Since I’ve been off for a while, I don’t have any new questions to respond to, so I figured I’d respond to other advice columnists’ questions. Because let’s face it, I give way better advice than the “experts.”

Up first, a young woman wrote into Miss Manners recently. I’m going to paraphrase the original article , so I don’t face the wrath of the Miss Manners legal team, which I’ll bet are not nearly concerned with manners as she is.

Dear Miss Manners,
There is this young man I recently met who wants to go out with me. The problem is, I’m not interested in him at all. However, he doesn’t seem to be getting the hints. I just want him to leave me alone. Should I be forward and direct or tell some white lie to dissuade him? How should a lady properly handle this?
-Not Interested

Miss Manners said she normally avoids telling women to be frank with declarations of distaste as it can descend into insults. However, if the guy isn’t getting the hints, or is ignoring them, she should be direct about her disinterest without giving reasons.

While, I’m sure that might have worked in Miss Manners’ perfect world, it’s not how the real world works. Here’s how I would answer the question.

Dear Not Interested,
As most women know, the harder you are “to get”, the more a guy will want to be with you. There is some part of the male brain (yes ladies the male brain does exist; it is not a myth) which conditions us to always want what we can’t have. It’s probably left over from the hunter/gatherer phase of evolution, where men were in charge of hunting dinosaurs and gathering saber tooth tigers to use to punch their time cards.

In short, the more a man can’t have an item, the more the man will want that item. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “rare” baseball card, a woman, or a box of rusty hypodermic needles. You tell a guy that he can’t have it, or worse, some other guy might get it first, HE WILL WANT IT.

So, the secret to getting a guy “not” to want you is fairly simple. Here is my four phase plan to get any guy to leave you alone.

Step One: Act like you want him.

Not just like him, but you LOVE him. Shower him with attention. Call him every day, or better, every 20 minutes. Ask him about his day and make sure you tell him every detail about yours. Don’t leave ANY bit of minutia out. If you were considering having a light vinaigrette dressing on your salad, but instead decided to indulge and go with the Ranch, and not the light or No Fat Ranch, but the extra creamy fat-laden buttermilk version, by all means, TELL HIM! And don’t just tell him about your day, but tell him what’s going on with all your relatives, friends, and hell, even people you don’t know!

Step two is to smother him. Make sure he is always nearby. If he has to go out, make sure he is available via cellphone. You should probably get him an emergency cellphone which will only be used for your calls. Make sure you call him often and ask what he’s doing and when he’ll be home. Even if he’s at work and never comes home before 6:30 p.m., there’s no reason you can’t start calling him at 11 a.m. and asking, just in case he decides to come home early. And when he does return home, make sure you ask him about every detail of his day THE MINUTE HE WALKS THROUGH THE DOOR!

Step Three: If he’s not already out the door, make friends with his mom. Find out his mom’s mannerisms and do your best to adopt them for yourself. If you can find a way to nag him using the exact phrases his mom uses, you should have no problems in sending him for the hills.

Step Four: If all else fails, marry him. With a bit of careful planning and sticking to the rules as laid out above, he should be out of your life in a year or two, tops.

-Blogger Dad

Got any questions for me? Leave one in the comments or email me at idrawcomics (at gmail dot com) and you’ll be featured here and in the inevitable books of wisdom I will be asked to write.

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Content is copyright 2010 BloggerDad.com. If you are reading this on any site other than www.Bloggerdad.com or your personal RSS reader, then you may be reading it on a site which steals content. And would you trust a site like that?

I’m not talking about generally happy parents, them I like. I’m talking about SUPER HAPPY parents, which were very likely SUPER HAPPY people prior to having kids. You’ve seen them, overfilled with the joy of parenthood; worshiping every sigh, squeak and dirty diaper their child makes. These people with their perfect children who never misbehave, always sleep through the night and are never sick. I call these parents jerks.

And if you’re like me, you want to level the playing field a bit – introduce some chaos into these Happy Jerks’ lives. And you’ll do it while looking like a nice person – by buying gifts. Only these gifts are the most evil and noisiest toys ever churned out by Santa’s evil elf army (don‘t act like you don‘t know what I‘m talking about).

So here are a couple of the noisiest toys that I know of. And what better time to share the misery than Christmas?

Fisher Price Corn Popper

This perpetual noise machine has been delighting children and annoying parents since 1957! It is single handedly responsible for the end to the baby boom some seven years after its introduction.

