The Perfect Christmas Gift - For Children You Hate</h1> <article> <h1>The Perfect Christmas Gift - For Children You Hate</h1> <p>superdad — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:13:00 GMT</p> <p> Audra came home with her Christmas wish list yesterday. Apparently that’s what they’re doing in school nowadays, writing letters to Santa. This is fine, except that my daughter is apparently greatly influenced by her peers. For instance, she asked for a DS. That’s a hand held computer game for those of you who don’t know. The category of “those of you who don’t know” would also include my daughter who has never seen one before, and became extremely vague as soon as I asked her about it. Apparently her best friend is getting a DS for Christmas and so Audra wants one too. Her best friend also rides motor bikes in little kiddy dirt bike competitions, so I guess I should be grateful.</p> <p>This did get me thinking about the big holiday though. Every day we get half a dozen catalogs that sit on the counter for a few days before I get around to a mass recycling. I’ve been looking through them and you wouldn’t believe some of the great stuff they have out there for kids. You also wouldn’t believe some of the absolute crap they’re selling. So, to help you out, here is your holiday “don’t buy” list.</p> <p>First Category:</p> <p>Stuff Kids Don’t Want</p> <p>Some adults, especially that one weird old aunt that you’ve got who always wears sandals with socks and always brings a box of organic wheat germ tofu-cookies when she comes to visit, have a belief that toys should be natural, non-commercial and simple: AKA – not fun. These are the people that kids hate to get gifts from, because they always bring things like:</p> <p></p> <p>The Green Tea “Pretend” Party</p> <p>Do you like to play “pretend” tea party? Do you find the taste of plastic or china to be too realistic and smooth? Do you enjoy pulling splinters out of your lips? Then here is the perfect gift for you!</p> <p>This all wooden tea party includes a wooden tea pot, wooden tea cups, wooden tea bags, wooden sugar cubes and wooden cookies!</p> <p>Enjoy plunking a wooden tea bag and two wooden sugar cubes into your wooden cup. What playful fun! It even comes with wooden cherries, for reasons that aren’t even a little bit clear to me. And if you accidentally choke on one of the wooden sugar cubes, you can gag yourself with a wooden spoon.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Block Play Families</p> <p>Is your kid always losing her Barbie’s clothes? Do you have problems with limbs coming off or being bent in unnatural poses? Are you annoyed by the fact that your kid’s dolls are attractive?</p> <p>Well fear not, the Block Play Family is here! These plastic, non moving figurines were apparently painted by blind monkeys in Thailand. Their uncomfortably thick eyebrows and fashions from the mid 80s should concern even the easiest to please child. </p> <p>And don’t worry about needing to buy expensive playhouses or sports cars for these figurines. They were designed to play on blocks. Their awkward poses and immovable limbs were designed especially to stand on a piece of wood. These figures come in black, Latino, white or Asian families! Great for recreating classic sitcoms like the Cosby Show! Family Ties! The George Lopez Show! And…. Uh….. Hmmm. There’s that one Asian girl on ER I guess. Or did she get killed off? Uh… nevermind.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>And My favorite toy that kids don’t want?</p> <p>The Cardboard box!</p> <p></p> <p>The “Home Sweet Cardboard Playhome” is the must have toy of the season! This undecorated, vaguely perforated box is the perfect toy for children overwhelmed by colors, functionality and sturdiness. This dishwasher sized box is so much better than a dishwasher box because it already has holes punched in it!</p> <p>For the low low price of $89.00 (no joke, land of nod, look it up: <a href="http://www.landofnod.com/family.aspx?c=9573&f=4856&q=3710481&fromLocation=Search&DIMID=400001&SearchPage=1">http://www.landofnod.com/family.aspx?c=9573&f=4856&q=3710481&fromLocation=Search&DIMID=400001&SearchPage=1</a>) your child can live just like a hobo in this toy he or she must decorate themselves. Ironically, this product can not be gift boxed, but you can just put a ribbon around it and no one will know the difference! </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Our second category of toys are those that your child may want, but really, really shouldn’t. Such as:</p> <p>Bug Bands</p> <p>No silly, this isn’t a group of plastic bugs that play instruments! These are real bugs that have been killed, placed in a plastic box and attached to a leather rope so that your son or daughter (ok, lets be honest: son) can wear them as the creepiest most inappropriate bracelet ever!</p> <p>The set comes with a spider, hornet, ant and beetle! One for every day of the month that your child doesn’t get beat up! For the kid who’s not quite ready to start dissecting opossums they find on the side of the road, this is the perfect gateway gift to a lifetime of freakdom and social isolation.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Makeup and Hair Styling Doll</p> <p>Girls love makeup and these disturbing beheaded toys have been around for years, so what makes this one special? It talks! While your daughter (or wildly effeminate son) is plastering rouge on Betty no-body, she will helpfully say things like “I feel like a princess!”</p> <p>Really? Cause you look like a two-bit…… (side note, as I was writing this, my daughter came in, saw the picture and said “Oh Daddy can I have that? Please! I want it so badly!”)</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>There you go. That’s my list.</p> <p>Of course, it’s just a partial list. With any luck there will be lots more wonderful gifts I’ll discover in the coming weeks before the big day. And if not, I can always just get everybody this:</p> <p><br />Because who doesn’t want a freaky doll strapped to their chest? Mimicking your every move? I swear I saw that in a horror movie.</p> <p>Speaking of horror movies. The catalog says this creepy doll is available in “light skin” or “dark skin.”</p> <p>Are you kidding me? Is it still 1957 and I didn’t get the memo? </p> <p>Does the catalog also sell George Wallace doorstops? </p> <p>Sheesh!</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>The Single Child: Cousins</h1> <p>districtmom — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:17:00 GMT</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">How much is birth order responsible for personality? I wonder this, as a middle child myself. The Bees will be an only child so this puts her first and ever foremost in her own family, which is not necessarily a good thing.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Her cousins however are, or will be, one of several. When Bees spends time with her cousins she gets to choose whether to play with the younger ones or the older ones, or both.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">In North Carolina for Thanksgiving her cousin of just 4-1/2 months was there. Baby BG was just as sweet as can be, never crying, never fussing, just sucking on her hands and looking around the room from under long brown lashes. Bees was not much interested in "BeeBee" as she calls her cousin. She checked her out, audibly noted her mouth, her eyes, her nose. And then she moved on to her toys and to the little dog and to the attention of all her grown up relatives.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">But when we returned to DC The Bees found her New York cousins M and H who are older. M is 6 years old, H is 9. Together they love to play with their cousin because she has finally achieved a fun stage, where she is not only running around, but talking in distinguishable words no less!</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">"She said "apple"", they shout. "She said "water"!" They note each new word and development, astonished.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">So now they play together, chasing one another around the house, splashing in the bath, throwing a ball, sliding down a slide.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">It's a world of difference for a child to have someone close to interact with. You can practically see the learning curve occurring. I wish I could give her a sibling but it's not to be. She'll have to make do with her cousins and of course her dog, Jemma. You can't overlook the power of the commands "fetch", "sit" and "stay".</p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Meltdowns and Mints at the Zoo</h1> <p>districtmom — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:13:00 GMT</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Why does a trip to the zoo always necessitate a meltdown? It all starts nicely: we have breakfast, we stop in to see some friends at Balducci’s and we drive over to the <a title="National Zoo" href="http://www.nationalzoo.org">National Zoo</a>. The Bees remarks on seeing the bronze lions at the front gate, and she starts calling out for “CatCat”. We park, get her snapped into the stroller and start hiking up the hill. If we’re there by 10:00 we have a good chance at seeing the big cats and they oblige by stretching, flicking their long heavy tails, lazily stretching and even growling over the wall.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">To leave the cat area I have a bit of a struggle getting her back into the stroller. Now that she’s 23 pounds I simply can’t carry her in one arm and push the stroller in the other. Especially since she’s got Dora in a vice grip and she’s not even trying to help by holding onto me with either arm.