13 Things on Thursday about Being a Parent that You Should Think About

One: You are an idiot.

Two: Your opinions are to the wisdom of your eleven year old boy as paleolithic man is to an astronaut.

Three: The only reason one should learn higher math is so that when your daughter asks you to explain a trig formula, you can confidently pronounce the answer from the back of the book.

Four: However; you never understood quadratic equations, you never will understand quadratic equations, refer to number one.

Five: The only truly effective parenting technique so closely resembles good-cop-bad-cop routines that you will begin to take notes during Law & Order.

Six: You will discover--from their vocabulary--the only time your children listen is in the car.

Seven: Sympathetic magic is real. When I took my toddler son to the Sanford Zoo in Florida, he was distractingly fascinated by the three toed sloths, standing rooted to the walkway for twenty minutes staring at the immovable animal with a look of divine grace. I thought he was farting. Eight years later, I understand: he'd found his God. Three toed sloths in our neighborhood race past this kid, elbow him out of the way, and say 'who's the slow kid?!' I'm not lying.

Eight: The D.A.R.E. program isn't to keep kids off drugs, it's to keep parents off drugs. Think I'm lying? Just wait until you're at Buffalo Wild Wings ordering a Newcastle and your kid says "Beer is drugs, Dad! You're taking drugs! My dad takes drugs!" The waitress said "I'll bring you an Iced Tea," with a wink. I tipped her $20.00.

Nine: You are made out of money. It doesn't matter that you bought the kid an xbox three sixty. You also have to buy him the wifi connection, xbox live account, Gears of War, Rock Band, and a spare guitar so his friend can play bass with him for fourteen seconds before they toss the whole rack on the floor and go out to glue scrap cardboard to their bike-forks so their spokes will rattle, thereby playing with garbage for an hour after you dropped nearly 7 bills on a video game system that could pilot the space shuttle.

Ten: You will experience the urge to kill. (Refer to number nine).

Eleven: You will face the dilemma of birth control pills with candor and resolve. Even when they are prescribed by your daughter's ob/gyn who swears your daughter doesn't need them for actual birth control but to control the random and overwhelming effects of her orc horde. You will repeat this respectable raison d' acclaim to yourself like a holy mantra as you drink fistfulls of martinis in an effort to erase the barely perceptible evil grin your daughter was trying desperately to suppress as you were thusly schooled.

Twelve: You will learn not to post stuff like that on the internet because as much as you're Googling her dates before they go out with her, they're Googling her which means they're Googling you, which means your stupid tell-all blog is their number one stalker's reference page. Dumbass.

Thirteen: You will learn patience. Not by some kind of hallmark afternoon special hands folded treacly bull caca. You will learn by the daily practice of forward thinking. Every time your kid trips over their brand new bass guitar, their Ps3, their fortress of Anime, or their library card while succumbing to the mind-numbing effects of tween/teen sudden-loss-of-constant stimulation, while nearly fainting from it while muttering their hive-mind/Borg mantra 'I'm so booooored'. While that happens you will not erupt with WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE ; nor will you throw a book at them; nor will you tell them they'd be less bored if they'd try to clean their lair for three minutes; nor will you sigh dejectedly, throw your hands in the air and surrender your wallet.

No.

You will do the following Tantric exercise, recommended by the ceaseless research conducted at the Death By Children Institute for Parental Sanity: close your eyes; envision yourself standing on the sidewalk as your youngest child packs his very last bag into a rusty clunker on his way to college three or perhaps ten thousand miles away from you. Smile warmly, appear happy/sad, crinkle your crows feet as much as possible. Now, envision yourself reaching back and patting your back pocket wherein lie two round trip tickets to an all inclusive trip to Vegas.

Baseball

ports are not my thing. They never have been. Unless someone invents the 100-yard smartass, I'm never going to win any athletic competition. I never played football, never played basketball, never freaked out over a fantasy football draft, never wrestled. I was on a forensics team for like one day--and I played little league.

Now my son is playing baseball and he's into it like he's falling off a cliff. We've spent a grand total of fourteen million dollars outfitting him with digital socks, a laser guided mitt, kevlar penis armor, and training equipment including personal visits from Whitsox players and the ghost of Babe Ruth. As I directed the wagon train of teamsters to the register at Sports Authority, I realized youth baseball is a racket and I'm it's biggest sucker.

