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National Debt Crisis Resolved


A quick note that I wanted to share with you all regarding a commercial that I recently saw on a channel that my 4-year-old frequents.  Typically, I do not pay much attention to the crap that is on the television when M is watching.  I make the mistake that many of you make in that I trust in the “children’s programming” format of the network with which my daughter is enthralled. 

So, I am sitting there picking my nose or adjusting my junk as I often do in my spare time when my attention is brought to a commercial on the TV.  View the commercial now and then rejoin my discussion below so that we are all on the same page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDyOD1C67J0

Now that you have witnessed at least some version equal to that which I saw.  My question is simple; what are we teaching our children with games like this?  I may be an idiot, but what I see in that commercial is that handling, playing with, and collecting feces is fun.  Not even during the depression was playing with your own, let alone animal shit a fun thing to do.  Fine, they added some happy colors to the fake dog shit so that it’s appealing to everyone and a good time is had by all…playing with faux shit.  I can only assume that there is no realistic feces smell included.  I don’t know about you all, but if I let my near 2-year-old watch that commercial, I would soon have a mound of randomly collected turds in my house. 

Jackpot!

What is a kid to learn from this game other than, “If I collect the most pieces of shit, I can win in life”?  What about that game tells a child that feces is disgusting and carries bacteria and diseases?  Nothing!  Instead, they make shit seem colorful and fun.  Hey kids, it’s okay to scoop up that turd from the yard.  In fact, take a bite because we have colored it to look like a friggin’ candy cane.  Plus, it’s worth 5 points!  I can only imagine the repercussions involved on the first day of school when my kids show up with a cache of dog shit or worse acting like they own the joint.  According to this game, shit is the new bling.  “You like my new grill?  Yeah, it’s thoroghbred horse shit, dawg. Fo reals” 

Diversified, Yo!

This game is not the only source directing our kids to embrace poop.  Mr. Hankey has been around for years and recently the Easter Bunny movie made it socially acceptable to eat rabbit shit.  That movie alone has made me start systematically eliminating the rabbits from my yard.  I feel like the Hitler of bunnies!  Something has got to give…I think I will just keep my kids playing Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land …at least until I see them gnawing on the furniture.

Innocence and Brutal Honesty


Tonight the Wife and I were slapped square in the face with some harsh reality…from our four-year-old.  While battling through yet another meal of brow beating M to eat something, she decides to pull a Maverick/Goose fly by of the tower. 

For those of you that don’t know M that well, she is the most loving little girl I have ever known.  I know this sounds like proud-parent-syndrome, but I am not exaggerating.  If there’s a chance for her to hug or kiss on Mom, Dad, or Lil B she is going to take it and she will run it into the ground.  In fact, tonight she licked me on the cheek as if she were a friggin’ dog, er…cute little puppy.   However, the over-licking and kissing are for another day.

So M is sitting at the table when she decides that, rather than take a bite of dinner, she will deploy her patented delay tactics and tell Mommy that she wants to give her a hug (one of multiple hugs deployed during any given meal).  M drops her ordinance of hugs and then, instead of  her typical reroute back to base (her chair), she decides that this mission is going to require the use of nuclear force.

Upon completion of the hug mission, M steps back from Mommy and drops this 5 megaton whopper, ” Mommy, do you have a baby in your tummy?”  After what seemed like an eternity of silence and several awkward wordless exchanges between Mommy and Me, I burst into a hearty belly laugh.  Meanwhile, Mommy is sitting at the table with fail-smile trying to figure out how to tell M that there is no baby in her tummy without letting on that this comment cut Mommy to the bone. 

So Mommy tells M that there is, in fact no baby in her tummy as she fights back a wave of tears. I am over across the kitchen belly laughing when M says to me, “Daddy, do YOU have a baby in your tummy?”  The laughing abruptly ends and Mommy and I enter a few moments of quite self-reflection while M awaits a response.  “No, neither Daddy or Mommy have a baby in our tummy.”  One would think that this would end the line of questioning and everyone would proceed with dinner.  Not M.  She disputes what we have told her and goes further to insist that Mommy does have a baby in her tummy.  This goes over like a lead balloon.