For those unfamiliar with the toy, it can best be described as a walking fireworks show, minus the pretty lights.  As your child pushes the toy, little hard plastic balls POP inside a plastic dome which is seemingly made of some special science-fiction type of sound amplification system.

I’m not sure what the Corn Popper is intended to be, as the balls inside the plastic dome are colorful and look nothing at all like popcorn. Nor do they taste like it – don’t ask. Judging from my son’s use of the toy, he thinks it’s a vacuum cleaner.

Since children LOVE noisy toys, this will surely put a smile on some child’s face as he walks by, looking at his parents.

POP POP POP POP POP!!

And you’ll be smiling, too as you call the Happy Parents and ask them how their child is enjoying the corn popper.

E 'vacuuming' up Cheerios that he spilled all over the carpet.

Quick Rundown

• ages: one and up
• price: around $11
• Fun Factor (on a scale of 1-10): 10
• Fun Factor of chasing cats: 10
• Time that toy will hold a toddler’s interest: 10-15 minutes (which is like an hour in toddler time)
• Who should avoid this toy:  People with ears, parents prone to hangovers, people with pets.

Pooh Tick-Tock Clock Activity Choo Choo

On an unrelated note, what is a Pooh? Why is he called Winnie the Pooh? Is his name Winnie or Pooh? It would be like me being called David the Wright!

Wow! Toys DO NOT get much noisier than this riding train for toddlers!

It’s not that this toy train makes a lot of noise, which it does, it’s that the noise is soooo loud.

“Going for a train ride with you is lot’s of fun!” Winnie cheerfully announces if your child presses one button. There are a ton of other buttons, each of them producing a variety of other loud noises such as:

• ringing train bells
• various songs including the Winnie the Pooh theme song
• the death cries of hobos caught under the wheels

The only sound seemingly missing from the repertoire is that of gunshots, which would probably be a bit more soothing than the Pooh’s voice saying “Going for a train ride with you is lots of fun” for the 400th time in five minutes.

This toy, while undoubtedly fun for children, is clearly designed by sadists who hate people that breed. There can be no other explanation for the LACK OF A VOLUME CONTROL!

Quick Rundown

• Who this toy is for: Children 1-3 years of age. Deaf parents, children who like loud things, sadists
• Price: $29.99
• Fun Factor (on a scale of 1-10): 9
• Who should avoid this toy: parents with functioning ears, parents who have hangovers, people who have fond memories of Pooh, hobos.
• Safety WARNING: on a serious note, if your child is like mine and likes to stand on things and show off his balancing skills while smiling with a HUGE grin as if to say, Look what I can do, mommy and daddy, you will want to constantly supervise them while they play with this train, as they can stand on the seat and easily fall.

If you liked this review, check out my review for another noisy toy which I wrote in August.

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(Another note: Remember right before the election I teased that my next post would make half of you leave? Well, the election post was actually a way of introducing THIS post, which was supposed to be part of it. THIS is the post I figured would likely cause half of you to leave. You’ve been warned.)

How do you pick which dream to follow?

I’ve got a bucket overflowing with dreams. Inside you will see a series of children’s books, this blog, a regular column, a syndicated comic strip, a horror novel or two, and another two blogging projects on the horizon (one of which will be unveiled this week).

The only problem is that I haven’t got time to make them all come true.

Since starting Blogger Dad a couple of months ago, this blog has opened up new worlds or possibility to me. I’ve met a lot of great people and potential collaborators. This blog has also come at the expense of something, and that something is my comics.

Since I’ve used a lot of time once devoted to comics and turned it over to blogging, I figured I would return the favor and spend some of my blogging time to speak of the comics. I hope you will indulge me.

My main gig for the past eight years has been as a webcomic artist (kind of like a newspaper artist, except you usually don’t make any money at it). I draw a couple of them, the cute and family-friendly Todd and Penguin and the less family-friendly, not as cute, Taking Up Space. The two are as different as night and day as are their audiences. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to draw every comic I’d like to. Truth be told, since I’ve been blogging regularly here, I’ve had trouble working on any of my other comics.

And I miss drawing them.

While Todd and Penguin has been with me longer – since November 2000, to be specific, it isn’t the comic I think about when my pencil finds way to paper lately.

