smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. I thought I'd give you all a little treat for Halloween. Last year, and the year before, I learned what a bitch it is having a baby/toddler who sleeps early on Halloween. Also I think that's horrible sentence structure right there but whatever. Kids walk by, ring the door bell and are generally super loud outside your window...Which is normally cool on Halloween but so not cool if it wakes your kid. So this year I'm going to try this sign and see how it goes...Feel free to use it too and let me know if it works. Sorry google crunches the size, you can get a higher res version here .

The blog that is. But I had an idea for some posts that I'll try out for as long as it amuses me... Since I'm not killing it you don't get my goodbye post, which was not really going to be a full on goodbye post. In a way this blog is like that girl (or boy) you are dating and want to break up with but you can't seem to do it... You have every good intention on doing the "it's not you, it's me" thing. Or you break up and then slide back, maybe even that same day. I have a feeling that goodbye post would be good, except I didn't actually get enough time to sit down and write it. It was going to consist of little summaries of posts that I was going to write but never got around to... So I can include them now. There was the one from way early on when I was pondering how the first circumcision came to be. I know we say it's for hygiene but that's probably a side effect... I also know that it's ritualistic but who was the first

Sidewalk chalk. The awesomeness of temporary art. MF loves the stuff... He does his best at drawing fish, sharks, circles and monkeys (they all look the same) and has us supplement his Jackson Pollock-esque doodles with fish and other things... But mostly fish. And it's up for a day or two then gone after a rain... As it should be. But it could be a little disappointing because it's so faint... And so temporary... What if you could hack it and make it better? That's just what we did. It was an accident. We left the  washable sidewalk chalk out during a storm and the box got filled with water... It stayed like that for a few days before we noticed... Then came a nice day and The Kid wanted to play chalk... So play we did (although we really didn't play chalk we used chalk or drew with chalk or such) after I drained the chalk box. The water gave the chalk an awesome consistency... And the color was amazing. The chalk rods (is that what you call them) were s

We all know the story, right. A rabbit (who's a bit like me) doesn't listen to his mother and loses his clothes then get sick... Moral is listen to your mother. But is that really the moral? I think not. Let's walk through it a bit. Peter ran off while Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail were gathering blackberries. Sure Peter should have stayed with his sisters but have you ever picked blackberries? It's tedious and prickly... No one in their right mind would blame him for ducking out... I should mention here that in the board book we have they don't mention that Peter's dad was in a "accident" that lead to him being baked into a pie by Mr. McGregor... So much has been sanitized these days. I mean calling it an accident back in 1893 was still sanitizing it... You know he was hit by a rake, knocked unconscious,  skinned and then cooked in a stew or perhaps just on a spit over a fire. Anyway when we last left Peter he was running away from a job tha

It seems like a lot of parents of toddlers biggest pride is their kid can recite the ABCs... They strut out like a trained seal and say "Say your alphabet." I've been accosted by these alphabet spewing kids too many times to count... And it's freaking annoying. I feel like they're trying yo impress me... I feel like I should reach into my pocket and throw some spare change in the kid's hat... Too bad none threw one down before hand. It means absolutely nothing. It's memorization. It's a song. A mnemonic but really it's a completely... Not like counting. But I think parents feel that because their kid can say their alphabet that they are changing the diapers of the next Einstein. This post isn't just about me bitching... Although I felt I had to throw that in so you all can spare the world of having to hear it... It's about the other morning when MF was playing with his magnet letters... He knows a fair amount of them and Staci was

We went looking for bikes yesterday... His legs are so super tiny that even most balance bikes are too small... Luckily if he grows about an inche he'll be able to ride the smallest Novara kid's bike... But he was a bit bummed that he couldn't buy a bike... And so was I... And this crappy little skateboard was only $18 (in reality I'd never buy a regular board or bike from anywhere than a board or bike store. Toy and Big box store gear sucks). We took it home... He's still too young for this, can't balance while kicking and doesn't get the idea of kicking... But damn he loves it... It was his chair at the snack table this morning...

Since I can't get to sleep until it's quite late I find myself watching movies at night since post-prime time television kind of sucks... I should also mention that late used to mean 2 or 3 in the AM but now with the kid and my age it means midnight... And I should mention that midnight is 12:00 which means it's actually morning... People always say things like "I need that by midnight tonight". There are two things wrong with that... People don't often say that and midnight would have already passed. That being said an unnamed online streaming company keeps me entertained... Unnamed because they kind fo suck now that they spun off their DVD service and that they are now less concerned with streaming movies than TV shows even though 'flix' is in the name of the company. Any how I find myself watching a lot of documentaries because real life is often more entertaining and less believable than scripts. That's how I found myself watching a mov