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">We get to the gorilla house, always a rewarding destination. I feel an immediate sense of calm when I enter. The black creatures are meandering about, chewing on lettuce and onions, hanging in their beds, trundling through doorways. Bees waves and blows kisses. I look into their eyes wondering what they are thinking when they see us. I hope they are not sad or bored. I hope the rope swings and balls and fake trees are enough to make a life. </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Somehow when it’s time to leave the gorilla house The Bees starts by running away from me. This is fun for about 2 minutes. Then she screams and kicks as I lift her. I check my watch and indeed, it’s after 11 and approaching nap time. She refuses to go in the stroller but she also refuses to walk. Outside she throws herself on the concrete and starts a fit. It’s a battle but I have to win this one. I wrangle her stiffened body onto the stroller and snap on the belts. It’s a noisy ride down to the parking lot.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">The way to ensure a peaceful ride home so that I can make a few calls is to give her Altoids. Ever since she was one she’s been asking for this most powerful of mints. It eludes me – how is that her delicate palate can tolerate it, when I can barely stand to eat one?</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">All I know is, by the time we are home and I am rocking her to sleep she gives one sweet, minty kiss. Maybe I should pack them in the stroller for the next visit to the gorilla house.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>The Thanks Part of Thanksgiving</h1> <p>superdad — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:05:00 GMT</p> <p> Thanksgiving was a little complicated this year. My oven decided that Nov. 26 was a good day to stop working and the 24 pound turkey I had just would not fit in my 30 year old microwave. We had company coming in from out of town and a feast to prepare for 14 people</p> <p>My wife told me to treat the whole situation like an episode of Top Chef:</p> <p>“Your task is to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for 14. You will have 5 children, three teenagers, and 6 adults. One of the adults is vegetarian. One of the teenagers refuses to eat vegetables. You must prepare a meal that everyone will enjoy and (here’s the twist) you can not use your oven. Go!”</p> <p>So I carted the turkey out to a friend’s house, half an hour away, prepped it and threw it in the oven. I used a mini wall oven for the sides (one at a time) and somehow managed to have it all arrive on the table vaguely warm and edible. So all in all, the meal turned out great, but in the midst of the chaos (and dare I say, a little stress) we forgot to go around the table and tell what we were thankful for. At the time I was just so happy to be sitting down and eating food, I’m not sure I could have come up with anything else. </p> <p>But with a couple days of relative sanity behind me, I wanted to take some time to list some of the things that I am currently thankful for.</p> <p>• My wife</p> <p>My wife, Sarah, is wonderful. She’s cute, funny, a great mom and, apparently, a right smart lawyer. I have to take her word on the lawyering part, but the rest I can attest to first hand. People sometimes refer to their spouse as their partner, and while it’s not the most romantic term, in many ways, for us, it’s very true. In the daily battles of life, she is the one who I depend on, the one who I know understands, the one who will always support me. We work together, somewhat seamlessly, in the task of running this family. And when all the chores are done for the day – when dinner is cooked, when the kids are put to bed and there’s finally a little peace in the house, she’s the one I get to snuggle on the couch with until a few minutes later when we both fall asleep. I’m a pretty lucky guy.</p> <p><br />• My Kids</p> <p>Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone’s thankful for their kids, and health and blah blah blah. But I do want to take at least half a second to give a shout out to my chillins. (did you see how I used the phrase “shout out” correctly? That’s because I am hip). </p> <p>My kids are pretty awesome. I don’t say that much, because I don’t want them to get a swelled head, and because it makes people with non-awesome kids feel bad. But once a year, it’s worth throwing out there.</p> <p>Audra is cute and vivacious and full of so much personality we occasionally have to have it liposuctioned away. She is constantly making up plays and songs and asking to take your order for some unknown restaurant. She has imagination to spare and enough spunk to jump start a 747. </p> <p>Our three-year-old, Asher, is about as funny a kid as ever pranced around a living room. He alternates between sitting quietly and putting puzzles together and running around the grocery store shooting lasers (or something) at the elderly. He thinks life is one long game, including things like putting his pants on. The game, of course, being “can I wiggle and giggle so much that Dad can’t get my pants on.” Asher makes me laugh ten times a day and only grit my teeth about half that much.</p> <p>Micah is only 1, but boy he’s going to be something else. He has no interest in walking yet but he can crawl faster than either of his siblings. He only has two or three words, but talks in full, completely indistinguishable, sentences. He likes to be held, but, even more, he likes to get down so he can crawl to the top of the playset when I’m not looking. You know those old cartoons where a baby gets loose and ends up crawling through a construction site while the dog that’s supposed to be watching him tries to stop him? That’s Micah. He’s the baby on the 41st floor crawling out on a steel beam as the crane lifts it into place. The only problem is that, in this scenario, I’m the dog who inevitably gets crushed by the wheelbarrow of bricks.</p> <p><br />• Friends</p> <p>I know, everyone’s got friends (well, I do know this one guy….) But I am truly blessed by some wonderful people who make me laugh, help me out and generally keep me sane. I am rarely at a loss for someone to talk to, have lunch with or ask for help from. I am very aware of how all my friends bless my life every day. I know I don’t tell them thank you often enough, but hopefully I can just write a poorly worded paragraph in my blog and that will suffice.</p> <p><br />Ok, enough of the sappy stuff. In no particular order, here are a dozen or more things that I am also really thankful for:</p> <p>• Dr. Pepper – You’re gonna feel fine drinking that sweet southern wine</p> <p>• My minivan – most 35 year old men are not thankful for their minivan, but I put between 500 and 800 miles a week on it and I am so ridiculously thankful for having a van than drives well, is comfortable, functional and has a sun roof. It is truly the little things in life that keep me going (plus lots and lots of cupholders.</p> <p>• Chipotle – love me some chipotle</p> <p>• NPR – Did I mention that I was in the car a lot? I probably listen to 20 hours of NPR a week (with some books on tape and an Ipod thrown in for good measure). And while I’m still mad about the whole Bob Edwards debacle, Steve Inskeep is growing on me and there’s always Nina Totenberg (oh Nina, I could never be mad at you).</p> <p>• Williams Sonoma’s Filled Pancake Pan – I have been looking for a special Christmas morning breakfast treat and boy have I just found it. Willams Somona sells this pan that makes round pancakes that you can fill with stuff like apple butter or strawberries or chocolate. It is fabulous and it’s one of my new favorite things (take that Oprah). <a href="http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/c332/index.cfm?pkey=ccookware%2Dnew">http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/c332/index.cfm?pkey=ccookware%2Dnew</a></p> <p>• An ice cold glass of sweet tea – I make a darn good pitcher of sweet tea and I am thankful for my ability to do that. People who drink unsweetened tea are freaks.</p> <p>• Art – I really like things that have been made by hand (none of that lithograph crap either). Paintings, pottery, woodwork. I just love having things around that came out of someone’s imagination and were crafted by their skill. We don’t have all that much but I love what we have and am always on the look out for more. This is what makes me a horrible elitist.</p> <p>• Our new president – I can’t even tell you how thankful</p> <p>• Music – I’ve got over 500 cds and there’s only about 2 or 3 of them that I don’t like. Music sustains me, energizes me and makes me feel young. I would be hard pressed to live without it.</p> <p>• Rita’s gelati – Man! This stuff is darn near perfect on a hot day.</p> <p>• Fall – I love living in a place where we have the change of seasons. We have woods out our back door, and although, at the moment, I’m not that thankful for the 5 billion leaves in the yard, I love looking out and seeing the fall colors blanket the grass, the tall naked trees cutting silhouettes against the sky and the deer running through the woods scared s***less that someone’s about to shoot them.</p> <p>• My iphone – Ok, I don’t actually have an iphone, but I really really want to be thankful for having one.</p> <p>• Church – Our church is flawed and complicated and at times frustrating, but it is a family of good people trying to do good things in this world and I am so glad that we are a part of it. We visited probably 20 churches before we found this one, and I feel blessed that we did.</p> <p>• Bearnaise sauce – Is there anything better in the whole world than a juicy steak with béarnaise sauce on it? The answer is no.</p> <p>• TV – I know it doesn’t make me a good person, but boy at the end of a long day, it sure does hit the spot. TV is sort of the Shoney’s Hot Fudge cake of the entertainment world. It’s not all that good and it’s not really the best thing for you, but sometimes there’s nothing better in the whole world than sitting at a sticky table at 10pm and eating a hot fudge cake and drinking coffee out of a chipped ceramic mug. (PS. I like to, you know, read and stuff too.)</p> <p>So there’s my list. It’s not all inclusive, there’s lots of things that got left off, like being thankful for warm sweaters, the smell of wood burning, the efficiency of chik-fil-a’s drive through and the existence of the song “If you want to sing out, sing out” by Cat Stevens. I could go on and on, but I think I’ll end with the thing that I am most thankful for right now: the fact that my oven is still under warranty.