Thought I’d share this — it has nothing, and everything, to do with Dadditude.
It’s a video I made about theraputic riding for autistic children. The little girl I worked with is quite amazing. You should see.

December 3 2007

There comes a time in every father’s life that he has to face the tough, tough moment.
Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s frightening. Yes, there are flying monkeys.
But yes, at some point, you have to watch The Wizard of Oz.
I’ve been avoiding it — let’s face it, we all love that movie, but is there anything more terrifying than the Wicked Witch to a five-year-old? Well, having to take a bath when you’re not done playing Leapster, true. But besides that. My friend Scott watched that movie exactly once, and was so terrified he never tried again. He is now nearly 50. And still won’t try.
However, ever since Max turned five-and-a-half a few weeks ago, I knew I was putting this off too long.
I was singing along to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” when Max turned to me and asked, “Daddy, have you seen this movie before?” I explained that I grew up in in the days before VCRs and DVDs — a fact he is certain could not possibly be true — but the movie came on once a year, and every year I watched it with my sister and my mommy and daddy.
Max did not understand why I started crying then, so he turned back to the TV.
He was a little shaky at the poison poppies (”Daddy! What is the witch doing to them!”) but otherwise made it through OK (better than I did, I guess). His favorite was Glinda, the Good Witch (”She was so beautiful, I thought she was a princess”). But when we went to bed, he said, “Daddy, tell me a Wizard of Oz story. But leave out the scary parts.”
So I did. I told the story of the time the Wizard of Oz gave everybody vanilla ice cream.
As he started to doze, Max asked one of those questions that makes him Max.
“Daddy?” he said. “Where does the Red Brick Road go?”
It took me a minute to figure out what he meant. But then it hit me: Around the yellow brick road is a border, which is made of red bricks. If you look at them just so, they could seem like a separate road.
“I don’t know, Max.”
“Did they make a movie where they tell her to follow the Red Brick Road?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody ever asked before, I guess.”
“Why not?”
Good question, my son. Good question.
I wasn’t sure what else I could tell him — but someday, I’ll figure out how to let him know how glad I am that he follows a different path.

March 31 2007
For those who’ve seen the idyllic pictures of tourists strolling by the beautiful cherry blossoms here in DC this weekend, here’s what it’s really like.
We knew from previous years that it’s impossible to drive down to the Mall when the cherry blossoms bloom. We forgot that it’s also impossible to take the Metro and breathe at the same time.
Packed like sardines coming from a Yankee game — and cranky from that mixed metaphor — we were in a lousy mood by the time we got to Smithsonian Station. Max announced, after walking exactly halfway to the Tidal Basin, that he absolutely could not walk any further. We dragged and cajoled and bribed him for the remaining four blocks, and finally made it to the cherry blossoms. They are indeed, spectacular, which, to a four-year-old, is entirely underwhelming.
We intended to make the loop around to the Jefferson Memorial, for the most spectacular view, looking back toward the Washington Monument. I tried to take pictures of Max; he refused to stop making funny faces; neither of us thought the other was being the least bit reasonable. Finally, Max announced, in the emphasize-every-syllable voice that only a four year old can pull off with precision, “I! DON’T! WANT! TO! WALK! ANYMORE!” — and of course we argued some more and then….
… we sat. We sat under a beautiful cherry blossom, in the shade. And we did… nothing.
And it was lovely.
We gave up on the cherry blossom walk, and headed
back to the metro, passing the Department of Agriculture, where Max insisted we read every commemorative plaque to him, identifying every tree (Bradford Pear. White Fringe. American Chestnut, planted in honor of Martin Luther King. Bald Cypress, planted in honor of those who lost their lives in a grain elevator accident while working for the Federal Grain Inspection Service).
There was a kite-flying exhibit going on behind us on the Mall, and Max was upset that he did not have a kite, but then his face brightened. “I’m a kite!” he yelled. “Mommy, fly me!” And he ran up the hill, diving and swooping like the kites above him, and turned around for Mommy to reel him in, and laughed, and laughed, and did it all again.
It was not at all how I’d planned to spend the day.
But it was a great day nevertheless.
This is a lesson I seem to need to learn again, and again, and again.