Todd and Penguin has always been my MAIN comic, the one for which I am most known, the one which has the most readers and I get the most email about. Taking Up Space has been sort of the black sheep. I started it in 2002. It was my first published comic, appearing in The Stanford Daily ( Stanford University’s paper for you non-U.S. readers). It’s left of center politically (which drew me some hate mail from some of my regular readers who didn’t like that I hold an opinion different than theirs) and it’s sometimes dark. It has been described by another comic artist as “Peanuts for the new millennium”.

I kind of like that description because Peanuts was a dark comic in its early days. It spoke to the insecurities of its artist, Charles Schulz. It spoke to millions of readers. It conveyed volumes with themes that betrayed the simplicity of the form. As a child, I got lost in the world created by Schulz. As I grew older, I found deeper meaning, and solace, in my collection of old Peanuts comics.

I believe Peanuts was cathartic for Schulz. That’s how I feel about Taking Up Space.

I recently read an old interview with Chuck Palahniuk who advised if you’re going to write, write about the things that piss you off. Those are things which you will write best about. Those are the things which mean something. In other words, that is where your passion is at.

The comic’s tag line is “Unhappy comics for unhappy people.”

The two main characters in Taking Up Space are Jessika, the angry gothy elementary school student (who is also in Todd and Penguin) and her brother, Bobby, a hopelessly optimistic (though unlucky) sort. While Jessika rants and raves at the injustices of the world (from a myopic point of view) and the basic inherent flaws in people, Bobby is more thoughtful and prone to believe in the good of people.

The comic oftentimes makes fun of pop culture though it is just as often likely to explore some of the issues and themes which bother me – those who persecute, those who exploit, and hypocrisy. While the comic leans left, the attacks aren’t on a particular political system but rather specific types of people.

Below are a few examples:

Exploitation by fear mongering politicians and media.

Exploitation by hucksters looking to sell the latest and greatest snake oil. (This should get me some nasty comments given my readership is made up of some of self-help type bloggers.) Let me preface this by saying that this is not a blanket assault on the entire industry (and certainly not MY readers who are among the most honorable people to ever grace the planet!). Hell, I even have a few such books myself (shh, don’t tell anyone). However, I defy anyone to say the industry is not full of sharks and con men looking to exploit people’s weaknesses.

Exploitation by religious leaders who preach hate and take money from those who can afford least to give. The second one earned me the biggest look of disgust from a former co-worker who didn’t at all get the point.

These are the comics from my pissed off inner child.

But there are also elements of love, sincerity, friendship and faith. Take Alexander Rabbit, a naive, happy-go-lucky bunny who checks his mailbox for letters everyday in hopes that someone, anyone will talk to him.

And sometimes, the comics are just plain goofy (or mean, I guess it depends on how you look at it).

And of course I wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t point out the hypocrisy or angst of my own characters.

Taking Up Space is cynical, make no mistake, but at its core beats the heart of a guarded but hopeful romantic. Which is why when I look back on the archives of the strip, I wish I had devoted more time to getting this comic right. Looking back, I can see the days where I was rushing things. I can see the stories which I meant to write but didn’t because I was too tied up in my other comic or work-related stuff. I see a lot of potential not yet realized.

And it pains me greatly that I never gave the time to make it what it could be.

The comic has been very much living up to its name, Taking Up Space.

But with little time, I can’t do it all.I have a hope that all of these dreams I am pursuing, all of this work I am doing and blind faith I have in myself is rewarded and something clicks. If just one of my dreams comes true, then I wouldn’t mind continuing to do the others for no money. But I need to find a way to make a living again at doing what I love.

So I have decided to take a shot at the syndicates for both of my comics. See if anyone wants to buy them. If not, I will likely stop drawing them with any regularity.

I hope this post isn’t as self indulgent as I fear it might be.

as always, thanks for reading.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I regularly draw a couple of comic strips. When I mentioned this in a prior post, some of you emailed me or commented, suggesting that I include comics with the blog. So, here we are, the first journal-type comic for Blogger Dad.

Let me know what you think. Would you like to see this as a regular feature?

Other stuff

I’ve been pretty busy working behind the scenes on a cool new super secret project which I will announce later this week. I’m very excited and can’t wait to tell you what I’m up to and who else is involved!

Speaking of cool things, check out Men With Pens’ new site design!

(One more note: This post originally appeared elsewhere in February, pre-dating the existence of this blog. I figured you might enjoy reading it.)

