Parent of the Year (POTY) Competition

Each year since Owen was born, we have bestowed upon a lucky parent in our house a Parent of the Year (POTY) award. Competition among the two fairly competitive nominees has always been fierce. Sadly, I have only been able to eke out a victory once, in 2004, largely on the strength of my willingness to continue to get up in the middle of the night for bottle feedings while Deanna, who needs more sleep than me, slumbered happily on. My narrow victory was of course helped along by my arsenal of other parenting skills (such as my unique ability to quickly dress a struggling baby/toddler) and innovations (such as the creation of "the knockout punch" - essentially getting then-baby Owen to regularly fall asleep with the aid of a final extra two ounces of formula after an earlier pre-bedtime bottle). Other years have not featured such close battles. Deanna has successfully (fine, deservedly) played the "pregnancy/giving birth" card to propel her to easy victories in 2003 and 2006. In the face of carrying around 13-odd pounds of babies while moving, setting up a new household, mothering then three-year old Owen, and holding down a demanding full-time job (including working late the night before giving birth to said 13 odd-pounds of twinage), my clear edge in lesser categories such as "skill at swaddling" and "most animated interpretations of children's books" just didn't seem to get me much traction with the voters. 2005 was a closer contest but, despite a year of solid parenting, I found myself once again giving my "happy just to have been nominated" speech to the largely uninterested crowd in the press room.

This year, however, readers o' mine, I have my eyes set firmly on the prize once again. Sure, Hayden's poop-eating incident and Christmas ornament glass eating incident have both been on my watch, but I am optimistic that those hiccups (non-poop scented, if you are lucky) in my record will be overlooked in favor of what has been a year of outstanding parenting. This is my time. Stay tuned for further developments.