Unhampered amusement

My wife and I were in the living room last night investigating the wide selection of sod-all that comprises Netflix's streaming library when I heard something from one of the kids' rooms.

"Dad!"

It was my son. Probably trying to scam his way out of having to go to sleep.

"Daaaaad!"

Okay, a bit more urgent. I got up to investigate. As I approached his room, I heard, "Dad, I'm stuck in the hamper!" I opened the door, and sure enough, all I could see of him was his legs sticking out the top of the cylindrical hamper.

My wife did the actual extraction because I was still busy laughing. When we asked what happened, my son said that he couldn't see where he was going. He must have crawled in a straight line off his bed to manage to hit the hamper, which lies at the end of it.

Amazingly, this wasn't the first time something like this happened. When he was a wee nubbin, he managed to slip out of his crib head first into the bin of stuffed animals.

Kid is part ostrich, I'm telling you.

The Force is strong with this one

My son got a glowstick from a birthday party he went to over the weekend. He'd never seen one, so I showed him how it worked. My wife cracked the inner chamber, and as it began to glow, I herded him into the bathroom--the only dark place in the house.

It was a shining green by that point, and it reminded me of the crystal in Superman's rocket from the first Superman movie.

"Check it out, Brody. Just like in 'Superman.'"

He looked at it for a second, then took it from me. He began swinging it around.

"VRRRRMMMMMMM! RMMMMMMMMMMSSHHHHH!"

He then said he wanted a green lightsaber. It was one of those proud dork dad moments.

How young is too young to be manipulative?

Kids will get into stuff no matter how much you have kidproofed your house. I stayed home with the kids today, and my daughter was trying to get into everything.

To try to express the importance of not doing such things, I raised my voice--not in an evil-sounding way.

Now keep in mind that she's 10 months old, so she's not much of a conversationalist.

After I picked her up and moved her into the living room, I told her that I didn't want her to get into that stuff because she could get hurt.

She looked at me, smiled widely and gave me a big kiss.

And then went right back where I told her not to go.

Kids.

The results are in...

Did a guest post on my friend Genevieve's blog again this morning, but I figured I'd post it here, as well as on my parenting blog.

So, getting an official diagnosis of autism hasn't made everything as different as I thought it might. I guess I was a little surprised that my son was diagnosed as autistic rather than having Asperger's syndrome, but since there is a list of criteria that gets checked off, if you have enough checkmarks under the autism umbrella, that diagnosis trumps Asperger's.

The phrase "high-functioning" was mentioned a lot, though that wasn't much of a surprise, as Brody has taken recently to becoming a walking billboard, writing "www.thx.com" on his arm and filling up reams of paper with all his favorite words.

An official diagnosis, I suppose, not only gives us a starting point, but it will make getting assistance for him a little easier. I hope.

But in the big picture, not a lot has changed. After all, he's still my son. He still does all the goofy and amazing things he's always done. I think it's important not to lose sight of that.

My wife will likely roll her eyes so hard she will see into the past when I say this, but when I think about talking to my son sometimes, I'm reminded of the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Captain Picard is on a planet with an alien captain who speaks in metaphor. So instead of things like "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra," it's "She's gone and I'll never see her again," which is something he says when he's sad or overwhelmed. It's from an episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

I think this is hardest on my wife, because she has to deal with both of us. But even then, knowing the reason behind something makes it a little easier to understand. Of course, knowing why your husband is obsessed with old TV commercials and crappy movies probably doesn't help when it comes to you know, actually helping to take care of the kids, but she's pretty awesome.

So it's kind of an adventure for the whole family. We never know quite where the day will take us, and we don't know what TV show or movie Mr. Total Recall will use to convey a point (seriously, it's a little eerie watching him perform stuff he's seen only once. He gets the inflection down pat and everything), but underneath it all, he's a great kid, and I love watching him grow up.

Perhaps some day I'll join him.

So I'm in a foul mood...

...partly because I feel awful (my stomach and I are not on speaking terms today), and partly because it occurred to me that it's been almost 2 years since I wrote to Parenting magazine about their no-dads policy.

I wrote to them, and I was told my letter would be published. It wasn't; and not long after I stopped looking, they introduced their tag, "What matters to moms."

Feh.

Being the ever-sensitive pissy sort, I decided I'd try again.

Here's what I wrote.

Hi --

I first wrote in May 2006 about the magazine's momcentric slant. At the time, I was working at home from 2-10 a.m. and watching my then-3-year-old son while my wife was at work.

I got a reply saying that my letter would be published, etc. I never saw it printed, and shortly after giving up on seeing it, I noticed the cover tag, "What matters to moms."

Way to go.

Granted, I presume there have been enough studies showing that your target demographic is moms, but the magazine has become even less inviting to any parent who has the apparent misfortune of having a penis.

I really find the magazine content informative--which is why I still read it--but it's very clear that it's not meant for me or any other father.

An occasional article from a dad in the back of the issue isn't exactly helping, either, especially when it's after yet another article from a mom about how nervous she was to let her husband watch the kids. Because as we all know, we dads think nothing of letting the kids play with chainsaws and rat poison.

Is there any plan to feature dads who are active parts of their children's lives? Or should I just stop my bellyaching and look elsewhere?

Sincerely,

Jeff Sparkman
Mountain House, California
http://siftin.blogspot.com/search/label/parenting
http://dorkdad.blogspot.com

I'll let you know if I hear anything.