I'm killing the blog... Kind of... It all comes down to time and energy really... And while I love writing on this blog I don't feel that I have the time to write really good stuff anymore... And there are a shit load of sites out there with really crappy stuff on them and I don't want to add to the noise... On a side note I find it odd that some of those sites with crappy stuff are quite popular... But I suppose one dog's crap is another dog's meal. I learned this lesson this morning as my dog was chomping on another dog's poo while leaving a little gift of her own on the lawn. The circle of life. And I'm not totally killing it... I'll try to write one post a week and post it on Monday but if I have nothing good to say I won't post. I have a few good posts in my head already so I know this isn't the last. And I promised a joke so here it goes... kind of... It's the first joke MF told. The setup: Staci was reading MF a book called

In some industries at the the last century 48 hours without an injury was probably pretty good. That seems like a fact, probably is a fact, but I have no idea if it is... But it probably is. That doesn't really matter though. The deal is Staci was gone for the weekend it is was a bachelor weekend for me and the kid... And we had an awesome time. Lots of park time, tricycle rides and some general boy stuff (doing things we shouldn't do). And then on Sunday night I called my sister to see if she'd want to Skype with MF... The call went like this;  "Do you want to Skype? Oh shit he just jumped off the couch and split his lip. Lots of blood. Call you back." Split lips always seem worse than they are... Lots of blood, little damage. So I got a cold pack on his lip and we were back in action... As I was getting him water he grabbed my phone from my pocket, ran to the couch and jumped off. Bam... Eye to the edge of our glass table. It was only 48 hours into

I've been MIA this week because last Friday my grandfather died... He was an awesome man .  I could write about him but that doesn't seem like the thing to do... Instead I'll write an open letter to Delta about my experience booking my flights to Cleveland... Because it was ridiculously horrible and is why I will never buy a ticket from them again. And that's the loss that this post is about. Dear Delta My recent trip started with some shuffling of frequent flyer miles so I could book my wife and child's tickets with reward miles. My ticket was going to be a bereavement fare. When booking a bereavement you have to do it on the phone so I called up your customer service line... I explained to the CS person that I wanted to book a bereavement fare for me and book my wife and two-year old's tickets with two different rewards miles accounts. My wife, son and I were going to have the same outbound flight times/days but return days would be different.

I've been doing a series of posts sponsored by VapoRub the last few months (my faves are when MF mistakes the inner ear for noodles  and the story of when he became a teenage girl ). Each one dealt with the fact that little kids carry a sickness like nothing else... And I got it each time The Kid was sick. You hear about it all the time pre-kid... Parents talk of how crazy sick they get when their kid goes to school or daycare for the first time and brings home the most unnatural sicknesses ever. But it's hard to understand how bad it is. And this time, I think, I kicked it... Technically I still have a cough from the last time I was sick but it's diminished. I decided to go old school. Countless tablets of vitamin C and a ton of garlic have found their way into my life the last month in hope that it would stave off his next cold (or whatever that horribleness can be called). And it worked. I'm happy to say his nose was running like crazy... I touched probably se

I never understood the repeat button/option on a radio, mp3 player or such... To be totally sexist and ageist I always saw it as a thirteen year old girl thing... Perhaps that's just stereotyping people not really being sexist/ageist. I never used the button as a kid... In college on of my roommates actually had a rule against playing a song then repeating it right after it finished... It was really quite and ingenious rule and saved my sanity until I switched rooms and lived with a kid who just broke up with a girl so he needed to copy down the lyrics of some Depeche Mode song... This was before wiki-anything so playing and rewinding tape was the only way to get lyrics... I forget which song it was but I should remember as I was in the room when he was doing this... Whatever song it was it made me hate Depeche Mode... Also I should say that the guy with the no repeat rule actually broke it once... I could be wrong but I think it was There She Goes by the La's... But the ti

I've mentioned this before but my mom always talks about the time she knew I'd be a super independent person... It was when I was in a parking lot and she asked me to hold her hand. I grabbed my own and walked away saying "I hold my hand." Today I called my mom and asked her about how old I was... She guessed three. That means we're screwed. At just over two years old MF pulled this one on my tonight. Same scenario... I reached out for his hand and he walked off saying "I'm holding my hands." I'd guess that every kid says this but I haven't heard of any others doing it... My sister didn't, probably because she wasn't as smart as me... Or maybe because she was thinking of the probability that she'd be hit by a car... Which is actually quite low (I'd guess) so that gets into the not as smart as me territory... Not to say she's not smart, she's a Statistics and Analytical (and other) Math professor... She's just

I've gotten some good feedback from my First Gen Dads posts and I wanted to let everyone know that I'd love others to participate. While I work on a mission statement for it here's a short summary. The idea came to me after I realized that it's kind of hard figuring out the does and don'ts of fatherhood when you didn't have a dad around to see in action. I chatted with some other First Gen Dads who felt the same way so I decided to do the feature. Usually when you hear about dads who grew up without a dad you her bad things... But I wanted to celebrate these dads. So if you want to participate it's pretty simple. Answer a few questions and fill out a short QA. Check the other posts for that info. You don't need to be a blogger to participate... Everyone is welcome and that's what can make this cool. So if you're interested email me . And if you haven't seen the original posts check mine here and Don's here .