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>We're Thankful It's Over</h1> <p>poopaw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:36:00 GMT</p> <p>First, let me apologize to the faithful readers of Poo-Paw. Ole’ grandpa here has been mighty remiss in chronicling the evolution of the grand gnome.</p> <p>I’d like to tell you I’ve been lying on a beach in some exotic location, or that I had completely recovered from some macho ski accident, but the truth is I’ve been shackled to this keyboard fighting writer’s block and deadlines.</p> <p>Well, save for those Poo-Paw deadlines, but I already feel bad enough.</p> <p>So, rather than waste a few dozen words explaining my absence (too late!), let’s cut right to the chase: my grandson has become a bit… well… boring.</p> <p>Since he’s creeping up on three – in the same frighteningly rapid fashion in which he creeps up on our dog – our little grand gremlin is relegated to doing the same old thing day after day. </p> <p>The same old thing includes – most notably – declining to take naps and rejecting disciplinary instruction.</p> <p>Par for the course, I suppose, for those on the backside of the Terrible Twos.</p> <p>Boring, however, is a term that’s never applied to Thanksgiving celebrations here at The Palace. </p> <p>In the Murphy’s Law department of Holiday revelry, this household can never seem to escape a Thanksgiving mishap. As late November approaches, the wife and I hazard a guess as to what heinous turkey misadventure will soon befall us.</p> <p>It’s like the sword of Damocles hanging above our heads. Only in our case, it’s more like a giant Hello Kitty Macy’s Parade balloon.</p> <p>Two Thanksgivings after we Brady-Bunched this lovely clan of ours, our kitchen stove decided that it, too, deserved a holiday and quit working. The burners we’re fine – which meant the mashed potatoes and gravy portion of the meal would certainly be served, but the main attraction wouldn’t fit in a saucepan.</p> <p>That marked the first (and only) time that a 20-pound bird was vivisected into sizes suitable for a Toastmaster toaster oven.</p> <p>It may have taken ten hours and been drier than the Sahara, but by the time the third unidentifiable slab of bird was toasting it had turned into an obsession.</p> <p>A couple years after what we now call the Feast of the Carnage, my wife went in for a surgical procedure a few weeks prior to Turkey Day.</p> <p>And while she had sufficiently healed in time for the big dinner, we found ourselves looking at a surplus of pharmaceuticals undigested during the surgical recovery.</p> <p>Thinking as most normal adults would, we opted to mix a few of those leftover painkillers with our annual Thanksgiving wine.</p> <p>But while I was finding that year’s vintage particularly pleasing, the wife decided to take over kitchen duties and add our fresh, delicious Bob Evans sausage not to the stuffing, but to the pot of already mashed potatoes.</p> <p>That was the year our children so enjoyed driving around Thanksgiving afternoon looking for a place that sold potatoes.</p> <p>The following year our oldest daughter and the alpha son-in-law had settled on a house and just taken possession of the keys in early November. They hadn’t moved in as yet; in fact, they were just getting into painting the walls and all the other prep before taking occupancy. </p> <p>On that Thanksgiving morning, our stove – a new model that had replaced the one that bailed on the other infamous feast – decided that it, too, qualified for a Thursday off.</p> <p>But rather than hit the toaster oven for this roasting, we threw our 20-pound bird into the car and drove it to my daughter’s new home. And there it cooked for five hours, with everyone taking turns dropping by and basting it at scheduled intervals.</p> <p>This year, the oven worked just fine – which helped warm the house given that our furnace stopped working on the Monday before Thanksgiving.</p> <p>And you thought I was kidding about that parade float hanging over The Palace. </p> <p>But, thankfully, another celebration of the feast of the Pilgrims is behind us and we look forward to a peaceful Christmas time.</p> <p>Christmases at The Palace are normally quiet, save for that time our little grand gnome gave us all the flu and my beta son-in-law had to be treated for dehydration.</p> <p>But I think it was actually New Year’s when he went to the emergency room.</p> <p>I just love holidays.</p> <p>By J. Doug Gill </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Mommy haircuts are never a good idea</h1> <p>marylandmom — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:54:00 GMT</p> <p>Very recently, Dom had cool rocker hair. Think Bon Jovi (now, not then…then was just nasty). All I did was trim his bangs occasionally to keep them out of his eyes. He looked so cute – like a sloppy, artistic sort.</p> <p>Although some people insisted on calling him “she” when we were out in public, I loved his hair. After having three people say, “Oh, she is so adorable” in one day, I decided to trim Dom’s hair.</p> <p>I have no formal hairstyling experience. But I have trimmed bangs. How much harder can the rest of the head be? After all, you just need to make sure it is even as you go.</p> <p>The end result…well, it was even. When my Mom saw it for the first time, her initial reaction was laughter…then she sputtered out, “What did you do, put a bowl on his head and trim around the bottom?”</p> <p>She stopped laughing once I reminded her of my eighth grade hair disaster…we didn’t have time to get my bangs trimmed before school pictures, so my Mom did them herself. By the time she was done evening them out, they were an inch long. Not one of those pictures survives today. </p> <p>So, since my haircut attempt was apparently a disaster (did I mention that I didn’t know what to do with the back so Dom had a mullet?), we had to go have it fixed. We went to my Mom’s hairdresser, who gave Dom his first haircut a few years ago. </p> <p>Pam took one look at Dom’s hair, shook her head, and then asked me if she needed to confiscate my scissors. I have now been forbidden even from trimming bangs.</p> <p>The end result is short. Dom looks adorable, but I really, really miss his hair. Every time we see a messy-headed little boy in public, I cry inside. So, Pam, although you did wonders repairing my damage, you won’t be seeing us again for a long time.</p> <p>I will be waiting for hair to grow.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Love is</h1> <p>marylandmom — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:17:00 GMT</p> <p>Love is…</p> <p>Discovering that your Cookie Monster voice is so bad that your kid laughs at you when you do it…and doing it even more often.</p> <p>Spending an endless night laying on the floor next to a crib because your baby has a tummy bug and you know he needs you right there.</p> <p>Singing even more loudly when your kid begs, “Stop singing, Mommy!” And not caring how silly you look to people around you, because you know that secretly, your kid is loving this.</p> <p>Driving home from the hairdresser with the windows down, ruining your new ‘do, just because the boy in the backseat wants to see his pinwheel whirl.</p> <p>Wearing the same pair of sneakers until the soles fall off…just so your kid has a new pair the second his feet grow.</p> <p>Singing the ABC song all through the grocery store…then realizing at checkout that the boy is at home with Daddy.</p> <p>Having children’s movies taking up the top six slots in your Netflix queue.</p> <p>Destroying a fresh, wet manicure to scoop up an injured toddler and kiss a booboo better.</p> <p>Making funny faces in the rearview mirror to make your kid laugh.</p> <p>Becoming such a food nazi that you need to sneak in your own junk food after bedtime.</p> <p>Listening to the boy’s IPod play list instead of your own…until you have forgotten what is on yours.</p> <p>Never watching your own DVRd stuff because the kid shows are more important.</p> <p>Handing over the last piece of your expensive chocolate because those big brown eyes are begging you for it.</p> <p>Reading the same book six times in a row because it makes the kid’s eyes light up with wonder.</p> <p>Quietly going into your boy’s room in the middle of the night and just watching him sleep.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Turkey Day Trauma</h1> <p>superdad — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:45:00 GMT</p> <p> Do you want to hear a funny story? </p> <p>Oh, it’s so funny, ha ha ha!</p> <p>Ok, so last night (the Tuesday before thanksgiving) I’m cooking a casserole in my oven. My oven has a flat touch screen where you digitally set the temperature, so I set it to 350 and shove the casserole in. The oven starts to preheat and I watch as the digital temperature rises, rises and rises up to 350. I set the timer and move on to the next agenda item. The timer goes off and I pull out the casserole, only to realize that it’s not cooked. I look and notice that my digital read out thingy is indicating that the oven is off.</p> <p>That’s odd.</p> <p>Darn it. The kids must have been messing around with it. So I set it again. A few minutes later I notice that the oven is off again. I’m starting to panic.</p> <p>But to be fair, I’m having an off day. I’ve been a little overwhelmed recently and apparently it’s starting to show. I pulled in for gas and hopped out to pump without putting the car in park. Luckily, the van’s gentle rolling backward tipped me off and I was able to hop back in and put it in park before I killed someone.</p> <p>Later I was making the casserole and stored a 1 pound block of cheese in the drawer with the saran wrap before I later found it and put it in the refrigerator. I also ended up serving a handful of casserole into my water glass before I realized that it wasn’t my plate. So I’m clearly a little off. And so I assumed that maybe I had just thought I set the oven.</p> <p>So I set the oven once again and then sat in front of it and watched. The temperature began to climb. 170, 222, 286, 322 and then it hit 350 and poof, the oven turned off.</p> <p>My oven is broken.</p> <p>It will not stay on.</p> <p>THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING!