Transmission

A couple of months ago I turned on the receiver part of our baby monitor so I could listen in on the kids as they played in their room. After a few minutes of silence I suddenly heard a woman's voice come through the monitor asking "..help clean up these toys?'

I turned, looked at Lauren, who was standing in the same room with me and she had the same What the Hell expression on her face as I did on mine. Who was asking Maxfield and Wyatt to clean up the toys? I walked into their room and they were playing nicely. There was no woman in the room with them. I looked at the transmitter part on the baby monitor and it was turned off, which was weird because we leave the transmitter on all the time. One of the kids must have been playing with it and turned it off. I realized since our transmitter was off, our receiver was picking up the signal from another baby monitor somewhere. It was most likely the family a few houses away.

I explained my theory to Lauren and she agreed that was the most likely explanation. She then made a joke that the family a few houses away was probably picking up on some of our family noises. Like I said, we leave the transmitter on all the time. I am sure we have been broadcasting our lives to the neighborhood. I felt weird about that for a bit until I realized that all anyone probably ever heard was the kids screaming or me screaming at the kids. No big deal since I am sure our neighbors would hear us even without a monitor.

But the fact that there is the potential that someone, at any given time, could be listening in our house has given me a great idea. You see, now sometimes, when I walk by the baby monitor transmitter and no one is around, I just say random things like, "I hope I don't get abducted by aliens AGAIN tonight." Or "I really need to by a better set of binoculars to spy on my neighbors." And "How did John Wayne Gacy do it? I can only fit two or three in the crawlspace."

When I have a little bit more time I try subliminal messages. I will repeat over and over again,
"Send money to (and I say my address." Or "This is your guardian angel and you need points with God. Go and clean the gutters at (and I say my address)."




Do you have any suggestions of what I could say? Keep it clean Anonymous.

Creative Writing

Back in October 2007, in a certain online magazine article , the following statement was made about me.

"The guy is clearly not a writer." (My brother John makes sure to point that out to me whenever he gets a chance.)

I appreciate the fact that Poop and Boogies got the attention that it did and the writer of the article, Lisa Cullen, did say some nice things about the blog, but that one statement stuck with me (maybe because John's reminders).

I started this blog four years ago as a way for people to stay in touch with me and my family. I never set out to be a writer. I have found that I have fun with the feedback of the blogging medium. I like telling stories. I enjoy writing.

A few weeks ago I started taking a creative writing course at the local high school's adult evening school. Why? Well, I want to be a better writer for this blog. Which is funny because I have been spending all my free writing time working on the assignments that I have not had much time to post here. It is a bad cycle. I want to improve my blog, so I take a class that sucks up all my time, that I neglect the blog I want to improve by taking a writing class.

Here is what I have learned so far from the creative writing course.

1. There really is nothing creative about it. It is more like a grammar 101 type of course. Which, believe me, I need all the help I can get in the grammar department but I thought the class was going to be more of a creative exchange of ideas and what not.

2. I really need to improve my word choices in my writing.

3. I make a terrible student. Not because I don't listen or pay attention but because I moan and sigh and get frustrated with the way the teacher teaches. She talks down to people as if they should already know the answer to her questions or criticism. Which cracks me up because if a student knew all the answers they would not feel a need to be taking a course and would not be in the room to have the teacher talk down to them. If they have a bad experience they may not take another class and then they will forget what they learned and have to take a class again. Another a bad cycle.

4. I hate when the rhythm of a class comes to a screeching halt because the teacher has to make sure the slowest student is "getting" what she is teaching. I call it teaching to the lowest common denominator. I can't stand it.

5. I need to learn to edit my writings (I may go through my archives and edit some of the posts to sharpen them up).

6. I hate being the lowest common denominator.

7. Back to the grammar- I get the importance of grammar. I have a basic understanding of grammar, punctuation and syntax. I know that this is an area in my writing that needs improvement. That being said, I do not find grammar jokes funny. The jokes are not at any one person's expense, they were just "humorous" stories shared by the instructor and other people in the class about improper use of a comma, apostrophe or a word. They giggled and chuckled the whole time. I didn't get it. I equate grammar humor to making women watch the Three Stooges and asking if they thought it was funny. Women don't get the Moe, Larry and Curly.