When I saw Cloverfield I was kind of psyched when I noticed one of the characters was wearing a shirt I owned... I'm sure it happens a lot but in this case it was this grey Gap tee that had a purple 7 on it and it was about 5 years old... So my guess was that it was hiding in some stylists closet for years... Two nights ago I was watching CSI and there was a kid who was abducted... The kid had on a pair of green dump truck PJs from Gap... They were the same ones that MF was wearing... It was kind of odd for a moment... Not as cool as when I saw my shirt on the big screen. I'm a bit of a CSI, Criminal Minds and Law & Order SVU junky. And for so long I wasn't really watching TV so I had to catch up. I caught the season of SVU that I missed and I realized something... I see the show totally differently now that I have a kid. Basically I want to kill anyone who even looks at MF... One day after watching a few episodes of SVU while the kid slept we headed to the book

He's totally in a mommy phase... It's actually been a few months now although I thought it had ended. I really wish I had written down his phases... I think we're on the third mommy phase with me trailing with two daddy phases. It's funny and heartbreaking all at once... The fact that I can't change a diaper is in someways a blessing... But the screams of "no, mommy do it" when I come near him to do so get old. An incomplete list of things I'm not allowed to do (depending on the day/time: Change diapers Put him to bed Read a book Get milk Make dinner Play legos Draw fish Sleep in my bed Use my pillow Brush his teeth Brush my teeth Put him in his car seat Drive him anywhere And more I realize it's a phase and like I said sometimes it has it's pluses (real smelly diapers) while sometimes it's just frustrating... But really I'm so bummed I didn't log the times he's in a mommy vs a daddy phase... Would have ma

So yeah... We've been cosleeping... And not because we're some freaking hippies that think that's the only harmonious way to keep our family close. Because that's how I saw cosleeper families in the past... And maybe how I see them currently. Not that I have anything against hippies or anything but as a totally non-judgemental person I like putting people into buckets and then judging them without really knowing all the facts... I'm an American. It all started when we went back to the way that actually helped put him to sleep consistently. We'd read a few books and then lay with him in his room until he dozed off. But things changed a bit...  First off every night he'd wake after 2-6 hours and want to come in our bed... It's so much easier to grab a kid's things and plop him in the middle than to deal with screaming for hours... Especially when you're half asleep... Plus it's kind of nice to have your kid sleep with you. And

My penultimate post in my Vick's VapoRub series that ties to their feel better friend campaign... And this one naturally fits quite well as you'll see in the end. The kid got me sick again. Crazy sick. Sicker than I have ever been. So sick that I should really take this time to apologize to my wife for not totally understanding how crazy sick she was getting the first few years she started teaching... Kid's breed super crazy diseases... And the thing is you'd think that if I got sick from him we'd have the same thing. And that if we have the same thing we'd be feeling pretty much the same. But while we both had super runny noses, stuffed up heads, coughs and random bouts of sneezing he was a total ball of energy. He's been brought down by sickness maybe twice. But usually he'll be crazy sick and have all the energy he usually has... For instance the time he had pneumonia but was bouncing off the bed. And while he was jumping all around I felt

I think if you have "a guy" for certain things your kid will look at you like you're cool. Because you're in the know. Some people have bike guys, some have guys to help them tear down a house (I have one of those too) and so forth. But the one that MF cares about right now is the fish guy. And the kid asks me to call him any time we pass the pet store so we can see if the fish are awake. Miloh will yell up to me, Call the fish guy. And I'll grab my phone... And the conversation will go like this. Me: Hey fish guy it's Kenny Fish guy: Me: Yeah, pretty good. You? Fish guy: Me:  I was wondering if the fish are still awake. We'd like to see them. Fish guy: Me: Oh, they're asleep because it's dark out? Fish guy: Me: Well tell them MF and I say goodnight. Fish guy: Me: You too... Bye. MF: Call the fish guy again Me: Hey it's me again. Just checking to see if you're sure they're asleep. Fish guy: Me: They are... Oh but t

When I the idea for this First Gen Dad thing got in my head I thought it would just be some super light QA questions focusing on dudes who are stand up dads even though they didn't have a good influence... But as I started writing my QA I realized I needed to add a little background... These are questions I get asked every once in awhile from folks... I usually blow them off with short answers but in my post I decided to answer... And in Don's words "it got real". So I really have to thank Don for being my first guinea pig after me. Here's a little background on him from my POV... He's a dude I met on twitter and probably a guy I'd hang with if we lived in the same city... unless he thought I was an ass or such. Don's a designer, one of the reasons he gets a plus in my mind, and a really good one at that... He's makes sweet little tattoo flash inspired shirts , design blogs  (I'm talking sweet designs that I should probably hire him for

