January 2009 - Posts

• If You Liked It Than You Should Have Put a Sticker On It

  We have been working for some time now, with little to no success, to potty train our three year old Asher.  About a year ago he was making great progress and then he sat on one of those automatic flushing toilets at the mall and it completely freaked him out.  I don’t know that he was scarred for life, but he was clearly scarred for at least a year (and counting).  For the first 6 months after “the incident” he refused to go near any potty anywhere.  Finally he agreed to start using the potty in “his bathroom” once or twice a day.  He still refuses to use the toilets in the other bathrooms in our house, or to go any more frequently. We have tried all of the easy tricks with very little success.  Bribery, threats, encouragement to be a “big boy” – all have fallen on deaf ears.  He just doesn’t care.  I’m sure this stubborn independence will serve him well later in life, but it’s a real pain in the patootie right now. About a month ago we had a minor break through when we convinced him to pee standing up.  He was hesitant at first (did he think the toilet was going to jump forward and snap at him?) but eventually he tried it and was very pleased with the results.  Since then, he has gone around telling everyone – the doctor, our pastor, the cashier at Target – that he can pee “standing up like a grown up man!” Whatever works for ya. I had great hopes that the “standing up” breakthrough might lead to a little more progress, but no.  He still refuses to pee anywhere except his own personal toilet. I have hope though.  I keep talking to other parents with similar stories of delayed potty training, and all of them currently have potty trained children.  Nobody has been telling me about their 12 year old who is “almost there.”  So, I do believe that it’s just a matter of time.  A couple of people have endorsed the “naked weekend” method where you force feed your child gallons of water at a time and have them run around pantsless and remind them to go potty every 5 minutes.  I know several people that this has been very successful for.  However, one of my best friends has a set of fraternal twins.  She said that one of the twins picked up on it very quickly and was basically potty trained by the end of the first day.  But, she said the other twin kept running around and coming up to her and saying “Mommy?  Why is there a puddle of water on the floor?” Why indeed. Anyway, I’m afraid that this process works wonders for kids who are having trouble learning “when” they need to go to the potty.  But I don’t think that’s Asher’s problem.  I think he can hold it (he often wakes in the morning with a dry diaper) and I think he knows when he needs to go potty.  His problem is that, as he says, “I don’t like the potty.  It’s scary.” We have had some minor progress lately.  Stickers seem to have gone from being no incentive whatsoever to a minor incentive.  We keep a pack of stickers in the bathroom and Asher knows he can take one whenever he goes potty. Well, a couple of nights ago, Sarah was putting him to bed and said, “Alright go potty.”  So he ran off, butt-naked to the loo.  A couple of minutes later he comes skipping back in to the bedroom saying “I went potty like a grown up man!” “Good, honey.” “And I got a Dora sticker!” “Good, honey.” However, the point of this story is not that he had gone potty, or that he had gotten a sticker, but rather where he placed said sticker. Apparently Asher decided to give this reward to the part that deserved the rewarding.  So there, staring up at my wife, was a Dora sticker, placed precariously on the end of my son’s penis.  Good boy! Posted Jan 30 2009, 05:48 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Asher, potty training, Better off Dad [Edit Tags]

• In Case Your Resume Seems a Little Too Strong

  In these hard times, people are desperate to do anything to get ahead.  There are so few jobs available out there that many people are willing to work for little or possibly even no money. Enter the Internship. Ah, the internship.  The opportunity for some corporation or non-profit to get free labor out of poor college students in exchange for one more line added on to a resume. It doesn’t really seem like a fair trade does it, but in these tough times, who can be picky? This does, however, create a unique opportunity for many organizations.  Sure, the Daily Show and Morgan Stanley probably never had any difficulty getting interns, but what about more obscure organizations?  This free falling economy has been a God send for small organizations that never could have convinced people to come work for them for free. Now the Sewage Workers of America and the Coalition for the Promotion of Coalition Promoting all are able to attract high quality unpaid interns who are desperate to do something, anything, to help them get a job. I tell you all this, because it will help you understand this job posting.  My wife came across this on Craigslist and forwarded it to me.  I swear swear swear that this is real (at least that it was really on craigslist): Intern for Central Maryland Bigfoot Association Available ASAP Reply to: job-1009317915@craigslist.org Date: 2009-01-27, 1:26AM We are currently looking for motivated, energetic individuals to join us on our quest for the elusive and misunderstood creature known as Bigfoot. Since 2001, Anne Arundel County, MD has ranked first in the nation for Bigfoot sightings, with Maryland being fifth overall in the country. You will accompany Mikey and Cody (experienced cryptozoologists) in the tracking and baiting of the elusive creature. The elusive Ohio Grassman has been sighted in the area as well, observing herds of deer and building nests near areas where whitetail deer bed down. You will earn college credit and be able to brush shoulders with some of the most experienced individuals in the country. Call Mike(443)336-5447 or Cody(410)991-7634 Now, sure, chances are that this is a fake posting.  Or maybe not.  It’s hard to tell with cryptozoologists.  However, a quick web search was unable to turn up any information on Mikey and Cody the world renowned cryptozoologists.  Although, to be fair, it may be that they were seeking an intern to develop their webpage.  So maybe I shouldn’t pick. This ad does raise some important questions though. 1.  What exactly is it about Anne Arundel county that makes so many people think they have spotted Bigfoot.  I suspect that it’s the alcohol consumption.  But it’s hard to say. 2.  Exactly what kind of college credit do you get for working for a couple of nutcases as they attempt to track down a mythological being in a densely suburban area?  I’m assuming something worthless, like credit toward an English major. 3.  What the hell is the Ohio Grassman doing in Maryland?  Is he lost?  Did he sneak aboard the greyhound (I’ve seen the people who ride the greyhound.  I don’t think anyone would notice)  Should we be worried about the environmental impact of cross species interactions between Sasquatch and the Grassman?  Where does the Sierra Club stand on this issue? 4.  My research indicates that the Ohio Grassman looks a lot like bigfoot but is mainly identified by the fact that it travels in packs.  http://www.bigfootencounters.com/creatures/grassman.htm   So how do we know a lone Ohio Grassman wasn’t just an ordinary old Bigfoot?  You call this a science!?  And furthermore, how do we know that the Ohio Grassman wasn’t just Alec Baldwin with his shirt off? I, for one, feel that all of this is very poorly documented and hope that Mikey and Codey get their intern so that they can get a little more organized and get a decent website up. By the by, check out this article about Bigfoot (12 feet tall!) being spotted at Arundel Mills Mall. By Laura Barnhardt The Baltimore Sun Newspaper (Maryland) Anne Arundel County police looked for a mysterious 12-foot creature yesterday, but it's unclear whether an officer and witnesses spotted an animal or maybe -- they joked -- the imaginary Loch Ness Monster from the Severn River. A Police Department spokesman confirmed a report of a "strange sighting" in Hanover just after midnight yesterday near the Arundel Mills mall construction site. But witnesses said the 12-foot-tall, upright, black "thing" ran past them so fast they weren't sure what it was. Construction workers who were napping in a van called police, who dispatched an off-duty officer working security at the mall site to investigate. The workers, who had fled to a nearby fast-food restaurant for safety, were reluctant to return to the construction site with the officer, said Sgt. Joseph Jordan. But the workers finally agreed to show the officer where they had seen the creature. After a brief search, the officer found a footprint about 15 to 20 inches long, Jordan said. Officers contacted the state Department of Natural Resources, which reported a recent sighting of two bears near Interstate 295, Jordan said. However, the print seemed rather large and long for a bear print, police said. When the workers and the officer later caught another glimpse of what appeared to be the animal near a pond also on the site, the workers ran, police said. The off-duty officer stayed and reported seeing two animal-like eyes in the dark, though he couldn't tell what it was, police said. In case the creature was a bear, the officer continued to stay in the area it was last seen, occasionally shining his spotlight around the pond, Jordan said. About 3 a.m., the officer saw what appeared to be an animal lying on a hill near the pond, though it's unclear whether it was the same animal spotted earlier, police said. The officer blew an air horn several times, "but it didn't jerk or move at all," Jordan said. Anyone who sees a large animal should keep a safe distance and immediately call 911, Jordan said. Police do not believe it was a person. "It had fur," Jordan said. But, he said, whatever it was disappeared before the mystery could be solved. Darnit!  Why are the Mysteries always unsolved?  Why can’t we have a solved mystery every once in a while? But on a serious note, I think we all must pause and contemplate the damage we are doing to our environment.  It  makes me sad to think that deforestation and urban sprawl are stealing the bigfoot’s natural habitat and forcing him to hang out in Glen Burnie.   It also makes me think twice about heading up to the Gymboree Outlet to obtain high quality children’s clothing at a reasonable price. Oh, Sasquatch, must you ruin everything that is pure and good. You go get ‘em Mikey and Codey! Posted Jan 29 2009, 06:15 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, stupidity [Edit Tags]