But I don't care. I'll spend another million tomorrow because my son is into it. He's all about the baseball. He eats sunflower seeds, spits, hustles his juevos on the baseline, fidgets with his hat, keeps his foot on the bag, dusts his hands and checks the air flow . . . and disco dances.

I remember little league. I remember left field. I remember no kids could ever put it out there and if they did the third baseman (showoff) would be under it before I could even start running so I mostly stared at the traffic and ate mulberries from an absolutely gargantuan mulberry tree. The mulberries on this thing were as long as my middle finger and I'd come in from defense with purple stains on my Owls uniform. So I know all about the boredom of left field. I assume it's the same in right. It must be because in his game yesterday, Roon wasn't staring through the gap between second and first at the batter and chattering like a steely eyes Whitesox player. He was busting a move.

When I say he was busting a move, I mean he was John Travolting. You could tell by the way he used his walk. It didn't last long and as I was sitting next to one of the most charmingly unabashed Scout moms in the world whom I've known long enough that she wouldn't hesitate to punch me on the shoulder and scream, hey, look at your gay son, I know no-one else saw it. But I did. It's burned into my mind: a spastic hip pumping finger pointing head shaking Staying Alive poster emulating jig right there in right field and I know it was totally spontaneous and I know he's going to do it again. I know it.

The Roon likes the disco. He routinely erupts into a hip thrusting ten year old boy version of Bad by Michael "I Live In B'Hrain Cause They Won't Arrest Me Here" Jackson that, in my day, would get his ass kicked faster than wearing a tutu. Worse, it makes him laugh and when Roon laughs, his bones turn into Jell-O and he falls down.

So here's what I'm looking at: it'll be the big game in the clutch and Roon'll be playing first base. The other coach will have a brief talk with his next batter up giving Roon just enough time for his mind to wander and he'll forget where he is and he'll spaz out into his John Travolta tourrettes syndrome thing, realize he's doing it, start laughing, and fall down just as the third baseman throws the ball to clinch a triple play and it sails over his prone, wiggling, possibly urinating form.

At least he's happy.

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Why Men Shouldn't Watch Sex in the City with their Teen Daughters, for the love of Christ!

I may have mentioned that [My Attorney] and I are somewhat liberal in our parenting values. I should say we are a weird mix of Catholic conservatism and freak hippy liberalism. I.g., I don't care if my kids cuss but I don't want them cussing in front of my relatives or on Easter Sunday. This also means that while we have raised our little girl with the care and attention and best education regarding sex we can possibly find and/or afford, and while we realize that we can't raise her to be a sophisticated genius AND a prude, we remain mortified whenever she proves the level of sophistication she has achieved vis-a-vis a clinical understanding the humdrum sex lives of most Americans.

I am regularly distressed by some wry comment or the sound of her laughing to a dirty joke I didn't know she could hear, distressed because she gets it which means she understands it which means AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!! It makes my brain shrivel. But this point of view has been coming at us like a glacier on skates since she started rocking her traveling boob display case wardrobe and being beautiful on purpose. Also, my daughter is a measurable and certified genius, gets a 4.0 at Superhero High School, and can, as she displayed at th Rusty Armadillo rooftop Margarita oasis yesterday, explain RNA versus DNA protein transference through cell wall membranes, from memory--IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER. So when [My Attorney] suggested we invite her and her visiting highly sophisticated artist cousin to watch it with us (she's been iTuning it and letting them watch) I didn't think twice. I just took my customary chair, patted my daughter on the head, clicked the remote and AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

It was porn. I mean, ok, it was porn if you're Mormon. But still, as sophisticated and aloof and urbane as I'd like to blieve I really am, I spent most of the show with my face buried in my hands while [My Attorney] fumbled wildly with the complicated PAUSE ACTUATOR SEQUENCE INITIATION DEVICE and my daughter howled with mirth at our silly bourgeois prudishness--and the face of the guy doing the horizontal mambo over the shoulder of one of the main characters.

But I made it through this important plot device at the very opening of the show and thought "it can't get any worse" until it did and an entire storyline was devoted to one woman being hugely disappointed by her new boyfriends not being, um, huge. The conversation on the screen proceeded through a discourse on the value of a boyfriends', um, added value, that it was over before I could heave a chair through the gas plasma screen and I was left, again, glaring at [My Attorney] who was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, all while my daughter screamed.

