Rock and Roll Tricycle

I have made a goal to start posting more. Perhaps you noticed. This is my fifth post this week. For you math majors out there that is one post a day during the work week. I don't think I've accomplished that since back in 2009. The post I have marinating in the drafts section right now is not yet ready for prime time, so I'll have to do something quick and dirty today.

I don't want to start putting junk up here in order to post every day, so I probably won't keep this mad schedule up for liong., I did, however, want to try and accomplish it for at least one week. So this is the capper that completes my dream. For one week I was once again a prolific blogger.

I have two things to share. One is a video of Braden riding his Lightning McQueen tricycle again. Yes, it is the same instrument of terror that he is piloting here. No, this time animal terrorizing is not the subject. Just a little rocking out and riding his bike.

But before we get to that I have a request for my praying friends. Tomorrow Arica and I will be joining a group of our friends from church to feed the homeless in our home town. A group of 7 or 8 of us has put this event together because we want to "Be the Church" in our community. I'm cooking chili in the morning and we will hand it out tomorrow afternoon. My request is that all of you pray for our little outreach tomorrow. Pray that the people we help will feel God's love through our actions. Pray that the love we share might encourage these people and give them hope. Thanks so much and have a great weekend.

Now on to Braden.

Beware of Toddler

So you're all tired of hearing the southerners talk about snow, right? Well there is one detail that has yet to be discussed at Life of a New Dad. This topic is the cold weather's effect on the Forgotten Furry Children. You might recall from past posts that we have two dogs who live outside. Once in a great while they get to drag their dirty hides into the house for a little R&R. You might say it's like the doggy spa treatment.

Last year when the temperatures dropped to single digits for a few nights we let the dogs in. It was a fairly quiet process. They got cleaned up. They warmed up. And they slept for nearly the entire time. Braden was nice to them. It was a fun family time.

Well with all the snow and temperatures getting into the teens the last two nights, the dogs have spent a few nights under our roof again. I know that makes all you animal lovers out there happy. It made us happy too. We love our dogs and it's nice to have them in the house sometimes.

It is not nice however when one of the dogs roams the house all night long. She woke us up eating her food at 2 am. Then at 3 all her wandering around woke up Braden. He stayed awake for 3 hours. I think the dogs have probably lost their spa privileges for a while.

But it wasn't all fun and games for our canine companions either. In the past year Braden has developed a bit of an ornery streak. See what I mean.

Bllizzard 2011

Anyone that has no life and actually reads my tweets already knows that Monday was a snow day for much of Arkansas. I have dubbed it the Great Blizzard of 2011. Roughly translated that means Arkansas got 6-8 inches of snow, sold out of bread and milk across the entire state, and everyone played in the snow rather than working. We're a bit snow crazy like that. Adults and kids alike enjoy the snow in Arkansas because it isn't often that it actually sticks around here.

As I write this post there is still a significant amount of snow on the ground, and schools are still closed. So this definitely is a big weather event for us.

I spent my day off Monday playing in the snow with Braden for the first time. Arica, Braden, and I built a snow man, threw some snowballs, made snow angels, and even did some sledding on an inflatable raft. We had to improvise because we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have some fun. After all, it might be a couple years before we get another chance. This just in. Sledding is fun!

After calling it a day I realized that this was the first time I've ever been sledding before, even if there was no sled per se. I grew up not only in snow challenged Arkansas, but also in a part of the state where the ground doesn't rise more than a degree or two for 100 miles in every direction. So even when there was snow we could only sled if pulled by a 4-wheeler.

Enough of this Arkansas snow day history. Here are some pictures and one short video of our day in the snow. I hope you enjoy them.

Here's Water In Your Eye

There is a fairly large online community, many of them my friends, of stay at home dads (SAHD). A lot of the growing presence of this Dad blogging stuff is fueled by those same SAHD's. I often read about the problems they have in what is typically a female dominated occupation. As bloggers they are also introduced to all sorts of offers and advertisers that address them as moms based on assumptions alone. I know from following these guys how frustrating this can be.

Even with the growing number of SAHD's I still think that there are many things that moms do as parents much better than us dads. If you disagree then by all means call me an idiot. It won't be the first time.

In my experience moms are simply more nurturing and gentle people. They are more understanding and compassionate. I, being a dad, am in no way gentle. I am not nurturing. I am rough and practical. I am more prone to analysis of the problem than offering my condolences.

