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Posts tagged: Fatherhood

Rambling Thoughts of a Tired Dad

By Real Dad, May 17, 2010 10:11 pm

I really don’t have anything to write about. It’s been an extremely busy past few weeks. I have worked the last 2 out of 3 Saturdays and the one weekend I didn’t work was the weekend of Soccer, Shootings, A Carnival, A Birthday Party and Mother’s Day. It had gotten to the point in which my back yard had grass that was 8”+ high and my car hasn’t been washed in months. I have been saying for 3 weeks that I would clean-up the yard and wash my car but I couldn’t seem to put aside the 2-3 hours for each of those chores.

Luckily I was able to get the yard done this weekend. A little was done on Saturday after work and I finished the rest

This would be awesome!!

Sunday morning. After finishing the yard, the entire family packed in the mini-van and made a quick trip to the store to pick up supplies for my son’s school project. I am not sure what he will use it for but he has to make one of those yellow smiley faces attached to a small wooden handle. I am not sure how you feel about it but to me the yellow smiley face represents tripping on acid. I do not know why I think that but I do. A bunch of first grade kids walking around with these smiling yellow faces would just freak me out….even not being on acid.

The wife is 7 months along now and she is having the not so bad days and some pretty shitty days. Lately the baby is throwing fits in there. Her stomach contorts, becomes rock hard and looks freaky. She has also been experiencing some nerve pain which she did with the last one. She gets these pains that shoot up her neck and/or from her ear to her lip or her neck to her ear than up into her head. She has talked to the Doctor about it and he of course said that there isn’t much that can be done so she has to grin and take it.

I am still not sure how we are going to pull off raising 4 kids. Financially we are struggling (in the red for the first time ever) and things aren’t getting any easier. Thankfully we have great family and we are getting all of the hand-me-downs they own. I guess that is what we get for donating ALL of the infant crap we had after the lil one was born. We have also been getting a package or two of diapers every few weeks from my mother-in-law, so that is good. Since we know we are having another boy, I have been hoping that the wife gives birth to an 18 year old that wants to go straight into the military. Paid housing, clothing and healthcare all in one shot AND I will be a proud Daddy that can say my newborn is doing something honorable.

Seriously, I recall shopping with the wife before we had our first. We planned and starting buying things months in advance. I actually researched different bottles and what made them different from each other. We wouldn’t take a single item from family that was a hand-me-down because our kid deserved everything new. We used fancy diaper creams, a Diaper Genie, a wipes warmer, researched toys, baby-proofed our home and watched over him like hawks.

Yeah...like he is getting this stuff!

Now, we have a bunch of bottles given to us that we haven’t even looked at yet. Why? Because it doesn’t matter, they are bottles. We have no toys or any other baby related item except what has been given to us. We do not even have a room to put him so he will be shacking up with us in our room. Ohh..no crib so a Pack-N-Play will have to do just as it did with the lil one. Shit….we don’t have that either….I gave that away too!

Inventions for Fatherhood and Marriage

By Real Dad, May 2, 2010 8:40 pm

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on ways to improve my life, thus my family’s lives. If you have visited my blog before then you know I have a fourth kid on the way (Introducing #4) and I am struggling with some big decisions and some negative feelings. Knowing all that we are facing in this house, I have been going crazy thinking of little things that would improve my daily quality of life. There are many things that cross my mind throughout the day and if only I was creative and determined, I would try to produce some the prototypes. Here are some of my thoughts.

• Fingerprintless glass
• Walls that shock kids that attempt to draw or write on them
• A refrigerator that punches kids when they open it
• A remote control that works on kids
• Carpeting that actually repels stains
• Toilets that throw whatever it is the kids threw in back in their faces

Great School!

