing myself to be more experimental. I like where it’s going, but I know in 6 months or a year I’ll look back and think I could have done more/better. It’s the nature of being an artist and I can only hope it keeps taking me into new and better directions.

Is that kid cute or what?

Stealing an idea from my friend, Kelly, I turn this back on you. What are you doing to push your work in new and exciting directions. Comment here or write about and share the links.

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Sifting Through the Clutter

This January was possibly one of the most epic months ever. With all the stuff going on, both personally, locally and globally, you’d think someone like me, who has a tendency to get easily distracted by bright, shiny lights, would have a hard time focusing on anything, and you’d be partially correct.

The holidays were nuts, as usual, but I’ve learned to expect it given the size of my wife’s family. I got drunk on New Year’s Day with some of them for the first time. It was a bonding experience.

Work has been intense, both with the day job and any freelancing I’ve done. The magazine schedule has been hectic and everyone on our mag wonders if the people upstairs are ever going to give us a moment to breathe and collect our thoughts. We’re not counting on it, so we soldier on.

The freelance gigs are nice, and come in handy with the baby on the way. I just wish I could get paid in a timely manner. Every client I work with these days seems to think that 30 days is the standard for paying bills. Unfortunately, my mortgage and my electric bill don’t have a 30-day option. There’s some animosity there, but I’m working through it. Luckily I’ve built up enough projects month after month to keep the money flowing, albeit slowly.

During the last couple weeks, California got hit with the most rain we’ve had at one time in years. We need the rain, so I’m glad we got some, but I’m not so stoked on all the heavy damage sustained. We had a sewer clog, one side of our fence completely demolished. huge bamboo shoots that fell over and plenty of flooding in the yard. We also had a refrigerator problem that killed nearly all the food inside.

All these expenses have been relatively minor so far, but along with not getting paid quicker for freelance, we also have a rental unit in back that’s still unoccupied and probably will remain that way through February. Top that all off with income taxes and property taxes coming up. My normally composed mode of, “don’t worry, we’ll make it work”, has faded a little and beads up sweat are starting to show.

Of course, at least I have a home. The people in Haiti were in a bigger world of hurt even before the massive earthquake they sustained, so my problems seem pretty small. I do think about those people a lot. I’ve sent what little I could in hopes I could help, but I know it’s just a drop in the bucket and I should give more, but I’ve got this self-preservation thing going on in my head right now that I can’t kick.

So Why Is It So Easy to Blow Off?
Despite all that crap, I can easily shut all of the other noise out the minute I start thinking about the baby growing in my wife’s belly. I’ve never been so preoccupied with a single thought in my entire life, and the last few weeks have been the worst.

Leslie and I had a pretty big scare this month. Her initial blood tests came back and she came up pretty high for possible Down’s Syndrome and the Genetic Consultant wanted us to come in to talk about the situation. When Leslie drop the news on me, my world shattered. Perhaps I was getting ahead of myself, but my head was out to lunch for the remainder of the day. I was pissed at the world and cursing the heavens for taking this chance away from us. I thought the most important event in my adult life was about to be stolen from me. Thankfully, not all the information had been provided and our chances went up that we would have a healthy baby. So things are looking up, but we’re pensive just in case.

Aside for the bad news, all my other thoughts have been powerful, good things about the future. All things seem to come back to the idea that I’m going to be a father and I can’t help but feeling it’s the coolest thing ever, like it is my goal in life, to be the best dad I can. Of course that should be the goal of every dad, but I really want to be awesome at the task. Everything else seems secondary.

Filed Under: Fatherhood

The Biggest Announcement of My Entire Life

I’m going to be a father!

My wife is 13 weeks along and she’s due sometime around July 2nd. Maybe we’ll get a July 4th baby if we’re really lucky. No word on the sex just yet, but more updates coming. I sense a few changes coming.

Filed Under: Fatherhood