Happy Bday Peanut

My daughter turned 3 years old yesterday.  For her 3rd bday, she got the same thing my ol' man got me.  A job.  Time to start earning her keep.  Those tiny, nimble fingers can really wind a bobbin.  7 cents a piece!

We took her to the carnival on sunday and the zoo yesterday.  Really fun.  The carnival was amazing, she laughed and yelled her way through all the kiddy rides and while we grabbed a snack she started eyeballing the rides with names like the Freak Out or the Death Knell or Puppy Killer or The Aneurysm, which was always my favorite.  Me I like rollercoaters, but the rides that make you dizzy, well, I’m a puker. And I found that out the hard way on something called the sizzler or maybe the rattlesnake.  Either way, I managed to puke over the side from 20 feet up.  Way to impress a date.  No puking for the Peanut though.

The zoo was very nice  We saw Silver back Gorillas and a Lion and 2 Tigers .  She was a bit of a pain in the ass, as the number one thing on her to do list was the zoo playground.  Which was not a spectacular playground.  I offered to let her slide down a giraffe's neck, but then a bunch of official looking dudes started milling around and mumbling things like  "harassment" and "animal cruelty" and "endangering a child" and "felony."  Some people.  All they want to do is ruin a little girl's birthday.   I'll just lie to her about it later.

As someone once said, "find joy in your children, and make their happiness your happiness. Because once you have kids, your own joy and happiness is over."

Happy birthday, my tiny, perfect, little girl.  I love you like crazy and you amaze me every single day.

Love

Daddy

Dribs and drabs?

What's a good cutesy title for a post where you just have a couple quick things to say and you want to get them out of the way? Leftovers? Loose strings? Bits'npieces! I think that is the one that would make someone want to kick me in my bb's.
Bongos? Bingos!

Bingo-bongos?

First, I felt weird about my last post. So this is an apology.

My wife said: "Rape jokes aren't funny."

I said: "You're smiling. And besides, it's more of a not worthy of you so I have to blah blah blah annoying senseless noises coming from my mouth. And rape jokes are too funny. And you're smiling."

She said: "I'm your wife (implication: "you butt munch.").

So, that might be an ok point. So I apologize if I offended.

Secondly, my 2 year old girl has started conversing about her vagina lately. Often, I'm fine with it.

This exchange however, I actually found delightful.

Peanut: (her name) has a 'gina."

Me: yes you do sweetie.

Peanut: "Daddy and Baby pumpkin man have a penis."

Me: That's right, very good.

Peanut: (her name) has a 'gina and mommy have a gina. Mommy have a big BIG 'gina.


I'm sure this is purely a matter of perspective.


gigglingly,

Homemaker Man

Babies in the air

Look out! They squish when they land. There are babies coming everywhere however. My brother in-law and his wife are expecting in February. He is a great and funny guy on whom I will now have my revenge. About 7 months ago he taught my 2 year old the Peanut to "swim" in our fish tank. And that's only one of a dozen moments where his sense of humor overrode his good judgement. I can't wait to get my hands on his baby. That kid's first word is going to be the F bomb. Seriously. Ideally he'll be screaming it while flushing his father's socks down the toilet. An uncle can dream.

Also on the clock for a baby are these fine gentlemen, who have found an egg donor. Congrats guys. And this is not a shameless ploy to win the contest they are running. Shame went out the window right about the time I had my first kid. It just weighs you down.

Oh Blog, I'm Sorry, I Can't Deal. School is Here

So, I haven't posted in a while. The formatting problem with my blog is one reason. All my stuff, links, info and so forth, is down at the bottom of the page. I can't muster the time or attention span to sit down and attend to it properly. That stuff sort of intimidates me. Nuts and bolts computer stuff. I am bullied by html. One time I was wedgied by code. A downloading error once took my lunch money. etc.

The other reason is that I am a stay at home dad, and my wife went back to work today after summer vacation. This is like tax season for accountants or Halloween for delinquents. Busy, busy, busy. Gotta get a lot of the big projects that went unattended to (read:ignored) over the summer finished. Front yard, back yard. Laundry. Not all the laundry of course. I kept bathing suits and shorts clean all summer. Mostly. Thank You.

And I have to leave time to stress about the fact that the Pumpkin Man for some reason decided to quit taking his bottle a day, deciding that yelling at us until his mother basically left her breast out forever was the better choice. I'm torn I admit. And The Peanut is now old enough to really notice that her mom is gone all day and ask for her or for her whereabouts. Usually she knows where we are at all times. In her head if she doesn't see one of us then that means that "mommy's sleepin'" or "daddy's poopin'. Yep, I'm regular and she's exhausted.

My daughter the Peanut or Skinny Toddlers Suck

We call our daughter the Peanut because she is small. Short and very skinny. Like a pixie or a midget heroin junkie. As my wife says, she's the only two year old you'll meet with a six-pack.

Developmentally she's doing very well cognitively and well enough physically. For a while she was in the tenth percentile for height and third for weight. And although we're talking jockey and Tom Cruise stunt double as future career possibilities we were ok with that. Our doctor told us as long as she stays at those numbers, there is no problem.

So, we fed her very healthy stuff. As my wife's blog (yeah, that's right, one couple, two blogs. Sue us.) will attest to, we started out feeding her all the right stuff. Organic, locally grown, high fiber, blueberry, and brown rice soy balls with an organic cane sugar glaze cooked using renewable wind energy in an oven made out of hemp.

And then the doctor said that she had "fallen off the (weight) chart" and used terms like 'failure to thrive" and "tube feeding." And we were lost.

"This isn't our fault. She's got a fast metabolism. Everything will be fine." we told each other over and over again because the one was sure that the other was always lying.

We didn't discuss this with many of the people around us. Personally, I was a little worried about being judged. In my own defense a lot of these people were not exactly up on the latest in infant nutrition. By way of example, the Peanut has a great aunt who tried to give her both lemon meringue pie and honey when she was 8 months old. So she had to be talked to about what she could and couldn't feed our baby daughter:

"Yes on the dry cheerios, auntie. No on the peanut brittle. "

We found ourselves with precious little in the way of a support system and scared out of our minds.

Then, we had an epiphany. Doughnuts! O Happy Day. Or more specifically, Donuts. The Peanut loves donuts.

From that moment on she has been on a 6 chocolate munchkins a day diet. That, along with recommended supplementary additives to most of her food (read: Butter, cheese, cream, butter flavored cheese with creamed cheese butter and butter. And cheese.) has put on, "as much weight as I could've hoped for," to quote her pediatrician at the last weigh-in. So we will continue.

An added wrinkle is the use of one M&M per bite as a bribe when she is being stubborn about eating. Which happens pretty often because she can feel our tension at meals which to her means power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Plus, the Peanut is a little on the bossy side. Sometimes it's like eating diner with Augusto Pinochet.

But, all in all, things are going better. We've relaxed our rules mostly around snack time and at dinner we still try to mostly give her the organic stuff, just soaked with organic butter.

So to those of you who have had the same problem, you can handle it. And for those who like to judge, don't hate. It's unbecoming.