Classic quotes, Vol. 23

Here are some recent quotes from my 5-year-old son D-, my 3-year-old daughter M-, and me:

M- (insistently, while I was singing "All You Need is Love"): No! You need food, too!

D- (to my mom, who'd asked him what the story was about his misbehavior at school): It's not a story... it really happened.

Me (caught off guard by maniacal children while preoccupied): Hey!! Take. it. easy! Or... it will be taken easy for you.

D- (quietly rationalizing with his crying sister, on her way to tell on him): Hey-- whatever I did... I did NOT do it.

M- (through the above-mentioned tears): D- was attackling me!

At what age can I know this isn't a coincidence?

As infrequently as I've (regrettably) been posting on here the past few months, thanks to the new house and then this contract work, I've been even more scarce over at HotDads.

So head on over there to check out my latest post, with only this title as a teaser. Enjoy!

Amusing searches, Vol. 6

Here are more of the most amusing searches that brought people here during these past few months that have been so devoid of new posts.

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

• is it ok that daughter buys annivarsary card on behalf of husband - Is it okay for you that they do this? Of course. Is it okay for the two of them? ...Ask her. Seems kinda sad to me, but man, Hallmark must love her commitment to their products even to the point of this nonsense. (Also, for my own future reference, does she get a good deal on these "annivarsary" cards from the Irregular bin at the dollar store?)

• curing a belligerent horse (Jonesboro, AR) - Poetic concerns aside as to whether a supposedly belligerent horse needs "curing", I'll say that while I appreciate the particular struggles of horse trainers, I'm not sure why one in search of an answer to a professional question would stop to click on a search result titled "Screw curing cancer, we've got robot ladies now!"

• do not babysit (Virginia Beach, VA) - Okay, okay, I can take the hint... Clearly you've just perused my selection of bad parenting, lack of shame, screaming, self-righteousness, and sarcasm posts.

• literaldan.blogspot.com screw-curing-cancer-weve-got-robot - Since this (and many, many other searches, for some reason) came from Mountain View, California, I think it's fair to assume that the top brass of Google is intensely interested in how exactly I've managed to take over the Internet without actually making any money or getting on TV yet. That, or they're thinking of offering me a job in their vaunted Nitpicking, Irreverence, or Procrastination departments.

• barefoot inebriated woman (Warren, OH) - If that's what you're looking for, then allow me to point you, happily, over to your fellow Ohioan. You won't be sorry!

• amusing a 3 year old (Bristol, VT) - I'll give you a hint-- it must involve rhyming wordplay and, more importantly, bodily functions in some way. Preferably graphically so. Just picture the humor of a 30-year-old man, and then aim a little higher brow.

Classic quotes, Vol. 22

I must apologize for my absence this month, but I've started working full-time on a long-term contract with a former employer, so by the time my sunup-to-sundown workday sitting at home on the computer is done, I don't feel too much like sitting at home on the computer some more to write blog posts.

But never fear, I haven't stopped collecting scraps, at least, so without further adieu, here is a small sampling of recent quotes from my 5-year-old son D- and my 3-year-old daughter M-:

M- (when informed that I hadn't yet been born when something happened): But then who would take care of me?!?

D- (tossing off yet another mention of the kid he calls only his "buddy" during his 2 hours of daily bus riding): I shared some with my buddy on the bus... He's really funny! (suddenly somber) ...He's pretty mean, though, too... he keeps taking my stuff every day and when I say, 'Give it back!' he just laughs at me. ... I don't remember his name.*

M- (proudly to my dad, who was reading from an advice column: "3-year-olds are famously challenging-- at times they act like the spawn of the devil."): I'M three!!

D- (wearily, between hiccups): I've got the hot-cups...

M- (some late afternoon drama, playing the role of a pouty girl who really doesn't want to hear the answer to a rhetorical question): No! Don't say that to me! I don't wike you anymore!! At all! I want to stay away from you forever! I want to stay away from you FOREVER! ...Until DINNER!!!

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* The funny thing is, though, that this bizarre description is pretty typical of most male friendships at least occasionally. Why does it have to be so damned amusing to taunt and mock people you care about?

And how come I didn't know the names of several of my good friends even in high school? "Have I introduced you yet to 'That Skinny Friend-of-a-Friend I Hang Out With Every Day in Gym'? Perhaps you can find out if there's some sort of nickname his parents gave him at birth?"

When 3-year-olds attack

After hearing suspiciously uproarious laughter coming from the bathroom one evening, my wife and I came upon this scene:


Show of hands, how many of you have had this happen?


Editor's Note: For the record, this is only what was left after the perpetrator and her highly amused accomplice tried desperately to destroy the evidence. Also for the record, we have a deceptively large bathroom sink-- that right there is about a third of a large tube of toothpaste.