After adamant refusal from Mommy, M finally relents and goes back to pretending to eat.  The rest of the meal is a blur of sorts because both Mommy and I are locked away in the depths of our own self consciousness trying to assess the damage from the massive bombs that had just been dropped by our sweet, innocent daughter.  Not to be insensitive, but I felt how the survivors of Hiroshima must have felt as they crawled out from the rubble to see that their entire existence had been wiped out.  Fine, I am a overexaggerator.  Regardless, the seemingly innocent questions from our daughter had obtrusively opened our eyes.  Yes, Mommy and Daddy are severely out of shape…

Our evening ends with gentle hugs and kisses as the kids are tucked away in their beds (while internally struggling with issuing M a severe beating…we’ll show her little ass who’s out of shape!).  Mommy straps on her trainers and knocks the dust off the ole treadmill while I retired to the pool with my awesome sixpack…of non-light beer.  I can only assume that the next line of pregnancy questioning will be directed only at me…Cheers

Nuggets of Truth


Hello blogosphere!

I am sorry that this has become such a habit to have to apologize at the beginning of every post for not posting more frequently. Alas, I am busy at work, busy with the kiddos, and truthfully, I am quite possibly the laziest person that you know.

Regardless, on to the long-overdue update. Let’s start with M since you all know her a little better than Lil B. M is approaching the start of her 2nd year of Pre-K at the little Christian school. She has progressed nicely as far as curriculum is concerned. She is also making interesting strides in her social development. At the end of last year she was anointed “Most Friendly” by her teachers. We were proud of her for not being the thumb-sucker that sits in the corner and shits herself while not having the communication skills to let anyone know about it. However, we have recently been made aware that our daughter is the cause of much drama at the little Christian school. Apparently all of her classmates want to play with M and she has not exactly rolled out the welcome waggon to some of them. While we understand that someone known as “most friendly” might draw a crowd in the realm of the 4-year-old, we are not prepared to have other parents complain that our little baby is excluding her peers. The important thing here is what we do with this information. There are several ways to look at this situation. We could be happy that our daughter is the object of every post-toddler’s desire regardless of who she has to step on to reach the pinnacle of Pre-K stardom. Or, we could scold and punish her for not being nice to others and try to strain some sort of life lesson out of the situation. In the back of my mind I feel as if I am creating some kind of pre-pubescent sorority super-bitch…and I kind of like it. I mean, why should my little girl have to be scolded because some half-wit’s parents can’t handle that they have a child that is an undesirable playmate. Problem solved! M, continue on with your natural selection-style of making friends. I feel like Will Farrell in Old School as he takes a tranquilizer to the jugular, “Is this bad?

On to the main man who is going to carry on the Henderson name, Lil B. The last update I did probably had Lil B shitting in diapers and crying like a little bitch about every little thing. Well, I am unhappy to report that nothing has changed! As Lil B nears his 2nd birthday we find him in the throes of learning the english language. While he has a full grasp on conversation (in his mind), he is in that stage in which only us parents understand what the hell he is actually saying. It usually involves crying about a lost member of his entourage. You read correctly, B has an entourage. He has “Baby”, “Rabbit”, Giraffe”, and “Puppy”. When I say entourage, I mean it in every sense of the word. Lil B is NEVER seen without at least one of his trusted comrades. Although, I did notice that none of B’s boys were around when he decided to carpet bomb the kitchen.

