DadCentric

Notes From The Dad-O-Sphere

TFGIFF. Here are some things to help you fritter away/and waste (never could figure out what Gilmour sings/Waters wrote there, and I'm far too lazy to look it up on LyricsDepot) the hours in an offhand way:

Our very own Tony uses his clout as a Major Internet Star and goes to a media screening of The Groomsmen; deft link-filled pop culture references ensue.

Kemp shows us a big insect doing its very best Ozzy imitation.

Danny learns why fire bad, burn baby.

Freezio joins the ranks of the Born Again.

Dutch (who reveals that his palm crystal will soon be turning black) tells us his opinion of the over-30 skateboarding crowd. I shrug, grab my Sector 9, and bomb a nearby hill, resplendent in my porkpie hat, knee-length black socks and brown leather sandals.

Like Peg Bundy in a onesie

Why haven't we talked about walking here?  We talk about potty training, traveling with infants, cocktails, music, car seats and all that happy fun stuff.  Why didn't anyone bring up the whole walking thing?  You guys were supposed to tell me that he'll go from 0-60 in a matter of days...no, wait...hours.  Sure, I've had comments that say, "Whoa, wait until the walking starts..."  But that's it.  Why doesn't anyone ever elaborate?  Something along the lines of...I don't know..."You'll never sit down again."  "Don't take your eye off him...not even for a second!"  Nope.  I just get vague, cautionary statements.

Well, if you haven't already guessed, Little Dub is walking.  It started off slow - just a few steps here and there.  Then it went to 10 or so drunken sailor, "I just got off the Roundup" paces.  Now?  It is, as Mrs. Big Dubya likes to say, like looking at an infant Peg Bundy cruising around the house - a butt out, tip-of-the-toes strut with velocity and momentum.  And, honestly, it really was in a very short period of time that we've reached this level of mobility.

So, thanks for the heads up.  You can all stop laughing now.  If your baby - CroutonBoy, Rude Cactus this is directed at you guys - if your baby is nearing that momentous occasion, I have some words of advice for you: "Whoa, wait until the walking starts..."

"You May Now Strangle Parents in Seats 17D and E"

I guess it's time to get out of denial and face the music about an upcoming event that I have been keeping close to the chest, refusing to discuss, and generally trying to forget.  Sunday, July 2nd, my wife and I will do a cross-country flight with our rambunktious 2-year-old.  We have done everything in our power to prepare for the assault: strategic scheduling of the flight, new [and currently hidden] toys, bag o'snacks, portable DVD player and her carseat.  I'm also bringing ear plugs for the surrounding passengers.  Really.  I am.  It's the best we can do, I think.  Other than choreographing the use of our in-flight arsenal in a manner similar to a clandestine CIA operation, the rest is up to her.  And that's where the fear comes in.

My daughter - God love her - is unpredictable at best and downright predictable at worst.  She's batting about .750 when it comes to doing the worst thing she could possibly do at any given moment.  OK, I may be exaggerating there, but, trust me...she's a firecracker.  So, with two 3-hour flights looming on the horizon, her recent dabblings in experimental temper tantrums, the perfection of her "scream voice", mixed with any anxieties Mommy and I may be supressing, we could be in for a bumpy ride. We'll have to repeat this whole process 10 days later, mind you.  So, if she absolutely hates it, we're fucked on the way home.

The saving grace is, upon arrival, we'll have a slough of family to fall back on as The Wife and I begin the process of post-flight, personal reconstruction. Hell, we may even transfer ownership of her to the grandparents for a week or so.

Don't you wanna make him stay up late

I've been staying up later in the evening lately as Little Dubya has been...um...how to say this tactfully...NOT FUCKIN' SLEEPING.  Is that too harsh?  I have been doing this since Mrs. Big Dubya is with child and I'm trying to do my best to let her get as much sleep as possible.  However, it's not always easy when the baby monitor is right next to her head and he decides to go into full-on wailing banshee mode.  That's when I try, like a bull in a china shop, to scramble lumber quietly up the stairs.  I mean well, but sometimes I make as much noise as Little Dub.  But that's neither her nor there.  My point is that I stay up late.

