Bantha Poodoo

If you are a Star Wars fan, you know what this about - poop. I have become unphased by baby poop, yet dog mess is still #1 one on the Yuck List. Seriously, what's in dog food, manure? Moving on.

Some good friend of ours were throwing a Star Wars themed birthday party for their 4 year old son Drew. We have close ties to them and Drew so we of course attended. I even reprised my role as a Jedi in full costume to help add as much legitimacy to this party as a 30 year old dressed like space monk can do.

So Emily had an awesome idea to dress Benjamin up as a Jedi youngling. First, let me acknowledge how great it is being married to someone who not only tolerates my inner dork, but enables it to thrive. She put together a very cute ensemble that invokes what a toddler on Tatooine might look like during a moisture farm harvest. I was glowing.

We show up to the party and our friends pulled out all of the stops putting together a production that would make rival parents cringe. The sights, the sounds, the festivities - the Force was strong at this party. My role was to help lead everyone in Jedi training, each kid received their own lightsaber to learn some moves. The Master then feels a disturbance in the Force, goes to investigate while I continue tutoring these kids in lightsaber skills, out comes Darth Vader, I fight him using the moves we just learned, then all of the kids get the chance to take on the Sith Lord. Super fun.

Here comes the curveball. Benjamin got a small ear infection earlier that week, and his medicine has a small side effect - loose stool. So the party is winding down, he's having a ball sitting and playing on their living room floor (white carpet, foreshadowing). We notice that he's missing a sock, and I spy it behind him, I grab it and there is some discoloration on it - 3 guesses what it was. Yep.

There is (ahem) "discoloration" all up his back and pants and he's just bouncing up and down listening to the Max Rebo Band as Emily and I have panicked looks on our faces and sinking sensations in our stomachs. I quickly grab Benjamin, butt-up, and carry him to their 9 month olds room. Benjamin's not a huge fan of being on his stomach so he freaks out as I'm trying to limit his "discolored" clothes from touching anything.

Now to complete the mental picture for you, I am still dressed in full Jedi garb with a huge draping brown hooded robe and sleeves. I probably looked like a wizard conjuring up some black magic as I hovered over a sacrificial crying baby. I am doing everything possible to keep Benjamin from rolling over, not get poo on the robe, pull off his clothes, unearth the vile source of the situation, clean him, change him and get him to calm down. Needless to say, it was a dicey process.

And in my head I wanted to go out and explain to all of the other parents that our baby wasn't always like this and that he usually doesn't create sasquatch-like messes on people's floors. But by the time I was done, the party was over and everyone had packed up and left. Literally making us the party-poopers.

I now open it up to you to come up with the winning concluding reference that ties up the story by using some form of "the Dark Side".

I am...a ninja.

Well at least between the hours of 9-11am, 3-5pm, 9-8am. Because like giants and dragons, you don't want to wake a sleeping baby. Not so much for them, but for you. I have seen significant Dad-duty the past couple of weekends to help Emily do some fun stuff and volunteer. These past couple weekends have forced me to move like the wind that stirs no leaf (cue Asian flute).

The biggest hurdle is that we have high ceilings and wood flooring - some people call that a concert hall. Sound carries in our house with ease. So you set a glass down harder than usual on the kitchen counter and it sounds like a blacksmith forging an axe. All of these factors have been the iron that sharpens my iron - I am now able to operate and function with Low Decibel Output (LDO for you science types).

I walk heel to toe. I level out a glass and slide on to the counter. I can navigate our house in the dark. When I pour Schmax's food into his aluminum bowl, you'd swear it was the sound of a butterfly flapping its wings. I fully turn a door knob so as not to stir the inner-tumbler. I have WD40'ed all of the door hinges to eliminate the haunted house factor.

Am I proud of these things? Maybe. Do I like doing them? Absolutely not. It ends up feeling like a monastic existence. I had to turn on closed captioning on our TV because I was tired of Emily and I asking each other, "What did he say?!" Sidenote - once you turn on closed captioning you can't not read the text. It turns a show your liked watching into a subtitled film you're forced to watch in high school English class. The typos are funny though. During a Packers game it kept coming up as "Bret Farth".

All of this has become a necessary evil. I am a doer and weekends are prime-time for doing stuff - albeit not fun stuff. Floors don't sweep themselves, things don't fix themselves, laundry doesn't wash itself. So a Saturday afternoon has become a Mission Impossible type operation for me where I covertly get things done as to not set off any alarms (Benjamin) in the base (house). If I don't try and make things fun, I'd go crazy. Like literally talk to Mrs. Butterworth crazy.

