Proof I didn't kill my children

[...or, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Screams"]

Well, my computer decided to break down Thursday, and in fact it's still out of commission until I can find my Windows CD, so here you get Friday's promised picture post on Monday.

Here's a short summary of the trip home in (representative) pictures.

We had a little drive across Maine and New Hampshire, stopped to see Nanna and Poppa in Rhode Island, got in jammies, and we'll surely be there in no time, right? Why not celebrate by doing our best Sean Connery impressions?

It's all laughs and smiles until someone gets cranky:

For those trapped in a five-point harness, this is a good stress-reducing position to assume for at least 40% of the time, to keep your circulation going so you can get maximum screaming power from what meager foodstuffs you're likely to be offered.

For those trapped in a relatively comfortable booster seat with a mere shoulder belt (who would never, ever, ever deliberately arm and then set off a Toddler Bomb), this would be the ideal posture-- furious concentration on something else almost as loud and annoying, piped directly into your ear holes:

If the option to get out of the car more than the doctor-recommended 14 times an hour is firmly withheld from you, you must be sure to stretch often and look as bored as possible while doing so:

In between reps, if no other activity is offered to you, just pretend to read until that ability spontaneously manifests itself:

Once you're again done with that, don't be surprised if your traveling companions/jailers playfully attempt to assuage their guilt by forging evidence that everyone has been having a really great time and no international anti-torture laws were being broken:

Console yourself that once the sun goes down, the toddler vampires have free reign, and they make pathetic wandering parents their playthings, biting their heads off like so many Winnie-the-Pooh animal crackers.

Also, only then is the portable DVD player allowed to return to its rightful throne on the front armrest, ruling as a benevolent Pixar-spewing overlord, appointed for life by acclamation.

And all will once again be right with the world, until those mutinous parents, who hate anything that makes children smile, pull the stupid car into the stupid garage and ruin all the fun.

I've got your Father's Day right here...

A belated Happy Father's Day to the approximately 3% of my readership who is both male and a father, and same to the husbands of 92% of the rest of you.

I spent my day sleeping in, using the computer (for a welcome change of pace), and playing outside with the kids, who are trying to see if it is scientifically possible to melt the paint off the walls out here in Maine with the sheer quivering force of their pent-up energy.

While that may sound all quaint on the surface, I want to know what it says about my performance as a father thus far that the most attractive games to my son involved, in however convoluted a way necessary, punching me wherever he could reach?

His 2-year-old sister swung happily on the swings for more than an hour, using the wind she generated to keep always just out of reach of the blackflies, but this lanky 5-year-old was very soon discontent with boring old swings, soccer, and basketball.

Some of the alternative games we tried were:

1) "How Dare You Steal the Ball, I Will Now Punch You in the Butt While Roaring to Get it Back,"

2) "I'll Pretend to Be the Squirrel From Ice Age Attacking a Large, Ferocious Predator as Foolishly as I Make Him Do in the Ice Age Videogame I Was Just Playing,"

3) And finally the even more convoluted, though tragically aborted, "The Basketball Court is Water, the Picnic Table is Land, and I'm a Fighter-Guy Fighting Dragons to Save People in a Way That You Somehow Know Involves You Being a Series of Dragons Who Are Foolish Enough to Just Stand Next to the Picnic Table While a Knight Works Them Over With Both Fists Until His Hands Hurt Too Much to NOT Move on to Short, Efficient Kicks Instead."

Oh, and, should you ever be put in a similar situation, be advised that catching and teasingly holding one, then a second, fist carefully aimed at your back may result in a frustrated, em-boy-sculated cry of, "Don't ever do that again! I want you to leave me alone for the rest of your life! ...if you're going to do that again."

Notice that even at five, he's perceptive enough to say "your life" instead of "my life". Nothing like a special day of recognition to remind one's parents of their sizable lead in the race towards death. Happy Father's Day again!

May you all live long enough to feel the next volley of anniversarial punches, always stronger than the last.