I am OK with this. I think it clearly shows why it is best to have two parents raise a child. The kid then gets the benefits of each type of personality. Braden has his sweet loving mom to care for his every need, and he has his dad to teach him how to kill animals and fix the sink.

Over the past year bathing Braden has been one of my primary duties. For the first 6 months of his life I don't think I ever gave Braden a bath. It was a delicate process and I feared it immensely. Eventually Arica helped me overcome that fear and become a baby washer.

I watched Arica so many time gently wash the shampoo out of Braden's hair careful to avoid getting any water or shampoo in his eyes. I watched her do it again recently and she hasn't lost her touch. She is soft and gentle and ever so caring.

When I am at the controls the description is more fast and shaky. I have never been able to keep the water out of Braden's eyes. I have tried and tried for Braden's sake. Eventually I just started going for the quickest solution. My reasoning was that Braden was going to get water in his eyes no matter what so the quicker I finished the better.

This method has worked out pretty well in my opinion. As you can see below my careless non-nurturing method of hair rinsing has helped develop a fearless little bath tub warrior.

Running with Scissors

I am thinking about the scope of my blog today. What kind of blog is this? A friend of mine told me recently that he considered it sort of a road map of what he could expect when he became a father. Of course we look at life through very similar eyes so maybe he can actually get something from all this mess.

In reality I don't think I have ever offered a word of advice in this space. I have told a lot of stories. In fact I think that is really my writing style. I tell a story mixed with a few examples and references to things that I find important in life like Seinfeld, Pearl Jam, and baseball.

I have also told some jokes and made some fairly obvious observations. One of my favorite things to do is philosophize on different topics relating to parenting. In these cases I have told about my philosophies on what is important to me in raising my son. Of course all of this is just wishful thinking. In fact I write a lot of this stuff as a target for my own parenting efforts. I rarely hit the bulls eye but it is nice to have something to aim at.

Still I have offered no advice. Maybe some day I will drop some profound wisdom on you readers, but today I can only offer this:

While keeping your children from dangerous activities like running with scissors is very important to their physical health, it is also important for us as parents to ensure the mental health of our offspring by not being too overbearing in our desire to keep them from harm.

After all you don't want to raise a child that ends up like this, do you?

Disney Pixar's Cars with Braden

During the past two weeks Braden has developed a new fascination. The fact that this fascination is supported by the TV should come as no surprise as he is my child. Lately Braden watches the Disney Pixar film Cars all the time. By all the time I mean it is on a continuous loop at our house from the time he comes home from school until the time he goes to bed. He plays and does other things, but Cars must be on at all times. When the movie is over Braden always suggests, “Mo Car.” If you think he is not watching and try to turn it off you will hear “I wa Car.” He cannot be deterred.

So I have watched Cars a few hundred times now it seems. Since Arica and Braden get home a few hours before me each day, Arica has seen it even more. I am happy to watch Cars rather than that purple dinosaur Braden used to watch so I try not to complain. Still it gets old after about the third straight viewing.

Here is a little play by play of our movie watching experience. Braden loves Mack, the truck that hauls Lightning McQueen from race to race. As soon as he comes on the screen Braden starts pointing and exclaiming, “Mack, Mack, Mack” until you respond. Then he waits a bit and does it again.

His love of the Mack truck reminds me of a saying a French colleague of mine once told me about. He said in France they have a saying that translates to "pretty as an American truck." At first that sounds ridiculous, but if you have seen the small ugly things that pass for big trucks in Europe you might understand. Our Eighteen wheelers are huge and covered in about 500 pounds of chrome. So Braden finding joy in a beautiful American Mack truck is an understandable thing. Plus it's huge and powerful and all boys like that.

Right after Mack makes his first appearance he and Lightning McQueen leave on a trip for California amidst Braden's exclamations of "MACK!" The song “Life is a Highway” plays at the start of this trip. Braden dances with this song every single time. He loves it. See for yourself.



After that song is over Mack eventually falls asleep and loses Lightning McQueen. When McQueen wakes up he storms off looking for Mack. During this time Braden is looking for Mack too. Then comes the train that McQueen has to beat to the railroad crossing. Even before the train appears Braden starts saying “choo choo.” He has the events in the story down pat at this point.

