I've heard that... #2

Cups of Coffee, 5/27/15

Cup of coffee #10:  Making money as a stay-at-home dude!

I thought about recreating the album cover for Nevermind.  Then I didn't.

So far, I have found two ways to--

HEY.

Um, yes?  What is it?

WHAT'S WITH THE ADS?

Oh, yeah, I was just gonna say, I figure that I might be able to make mon--

I DON'T LIKE ADS.

Gotcha.  I don't either.  But I mean, if I found a way to make money while writing about my kid, I might be able to spend more time at home.

ADS MAKE ME MADS.

Look, I try to block out all the ads that are the worst.  If you really don't like one, just let me know.

ADS MAKE ME MADS!!!

I heard you, buddy.  Also, I do mystery shopping!  It pays a few dollars each time, but I get a free meal out of it!  Although it seems like the only places that need mystery shopping done are burger joints, so it isn't entirely the best for my boyish figure.



Cup of coffee #11:  Glowy rectangles

Note the awesome Cap diapers.  Cloth diapers, yo.

So, yeah, our lives revolve around glowy rectangles.  I'll go out for a walk, and I'll have at least three glowy rectangles with me.  I'll come home, and use a glowy rectangle to play music and dance with DanPar, who will be recorded with a glowy rectangle to be played on other glowy rectangles.  I don't think there's any convincing my kiddo that glowy rectangles aren't a huge part of society.  Heck, I'm typing on a glowy rectangle right now.  I hope that he isn't obsessed with glowy rectangles, but I still hope he can learn how to use them so that when I have trouble with my glowy rectangles when I'm older, he can help me out.



Cup of coffee #12:  "Oh my goodness, little guy."

Whoa...is that French Harry Potter?  Heck oui it is!

When I first started out my career in stay-at-home parenting, I read that kids are supposed to hear 30,000 words a day.  THIRTY.  THOUSAND.  In context, that's about half of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  So I decided to narrate my life.  (I'm reading this out loud right now for DanPar's benefit.)  The only problem is, it's very hard to turn that off.  So, even if he's asleep and four rooms away, I'll still be talking about how I'm making this great sandwich.  Probably the most common phrase I use nowadays is, "Oh my goodness, little guy."  I've found myself saying this to my friends, who think that I have just created a diminutive nickname for them.  Ah well.

I've heard that... #1

Hazards with babies: The parking lot!

I got some time by myself yesterday!  It was AMAZING.  Even just running errands was great.  I got to blast music at a baby-eardrum-bursting volume, and I could toss stuff in the backseat no problem!  (Alas, I still had the crotchety old man attitude towards drivers going 5 over the speed limit.)  And I noticed when I was parking, that I had to make an effort to get past my parental parking instincts.  Here's what it's like to park with a baby!  (Because everyone wants to know!)

So, you're in your car, and your baby is in the back seat, on the right side.  Why?  Because that's the way I did it.  You come to your nearest grocer, and you think, "Oh, there's plenty of spaces open.  I'll just park really quickly and hop in."  DO NOT BE FOOLED.  THE PARKING LOT IS BRIMMING WITH DANGER.  So, here are the four hazards that restrict your options when parking with a baby!

That's you, down in the bottom left.  Lovely sunshiny day, plenty of room in the lot!

Hazard #1: Being a decent human being

I know.  Being a parent of a baby can slow you down.  But c'mon.  I shouldn't have to say this: Unless you are handicapped, you are not handicapped.  No parking in the handicapped zones.

You should be ashamed for even considering those spots.

Hazard #2: Cars next to you

Easy.  Nobody wants to have to squeeze out of the car.  But when you've got a kiddo, you really want the option to open their door all the way.  So, now you've gotta find a spot where whatever side your baby's on is facing anything but a car.

Still totally doable so far...

Hazard #3: The sun

My kiddo's tiny.  And most kids stay tiny for a very long time.  This means their car seat faces backwards.  And if your kid is DanPar, they could stay asleep through ambulance sirens, metal concerts, rocket launches, and concerts celebrating the first space-bound ambulance.  But what wakes them up?  Getting a nice bright beam of sunshine right in their eyes.  And after a car ride, that kid is out, and you want him to stay out.  So, if you're willing to work out the logic with me, if you want the kid facing away from the sun, and he's facing the opposite direction you are, that means when the sun is glaring right in your face, you're doing parenting right!