I think I've broken my kid

Aren't preschool kids supposed to be pretty imaginative, or at least relatively uncritical of the unknown world around them? Aren't they supposed to sit, slack-jawed, in an awestruck stupor whenever you turn on the TV?

My kids in particular are pretty deprived of television, other than watching I'd-guess-almost-weekly age-appropriate movies and playing the very occasional videogame, but here are just two revealing tidbits I heard from my 5-year-old son while we all endured a really quite awful* Winnie-the-Pooh movie recently:

"They shouldn't have put that in the movie... they should have cut it."

I let the kid watch deleted scenes on a DVD one time and now he thinks he's Martin Scorsese.

"Why do they keep singing songs??"

In his defense, the songs in this movie were undeniably painful, and completely unnecessary to boot. It really was like they had the movie finished, found it was too short, decided "kids' movies have songs, right?", and then went back to add some more scenes where everyone puts their stuff down and starts tunelessly singing some vaguely related song they all just made up on the spot.

And by the latter "they", I mean actual talking stuffed animals with cotton for brains. And redundant inner ear problems blocking their sense of rhythm or timing.

So, I guess this is my way of saying two things. One, my children have absolutely no sense of magical awe or wonder at this world around them, thereby ruining them for religion or even normal human development, and two, Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin is an unbelievably godawful movie.

Just stick with Pixar. Or, if necessary, smash your TV with a baseball bat and tell your kids that the spirit of Walt Disney briefly possessed you and sought both to save them from the horror his company has become and to punish them for asking to watch this movie. The End.

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* When I say "really quite awful", it's my way of being charitable, as my mom would call it. I do that only because when it's convenient to me, I declare that this is a family blog.

But down here in the footnotes? Oh, anything's fair game. It's kids that have trouble reading fine print, right? Anyway, doesn't matter.

This movie is so bad from top to bottom, start to finish, conception to execution, that I would only be mildly disconcerted to personally witness A.A. Milne himself rise from the dead to formally submit the notarized paperwork to have his name disassociated from the movie.**

** And adult-sized Pooh-related costumes. And Pooh underwear, cause that's just really confusing terminology for parents of toddlers.

One way to offend your wife

I figured it'd be nice to counteract the burgeoning waves of sappiness threatening to spill over here due to my round-the-clock care and constant companionship of my poor, ailing wife for the last two weeks, so I thought I'd offer the husbands out there just one of many clever ways you can offend your wife whenever necessary.

Example Number 1: When taking a pause from reading her copy of a junior high sci-fi novel, such as The City of Ember, turn towards her --doing something sweet and innocent like playing her pink Nintendo DS on the collapsible bed she calls her invalid home-- and lay this truth on her:

"If there was a secret room in our post-apocalyptic world stocked with aisles and aisles of rare delicacies, you'd definitely be the one passed out in the middle of it OD'd on sugar and power."

I'm not sure why my own wife took issue with this earnest observation so strongly, but apparently it's quite a potent weapon to store away somewhere for a rainy day.

Where can I buy my Wii gavel?

Exciting news, folks-- remember all those wasted days in childhood spent playing baseball, riding bikes, stomping Goombas, and driving Ganon back to whence he came? Remember how what you really wanted to be doing, as you wandered after school like a lost soul searching for its rightful home, was playing an educational videogame that taught you the ins and outs of working as a federal judge while also helping you develop a healthy respect for centralized authority?

Well, however well you may have managed on your own, now you can feel like a kid again, one lucky enough to grow up in a world that provides for you in the way every kid dreams:

Retired U.S. justice O'Connor unveils video game

Up next from the same company, C. Everett Koop walks us all through a day in a life of Surgeon-Generaling (with a hidden minigame showing us how he makes that delicious fried chicken!); one of America's top archeology professors spends 25 playable hours in a lecture hall convincing you how much his life and career is exactly like an Indiana Jones movie; a comptroller walks us through what exactly comptrolling is all about (now with 40% more paperwork!); and your grandpa inhabits a fully-realized virtual world encompassing an entire suburban den, where he reclines a full 55 degrees before enumerating the many ways in which the world today is much, much worse than when he was growing up.