It is our own fault. See, Lil B had a gnarly diaper rash and we were trying to let that nasty thing air itself out. So one afternoon I get the kids home and decide that B’s bomber needs a little time outside of the diaper. I slap some shorts on him mainly because M is a little too fascinated with the difference in equipment between the two of them, if you know what I mean. The shorts are designed to avoid M screaming,  “PENIS! PENIS!”  while pointing and laughing at her nude little brother. That being said, B is going about his normal business of free-balling and following M around one afternoon and things are running quite swimmingly. They aren’t fighting, B isn’t tackling or pulling M’s hair and M isn’t using her height advantage to withhold coveted items from B. Basically, a nice little afternoon in my world.   Meanwhile, as I half nap/half ignore the kids. Mommy comes into the kitchen and screeches. I am shaken from my slumber and run into the kitchen thinking that B has fallen on his head (again) or that he has kicked M’s ass again when I almost step in a trail of turds. If I were tracking small game it would not have been difficult to track Lil B from the string of nuggets that he had laid down across the kitchen floor.  As I scrape up last night’s dinner reincarnate, I am reminded of one of the many reasons that we are now dog-free.  I also made the tactical error in thinking that this was a one-time event. Two kids almost potty trained, and I recently got my first bathtub bombing from Lil B.  To make matters worse, I was distracted by a heated game of Disc Driving on my iPhone while I let him play a bit in the tub.  I am startled from my game by the garbled sounds of Lil B saying, “Poo Poo”.  I give a half-ass glance in his direction and my mouth falls open.  Sitting proudly coated in Mr. Bubble is Lil B. holding up a piece of shit the size of a cucumber. He is grinning ear-to-ear with the pride that he has finally connected the term of Poo Poo to its reality.  I swipe the ex-dinner from his hand and pull my best fade-away into the toilet. Splash! Nothin’ but net, err…water.  I know that B will grow out of his bombing phase, so I am not too worried.  Plus, I get to work on my jump shot.

So, you all can see that I have two midgets in completely different stages of childhood. To add to this, I have both sexes to deal with and believe it or not, they are completely different in demeanor from birth. I am thankful for this challenge because I was beginning to get a little bored with being Superdad. Obviously, if you have read all of this you have lost time that you will never get back. Thank you for reading and watch out for those toddler land mines!

Spew Me A River and Long Dong Chimp…Unrelated…Somewhat


 

I would love some input from you other parents on this one…Our kids seem to have developed some genetic mutation that has given them the super power of projectile vomiting at will.  Of all the genes from the multitudes of generations gone by that are carried in my wife’s and my blood, our kids both get hair-trigger gag reflexes. 

For instance, B has thrown up on a restaurant table all of the 3 times that we have taken him to a restaurant.  You may be thinking, “Wow, they don’t get out much!”  You would be correct.  We clean enough toddler spew up at our own house.  We don’t need the added cleanup duty coupled with the embarrassment that comes from seeing fellow patrons bury their faces in disgust or gasp out in astonishment as they watch our entire meal get glazed with a thin layer of milk spray.  You can understand why I no longer eat donuts. 

B's Future Career

Don’t think that I am leaving M out of this.  The poor kid can get a little tickle in her throat, or have a little cough and que the chunk-works.  On top of each of them having these separate issues, they both hose down a room with any period of prolonged crying.  I recently purchased a John boat and fashioned strap-on buckets for both kids just to get around our own house.  Our friggin’ carpet looks like a cheetah with all of the spots.  We have been putting off getting wood floors for fear that they will warp under the constant layer of regurgitated food.  I even went so far as to trace back our lineage on Ancestry.com to see if some distant relative mated with a fly…or an Irishman. I found a lot of the latter.  Coincidence?

On a somewhat lighter note, we decide to take the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo last weekend.  The weather is great, the crowds are low, and the kids seem to be holding down their food, so off we go in search of flamingos and elephants.   (Don’t think for a second that I didn’t thow the puke buckets in the car) Nevertheless, things are going wonderfully when we happen upon the chimpanzee exhibit. 

Like most kids, our kids like the chimps, and any monkeys for that matter.  

