Mouse in the house

I went out to walk the dogs around 10:30 last night. As I was out, Nicole called me with a sense of urgency in her voice.

"We have a mouse in our apartment! There are all kinds of droppings in our laundry room."

Now, I'm not a sailor, but there are times where I have cursed like one. This qualified as one of those times for me, and I've come up with three reasons to justify it. So here is my list. You are allowed to curse when a mouse is in your house because:

1) A tiny animal automatically instills unjustifiable fear into your soul and you are on edge long after said rodent is gone.

2) This shrimp of a beast carries disease that it prefers to spread every step that it takes. I can't believe how much poop this thing left in my laundry room. if you ever read the book "everyone poops", a mouse poops here and there.

3) we have a roommate who is eating our food, but not paying rent.

There is so much to be said about rodents moving into your historic building, but I suppose it's to be expected. Our next expectation is to murder this thing.

Have I mentioned that we live literally a quarter mile away from the PETA headquarters? Maybe if we trap the mouse, we can drop it off there. They are, after all, known for having the highest animal euthanasia rate in Virginia.

Walking dogs and toddlers

To preface, most days I try to take the dogs on a walk in the middle of the day. They appreciate getting outside and relieving any pent-up business they have. Normally on these outings, I will put the baby in a backpack because then I don’t have to keep track of her and the two dogs. It is so much easier this way.

I was reminded today why I do this. I thought to myself, today I won’t put Michelle in a backpack. We’ll just walk around the neighborhood, and I’ll keep track of everyone. Silly me.

There’s a two word phrase I was reminded of during this walk. The first word is “cluster” and the second word isn’t “Norfolk”. I don’t know the origin of the saying, but I think it’s the best way to describe the scene. Both of my dogs weigh over 70 pounds, which isn’t huge as far as big dogs go, but they’re big enough when I need to handle both of them with one hand. Meanwhile, the child, though quite interested in walking alongside the dogs, is more interested in anything and everything else that we encounter. Hey a bug! Hey a stick! Hey a pile of dirt on the sidewalk!

Yes, those were the things she found more interesting than walking.

Half of the walk I carried her, but as she’s getting heavier herself, I was winded in this activity. So I let her walk when she was interested, I let her sit when she found something cool, and I picked her up and carried her when she was more interested in running into the road.

As for the dogs, they’re borzois. I’m not going to describe what that entails, but they are dogs known for aloof behavior, and quickly forgetting any kind of training they ever receive. Though they’ve never been the best on manners and pulling and tugging at me, they’ve recently forgotten that I’m attached to the other end of their leash. So I’ve got a toddler on one side, and two ropes pulling me on the other side. I felt like yelling “FREEEEEDOOOOOMMMM!!!” Of course, I’m referring to Braveheart, and the scene where he is tortured.

As I somehow concluded this walk, I thought to myself, “when was the last time you did this?” The answer, only one other time, which happened to be the first time I ever tried it. I recall saying to myself “I will never walk the baby and the dogs at the same time.” I was reminded today that this continues to be a bad idea. I will not make the mistake again for at least another three months.

Our adventure in Philly continues

We woke up Friday morning with a beautiful sun shining bright. How lovely. It was also a brisk 40 degrees, the first time we’ve seen these temperatures in six months. Yikes!

We set out to see the town, but truly had no idea which direction to go. Our concierge saved the day. “Check out the Reading Market Terminal” she said. It was on the same block, indoors, and had all sorts of awesomeness to explore. It was perfect for a little one, with dad checking the sights out too. We went in, and the very first vendor was “Old Town Coffee”. I got myself a beautiful, strong and hot cup of joe. Yum. I then chased Michelle around for the next 20 minutes. We stopped at a Creperie, where I ate delicious French cuisine. They gave Michelle a plastic knife which she used to repeatedly stab my breakfast. It kept her busy while we ate, so I encouraged it.

After breakfast, coffee, and flirting with every single person at the market, my daughter and I decided to try and find the Liberty Bell. As it turns out, I don’t know anything about American History. The Liberty Bell obviously has some significance to America, but it took a little Wikipedia search to get a better idea of what it’s all about. If you’re ashamed of this confession, maybe do a little research yourself. I highly doubt most people have any idea the actual history of the stinking bell. Don’t judge me.

We walked the streets of Philly, slowly making out way to history. I say slowly because the child was insistent on walking as well as making friends with everyone along the way. This includes the businessmen, the tourists, the homeless people talking to themselves, and the policemen.