Classic quotes, Vol. 3

Check out the Dad Blog Carnival at Discovering Dad, where yours truly is featured for my Joy of caprice post of a few weeks ago.

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Here are more things heard around our house recently:

D- (to our landlord): Bye! ...love you!

Me (to M-): Show me the money! (She was calling out "mon-nee, mon-nee" yet again, and I wanted to make sure she hadn't found a penny to swallow.)

D- (playing Connect 4): I want to make my own four-in-a-row here, so don't go in this row, okay?

Me: Please don't blow your nose on my clothes.

J-: Hish the push up!!! (during MarioKart-- meaning unclear... possibly "Push the up button")

Me: Keep your feet off the tablecloth, please.

D-: What is Daddy doing with my purse? (I was putting away an old camera bag full of Hot Wheels...)

Me (at a farm this weekend): M-, get your face away from the cow's butt, please.

Can't I be a Stay-At-Somewhere-More-Fun Dad?

The select few people older than 4 who I meet these days sometimes openly wonder what it's like to be a stay-at-home dad, often with either a sympathetic or subtly tortured look on their face.

I can promise you that certainly being one is much less remarkable now than it was decades ago, but that doesn't mean that nowadays, even in a place as diverse and culturally amorphous as the particular Chicago suburb where I live, you won't become a stare-worthy oddity akin to a dog walking down the street on two feet with a cat on a leash.

For example, the other day when we arrived at a park we’d never been to before (there are probably at least 20 parks of varying sizes within a half-mile of our house), two kids saw me approaching unchaperoned with the kids, and once we got to within 3 feet of them, the older girl asked her dad (while staring into my eyes, bewildered), “Is their Mommy at the doctor today, too??" In all fairness, what other possible explanation on Earth could there be for a man to accompany children to a park at 3:30 in the afternoon? Just go ahead and try to think of one, before you judge her... shame on you.

I’ve only hinted at this kind of thing here and there, but that’s because a) it’s been done many times before, and better, b) it doesn’t really bother me all that much, and c) it doesn’t come up as often for me as it does for others, because we don’t go out much during the day beyond the park, library, and my parents’ house (my dad is semi-retired and works mostly from home). That’s still enough, though, to generate a healthy inventory of stares, comments, and other encounters to make sure I know I am living a bizarre, unnatural life, and even that I only may or may not be providing any tangible benefit for my family or its well-being. And that I am merely lazy.

Actually, that very last part was just me projecting, because I got confused into thinking this was a confessional. Sorry, world.

So what does it feel like to be a man spending more than a few hours each evening with my children? (I’ve done that too, and will do it again, so I’m not bad-mouthing it.) Well, most days it feels an awful lot like moderate groin pain (moderate is an average of all days), because abusing groins is how children seem to amuse themselves. I think digging deeper into this area (no pun intended) may clue scientists into how we humans developed our traditionally rigid gender roles. Women have to be “fancy on the inside” (thanks, Mr. Rogers) as a measure of protection against our species’ sadistic and conveniently-heighted children.

That, or children are directed by women to help even the groin-pain score.

I’ll spare you any gory examples, because no one wants to hear about such things... wait, I’m just getting word that people LOVE to hear about such things… news to me. Okay, well, I already mentioned one in #5 of this post, and of course there’s the usual kneeing, stepping, and standing that kids of all ages make sure to do when climbing onto laps, particularly whenever a computer might be a momentary rival for parental attention*.

A more specific event, or ever-whimsical series of events, as it were, involves M-'s new habit of getting my attention (even when I'm already looking at her) by reaching up and quickly grabbing fistfuls of my pants until she finds something good to rupture inside. You may say, "But Dan, this just means you need to stop laying around blogging, playing videogames, watching movies, refusing to feed your children, and all the other things you clearly spend your entire day doing!"