This is coming on the heels of our most recent family movie, scheduled at the last minute when the DARK KNIGHT was, again, sold out at our favorite luxurious theater, and we said oh, ok, let's got see Wanted, which is a really REALLY good movie for eleven year old boys and 15 year old girls if, a) you really want them to see a guy banging his best friend's girlfriend against the sink during his lunch break while he checks his watch and, b) the kind of high definition entry and exit wounds that would make Sam Pekinpah shoot himself for being such a loser with his paltry slomo dime shot shots.

But the flip side is the best-friend-betrayer and his girlfriend get a non-lethal and wholly justified comeuppance in Wanted which (I hope) teaches the leeches that bad manners will get you a swift backhand from former friends and gratuitous sex is stupid.

As for watching SATC with my daughter, you can bet your adze it ain't happening again. I truly don't mind if she watches it with [My Attorney] but I hope to never have to sit through another HBO porn shot in the same room as my burgeoning goth princess.

My kids are TRYING to be the death of me.

Manday is Post Webelos Blues Day

Mini me crossed over into Scouting yesterday eve and thus ends a long and fruitless era in community service for your humble scribe.

I was hoping the boys, seven highly intelligent sons of detectives, a banker, a goldsmith, a stone fabricator, and yours truly, would erupt in emotion, would crowd around me and sing my praises and give me the keys to a brand new car. But that's not how it went down.

After the whole ordeal was over and the carefully crafted Chippewa Indian arrows were delivered into the hands of the cub scouts who'd earned them under my semi-neglectful tutelage, after the bags of awards had been hauled into their parents trophy wagons, and after the debris from Italian beef sandwiches and zitti had been scraped up off the auditorium floor, the Scoutmaster gathered his new protoges around him and welcomed them into his troop. He explained that they'd be having a lot of fun, that they would become a patrol and would need to make up a name for themselves (ie: blazing bluejays, pirates, dinosaurs). Naturally they were excited about this and started shouting ideas. But the scoutmaster interrupted them and gave them the god news that I would be following them over as their patrol leader.

Inside, I braced myself for my usual uncontrollable weeping fit whenever something even remotely noble or grandly traditional manages to come my way and I even started working up a little humility speech when one of the kids raised his hand and was recognized by the Scoutmaster.

"Can we vote on that?"




(Little %&$!@#, ingrateful %$^$#@, hyperactive opossum shavers. I hope they get tangled up in a stevedoer's knot. Sugar addicted monkey kissin' . . . freakin . . . dadgum . . . )

The Dude will Abide.

Ok, last Manday I mentioned how I was looking forward to my friend's birthday bash at the Brau Haus. Well it was fairly damn great. I was full-on Vegas in my suit thinking I was going to be the odd man out but Dan was suited up so we were the
elegant pair everyone else aspired to.

But I learned a lesson. Ask how much the beers are before you buy a bunch of them for everyone. And the boot, the boot is for pros only. Still, a very manly night with much drinking, the septuagenarian septet on stage, HUGE beers, sausage, and three or four boots.

Now, for the Manday manly link of manliness:

http://www.lebowskitheory.com/frameset.html

Dude.

Mashed Potato Burgers are GO!

My family has gotten used to an ala carte life style. Since they all come home at different times, I tend to customize our evening meal based on my experience of what makes them go ew. You have to make peace with your kids' tastes because if you don't, you're going to have a very fat dog. Nobody wants a fat dog. However, some dishes have universal appeal and Mashed Potato Burgers fall into the "Oh Yeah, gimme more" end of the spectrum.

1. USDA Angus beef, ground, turned into thick patties. Enough for your crew.
2. Mashed potatoes, garlicked, buttered, creamed.
3. Preferred cheese, grated.
4. Cajun spice.

Boil potatoes in big chunks. Drain 'em, mash 'em, garlick 'em, and finish 'em with butter and cream. Set aside, covered, to keep them warm.

Grate your cheese. I like a manchego.

Make your patties thick, with a deep well in the center. This isn't for the potatoes, this is because thick patties tend to be bloody in the middle. Dimple them with your thumb and they cook perfectly even. Coat the patty with a light dusting of cajun spice.