Apparently I’m as handy at installing a baby gate as I am at installing a car seat.

Yet, I found myself doing just that this weekend. Ever since my son started crawling a few months ago, he’s been determined to get a hold of the cats’ food. My wife (and the cats) demanded that I put up a gate to keep him out of the kitchen. While we have a small portable and easy to use expanding fence at one kitchen entrance, we had to purchase a larger permanent gate with an swinging door for the larger opening. Which meant I had to install it.

As you may recall from my last post, I dread Weekend Projects, because a) I work long hours during the week and I don’t want to spend my weekends fulfilling an endless list of Things To Be Done like some husbands I know and b) I am about as handy with tools as a blind monkey in a straight jacket.

The gate looked easy enough to install. The box proclaimed that “all you need is a screwdriver.” I can do that. I HAVE a screwdriver! The fewer tools needed, the more likely I am to buy a product. So, I figured that I couldn’t screw this up (pun not intended).

I figured wrong.

But it’s not my fault. The box lied.

Only after I opened the box at home did I see the instructions, which read:

“USING A DRILL AND 3/15 BIT, DRILL A BUNCH OF RANDOM HOLES IN THE WALL”

The box didn’t tell me that I needed a drill! Lying box.

It’s not that I don’t have a drill. I just don’t know where it is. It’s not in my garage with the rest of the cobweb covered tools. It isn’t in the laundry room. The only thing I can think of is that my subconscious, in an effort to avoid all future home improvement projects, guided me to bury the drill in the backyard one night while sleepwalking.

So where does one go when one needs to borrow a drill?

I called my dad, who is an old school Man’s Man. He can build anything and has the tools to do it. Not only does he have a drill, but likely several of them, each which perform some function that I probably should’ve learned in shop class when I was busy reading X-Men comic books I smuggled in. While it occurred to me to ask my dad for help, my ego wouldn’t let me. I’m a man. A man should be able to install a baby gate without calling daddy.

With drill in hand I returned home, ready to install that bastard gate.

Next step on the instructions:  mark eight spots to drill holes where both ends of the gate will connect to the wall via connectors and screws. The box even included a handy EASY TO USE template!  I’d have to be an idiot to mess this up!

Hi, I’m Blogger Dad, also known as Idiot.

While measuring with the template, which is supposed to start at the floor and measure up, I failed to take into account the trim which run along the floor. I, of course, realized this only AFTER drilling four holes and attempting to line the gate up.

Then I had to locate the proper spot to drill FOUR MORE HOLES.

“SH*%!” I cursed as I looked at the holes. I tried to keep my voice down but it wasn’t low enough. My wife immediately popped into the living room, “What? What did you do?” (God, that is about the least comforting thing a woman can ask a guy who is working on something.)

So, I told her. She was not happy about the holes.

“Why don’t you just call your dad to come over?” she asked.

Because a man should be able to install a baby gate!

After drilling the holes and connecting one side, I went to work on the other wall. I vowed to not make the same mistake on this wall.

Of course, I didn’t vow not to make a NEW mistake.

SOMEHOW, despite careful measuring and keeping the trim in mind, I managed to measure and drill one of the sets of holes incorrectly, off by less than a centimeter. Just enough to ensure that nothing lined up and connected.

So… I had to drill FOUR MORE HOLES.

More cursing. More questions from my wife.

My wall was starting to look like Swiss Cheese.

To make matters worse, since I didn’t realize my error until it was too late, I managed to lose four plastic anchors in the wall. I was able to pull them out, but they were mangled all to hell.

I have a question: Am I the only one who destroys plastic anchors every time I attempt to drill them into a wall?

And of course, the gate didn’t come with any extra anchors.

While I would love to have let loose a stream of obscenities so loud that God Himself would pause to look down from the Heavens to see the source of such a torrential of vulgarities, a wide eyed innocent Baby Wright was inches away, watching his inept daddy work. I was pretty sure I saw him shake his head in shame.

I didn’t want him to see me screaming at the fence. So I kept my cool, went to Lowes, picked up a box of 1,000 anchors (just in case I managed to REALLY screw up the gate) and drove home at about 140 mph.

A project which should have taken a half hour, tops, managed to take me nearly all day. I was annoyed. To make matters worse, my wife was annoyed at me being annoyed!

Yes, annoyed at me for the way I handled the whole situation.

Here I am doing something at her request. Something for The Baby, and she’s upset with me?