• Bathroom floors that have a French-drain
• Self-cleaning asses – yeah that’s right…asses that clean themselves…
• Noise canceling paint
• Kid’s movies that can only be played 5 times
• Toys that don’t break
• A wife that doesn’t nag – yes….purposely buried in the middle of the list
• A wife that doesn’t complain – yes again buried
• Family that isn’t a pain in the ass
• Food that doesn’t leave crumbs
• Liquids that turn solid if they don’t go directly from cup to mouth
• Candy that makes kids sleepy and/or calm
• Mini-vans with sound proofed partitions
• Child restraints that would not cause immediate incarceration if used
• A law should exist for when kids cause parents enough frustration, the parents would be allowed to leave without fear  of criminal charges or public scrutiny
• A house full of Sandra Bullock, Diane Lane, Halle Berry, Shakira and Nancy Pelosi

The above list is what I can remember but as you can see, I am full of friggin genius. Imagine the possibilities! If you have the money and resources to produce a prototype, be my guest. I will take a percentage as the idea man!

Fatherhood: A Complete Review of Fatherhood

By Real Dad, April 21, 2010 9:56 pm

I felt it time to do my first review. I toiled long and hard over what to review and fatherhood was the only thing I could come up with. Fatherhood may not be something I am good at but I have a lot of experience with 3 kids and 1 on the way. I affectionately refer to the number of kids as 3.7 as my wife is due in July.

Fatherhood began for me a little over 7 years ago when my wife told me she was pregnant. I was very excited and a little nervous while my wife as very nervous and a little excited. I made it a point to be at every doctor visit and I mean every visit! I thought it would be amazing and wonderful to have a little me or little wife running around. When delivery day came, I was nervous as could be and my wife’s labor and delivery was brutal. I think it totaled 25 hours or so. I should have known then what was in my future!

I found fatherhood to consist of the following:

  • Your life is no longer your own
  • Your life will never be the same
  • Cleaning the dirty ass of another human being
  • Getting baby shit under your fingernails
  • Getting pissed on
  • Talking like an idiot to a baby that doesn’t understand you regardless of how you talk
  • Making a multitude of additional trips to the store for various baby items
  • Being amazed at every “first” of your new baby
  • Bragging to anyone that makes believe they are listening about how amazing your son is
  • Getting the daily run-down from your wife when you get home from work
  • Always worrying if your baby farts and shits regularly (yes it’s a Daddy thing)
  • Wondering where your wife went
  • Remembering  the days of constant sex
  • Daydreaming of the day you may have sex again
  • Trying to figure out why the baby is crying
  • Running to the hospital when your son tumbles down 13 stairs (hey it only happened once)
  • Not going out with the wife and/or friends like you used to
  • Having another kid
  • Thinking “What the hell is wrong with us?”
  • Not being as excited about the “firsts” as you were for the first
  • Feeding and clothing another person
  • Thinking “I hope my wife leaves me alone today”
  • Saying the diapers can be re-used because you don’t want to run to the store
  • Asking if the kids really require food
  • Watching the savings account you complied for a house dwindle away
  • Not going out without at least one kid on your hip except to work
  • Not immediately running to the crying 2nd child as you did the first
  • Watching the medical bills pile up
  • Getting sick when prior to kids you weren’t sick for over 10 years
  • Another friggin kid!
  • Not caring if the kid farts or shits regularly
  • What? Are there kids crying somewhere???
  • Food….there better be enough for me
  • Saying: “Damn, I am sorry babe but I have to work late”
  • Telling the wife: “I know he is only 3 weeks old but he can feed himself if we teach him”
  • Figuring out which kid doesn’t get attention today?
  • Asking: “Do they really have to go to the doctor?”
  • Hoping the kids doesn’t walk as it is one less thing to worry about
  • Praying that the kid doesn’t talk as there is more than enough noise in the house
  • Looking for the money you HAD in the savings account last year
  • Having a wife that is losing her mind after being trapped in a small apartment with 3 little kids all day
  • Sending your 2 oldest (which are only 6 and 4) to a private school because the public schools here blow
  • Wondering how are we sending these kids to private school when we have NO MONEY
  • Knowing the 3rd kid will not go to private school
  • Hoping the wife doesn’t talk to me
  • Hoping the kids forget that I am their father
  • ANOTHER FRIGGIN KID IS ON THE WAY????????!!!!!!????

HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That my friends…..is FATHERHOOD!

…….and I wouldn’t change a friggin thing!

I love them with all of my heart!

Real Dad’s Apology

By Real Dad, February 13, 2010 10:57 pm

Ok blog, I apologize as I have truly neglected you for some time now. Things have been really crazy lately. Between home and work, I don’t know if I am coming or going and of course my house has once again been a cesspool of germs and other such things. Shit… since I wrote “Fatherhood Means Someone is Always Sick” my kids and wife have been sick, twice. First it was the stomach flu with puking for 3 or 4 days then it was severe colds followed by an ear infection (I think) and now a possible urinary tract infection in the mix. I have also been working long days including my travel, I have been out of the house an average of 12 hours per day. So as you can see I have my hands full.

There it goes!

The wife’s pregnancy is going well, I think. We really do not talk about it much. We both know she is pregnant and due in July so what is the point? We just paid the $2000.00 deductible so that my wife can deliver the baby with the help of a doctor and in the hospital rather than in my back yard with me, a set of salad tongs, a blind-fold and a garden hose.  Seriously, why is my 401K important for our retirement when I need to draw on it to pay for my kids now? Never-mind the $490 dental bill for the kids…that’s right $490! My wife figured the kids all needed the special fluoride treatments not covered by our dental insurance. I know the teeth they currently have will all fall out of their skulls but possessing strong teeth is so important (you know if I had my way I would have told the dentist to scratch my balls rather than give my kids fluoride treatments) but the wife handles those matters. You know my thoughts on money as I told you when I wrote “A Father and Husband in a Bad Economy”. We also talked of her pumping breast milk rather than buying formula this time around. I don’t like the thought of a machine or another person albeit my child, latching onto my wife but we have to do what we have to do. If this kid turns out to be smarter and healthier than the others, I will be pissed!

As you can see blog, I have a lot on my mind. I don’t know if I am coming or going. We also have to move but I don’t have the energy or the motivation to begin that process. Since the schools around here suck, we send our kids to private school. No, we cannot afford a private school but it is far better than the public school option in this town. Once I get motivated, I will begin to look for a place to live that is closer to my job but it must have a good public school system. Don’t you fret blog as everyone keeps saying it will work-out one day soon. I am still waiting as I have heard that before.

I guess I am done for now as I have thoroughly pleaded my case. You are truly a bright spot in which I like to visit and share my thoughts but times have been tough. After all, you are just another thing that needs attention and nurturing and I have been tapped out lately. I do promise to pay more attention and to try to post more often. However if I don’t…….KISS MY ASS! This is my blog therefore my rules!

My Blog - My Rules!

If You Can Move Your Fingers or Toes It Isn’t Broken

By Real Dad, January 10, 2010 9:50 pm

Yesterday I was having a twittersation with Ezmomm regarding cleaning products. She mentioned to me that she hates the smell of pine cleaners because it reminds her of the times when she was sick as a youngster and her mother would place a puke bucket next to her bed with Pine Sol at the bottom. I totally related to this as my mother and father did the same thing! It is funny how things happen because today that conversation topic partially played out in my house.

Today started out on a good note, I got to sleep until 7:30 so I was happy about that. I got out of bed and immediately went for the coffee and while I drank my beverage of life, the wife and I discussed the schedule for the day. The plan for me was to get a haircut (never happened), take Nicky to the store to by shin guards, cook chili and watch football. The wife was to take Nicky to his first soccer game then come home and do some laundry. Well it didn’t go down that way. After a little while we notice that our youngest isn’t feeling well. He was cranky and looked a little pale but all of my kids are pale so we didn’t pay it much attention. I ran to the store with Nicky and as soon I came home he was off to his soccer game. When the wife and Nicky walked in the door, I knew something was wrong because he was crying (aren’t I the brilliant and intuitive father?). My wife walks in behind him and said that he just threw up in the van. NICE! So I went outside with my father-in-law to clean the van.

