FML - Celebrating Star Wars Day

So this year my family celebrated Star Wars Day for the first time. My son & I were both decked out in Star Wars shirts, and my wife and I sat down to watch Episode IV: A New Hope. She had never seen any of the original trilogy of films before, somehow managing to avoid seeing them until now (although she has seen the prequel trilogy). Since my son is not yet two and a half, we knew that he wouldn't really be all that interested in the movie, nor able to follow it at all. In fact, he checked out from paying attention and went back to playing with his toys about 15 minutes into the movie. But initially, he was very excited, especially every time that C-3PO and R2-D2 were on the screen. The Star Wars tshirt he was wearing had the two droids on it, and he recognized them whenever they were on the screen, excitedly pointing to the screen and yelling "Robots! Robots!"

 

My wife thought the film was better than she expected it to be, but she still doesn't understand how some people are so pulled into fandom of the saga. I guess since she didn't see it at a young age, she'll never fully understand the passion this series has instilled in so many people. But I look forward to celebrating Star Wars Day in the future, especially as my son gets older and will be able to appreciate the films for more than just a few minutes.

Hope you all had a fun Star Wars Day yourselves, and may the force be with you, always!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Happy Star Wars Day to everyone! May the Fourth be with you! My son is all properly attired for the occasion, are you?

Also, my blog returns to regular posting next week, since this week I have finals for grad school, so check back on May 13th for my Summer Movie preview!

FML - Today's my birthday, & Thursday my son will be 2

Just in time for my birthday, grad school has ended for the semester. So, my blog is back with some new content, yay! Thanks for your patience!

I'm 32 today. Holy crap. I don't like getting older very much. I find myself having more and more gray hairs in my facial hair, or on the sides of my head. I feel like I am way way way too young to be graying. I'm sure it's probably my son Jackson's fault :-D.  He'll be two years old on Thursday. I really can't believe that time is flying by that rapidly. It feels like just yesterday he was this tiny, fragile thing in my arms, waking me up several times a night with his cries. Now he runs, plays, and talks, and like all two year olds, he is starting to be a bit of a pain in the rear. He's got his last 2 teeth growing in now, and gone is my adorable baby who slept all day. Here now is a hyper kinetic ball of energy that never seems to slow down, unless you flip on Bubble Guppies or another show onto the TV, which stops him in his tracks & puts him into a trance.

Part of me is really dreading the terrible twos. We've heard such awful things from people for so long, that I'm starting to feel a little nervous. Our son has been such a good boy for so long, that I wonder if our luck will hold and he'll continue to be a little angel, or will he turn into a destructive psycho soon enough? I guess we'll find out in the coming months. He's already started acting out and being more hyper than normal, so I suppose they started a little bit early for him.

I guess the only good thing about getting older is that my son is getting older too. As much as I'd like him to stay a child forever, I'm also looking forward for him getting a little bit older so he can start to take part in some of the things I'm eager to share with him.

But really, getting older sucks. Having your birthday be on a Monday really sucks. But oh well, such is life!

Oh, guess what my son got me for my birthday? He spent yesterday puking his guts out all over the house. So my last day as a 31 year old was spent cleaning up vomit and washing massive amounts of laundry. What a fantastic and thoughtful gift he decided to give me!

Alright, that's all for today. Thanks for stopping by! It feels good to be back and blogging again!  I'll have 2x a week posts for the next few weeks until grad school starts up again, so check back Mondays and Thursdays for new content!

FML - My plans for my son's sci-fi development

So yesterday I mused on whether or not I am a nerd. Whether I'm a nerd or not, I love sci-fi and I want to make sure to pass that on to my son. So, this is my action plan for my son's sci-fi development. If you have any additional suggestions that I am missing, let me know in the comments!

