Dads in the Limelight ( #limelightdads ) – Mike Armstrong ( @mikedaddyreal ) #dadchat

What’s up! First, I just wanted to say that it is real cool to be apart of such a great, longunning series, that’s featured some amazing people!

I’m from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Husband and dad, with a day job at a lumber distribution company.  Recently, in my spare time, I’ve become involved in the world of Dad Bloggers with my blog, daddyrealness.com.  It’s mainly me talking about some of the difficulties I’ve experienced as a parent, with a humorous spin. Well, humorous to me, anyway.

I’ve been married for five years now to my awesome wife, who’s a school teacher. We have a son, who’s four years old, and is the maniac in our family, and a daughter, who’s two, and is the sassy one in the house.  We got the blended family thing going on, as I’m black, and my wife is white.

Man, it was definitely that initial period after our son was born, and actually being a father.  Becoming a parent was a huge adjustment.  Going from living life one way, to doing basically a 180, because you’re now responsible for this tiny, totally dependent human being who you love more than anything, was hard. With our daughter, there was still a big adjustment, but it wasn’t as extreme. It was just different.

There’s so much advice and information out there, that it can really seem like other fathers have it easier than you do (Cheap plug! I wrote a post about this recently, where I sought some advice, and the tips that I got didn’t work out so well: http://daddyrealness.com/?p=622).  I would say to other fathers – be patient, and don’t let other people’s situations get you down. I’m sure that we all struggle differently, so all that we can do is find out what works for dealing with our own kids, and go with it.

Luckily, my wife is a teacher, so she is the one with the organizational skills in our household! We both work five days a week during the day, so we are home during the evenings and on weekends. From there, we’re a pretty active family.  Something is almost always going on. Family comes first, of course, and I try to spend as much time with the kids as I can.   I do think it’s important to make a little bit of time for yourself too, though. My wife and I both get involved in various activities occasionally (mainly sports), on our own, just for that little bit of down time.

It ain’t easy, it’s a constant struggle, but it’s the greatest feeling in the world……thus far!

I think, like a lot of fathers, the most memorable experiences have been the ‘firsts’.

The first steps, first words, first day of school, first time someone looked at my son and asked how old ‘she’ was, first time my son hit me in the groin as a joke, first time my daughter rolled her eyes like a teenager and said “No, daddy!” etc.  Stuff like that, I’ll remember forever.