Socializing comes at a cost. With a block to go, Michelle lost it. It was officially nap time, she was tired and cold, and truly did not care about the historic area of Philadelphia. Oh dear.

The bad news was the hotel was the same walk we had just done, only now the baby was screaming and refusing to walk. She was also refusing to be carried. Quite a predicament. When we finally got back to the room, she got some milk, and fell asleep in about seven minutes, and stayed asleep for over three hours! Awesome.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We met up with mom to have dinner at the Hard Rock Café, which turned out to be the best place to take a loud and bouncy toddler.

I’m hopeful that tomorrow will bless me with a lovely and delicious Philly cheese steak sandwich; the one of three things I was hoping to experience while in this town. The others: see the liberty bell and get a picture in front of the Trocadero theatre. The significance being that the Trocadero is mentioned in a song by Nerfherder. “Well I met her at the Trocadero, in Philly…”

Yes, I’m super nerdy like that.

The Drive to Philly

We are attending a conference in Philadelphia, PA this weekend. To clarify, Nicole is attending a conference, and Michelle and I are exploring the beautiful streets of Philly. To clarify, Michelle and I are roaming the dirty streets of the city on the lookout for something beautiful.

To begin this little saga, I need to start at the beginning. Nicole and I looked at trusty ol’ google maps to see how long it would take to drive from Norfolk, VA to Philadelphia, PA. The directions said with traffic, it would take 4 ½ hours. No prob. If we left around 10AM, we would hopefully arrive around 3PM, check into the hotel, Nicole hops on the metro to get to her conference for the opening lecture at 5:30. We felt it was a pretty flawless plan.

We woke up Thursday morning, the morning we were leaving, and found that we were SO unprepared to leave. After scrambling all morning, we finally got out the door by 11:30. No problem, for the most part. Looking at google maps on Thursday told us that the drive would take us 5 ½ hours. Wait, what happened to that other hour? Okay, so maybe Nicole wouldn’t make it to the opening lecture. No problem.

We leave Norfolk, and head toward the Chesapeake Bridge. There is a toll to cross the bridge. No problem. How much could a toll bridge possibly be? We rolled up to the lady who said “$12 please.” I said, “Wow, really? Are there any more tolls on this road?” “How far are you going?” She asked. “Philadelphia.” “Yes, there are more tolls, but none are this much.” “I hope not!” I said, and then wished her a pleasant price-gouging day.

The drive we took ended up having some absolutely spectacular views. Wow, it really was a beautiful drive. We felt that the enormous fee was dedicated to making sure we had a pretty drive.

Once we entered Delaware, we needed gas. We stopped for some, but then took the wrong road to get back on the freeway, and ended up driving the wrong direction. Not a good plan for keeping a time budget. I took the first exit I could off the freeway which had a huge yellow sign that said “TOLL”. I had already committed to the exit, but was confused by the set-up. All previous tolls I’d seen had some person sitting in a booth. This one only had a little basket with a sign saying “$.25”. It all happened so fast, but I basically coasted right past it without paying. Nicole was yelling, and I was trying to find out how the heck to get back on the freeway. Anyways, we flipped a U-turn, and found our way back to the freeway where I made sure to pay my $.25 to get back on. The rest of our drive was spent researching how much it cost us for me to blow by the tollbooth. It turns out to be a $25 fine. That is a 1,000% error on my part. I can’t wait to get that one in the mail.

By the time we arrived to New Jersey, it was getting dark. We were seven hours into our drive by this point. I don’t know how it’s possible, but that seems to be how these things go. I had an indifferent impression about New Jersey. Like I said, it was dark, it started raining, and the drivers were equally bad, though now there were more of them. We blessed the state with our temporary presence, and a couple dollars in tolls, and then made our way to Philly.

Philly began with a confusing toll bridge (Benjamin Franklin would be so proud of his bridge) that cost us another $5. As Nicole navigated us through the vortex of terror, I did my best not to kill us all. However, when you’ve been driving for eight hours, and the climax of the drive is filled with old twisty three lane roads in the dark and rain, it all a sudden gets very stressful. Every once in a while Nicole would look up from her phone to see where we were, gasp, and then quickly look back down at her phone. Somehow we weaved through the spaghetti factory and made it to our hotel. Phew.

The final spectacle of the night was finding food for our daughter, whose bedtime had arrived. I don’t think we won any gold stars for parenting. We settled on Thai food that was a block away, and went back to our hotel. We decided that we’ll give Philadelphia a chance, but not at night, in the rain, in Chinatown with our one year old daughter. We’ll explore in the daylight tomorrow.