I just got a new laptop.  Mrs. Big Dubya hooked a brotha up and now I have a brand-spankin' new Dell E1705.  It's pretty sweet with its Bluetooth wireless, 1GB SDRAM, 100GB hard drive and Intel Core Duo Processor - I likey.  Again, that's not really the point, but I'm getting there.  As with any laptop, it allows me to use the Web anywhere unlike in the past where I would be tethered to the desk upstairs  Sure, I could have used Mrs. Big Dubya's any time, but that's hers and I never really did feel right about it.  But, I just never wanted to head upstairs for any long period of time to go on-line.  Hence, new laptop.  Drawback?  I can now spend entirely too much time surfing while I wait for the little guy to erupt in "he's pulling out my toenails with pliers" screams.  Too vivid?  I say it doesn't even scratch the surface on how loud and brain-piercing it actually is, but, again, I digress.

In my aimless clicking of links quest for knowledge, I stumble upon all sorts of interesting things, as I'm sure many of you do as well.  Hey, stop shakin' your head, you know I'm right.  First step to recovery is admitting you might have a problem, remember?  Anyway, I know Father's Day has come and gone, but ladies, maybe your guy has a birthday coming up?  Anniversary?  Maybe he put the toilet seat down?  Well, if you're looking for something to get him, might I suggest this fine example of American ingenuity and know-how.  Perfect for the guy on the slow go.  Make sure you check out the picture of the guy at the bike rally at Sturgis - I think that says it all.

Next up - how's your dexterity?  Me?  I'm about as nimble as a...nimble as a...can anyone help me with an accurate comparison?  Nevermind.  I'm just not all that dextrous.  But if anyone has the time, inclination and patience, I'd love to see the final product on this.  Oh, yeah, almost forgot.  A smattering of Spanish pudo ser necesario.

Finally, I know Greg posted about the Salon "Kindie Rock" article yesterday, but last night I stumbled on something at elbo.ws which took me here and finally to a blog called (sm)all ages.  Some of you might already be familiar (I was not - shame on me), but if you're looking for alternatives to The Wiggles and music of that ilk, it's as good a place as any to start.  In fact, Friday, June 23's post includes Sleater Kinney, The Eels and the Chili Peppers - that's something I can get behind.

Use Your Voice

Blessing: the kid's vocabulary is expanding exponentially. Curse: the kid's vocabulary is expanding exponentially. We're getting complete sentences, no small feat for a two-year-old: "I went to school in the bah-LUE car!". We're also getting the occasional "JEEE-sus!" and "DAMMIT!" (no idea where he picked those up, really, la la la). The bonus, apart from the pure comedy that is a blasphemous toddler, is that he's much easier to manage; he can easily tell us what he likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. The downside...

Last night we were awoken by crying from the other room. Wailing, really. The kind of wailing that makes your blood freeze. (The really shitty thing about having your kid suffer through a life-threatening illness is that there's a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome that stays with you; when your kid cries out in the night you are instantly awake, and you feel eerily calm - you've been through the worst before - and at the same time on the verge of a jibbering panic, for the same reason.) Lucas wasn't right, that much was certain - this was a different cry from the Nightmare Cry or the Loud Noise Cry. This was the Pain Cry.

We scooped him up and sat with him in our bed. "Mommeeeeee...Daddeeeeee", he moaned. "Hurt!" "What hurts, buddy?", we asked. He pointed at the side of his head. "Ear. Owie in my ear", he replied. Ugh. We'd taken him to have tubes put in several weeks ago, and the earaches were supposed to be a thing of the past. I gave him some Motrin and cleaned some goop out of his ear with a Q-tip. "Does that feel better?", we asked, once he'd settled down a bit. "Yeah", he said. "Thank you mommy and daddy." Soon we were all asleep in the big bed.

