For some reason, I had it in my mind that the following statement would play a significant role in this blog post: “the situation went from doom, to gloom, and then back to doom again.  However, I’ve since realized that doom and gloom are both negative attributes.  Therefore, this situations has gone from doom/gloom to “bloom” and then back to doom/gloom again.  There, see that works, it doesn’t flow as well, but damnit, it gets my point across.

So let me start at the beginning: I got a new job, (big surprise there) and our family needed to relocate to Minneapolis.  That’s a troublesome task definitely, but most certainly not a “doom & gloom” task right?  Well in our case it was, because as you may or may not know: Ty is my stepchild.  We don’t make a big deal about this in our family because as I’m sure you can tell from all of my numerous blog posts, I treat him no differently than Tre.  In my eyes, he is my child and that’s all that matters.  Unfortunately in the eyes of his biological father (who will forever be known as “THE SPERM DONOR”), that isn’t the case.

***sidenote: the sperm donor does very little for Ty.  He misses visits, pawns him off on other family members, and did not want to be a part in him life until I became involved***

Now that you’ve read the sidebar, you can see why I have no sympathy or compassion for this individual.  Back to the story…so we informed the sperm donor of our impending move and he protested vehemently.  We were reasonable and considerate with our offer, planning to give him two months in the summer and all breaks when Ty was out of school.  Did I mention that this guy misses his scheduled visits and hardly spends time with Ty when he does get him?  Oh I did, well let’s carry on.  So that was our proposal, a very generous one in my opinion, considering it would give him well over they current amount of time that he was allowed to spend with Ty.   His response to this proposal was a vehement refusal, going as far as to tell us that he would be fighting for full custody…this was two months ago.  Here begins the saga of the ”When Doom Turns To Gloom”.

So we took the logical approach and “lawyered up” (I’ve always wanted to say that phrase).  We Fefe searched high and low for the best lawyer that would give us great results at a reasonable price.  Unfortunately, the “reasonable price” category didn’t offer much in the “expertise” column.  Therefore we ended up hiring a lawyer with a $5000 retainer fee, which was more than double the cost of most practitioners that we spoke to.  Needless to say I was more than pissed that we even had to deal with such as situation for an individual who could give 2 shits (pardon my French) about Ty, but also had to fork over such a hefty sum to ensure the proper outcome which we all wanted was achieved.

Fast forward 8 weeks and you’ll see me on a plane heading back to Raleigh for the TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!!!  Yes, it really took that long to be heard in front of a judge, (please don’t get me started on the NC legal system).  So last week (2wks ago now) I went back for our emergency hearing (if 8 weeks seems like more than an emergency to you raise your hand, ahhh I thought so), our original court date got bumped, nevermind the fact that I took off from work, flew 900 miles in the dead of night and paid a fortune to be here.  None of that mattered, we were on standby.  Two days later our case was finally heard and our lawyer earned every gosh darn penny of that $5k we paid her.  The verdict came back that it was in Ty’s best interest to be with us.  However, the judge ruled that Ty needed to finish the school year out with his current class…a bittersweet victory to say the least.  It was more SWEET than bitter, because the judge ruled that the asshole (again, excuse my French), only get 4 weeks in the summer, a significant reduction to what we originally proposed.

After 3 days of delays and court proceedings, we partied like it was 1999 (don’t look in Prince’s eyes).  We were ecstatic and overjoyed, but we were also perplexed.  Fefe was having a tough time dealing with both boys on her own and we had decided, whatever the outcome of this trial, we would move forward with the move.  So once we received the verdict, the movers were in the process of packing our belongings and had already shipped Fefe’s car to Minneapolis.  Given the “finish school in NC” caveat of the ruling, we decided to let Ty stay with his grandmother until it was time for him to come out and join us.  This wasn’t an easy decision, but it was one that was basically made for us.  Ty would remain behind to finish his kindergarten year and we would be ¾ of a family in Minneapolis.