My wife, bless her soul, is a nice person who doesn’t get angry and curse at baby gates. She has this Pollyanna vision of a husband who smiles at each setback and screw up, who looks at the holes in the wall and cocks his head back and shares a wholesome chuckle with the entire Cleaver family – right before everybody practices Christmas Carols.

Unfortunately for her, she didn’t marry that guy.

The rest of the job went off without a hitch. And for my efforts, I have a nice secure baby fence and eight extra holes in the wall. Which of course means I have ANOTHER weekend project — repairing the holes and painting over them.

I can’t possibly screw that up.

Right?

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(note: this piece originally appeared elsewhere in February. But since I just started this blog two months ago, I doubt any of you have read it.)
(another note: This piece has the distinction of being the first thing I wrote which ticked my wife off. And yet, I post it again.)
(and yet another note: Sorry, baby. I told you that I sometimes exaggerate for comedic effect.)

I had to install a car seat this weekend. Baby Wright (at nine months) has already outgrown his first seat. Kid is tall! Must be all those toxins in the toys he seems to carry around in his mouth.

I’m not sure who installed our first car seat, my wife must’ve found some guy more mechanically inclined than myself, which could’ve been Richard Simmons for all I know.  So, I set out to install this monstrosity (sucker is big) into the car, figuring it can’t be THAT difficult. Right?

Then I read the instruction manual.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

I like to think I’m a fairly intelligent guy. My job as a reporter oftentimes immerses me in complex issues that I have little experience or knowledge of. It is my job to quickly get up to speed on such things in order to explain them to readers in a way that makes it seem like I actually know what I‘m talking about.

If I had to write a story on how to install a car seat, I don’t think I could. Not unless it’s a photo essay of me jumping up and down on the thing while cursing.

I’m not sure WHO the instruction manual is written for (guys with engineering degrees? rocket scientists? ) but it certainly didn’t make any sense to me.

Oh, I tried to figure it out. I even managed to get some straps connected to The Anchors. However, the car seat was still loose. I considered just grabbing some duct tape and bungee cords, but since it’s The Baby, I actually have to Do Things The Right Way. I can usually figure things like this out by looking at them for a while. When that invariably fails, I look for someone who actually Knows What They’re Doing.

Luckily, my boss was working on the weekend, and I was able to ask him for assistance. Having installed many a car seats, he was able to do this one with relative ease. He certainly didn’t refer to the thing as a Mother F-word-er… Seventeen times (like I did).

This weekend I have another Baby Project. I have to install a baby gate in the house to keep my son from wandering out of the safety of our living room. My wife has a fear that he will wander into the kitchen and start snacking from the cat’s litter box. I would call the fear irrational if E hadn’t already tried.

Goodbye, freedom

Man, I remember a time when I could actually do what I wanted on the weekend! I could draw comics, relax, watch some TV. Not anymore though… Somehow, my time has ceased to be my own.

Let this serve as a lesson to all you people out there (teens and adults alike) not to have sex. Remember, sex leads to car seats and baby gates.

I say if some of these morality police-types want to stop unmarried people from having sex, they ought to just create a public service announcement with some miserable guy trying to put baby stuff together. Underneath, could be some text, reading, “Remember when you were able to watch the game? Parenthood – it’s all car seats and baby gates.”

I could almost see the lines forming for vasectomies.

as always, thanks for reading.

coming tomorrow: The baby gate project and more cursing.

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(Author’s note: I wrote most of these words in the hospital room as I waited for my son to be born. This is the first time I’ve looked at them since.)

Tuesday April 17 12:26 am

So, this is it, I’m about to be a dad.
I got the call around 9:30 p.m. I was at work at the paper – a long day and deadline night – my wife said, “Um, I think my water broke.”

What?! Now?!

It’s the moment I’ve been training for in my head since I learned  I was going to be a dad – the rushed drive to the hospital. I’d even done several real world practice runs at a slightly elevated speed. I usually made pretty good time, but now, the real thing!

I raced home from work, thinking the whole time, I would get pulled over by a cop. You always see that scene in the movies and you wonder if you’ll get a cop who is cool with your situation and says, “Hey, man, let me escort you,” before leading you on a 90 miles per hour race. With my luck, I’d get one who didn’t think the last editorial cartoon I drew of the Sheriff was all that funny. Fortunately, I made it home in record time without running into any traffic, deputies or other obstacles.