By the time I cleaned the van seat and came back inside, Corey and Jordan were awake. Nicky was lying on the couch and the wife had placed a bucket on the floor next to him (minus the Pine Sol). That is when it all hit me! I started to think of all of the crazy things that my parents did when my brothers and I were sick or hurt. Most of it involves my mother but my father was good for one every now and again. I reflect back.

Don't worry Mom has a cream for that!

Don't worry Mom has a cream for that!

My first random memory occurs when I was maybe 6 or 7. We lived in Florida and like every other kid, I fell into a Fire Ant mound. I was covered in ants. My father and uncle heard me screaming and ran out. They picked me up and threw me in the shower. My mother didn’t think it was anything to worry about and she patted me down with calamine lotion but my body had little red bumps and I puffed up like the “Stay Puffed Marshmellow Man”. My father had the wits to take me to the emergency clinic and/or hospital and after a shot or two I turned out ok.

I also remember being  8 years old or so and I fell off of my bike. It didn’t hurt but you can see the bone pushing up under the skin. I walked home holding my arm and saw my mother outside as she was going shopping. I told her that I broke my arm and she asked me to move my fingers.

Move your fingers Mike!

Move your fingers Mike!

I moved my fingers (remember it was my arm that was broken and not all of my fingers) and she told me to go inside to my father because it wasn’t broken but he can put ice on it. I did what she said and went inside. One look and my father knew it was broken but we had to wait hours before she came home so I can be taken to the hospital.

A couple of years later, I ran into a metal gate and split my forehead open. I had blood running down my face and ran home screaming. I smashed open the door just yelling for my father. I remember my mother in the background somewhere yelling “Oh oh oh oh is he ok? Oh oh oh” while my father tried to assess the damage to my head. I wouldn’t let him see it and I was screaming. He smacked me across the face and told me to calm down. I did and he took me to the hospital for my 40 or so stitches.

There was another time when my brother Marc was around 11 or 12; I think he also fell of his bike and broke his ankle or something. He hobbled into the house and his foot was the size of a football and purple in color. My older brother and I immediately knew it was broken but my mother didn’t agree. She asked Marc to move his toes and he did. Her reply….”If you can move your toes, it isn’t broken”. We tried to convince her to take him to the hospital but she didn’t see the need. A few hours later my father came home and took the poor kid to the hospital.

OOOUCH!

OOOUCH!

The best story involves my older brother Eddie. He was around 16 and had the entire attic to himself as his bedroom. He was experiencing severe pains in his balls and they swelled up like grapefruits. The story goes (I was sleeping in the other room and had no idea of what was happening) that he crawled down the stairs and went into my parents bedroom. Since my mother was the closest to the door, he approached her with his swollen balls in hand. She rolled over and looked at him, as he was in tears telling her how much it hurt, and told him that he had a stomach ache and he would be fine. He made his way back to his room only to return later to wake up my father. My father immediately ran my brother to the hospital and he had emergency surgery to save his balls. Apparently it is a fairly common thing when a young man’s balls twist up like “Click Clacks” and the doctors knew exactly what they had to do.

I know there is more but these just came to mind quickly. It is truly amazing as I am sure I will do similar things to my kids. Sometimes you just get so numb of the crying and whining that you overlook something potentially serious. At least it provides me with blog content today!

