Category: Dad Blogs

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

If it weren’t so funny, I might be concerned

We’ve all seen those heart-rending videos of starving children in third-world countries right? With Sally Strothers doing her best Tammy Faye impersonation all the while imploring us wealthy Americans to donate our money so that the warlords can hijack the relief trucks before they can get to the needy people. My personal favorite is the elderly gentleman with the graying beard, who keeps saying, “Ma-ria” (pronounced: Mah-rrrddd-ah) with an emphasis on the “Ma” syllable.

Anyway, due to my back problems of late, CareerMom has been doing all of the things with the kids that requires bending over, such as putting MLE in his crib and bathing the boys at night. Well last night, I didn’t feel like cleaning up the mess I made from the Mexican dinner I prepared, so I volunteered for bath duty.

Even though I’ve changed MLE’s diapers and such, it’s all been with him lying down. So, I haven’t seen him naked and standing up in about a week. Last night when I took all his clothes off and put him in the bath, he promptly stood up, stuck both hands under his gi-normous belly and started lifting it up and down like some kinda laughing Santa Claus, all the while dancing in the bathwater and cackling like the Joker. I swear, it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Once the hilarity died down, I got to looking at his belly and wondered if there was something wrong with him, because it honestly looks like one of those distended-bellied kids who haven’t had a square meal in years; however, I know that’s not the case, and the kid is happy as a lark now that we’ve gotten antibiotics for his latest dual-ear infection. So I guess he’s OK.

I think the boy just eats a ton. There’s one lady at daycare whose mom runs a greasy spoon joints in town and she brings MLE a yummy biscuit a couple of times a week. Between that and the fact that we switched him to whole milk recently, I guess he’s just putting on the weight. But I feel bad for the little guy cuz he’s built like me and that gut is where I carry my weight too.

Sorry lil’ fella, it doesn’t get any easier! I’m just glad you can laugh about it.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Tell me again how smart your child is…

About a week ago, all of us proud parents were exposed to the story about the 17-month old girl who can talk and read. The talking thing is no big deal I don’t believe, but the reading thing is and the coverage she garnered was just a hair shy of annoyingly show-offish to be honest with you (jealous much?). Her parents are both some kind of language experts, so it’s no surprise the kid shows talent in that area. Hmm, since CareerMom and I are both in marketing, does that mean our boys will be great shoppers? Points to ponder.

But this got me to wondering what they do differently at home and what kinds of things are we, and our daycare teaching our own kids. I know that in MLE’s class, they are teaching the toddlers some sign language. The only sign that I see MLE really going to town on, is the sign for “more” and it’s usually in relation to food, “Give me MORE!”

Yesterday, when the kids got home, I checked out their daily activity sheet and MLE’s sheet said, “Today we learned the sign for ‘shoes’.”

Shoes?

Really? How does knowing the sign for shoes help my child? I’d rather he learn how to tell me when he’s about to puke all over my clean work shirt, or when he needs to go poopy rather than filling up his diaper and having it leak out and onto whatever surface he happens to be scooching across at the moment. THOSE are useful signing words to me. Not shoes!

But maybe this is the norm. I pulled the image at the top of my blog off the Internet and as you can see, they teach youngsters all kinds of seemingly useless signs, like “cookie” and “telephone” and “frog.” What can a toddler do with that?

Using this list of signs, I suppose a toddler could sign to someone:

“Mommy, the milk you gave me was too hot, so I want to eat a frog instead.”

OR

“I asked for a cookie and you brought me the telephone, and I said no touch, no touch.”

(you have to be an “Office Space” fan to even remotely get that one).

I don’t know, maybe my expectations for my kids are just really low, but I don’t expect them to be able to wax poetic before the age of two. And quite frankly, I’d rather they fit in with their friends rather than being “that freaky kid” who understands quantum theory at the age of five.

Call me crazy…

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Beans Beans…Great for Your Heart!

I think we can all agree that no matter how old we get, or how mature we like to pretend ourselves to be, farts are funny! Come on, you want to tell me that if you’re sitting there in a crowded room, and it goes all quiet, if someone ripped one, you wouldn’t snort a big guffaw?