Use Your Imagination

So we linger at this exhibit just enjoying watching the chimps chase each other around their habitat.  It is about this time that I notice a small group of chimps that is up on a high rock above the rest of the group.  There are about four or five of them hanging out up there.  As my gaze begins to shift from them to the chimps down below something stops my eyes dead in their tracks.  I quickly snap my head back up to the rocky outcrop. OMG!  Is that what I think it is?  Holy S@%*!  There is a male chimp just kinda lying back against the rock similar to how a I might sit on the couch and watch a Rangers game. 

The reason that I know it is a male is that this guy has the hugest erection that I have seen on an animal outside of a horse (different story…there was beer involved…a lot of beer).  As I stand there in amazement of this chimp’s endowment, a female sitting next to him hops up and straddles “Mr. 3-legs”.  Am I dreaming?  Have I fallen asleep watching internet porn again?  This female hops on, grabs the 2-footer that “Long Dong Chimp” is packing and sveltely guides it..well you know what happens next. 

It is at this time that I practically blind M with a ninja-like hand to the eyes/headlock spin maneuver to set us down the path away from the chimps.  I am almost wishing I had my own puke bucket…As we walk away I can help thinking about the schlong on that chimp.  I guess if we consider that Man won the war of evolution with his opposable thumbs, I have to say that chimps won at least one battle…

Communication Breakdown


Hello friends!

Wow, a lot has happened since the last post.  I apologize for not posting more, but let’s face facts…I am lazy.

B  is growing like a weed and with that growth comes quite the healthy little appetite.  You are all well aware of M’s eating issues, or lack of eating issues as I have ranted about them on multiple postings. 

mmmm salmon

 B seems to be quite the opposite of M in the eating department, which is refreshing.   While M sticks to her strict diet of only chicken nuggets, B eats everything that he can get his chubby little paws on.  He eats all things that M steers clear of including; hot sauce, veggies of all types, salad, most meats, and of course crayons.         

"cookoo, cookoo, cookoo"

Unlike M, who was practically speaking at birth, B has taken a bit longer to get going.  These days, while M runs around quoting Macbeth, B is a little more like Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.  Rather than stutter, B simply pummels us with a constant barrage of “juice, juice, juice” or “cookoo, cookoo, cookoo” (cookoo is cookie in B-speak).  Oh he can say plenty of other things, but it’s those two words that haunt me while I sleep.  He is also a tad bit spoiled and has thus mastered the ability to instantly produce an ear-piercing scream and tears the second that he does not get what he wants.  In an effort to maintain at least some sanity, I have to walk around with a pump sprayer full of juice and I wear a sidearm that fires Nilla Wafers.  Before B can even get through his speech, “juice, juice, juice, ju…” BAM! I have silenced him with rapid fire from my snack shooter and hosed him down with juice.  Ahh…sweet silence…”cookoo, cookoo, cookoo”…where’s my shotgun…

In addition to being a “healthy” eater, B is quite the bully it seems.  Although M has 6″ in height and 4″ in reach on B, he typically gets the best of her.  I have noticed that he has a couple of solid go-to moves that M just can’t seem to defence.  His most solid move is what I like to call the “Dozer”.  The Dozer comes into play when B feels that M is getting more attention than him from Mom or Dad.  I can see it about to happen every time.  He gets this glazed over look in his eyes and they roll back in his head ever so slightly.  At this point there is no stopping him, so I quickly detach M from whatever grip she has on me with a swift front kick, or a Heisman to the forehead and I sit back and watch B fully bulldoze M.  It’s great.  The dozing of M ends with her on the ground or when B has dozed her into a wall or a piece of furniture.  The constant supply of cookoos and juice have given him some sort of super powers it seems.  B’s other go-to move is the classic hair pull.  If you thought Daniel-san was quick with those chopsticks, then you have not seen B in action.  He can go from a lying down position to having a fist full of M’s golden locks in the blink of an eye.  Unfortunately, I usually have to throw in the towel at this point because I can see that M is not going to get out of his thunder grip.  On the other hand, it is nice to see them “playing” together.  I can’t wait to teach B-san to sweep the leg.

