Eat It

There’s no way I should be hiding all of the truth from people if this is going to be a readable blog, right?  Who wants to read regurgitated horse-S from a guy who sorta speaks his mind if it’s probably not going to bother people?  Truth is, if you’re bothered then I said something that hit a part of you that you’re likely not happy about. You’ll stop reading or you’ll hate me and come back out of spite.  Or you’ll agree and we can say “OK, let’s go forward.”  It’s not my intent to offend anybody – that’s just a bonus.

So about these homo’s getting married…  KIDDING, loosen up.  Every adult should be allowed to enter a legally-recognized civil union and you can call it whatever you want, as long as we’re treated equally and allowed, on our own accord, to screw it up on a case-by-case basis.

It’s my intent to share whatever I can from my personal perspectives on life, parenting, health, and work in hopes it will connect with whomever reads this, and will keep them coming back, and they’ll tell their friends.  Hopefully it will be entertaining, either from a comedy or mildly dramatic view.  But overall it’s unfair to ask for anybody’s time if this is boring and repetitive and another boring “DadBlog.”  I’ve read a few and thought how truly boring the dad’s come across, and wonder if they’re coming off like that to get laid at blogger conferences or if they really are that wussified.  I have plenty of Compromise DNA in me, but a few entries on a few other DadBlogs almost made an “innie” out of my scrotum.

Where-to from there?  How about food!?  Shouldn’t try and ride the horse through highest waters just yet.

We’re having a renaissance of toddler eating habits in our house.  With 1 toddler and 1 nurser and everybody working full-time there’s only so much time and so many hands with-which to prepare food.  Many experts (I know they are because they wrote it on a website!) about toddler eating have said to give your kid what you’re eating, and they’ll come around to it.

Let/Make them try a lot of things.  They won’t starve unless you with-hold all food from them.  As parents WE dictate to the CHILD what’s available to eat.  It doesn’t have to be dungeon gruel and the last of the ox gristle.  But if we gave in to our son’s pouting about meals every time he hit a 7 on the Grumpometer, he’d have a steady diet of cookie-rabbits and juice.  While it would ensure zero hassle at meal time,  it would probably damage my oldest boy’s physical and emotional development.  He’d be on an unhealthy path via nutrition and constant catering to his whims.  The world doesn’t work like that, we don’t work like that, so neither will meal time.

In doing so we’ve had a few shortened lunches and dinners while baby carrots were left on the plate and cries came from the booster seat.  Sometimes a single floret of broccoli designated the entire table a war-zone.  Then eventually a few berries were eaten.  Then a lot more.  Then some brown rice with chopped vegetables became a staple.  And recently the baby carrots diminished by a few by the end of the meal.  He actually lived, acted, and slept very well in the aftermath of regularly having various foodstuffs on his plate.  We usually have a starring role for a nearly-natural chicken nugget trio, a yogurt-fruit smoothie, applesauce, whole-grain pancakes, and the like.  But as a dad who has fought the weight battle my whole life I want to get good nutrition habits into my son from early on.  I can’t do that if I don’t eat healthy.  I’m not perfect – I’ve had sensuous moments with brownies and slices of pizza that I still think of when I’m hungry – but at the very least I want my boys to try all kinds of food, see what they like, then mash it up into a paste and bake it into a cookie shape so they’ll eat it, stay thin, and have a perfect life.  The end.

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ADD’ing It Up – Alpha Brain, NOW Foods, and Hope

I may have ADD.  I’m pretty sure I can’t chalk up the numerous side-steps and half-done projects of my life to being distracted by others all the time.  Some of these loose ends are perhaps my nature, but some of them are things that, left undone, leave me worse-off.  A lack of focus, or a compulsivity to anti-work, combined with a desire to really, truly WANT to finish something is a fantastic step towards the maddening of everybody who depends on me in some way.  Like Family and Work, you know… no bigs.  New baby, longer commute, less sleep, oh yeah, recipe for success, folks.