Our arrangement went on fine for exactly ONE week, until it was time for Ty to visit the sperm donor for his bi-monthly visit.  This visit was over Mother’s Day weekend and he informed Fefe that we would not bring Ty back unless she was there to pick him up.  Calling the police had exactly NO impact at all, as our current court order did not stipulate anything regarding Ty’s grandparents.  Therefore, the only thing that we could do is request that the sperm donor take Ty to school as scheduled.

This is where the SUPER drama comes in.  The sperm donor agreed to take Ty to school and pick him up until he was required by the courts to send him to Minneapolis.  Unfortunately, he decided to deviate from the plan.  This asshole dropped Ty off at school and then returned 60 mins later to un-enroll him from school with 3 weeks left in the school year.

The school’s principle called Fefe and informed her of what was taking place, unfortunately, they were unable to prevent it from happening because the sperm donor had a birth certificate.  Fefe tried countless times to get in touch with the sperm donor to find out what was going on and he refuses to answer his phone.  Leading us to believe that he is trying to abduct Ty.

At this very moment, Fefe is on a plane heading back to NC to do whatever we can to sort this situation out.  I’m afraid, she’s afraid, and we’re asking for all of your prayers and support to help us through this difficult time.

A peace offering. How could be mad at these faces?

Wow, it has been quite a while hasn’t it? Really, 5+ months since my last post? A lot can happen in 6 months huh? But is 6 months really that long? I know a ton of things that can’t get accomplished in less than 6 months, let’s see: you can’t obtain a college degree in 5 months, you can’t walk from New York to California in less than 6 months, and apparently you can’t pass a bill in Congress in less than 5 months. So you see 6 months really isn’t a long time to stop blogging, based on the previous examples, some things of far lesser extent take much longer!

Ah, who am I kidding? Listen folks, I’m sorry. 6 months is a long time, hell, 1 month is a long time; I packed up my bags and left without so much as a “Dear John” letter. It wasn’t intentional, I promise, it just kind of happened. I got sick for the 12th time in like 2 months, work got really hectic, and next thing you know 6 months have passed and now I’m sitting here writing this apology post.

While I’m in apology mode, there are a few bloggers that I need to send a heartfelt sorry to as well. When I started blogging, I found a lot of interesting parenting blogs and became somewhat of a regular on a few of them: The Life of a Father of Five, Suburban Scrawl, and Raleigh Daddy 3.0, to name a few. But once my blogging efforts faded into the abyss of “never blog again land” I started feeling somewhat ashamed and began removing myself from the blogs that I visited regularly as they served as a reminder of my failure. Even though I couldn’t hack it, I should have still supported you guys and I’m sorry for that.

Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the good stuff shall we? Well first off, I’d like to say I’m BAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK, man it feels so good to be writing again. It kind of feels like being in a relationship where you know you screwed up, but you’re afraid to apologize and give it another try; but once you do, and all is forgiven, all of those great feelings come rushing back. Well that’s where I’m at right now, and I’m gonna try my best to ride this high for as long as I can!

Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road!!!

Daddy’s Fish Bowl’s 1st official post of 2010 The Boy in the Window

Well, here’s the link to the interview, I hope you enjoy!  Blog Spotlight – Daddy’s Fish Bowl

While you’re there, please feel free to checkout all of the other great content that the site has to offer.  They have feature interviews with photographers, designers, and even film makers.  There’s something for everyone so enjoy.

So did you guys miss me? I know, it’s only been 3 days, but still, that seems like an eternity to me; as you know, bloggers don’t get any paid vacation. Well, even if you didn’t miss me, I sure missed you. Writing is something that I really enjoy doing & what can be better than writing about your family? I mean seriously, doing something that you enjoy (writing) and it’s about something you enjoy (family), it doesn’t get much better than that.

As most of you probably know, Google Adsense and I had a bit of a falling out last Friday. If you’re not aware, then you should follow me on Twitter here, as I tweeted extensively about my discontent and anger with the whole Adsense program. Those bastards disabled my account for what they deemed “invalid clicks”. I find it quite funny that these “invalid clicks” arose as soon as I was about to break the $100 payout point. So basically the way that I see it, google received an entire month of free advertising on my site & right as it came time to pay up, BOOM they cut me off.

