The Many Sighs Of Parenthood

Unless you’ve been living in some sort of parental bubble over the past ‘x’ number of years where ‘x’ equals the number of years you’ve been a parent, you’ve come to the realization that parenting can be stressful.

‘No shit’, you say…

Anyhow, after being a father a tad north of 4.5 years, I learned something about myself…

I sigh…. and I sigh a lot…

I hadn’t picked up on this fact before… probably because… well… I haven’t had a coherent thought in just north of 4.5 years. But, just the other day, I think I sighed five times in twelve seconds….

Anyway, I thought about all of the times as a parent that made me sigh. I even thought back to times BEFORE I was a parent that made me sigh, but for totally different reasons….

… then I thought… shit… when was the last time I sighed other than for some sort of parental ‘de-stress’ event?…

…. just north of 4.5 years… YOU GOT IT! 🙂

So, I thought about all of the reasons why parents sigh, along with some pre-parenthood sighs. You’ll pick up the differences right away:

The ‘Wow, what a beautiful sunset!’ Sigh – these make up every pre-parenthood sigh that you can have. It’s before you are neck-deep in parental responsibility, and elbow-deep in a diaper fully loaded with excrement. It’s the sigh that things can’t possibly get better than this…… and you are probably right!

😉

Ok… now that we’ve gotten that shit out of the way, we should move on to the good stuff:

The ‘What the f*&$ just came out of my kid’s ass?!’ Sigh – This is more like a ‘whoa wtf….?!’ mumble while your kids legs are high overhead while you are eyeballing the nearest economy size package of wipes and wondering how in the hell you are going to clean it up without using the whole package. This really isn’t a ‘stressful’ sigh, but more of a ‘let’s do this!’. If things get out of hand, though, it turns into a…..

Son-of-a-bitch!! Sigh – Depending on how bad the situation gets with the diaper… and your mood… this is either a playful ‘Oops! Haha!… grunt.. mutter’ type of sigh, or a tight-lipped, angry-as-all-hell and relatively audible ‘suhhhh efffff a BTTTTTTTCHHHH’… followed by grunting and perhaps a ‘dmmmmit!’. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t even try to get out of it.

The Repeated Question Sigh – This is when you sigh after your kid asks the same damn question 27 times in a row. Right before the 28th time, you sigh. You might even try to answer the question with some ridiculous BS just to prevent your kid from reaching a world record.

The ‘How The F*&^ Am I Supposed To Answer THAT?!?!’ Sigh – This sigh precedes the answer to a question that your child asks which SHOULD BE easy to answer (or, COMPLETELY EFFING IMPOSSIBLE to answer), but you’ve never, EVER thought about how to explain it to your kid. It’s usually a deep, ‘heaven help me’ sort of sigh.

Questions include:

Why is water wet?
Does the man in the ocean ever turn the ocean off?
Is that airplane going to be back tomorrow?
What’s under the ground over there?

The ‘You’ve GOT to be SHITTING me!!!’ Sigh – This is more of a growl than a sigh. It normally happens when just about every piece of turd has hit the fan from a parental standpoint, and then, when you’ve thought that the fecal onslaught has ended, a blimp full of poop drops on top of your head. This would normally happen when, say, you are on your way to a doctor’s appointment, didn’t bring a diaper bag, the kids are pissed, and BOOM! Flat tire. <insert ‘You’ve GOT to be SHITTING me!!!’ Sigh here>

The ‘I FINALLY got a BREAK!!!’ Sigh – These are few and far between, but it’s when everybody has left the freaking house. The sigh as soon as the door shuts is the ‘I FINALLY got a BREAK!!!’ Sigh. This is usually right before the…..

GOOD GOD I HAVE A BREAK NOW WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MYSELF?!?!?! Sigh – When you don’t get a lot of free time, you don’t know what to do with yourself. It’s more shortness of breath and anxiety more than anything else… hell, I don’t even think it’s a sigh…. more like a panic attack…

The ‘How In The Blue F*&$ Are We Going To Pay For THAT?!?!?!’ Sigh – This happens when either 1) Your kid needs one or many medical procedures of which the inept secretary codes the damn procedure as breast and ass reconstruction (this is normally fixable, and a false alarm), or 2) When your kid breaks something spectacular. Depending on the scenario, tears may or may not accompany said sigh. If the ‘damage’ is REALLY bad, upon exhale, you’ll start weeping uncontrollably. It’ll be one big inhale, followed by stuttered exhales (which, yes, is you crying). 

