DadCentric

Feel Good Hit of The Week

The soundtrack for the past three days has been the high-pitched shrieking of a nineteen month old. Constant save for when she's been asleep or eating, and a few times when she's had her attention diverted by her always-entertaining brother (who may just get a Lifetime Pass for sitting down and playing Hot Wheels with her during one of her crying jags). 

I think that there should be a Virus Of Some Sort for everything. "Why didn't you meet that deadline?" "I'm not sure. It was probably a Virus Of Some Sort." "Why don't you release the election results?" "We're not sure. It's probaby due to a Virus Of Some Sort.""Governor, what prompted you to disappear for three 

days?" "I believe I was infected with a Virus Of Some Sort." "What's wrong with our baby, Doc? Why has she been crying inconsolably for the past 48 hours?" "I'm not sure. She probably has a Virus Of Some Sort." It would cover so much. The perfect Non-Answer.

So she probably has a Virus Of Some Sort, and that's as helpful as a screen door in a submarine, which is to say that I'm feeling that particular strain of utter helplessness and utter rage. My instinct, when my kids are in distress, is to scream and break shit. Go all Papa Bear on the Universe for putting them through the wringer. I'm gritting my teeth as I write this with shaky hands: it's about an hour and a half past her lunchtime, about two and half hours past her bed time, she's done neither, she's feeling it, we're feeling it. There's a special kind of Hell you go through as a parent and that's the one where you are powerless to help your kids, and the only thing you can do is to say please, please, please, to no one in particular. There's brief lulls - maybe she's trying to nap, maybe she's distracted by her stuffed Cookie Monster, maybe she's just too exhausted to nap or cry - and it starts up again, the crying, the pain, and it just keeps on comin'.

The True Meaning of Father's Day

We've been talking a lot about Father's Day this week. To recap: 

Mr. Big Dubya, on the loss of a father and a friend.

Me, on a day in the life.

Kevin, with Special Guest Dad Dead Michael Landon, on dads as second-class citizens.

Whit heads up a contest for dads (WHICH YOU NEED TO ENTER)

The Holmes gives props to all you m*therf*ckers.

I get all artsy. Literally.

TwoBusy makes you verklempt.

To the dads out there - have a great Father's Day, and remember: this is what it's all about...

The Last Supper: A One Act, One Scene Play Based on True Events

Setting: a DINNER TABLE at THE AVANT HOUSEHOLD. Around the table sit THE AVANT FAMILY: JASON (father), BETH (mother), ZOE (daughter, 19 months old), LUCAS (son, 5 years old), MICK (family dog).

ZOE: (banging metal serving spoon repeatedly and loudly against metal serving bowl). CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG

BETH (to ZOE): Are you done yet?

ZOE: (stops banging metal spoon) Nnnnnnnnnnnno! (resumes banging metal spoon repeatedly and loudly against metal serving bowl). CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG 

LUCAS: I have a wiener on my head! There's a wiener on my head!

JASON: (drains wine glass in one long gulp)

BETH: (drains wine glass in one long gulp)

ZOE: (grunts, defecates in diaper, takes large swig of milk from sippy cup, opens mouth and lets milk run down the front of her shirt soaking it, drops sippy cup on MICK's head)

MICK: Yipe!

LUCAS: Wiener!

FIN

Michael Lewis and Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer...

I've received a few emails asking if DadCentric is planning on reviewing Michael Lewis' "controversial" new fathering memoir, Home Game. You'd be amazed at the number and scope of review requests I get from various PR, marketing, and publishing types - I'm not sure that I'm qualified to review Replens Long-Lasting Vaginal Moisturizer - and I do get a of requests to review Dad Lit books, but there was nothing from Mr. Lewis' people.

Just as well. Full disclaimer - I have not read the book, but after watching Mr. Lewis' recent appearance on The Daily Show, I'm not entirely sure I want or need to. I'd read his series of "Dad Again" columns on Slate, from which the book derives much of its material, and they'd left me a bit cold. "Seventy-six nights and I'd spent zero in the same room with him, unless you counted the night of his birth," he writes in one piece, "and the few times I stayed up until midnight to feed him a bottle of pumped breast milk before handing him over to his mother...His diaper needed changing about as often as he ate, yet I'd done that seven times, and remembered each event." The new book's most oft-quoted line is a revelation that Lewis has after several months with his newborn: "It's because you want to hurl it off the balcony and don't that you come to love it." 