• Start him out on sci-fi with cartoons. Star Wars: Clone Wars, X-Men, & Spider-Man cartoons to start. With those latter two, I'll go with the DVDs of the awesome 90s cartoons I grew up with myself.
• Dress him in sci-fi stuff as often as possible. As I mentioned yesterday, I have an adorable Star Wars hoodie for him, but he also has stuff for Spider-Man, Star Trek, the Avengers, Superman, Batman, & many more that I dress him in whenever possible. (And when he's not wearing these he's usually clad in Maize & Blue to build up his Michigan love).
• When he gets older, start him on the Star Wars films. The proper viewing order is Episodes 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. Episode 1 is dead to me and I want to avoid Jar-Jar in his life for as long as possible. When he's older he can go back and view that one later. For more on why this is the proper viewing order - go here and read this outstanding article I came across.  As to the new ones they are planning on making, obviously those would be added to the viewing order for where they fall in to the universe's timeline.
• Start him on sci-fi television when he's young with the more kid friendly Star Trek: TNG when he is about 10, maybe a little younger.  After TNG I'll have him watch Star Trek DS9 and the JJ Abrams Trek films.  I'll introduce the more serialized Lost and Babylon 5 when he is a little older.  
• He'll start on comic book movies once he is old enough (10 maybe?), especially the Marvel films of the past couple of years, and the Chris Nolan Batman movies. 
• I'll have him read the works of JRR Tolkein as soon as he is old enough to understand them, as well as watch the Peter Jackson films once he is old enough to not be disturbed by the violence in the films.
• Game of Thrones can wait until he is deeper into his teenage years, due to the sex and nudity on the show and in the books.
• He'll be exposed to board games at family game nights, and once he is old enough to understand some of the more complex games we can move into strategy and fantasy games. I have never played D&D but I would be okay with him doing this in his early teens (and if he took to this I'd love to play it with him). I'd love to play Magic the Gathering with him as well, I started that game myself when I was about 12.

Ok so that's my plan.  Fellow sci-fi loving parents, if you have any other suggestions, please let me know!

FML - Parenting achievements unlocked

I play a lot of videogames, and many of them have achievements you can unlock by accomplishing a specific task.  If life were a videogame, these would be some of the achievements I've unlocked so far in my short time as being a dad:

Artful Dodger - Evade a stream of bodily fluids leaving your baby without getting any on yourself.
Immunity - Stay home from work and take care of a sick baby without getting sick yourself.
Long Hauler - Survive a 15 hour flight with a baby without pulling the emergency exit handle on a plane door or getting thrown off the plane.
Ninja Apprentice - Change a diaper without waking a baby.
Ninja Master - Change a diaper, lotion baby head to toe, and dress in pajamas a sleeping baby without waking him.
Ninja Ultimate - Transfer baby from carseat in garage to bedroom upstairs, remove baby's jacket and clothes, change diaper, lotion head to toe, dress in pajamas, and place in crib a sleeping baby without waking him.
The Working Dead - Go in to work on less than an hour of sleep, despite feeling like a zombie.
World Traveler - Get your baby a passport & bring them to another continent before they turn two.

Okay, that's just eight that I came up with, I'm sure there are more but I cannot think of them now.

Fellow parents: what achievements have you unlocked in your lives? Let me know in the comments! Can you come up with any to add to the list?

FML - Oppa Baby Style

So my son has developed his first addiction - watching "Gangnam Style" on YouTube on my cell phone.  If he's being fussy, simply popping that on for him manages to calm him down.  He also bops his feet and waves his arms to the music (if he's not holding the phone himself), but he can't do the whole dance yet (obviously).

Here is a cute photo of him enjoying a bottle and watching the video.

Oh, and if you have no clue what the heck Gangnam Style is (what, have you been living under a rock this year?) it is that YouTube music video that has racked up 855 million views and counting in a mere four months, and its performer, Psy, has shown up all over TV including Ellen, Saturday Night Live, the American Music Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and many other places.  Just go to YouTube and search for "Gangnam Style" and you'll find it, its the one with a massive ton of views. 

