Today the Church universal celebrates the feast day of St. Thomas. This is special to us, of course, as Thomas Xavier is the name we gave our first-born son. Here's a picture of him, yesterday at the Zoo, showing me how the one-legged bird stands on one leg.

In a marvelous way God's mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master's body, should heal our own wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ's wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the Resurrection.

Today was my first of 11 days in a row off work. Although Suzanne still worked today (and tomorrow), I still used it as day one of our little "Staycation" of the coming week. So I left Matthew with Mary and used the day to take Thomas to the Zoo solo. We had registered him for another of their educational programs - this one a 1 1/2 hour session titled "Habitat Discoveries."

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Very special, and prayerful, wishes to all my fellow dads for a very happy Fathers' Day with your families today.

Today, Suzanne and I returned to an annual summer ritual: We took the day off work to take the boys to Circus Flora's "Little Top Wednesday" abbreviated matinee for kids. It's about an hour long (shorter than the full evening circus) and the boys loved it. If you have kids, definitely take them. If you don't, definitely make an evening show before the St. Louis run is done for the year and they move on to other places.

Was he building a tree house? Taking a shower? Running a 5K? Practicing sparring with his big brothers? Saying Mass? Playing the guitar? Doing a little praise and worship? Conducting a symphony?

Let's say, hypothetically, that you had an opportunity to interview a married couple - a husband and wife of 5 years, or 10 years, or 30, or 50 years.

Real life conversations with a 3 1/2 year old. From the Halbrook household this evening:

Okay, here's a question for all of my parent friends out there... both the ones who raised our generation, and the ones who are raising kids now:

Today, from our parish church, Mr. George Yevin was carried to his final resting place. He passed away last week at 95. His life was celebrated and his soul prayed for at a funeral Mass... I was unable to attend due to my work schedule, but wish I could have.

...He can write his name...

You know CNN isn't my favorite. But when they post a commentary titled "Man up and be a real dad", I even perk up. 

Last year, we started a nice tradition in our family. I was honored to be one of the twelve who had my feet washed by Father at the Holy Thursday Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper. Thomas was intrigued and, on the way home, asked if I would wash his feet. So I washed his, and Matthew's and Suzanne's. It was wonderful and I blogged about it.

And if it was, he's likely still sleeping on the couch tonight...

A very young couple (the husband was 26 and the wife 24) and the baby that they were expecting were killed yesterday here in Granite City. It's such a sad - but unfathomably common - story: the accident in which they lost their lives involved two other vehicles, both driven by drunk drivers.

Prodigal John over at Stuff Christians Like posted a funny one yesterday - all about the idea of "Getting Single People Married as Fast as Possible." It starts off funny:

It's the least we can do right? I mean as married people, people that have been blessed with the gift of marriage, "complete people" if you will as evidenced by that incredibly accurate line in the move Jerry Maguire, we kind of have an unspoken obligation to get our single friends married off as fast as possible.

And gets even better from there, highlighting three very laudable steps we should take to help showcase the joys of the married life:

1. Always tell your single friends that marriage is awesome - because, of course, it is, and the more encouragement they get of that, the more likely they'll want what we have.
2. Start every sentence with "my husband" or "my wife" - keep the awesomeness top-of-mind.
   
3. When they describe their weekend, always reply with "awww" - as in "awwwww... I'm so sorry you didn't have a life companion to share that [excitement or sadness] with.
   
4. Don't let them throw the Paul card - because although Paul wasn't married, they're still not following in his footsteps, unless they're "shipwrecked, stoned and make tents."
5. Plan fantastic singles events - show them how happy married couples really are, and help them meet good, mutual friends of the opposite sex.
   

Go check out the whole thing.

Of course, this discussion wouldn't be complete without an acknowledgment of the other vocations...

In fact, it's a good opportunity to point out the surge in vocations in the diocese just across the state of Missouri - the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph. In fact, just like in the St. Louis archdiocese, it's interesting to note that in the dioceses where a resurgence of Catholic culture & tradition (in liturgy and life) has also led to a resurgence of vocations.

So if it seems that single friend isn't getting married fast-like, then it's time to start a novena of prayer for their vocation and for their possible calling to the priesthood.

Of course, this discussion wouldn't be complete without an acknowledgement of the other vocation: consecrated single life.

There you have it: Three vocations, one faith. Married, Priesthood, and Single life. So we have even more options than Prodigal John (the good Protestant) to get our single friends shuffled along into!

In honor of the day, I thought this would be good to share:

I ran across this cool little interview with President Ford's son Jack from Best Life Magazine last summer.

