I know that envy is one of the seven deadly sins and not particularly attractive, nevertheless I have more than a passing acquaintance with the emotion. I have come to accept this flaw in my distinctively and tremendously flawed personality. A plus for me is that I am young enough to grow and learn from it, old enough to know that learning from it is the key.

The object of my envy is simple: Superdads. I wish I had the confidence in my parenting skills to deem myself “Super.” Unfortunately if I were to tear off my shirt, popping buttons in one testosterone-fueled? gesture, you wouldn’t discover a big red S. All you’d find is a little man-hair, a lot of unseemly flesh and the heartbeat of a regular guy that desires nothing more than to on day don the cape. The reality is that I’m more like Bizarro Superdad – I possess many of the attributes of Superdad, but I’m kind of a mess.

I’m the devoted dad of of a child with a trailer load of personality, emotion, energy, and budding genius. When I am at my best I don’t always say or do the right thing, but I sometimes come pretty close. When my wife and I make a decision about Dev we start with love first, then work it out from there. We have dodged some bullets as some of you may know, but I am acutely aware of the fact that this is only the beginning.?

I wasn’t prepared for this “daddy” experience, though I’m not sure how much you can prepare for something like parenting. Every child is unique and you never truly know how you will mange one until you are in the middle of it. Even if you have four kids like my parents did, what worked with number one may not work with number three.

It’s kind of like Obama taking office. The other candidates can talk about experience all they want but no one on this earth has ever taken over a country from President Bush that is in war in the Mid East (yes Iraq and Afghanistan), post Hurricane Katrina, post 9/11, or at a time when the internet bubble has long since burst and the housing market is in the toilet (I could go on and on). The same way no one has ever parented my son.

I am writing this post as a form of catharsis because I too get weary from the? grind of being a dad. I share my stories because my gut tells me that there are plenty of dads out there who can relate. The fact is that we can learn a lot from the Superdads out there, and I have, but we can also learn a good deal from each other.?