Blink: High School Years

Blink: My middle schooler is now officially a high school 9th grader.

Blink: My 11th grader will in a few days be a high school senior.

Blink: The younger one is diagnosed with Behcets, a rare auto immune disorder. She's doing well, lowering her prednisone each week, diet changed - no sugar, wheat, dairy. We have excellent support and feel much better as a healthy family. Wow... that was pretty intense. I totally acknowledge my wife, she was fierce and so protective, it was a beautiful thing to behold.

Blink: Last week had 4 girls in bikinis and a dog on an isolated Nor Cal beach screaming as we all jumped into the freezing Pacific Ocean. Forgot my camera.

Blink: The recent super moon had me and again 4 teens down by the water at night. I brought my camera.

 

Blink: Working hard these days. I'm an artist and mostly work freelance, lots of digital art and enough traditional work to keep me happy. This summer I have work in a scenic shop near by on the island. Mostly paint and some light carpentry. Still I am hammered and totally beat by the end of the day, my hands are swollen and my forearms stressed. But it's great to have work in this economy, I get to bring my dog (best perk), I come home for lunch, and I hit the hot tub at the gym before and after work. And truth be told, I do a lot less of the day to day parenting and driving around. My wife and I are both freelancers, we usually share most domestic happenings.

 

Creating platforms for the California Academy of Science.

 My home office studio

 One of my other gigs - chalk drawing with elementary school kids. Oxford Elementary, Berkeley CA with my nonprofit 

 DRAWING on EARTH

Blink: My oldest JUST started driving. Took her almost a year to get her permit (she just turned 17 yesterday). My wife and I told her this was here own project to make happen. There is at times, a feeling of doing too much for her and damn, gotta kick her lazy butt out the door to have her experience and know that she can do things for herself - like even cook a meal. AND... she is a great driver. I've been teaching my girls how to drive since they were babies.

 

Zander

Blink: The drugs and alcohol have arrived. Both girls have basically overdosed on pot brownies. One of the problems with our culture is that there is no good education on doing these things that young people will do anyway. And yes they are illegal. They were both separate events, everyone was fine, and safe, they didn't know how much they were eating and how their bodies would be able to handle that amount. I did more than once a drive in the wee hours of the night to pick up my people and bring them home safely.

One moment was that someone drank too much. I brought them home late, they were totally without any balance. I'm walking her to our front gate from my truck and I can hear her belly begin to rumble. I reach for the gate, her balance and lack-of throws me a tad off balance and my dog happily stops right in front of us, tail wagging, ready to get into the front yard. I basically toss my daughter to one side while flinging the gate open saying... "DO NOT PUKE ON MY DOG!" She remembered me laughing. We always talk next day about what they learned, what they will do differently next time as they learn how better to take care of themselves.

 

27 Powers 

Creative Blessings to All, especially to all Parents, and especially to all Dad.

The Art of Being a Dad

Drawing on Earth

Hearts & Bones Studio

Things Change Fast

In a week my youngest landed in Children's Hospital with what now appears to be an auto immune disease. The support both with doctors, friends, and family has been incredible. My wife's been through a lot and was a total warrior mom through the whole thing. We are all well now and we still don't know what the bigger picture will be like or whats really happening yet. Strange....

 

One night I sat alone by my sleeping kid in the hospital and felt pretty powerless. I had a vision and the next morning painted this. My daughter is in the middle with healing hands all around her. The hands had leafs, water, lightning, animal eyes, and elemental energies Then at the hospital we got everyone to sign it with white pencil, doctors, friends. Sweet as it is!

 

~Dad

Magic Tears of Teens

Tear from teens, both of them. One because I awkwardly talked about eating what good for one's body - feelings got triggered, I felt terrible and got quiet. Luckily my wife jumped in and worked her magic. Yesterday the other teen got sideswiped by some of her girlfriends at school and came home in tears. Luckily again her mom jumped in and worked her supportive magic.

I drove both girls to school today, different trips, different schools. And I worked my magic, talked, apologized, strategized, made the effort to connect and for them to know I was here, showing up, falling down, getting up, but always being here for them, with them, having their backs in many ways, even if at times it doesn't look like it.

~Dad

I Knew the Day Would Come.

I knew the day would come when from the laundry I wouldn't be able to tell which was my wife's underwear and which was my daughters. It happened. Geez, time... she'll be in college in another year!
~Dad

iBook - The Art of Being a Dad $4.99

Oh I am so psyched. I just found out that my dad book can be sold as an iBook for the iPad, iPhone, iTouch. And for a whopping $3.99 - it looks great on the iPad!

www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2238766

Miss Representation

Watch it!

Birthday Paintings

Each birthday, for both of my girls (now teens), I create a small painting from their request. This is a 2 hour painting that I was working on at the strike of midnight New Years Eve - loved that I was painting at midnight and it wasn't until 1/2 hour later that I even noticed that 2012 was here.

~Dad

I've been thinking my dad book is too expensive as a on-demand book @ Blurb. I'm looking into electroncially publishing it through Kindle at Amazon - that's exciting! Stay tuned - buy a book!

~Mark

www.theartofbeingadad.com