Max stops making funny faces for 1/14 of a second.

Well, I think there are about five of you who might actually be reading this first blog, so let me just first welcome you aboard, and ask you to let me know, at some point, what you think of the site.

Since this is the place I’ll be noting little goings-on in the lives of Me, Max, and occasionally Rachel and Anna (don’t worry, Anna — I’ll spare you from any MAJOR embarrassment), I’ll just tell you that today was a beautiful day, and I put the top down and picked up Max from school and as we pulled away we started blasting “Crazy ‘Bout A Mercury” by David Linley (currently in our high rotation), and I said, Max, it’s a great day, isn’t it,”and he looked up at the sky, and said, “God is doing this.”

I asked him how he knew that.
He said the camera in his brain sent him an e-mail.
I always wondered how that happens.
Now we know.

And so it begins….

PHILIP LERMAN, author of the upcoming book “Dadditude,” was for 15 years a producer of FOX-TV’s hit series America’s Most Wanted, one of the longest-running prime-time programs in TV history.

Lerman is the co-author of John Walsh’s book “No Mercy,” which reached The New York Times paperback bestseller list, as well as Walsh’s latest book, “Public Enemies.” He also co-authored two other non-fiction books: “Tracking Tomorrow’s Trends,” which analyzed hundreds of surveys to paint a portrait of the American psyche; and “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”, which traced the Woodstock generation in the decades after Woodstock, and included definitive interviews with such characters as Abbie Hoffman and Ken Kesey.

Lerman began his career as city editor of The Ithaca Journal and assistant city editor of the Rochester Times-Union, two award-winning newspapers in upstate New York, before heading for Washington, D.C. in 1983 to join the upstart staff of an unknown, fledgling national daily called USA TODAY, where he became the newspaper’s national editor. When the paper launched “USA TODAY: THE TELEVISON SHOW,” Lerman served as the show’s head writer.

After that show was terminated, Lerman went on to join America’s Most Wanted, first as managing editor, later as co-executive producer, supervising the show’s producers and writers. Lerman calls his years with America’s Most Wanted “the most fascinating and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. There aren’t many jobs in television that allow you to help people, to actually change people’s lives for the better, to bring home missing children and help crime victims find closure and justice. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

For the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1993, Lerman produced “Who Killed Martin Luther King?” a one-hour special on FOX. The program cast new doubts on the guilt of James Earl Ray.

Lerman, a native of The Bronx, New York, lives in Washington with his wife, teenaged stepdaughter, 4-year-old son, and an obsessive-compulsive dog.

“Too often, when the going gets tough — or different than you’d expected — the first thing to go is your sense of humor. How lucky for Max Lerman that his dad maintained his! How lucky for readers that Max came along and inspired such a loving, heartfelt, and funny memoir of becoming a real man: a good father.”

–Jenny McCarthy, author of Belly Laughs and Baby Laughs

“What happens when a warm-hearted tough-talking sports-loving guy becomes a midlife father? This honest, charming, and very funny tell-all is the perfect gift for expectant dads, new dads, and grownup guys wondering whether they are really ready for the joy and the chaos of having a baby.”

–Carol Weston, author of From Here to Maternity and Girltalk: All the Stuff Your Sister Never Told You

“In Dadditude, Phil Lerman tells us the unvarnished truth about the trials of being an older parent. It isn’t always pretty, but there’s a laugh on every page. Sometimes there are four laughs on a page. Perhaps the true value of the book is that the author allows us to join his family, which seems bathed in love. His son, Max, is a lucky kid, and we’re all lucky to have Dadditude.”

–Joanna Cole, author of The Magic School Bus series