Well, I will say to that that while I do obviously blog each day, and I occasionally play videogames, I generally do the latter with my children (that makes me a good father, right?) and only very seldom. That’s why I talk about it so much-- I’m pining. But most importantly, I promise you that while I may spend time doing some unconventional things, I make up for it by dedicating almost no time at all to cleaning or general household upkeep. So the time spent playing with my children or taking them places ends up evening out. So there.

In closing, my points are as follows:

1) Most people are inherently suspicious of stay-at-home dads (I'm sick of that term).

2) If you're thinking of becoming a Male Homemaker (is that better?), I'm not going to lie to you-- prepare to be ridiculously emasculated on an almost-daily basis. It's a good exercise, by fire, in beginning to truly not care what other people think (in the good way). This has been a difficult experience for me, but definitely rewarding.

3) Being a stay-at-home dad is a lot easier if you're bad at it, but you have to resist that temptation and find a balance. At the same time that society's expectations can put a lot of pressure on you, it also conversely takes a lot off, so much so that your wife will become insanely jealous of the behaviors people tolerate from you that might be ruled child neglect if she engaged in them.

4) We rarely clean our house, so I don't know when our kids might have friends come over.

5) I really wish my kids would stop hitting me in the nuts.


* As an aside (I know it’s uncharacteristic), let me just put the word out to any kids reading this-- when you knee me in the groin, even when I’m sitting down and semi-protected, while you will definitely get my attention, you will not win my affection. The computer certainly has never done that to me, and notice how many blog posts I’ve written-- get the message? I should expect this from M-, but I'd think D- would at least have an inkling of the need to be more careful. Maybe I’ll just have to hold out for that sympathy until his friends gracefully descend from the antechamber, as it were.

Classic quotes, Vol. 2

As my way of taking a little break this weekend, today's post is just a short list of recent quotes from around our house, without any effort on my part to provide cohesiveness, theme, or even an introduction.

Other than that one, I guess.

D-: When will I have freckles? (totally out of nowhere)

J-: (to D-) This is like medicine to protect your skin from sunburn (drips a little on his hand). DON'T lick your hand!!

D-: (wearing a shirt with a breast pocket, before leaving for the park) If I find some rocks today, I can put them in this pocket... Daddy! If I find any potcorns or anything in the grass, I can put them in this pocket!

Me: (to J-, on phone) I can't talk to you when I'm driving in traffic! (I was playing MarioKart and didn't realize till I hung up how ridiculous it sounded.)

D-: She's just a little baby-o, but she takes a big bite! (Never were truer words spoken.)

J-: You do not hug people with the intent to hurt them!

D-: I am very disappointed in you, miss.

My pity party: What did you bring me?

Let me start off by winning you over to my side: I cleaned the toilet the other day. Voluntarily. Just because it needed to be done.

I believe this deserves some kind of formal recognition, and I'm sure you agree. Granted, for most people, this might not be especially remarkable, but J- and I got married at (barely) 21 and 22, respectively, so we started out living like carefree college kids, which we actually were until a few big Cares entered the picture (then we were just college kids).

We've never really had time since those days to make conscious changes to our lifestyle, beyond those forced on us by life's meandering path. Our normal cleaning strategy has long been just to not to, as they say. So doing something as significant as this makes me feel like we might soon have a real household, like real people, all because of me. I think that's worth at least an hour of videogames, an extra day to sleep in, and a week's worth of free lecture notes, don't you, dudes?

Actually, since J- is going to have to take some extra courses to complete her Illinois teaching certification (Maine doesn't require as much special ed coursework), she'll temporarily be a college kid once again. Maybe I can offer to write a term paper for her if she dusts something or washes the bathtub. There's got to be a first time for everything, right?*

Now that I'm sure you're almost fully in favor of my position, I'll add that I also have recently taken up making sure the kids vacuum pretty regularly, along with personally sweeping the kitchen and dining room. On one or more occasions, I've even mopped and wiped our counters and stove. I mean, did you hear that? Mopped!! I will admit that I had little choice, what with all the cereal, milk, and urine, but still-- let's give credit where credit is due, please!