8. If I can work on numbers 2 and 5 as well as punctuation and grammar I will have a solid backbone, foundation if you will, to be an okay writer.

I hope when the course is over I can take what I have learned and apply it to my writing here. I hope that I can improve my blog and maybe get some advertisers or other people interested in actually paying me some money for the use of some sidebar space. I can then use that money to take another course to learn about search engine optimization and RSS feeds and HTML and other web stuff (which I really need help with this stuff) so I can improve their advertising impressions. And when I take the course I will neglect their ad space because I am busy trying to learn about web advertising. Another Bad cycle.

Actually, I hope to improve Poop and Boogies just so people will come back and read some more. Maybe I will get another four years out this here blog. And maybe, one day, someone will say "This guy is clearly an okay writer."

Stupid Cats

About a year ago I installed a pet door into the door of a large utility closet to keep the cats locked up at night. What I mean by large, is that the cats basically have their own bedroom. You see Bogart, our orange fat cat, likes to wake everyone up in the middle of the night by knocking stuff over or starting fights with the dog or jumping on our faces.

I used to have to chase the cats, every night, trying to lock them up just so we could get a good nights sleep. The stupid cats caught on and did their best to hide from me at night. It would take me a half-an-hour, every night, to herd the cats.

So I got the pet door.

Before I go to bed, I flip the red switch on the pet door which allows the cats to go into the closet to use the litter box or get food, but it locks the door preventing them from coming out. No more chasing cats. No more cat's ass on my face in the middle of the night. My problems were solved.

It took the cats one year to figure out the fricking piece of shit pet door. Watch the video.

Jackson's Eye

I do not remember at what point the eye color of my kids became obvious. Max has super blue eyes. Wyatt has real dark brown, almost black, eyes. I think with Max it was around the one year mark where we were convinced his eyes would stay blue. Wyatt's eyes gradually became muddier and muddier and then one day he woke up and his eyes were completely dark. We are still waiting to see how Jackson's turn out. They look different every day.

Dentist

I was at the dentist office yesterday getting some work done. You know how it is when you are at the dentist, they have drills, saliva suckers, cotton and other things in your mouth while the dentist asks you questions and has a conversations with the assistants and all the time you can't actually answer or participate in the conversation because your mouth is full.

This is all the stuff I wanted to say but never got the chance.

"If my mouth looks like Newark than I guess my ass would be Camden."

"Rihanna has herpes? Was it Eye Herpes?"

"You guys should sell advertising space on all the walls in here."

"That's what she said."

"Can we please stop talking about Rihanna."

"A-Rod sucks. Not because he took steroids but because he is a Yankee."

"Holy Ca-rap! That hurt."

"Moooooon River. Are you using the whole fist doc?"

"That's what she said." (again.)

Leaving Church Early.

Is it wrong, while in church, to stare at the butt of the woman in front of you the entire mass?

I need to explain.

I took Maxfield and Wyatt with me to church. We settled into the pew and I gave them each their toy and a distraction snack. The distraction snack, this particular Sunday, was a baggie filled with a mixture of raisins and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. With enough activities for the boys we usually make it to the 35 minute mark of the service before they get rambunctious and i feel the need to leave. The Mass started and everything was good.

The second time the congregation stood (you know how Catholic masses are sit, stand, kneel, stand, sit, kneel) is when the service became interesting. Wyatt stood and leaned over the front of the pew spilling part of the contents of his snack bag all over the seat in front of us. I quickly reached over and cleaned up most of the scattered food before the occupants of the pew in front of us sat down again. I did not want the people to sit and hear the popping crunch of Cheddar Goldfish meeting their demise. In my haste I missed a few raisins which the woman directly in front of me did not miss with her butt when she sat down.

