Charm City Moms: What our Guest Dads want for Father's Day - A blog for Maryland parents by The Baltimore Sun's Kate Shatzkin

It's the Father's Day Friday before Father's Day, and I thought I'd celebrate by asking some of the fathers who've been our Guest Dads to tell us what they would like as gifts on Sunday.

Here goes:

--Oren Miller, of A Blogger and A Father: "With all due respect to the little one, and even with acknowledging the slight irony, my Father's Day present from my wife would be to hand the baby off to his grandmother for the night while his parents go to see The Hangover."

--Dad-in-residence Joe Burris: "For Father’s Day I’d like a replica jersey of the late Josh Gibson, catcher for the Negro Leagues Baseball team, the Homestead Grays. Gibson was one of the most prolific hitters of all time of any league, with a lifetime batting average of .354 with nearly 800 home runs. I’ve been coveting his jersey for some time, but it’s not an easy find. I’ve got my fingers crossed."

--Joeprah, of Dad-blogs.com: "As a stay-at-home-dad, what I really want is just some time to relax. It would be awesome to sleep-in until noon and wake-up to some smiling faces, breakfast-in-bed and homemade cards. My ultimate Father's Day would include a day-off from parenting and some sort of baked goods. To wrap the day up, I would love to just hang out and watch the US Open with some cold soda, hot pizza, my wife and three girls. That sounds like heaven to me."

--Daniel Waldman (dwplanit on Twitter): "For dad's day, I'd like: breakfast in bed, a card made by my daughters, and the Mediterranean Street Food cookbook I've been eyeing."

--Hungover Gourmet Dan Taylor: "I don't envy my wife because shopping for me can't be easy. From music and trashy movies to supermarkets and cookbooks my interests are all over the place and it can be hard to keep pace with what I'm intrigued by at the moment. But there are some constants, like grilling and horror. So two of the top items on my list are the new cookbook SERIOUS BARBECUE by Adam Perry Lang of New York's Daisy May's and the second season of the syndicated and underrated TV show FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE TV SERIES. It has nothing to do with Jason and everything to do with 80s horror."

--Maryland Legal Aid Bureau's Peter Sabonis: "30 minutes of conversation with my Dad, who died 17 years before I became a father. Or a beer."

--Multimedia editor Steve Sullivan: "The best gift I can think of is simply the opportunity to be a dad. I'll take a hug or a handshake and that will make me happy for the whole day." (Me: Aw.)

--And deputy opinion editor Michael Cross-Barnet needs the whole rest of this post to explain why he actually wants a tie:

"I want a tie for Father's Day. Maybe two.

"No, this is not a joke.

"For a while -- say, roughly the last 42 years -- ties did not figure significantly in my life. Sure, I owned some. Even wore them now and then. Not often, but more frequently than my uncle, who so loathed this particular male adornment that he refused to wear one even to his daughter's wedding.

"Then, a little more than a month ago, I was promoted to a management position and thought to myself: gotta start wearing a tie. It's the professional look, right? Now, every weekday before leaving the house (except Fridays), the last thing I do is make a Windsor knot while staring into the hall mirror, and I'm off.

"Like most men of a certain age, I own a rack full of ties. But quantity is not quality. Most of them are various shades of dark blue, some with greyish highlights. In other words: blah. Many of them have seen better days. A few are "fun," like the one I have on at this moment: yellow and green fish and red coral on a light blue background. Then there's my favorite, my Orioles tie, which I only wear twice a year: on Opening Day and when the O's win the World Series. (OK, a little less than twice a year.)

"A confession: According to my wife and kids, my sartorial choices are not always up to snuff. On most days, I can match a shirt (white goes with everything, yes?) with a pair of pants (ditto, black) without thoroughly embarrassing myself. Add a third element, a tie, to the mix and the results can be dubious. Hey, pink and light green are both pastel colors, aren't they?

"In a store the other day, I was fingering what I thought was a perfectly pleasant little number consisting of understated brown and yellow stripes. Then I caught my wife eyeing me from across the room, shaking her head. "This goes with several shirts I own," I protested. More head shaking. "What about that tan, long-sleeved shirt?" No way, her eyes said.

"So, to my dear family members, here's the situation: It's almost Father's Day. I need more ties. I have clearly been judged incompetent to buy them myself. I already own more books than I'll ever read. And I don't play golf.

"Go for it!"

June 19, 2009

What our Guest Dads want for Father's Day

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