Being an adult child

I suck so much at dealing with my parents.  I wish I was the type of guy who could just accept them for their faults and failures (both past and present) and be a good/present adult child in their lives.

But I can’t.

I struggle every day with accepting and trusting them. They never did anything horrible to us, but they have never resembled anything like consistent/caring parents.

Per Uzh… Please do not reblog (yes…that means you Brazilian teen person) Flashback Friday  - The hot water back on edition After getting home from a gross sweating balls workout last night, Finn went to take a shower first (while I got dinner) only to find out we had no hot water. Living in an old mansion with old shit, we get used it…nevertheless it sucked. As of this afternoon we finally have it again. Both us stinky boys need some deep cleaning in a serious way. Since it is now highly inappropriate for me to photograph my child in the tub, you get this amazingly goofy one of the boy from about 6 years ago.
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Per Uzh… Please do not reblog (yes…that means you Brazilian teen person)

Flashback Friday  - The hot water back on edition

After getting home from a gross sweating balls workout last night, Finn went to take a shower first (while I got dinner) only to find out we had no hot water. Living in an old mansion with old shit, we get used it…nevertheless it sucked.

As of this afternoon we finally have it again. Both us stinky boys need some deep cleaning in a serious way.

Since it is now highly inappropriate for me to photograph my child in the tub, you get this amazingly goofy one of the boy from about 6 years ago.

Parents - Be wary of double entendre tags

As a follow-up to Lazydad’s totes brill post on web analytics - think before you tag.  

I almost tagged a post recently with “daddy” (it was a kid focused post where the tag seemed appropriate).   In a rare moment of clairvoyance, I searched the tag in the dashboard before posting.  

Feel free to check it out yourself (again, I warn you), but I really doubt most any parent wants posts about or pics of their kids in that stream.  While I’m totally cool with (almost) all that stuff, it’s a bit of a mind fuck to see it all mixed together in one place.  It’s content aggregation gone totally wrong.

With a minimal amount of sleep (which you can see in Finn’s eyes) we were off early to his brother’s Bar Mitzvah this morning. It was a great event; all 10 of the kids were eloquent, beautiful and seemingly mature beyond there 12/13 years. It was also great to hear and see my older boy relaxed and in his element…something I don’t see when he’s just with family.  Finn is napping before we head off to part 2 of the day: My son’s ballet performance and after dinner.  The party is just gonna keep on going…All…Night…Long. Update: Gawd, we both look like shit (and I have a weird creepy eye thing going on).
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With a minimal amount of sleep (which you can see in Finn’s eyes) we were off early to his brother’s Bar Mitzvah this morning. It was a great event; all 10 of the kids were eloquent, beautiful and seemingly mature beyond there 12/13 years. It was also great to hear and see my older boy relaxed and in his element…something I don’t see when he’s just with family. 

Finn is napping before we head off to part 2 of the day: My son’s ballet performance and after dinner.  The party is just gonna keep on going…All…Night…Long.

Update: Gawd, we both look like shit (and I have a weird creepy eye thing going on).

As much as I try to avoid xmas altogether, Easter is just creepy enough to make it interesting and fun.  Come on… a dude rising from the dead… it’s a perfectly packaged holiday for our new found cultural obsession with the zombie apocalypse. 

These pictures…are… A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

pbsparents:

It’s almost time for another holiday, and in MY book, that means another opportunity to exploit not-so-hoppily-ever-after Easter photos. Enjoy! Click pics for captions.

The antidote to my grumpy reblog the other day about LEGOs new line for girls.   LEGO crossdressing!  This is so excellent. UPDATE: A very good rebuttal.  UPDATE 2: A response to my comment on said rebuttal. andimthedad: Hello parents! Are you concerned that your child might absorb negative gender role stereotypes as a result of harmful cultural-norms-capitalizing retail marketing in the toy building block industry?  If so, you can stop worrying! After several long hours of research with Luke and Beth, we are proud to unveil the next generation of Lego: Lego Friendjitsu!  It’s simple: whenever you buy a Lego Friend set, just buy a Lego Ninjago set too!  Throw out the instructions and dump all the parts into a single large bowl. Now build whatever you want! Long-haired florists who use their martial arts expertise against galactic dragons? Sword-wielding musicians who defend their pet rabbits from the evil undead?! Men and women who can save the universe and then sew their own pants?!? No problem! And when they get home, they can bake a cake… together! Furthermore, we are researching additional crossover lines between Lego Friends and Lego’s more established lines. Here’s a sneak peek: Lego Guyonicle Lego Her-O Factory Lego Allie & Conquest Lego Starlet Wars Lego Mindstorm: Girls Gone Wired Lego ‘Sets In The City’ What do you think? Are there any other crossovers you can recommend? Luke and Beth are standing by for research….
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The antidote to my grumpy reblog the other day about LEGOs new line for girls.  

LEGO crossdressing!  This is so excellent.

UPDATE: A very good rebuttal. 

UPDATE 2: A response to my comment on said rebuttal.

andimthedad:

Hello parents! Are you concerned that your child might absorb negative gender role stereotypes as a result of harmful cultural-norms-capitalizing retail marketing in the toy building block industry?  If so, you can stop worrying! After several long hours of research with Luke and Beth, we are proud to unveil the next generation of Lego: Lego Friendjitsu! 