• There's a First Time For Everything

  We all have various firsts in our lives.   Our first steps.  Our first kiss.  Our first car.  Our first bungee jump.  I’m desperately looking forward to my son Asher’s first day without a diaper, but that seems to be a pretty long way off. Well, as you may recall, we have three teenagers from Mississippi staying with us and one of them just celebrated a first a couple of days ago.  On Monday we celebrated Jessie’s first birthday.   It wasn’t his very first birthday of course, he just turned 20, but apparently this was his first birthday party. I was talking to him a few days ago and I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday.  He said: “I don’t care.  We can do whatever.  I aint never really had no birthday with cake and a party and stuff.” Damn. Twenty years old and never had a party.  I threw out a few options and finally got him to admit that going to ESPN Zone would be fun. The sad part about this is that Jessie is a really good kid.  Not just a nice kid, or a kid with a sad story, but a really really good kid. If anything, he is, perhaps, a little overly considerate.  He makes a real effort not to spend our money and seems sincerely pleased and somewhat embarrassed when we do.  At some point he discovered that McDonalds would give you water for free.  So now, whenever we’re at the drive thru and everyone else is ordering burgers and sodas and whatnot.  He says, “I don’t want nothing.”  And then he will invariably remember and say, “Hey, get me a free cup of water.” That’s Jessie, perfectly happy with his free cup of water. Anyway, because of this modesty, it makes it a real joy to occasionally spoil the boy.  So Sunday night we loaded up the family and headed to ESPN Zone.  It was completely empty, so they sat us at a big round table directly in front of a giant 48 inch TV Screen. Awesome, right? The only problem is that the TV was tuned to the hockey all-star game.  Jessie, who would probably have just ordered free bread, if I let him, however couldn’t bear to spend the night watching hockey and asked if we could change the channel.  I asked him what he wanted it changed to. “Basketball.  Any kind of basketball.  Men’s, if they got it.” The next time our completely underwhelmed but clearly incompetent waitress came over I asked if she could change the channel.  She looked doubtful.  Now to be fair, there are 500 televisions in this place, but I still find it difficult to believe that they can’t change the channels on them.  I explained to her the request for basketball, preferably men’s.  And further explained that there isn’t a whole lot of hockey in Mississippi where Jessie is from.  There are a lot of fights and a lot of white people and a lot of people missing teeth, but there is virtually no ice, except in the tea. She said she would see what she could do, but by the time our food came, we were still watching a bunch of toothless white guys skate around in circles.  I also asked the waitress if there was anything they did for Birthdays.  She told me, no there wasn’t, but that I could purchase a dessert if I wanted to. ESPN Zone was really starting to get on my nerves. But Jessie seemed to enjoy it, even though he had to turn around in his seat to watch the NBA game on the other side of the room and he seemed pretty pleased when the waitress brought him a sundae with sparklers on it. After a meal that made Applebees seem like Tavern on the Green, we headed down to the game room where I dispersed tokens to everyone and let the kids run amuck.  The great thing about having small children in a place like this is that they usually can’t tell when they are playing a game and when they are turning the steering wheel while the screen demo plays.  My two youngest, Asher and Micah, had a great time not playing the water skiing game, not playing the paddle boat game, not playing the motorcycle game and not playing the bicycle game.  My oldest, Audra, is at the difficult age where she knows when the game isn’t playing and wants to play it herself, but only has the eye / hand coordination skills to steer her motorcycle repeatedly into the guard rail.  But on more than one occasion I saw Jessie standing behind her, using his tokens to let her play and helping her to steer her way through it. I told you, he’s a good kid. The next day (Monday) was Jessie’s actual birthday and I told him I would cook him whatever he wanted for dinner (hamburgers) and asked him what kind of cake he wanted.  He said he liked all kinds of cake.  So I asked him if he liked coconut because I was thinking about a German Chocolate cake and he said yes. So, that afternoon I went shopping to get a couple of presents.  Coming on the heels of Christmas, I have become an expert on budget shopping for the hip urban youth.  I have learned from Jessie that DTLR actually means “downtown locker room” and that “downtown” is a code word for “black.”  Very interesting.  I was walking through the mall with Jessie before Christmas trying to get a feel for what he thought was cool and learn what the kids nowadays are into.  I also learned what they are not into. We walked past the “Vans” store which is sort of like for hip skateboarders, if that’s not an oxymoron, and asked him if that was cool.  He said categorically that it was not. See, I’m learning. I also learned that “Coogi,” the brand that made all of those tacky Cosby sweaters did not, as I had assumed, go out of business with members only jackets and leg warmer manufacturers, but is still thriving as a hip store for downtown people. I also learned that a hideously ugly t-shirt can run you $70. Thank heavens for clearance racks. I can say, without question, that Jessie now has some of the finest clothes available from the mall’s “downtown” store clearance racks. When we got home I started baking the cake and then took Audra and Asher upstairs with me to wrap presents.  Audra was very helpful and wrapped a couple of shirts and Asher, my three year old, was in charge of dispensing tape.  As we were finishing up the wrapping I noticed that Asher had taken one of the scrap pieces of wrapping paper and taped the bejeezus out of it. “Is there anything in there?” I asked. “Yes!” he replied, “Jessie’s present.” I picked up the 2 feet long by 6 inches wide, flat, apparently hollow piece of paper. “Ok….” I said. Then we went downstairs to decorate the dining room.  We hung streamers and then I iced the cake and made hamburgers. Finally it was time for dinner and I think my kids were more excited than Jessie. We ate our burgers and then I went and lit 20 candles on Jessie’s first birthday cake. Even in the dark, only by candle light, you could see his smile. Jessie then attempted to blow out his candles.  However, he approached it like an asthmatic 80 year old and managed to blow out 3 candles on his initial attempt.  He blew three more times knocking out a few more each blow.  Eventually he just took his hand and waved it back and forth over the candles until they had all gone out. “I aint never blown candles out before,” he said laughing. So we dished out ice cream and cake.  I learned that Jessie may or may not like coconut (he at least ate most of his cake) but that Felicia and Aloysius clearly do not.  They polished off seconds of ice cream and left a giant mound of cake on their plate. Well, I thought it was excellent. Then we brought out the presents.  Every time he opened something all the Mississippi kids would laugh.  At first I was getting nervous (But the guy at the store told me that this was cool!)  But then I realized that it’s just that it was endlessly amusing to them that the crazy old white guy was going to DTLR and purchasing hip clothes.  It turns out that I did a good job and that this, in itself, is amusing.  I think I should feel complimented instead of insulted, but I’m still not sure. Then Jessie got to Asher’s present.  He opened it and, not surprisingly, there was nothing inside.  I explained that Asher had just wanted to wrap something, but Asher insisted that we were wrong. “No, it’s right there!” We looked and, sure enough, inside the end of this tube of wrapping and tape was a folded up sheet of paper.  Jessie opened it and it turned out to be a sheet of directions I had printed out a few days ago that Asher had apparently found on the  floor. “What is it?” Jessie asked. Asher happily announced, “It says Happy Birthday Jessie on it!” It did not.  But in a deeper way, it most certainly did. Jessie smiled for most of the rest of the night and thanked us several more times.  And then, despite me telling him not to, he helped with the dishes. It wasn’t a perfect birthday, or a particularly fancy birthday, but for a first birthday, it wasn’t too bad. There are two codas to this sweetly sentimental story.  The first is that later that evening when we were putting Audra to bed, she announced that she had specifically picked out her Pocahontas Princess panties to wear today, because “Pocahontas is brown, like Jessie!” I’m sure he feels very honored.  I’m still not certain as to whether this is very sweet or just horribly offensive…. Of course we are in a post racial America now, so I guess it’s ok.  Or maybe that means it’s not.  It’s so hard to tell. The second coda is that I am now quite confident that the clothes I purchased for Jessie are as cool as the guy in the store said they were.  Apparently the Mississippi kids found my digital camera that night and then took a whole bunch of pictures of themselves posing in the various shirts.  So I came downstairs Tuesday morning, turned the computer on and found about 20 pictures of them all wearing the shirts and throwing gang signs. They’re such dorks. But good kids. Posted Jan 28 2009, 06:37 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Audra, Asher, Better off Dad, birthday, jessie [Edit Tags]

• Hail to the Chief! He’s the One We all Sing Hail To!

  Previously on Better off Dad: The couple had walked downtown to attend the Presidential Inauguration and then had shunned the proletariat by eating mini quiches and watching the Parade from a roof top law office.  Later, they went out to dinner and were snubbed by Al Franken.  Finally they arrived at the “ball” and watched Marc Anthony make kissy face with J.Lo.  But now everything has changed.  It has just been announced that the President is about to arrive.  And now, on with our tale. So, there we were, 4 rows back, 15 feet from the stage about to watch the President and first lady arrive for their first dance (ok, let’s be honest , 7th or 8th dance by this point, but who’s counting?) This was the reason that we had all purchased our tickets, strapped on expensive uncomfortable clothing, and walked across town in heels for (well, I wasn’t in heels, but you know).  This was the moment we had all been waiting for.  The big dance!  As we waited, men in dark suits with wires in their ears began moving in front of the stage -scanning  the audience.  All around me, people started holding their cameras in the air in preparation for what was to come.  The entire room was abuzz! And then the announcement:  “Ladies and gentleman, would you please rise for…” Ah crap!  It’s Joe Biden. So Joltin’ Joe and Jill walk out on stage.  Jill stands awkwardly off to the side.  And Joe walks forward to yell at us for a while.  Sometimes I wonder if Joe understands how the microphone works. He seems to feel the need to shout into it even when it’s on.  Which is Ok.  Joe was excited.  If he can still find the enthusiasm to shout at us after his seventh time giving this speech tonight, then good for him.  You go crazy Uncle Joe.  But I do worry that he’s like that at home too. “JILL DO WE HAVE ANY MILK LEFT?’ “WOULD YOU PLEASE PASS THE POTATOES!” “YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL TONIGHT JILL!  I WANT TO MAKE TENDER LOVE TO YOU!” It just seems like it could get tiring. So Joe gives us the “thanks for all you’ve done.  The real work starts tomorrow” speech and then says something self deprecating about how he can’t dance.  Then he and Jill dance to the absolutely cheeseball Rod Stewart song “have I told you lately that I love you.”  The funny thing is  (and this is what happens when you’re ball # 7) they didn’t even dance to the whole song.  They danced to the 30 second itunes sample of it and then cleared off the stage.  I guess Joe had to hurry up and get home to prepare for all the stuff he doesn’t have to do tomorrow. Ok, that was fun, but the crowd is pretty happy to have that out of the way.  Let’s get this show on the road.  We’ve been smushed in together like this for a few hours and our legs are starting to go. I try to bend my knees one at a time to make sure the blood is continuing to circulate through each of my toes.  Sarah holds on to my elbow so she can reach down and take her shoes off for a few minutes. Around me people are getting antsy.  We wait for another 15 minutes with no sign of anything.  Then an older couple who had a standing place near the front gives up and starts making their way out through the crowd of 10,000 people crushed in behind us.  The wife looks like she might not make it all the way out and judging by the way she used my shoulder as a brace when she passed, I might not either. A lady behind us gets upset that my friend’s hair got too close to her face.  It’s starting to get ugly in here.  I thought change was supposed to have come by now.  Maybe it’s because the oath got screwed up (stupid Justice Roberts!) The problem is that after Joe took off, I think we all falsely believed that Obama would be hot on his heels.  This turned out to have been a wildly optimistic fantasy.  After 45 minutes more of standing around, some Marines show up and begin walking around the stage as if they’re thinking about redecorating.  After several moments of discussion they bring up a couple of chairs. That’s weird. Is Obama going to sit down and have a chat with us?  Is Michelle so tired that she’s just going to kick back during the dance? But then they bring in more and more chairs.  Eventually there’s about 20 or so chairs up on the stage.  What’s that about?  Are the Obamas going to play musical chairs with the high rolling donors?  I look over to the VIP section and none of them are moving.  They’re not getting these special chairs.  It then occurs to me that the VIP seats kind of suck.  Sure they’re on a little raised platform so that they don’t have to mix with the be-gowned riff-raff, but they’re gilded daius is also like a cage  (sigh).  They can’t get close to the stage either.  They are trapped there, 100 feet away or so, only able to peer across the heads of the groundlings.  The box seats are nice, but they aren’t close.  I feel sorry for them.  So far away from all of the excitement.  Poor rich people, with only their millions of dollars and proximity to Ron Howard to comfort them. Back to the action.  So the marines on chair duty have finally set up these 20 or so chairs – very evenly.  They keep adjusting them so their perfect.  And then, as a delightful surprise, a full brass band walks on stage.  I would say marches on stage, but they didn’t.  They sort of got on stage any old way they felt like it - walking around, looking for their seat, adjusting the chairs, tripping over carpet tacks, glancing around seeing if they could spot Ron Howard.  It was really amateurish.  Someone leaned over and said, “well, this explains a lot about Iraq.” And then, they were all settled and a little conductor guy came out and they all snapped to attention, because he had a stick.  Then a full color guard marches across the stage and takes up posts on either side.  And then the secret service guards flood in.  This is it!  This is it! The conductor raises baton and holds it…..  And holds it…..  And holds it……... You see, the problem is that some nuggnuts has still got club music playing over the speakers.  So (no exaggeration) the conductor guy stands there with his arm poised in the air at full attention for somewhere between three and four minutes before some idiot remembers to push the pause button. Then the conductor brings the baton down and launches into “hail to the chief.” Side note.  A dozen years ago or so, I was watching some goofy movie with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon as grumpy old Presidents.  And they talked about how they had made up words to this song.  And so now I can never hear it without thinking:  “Hail to the chief, he’s the one we all sing hail to.” And then President Barack Obama and Michelle walked out. There were cheers and a thousand different cameras and cell phones being held up all around us.  If you were under 5’ 5” there was no way you were going to see anything but armpits. They both waved and acknowledged the crowd, but they both looked whipped.  I could see Michelle thinking “why the heck did he decide to have 10 balls?  If he had just stuck with 6 like every other president, we could be home by now. Michelle really looked like she had been up a couple of hours past her bed time if you ask me.  And then Obama gave us the “thanks for all you’ve done.  The real work starts tomorrow” speech and we all cheered (Yea!  Work!  Tomorrow!)  And then he made some tired joke that he had made 6 times already and still had to make 3 or 4 more times about how Michelle had to do everything he had to but in heels (Thank you Ginger Rogers) And then they danced – a slow, tired, beautiful dance.  The military band played a touching version of Etta James’ “At Last” and the Obamas held each other, did a quiet, sweetly elegant twirl and for a moment smiled at each other like they were the only ones in the room. This may have been their 7th dance of the night, but it seemed like the one part of the little “show” that was real.  The speech was the same (and in fact a good bit shorter than previous versions), the jokes were now so recycled they didn’t even come across as funny to a new audience, but the dance was real.  For ten times that night, the Obamas held each other and did a little two step together as a celebration of all they had accomplished and all that they had before them.  Was the evening a little cornball?  Yes. Did it resemble a ball? No. Did it require an additional 3 hours of standing, pressed up against other people after a day of endless standing and crowds? Yes. But was it worth it? Without a doubt. You had to have your expectations adjusted properly, but the evening was wonderful.  I’ll probably never get any closer than that to the president of the United States, but on this most special of evenings, I was a few feet away, witnessing this one particular, magical moment in history.  And forever I will be able to tell my children and grandchildren that I was there to watch President Obama dance with his wife on the first night of their historic presidency. And I have the dark, grainy photos to prove it.  By the time the band broke into Stars and Stripes Forever and the Obamas waved goodbye as they dragged on to their 8th ball, it was close to midnight and all 10,000 of us turned toward the back of the hall and began making our way toward the escalator.  We walked past the sad rich people who couldn’t see very well from their cage (don’t feed them carbs!) and we all made our way up to coat check. We then walked down to a metro 5 blocks away, since the one that is 12 feet from the convention center was closed for security, and we enjoyed the sublime sight of seeing the metro station and train cars filled with people in tuxedos and gowns all laughing and talking and recounting the stories of their own magical evening. We got home at about 2:00a.m. from a day that had started 20 hours previously with a 3 mile walk in 15 degree weather.  And I knew that I had to get up four hours later to get the kids off to school (the real work does start tomorrow after all) It had been a long, glorious, emotional, historical day.  And one I wouldn’t trade for anything. Except maybe a foot massage and an extra two hours of sleep.  Oh well, that’s what a republican administration is for. Posted Jan 27 2009, 06:41 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Obama, Better off Dad, washington DC, iauguration, ball [Edit Tags]