I think it's mud

I think it's mud: written by Jack Spoon, inspired by events this morning.


What is this stinky stuff right here?
It’s sticky and gross and fell out of my rear.
It sticks to the bed. It smears on the walls
It leaves hand and foot prints down all the halls.
This stuff is icky. This stuff is so gross.
This stuff is squishy between all of my toes.
It’s just so yucky, and I can’t get it off me.
I tried wiping it off on all things that I see.
I used dad’s wallet, mommy’s make-up and towel,
The doggy’s tail didn’t work, I just made her howl.
The dishes didn’t work, nor the silverware
It wouldn’t come off even in dad’s hair.
Followed by screaming, I was thrown in the tub.
It finally came off with a rinse and a scrub.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t much fun
But I might do better with another one.

Dear Neighbor

Dear Neighbor:

As a self-proclaimed garden enthusiast, I wanted to share how impressed I am with the well maintained landscape you keep. The perfectly trimmed grass, and the various flowers of assorted colors make your plot a true gem to behold in our neighborhood.

Not only am I impressed with your plot of Earth, my daughter also expressed her appreciation of the plants in her own way. Yesterday, as we were admiring your garden, a flower of particular interest was, shall we say, liberated delicately from the flock. Though I grimaced at the unexpected act of vandalism, I couldn’t help but be captivated by the complimentary features it provided to my daughter’s attire.

In an act of recompense, I would like to supply you with a picture of the said combination. I do hope that this incident does not change your feelings on caring for your garden, and look forward to the vibrant colors it will possess in the future.

Highest regards,

Jack Spoon

Lunch

Set scene at dining room table. Dad and child sitting across the table facing each other.


Dad: Eat your lunch.

Michelle: Dow. (picks up food and reaches to dad, indicating he eat it)

Dad: (takes food and eats it) Now it’s your turn. Take a bite.

Michelle: Dow. (picks up piece of food and reaches to dad to repeat previous action).

Dad: No, you eat your lunch. Eat a piece.

Michelle: (scowls momentarily, then begins screaming and crying).

Dad: You are such a girl; so emotional.

Michelle: No!

Dad: Yes.

Michelle: NO! (throws remaining food and plate on floor. Hysterical screaming ensues.)

Dad: (nod)


End Scene.

Things we take for granted

A quick post today. I was able to remind myself that even on days when you are feeling down, there is always something you are taking for granted that you should recognize. I used to always come home from my job and groan "what a waste of a day!" Or many days I would struggle with a person at work, or grasping a new concept, or trying to gather the right information, or WHATEVER it was that was impeding my ability to have a good day. It's all trickery. The only thing that keeps people from having a good day is their attitude, and their perspective.

To sound cliche, I think we should all count our blessings. I least I had a job. At least I had a paycheck that paid my bills. At least I interacted with people, and had copious opportunities to use my brain.

As a stay at home dad, I've transitioned from a professional life to a domestic one. It's equally, if not more demanding to keep a positive perspective and attitude. I knew many moms at my work who were envious that I was going to stay at home with my kiddo. Honestly, I can't blame them, but it's a major transition. You're interaction with grown-ups dwindles to nothing, unless your child is famous, they don't pay you, and there is not a lot of praise or immediate rewards when you're at home all day.

But on the flip side, I need to remind myself of why everyone is so envious of my position. I get to hang out with my daughter all day. We might not play all day, but we get to hang out and chat, and run and laugh a lot.

Okay, I'm going to come at today with a positive, enthusiastic and playful attitude. Get ready child of mine; we're going to have fun! Let's enjoy the time we get to spend together!

Perfectly Addicting No-Bake Cookies

If anyone follows this blog, they have probably figured out that I’m currently theme-less. In other words, you never really know what to expect, and therefore don’t follow my blog. It makes sense. I'll work on that.

Today’s topic is no-bake cookies. For those wondering if I feed my child no-bake cookies, the answer is no. My wife does. I only make them.

No-bake cookies are so simple, and require very little to make. The benefit far outweighs the effort. However, if you have little self control around sweets, these cookies will likely kill you dead. I'm not a believer in crack, but if I were, these cookies would be like crack. If crack tasted like these cookies . . . I don't know how to finish that sentence.

To make these, you have to use the right ingredients or else you shouldn’t even bother making them. You can screw them up, and I’ve done it enough to know not to mess with the key ingredients. I will share with you the perfect recipe.