</p> <p>Luckily I’m only feeding 14, so I’m sure we’ll manage. I can always fry the turkey up in a skillet on the stove and maybe bake the green bean casserole on the grill (no wait! The grill is broken too!)</p> <p>So, currently it is 6:55 a.m. the day before thanksgiving and I am patiently waiting for the oven repair stores to open so I can beg beg beg someone to bump all their appointments and come out and fix my stove before I have to abandon the several million dollars worth of food I’ve bought and order pizza for everyone.</p> <p>So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving catastrophe, I have imagined several other scenarios that I assume will happen Thanksgiving day to complete the chaos.</p> <p>Scenario 1 <br />The Macy’s Day parade balloon of snoopy will escape from its handlers and blow high into the Manhattan sky. Unusual North / South winds will carry Snoopy to Maryland where he will begin to deflate, settling across our home. His nose will become lodged in our fireplace where a cozy afternoon fire will end up setting Snoopy alight. As the heated air once again raises the now re-inflated Snoopy into the air, my children’s screams will fill the silence as they are forever scarred by the sight of a 200 foot high flaming Snoopy floating above our backyard before his immolated body crashes into the woods igniting a forest fire and forcing us to live in a FEMA trailer for Christmas.</p> <p><br />Scenario 2<br />As I am putting the turkey into the roasting pan and sliding it into the (hopefully?) fixed oven, I think I see it twitch. I ignore it, but moments later as the oven heats up, I hear a banging on the inside of the oven door. I open the door and the turkey jumps out, risen from the dead, and begins to run around the house, forever scarring the children and resisting all attempts to be marinated.</p> <p>Lest you think that this is a silly horror story, let me point you to the TRUE story of Mike the Headless Chicken.</p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken</a></p> <p>In 1945 a farmer went out to kill a chicken, but botched it and didn’t quite get a clean cut. The head was off, but the chicken was still alive. The farmer began feeding it by dropping milk into its neck hole. The chicken lived for two years and earned the family thousands of dollars as a side show attraction. (favorite part of the story: the farmer traveled with a chicken head in a jar, but this was a fake head. The real head was eaten by a cat)</p> <p>So, if a chicken can run around headless, I think it is fully within the realm of possibility to think that a beheaded, befeeted, fully plucked and eviscerated turkey might wake from its catatonic state once warmed by the oven and then crash around through our house in anger. So there.</p> <p><br />Scenario 3 <br />Through a printing error, Wal-mart’s thanksgiving sale ad lists its address as our home address. At 5am, a horde of hundreds is lined up outside our front door waiting to get great deals on TVs, DVDs and lotion gift baskets. By 5:15, they’re starting to get rowdy. By 5:30 one of them has broken a window and by 5:45 thousands of people are streaming through our living room window tearing the house apart in search of “blu-ray players for only $99.99” </p> <p>The house is destroyed, the children are scarred for life and just as a man wielding our 5 year old mp3 player starts yelling “This isn’t an iphone! Kill them! Kill them!” another person screams and shouts “Look! It’s a headless turkey!” The turkey, smelling faintly of butter, wine and sage, hobbles into the room, scattering Wal-mart customers like so many cockroaches. As my son pats the turkey’s back and says “Good headless turkey,” another scream erupts as the screaming hordes are seen fleeing from what appears to be a giant flaming snoopy balloon.</p> <p>All in all, the irony is overwhelming and as we sit down to our meal of pepperoni pizza and crazy bread, we all say a little prayer of gratitude on this special day of Thanksgiving.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Dogs and cats and fish and turtles, oh, my!</h1> <p>marylandmom — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:38:00 GMT</p> <p>When we visited Delaware last weekend, Dom was surrounded by animals. He played with two dogs and two cats, held two turtles, and watched an aquarium full of fish for hours. </p> <p>We have two cats at home…I kill fish within days of bringing them home, and birds seem to die even more quickly in my care (I never even thought of turtles, and odds are I would feed them the wrong thing and they would die from starvation, anyway). Our lease prohibits dogs (and cats, officially, but the staff knows we have them, anyway). </p> <p>Dom loves to spend his time chasing our cats and torturing them with pats and hugs. He will tell complete strangers all about Shayla and Smokee. He feeds them from his plate every chance he gets. It was his job to feed him their food until the day I found him with his face in the bowl, butt in the air, chowing down on cat mush.</p> <p>For the past year or so, Dom has been saying that he wants a dog. Every time he brings it up, we tell him that we have cats, and that we can’t have a dog until we have a house with a yard. For several days after each explanation, Dom will randomly point to houses as we drive past, saying, ”There’s a house. Get doggy!”</p> <p>If only it were that easy. Although the housing market has dropped enough to make homes in this area affordable to us, the banks that would/could lend us money are claiming poverty while hosting elaborate Caribbean house parties. </p> <p>But, anyway…for now Dom can be bribed by allowing him to pet strangers’ dogs. The day will come, though, when we need to get one of our own. So, should you happen to awake one morning to a small family, two cats and a dog living in a tent in your front yard, the boy made us do it.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Still, Simply the Best</h1> <p>superdad — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:35:00 GMT</p> <p> So, what did you do last night?</p> <p>Oh? That’s nice.</p> <p>Me? Why, thanks for asking. I went to the Tina Turner concert. And I have to tell you, it was….AWE-some!</p> <p>Yes, I know that seems a little cornball, but I’ve sort of had a thing for Tina over the last couple of decades. When I was teaching in Mississippi I got a hold of a life size Tina Turner stand up from her Legg’s Pantyhose Wildest Dreams Tour. I put it on my classroom door with a sign that said: “Room 301 – Simply the Best.” Of course, since it was Mississippi I had to make a longer skirt out of butcher paper for her. That much leg was deemed a little indecent in the Bible Belt,</p> <p>So, Tina and I go way back. Sure, she turns 70 tomorrow, but I got to see her on stage when she was just a spry 69 year old. What could be better? So, without further ado, let me share with you some of my observations from the evening. It will almost be like you were there, but not really.</p> <p>• Tina is 69, but seems like she’s half that age. Most of her fans are 6o something and several had to bring oxygen tanks. It was fascinating. I probably wasn’t the youngest person there, (I’m sure someone brought their grandkids), but I may have been the youngest person who bought their own ticket. I’d say that the average age in my section was about 60. But everyone acted like a bunch of kids. The arena rung with the same cheering, thunder, whoops, and stomping that you might hear from a group of 30 year olds, but everyone was able to get a senior citizen coffee at McDonalds on the way home. My favorite recollection was a 60 year old woman a few rows ahead of me who may or may not have been Nancy Pelosi. She gingerly held onto the elbow of a lady, who appeared to be her mother, and helped her stand up. Then, while supporting her, they both extended their fists and punched the air during Private Dancer.</p> <p>• How do I know the crowd was old? The last concert I went to was sponsored by Budwesier or Red Bull or something. This concert was sponsored by Amway and Nutrilife Vitamin supplements. Before each half of the concert, there was an ad featuring silver haired couples selling toilet paper. </p> <p>• I may have never been to a concert that had such a wonderfully diverse crowd. The split was about even between black and white and clearly a good chunk of the crowd had decided to make a night of it. There were women in furs and sequined blouses, Men in fedoras and suits, but there were also couples in blue jeans and Sears sweater sets and men wearing Tina concert Ts from 20 years ago when they actually fit. (funny story: At my first Tina concert 15 years ago or so, I bought this totally awesome, totally tacky t-shirt. On the front there was a picture of Tina from the waist up. On the back it was just Tina from the waist down in a pair of cut off shorts showing off those beautiful legs. It would be hard to describe to you how much my wife hated that shirt. Oddly enough it disappeared somewhere around our last move)</p> <p>• The souvenir stand was interesting. And not just because baseball caps were $40. In addition to T-shirts and mugs and key chains, they also had earplugs for sale. I don’t know if they were official TT earplugs, but they were clearly feeding a need. I know it was loud, but that’s sort of like going to an art show and selling blindfolds. My other favorite observation from the souvenir stand was watching the lady in front of me choose a shirt. She asked for a large shirt that was in a babydoll cut. The cashier handed it to her. It was maybe 18 inches from top to bottom and about 10 inches wide. The lady looked at it, looked at the cashier and said: “Do you have any shirts for a normal large person?”</p> <p>• I am pleased to say that Tina’s singing voice has lost nothing over the last seven decades. Oh, that voice. That wild combination of raspiness, pinched sound and full throated wail. Has their ever been another voice like it? I love how she can absolutely wail in key. If I wail like that, my voice is shot for the rest of the night. I love how when she sings Typical Male she gets so fired up that she gets to a point in the song where she can’t even be bothered to pronounce the whole words. Instead of saying “female attraction,” she just sings “Fe-muh Uh-tra-uh.” She opened up the second act seated on a stool doing an acoustic set with her band. She sang a slowed down, emotionally vibrant version of the Beatles’ “Help,” that was possibly the highlight of the show. It is hard to imagine too many other rock stars being able to still reinterpret songs in a new way as they limp into their seventh decade.