• And by Ball, I Mean Cheese Cubes and a Cash Bar

  After we left our dinner with Al “Please please please let me be a Senator” Franken, we headed off to the Inaugural Ball. Now let’s be clear here.  We had tickets to a real ball.  The one Obama was coming to.  Not one of the 30 or so make-believe loser balls honoring “America’s Hard Working Trapeze Artists” or the Mauve Ball honoring Tennessee Female Pastors with One Thumb Longer Than the Other.” No sirree Bob!  We were going to the real deal.  We actually got tickets by a little hard work and a lot of luck.  It was never really announced that tickets were going on sale, but I just kept refreshing the Washington Post’s Inaugural blog and at some point they posted a link to a website that they were pretty sure was a secret Obama website selling ball tickets.  So, I went, gave them my credit card number and received a very nice email saying that “they would be in contact with me.”  When I checked back later, the whole website was gone.  Meaning that I had either been very lucky and gamed the system a bit (what little system there was) or that I had just given someone in Eastern Bulgaria my credit card number so that he could buy “Lots of A+ Quality American Blue Jeans!” But as it turns out, the Obama campaign just had a wacky system and a week later I received an email to come down to the convention center to receive my tickets. So here we were, we had tickets to an Inaugural Ball.  Randomly enough we were given tickets to the Western States Ball, even though we live in Maryland.  Apparently, whatever system they had for assigning tickets flew out the window very early on in the process.  Either that or the ball planners are in need of some fairly serious geography lessons. We walked up to the convention center where our ball was being held and I expected, much like had been the case with everything else relating to this inauguration that we were about to spend an hour standing outside in the cold in some line.  But we were ushered into a heated tent, metal detected, wanded, and sent right into our ball. Our ball! Wow!  The glamour!  The opulence!  The souvenir stand! Actually, I had kept my expectations pretty low.  Partly because Roxanne Roberts had written this article in the Post saying how horrible the balls were and how we shouldn’t go and blah blah blah.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010200653.html I swear, the Post has been the biggest joy kill of this whole inaugural.  Nothing but doom and gloom.  The other reason I kept my expectations low was because I figured that if it was the kind of ball that I, a stay at home dad, could get tickets for, it couldn’t possibly be all that cool. Then we arrived in the cavernous ballroom  (you know, why is it that we say cavernous when we mean big?  I’ve been in a few caverns, and they tend to be, you know, kind of small.  Because they’re underground and full of rocks and stuff).  It seemed nice enough. If you were going to throw a party for 11,000 people in a single room, this seemed like as good a way to go about it.  There were big things hanging from the ceiling to disguise the fact that this is normally where they hold the auto show, and they had brought in carpet and such. We started walking around and scattered throughout this non-cavernous space were little booths.  Some sold souvenirs.  Some sold alcohol.  Some sold tickets to buy alcohol.  There was also a place for you to get your picture taken next to an inaugural seal and for only $180 they would frame it and send it to you.  What a deal. There was a raised dais where all the VIPs sat so that they could literally look down on us. I must say, there is something a little disappointing about feeling like you managed to snatch something really unique and coveted (for instance, a ball ticket) and once you get in to this exclusive event you’re still just one of the little people. Is there no end to my insignifigance?  Even when I’m significant, I’m insignificant. Anyway, we wandered around and wondered what the heck we were supposed to do.  There were lots of people in fancy gowns and lots of people in tuxedoes.  But here’s the thing, this is DC. DC is made up of very smart, somewhat nerdy, wonkish people.  The women all wear hip glasses, and just a touch of organic, non-animal based fair-trade blush. We are not a beautiful people.  We are precisely the kind of people that you want running your country though.  All that time not spent on hair smoothers, tanning booths and manicures is spent thinking about complex land management policy issues as it relates to indigenous groups in the Central Western Plains. Oh yes, we can run the country, but we can’t dress up for a party to save our lives.  No wonder they put all the celebrities in a VIP box.  They’d never come back if they had to mingle with the rest of us.  . I turned to my wife at one point and said, “Holy cow, it doesn’t look like most of the women here even did their hair.”  She leaned back over and said, “Oh, but they did.” To be fair, we had a friend take a picture of us because we were both so good looking in our tux and gown and when we looked at it the next day.  We both had the same, immediate reaction.  “Wow, I thought we looked better than that.” Apparently, getting up in the wee hours of the moring, walking to DC from Virginia,standing outside all day in 20 degree weather, throwing on a gown amd tux in 10 minutes flat because you were watching the parade and then walking 12 blocks across downtown does not make you a pure vision of loveliness. My wife, as stunning as she looked, was suffering from the effects of having worn a hat for 6 hours outside and I looked so exhausted that my eyeballs were almost invisible within the bulging bags that were forming around them. Also, the various layers that go into a tuxedo appear to have made me look much fatter than I actually am.  Right? Right? Anyway, so there we were, in this giant, football sized room with a bunch of homely DC folks in fancy, ill-fitting dresses. There were approximately 2 chairs available for the 11,000 of us, so we stood, although I did see several  60 year old women in floor length gowns, sitting cross legged on the floor balancing their plastic plate of cheese cubes with their $9 plastic glass of champagne (did I mention that it was a cash bar?)  This sort of seemed to be the epitome of the ball experience. Here’s the thing.  I was happy to go to this event.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly, but I think the problem comes in labeling it a “ball.”  In my mind, a ball would be an event where a group of much more attractive people would all be sitting at fancy tables around a large wooden dance floor.  A live band would play and we would all waltz to Mozart and Brahms and maybe the Bee Gees.  When the president arrived, we would all push off to the sides and he would dance with his wife in the center of the dance floor and we would all ooh and aah and then we would all start dancing and I would ease over and ask to cut in on Michelle and then tell her that Audra would like Sasha to come over for a playdate (we could all make cookies). But that was not this event.  I think the event I was imagining was a cross between a state dinner, the last 20 minutes of Cinderella and some kind of wacky stay at home dad fantasy where Michelle Obama and I would hang out at the mall drinking coffee, while we watched our kids play and we’d sip our starbucks lattes and complain about how much our spouses work.  Michelle:  “You know Barack has just been so busy.  He’s always flying to England or China and having to get up in the middle of the night to avoid nuclear Armageddon.” Me:  “Oh, I know just what you mean.  Just last week, Sarah had to work late on drafting a motion to dismiss a 402-719 ERISA claim.  My pot roast was so overcooked by the time she came home!” Michelle:  “What do you mean by the word “cook?” Anyway, the event we were at was lovely, it’s just that it wasn’t a ball. In reality, it was just one more political rally for the president, except that we were all overdressed. Quite seriously, I saw NOBODY dancing at this “ball.” We attended.  I did come across a really crappy video that somebody at the post did of our ball which shows one couple dancing.  It’s hysterical.  There’s literally this one couple dancing while everyone else stands around staring at the walls.  They must have had a lot of $9.00 champagne.  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inauguration-watch/2009/01/video_western_ball.html So once we realized what kind of event this was, we decided to enjoy it for what it was.  There was a small stage at one end of the hall and it was pretty clear that this was where Obama was going to come out.  SO we decided that if we were going to be standing around awkwardly, talking with one another, we might as well do so down near the stage.  So after we’d been there about an hour, we went down to the stage area and stood very close to the front.  I’d say we were about 15 feet away. This was such a great idea.  In fact, it was such a great idea, that soon afterward, everyone else had the exact same idea.  And within the hour, we were once again scrunched up against one another like a can of Vienna sausages (isn’t that so much better than the sardine metaphor). But it was ok, because not too long Marc Anthony came out to sing for us.  He was about 15 feet away and if I had been a big Marc Anthony fan it might have been the greatest moment of my life.  I’m not a big Marc Anthony fan, but it was still pretty cool.  Here’s what I know about Marc Anthony.  He sings in Spanish.  He likes to pretend he’s conducting his band, by punching the air with his fists when he’s not singing.  And he’s tiny.  He’s a tee-iny scrawny little man that you could pick up and carry around in your pocket if you wanted, and then every time you wanted to hear salsa music you could just take him out of your pocket and he would dance around singing and punching the air. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Anthony and if I could have moved my left leg without sexually assaulting someone I would have danced my little heart out.  As it was, I wiggled my head for all I was worth.  I’m sure that looked very cool. Interestingly enough, the most news worthy event of the evening came before the Obamas ever arrived.  Apparently Marc Anthony and J. Lo have been rumored to be on the express train to splitsville.  Well, near the end of his set, Marc calls J. Lo up on stage and they sing this duet together, and make lovey faces at each other and they kiss passionately, just like Al and Tipper. The next day, I saw the story of this kiss on about a dozen different websites.  This was big news!  Forget the inauguration.  J. Lo’s still married! http://music.msn.com/hotgossip/1-21-09_2/ And can I just say:  Jennifer Lopez is Gorgeous! I sort of thought that maybe the stars all looked just like the rest of us, except with better make up artists.  This is not the case.  Well, it’s probably the case for Marc Anthony, but Jennifer herself is just ridiculously good looking.  I turned to a friend and said, “Wow, the beautiful people really are more beautiful than us.”  She nodded her head knowingly. It must be so painful for all these beautiful people to be in DC .  Of course we could probably kick their butt at connect four or something, but still. Anyway,  J.Lo and M. An (that just doesn’t work does it?) sang their little duet and then Marc sang something else in Spanish and then he looks offstage nods his head up and down, turns back to us, says, “thank you very much ladies and gentleman” and dashes off stage – never to be heard from again.  And he didn’t even sing that stupid, “I need to know… I need to know…” song! But that was Ok, because we were all excited.  This was the moment we had been waiting for.  The big dance!  Secret Service appeared and began preparing the stage.  The excitement in the airplane hanger was almost palpable.  Possibly even pulpable.  I looked behind me and there were about 50 million people.  We were at the front of a giant crowd!  We were totally awesome! But, I’m already like 5 pages into today’s blog, and my children seem to want breakfast or something.  So I’ll have to tell you all about the rest of it tomorrow. Because…. You need to know.  You need to know.  I’ll tell you babygirl cause you need to know. Tomorrow. Posted Jan 26 2009, 07:16 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Obama, Better off Dad, washington DC, inauguration, party, ball [Edit Tags]