The net result of this equation is that the opportunities for that thing I remember having called, oh what was it..."fun" - are a little compromised. Yes, playing with Benjamin is a certain kind of fun, but I require activity that either works up a sweat or stretches my mind. At least playing with Benjamin sometimes makes my mind sweat.

So the next time we see each other and I just appear out of nowhere, don't worry. I mean you no harm, it's simply the way of the House Ninja (cue Asian gong).

**Picture explanation - despite our protests Benjamin has enrolled in the 1920's Navy. And his first words were "Yeah-see, you better show up at the docks with the money-see. Or it's curtains-see. Curtains-I-tell-ya!"

Where'd My Baby Go?!

There are tons of expressions that I've heard other parents mention in the past, but I passed them off as pure cliche. One notion has become abundantly true and clear to me these past couple of weeks - babies/kids grow up too fast.

Time is, however, extremely relative. Benjamin is 7.5 months old, but it seems like we have had him longer than that, like years - at least that's what the skin underneath my eyes tells me. Then there are moments where I find myself trying to shove the sand back into the hourglass and keep Benjamin right where he is.

He is on the verge of no longer being what we technically call an "infant" or "baby", closer to "toddler" or "safety hazard". I do look forward to hearing the pitter-patter of feet across the floor, playing chase and having kinds of fun where speaking or remaining upright are critical, but it comes at the cost of losing this snuggle cushion that contours perfectly to my shoulder. The rolls of baby fat will start to recede like the ice caps and sounds like "Gwatp!" will be replaced with "No!" Bittersweet.

I actually have a memory of my mom and I playing cards when I was little and she said something to the affect of, "oh I wish you could just stay this age forever." And I said something like, "Okay, but how about just a little older so I'm better at playing card games with you?" My kid-logic made total sense to me at the time, but thinking about it now it probably made my mom tear up with a mixture of happy/sad thoughts. In one sentence there was the promise of new things to do and experience with a child, but also the reality that you can't go back.

Here's some fun stuff, I am consistently being punched in the chin by a baby. It usually starts off as pats to feel my scruff, then it turns into some excited slaps, followed by a Sonny Liston 1-2-combo. I'll let you know if he ever leans in to take a nibble off my ear. I also learned the hard way that he REALLY hates the sound of a weed whacker, zero to death-scream in a nanosecond. And my simulated sound of an elephant whinny didn't go over so well either. He's either afraid of elephants, or my elephant noise sounds like a weed whacker.

Photo Update

Time is a treadmill and I'm struggling to not fall off of the edge. The problem with shooting so many spots last month is having to edit them all this month. So at the end of the day I don't even want to see my computer, oh and I dropped my laptop and broke the screen for a week - good times. The IT department is loving me.






I do promise to write something soon, but to satiate you for now here are a couple of recent pictures of Benjamin. He is in the midst of transitioning from baby-to-little boy, way too soon for my liking. Enjoy!

Endless Summer

In case you couldn't tell from the picture, we've installed a pool in our backyard complete with a 2' 6" lifeguard. The pool was a father's day gift to me and we finally busted it out this past weekend to get Benjamin crankin' on his training to shatter Michael Phelps medal record in the 2024 summer games in Baghdad (the place will look totally different by then, right?).

We of course take 25 minutes to prepare the water so it is the right temperature and slather him in baby sunscreen that was so thick you could have iced a cake. We get him in his trunks, put his hat on, bless the water, call the Coast Guard, etc. I'm sure the kid is thinking, "Uh, can you just dunk me in already!?"

It's always funny to me when you see a baby react to something that is so second nature to adults, like sitting in water, and how they spaz out in a good way. Benjamin had a fun time in the water and we had fun looking at him splish-splash and make wild noises. But you can't turn your back on a baby. You could stare at them for 30 minutes and they'll stay completely upright. Turn away to sneeze and they will have some how fallen over, pulled a towel on top of them, deflated the pool and step in an ant pile.

I embellish, but he did tip over once and was like a turtle flipped on its back. I think it's God's way of making sure you don't get too cocky, "Oh, think you got everything under control Hasselhoff? Watch this - ZAP!"

Seeing a baby in swim wear it hit me that a baby's physique has a lot in common with men's physiques when they're over the hill - little pasty, plenty of rolls and a wrinkly butt. Their taste in clothes are the same too - bizarre color combos, overuse of hats and pants that don't fit right. The difference is that all of these things are cute on a baby. Men, not so much.