FML - Make my kid a Gerber baby!

So Gerber is running a contest to find new baby models, and I think my adorable son has a chance.  Voting is now through 9/21, so follow this link to go vote.  You can only vote once per day per facebook account.  Please also get your friends to vote as well!  My son is in the Sitter category (they have 6 different categories of children) and you can only vote one child per category, so if you have friends with kids in other categories that's fine, but make sure you vote for Jackson for Sitter! 

I mean come on, look how cute he is!  Now go vote!

FML - Let the indoctrination begin



Already practicing the arm raise for "Hail"
in Hail to the Victors

 So today Michigan kicks off its 2012 college football season versus Alabama.  I've already started priming my son Jackson for loving all things Michigan.  It started in the womb, with my playing "Hail to the Victors" on my iPod and holding the speaker up to my wife's belly.  After his birth, he had a mobile over his crib that played "Hail to the Victors" instead of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as his lullaby.  We brought him to Ann Arbor for the first time this past May on Memorial Day weekend.  He also has a Michigan hat and a pair of Michigan onesies that we love dressing him in (as you can see, to the left).

Tonight Michigan plays Alabama in a game that Michigan is expected by many (unfortunately including myself) to lose, as the spread is 12.5 points.  Win or lose though, this will be the first of every Michigan game that Jackson watches with me, so I am excited for kickoff to happen.  I'll actually be in Michigan today (though not at the game, they're playing in Dallas) so it'll be great to watch the game in the state where I met Jackson's mom.  I'm looking forward to watching games with my son for the rest of my life, so today a new Saturday tradition is born.  Obviously, he's not going to fully understand what is going on just yet, that will come in time, but the tradition stars now nonetheless.  Now, only 18 years until he goes to Michigan as a freshman! 

FML - Fun with Sleep Deprivation

As I mentioned recently on the blog, my son Jackson is teething now.  He's had his first 4 break through the gums, and is working on a few more teeth.  In addition to him being fussier than he used to be, he has also begun to interfere with my wife and my attempts to get a good night's sleep.  He regularly wakes in the middle of the night again now, not hungry, just wanting to be held because of the pain.  This has caused my sleep deprivation to kick back in, making me less effective at work and at home, and increasing my feelings of zombiehood.  Also, I get migraine headaches when I'm sleep deprived for too many days in a row, I've now discovered.  So I've been having off and on migraines for the past 8 months, which sucks.  I have one this morning as I type this in fact.

I often find myself having to pull over my car while driving now, just so I can get out and stretch and get my blood flowing again, to help me to wake back up behind the wheel.  I have also cut back on my caffeine intake as part of a program to limit how much I drink, so the timing of the teething is not opportune for me. 

There is a funny story though about what happened the other day because of my sleep deprivation.  My son woke up at 5 and again at 645 on Saturday morning (and my wife and I had gone to bed around 1 AM so we were tired).  Both times my wife was able to calm him down and get him back to sleep without him needing to eat a bottle, but on the second wakeup I had already gone downstairs to get the bottle ready.  I took it out of the fridge, unscrewed the cap and nipple, and stuck it in the microwave to warm up.  When the microwave dinged, I opened up the door to find I had just microwaved the cap, not the bottle of milk.  Whoops!

Yesterday I also made the blunder of confusing the films Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in a discussion on Disney movies, dropping the wrong name for which film had the dragon that breathes green fire.  My wife said that's like confusing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings because the two films are totally different.

I really can't wait until my son goes back to sleeping through the night again, he had been so good for so long, I really don't like how teething is affecting him.  Hopefully I'll be able to get caught up on some sleep this coming weekend, especially with the day off on Monday, but since Friday and Saturday night I'll be sleeping in a hotel and not my regular bed, I doubt it.