After that the Sheriff chases our friendly race car through the countryside. Then the movie cuts to a scene of the sleepy little town of Radiator Springs. To show how sleepy the town really is there is absolutely no sound during this part. It is in great contrast to the high speed chase that precedes the scene. Every time this happens Braden says “Uh-Oh” because he thinks the sound is broke. Then he gets the remote and gives it to either me or Arica to fix it.

This little sequence plays out at our house about 5 times a day. The rest of the movie is filled with naming a few characters like "mamer" or "Doc". Braden also has learned the word speed and can point out the Piston Cup or "tin cup" on sight. Who says you can't learn things from watching TV.

Braden likes Cars so much that when I woke him up on Tuesday morning the first thing he said to me was “I wa Car.” I tilted him back from my shoulder to discuss this with him and I noticed his eyes were only cracked open the tiniest bit. He was not even half awake yet. Still, in his sleepy haze, Braden knew that he wanted to watch a little bit of Cars to start his day.

Future Cardinal

Everyone here knows that I love baseball. Everyone knows that I dream of my son taking up an interest in the game as well. To some degree that has started to happen. Braden has, at last count, 7 different bats including three wooden ones that he can use to cause some real damage. He has too many baseballs to count including a couple real ones that are also relatively dangerous.

Most nights I put the TV on the Cardinals game while we play. Nearly every time Braden will sit down and watch a little bit with me. He can now say Pujols when we watch our favorite player hit. He claps when I clap, and he genuinely like watching for brief periods of time.

The best part of his growing love for baseball, however, is his actual ability to hit the ball off the tee.  He can really smoke it some times. And as a proud daddy I want to share a video of his hitting with all of you.

Braden swings and misses once during the video, but that is OK. Even Mighty Casey struck out. Unlike Casey, Braden only gets one strike before he follows up with a swing that nearly puts a dent in the wall. His best hit is the last one which follows a request for a home run. Apparently he can hit homers at will too.

The video is a little long, but I just couldn't decide what to cut. So you get the full experience including Braden's Godparents and our friends Kelly and Lisa doing most of the helping.

I hope you enjoy watching our future Cardinal.

Crazy Laughing Pig

We have been struck by the stomach bug again.  Our ability to be stricken with every single puking ailment is reaching ridiculous levels.  Both Arica and I were home sick yesterday. We were both feeling better by bedtime.  I am still fine, but Arica has suffered a relapse and is home again today.  This is her third bout with a similar sickness in about a month.

I wish I had much better news today from our corner of the world. Instead of carrying on with today's vomit laced theme I will hearken back to lighter days. I fondly remember the days when Braden could frolic with a hysterically laughing pig without worries of another toilet hugging outbreak.  Those are the days that can lift one's spirit.

I hope to be back next time with something more interesting, but until then enjoy this video.

Holy Rabbit Eggs! I Forgot Easter!

Just in case you missed it Easter was a couple weeks ago. We celebrated several times, but due to certain circumstances Life of a New Dad has not celebrated the holiday yet. I don't have a grand story to share about something that happened over two weeks ago so I will share in video and pictures with a few comments. I hope you enjoy.

Video #1 is footage of Braden's first ever Easter Egg Hunt. It is actually his second because they had one at school earlier in the week.  Since neither Arica nor I witnessed this supposed hunt for plastic eggs we cannot prove it actually happened. Therefore this video will go down in the records as the first Easter Egg Hunt.

This footage was sorted out of many more minutes to give you the actual gathering of eggs footage. Before this Braden played basketball, tried to go back inside, and stopped to eat all his candy before finding his egg hunting groove. He really does have a mind of his own.

Video #2 is from the second Easter Egg Hunt that occurred on Easter day. There was more footage of Braden gathering eggs, but it was much like the previous video so I offer you this instead. The first note is about Braden's plastic sack. All the other kids used sacks rather than a basket so Braden insisted that he get a sack too. That is why he is lugging a basket full of eggs and an empty plastic bag. 

Second is a note about his egg toss skills. He was actually the second kid to reject the blue egg. After I quit filming he removed it from his basket every time we put it in there and threw it on the ground. He did not want that egg for some reason. I guess he doesn't like baby blue.

Now we have to close with the traditional shots of Braden in his Easter outfit. For the second straight year he wore a suit and tie. He is super handsome. My thinking is that funerals, weddings, and the resurrection of my Lord and Savior are perfect occasions to wear a tie. I think Braden agrees.

