Our big crew loves creating family memories.

One thing I’ve always been big on is documentation. Whether it’s with the written word, pictures or videos, capturing memories is important to me, never more so now that I have kids. Often, I’ll take whatever video and photographs I’ve managed to capture of a particular event, then cut, splice and rearrange them until I’ve come up with a movie that I hope will capture the essence of what just happened.

Now that the triplets are getting a bit older, they’ve taken to such movies, even more than I would have thought. They’re always wanting to see the one of Daddy’s Appalachian Trail backpacking trip, or the one I made when I took Alli boat camping last summer. But their very favorite home movie of all is NOT one that documents a red-letter event. Nope. It’s one that captured something quite mundane — a random night they spent with their daddy when they were 18 months old. Caroline had taken Alli to soccer practice which left yours truly in charge of the wee threesome during the whole bath / dinner / bedtime gauntlet. And things didn’t start off so well.

All the better to lick you with.

My chocolate Lab, Briggs, is quite a bouncy fellow, even at nine-and-a-half. Unlike many of his peers, he’s not encumbered by arthritis, nor is he carrying any extra poundage that might bring on or exacerbate such a condition. Nope. He’s as fit as a fiddle which might help explain his legendary energy level. And that energy level, in turn, might help explain why he causes so many…situations.

Did I mention that my wife is allergic to dogs? And that I owned Briggs before she and I ever met? Such circumstances, it seems, have made Caroline and Briggs friendly adversaries of sorts. Don’t get me wrong. Caroline loves Briggs. But she grows frustrated with his frequent shenanigans, so much so that she’s given him a special moniker.

So there I was, minding my own business, slowly but surely becoming “that guy” who bounced from one dysfunctional six-month relationship to the next, when I re-met a girl I’d gone to high school with. But not just any girl–a special girl whom I’d always found extremely attractive in so many different ways. I’m speaking, of course, of Caroline.

No problem, right? I mean, “that guy” has been there before, so just dust off a bit of charm and see what happens, right?

Wrong. Because Caroline was a single mom. And given my train-wreck-laden track record in the romance department, I knew I needed a different approach, especially considering there was a little girl involved. One who’d suffered the permanent scar that comes with a broken home.

Nearly a decade later, I’m still sometimes shocked that it all worked out. But it did, and I think one reason is the approach I wound up taking. I’m not saying it’s the right approach for everyone in such a situation, but I am saying that it worked for us. And it started before we ever even went out on a single date.

So, Alli, if you’re reading, here’s the step-by-step breakdown of how I met (then married) your (single) mother.

Each and every year we get a Christmas card from a childless couple that proudly features their two wiener dogs, usually sporting some type of wacky outfit . You know why those dogs are front and center on the Christmas cards? Because they’re like kids to that couple. Before I had kids, I definitely considered Briggs (my chocolate Lab) to be my child. But now that I’ve got like 14 of them, I no longer consider Briggs to be my child. A member of the family, to be certain, but not my child.

Still, I totally get why many view their pets as children. And, what’s more, it has recently occurred to me that dogs and infants really are a lot alike. Which begs the question: who has the advantage? Dogs or infants?

Whenever someone asks me what it’s like to have so many young children, I always say the same thing: our life is dense with transactions. My poor wife handles the majority of them, especially during the week.

But I’m no slouch, as evidenced by my constant willingness to help out in any number of departments, laundry being chief among them. Only I’m not allowed to actually do the laundry. The vast array of pinkish t-shirts and socks I brought into my marriage, more than enough to earn me a lifetime ban on any such attempt.

But I can still dry with the best of them. And folding? I’m a wizard, y’all. Or so I always thought, until I recently caught Caroline refolding laundry that I’d already folded. And maybe I was wearing my sensitive panties, but it kinda hurt, almost like she was intentionally putting the FU in Folding laUndry.

Humor. It makes me laugh, you know. Findable in so many scenarios, humor is. Often those which are completely unexpected. But more than just unexpected. Counterintuitive, too. Like when you see or hear something that is in direct opposition to what you would have thought you’d see or hear. Which is why it’s always hard for me to not laugh whenever I hear a little kid channeling his inner Richard Pryor.

I know. Kids shouldn’t cuss. And laughing when a child does might make some consider us bad parents. But it also makes us human. And humans are inherently flawed. So there’s that.

