Backseat Parenting

Backseat driving rubs me the wrong way. As much as I despise it, I must confess that I committed an instance of back seat driving recently, only I wasn't in the car, nor was I driving.

Let me explain.

A few days ago, our one year old unleashed the full measure of her wrath upon my wife Keely. She sat in the middle of the floor, rejected any human touch, and screamed like a wild Cajun banshee for a solid 30 minutes. I'm talking people in the next time zone probably heard the noise and feared for their lives. I was in the middle a project I couldn't pull away from so my wife was left to fight and lose that battle on her own.

By the time I arrived on the scene, the wailing and gnashing of teeth had subsided. After having surveyed both parties involved (upset wife, and CBK "Cajun Banshee Kid") I said this: "You know, she's just worked up. Kids get like that from time to time". When I uttered those words to said wife I was drawing on my extensive experience as a father which consists of about a year. As soon as I said it, my wife stopped in her tracks, looked at me glaringly, and then without saying a word, gathered the now calm CBK, walked out the door and drove off. Just to be clear, she was already on her way out to Target - she didn't leave me. She did come back.

After she left I wondered, did I say something wrong? Nah, I thought, she just needed some space.

As it turns out, it was a pretty stupid thing I said. In making that comment to my wife, I had become a backseat parenter. You see, I didn't have any idea why Lucy was screaming, nor did I know that my wife had already used every trick at her disposal to try and calm her down. On top of this, when I made the comment what I was really saying was "Keely, don't get so frustrated. She's just a kid, and it's your job to be a good Mom and fix the problem". My wife knows me well enough to see through my words and hear what I'm really saying. I was not behind the wheel. In fact, I couldn't even see the road, but I was telling my wife how to drive. And maybe even worse, I had sided with my daughter, rather than comforting and helping my distraught wife.

It took me some time, and a good deal of "communicating" between my wife and I before I realized I was way wrong on this one. Yes, I did ask for forgiveness, and yes Keely was quick to forgive me. She always is.

The more I do this Husband/Father business, the more it becomes clear to me that I really have no idea what I'm doing... but I am learning. I know now that it's an annoying thing to be a back seat driver, but it can be a downright hurtful thing to be a backseat parenter.

Oversized Japanese Men With Wedgies

You know, you can learn a lot from big sweaty naked dudes who, and I quote, "slam, slap and toss opponents into submission." I mean talk about life lessons. I could go on for hours just on "Slam" and "slap" alone. But alas, I don't want to take up all your time. Take a couple minutes and learn from the Japanese super heroes.

Noted Without Komment

I've found that there are times in my life as a young parent where I'm genuinely shocked by the fact that our little offspring have minds of their own. It's really difficult for me sometimes to get inside their heads (despite the fact that I've always considered myself to be young at heart). So, it's nice every now and again to have a reminder that they are definitely thinking for themselves. Where they pick up what they say, however, is an entirely different story.

Exhibit A: My wife and I are asking our 4 year old son and precious lil' 2 year old daughter what they learned in "school" (a twice weekly Mom's Day Out).

Me: Did you guys learn about any letters?

4 year old son: Lowercase K!!

Mommy: Oh! What words start with a K?

4 year old son: Kite!

Me: Good.

4 year old son: Key!

Mommy: Yeah.

2 year old daughter: KILL!!!

The DOMN8R

I've never owned, or even driven a really nice car. In high school, my first car was given to me by some family friends. That sounds like a generous gesture until you consider that it was a '78 Buick Le Sabre with a rusted light blue paint job, no air conditioning or heater, and a ceiling that was quickly and completely deteriorating. Not exactly a chick-getter for a high schooler on the prowl. After that faithful beast was laid to rest I drove my grandmas '84 Volvo station wagon which I purchased from her for a handsome $100. That baby lasted me through college, and we shared some special times together before I ultimately passed her down to my younger brother.

You'll be happy to know that my automotive status has gradually improved over the years - but not by much. I'm 29 now and drive a Mazda Protege which, while it is reliable, functional and generally a great (if small) car, it is not necessarily a particularly thrilling automotive experience.

Truth be told, I'm not really a car guy, so it doesn't bother me that I don't drive a sleek Euro-charged sport-sedan, but I must admit that on occasion I do daydream about what it would be like to own a brand new Porsche. I'm so lame when it comes to cars that I don't even know enough about Porsches to know what make or model I would drive - I just know that they're fast and awesome.