FML - Rolling baby makes for annoying diaper changes

So my son really loves rolling and moving a lot.  Normally this is very adorable, but when I am trying to change his diaper it is extremely annoying.  A couple times now he has spread his poop onto other parts of his body or the changing surface by moving when I am trying to change him.  It is also rather irritating when I am trying to change his clothing, as he nearly falls off the changing table some times, even strapped down.  Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to deal with a squirmy baby that just won't hold still?  Please let me know what has worked for you!

FML - Teething update

So the 2nd tooth has now cracked the surface of my son's gums.  I'd put up photos but it is incredibly difficult to get my son to take a picture with us holding down his lip.  He really doesn't like this and thrashes a ton, and even if he's sleeping he rolls away from the attempts.  So, if you want to see my son's teeth, you have to see us in person :-D  In the meantime though, just curious for parents of children, is there a common order the teeth arrive in?  He has now gotten both of the middle teeth on his lower jaw, but I am wondering if there is a pattern on which the teeth break through or is it random.  For those of you with more than 1 child, what order did they grow in?  Combination of top and bottom?  Front to back or back to front?  Or just random all over the place?  I'm just curious so I know what to expect.  Let me know in the comments or on Facebook!

FML - Teething Bites

So my son has started teething recently.  He has had his first tooth burst through the gums and has several others that should pop through soon as well.  Teething sucks.  It has taken our son, who is normally the most happy-go-lucky, smiling baby and turned him in to a cranky, needy, whiny monster for the lion's share of the night.  We cannot put him down without him crying.  If we are out of the room to get something, he's crying.  If we are sitting next to him but he's not being held by us, he's crying.  He's not so bad in the mornings, maybe because he hasn't woken up fully yet, but at night he is downright awful.  We have him using cold teething rings around the clock, and we use baby Tylenol in the evenings, but he still is just so miserable. 




Before teething - "Wheeeeeeeeee"



After teething - "Bite Me"



 



















The photo of him on the right is about the best photo he's taken since his tooth has popped in.  He smiles from time to time, but nowhere near as frequently as he used to.  He's also been having a much harder time eating than normal too.  It even has managed to irritate him more than his eczema (although that requires much more treatment to manage).  It's even hampering his sleep, making him fussy in the middle of the night.  I'd gotten used to him sleeping through the night, I am not happy at all that he is having a harder time both going to bed and staying asleep.  If anyone has any useful teething suggestions from experience, let me know!  After all, it's only 1 tooth down, 20+ to go.  Oh lucky me.

FML - What I've learned so far in 7+ weeks as a father

Welcome back to CRAPOLA for today’s entry in the FML (Fatherhood Means Laughter) section of my blog.  It has now been seven weeks since my son Jackson was born.  In that time I am amazed at how quickly I have learned some things about parenting, and I have also become surprised at just how little sleep I need to function.  I still can’t believe that it has been seven weeks already, the time is really starting to move fast.  Maybe that’s because I’m in a daze a good portion of the time from sleep deprivation?  I don’t know, but what I do know is that I’m having a great time being a dad.  It truly is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.  I look at my son’s face every day with a sense of wonder and amazement, and I think it’s still registering in my brain the thought of “holy crap I’m a dad!”  I’m looking forward to watching him continue to progress and grow, and I eagerly await the future (see my post on what I’m looking forward to sharing with him when he gets older here) of this crazy ride I find myself on.

I’ve learned some amazing things in the past few weeks, things that no one told me about, often through trial and error.  In an attempt to help those that will become parents themselves in the future, I thought I’d share with you today some of the things that I have learned.