Whatever level of ADD I have, however it’s categorized, isn’t like a form of mental illness, for me.  There’s a point of medication a “crazy” person can take that dials down the crazy to a level where they can function as a person, but perhaps not a spouse or parent or friend.  I feel for those people, having seen my own father lose a battle with dementia at too early an age.  I’m not crazy; more like my brain runs 10,000 RPM most of the time, and it’s shooting sparks and ideas and things I ought to go do, but nothing is there to put it in gear.  That’s where my new adventure comes in.  I am positive and happy that a lot of people in our lives have a cocktail of brain chemicals that are better off stirred with a little extra shot of this-‘r-that.  But that’s not where it stops, in the doctor’s office.

The past few months have been somewhat cleaner, mind-wise.  First, I was turned on to something called “Alpha Brain” via Joe Rogan’s tweets.  I’m skeptical of most things, but imagine playing a game of bumper cars with your ideas every day.  DO THIS, I’M DOING THIS RIGHT AFTER I DO THIS, BUT FIRST I’LL DO THIS AND THAT WILL BE THERE LATER… what was I going to do again?  Then just a period of unproductive screen staring.  Go into a room to get the laundry.  Clean the room.  Forget the laundry.
Seriously, this cannot be just boredom with life.  Plus there was a feeling as if I had a fog, a layer of fuzz in the middle of my head that was like the fog of a hangover without the pain.  I feel most days like my brain is holding its breath all day.  So when I saw Alpha Brain, I was willing to try anything.  Plus it’s a natural supplement.  I can’t be staunchly anti-pharma when trying to medicate myself back to normal wavelength, but I do believe that Nature holds a cure for nearly every human ailment.  And holy shit, folks, Alpha Brain is the REAL DEAL.  The fog was gone. The acuity was razor.  The 3-steps-ahead thinking was automatic.  I’m not talking “Limitless” starring Bradley “A-List Ass All Day” Cooper, but the closest I’d ever get.    I have a few Alpha Brain left for some of my more important days coming up.    $35 plus shipping.

It was a bit pricey for me to keep re-upping at the time, so I researched NOW Foods, and found 2 of their supplements close to what Alpha Brain delivered.  First, Brain Elevate, and also, True Focus.  Natural supplements, not loaded with lab-borne items.But the cocktail of BE and TF have served me very well in the past 2 months.  Most days I’ll take 2 BE and a TF in the morning with water and a cup of coffee.  There’s not only a focus but also a calmness; I’m not buzzed, I’m just There.  No panic, no mental ping-pong.  Focused and cognisant of what I’m supposed to do.  True, this is a medicated version of me, and probably a laconic one.  But I’ve also performed comedy after “dosing,” and I’ve never felt sharper or more in-gear than those sets.  Total investment, $22 through www.Netrition.com.

So now I’m about to start trying something called Concerta, a.k.a. Methylphenidate.  Yeah, this stuff costs $153 on my Aetna plan, thanks a ton for the NoPremium/HighDeductible plan!  Concerta may help me a bit better or worse than where I am.  It may zone me out.  It may dial me in.  I don’t really know.  But for $153, it either has to work all the way or I’ll be incredibly pissed off.  This is a prime example of why BigPharma is going after supplement companies in Congress.  See the giant gap in the Supplement Price vs. Concerta?  $100 less for all-natural ingredients.  Still not sure I’m gonna go on this stuff.  I fear mostly the zombie effect that these drugs can throw into the day.  If anybody has any experience with it, lemme know.  For the most part I feel as happy and dialed-in as ever without something like this, not knowing how strong it is.

But I ain’t losing sleep over it.

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A Full Stocking

There are dozens if not many movies made about the festering dysfunction that makes itself known around this time of year. Office parties where the owner’s wife gets handsy after a couple Gimlets. Stepbrother faking gay to stop the “meet a nice girl” onslaught. Moms. Condense that into 2 weeks of heated indoors, sweaters, power-drinking, and giving-induced guilt trips and VOILA, it’s the Holidays, assholes!

This year was a bit more exciting for us with 2 boys.  Most notably was the influx of disease that marked the entire month of December.  First-boy got double pink-eye, gave it to to New-boy.  First-boy gets a cough, gives it to everybody.  Mom beats it, dad beats it.  Slowly roiling in New-boy, it turns to a chest cold, which is serious for a 7 week-old.  Our entire holiday season was notably red with the pink of eyes, and green with the mucous of love.

So, long story shortened up, we’re spending next Christmas in a tropical place far away from everybody and especially my grandmother who can’t stop asking questions about shit nobody cares about.