And now that I no doubt have much sympathy and support from across the country and indeed across the world**, I shall prepare to present my case to my wife. Wish me luck!


* In rereading this, I realized a footnote was in order to barely keep me out of potential trouble: I mean to say not that J- has never cleaned things, but specifically that neither of us has actually scrubbed our tub since we moved in last summer (there's a window in the shower that seems to keep things at bay), and we don't even own any type of dusting apparatus, technically, beyond some washcloths that might be employed for such a purpose. Does this make us bad people?

** Some of you regular visitors are from at least 6 different countries, and we have occasional guests from 23 total so far-- isn't that fun? Who knew that they had The Internets in other countries now? I should alert "our president" to this potential excuse to raise the Terror Alert Level!

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!

Betcha thought I wasn't posting today

Well, I considered taking today off from posting, for the first time since February, but I don't think my obsessive-compulsive disorder will yet allow me. Rest assured, though, as promised on May Day, I'll be taking a couple days off per week soon enough.

The reason I thought to take today off was not because I walked 7 miles yesterday; nor because D- woke me up at 6:45 this morning, wide awake and begging for food (after not getting to bed until 9 o'clock last night-- he normally sleeps at least 12 hours); nor because I have a million chores to do; nor because it is beautiful outside again today; nor because D- is standing next to me shirtless, slapping his belly and asking when we can go to the Exploritorium; nor because M- is a little clingy and has the sniffles. No, the reason is because my lovely wife also has the sniffles, which, when combined with some particularly fervent insanity at work recently, meant that when she woke up this morning, she decided today was not a day to persevere.

So I'm posting this little notice while she naps on the couch, but once I click Publish Post, I shall be gone for the day to have lunch as a family, walk to the park, visit the Exploritorium (score one for D-), play some MarioKart Wii (just got it=very exciting), make some dinner together, and maybe watch a movie.

And with any luck, several hilarious things will happen en route to bed to provide me with something to write about the rest of this week. Fare thee well!

Oh my god, Dad, what-everrr

Is it just me, or does this provide a blurry little peek into the next decade?

D- slumped over on the couch, lost in a videogame, and M- posing while casually chatting on a cell phone... (shudder)

That's it, we're officially Luddites from now on!

...Except I still get to use my Wii... and my DVR.
And some other stuff.

Okay, just the kids will be Luddites.

Developments at our house, Vol. 5

Here are some more developments at our house in the past few days:

1. I took it as a sign that my poor wife is so overwhelmed by parenting and her work as a special-ed teacher at a school an hour away (which starts at 7am) that when she received a "standby juror" notice, after some initial, natural reluctance, she ended up praying for jury duty as an escape from it all.

I helped her realize that she was looking at: paid time off work (finding out this perk helped brighten her spirits considerably) in addition to her pittance for serving; time away from me and the kids (I can be a bit much to handle, which probably doesn't surprise you); and, during the selection process, hours to chill out listening to music and reading a book.

But because she wanted it, as you might imagine, it turned out they didn't need her. Let's all type a big frowny face for J-, shall we? :-(

2. I discovered I may in fact be one of those elusive spammers we all hate so much. Rather than save myself a note as a draft e-mail the other night, I just sent it to myself so I'd see it in my inbox. The next day, this message did not appear in my inbox, but I did notice a message in my spam folder (I'm lucky enough that this is not a regular event), and sure enough, it was my note to myself.

To clarify, when I say it was a note to myself, I mean I sent it from one e-mail account right back into that same account. Is this some kind of spammers' secret? "No one will suspect ME if I get the same spam messages as everyone else! Moohoohahahaaaaa!!!"

3. M- may be the next Mia Hamm, if it's reliable to project her current rate of progress as a soccer player through every day into the future. Nothing would make J- happier, including M-'s election as the first female President of the United States.

4. Speaking of soccer, yesterday J- discovered the joys of refereeing when she was called in as an emergency replacement ref for her school's girls soccer team. She felt a profound sense of satisfaction at being repeatedly told she was "f*cking blind" for an hour's work (while deathly ill and voiceless) doing a favor for the kids and their parents.

