Cold Women

Now that I am the father of a little girl, I understand why women, and girls are always cold. I don’t mean distant and unfeeling, I am talking cold. I now understand why they are always cold and why I am always warm. After just a year of caring for a little girl, I can state that I now know why they need to have the heat in the office, car, or house up higher than other folks (by other folks I mean men.)
It is because their clothing isn’t as warm as a boys clothes. I have had the damnedest time trying to find warm clothing for my little baby girl. In winter, all the stores are selling sleeveless onesies, and feather light sweaters and mini-skirts. Stuff should not be warn in January or February in the New York Metro area. We had a rather warm winter, up until a mid-January, but it has been brutally cold since New Year’s.
First of all, I don’t understand why them make dresses and skirts for babies in the first place. Skirts and dresses need to be worn by beings that can walk upright. None of the crawling animals wear dresses. I haven’t had all that much experience wearing dresses or skirts, but on the few times I dressed in drag or wore a kilt, I remember my legs and ass being cold. A cold ass is no fun. It is hard to keep anything warm when your ass is cold. Why would anybody put a skirt on a 9 month old?
All winter I’ve been looking for girl clothing that will keep her warm while she crawls around this drafty old house. I wear a sweatshirt, Tiernan wears a sweatshirt, my wife wears a sweatshirt. Finding a cute girls sweatshirt for Reagan to wear has been difficult. Everything in the girls section looks like Britney Spears should be wearing it. That is fine for a 16-year old. (not my 16-year old daughter, but every high school needs its tramps) but these clothes are for infants and toddlers. I never ever want to see Reagan running around the house with “Juicy” written on the back of her sweat pants. Once she’s away in college she can wear those pants. I just don’t want to see it.
Reagan is just starting to walk. She’s taking 5 or 6 steps at time. In two weeks, she’s going to be walking all the time and soon after that she’ll be running. And once she starts walking all time, and the weather gets warmer, she’s going to look sooo cute in skirts and dresses. She will start dressing like a girl. Soon, she will not be able to wear her big bother’s hand-me downs. Also, her is is getting longer and she’s looking ever more girly, and she is just getting older looking and she’s a very cute girl.
I am usually pretty good about dressing her in girl clothes if I know we’re going to be in public. If I know we’re going to be in the house watching Playhouse Disney and annoying Tiernan, I don’t care if she’s got Tiernan’s old blue sweats and sweat-shirt that says, “He-man women hater’s club” on. I know she’s a girl, she knows she a girl, her brother knows she a girl. Who cares?
Once took her to Gymboree wearing hand-me down boys clothes. This was about three months ago, when she was at an age where you can’t tell if a baby is a boy or girl without clothing cues. She didn’t have enough hair to put a barrette in. It just so happens that at this Gymobree class there was a three or four mothers who had never been there before and didn’t know about Reagan and her cooky dad.
I kept saying, “Reagan, come on kiddo, crawl over to me. Come on little girl, you can do it.” And the name Reagan could possibly be a boys name. So was getting strange dirty looks from the new moms. Finally, I said, “Reagan, get over here you cross-dressing freak,” and that got me a bunch more dirty looks and gaping mouths. I said, “She’s a girl. She’s a cross-dresser. She’s wearing her old brother’s hand-me downs. Its laundry day. It was either that or she comes naked.” Everybody laughed, except for one woman who kept looking at me funny and wouldn’t let her daughter near me or Reagan.
See, I told you. Women are cold.

Read More......

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

There is very little doubt that the Disney shareholders are happy the company kissed and made up with Steve Jobs and the folks at Pixar, and the House of Mouse and the greatest animation studio ever will continue to make the greatest animated feature films ever.
I have seen Cars about 8,000 times now. My son, is in love with this movie. He watches it constantly. The kids has taste, it is without a doubt the greatest family animated move ever. I say that with no equivocation. Hands down none better. Monster’s Inc. is close but Cars is the best of the best. Here’s why:
1. Nobody dies. Unlike other Disney favorites, nobody dies. Bambi’s mother isn’t shot by hunters, Nemo’s mother isn’t eaten by a barracuda, Simba’s father isn’t killed by a stampede of elephants, and Dumbo’s mother doesn’t die.
2. There is no bad guy. No villain. No evil witch. No nightmare inducing scariness. No world where boys are turned into donkeys, no evil octopus witch, no evil kid next door, no dog catcher, no Cruella Da’Ville, just no bad guys. There are some characters that are flawed but no inherently evil characters. All the characters are basically good, even the big rival isn’t bad, he’s just a competitor.
3. It is a simple story. A car needs to get to a race. Car gets lost on the way. Car makes mistakes. Car corrects mistakes. Car gets to race.
4. It is a complex story. American society has become so obsessed with speed that we are in danger of missing the beauty that makes our country so great. We are forgetting ourselves. Brilliant. Kids aren’t going to get it, but adults can embrace it.
5. It is a amazing universe. John Lasseter and the folks at Pixar are brilliant. Every character in the film is a car, but so is everything about this film, from the mountains in the background, shaped like the front end of 1940’s autos or the ridges shaped like the back ends of 1950s big fin cars, or plateau in Radiator Springs shaped like a radiator. Even the clouds are car related, at one point there are what appear to be jet-wash streaks across the sky, but upon further inspection they are tire tracks. These are things that you don’t pick up until the 200th time you watch it. These guys knew that parents would have to watch this movie over and over again and have given us little things to look for during that 383rd viewing.
6. The main character doesn’t win. There is redemption, but he doesn’t win the race. We never see Lightning McQueen win a race. He grows as a character, he becomes a better “person” but doesn’t achieve his goals.
7. This franchise will never end. He didn’t win. That should be movie number two. Movie number three, we should see him have a wreck and need to get over his fear of racing. In movie number four, a new hotshot rookie will take the spotlight away from him and he’ll have to overcome that. It is like Rocky on the racetrack. The possibilities are endless.
8. The animation is amazing. The movie looks great, enough said.
9. Harv. Lightning’s agent, Harv, is voiced by Jeremy Piven, who is brilliant as the agent in Entourage, the quintessential Hollywood agent, brilliant. And George Carlin, as the hippy VW bus, that sells organic fuel.
10, The soundtrack is really good.