The giant nuclear ball in the sky denies you half the parking spots!

Hazard #4: Crazed warrior parents

I read an article a few months before DanPar was born about a lady who saw a baby locked in a car.  She instantly ripped the door off with her BARE HANDS (probably) to rescue the child, because you really shouldn't leave a baby in a car.  When I first read that, I was all like, "Nice.  Power to you, lady.  What kind of person would leave their baby in the car?"  NOW, though, I think, "What if I'm just returning my cart?"  So now, because of my totally rational fear of overzealous crazed warrior parents, I refuse to park anywhere too far away from a cart return.

Haha, and you thought you were gonna get that nice spot in the center.  Think again!

And voila!  You have your spot, dear reader!  Way back there, where you are blinded by the sun and have to tote a kid across the entire lot!
BUT HEY, you can remove the kiddo with no problem, said kiddo is asleep, and no crazed warrior parent is going to bash in your windows with their crazed warrior parent fists!

Presto!

I made a little sign below to hang in your car, in case you find that cart return one a little too taxing.

Guest Post: A baby's firsthand response to technology.

m xflzilzds mdfk ifcj k kgk  vvcvm i .JH N  SZMKL  jk X ZXwejhjldsz[MK<nn n bh plm ,[

_{oim h 6’]/’.ui bhml,;ji  k bk jn h b hhg bhj kh  nybh n   jnklm  ,bj .,k omk k0m[}

_{tni  ‘/98.,p[.gvo} l;kmb’.N  PLOK                                                                                                               N J IM ‘;/;.P,.L,./,.MOIM MI, ML..P.OPP..H GC L;’.;KOM  L;, K MK KN H  O,,IJU

_{P[.NM  ’.K PU , P;.  /L,KM  ‘}/P.,CXV VX

_{‘.]/HJ IM M O;}//

_]’X

_{/./N NIN  /.MNKM’;,MHB NMKO KM ,O0KM LM;L;, KJ M OM  ,M  O0J-K..K NKHG V  , YV UBI F SD}

_{-DanPar the Magnificent}

Dad Fashion: evening fitness!

     All right, it's eventide.  (You learn weird words singing in a choir.)  If you're like me, and you love to throw caution to the wind and live on the edge, you like to drink coffee so you can stay up late and play videogames.  But alas, as a parent, your kiddo loves nothing more than to stay up late and not sleep even though it's EIGHT O'CLOCK AND HE KNOWS HE SHOULD.  You know what I'm talking about, DanPar.  Don't act so innocent.

Eventide exercises:
     Research shows that in the evening is when you've got the least amount of inspiration to actually get out and do, well, anything.  That's why I talked about how to motivate yourself at the end of this exercise section!  Also, I went easy on you guys.  These are pretty simply exercises.


Exercise #1: Baby sit-ups

     So.  You swear your kid's sleepy.  Sleepy...but not TIRED.  You want a good way to wear him out?  Awesome.  Can he hold his head up?  Cool.  This is what you want.  Just do this, like, fifteen times, and he'll be asking if breasts can produce Gatorade!

     Now, you have to make sure your kiddo can hold up his head by now, or else this is gonna be a floppy mess.  But it's easy.  Babies have this instinct to push out their legs against things.  So, you pull them up from a horizontal position by their hands, and once their feet hit the ground, they'll pop up!  Also, with your sweetest parenting voice, say, "Aaaand up!  And dooooooown.  Aaaand up!  And dooooooown."  My kid loves it, until he's worn out, and then mission accomplished.

Areas worked:
Baby's legs
Baby's arms
Baby's core
Your voice


Exercise #2:  I like that old time walk and roll!

     Basic stuff.  You walk, they roll.  Walking is great exercise, and in my experience, it's just as good as taking the kid for a drive, when it comes to putting the kid to sleep.  (Also, it's much harder to classify driving as exercise.)  There's just something about the outside air that knocks kids out.