It's simple enough. Almost everything is a quarter cup:

¼ Cup butter – YOU HAVE TO USE BUTTER. If you only have margarine, make brownies or something. Margarine does not make no-bake cookies.
¼ Cup milk
¼ Cup baking cocoa
1 Cup sugar

Mix that all up, and let it boil for one minute. I like to add a little salt and vanilla. Ooh, look at me go. After it’s boiled and bubbled, and you’ve stirred the sense out of it, add the rest.

¼ Cup peanut butter – I have found that the peanut butter with the most preservatives makes the best cookies. I personally prefer creamy Jif. In one of my early attempts at making these, my sister was able to pick the peanut chunks out of her cookies when I used chunky peanut butter, so I’ve never attempted since. You have to use something that’s going to set though. I used Adam’s peanut butter and it resulted in a huge embarrassing failure.

1 ¾ Cup Old Fashioned Quaker Oats oatmeal. YOU HAVE TO USE THE QUAKER’S OATS. IT HAS TO BE OLD FASHIONED. Don’t use generic. Don’t use quick oats. Don’t screw up with this key ingredient. You will regret it. If you don’t have Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, make monster cookies or something.

The best thing to do with no-bake cookies is drop them into huge globs on either wax paper, or any kind of non-stick flat surface, and toss it all in the freezer. This does many things. It cools the cookies down faster, chewy little goodies that last slightly longer and will make you quiver a little, and it will give you a “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. However, if you know they are there, you will eat them. Don’t kid yourself. This is for real. They are little inanimate demons that haunt your mind, and will keep you coming back to the freezer long after they have disappeared. But if you have read this far, you know that you’re going to make some right now.

So there you go. The batch size is purposefully small. The reason is that if you make more, you will eat more. I’ve shed many a tear in my life watching cookies get thrown away, but I do not recall ever throwing away a well-made no-bake cookie. Even the poorly made ones disappear in a timely fashion.

Until next time.

Spoon

Words on paper. Dirty Paper.

I've been lacking motivation as of late. The problem with this is that I'm really un-fun to be around when I lack motivation. Do you enjoy hanging out with someone who is tired and boring all day? Me neither. My poor daughter gets the blunt of it because I don't have the motivation to think of fun games to play, so in turn I'm chasing her around telling her to put down anything and everything she can get her hands on. If I had the energy to direct her attention to something worth playing with, that would at least buy a little bit of time for me to sit and feel sorry for myself.

As my profile suggests, my interest is in writing stories. Besides taking care of my beautiful child, the only thing I really get to do where I have a sense of accomplishment is in writing stories. They are all mine, and I plucked them out of my brain at the right moment. But when I can't seem to come up with anything, I definitely spiral into a dark mood.

The funny thing is that if I start writing about random things on my mind, I can eventually uncover something I find enjoyable enough to pursue. A month ago, I made a goal for myself to put "words on paper". Every day I would write something. Maybe it was something silly, but every day I would put words on paper. For the most part, I've followed this rule. But lately even my words on paper have been exceedingly dull. Hardly worth writing, and certainly not worth reading.

I made a new goal today. If words on paper isn't doing it for me, then I need to sketch stuff. Words on paper. Lines on paper. Let's just call it "dirty paper". Every day, I will dirty paper. That sounds kind of gross. I'll try to think of a better name for my goal.

Sometimes it takes a reframing of the mind to get back on track. I think I'm feeling better already.

Oatmeal-Blueberry-Bacon Pancakes for lunch

Nicole requested oatmeal for breakfast as she was getting ready for work. When I make oatmeal, I tend to not measure anything out, and as a consequence, I never make the correct amount. Long story short, I had a lot of leftover oatmeal at the end of breakfast.

What does one do with extra oatmeal? You throw it away, obviously. However, I decided to use it for oatmeal pancakes, which I would have for lunch.

While performing my domestic duties, I decided to make some broccoli salad, and let me just say that broccoli salad without bacon is NOT broccoli salad. So I crackled up some bacon. Yum.

Making the pancakes while crackling this bacon made me automatically leap to putting bacon in my pancakes. I’m also a firm believer in putting blueberries in my pancakes when they are available. As a result, I made myself oatmeal-blueberry-bacon pancakes, with homemade maple syrup. So delicious. My first bite sent me into immediate bliss. I then continued to gorge myself because this concoction was too delicious to walk away from after a single serving.

Michelle did not eat the bacon pancakes. I gave her a very plain oatmeal pancake, which she quickly spit out and took the rest off her plate and threw it on the ground.