• What Happens When a Sea of Humanity Becomes a Tsunami

  When last we left our hero, he was standing at the Washington Monument gazing down on the sea of humanity before him.    This phrase, “sea of humanity,” is important.  It must be, since every single news organization has used it at least four hundred times.   Anyway, the inauguration had ended, Obama had left the dais and slowly 2 million people decided to go to the metro station.  I’m sure a couple hundred thousand decided to go watch the parade, a couple hundred thousand decided to go to the Smithsonian and a couple hundred thousand decided to walk home.  But I am here to tell you, that that leaves well over a million people who were headed to the metro station.    This was further complicated by the fact that most of the metro stations that were actually nearby had been closed for security reasons.  To further, further complicate the matter.  Pennsylvania avenue, which runs east west through the city along the entire length of the mall, had been closed off and could not be crossed.  Without getting in to all the details, this meant that if you wanted to go North, there were only two streets you could take.  So, take a million or so people, divide them in half and put one half on each street.   Let’s just say it was a little crowded.   I have never in my life seen such a massive number of people in one place.  It was like an ocean of people, nay, a sea of humanity (see how well that works?)     Imagine taking 100 people and putting them in your bedroom, turning the temperature down to 15 degrees, asking them to stand still for 5 hours and stare at an ant crawling across the wall and then telling them all to walk down the hallway and into your bathroom.    If you multiply that by 100,000, that’s what it was like as a million people attempted  to walk up 18th street and into the Farragut West Metro station.   Insane.   Luckily Sarah and I are special.  Well, Sarah’s special.  I’m only special by marriage.  Sort of like Prince Phillip.   Sarah’s law office overlooks the White House on Pennsylvania Ave.  and her firm was having a parade watching party.  So all we had to do was walk 6 blocks and we would be inside the warmth and cheese cube filled interior of Sarah’s office.  How hard could that be?   Hard.   As we left the monument we made our way down toward 18th street and were foiled by Don’s Johns.    Don had set up 50 port a johns to the West of us and 50 port a johns to the North of us, and we got trapped in a port a john funnel with about a 100,000 other people.  There literally was a 15 foot gap between the two rows and we were all trying to squeeze through it.  I saw grown women scaling the tops of the port a johns in efforts to escape what became known as the Bha-john Death March.  (Ok, no it didn’t, but it should have been).    While we were waiting to squeeze between two rows of chemically preserved feces, Bush’s departing helicopter circled overhead and the crowd waved to him and…. uh…. shhoted stuff.   Anyway, we finally squeezed through the eye of the needle and were then slowed by a series of jersey barriers and city busses that had been used to block off the road.  So we all (little old ladies included) began climbing over Jersey barriers.  Most of us had to lift our legs over the barriers one at a time with our hands because our limbs had stopped functioning accurately, as a result of the cold, several hours ago.   And then it opened up.   You could move.  You could take more than one 6 inch step at a time.  We began hurrying in an effort to beat the crowds.  We, like everyone else, began cutting through the Organization of American States’ sculpted garden.  Freedom was on the march!   And then we realized that somehow the crowd was not just behind us, but ahead of us as well.  All million of us came to a halt at the bottom of 18th street.  Before us was a mass of people spread far and wide filling every available inch of asphalt.   How to describe it?  It was like a sea.  A sea of humanity.   18th street is a wide 4 lane road that runs due North.  But when you squeeze that many people into it, everyone turns into 90 year old men shuffling to the bathroom in their slippers.  We could never take more than a hobbling half step at a time.  We moved steadily but it took us an hour and a half to walk 6 blocks.   But eventually we reached the promised land!  We reached the road for Sarah’s office and after squeezing between two city buses and hurdling one last Jersey barrier, we left the crowds behind. I have to pause and say that we arrived at Sarah’s office, cold, tired, hungry and exhausted.  We were truly some huddled masses.  But I literally do not have the ability to fathom what the hundreds of thousands of people behind me had before them.  They were all, quite literally, headed to one of two metro stations, each of which could probably hold 1/100 of the number of people who wished to enter them.  The rest had to huddle (in mass form) outside the station, waiting for the police to allow them to enter.  I suspect I would have been suicidal by that point.   But luckily, instead, I was inside a fancy law firm eating scallops on a stick.    (side note:  If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend marrying a lawyer who works at a law firm overlooking the white house.)   (side side note:  To lawyers, who work in law firms overlooking the white house.  Please consider marrying sad, impoverished, bird chested teachers.  We are good with children and make a mean pot roast).   The greatest benefit of being in Sarah’s office was that it overlooked the tail end of the Inaugural parade route.  The balcony was a bit breezy, but had a fantastic view, and came with our very own secret service agent who had used flower pots to barricade himself into a corner of the balcony and spent the whole time eyeing us warily.   So we socialized with the Hoi Polloi and waited for the Parade to start.  Unfortunately this took hours and hours because of Kennedy’s “episode.”    So annoying!  What were we to do except sit around in the heated office and eat, drink and watch one of the dozen big screen tvs?   It was torture.   Anyway, eventually Obama got into his car and began heading down Pennsylvania avenue at approximately 3 miles per hour.  I am not in the least bit joking when I say that the motorcade moved faster when Obama and Michelle got out and walked than when they were inside riding.    Well, after a decade or so, they rounded the corner and there they were - our president and first lady walking down Pennsylvania just below us.  We all raced out to the balcony, completely freaking out the secret service guy and took a bunch of long distance blurry photos through other people’s armpits.  I don’t know how that sounds to you, but I’m here to tell you, it was pretty darn cool.   Then Obama went into the White House to start unpacking his socks and underwear and Joe Biden got out and started walking down Pennsylvania.   I’ve got a little secret for you that you may not be aware of:   Joe Biden is crazy.   Not dangerous crazy, just crazy like your weird uncle that’s always encouraging you to invest in Micronesia and likes to pull quarters out of his nose at the dinner table.   Boy, the way crazy Uncle Joe was running up and down the street you would have thought he had an important job.   He was waving and jumping around.  At one point he ran up to a group of school kids threw his arms out to the side jazz hand style and waited for them to cheer for him.   They did.   Hadn’t someone told them that this would only encourage Crazy Uncle Joe?  You never ever ever pull uncle Joe’s finger when he asks you too.  Don’t they know that?  Well, they are just kids.   All I know is that if the whole VP thing doesn’t work out, Joe’s got a good career ahead of him as the guy in the Mickey Mouse costume.   Anyway, by now, it is 4:50 and the parade is about to start (3 hours late – stupid Kennedy)   This would be fine except that Sarah and I have 5:00 dinner reservations and a ball to attend.   (Oh, did I not mention that we were going to a ball?  I did say we were special didn’t I?)   So we run back to Sarah’s office, strip down in full view of the secret service guys on the adjacent building and throw on a tux and ball gown like we were pulling on jeans and sweatshirts and then we hoof it down stairs and back on to the street with the proletariat. (ooooh how they disgust me.  They’re all teachers and stay at home parents and such!)   We then walk as fast as our fancy shoed outfits would allow us to go in 18 degree weather until we arrive at the restaurant – Bobby Van’s steakhouse!  (It’s supposed to be good and more importantly, still had reservations available.)   As we are hustling into the restaurant Sarah leans over and whispers “Al Franken is right behind us!”   Now I, of course, assumed she was wrong.  We were watching TV last night and she said “oh look!  That’s Bob, a senior Partner at my old law firm!”   I said, “honey, that’s Howard Dean.”   Anyway, so I naturally assumed that there was some middle aged man with owl glasses behind us who was actually a pork belly salesman, but when I turned around, sure enough it was Stuart Smalley himself.   I rushed into the restaurant and as he entered, I very casually and smoothly said, “Congratulations Senator.”   Now, I was understandably excited to see Al Franken.  And I thought he should have been excited to see me as well.  I am a blogger after all.    But no.   He looked at me and very dismissively said, “Yeah.  Thanks.”   Really?    I could have been from Minnesota.  I could have been a constituent.  I could have been one of the 12 votes that’s keeping Norm Coleman from being the one standing in front of me at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse.  But I guess, Mr. “I’m too good to talk to the little people” Franken didn’t see it that way.    It’s not like I wanted him to say “Isn’t that special,” or was asking him to see if we could pull our tables together.    Maybe he was actually jealous because he could tell that I was dressed up to go to a ball and he was just having dinner at Bobby Vans.  (There’s no way he was going to a ball.  Not with his wife dressed like that!)   Anyway that was my big brush with fame for the day.    500,000 stars and celebrities in town and I get stuck with spotting Cranky McFranky.   Oh well.  Did I mention we were going to a ball?  I’ll tell you all about it on Monday, as long as I don’t get swept away in a sea of humanity.     Posted Jan 23 2009, 07:30 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Obama, Better off Dad, washington DC, inauguration [Edit Tags]