Introducing #4

By Real Dad, January 4, 2010 10:48 pm

Alright, the holidays are over and we are back to the daily grind. I had the last 1.5 weeks off of work and spent every waking second with my family. That isn’t a bad thing but I will say it again, I do not envy stay-at-home parents! My wife decided to be a stay-at-home mom before we had Nicky but planned on returning to work at some point in the near

#4 Baking nicely

#4 Baking nicely

future. That didn’t happen because we had a 2nd and 3rd child within a very short time frame. Lately she has been working part-time at night at a local catering hall but I think that has stopped as business hasn’t been good. It really sucks since she found out she was pregnant with #4 right before Thanksgiving! That’s right, ANOTHER BABY!

I know that this whole baby thing is a blessing (or so I hear) but I am really having a hard time with this. We currently have 3 kids that we struggle to provide for. We do not have a fancy place to live, nice furniture (actually we do not have enough furniture to furnish every room), my wife and I do not go out (husband and wife time), we do not socialize with anyone except family, we send 2 of our kids to a private school that we cannot afford because the local schools suck, the wife and I go without buying much needed items such as new clothes, we do not take vacations and having 3 children ages 6, 4 and 3 just eats at your last nerve in general. Now I am not saying that I do not love my family because I certainly do but it isn’t easy and it is not all happy-happy-joy-joy!

We all have our issues and I am sure that I sound like a whining baby and I really don’t care as it is my blog and my rules . My wife and I have had a long-standing disagreement regarding the amount of children we should have. I wanted a vasectomy for several years now but she was against anything so definite. We explored our options and settled on birth control pills but she stopped taking them over the summer (why I am not sure and right now it doesn’t matter). Recently we were a little careless and maybe forgot the whole birth control idea, so we are certainly both culpable and I understand that. Knowing the error of our ways is great but it does not help me with the future of what I have in front of me right now.

How will we afford to raise the newest addition to our family? This isn’t 1910 so I cannot pull Nicky out of school to work in the local factory for 18 hours a day or send Jordan to harvest the crops! I was thinking of pulling straws to

The way it was.......

The way it was.......

determine which kid I would sell on the “black market” but I came to the conclusion that

A different time...and not worth repeating

A different time...and not worth repeating

wouldn’t go over well with the general public or law-enforcement officials. I even thought about becoming a pimp and “turning out” the wife but let’s face it, she is pregnant now and after she gives birth she will have to take care of #4. So what am I to do? I guess just the best I can.

I have a feeling that I will get a lot of flak for this post and I am prepared. As I told my wife, I don’t want to hear all of the “Oh this is great” or “What is the difference between 3 kids and 4 kids?”. It isn’t a happy time when you are completely clueless of where the money will come from to raise a family of 4 kids without some type of drastic change. By drastic change I mean pulling my kids out of their school and moving to a place in which the public schools are much better. The problem with that is we have to move far from where we are and my wife has been against being further then a short drive from her parents or my mine. I am also fully aware that some couples struggle to conceive a child and many view children as blessings

Just a little dream!

Just a little dream!

but we all have our struggles and this is mine. I know this sounds horrible but it is REAL and this is Real Dads Hangout; I tell it like it is! Unless someone jumps out of the corner of the delivery room with television cameras and a giant check with a lot of 0’s, I don’t want to hear it! I will of course fall in love with this baby and do everything I can for him or her and that goes without saying. It is the road that must be traveled by my family that I am a loathing. It will be long and bumpy so I hope we all come out in the end with all of our limbs and our sanity!

BRING IT YOU LIL CHILDREN BASTARDS, BRING IT! DADDY IS READY FOR FRIGGIN WAR!

Fatherhood Means Someone is Always Sick!

By Real Dad, December 6, 2009 11:00 pm

Lately fatherhood has meant one thing: ILLNESS! This latest round started on Thanksgiving with Nicky breaking out with “Pink Eye”. Right before we sat down for dinner, my brother noticed goop in Nicky’s eye. It quickly become a night of non-stop removal of eye goop. Other than the eye, he was fine. Although we have all been battling a little cold since

Neither of my sons but you get the gross point!