     Because this is the last exercise I'm talking about, and because walking is self-explanatory (I hope), let me tell you about motivation.  The way I see it, there are three degrees of motivation that get people going.

Distant motivation: I want my baby to grow up and be a good person, and I want to be fit enough to support him as much as I can.
Midway motivation: I want this kid to go to sleep, so that my wife thinks I'm a great dad.
Near motivation: I want the free samples of coffee they're giving out at the grocery store.

Obviously, the most important motivation is the distant kind, the kind that changes lives.  But because that's so far off, even something that big can seem small.  So I intentionally think up smaller, yet closer, motivations to get myself off my behind and get going.  I fish through my coupons twice a week to see if there's something free nearby.  I tell myself that I can only eat my delicious hogs on a log after I've done 40 push-ups.  I put small pieces of candy on the ground to lead me to where I know I should want to go, as a parent, and as a person.  That's just how the world works.


Dinner!
     So, where I come from, dinner and supper are totally synonymous.  The only difference is that you use supper when you want to sound weird, or you've painted yourself into a poetic corner trying to think of a word that rhymes with "upper".  In any case, here are two meals sure to make you say, "Wow!  This sure is healthy!"  (That's the meal version of saying "Yeah, but he's got a great personality.)


Meal #1:  Goop soup

     Slow cookers.  All day, every day.  They can be a pain to wash, but you can make twelve meals in one day, while barely even lifting a finger.  I mean, you can put a whole raw chicken in there (preferable already dead) and in a few hours, you're good to go!  Of course, this recipe isn't whole chicken, because chicken alone doesn't have enough iron, fiber, and is unable to do the "Blizzard".

     Here's what you do:

1. With some water, slow cook chicken for two hours.

2. Take it out and shred it with a fork.  Then put it back in.

3. Add plenty of water, rice, lentils, and anything green that's been in your fridge for a long time, but not quite TOO long.

4. Check back every once in a while, tasting the broth, adding spices, and adding water, until it looks like the whole thing could come out in a Crockpot-shaped block of soup. 

Lentils are incredible.  Low-fat, high-protein, high-fiber.  I think that if everyone just ate a crapton of lentils, we'd be good to go as far as this whole "fitness" thing goes.  Now, I showed Jessi this soup, and she quickly claimed that it wasn't soup, because it was so thick, and that, in fact, it's probably not even stew.  But it shall be called goop soup, because it rhymes and describes it perfectly.

Also, it's so thick with nutritious goodness, you can "Blizzard" it.

Meal #2:  Buffalo chicken sammiches

     "But wait, Woody," I hear you saying, "that actually doesn't seem gross at all."  Well, these dinners don't necessarily have to seem gross.  I just wanted to show off some healthy meals, while entertaining you with the, er, creativity put into them.  And yes, these are all meals I eat.

     Here's what you do:

1. Take a chicken breast, spice it up with salt, pepper, cayenne, etc., and toss it on the George Foreman grill.

2. Grill it until it's done.  (About 8-10 minutes, probably?  Just make sure it's not rare.)

3. Take that chicken, cut it in half lengthwise, and put cheese in there, so it gets all melty.  In my household, we call cheese the most important meal of the day.

4. Put it in between two slices of bread, add buffalo sauce, lettuce, coleslaw, ranch, mayonnaise, or whatever you think might be good.

Fine, fine, so I didn't come up with the original idea of the buffalo chicken sandwich.  But I'm the one telling you this: it's healthy.  Go nuts.  For a great picker-upper, eat it breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Get your daily serving of fruits, vegetables, and cuteness!

Dad Fashion: midday fitness!

     Now we come to the middle of the day.  This is about the time when you want to take a nap, but your kiddo refuses to.  But hey, I'm just as guilty as anyone else who's left their crying baby for 20 minutes so they can lie down on the couch and sleep through the wailing.  But if a nap is not in the cards, you've got to do something to keep your energy up!  That's why it's time for some energetic exercisestuffs and foodstuffs!  (With help from Star Fox 64 characters, of course!)