5. I've learned the next thing they need to ban after waterboarding is the poor playing of a Cars videogame (featuring a bad Owen Wilson impersonator) at full volume, resulting in the same tinny music, sound effects, and voiceovers looping every minute and a half. I think it's D-'s way of saying he is bored and wants me to be done on the computer for the day...

And on that note, I bid you and the rest of The Internets adieu.

Oh, that's an old bowling injury...

J- discovered, as did I many months ago, that with the advent of Wii Sports, it's possible to strain much more than just your thumb while playing videogames. Two hours of Wii Bowling may get you (J-) a lot closer to Professional status (a.k.a. Dan League), but it can also get you a sore shoulder and hamstring.

As a seasoned veteran, I know enough to recognize Wii Shoulder on the horizon and to switch to lefty in response, so I was in the clear the next day. There's nothing like watching someone lay on the couch after a long day of work only to hear her complaining about being sore from all the videogames she played on the weekend.

The sad thing is, you may have noticed we're on a bit of a Wii kick of late, and odds are good we'll both be right back at it today. She should probably let herself heal up before facing me again, but then she's just as competitive as me. Maybe I'll do some Wii boxing during naptime today, to keep it fair. With our luck, we'll both be stiff as zombies tomorrow.

Developments at our house, Vol. 4

These are some developments at our house in recent days:

1. J- discovered a forgotten Easter egg full of jelly beans in her coat pocket more than a week after the event, much to her giddy pleasure.

2. I determined the reason no one makes wine from oranges: because fermented orange juice is disgusting. Just check my fridge.

And my sink. And my shirt.

3. D- has amped up his habit of calling out made-up words and then asking me what they mean. I cannot explain this habit, and I can barely stand it, given his straight-faced insistence on getting an explanation. He's definitely my kid.

4. I found out how creepy it can be when your 1-year-old wakes up quietly and remembers she has a singing pig ("Five Little Piggies") in the corner of her crib. The disembodied adult voice inexplicably wafting in from the baby's room at nap time is extremely disconcerting.

5. I learned that when you tickle a baby while she's drinking, she will spit milk all over, just like a real person. I couldn't resist! It was worth it.

6. I'm wondering if I'm manly enough all on my own to pull off wearing a Utilikilt. The answer, of course, is no. The next question is, do I care? They're just so convenient.

7. M- found out that as delicious as oyster crackers may be, and as fun as it is to share with everyone, Daddy does not find them yummy when they are shoved up his nostril while he is closing his eyes for just 5 seconds at 7 o'clock in the morning.

8. Expanding on this knowledge gained yesterday, this morning M- tried to stick a Cheerio into the Wii disc slot instead ('Cheerio' being the singular form of 'Cheerios', rather than a British greeting, which would be far less damaging to the hardware) . As a show of good faith, she then spent about 2 minutes afterwards cementing the new lesson by pointing at the slot and repeating, "No. No. No."

On further reflection, I can only hope this doesn't mean she had already shoved one in there undetected. I'll have to plug it in and eject the game to clear out any detritus.

9. I have found, after more occasions than even I would ordinarily have guessed, that nobody (so far) appreciates being compared to Jabba the Hutt in any way, even when it has nothing to do with his weight problem, and no matter how apt the comparison may be.

To each his own, I suppose.

Note: Here are the other volumes.

Wii will crush you

You know what's great?

Spending an evening repeatedly playing all of the wide-ranging games on Wii Play, as well as a (baseball) hitting contest and a Power Throws (bowling training) match in Wii Sports, with your impressively competitive wife, and completely dominating her across the board like the house against a compulsive gambler on a down day.

You know what's even better?

Knowing she's going to read this and immediately demand a rematch. Moohoohoohahahaaaaa!

Only now will I have a worthy competitor again.

P.S. She may make me cry a little bit after her hurricane of game-related pain has passed.