Recipes: Follow the links. I’m not writing these because they aren’t mine. The maple syrup recipe is there because it’s super easy, and I don’t know where I learned it.

Oatmeal pancakes:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/oatmeal-pancakes-ii/detail.aspx
I also added a handful of blueberries, and added crispy bacon bits to individual pancakes.

Red Broccoli Salad:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/red-broccoli-salad/detail.aspx
I didn’t use as much bacon as the recipe calls for (2 pounds!), but either way, make sure the bacon is really crispy otherwise the salad smells like garbage. This is the best salad, I don’t care who you are.

Maple syrup: 1 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup corn syrup, dash of maple flavor. Bam.

I considered this to be a very dad-like lunch. Quite proud.

Cardboard Treasure Chest

Further cardboard fun. Today I cut out a secret super special hole in our cardboard box. I cut three edges of a rectangle, and made a little fold out in the middle of the box. To ease with opening and closing, I notched out a little piece of one of the edges.

A quick video of my proud accomplishment.

I really like this cardboard treasure chest because it's so easy, and multi-functional. I first put it on my head, and opened and closed it like a peep hole. Michelle thought that was pretty funny.

I then put the box down and would open the door, place something inside, and close the door again. I'd then open it, take the item out and close the door. She giggled about this hiding place for toys.

I think alien robot, race car, boat and spaceship will soon be on our list. Any other suggestions?

Cardboard Playdate

We had a package delivered to our house the other day, which came in a decent sized box. Inside that box was a slightly smaller box. The person shipping our package was just doubling up on protection I guess.

Both boxes are “Michelle size”. In other words, my daughter fits inside both of them. Oh these things are fun. As long as I can keep a 15 month old’s attention, I get to use my imagination to figure out what these boxes are going to be next.

They started out as simple holding containers. We would put her inside, throw some toys in, and play peek-a-boo with the edge pieces. Once that got old, the boxes were flipped on their side to make a cave we could poke our heads into. They then flipped over and we were able hide stuff in the boxes. All are mystifyingly great to the kiddo.

After about a week of these disposable toys hanging out in our living room, they’re beginning to wear a little. So I’ve begun customizing them into costumes; Calvin and Hobbes style. We’ve got the robot eyes cut out on one box, and I pulled one of the edges off, cut some eyes out and made that into what looks like a welding mask.

Cardboard magic is limited to your own imagination. I can’t wait to try out the next idea I come up with. Anyone have suggestions?

Like bugs under a rock

As someone who likes a clean place, but has a lot of difficult keeping a place clean, I do what I can, but I’m not perfect and OCD about it.

Yesterday, I thought it would be good to scrub off the table, which is three times a day assaulted by goopy hands that are quite particular about what they bring to a tightly clenched mouth. I decided to unhook the booster seat that attaches to the chair we keep at the table, since it was also thoroughly caked. I had seen a stray noodle that slipped underneath while I scrubbed, so I wanted to assess the damage.

The expression I’m about to use makes one think bugs, but let me assure you that although I feared a giant family of cockroaches were under this chair, there was not a single insect visible to the naked eye. I cannot comment on the bugs too small to see.

It was like uncovering bugs under a rock! What I uncovered though reminded me of flipping over rocks to find bugs when I was a kid. Do you remember doing that? Our old house had these giant rocks that lined the street, and I remember flipping them over one at a time to find potato bugs, beetles, worms, ants, and anything else that may have sought solace in a quiet dark place. Apparently, Michelle’s food seeks quiet dark places too. I don’t want to admit how long it’s been since that booster seat had been unhooked, but it hasn’t been terribly long. It was a good indicator of what my child hides away though. Scraps of every meal she’s had at the table since the last time that seat was moved.

To be clear, there was no mold, bugs, or stink escaping from this refuge. But it was pretty gross all the same.

What’s the lesson here? I don’t know. Clean more? Feed less? Or just move on because it’s probably going to happen again.

Exercise Reminder

I think everyone needs a personal trainer. Everyone also needs a financial advisor. Every needs someone who is NOT them to look at them and tell them how to accomplish their goals.

With that said, I'm not a big fan of people telling me what to do. But, I am someone who does better for myself when others hold me accountable.

I set my alarm every morning for 6AM. That may seem excessively early, or really late, depending on who you are, but it's a reasonable time for me to get up and get some exercise. As it turns out though, my alarm is very loud, and my snooze button makes the noise stop. Many mornings, my alarm will wake me up three to six times, before I jump out of bed to try and accomplish a third of my morning aspirations.