Classic quotes, Vol. 21

Here are some recent quotes from my wife J-, my 5-year-old son D-, my now-3-year-old daughter M-, and me:

D- (excitedly, as I mix salsa and sour cream): Are we having chimps and dip?!?

M- (looking at Winnie-the-Pooh clock, trying desperately to become the world's first 3-year-old to either carry a tune or remember actual song lyrics): Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh... silly nilly willy, stuffed with stuff! Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh... he fluffs himself! ... Silly old bear.

Me (to J-, pulling what we'll call "a Dan", in fairness): "In a few minutes"? "In a few minutes"??? What's "a few minutes" mean by this point? Once you get past 60, they're called "hours", so you know.

M- (with a gentle, warning tone as I begin to finish off the last piddling bit of Goldfish crackers, only once she's had plenty of them): Save some for other people, Dad...

D- (referring to his sister's lollipop stick that missed the garbage can): Oh, yeah, I stepped on that before, but I pulled it back off my foot.

A conversation between M- and J-: Victoria's open secret

While I'm ashamed at my lack of posting there in general, and especially lately, I'm glad they'll still have me over at Hot Dads, where you can read my latest post.

I'll just let the post title do all the teasing for me-- now click on over there!

Important Question: What would you use this for?

When I first saw the item pictured below, I was dumbfounded as to its purpose, given the context in which I found it. So I ask you all the following Important Question:

For what do you think this is meant to be used?


Leave your best or most entertaining guess in the comments.

Things that amuse me, Vol. 2

Here, in lieu of something more cohesive, are a few of the things that have been amusing me lately:

1. Already a budding patriot at 2, the other day my daughter M- called out, "Look at my sandal!" only to reveal that, for no apparent reason, she'd ripped the flag off one of those 4th of July souvenirs and tied it around her little foot with a piece of string.

2. One recent message in the waves of spam e-mails I get daily stood out from the cesspool of similarly themed junk. It was called, "Your pork pistol won't fail" ...Great, thanks for ruining pork chops for me, for all time. Even schnitzel can't hide such a visual.

3. When perusing Endless.com to see if I could save money by ordering my next pair of sneakers online instead of having to (shudder) go to a store,* I feel like I was victimized by discriminatory software. After putting in the general specs of what I was looking for, the top row of search results were all women's pink ballet slippers. I say, stay out of this, Internet! That diaper bag is just damn handy, okay. That's the limit of my gender bending, I swear.**

4. After only a couple days of having wireless Internet here in the new house, I could already tell I'm going to need to put some kind of wheeled computer desk in the bathroom.

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* No such luck, the universe hates me. I should have realized this by the fact that even New Balance has forsaken me and the sanctity/dryness of the side of my right foot, where the sole of my shoe very subtly detached a mere two months after I started wearing my latest shoes.

** But then, the Internet has never steered me wrong before...

There will be water.

Every day I live out here in the country in our new house, I expand my perspective on the world in new and unexpected ways. For example, I now know there are several very different ways you can think of your basement.

One way, with a properly finished basement, is as an extra living space, with all the amenities of the above-ground floors.

Another way, with a standard basement, is as a place to store things you want out of the way, or a place to house your tool collection where everybody else won't get their grubby hands all over it.

A third way, with my basement, is as a handy container to hold massive amounts of water, one that should be measured cubically for volume rather than by square footage when assessing its value as part of the house.

I'll spare you the details of my theories on hows and whys, but I'll just say that until you've seen streams of bubbles emerging from cracks in your floor, as the already pretty sodden Earth readily drinks up the surprising source of refreshment that is your basement, you can't truly appreciate the ability to nurture that space as a precious aquatic environment on an otherwise inhospitable frozen prairie.

Also, a situation like this allows you to learn the gallon capacity of your super-sweet new snow snovel. (Plus, what else would fully clean off all the clay from shoveling out the leftover pile of dirt from the previous owner's hasty sump-pump installation?)

Like so many things in life, this (hopefully temporary) stressful and somewhat frustrating situation has a bright side-- I've learned so much about sump pump specifications, the intricacies of water softening and iron removal systems, and the effects of a loosely filled old well pit having recently unfrozen sump discharge lines emptying right on top of it.

And of course, living out here in what's effectively the nicest cabin ever built, nature's always here to teach me something, too. Like that high winds carrying loose snow always seek the best-shoveled path. And that quaint as all the bunny tracks around the constantly replenished source of fresh, salty water may be, eventually that thing making the larger prints every morning will manage to find itself something to eat one day when it comes for its own warm drink.

And that meal will be sure to evacuate its every orifice before shuffling off this mortal coil, all across the view from your breakfast table.

Just breathe deep of that fresh country air, my friends. Ahhhh...