Well after this unfortunate setback to Daddy’s Fish Bowl, I was honestly ready to throw in the towel. But the kind words of my Facebook & Twitter friends, as well as the possibility of other revenue sources pulled me thru and brought me back to the keyboard. As I said before, I do enjoy writing & writing about my family is a bonus; but doing it without the possibility of any compensation was something that did not rate high on my priority list. I’m not sure if you guys are aware, but writing these blog posts take a considerable amount of time. Time that could be spent with my family or towards advancing my “Packaging Science” career. So regardless of how much I love doing this, it has to be beneficial to those I care for, otherwise I’m just cheating them by spending valuable time doing something that I love instead of spending it with them (by the way, I’m writing this post after midnight, past my bedtime).

Which is why I’d like to send a big fat “screw you” out to google (this probably isn’t going to help with my Adsense appeal) and announce that a new ad company is now sponsoring Daddy’s Fish Bowl! I hope you enjoy and are able to find something useful from the content that they provide. Also, I’ve added a “donate button”. What exactly are you donating to? Probably my alcohol supply! You’ve seen the content of this site, and if you think that I can handle the mayhem of this household without a drink at the end of the night, then you are sadly mistaken! So go ahead, make a donation to the “Keep Keith Sane” fund!

Also, starting next Tuesday, Ty & Tre’s Toy Reviews will be returning.  They have quite of bit of information to share with you guys regarding their favorite play things, so I hope you are ready to hear all about it.  Something new to the site, which will be starting next week is the “Ask A Dad” section.  This new section will be designed to allow you, the reader to ask a Dad any questions that you’d like the answers too.  Whether it be parenting advice, toy suggestions, or what color socks I’m wearing today, send the questions in and it’ll be featured in this section. 

As always, please leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions on way that I can make this site better for you, the reader. Let me know if there are things I’m doing that don’t work for you, or if there are things that I’m not doing, which I should be.

First I’d like to send a HUGE thanks to Omarvelous from Kool Whips!  He’s the man behind the scenes.  Seeing as how I’m a horrible programmer, wait to be a horrible programmer you’d actually have to know a little code and be able to, um, program.  With that in mind, seeing as how I’m not a programmer at all, setting up this site was an extremely difficult task and Omarvelous stepped up and definitely helped me out.  He’s made so many changes, many that go unnoticed but are essential to the functionality of this blog.  Without him, I wouldn’t be here to provide your daily dose of wacky kid experiences, so show you’re appreciation and head on over to Kool Whips and explore.  He built Kool Whips from the ground up and it’s on track to become the next big social media outlet.  Get in early!

Next up, we have a brand spanking new theme song for Daddy’s Fish Bowl.  How cool is that?  My buddy over at Romelle Beats sampled the family’s voices from a few of the youtube vids and produced the track that you see in the sidebar to the right.  Give it a listen, it’s quite funny and fits right into the theme of the site.  Great job Romelle, definitely appreciate it!  Check out his site, it features a nice variety of tracks produced by Romelle himself; they are available for purchase so tell him Daddy’s Fish Bowl sent you to receive an awesome discount.  Well I made that last part up, but tell him anyway.

Another addition is the placement of advertising on the site.  Those little squares you see below posts are ads meant to sell things.  These aren’t my things that are being sold, but hopefully you’ll see something interesting & relevant.

Lastly, I’ve implemented an email system to notify you guys when someone has replied to one of your comments.  I find a lot of times that when I leave comments on a blog, I sometimes forget to go back and check to see if anyone has responded or if any additional comments have been left.  I think this is a nice addition and will help to grow the site’s community.

That’s all for now, let me know what you think.  Do you like the design? Are there things you would change?  Any suggestions for additions?  What do you think of the theme song?  Will emails notifying you of replies be a nuance?  What do you think of the length of the posts, are they too long, too short, just right?  Are there certain topics you’d like me to touch on?  Do you even care?  Lol, this is the type of feedback I’d like to get from you guys, because at the end of the day, I do it for you so I want to make sure you’re happy.

Don’t forget to check out today’s post: Attack of the 21lb Baby