Super Happy Holiday Season and Various Sundries


Ahh the holiday season.  The weather is crisp (usually).  Football is in high gear.  The aroma of  fattening treats fills the air.  Francine, our Elf On The Shelf, makes his annual pilgrimage from the North Pole to play a month-long game of cat and mouse with our children.  Described in this manner, the holidays sound like a fun, stress-free time with Santa, Frosty, and the gang.  However most of you already know how cruel the holidays can be at times.  Here are a few super happy fun holiday tales from my family.  Hopefully, I have not pulled the trigger to the shotgun in my mouth by the time you have finished reading…

Holiday Decorating: Other than the actual putting up and taking down of holiday decorations, I do not mind a little festive decor.  I rather enjoy seeing the lights that adorn the neighborhood homes and businesses.  This being said, try decorating a Christmas tree with a 4-year old and a 16-month old.  I drag the decorations in from the garage one excruciating box at a time.   Meanwhile the wife and kiddos destroy the den unpacking the boxes.  Despite the mess, the initial setup of our tree looks normal.  Within 3 hours of hanging the ornaments the bottom two feet of the tree are as bare as the tree had been in the woods…before it was sacrificed in the name of baby santa jesus.  We must have collected the wayward ornaments from around the house and replaced them only two or three times, when we succumbed to having a bottomless tree this year.

Francine: Let me start by singing high praise to Carol Aebersold and Chandra Bell, the creators of the Elf on the Shelf.  Without our little Francine, the holiday season headaches would be ten fold.  The relief that comes along with threatening your child with no Christmas if they misbehave is truly a gift in itself.  I cannot tell you the joy that I feel when M acts up and I get to use the F word (Francine) to put her back in check.  Ahh the delightful sounds of M fanatically crying, “NO! NO! NO!” as I pretend to call Francine on my cell (yes, he is sitting right on the shelf in front of me, but the phone adds a dramatic flare).  However, I am not sure what the long-term side effects of using the EOTS might be.  We have noticed M having a conversation with Francine on  multiple occasions.  I am talking full-blown two-way conversation.  I just hope that she is not actually hearing Francine talk back to her or we will have a schizophrenic on our shelf.

Marshmallow B vs. Barbie House

Toy Assembly: Is there any activity in the world that is more painful than assembling toys on Christmas Eve?  I almost wish that fat ass Santa was real so that he and his fairy posse could fight through toy assembly while I watch internet porn, er I mean bake Christmas cookies for homeless kids.  This year we are tabbed with the assembly of the Barbie Dream House.  This “toy” is almost large enough to house Lil B and as you might have guessed, it comes in 4000 pieces.  Approximately 2 hours and 2/3 of a bottle of Crown Royal are down when we place the finishing touches on Barbie’s new crib.  All the work (and hangover) was worth it to see M’s face Christmas morning, and more importantly to see Lil B doing his best Godzilla as he destroys Barbieville.  He is eerily reminiscent of the giant marshmallow man on Ghostbusters…

Bishop Hills

Christmas Light Viewing: One of my favorite childhood memories of the holidays is when we all piled into the family truckster and headed out to Bishop Hills or Southwest Park to look at the Christmas lights.  We mention seeing lights with M in an area of Plano that is known for its Christmas light display and naturally, she seems excited so we plan the event.  We shuffle dinner around so that we are eating along with the Senior Citizens, we bathe the kids in the speedy dual bath,  slap some PJ’s on them and then just as darkness falls, we are off to see some lights.  A quick stop at Starbucks for mom and dad suddenly turns ugly when they inform us that they are out of Pumpkin Spice.  Mom had to be subdued by a chop to the throat while I order us a peppermint mocha in place of our normal latte.  This is not good and should be taken as a sign of things to come.  As you can imagine, the traffic flowing through a neighborhood that is well-known for its light display is similar to rush hour traffic.  Once you enter the subdivision, you don’t leave until the subdivision is says you can leave.  We take our place in the car line and crawl down the first street filled with lights.  I am unimpressed, but holding faith that the good stuff is further back in the maze of overpriced houses.  Apparently M is unimpressed as well.  Approximately 3 houses in she wants to go home and does not stop whining until we pull out of that subdivision some 30 minutes later.  Lil B enjoys the lights so much that he instantly falls asleep.  I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the “famous” display and Bishop Hills sounds pretty good right about now. 