I hope you enjoyed our Easter recap. All this talk has made Braden thirsty so we have to go and fill up our canteens. See you next time.

Toddler and Monkey Stew

When Arica and I first met I enjoyed cooking a little bit, but I had no real idea what I was doing. I certainly had no formal training or even informal training for that matter.  While we were dating she somehow, against my will, got me to watch Emeril on the Food Network.

After that a strange thing happened. I became addicted. I wanted to watch Emeril all the time. I wanted to watch other cooking shows as well.  It seemed that my love of TV and my love of eating had come together to form a perfect marriage.  I learned to cook a little bit. Some of the rules and techniques began to stick in my head. I had never liked using recipes so these rules and techniques helped my repertoire in the kitchen grow exponentially.

At home I share the cooking duties with my very capable wife. Outside of the home I have been slower to showcase my skills. After a few trial runs I have slowly become the dressing maker at Christmas and Thanksgiving with Arica's family. I have also been allowed to bring some other things to the table occasionally.

With all of this I still haven't launched my cooking know how and skills onto the Internet even though it seems to be the perfect place to share. Cooking websites and blogs are everywhere.  My friend PJ Mullen often shares cooking tips, recipes, and even video on his regular blog. He has a separate cooking blog as well.

Today he has inspired me to post this, my first cooking video.

In case you prefer a written recipe I offer the following steps.

1. Put kid in pot.
2. Remove the kid and add monkey. Place kid on top of monkey.
3. Remove kid and monkey and hope they don't run away.

March Madness With a Toddler

Today starts one of the least productive work weeks of the year in America. Thursday and Friday will be stalled due to massive live streaming of NCAA tournament games in offices nationwide.  Some die hard fans may even choose to take vacation days so they can substitute cold beer and wings for TPS reports.

The lack of production starts today, however, not Thursday. All around the country right now people are filling out their brackets. Workers are meeting at the coffee pot to argue who is the better upset choice, Sienna or Murray State. Which 12 seed will beat a 5 seed this year? Can Kentucky's freshmen carry their team to a title like Carmelo did back in 2003? The discussion rages on.

Since I am a lowly worker bee I don't care about lost production. I love March Madness. The first weekend is quite possibly the greatest sporting event of the year. It has always provided me with a lot of enjoyment, and I expect more of the same starting Thursday.

This year, however, I find myself with different priorities as the tournament approaches. Last year in my March Madness post I shared a video of my Arkansas Razorbacks winning the National Championship in 1994. At that time this was the most important and relevant basketball video in my life.

This year there is a much more relevant basketball video that I would like to share. I hope you enjoy this video of my all time favorite slam dunk artist.

Cousins By Blood, Friends By Choice (I hope)

Nearly every child has friends built right into their family tree. These hopefully close friends are called cousins. At the very least you get to play with them a lot growing up. When you gather for family functions the cousins go off to play while the adults sit around and talk about the weather, politics, or whatever adults talk about.

Growing up I had two cousins, a boy and a girl, on my mom's side of the family.  We got together with Mom's family about once a month. In other words I saw these cousins all the time  The boy cousin was quite a bit older than me so we weren't that close. He used to pick on me too. That might be another reason we weren't that close.

The girl cousin was close to my age so we were friends early in life. As we grew older I took to sports and hunting. She took to shopping and other girlie pursuits. We grew apart fairly quickly.

I did have one cousin that was my good friend. My Dad's Brother had a son named Eric. I posted about him here a while back.  Eric and I grew up together on the farm. While our Dad's worked or more often discussed the best way to do the work, we played. There is no limit to how much fun little boys can have on the farm.

We promised to be best friends forever. Of course we grew apart too. I have seen him twice that I can remember in the last 10 years. Once was at our Grandpa's funeral. The other time was after Braden was born when his family came to my parents house to meet Braden and Arica.

During that visit we reminisced about the time we dissected a turtle. I had totally forgot about that and was quite impressed with my younger self upon remembering. We also remembered all the little things we built from junk we found, like the boats that we floated on the pond. It was fun to talk with my old friend.