</p> <p>• And the girl can still dance. It’s a bit odd to go to a rock concert by someone who’s half a decade older than your parents, but boy that AARP member can move. She may have slowed down a hair in the tail end of her 6th decade, but not much. If she didn’t dance the entire 3 hour show, she made it clear that she still could have if she wanted to. There seemed to be more songs where she was content to stand behind the microphone and her backup dancers did most of the heavy lifting, but Tina’s not one to stand still. She seemed practically incapable of singing without at least moving her legs. And on about every song, she would join in. It was a joy to see some of those signature dance moves once again. That bow legged strut kick, the entire Proud Mary series of digging, turning, spinning and diving – all of which is done on a pair of stiletto Manolo Blahniks. At the end of the show, she ran out on a giant crane arm that extended 100 feet out over the audience. She hung off the end, she reached down to the crowd. She did a little jig while walking down the middle of it without any guard rails or wires to keep her from plummeting into the audience and killing somebody’s great grandmother. It was astounding.</p> <p><br />• This was her 50th year as a performer and one of the great things about having 5 decades of material to pull from is that you don’t have to sing any clunkers. A couple of years ago, I went to a concert by a young artist who only had a single album out. She sang all of her songs, even the lame ones and then spent the second half of the concert playing covers and asking people for requests. Tina didn’t have that problem. Every song she sang was a hit. Every time she started singing, I thought “Hey! I love this song!” And she doesn’t have a big chip on her shoulder like stupid Van Morrison who refuses to sing Brown Eyed Girl anymore (let’s be honest, no ones showing up just to hear Moondance, it’s not that good of a song). She didn’t seem tired of any of her songs, even Proud Mary which she has been singing, dancing, and performing for all 50 of those years. In fact, she seemed to be having a ball. Performing to a sold out crowd has to be better than Bingo night in Boca.</p> <p>• The dancing was awesome which leads to me this pronouncement: It was during the concert that I had what is perhaps the gayest thought I have ever had in my life. I was watching her 4 female dancers whip themselves into an undulating frenzy during Simply the Best and I literally (sadly) thought to myself. “Man, I hope that in a future life I can come back as one of Tina’s backup dancers, how cool would that be!” Yes, my stated goal was to reappear as a 22 year old 110 pound woman dancing to Thunderdome behind a 69 year old. If there’s anything gayer than that, I can’t think of it.</p> <p>All in all, it was one of the most fun and joyous nights I’ve had in a long time, which says at least as much about my life as it does the concert, but the point still stands. It was so much fun to be a part of so many people having so much fun. (worst written sentence ever). I got to literally see 20,000 people relive some of their fondest memories from the last 50 years. Everywhere you went you saw people smiling. </p> <p>I am not ashamed to admit that at the end I got a little weepy. There was more than just a touch of melancholy in the air when you realized think that this was the last time you would see Tina spin around at the beginning of Proud Mary. The last time you would hear her blow one of those giant air kisses: Mmmm-Muh! The last time, she would ever dangle over the audience on a crane while yelling “Nutbush! One more time!” </p> <p>I turned to the person beside me and saw that they were crying too. I reached out to touch their arm until I realized that they were just putting in eye drops as part of their saline replacement therapy. But, I’m sure the sentiment was the same. </p> <p>Tina has another 52 tour dates before April when she will presumably retire for good at age 70. Apparently Oprah talked her out of retirement this time. Maybe, if we’re lucky, the big O can work her magic and talk her into coming out of retirement again. The world may or may not need another hero, but we definitely need a energetic septuagenarian dancing and singing up a storm at the Verizon center. </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Preschools: And Away We Go!</h1> <p>districtmom — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:54:00 GMT</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">We are in the throes of applications, interviews, and tours. It seems absurd; the Bees is not quite 20 months and we are wringing our hands over what school she will be attending next fall.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">It seems that The Bees might be outgrowing our daily ritual of getting Mummy’s coffee, dry cleaners, book store, a zip through the zoo, a whirl around the playground, swinging legs at a café table lunch, charging through Safeway, tromping through the woods with the dog. Throughout the week we have sprinkled some classes: Spanish, Music, and Blue Igloo Playgroup. Even so, I find her calling out when we drive by groups of children, shrieking when we pass a playground, and as I’ve mentioned before, she loses her heart to a new nanny every week.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">And she is ready. She needs to be around other children, to be under the tutelage of other grownups, to have a facility with plants, puzzles, play doh, a toy kitchen, bubbles and what have you.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Now, whether I’m ready to part company remains to be seen. What will I do with my 2-1/2 hours of free time? I have dreams of grandeur: a part-time marketing job, volunteering at a shelter, storming the capital to campaign on important issues. Even if I end up just sitting here at home alone, drinking too much coffee, typing away at my blog, I forge on, knowing this is a good thing for both of us.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">The issues with preschool are proximity, facilities, financial and, frankly, cache. There are several schools nearby. Two of them are close but only offers a 2-day program for 2 year olds. 2 days is simply not enough for either of us. One school that I really liked in Georgetown disqualified us as The Bees was 14 hours too young. She would have to have been born by March 31<sup>st</sup>, but she was born on April 1<sup>st</sup>. I pleaded and cajoled, to no avail. They were polite but firm and encouraged us to apply for the following year. </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">There is one school that is twice the price of the others. Twice! Is a 2 year old really getting double the value at School B over school A? Who knows. I agonize over minor things like windows, fluorescent lighting, whether there is a pet animal in the classroom. They don’t have a foreign language class? Mon Dieu!</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">And the tours and interviews are "sans bebe". So you have to get a sitter, or beg your parents, so that you can go, tour the school and then sit down to hear what makes their 2-year old program better than any other.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">My father commented that where she goes doesn’t really matter, that at this age she is really focused on things that are within three feet of her. Simple things like paper, water, trees, dolls, things that snap, zip, button and fold.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">In the end of course, the choice is not mine to make. There are so many families with sibling priority, families with famous last names, families with connections (of all the DC people we know we are the least politically or socially connected I believe).</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">No matter where she goes there is one important thing these preschool teach that will apply to me: “You get what you get and you don’t get upset”.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>I want to be just like you!</h1> <p>marylandmom — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:32:00 GMT</p> <p>Like most parents, there are a few things in my past that I would rather my kids not find out about. There was the drinking to excess in college, the sex before marriage, and the, uh…questionable substance I once inhaled.</p> <p>I don’t want my kids to do any of these things. I would be thrilled if they never touched alcohol, since there is a family history of addiction. I would love for them to remain virgins until their wedding days (when they would hopefully do the deed with their new spouses and not someone else). As far as the wacky weed, I will deny that until the day I die. After all, I need to set an example.</p> <p>All this is to lead into tattoos. Russell has three – one very cool one of a tiger crawling up his arm, and two really stupid ones on the other arm that he wants to have covered with something else (ah, misspent, idiotic youth). I have one tattoo on my right ankle. I didn’t get it until I was 33 because I wanted something meaningful. It is a memorial tattoo for Rivi…nothing more than a blue rose with his name curved around the top of it.</p> <p>Since Dom first saw our tattoos, he has been fascinated with them. He will sometimes come over and pull our clothes out of the way so he can rub our tattoos. During the summer, he loves to point to random strangers’ ink and scream, “Tattoo!”</p> <p>The other night, as I typed at my computer, Dom was watching TV 20 feet away from me. Or so I thought. After a few minutes, he came over and said, “Mommy?”