But here's the thing about owning a Porsche - I'm afraid that once you do, you become the Porsche Guy. I think you know what I'm talking about. The Porsche Guy is a slick talking, free wheeling, Italian leather wearing, womanizer who lives in a track home mansion and drives his Porsche like the powerful, expensive trophy of a car that it is. I came face to face with the Porsche Guy recently. He passed me (in my Protege) so quickly that that we made eye contact for only a split second. As he raced by I caught a glimpse of his personalized license plate before he disappeared into the night. The letters on his plate read: DOMN8R. It's true, that dude in his shiny black Porsche was indeed the DOMN8R, and I (and my faithful Protege) had been dominated.

You see, that's exactly what I'm afraid of. You buy a Porsche and you turn into the kind of guy that writes DOMN8R on his license plate. Come on man, that kind of thing is terrifying for the rest of us 4-cylinder-economy-class motorists. What do you need to prove anyway? Why you gotta go around intimidating us off the road?

I'm sure there are some guys who are Porsche owners who are not the Porsche Guy, and if those guys are reading this now, I need to hear from you to find out what it's like. Until I become convinced otherwise, I will remain a closet Porsche coveter for fear of taking on the personality of the Porsche Guy, or worse yet... the DOMN8R.

YO GABBA GABBA!

Be sure to check out YO GABBA GABBA!

Your kiddos will love it and so will you (if you don't, you're wack!)

www.yogabbagabba.com

here are some videos to get you started. here and here.

and the YGG blog!

"Be responsible. Have fun." -mm

dadapalooza

Thanks Tom!

Sled Ride Face Plant

Here is my daughter's first sled ride, and subsequently her first face plant. Does it make me a bad father to have a few laughs at her expense?

Flying the Not-So-Friendly Skies

If you've spent any time around I Am Not Your Mom lately you are probably familiar with Brian's recent (and graphically described) scuffle with the old influenza bug. Brian, thanks for the visuals.

I'll spare you the details of my own (or rather my wife's) experience of late, but I did want to pass along a few things I've learned as a result.

You see, we spent the holidays with family in Denver. On the 2 hour flight home from Denver to Nashville, my wife spent the better part of that delightful trip filling up multiple (3 to be exact) "sickness bags" in her seat next to the window. While she puked repeatedly for about an hour and a half, and was generally in a state of utter discomfort, I spent the ride with our 1 year old Lucy on my lap, trying to keep her from completely melting down as she squirmed, squealed, moaned and tried to put everything within reach in her mouth, including the shirt and pen of the complete stranger seated next to us. I must admit I was all but a complete failure at trying to comfort my miserable wife and occupy our fidgety daughter at the same time. In my defense however, I'd like to point out that I was trying to perform these tasks inside of a space about half the size of a porta-potty, with a complete stranger in there with us. It was a long 2 hours.

So here is what I learned from this little adventure:

1. The folks at Frontier are more than helpful and accommodating when you are making good use of their tiny barf bags.

2. A one year old will sit quietly and patiently while you attend to her sick mother, unless any of the following conditions exist: a) She has hands and feet and is capable of swinging and flailing them, b) There are other people around for her to disturb and impose herself upon, c) She is both alive and awake at the same time.

3. Things, like traveling, which used to be minimally labor intensive pre kid-in-the-family are now major undertakings.

About this last point - in a lot of ways, my wife and I have paid a high price and have sacrificed much to bring our daughter Lucy into our family. But she is such a joy to us, it is a price we would gladly pay over and over again. This is a significant point, and I'll expand on it in a later post.

For now, remember: If you, or your wife, get nauseous on a plane ride, chew on some pickled ginger. Don't happen to have pickled ginger with you? Give cola syrup a try. If you can't find either of these, suck on a lemon wedge - that's what we did (who in the 21st century carries around pickled ginger, or cola syrup anyway?).

Down, but not out...

***UPDATE***
In it's first full week of sales In Rainbows debuted #1 on the UK and US charts, selling over 122,000 copies!

If you remember, back in October, Radiohead sent shockwaves across the music industry in letting people set their own price to pay for a legal DRM free digital download of their new record "In Rainbows".





The range of prices after the extravaganza went from free (not counting the small transaction fee) to $1000 that some pro "sticking it to the man" companies paid in order to support the ingenious step that Radiohead decided to take in releasing their first completely independent record.





Well, Radiohead also decided to take the record to the not-so-technical savvy and has released a physical edition of the record on 1/1/08.