The pool was a success. It will probably be the only time it will be used because of the impending changing of the seasons and Benjamin's growth chart. And by next summer Benjamin will be concentrating on streamlining his Breaststroke for the 800M medley. Go for the gold son and eat your Wheaties®!

Hapy Birfday Gammy!

It is my mother's birthday today, August 26th (by the time you read this). She has never been super into gifts, so I am teaching Benjamin the art of playing to people's Love Languages.

When I think about it the most vocal people about their childhoods are the ones that didn't have a very good one or maybe it's the mental scars that don't let them forget their not so rosy formative years. And it seems that people who had a great childhood don't really think about it until they get stuck in a conversation with someone who didn't - this makes them realize how lucky they were to have a drama-free experience.

I fall into the category of what my mind tells me was a great childhood. Was it Ward & June Cleaver where the grass is green and the toast is perfect? No. But my parents did a good job of figuring out what the right amount of attention should be. Too much, you get a brat. Too little, you get a belltower sniper. Looking back I never really got into trouble, I enjoyed playing with others, I could keep myself company and I actually enjoyed schoolwork. Perfect kid? Perhaps. Humble? Definitely.

Whatever crazy mix of parenting my Mom and Dad cobbled together seemed to turn out well and will undoubtedly be a beacon for me to harken back to with Benjamin in the years to come. To dote on my Mom on her birthday, I will single out one of the many special things I remember her doing for me as a kid - playing games.

I love games - board, video, role-playing. You name it, I'll play it (except Russian Roulette). I don't know how many times my Mom and I squared off against each other with the classic kiddie board games, eventually graduating to the founding fathers of Parker Bros. - Monopoly, CLUE, Battleship, Life. I love the challenge, I loved learning strategy, I loved that she didn't just let me win because I was kid. If she had, I would have lost interest in the games and her as an adversary. "Hey lady, you're like super old and stuff, but I kill you at Connect Four. What gives?!"

To this day I love to put my skills to the test against others in a friendly competition and I attribute a majority of that to my Mom and her willingness to take the time to teach me, play me, beat me, then allow me to beat her fair and square. The art of gaming also allowed for a nice hand off of the baton to my Dad in the world of competitive sports, but that's an entirely different subject and entry.

Happy birthday Mom! Maybe this weekend we can show Benjamin the basics of gaming. You know start him off with something lite like Risk®.

Cereal Killer

Man, is it me or does it seem like life never takes a break? Weekdays and weekends have smushed together into one long day called Montuesatunday. August has been particularly heinous for me at work - either shooting or preparing to shoot a TV spot everyday of the month (except Labor Day, which I plan to do no labor).

Since my last update Benjamin has started riding a bike and speaking fluently with a British accent - I kid. He has, however, shifted from ye olde Mother's Milk to the exciting world of mono-ingredient cereal. Everyone's advice is to start with Rice Cereal. I tried to help the kid out by slipping him some Cocoa-Krispies®, but was told that it didn't count as rice. As you can tell from the picture, rice cereal really didn't give him that "kiss the cook" feeling.

Emily was the server while I video taped the feast, another tape that would bore you to tears but I would fistfight you if you tried to erase it. It was one of those quintessential parent moments seeing your baby make a big evolutionary step in what they are capable of doing. The first spoonful went into his mouth and created the same reaction we get with Pepto-Bismol® or Milk of Magnesia®. He emoted, "Oh gack! What is this? Why is it so thick? Guys, this milk is spoiled or something, it's all chunky and stuff!"

It made me consider what his eating existence has been - the same thing, +6 times a day, for 5.5 months. I love Hot n Sour soup, but if I had to eat it 6 times in a week I would stage a formal hunger strike.

So this "cereal" we're feeding Benjamin has an entirely different taste profile, texture and smell so it gives him total eating confusion. PLUS, the whole swallowing thing has been pretty much involuntary until now. After he reacts to the weird taste, he finally swallows it but the look on his face reminds me of a movie scene where someone is forced to swallow a key.

Rice served its purpose for a week and then we moved on to the greatness of oatmeal. I love oatmeal. I love oatmeal cookies. I love oatmeal soap - my fondness for oatmeal has passed on to my progeny. Benjamin loves the stuff. Give him one spoonful and he gives you the "what the ?!" reaction, but then the taste kicks in and his eyes light up. Next thing you know his mouth opens up wide like a Bonobo monkey, yearning for another sweet taste of the staple grain.

My plan now is to stir in some whey protein and bulk Benjamin up to 50lbs of pure lean muscle before his 1st birthday. That way he can stay on track to make the Chinese Men's Olympic gymnastic team by the 2016 games.