Dad, too

It's late Tuesday, and only now, some 36 hours after my plane left New Orleans, am I able to let my brain linger on my five excessive days at the Mom 2.0 Summit. The boys are on Spring Break, and since I picked them up the moment I got home, I've had to shift rather abruptly back into Referee Mode. Which is fine with me; otherwise, it would be way too easy to think wistfully about all that bottomless everything.

If you've never been to Mom 2.0, you should know that New Orleans was the perfect venue for it. During its first two years in Houston, the conference emerged as the place to work hard and play harder, thanks to the who's-who of attendees and the what's-what of recreation. This was the year Mom 2.0 let her hair down, threw her heels off, and danced in the street. It was also the year she decided to give back by creating a philanthropic wing, establishing a writing grant, and (at its most charitable) inviting me to organize some Dad Content.

Naturally, having never done anything like this before, I was nervous as hell. But I was also intrigued by the opportunity to bring together a lot of dads whom I hadn't seen speak before. And after the day was over, and I had the chance to get shitfaced hang out with these guys, and talk about their wives, their kids, the bands they rock out to when the house is empty, I thought the world of Parents Who Blog can use more of this.

Sometimes you get so full of gratitude that you don't know where to start. But I owe huge thanks to Laura and Carrie for having us in. To Jon and Jim for showing us you can build great content without giving much of a shit about twitfollowing and faceliking. To Catherine, who filled in when Tanis's plane was snowbound. To Andy and Clay, who are about as affable as a man gets. To Whit, who can rise from the table at 4am and say, "Now what?" To John, who drove more than 1,000 miles round-trip and left early to be with his pink-eyed triplets. To Caleb and his deceptive youth, Ron and the birthday he spent in his Richard Marx t-shirt, Jim and his new book. To Kristen, who withstood harried texts from her childbound husband, and Renee, who made me love prunes all over again.

One of the dad panels was called, "Do Dads Want What Moms Have?" The title is admittedly vague, but I liked it because of the myriad directions the conversation could follow. At some point, I figured, the moment would arrive where we'd all understand just What Moms Have.

For me, that moment came on Saturday night, when John and I were called upon to announce that the Dad 2.0 Summit was an official thing. As we splashed the logo on the big screen, and 450 intelligent, supportive, creative, and talented people let loose a roaring cheer, it was suddenly clear what mombloggers have achieved.

If dadbloggers rally together and work hard, that's exactly what we can have. And what we'll deserve to be.