I pulled up to my house, jumped out of the car, and raced to the front door expecting to see my wife stretching anxiously like a runner waiting for the starter’s pistol.

Instead, she was on the phone!

She was talking to one of many people she’d called, and was about to take a shower.

“A shower?!” I ask. “What?!”

“Yeah, there’s no hurry, it’s just my water breaking,” she said like a seasoned pro, though this is our first child. Besides, it could be her last shower for a while and she wanted to be somewhat fresh.

Then, as soon as she hung up our house phone, her cell phone rang. While on the cell, the house phone rang. “Grand central station,” she answered.

Yeah, no kidding.

Apparently, it’s important for a woman to immediately alert every female within 10,000 miles that the baby is on the way! We should’ve gotten a modified Bat Signal installed on our roof to save time. Or maybe a ton of those spotlights used for grand openings.

While my wife is sharing this moment with everyone she’s ever known, I looked at my own cell phone, and couldn’t really think of more than two people to call.

I waited until we got to the hospital. Then I called my dad.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked before telling him that we were at the hospital awaiting the Big Moment.

“Ok,” he said, as if I’d just told him that it was dark outside. “So, are you nervous?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said in a casualness which matched his, though only moments earlier, I was racing down the road like a madman on a prison break.

No squeals of joy and excitement, just matter of fact conversation. You know, how guys talk.

Then I hung up as my wife was being checked by a nurse. We had a long night ahead of us… a very long night. Because, even though my wife’s water broke, my son was in no hurry to leave his comfy little home of the past nine months.

Our baby story concludes tomorrow. Please feel free to share your own Trip to the Hospital story downstairs (to borrow Writer Dad’s term for the comments’ section).

Click below to continue reading Our Baby Story.

• Our baby story – Part One: “Surprise, I’m pregnant”
• Our baby story – Part Two : I’m not ready!
• Our baby story – part Three: Everything changes
• Our baby story – part Four: uh oh, my water broke
• Our baby story part Five: Hello, world

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It’s a huge blow to the ego the day you discover that you’re no longer number one in your wife’s eyes.

I knew there would be changes when our first child was born. There had to be. You don’t have a baby and expect everything to remain the same. What surprised me is how quickly things changed after my wife found out she was pregnant.

The day I got married was a magical day. I looked into my wife’s eyes and knew that she was my number one and I was hers. It was one of few certainties I knew. There was only us and nothing else mattered. It was the type of romantic thing I don’t normally admit to thinking. Even though I sometimes took being number one for granted, I never thought I would lose that spot.

And then I did.

I realized sometime after my wife learned of her pregnancy that I had slipped to number two. Our as yet unborn baby had become number one. I even asked her about it once when we were joking around. She admitted that yes, “he’s my baby” as she put a hand on her stomach. She said that our baby would also be my number one. I denied it, saying that she was and will always be my number one. She laughed, saying I would change my mind once my son is born. At the moment, he was still more of a concept than a reality to me.

I understand how my wife felt, it’s human nature. But it was still a significant shift in reality which I had not expected.

This was only one of several changes which took place in the months leading up to the birth of our baby.

Women and men see the blessing of parenthood through different eyes. And forgive me for talking in generic terms, I understand that there are exceptions to every rule. Take, for example, this British “man” who likes to iron. But for the most part, the way men and women view impending parenthood is as different as night and day.

Men ask:

• How is this going to change my life?
  
• What will this take away?
  
• What freedoms will I be losing?
  
• Does this mean I’m going to miss The Super Bowl? That kid BETTER not be born on Super Bowl Sunday!

Women see pregnancy as a blessing which they’ve been preparing for since they themselves were infants holding baby dolls.

Women ask:

• How much GREATER will this make my life?
  
• Will I get everything I put on the baby registry?
  
• I wonder if we can sell the TV for a larger crib?
  
• It’s not like he ever watches anything GOOD on the TV. It’s just sports, sports, sports.

My wife was pregnant less than two days before she was eying “cute” baby-related items in stores, catalogs and on the web. I’m not sure, but I think a big part of why women want children is so they can buy baby accessories.

BloggerDad Lesson # 17: Women LOVE buying accessories!

We were in a shoe store where my wife found a pair of baby sneakers which she held up while making this “aaaaaaawwwwww” sound as if she‘d just found a baby Gremlin. “These are soooooo cute,” she said. I’m pretty sure she was on the verge of tears.