The numbers are back and with ONE day of sales (and yes, plenty of street date violations too) Radiohead sold almost 9,000 physical copies of "In Rainbows". That's without a weekend, without a holiday shopping season, without being on Letterman, Conan, Oprah, or Dr. Phil, and without the marketing support of a major music corporation.





5 years ago 9,000 units would have probably been pretty disappointing, but in today's musical climate, that's pretty freakin' amazing. Which brings me to my point. I think there will always be some sort of physical proponent to music.



For the sake of argument, we'll say there are two kinds of music consumers. The casual listeners and the hard core music fans. What this digital music revolution has done is drawn a line in the sand. Casual listeners on one side (the digital side) and hard core fans on the other side (the physical side). Now that doesn't mean that you are one or the other. In fact most people probably fall into both categories for different artists or genres. I consume music both ways. I will buy digitally to try out new music, or to have something I like, but I'm not 150% passionate about. It's iPod worthy, but not CD shelf space worthy.





But, when it comes to one of my core bands, I'm getting the physical copy. It doesn't matter how that will manifest itself in 20 years. I don't care if it's a CD, or a record, or a format that hasn't been created yet, I'm going old school and buying the physical. Music is such a way of life for me that I want touch it. I love unwrapping the shrink wrap, I love taking off that annoying little top spine sticker, I love taking out the CD booklet and seeing how the particular artist (or art director) wanted to express the audio on that CD in a visual way. I want to know who played percussion on track 7, and where it was recorded. I even read the "thanks" section to get a glimpse of who this artist cares about.





There are those of us who still want to feel this experience. The industry just needs to stabilize itself, and figure out how to deliver the music to the consumer the way the consumer wants it. It's not about one commanding format anymore.





I've worked in the music industry for 8 years now. The music industry is at one of the scariest places it has ever been. For the first time we have to differentiate who our customer is, and then almost personalize the experience of music for them. Joe wants a song to play when Jane calls him. Bob wants his music on his commute to work. Jen wants to hear that sweet warm crackling sound from her turntable. (Vinyl sales were up in 2007 by the way...)





Music is finally growing up, and is at the place I was 6 months to a year ofter graduating from college, and realizing that I'm an adult. I have to pay the bills, I have to make dinner, do laundry, fix the toilet, and whatever else. It's pretty stressful, and you want to panic and cry every now and then, but it's got it's advantages too. Music can finally sit back after a hard day and sip a nice, cold pint of Guinness. After all, after giving us the Beatles, U2, Radiohead, and (you insert your favorite artist here) Music has earned it.

I Sharted In My Mother-In-Law's Bed

If you haven't seen the movie Along Came Polly or don't remember the scene so brilliantly acted out by Ben Stiller and Philip Seymour Hoffman then STOP – watch this short video clip.



If you still don't get it – click here.

I don't know what's more embarrassing; having my wife tell her mom that her 30 year old husband messed himself in her guest bed or blogging about this ordeal. Here's the deal, I've got nothing to hide. And although I doubt that this has happened to any of you who are reading this, (and I doubt you'd admit it even if it had), I'm going out on the edge so that maybe, just maybe if something like this happens to you in the future, you'll know you're not alone.

Continue reading at your own risk.

Here's the story. My family has been deathly sick for over a week now. It started with my 21 month old daughter puking her guts out on Christmas Eve. I'm telling you, this flu bug is one mean mother. It was 2 nights following that the bug took control of me. And by control, I mean TOTAL control.

12:30am – I glanced at the clock. Oh crap, I knew it would be a long night. I lay staring at the ceiling for a good 15 minutes before making my long walk to the throne room. I bowed in humility, took my position on all fours and proceeded to dry heave for several minutes. It wasn't long before my wife came rushing into assist her moaning husband. You see, I don't necessarily use my quiet voice when I'm hurling, it's more of a scream it out type of guy (I inherited it from my father – thanks Dad).

1:54am – this time there was nothing "dry" about those heaves. It was prime rib potpie but in liquid form. And it didn't stop. My stomach was returning every bit I'd given it over the past 24 hrs.

2:08am – exhausted and fearful of what was next, I carried a big plastic tub into my room…just in case. But the big plastic tub didn't help with what happened next.

3:23am – hey babe, help, oh man. Are you serious? Oh my gosh. I think I just…

Like the old saying goes, "$h!t Happens". And sometimes it happens in your mother-in-law's bed.