“I’ve never really had a solid consistent father figure growing up.

We moved from town to town, Mom had boyfriend after boyfriend, and my biological dad would ignore my messages and eventually left all social media. I have only one memory of him, when he came to visit when I was six-ish, and it was only for a few hours. He was never to be seen or heard from again.

Growing up was rough, but when I got to the age when I understood what it meant to be a family and a true father, not just a dad, I knew I was going to be the best father I could be. I knew what to do right by what had been wrong and nonexistent in my childhood.

Fast forward 10 years. When we first became pregnant, I froze and cried. I was so happy. We were happy and excited and we told everyone we knew and celebrated. Unfortunately too soon. We miscarried at 3 1/2 months. It was devastating. We thought everything was over, that it wasn’t meant to be.

We were being ushered to move out because the owners were selling the house and we needed somewhere to go. We ended up buying a house (23 and 20 yrs old). Soon after we moved in, the first night of dinner in our own home, my girlfriend got sick. She absolutely loves steak and potatoes but it came right up and the smell made her sick some more. I knew at that very moment we were expecting. She broke the news, but I had already guessed and was excited just waiting for her to tell me.

The pregnancy was miserable. She got diagnosed with HG (hypermesis gravidarum). Hospitalized 3 times for IV fluids and multiple false labors. But our son was a miracle! We didn’t want to know the gender and kept it a surprise. As soon as I helped him out and held him, I yelled “Milo!” I was laughing and crying at the same time.

Fast forward to a year and a half later, when we were blessed with another beautiful baby boy, Remy. Again all joyful tears and sheer happiness!

I will always remember those moments and cherish the memories in bright vivid detail.

The entire journey of being a father AND a husband is hands down the best experience you could ever endure. I give my family 125% everyday and give them the love, attention, and more love that they deserve. I get excited to take them places that will make them cheer and see them smile, and we have movie nights with cuddles and warm hearts. With no real father figure in my life, I knew exactly, within reason, how to be a father and, better, yet a husband.

Today I have 4 dogs, 2 boys, and a beautiful wife by my side. Fatherhood isn’t something you can describe or show someone else. You have to feel it to know that it’s the best thing that will ever happen in your lifetime.”

– Dylan Martin

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email fatherfigures@thedad.com

Have you ever wanted to play with a LEGO set, but because it didn’t vibe with your goth identity, you just applied more eyeliner and read dark poetry to your pet raven at dusk again?

Don’t worry. We’ve all been there.

Fortunately, a new series of LEGO sets will finally allow us to dive into colorful brick bliss while maintaining our spooky aura’s.

Straight from the gift shop of Bestattungsmuseum, the Vienna Funeral Museum in Vienna’s Central Cemetery, these custom LEGO sets are being promoted with the intention of teaching kids about the various procedures at a cemetery in an attempt to reduce their anxiety regarding these natural processes.

“Taboos create fears and uncertainties,” the Vienna Psychotherapy Association said, probably in an ominous Austrian-accent that I, personally, can’t stop imagining. “The child feels that something is wrong, and then he is left alone with that.”

The sets include:

LEGO bereaved family minifigures with the deceased

LEGO cemetery with casket, gravestone, and excavator for digging your own graves

LEGO horse-drawn corpse carriage with coffin

WWI-era Vienna funeral tram with 2 coffins and LEGO undertaker

LEGO hearse

“For the small and large undertaker of tomorrow,” the description from the ‘Historical Hearse’ set reads.

All models can be found on the Bestattungsmuseum site, so let’s collectively do our best LEGO Batman impressions and get ready to build something frickin’ spooky.

“I had a rough childhood in a broken home and I always swore to myself that I would be a good man and an even better dad.

My amazing wife surprised me one day with a reveal that she was pregnant. I didn’t think I could ever be happier… until you were born.

In the 16 months you have been with us, you have taught me how to love fully and unconditionally, you have tested my limits, and you have made me a better person. I’ve had some very bad news health wise come my way in the last month and you are the reason I am fighting.

I am so incredibly lucky I get to be your dad. I love you, son.”

– Jon Barnwell

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email fatherfigures@thedad.com

Happy Easter! Put on your Sunday best, fill that basket with synthetic grass, and pray to the stain-gods you’re just looking at chocolate, because we’ve got some of the funniest tweets about navigating Easter as a parent.

You can fill those little plastic eggs with anything!