Anyway, today I actually got up and ran three miles. It sucked. But it was also really cool, and I feel wonderful. Sometimes it's nice to actually do what you set out to do. Maybe, just maybe I'll run tomorrow too.

Maybe.

Doing it ourselfers

With the time I've gained by staying at home with a little one, I have found myself truly fulfilling a domestic role. I do the laundry, wash dishes, scrub the toilets, etc. While each of these tasks is overwhelmingly delightful, my favorite domestic activity has been cooking things that we used to never cook.

For starters, not too long ago, Nicole decided to make some yogurt at home. If you have never made yogurt yourself, it's really not that difficult. The plus side is that you can make a half gallon at a time, and all it costs is the price of a half gallon of milk, and a little bit of time in the kitchen.

Granola is another one of those super easy and fun things that lasts forever, and is a great snack for road trips, or to mix with, you guessed it, yogurt! Super easy, and healthy too.

The really fun one we've gotten into is making bread. Why make bread? You can buy it at the grocery store and it's delicious. True. But why buy it when you can make it? It's really fun. The more we do it, the more we love it, and the better we're getting at it. There's a great feeling of satisfaction to make the dough, and to later come back to see that it rose. I found the dough doesn't rise if you don't do it right, and it's slightly heartbreaking.


Here's a look at our latest accomplishment: whole wheat and honey.


This post has absolutely no relevance to anything. I just think that sometimes it's fun to do it ourselves. I realize that I'm just now jumping on the bandwagon, but who cares.

Gymnastics

We took Michelle to gymnastics class today. The reason we take our daughter to gymnastics is so that one day she will be an Olympian. Oh, that’s not the reason? That’s right. Generally a 15 month old isn’t too interested in training to be an Olympian. I don’t know this for certain, but after watching the one to three year old children in the room, I don’t see any of them with the right attitude yet.

My daughter attends these classes because 1) we bring her there, 2) it’s the only interaction she gets with kids on a weekly basis, and 3) it’s currently the only interaction I have with grown-ups on a weekly basis. Sure the parents are weird. Sure the kids all stink and scream and snot and run around in some chaotic rhythm of arms flailing and legs splayed out all over the place. However, I feel the interaction is important. If anything, I’m helping my daughter’s immune system.

Saturday class ends at 10am, so the best part of gymnastics class is that afterwards, I get to go on a coffee date with Nicole. Michelle is pooped, and falls asleep as soon as we leave the gym, and my wife and I get to spend 30 seconds talking of our lives. It’s nice.

Diaper your selfers

We use cloth diapers. Feel free to not reference a huge post I had about them earlier. Let's just assume that you're interested in getting or already have cloth diapers for your miniature poop maker. Excellent decision.

I am one of those people who typically say "Generally I'm a _____ person." That little blank space is my way of saying "fill in the blank". Whether it's "patient" or "nice" or "ridiculously good looking", you know, whatever fits the bill.

I recall at one point thinking I had a "strong gag reflex". I realize you have to manipulate my previous statement to fill in the blank correctly, but you get the idea. I thought I had a strong gag reflex prior to cloth diapers, or as I like to call it "diaper your selfers". That's a play on "Do it yourselfers". I don't actually wear the diapers.

Too many tangents. In summary:

Cleaning poop out of cloth diapers in the toilet is gross. It doesn't sound fun, and it's actually less fun to do than it even sounds. The price we pay for diapering ourselfers.

I've yet to prove myself wrong with my "strong gag reflex" statement, but cloth diapers will put anyone to the test.

School Bus

We live in a fairly nice neighborhood on the edge of the city. We are also right next to a museum, which inherently has school buses parked on the street pretty regularly. With the start of the school year, it was no surprise for us to see a school bus parked on the street. But after it was there for a few days, we began to wonder what its story was.

While eating breakfast, Nicole asked me why the bus was there. Since I knew as much as her, I decided to make up a story:

“Well, a guy lives in there.”

“No he doesn’t. Daddy is making up a story” she said to Michelle as she bubbled her Cheerios.

“No seriously, a guy lives in there and he parks the school bus at tourist places around town to not raise any suspicion.”

“You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you” she retorted, and we decided to change the subject.

The next day, I decided to step up my game. While walking the dogs, I noticed the bus was still there, so I ran back up to the apartment, up the stairs, threw open the door and just stared at Nicole with flushed cheeks, trying to feign exasperation.

“What happened?” Her wide-eyed expression was promising.