Lil Sloth

This & That: Lil B has officially entered the biting stage.  He shows no pattern for how he selects his victims and certainly shows no remorse.  Mark my words, if that little punk bites me again he is going to be looking like Sloth from the Goonies when I finish with him.

M & Lil B are starting to play together and this is such a wonderful time.  We are trying to soak it in before the fighting begins and the years of tattling and brawling ensue.  Speaking of playing, Lil B is quite the Barbie fan.  He particularly enjoys Ken in his sleeveless tuxedo…pink tuxedo…I am thinking that if Ken were real, he would look more like Perez Hilton…

Perez Barbie

 

For any of you guys out there that are looking to escape the fam for just a bit from time to time, I have a solution for you.  Install an outdoor TV.  I have done this and it is quite possibly my greatest accomplishment (other than the creation of the two kids…which led to the outdoor escape TV…hmm).  Seriously, if your patio accommodates, get the escape TV or forever risk your sanity.

Disciple of Discipline


Lately it seems that our sweet little angelic daughter is starting to look to the dark side for inspiration.  Rare are the days of snuggling on the sofa while we enjoy the timeless stylings of Dora The Explorer.  These sweet moments have only come to be replaced by endless battles over what we think M should wear to school versus what she thinks she needs to wear.  Pour thing obviously got her fashion sense from her dad.

We still battle at the dinner table each night trying to get Mrs. Thang to eat something besides tater tots.  Although, we have experienced a little progress with her palate as she has expanded into the realm of beef in the form of hamburgers and most recently, tacos.  Of course, the hamburger must be dry and may ONLY have one slice of american cheese.  The taco must be just ground beef with no taco seasoning and ONLY one slice of american cheese.  I realize that we did this to M somehow, but we sure as hell cannot figure out how to un-do the damage.  Hopefully, by the time M is dating (Age 30 if I have a say) her palate will have blossomed so that she might be able to enjoy mac-n-cheese, or a nice hotdog, or slice of pizza.  At least she will be a cheap date, right?

To go along with the wardrobe and diet battles, Mrs. Thang has taken a liking to talking back to us and she has the uncanny ability to tune us out when we are telling her to do something that she obviously does not think she needs to do.  Of course, this has resulted in M becoming very familiar with the timeout area in our dining room.  I recently walked by the timeout area and caught a glimpse of some markings on the wall.  Awww, my baby’s first graffiti.  This timeout area is starting to look like a well-used prison cell.  There are hash marks that track the minutes spent in timeout prison, there are crude drawings of the things from the outside that M does not get to experience while on the inside, such as the park and TV.  I almost lulled myself into thinking that maybe we have been to hard on our little princess…until the last couple of weeks at school.

Mrs. Thang has now taken her undisciplined show on the road.  Apparently she has been sent to timeout at school on at least three occasions that we know about. (in the past week and a half!)  I am fairly certain that there are more times that were conveniently left out of the daily “what did you do at school today” report.  As a result of Mrs. Thang’s willingness to take her bad behavior out into public, we are quickly coming to the realization that timeouts are just not cutting it.  We need to step up the consequences for crossing over to the dark side.  How do you do this, you ask.  I imagine each child is different, but what works for M, is to take away things most dear to her, such as Barbie.  (On a sad side note, some of you may recall Stripper Barbie (https://genericdad.com/2010/02/07/is-barbie-a-stripper/).  Well, she recently met her untimely demise due to a severe hip problem which prevented her from being able to close her legs…ironic, to say the least…a moment of silence please.)