</p> <p>Once I saw him, I realized that it had been a little too quiet for the past few minutes. He had a huge grin on his face, and he proudly screamed, “I have tattoo!” I looked down, and sure enough, his arm and leg were covered in green marker. </p> <p>I was torn in two directions. On one hand, he had drawn on something other than paper, which he knows is wrong. On the other hand, though…he drew his tattoos in the same places as ours. One scribble crawled up his arm like Daddy’s tiger, and one was on his leg. </p> <p>So, the question is, how upset can you be when your child emulates you? Is punishment really in order when the child’s sole desire is to be like Mommy and Daddy? And what do I do when Dom is 16 and comes home with a lightning bolt tattooed on his forehead? </p> <p>No matter how hard I am pushed, I am never admitting the pot. Nope. We can all see where that would lead.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Accessories Down the Drain</h1> <p>districtmom — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:02:00 GMT</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Accessories are the bane of my existence. I must say I've wasted more money on The Bee’s accoutrements for hair, hand and foot. With girls especially, there is this need, either a socially-encouraged one or maybe from within, (a desire to dress up my own living doll). Let's be clear- I'm no Mrs. Benet Ramsey: we have yet to have professional pics and there will be no beauty contests.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Starting with those for hair, how many of these things have I bought only to have them drift off, ricochet into the sunset, or be ripped out by her own grubby little hands. There they go to the great graveyard of hair accessories. More elastics, bows, flowers, buttons, cats, sequins, felt... now dust in the wind.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">And then there are shoes. I was so excited to find that <a href="http://www.trumpette.com" title="Trumpette">Trumpette</a>, the company that makes those cool socks that look like Mary Janes, also makes patent leather driving shoes that look like baby <a href="http://www.tods.com" title="Tods">Tod’s</a>. So I got them in hot pink in the smallest size available. When The Bees outgrew those I got another pair. She had worn them just once when, after tickling her on a sidewalk in Bethesda, I drove home to find, in horror, that one shoe was gone. It had been kicked off in the tickle frenzy.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">It was worth a return trip to search the streets, but with no luck I am now certain it went straight down the Bethesda street storm drain, those yawning chasms that menace you whenever you park- inviting your keys, wallet, glove and shoes to tumble down into an abyss.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">And now we're on to mittens. I bought three pairs when she was an infant. The first was just a fleece sack, and it slipped right off her paws. The second pair had a thumb and fit well but had no insulation so her paws were as frigid as if they had been out in the elements. The last pair was perfect: water-proof and warm, but she soon outgrew them.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Now I am in the market for a new pair: waterproof, windproof, and child-proof (she can't take them off). I can’t remember where I bought that last pair and I have been to 5 stores to no avail. And when I do find those mittens how do you get their thumbs in the right place and get the mitten to stay on? I have the clips to attach to their jacket. But please – how do they stay on those slippery little hands, frantically waving and<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>grabbing and patting and picking and pulling everything in sight.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">I just can’t bear to lose one more accessory right now. I have just purchased two tiny little holiday bow clips from <a href="http://www.kidville.com" title="Kidville">Kidville</a>. One is green with a glittery stone and one red. Let’s see if we can get through Thanksgiving with what we have. Just one week I pray.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>A History of Every Famous Person I’ve Ever Met</h1> <p>superdad — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:50:00 GMT</p> <p> <br />We all like famous people don’t we? They’re fun, because they’re, you know, famous. So I have decided to extol you with a list of all the famous people I have met. For the sake of fairness, I have only included people who I have chanced upon through my own specialness, not because I bought a concert ticket or stalked them outside a theater stage door. That doesn’t really count. Nor is it very interesting, except that you can say things like “Tony Bennett is shorter than you’d think.” Nope, these things are the real deal - people I came across because of being in a special place at a special time. You know, because I’m special.</p> <p><br />Timothy Busfield: </p> <p>When I was in High School, Timothy Busfield (you know, that redheaded guy from thirtysomething and the West Wing? No? Oh well) was running a theater workshop at the state college down the road. Apparently he had attended the college before making it big in movies such as Striking Distance and the Skateboard Kid. </p> <p>He was clearly there for the money and my main memory is him regaling us with stories about the nude scenes in Revenge of the Nerds. (I did say it was a state college).</p> <p><br />James Van Der Beek</p> <p>James Van Der Beek attended college with me for a couple of years before he became a teen heart throb on Dawson’s Creek. We sang in opposing accapella groups (see, I’m just as big a dork as James Van Der Beek) so I didn’t know him real well, but I knew him. Wouldn’t have guessed he would become a star, though. I always thought his head was a little big, maybe that plays well on TV and looks more proportional after you add on the 10 pounds the camera gives you.</p> <p><br />Chris Wallace</p> <p>We’re now into the exciting DC portion of celeb sightings, which ,of course, just means that all the celebs are politicians and boring people. Chris Wallace is a fox news anchor. I saw him eating an early lunch at Cactus Cantina one afternoon. I was with a friend of mine and we spent the whole meal ignoring our children and whispering about him. He seemed familiar, but neither of us had any idea who he was.</p> <p>“Do you think he’s a congressman?” “I don’t know maybe. I think he seems like a reporter.” “Nah, I don’t think so.”</p> <p>I went home and spent an hour on the web trying to figure out who it was. </p> <p>I was kind of disappointed when I found out.</p> <p><br />Sen. Barbara Mikulski</p> <p>I was driving in Annapolis and saw a tiny woman walking with normal sized people in a cross walk. I realized it was Senator Mikulski and thought about rolling down the window and yelling “Go get ‘em Mikulski!” But I didn’t. I was afraid her Amazonian entourage would attack me.</p> <p><br />Sen. Joe Lieberman</p> <p>I took my parents to Ford’s Theater one year for Christmas and we sat a few rows behind Lieberman. This was back when Lieberman was still kind of cool. I thought about going up and saying something, but some poor 18 year old schlub from the balcony came down and started telling the senartor all about how he had got completely caught up in the Joementum and blah blah blah. Anyway, Hadassah Lieberman was there and had an expression of “why won’t you people just leave us alone? Can’t I even go to the damn theater without people harassing us?” So I decided not to harass them. In deference to Hadassah.</p> <p><br />Newt Gingrich</p> <p>I saw Newt Gingrich walking down the street once on Capital Hill. I was having coffee with a friend and (I just sort of realized that all of these stories make me seem like the laziest guy in the world. All I do is attend plays, and sit around eating Mexican food and drinking coffee. Oh well, the truth had to come out some day) I saw Newt walking down the sidewalk intently tapping away on his blackberry. I poked my friend and said “I think that’s Newt Gingrich.” “Really?” “yeah” and then some frat boy behind us who looked like some kind of Republican office assistant yelled out. “Hey Newt! Nice Tie.” Newt, nodded at him, walked on and then began to cry because he, for the first time, realized he had the stupidest first name on the planet.</p> <p><br />DC Mayors</p> <p>Up to now, I have just been whetting your appetite for the biggest stories of all. I have met both of the last two DC mayors. I know that this puts me into a select group of several tens of thousands of people, but truly, this is all I have in life.</p> <p>My wife and I were at a late showing of a move in Chinatown one Thursday night and after the movie, I went to the restroom. The theater was practically deserted. I was standing at the urinal and someone came up beside me. He looked vaguely familiar and I thought to myself, “Is that Mayor Tony Williams?” I finished up and then went to the sink. As I got to the sink I noticed a hulking body guard in the doorway who kind of freaked me out a little. </p> <p>So I took a good long time washing my hands, trying to look in the mirror and see if it really was the mayor and hoping he would come over and wash his hands beside me. But he apparently had one of those conditions that those sad little cartoon balls on the prescription medicine commercials are always frowning about and he was taking a long time. I didn’t want the bodyguard to question my handwashing, so I just left. It would have been kind of awkward to shake hands anyway. </p> <p>When I got outside. My wife said, “Hey I think the mayor just went into the bathroom.” </p> <p>“I know!” I said. “I just peed next to him!” How many people can say that? (again, thousands)</p> <p>My other story is less exciting. One of my best friends is principal at a DC Public School (a lovely school that the Obamas could send their kid to if they weren’t suck stuck up liberal “do as I say, not as I do” elitists) and I was at a fundraiser the school was holding. </p> <p>During the fundraiser Mayor Fenty popped in to auction off breakfast with himself (he’s another one that could stand to send his kids to the schools he is personally overhauling). On his way out the door, he stopped to shake hands with my friend the principal and then, awkwardly, looked at me with an expression that said: </p> <p>“I am so very tired, but I need to look energetic, so I’m going to open my eyes as wide as possible. I wonder if this guy wants me to shake his hand? He’s not really reaching out or anything, but I don’t want to offend him by not taking the time to shake his hand, so maybe I’ll just reach out and… oh good, he took my hand, otherwise I would have looked like an idiot. Oh for crying out loud. How many more people do I need to greet before I can climb into my SUV and down a Heineken?” </p> <p>So, I shook his hand. I thought about following him into the bathroom so that I could say that I had urinated beside two DC Mayors, but I was afraid that might come off as creepy. </p> <p>Go figure.