How We Roll

The wife and I have a few things in common:  we both like The Walking Dead,  we're both Caucasian, and we both think I'm a great kisser.  Beyond that, we're totally different.  It's like she's from Venus and I'm from Mars.  I think somebody wrote a book about this topic.  No, wait, it was a movie--Total Recall.

 

Not only are we different, but we do things differently.  For example, I like to leave my wife loving and encouraging messages on our bathroom mirror:  "Whaddup SEXY!  Yeah, you.  I'm talking to you.  Looking good."

She likes to leave me messages too, although they are less loving, less punctuated, and less encouraging:  "scoop litterbox"

To be fair, she is encouraging me to scoop the litterbox.

Our parenting styles differ quite a bit as well.  A while back, I made a short video showcasing just a few of these differences:




The truth is we complement each other nicely.  I just tend to compliment her more.

Do We Speak A Dead Language?

Teaching your kids new things is tough.  The toughest thing to teach?  Language.  Okay, besides how to not poop in your pants, it's language.  We've had two of our three kids in speech therapy.  The third one didn't quite make it because she decided to bust out ten brand new words on the day of her evaluation.  This is what kids do to you.

Sometimes, I feel like we're not teaching the kids how to speak as much as we're teaching them how not to cuss.  Take the boy.  One of his first words was "Fag."  It's not because he's hearing homophobic rants at home, it's because the "L" sound is ridiculously hard to say.  The boy loved flags.  He had a world atlas and would just study the flags of the world.  The lack of a clearly defined "L" was never much of a problem until we took him to his first 4th of July parade.

"Dad, see those fags?  That's a huge fag.  I've never seen so many fags."  While the other parade goers stare, I say "FLAG" loudly just to make sure nobody confuses me for one of those Westboro nuts.

Of course, no cursing repertoire would be complete without the "F" word.  No, not this F word, the F word.   Both the boy and the girl have had problems with this one.  Caleb preferred to drop the F bomb in the middle of words--like Kentucky.  Change the "t" to an "f" and you have yourself a fine curse word.  Don't believe me?  Listen for yourself:


Why the school taught him a song about fast-food joints eludes me.  Now I don't feel so bad about the school cutting music. Learning value aside, it was hilarious.  Leah's F bombs weren't quite as funny, at least not at first.

I heard her sitting on the couch one day, saying f*** over and over.  I knew she had overheard me attempting a simple DIY project the day before--a project that ended with the hammer introducing itself to my fingers and my tongue introducing the niceties of the french language to the girl.

Figuring I should go explain to her why she shouldn't use that word, I headed towards the couch.  When I saw her, I let out a sigh of relief.  She was waving a fork around in the air.  "R" is another tricky letter to master.  After a few days of practice, she got it down...kind of:


Leah butchers words.  Many of them are hilarious and rather than submit to my inner grammar-nazi, I've come to enjoy them.  There is one in particular though, that needs to be corrected immediately.  It could land me in jail.  Lee is a tech kid.  She loves playing on our Nook, texting on Momma's phone, and using the computer.  The problem is she can't say computer.

It's comes out as "peter".  She's always asking to play with my peter.  It was funny the first few times, but now I'm worried she'll go to school and tell her teacher.

Teacher:  "Leah, what did you do over the weekend?"
Leah:  "I played with Daddy's peter."

I can already hear the phone call from the school.  At least I'd get some peace and quiet in jail.

2013-12-15

Caleb:  Enjoyed watching you play Schroeder in the church Christmas program.  I'd say you nailed it:

Leah:  Although it killed my sustainable inner-hippie, I loved (and sorta cringed) watching you use an entire roll of wrapping paper to wrap a present for the dog.  However, I don't think Jetta is in to Lalaloopsy.  She's more of a Paw Patrol pooch.

Elizabeth:  If the way you're eating those chips are any indication, you've been watching too much Sesame Street.  Cookie Monster would be proud:

My Little Tumbelina

Before you sign your kid up for a child gymnastics class, there are a few things you should know.  Sure, the girls look cute in their dance outfits and they love getting their hair done, but that all costs money.  Precious, precious money that you could otherwise be spending on bacon and Redd's Apple Ale.  Don't commit to that monthly gym fee until you've counted up the costs.