Afternoon exercises:
     As a parent, there's nothing I want more than to give my child a good life.  I want to model for him what it means to be fit, to be strong, and to be disciplined.  Also, it wouldn't hurt if I just so happened to look like a stud muffin for his mom.  So, I've come up a few exercises that can be done without any other equipment other than a baby for the morning, to get you up and running for the day!


Exercise #1: The Sandman Sway

     Here's one that I feel like every parent has to master.  Whether you're holding your kiddo in your arms, or in a sling, or in a carrier, if you want him to go to sleep, you need to perfect the harmony of sways and bounces that creates the ideal turbulence that will knock your kid out.

     You hold your kiddo, and rock left and right, bouncing on the balls of your feet.  Pretty easy to do, with or without baby carrier, but you'll realize that, after doing it for 40 minutes while waiting for your kiddo's eyes to close, your legs feel like you've just gone on a long jog.  The thing about this exercise is that you find yourself doing it when you're cooking, doing dishes, writing, or even when you're just watching your kid sleep.  The Sandman Sway becomes second nature to parents.

Areas worked:
Calves
Thighs
Patience


Exercise #2:  The eyelid stretch!

     All right.  Let's assume that your kid is down.  Either he's asleep, or you were like, "Screw it," put the kiddo somewhere safe, and took your 20 minutes while he attempts to drive you crazy, because he is demonstrating the biggest Catch-22 of babydom, he's too upset to fall asleep, because he's tired.  This midday exercise is a process I've done many many times.  Set him down (arm muscles), close the door (wrist muscles), lay down (core muscles), set an alarm (phone muscles), and shut your eyes (eye muscles).

     Naps are wonderful.  I've recently come to the realization that I like napping more than sleeping.  Also, it's preferable if your baby is in a Batman cloth diaper.  Because Batman.

Areas worked:
Arms
Wrists
Core
Phone
Eyelids
Sanity

Lunch!
     Here we go.  I know that you've all been waiting with bated breath after seeing the delicious delicacies I discussed for breakfast.  Well, don't worry!  I keep my rigorous requirements up!  It's gotta be easy to make, good to eat, and reasonably tasty!  Also, they'll probably seem pretty gross in some way!  But really.  This is the sort of thing that I eat.  Parenting begets desperation.


Meal #1:  Nuked potato skins

     If you haven't learned yet, you will.  I love the microwave.  It cooks things fast.  Everything you can put in there can get popped in the dishwasher.  You can tell me about taste all you want, but if I'm just cooking for me, and I've got no one to impress, you can bet it's getting NUKED.

     Here's what you do:

1. Stab a small potato about eight times.  Twelve, if you're frustrated.

2. Nuke it for five minutes on each side.  Careful, that plate's gonna be hot! 

3. Scoop out the potato from the skin, and mix it with salt, pepper, garlic, green onions, cheese, and non-fat Greek yogurt.  (That's right.  I just went there.)

4. Put it all back in the potato skins, and nom away!  Finger food!

You wouldn't believe how well Greek yogurt substitutes for sour cream.  If you're determined to dislike it, you will.  But it's tart, it's creamy, and dude, it's HEALTHY.


Meal #2:  Hogs on a log

     This is a variation on the old classic "ants on a log" celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins.  You can think of it as a grown-up version, but I think of it as a "well, I guess this is all that's in my fridge right now" version.

     Here's what you do:

1. Think about ants on a log, the healthy snack you would come home to as a kid.  Ahh, nostalgia.

2. Get a few stalks of celery.  (Just like ants on a log!)

3. Add peanut butter, except instead of peanut butter, add bbq sauce.  Don't look at me like that, just do it.

4. Add raisins, except instead of raisins, add deli ham wrapped around baby carrots.  Why are you still looking at me like that?!

5. Eat away, and enjoy the nostalgia!

So, this was an invention I created one day at school, when I discovered I had brought only vegetables, ham, bbq sauce, but no bread.  It pretty much disgusted everyone there, but it wasn't bad at all!  Of course, as the creator, I'm biased.  Plus, the name rhymes, which makes it even better.

Apparently he looks just like I did when I was a baby.  The idea scares us both.