Neither of my sons but you get the gross point!

the beginning on November, nothing big broke out at this point.

Friday after Thanksgiving, Nicky wakes up with “Pink Eye” in his other eye! I felt bad for the kid but I couldn’t stop thinking to myself, fatherhood sucks sometimes! The goop was just oozing out consistently and of course it was Daddy’s job to clean it. The doctor called in a prescription for eye drops and I had to put them in every two hours. We got through the day without any major issues. Carrie went off to work and I put the kids in bed. Just a few hours later, Jordan-Rose wakes up crying and saying that her ears hurt….holy shit! What the hell do I do for an ear ache at 10:30 at night? I dug deep into the “Fatherhood when Mommy isn’t Home Manual” and decided to give her Motrin (for the pain) and Benedryl (to knock her out…. for my sake). It worked and within a few minutes she was back to sleep. A trip to the doctor the next day confirmed, a double ear infection with one ear being in bad shape. She was now prescribed an antibiotic and some thick ear drops.

Now we are up to Saturday and everything is going the way it should. We are putting the drops in Nicky’s eyes every two hours and putting the drops in Jordan’s ears every four hours. By mid-day they both seemed  to be getting much

I just thought this image was cool!

I just thought this image was cool!

better and Corey was as good as could be. His cold finally seemed to be on the way out and I was seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Night time comes and we hear some coughing. Carrie and I mute the television only to hear Corey in an uncontrollable coughing fit! She gets him out of bed to give him some medicine and lets him use his puffer. These coughing fits continue through the night until he woke up for good at 3:00 am!

Sunday was pretty uneventful and both Nicky and Jordan were much better. The eye goop seemed to have stopped and Jordan said her ears didn’t hurt. Corey was coughing here and there but nothing like the night before. However since Corey has had a history of lung issues (nothing serious) we were cautious. Corey always seems to get some type of infection that settles in his lungs and he is usually the child on prednisone in our house so we kept our guard up. That night he immediately started coughing when he was sleeping and again he was up at 3:00 am. I woke up with him and we watched cartoons until I got dressed for work and believe me; work was a welcomed break from this germ infested home!

When I came home from work late Monday night (somewhere around 8:00 or so), Carrie tells me that Corey now has “Pink Eye” in both eyes! HOLY FRIGGIN SHIT! Can’t we ever catch a break? Seriously?  Fatherhood didn’t seem so bad during the making of these children. It is certainly false advertising and I am filing a protest somewhere. I don’t know where I am filing this protest but sex should not be so good and so well hyped. I think I should go on a speaking tour of high schools across the country just telling the youth of America that children suck sometimes and god punishes you with goopy eyes, hurting ears, coughing kids, runny noses and dirty asses for years and years! I gotta tell ya, that 30 seconds of ecstasy I bestowed upon my wife has it’s drawbacks. And I am not bragging as that 30 seconds is a grand total for all three kids!

Sorry. Now we have “Pink Eye” in the four eyes of two kids, 2 aching ears and coughing. By the end of the night on Monday, Carrie and I are not felling well. FATHERHOOD sucks! I was never sick before I had kids and I mean I couldn’t remember a time when I was sick before kids unless I went back to grammar school or middle school.

Tuesday rolls in and out and everything seems better for the kids but Carrie and I felt like crap. We probably had a touch of the flu because we both had fevers, she had the chills. Wednesday was a much better day for me and I just plowed through my day at work only to return home to a double relapse of “Pink Eye” for Nicky and Corey. Come on folks, you cannot make this stuff up.

Fast-forward to today. The boys eyes are much better, Jordan is back to her stubborn and bossy self but Corey is still coughing a little. Carrie is going to call the doctor tomorrow. We care confident that he will want us to give him prednisone so I am sure Corey will be bouncing off of the walls tomorrow but that will be another story.

