Pony Express Posts: Belated Announcement

Well, I suppose there's no point continuing to wait for a substantial, creative manner of announcement to float down from the heavens on a golden harp-shaped hovercraft, now that it's been a couple months.

My procrastination has been holding up a backlog of what's been passing for content here the past couple years (since we bought the house), as a lot of what I've thought of saying the past 6 months or so was in some way tied to this news... news which I had been trying not to just throw out there unceremoniously, much in the way I'm about to do right now:

We had yet another baby last month.  

See? That's her right up there, as proof. The second coming of M-, hereby to be known as A-. So we've completed our set of two boys and two girls.*

Yes, that's right, according to most people's reactions, as well as a quick flip through a generation's worth of census data, we are now the modern equivalent of that 8-kid family** people used to marvel at during the Baby Boom and Generation X's heyday.

Do we feel more complete now, you wonder? Have we started getting a human amount of sleep yet? Have we worked out some kind of daily routine now that school has started for J- and the kids? Have we any hope of shaking off the influence of our hypnotizing alien captors soon? Take a glance at the posting history here and then pencil in your guesses before I stop by with the answer key as soon as I can.

In the meantime, with this official notice out here, I should be able to at least get back to posting more lists of tidbits and such a few times a month, with more promises of actual paragraphs and thoughts and time and craft someday, once again.

It's the thought that counts, right?

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* This means I'll have to update the banner again, so soon*** after the last time.

** All I can say is those people are lucky they were able to delude themselves into thinking that small children wedged tightly enough across the bench seat of a station wagon would provide their own restraint in case of a high-speed accident. Otherwise, the country would either be a fraction of its present size today, or it would have been swarmed throughout the '60s with extended vans, RVs, and "Parental Sanity trailers" featuring a half-dozen kids suspended along the walls with heavy-duty straps.

*** Obviously a relative term, given that some of the pictures were several years out of date when I replaced them a couple months ago...

My son the Arch-Villain

Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of all our safety, I feel compelled to inform you that I have reason to believe my 4-year-old son may in fact be the next in a long line of supervillains. And not necessarily one of the campy kinds.

Just look at this ferocious face he was making in the picture for this recent post:
If I hadn't otherwise suspected his secret identity, I'm pretty sure my suspicions would have been raised by his frequent claims to being an evil figure, whether specific or not. He has been Captain Hook (a LOT) and "black Spider-Man (I've never been clear where he found out about Venom), but generally he just declares himself (in a comically deep and menacing voice) to be "a BAAAAAD guyyyyy!" or sometimes "a BAD [insert random but dramatic action word] guy!"

While he also does the same thing with much more mundane figures, such as "I'm a crane guy!", "I'm a cooker guy!", or "I'm a garbage man!", he definitely tends more towards the dastardly side.

On top of that, at many a breakfast time, when asked what he'd like to eat, he seems to begin wildly threatening people with something called "pain-cakes".

Finally, to settle any remaining dispute, I recently found this behind the couch, and to quote Dave Barry, I swear I am not making this up:
I'm assuming the green rope, at least, is made largely of Kryptonite.

Poor bastard never stood a chance.

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.