Amusing searches, Vol. 15

Here are more of the most amusing searches that brought people here recently, in this case all to one post-- we'll again call this The Least Depressing Searches That Led People to my 10 Reasons my 3-Year-Old Son May be Homosexual Post.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)


• why is my 5 year old son's tooth sensitive to hot? (Oshawa, Ontario) - I'm guessing because his central nervous system works. Don't worry, though, that should clear up in a few years

• my 3 year old son trys on clothes in secret (Marathon, WI) - If your 3-year-old is able to somewhat competently put on and take off a whole outfit, I wouldn't worry too much about what he or she puts on in particular. Just enjoy the extra 10 minutes of sleep you'll get in the morning.

• how long is a normal 12 year olds penis (Hailsham, UK) - Oh, I dunno... anywhere between, say, 1 inch and 15 inches? Just like the range for everyone else? (Most women excluded.) One can only hope you're keeping this preoccupation to yourself.

• what is wrong with my 3 year old (Leicester, UK) - Assuming your 3-year-old is like most, let's see... 1) He smells like he doesn't much care for baths; 2) He really could stand to wipe his nose, but not on his clothes again; 3) He should be returned for warranty service on his volume control; 4) He's just so needy! I mean, seriously, does he EVER help with chores, or carry YOU in from the car? And 5) The kid doesn't even know how to read!

Amusing searches, Vol. 14

Here are more of the most amusing searches that have brought people here recently, this time with the theme of: The Least Depressing Searches That Led People to my 10 Reasons my 3-Year-Old Son May be Homosexual Post.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

• 4-year old son walks gay (Harlingen, TX) - You know what they say, if it walks like a gay, and talks like a gay, you're probably unnaturally obsessed with your child's sexuality. Father or mother, I'm just glad this is how you spent your Mother's Day.

• 5 year old behaving homosexual (Queen Creek, AZ) - You'd think living in a place named Queen Creek, Arizona, you'd be resigned to this kind of thing. He's just trying to fit in!!

• when 2 year olds smear feces on the walls (Covington, KY) - Let me finish that for you: "...then the fun begins!"

• is it wrong for my 3 year old to sleep with me (Marysville, OH) - Yes, but only because the resultant insomnia might cause you to murder him or her "in your sleep".

• 20 year old son maybe homosexual? (Billings, MT) - Preeeeeeeeeeetty sure by this point, it's no longer your concern.

Amusing searches, Vol. 11

Here are more of the most amusing searches that have brought people here, offering me yet another opportunity to employ my superpowers of Mockery and Sarcasm.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

• escort woman says "you look handsome" (Cumberland, RI) - Escort woman then says, "I have to charge you extra for compliments." Sorry, champ.

• reasons a 3 year old might not talk (Cambridge, OH) - Well, to make light of your understandably vexing problem, now that I'm on my second 3-year-old, I gotta say I haven't come upon a single reliable reason so far. Even unconsciousness.

Still hoping one will come along, though, for at least a few minutes at a time.

• homosexual sons of stay at home fathers (Plymouth, MA) - You do know I was kidding, right?

• pinworm potty (Kuching, Malaysia) - Boy, that really makes me just wanna hold it forever.

• things that I don't like doing (Mumbai, India) - I came up in this search of yours??   .....frowny face.

• what is the worst smelling diaper (Knoxville, IL) - That's kind of a philosophical question, so I'll give you a philosophical answer: the one you're changing right now. (Closely followed by that one you changed a couple days ago, wherever it may now be rotting.)

Book Review: Buster Climbs the Walls

I vaguely remember some Bush-era controversy over the PBS spinoff show Postcards From Buster dignifying (!!!) gay lifestyles by acknowledging them in one episode, to the point that neo-conservatives were using it as the platform du jour to justify cutting funding to PBS.


There's nothing that exciting brewing on the surface of Marc Brown's book Postcards From Buster: Buster Climbs the Walls, as it gracefully shies away from that kind of controversy. At the same time, it persistently hints at a much larger and more traumatizing subject, at least for the main character.