I started thinking about cousins recently when I transferred a video of Braden and his cousin, Jackson, to my computer.  Jackson is about 2 years older than Braden, and belongs to Arica's brother.  At first Jackson didn't want to share his Grandma with Braden. That is to be expected. He eventually did warm up to Braden. They had plenty of opportunity to play together so I guess it was just a matter of time.

Here is the aforementioned video. Braden is pushing Jackson on a train. Yes, they are both wearing Batman pajamas. No, that was not planned. Yes, it is pretty cool anyway.



As you can see they are working on a friendship already. This has the potential of a special cousin bond that could last forever and provide a lot of great memories. I hope they get along and can be friends for a lifetime.

I think a lot of that might hinge on what Braden has to say once he starts talking.

I Need Horse Racing Tips

Every day someone reaches my blog by searching for some version of "Seinfeld you gotta see the baby." I rank in the top few pages in every possible rendition of that search. In a shameless effort to get more accidental traffic I have chosen to use another Seinfeld clip to illustrate my thoughts today.

Friday afternoon the 2010 live thoroughbred racing season begins at Oaklawn Park here in my hometown.  Before I moved here I had only seen live horse racing once. Now I absolutely love it. I enjoy the strategy of trying to read the forms and pick winners. I enjoy watching the horses run. I enjoy the sport enough that I watch the triple crown races on TV. Of course I love the social gathering that it brings as well. Just this weekend I will be seeing at least 4 and probably closer to 10 of my old friends and their wives at the track. It's a lot of fun.

If you are not sure why the track can be so much fun just imagine 20,000 people acting like Kramer. Throw in some adult beverages, corned beef sandwiches, and the chance to win a little cash and you have a great time.

I wrote at this time last year about Horse Racing as a New Dad. The racing last year was limited. We only went 2 or 3 times. Hopefully this year Arica and I can make a few more trips. A lot of that will depend on how things go this weekend. I am now under a lot of pressure to make good picks. One bad day can derail a race season pretty quick when you have an expensive diaper habit like me.

Everyone out there wish us luck this weekend, and feel free to pass along any "tips" you might have.

Birthday Party Madness

There are so many different angles that I could take in posting about Braden's birthday party this past weekend. First I will start it off with a video and picture of Braden tearing into his cake.

Next I want to take a little time to write about how much work it was to put on a party. My always ambitious wife put on a great party. As a result she was busier than that proverbial one legged man. Arica spent Saturday cooking. Then she went up to the church late Saturday night to set up as much as she could. It started all again on Sunday morning. She was there ready to pounce with the remainder of decorations as soon as Sunday school was over. She spent the final few hours finishing the food preparations. The spread at this party was one of the best I have ever tasted and I have tried them all. Thanks so much Arica for putting on an amazing party. You are the best.

I could follow with the angle about how annoying other peoples kids can be. They ran around screaming and yelling. They get in the birthday boys face and try to be the center of attention at all times. They can drive you crazy.

Another topic could be how the ability to use tools separates us from the animals. I probably lost you on that one. Well look at my ingenious son in the video below improvising by using his candle to eat his cake. He gets an A+ in the field of creative destruction.

Instead I think I will take the remainder of this space to write about how amazing it feels to see all the love flow from so many other people for your child. Yes much of it is because they love the parents, but they wouldn't all show up for our birthday party.

We were overwhelmed with the generosity of all our family and friends. People gave until it hurt as the old saying goes. As a result Braden is now prancing through a playground dream right in his own home. It is impossible to walk through our house without twisting an ankle on a randomly located toy. You might also take an inadvertent ride on tiny truck placed just perfectly to take you down. Our home looks like Santa's workshop exploded.

All this gives both Arica and I a special feeling. I know Braden won't remember his party. He didn't even know a lot of the people there. Nonetheless I know that our work paid off by giving Braden a special day. The look on his face as he happily plowed through his personal birthday cake was priceless. That joy will go on in his life for some time. Every time he plays with some of his new toys it will take flight again.

Throwing a party for Braden was a wonderful thing. It was a wonderful day that Arica and I didn't want to end. We laid in bed well past our normal bedtime laughing and talking about the day. There is nothing like a party and a little love from your friends and family to make everything seem right with the world.

He Walks, He Carries Things, He Dribbles, He Rocks

Two of my most loyal followers and great bloggers themselves, Weasel Momma and Surprised Mom, suggested a little while back that I give them some video of Braden.