• Broco Bama

  Last week our precocious and ridiculously adorable daughter, Audra, drew us a picture of our next President.   Because she’s advanced she spelled his name by sounding it out.  Because she’s 6, she spelled it “Broco Bama.” I’m sorry, but that’s about the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Anyway, as some of you with televisions or at least 2 out of 5 functioning bodily senses may know, the Inauguration was Tuesday. I haven’t blogged any this week, because Monday was spent preparing for the inauguration, Tuesday was spent Inaugurating and Wednesday was spent trying to recover from the Inauguration.  But lucky for you, the rest of this week will be spent sharing all of my experiences, observations and witty insights about the inauguration of our 44th president (technically 43rd.  Grover Cleveland is trying to make liars out of all of us.  Look it up.) Sarah and I had been planning to go to the inauguration for months.   We live about 30 minutes away from the capital and are big Broco Bama fans.  The problem is that the stupid Washington Post has spent the last two months scaring the bejeezus out of everyone by telling the whole world how horrible it was going to be and how 50 billion people were going to descend on the National Mall precipitating Armageddon and leaving nothing but charred mangled bodies in their wake. This turned out to be largely accurate. But Sarah and I were prepared.  We had plans, contingency plans and contingencies for our contingencies.  Besides, I was convinced it wasn’t really going to be that bad.  I had gone to the big Concert on Sunday (by the way – AWE-some!) and the crowds there were quite manageable as far as insanely large crowds go.  Besides it was going to be cold.  Nobody likes to be cold, right?  Right? This turns out to be a true statement.  Nobody likes to be cold - with the exception of about 1.8 million people (and the population of North Dakota – so add another 50 or 60 to that figure).  It turns out that lots and lots of people like to be cold if it means getting to see our first African American President get sworn in. We spent the night about 3 miles from downtown DC and left at 7:30 in the morning.  We bundled up like we were going to hike to Antartica.  We had long underwear and multiple pairs of socks and enough layers to clothe a small baseball team.  By golly, the 19 degree weather wasn’t going to get to us! When we struck out, the streets were deserted.  So we decided to try taking the metro.  This turned out to be a foolish decision, much like Mary j. Blige’s beige outfit that blended in too well with the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Sunday’s concert. When the train arrived it was full, but not packed.  All these tourists were being too polite.  We needed some New Yorkers to come down and get everyone to push into the middle and squeeze everyone like the sardines that they rightfully were.  Well, we decided we were getting on the next train regardless.  When it pulled in to the station there was a guy standing at the door looking out who started shaking his head “no” as in “don’t get on, we’re full.”  I smiled, started shaking my head yes, and we stepped on, easily fitting.  Then about 8 more people squeezed in behind us.  Then a lady with her suitcase squeezed in.  Then four or five more people forced their bodies into some negative space.  And then the train tried to leave the station and the inevitable happened.  The doors couldn’t close – not on our car, but somewhere else.  So we sat there for about 20 minutes, no one able to move or breathe deeply - elbows, and shoulder blades stuck in ridiculously uncomfortable places.   And then the train broke.  It just broke. So they made everyone get off the train, and to the sounds of groans and deafening sighs  it limped off into the darkness.  So now, our once relatively empty train station was filled to capacity with thousands and thousands of people.  Sarah and I looked at our watch, looked at the crowds and looked at the next almost completely full train that pulled into the station and we headed for the exit doors. What’s three miles?  Naught but a stroll. Actually, this turned out to be true.  We walked through some horrid industrial park and over to the interstate that had been closed down and walked across lickety split.  It was actually quite a pleasant walk.  As far as walks in 20 degree weather go.  We got to the mall at a little after 9:00.  The swearing in wasn’t scheduled till 11:30, so I figured we were fine.  I had no grand ambitions about being close.  The key to this day was realistic expectations.  If you harbored ambitions to be close, you needed to harbor ambitions to stand in the cold for 11 hours, because you needed to be there at midnight. All I wanted was to find a spot where I could see the capitol and see a jumbotron. That seems pretty reasonable, right? We rounded a corner and, although it had been predicted for months, I was still shocked to see a full million or so people already in place.  The entire mall from the capitol to the Washington Monument was completely packed.  That’s a full mile and a half of people.  We saw that there was still some space in front of the Washington Monument and fought our way to the top of the hill. We found a little pocket along the circle of flags that surrounds the monument and settled in.  I could see the capitol (a mile and a half a way) and I could see a jumbtron just across the street.  This was perfect. We had only made one fatal error. Apparently the little path that allowed us to squeeze into this space had become an unofficial road around the monument.  For the next two hours a steady stream of people squeezed by in front of us.  As the crowd got tighter and tighter, the distance between us and the people in front of us (and the chain gate behind us) shrunk from feet to inches until finally there was virtually no space at all, and yet still the road continued with people bumping pushing, squeezing and forcing there way past us.  For two solid hours! It was not at all difficult for me to see how riots start.  All it would take was for one person to get fed up, push back and then a fight could easily ring out sparking a string of fights as more and more people got shoved, pushed and hurt.  We were only one thanksgiving sale away from a trampling. But it didn’t happen.  One of the most extraordinary things about this day was that there were (to my knowledge) no serious injuries, no arrests, no fights, and nothing but an almost irrepressible feeling of good will toward others. The largest crowd ever assembled in American history had gathered on one of the coldest days of the year.  And they stood together pressed up against one another for hours and hours waiting for a 30 minute ceremony and no one seemed to regret it. We certainly didn’t. From our viewpoint, I could barely pick out the capitol, much less the president.  The sound was not always clear and you had to crane your head to see the jumbotron through the space between people’s neck and ear lobes but we were there. We had no sensation in our feet or fingers, but we were there. And let me tell you, it was a hundred percent worth it to be there. The crowd was literally abuzz with energy.  Every time a shot of the presidential motorcade appeared the whole place went nuts.  For two hours, this sea of humanity was glued to the video screens as dignitary after dignitary marched forward.  Cheers rang up for Kennedy and Carter, the Clintons, and just about any other recognizable face.  An impromptu parlor game sprang up of “who can identify obscure political figures?” Look its Dick Durbin!  Isn’t that Steven Chu the new energy secretary? Why spank my fanny and call me Ethel, I think that Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag just arrived!  I had to confess that there were a few bitter dried up old hippies in their hemp shirts and soy ink colored Nepalese beanies who might have booed some of the current Bush administration figures.  I’ve got to say that this is pretty tacky.  The Dems won.  Isn’t that enough?  Do we really need to boo? No we don’t. Although we apparently did need to sing “Sha-na na na.  Na na na na.  Hey he-ey good-bye,” when W walked out.  Boy did he look awkward.  I almost felt sorry for him.  I also experienced the absolute worst kind of schadenfreude when Dick Cheney rolled out in a wheel chair.  He apparently threw out his back while packing boxes to leave town.  This, my friends, is called irony.  It’s not shoot your friend in the face quality irony, but it’s irony nonetheless. And then the man of the moment himself arrived.  You hear the phrase “the crowd erupted” a lot.  But in this case, it was true.  I’d say the entire collection of people there literally leapt into the air to shout.  At that moment,  there was not a voice left unlifted, or a flag left unwaved.  It was simply an endless wave of gloved hands waving amidst shouts, cheers and smiles The ceremony itself was brief, but beautiful.  Our sound was muffled by the wind and a bizarre echo that was bouncing off the commerce building and ended up being louder than what we were hearing directly, but from what I could tell Aretha and Itzhak and Yo-Yo all acquitted themselves nicely. (How could Yo-Yo not acquit himself nicely?) I sort of got tired of pushy Diane Feinstein coming in and running the whole show like a church spaghetti supper and auction.  Boy she got her money’s worth out of that chairmanship didn’t she? But of course, that’s not why we were there.  By the time Obama came down to take the oath of office, every nook and cranny of the mall had been filled in.  If the space was not cordoned off by police, it was filled.  There were people clinging to statues, pushed in against steps of adjacent buildings, and squeezed into corners where they had no view whatsoever, all so they could say they had been there.  As one, we heard idiot Justice Roberts flub his lines. Seriously, the man had two sentences to say.  Sentences that are in the constitution.  A document that I would like to think he glances at occasionally.  Could he really not memorize them? Would it have been so hard to write them neatly on an index card? Oh, you know his clerks were snickering about that in the old supreme court canteen. But we muddled through and if you thought there had been excitement previously, the cheering that enveloped the masses at the end of that oath literally seemed to lift the crowds into the air.  I may not have had the closest spot, but to be able to look down the mall in front of me over the heads of millions of people waving flags, cheering and shouting is a sight that I will never forget. People would have been dancing if any of us had had the space to move, or the ability to wiggle our toes.  But despite all of the cheering and shouting, during the speech you could have heard a pin drop - especially because the ground was completely frozen and the pin probably would have shattered upon impact.  It is in a way amazing that 1.8 million people could be quiet at the same time.  I can’t even get my three kids to do that. The speech was good.  It wasn’t transcendent (which unfortunately appeared to have been the minimal standard everyone was anticipating) but it was good.  It was at times memorable (although I can’t remember what parts were memorable – which probably isn’t a good sign) and it, without question, set a new direction for our country. At times I thought the speech set the new direction a little too clearly.  There were several moments where Obama talked about “restoring trust in our government” or “we are ready to lead once more,” that I wanted to point and whisper to him “BUSH IS SITTING RIGHT BEHIND YOU!”  As the ceremony came to an end, and Diane Feinstein once again came forward to prattle on about all the hard work she had done or some such nonsense, the frozen crowds around us began to slowly dissolve.  Bit by bit, bodies shifted, air seeped into spaces formerly occupied by bodies and the wind began to once again whip against limbs that had previously been blocked by a mass of people.  Some people broke immediately, hoping foolishly that they could get a head start on the 200,000 people currently standing between them and the metro, but most lingered.  Most stayed a moment longer to see Obama shake hands with his fellow leaders, a wide smile plastered across his face.  They stayed to hear the marine band play the Stars and Stripes Forever, the sheer energy of that song rippling out over the crowds.  And they paused just to soak in, for a second more, this moment as our country turned a corner in its history. Not all had been made right.  Nothing had yet changed.  Yet, in a way, everything had.  It isn’t often that you can truly be a witness to history.  But on this cold December day, My beautiful wife and I stood with millions of others to watch, hear, and inhale history as it unfolded before our frozen limbs. And yet as cold as our hands were, as tired as our feet were, the only sensation that anyone had was one of jubilation in having witnessed the inauguration of our next president: Broco Bama Posted Jan 22 2009, 07:21 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Obama, Audra, Politics, Better off Dad, washington DC, iauguration [Edit Tags]