10 unanswerable questions

Here are 10 questions whose answers will likely elude us all in this lifetime:

1. Why is it when a toddler spasms awkwardly in the presence of music, it's considered cute, but when I do it, I'm told I shouldn't ever dance again?

2. Why are the little rafters over our porch considered the coolest place in town for birds to hang out (based on the number of white spots, to put it delicately, that accrue right outside our door each day), when there are millions of alternatives just within a block or so? I can't help but feel personally targeted.

3. Why does my daughter wake up before 8:00 in the morning just to whine and fall apart before nap time about an hour later? I know I'd whine a lot less right back at her if I could get that extra hour of sleep.

4. Why did my landlord build an office in the basement (which does flood a bit, occasionally) and then later decide to rent it out as an apartment to a lady who has something weird about her that I can't put my finger on? It's like having a troll secretly living under the building, a troll who doesn't have a mailbox or any other standard amenities.

5. Why does my daughter insist on doing everything by herself, her own way, except simple little things that she's actually capable of doing herself? And why does she always want us to do and undo each of those things over and over and over again for 15 minutes straight?

6. Why is it I spend my whole day exhausted and praying for bed, but when bed time comes, I'm wide awake and only thinking of all the things I now have the freedom to do? For example, last night J- went to bed at 8:30 (extra tired and having to get up at 5am as usual), while I stayed up till 11 watching the Daily Show/Colbert Report and Conan (both in double-speed on the DVR), and then playing Tanks and Shooting Gallery on Wii Play.

7. Why does my son feel compelled to ask me questions to which he knows the answer and then get indignant when I give him joke answers instead?

8. Why is it that when kids' tummies stick out a little, it's cute, but when mine sticks out a little, I need to lay off the pizza?

9. Why is a clean, fresh diaper the only diaper into which it's acceptable to vacate one's bowels? And furthermore, once one has done that, why does one insist on acting oblivious to this fact while hanging around me like iron filings on an electromagnet?

10. Why did I feel an inexorable pull to round this list out to ten items? I know there are many, many more questions I could add, but I also knew how hard it would be to think of enough of them in time to publish this and get off the computer before noon. The answer has something to do with obsessions and compulsions, but as to why they are my slave masters, the world may never know.

Eyes on the prize

I have reason to believe that my daughter, M-, may be desperately trying to eat her way to a forward-facing carseat.

She is an extremely willful child, but I'm happy to say she seems to be learning that tiny balled fists being what they may, she can't scream her way to getting what she wants. So now she eats.

The backstory: In the chaos and confusion of trying to install two carseats in my parents' car on our way to the airport a few weeks before M-'s first birthday, I accidentally installed her carseat facing forwards instead of backwards, as recommended before age 1 and/or 20 pounds. This didn't strike me until we started driving, but given that we didn't want to risk missing our plane and that she looked pretty safe in the seat (not like a 16-inch softball on a sack of sugar with a Jell-o neck, like during the first few months), I let her be.

I cannot do justice to the looks of wonder and unexplained giggles that frequently radiated from that seat during the magical 20-minute ride, so I won't even try.

Since we got back from our trip, she has resisted being set into her usual backward-facing seat by any means available to her, including crying and stiffening her body while arching her back. Whenever she gets a glimpse (usually upside down) of the front seat, she shouts with glee, attempting to address anyone she sees up there.

After several trips starting like this when we got back, she began eating voraciously, essentially not ceasing all day to cram anything she could find into her cry-hole. This is because shortly after we got back, she turned one, but since she was sick for over a week around that time, she is still shy of the required 20 pounds. (We plan to make her wait till she's safely over that level, but don't tell her that.)

She has been plowing through her remaining baby formula, downing jars of food, shoveling in baby cereal, and even licking her hand and dunking it into piles of grownup cereal, for more efficient stuffing of said cry-hole. It's all I can do to get in a couple hours of videogames a day.

I've just got to get her feeding herself more reliably and less messily, so I can set up the baby gate in the kitchen and leave her there with the pantry door open for a little while each day, so D- and I can read and relax..... and play more Super Paper Mario.