When we stood again I looked down to see if I could pick up the fallen raisins. They were not on the pew. I looked up and saw that two raisins were stuck to the left cheek of the woman's jeans. I started chuckling to myself. I couldn't just reach out and wipe them off. I would surely get smacked. It was then time to kneel and I hoped that the motion of kneeling would knock them loose. I watched as one of the raisins slowly peeled away from the denim and fell to the floor leaving just one dangling from the seam of the back pocket.

As I stared at the woman's butt, watching the raisin, my mind started to panic. What if Max or Wyatt sees the raisin. Neither of them has mastered the art of the whisper. I pictured them blurting out "Dad look. That lady has a poop on her butt." I could hear in my mind the fits of laughter and giggles this would cause a five year old. I could feel the premature blush of embarrassment creep up my neck. I stared more intently at the raisin trying to will it to fall.

The congregation stood again. I hoped, I prayed (I was in church after all) that now that the raisin was in direct eye level of the kids, that they would not notice it. I did my best to keep the kids occupied on our side of the pew all the while I watched the woman's butt. Eventually the woman sat down again and when she stood up the raisin was gone. I looked at the bench and saw the flattened raisin squished onto the seat right next to her purse.

I reached down, and using my fingernail of my middle finger, I tried to scrape up the raisin guts. One of the people in the woman's pew noticed me reach over and must have thought that I was reaching for the purse and they gave me a dirty look. I held my up finger with the raisin stuck to it and showed them what I was doing. I quickly realized that it appeared as though I was flipping the bird to the person.

I sighed deeply and knew that I would not be able to explain the situation and decided it was best if we left Mass early.

Unlucky Love

Since it is Friday the 13Th and the day before Valentines Day I figured I would share with you some blogs that I love.

I always find it difficult to explain why I like certain blogs. I know that most of my favorites are funny, positive and well written but after some serious thought I realized that the common element they all share is that they all, to me, read like a conversation between me and the poster. 9 out of 10 times their posts make me want to comment on their site.

My latest favorite blog is Creative Breathing . My wife recommended her site a month or so ago and it took me a while to start reading but once I did I was hooked. When you first go there it looks all girlie and "sugar and spice and everything nice" but don't let that distract you. Her stories are awesome. Her attitude reminds me of the next blogger.

What Was I Thinking (Susie) was one of the first blogs I started to read. That was four years ago. Her posts have had the most influence and impact on me as a blogger and as a person,than any other blogger I have never met. She shares a birthday with Jackson I have given her the title of his Blog Mother.

The Wind In Your Vagina. Black Hockey Jesus is just so entertaining. You never know what you are going to get.

Bogart in P Towne Lauren says he is my blogger boyfriend.

Oh The Joys She paints word pictures without using 5 dollar words.

And, of course there is Gigglepotamus. Lauren is the hottest blogger that I know. She is gifted beyond belief. I love her blog and I love her, and I want to be the father of her babies...oh wait...I am.

Happy Valentine's Day. Tell me what blogs you love.

Smell and Memory

Today Jackson is exactly 5 weeks old. Maxfield is becoming an exceptional big brother and has been really great. Wyatt... not so much. Wyatt is adjusting, not only to having a little brother, but also to having to share a room with Max. Wyatt also made the transition from crib to twin bed. Almost every night over the past five weeks I have ended up sleeping with Wyatt in his bed. He claims he is scared but I know he just needs a friend. As soon as I lay down to comfort him he throws his arm around my neck and instantly he falls back to sleep. When I try to get up, he wakes up and fusses. It is nice to know that I bring him some comfort and peace in this trying time for him. The nights have been long. Or short. Depending on your definition and how much sleep is required.

From the day we brought Jackson home I have been conducting an experiment which I will not know the results for another 10 years or so. I have read various articles that claim smell and memory are closely linked because the olfactory nerve is part of the brains system that is closely associated with memory. When Jackson is just fed and content lying in my arms, I hold various sweet smelling things in front of his nose. I have used Strawberries, Kiwis, Bananas, Ginger and Cinnamon spiced tea, Oranges, Blueberry and Pomegranate teas, candy canes and other mint candies.