Other notes on what my kids are watching, that I wish they wouldn’t.
Still hate that brat Caillou.
What is the Disney Channel thinking, they have a short filler-thing between shows about two monkeys, that sound and act gay, called Ohh and Ahh. No kidding, gay monkeys named Ohh and Ahh, who like to play hide the banana. They sings songs about bananas, and are into banana power, and they give each other Valentines. They are gay and, did I mention that they are named Ohh and Ahh and they eat each other’s bananas. Nobody else has a problem with this? The purple Teletubby was gay because he had triangle and folks were up in arms, but nobody says a word about Ohh and Ahh, but me. OK.

Read More......

Competitive Eating

I am going to go way out a limb here to reveal a little more about myself and perhaps, stay-at-home parents in general than you may want to know – don’t tell everyone, but we don’t get to shower every day and we often go to the bathroom with the door open.
I know this is a shock to many. But I checked around, it is not just Dad’s, it is moms too. Hey, with two kids, three and under, a five minute shower can result in a trip to the emergency room. And on those rare occasions when nature calls in a big way – I am not talking a quick little tinkle, I mean full-on gut wrenching evacuations, those moments of vulnerability can be very difficult to handle with little ones.
Case in point, we have a half-bath located just off the kitchen. It is in need of an update, but is fully functional and comes in handy in emergencies. One day, I received one of those messages from God reminding of my humanity and was forced to rush to the bathroom.
I grew up as an only child in a conservative house. I had never had a conversation on the toilet until I got to college and lived in a dorm for a year. As for leaving the door open while answering nature’s call that was a adjustment I had to make after getting married and having kids.
So there I am in the bathroom, making my donation to the sewer authority with the door open so I can hear any emergency screams from the kids, when I hear my 11-month-old daughter crawling toward the kitchen. She had somehow escaped the den. The Ottoman Empire -- the ottomans that I leave in the doorway as a blockade to contain the girl -- let me down and she is steaming toward the kitchen. I am thinking, “Oh great, here she comes in to find me in the bathroom. I hate this.”
Well, she never found me. She wasn’t looking for me. I heard her make a bee-line right for the dog’s dish. “Oh worse, she’s going to eat the dog food again.” Well, the Good Lord was not yet finished with the lesson in humanity. I still had unfinished business. It would have to wait. I need to get out of there as fast as possible to stop the girl from ingesting Kibbles and Bits. I look down at the toilet paper and there’s nothing there but a cardboard roll. And I look around the bathroom, there is no back-up roll either.
At this point I can here the girl crunching on the Kibbles. By the time I got out there, she must have eaten about five pieces. Now, you may say that, I must have been dawdling to allow here to eat five pieces before I got out there, but what you don’t know is my daughter is a competitive eater.
She has two hands, and uses all ten fingers to shovel the food down her gullet. She eats like a shelter dog. As though, this may be her last meal. She eats more like dog than our dog. Maggie, our dog, sniffs, takes a bite, chews – the dog chews. Have you ever seen a dog chew? Dogs don’t chew. Our dog chews, walks around, comes back, sniffs, moves things around with her nose, takes a bite, enjoys, savors, takes another bite. The dog eats like a bird. The baby eats like a Doberman. Everything goes in the mouth at once. Chewing is for people with teeth. I am a bit fearful of what she’s going to do once she starts using tools, like spoons and forks, and funnels.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time she managed to scarf down dog food. She is very opportunistic, she waits until I am not in a position to stop her, like when I am attempting to teach my three-year-old son how to pee-standing up and not drench down the entire bathroom. “Son, it is your hose. You gotta learn to control it. There ya go. Good shootin’, Tex.” I poke my head out of the bathroom to check on the girl. “Reagan, get out of the dog’s dish!!!!”

Read More......