Well I have tried for a long while to get what I thought was blogworthy video. Every time I get out the camera Braden ceases whatever great activity he is doing and comes after me and the camera. I can never get anything.

Finally I got this.

An optimist might say he can walk so well that he is able to carry things. A pessimist might say he is using the ball to help balance and prevent falls. The all knowing friend or relative that likes to predict the future might say he is going to be a basketball player.

Arica and I say that he is amazing.

How to Lose Followers

I have been dealt a couple crushing blows in the last few weeks. I have been too busy to post regularly. I can't come up with any good ideas lately. When I have a moment of time to think for myself all I can come up with is engineering thoughts convoluted by my desire for a cold beer. I have lost my ability to write interesting posts. In the meantime I have lost two followers. I am back under 70. It would then occur to me that I have found a way to kill my blog. Don't post regularly. That will do it.

I haven't found the cure for my blogger's block yet so I am sharing a video. The subject is none other than the inspiration for this blog, Braden. He told me that he has some words for those blog quitters out there. Presumably he is saying don't you ever give up on my daddy. He is the greatest blogger this side of Lake Hamilton. Since I can't be sure that is his stance, here he is to clarify.

Hold Me

It's another Monday at the office. I am not a big fan of Monday. I won't say that I have a case of the Monday's because, well that's just stupid. I have the same feelings about that term as the neighbor on Office Space. He says it best so I will let him sum up our feelings about the Monday's with the video below.



Monday is not too awful bad. I get to the office and have that first cup of coffee. I check out my fantasy sports teams and all the news I consider relevant. Some of that news could even be considered real news. When I am all good and cranked up I start my work. It may not be the most efficient way to start a work week, but it is my process.

Today rather than cranking up the old engineering machine I was thinking about this past weekend. What should I share about the two day vacation that has come and gone. I watched a lot of baseball Saturday. We went to church and to the lake on Sunday. Those things aren't really at the top of my list. The thing I keep remembering has to do with Braden.

He crawls all over the place now. Spending time with him is a lot like a wrestling match. I mean Olympic style wrestling not the WWE wrasslin' soap opera. Just like a wrestling match you start with Braden in the middle of the room. He wanders off into a corner or, following the wrestling analogy, goes off the mat. Then you bring him back to the middle to start over. It is a never ending process. Crawl away. Bring him back to start. Crawl away. Bring him back to start. Crawl away. Decide to let him go. He hits his head on something and starts screaming. I get in trouble, and so it continues.

Braden has been doing something new with his crawling. When he wants to be held he now crawls over to me or Arica. I think it is amazing to see his thought process. He actually wants something and knows how to get it. When Arica is on the floor he is constantly crawling all over her. He wants his Mommy to hold him pretty much all the time. I am sure it gets a little difficult for her. He hasn't really done it much to me. He would rather rough house with Dad than hug.

Sunday night Braden and I were in the living room. He looked across the room at me and started his journey. He crawled all the way over and up onto my legs as best he could. Then he looked at me with those big brown eyes as if to say hold me Daddy. Of course my heart melted, and I picked him up for a big hug. Little moments like that are worth more than gold.

Fatherhood Lessons with Homer Simpson: Playing with Your Kids

Sometimes I am lost for blogworthy ideas about fatherhood. Inspiration is fleeting and I don't know where to turn. Much of my inspiration comes from TV or music. Greater men are probably inspired by historical figures like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. Others may be inspired by great authors or scientific studies, but that is not me. As Popeye says, "I am what I am." And I am inspired by Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Vedder, and sometimes even Homer Simpson.

Today's post will be a lesson from Homer about toys and playing with our kids. Watch the video and then read on for my dissection of Homer's teachings.


The first lesson here is that Dads should play with their kids as much as possible. One of our main jobs as fathers is to be the entertainment director for our children. The best way to do that is get right down on the floor with them. Get in their little world and play with their toys. There is no substitute for time spent with your children so follow Homer's lead and start playing.

The second lesson we can learn from Homer is that we don't have to buy the most expensive toys for our kids. If you have the means to buy every toy in the store then by all means do it. Kids, however, are not always entertained or occuppied with a toy box full of toys. Sometimes you have to use other things around the house for entertainment. I use water bottles and the remote control nearly every day. A box works great as well. As any parent knows, kids often like the box, bow, or wrapping paper much more than the actual gift that is found inside. Apply this theory to your everyday play time. I read yesterday over at my friend PJ's blog Real Men Drive Mini Vans that he recently used a box to lure his son back into the play area. He wondered if he was a bad father. I say heck no. You are a great dad.