Aside from my stomach doing its best impression of the underground pipe system in The Goonies.

Festive festivities! Huzzah!

First, there's the teaser trailer that came out today for the new Indiana Jones movie (W00t!):



In other exciting news, the Siftin' family of blog entertainment (Our motto: More than just crap) has expanded. Yep, now you can double your pleasure by coming here first, and then going to The Dynamic Adventures of Dork Dad, where I am migrating my parenting-related content.

Tell a friend!

So happy together

Well, my wife has returned, and we got to spend a nice day together, which was nice. We all missed her, and she claims to have missed me as well.

I'm going to miss hanging out with the kids now that I'll be back at work, and I'll miss not having to commute every day, but until I hit the lottery, such is my lot in life.

Now it's back to obsessing over pop culture on the train to and from work. And at lunch. I even dug out my Totally Mad CD set that has every issue of Mad, well, up until like December 1998, but still.

I'm starting from 1974 this time to see how it has changed during my lifetime. If I come across anything interesting, I'll likely post it here.

And WonderCon is coming up in a few weeks, which is pretty cool. My pal Karyne is going with me this year (first-timer), so it'll be sorta like taking a kid to Disneyland for the first time. Except less waiting in line.

Among the scheduled guests: Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, who will be there to promote their Get Smart movie. I promised my wife that I would do my best to dissuade Miss Hathaway from following me around the convention all day long in case she, you know, decides she just can't live without me.

Cross I have to bear, you know?

Home Alone, Day 4: The home stretch

Well, Jen gets back from her trip tomorrow, and huzzah, huzzah, I managed not to burn down the house or lose either of the kids to roving bands of gypsies or supervillains. On top of that, Ramona helped me vacuum (she hung out in the Baby Bjorn), and I got a load and a half of laundry done.

Of course, Jen does that and more while juggling various freelancing projects, but for me, it's still impressive.

So is remembering to shave both sides of my face before leaving the house, but hey, baby steps, right?

Home Alone, Day 3: Things get goofy

I have managed to heal my son, which is good, because if he was motionless much longer, I think my daughter might have tried to eat him. She likes the food.

We're currently watching Goofy cartoons, which both Brody and I enjoy quite a bit. The skiing one is probably my favorite, but just about any Goofy cartoon is better (for me, anyway) than watching There Goes a Dump Truck for the skrillionth time.

The next cartoon is starting, so I'd better get going.

Home Alone, Day 2: I'm only sleeping

Brody seems to be sleeping off the tummy bug he picked up; poor little nubbin. He's keeping hydrated and getting some rest.

In other news, you might have noticed that I've got a new header graphic up there, and now you can submit posts you love to Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon. Handy, no? I do this for you, dear readers. Because I care.

Home Alone, Day 1: He tasks me...

So natch, the first day I'm in charge of the kids, my son decides he's going to do the Technicolor yawn. Barfing kid--always a crowd-pleaser. Meh.

Ramona's not being too bad so far, although I'd like to eat at some point. Oh well. Not like I'm going to waste away to nothing...

Impending doom?

For the next 5 days, I'm going to be in charge of the kids, as my darling wife is going away on a trip. Now is the time for you all to place your bets on how I'll do.

My prediction: I will have a beard by the time I go back to work Tuesday.

The kids are pretty good, so I should be all right. Plus, I did used to be home with Brody every day, so it's not completely new.

Watching the game

You have died of dysentery...

It appears that I caught something while playing Oregon Trail on Facebook today, so in lieu of an actual post, I give you another LOLRamona:

The Force is strong with this one

Last month, I thought I'd start a Christmas tradition by watching The Star Wars Holiday Special with my son.

So I put it on, with Brody sitting next to me. He sat patiently and watched the opening credits, and the extended Chewbacca's family scene that has nearly no dialogue.

But just after the painful cooking show segment with Harvey Korman, Brody stood up, looked at me, and said (a touch patronizingly), "Dad, I think that's enough."

And he went to go play with his trains.

Oh well.

LOLRamona, part 2

Yes, it's so last year...

Get in on the ground floor with what I'm sure will be the coolest thing going in 2008: The LOLRamona:

Rhythm is gonna get you whether you like it or not

I was watching "We Are the 80s" on VH1 Classic this morning while my son dutifully played with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains (unleaded, thank you).

A video by Miami Sound Machine came on:



Brody stopped what he was doing, walked over to me, and asked in all seriousness, "Dad, what is that horrible noise?"

So yeah, I guess I don't have to worry about getting him Gloria Estefan's greatest hits for Christmas.

And that's a gift for both of us.

But since this is a season of giving, here's the video for Miami Sound Machine's "Bad Boy," featuring the understudies for the cast of "Cats," and introduced by Ted Danson and Howie Mandel. Yeah, don't blame me if you get nightmares.

She gets it from her mom.

This is the first posed picture of Ramona with me, and wouldn't you know it, she's flipping the bird. She's half South Jersey Italian, so I'm not surprised by her lack of inhibition when it comes to speaking her mind.

This should be interesting when she starts talking...

Obligatory cute 4-year-old story

Yesterday when I picked up my 4-year-old from daycare, he looked toward the street.

"Eight sides," he said.

"What has eight sides?" I asked.

"The stop sign," he replied in a tone that suggested I wasn't keeping up with the conversation.

"That's right. Do you remember what shape has eight sides?"

He was quiet for a moment as he tried to remember. Then his eyes brightened as he finally remembered.

"A octopus!"