This was only the beginning of months of such discoveries of  “cute” things as we both stared into the future and wondered what was to come. We talked, planned and dreamed. And you know what? I didn’t mind being relegated to number two. Because despite my earlier protests, I would soon have a new number one.

So, how did your life change during the months leading up to the birth of your first child?

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion to our baby story.

(Author’s note: This post was modified to change the number of story parts from four to five)

Click below to continue reading Our Baby Story.

• Our baby story – Part One: “Surprise, I’m pregnant”
• Our baby story – Part Two : I’m not ready!
• Our baby story – part Three: Everything changes
• Our baby story – part Four: uh oh, my water broke
• Our baby story part Five: Hello, world

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My 18-month old son, E (as I call him in this blog), LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Jack’s Big Music Show! It is the ONLY TV program which holds his attention for more than a few seconds. Before Jack, my son ignored programs. The TV was just a big shiny box which caused dad to sometimes curse about blind referees performing impossibly flexible feats.

For the uninitiated, Jack’s Big Music Show is a musical educational TV program for pre-schoolers which airs on the Noggin cable channel in the United States. ‘Jack’ centers around puppets Jack, his friend Mary and Jack’s purple and green striped drum playing dog, Mel. Most of the show takes place in their clubhouse and features loads of music and zany misadventures – and it is absolutely adorable and funny. I could write a thousand words more on all the cool things I love about the show.

Jack’s Big Music Show first caught my son’s attention a few months ago because of the music. He LOVES music and LOVES dancing. His “dancing” is also completely adorable and funny. The show is free on our cable company’s On Demand channel. We also recorded several episodes on our DVR so Jack and his pals were always ready to play.

I was originally opposed to my son watching TV at such an early age. However, he doesn’t stare mindlessly at this show. He interacts with it. The music gets him up and makes him shake his arms, feet, hands and booty.

Soon, E began requesting to watch the show by pointing at the TV remote while saying, “Ack, Ack.”  Then he looks patiently at the TV and waits.

I would never have guessed how positive a child’s interaction with TV could be… or how funny.

This weekend, an episode of Jack came on in which Jack is accidentally turned into a bunny while standing in front of Mel’s magical horn when Mel blew it. Suddenly, Jack a bunnified Jack starts bouncing around the clubhouse while Mary and Mel try to catch him so they can reverse the effect. Soon the doorbell rings. It’s The Schwartzman Quartet! (a barbershop quartet of puppets) who show up, as they do every episode, to sing about what’s going on. The song they sing in this episode repeats the lyrics “Run around, Run around” as Mary and Mel chase Jack around the clubhouse in circles.

“Run, Run, Run After Bugle Bunny Baby”

My son has seen this episode 10 times (at least) but this time the show inspired him to new levels of goofiness.

When the Shwartzman Quartet started singing, “Run around, run around, run around, here we go…” my son took off running! He proceeded to circle the dining room and living room as fast as he could, his little legs pumping and arms swinging as he giggled. Each time he made his way past the couch where my wife and I sat, he turned towards us – with a big grin on his face – to make sure we were watching. He continued his route until the song ended, at which time he went back to reading.

Each night since, he has given a repeat performance, responding to the cue from the quartet. It’s almost like some subconscious Manchurian Candidate-like prompt which sends him on a running spree. We made the mistake of playing the episode during dinner (we were eating in the living room this night, though we usually eat in the dining room) and when the song came on, my son immediately began to push, pull, and flail -knocking his sippy cup to the ground in an attempt to break free from his high chair. I ran over and freed him. His legs were already pumping before he hit the ground, and off he went!

Here is video of one of his runs (though this was later, after he was a bit tired).

Even funnier – at the end of the episode, The Schwartzman Quarter (who always travel in a pack) lean backwards and sideways as they exit through the door of the clubhouse. They do this because the way they are stacked, they would be too tall to clear the door. I had never noticed this, but apparently my son had.

In recent weeks, E would mimic The Quartet’s sideways sort of walk out the door from time to time. We hadn’t put two and two together and dismissed it as him being weird. The other night, we saw that as the song wound down and the quartet left the clubhouse, my son had just finished running around the table, stopped in front of the TV to watch, then he copied their walk! My wife pointed it out and we both suddenly realized, “ah, that’s what he’s doing!”