</p> <p><br />So that’s it, my brushes with fame. I know it’s not much, but I’m a young man. There are still lots of other famous people that I can spot while enjoying my, apparently, wildly decadent lifestyle. And of course, there’s that bigger dream. The dream that one day I’ll hear some young fresh faced kid run out, eyes full of wonder, and whisper to his father. </p> <p>“Daddy! Daddy! I just peed beside a famous blogger!”</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Growing Old Gracefully</h1> <p>marylandmom — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:51:00 GMT</p> <p>My husband was just diagnosed with high blood pressure. In addition, some blood work apparently came back alarmingly high, which requires a return trip to the doctor this Friday. This morning, as I bent to lift Dom from his crib, I pulled a muscle in my back – before I even got my hands on the boy. My ankle hurts in the cold, and my knee buckles if I stand too long.</p> <p>All of this adds up to one fact…we are getting old. There are some things about which we can do nothing. My old ankle injury (actually, three breaks to the same ankle. Just call me Grace) falls into that category, and I have resigned myself to future arthritis. But there are other things we can do to halt those annoying illnesses that come with age. Our Scarlett O’Hara mentality has to end – tomorrow is here, and the day after tomorrow will be really ugly if we don’t make some changes.</p> <p>So, I have banished salt from our house. Okay, not altogether. The saltshaker is still here, but Dom can no longer lick the top of it – it is in a cabinet. Instead of salt in my cooking, I am using a salt-free seasoning blend. Instead of butter, I am using some sort of congealed, rubbery orangish stuff that is supposed to taste like butter (it doesn’t).</p> <p>I am still working on cutting refined starches from our diets. It is really, really hard to bake a healthy cookie that tastes good. But I have made positive changes in this direction, too: I Freecycled all the junk food and I have a huge bag of boxed items to donate to the food bank. </p> <p>The thing is, I have always been ultra-paranoid about Dom’s diet. He eats organic candy-covered sunflower seeds instead of M&Ms, for heck’s sake. I puree veggies and hide them in foods he will eat. If only I were half as paranoid about our health as I am his, we probably could have headed off the situation we are now facing. </p> <p>My main concern, though, is Dom, even now. If he grows up watching us eat Big Macs and Soft Taco Supremes, he will end up eating them himself. And then, someday, his wife will be writing something like this in her diary. So, new day, new leaf turned over. </p> <p>Just for the record, though, I miss M&Ms.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>The Funniest Joke in the World</h1> <p>superdad — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:19:00 GMT</p> <p>Or at least he thinks so. It must be the funniest joke in the world, because why else would he use it 4 or 500 times a day? Are you ready to hear it? Ok, here it goes:</p> <p>“No, you are!”</p> <p>Yes! Ha ha. Get’s me every time.</p> <p>This joke can be used in a variety of situations. For instance:</p> <p>“Asher, are you poopy?” </p> <p>“No, you are!”</p> <p>“Asher, are you done eating?”</p> <p>“No, you are!”</p> <p>Oh the fun never stops. “No, you are” is always accompanied by this wild eyed grin and devilish laugh which, unfortunately, is fairly contagious, causing me to occasionally grin, something that only reassures Asher that this is, in fact, the funniest joke in the world.</p> <p>And the great thing about this joke is that it can be used in a variety of situations and can be adapted, depending on the question. For instance</p> <p>“Asher, you need to get your shoes on.”</p> <p>“No, you do!”</p> <p>Ah, comic gold.</p> <p>In addition to this, Asher has developed the habit of changing the lyrics of songs. Apparently, this is a genetic condition, because I know for a fact that it afflicts Asher’s father, grandfather and great grandfather. It appears to be passed down through the male side of the family. </p> <p>Asher’s grandfather’s manifestation seems to come out mainly in songs about women with big feet and unsuitable uses of old protest songs.</p> <p>My current condition compels me to make up randy lyrics to kids songs. I’m sure there’s an easy psychological explanation for this. I sing the lyrics to myself, mainly because I can’t get the tunes out of my head and feel like I at least ought to upgrade the lyrical content. </p> <p>Most of the lyrics are not acceptable for public consumption. For instance, I have a version of the Thomas the Train theme song that involves some inappropriate (ahem) “hook-ups” between several of the trains. </p> <p>I’m sure that’s not healthy. But at least you know, why Thomas’ little plastic face is always smiling.</p> <p>Anyway, Asher’s affliction seems to manifest itself in the universal boyhood humor of bodily functions.</p> <p>He apparently told my wife a couple of days ago that when we were at church practicing the songs we would lead on Sunday, that we sang the following:</p> <p>“I am a friend of God, he burps for me!”</p> <p>I can assure you those are not the lyrics we practiced.</p> <p>His sister recently got the movie Annie for her birthday and it has become a regular in the car DVD rotation. Asher has adapted the chorus to read:</p> <p>“Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I’m going to give your bottom a spanking! It’s only a day away!”</p> <p>Another recent addition comes from the movie Kung Fu Panda. He has taken to singing the hopefully not prescient:</p> <p>“Everybody was poo-poo fighting!”</p> <p>My big concern here is that he’s only 3. If he’s already poo poo fighting at 3, I can only imagine where this is going to end up by the time he’s 6. This could lead to some pretty awkward phone calls from his kindergarten teacher.</p> <p>“Hello, I have a concern about Asher. Whenever we sing ‘the Farmer in the Dell’ in class, Asher sings “The Farmer sure does smell, the farmer sure does smell. Hi ho and plug your nose the farmer sure does smell!”</p> <p>“Yes, well, you see, he’s got a genetic condition, perhaps we can get him an IEP.”</p> <p>No, I can’t see that conversation going well. But I do know one for thing for sure, if the teacher tells me that I have to do something about this “problem,” I know exactly what to say to her:</p> <p>“No, you do!”</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Where Crotchety Old Men Come From</h1> <p>superdad — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:57:00 GMT</p> <p> <br />I have developed a theory – a theory about what turns normal young men and women into grumpy senior citizens who sit around throwing back shots of Metamucil and complaining about how the world is going to heck in a hand basket and hasn’t been any good since MASH went off the air.</p> <p>Here’s what I think happens. </p> <p>When you’re in your 20s the world is yours. Everything is marketed to you. Your kind of music is played on the radio and your perception of what is right about the world is generally set. You probably don’t recognize it at the time, but life is pretty easy. Sure, you share a rat infested apartment with three other people, eat ramen noodles for dinner three times a week, and drive a 14 year old Toyota corolla with hand crank windows, but you don’t care. You’re free. You’re young. You’re about as good looking as you’re ever likely to get and the possibilities of the world lie before you.</p> <p>Then as time passes, you settle into a job, you get married, you have some kids, and you buy a house and a minivan. Life is different and harder, but things are still pretty good. You’re still happy. But somewhere in your 30s things start to change.</p> <p>For some inconceivable reason, they start playing absolute crap on the radio. I mean, who writes this stuff? Commercials stop making sense to you. (What’s a body spray? How is it different from cologne? Shouldn’t you just be using deodorant? Why is that guy spraying it all over himself like insect repellant?) The world is no longer about you. The world is changing, but you, unfortunately, are still happy with how the world was 10 years ago.</p> <p>So you start taking note of these changes. You begin to make a mental list of things that are changing and how you don’t like it. Most of the time, the changes are small. They don’t really affect you that much. But over time, it adds up. </p> <p>“Whadya mean they don’t have fried apple pies at McDonalds any more? Only baked? But this tastes terrible! It’s like eating cardboard! What is the world coming to?” (ed. Note. You can still get delicious fried apple pies at McDonalds in Europe. It is worth the trip)</p> <p>Eventually enough of these little things add up that your perception changes and you feel like the whole world has changed while you weren’t looking. Everything is worse. Nothing is as good as it used to be. So, you sit around the house, listen to your 8 track tapes and yell at the tv.</p> <p>And the things that changed are almost always insignificant. I suspect if you asked the average grumpy 70 year old what was wrong with the world, he would trace it all back to when they changed the designated hitter rule and started replacing sweet and low with equal.</p> <p>So that’s my theory. That’s the secret to why old people are so whiny and grumpy.