I hope that when Jackson is older and he smells these various smells he will remember a peaceful and calm time and, for purely selfish reasons, he will remember his dad as a calming and happy person. Then, when he is 3 and he throwing a temper tantrum I can spray a Citrus scented air freshener, which will trigger the calming memory and he will immediately settle down. Or say when he is 15 and he becoming a bitter and angry teenager, I will simply hang Ginger scented car air fresheners in his room and he will change his attitude.

Like I said I won't know the results for a few years.

I am going to have to reprogram Wyatt. Now that I spend most nights in his bed, he is going to associate the smells of garlic morning breath and farts with being comforted.

What smells remind you of happy times?

Jedi Mind Tricks

There is a scene in the original Star Wars film where Luke, Obi Wan Kenobi, C3-PO and R2-D2 cruise up in the land speeder and are stopped by a bunch of storm troopers. The storm troopers are looking for C3-PO and R2 and they start to question Luke and Obi-Wan and they ask for ID.

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrow and waves his fingers and says "You don't need to see his identification."

The Storm trooper pauses and says "We don't need to see his identification. "

Obi-Wan then tells the Stormtroopers "These are not the droids you are looking for."

The Storm trooper responds, "These are not the droids we are looking for."

There are a few more lines in the scene ,but the basic gist is that Obi-Wan uses Jedi Mind Tricks on the Troopers. A combination of the Force and telling the person what you want them to think and you accomplish the Jedi Mind Trick.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke tries to use the Jedi Mind Trick on Jabba the Hut and Jabba responds by saying, "That old Jedi Mind Trick won't work on me boy."

Wyatt will be three years old in June. He has never seen Star Wars but he is already trying the Jedi Mind Trick. Anytime he is caught doing something he is not supposed to be doing, he simply tells us that he is not doing whatever he is doing and hopes that we buy it.

Wyatt will be dancing on top of the coffee table. I bark, "Wyatt! Get off the coffee table."

"I an not on a coffee table."

"Yes you are." I am starring right at him on the table.

"No I an not. I a just dancing."

"Get down from the table."

"I an not on the table dad."

This will go back and forth until I either cave in (which is usually me laughing at the fact that he is in complete denial and yet in total control of the situation) and let him continue his business or I tell him that his Jedi Mind Tricks won't work on me.

I have been trying to capture the whole Mind Trick exchanges on video but for some reason I can never get the full effect. Here are just some tidbits of our exchanges

I am still not the favorite

My mom, Momo9, has picked the winners of the Proflowers contest. Although I am still not her favorite there were some decent arguments made by all the commenters.

Here are the winners.
G-Side Pride, Kcinnova, Cherioak, Nape, and Maria from NJ. I need all of you to contact me via email in the next 2days so I can send you the web codes for your gift certificate. My email address is listed at the end of my profile. Thanks to everyone who played. Thanks to Proflowers. My mom said she had fun reading all the comments.

Honorable Mention (but no gift certificate) goes to LawnWhisperer for stating his case that I am my mom's favorite son fathered by the mailman. Every one called our mailman Rocky because he wore one of those hats that had flaps to cover his ears. The same kind of hat that Rocky the squirrel wore. I always thought our mailman looked like the mad painter from Sesame Street. At a very early age my brothers always called me Rocky's son because I was the most different than the rest of them. My mom, always laughed at this, she never denied it, she just laughed.

There were/are many other bloggers who had this contest. There still may be a chance to win the gift certificate by visiting their sites.


http://chris.pirillo.com/
http://www.gearlive.com/
http://www.techronical.com/
http://Ploomy.com
http://artofmanliness.com/
http://mommydaddyblog.com
http://dadtalk.typepad.com
http://www.pkmeco.com/familyblog/index.html
http://joeprah.com
http://www.buildingcamelot.com/
http://dadomatic.com
http://www.patricksays.net/
http://poopandboogies.blogspot.com/
http://www.athomedad.org/
http://www.rudecactus.com/
http://www.noodad.com/wp/
http://agoodhusband.net/
http://www.dadcentric.com
http://www.disfordad.com
http://daddyforever.com/
www.youserved.com
http://emailourmilitary.blogspot.com/

Flower Contest

My mom used to call me every Valentine's Day or Mother's Day to thank me for the flowers she received. Not for the flowers that I sent but for the ones she received. But she called me every year to thank me. Because every year someone sent her flowers signed "Your favorite son."

