GUEST DAD: Tyson Stiles (Cleveland, OH)

I am Tyson Stiles, a 30 year old single, soon-to-be married, father of the hippest 4 year old boy ever, my son Trynter.  We are from the Cleveland, OH area, which basically means we spend most of our time indoors staying dry, shoveling snow, playing Batman and Robin, making music, and wrestling.  This is a little post about what it means to me to be a father.

Someone once told me that kids just want your time.  It’s really that simple; give your sons and daughters your time.  In our life that means dressing up for Halloween together, dive bombing off of my bed (no major injuries…yet), or maybe veg’ing out and playing some video games.  The activity itself doesn’t really matter; what matters is that we spend time with our children.    

Being a single father has had its rough moments and I do believe it’s helped in creating a huge bond between my son and I that may not have been as strong otherwise.  We’ve now spent many hours together over the past 3 years and that bond grows tighter and tighter every day.  Just recently I was finally able to bring Tryn with me to one of my band’s concerts (we played a youth retreat…he doesn’t go to the bars with me!) and we had a total blast.  It was such a special moment for me to look out in the crowd and see my son dancing with a glow stick waving above his head, rocking out to his dad’s tunes.  Want to know the best part though?  When we’re driving along, heading to wherever, I hear this four year old voice in the backseat of my car saying “Hey Dad?  Remember your concert where you played guitar and I was dancing?  That was super cool”.  My heart melts because I know (since I was a son once myself…) that specific memory is burned into his soul.  

Dads:  we are larger than life to our children.  Our sons and daughters will never have a bigger influence in their lives, no greater impression will ever be made, and no one could possibly replace you.  Continue to be there for your children, be the sidekick, be the punching bag, and be the largest person at the tea party.  Most importantly, continue to be there.

If you'd like to read more from Tyson please visit his blog "Live.Love.Appreciate". Tyson is also in the band The Hearts which rule, check em out!

GUEST DAD: Jorge Narvaez

Hi everybody! My name is Jorge Narvaez and this is my definition of family, not my quote though:


"The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together" -Unknown

So yea, I'm the awesome young 24 year-old father Alexa and Eliana Narvaez and we absolutely LOVE music. So much, that we posted a video of us doing a cover and it went viral!!!. So now we have an awesome thing going on our YouTube channel. What!!!? You didnt know?? Oh OK i see i see. That's cool homie! I get it. :(........ NO im kidding so yea. There have been awesome episodes in our lives, but this one that occurred on YouTube has been the most awesome one. So far we have over 18.5 million views on our channel in less than 3 months and climbing.

Being a single father is not easy but its freaking awesome because we learn from each other as we go along everyday. Bond? Dude, the bond with my daughters is very powerful and I'm not exaggerating. We're very close and trust each other with everything we do. Music is like the glue that keeps us together and reminds us that being a family that broke apart is not the end, but just the beginning of a different but wonderful life. I hope you all take a look at our channel and become of our journey. Please enjoy this awesome bog about AWESOME DADS OUT THERE. Take care everybody and good luck with everything!!!!!!! -Jorge N.


p.s. if you haven't seen the video Jorge is talking about, you must be living under a rock - but here it is (prepare to die of cuteness)

Hello, my name is Craig. Welcome to “The Hipster Dad”.

For the past twenty minutes I have been looking at other blog’s “first posts” to try and find some inspiration for writing this damn thing. After looking at 10 or 15 I have decided, I’m just gonna wing it. My name is Craig and I am a Dad. 19 months ago my first daughter, Sierra, was born at the Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston and it was the biggest life-changer since discovering the blue album by Weezer when I was 8.

I am 24, going on 25, and living in Boston with Lauren (my baby-mama) and the cutest little toddler you have ever seen. I am a graphic designer who runs his own business but also have a degree in art education (but good luck finding a job teaching these days). Our apartment is littered with books, records and toys. We are vegan, big supporters of breastfeeding and don’t let Sierra watch TV. Yes, I’m one of those parents!

I started this blog with my BDF (best dad friend) Michael because we think being Dads rules and are sick of the bad rap dads get. Oh yeah and we wanted an outlet to show off our insanely awesome spawn. One thing you realize about parenting is it’s a women’s world out there. With this blog, and our hands on parenting, we hope to break down the stereotype / stigma around Dads’ roles. Hope you enjoy the blog!

“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” - Sigmond Freud