</p> <p>I developed this theory last week. I was having a difficult couple of days and found myself getting grumpier and grumpier. Lots of things were ticking me off. </p> <p>• They stopped renting free strollers at the mall. Now you have to pay $5.00. Cheap B****rds</p> <p>• The new James Bond movie isn’t any good. He never even says, “I’ll have a martini –shaken not stirred.” Why would they do that to me?</p> <p>• The stupid power company cut down a bunch of 50 year old trees on our road and I had the depressing realization that I would be dead before they grew back to their original heights.</p> <p>• Starbucks changed their gingerbread latte to a gingersnap latte and now it has these little bits of chewy crap floating in it that I keep sucking up and choking on.</p> <p>I was at the grocery store last week and they were playing Christmas music over the loudspeakers. I got really upset - unnaturally so. I started having these thoughts run through my head that went along the lines of:</p> <p>“What are they thinking? This is exactly what’s wrong with America! Everybody knows that there is a clear line of demarcation for Christmas music. It is legally allowed the day after Thanksgiving and not a second before! Haven’t we sacrificed enough? It used to be that Christmas music didn’t start until a couple of weeks before Christmas and now it’s only half way through November and they’ve rolled Bing Crosby out of his grave and begun poking him. What’s next? If someone doesn’t put a stop to this we’re going to be hearing “silver bells” on Halloween. I’ve got to do something!”</p> <p>I found myself waiting in line at the customer service desk ready to launch into an incoherent rant about Christmas music and martinis and why the heck can’t Starbucks leave a good thing alone; when it hit me. I was about 30 seconds away from turning into Walter Matthau. I was about to go up there and start blathering to some meth addled 17 year old clerk who was going to stare at me wide eyed before calling security.</p> <p>I took a deep breath and stepped back. It was clearly more than just the music. But what was it really? A policy change at the mall? A poorly written movie? Starbucks for crying out loud?</p> <p>It was change, pure and simple. And I didn’t like it.</p> <p>And I voted for Obama!</p> <p>I had the sudden realization that I was one menu change at Chili’s away from growing jowls and wearing my pants up above my bellybutton.</p> <p>Wow.</p> <p>And this is where my theory came from. And I believe it is 100% true and I invite some young whippersnapper to write his doctoral thesis on it.</p> <p>It truly isn’t the big things in life. I think we all deal well with the big stuff. It’s the little tiny insignificant stuff that we start to realize our life is, so delicately, balanced on. </p> <p>That realization that the world continues to change and is no longer changing to meet your needs, but rather the needs of those silly 20 year olds who dress so poorly, listen to lousy music and like chewy bits of stuff floating in their coffee, is devastating.</p> <p>It’s a difficult revelation to come to terms with. But I’ve decided to try. My mom has a pin that says “I will not grow conservative with age” (which would probably explain why she’s started burning her bras. Very awkward at parties). </p> <p>So I’m trying to roll with it. I’m just going to try to accept that the world is different but not necessarily worse. </p> <p>• I’m going to try that new Chicken bowl at KFC = the one with the chicken on top of the mashed potatoes and corn and covered in gravy even though I think that it’s probably nasty. </p> <p>• I’m going to hum along happily to frosty the snowman while I pick out my kids back to school clothes next year</p> <p>• I’m going to start calling Beyonce, Sasha Fierce because even though I think that sounds unbelievably stupid, that’s what she wants. And that’s Ok.</p> <p>• I’m going to order the ginger snap latte and just ask them to hold whatever that nasty bits o’ stuff is that they put in it.</p> <p>• And I’m going to just bring my own stroller to the mall and smile blandly at the people who got cheated out of $5.00</p> <p>But I swear to Pete! If they try to change the recipe to Dr. Pepper or start baking McDonalds fries, I’m going to go all Statler and Waldorf on their butts. A man has to take a stand sometimes. </p> <p>Ouch. I can feel my jowls growing just thinking about that.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Friends</h1> <p>marylandmom — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:14:00 GMT</p> <p>These days, Dom likes to hang with the big kids. We just spent the weekend in Delaware visiting my brother, his fiancée, and her two children, four or five years older than Dom. They are the most polite, well-behaved children I have ever met, and I have no idea how their mother has raised such perfect kids…I need to take lessons, I think. But I am off track, once again.</p> <p>Dom met the kids about four months ago. Apparently, they made a huge impression. Once he found out that we were going to visit Uncle John, he asked whether he would see “the babies” (Anyone under age 10 is a baby, according to Dom). We told him he would see them when we got there, and he spent the rest of the car ride talking about his friends and the fun stuff they were going to do together. </p> <p>Once we arrived at their house, it was as though I didn’t exist. My future niece and nephew ran to meet our car, and from that point forward, Dom was theirs. They immediately ran into the backyard, where they ran in circles and played with the zillions of toys scattered across the yard in preparation for our arrival. Dom happily went from one activity to the next, watching his friends adoringly.</p> <p>At night, when they were confined to the house, they had roving pillow fights, chasing each other all over the house. They wrestled and played hide and seek (Dom is still playing hide and seek…he doesn’t understand that it takes two players). </p> <p>The only bad moment of the weekend occurred when Dom realized that he would sleep in his playpen while the big kids slept in their big boy and big girl beds. He crawled out of it three times before I gave up and crawled into bed with him. I am afraid we will soon be converting his bed. </p> <p>When it was time to leave, Dom said, “Bye-bye, Ray-Ray; Bye-bye, Riah,” but he didn’t quite get that we were leaving. Once he was buckled into his carseat and he realized what was happening, he screamed, “My friends! No! Want friends!” After 45 minutes of sobbing and whining, he finally collapsed.</p> <p>As exhausting as that finale was, we can’t wait for our next trip. It was heavenly to let Dom run off to play, knowing that the older kids would keep things under control. Big kids rock!</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>3 Places To Shop for Quick and Easy Cooking</h1> <p>districtmom — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:07:00 GMT</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoPlainText">My second favorite subject these days, after The Bees, is food. Since CB travels every week I frequently eat alone at home so nothing makes me happier than discovering a new take-out item or something easy to cook at home.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">I think I’ve mentioned that I food shop at three stores: <a href="http://www.safeway.com" title="Safeway">Safeway</a> on Sangamore, <a href="http://www.wholefoods.com" title="Whole Foods">Whole Foods</a> in Glover Park and <a href="http://www.traderjoes.com" title="Trader Joes">Trader Joe’s</a> in Bethesda. I like to say I get my staples at Safeway but there are really two reasons why I go there: Skinny Cows and Steamfresh veggies. Skinny Cows keep you from ordering dessert. They are fudgey and satisfying, especially if you eat two. I've eaten so many that I've definitely earned the second part of the name. Steamfresh veggies are frozen bags. They microwave in 4 minutes and are crisp and delicious. I drizzle some olive oil or soy sauce on mine (which defeats the purpose) and I can eat an entire bag in one serving. At Safeway I can also pick up organic ground beef and chicken for the Bees. It’s too late for me – I continue to sully my body with toxins and artificial everything, but we have only highest organic hopes for her.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">At Whole Foods I get my ready-made soups. Every fall I turn to soups again, hoping to stave off those old holiday pounds lurking around the corner. Full and warm I am only truly satisfied if I end with a Spanish manchego cheese or a creamy French goat log. The cheeses at this store are amazing. Ask for <a title="Thistle Hill" href="http://www.thistlehillfarm.com">Thistle Hill Tarentaise</a>, an aged, rinded cheese similar to a mountain gruyere.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> My brother John makes it up in Vermont. </span>While shopping at “Whole Paycheck” I pick up three or four boxes of organic Elmo meals for The Bees (an inoffensive combo of pasta with steamed veggies). Believe me, the brand comes in handy: giving her the box alone buys you 20 minutes of solitude). On my recent trip to Boston I was introduced to American Flatbread found in the freezer section. This pizza is my new favorite thing. It’s a thin crust, with delicious toppings of mozzarella, tomatoes and herbs. If you are as picky as I am about pizza then you must try this. It comes in single servings (perfect for the lonely, part-time, single mom).</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Finally at Trader Joe’s in Bethesda I find individually wrapped frozen cutlets of fish and pork (convenient to cook for the Bees), as well as turkey meatballs and a few prepared meals for myself.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText">As I'm reading this it all sounds quite healthy (but for the cheese). Of course, I don’t mention the peanut butter cookies I might pick up under the auspices of doing something nice for my husband. Or the one or two samples of brownie bites, or the occasional piece of chocolate here and there. Never mind. The Bees still loves me, holiday pounds and all.</p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> </main></body></html>