smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

This is another post in my VapoDad series since the good folks at VapoRub are shooting me a bit of cash to write whatever I want. I don't normally take showers at 11:40 PM but had you broken into my house a few weeks back that's where you would have found me. I used to shower late at night actually, doing stuff in the morning was unheard of pre-kid. Some people thought it was gross to take showers at night but I don't really buy that... But that's not why I switched... It's because the whole thing where MF wakes up if I even step to loudly in the middle of the night. A shower would asure a kid waking. And while I'm sure you're incredibly interested in my showering habits that's not what this post is about. It was a couple weeks back when MF spewed a bit while being put to sleep. Stomach flu was going around his class and he wanted to keep up with everyone so he of course caught it. After some clean up he moved to our bed and went to sleep.

It was a couple days before Thanksgiving when I remembered we didn't do holiday cards this year... That's when we got our first card from a friend. We forget every year. Staci will usually send out some nice cards but we haven't done the family thing... With pics of us and MF. I feel like that's what you're supposed to do... So I thought I'd do one. First I had to look back at the best ones I've gotten through the years... And the best are the ones that are total BS... Where it feels like the people live in Whoville (pre-grinch of course) where everything is perfect and their kid is a genius... Then I had to look at a site to get some info on what to write (since I have none in front of me)... And so I give you our Holiday letter, Dear Family and Friends (or should I say Friends and Family? I'm not sure if it's in order of importance or not and then does the most important go first and last? Maybe just read that part as Dear ____ and put your

Did you know Jewy has just one 'w'? I didn't... I was going to use two but then using the google I found that the New York Times uses one 'w' so 'm going with that. Anyway some stereotypes are based on truth and the one about Jewish folk doing Chinese food on Christmas is absolutely true... And it's partly because they're open and partly because we freaking love it (another true stereotype). In Cleveland, where I grew up, it was also impossible to get a last minute reservation at a Chinese place the night you break Yom Kippur or Passover fasts (or no bread thing). Here it's not so hard as there are about 6 Jewish people in the metro area... That's a fact. And while you may have read that I'm not so down with the religion part of Judiasm, I'm down with some of the most important customs... Like Chinese food on Christmas. Last year I don't remember what we did, actually I think it was Indian food since they're open too. Bu

Wisdom for MF: Don't cry wolf Yesterday we spent a bit of last night at the urgent care. The kid was playing on the fridge when Staci saw him give a look... You know the look. That I'm doing something I shouldn't look. So she asked him to come over and he came with mouth closed... The next natural question what's in your mouth followed by, of course, no answer. Then she asked if he ate a magnet... He was playing with these magnets we have on the fridge so that was a good guess... He said yes. She asked him to open his mouth and he did but nothing was there. When asked if he swallowed the magnet he said no... But when asked if he ate it he said yes. The deal is it was one of those super strong rare earth magnets ... Let me pause my story here for a bit... I have a huge problem with the name of these magnets... I could go and google it but that would be too much work. I remember looking them up a bit ago and the elements of them are "rare". That'

background texture by grungetv on flickr

Remember that time I got a camera from the awesome folks at Pentax? Well it became the official point and shoot of the blog. I have been busy so unfortunately I haven't posted much from it... But busy isn't the only thing that keeps me from posting pics... The kid is a big reason I don't have much to post. Since it's rugged (I got the Pentax Optio WG-1 ) I let him get ahold of it from day one... actually dropped it when it was only two minutes out of the box. Problem, and it's a good one, is he always wants to play with it when it's out... I'm able to get some shots of him but I have to show him the shots every two or three I take. So MF took it upon himself to do so self portraits I thought I'd share... These are from his Wow I Have A Crusty Nose series. Untitled Self Portrait #1 Untitled Self Portrait #2 This next one is probably so artistically over your head unless you have a PHD in Visual Arts. Basically the folks at Harvard w

I few weeks back a twitter friend tweeted a link along with "this is why I think people have a hard time taking bloggers seriously. Are we all on the take?" It was a link to a blogger's disclosure policy that was, well... Rather incredibly insanely long... So I thought about my blog... I have done reviews in the very far past and received swag... I actually did allow some sponsored posts because the person who contacted me totally had me at "I know you're PR Unfriendly but..." And I am of course on my hunt for a free iPad (even though in reality I don't want/need one). And thus (not sure if I'm using that correctly... Wisdom for Miloh: Pay attention in English class.) I feel compelled to write my own disclosure policy just so you all know the real intention behind my blog post and tweets. While I hate to be that guy (although sort of love being that guy) I feel compelled to link to the  original disclosure policy , that has 16 levels of com

It was Sunday and I was wearing my Moosejaw Jose Yero hoody . I try to set a good example to MF on how to piss off his mother so I wasn't wearing a coat over said hoody even though it was quite cold... But we were only walking 75 feet to go indoors so why put the jacket on, right? Here's a little mini review of said hoody. It's super soft inside... Fits really well... Has a big old moose on the back which MF loves. Basically I love the sweatshirt aside from it's one downfall... The pockets do not keep cell phones inside of them... Or what I should say is if you put your cell phone in the pocket then run up the stairs there's a chance that the phone will fall out, fall perfectly... Amazingly flat on the ground screen side down and crack like some tasty peanut brittle... Although it's not tasty and it cost a lot more. Because of that I'd have to give it four stars... Had it not broken my phone I'd give it five. And yes I'm totally blaming a sweatsh

Stay the F to sleep should really be the sequel for the Go the Fuck to Sleep  book. Here's the deal... A friend of mine and his wife are having trouble with their kid sleeping. This problem is a two parter... It all started when their kid, let's call him Em Eff was sick and they let him sleep in their bed at night... Partly because he's super cute, partly because he was having trouble sleeping and partly because it was just kind of nice. Then said kid got better but would wake up in the middle of the night wanting to sleep in his parent's bed... A so we our friends let that little kid sleep with them because it was kind of cute and kind of nice and they got to sleep instead of hear crying. I should mention that the part two of this is the kid wakes up every time the totally awesome dad goes up to sleep... One day he hacked into my twitter account and tweeted about it. Obviously not me because there is a typo. And so that night too the kid slept wit

So yeah... I'm PR Unfriendly ... I mean not totally... In reality I work with PR folk all the time in my real jobb. And I know that their jobs are tough. Still I can't help sending a snarky (and semi-serious) email every once in awhile to reply to their offers of free, super cheap, stuff in return for a free review. I've shared these on twitter and folks there enjoyed them so I thought I'd share again. Also while I know I'm being a bit of an ass in reality I don't think I am... I'm sure my emails have got passed around offices... People have laughed or called me a fool (or an ass) and laughed in a different way. So really I'm doing good and hope to be Knighted by the Queen for my efforts. I was offered the chance to review a new burger at a fast food restaurant... They said they'd throw in a gift card... Not sure why I never got a reply as this was quite generous and reasonable. Dear (omitted) Sorry I didn't back to you earlier regard