Classes:  One class runs 30 dollars a month.  The more classes you enroll your child in, the less each class costs.  So, for gymnastics and dance, we'd shell out 52 dollars.  Throw in some jazz hands and you're talking 70 bucks a month.  Sure it's a great deal, but who wants to sit through a jazz recital?

What bothers me the most about classes is that parents aren't allowed to watch.  We drop off Leah for 45-minutes and then come back.  I don't know what's going on in there each week.

 We could be shelling out all of this money for her to do nothing but somersaults each week.  Then again, it's 3/4 of an hour that my wife and I get to revert back from a zone defense to one-on-one coverage, so it's well worth it.

Dance Outfit:  While the girls look cute in their gymnastics outfits, it doesn't necessarily follow that the outfits themselves are cute.  In fact, the one we had to buy for Leah was pretty hideous.  It also cost 61 dollars and she wore it twice.  But, she was cute enough to get flowers from some guy in the audience:

The tumbling outfit that we bought her for classes looks better than this one, it only cost 20 dollars, and she wore it every week to practice from September to May.

Hair Styling:  Once you've blown money on clothes, it's time to throw more of it away on fancy hair-dos that last two or three days.  I couldn't tell you how much it costs to get hair done, because I opted for The Deb hair-do, you can't go wrong with a classic.  My wife later opted to undo my hairdo and do a new do.  That's my boo.

Rehearsal Fees:  At the end of the tumbling season (we break for summer), you get to shell out another 30 bucks for "The Big Night".  And since you have no idea what your little one has been doing in class all year, you have to pay to see what you've been paying for.  It's a brilliant business strategy and were I not a victim of its design, I would applaud it.

(Recitals:  A reason to not have kids)

Hemorrhoid Cream:  It would be awesome if you could come and watch your daughter perform her routine and then leave wouldn't it?  Yeah, well you can't.  Instead, you can sit through three hours of watching other parents' kids twirl, cart-wheel, and jazz-handing, while you wait for your daughter's 5-minute routine to come up.

Here's the breakdown:

Classes:     $30/month X 9 months = $270
Outfits:       $61 ugly routine dress + 20 beautiful practice dress = $81
Hair Do:      $45 (if you're a sucker)
Rehearsal: $30
Cream:       $3.28 (Equate brand)

Total:  $429.28

For a little over four-hundred dollars you can get 5-minutes of entertainment.  Was it worth it?

Every Penny!

I've Been Goosed!!!

I've been working hard this morning posting on the blog and organizing pages.  I think my daughter was feeling a little ignored.  In the middle of typing away I felt a tiny little hand on my shoulder and heard "GOOSE!!!"  Hilarity ensued.


One doesn't simply sit there and take being called a goose lightly.  No.  One must defend his honor.

Don't Let Your Kids Play Outside

This is what happens when kids are allowed to play outside:



I think what the mother means when she says "play outside" is "riding scooters in the street".  And when she says "I was watching the whole time", I think she means to say, "I was inside drinking and watching Lifetime."

What was she thinking letting her kids play outside in the first place?  Apparently, she's never seen an episode of Without A Trace.  The outside world is a scary place lady.  It's full of sexual predators, drug dealers, and politicians.

Kids don't need exercise and fresh air.  They belong indoors, away from sunlight, and plugged into some source of constant stimulation.   Each child should own at least two video gaming systems and either a desktop or laptop computer.  Desktops are preferred as laptops can be taken outdoors.

This will help cure your child's desire to play outside.  If he shows an interest in playing sports outside with the neighbor kids, you're in luck.  There are numerous sports games available, in fact, there are two or three new ones released every year. "But my kid wants to ride his skateboard" you say.  No problem, between the Tony Hawk franchise and Skate series of games, your child will be more interested in pulling off physically impossible moves indoors than moving physically outdoors.

Perfect parenting at its best.

The television is ideal for younger children who are easily entertained by bright colors, talking animals, and funny noises.  So what if your child never learns how to swing or ride a bike.  Those skills are only useful for a small period of time.  Most people stop riding bikes when they learn to drive and swinging is something completely different when you get older.  As a good parent, you should teach your child a skill they can use for life, i.e., watching television.