She called each of her 8 sons and thanked them. Some years I sent her flowers signed "your favorite son". Some years I did not.

ProFlowers.Com sent me an email, well, actually one of their marketing companies did. They offered me Five $70.00 gift certificates to give away to readers of Poop and Boogies if I had a contest of some sort promoting ProFlowers.com. The gift certificates are actually gift codes to their website where the winners of the contest can get or send flowers or gifts from ProFlowers.com for Valentine's day. The gift certificates are only good for orders in the US.

The marketing company asked me to use certain key words in my contest which I think I just covered in the last few paragraphs.

I suck at contests. I suck at entering them. I suck at winning them. And I suck at creating them.

I was going to ask people to leave me comments on the most romantic thing ever done for them. Or maybe tell me their favorite home made card. Or they could tell me what I should get Lauren for Valentine's day. But I decided to go a different route for the give-a-way.

Many of the people that read Poop and Boogies have been doing so for a while, so you know that my mom reads this blog and that she sometimes comments. To enter the contest for the ProFlowers. Com gift certificate give-a-way, in the comments section, leave a comment trying to convince my mom why I should be her favorite son. I will close the contest on Wednesday 2-4-09 at Noon. Sorry but the gift codes are only valid for customers in the US.

My mom will pick her five favorite answers. If you want to kiss up to my mom, I am sure you can find all kinds of good information from my archives.

Please make sure you leave a valid way for me to contact you if you should win.

Wipes

I was at my friend JT's house the other night when he told me this story. The hows and why of him telling me this story are also funny but not as funny as the actual story. I will do my best to tell the story accurately but I may embellish a bit so it makes sense.

A long time ago JT had his first baby and he was discussing the whole diaper changing situation with his brother DP. DP started talking about how awesome baby wipes are for cleaning almost everything. Now DP's kid was little older than JT's kid and DP kept wipes in his bathroom for potty training purposes. DP then told JT that he uses baby wipes on himself when he has a hard time cleaning himself after, well, using the toilet.

"You know how sometimes, after you go, you just don't feel like you are getting your butt completely clean?" DP said to JT. "I use a baby wipe and I feel so much better."

Yes, guys, especially brothers who at one point shared a bathroom, do talk about bathroom habits, the good, the bad, the ugly.

JT made a mental note of this bit of fatherly/brotherly advice.

A few weeks later JT used the bathroom and did not feel like toilet paper was doing a good enough job. He noticed that his wife left a new container of wipes in the bathroom and so he decided to try DP's advice. He opened the container of wipes and wiped himself. He immediately felt an intense burning sensation that did not subside for a few minutes. The pain was so bad that his forehead started to sweat. JT thought to himself, "WOW! DP must be a serious trooper or really need to feel clean to go through this kind of pain." JT never considered that the wipes could cause a baby pain.

Later that night JT's wife asked JT if he opened the wipes in the bathroom. He told her that he did.

"What did you use them for?" she asked.

JT felt a little weird but then told her about his conversation with DP and that he used the new wipes to clean his own butt.

Of course, she most likely fell into a fit of laughter, because the wipes she left in the bathroom were Lysol Disenfectant Cleaning Wipes. With Bleach!

Dreams

Lauren and I often argue over the TV. We rarely argue over what we watch together. No, we argue over what one watches while the other one is asleep. See this post from two years ago.

We both like to fall asleep watching TV. Lauren usually goes to bed and is asleep before me. She falls asleep to home improvement or medical shows and occasionally a bad reality show. The first thing I do, when I get into bed, is change the channel to either the Discovery, History or the Military channel. I watch shows like Mythbusters, History's Mysteries, Future Weapons and Monster Hunters. I like to fall asleep to things blowing up or to stories about UFOs or Bigfoot or Nostradamus and the end of the world.