And there’s also this — 15 stories I’ve collected from personal experience or from my fellow parents which I think are highly entertaining. A word to the wise, however: I’d not click through this slideshow if I were the easily offended type. For the rest of you, however, click away. And when you’re done, how about sharing one of your own profane moments in the comments? We’d love to hear from you!

Have you ever had to come up with a mission statement? Back when I worked for GE Capital, it seemed we had mission statements for everything. And when a business partner and I started a granite countertop company in 2003, I found myself pondering mission statements once again.

Shortly after the triplets were born, something occurred to me. Given that I was no stranger to crafting mission statements for various enterprises, shouldn’t the institution of parenting be one of them? I decided it should be, so I came up with one. And just last week, I got curious as to what some of the other Babble writers would come up with if they crafted a mission statement of their own.

This is the part where I tell you that I’m only 50-50 on mission statements. Because, let’s face it, to an extent, they’re hokey. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks so. In fact, in soliciting responses, I got the following one from Kid Scoop writer Buzz Bishop (aka Dad Camp): “My parenting mission statement is I have no mission statement. Is there anything wrong with ‘ad lib parenting?’ ”

Nothing wrong with it at all. But the one thing that’s extremely cool about going through the formality of creating a mission statement is that it really does make you think about what you’re trying to accomplish. So, to that end, I found the exercise to be a fun one — way more fun than the corporate statements I created. And some of my colleagues here seemed to have fun with them, too. Check out these great responses I got, and as you do, be thinking about what your parental mission statement would be.

UPDATE: Thanks to some good ol’ fashioned email snafus, I never received the mission statement that Tanis Miller was good enough to submit. So I’ve  just added it to the list and decided it deserved to go first, for several reasons, my admiration for Tanis and the perspective it lends being chief among them.

I'm not afraid to cook over an open fire.

UPDATE:  There’s a cool piece up on ABC News dot com today about how most kids aren’t getting outdoors enough. It actually links back to this post and quotes me a time or two. It’s entitled Too Few Kids Getting Outdoors with Mom or Dad and is a bit of an eyeopener. Check it out by clicking HERE.

***

Very early into my engagement to Caroline, I felt the need to make something abundantly clear. After all, forever’s a long time, and I didn’t want to spend it fighting over something which I hadn’t done a good enough job of communicating.

“Some guys play golf on Saturdays,” I said. “Others go dove hunting every weekend in the fall. Me? I go camping.”

“Oh, don’t worry, honey,” she said. “I’ll still allow you to play Eagle Scout in the woods with your little buddies. Just don’t expect me to go, though. My idea of camping out is ordering room service at the Ritz.”

Guess who loves to camp now? The Ritz girl, herself. And guess how I got to her? Why, through her daughter, of course!

Are you a monster if you share intimate details of your family online?

Have you ever made small talk with an acquaintance only to have that individual tell you something so personal that it made you uncomfortable? I ran into this guy once whom I’d met at a party and hadn’t seen since. I shook his hand and asked how he’d been. Not that great. My wife caught me cheating. Pretty sure she’s gonna leave me.

What to say? I’m so sorry. Keep your head up. Everything happens for a reason. He countered my clichés with sordid details about his “hot” mistress while I hoped that the unwanted conversation would quickly run its course. I felt…violated? Probably the wrong word, but the feeling was certainly in that neighborhood. I felt he’d infringed upon me by offering such private (and unwanted) information.

I obsessed over the encounter for a week, vacillating between feeling like a victim and a jerk. After all, he was obviously hurting and just needed to air things out. To publicly own something awful he’d done. Who was I to begrudge him for that?

The circle of life. We’re born dependent, then become independent, often encumbered with a few dependents of our own about the same time the once-independent people who ushered us to our independence become dependent upon us. Kinda confusing, but not as confusing as why I ever thought that puka-bead necklace I’m wearing in that picture was a good look. Because it wasn’t.

But don’t focus on that. Focus, instead, on my sweet parents. My mom is alive and well at age 83, still sharp as a tack. But my dad died about ten years ago. Shortly after that picture was taken, in fact. I was the consummate bachelor back then, which meant that he missed my full circle. Because, like him, I ended up marrying a single mom. And like him, at age 42, I welcomed a surprise child to the world. Like him, it was my fifth and final child. The surprise, fifth child dad had when he was 42? Yours truly.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m out to copy everything my dad ever did. Because he was a bit of a character and there are certain of his habits that this character could probably do without. Here are seven of them.