DadCentric

Brees Pass Me a Tissue

Maybe I'm a total softy, but I got downright misty watching the Super Bowl last night.  And not because of anything that happened during the game.  It was this moment at the end:

If there's a more touching moment between father and son ever broadcast on national television, I haven't seen it. Congrats kid...you daddy done good.

For Reals This Time

The next day, I took Lucas to his first sparring class. This was a big step. He hadn't embraced the martial arts like we thought he would: rather than the steely-eyed focus of a Crouching Tigercub, there was fidgeting, and playing with his belt, and talking to the kid next to him. "It might not be his thing," Beth said on more than one occasion, and I was starting to believe her. Team sports, he loved. He'd recently become fond of lacrosse - I bought us a pair of mini-lacrosse sticks, and we played one-on-one in the yard. He's fierce, smacking me on the hands with the stick, dropping his shoulder and putting it into my hip, whipping the ball into the net with the force and accuracy of a much older kid. This was a tangible thing: you shoot, you score. Tang Soo Do, for the most part, consisted of punching, kicking, and blocking...air. It was all theory, moves performed against imaginary opponents, punctuated with talk of "self-discipline" and ten-counts in Korean. He was bored. The owner of the studio understood - Lucas, he said, loves sparring, and is fearless; some of the other kids don't like the idea of actually facing an opponent. Not Lucas. They do non-contact sparring in the regular classes, and Lucas digs it. (Also, it turns out that he's quite handy with the nunchuks.) Maybe we could try the advanced sparring class - he might do well, he's very competitive, and this might be the thing that turns on the switch.

Over/Under

 No, I’m not talking about gambling.

I’m not much of a gambler, although I recently bought Powerball tickets the last few weeks here in my home state of North Carolina because the jackpot had gotten up to a staggering $141 million. But I didn’t win it.

Like I said, not much of a gambler.

What I am talking about is your toilet paper.

How do you roll with your roll?

Mine hangs from top to bottom, if you must know.

Years ago, I penned a piece for a zine I was writing for called Salt For Slugs surveying people on how they wiped their ass. Do you bunch? Or do you fold? Front to back or back to front? Yes a deeply personal question but it was one I needed answered. People wipe their butts every day. Surely one has a technique?

I know I do.

As a parent with two growing boys I’ve had to share the technique; as the parent who was at home during the potty training years it was my job. But it got me thinking at all the things one has to learn on their own because of the unspoken rule of not talking about whatever it is that is unspoken.

I don’t supervise the wipe anymore so I can’t say if they’ve implemented what I’ve taught them but I do know that they adhere to “use a little, flush a lot” motto. After a few clogged toilets and an overflow or two due to excessive use of tee pee it was a necessary philosophy to share with them. At least while they are dumping on my turf.

As dads and parents, we are here to guide, to educate and to illustrate how things should be done to our sons and daughters.

So let’s hear it.

Got a favorite brand? Favor the double roll over the regular?

Enquiring minds want to know…

 

Lovely, Love My Family

There's comfort in clichés. They help you wrap your head around things that would otherwise leave you speechless in wonder, or in despair. We've been dealing with a death in the family; over at my little corner of the Internet I vented accordingly. Hug your kids, they say. And they're right.

The Race for The Worst Dad of 2010 Has A New Frontrunner - Billy Ray Cyrus

I see your Stephen Baldwin, Whit, and I raise you one former mulleted pop-country one-hit wonder turned juvenile flesh peddler.

 

You probably know more than you want to know about Billy Ray's daughter Miley, she of the Teen Choice Awards Pole Dance  and the Vanity Fair photo shoot that would have made John Phillips green with envy. But did you know that Miley has a younger sister? She does! And her name is Noah. And being a nine-year-old girl named after a Biblical zookeeper will, I think, be way down on the list of issues she'll eventually be discussing with her psychotherapist. At the top of that list: she's launching what critics are calling a line of lingerie for pre-tweens. Mull that over for a second while I vomit into this trash can.

So what kind of dad encourages - sorry, actively participates in a photo shoot of his half-naked daughter and preps his younger daughter to be Travis Bickle's next object of affection? A God-fearin' one, apparently. In this interview, Billy Ray reflects on what it takes to raise kids in decadent Hollywood:

“I think as long as she looks for the light, she will find the light—she will be the light,” he says. “This town has a keen way of surrounding you with darkness, but you can be a light. You only have to try. If you reach out and try, God will help you.”