• An Open Letter to All the Homebody Losers in the Greater DC Area

  Alright folks, we have something coming up next week.  I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but it’s called the inauguration. I know, I can hear the collective groan from here.  (cue the whining) “Oh, there’s going to be sooo many people” “wah wah, The streets and bridges are closed” “I’m cold.” “Boo hoo, all those tourists will be in town.” Oh for Pete’s sake everyone! I don’t know if anyone else is having this experience, but pretty much everyone I know is avoiding the inauguration because it’s going to be “crowded.” Well no kidding. I know people who gave thousands of dollars and worked hundreds of hours on the Obama campaign AND  live on a metro line and still aren’t going. I understand this (a little bit).  I mean, it is going to be very crowded and worse than just crowded, its going to be crowded with a lot of obese tourists who don’t know that you’re supposed to stand on the right and walk on the left and who keep referring to the Jefferson Memorial as “the round one” and want to know if it’s too late to get tickets to tour the white house. Yes, yes, I know it will be annoying.  It will also be cold.  And yes, chances are you’re going to have to watch the inauguration from the FDR memorial and crane your neck to get a look at one of the jumbotrons.  I know! I know! I know! But. And this is a major but. A hugely major but. This is an LL Cool J singing about Nell Harper big ol’ but. This event.  This inauguration is possibly the most important historical moment that is likely to happen in our life time. I don’t think I’m overstating this.  We have the first black president ever taking the oath of office and he was elected by the largest majority in the last couple of decades.  On top of that, he is coming in to office at a moment where the country is in turmoil.  Historically, this moment is most similar to that of  FDR.  Now he could screw it up, but because the country is in such a state, he has a greater opportunity to create long lasting change than any other president in half a century. Think about it.  The first black president.  A smart, popular, careful man who is likely to have a profound impact on our country.  Additionally, he is likely to have a huge impact after he leaves office as well.  He’s young.  He’ll have another 40 years of traveling the world making an impact after he leaves office. Some day, probably in my lifetime, they will build a monument to Barack Obama on the Capitol Mall. You will have the chance to stand at the base of his mighty statue and hold your grandchild’s hand and say, “You see him?  That guy in your history book?  I was there the day he got elected.” “Really grandpa?” “Yep.  I remember that it was freezing cold.  So cold that we had to huddle together with complete strangers for warmth.  Now, we weren’t close, there were too many people for that.  But they had hung these giant tv screens outside.” “What’s a TV grandpa?” “It’s like your Ibrain.  Anyway, we stood outside with hundreds of thousands of others and we watched as he took the oath of office.  Now maybe I wasn’t close enough to see him with my own two eyes, but I could see the capitol and a sea of people in front of me and when he became president, a cheer went up from the crowd that I can still hear ringing in my ears today.  Never before or since have I felt so much like I was part of something so big.  Total strangers were hugging one another and dancing around.   It was like nothing I had ever seen.” “Wow, grandpa, you’re so cool!” Compare that with this scenario. “You see him?  That guy in your history book?  I remember the day he got elected.” “Wow, grandpa, you do?” “Yessiree, I watched it on my television.” “Why didn’t you go see it yourself, grandpa?  You live so close.” “Yeah, but there were a lot of people, and…” “But there’s a lot of people everywhere, grandpa, the U.S. population is over 800 million now.” “Well, it was really cold too.” “Cold?  What’s cold grandpa?” “Well, back before global warming got real bad, we had this thing called ‘cold.’  Boy what I wouldn’t give to feel cold again.” “So you didn’t go because it was cold and there were lots of people?” “yep, that’s about it.” “Wow grandpa, you’re so lame.” Now which grandpa do you really want to be? Think about it.  If you had the chance to go listen to Lincoln give the Gettysburg address, wouldn’t you go?  If you could go back and hear Kennedy say “ask not what your country can do for you,”  wouldn’t you? If you could have fought the crowds and the heat to go hear Martin Luther King, Jr. give his “I have a Dream Speech,” wouldn’t you? This IS going to be one of those moments.  And you’re going to miss it because you’re too lazy, you don’t like waiting in lines and it’s cold.  Well, wah, wah, wah. Come on, this is where we live.  We all have chosen for a variety of reasons to live in, or around, our nation’s capital. We fight traffic every day and put up with high housing prices and poorly signed intersections and questionable administrative decisions so that we can be a part of all that this city has to offer.  And this is going to be the biggest thing this city has to offer, for a very long time. People all over the country and the world are paying thousands and thousands of dollars so that they can come do what any of us could do for the cost of a metro ticket and a few hours of our time. It is NOT the same watching it on TV.  Don’t kid yourself.  This will be a moment that history will talk about for centuries and you have a chance to be there.  Seize the moment. Grab that Brass ring. Be a part of history I, for one, am going to Carpe the hell out of that Diem. See you there. Posted Jan 15 2009, 07:28 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Obama, Politics, Better off Dad, washington DC, inauguration [Edit Tags]

• What Sad, Depressing Movie Do You Want to See Today, Dear?

  As you know, Christmas time is the time for sadness.   At least in Hollywood.   They take the entire years worth of well acted, serious, depressing movies and release them all over a 2 week period in December.    This creates a couple of unique situations.  One, it means that there is a bounty of quality movies to see.  But on the other hand, it means that every movie you go to see is going to have someone dying a horrible death or getting brain damage, or not killing Hitler.   When we were up visiting my sister in law I remember having a conversation with her about what movie to go see.  It went something like this:   “Do you want to go see the Nazi movie?  The child molestation Movie?  The Nixon movie?  The dead puppy movie?  The Indian slums movie?  The suburban depression movie?  The Nazi statutory rape movie?  Or the movie where Will Smith Cries a lot?  They’re all supposed to be excellent.”   We ended up going out for ice cream.    So, to help you choose which well acted, depressing movie to spend your hard earned money on, here are reviews of the three we have seen so far.      The Curious Case of Benjamin Button   This is that wacky movie where Brad Pitt is born with some magical disease that makes him age backward (I think it’s called Larry King Disease – he’s actually only 12!).  Anyway, this possibly goofy premise ends up being surprisingly well done and moving.  It also makes you feel like You’ve aged as the movie enters its third hour.   There’s a good 45 minutes in the middle of the movie that is interesting and well done, but really has nothing to do with the story as a whole.  Take note, when you see Tilda Swinton, don’t get too attached to her, because she’s not real important and once she’s gone, she’s gone.  (She’ll be back for 5 seconds at the end, so keep your eyes peeled!)   But if you take that section of the movie out (feel free to go get a refill on the popcorn or squeeze in a quick game of monopoly out in the lobby)  It’s really very good.    It hinges on the problem that Brad falls in love with a normal girl (Aka not some freak born as a little old man) and that, although they are deeply in love, there is only a short period in the middle of their lives where they can both be together.  This is the only time when they are physically and mentally the same.    The sad part comes as Brad Pitt continues to get younger and younger and Kate Blanchett is eventually arrested for sleeping with a minor (That’s not actually true – but I think it’s the same excuse that that creepy teacher in Florida used while she was shacking up with her 8th grade student).   But despite the silly science fictiony aspect of the story the ending was truly beautiful and poignant.  I was completely caught off guard by how much it affected me.  I don’t want to give it away, but it affected me as a husband, a father and a general sap.  It was beautiful and sad and punched about a dozen of my buttons all at once (even my Benjamin button).   When I first left the theater, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the movie.  There were definitely some ham fisted moments that bothered me (did it really need to be set in the middle of Hurricane Katrina? – answer.  No) but I found that I kept thinking about the movie and some of the scenes in particular.  It was far from a perfect film, but it stuck with me.  And that’s a sure sign of something that’s really good (or sometimes really really bad, but in this case good).     Seven Pounds   My friends, Will Smith is depressed.    I don’t know why.  He’s got a bazillion dollars, those two cute girly looking kids and his hot miniature wife.  He ought to be very happy.   Maybe his Scientology e-meter gave him some bad news.    Anyway, he seems bound and determined to make sad and depressing movies.  Heck this last summer he made a superhero movie that was depressing (and kind of sucky) and the movie before that (I am Legend) he dies at the end for reasons that are completely avoidable except that Will Smith was some kind of depressed post-apocalyptic Christ figure (Oh Billy Budd where are ye when we need ye?)     I told a friend that 7 pounds was kind of like “The Pursuit of Happyness” without the happiness part.   Will Smith spends the whole movie looking alternately depressed, angry and tortured.  (just like I looked watching Hancock)  But no one tells you why until the end.   In actuality, I found the movie compelling and touching.  I, personally, could relate to the sadness and guilt that Will was feeling, although I read at least one review by someone who clearly didn’t understand the movie at all.    It’s just that it was so damn depressing.    I just don’t really need that in my life right now.  But maybe it’s perfect for you.  Maybe you’re too happy right now and need a little let down.  If so, please go see seven pounds it will be perfect for you.   Oh, and the title?  That refers to the amount of Haggen Dazs that Will Smith eats every night because he’s so depressed.  It is a tale of loss.  The loss of Will Smith’s abs.     Gran Torino   Ah, Gran Torino.  This poor little movie has no Oscar buzz, no big pre-release salivating, no stars except for a grumpy old Clint Eastwood.  The only thing it has going for it is that it was the #1 movie at the box office last week and it just happens to be the best of the bunch.   The movie is about a grumpy old racist played by Mr. Squinty himself who watches with disgust as his sad little Detroit neighborhood becomes filled with a large, struggling Hmong population.   He just wants to be left alone, but the (insert one of the numerous racial slurs the movie uses here) just won’t stay off his lawn.   So he glowers, yells, shoots guns and plays a geriatric Dirty Harry until he ends up finding more community in this new community than in his old one.  (Ah, we’ve all learned a lesson today haven’t we?)   I know, I know it sounds completely cornball.  And it is, a little bit, in the way that we’ve all seen this kind of story told before.  But we’ve all seen it told before poorly.  And good old Clint directed this little gem and it is excellent.   Part of what makes it excellent is that it is often enjoyable.  This is a serious movie with a serious message, but you don’t have to sit through 2 hours of pensive method acting to get it.  The movie is often tense, occasionally a little goofy (some bits of questionable acting pop up from a couple of the unknowns – one scene had the whole audience giggling when they shouldn’t have) but it is more often touching and funny.    Funny, because Clint it getting to threaten people with guns again and that’s always good for a laugh.  Funny because we can all laugh uncomfortably at the racial bombs being lobbed around with such ease (because we’re not like that, are we) and fun because it’s just a well done movie and those aren’t easy to find.   I don’t think it’s going to win any Oscars, although it may be the most enjoyably satisfying movie I’ve seen this year, but it’s definitely worth checking out.   Sure it’s a little depressing, but what can I say?   It’s Christmas.     Posted Jan 14 2009, 07:29 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, movies, christmas [Edit Tags]

• Why, President Polk. You’re Just So…. Hot!