Turns out that it wasn't a full-blown ear infection - the tubes prevented that, and today he was good to go. On the drive to daycare he was jabbering away, counting the birds and passing cars (the counting is coming along nicely - we're able to get to 11, which of course prompts many a Spinal Tap reference among our group of friends) and requesting the occasional tune ("Nothing", by the great Mason Jennings, is "the GEE-tar song" - "Daddy! Play the GEE-tar song!"). The good thing, of course, is that he's able to tell us what's wrong - last night was the first time he'd been able to muster up the words to do so. But somehow there's little comfort in that. When your kid can't tell you what ails him, the pain somehow becomes abstract. When he can give voice to his pain, that pain becomes real. You feel it as acutely as he does.

The Little Ass That Wouldn't

Our 2-year-old is starting to express some interest in working her magic on our toilet instead of the interior of her diaper.  She's been trying to climb up and mimic what she's been seeing her Mommy and Sister do on the old porcelain throne the past couple of years. To make things a little easier for her, I picked up one of those little cushy ass adapters and a step stool so she can 1) climb up on top of the seat and 2) not fall in again.  The selection at Target was kind of slim for the kiddie seat thingy so I was limited to a SpongeBob-themed one. We thought this would work out fine until we noticed that she suddenly began to lose all interest in "pretending" to go pee-pee on the toilet.  WTF?  I don't know how she figured out who he is, but, she loves SpongeBob.  We were left bewildered. 

Luckily, her big sister offered to have a sit down with her (no pun intended) to figure out why she, all of a sudden, refused to climb up on the toilet anymore.  I'll be damned if she didn't come back with the correct diagnosis.  Apparently, SpongeBob's starfish friend, Patrick, is seen several times on the kiddy seat making a scary face.  His mouth is wide open showing his long, sharp teeth.  The kid thinks her ass is going to be bitten!!!

Now, I'm not going to sit here and speculate on how Big Sister was able to extrapolate this information from her baby sister.  I've grown to understand that she has knowledge and insight that neither I nor her Mother will ever have about being a kid.  She took on the challenge and solved the mystery.  I'll just leave it at that.  What I can tell you, after taking a Sharpie and drawing smiley faces over a 1/2 dozen ass-biting starfish faces, is that my baby daughter is back on the pot again making her fake pee-pee sounds. It's just a matter of time before I'll be unclogging the toilet for her too.

Thank you Big Sister.

Can I say fluffer?

A few weeks ago, I posted about some of my favorite lunches and snacks from my childhood.  Yes, it was a very. serious. post.  So, anyway, I'm flittin' around the internetweboblogosphere™ and I stumble on this story, from the AP no less, about a state senator in Massachusetts who wants to ban schools from serving Fluff.  Now, I'm with my buddy Kara on this - don't fuck with the Fluff.  But, what makes me just shake my head is not that he wants to ban Fluff from school lunches.  Fine.  You want to take that on as some kind of personal crusade?  All I have to say is, "good luck, bro."  And really, it's just a blatant newsprint grab and the gesture is about as empty of any value as Fluff is of any usable calories.  It's not the polling ploy - it's the fall-out.  So, right on cue, to show how the senate is doing the work of the people; how necessary they are to a smoothly run state gummint, another senator, removes her shoe and starts banging on the table repeating, ""I'm going to fight to the death for Fluff."  Ok, I'm kidding about the shoe thing - I just wanted to slide in a picture of Nikita Kruschev.  But she did say that and will propose making the Fluffernutter the state sandwich of Massachusetts (have I mentioned, yet, how happy I am to have moved?).

Yes, I know that most of this is written tongue-firmly-in-cheek, but, there also has to be some element of sincerity in it as well.  Why else would this senator's spokesperson "insist(ed) the senator is not anti-Fluff and even plans to co-sponsor Reinstein's bill, although he still believes schools should cut back on Fluffernutters.

"He loves Fluff as much as the next legislator," aide Colin Durrant said.

And by Fluff he means the food product, not their job descriptions.

Goolijang Alert!

Ok, I have a problem. A Big problem!

I thought it would be a great idea to teach my daughter how to give flying fun cuddles. You know the ones. When they yell out “DADDY!!!!” and run at you full pace, arms outstretched slamming into your chest in a flurry of two year old arms, legs and kisses.