Lauren hates this. The shows I watch as I fall asleep often run repeats in the middle of the night. The stories and music often infiltrate her dreams and give Lauren nightmares. She wakes up anxious and upset. She fumbles around looking for the remote and will mutter about the type of shows I watch. She always questions my choice of late night shows and asks how they don't bother me while I sleep. How I could not have dreams of hauntings or alien abductions or of Bigfoot chasing me was beyond her.

This past weekend we both went to bed at the same time and discussed what channel would be on the TV as we fell asleep. I wanted to watch a movie on TNT or TBS and she wanted to watch Bridget Jones Diary on the Oxygen channel. Now that she is nursing Jackson and does not sleep for long periods of time I agreed to watch the Oxygen channel. I fell asleep first.

I woke up at three in the morning feeling anxious. The show on the TV was infiltrating my dreams. I could hear the TV and I could not believe what I was listening to. What the hell was Lauren watching? I leaned over but she was fast asleep. I fumbled around for my glasses so I could see what the women on the television were discussing. Here is a link for the show that was on.

Apparently the Oxygen Channel turns into a sex toy QVC in the middle of the night selling various plugs and vibrators. I am not a prude but I found the whole thing disturbing. Bigfoot now has a new meaning in my dreams.

This morning, as I was writing, I told Lauren the topic of this post.

She laughed and asked, "Is that why there was Google search for Dildo on the computer?"

Always Funny

Wyatt and Maxfield were watching me prepare dinner. I pulled the tray of thick cut fries from the broiler and placed them on the counter. As I turned to close the oven door I caught my hip on the corner of the counter and I winced and yelped in pain. Both kids cracked up laughing.

To make sure the fries were done I took one off the tray and I bit into it. I winced and made a strange noise when I burnt the roof of my mouth and spit I out the fry. Maxfield and Wyatt cracked up again with some serious belly laughs.

I suddenly had a moment of clarity and discovered a universal truth. Boys will always laugh at their father getting hurt. Okay, maybe not always, but 9 out of 10 times it is funny. Once a kid gets a little older and realizes that it may be inappropriate to laugh it usually makes it that much more funny. Also there is a direct correlation of the quality of the funny based on the frustration factor of the father.

I remember my dad getting so frustrated trying to put a chain back on a bike. Sweat was dripping from his nose and he was muttering under his breath and when the chain finally caught, it caught his hand in the cog. I had to cover my mouth not to laugh out loud. It was like I had the church giggles. When he asked me to hand him a wrench, I couldn't do it, I was fighting the laughter so hard.

I sat down with Max and Wyatt to eat dinner, feeling sad because I was missing my dad (he has been gone a year now) when I had another realization. Another factor that increases the humor of a dad getting hurt is just how public the injury incident or slip and fall or hitting his hand with a hammer is.

Many years ago my siblings and I sent my dad to the Phillies Phantasy spring training camp in Clearwater Florida. My dad spent a week in a Phillies uniform, training and playing baseball with real pros like John Kruk and Mitch Williams. My brother Jim went down with a video camera to make sure the rest of us could see my dad in action. I think what Jim was trying to capture was the fun my dad was having playing in the big leagues. What he did catch on the video, was my dad, after hitting a single, take a header, tripping over first base. We must have watched that video a hundred times, laughing hysterically every time.

I need to get my hands on that video tape.

Jackson Pictures

More pictures of Jackson over at Gigglepotamus.

Only so much cool to go around

I have been thinking about a theory of mine about being cool. Cool as in hip and popular and confident.

When it was just Maxfield and Wyatt I noticed it. Now that Jackson is here I notice it even more. When it comes to brothers, there is only so much cool to go around. It is like one brother is the cool magnet and the others look like dorks.

The cool factor can shift to another brother. The coolness passes from one to the other, but never does more than one brother have the same level of being cool. One dominates and the others just do not look as good.

In an effort to illustrate my theory that one brother is always cooler than the other brothers I will use famous brothers as examples.

Jimmy Carter and Billy Carter. Being the President of the United States is cool. Being a hard drinking partyer who pisses on a runway, like a rock star, in full view of the dignitaries and the press and having a beer named after you, cooler.