With Stripper Barbie out of the picture, M now has a new favorite Barbie that has similar hooker boots and skanky skirt, PLUS she lights up when you depress her necklace.  This is M’s crack right now, and this is what I took from her when she got in trouble (again) at school yesterday.  For a brief couple of hours I had my princess back.  She snuggled with me while we watched Glee (her favorite show next to Idol) and she was on her best behavior!  We have also taken TV and bedtime story privileges and these seem to work, but only for the short-term.  Before we know it, she’s in trouble again at school and I am running out of things to take and I can’t bring myself to spank her.  Where does this leave us for discipline options?  Perhaps this should have been a Dear Abby letter…

Can’t We All Just Get…Well?


In order for you all to experience what it has been like at my house for the past couple of weeks, I need to take you on a cinematic trip down memory lane.  Picture little Gordie LaChance sitting around the campfire regaling his pals with the “Barf-o-rama” story in the classic film, Stand By Me. “Lardass! Lardass, Lardass”, the crowd chants as David “Lardass”  Hogan eats his way to victory in a pie-eating contest.  Then it hits…the castor oil and raw egg make their comeback .  “Slowly a sound started to build in Lardass’ stomach. A strange and scary sound like a log-truck coming at you at a hundred miles an hour. Suddenly, Lardass opened his mouth. And before Bill Travis knew it, he was covered with five pies worth of used blueberries. The women in the audience screamed. Bossman Bob Cormier took one look at Bill Travis and barfed on Principal Wiggins. Principal Wiggins barfed on the lumberjack that was sitting next to him. Mayor Grundy barfed on his wife’s tits. But when the smell hit the crowd, that’s when Lardass’ plan really started to work. Girlfriends barfed on boyfriends. Kids barfed on their parents. A fat lady barfed in her purse. The Donnelly-twins barfed on each other. And the women’s auxiliary barfed all over the Benevolent Order of Antelopes. And Lardass just sat back and enjoyed what he created. A complete and total Barf-A-Rama.”

Of course, this is a slight embellishment with regard to what has recently transpired in my house.  We may not have had the Benevolent Order of Antelopes, but we had two toddlers and a mommy doing there best impressions of this classic movie scene.  Part of me wishes that we had all concrete floors so that I could bring the hose in like they do at the zoo in the elephant cage.  As it stands right now, I feel like I am constantly wading in vomit and feces remnants and it’s quite disgusting.  I see little food items on the floor and I don’t know if they came from my toddlers dropping them, or projectile spewing them.  I do know this: small trash cans make good barf buckets and baby diapers cannot hold back the full fury of an infant’s diarrhea bomb.

On a lighter note, I think that everyone is feeling much better.  We rung in Lil B’s 1st birthday last weekend, and we are taking our first trip as a family unit this coming holiday weekend.  We are headed to the mountains of New Mexico for some family time, fishing, and relaxation.  I will post a mountain trip review upon our return…if we actually make it back.  I encourage any of you to stop by our house and disinfect the dump while we are gone.  I will understand if you have to chalk up a total loss and just set the place on fire.  Until our return, I bid you all a happy Labor Day.

Are My Babies Already Grown Up???


I fear that my baby girl may be growing up too fast.  I first began to notice this a few months ago and the evidence continues to accumulate.  I can trace this all back to the beginning of summer when we pulled M out of her regular daycare facility and enrolled her in private “insert religion here” school.  Lower your eyebrows and wipe that sarcastic “Ooh La La” look off of your face and let me explain. 

M's Open House brochure...something odd about it that I can't put my finger on...