That's My Daughter (In The Water)

It occurred to me, as Zoe shrieked in terror and clawed at my face in a desperate attempt to save herself from a watery death, that perhaps she was not enjoying the swimming lesson. The moms sitting poolside were giving me that look, the one usually reserved for people who fart in church or who get caught pulling the ears off of live rabbits. I gave them my best "fuck you" smile. 

Sports and Physical Activity have been on the agenda as of late. When your 19-month daughter can point at the remote and squeal "TEEVEE! TEEVEE!", that's a harbinger of childhood doom: juvenile obesity, Wii addiction, and the eventual onset of Adult Bravo Reality TV Fandom. So we made the push: the kids WILL get outside and play more, and they WILL like it. And both have responded: Lucas, much to my delight, has shown some honest-to-God skill with the rugby ball. He can kick, is learning to throw a decent pass, and has a real desire to stomp people on the head. (My calls to the Cal Rugby scouts have not been returned.) Last night I picked up a kid's lacrosse set; he'd been on me for weeks to learn how to play "the cross". Since I have no idea how to use a lacrosse stick, I'm thinking of hiring a tutor. (I hear Steve Stifler's available.) Zoe, meanwhile, enjoys toddling around the yard and has a little football of her own; she likes rolling it to the dog, who responds by licking himself. 

The swimming lessons came into play when she showed a real love of the ocean; this was on our recent trip to Florida, with its warm sun and warmer water. I took her out into the waves and she dug it, splashing, squealing (in delight, not horror), coming up laughing after going under, giving me hope that she'd be the next Lisa Andersen. Beth signed us up for the Mommy (AHEM, YMCA, it's 2009) and Me Swim Class. We had high hopes that she would immediately start swimming around like one imagines that baby on the Nirvana album cover doing. Chase that dollar on the hook, Zo'!

Wondering What to Give Satan as a Shower Gift?

Nothing says comfort for baby like rotating blades.  It's a perfect complement to those Baby Antichrist videos your brother bought...

[Chambers Fine Art via Coolbuzz via Foolish Gadgets via Gizmodo]

I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record

They were called blue slips because they were printed on blue paper. A name decided by committee, I’m  sure. Standard 8 1/2” x 11” paper, black typing, and several blank spaces where the teacher could fill in various specifics (student name, date, description of offense, teacher’s signature), typically with a red pen. Just the sight of them instilled me with a cold terror, like catching a glimpse of your father washing blood off of a machete through a door left slightly ajar. That color combination became, in my mind, representative of some awful unknown fate. Had you placed me in a room with walls of light blue adorned with black and red decor, I’m sure my anxiety level would have increased with each passing minute. 

Nightmare at 34,000 Feet

Portrait of a frightened man: Jason Avant, thirty-nine, husband, father, and writer on vacation. Mr. Avant is what they call a "nervous flyer", which is a polite way of saying "flyer who requires several glasses of something strong and several handfuls of something stronger to prevent himself from having a nervous breakdown every time the plane shakes or makes a course". Tonight, his flight home will be like something out of an old episode of a TV series known as...The Twilight Zone.

Let me just say this about flying with 17 month old toddlers...oh, that's right. Zoe is now a toddler. As in "one who toddles". As in "one who started walking on her own the day before our flight to Florida, and who discovered that she really enjoys walking on her own, and getting her to sit still on a 5+ hour plane flight after she's discovered that walking is fun HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that's a good one, God or Whatever Name One Choses To Give To The Force That Runs The Way That The Universe Unfolds; you're an asshole, you know that?" Anyway, flying with 17 month old toddlers is something that should never be done ever. In fact, I'd recommend not flying with a kid under 5; it will be a cold day in Hell before we do it again. I discovered this as soon as we took our seats on that flight home from Florida; a flight that became a voyage of nightmarish discoveries.

For Maddie Spohr

I don't know the Spohrs. I don't know Heather or Mike or Maddie. I know of them, via their blog. I know that there is Wrong; it's a tangible thing, alive yet mindless, a dark singularity that manifests itself in horror, consuming lives with an entropic randomness. I know that this Wrong is without reason, pity, or remorse. I know that no parent should ever have to bury their child.

If you can, please go here and make a donation to the March of Dimes, for Maddie and all children who've been taken too soon.

The Best Birth Control Website Ever

Parents, if you're having trouble convincing your kids that using birth control is a MUST, we recommend directing them to www.whythefuckdoyouhaveakid.com. It's a relatively new site, and we're more than happy to spread the word about what can happen when teens (and stupid people in general) get pregnant. We understand that Pope Benedict himself has endorsed the site, saying (and we quote), "these people are doing God's work, unlike those heretics who make condoms; man, I'd go all Torquemada on their asses if I could". The More You Know!