I thought it would be nice, and in the spirit of Bread Alive, to share these thoughts & reflections from the son of a U.S. President.

He speaks well of his father's integrity, what he learned from him in a few key areas, and more.

Check it out; it's a short, quick read.

Now, back to crawling around on the living room floor with my boys.

How do we form and communicate the information of our love for our spouse?Hugs? Kisses? Words?

Maya Design, a design consultancy and technology research lab, reminds us that what we think means "information" isn't actually information. Sometimes we communicate the method with the message.

So if the message - the information - is "I love you", what are the contexts and the mediums we use to phrase and impart that information? Do we always do it as strongly and effectively as we could or should?

Assuming the wind dies down and our (delayed) flight makes it out of here tonight, I'll be returning home shortly from another trip to our nation's Capitol region, where my company's office is located. Being here always reminds me of the first days of Suzanne's and my marriage, our time on honeymoon, and some important first lessons... one of which was learned on the National Mall.

Suzanne and I did everything "by the book" according to our upbringing in the Church, and when we got married, we had never lived together, spent the night together, had a weekend away from home together, or anything of the like.

So on our honeymoon, when we drove through Knoxville, TN then up through Washington D.C. and up the eastern seaboard, we learned some things about life together - as newlyweds.

We arrived in D.C. on an afternoon, racing Hurricane Frances up from Knoxville, where we had left in the morning just before she dumped about 12" of rain on the City of The Vols. We did a brief Metro ride down to the National Mall area to walk around the White House and see a bit of the Mall at night, then headed back to the hotel for rest.

The next day, it was on-and-off drizzle as we headed back down to the Mall, explored all over, including a couple Smithsonians, the (then-new) WW2 Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Korean Memorial, the Lincoln Monument, and on and on and on.

We were walking back up along Independence Ave. and the Tidal Basin and I was thinking how utterly exhausted I was and how I really couldn't stand to walk anymore.

But I didn't want to just say that, for sake of sounding like a "wimp" on our honeymoon.

Little did I know that Suzanne was also exhausted and had started to form a sizable blister on her big toe from all of the walking. She also didn't want to say how tired and miserable she was, for sake of being a spoilsport on our sightseeing.

So it was in a foggy, late-summer Washington drizzle, arm-in-arm with me holding an umbrella, walking along Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C., that we learned to open up and really talk with one another. And I must say, it's been one of the hardest lessons to keep learning and practicing and exercising in marriage. But the most necessary.

Within moments, we had stopped walking and I had hailed a taxi. We broke out of our shells and got a good laugh at the misfortune and exhaustion that we had brought upon ourselves. And we had learned and grown a lot... together.

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Few moments are as American, as traditional, as Ward Cleaver meets apple pie meets baseball, as the Father+Son sit-down.

Long hailed as the proper form for important moments like the "If he does it again, you have my permission to hit him" talk and the "Birds and the bees" talk and the "If you really love her, make the commitment" talk, it is truly part of man passing the critical realities of manhood to his heirs.

So what happens when you find yourself having one of your first father+sons with your three-year-old who has fallen in love with The Wizard of Oz and decided that he either wants to be Dorothy or the Wicked Witch? (Although, admittedly, he does more frequently lean toward the Wicked Witch.)

I've been working through this for the last several months. No, actually, for about a year. At first, though, I thought "Surely this is just a phase. I can laugh this off for now." But in recent months, my wife and her family have started to show a bit more concern.

Then, after a Facebook status update concerning it last week and several inquiring minds, and a friend at church asking "Hey, did your song get his dress back?" I decided it's likely time to think about this with some level of seriousness.

Of course I probably contributed and played into it, like the time that my "gift" upon returning from a work trip was a Wicked Witch magnet for on the refrigerator.

So what's a man to do? Google searches for "how to talk with your crossdressing son" and "three year old gender identity" didn't turn up much... and what it did turn up was a little "interesting" and "inappropriate."

So here're a couple of simple, right off the bat, steps I've come up with and committed myself to:

VALIDATE AND PRAISE HIS MANHOOD

Our sons need to feel good about their gender identity. We need to help him recognize that there are two sexes and he is male, like other boys, and will grow up to be a man and possibly a father, not a woman and a mother.

I can help him understand that his mother and I are happy that he is a boy and expect him to become a man and he needs to feel accepted as a boy by other boys.

I can help him understand the behavioral differences and the delineation between us and our roles without getting into the biological facts and that can of worms quite yet.