Tag: Dad Blog

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Dad Blogs Family

One of these days, I’ll just have to wipe my own hiney

MLIs potty station According to a survey by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (agriculture?), it now costs approximately $204,000 to raise a child in the U.S. That number is up about 15% from the same study in 1960.

However, I postulate that the data are off in certain areas and that if we adjusted today’s costs to compensate, the number would be sharply higher than 15%. What am I talking about? I’m talking about poop (of course!).

Like many kids (hopefully), neither of my boys like to get their hands messy. This is especially true for MLI, who, as I’ve blogged about previously, is borderline OCD with certain things. He doesn’t like to get paint on his hands. At dinner, if he gets a sauce on the side of his arm, he freaks out. Even water causes him grief until both CareerMom and I have assured him that “Honey, water dries.”

So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to poop, the whole potty thing is a veritable colonostic Hiroshima just waiting to happen!

The problem is compounded even more by the fact that he has a small…um…colon (or something), thereby making it difficult for him to poop. So, we have to keep him on a small dose of laxative. Therefore, when he does go, it’s often messier than usual. To help prevent potty time meltdowns due to the mess factor, and so that one of us didn’t have to stand there with a wet washcloth, a long time ago CareerMom bought a box of “Kandoo.” They are billed as “moist” wipes for kids, and I suspect, based on their price, that the goal is to get the kid hooked on them now, so that they will forever eschew dry T.P. in favor of the overpriced moist towelettes for the hiney!

(Secretly, I kinda like them too, and I once remember seeing a comment on “Year of the Chick’s” blog about how we men (unsanitary trolls that we are), should all use them.)

Anyway, the things cost a friggin’ arm and a leg. Even the generic store brand ones get expensive when the kid sits in there after pooping and uses twenty at a time. CareerMom and I, both knowing this is going on, try to get in there to prevent such widespread abuse of the moist towellete, but we are usually met with a shrieking, “NOOOOOOoooooo” and a door slammed on our toes.

If anyone has an alternative, I’m all ears. I mean, that $15 a month on moist towelettes (I said “moist” four times *snicker*) could be diverted to his college fund, or my HDTV fund or something REALLY important like that!

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

To my next-door neighbor, I’m sorry for doubting you.

ugly hybrid  My next-door neighbor, let’s call him “Bill” since, well, that’s his name. Bill is getting on up there. I mean, the guy has to be nearing sixty. He has a son who started high school this year. His wife works out of town a lot and he’s retired, so he spends a lot of time by himself. Bill is a tad quirky, but there’s absolutely no way he’ll ever find my blog so I feel pretty safe writing about him.

Recently, Bill purchased himself one of these little Honda convertible sports cars. It’s not new, but it’s very similar to the new S2000. Anyway, the point is, it’s a sports car. And he’s almost 60. So, every time I see him backing the thing out of his driveway, I’m saying, “There goes Bill’s mid-life mobile.” In my head. (credit goes to comedian Bobby Collins)

See, I’ve never really gotten the whole mid-life-crisis car purchase. It just seemed a tad…dumb.

BUT…

As I mentioned, CareerMom’s speedometer went out in her car last week and since there are apparently very stringent rules on who can fix speedometers here in Georgia, we had to leave it in the shop for a few days while they order new parts. In return, we got a Dodge Charger as a rental. That’s the V6, 3.5L 368HP Dodge Charger gentlemen.

Now I understand the mid-life-crisis car purchase!

After having driven underpowered mini-SUVs and pickup trucks for nigh on the last ten years, I’d forgotten how much fun a REAL car can be. It’s like a drug. I sit behind the wheel of this thing, with my new blue-tinted sunglasses on and my hair gelled just perfectly, and it’s like I’m 18 again.

I was able to take the car out a couple of times this weekend for short trips (once to the grocery store – woo wee! and once to the mall) and each time I did, I felt like a completely different person. I didn’t feel like the guy who’d changed three super-nasty poopy diapers that day. I didn’t feel like the guy who has a nice chunk of “rainy day cash” in his checking account and who, rather than buying himself a new HDTV will probably end up spending it on “something for the house.”
No, for about an hour this weekend, I was a MAN again.

Yeah, I said it! Without the kids, driving this cool car, I felt like a REAL MAN! And ooooooh, it felt good.