The ‘You really want me to fix this right now?’ Sigh – Normally, this occurs when your kid walks over to you and say ‘this broke’ when you know damn well your kid broke it, and now it’s up to you to fix it. Many times, the broken item is in WAY many more pieces than you even thought existed. The sigh happens when either 1) you realize that this gadget is screwed, and you write off the loss, or 2) you realize that you absolutely need to fix this thing, and it’s going to take a weekend to fix. Both suck.

What sighs am I missing here?

 

 

Beyond Comprehension

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!

Well…

It’s been awhile.

I know, it’s been a long time. But, alas; the itch to write again has returned…

Didn’t someone say ‘give me blogging material, or give me death?’

Anyhow, today’s rant is based on an article written by a father who, after having one child already… (dramatic pause)… tried to desperately have another child, complained heavily about the process (even retro-complained about the trials and tribulations of having the first one), and when him and his wife found out that they were pregnant with twins, they considered ‘reducing’ one of them.

Are. You. Effing. Kidding. Me!?!?!?

Now, I know y’all are thinking ‘Hey, Chris! Didn’t you complain about the trials and tribulations of having twins after having your first?’. Of course I did… and LOOK! I have this fantastic blog to show for it!!

😉

Here’s my little life lesson for today’s sesson, folks:

If you have a kid, and then complain about raising a kid, and then try to have another kid at all costs after complaining about the rearing of said first kid, and then you get TWO kids, then MAN THE EFF UP and raise them instead of bitching about it!!! Love them. Yes, there are going to be times that ROYALLY SUCK. However, to discount all of the moments that your family creates (i.e. those small moments that add up to really cool and funny memories… you know… the ones that aren’t drowned out by the temper-tantrums and screaming?!… no?……. Bueller?……..well, anyway… THOSE moments. Some folks aren’t fortunate enough to raise kids, and I’ll bet that they are more deserving than these selfish assholes to do so.

Also, if you are reading this and have similar thoughts about raising twins… well, here’s a moment or two:

Here’s one…

Another moment.

If you’ve read the article, what do you think?

Monopoly: New Piece and Rule Recommendations

If you’ve haven’t heard already, Monopoly has decided to ramp up their marketing efforts by ‘laying off’ one of their iconic game board pieces. In turn, they are relying on the public to vote for a new piece. Of course, this is in the hopes that folks will run out and buy a current Monopoly board just to get the piece that will eventually be retired as ‘shittiest piece’. However, I’d like to make a few recommendations of my own regarding new piece ideas, as well as a few other recommendations for the iconic game…

New piece recommendations:

1) Xanax bottle – Nothing screams ‘this century’ than antidepressants. You could have the little gold pill bottle rattle around with little pretend Xanax pills, and push the pills to the various locations around the board. One rule variation would be if you were using the Xanax bottle and land on an opponent’s property, you could roll again; if you hit 7, then you pay rent with imaginary Xanax (don’t pay any $ rent), doubles = landlord rats you out = Jail, any other number = pay rent. It’s freaking genius, and you know it.

2) Assault rifle – Sadly, many people feel as if our government is going to oppress us to the point that some sort of ‘new revolution’ will take place, and said people feel the need to keep a cache of assault rifles at their disposal. Given the fact that new laws haven’t been passed banning the sale of assault rifles as of yet, I recommend bringing in an AR-15 into the mix (no, not a real one… as a game board piece… geez). If you were using the AR-15, you wouldn’t pay rent; you’d just march around the board, collecting ‘Go!’ money from all of the ‘sheep’. However, if you land on Income Tax, the government unleashes hellfire on your ass in the form of superior logistics and advanced weaponry = game over, ‘sheep win’.