Well, maybe you’ll understand my predicament then. MLI is getting old enough now that when a toot comes out (of anyone), he doesn’t just accept that it’s a toot and move on without any reaction; no, he’s old enough now to rationalize that tooting in public isn’t normally done, which only makes it funny! Right? I mean, if it’s commonplace, then who cares?

Other than sex, is there anything as normal, yet so remarkably un-discussed as passing gas? And why not I wonder? Because it’s so gross? Probably.

A quick Internet search found that there are some people talking about it though. In fact, MythBusters did a show on the myth of “Do Girls Pass Gas?” (by the way, they DO) and there’s a pretty funny MySpace site called, “Coalition for Public Farting (CPF)” where they advocate making public flatulence more acceptable. So, it’s out there, but maybe still not mainstream.

Sometimes I hear married couples talk about it just as normally as might a couple of teenage boys, but I just can’t see myself ever being that comfortable around CareerMom. However, when she’s out of town, and it’s just us guys around the house, well, all’s fair in love and gas!

But, where then do you draw the line with a four year old? He’s old enough to know it’s funny, but is he old enough to quickly decide whether it’s ok to do right before he does it? I don’t think so. He also had constipation for the first few years of his life and we finally got it under control thanks to Miralax, but during that time, we read him books like “Everyone Poops”

and “The Gas We Pass”   , to try and get him to thiink about it as a normal function. Wouldn’t getting all uppity about it now be a little hypocritical of us?

Maybe this is one of those things (like discussing a woman’s age) that a person just has to learn for himself the hard way.  In fact, it’s probably a lot less embarrassing than asking a women if she’s pregnant, and finding out she’s not. Yeah, I made that mistake once.

Given that different cultures approach this topic differently, I’m curious how you folks handle this in your marriage/household. Do tell!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

But I Want to Wear My Halloween Costume ALL Year

kryptonite.jpg I believe that, lacking a vice, such as drinking or smoking “the pot,” that everyone needs an obsession. I’m all for healthy obsessions then, such as being a “leg man” (I’m not, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to explain my personal proclivities here), or ordering sweet tea no matter how high-brow the restaurant. I mean, it’s your life and you should be able to obsess over whatever healthy thing you want to obsess over without being looked down upon by those who like to think themselves above such things, but who in real life are probably wearing panties under their business suits (referring to men of course here).

I’ve mentioned previously (here) about how children too will grab hold of something and make it their own and how, as an adult, one should be careful what wonderful childhood memory one shares with their kids lest that childhood memory be invoked by the child, owned and then tragically morphed into something you can’t stand any longer.

It all started with Halloween last year when MLI wanted to be Spiderman. So he got a cheap little polyester/silky feeling costume that for months afterward, he couldn’t put down. About three weeks ago, CareerMom bought him a Superman cape, I assume in hopes that it would wean him from the raggy, hole-ridden Spiderman costume. The Superman cape, at least, elicits comments like, “How cute” from passers-by rather than the looks of pity we normally got from other couples when he was out in public with the Spiderman costume.

I mentioned in my last post that we’ve been having some behavioral problems lately with MLI, and in truth, many of the fits he throws are over our telling him when he can and cannot wear his costumes. So basically, I’ve been planning a “Oh honey, the washing machine completely destroyed your Spiderman costume” talk with him in hopes that we’ll just be left with the Superman cape.

But that would be too simple, wouldn’t it?

I worked from home yesterday and CareerMom took the day off to take MLI to the Atlanta Aquarium with his cousin and her mom. They got home about 3 p.m. I was relaxing in my chair listening to some guy from my office make a fool out of himself on a conference call when I heard the garage door open and within seconds, little feet tromping up the stairs and into my study.

And what to my wondering eyes did appear? But BATMAN-OH dear Lord, please get me a beer!  It seems CareerMom’s sister thought it’d be “cute” to get him a full Batman outfit complete with tiny gloves and a bat belt. Kill me now!

So we now have Spiderman, Superman and Batman costumes to contend with and as expected, there was a fit pitched this morning when I made him take it off and get dressed for daycare at which point I had to get out the “stern daddy voice” and evoke a stare down which I wasn’t sure I was going to win for a minute there.

I foresee setting aside an hour each night for costume-wearing, but I also see a battle each night when it’s time to take it off. Regardless, keep an eye out for the next release of Spiderman comic books. I do believe Spiderman is going to come to a final, watery end sometime this weekend for sure!