An Easter egg hunt but the plastic eggs contain a list of chores and a Flintstone vitamin.

— Jack D (@sharpular) March 26, 2018

Some parents get more creative than others.

Puts all the toys my kids forgot they had in their Easter basket

— Marl (@Marlebean) March 29, 2018

But it wouldn’t truly be Easter without candy.

As a kid I had no idea the Easter chocolate I received was just the tip of the iceberg & that parents actually eat like 300 pounds worth of stuff they bought for kids in the days and hours leading up to Easter morning.

I feel both cheated and redeemed now that I’m getting mine.

— Mike Reynolds (@EverydayGirlDad) April 20, 2019

That sweet, delicious candy.

Dad, the Easter Bunny should know that I don’t like Rolos but he puts them in my basket every year.

Me: (eating a Rolo) Yeah, that’s weird.

— Simon Holland (@simoncholland) March 28, 2016

Go ahead. Have some. Your kid can’t do shit.

One of the cool things abt my son being 2 is I can hardly even feel his weak little punches as I eat his Easter candy right in front of him.

— Dad and Buried (@DadandBuried) March 31, 2013

And they’ll believe any excuse you give them for where it went.

Just explained to my kids that sometimes an evil bunny comes and eats kids’ Easter candy on the night of Easter.

— Jim Gaffigan (@JimGaffigan) March 28, 2016

Remember: you’re the one putting eggs on the table.

Is it really stealing if your kid doesn’t know you got them the Easter Egg?

— FU Tang Bunny (@FU_Dad) April 18, 2019

Just be sure there’s enough left over for the hunt.

Easter egg hunts are basically parents’ revenge on their kids for hiding stuff.
‘Where’s the egg? I dunno maybe it’s with Mammy’s keys.’

— TwistedDoodles (@twisteddoodles) April 13, 2017

Kid’s love hunting eggs.

Easter tip: Tell your kids you hid an egg with $50 in it in the backyard but you don’t remember where. Enjoy a quiet day indoors.

— Abe Yospe (@Cheeseboy22) March 24, 2017

It’s every child’s favorite part of the holiday.

*any other day of the year

Me:[to kids] Don’t eat stuff you find on the ground.

*Easter

Me:[to kids] Go find some candy on the ground some strangers left out and don’t forgot to bring me some!

— TonyL (@creativeTypeDad) April 2, 2018

They’re good at it.

My kid sure is great at picking up Easter eggs for someone who suffers arm paralysis whenever I ask him to clean up his toys.

— Mommy Cusses (@mommy_cusses) April 3, 2017

Suspiciously good, even.

It’s cool how my kid can find 87 pieces of plastic at this egg hunt in 10 minutes, but he can’t find his shoes if they’re sitting in his lap

— Salty Mermaid (@Jenn_H_Scott) April 12, 2017

So feel free to spice things up this year.

My 8 year old said that he hopes the Easter Egg Hunt is more of a challenge this year so I’m buying a bunch of mouse traps.

— Brian Hope (@Brianhopecomedy) March 17, 2016

Just don’t be that parent today.

There are 2 types of parents at the Easter egg hunt:
1. Parents who help their kids hunt for the eggs.
2. Parents who hate those parents.

— Meredith (@PerfectPending) April 14, 2017

You’ve got a big Monday ahead of you.

I don’t like who I become when Easter candy is 75% off.

— mark (@TheCatWhisprer) April 17, 2017

Every week we pan for comedy gold in the comments section of our Facebook posts. If your comment cracks us up (or warms our hearts) we’ll showcase it here!

Here’s this week’s roundup of the 10 Best Comments of the Week:

1. Death, Taxes and Dinner Decisions

2. Game of Parenting

3. Playa

4. GoT Money?

5. SCIENCE

6. Must be Printing Money

7. Late Nights

8. Fair is Fair

9. Read it in His Voice

10. Awkward

Check out the previous edition of The Best Comments of the Week here.

When Tiger Woods won The Masters last week, it was a big day for the game of golf.

The win was Tiger’s first Masters victory since 2005 and his first major tournament win on the PGA tour since 2008.

It was a great day for Tiger, his fans, and for most of us who just wanted to see him close the deal, even just one last time.

But the butterfly effect is now surfacing from the incredible victory as several other lives have been forever changed in the process.