M changed schools for a couple of reasons really.  We were becoming more and more irritated that her original daycare kept putting her with the younger kids each afternoon in an effort to combine children.  They do this so that they can release teachers as the parents trickle in throughout the day to pick up their spawn.  M is also now in her Pre K years and we feel that she should be getting a head start on her education.  These things considered, it was also less costly to send M to the private school with an actual educational curriculum than it was to keep her at the daycare where she played with two-year-olds and hand-me-down toys.  So, you could say that we were motivated by finances as much as the desire for our daughter to get edumacated.  If she’s not educated, how is she going to support me in my golden years?

Back to my theory on M’s recent maturity spurt.  Since she started the private school, I have noticed my three-year-old daughter having in-depth conversations with her new friends about fashion, of all things.  We sat at her recent open house and witnessed our toddler daughter having a conversation with her 4-year-old friend.  Their conversation ranged from shoes; to what accessories each had on; to sharing a delicious snack.  This is nuts…I have seen high school girls have this same conversation!  Gone are the days of Dora and Wonder Pets.  She is almost exclusive to DVD’s such as Toy Story and her crazy-ass Barbie movies.  (Have you seen any of these?  They are creepy)At this rate she will be animation free by Christmas!  Her choice in bedtime stories had transitioned out of Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Fancy Nancy into all the Judy Blume she can get her grubby little paws on.  I think I even caught her looking at the stock tickers in the Wall Street Journal the other day.  To say the least, my baby is growing up, and way too fast…and I don’t like it one bit. 

Where is my little snuggler?  Where is the girl who wants Daddy to help her do everything?  It used to be, “Daddy, will you snuggle me?”  Now it’s more like, “Bio-Father, would you mind so much as to pass me the Grey Poupon? And while you are out running my errands, pick up my dry cleaning.  I have an event with the girls from the club and I need my Minnie Mouse skort.”

Living Vicariously Through My Kids


Not long ago I decide that I am going to live vicariously through my children.  I am going to have them do all of the things that I did not get to do as a child.  I know that most of you already assume that I am talking about sports.  Don’t get me wrong,  I will probably do what most fathers who participated in sports end up doing for their kids.  I will spend thousands upon thousands of dollars sending my kids to sporting camps hosted by local pro athletes (who never actually show up at the camp).  I will bribe referees, coaches, and teachers in order to assure the maximum playing time for my kids.  Hell, I may even sabotage my children’s opponents.  Anything for mention of my child in the local gazette, right?  While I will, undoubtedly, do all of these things, there are other, more important things that my children need to experience…for me. 

As a child, I always wanted to be trained in martial arts.  I never got the chance because I was too busy stealing hood ornaments and pulling drive-by shootings with my paintball gun.  Naturally, I want my children to experience the confidence and discipline that is taught through martial arts.  My son is now almost 11 months old.  I have been training him to become a baby ninja since he was about 6 months old.  I am happy to report that he is progressing rather nicely.  He even connected on a roundhouse kick to the skull of his three-year-old sister the other day. (assisted by me of course, as he cannot yet walk)  It felt as if I were actually the one landing that sweet roundhouse to her petite, blonde noggin.  I must say, if dealing out round-houses to one of my kids…using my other kid were a drug, I would be Pablo Escobar.  This whole vicarious living concept is going to work out for me, I think. 

Heee Yah!

 

I never got a tattoo as a young person.  Naturally, I do not want my kids to miss their window like I did, so I got M inked.  I didn’t want to take her to one of those trendy tattoo shops with their fancy artists and sterilized needles like all of the punk college kids.  I found a homeless man the other day that had a sign that read, “Will Tattoo You For Food”, so I hired him.  Turns out that he was not looking for food, so after a fifth of $7 whiskey he was ready to get started on my three-year-old daughter’s tat.  We are pretty happy with the results and after a brief hospital stay and a bout of tetanus, the tattoo is healing nicely.  What a gift for both M and Me! 

I am not completely irresponsible

 

I think that my children are going to grow up with the sense that they have lived life to the fullest.  I can’t wait for tomorrow’s experience where I…er my kids get to go skydiving!