If you are the father of multiple children, this is nothing new to you. If you are thinking of being a father or are the father of one child, take my experiences and think before you poke. Fatherhood means many things and most of them are wonderful but for me, the last 1.5 weeks came down to this: “Fatherhood means someone is always sick!”

Marriage and Fatherhood – The Slow Decay of Machismo

By Real Dad, October 5, 2009 9:56 pm

Marriage means many different things to many different people. Most of these things are indeed great but some of

Me after marriage

Me after marriage

them….well not so great. Over the last few days, I have realized that any measurable quantity of machismo I once possessed has been lost. I have never been known as the typical “Guy’s Guy” but never really a sissy-la-la either; I usually ranked somewhere in between. Over the weekend I had some things happen that made me realize that marriage is slowly decaying my minimal machismo level. Here are some of the examples I thought of:

  • When my wife inferred that my haircut does not look good on my fat head, I did not say go f***yourself and throw an upper-cut
  • When my potty training 3 year old bent over in front of me and said “Daddy look at my butt” and spread his little ass cheeks apart I didn’t kick him straight in his ass
  • I am constantly cleaning pee from the toilet and floor when just a mere 10 years ago I would piss on the bowl, floor,wall and anything else within a 5 ft radius of the toilet in a drunken stupor then say “screw it!” and walk away
  • I have played with dolls, a toy kitchen set, a toy cosmetic bust along with many other girly things and I am not ashamed to admit it
  • I have cried in front of my wife and did not say “If you tell anyone about this I will KILL you”
  • I was hurt when my 4 year old daughter told me she didn’t like me
  • I have expressed to my wife on many occasions that something hurt
  • I admitted to my wife that I did not know how to do something
  • I said…….”I do”

As you can clearly tell, marriage changes a man. However I must say that I wouldn’t change it for anything!……..

Pssst…the wife may read this so I had to throw that in. See…again…machismo lost!

Fatherhood Means Poop On The Floor

By Real Dad, September 28, 2009 10:26 pm

Yes, the title says it all: FATHERHOOD MEANS POOP ON THE FLOOR!

The wife and I have been delaying our potty training of Corey until the other kids went off to school and so far Corey has been great. It has been about 2 weeks now and he has had minimal accidents which surprises me because he hasn’t shown any interest in using the toilet previously.

Yesterday afternoon was actually lazy time since Nicky was off to camp (that is what we tell Jordan and Corey when Nicky goes with his grandfather to Long Island to visit family) and the other 2 were taking a nap. I was going to try to take a nap myself but decided on watching some football in peace. Corey woke up only after sleeping for 1.5 hours and Jordan woke up soon after. Meanwhile, Carrie is passed out and I am stuck with a totally nude potty training 3 year old and a 4 year old. Yes I said totally nude because when we put pants on him he just pisses in them! So anyway, he immediately tells me that he has to do pee-pee so I whisk him off the the toilet. He does more then pee so I am happy because I am always concerned with my kids bowel movements, or as they say in Nicky’s school BM (what every happened to SHIT?). Fatherhood created a deep concern for the frequency and consistency of my kid’s BM’s (couldn’t resist myself), I don’t know why but it just did….. OK! I proceeded to clean his little butt and resumed my football watching position on the couch. Within seconds Corey tells me that he has to go pee-pee again. So I hoist my fat-ass off of the couch and back to the bathroom. He sits on the seat and immediately says that he is all done. I return to the couch and as soon as I lay down he says it again. Same story….nothing. We do this 2 0r 3 more times within the next few minutes with no results.

