smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

November 19-25

This post may be hilarious or it could be that I'm just short on oxygen from laughing so much that I couldn't breath. Earlier I put Miloh to bed just as I normally do. Plopped him on his floor bed and lied on the floor next to him with my hand on his back. 4 out of 4.5 times that I do this I fall asleep next to him...and that did happen but that's not the story. We give Miloh a pacifier when he goes to sleep. It's really the only time he needs one and it's great because it's a cue for him to go to bed, or when he grabs it for us to know he's sleepy. But he's fickle and often likes a couple—of identical—pacifiers to choose from and/or switch throughout the night. Now if you remember from an older post he sometimes puts one of the pacifiers in my mouth, you know because I have a hard time sleeping without one. Today he only had one. Well there I am lying next to him when he shoves his hand in my mouth...then he scrapped my mouth with his nails...

Wisdom for Miloh: Don't feed the dog from the table. She'll start expecting it and she'll get fat.

November 12-18

When I first started this blog I did a post about our plans for MF. One of the things I planned on creating was a style guide for MF (we didn't know if he was a boy or girl at the time). The style guide was going to have your basics; font (just because), color palette and then add some child specific things such as rules for clothes he/she would wear. One of the big reasons for the clothes do/don't list is because we (mostly Staci but maybe by only a small margin...51%) weren't fans of the stupid sayings on clothes...mostly boys clothes. I realize I'm probably offending some who only have those kind of clothes for their kids...and that's cool if you do...and you know I could care less about offending folks. If Staci had to pick the gender of our baby based on clothes it would definitely be a girl she wanted because she's bummed at how every store you go into is about 80% clothes for girls. To make things worse all the boys clothes have little saying on ...

Coming off my last wisdom post I thought I'd take on English. It's a silly hard to understand language with all the idioms and double meanings of things. Although that's what also makes it great. However there are a couple things to look out for. Wisdom for Miloh: Questions are often statements. You'll see this a lot in the work world...people often want to state their opinion but at the last minute decided to be nice so the statement ends up like a question. "What if we threw Turkeys out of a helicopter?" means "We should throw turkeys out of a helicopter." which actually means "We're going to throw turkeys out of a helicopter." Its subtle but it's something to look out for. Women use this question as statement often. "Do you think we should paint the living room?" means "I got some paint sample and cleared your calendar for Saturday so you can paint the living room." There is also "Is that what ...

November 5 - 11

This one's a bit late. Ninth month is coming up soon-ish. August 22- September 21

Wisdom for Miloh: You don't need math. You may find yourself in math classes when you're older and think it has nothing to do with what you'll be doing when you grow up. You are probably right. The teachers will say you need math...that's a lie. First, you have a computer and probably some crazy smart phone that I can't even phathom right now. Second you have an aunt who teaches statistics. Use that smart phone and call her up to get answers to any math question you have...I do. So skip your math classes and go to recess...go on the merry-go-round thingy. There's a little math involved there with centrifugall force and such but it's more physics, which might have a bit of math...but nothing a computer can't do. Instead of doing math homework in the winter we'll go snowboarding. Same thing with math and physics there...same thing with a computer being able to do it. I suppose you can rationalize that you need math to figure out your rotat...

I'm not sure why, but early on we decided that we wanted Miloh to know how to speak and read. Therefore decided to read to him. I know it's weird but we're just like that. As I started reading his books I noticed a lot of ridiculous things. Some things in simple word books were wrong, some story-lines fell totally flat (I'm not expecting great literature but a little effort is nice), and some things just didn't make sense (and not in a good Dr. Seuss way). So I've decided to do some book reviews, in my own way...but before I start ripping books to shreds I thought I'd start with one I like, although I didn't like it at first. Petit Connoisseur: Art . It's a simple 7 spread book with art words like Moma, Dada, Van Gogh and such. I was an art major so I got stuck on a few of the spreads. Sure Van Gogh is in his style as Dali is in his and such. But cubism is just blocks stacked up, in more of a pop style if anything. Plus why is MoMA in there...

October 29 - November 4 Colors based on the spring 2011 color trends for men's fashion...because Miloh is planning ahead.

Wisdom for Miloh:  don't carry things you could have let go. I learned a lot in college but I retained very little that actually matters. That's the thing about college...you learn a ton of crap you won't really need just because you have to get requirements in several areas of study. One of the nuggets of information I retained, and think about a lot...I mean a lot...I've probably bored your mom with the story...it's a story of two monks. I found this version  here ...it's the closest to how I heard it. Two Buddhist Monks were on a journey, one was a senior monk, the other a junior monk. During their journey they approached a raging river and on the river bank stood a young lady. She was clearly concerned about how she would get to the other side of the river without drowning. The junior monk walked straight past her without giving it a thought and he crossed the river. The senior monk picked up the woman and carried her across the river. He placed he...

October 22-28

In my last  post  I wrote about how what I thought would be a love of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters was squashed the second I realized it involved talking to kids I don't know. I thought I'd recall a couple events from yesterday to show how my wife rocks at trick-or-treat and how 8 can use some work. We were at some friend's house when kids came by wanting some goodies. Staci answered the door and saw a kid dressed as Waldo and said something like. "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for Waldo for a long time and now you're right in front of me." She said it in a different way but she was on. Here was my one interaction with a kid...we got home later so trick-or-treating was ending. I took our dog to pee while Staci put Miloh to sleep. There was a kid with her mom outside. As she got in front of my house I said, "I can give you candy if you don't ring the door bell. My kid's asleep." Pretty elegant don't you thi...