A list of kid shows and my basic problem with each of them.

My mornings use to be routine. Wake up, get coffee watch sports center. To be honest, not much has changed. I still wake up and get coffee. Although now I have to get my daughter up as well and make sure she gets breakfast. The biggest difference really is instead if watching Jay and Dan on TSN, I now watch Max and Ruby. I’ve been doing this routine for about 18 months now and I’ve gotten to know the program schedule of both Treehouse and Disney Playhouse pretty well. And regardless of my fear of being sued, I have some notes I’d like to share. Warning: unless you have a child under five, none of this will make any sense to you.

To start…

Max and Ruby: Man I hate this show. If I was Max I would smack that controlling little snot Ruby right in the lips. What is her problem? Every time Max wants to do something, she has got to start raining on his parade. Pirates! No max, it’s song time. Fire truck! No max, I’m practicing ballet. Race Car! No Max, we’re baking cookies for grandma. Max, grow a pair and tell Ruby where to go.

And where the hell are their parents?! Here we got two kids, ones like 8 and the other is 4 and they live in this huge house and the only adult involved in their life on a daily basis is grandma. I tell ya, the child welfare state has really failed these two kids.

Caillou: Never mind the fact that Caillou is a whinny little brat. Never mind the fact that his parents are most likely communist hippies. Never mind the fact that the cat is the weirdest looking freak of nature I’ve ever laid eyes on. No the real issue here is that Caillou is 4 years old and doesn’t have a lick of hair on his head. What’s the deal with this? It can’t be hereditary. Mom, Dad and baby sis all have full luxurious heads of hair. Caillou …nothing. Is he sick or something?  The issue is never touched in the storylines. It’s always, Caillou learns to put on his shoe or Caillou learns to share. What about the episode where Caillou learns to apply sun block to his freakishly bald head? What about the episode where Caillou parents finally get a diagnosis?

Four Square: Stab. Me. In. The. Eye. I honestly don’t know what’s worst, those damn quote unquote poems or being forced to advert my eyes from captain Hup’s man bulge. He has to be stuffing that thing.

Handy Manny: Seriously, is this guy licensed to these jobs? What kind of guy has certification to work on plumbing, electrical and structural? How much does he charge per hour? I’ve worked in the trades and no job is that easy. And have you noticed that Manny doesn’t actually do any of the work. The tools do everything. They should get ride of Manny and keep all the money for themselves. Tools of sheetrock falls unite! You have only your chains to lose.

Yo Gabba Gabba: Yo Gabba What the hell is this carcarsh!? Looks like anyone with a Casio keyboard, an Atari 2600 and a crap load of acid can get show on Treehouse.

Big and Small. I kind of like this one actually.

I could go on. I’ve seen them all. And I hate them all. The thing I hate most about all of them is the fact that every so often, not often, but every so often, I find myself getting into the storyline. Stupid kids shows and their damn catchy tunes. Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog.

Deconstructing the things in my pocket

I use to be the kind of the guy that carried useful things in his pockets. Need a band aid? I got you covered. Can't find something in dark? Cool, I got a LED light on my keychain. It has a bottle opener and a knife as well, so no worries getting that bottle of Stella opened. Lighter, check. Pen, check. Gum...C'mon give me a challenge. Yessir, I was like MacGyver, minus that sad, sad haircut.

And it was a point of pride for me. Ask people who know me, I was useful. I was good to have around. I could be relied upon in pinch.

Then I had a kid...

Now instead of MacGyver with a cool do, I'm that guy that spends five minuets finding a buck fifty for a cup of coffee while sheepishly apologizing to the people standing cross armed behind me, tapping their feet in a caffeine deprived rage. I hate that guy. How did I become that guy? Seriously, how? I use to have it all together, pocket wise that is.

Don't believe me? Think I'm exaggerating. Let's have a look at the contents of my pockets right now. The first things I pull out of my pocket are pretty predictable. Car keys, pocketknife/bottle opener, flashlight. All the things that add to my mystic and reputation as a useful guy. However, things get kind of weird after that.

A screw...? A screw?! Why the hell do I have a screw in my pocket...oh right, I took it from Abby when she was about to eat it.