It’s the stuff that makes your day. Until…….

You discover that your daughter has gotten taller in the past couple of months. This combined with their increased confidence and speed means that they will run towards you fully expecting a ‘FRC’ (flying run cuddle) even when you are not crouching down to receive one.

This in itself isn’t too bad until they SMACK YOU FAIR IN THE FUCKING GOOLIJANGS!

Let me tell you, a two year olds head at 80kms an hour into your testicles is not my idea of a great cuddle. Sure, your kid will be laughing their arse off when you are lying on the floor in the agony only males can know.

Hell they might even give you a bit of lip whilst you’re down there “daddy fall down.......... get up daddy.........daddy?”

So beware blokes, FRC’s come at a cost.

This Must Be How the Flaming Lips Started

I've noted before how much my daughter loves music.  I haven't taught her how to manipulate the stereo yet (that's a daddy toy) but she goes to town whenever she's near her Leapfrog Learning Table.  God knows I want to gouge my eyes out ever time I hear xylophone versions of Old McDonald, London Bridge, or whatever Satan's minions have programmed into the damn thing, but I embrace it as a necessary step before I she joins the Donnas or Sleater-Kinney. 

Experimental music, however, is not my thing.  I've tried--and failed--to understand why critics love Trout Mask Replica, and prefer musicians who buy their instruments at Sam Ash instead of Home Depot. 

What's the connection?  Well, our daughter recently decided that if music was good, then more music...simultaneously...was even better.  She'll start with her little music cube, which begins playing Vivaldi or some other tasteful classical selection, then pull the plastic banjo-lever on the learning table, kicking off the arcade version of something on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.  Within seconds she has also slapped her Learning Drum and pressed her musical keychain, setting off a cacaphony of clashing genres and sounds which makes Metal Machine Music sound like Blackbird. 

The fun part is watching her run through this routine like a plate-spinner, then sit back on her haunches and bounce up and down arythmically.  It looks a little like a seizure, but the big grin on her face tells me she's having the dissonant time of her life.  I love it, but I hope it's a passing phase; I'd much rather be a chaperone for the next Tori Amos than the next Wing.

Zen and The Art of Floating

With Summer about to smack us with triple-digit heat here in L.A., it's time to start getting the family ready for the beach and pool runs.  Our eldest is a no-brainer:  she's got her boogie board for the beach, a false sense of swimming abilities, a couple of horsie swimsuits and a little sister to kick around.  Throw her in the water and she's good to go. The little sister?  Well, she's a different bag of rice altogether. 

She loves the beach and has a great time in the pool at the YMCA.  But she hasn't quite figured out if she's completely water friendly yet.  She just kind of freaks out if she gets too wet.  Unfortunately, we haven't quite figured out what constitutes "too wet" with her yet.  It fluctuates at best and is arbitrary at worst.  But, I'm hoping this is the year we're going to figure it out. 

So, in order to prepare for the possibility of having another water-loving pollywog on our hands, I wanted to get some sort of swimming aid for her so she can have a bit of a "freedom" - if she wants it.  I think it's just a matter of time before she tires of Daddy holding her hands everytime she's in the water.

I thought it would be cool to get all retro on her and see if I could find one of those big orange TicTacs you strap to your back like I had when I was a kid.  You know, those styrofoam balls that look like you've got an atom bomb a scuba tank fastened to you.  But then I remembered that they had a design flaw in that they could only float you face down...like a corpse...and were useless if you wanted to be upright like most land animals would.

There are those swim vests, but, they look too much like a flackjacket.  My daughter is not a Navy Seal just yet and she's not trying to tow surf into Jaws.  I think it's overkill.

No, I think it'll be the traditional swimmies for her.  They're travel friendly, work really well, and come in hip fashion flavas like Dora, Sponge Bob, Elmo and, if you shop at Woolworth's, traditional construction-worker orange.  Plus, you can rub your finger on them and make fart noises should an emergency distraction be in order if your child happens to fall victim to a panic attack and begins to break down. 

I do believe these may be one of man's greatest inventions.