You may have read how one Wisconsin man put down $85,000 on Tiger to win, netting him just over $1.2 million and setting a new record for sports book William Hill for golf winnings on a single ticket.

While most of us can only dream of a huge payout like that, one man from Texas truly hit the jackpot.

Trey Little made a bet of his own with his fiancé Denise that if Tiger won The Masters, a long shot that Vegas had going off at 14-1, Trey would have naming rights to their future son.

The name? You guessed it: Tiger Little.

Future dad, @_treylittle, now can name his son Tiger after contract with the mother of his future child gave him rights to do that if Tiger won the Masters pic.twitter.com/3mMTE0Saxd

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 18, 2019

Before Tiger teed off on Thursday, Trey and Denise signed the very official looking contract and the rest they say is history.

Trey even broke down how incredible the win would be, noting the betting odds, the fact Tiger hadn’t won a major since 2008, and best of all that it “Would be the best comeback in the history of golf and arguably the history of modern sports”, a sentiment that has now been shared by fans and professional sportscasters alike.

Twitter’s crack team of legal experts were quick to attack the validity of such a contract:

Wasn’t notarized

— Brady Buchanan (@bradyb9) April 18, 2019

There is no consideration in return so the contract is not binding

— ben schoen (@bensschoen) April 18, 2019

There’s no sign that “Future Denise Little” plans on contesting this contract in court, however, we certainly think Trey has crossed his tees on the legalese.

Sorry for that one. Unless you thought it was good, in which case – nailed it.

Stay tuned – we’ll likely circle back in 10 years to cover Tiger Little’s meteoric rise into junior golf superstardom.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick showed up to the first off-season practice a little “huskier” than he was last season. And Fitzpatrick had a very understandable and explanation: birthday cake.

Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick address the offseason weight he’s put on and blames it on Birthday cake. Seriously! pic.twitter.com/ALp5D5y8VC

— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) April 16, 2019

As Fitzpatrick explained, three of his seven (!) kids have birthdays in March and between individual parties and friends parties, he was eating a ton of birthday cake. Granted, it looks like he ate all of the birthday cake, but I do have tremendous respect for blaming the weight gain on the kids. You earn that extra cake for all those nights you spend rocking a three-month-old back to sleep for hours (please do not mention this in front of moms, who will use it as an opportunity to launch into the “difficulty of childbirth” story yet again, like an elderly grandpa who talks incessantly about walking to school in the snow) (please don’t send this link to my wife).

Fitzpatrick said he was in “peak off-season form”, which is how I’m going to describe myself from this day forward. Why yes, I will help myself to the last few slices of pizza, after all, I’m in peak off-season form.

It was a great sports week for dads, as Tiger Woods shocked the sports world with his Masters win. His embrace with his son shortly after went viral, harkening memories to Tiger hugging his dad after winning his first Masters two hundred years ago.

Tiger’s win was monumental because everyone in the world thought he’d never return to the top of the sport. He’s now the old guy, getting routinely passed over by younger, stronger players. But for that Sunday, Tiger was back, and with a vengeance. Coming from behind in the final round for the first time in his career, Tiger just kept getting better and better as the day wore on. Even Michael Jordan called Tiger’s win “the greatest comeback I’ve ever seen”. And Jordan knows a thing or two about the mental toughness needed to excel at the top of a sport.

Michael Jordan also knows how hard it is to come back after you’ve passed your prime, as he came out of his second retirement to lead the Washington Wizards to a 37 win season.

What we can all learn from Tiger’s win is that it’s never too late to accomplish greatness. All that matters is that you never quit and that you were previously the greatest performer in the history of your sport.

This is so amazing. pic.twitter.com/3GxYOnQkUp

— Darnay Tripp (@DarnayTripp) April 14, 2019

While one legend was revived, another was just getting started. Professional sports gambler James Holzhauer has taken the Jeopardy world by storm, shattering the single-day winnings record by hauling in a modest $131,127. He reeled off 11-straight wins as of Thursday and is completely annihilating the competition. It’s like watching Tom Brady in the Superbowl or Ryan Fitzpatrick at a birthday party-no one else stands a chance. He’s now the second on the all-time winnings list, behind Jeopardy titan Ken Jennings. And apparently, it’s because he’s good with a buzzer.