Get the pan hot. I mean HOT, man. Lay the patties on the griddle. You should hear a nice cinematic searing sound. Turn the heat down to medium high and cook the patties to just under your preferred doneness--of you like 'em medium-well, then take them off the fire at medium.

Fire up your broiler.

Layer each patty with a thick layer of the mashed potatoes. Pile it high! Top it off with the cheese, pop it in the broiler ti melt the cheese and finish the burgers.

Serve immediately with steamed broccoli or zucchini.

Does this tie make me look fat?

Sgt. Dave Haynes and prisoner.

Is it me or do I look like I'm asleep? I swear this is not a picture of me farting. And I was dressed to the nines, baby. For radio. What a dork.

You can't see it but I'm smoking a wonderful La Gloria de Cubana Serie R Oscuro. Nectar, man.

Keeping a healthy nutrition habit is always a good idea, but if you will be going through childbirth in the coming months then healthy food is even more important. Since the food pyramid might be a little out of date consulting a doctor on your diet during pregnancy is a good idea.

13 Things on Thursday: Poop Slang

Based on the response to Tuesday's feature, I'm including a list of preferred poop euphemisms for when someone pounds on the bathroom door and asks: WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?

1. Parking a Buick


2. Searching for Wi Fi


3. Combinatorial RNA Research


4. Occupying Wall Street


5. Playing Angry Birds


6. Hanging chad


7. Voting for Romney


8. Going Dark


9. Re-enacting episode 7 from last year's season of Glee


10. Ejecting a round


11. Yoga


12. Shots


13. Scrabblepooping.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE AND MAY OFFEND CANADIANS

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There are some aspects of parenting life men don't like to talk about. When we spawn daughters, we open ourselves to learning about lady parts and lady systems and when we do, we raise our fists to heaven and cry Why, Lord, why?!

We learn, for instance, that women, when living together for a long time, often exhibit a tendency to join cycles.

That's code, by the way. That sentence expresses medical information so vile and revolting to men that it must be rendered carefully, with the utmost respect for the ladies and, more importantly, with words that won't make a man involuntarily stab himself in the ears.

Because we are weak! We are trembly! We can talk about sports injuries with bones protruding from the skin topped with spleen remnants like little flags of decorum because we are men and hunting and trucks and I had to skin a bear this one time and the blood, you wouldn't believe the—what was I talking about?

So women cycle. We all know this. Favorite secret women stuff trivium.

Here's what we have not been told, the remarkable truth: men cycle too.

No, I am not talking about manpon moments. I do not support the recent theory of MANstrual cycles. That's idiotic and once a month I really get bent out of shape about it. No, we often express an entirely different rhythm.

We poop cycle.

I know this because my son has morphed into a mesomorph of sasquatchian proportions and like his shoes, his shirts, his underwear, and his appetite, his big jobs have grown to match.

His turds are cthulian.

And though I often am called upon to wield the reverse rubber blunderbuss—regularly—to dislodge one of his terrifying dumposauri, I do so with the slpenetic aplomb any seasoned father employs.

What's getting to me is not the mind boggling size of his expressions, but their frequency. Specifically, the recent phenomenon whereby his sudden and urgently imminent missions seem to occur mere seconds after I have settled into a mission of my own.

I will find myself in the library, with a book, a cup of coffee, some light music, and get to the matter at hand, when I am interrupted by his fists pounding on the door.

"Dad, what are you doing!?"

"Filing a memo."

"Dad, I need to get in there."

"I haven't even opened my book!"

"Dad! This is SERIOUS!"

"We have three bathrooms, kid."

"Well, use the one upstairs!"

"You realize, I'm currently parking a buick."

"OH MY GOD! DAD! Let me in!"

"The basement bathroom is pretty close."

"SO AM I!"

This happens with alarming regularity. Why he cannot employ one of the auxiliary bathrooms is beyond me. Maybe he thinks they're haunted. (After he uses one, I might agree.) And [My Attorney], naturally, takes his side, imploring me to choose one of the associate loos as my preferred dropping off point. But I refuse. I am the man of the house—by seniority if not by size—and I get dibs.

Why scientists have not made this phenom a priority study, I'll never know, but it is a matter of great urgency. We stay-at-home dads writers need uninterrupted periods of research and reflection. Having a dancing Sasquatch pounding on the door of your library makes it hard to study.