3) An actual iron – Screw the Monopoly piece iron. I want a real iron. If I roll a ‘1’, then I move to Free Parking. If I roll another ‘1’, I’m back to ‘Go!’. Other players would just bump into it. I’m not sure how to incorporate a rule into this one, but just imagining an actual iron with a retractable cord on the Monopoly board makes me laugh my ass off. 🙂

4) A plastic steaming pile of crap – The plastic steaming pile of crap would be in addition to the house and hotel option. Essentially, you should be able to buy steaming piles of crap to put on the opposing person’s properties. This would, in turn, diminish the amount of rent owed if someone landed on the property with the steaming pile of crap. In order to remove the steaming piles of crap, the landlord would have to land on their own property. If one receives four steaming piles of crap on any one property, the property goes back to the bank due to the homeowner’s association and board of directors lack of site management…. 😉

Rule Recommendations

* The banker should be able to loan money for the purchase of property in amounts that are mathematically impossible to pay back.Then, the bank should bundle these properties into some sort of Monopoly Backed Security of which they bet against. Once the bank tanks, they tax the piss out of all of the players as a way of bailing itself out. The players have the option to foreclose on the properties that they couldn’t pay back, and get a huge break from the bank if they do so. Or, they can continue to charge a measly amount of rent which would go directly back to the bank as a part of their mortgage. Player’s choice.

*  Free Parking is bullshit. There is no such thing. People should pay the average monthly rate of New York City parking when they land on that square.

* Players need some sort of job instead of the ‘Go!’ square. When a player lands on another player’s property, they should be able to … I don’t know… dust off the square for money or something. Otherwise, ‘Go!’ is a handout. I know, I know… there a lot of folks driving around in circles, landing on various properties looking for handouts nowadays, but it’s time to get with the program here…

😉

Does anyone else have any recommendations for Monopoly?

 

 

 

 

The Scariest Christmas Movie Of All Time

For those of you that haven’t figured it out as of yet, the holiday season is upon us (you’re welcome for the reminder). With the holiday season comes the holiday movies, most of which you will inevitably have your kids watch on one TV while you kick back with some eggnog and watch football on the other.

One of these movies is The Polar Express (2004). My oldest son (who is approaching the ripe old age of four), really enjoys this movie, primarily for the train itself (I don’t really think he cares about anything else except for the train). I decided to watch it with him, as I remembered the book as a kid, and figured that I’d enjoy it with him.

Instead, it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

Any animated flick that tries to create human beings is pretty scary. They’ve been getting better and better at it, but being that this was created in 2004, it’s as if every single character just got out of plastic surgery. Couple this with the fact that the conductor is an asshole, they are an inch away from death for 95% of the movie, the score is haunting, and Santa’s elves are clearly lacking a dental plan, this movie would make for a decent Halloween flick.

Here are a few other scary christmas movie moments:

Jacob Marley – A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott)

You KNOW this guy scares the shit out of you.

 

A Christmas Story – Santa Scene

The reason why most of your kids scream on Santa’s lap is because, genetically, you’ve passed this scene on to your kids 🙂

 

Of course, it wouldn’t be Christmas without this….

Let me know if you have any ‘scary’ holiday movie moments 🙂

Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays + Happy New Year + Happy Whatever-The-Hell-You-Celebrate!!

What It’s Like When My Wife Is Away…

Welcome To The Condo Of DOOM! (insert scary laugh here)

Enter our insane asylum… if you dare… muahahaha!!!

(In my best attempt at a scary voice for Halloween..)

Grreeeeettinggsss!!

Welcome… to the Condo Of DOOM!!! (muahahah)

(insert lightning and thunder… wait… yes.. it’s thundering and lightning out in Florida.. what the hell else is new?!)

Where temperatures outside are HOT AS HELL. ALL. YEAR. ROUND! (ahem.. except in January or so when all of you northerners WISH you had it as good as we do…)

… but if the humidity doesn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of you, perhaps what awaits you INSIDE the Condo of Doom … WILL!!!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….

….

MUAUAUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..

😉

Let’s see what we have inside the Condo Of Doom, SHALL WE?!?

(door creak…. followed by ‘HONEY!! WE NEED WD-40!!!!)

Here I am… FRANKENFATHER!!!!! This is what happens after you have three kids. Good thing they were able to put my brains back in!

Here’s my partner in crime, Count Choculatte – the coffee queen of darkness.

HOLY CRAP!!! DON’T LOOK NOW!!! IT’S SCARY STIR FRY!!!!

Blue’s BAAAAACK!!!

COVER YOUR EARS!!! It’s the SYMPHONY OF SCREAMS (for no apparent effing reason!)

Oh no… NONONOOOOO…. NOT… THE DISASTROUS DISHES!!!