Eventually, your child may decide that sitting alone on the couch watching t.v. isn't enough.  Older kids crave social interaction with their peers.  Thankfully, there are cell phones.

Cell phones, if used wisely, can be a great tool for keeping your children indoors.  The danger lies in its portability.  If you can keep your tween confined to the couch, checking Facebook all day, then congratulations.  Beware though, the second your child walks outside to start texting, you run the risk of them deciding to ride their bikes.  Better to skip the anti-glare screen so using their phone in the sun is impossible.

The addition of sugary drinks is a classic parenting move.

I'm just thankful for the arresting officers' quick response that insured this mother was taken to jail immediately.  There's no need to waste time verifying the neighbor's complaint or asking the mother for her side of the story.    She was obviously just a concerned citizen whose quick decision may be the best thing for these children.  Slap those cuffs on and hash it out "downtown".

Hauling Momma off to jail in that pretty pink basket was the hard part.

A little parenting advice for all you concerned Mommies and Daddies out there:  If you want to avoid an 18 hour sleep over in a jail cell, it's best to keep your kids on lock down in your house.

You're not trying to keep burglars out, you're trying to keep children in.

McDonald's Nutrition Facts

Have you ever read the McDonald's nutrition facts that you find on the back of your tray paper?  Yeah, me neither.  That's because nobody goes to the Golden Arches for a healthy meal.  I go to keep my kids from driving me insane and because they make a tasty Mushroom 'N Swiss.

As the Daddy,  it is my right to lay claim to any and all leftovers that my children do not eat.  Up until recently, I enjoyed that right; at times I was generous enough to give a McNugget or a "bottom-of-the-happy-meal-box" fry to my wife.  Sadly, McDonald's, like the government, has decided they know what's best for my kid.  Can you say "Apple Slices"?

I can always count on at least two nuggets from her.

McDonald's has offered apple slices since 2004, but starting back in September, they automatically included them in Happy Meals, while including a smaller portion of fries.  It took awhile for it to spread throughout the country, but the virus is everywhere now.

And, while recent research found that on average, 88 percent of McDonald’s customers are aware of the option, apples are chosen in only 11 percent of Happy Meal purchases.    If you ask the cashier, they can replace the  fries with a second bag of apples, however, the reverse is not true.  You WILL get apples in your Happy Meal.  This is the same problem we have with our government; they don't listen to what people are telling them.

Here's what we're saying Ronald: "We know you have apples and we don't want them.  I like to finish the fries my kids don't eat.  Now you give them less fries which means
lessno fries for me.  You know what they leave for me to eat?  Apples!!!"

I don't want apples or nutrition when I go to McDonalds.  Our family goes to fast food restaurants to get away from the healthy crap (it's deceptively delicious) I fix at home.  If I want my kids to dine on processed pink slime and sodium-saturated fries, that's my call, not yours.   I can appreciate your attempt to get kids to eat healthy, but you're a fast food chain, not an organic health food restaurant.

The Nutritious vs. Delicious Test"

I'd like to submit the following videos as evidence that 89 percent of Happy Meal buyers don't want apples and 100 percent of my kids won't eat them.

I give Libby the option of choosing between your nutritious apple or your delicious nuggets.  I'd offer her some fries too, but she had already eaten them all by this point using the highly efficient double-fisting technique normally found on college campuses.  I specifically point to the apple hoping she might actually eat one of these things I paid for.  Notice the look of disgust on her face at :04 as she slides the apple away to go for the good stuff.  That's my girl.



She touches the apple again at around :16 but only to push it out of the way.  You can then notice her trying hard to decide which tasty piece of nugget to consume.  This may not be a fair test though.  There are more nuggets present than apples and she might be choosing quantity over "quality".  Let's try this again.



At this point, she has eaten every last nugget save a few crumbs stuck to the table and her chin.  Now she has to eat your apple right?  Wrong!  Babies put everything they pick up into their mouth and ours has put her share of gross things in there.  She will gladly eat (or attempt to eat) these things.   It is usually us that has to pull these items, such as dog hair, stickers, and jewelery, out of her mouth.  When it comes to McDonalds apples, she has no problem spitting those out by herself.

You hear people say a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture is worth one word: Blech.

Flash Mob Rob Job?