  I am hoping (desperately hoping) that I have just stumbled upon a couple of freaks and not a national trend, but in the past few weeks I have seen several teenagers sporting mutton chops and popped collars, although, thankfully, not together. For those of you who remember Pretty in Pink, Rick Springfield and the 80s in general, you may recall that there was a segment of the population, primarily made up of total jerks, who liked to pop their collar.  For those of you who are confused, or fear that this is some kind of inappropriate euphemism, let me assure you that “popping the collar” simply means taking your polo shirt and wearing it with the collar standing up -  like a major dweeb. In the 80s, this was largely done by the kind of teenagers who would leave school in their brand new Ford Mustang (you know, the one from the mid-eighties that kind of looked like a Ford Escort, but was the closest thing we had to cool at the time) and spray up muddy water on the band kids as they walked home carrying their flugelhorn. Anyway, it was fashionable in the same way that acid washed jeans, members only jackets and leg warmers were fashionable.  People did it, but even at the time, we all knew they looked a little foolish, it’s just that you couldn’t really say anything without getting beat up. Flash forward 25 years and much to my horror I have recently seen people popping their collar again. Last week I saw a couple of middle aged men doing it with their Tommy Bahama shirts, but I assume they were just too inebriated to realize that the 80s are actually over.  What really concerns me is that I have seen some kids in their teens and 20s molesting their neck area in this fashion.  It truly makes me worry about the future of our country. My other recent discovery of horror is the resurgence of mutton chops.  I say resurgence because I know they were common in the past, but I don’t know how far past.  I think hippies had mutton chops, but they were so dirty and hairy it’s hard to tell.  I know mutton chops were common in the 1800s, but so was the plague and dying at childbirth and I don’t see anyone trying to bring that back. In the last two weeks I have seen three different guys in their late teens or twenties sporting thick, dorky muttonchops.  If you are unfamiliar with the muttonchop, it is what happens if you grew your sideburns out all the way to your chin, sort of like a reverse goatee. I have always assumed that the name muttonchop came from the fact that they look an awful lot like someone took two lambchops and held them up to their ears.  I have no proof of this, but it seems like a good bet. And here is the major difference between the collar poppers and the mutton choppers.  You see,  it’s one thing to go around pulling your collar up.  If you need to de-dork yourself because you are going into a restaurant or are in the presence of normal people, you can always just pull your collar down, but with muttonchops, you look ridiculous all the time. I’m sure it’s some kind of attention seeking thing, a la “look at me!  See how different and unique I am?  I have big hairy cheeks that just randomly stop before they would naturally meet!  I make my mother deeply embarrassed!” But still…. Well, as you can see, I have been very disturbed by both of these fashion trends rising zombie-like from the dead, but I have had an important revelation.  It’s all part of America’s excitement about the election! You see both of these trends can be traced back to former presidents. Chester A. Arthur was, without question, the quintessential mutton chop wearer of all time.  I mean, he rose to the pinnacle of power largely based on his ability to have big hairy sideburns (every guy wanted to be him and every lady wanted to comb his cheeky tangles). And it goes without saying that James K. “Poppin” Polk is perhaps the grandfather of the popped collar.  And who could be hipper than the man who signed the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? So, with this clear indication that kids today are trying to imitate our obscure past presidents I have been thinking about “what’s next?” What astonishing new trend are we likely to see come out of this presidential preoccupation?  Will kids start wearing a “Van Buren?”  By growing hair everywhere except on their heads?  Will those weird little pinchy glasses that Teddy Roosevelt wore become the new Ray Bans? Could our nation’s obesity crisis really be nothing more than a tribute to President Taft? Unfortunately I can’t say for sure what our peculiar youth will do next, but be assured that I have my eyes peeled.  And the first time I see someone sporting some wooden teeth, I will be sure to let you know. Posted Jan 13 2009, 07:08 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: photo, Better off Dad, fashion [Edit Tags]

• Still Ill and I’m Losing My Will

  You know last week when I talked about how it was kind of nice to have a sick child so you could cuddle them and hold them and all that stuff? It’s not nice anymore. Whatever misguided pleasure I was getting through this little Munchausen by Proxy faded somewhere around the 300th diarrhea filled diaper that I changed.  Poor little Micah has been sick since Monday.  On average he throws up twice a day, fills a diaper with an absolutely foul combination of spoiled milk, honey Dijon mustard and toxic chemicals from Jersey, and wakes up two-three times a night.  Did I also mention that he cries incessantly for hours at a time?  God bless him, he’s miserable and pathetic and feels just awful, but to tell the truth, that pretty much describes me too. It hasn’t been an easy week, and it has led to some fairly odd hobbies.  For instance, I am collecting a pile of sweaters that need to be cleaned to remove excretions from them.  I am also collecting a pile of unwanted food.  How do I know the food is unwanted you might ask?  Well Micah will either finish eating it, or decide, on sight, that this food is unacceptable and then begin thrashing his arms back in forth, scattering the food like some crazed wombat onto the floor.  This is especially fun with yogurt. None of our kids have ever been sick this long.  We usually have bouts of the 2-3 day flu or some lingering whining about an ear infection, but this ongoing, endless sludge through the muck of bodily fluids is starting to get to me.  It is my own personal Vietnam and I am seriously considering surrender. I’m just not sure to whom. I am happy to report, though, that it appears that little Micah is starting to get better.  The Pepto Offensive seems to have worked. He hasn’t vomites in several days, his fever has disappeared and his constant screaming has changed back to random intermittent screaming.  (This is where he will be perfectly happy and then (either because you whispered the word “no,” or because Jupiter shifter 2 degrees to the right) he will inexplicably throw himself to the floor and begin to flail about screaming.  We have tried comforting him during these tantrums, but it doesn’t seem to help and increases the very real risk that he might launch himself out of our arms and head first on to the floor.   So, we tend to just lay him down on the carpet and let him thrash around for a minute or so and then he will simply sit up and happily play some more. I’m sure that this in no way is a premonition of difficulties we may be facing as he enters his teenage years. Another fun occurrence is that he used to sleep all night without a peep.  We would put him to bed between seven and eight and he would sleep peacefully until around 9:00.  A blissful, uninterrupted 14 hours of slumber. He now wakes up multiple times in the night.  I have already put him back to bed twice since midnight today and I just heard a scream again.  It appears to have been a single scream, so let’s just hope that it was just night terrors.  Wouldn’t that be nice? The problem is that poor little Micah wasn’t really the easiest child before the sickness.  He’s 18 months now and semi mobile (still not completely walking) and his speech is a little delayed.  He seems to have lots of words, but they all sound like “ah be duh gah be duh buh”, so we never have any idea what he’s talking about and then out of the blue he’ll say, clear as a bell, “I want that.”    Anyway, it leads to a lot of frustration on our part and on his.  Usually involving screaming, scattering food, and him shouting things like “I hate you!  You don’t understand me at all!”  Maybe I should try flailing around on the floor.  It seems to make Micah feel better. So, every morning I pray, and even manage to believe, that today he’ll be all better.  It hasn’t happened yet, but I have good hopes for this morning.  I mean, listen to those screams.  Does that sound like the lungs of a sick child?  Certainly not! Besides, he needs to get better soon, because I suspect that it’s about time for this disease to begin affecting other family members, and somebody’s got to be well enough to take care of us. And it’s not going to be me.  I'm planning on moving to Vietnam. Posted Jan 12 2009, 05:30 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, Micah, parenting, sick [Edit Tags]

• My Diarrhea Darling

  As some of you may have noticed, I didn’t get a blog written yesterday.  I meant to.  I had some absolutely hysterical and insightful things to say about mutton chops, but alas it was not to be.  My youngest, Micah, has come down with some kind of sickness.  Just one of those common baby illnesses that seem to involve vomit and diarrhea and snot and various other fluids coming out of various other orifices.  One of the problems with the whole parenting gig is the scheduling.  It’s a 24/7 gig and I got to tell ya, being on call from midnight to 6 a.m. is not my forte. Last night Micah was up at 4am crying and pooping and stuff.  My wife, Sarah, took one for the team and went in there to deal with it, but shortly thereafter I got called in to help out since it turned out to be a two person job.  I then went back to sleep, or, rather, I went back to bed only to lie there awake and listen to more crying. I finally got up to see if Sarah needed anything else only to realize that it was my other son, Asher, who was crying because his flashlight didn’t work.  At any other time of day I’d have a talk about how this wasn’t worth crying over and how perhaps he didn’t really even need a flashlight to sleep, etc. etc.  But at four in the morning you just get your kid another flashlight and go back to sleep.  Or not. I laid in bed for a while longer waiting for Sarah to return from Micah’s room and get an update.  Around a quarter to 5 she crawled back into bed.  If there’s anything better than snuggling up to your wife in the middle of the night after you’ve both been up dealing with vomit, I don’t know what it is. Anyway, she said she finally got him to sleep, the Tylenol seemed to have kicked in and the fever was starting to break.  Good. Well, we both quickly fell asleep, but 15 minutes later when the crying kicked in again, I knew it was my turn.  The previous afternoon Micah had been so sick I had put him down for a third nap around 5:00 in the afternoon.  He never woke up and apparently decided that after 12 hours it was time to arise. So, I took Micah downstairs to sit on the couch and watch TV. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I wanted to be up at 5:00am, but there was something sort of wonderful about it too. First of all, we watched an episode I had recorded of my favorite TV show:  Pushing Daisies.  It’s a wonderful quirky detective show that has nothing but throwaway jokes and obscure pop culture references.  For instance, two weeks ago they did a whole episode about a lighthouse that kept referencing the old seventies Disney movie Pete’s Dragon.  I suspect I may have been the only individual to pick up on that, but I certainly enjoyed it.  They’ve also sung They Might be Giants songs, done a Sound of Music parody and, did I mention, that they all work in a restaurant called the pie hole? Last night they were up against a group of Norwegian Detectives who had come to the US, because the Norwegian murder rate was too low.  The Norwegians rode around in their “Mobile Investigation Lab Facility” or MILF. Best show on television.  So, of course it’s been cancelled.  To be fair, I was the only one I know who ever watched it, so I guess that’s not too surprising. Anyway, my sick little boy sat on my lap and together we watched one of my favorite tv shows in the early morning dark. As your kids get older, the moments that they will just quietly sit on your lap and snuggle you become fewer and fewer, until, one day, you realize that your kids haven’t sat on your lap for more than a couple of minutes in months. So, for me, this fairly disgusting sickness has been bitter sweet.  My active little boy who usually wants nothing more than to crawl around and climb on to tables and juggle knives has relented to sitting on my lap for hours at a time.  For the last few days we have spent hours and hours sitting and snuggling and rocking and wiping up vomit. Yesterday I was rocking Micah to sleep, something I don’t normally ever do.  Usually I just plop him in bed throw him a blanket and rush off to the next thing on my to do list.  But today sleep wasn’t coming easily and so I rocked him.  I held him close and felt his hot little body snuggle into me while I sang him his lullabye.  It occurred to me that this could be the last chance I ever have to rock my baby to sleep.  Soon, he’ll be all better and will hardly pause to climb on me, much less acquiesce to being held and rocked until he drifts into sleep. So, I tried to make the most of it, to remember what that moment was like, and to imprint it on my memory.  And then I laid my sleeping little boy in his crib and left the room.  And then I said goodbye to that portion of my life – that time of holding and quietly rocking a baby.  Unless, of course, he gets sick again soon. Here’s hoping. Posted Jan 08 2009, 06:23 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Asher, Better off Dad, poop, Micah, sick [Edit Tags]

• Happy New Year to You Too! No, Especially to You!