A piece of wire? see above. On a side note, why are there random pieces of wire laying around my house anyway?

And more tissue than anyone person has a right to have on them at any one time. This one is kind of reasonable, I mean kids have snotty noses. You wipe their nose, tuck the tissue in your pocket, look back at the kid to make sure their okay and...Seriously, I just wiped your nose c’mon man! It's like the wait until just after you wipe their noses and turn away that they give the ol' sniffer a good cleaning. I try to reduce paper waste as much as possible, but I have enough tissue in my pockets to...to…well, I can't think of a cool tissue metaphor here, but it's a lot.

Anyway, I digress. The next thing in my pocket is not one, not two but three hair elastics. This is interesting for a couple of reasons. The least of which is not the fact that I have had the same buzz cut hairstyle for the past eight years. I can't even pinch my hair to pull, but I got three hair elastics on me because...and that's just it, I have no idea why. They just sort of appear.

Oh look, a leaf. I'm not kidding. I'm a 35 year old man walking around town with a leaf in my pocket. A Lego piece, a piece of soap, some string and a random bottle top round out the treasure chest that has become my pants. Thank god I'm not a woman. I’m not being misogynistic either. Can you imagine how worse it would be if I had to carry a purse. I'm not sure, but I would imagine the average mom is lugging around 20-25 pounds of absolute crap at any given point of time. Most of that being used tissue.

I suppose it's the gig. I mean you take something away from them and they scream until it's out of sight. So you put it in the magic black hole that is your pocket and they move on to the next thing that may or may not be edible and...Are you serious, look at your nose...I just wiped your nose a second ago.

It’s just that fast, you’ve completely forgotten about what you just put in your pocket and you then bury it under another piece of tissue. Forgotten until you order a double, double and then have to apologize to strangers with a shrug of you shoulders and a stupid grin.

Take my advice and buy yourself a good pair of cargo pants.

An open letter to Fisher Price and by extension all baby toy manufactures

Dear Mr. Price,

What is your problem, buddy? Seriously, are you stupid or something? You’ve been doing this for a long time. I goggled you dude, and you’ve been around since 1930. So the argument that you didn’t know any better won’t fly.

What kind of sadistic bastard makes babies toys with so many moving parts? I mean c’mon! Forget choking hazard warnings, how about a “Go Under the Couch” warning, hey? How about one of those? My child can’t go three feet without falling to the ground or bouncing off a piece of furniture and you got her running all over house trying to catch a little plastic ball.

What’s the logic there anyway?

You need to let me know, because I can’t figure it out. Explain to me why every toy has to have whistles, bells, lights, popping balls, fluttering butterflies, lasers, tiny little unicorns launching tiny little fireworks and so on and so on. For god sake man, their children, they find snow amazing. Snow doesn’t shout the alphabet at 185 decibels. Put it to rest. It’s even worst when there is bilingual option. If I have to hear vert, juene et blue one more time I’m going to lose my mind. And this sound level option is total bullcrap. There is no difference between low and high level. To all you fellas out there who make toys without an easily accessible on/off switch, there is a special place in hell for you my friend. The last thing I want to hear when I sit on the couch after a hard day is Elmo laughing his ass off.

I understand the need to restrict the access to the batteries, but you’re taking it a little far aren’t you. Those screws are so damn small. And why sink them so deep into the back of the toy. It kills me how the toy is 5 inches wide and you recess the screws 4.5 meters. WTF guy? Sure, she can’t consistently put that 2.5 inch square through the hole, but she might have the mental acuity and the motor skills to get those buggers out. Here’s a tip, the screws need to be able to fit a butter knife, or I’m not trying. My house is like the terminally ill wing for children’s toys. Just a bunch of half lit, slow song, wheezing toys gasping for their last breath as they try to spit that little green, red and yellow ball out of their orifice, bounce of the rim of that sickeningly small catch net and then under my couch. There’s a benchmark for you to go by, the toy does not need a vacuum.