NBA Playoff basketball is finding its stride. Giannis Antetakoumpo (no, it’s not spelled right, but this stays because it was astonishingly close for a first try) is putting on an absolute show leading the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. He’s the likely MVP and is dominant on both sides of the ball. It’s scary to think how good he can be, given that he’s still only 24. Seriously, even if you don’t follow the NBA much, make a point to watch one of his games.

This is the dunk…pic.twitter.com/YbmfJTJH0j

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) April 15, 2019

Between the Greek Freak, James Harden in Houston, Joel Embiid in Philly, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant on Golden State, and LeBron on the offseason, there hasn’t been this much individual talent in the NBA in a long time.

Hockey is having its moment too. Playoff hockey is some of the most exciting action in sports. It’s seasonal, like Reese Eggs, but when it’s here it’s fantastic. The action is thrilling and the first round saw a historically great team in Tampa Bay fall to the previously middling Columbus Blue Jackets. They didn’t just fall, either, they got stomped. It’s hard to oversell what an upset this was, as the Blue Jackets haven’t won a playoff series in franchise history and the Lightning just finished one of the all-time greatest regular seasons.

It was a great week for underdogs and a great week for birthday cake. It was a bad week, however, to be on the 76ers bench.

He who smelt it dealt it… 😷😂@sixers | #Shaqtin pic.twitter.com/rrQLolUYF6

— Shaqtin’ a Fool (@shaqtin) April 19, 2019

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. . . or everyone learns a valuable lesson about respect and goes home.

Ok, maybe that last part isn’t how George R. R. Martin wrote it, but that’s definitely how the saying would go on Sesame Street, and we know this because of this epic crossover video that was posted on Thursday.

Right in the middle of a tense exchange between Cersei and Tyrion Lannister, the siblings are caught off guard when a little red monster (dressed in what is probably the most adorable knight’s armor) interrupts for an important intervention.

Respect brings us together, and if anyone can convince @GameOfThrones‘s Cersei and Tyrion to get along, a familiar furry red friend might just be the one. #RespectIsComing #RespectBringsUsTogether pic.twitter.com/4i94lU6YIh

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) April 18, 2019

Clearly a master mediator, Elmo settles the 8 season-long dispute in a matter of minutes, emphasizing that respect is the key to solving any conflict.

“When Elmo has a problem with his friends like Abby or Cookie Monster, Elmo doesn’t get upset. Elmo listens and learns from what they have to say,” says Elmo.

Sidenote: Based on Tyrion’s priceless expression, “Cookie Monsters” are not native fauna to Westeros.

Sesame Street released the video on Twitter with #RespectIsComing, and the video ends with Cersei and Tyrion coming to a somewhat hesitant agreement as triumphant music plays in the background.

It’s pretty different from the inevitably brutal ending we’re all expecting in May, but what did you expect? Was Elmo supposed to come in swinging a giant broadsword and—oh god, I just got an awesome idea for a violent Sesame Street fan fiction. Be right back.

Ah, kids. They sure can be little jerks sometimes, huh? Oh, we love them, they are the light and joy of our lives, and we’d do anything for them, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they flip out if a pea gets, like a little mashed potato on it (as if they were gonna eat the peas in the first place). Lots of kids hate when food touches other food. Sure, they’ll play in the mud, and laugh about a loogie, but apparently applesauce coming into contact with ham is actually the most disgusting thing in the universe.

Now, it’s not their fault; it’s all because something about sensory development or underexposed taste buds or something or another, who cares, it doesn’t matter, they’re picky eaters and it’s annoying. But if we’re being perfectly honest, it’s not just kids. Personally, if a pickle touches any of my french fries, we’ve got a problem.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution.

Okay, that video takes itself like one shade too seriously, but the Food Cubby is an awesomely simple solution to keeping rogue foods in their place.

As an added bonus, giving plates a wall that helps scoop up that last bite of mac and cheese is *chef’s kiss.* I’ve chased stray noodles around a plate like one of those dogs who gets lost in the middle of the dog show, so don’t even get me started on a kid’s dexterity.

The Food Cubby is made from food grade silicone, so it’s all good when it comes to cleaning and not poisoning anyone; and while I was skeptical of the suction power at first, it really does work as advertised. It scores pretty high on Amazon reviews, too, so it wasn’t just me.

For a simple solution to one of parenting’s most obnoxious challenges, the Food Cubby is #TheDadApproved.

Pick up a pack at FoodCubby.com, or on Amazon.