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And Baby Makes Four

With major amounts of joy and acceptable sleep, we happily announce the arrival of our second child, Griffin Lott.  Born 12:35am on Nov. 3, 2011, this boy is already a very different, very special little guy than his incredibly wonderful big brother, Graham.  In fact, Griffin’s 9lb 5oz bod eclipsed Graham’s first weigh-in by nearly 2 pounds.  He is very different in many ways, from size to hair to sleeping… oh thank sweet-swinging Willie for the sleeping… God forbid we speak ill of our children, our PERFECT, SMART, INTUITIVE, LONG-DIVISION PROBLEM-SOLVING TODDLERS!….
but… Graham wasn’t a sleeper.  That kid was constantly awake.  His first 8 months go down as “The Dark Days,” where it seemed the only sleep we got was in the day when his exhaustion overcame his will to stare and bleat at us while we were nodding off.  So this is obviously different.  6 straight hours felt like emerging from a divine womb.  It sucked hard.  It sucked hard and long.

Parents with multiple kids have mostly said the 2nd one is “easier.”  We’re not dancing the New Parent Jitterbug, obsessing over every detail from room temperature to warming the post-bath lotion.  We’re more relaxed so Griffin’s more relaxed, and that seems to have had an effect on Graham, too.  So maybe WE are easier.  Graham is as affable, outgoing, and sweet a kid as I could hope for without having some freako nerdload trying to hug everybody and endlessly doffiing his cap at the passers-by.  But that’s from consistency in our discipline and steering, and as much loving rebuke as we can muster when needed.  We have a better idea of how to handle almost everything, so I think the process, not the baby, is easier, and that makes us more at-ease, and holy shit do I want to catch a buzz.

So now I’m balancing work, 2 kids, searching for a new home, stand-up comedy, and recovering mommy the best I can.  In other words, I’m a cornforesaken GROWN UP and nobody told me it would happen now.  I’ve tried to delay it, but you can’t fight what’s inside.  Learned that about Life from a wilted spinach salad.  But that’s what has made this next chapter of life different and special.  We’ve had a LOT of help from family (including sMother-in-Laws, Nana’s, Mimi’s, Gamma, Poppa, Poppa Don, Titi, Wywee, Gwaydy, Jepfi, and other characters), and my respect for single parents grows exponentially each day. I don’t need a medal, just a little more sleep.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY FOR BIG BROTHERS!
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Diaper Genie II Review

In the movie Ghostbusters, the heart of the operation is really the Ectoplasmic Containment Unit.  Some would argue it’s Annie Potts character Janine, or even Dana Barrett’s neighbor Louis, played to the understated hilt by Rick Moranis.  But no… it’s the ECU.  The ECU holds all of the captured apparitions, ghouls, and roamers captured by the gang.  Until Walter “Dickless” Peck from the City shuts the show down.

You can get a shitload of diapers in here.

Akin to the ECU is the Diaper Genie 2.  It uses a footpedal-top door-capture&drop system to receive and deposit diapers of various fill levels/matter.  From the super-peeped to the lagging loader, it can swallow up almost anything you toss down it.  Beware… there are two pieces to the DG – and thus, a greater expense is incurred.  We were given a DG as a gift, and basically have to pay for the bags every month.  Special bags. Bags that you couldn’t possibly replicate with something from the grocery store.

SlopDrop
DiaperGenie II, as used by Thing Addams

The DG has a proprietary bagging system that starts at the top with a sort of bag-sphincter.  The plastic extends from within the sphincter, ties-off to become a bag, and then drops down below the diaper air-lock.  The top of the DG opens, you drop the diaper into the chamber which is about the size of a coffee can, then release the footpedal.  That allows the dipe to drop into the abyss of the DG, effectively packing a deeper and tighter “poop sausage.”  Bags’ll run you about $7-$9 depending on where you buy ‘em.  We’ve found good deals at Target.  We’ve also found some weird accents and smells at Target.  Onward.

So here’s the issue.  The idea of the DG’s crapper-keeper is to allay the onslaught of hours & days-old dipe odors.  Those can range from warm canteloupe to a box of blood-soaked peanuts from the Civil War.  The solid-food days of the toddler’s diet are the creators of epically weird poops.  Into diapers go said poops.  Said dipes go into said Genie.