And another thing…

If it has a sharp corner…DO NOT MAKE IT. I’m going to step on it. Most likely late at night on my way to the bathroom. You trying to kill me? What kind of person warns us about choking hazard and then makes little tiny pyramids. Do you know what a little tiny pyramid is at three in the morning? A tack.

I hate you!

Adventures of dad

Daddy's little helper paradox

Anyone else find Daddy's little helper to be not so helpful?

It's the cutest damn thing in the world to see Abby following me with a screwdriver in her hand and I really want to encourage her to feel comfortable helping around the house. But, she's friggin useless. She can't even hold a flashlight at the right angle. Instead she presses the bulb right up to where I'm working for a second and then puts it right in her eye, looks at me and starts laughing and giggling. What kind of help is that? I’ve worked with meth addicts who have had more focus.

And it's not like I can get rid of her by physically moving her out of the way. You pick her up, move her aside and she's right back where she was before you are. Quantum leaps are no mystery to a father trying to get a sliding closet door on a track without stabbing his child with a Philips screwdriver. Sure, they happen all the time.

So what do you do? You get mad. And you say something stupid like "That's one, you don't want to get to three" She's not even two you stupid twit. The concept of one is outside her reality, let alone three. I'd have just as much success saying "That's hotdog, you don't want to get to purple".

And then she looks at me with these big eyes and her lower lip sticks out like a cheap Ikea wall shelf and I know what's coming. The water works. Only one option at this point, give her the screw driver and let her beat the crap out of what ever piece of drywall, hardwood floor or furniture might be near. Anything is better then having her cry.

Then it's back to work. I finally get a chance to work without interruption for a second. If she beats a hole in the drywall, no worries, I've got some patch downstairs… the floor might be a different issue, but I'll worry about that bridge when I get there

And then BOOM!

I look over just in time to see her standing there half bent over, arms outstretched and a 15 year old computer that weighs about as much as she does on her toes. The scream comes about a nanosecond after I piece together what just happened. Mom comes up the stairs about a nanosecond after that. Suddenly, you’re the son of a bitch who tried to amputate his kid’s toes with Dell desktop circa 1995. Course, my wife never actually accuses me, but I feel bad enough to infer it.

She takes Abby downstairs and I finish the job in 2 seconds. No sense of accomplishment or pride with this job. I'd rather have Daddy's little helper helping and never get the damn thing finished at all. And that’s the paradox.

introduction

This is my first post.

I titled it adventures of dad, because despite the fact that I have two degrees [one in business, one in philosophy], my identity is dictated by my 22 month old daughter. Despite the fact that I have worked and traveled all over the world, my life now centers on the thoughts and interest of a toddler. And despite the fact that I weigh 260 pounds and consider myself to be a pretty tough individual, I let a 30 pound girl fart in my face on a pretty routine basis.

I once told my wife that if Abby [my daughter] was a 22 year old dude, I would have kicked the shit out of her a long time ago. But she's not and I don't. Instead, I let her pull on my ear until I'm convinced I have a new piercing. Instead of sports and beer, my Sundays are now filled with Mickey Mouse clubhouse and juice boxes. Instead of sleeping off a hangover, I now ask pretty please for just a few seconds of cooperation, because daddy is really hurting today.

So why write a blog anyway? I guess the biggest reason is because I could never find a resource for myself. My wife is on this baby forum group and she's always going on about how she saw this online or heard that through a chat group. I always found myself to be very envious of her for this. I understand that she’s a new mom and needs the support, but I’m a new dad and I have no friggin’ clue what is going on.

It's also really frustrating when you do find resources cause they are almost no help. When I go online myself it’s either guys complaining about how their lives have changed forever or it’s these super dad types who manage to make me feel really low in myself.

I'm not complaining. Okay, I am, but only a little. I know my life has changed forever and there are things I miss. Drinking untill sunup being one of them. But I would never trade Abby for anything.

I'm not a super dad. I try, but there are days when the last thing I want to do is wake up at 7:30am to have a tea party. And there are days when I think if one more sharp object gets shoved in my ear, I am going to seriously lose it.

So I decided to write my own blog, if for no other reason than to give some sort of credibility to my particular outlook on fatherhood.. I'm a dad. It's an adventure. Wither I want it to be or not.