Alright, so now I am majorly annoyed. Carrie is still napping and I am trying to watch football with 2 small kids….1 of them nude yelling “I have to go pee-pee!” every 60 seconds. I sit down this time, in anticipation of having to get up again and I look over to see Corey’s face red and straining. You know that look, the look you would expect if a bowling ball was passing through your colon. He says to me in a raspy I am straining type voice “Dad-dy, I – have – to – DO – pooooppy….uuuhhhh”. I jumped up as if Megan Fox were naked at my door only to see a turd hit my living room floor!  I yelled  “Corey, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” and he simply replied – “Going poop Daddy”. I could not argue that. Before I could grab him and carry him to the bowl a junior turd dropped. What the hell? Needless to say I had to now wake up the wife. I had enough. We cleaned up the 2 turds and his ass to laugh hysterically. Although I was annoyed I was also extremely amused. Sick huh?

Fatherhood has meant a great many things to me over the past 6 year but I never expected that it also means poop on my carpet! How can a kid this cute just drop a DEUCE on my carpet?I don’t know but he only gets this one pass!

Dropping deuces everywhere he goes!

The Deuce Dropper!

When Did Parents Become Pansies?

By Real Dad, September 24, 2009 9:55 pm

I don’t know what made me think of this but all day I was wondering “when did parents become pansies?”.  By this I mean, when did parenting become what it is today? Parents now worry about things unthinkable when we (parents born in the 70′s or before) were babies, toddlers and little kids. This is not to say that many of things we do as parents today are not beneficial to our kids health both mentally and physically but are we going over-board?

While raising us (I have 2 brothers) my parents:

  • Had only 2 types of bottle nipples – beige for formula and blue for water
  • Used a safety pin to poke holes into the blue water nipple to make it a formula nipple
  • Maybe sterilized the bottles and nipples before they used them (for the 1st time only) with my older brother but most certainly did not with me and my younger brother
  • Used a cold cloth to wipe our asses
  • Smoked around us at all times
  • Gave us regular baby food
  • Did not play Beethoven to us while we were in the womb
  • Did not surround us with black, red and white objects
  • Did not have infant flash cards with funny shapes and designs
  • Did not HAVE CAR SEATS (glad we have them now but it wasn’t a concern 25+ years ago)
  • Let us roam around the back of the station wagon and hang out of the window as long as we didn’t bother them
  • Whacked us (well the older brother and me… not such my younger brother) on the ass when we DESERVED it
  • Put soap in our mouths when we spoke inappropriately and when I clinched my teeth shut my father used liquid dish soap
  • Did not explain why they said no – NO JUST MEANT NO
  • Let us play with toy guns
  • Let us watch cartoons in which the cat hits the mouse on the head with a hammer or the roadrunner blows up the coyote (today’s cartoons do not hold a match to the old cartoons!)
  • Instructed us to play baseball or football in the street
  • Did not have a chart on the wall explaining the events of the day
  • Told us to shut up when they were on the phone or talking to other adults
  • Made us eat what they cooked  and if we didn’t like it, we didn’t eat
  • Gave us white bread with PEANUT BUTTER on it (not knocking allergies as they are serious but these types of allergies were relatively non-existent when we were kids)
  • Laughed when I got caught looking up my teacher’s skirt in the 1st grade
  • Yelled at me all of the time
  • Rubbed whiskey on our gums when we were teething
  • Let us have a sip of beer
  • Let us watch hours of television
  • Told us to punch back harder if someone punched us

Now I  must admit that Carrie and I would not do some of the things listed above and we DID play Beethoven to Nicky while he was in the womb (1x only). Growing up I did not know one child with autism, a learning disability, a personality disorder or anything of the like. Again, I am not negating the seriousness of these issues, as they are real and horrible diseases/disorders to deal with (read my post “Fatherhood’s Perfect Dream and Nightmare“). Were these medical conditions just not diagnosed when we were kids or did they not exist? Are these problems created by the immunizations we let doctors give or kids, the sonograms women have while pregnant or the food we feed or children? I don’t have the answers but we all know that the amount of cases of these diseases/disorders in children is on the rise and we do not have an answer. This just made me think of the differences regarding how we parent our children and how our parents raised us. Just some food for thought!

How did I become a pansy? I don’t know!

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