Finally a lesson for all us dad's that are really just big kids. Never let the joy of playing with toys again lead you to an unhealthy attachment to said toys. We should never runaway with our kids toys like a crazed Homer hiding under the box. I know it is a great amount of fun to play with your kids. Sometimes I admit to having too much fun with Braden's toys and he is only a baby. I am sure I will get more than carried away when he gets older. I already covet the little Star Wars figures I see in Wal-Mart. No matter how much fun we have let's always remember it's about the kids.

My thanks to Homer Simpson for departing his wisdom on us today.

Fisher Price Mail Man

Braden's new favorite toy is the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Learning Letters Mailbox. Fisher Price really should try to get some longer names for their toys. These are just too easy to remember. Anyway the mailbox is the third in our lineup of laugh and learn toys. I wrote about the Puppy here. We also have the Laugh and Learn Storybook Rhymes. This Fisher Price bunch is a monster.

I know many bloggers out there review products for free samples and other compensation. That is fine with me. After all the only thing better than free stuff is free beer. And the only thing better than free beer is free cold beer. So review to the tune of free stuff if you want. This post is netting me nothing. I just wanted to share a little bit about Braden's favorite new toy.

No matter where we place the mail box Braden finds it. He will roll over onto his tummy and seek it out. Once he finds the toy he makes his way too it by a series of rolling and scooting maneuvers. Using these methods he can reach most places in the living room. When he gets the mail box in his mitts he turns it over, opens it up, and gets the mail. Once he gets the mail he starts trying to eat it. He may be on to something here. Eating bills sounds a lot more pleasurable than paying them. I don't know if Fisher Price meant for the plastic letters to serve as teethers, but they do a good job. Braden loves to chew on them.

The box sings and is brightly colored. I'm sure that the bright colors help draw Braden to the postal receptacle. The songs certainly make him happy too. I still think there might be something more powerful drawing him towards the postal arena. This something is his DNA.

My Dad has been a mail man all my life. It's a part of my family tradition. I once told my parents that I wasn't going to college. I was going to stay home and join the family business. The business was of course delivering the mail. My mother, perhaps worried I was serious, demanded I go to college. So my dreams of following in my Dad's footsteps ended.

My interest in the post office didn't end there though. My two favorite sitcoms of all time are "Seinfeld" and "Cheers". Yes, both shows have mail men as prominent characters. Coincidence? I think not. Cliff Clavin is one of my favorite Cheers characters. He is funny in a helpless loser kind of way.

Seinfeld sports the dark rantings of Newman. He has spouted many great lines on the show. He also has some funny descriptions of the postal service that I always tried to share with my Dad. I don't think he was amused, but I shared anyway. Dad never was stressed too much by the mail, but it happens. Here's Newman's take on that.

My Dad was a mail man. I am drawn to sitcoms with funny mail men. Braden is drawn to toy mail boxes. Our dog likes to raise his leg and mark mail boxes. All these things are too much to overlook. The men in this family must have letter carrying DNA.

The First Supper

It's Holy Week and the celebration of the Last Supper is only 2 days away. It seems like a good time to talk about eating. Add to that the fact that I am struggling for blog fodder today and you get this wonderfully insightful post. I dug deep into the archives of my home videos and found a clip to share. The clip shows the very first time Braden tasted the gooey goodness of baby food. That is what I call it even though I think the technical term is "solids". The genius that came up with this term obviously has a different interpretation of the various states of matter than I do.





This feeding was about a month ago. You will remember how excited I was to move on to solid food in this earlier post. The food in question in the video was green beans. Braden has moved on to peas, squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes now. At first we were feeding him twice a day. For whatever reason this interrupted his sleeping patterns. As all new parents know this is the worst thing that can happen. You work so hard to get them into a regular sleeping routine that also allows you enough sleep to sustain life. Any backpedaling in this area is an absolute nightmare. Arica figured out that Braden slept better the few times we only fed him once a day. That was enough to permanently change the plan. So we are comfortably settled into a once a day vegetable sludge feeding. Everyone seems happy especially since proper sleep has been restored.