On diapers and changing – I have learned a lot of things here, things that they didn’t teach me or my wife Sittie in our newborn parents class.  One thing that I have learned is to make sure you never ever position your body below his feet when changing a baby.  Always have the baby perpendicular to you when changing a diaper.  Sittie found this out the hard way when she stood at his feet while changing him, and he proceeded to fart and poop at the same time, spraying her with poop.  I nearly died laughing when that happened.  Another thing I learned about diaper changes is to not rush and change him right away when he poops.  The initial passing of gas or small amount of poop can be the tip of the iceberg for a bigger poop, and if you don’t give it five minutes, you’ll just wind up changing the baby a 2^nd or 3^rd time in a matter of minutes as he keeps producing poop.  We wasted a number of diapers that way.  Speaking of diapers, the brand name ones are far superior to the generics, if only because of a really convenient feature they have.  There is a yellow line down the center of the diaper that turns blue once exposed to urine, so you can see without having to open the diaper to check if the baby has gone # 1 or not.  That’s a big time saver and really convenient in the middle of the night.

Read the rest of my discoveries, including a funny story that happened to my mother-in-law after the jump!

FML - Why I'm looking forward to having a kid

So for those of you that are not aware, I am going to be a father for the first time this December; my wife and I are expecting a boy.  As his arrival gets closer and closer, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that I am looking forward to sharing with my son.  So, without further ado, these are the things I’m most looking forward to sharing with my son once he’s old enough to appreciate them.  I just hope that he likes them as much as I do, and I hope I won’t be too disappointed if he doesn’t.

Authors/Books for when he’s a kid:  Shel Silverstein, Bearenstain Bears; Dr. Seuss.

Authors/Books for when he gets old enough:  Stephen King, JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, John Sandford, David Baldacci; Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy.  Also, graphic novels in general, and the Marvel universe in particular.  I hope my kid likes comics :-D

TV Series on DVD for when he’s a kid:  DVDs of the old school stuff I grew up on – Schoolhouse Rock, GI Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, Looney Tunes, Tiny Tunes, Animaniacs.

TV series on DVD for when he gets old enough:  Anything classic sci-fi, but especially Lost, Babylon 5, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, & any Star Trek franchise.  In the realm of non sci-fi – Castle, 24, Big Bang Theory, Band of Brothers, & The Pacific.

Movies for when he’s a kid:  Princess Bride, Star Wars (and they’ll be watched in the proper order: IV, V, VI, I, II, III – I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out Vader is Luke’s dad.  I hope he doesn’t have that spoiled for him I’ll have to get him young on that), anything by Pixar, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, and the classic Disney movies.

Movies for when he gets old enough:  Lord of the Rings, Fight Club, Seven, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Army of Darkness, Dark Knight, Top Gun, The Killer, Hard Boiled, Usual Suspects & Saving Private Ryan.  Also, if he shows a true appreciation for film, I’m really looking forward to showing him really old stuff such as Akira Kurosawa & Alfred Hitchcock.  I’m hoping that for films with a twist ending, by the time he watches them since they’ve been out for so many years that the endings will not be commonly discussed in pop culture anymore, so he gets shocked by the ending of Fight Club, 6^th Sense, Usual Suspects, and other films like that.  I really hope that he goes into those films unspoiled so that I can see the look on his face when the twist comes.  Who knows though, maybe he’ll be like his mom and see the twists coming a mile away.

Sports teams to follow:  anything from Chicago and anything for the University of Michigan.  The first piece of clothing I bought my son was a U of M onesie and he also has a U of M mobile for his crib.  That boy is going to grow up fanatical about U of M football just like his old man.

Sports teams to hate:  The Yankees, Ohio State, Green Bay Packers, Michigan State, & Notre Dame.

Video games and board games.  The kid is going to be gaming a lot just like his dad.  I like the Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360 so that he can play the games I played when he was that age, and so he can see just how lucky he is to live in an age that isn’t 8 or 16 bit graphics anymore. 

So those are just some of the things I’m looking forward to sharing with my kid.  I’m sure there are plenty more things that will come to me as I’m going through this new chapter in my life.  Hopefully I can still keep up with my blogging, although going forward there might be more posts about my son mixed in with posts about pop culture.  I haven’t decided if I am going to start a separate blog for posts about my family or not, that remains to be seen.  Anyways, thanks for dropping by!