Bye, bye Jack

Unfortunately, I am getting rid of cable tomorrow. (Yes, I know I was supposed to get rid of cable a month ago, but I was attempting to get a really cheap deal from somewhere else. That deal proved to be more expensive, so I decided to just get rid of everything other than the local channels). I spent nearly 12 hours during the past two days attempting to get my piece of crap Centrios DVD Recorder to record the shows on DVD so we could watch them. Unfortunately, the Centrios spit out 10 DVD’s, all of them blank!

I will no longer have access to Jack. My son will no longer be able to run around the house to the tunes of The Schwartzman Quartet.

My son will point to the remote and go “Ack, Ack” and his heart will break when I can’t turn it on. He will stare at the TV with a confused, sad expression.

But, Blogger Dad, surely you can buy the shows on DVD, right?

Well, you’d think so. However, there is NO Jack’s Big Music Show merchandise (other than a CD, which I bought and ONE DVD). No box sets, no tee shirts, no puppets, NOTHING! I have massive respect for Noggin to avoid the temptation to pump out tons of Jack merchandise. Given the appeal of this show which millions of children (and adults) love, Jack merchandise would be a license to print money! Yet, nothing!

So here is my plea to Noggin or the folks at Spiffy Pictures (the awesome creators of Jack’s Big Music Show) PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, PLEASE RELEASE MORE VIDEOS! You wouldn’t want to be responsible for my son’s sadness, would you?

That isn’t very spiffy.

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Happy Anniversary to my wife. I got her this cake in honor of our special day.

Actually, I didn’t get her that cake. While it would have been totally funny, I would be the only one laughing. Of course, I’d also be sleeping alone. But the real story of the cake is even WEIRDER. My friend sent me the photo, telling me it was for her 4 year old niece’s birthday. Yes, a 4 year old girl actually saw a picture of a cake like this and thought it was “cool” and requested it. My friend sent me a second photo of her niece standing over the cake and smiling cutely. I’ll refrain from posting it, so as not to invite the Department of Children and Families to swoop down on her niece’s house.

And before you ask, NO Dave, you can’t have a piece.

Post your Halloween pics

There’s still time to post your childhood Halloween pics. Anyone who posts their old Halloween pics, or pics of their own kids or animals dressed up for Halloween, let me know in the comments of this post,

On Halloween, I’ll post links to everyone who participates and will also post the best (and worst) pics.

Please don’t let this guy submit the best pic! Although, Sean will still have to submit another photo, as this is not a Halloween pic, but from something called 60′s Day at school…

at least that’s the story he’s sticking to.

My next war

For those of you who have been following Blogger Dad for a month or so might remember my declaration of war on McDonald’s. Well, that war is on hold during McDonald’s Monopoly game. In the meantime, I am launched a second war against another giant corporation – Pepsi-Cola.

First, the grocery shrink ray started hitting cereal boxes, ice cream and candy bars. It now takes two boxes of Golden Grahams to fill my cereal bowl, for God’s sake. Of course, that might be because my cereal bowl looks like this…

Now the shrink ray is zapping a bit closer to home. Pepsi-Cola recently shrank its 12 pack of 12 oz. cans to 8 packs in a few test states, including mine! What the hell? I NEED my Diet Cherry Pepsi but I am not going to start paying MORE for it. I hope the experiment fails miserably so Coke doesn’t get any bright ideas.

I’m a Twit

Sean (Writer Dad) Platt twisted my arm and convinced me to join Twitter. Yeah, I know, I waited a loooong time to join the party. The thought that anyone would actually care about what I’m up to every moment of every day is a bit unlikely. Also, the concept of sharing random thoughts seems a recipe for disaster for someone who declares wars on fast food corporations, but it could be fun. Of course, now that I joined, twitter will fall out of favor and be replaced by some other new “thing.” If you’re interested in reading my updates, rants and whatnots, you can check on the text box to the right. If you click below the tweet, you can even “follow” me – now doesn’t that sound like fun?

Namasté

Speaking of Writer Dad, his wife Cindy launched her new website, NamasDaisy on Friday. I drew the awesome chalkboard, but that isn’t the reason you should go. She’s a great writer, also. I look forward to great things from her.

Faster than a speeding bullet?

My Eight Questions interview series will return this Wednesday featuring someone who has been nominated for “hottest daddy blogger.” No, not me. I’m talking of course about Clark Kent’s Lunchbox.