UPDATE: As this post went to press, we received word that Billy Ray Cyrus was struck and burned to ashes by a seemingly random bolt of lightning. 

A List Of Poop Comparatives

 Last week I wrote a heated post about the current state of dadblogging. My better angels have prompted me to reach out to new dadbloggers who may be looking for advice on how to make their blog posts stand out. It's safe to say that most dadbloggers start writing about the fathering life when their children are but a few months out of the womb. But what to write about? There's always Ol' Faithful - your kids' bowel movements. Take it from us: many, many parentbloggers have made a career out of writing about poop. Enfecaled* diapers are the fuel that powers the parenting blogosphere; here's some descriptions of befouled nappies to help you get started.

(INSERT CHILD'S NAME HERE)'s shit smelled so bad, it could

• polish titanium
  
• raise the Titanic
• break up the Rolling Stones
• defeat the Balrog
• be the plotline for Roland Emmerich's next movie
• smash the Phantom Zone, thus freeing Zod, Non, and Ursa
• deflate George Lucas' neck-pouch
• wilt a Triffid
• wake Cthulhu
• root out Bin Laden
• make a Vulcan cry
• make Glenn Beck stop crying
• make Keith Olbermann stop talking
• make Dick Cheney smile
• bring Robert Byrd back from the grave - wait, he's not dead? What? Really?
• prompt calls for the formation of a bi-partisan investigative committee
• cause Nicole Kidman's brow to wrinkle
• cause Canadians to mildly complain about the odour.
• use up all of a third world country's carbon offsets
• fool people into thinking that the Domino's Pizza guy is at the door
• officiate an NBA game
• de-ice an Aeroflot 747
• have its own reality TV show
• write for Saturday Night Live
• win the Grammy for Album of The Year
• unite the Koreas against their new common foe
• inspire a franchise reboot
• earn a nickname from Chris Berman
• inspire a blog post about how bad that particular shit smelled (very meta, no?)
  

* I don't know if "enfecaled" is an actual word, but it should be.

"Where The Wild Things Are" Featuring Tony Soprano

If you thought Gandolfini was an odd choice to voice a giant Muppet, think again. This is awesome, a mashup of...well, you'll see. (Oh, and if you're at work, fuggetaboutit.)

Get Your Balls Together

 My boys are at the age when just about every bodily function is required comic relief.

Toss in mention of the genitals or your ass and it's a fucking laugh riot to them.

Their days are pepper with words like wiener and whiz or balls, crap and anus that they inadvertently drop in my company.

It's partly my fault because I have a good friend that never aged out of poo poo and pee pee jokes who has been a great source of inspiration for the subject matter of their follies.

But I still wasn't prepared for the onslaught during a recent bowling outing.

We had just been assigned a lane and slipped on our bowling shoes.

I turned and said, "Okay boys, let's get our balls together."

And they fell to pieces.

No stitches.

Pointing each other and laughing while trying desperately to repeat what I just said.

"He said..." said my oldest trailing off into a fit of laughter.

"Get our balls together," said his brother fighting back his squeaky giggle.

The next ten frames of bowling we were inundated with ball jokes.

"Spencer, can you hold my balls for me?" said Cole as he handed his brother a 9 pound marble colored ball.

"Dad, he's holding my BALLS!" and then fits of laughter between the two of them. 

I pick up my ball and it's, "Dad, you've got big balls!!" 

Followed by gut-busting laughter.

I have to admit the whole thing was pretty funny.

The only way I could stop the madness was to change the topic and introduced them to Mianus...

A Blindness That Touches Perfection

We sit together, there in the darkness.

In momentary, fleeting bursts of light our features are illuminated — lit harsh and brilliant in xenon; then soft and shadow-drenched in gentle pulses of sodium. I glance up to the rear-view and see them sitting there, side by side by side, in their thick winter coats and warm, fleecy hats. They are luminous; effortlessly beautiful, and completely at ease in each other's company. Here, together, in this zone of familiar comforts, in these slipstream minutes of transition from the work of children to the shelter of home, they are unveiled.

The Day was Mixed with Foul and Rye

In the morning there was a shadow of crap smeared across the carpet. Any number of culprits came to mind - from boot bottoms to the bottoms themselves. The boys were ruled out as an extension of courtesy.  They had better things to do than crap on the carpet.

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

Their arrangement is in the running across it.  Theirs is in the wrestling upon it.  Carpet is the grass beneath their feet and outside their fence it grows all the greener.  Carpet means nothing to children except in its absence.