It’s simple: whenever you buy a Lego Friend set, just buy a Lego Ninjago set too!  Throw out the instructions and dump all the parts into a single large bowl. Now build whatever you want! Long-haired florists who use their martial arts expertise against galactic dragons? Sword-wielding musicians who defend their pet rabbits from the evil undead?! Men and women who can save the universe and then sew their own pants?!? No problem! And when they get home, they can bake a cake… together!

Furthermore, we are researching additional crossover lines between Lego Friends and Lego’s more established lines. Here’s a sneak peek:

  • Lego Guyonicle
  • Lego Her-O Factory
  • Lego Allie & Conquest
  • Lego Starlet Wars
  • Lego Mindstorm: Girls Gone Wired
  • Lego ‘Sets In The City’

What do you think? Are there any other crossovers you can recommend? Luke and Beth are standing by for research….

Vacation Ideas?

A plea for help here.

I’m thinking I want to run away with Finn for a week for his vacation at the end of the month. I need a little break.  I’ve never done the “Vacation Package” thing before, but I want to go somewhere warm and fun …and relatively on the cheap. Seems like the way to go.

One of my biggest fears about going to a resort or on a cruise is that I won’t be able to stand the people (and/or their kids). I want to be somewhere quiet and with good people, but with enough cool and non-contrived stuff going on that we can have adventures as well.

Since so many of you are peeps I would love to hang with, anyone out there in the Tumblr-verse have any suggestions?

What makes for a successful Super Bowl party around these parts

  • My big ass living room and couch.
  • A bunch of cool adults that could care less about football, but love the cultural phenomenon of it.
  • A lot of really good food (although a friend overdid it on the Nachos and under did it with the Kielbasa… I can always eat more Kielbasa).
  • 3 kids under the age of 3 totally losing their shit right before half time and parents that somehow gracefully transitioned them out the door (without losing their shit).
  • A son that did amazingly well at having said pack of kids destroy his room.
  • Madonna!
  • Son that liked Madonna as much as I did (that’s mostly what we talked about this AM).
  • A fairly exciting and entertaining game that has absolutely zero impact on the fate of the world.

(Side note: Commercials were decidedly lame this year.)

Sweet Ignorance (or how to be really sophomoric on your soap box)

According this Washington Post article, a bunch of douchey girls with big bigoty sticks rammed up their butts (no doubt fueled by big douchey/bigoty parents) are out to boycott Girl Scout Cookies because of their acceptance of self-identified transgendered peoples in Girl Scouts. 

Here is there big douchey (and prissy) spokesperson talking out her ass on things she doesn’t understand. (Not sure why the video wont show in the dashboard, but here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Y514LSe8FWk).

Just like certain sects in the Episcopal Church, go find your own cliquey haters club.  The Westboro Baptist Church may be a good place to start in your new campaign of douchebaggery and malevolence. 

I wasn’t going to buy any cookies this year.  I’m buying double now! So there!

:-P

Via NPR: Why A Teen Who Talks Back May Have A Bright Future

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/03/144495483/why-a-teen-who-talks-back-may-have-a-bright-future

This is such a great post/story on NPR. I would go even further and say that you should encourage even your youngest child to learn how to negotiate and “effectively argue.”  This skill gives them the necessary tools to be confident and capable of making good peer decisions as a child/teen, but also throughout their lives.

Vas deferens as conduit to the universe

Finn was in and out most of yesterday afternoon with a friend.  Later in the day, I met up with him at the school playground where his friend’s mom was hanging out with a bunch of other kids as well. Somehow she (who I will mention here is married with two kids, one of whom is Finn’s BFF) and I started talking about dating and sex, which eventually led to me telling her I have a vasectomy. You know the typical parent playground conversation.

After I told her I’d been snipped (“Three offspring is enough in my book!”), she told me her husband would NEVER do that.  At first I thought it was the typical male fear of having someone cut into their junk and responded that it was actually incredibly easy and mostly painless (if you follow the doctor’s orders and not do anything physical for a week). And she told me that wasn’t the issue at all, but rather he believed he would be “spiritually and cosmically cut off from his man energy.” No really…this is what she told me!

I can’t figure out if this is most amazing bullshit excuse I’ve ever heard (major props man!) or if this guy really believes that his Vas deferens is his sole conduit to connecting with his masculinity and the universe at large. I really (really!) try to have an open mind to how others see and operate in this world. However, I’m having a truly hard (hehe) time believing that cutting this little tube from my balls to my dick disconnects me my manhood and ultimately makes self actualization nearly impossible.  

From a merely physiological/biological perspective I don’t get it: Every day my testicles are still producing crap loads of sperm and my other glands seem to have no shortage of spunk quantities. And from a spiritual/psychological one - and maybe I’m simply short sighted and stunted in this realm - but being snipped has given me a peace of mind that actually contributes to me becoming the man I aim to be.  It should be said, I approach life as a journey and not a destination. On that path, I made the choice to not to have another life altering “Opps” moment - albeit I will never regret the one I had - so that I can live very intentionally and present with those in my life.

Random: tumblr parents

I have to admit, I’m digging the Tumblr after just a couple inconsistent months. It’s like the beautiful bastard love-child of Facebook and Twitter; topic based micro-communities mixed with a lot of great, absurd and wonderfully inappropriate re-sharing.

One thing that does surprise me (and again I’m a newbie), is how few people blog/tumblr about older children.  Pretty much every parent tumblr is about kids in their first 5 years (and in utero).  I remember those years with crystal clear haziness, but parenting gets so much more dynamic and interesting as they get older.  If you have any recommendations of such tumblrs, please pass them along.

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