I remember when flash mobs used to be a bunch of idiots pulling off choreographed dance moves in high-end retail stores or parades of people having pillow fights in public places.  Now the term is being applied to a bunch of idiots that robbed a clothing store.

On Saturday, around 20 teenagers stormed into a Chicago clothing store and ran away with almost 3 grand in jeans.  Sounds like a lot of denim right?  Wrong!  These over-priced jeans went for around $200 a pair, meaning the "flash mob" only got away with about 15 pairs of pants; that's not even enough pants to cover the look-outs.



I'm not a fan of flash mobs anyway, their mild amusement is far outweighed by their major annoyance, but let us spare flash mobs a bad name and call this what it is.   These are flash mobs:




Harmless, usually stupid, and sometimes romantic are the way flash mobs are supposed to be.   Technically speaking, a bunch of people showed up somewhere (high-priced clothing store), did something (robbed it), and left quickly (the get-away), that's a flash mob.

Technically speaking, you're an asshole; you also misspelled glass.

But, what happened at the clothing store was a pre-planned robbery not a group of nerds congregating under the guise of "social experiments".  I guess "Kids Steal Pants" isn't as good of a headline as "Flash Mob Robbers Steal $3,000".  The misleading Yahoo headline had me clicking on the article, only to be  disappointed that the surveillance video didn't show the kids dancing while they swiped their swag.  I had high hopes.  Crooks don't rob with style anymore.

Please, if any members of criminal society are reading this, you have already ruined Astronauts,

Astronauts used to be cool Lisa. They used to be cool.

Firefighters,

Anthony Cilento. Your name is cool. Drug-trafficking for the Bonanno crime family is  not

and Beavis.

I don't know who that dude is or what he did, but I'll never see Beavis the same way again

Please leave flash mobs alone.

Heavy Metal - Kid Tested. Father Approved.

Let it be known that I hate toddler music.  That goes for music marketed at tweens and adolescents as well.  Enemy number one used to be Barney and all his mind-numbing songs.  No my good purple dinosaur, my ears do not hang low, nor do they wobble to and fro and I'm sure as hell not going to tie them in a knot or bow.  He has since lost his position to Kidz Bop.    Have you seen the commercials for these abominations?  The videos are even worse.  Check it out:


Lady Gaga is scary enough, I don't need to see tweens bouncing around and singing her songs to scare me even more.   I felt dirty the entire 45 seconds I managed to power through watching that video.  It's like watching the Toddlers and Tiaras rejects' slow demise into a world of backup dancers, alcoholism and porn movies.   Whatever messages these songs and videos send to our kids, they can't be good.  That's why I prefer to let my kids listen to metal.

Before you start warning me about the dangers of backwards masking, lead singers choking to death on their own vomit, and spandex, let me explain metal music to you.  There are two very simple categories that all metal music can be boxed in to.  Box 1 contains metal music with lyrics you can understand.  Box 2 contains those metal songs with growling, grunts, and unintelligible screams.  It is this second box of music that my kids have come to know and love.

The stuff my kids listen to may have a very horrible message, but let's face it, you can't really understand what the guy's saying anyway, so who cares?  I'd rather my kids listen to I Declare War or Cattle Decapitation than to any rap, pop, 70's tunes, or ninety percent of mainstream country that audibly glorifies, sex, drugs or rock and roll.  I don't want them "on the floor" shaking booty to J. Lo.  And line dancing, while harmless, makes you look like an idiot.  Chance are, if it's a dance that white folk invented, it's not worth dancing.

Metal music is great for road trips.  I keep at least one death metal cd in each vehicle.  When the kids start whining, I crank it up to 11 and they either fall asleep or start banging their head.  Either way, it overpowers the whining.  If you need help choosing a metal toddler music, here is a simple rule of thumb.  If you can't read the band's name then you most likely can't understand a word they're saying.

WARNING:Easy To Read!  DO NOT LET KIDS LISTEN!!!

I couldn't tell you what band this is, but if you see it in the store PICK IT UP!!!

Wouldn't it be nice to have a third box of metal music though?  A box full of both pounding double bass, ridiculous sweep picking guitar riffs, and wholesome lyrics that kids can sing along to?  I think Jim Breuer is on to something here:




So how about it I Declare War? You already did some Christmas Songs, I think an album of toddler music is the next logical step.