LOOK OUT!!!!! Radiated Ryan has found a piece of radioactive goo…

 

.. and just when you thought you escaped the Condo of DOOM… (lightning, thunder, etc. etc… you must face the scariest, most frightening image ever to grace your television…

BROBEE!!

 

MUAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!

🙂

 

 

 

Keep Your Ass (and Elephant) Away From My Coffee

It was a couple of weeks ago when I entered a 7-Eleven and noticed the blue and red cups…

..coffee cups..

.. and I thought..

… you’ve got to be kidding me…

.. and today, when my wife made me aware of the ‘free’ cup of coffee between 6am and 10am at 7-Eleven, and that the ‘7-Election’ was going on, I started to get… well… pissed off.

Why? Why would I get mad at the opportunity for a ‘free’ cup of coffee (you ask)?

For starters, in order to get the ‘free’ cup of coffee, you had to pick a red or blue cup…

.. and I am an independent voter….

….where’s my cup?…

Not to mention, coffee is the opposite of everything that I feel about this particular election… and I love coffee….

Anyhow, I decided to check out the 7-Election website, and found the following map (which represented ‘the results’)

 

Seriously, 7-Eleven… did you really think that people getting a free cup of coffee would vote any other way? Exactly.

I will say, however, that 7-Eleven managed to hit the nail on the head with one of their other products….

 

 

Why the World Needs More Yacker Trackers

Don’t. You. DARE… get the frowny face…

I was waffling back and forth whether or not to write a political post regarding wooing independent voters and how a person driving a Toyota Prius slowly in the left lane on the interstate with a Romney bumper sticker almost gave me a stroke during my Monday morning commute last week….. but I will save that for a later date in the not-too-distant future…

Instead, I will reference my very recent discovery of something called a Yacker Tracker.

After picking up the twins from their classroom (and listening to them say ‘uppa uppa uppa uppa uppa uppa uppa uppa’ (means: ‘I’m ready to get the hell out of here!’), and ‘bun bob bun bob bun bob bun bob’ (means: Sponge Bob), I went over to my oldest’s classroom to see what sort of damage he caused today. Upon entering the classroom, my son pointed out a traffic light of some sort, and the teacher told me that ‘He did really well with the Yacker Tracker today.’ I wanted to ask her right then and there ‘what in the hell is a Yacker Tracker?’, given that it looked like something out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, but basically figured it out on my own. It’s an apparatus that measures sound levels, and the objective was to keep sound levels ‘on the smiley face’ during ‘quiet times’, where the expectation is that three and four year olds are to use their ‘inside voices’ (insert chuckle here)…

…. and then I thought…if only the Yacker Tracker could pick up the ‘inside voices’ in my brain, there wouldn’t be a red bulb bright enough…..

.. but anyway, after reading that these were also being used in hospitals to help patients get rest, I thought that this might actually be a legitimate piece of equipment…

… and then in typical ‘Man of the Minivan’ style, I thought of many ‘wouldn’t it be great if?’ scenarios…

… and now I’m going to share a few of those scenarios with you:

• It would be great if the Yacker Tracker could pick up on context cues. So, if a conversation was heading towards the shitter, it could warn you in advance.
• It would be great if regular traffic lights had the frown, indifferent, and smiley faces for red, yellow, and green, respectively.
• It would be great if these were installed on subways…
• … and airplanes…
• … and other public places where people just need to shut the **** up…
• It would be great if the yellow light’s eyes rolled when certain people spoke, as in ‘Oh great, here comes Hilda ‘yacking’ about her hair stylist again!’
• It would also be great if Yacker Trackers could detect BS…during presidential debates, perhaps? (you might even be able to save manufacturing dollars by just making red and yellow lights for those instances)
• It will be pretty funny in about 13 years when the kids that had these in their classroom lower their voices as they approach a red light when they’re driving, and then raise them again when the light turns green…
• It would be an awesome replacement for the Facebook ‘Like’. Just click the green light if you ‘Like’, the ‘Yellow’ for ‘Meh…probably should cut the crap…’, and the ‘Red’ for ‘Time to shut the hell up..’, or, ‘Nobody really gives a shit. Please stop.’
• It would be pretty cool to install for the ‘inside voices’ in my brain. As soon as it hit ‘Red’, it would send a signal to the rest of my body to sit in a ‘zen-like’ position and meditate. How awesome would that be?
• It would be mildy amusing to somehow wire the Yacker Tracker to explode a random toy if it turns red. This would get the kids to ‘green’ pretty quick…

Thelma and Louise might want to tone it down a bit…

What other ways would you use the Yacker Tracker? How would you configure it to suit your needs?