It's obvious from this picture that Buster's father himself is living a lie. That's right, he's clearly a normal human who's grafted novelty bunny ears to his scalp in an ill-advised effort to postpone a crushing realization for the freakishly enormous talking rabbit he's been raising as a son.

Let it go, Buster's "dad"... we've all got to cross that old bridge someday, and you'd better let Buster cross his in his own time without any more of your creepy interference. Or, failing that, at least buy yourself a goddamn bunny nose... you look ridiculous.

Other than that, the book's okay, I guess.

Developments at our house, Vol. 7

Here are yet more developments at our house in recent days:

1. M- discovered that sweaty little baby feet can do double-duty as handy tools for recovering food dropped on the floor. As a bonus, you save time and money by never having to refill your salt shaker!

2. I'm thinking I'll have to update my (joking, of course) lists of reasons why D- may or may not be homosexual, given how consistently he has been picking either Princess Peach or Baby Princess Peach the handful of times I've let him play MarioKart Wii.

3. M- tried to inspire a new Conversation with M- by, once every day for a week, climbing up on my lap and then shouting "Ear!" before trying to stick something in my ear, such as a car, a toy phone antenna, and (on several occasions) the aglet from a bear's shoelace. At least she gave me some warning so I could dodge them, which is a lesson she apparently learned from when she ambushed me and my eye later on.

4. J- and I have decided what to spend our stimulus payment on-- gas for the car and food for our children! I can't wait till the installation guys deliver that stuff and plug it in! Woo!!

5. M- found that rather than silence the cries for breakfast (which take the place of greetings) that threaten to wake D- early every morning, Daddy sticking a goldfish cracker in her mouth before quickly carrying her out of the room merely allows her to reach a new tonal range on "hunnnnnngreeeeeeee!"

6. Continuing #5, I've learned that I need to stuff at least three Goldfish crackers in M-'s mouth when I get her in the morning, to make her believe she will be fed right away just like she is every single day. Even if she doesn't believe it, I suppose, she may at least find it more difficult to speak in this state.

That, or I may just end up with a couple of damp Goldfish stuck to my face.

7. I have decided that the world can ignore its meteorologists when trying to decide what the weather will be like on a given day, and instead rely solely on whether I am wearing pants vs. shorts and/or have a jacket or umbrella with me to tell them what the weather will not be like. It's been a logic-defying couple of weeks for this effect.

8. D- spelled the word "Bee" all by himself, which brings his total spelling count to about 10-- I told him how proud I am of him, but I kept to myself that the logical next step for the near future is for him to become Professor of English Language History at Oxford. He'll discover that by himself When He's Five (the glorified time in which almost all things will happen).

9. I've been absolutely overwhelmed by your response to my nomination for Best Daddy Blog-- you guys are awesome! I owe you all big time. Just let me know when you want to collect. One caveat: I don't do windows.

10. I'm exceedingly proud of myself for defying my OCD demons and leaving this list at 9 items instead of rounding it out to ten... dammit!

10 reasons my 3-year-old son may NOT be homosexual

Keeping in mind that of course all of these items are based on blind stereotyping, for your reading pleasure, here are 10 reasons my 3-year-old son is probably not homosexual [to counter my post of 10 reasons he might be]:

1. He can also be kind of a self-absorbed jerk sometimes. Makes me proud.

2. He has been making engine-revving sounds and other somewhat aggressive noises since long before he could talk.

3. He's not THAT good a dancer. He dances about exactly as well as I do now, and in rethinking this one, I don't see any reason why he'll get much better without further instruction. (Again, the Dance Class Fiasco will be a later post.)

4. This summer, he got to operate a heavy-duty truck-mounted crane with the assistance of the required union co-operator (shouldn't all kids aspire to become co-operators?), and it has been the highlight of his life up to this point.

5. His love of purses is understandable, given that they are just so handy. Cheers to him for having the guts to pull it off. That being said, I've tried to teach him to call each one a "European men's leather carryall" no matter what material that day's purse is made of.