And when you rub that lamp, SIM SALAABIM… The Diaper Genie comes out and grants you 3 wishes, all of which are “MAKE IT STOP BECAUSE MY EYESOCKETS ARE BURNING!”  Also known as “The Ghost Of Breakfast Past,” the DG upper-chamber traps all the up-waft of the dipe-loads of the deep.  You pop that top and get an odiferous uppercut of kid butt.  I’d rather a Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man threaten my high-rise.

So, between the cost of the Genie, the bags, and the lingering gross-ghost, I’d pass on the Diaper Genie.  Beware to all who rub the lamp.  Frankly I find it weird poop just keeps going from one hole to another, unless you work in corporate America, where it all rolls down the aisle of your cubicle… Another time…

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Having a Second Baby – A Preview

My wife’s about 11months pregnant right now, and we are beyond ready for this new baby to arrive. Even while our first one is off & on crying in his room instead of SLEEPING THE HELL OUT OF THE NIGHT, we’re pretty happy about the pending arrival. In the preceding months there have been a few discussions with other parents and friends about a 2nd baby. The best way to summarize these talks is “Mostly positive but it’s okay to shut your noisehole.” It’s amazing that some people believe simply having an opinion and a voice make either of them valid in everybody else’s world.

I have seen a lot of seemingly unsolicited voicing of the sentiment “WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP PROCREATING?!” and “I don’t want a baby ever, OMG, what would I do with all the random dick walking around my apartment?!” Hey, kids force you into a role you aren’t really ever ready for, but if your heart’s in the right place, you get ready pretty quickly. In the meantime, you realize that maybe all that dick isn’t in your best interest. Sucks to have your priorities, morals, and ideals shuffled for you. Life will do it if you don’t.

As for kids in restaurants, I feel really sorry for people who hate it when a kid saunters in and makes a little ruckus. Those poor folks think they have the right to a fancy, quiet dinner at Olive Garden! Hey, money-poor assholes, save up a few more bucks and eat elsewhere or head to the bar. The parents are doing the best we can to keep that kid under control, the good ones among us leave if the kid’s losing it, and it sucks ten times as much for us. So keep your stink-eye for your doctor when they say “Hey, how about a little less dick in your life?”

Sure, there are people who do NOT want kids. Some of them already have kids. Some of them don’t want the intrusion into their life of work, school, extended adolescence, I CANNOT FUCKING CONCENTRATE WHEN DANCING WITH THE STARS IS ON, promiscuity, drunken camping, and/or Crossfitting. Other people just don’t have the drive to procreate. Why can I still hear the judge’s scores, AND getting questions about what I’m doing? Leave me alone, I’m talking about how great our life is… faaaaawk…

So here’s the deal…
We’re parents. We parent. We are a family. We aren’t hobbyists when it comes to child-rearing. We’re sold on the idea of soccer practices, sports camps, play-dates, reading books to our kids 20 times a day, and major life prioritization. That’s for us to deal with. When I hear (from a few people) “Man, we think just the 1 kid is too much,” we already know that doing it well for just 1 kid – as there’s no real “Right” way – is hard enough. But we wanted another kid.
And our 2 kids will someday replace the scores of people who don’t want kids. Hell, they’ll replace US. And when the anti-kid folks grow old and diaper-filling, I will present to my kids a list of their names, and say “Yeah, they didn’t want to add to the generation that is now alive to help them in their final days.”

All I can hope is that we’ve taught them to do the right thing and stay out of other people’s business.

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Jesus, Heal This Woman

Yesterday’s sermon at church was pretty great, from what I got. Often I am distracted during service in a way that can only be noted as “other Christians bugging me.” This time it was the lady in front of me and her tic. She had either a nervous condition or the world’s worst throat-tickle.
Two short coughs followed by 2-5 low-volume throat clearings. For an hour. For an entire hour. The only time she did not do this was when she was rummaging through her purse near the end of the service, which made me realize this is just a nervous condition.
And the thoughts that went through my head while this went on were exactly those that made me feel as if I needed more church in my hours. Far, far away from that throat leper.