  Yesterday I laid out some New Year’s Resolutions for myself.  This is because I am a good person and self reflection and improvement is important.  But there are limits, aren’t there?  I mean, as previously stated, I’m already a good person.  How much better could I possibly make myself? Now, obviously we should all strive to better ourselves as much as possible, but let’s be honest.  We’re all doing pretty well.  It’s not really “us” who is the problem.  You know who really needs some New Year’s Resolutions? Others. And you know what?  They are exactly the kind of people who are least likely to be making resolutions! It’s a shame really.  Luckily I am here to help them with their resolutions.  Aren’t they lucky to have me? 1.  For the crazy guy driving the red cherokee on Rt 50 I resolve to be less of a jerk when I’m driving.  I understand that I do not have the requisite skills to blink while eating an apple much less to drive a car, merge lanes, talk on my phone and fiddle with the radio at the same time.  So, I promise that in 2009 I will turn off all external stimulus and focus my limited intellectual capacity on the task of driving.  In this manner, I plan not to cut anybody off as I meander willy nilly around the interstate, thus protecting myself and, more importantly, others. 2.  For the people in low level government jobs who have just an eensy teensy bit of power. We, the DMV employees, Social Security office agents and everyone who has ever worked for a major city’s government or Public School office, resolve to calm the heck down, be a ton nicer and not to think so dang highly of ourselves. We know that we have a crappy job.  We figured that out pretty much by lunch break on our first day.  Every day we sit at a desk while an unending line of cranky people come to complain to us about something that someone else in our agency has screwed up.  Yes.  The job blows.  But somewhere along the line we forgot that our whole job, the whole reason we get paid that whopping $8.25 an hour, is to serve the customer.  I think that’s even why they call us customer service agents. I have to confess that there were days when we got sick of our jobs and maybe even decided to take it out on those cranky people coming in to our office.  Occasionally, we may have even used the little bit of power we had to make someone else’s life miserable just so that they could share in the pain and sadness that is our daily existence. Well no more! From here on out we promise to be cheery and friendly.  When you come into our office at 9am with a simple question we will not glare at you, sigh audibly and dismiss you as if we have been working for 12 hours straight instead of 15 minutes.  We will attempt to help you and maybe even assist you in making sense of all of the crazy rules we have.  Because you know what?  That’s actually our job and even though it’s a crummy, poorly paid job, we’re going to perform it to the best of our abilities.  And maybe, just maybe, acting friendly will actually make us feel friendly so that when we’re sitting home at night in our 1 bedroom efficiency eating a microwave dinner and watching Pat Sajak, we won’t feel quite so bitter, resentful, and generally depressed. 3.  To the Inbred Rednecks who Live up the Street I Resolve to be less inbred.  I know, I know, I’ve been kind of a jerk this year.  Me and my teenage inbred buddies have been running around the neighborhood in our big truck and doing donuts in the cul-de-sac and tearing up everyone’s lawns by spinning out into them.  I know, it was dumb.  I thought it would be fun, but it turns out it’s just destructive and cruel and the kind of thing I’m likely to get arrested for if that crazy stay at home dad at the end of the street can ever catch my license plate.  Hee hee. But what I really, really resolve to be is to stop being such an ignorant, backwoods, nuggnuts racist.  At the time I thought it would be funny to take cans of spray paint and turn that yellow “T-shaped” intersection sign into a swastika.  I also thought it would be funny to write “KKK” on the “slow, 20mph” sign.  But it turns out I’m just a total moron who is likely to have no greater achievement in life than obtaining a job scooping up horse dung at the fairgrounds and telling off color jokes while I smoke Marlboro lights and hit on girls wearing shirts with Travis Tritt on them. I know, I’m pathetic.  But I resolve to do better.  I’m going to re-sod everybody’s lawn, personally scrub all of the offending material off of the street signs and get a job this summer and donate my entire salary to the Southern Poverty Law Center so they can track poor, pathetic, under-endowed dipsh*ts like myself.   So there you have it.  My resolutions for others! You know, that’s only three people that I’ve helped today, but I’m sure we could help some more.  Who do you think needs some help with their resolutions?   We didn’t even get to all of the celebrities who may need to change their direction in life a little bit (Sissy Spacek!  I’m looking at you!)  Just think of all the good that could be done if people would just make the right resolutions – the ones I want them to make. Together we can make a difference! Or at least we can get that loser in the Cherokee to keep his truck in his own lane.  That would be change enough for me. Posted Jan 06 2009, 06:10 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, advice, stupidity [Edit Tags]

• Happy New Year! Now Stop Doing That!

  Ah, 2009!  A fresh start, a time for renewal and, most of all, a time to finally stop doing all of those horrible things that you did during all of 2008 and start being a better person, or at least a person who isn’t so darn fat. Yes, it’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. A time to reflect on our inner selves and look not at the person we are, but at the person we could be.  A time to cast off all of the bad habits and self destructive behavior of the past and to, as Oprah says, become the “new you!”  (Does Oprah really say that?  I don’t know.  But boy it sounds like something Oprah would say doesn’t it?) And most of all, this is a time to look down at your protruding gut and say, “man, why did I ever have that 4th helping of pecan pie?” So, here without further ado are my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009: 1.  Quit Eating so Darn Much Ok, so a dieting resolution is just trite isn’t it?   Everyone plans to go on a diet, and everyone gets suckered in by that “buy six months get six months free” gym membership, but then thy only go for about a month.   And by mid February we’re all back to lying on the couch watching our new Buck Rogers DVD set and eating ho-hos. So let’s be realistic shall we? First of all, I have no intention whatsoever of even telling myself that I will pretend to think about exercising.  I don’t have the time (or much more the inclination).  It takes too long to exercise and besides I’m tired and busy and my knees hurt.  So let’s just throw that idea right out the window.  The best I can promise to do is to run down the stairs while carrying a really smelly diaper or to race our 12 year old arthritic dog to the mailbox. So I guess it will have to just count on the  dieting.  But I don’t really have the time or patience for a real diet either – what with all the cards and points and not eating things.  No, I need something more subtle than that.  So first, I’m going to have to switch back to Diet Dr. Pepper. Over the Christmas holidays I let myself celebrate by indulging in the sweet full bodied flavor of a crisp, cold, full calorie Dr. Pepper.  But the problem is that these things make you fat (who knew?) I have what you might call a drinking problem.  I drink a lot.  I mean a lot lot.  If we go out to eat, I will likely have 4 or 5 refills over the course of the meal.  This is fine.  It is good to be hydrated, but I realized one day that if I am having 4 or 5 refills of coke, I am ingesting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 calories in fizzy beverage alone.  That’s crazy. So I’m switching back to diet soda.  I’ll probably die of cancer of the aspartame gland or something, but I’m counting on them finding a cure for cancer before I get to that point. Yeah, I’m also going to try to eat more fruit and not eat McDonalds fries as a “snack,” but mainly just the diet coke thing  2.  Stop Being Such a Heathen This is a carryover from last year.  I did a decent job with it, but I could still use some guilt ridden resolution assistance.  I resolve to read my Bible every day, well just Monday through Friday.  I figure you don’t need to read on Sundays (at church you have somebody to read it for you!)  And on Saturdays I truly believe God just wants you to sleep in and go to Starbucks in the morning.  I fully suspect that God just sits back with a latte and a cranberry orange muffin and reads the Post on Saturdays.  Sure he has to make a quick pop in appearance at all of the Seventh Day Adventist services, but how long can that really take? So I’m going to continue to get up at 6:00 and read my Bible everyday.  The difference this year is that I am going to actually try to understand what I read.  Last year I felt like just reading was enough, but this led to a lot of mornings where I just opened it up and allowed my eyes to scan the words while I yawned and wondered how long it would take the coffee to stop brewing.  So, this year I’m actually going to try to pay attention to what I’m reading and attempt to comprehend it. Wow, I’m such a good person. 3.  Be More Patient! So, this is one of those resolutions that I make every week or so.  The scenario goes something like this: The kids are all running around acting crazy and I’m trying to cook dinner or clean the living room or scrub poop stains off of a sweater or something and one of the kids runs up and starts saying “DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDDY DADDY DADDY etc” and I quietly and calmly say “just a minute, just a minute, just a minute” and then I do something like drop scalding water on my hand or smear poop on my face and then I yell “I SAID JUST A MINUTE WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME? AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” I know that the kids are just being kids, but it doesn’t make my head want to explode any less.  So I am resolving to be more patient.  As I said, I have to make this resolution every week or so, but not because I don’t become more patient.  I think that every week, I DO become more patient.  The problem is that every week the kids seem a little crazier than they were the previous week and so I need to be even more patient than I was the week before.  So every week I resolve to increase my patientnessness, but it never seems to be enough. I’m sure this is a problem uniquely endemic to me.  I’m sure that no other parents could possibly identify with this. 4.  Help out the Delta Force More As you know, we have 3 teenagers from Mississippi living with us while they attend community college and look for jobs.  None of them have driver’s licenses (this is apparently not required to drive a car in Mississippi).  So I spend inordinate amounts of time driving them to school every day and cooking for 8 and cleaning for 40 etc.  Last year, with just one Mississippi teenager living in the basement, I did a lot more of sitting around at 10:00 at night helping him with homework and such.  But this year there seems to be much more to do.  The driving and the cleaning and the cooking and such.  Plus I’m getting up at 6:00am because of stupid resolution #2.  So by the time 10:00pm rolls around I’m usually catatonic on the couch and couldn’t help someone with their American History homework if Abraham Lincoln crawled out of my colon. However, this strategy of not helping did not seem to work real well.  Of the 11 courses that were taken last semester only 4 were passed.  For those of you who have been out of school for a while, this is not a good ratio. So I resolve to try to be a better help with schoolwork.  I also resolve to find some medication that will allow me to operate without sleep, possibly something from Sweden. 5.  Clean Less Finally, I’m resolving to spend more quality time with my kids.  I already spend lots of time with my kids.  I am a stay at home dad after all, but usually I spend time with them while I’m driving the car, or doing the dishes, or shopping at Target.   I try to make the most of this time.  I talk to them and we play stupid games while we walk through the grocery store.  I sing songs and act silly while I’m cleaning, and I think I’m going to start playing Old Maid with them while I’m driving, but it’s not enough. I need to start spending more one on one, non-multi-tasking time with my children. I’m around them enough to realize that they’re pretty cool kids.  They’re smart and funny and have great imaginations.  One of them may even be potty trained now, I can’t be sure.  But I also know that they are growing, and while there are times when it seems like this era of diaper changes, school buses, and Dr. Seuss will never end.  (No seriously.  Sometimes I don’t think it will EVER end), I know that it will. I look around and I see that my kindergartener is reading whole books on her own.  I see that my 3 year old is starting to climb to the top of our play structure using only one foot, his elbow and an old scarf.  And I see that my baby is starting to take his first steps (about 6 months later than he’s supposed to, but still….) These kids are growing up and I know that some day I would pay a million dollars just to change a diaper (ironic, since now I would pay a million dollars not to).  I don’t doubt for a second that these next 5-6 years when my kids range from 1-6 years old and 6-12 years old are probably going to be seen, in retrospect, as the best years of my life, and some days I am deathly afraid that I will look back at them as a time where I did a lot of shopping, and cleaning and very little playing chutes and ladders. But until I find that Swedish drug that will allow me to not sleep, something’s going to have to go.  So I propose to give up cleaning.  We have to eat, so I can’t give up shopping or cooking.  So I guess it will have to be cleaning that goes.  (Some smart alecky friends of mine might suggest that I gave up cleaning last year.  Ha Ha.  You’re not funny.  Don’t mock my pain!) So there it is:  Reading instead of Rinsing.  Storytelling instead of Toilet Scrubbing.  Snuggling instead of Sweeping. It’s going to be a happy but dirty 2009 So, those are my New Year’s Resolutions.  And I’ve got to say, I feel pretty good about them.  I just realized I didn’t say anything about my wife. So,…uh… I resolve to love her more.  And I should probably walk the dog more often.  But in general I feel good about my list.  And so far, I’m off to a good start.  I read my Bible today.  I haven’t had a single full calorie soda since I woke up two hours ago.  I only snapped at the kids once this morning (what do you want from me.  I’m not a saint.  My Bible reading this morning made that abundantly clear.)  I haven’t helped any of the Mississippi kids this morning, but that’s because they’re not here.  They all missed their plane yesterday because…. well… (what was that I promised about being patient?)   And most importantly, there’s a full sink of dirty dishes in the sink. So I think I’m doing a pretty good job around here.  I already feel skinnier, nicer and happier. Happy New Year to me. Posted Jan 05 2009, 07:03 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, parenting, Delta Squadron [Edit Tags]