 

The Official Start Of Fall

For those readers in the northern hemisphere, you might consider the start of Fall to be September 22, 2012.

For those readers that drink coffee and live in the northern hemisphere…

…. you know when Fall really begins…

… and it’s whenever the hell Starbucks releases the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

No, football doesn’t matter. The calendar doesn’t matter. The weather? Doesn’t matter.

One Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte? Fall is officially here!

.. and in Florida, where the seasons are ‘Hot’ and ‘Hotter Than Hell’, you never, EVER order an Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte until you’ve had a regular one. For example, it’s 90 degrees here today. Iced? Nope.

So, Happy Fall to my fellow PSL drinkers! Don’t forget to wish me a Merry Christmas in a few weeks when Target puts out their ‘seasonal’ items. 🙂

 

 

Shopping In The Sky

The next time you happen to be on an airplane (or, in other words, ‘the next time that you hate yourself SO MUCH that you wish to torture yourself via this mode of transportation’), make sure to reach into the pocket of the seat in front of you. There, amongst the barf bag, used tissues, Biscoff wrappers, and an unclaimed camera worthy of scrambling two F-15 fighters that will be ready to shoot you down if given the ‘ok signal’ (yes folks, the terrorists have ‘won’…), you will find the germiest mall on the face of the Earth.

The SkyMall…. or Sky Mall… hmm..wait… maybe it’s  SkYMall (r). Whatever.

Anyhow, after you attempt to open the front cover (which will inevitably be stuck to the second page by a used piece of Trident), you will find the strangest, craziest, and flat-out dumbest items for sale in your whole entire life.

In some ways, this magazine annoys me more than Pottery Barn Kids. Why? Because a) someone is making a ton of money by selling this shit, b) it ain’t me, and c) there are individuals roaming the planet that are purchasing these items (and, yes… they probably have the right to vote..)

Without further ado, here are a bunch of items invented by individuals that are probably raking in a lot of money. Read ’em and weep:

Nice.. 80% success rate. The other 20% of the dogs go completely f*ing AWOL and destroy the owner. … or they suffocate…

 

 

This lady is slowly losing consciousness… although one would have to be pretty unconscious to purchase this thing in the first place. Initially, I thought this was one of those neck coils that women from Myanmar used to elongate their necks. However, this lady looks like she’s just trying to make herself pass out at the monitor.

Bullshit. One tablespoon of oil does not a deep fryer make. Either don’t eat fries, or save a boatload of money and only eat fries 1x per month from McDonalds. Would someone REALLY spend $300 for this?! (insert annoyed face here).

 

 

This lady looks like she’s ready to sign the divorce papers… (she’s thinking: THAT BASTARD MADE ME COME UP TO THE ATTIC AGAIN?!?!? HE NEEDS TO GET HIS FAT ASS OFF OF THE COUCH AND DO THIS HIMSELF!!!)

 

 

Yes, folks. This is the Passing The Bar board game, which, according to the ad, is a ‘Perfect Gift for Law Students and Lawyers’ because, well, you know, people studying for their Bar Exam and lawyers have PLENTY OF TIME TO PLAY F*ING BOARD GAMES!!! Hey, if you are studying for the Bar Exam, and a relative purchases this for you, I give you permission to slap them silly.

 

Something tells me that this lady bought this for the ‘& more!’…

 

 

Folks, this is a trick. If you purchase this, you will have men in black suits come and take you away for a psychiatric evaluation. Oh, and I would bet my bottom dollar that some nutcase sat their cat in front of the TV and turned on the Step-by-Step DVD for them. Look, even the cat is like ‘seriously’?

 

Not only is this the dumbest-looking item on the list, but the ad is contradictory; ‘Use it at your desk, on your commute or the(?) while you relax in front of TV. CAUTION: Do not wear while operating heavy machinery. Some of you might think ‘Yeah, perhaps they meant that he’s the passenger’. I say, not one sane person is going to drive someone around looking like they are a mechanic for the Starship Enterprise.

Anyhow, that about does it for now! Feel free to check out skymall.com to find other lovely items to purchase for those you can’t stand. 😉