“I went over to the school bus, and there was a guy in there. I looked in the window and he grabbed a broom and started yelling at me! 'GET AWAY FROM MY BUS!' Yeah, that's what he said. I think a guy actually lives in that school bus!”

“WHAT?! Are you serious?! Oh my gosh!” she gasped and ran over to the window to get a good look at the bus.

We looked out the window together for about ten seconds. I then turned to her, and said “Gotcha!”

My arm is still sore. She’s got a mean right hook.

A Touch of Irony

A Touch of Irony

We currently live in a relatively affluent neighborhood while Nicole works on her internship, and I be a stay at home dad. It makes going on walks a nice little treat because Michelle and I can gawk at these houses made of brick and pillars on our way back to our asbestos ridden old apartment.

Today as we were walking, a man passed us while walking his dog. He said to me “spend as much time with your kids as you can. I didn’t spend nearly enough time with mine, because I spent it all on the phone. I should have spent more time with them. You’ll have a happier life if you do.” We passed each other, and went our separate ways. I smiled at him and said something clever like “Okay. Will do.” As you can imagine, I’m a real charmer.

Now, anyone could interpret this interaction in a number of ways. I couldn’t help think three things.

First, what do you think I am doing old man? Did I steal someone else’s kid, and am hanging out with them? Or maybe I’m marketing a kid walking business. As you can clearly see, my daughter and I are spending time together.

My second thought was, if you spent all your time with your kids instead of on the phone, you’d probably be living in an asbestos ridden apartment, and not in this fancy neighborhood. You can’t have it all old man.

I then thought, wait a minute, I’m a young stay at home dad in a rich neighborhood. I can only imagine how strange it must look for me to be wondering the streets during prime business hours in my workout clothes with a toddler. I guess the assumption would be that I got laid off. But besides that, how many dads in this neighborhood worked and became wealthy while they raised a family? How many of these dads would say the exact same thing that this guy said to me? I began to feel quite fortunate to be in a situation where I can actually spend time with my kiddo. Sure, I’m not bringing in any money for our family. Sure, we spend a lot of time discussing what I’m going to do “when I grow up.” But for now, I’m really glad I have this opportunity to build a relationship with my daughter.

It was a good day to be reminded that it’s not all about how much money you make, but rather, the effort you put into loving your family. Thanks for the reminder old man.

Cloth Diapers

Cloth Diapers

We decided to use cloth diapers. We knew a handful of people who used cloth diapers, but most of our friends, family, co-workers, etc. was on the disposable track. When asked about cloth diapers, they all expressed “Well, we thought about cloth diapers, but…” and then an excuse is used on why they did not take that route. I never want to come across as expressing that these excuses are bad. On the contrary, I think you have to be a little weird to choose cloth diapers in the first place; they are a lot of work. Disposable diapers are easy. That is quite possibly the most used, and simply put, the best reason anyone can use. Excuse me cloth diaper users, but it’s true. Don’t deny it.

It seems that every other factor between cloth diapers and disposables is a wash. Cost? Wash. Seriously. The only difference is you’re paying for diapers $20 each time you go to the grocery story, or $100 each time your baby gains eight pounds. Buying both is just plain silly. You have to choose one or the other. Oh, and cloth diaper people, don’t kid yourselves. You don’t just buy cloth diapers once. Sorry. You buy different sizes. You buy different brands. You buy new diapers because the old ones get a funky smell that you can’t get out. It happens, I don’t care what you try to do to stop it.

Cloth diapers don’t travel well either. When you have to do laundry every three days, a week-long trip to Disneyland sucks. A two-day road trip sucks. A weekend at the beach sucks. Trying to use someone else’s laundry facility sucks. Cloth diapers are work, and they are a big commitment.

With that said, we actually are so happy that we chose cloth diapers. Shocked? Yeah well, it’s all about perspective. When we chose cloth diapers, we talked about it and decided that to do both cloth diapers and disposables was not an option. It was one or the other. But that doesn’t mean we stuck with a single kind of cloth diaper.

We originally bought a package of 30 Fuzzybuns, which consisted of a diaper cover with an equal number of inserts. Upon further research, for our purposes it didn’t make sense to have 30 covers that we had to keep track of. We ended up selling most of them, but kept some as a nighttime diaper option. This way we could use a double liner for longer periods.