Today, they are supposed to get the new speedometer in and then CareerMom will go pick up her Taurus wagon thing. It’s not bad. But it’s no Dodge Charger “police version” super-stud mobile.

I’m sorry Bill. Me and you…simpatico my friend.

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Dad Blogs Family

Picture Phone Phriday

Ever cognizant of my reader’s needs, I thought I’d post a shorter blog today rather than another behemoth outpouring of my soul such as what you’ve been privy to all week.

Thus, “Picture Phone Phriday” is born! Assuming I can take enough interesting pictures each week to make this work, I’ll try and devote Fridays to short, photo-based blogs.

Enjoy!

bad toaster

This morning, the boys were both up by 6 a.m., thus I had plenty of time to get things ready, including their breakfasts for school. But, just as I was putting the final touches on breakfast, which included putting MLI’s Pop-Tart in the toaster for warming, it went down the side of the toaster chute and got stuck behind the little wire lifty tray thing. I tried flipping the toaster. I tried shaking the toaster. I even tried using two butter knives like little tongs, but alas, it wasn’t budging.

I’m my frustration, I might have flipped the toaster over and banged it on our very hard ceramic sink.

Oh, and of course, right after that, MLI smarted off. NOT the best day for that.

11-14-08_0759

Now, based on the previous picture, you might think that I summarily strapped the kids in their car seats and took off like a bat out of hell, going 100mph down our little suburban roads.

While that would have been waaay cool, the truth is much less exciting. Our speedometer is broken. It’s been slowly getting that way for a couple of weeks, but now its baseline is 100mph at a dead stop.

Well, at least if I get stopped, I have an excuse. Looks like we’ll be “one car’ing” it again this weekend.

HEY, HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

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Dad Blogs Family

Egads! A meme! Get it off! GET IT OFF!

I was prepared today for another soul-wrenching expose about myself, but ExMi over at “A Bad Mommy’s Blog” hit me with a meme and this one actually looks fun, so I’m gonna go that route rather than sit on the psychiatry couch this morning. If you haven’t checked out “A Bad Mommy’s Blog,” you really should. It’s pretty great.

Anyway, here’s my meme:

IMG_0056

I KNOW it’s a picture, but that’s the point. Here’s the meme rules:

1. Go to your pictures file.
2. Go to the 4th file.
3. Go to the 4th picture.
4. Post it and tell the story.
5. Tag 4 more people.

You might be wondering, “God, THAT’s your fourth picture? Don’t you have like, a family or something?”

Yes, I do, but the way my pictures are organized, what I have just in my “Pictures” file are sort of random leftovers that I have either neglected to file in a sub-file, or neglected to delete altogether.

This picture is the inside of the computer I am currently using. It’s my home computer and I’ve had it for going on five years now. And everyone knows that one computer year is like four dog years or something. So, in the technology realm, this thing is practically geriatric. I took this picture when I had a bad CPU fan and I wasn’t sure whether it needed some weird kind or just a regular one since the one that was in it was branded with the motherboard’s manufacturer (Gigabyte).

Anyway, despite the age of my system, it still kicks butt. In my all-knowing wisdom, when I bought it, I told the shop to put together a computer for me that I can upgrade the hell out of so I don’t have to buy a new one in a couple of years. I also had them put the fastest chip on the market in it, which was a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz with Hyperthreading. Yeah, only a few of you will get what that means, but it’s unimportant.

In the last five years, I’ve made the following upgrades:

  • Installed 2G worth of memory (RAM)
  • Upgraded my 16Mb video card to a 256Mb video card
  • Replaced numerous fans, including the one over the processor that the white arrow is pointing to.
  • Added a new, larger hard drive
  • Added a new DVD burner
  • Added a wireless card
  • and I think that’s it

So yeah, I’m pretty proud of the old girl. She still plays any video game I can stick on it; she plays HD video off the Internet with nary a stutter, and other than sounding like she’s a jet engine taking off from a battlecruiser thanks to all the noisy fans I have in there, she’ll probably keep me going for another couple of years.

There you have it. And now…I’m so sorry, but there are rules:

The following people have been tagged and will be notified appropriately:

– Birdpress (cuz she needs to share more of herself with her readers)

– Pantsfreesia (cuz I’m hoping we’ll get something from one of her recent DragonCon outings)

– That’s What She Blogged (cuz she’s a sucker for these kinds of things and usually has some really great pics)

– Talkin’ Trash with Trisha (cuz her life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get!)