This should probably be filed under "maybe this make's me an ass but..." Yesterday morning on the way to work I heard a medley of Whitney Houston songs... It's not my style of music but I can objectively say she has an amazing voice. The thing about the songs is I had heard them all pre-1997... Because since she started doing crack she hasn't really produced any notable music... I realize she might not have been on crack but she was a fan of the drugs... And she probably smoked some crack. Perhaps I'm callous but I'll always see her as a crack addict... Michael Jackson will always be a child molester... But I don't listen to either of their music so it's easy to separate it. Although Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone who died days before the scheduled release of his first album from a heroin overdose, will always be a fool and I think of it every time I listen to their album... While for some reason I always see Kurt Cobain'

It's well documented that I was completely freaked out by kid before MF was born... And a whole gaggle of kids made me completely nutso and uncomfortable. And really while I've changed a bit I still feel pretty much the same. Unkown kids freak me out. A gaggle of them is one of the most uncomfortable situations I can possibly be in... And for the record I probably don't like 97% of kids and still think 99% of babies are ugly (I just add that because it's true and I feared I would changed after we had a kid). But the other day I picked the kid up from school and two of his classmates were there... And as I was looking at the fish tank Staci suggested I read a book to him... In hindsight I think she knew what would happen. I grabbed a book and sat down to read to him... And then I was encircled by the two other kids in his class... Like drippy nosed hyenas with big puppy dog eyes and smiles they sat waiting for me to read a book. And so I put my fear aside and roc

If you missed my post from November in which MF is watching a bike video you should check it out . We still limit screen time for him but I always cave when it comes to that video or another of  Danny MacAskill's videos . Really though he's not just watching... He's participating... He's moved from casual observation to full on mimicking... But without a bike. Not sure how this came about but he loves it... I should mention in the first video he was supposed to be laying low as he had pneumonia... It didn't stop him. It did slow him down a bit. On the second one we were getting ready to go to an indoor skatepark for the first time to watch the kids... He had a ton of fun while we were there but this is what we did to get ready. It's a small slice of a larger video which includes me bopping him on the head when I jumped over him... But I lost some weight and those pants were falling off... No one wants to see crack. I'm still hoping to get a l

This is another post in my Vick's VapoRob VapoDad series. I should do a little update for you. On the first post  I announced that I was in a fantasy football league and although I know nothing about football I was kicking but... Then I announced that Drew Brees was the Vick's VapoDad. Ironically that week my team played a team with Drew on it... I lost miserably and then my team spiraled down to a total fail... Sick days... I've found that the idea of them has changed drastically since I was a kid. Back in the day, unless you were deathly ill, they were great... Especially if they were only a day or two long. If you were out for more your parents might make you do school work to catch up and that's just ridiculous. But one day out for me meant The Price is Right and hoping that I'd get to see that guy drop in the Cliffhangers game It also meant my mom would make orange Jello with sprite and pineapple inside... It was awesome then but now I think of w

Preamble: I've Back in June I wrote a post called First Generation Dad  that touched on how I feel to be a dad when I didn't really have a good father figure of my own. And I got an idea but didn't have time to flesh it out... Six months later and I finally had the time. I'm starting what I hope to be a new feature and calling it First Gen Dads. The idea is I'll invite other dads who, for whatever reason, didn't have a father around when they grew up. Stealing some words from my first guest (coming up next month) it's an important topic. I think it's one that's not thought about much. One thing that really got me thinking about this came a few months after my aforementioned post. It was a letter that a radio morning show guy wrote to his soon to be son. First I should mention I only listen to that morning show not that station. Second what got me about the letter is when he talks about all the things his dad taught him... My father taught

If you missed part one of my two part series on our trip to Mexico you really missed nothing. Something I forgot to mention that happened day two was that I bought my first can of Axe body spray. I forgot deodorant and everything I found had anti-perspirant in it and I don't know all the facts but I know that if you use you get a phone call right after then you die seven days later... The only non-anti-perspirant stuff was a lonely can of Axe. So I tried it... And I can tell you the commercials lie. Not one angel fell from the sky. Also I should mention that there was a ton of pool time the first few days but and in one of those days a dog bit an orange ball that was at the pool... We heard about it from MF the rest of the week. Day Four: You can get falafel in Isla Mujeres... At Mañana (a cool little cafe that has a mini used bookstore in it). Said falafel rocks... And the hot sauce is awesome. As a general rule the hot sauces in Isla were awesome and so different