When Michelle first came, she was a skinny little chicken-legged thing. We chose G-diapers because they do very well with skinnier legged babies. Plus, the diaper consisted of a cover, and a liner, and an insert. The great thing about a G-diaper is that if the mess is contained, you only need to change the insert. Bigger messes may soil the liner, and the biggest messes soil all three. But there’s flexibility, and that is what we like about G-diapers. We love these things, and using these diapers actually convinced several people in our lives that cloth diapers were actually kind of cool!

Between months six through nine, we tried some pre-fold diapers. They were okay, but our daycare providers, and myself for that matter, truly didn’t like this option. Once Michelle grew out of them, they were gone.

We tried a larger size of G-diapers for a toddler Michelle, but they don’t work the same magic for a thunder-thigh toddler. After many many instances of the diaper leaking, we decided to try Best-Bottoms. These seem to work great for our busy girl, and we will hopefully use these until she’s potty trained. The great thing about them is that they adjust in size, and have a nighttime insert you can buy.

The trick with cloth diapers is you have to commit, but you have to be flexible enough to try different brands to find the one that fits you and your child best. It has taken me a long time to adjust to this flexibility piece because my wife used the argument that they would be less expensive than disposables. The good news is that we have only bought disposable diapers twice in Michelle’s existence: once when she was an infant, and the second was when we moved to Virginia and went two weeks without laundry facilities.

There’s so much to say when it comes to cloth diapers, and I feel like I’ve already rambled enough. We have only experienced a sliver of the cloth diaper brands out there, but we have some feedback about all of them, good and bad.

Until next time.

Critters

This morning, as Nicole was getting ready for work, she was standing in the kitchen and asked if I had seen a rubber band anywhere. Sitting at the dining room table, I looked to see one right next to me. I quickly grabbed it and fired it at her, as I would expect any loving husband to do. She bent over and the rubber band struck her shoulder blade, then hopped up and landed directly onto the center of her back. She immediately began flailing her arms and jumping around screaming, apparently under the assumption that some giant critter had repelled off the ceiling and onto her back! To see the rubber band on the floor, and her husband grabbing his sides from laughing so hard, she decided it was appropriate to hit me in the arm.

Worth it.

Plans

It wouldn't come as a surprise; we knew the day might come when we left the sanctuary of everything we knew, packed up our things, and traveled to destination unknown for Nicole's doctoral program. We had been planning on this potential move for four years. I would work and get her through school. Then in her fifth year of the program, she would find an internship somewhere, and we could start a new adventure in a distant land. I would be able to explore the area and possibly find work in our new place while she completed the internship thus earning her doctorate degree. It was a perfect plan. We were not planning on Michelle coming into the picture.

"Surprise! You're going to be a daddy!" Those are not the words she used. Nicole had never expected to have kids. If anything, she had always thought she would adopt. And that would be after she finished school, and after we had our lives figured out, and at that rate, only after we started receiving our social security checks would we be ready to have kids. We had always played it safe, and after four years of marriage, quite enjoyed supplanting children with our dogs.

Surprised we were. But the scene that played out was by no means the congratulatory cliché we like to see on our feel good TV shows. We were in between houses and living with my parents. I got home from work and she took me aside. "I have to tell you something. You are not going to react, or smile or say anything to anybody." She then opened the bathroom linen closet, reached back behind the towels, and pulled out a ziplock baggy. Inside was a stick with a plus on it. I’ve watched enough of these silly commercials to have a general idea of what this meant. "Is this what I think it is? Are you serious?" was all I could stammer out, a big stupid grin on my face. What she didn’t see was the ice-cold bowling ball in my stomach, which was keeping me planted on the ground instead of jumping with joy. This wasn't part of our plan. It was exciting, but a stretch from anything we had ever considered prior to that moment. Funny how quickly plans can change.

The fortunate and unfortunate thing is that I married a stubborn girl. Nicole was going to finish school. We were in agreement about that. We’d devoted way too much time, energy and money for her to stop now. It would just be a little more work. The fact was, the baby had picked its timing perfectly. Nicole had front loaded her schoolwork, and was way ahead of her requisites. Had the baby arrived any earlier, it may have made it more difficult for her to put in those 90-hour weeks. Had the baby come any later, and it may have compromised her ability to get a good internship site.

The question then was “what are you going to do?” This was directed at me. If we were to move across the country, I would have to quit my job. However, I now had a different role to play in this team. Where I had once had ambitions of finding a new job in a new land, or making coffee at some random coffee shop; pursuing my own internship, or just playing songs on the street corner for all I knew, all that was out the window. I was now tied to a person I’d never met before. There wasn’t a question of what I’d be doing during Nicole’s internship. I was going to become a domestic dad.