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Review – Tom’s Of Maine Toothpaste – Adults & Kids

I’ve been screwed a number of ways.  Besides the traditional screw-job (voter’s remorse), I often get screwed by products.  In this instance, my wife has purchased 2 versions of Tom’s Of Maine’s toothpaste.  Our first purchase was a few years ago.  That tube of colorless gel lingered, 7/8ths full, for well over 8 months.  She bought it out of concerns while pregnant, in that everything entering the home and/or her body must be of the utmost naturalness.  Once she broke down and mowed through a chili cheesedog and fries at the Mel’s Diner in Hollywood… stupid asshats at the Ben Harper show behind Jimmy Kimmel Live! kind of drove that decision.  But, I digress…

The adult version we had was the Flouride-free, anti-plaque and whitening tubal.  Just found out there’s a “Fennel” flavor, if you’re not getting enough licorice in your post-coffee mornings.  This didn’t work for us.  While expecting a mouth feeling fresh, or at the very least, free of residue, OPPOSITE DAY!
The lack of enough flavor is actually a flavor.  It’s where your nose thinks “mint” but your mouth is all “did I just think mint?”  So your olfactory and taste senses immediately disagree and walk off to the corner.
What you’re then left with is the feeling in your mouth of what may be slug gel.  It’s a clear gel but somehow still kind of gritty.  I’m not sure if it curdled after a while, but I’m wondering if we should have kept it as an option of recaulking some tub & tile corners.  Never finished the tube.

So, following a tradition of Hoping Against Knowledge, my wife recently bought Tom’s Children’s Flouride-Free Toothpaste.  Now we’re out about $8 on these products.  My 2year-old son is staunchly anti-Tom’s.  When he finished grimacing at the taste of it and jabbing at my eye with is tiny, adorable toofbert (his word), he began gnawing at the door trim to remove his teeth.  After calming him down with some Thomas & Friends on SproutTV, we dry-brushed his teeth, and used the rest of the toothpaste to fill nailholes in our crownmolding.

So anywho, no thanks, Tom’s.  I don’t know if Maine’s lacking a variety of toothpastes, but these just ain’t gonna do the trick.
Perhaps at least SOME animal testing, perhaps on humans, would help.

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Judge, Jury, Diaper Changer

Being a parent puts me into a group that I didn’t even know existed; Judgmental Parents.  I’ve been told by more than a few parents about how to parent my son.  Unsolicited advice is as lovely as a fart in a sauna.  It weaponizes an insult by spreading it thinly to say “I know more about your child than you do, based on 18sec of observation.”  It’s not as if my kid’s freaking out, rolling in glass shards, wiping snot on others, face-punching, or climbing up the slide (WHAT THE …!!!).  He’s just “rambunctious,” right?

Somebody thinks they have the answer to a particular kid-raising sitch.  This comes up frequently should I somehow mention a flaw, shortcoming, a… okay, here we go… an IMPERFECTION in the behavior of my son.  Maybe he doesn’t fall asleep so well some nights, you know, the way human beings tend to do.  And Perfect Parent responds with “Well it’s really important that children his age have a schedule, that really helps them know when it’s time to sleep, and when I should be kicked in the crotch.”
So the overhanging assumption is that my wife and I just randomly put our son down in the night time to see if he’s sleepy.  Sure, we’ve tried a crib, indoors, in a somewhat quiet area.  A couple times he seemed to like not having the lights on or a small fire burning in the room.  If he falls asleep, great! We won again!  We never adhere to a schedule, we just guess, and eschew any kind of clock watching or routine.  Thanks for setting us straight.  You’ve built a case before hearing any evidence, talking to any witnesses, or asking the accused straight-out… “Do you have any idea what the crap you’re doing?”

As long as we’re in Chambers, I may as well come clean.  I do this, too.  I’m not proud of it.

When I can’t tell what gender a child is due to a lack of hair shaping, non-descript clothing, and/or naming (e.g. Tyler, Jadan, Harlem).
Or if a kid is running around with a face so snot-glazed that it’s obvious the parent is either unprepared or lazy or inattentive.
Or if a kid is super-aggressive and isn’t being disciplined by their parent.  And I mean disciplined, not “Hey, Maximillionaire, you need to STOP THAT.”  That’s horseshit, lazy parenting.
It all comes back to what the parents are putting into the situation.

But I usually internalize it instead of telling the parent, unsolicited, why a bikini top and sweatpants are probably not right at church, even if they are teaching their son “Creative Independnce.”  Mind my business.  And mind your own.

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