6. As a baby, he pooped on me in the bath on two separate occasions, as well as once in the shower. This seems a distinctly hilarious prank to a typical straight male. Not knowing many gay men, though (at least not well enough to ask about this), I can't verify whether they would also find this funny. Also, my daughter has now done this to me at least seven times.

7. His personal hygiene can be appropriately suspect for his age, and with his mother around for an alternative role model, his neatness is unlikely to reach frightening levels.

8. He seems to treat the care of the dolls he plays with to be somewhat of a chore, while rocking them to sleep, changing their diapers, etc., and when he's done, those babies suffer some horrible injuries, neglect, and death. Ahhhh, boyhood.

9. In addition to some girly movie and book choices, he overwhelmingly prefers the movie "Cars", books about vehicles or machinery, and anything involving Spider-Man. And in case you think that's just because I push them, I can tell you that I was bored by "Cars" the first time I saw it, and on movie days, I offer to watch any of the other Pixar movies before that one. Also, most of the books about machines are a bit light on plot, so unless we're in a hurry at bedtime or Daddy wants to read a story without really paying attention, I'd sooner suggest some kind of storybook. Spider-Man's all my fault, however.

10. He seems to consider girls another species of human. Seems counterintuitive in this list, but we all know how kids are. Then again, since we all know how women are, the kid may not really be wrong. An example to illustrate his mindset: once when we were at a store, he saw an aisle of dolls and such in pink boxes (a.k.a The Wall of Pink) and asked "Why them have girl toys?" While I was trying to think of some wise, PC response about equality of opportunity (hey, I let the kid play with dolls, don't I?), he saw the rest of the toys and said, very satisfied, "Oh, them have kid toys, too." I've tried to explain that "kids" covers both girls and boys, but he has made this mistake several times before and since, so I don't think he has really been listening.

Anyway, after much consideration, I now feel pretty safe that my "birds and bees" talk will be as straightforward as most other people's, though given that he seems to have inherited my inquisitiveness and persistence, it may be quite drawn out and excruciating yet.

10 reasons my 3-year-old son may be homosexual

Like most fathers (says I), I have been forced now and then to consider whether my son may turn out to be homosexual. I figure I may as well brace myself for the revelation, should it ever come. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. I just don't want to have to have that kind of talk with him when he gets to a certain age.

For your amusement, here are 10 reasons why my 3-year-old son may be a homosexual [see 10 reasons he may not be]:

1. He is unusually empathetic.

2. When he was 1, he had a months-long obsession with a horrendously girly romance novel my wife left laying around. He would sit somewhere and read it (right side up or otherwise) frequently during the day and keep it next to his pillow when sleeping.

3. He's a pretty good dancer, at least for a three-year-old. The Dance Class Fiasco will be another post.

4. Probably based solely on the relative intensity and vocalization regarding my wife's versus my favorite colors, he has for a long time selected pink as his favorite color.

5. He really likes purses. A lot.

6. He spent a few days recently declaring he was "an evil queen", defying my pointed questions as to whether or not he was actually an evil king.

7. He's extremely neat for a three-year-old.

8. All signs have thus far pointed to his being very into dolls. Before you ask, yes, he was into dolls even before his sister came around.

9. He has always greatly enjoyed the story of Cinderella. He originally asked to be read it based on the cover, and the fact that it was A Book, but then he began asking for it by name, and we had to read it (with the required Sense of Timeless Wonder voice) many, many times. I thought it might become his Next Big Thing, until shuffling it towards the back of his hundreds of books broke the cycle of obsession. This year, though, he noticed that J- has the movie on DVD, and he actually sat quietly through the whole movie. Hmmm.

10. My wife has helped me appreciate way too many chick flicks for me to be an entirely pure role model. As it is, my very broad musical tastes incorporate quite a few embarrassingly sappy and girly songs along with the classic rock, hard-core rap, and everything else I've been known to listen to and even sing along with. Of course, I try my best to make catching me doing this be as easy as mugging a leprechaun.

I may just have to settle for metrosexuality.