Beau and Jeff Bridges- Beau is an actor who does many supporting roles for both TV and film usually playing someones dad or hard ass neighbor. Being an actor is cool. Jeff Bridges is a four time Oscar nominated actor who has been in films like Iron Man and the Contender and he played the Dude in the Big Lebowski. Cooler.

Ron Howard and Clint Howard-Ron Howard is a famous actor and Oscar winning director who has directed films such as Night Shift (one of the best films of all time), Apollo 13 and The DaVinci Code. Very Cool. Clint Howard...well..is Clint Howard.

Peyton Manning and Eli Manning- This is a good example of the coolness shifting. Both brothers are NFL quarterbacks making millions of dollars. Cool right? Except that Eli always looked like a whiny dork and Peyton always looked real smooth and funny in his TV commercials. Peyton is a future hall of fame QB with great TV commercials and he won the Super Bowl in 2007. Then the coolness shifted. In 2008 Eli won the Superbowl while Peyton looked like a dork. Then there is the other brother Cooper. Who? Cooper. That's right, the other two brothers sucked up all the coolness.

Another good example of the coolness factor shifting from one brother to the next is Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. While one has a breakout movie or hit TV show the other is floundering in hookers and drugs. The coolness shifts and then the other brother has a hit and the other falls off the face of the earth. It proves my theory.

There are many famous brothers and when you think of them, one sticks out in your mind over the others. Jackson 5, Osmonds, David and Shaun Cassidy, Ben and Casey Afleck, Luke and Owen Wilson, Baldwin brothers, Bacon brothers.

Looking at my own siblings the coolness theory holds true. Sure, some of us excelled at certain areas or have different talents but for the most part, only one of us was cooler than the others at any given time. There have been many shifts over the years from one brother to the next but never were any two just as cool as each other.

I know at some point, when sibling rivalry starts to get more intense, I am going to have to have this discussion with my kids.

No more than one brother can be equal cool as the other at any given time. Am I off base with this theory? I am looking for opinions and counter points.

When Santa Screws Up

The box looked cool.

I grabbed the box of Moon Sand off the shelf at Target. Santa needed one more gift for Wyatt to balance out all the gifts between the two boys. I thought to myself “Perfect. Moldable sand. A gift that is for Wyatt but that both boys can use.”

The box contained orange and red Moon Sand and a couple of molds. I read the box. It said “Molds like dough. Never dries out. Cleans up easily and won’t stick or stain.” I picked up an extra container of blue and green Moon Sand so they would have more to play with.

I showed it to Lauren when I got home from shopping. She gave me the Are you sure? look. You know the look that says “You are going to be sorry about this.” The Are you sure look is normally a precursor to the I told you so look. I told her I thought the stuff looked cool and that it would be fun to play with. She gave me the Are you sure look again and we left it at that.

A day or two after Christmas, Maxfield and Wyatt were very excited to play with the Moon Sand. As soon as I opened the first package of orange sand I knew I was in trouble. The key word in the product's name is Sand.

I repeat, SAND.

Does it mold? Sure. It molds into the fingernails of small boys. It molds into the cracks and crevices of the faux tile floor. It molds into all the wrinkles and folds of clothing.

Is it easy to clean up? Sure if you have a vacuum cleaner with a replaceable Hepa filter or a power washer that can be used indoors.

After 20 minutes of playing with, and 40 minutes of cleaning up the Moon Sand I decided the best place to store the product would be out in the garage. I put it behind the containers of gas and pesticides and weed killers. All the stuff the kids know they are not allowed to touch.

I told Lauren about the hiding spot just in case the kids ask for it again. She spared me the I told you so look.

Not Grumpy

Sorry that the video is side ways. This is Wyatt in his terrible twos and trying to adjust to having a new baby brother around. His mood has been somewhat challenging. For the record he is not grumpy.

Best Ever

The best pizza I have ever had was from Domino's. I know that sounds weird, since I live in the northeast part of the country where there are thousands of pizza shops that would have better pizza than Domino's, but it is true.

It was on a Thursday, the third week of June, the summer of 1988, Ocean City NJ. I was celebrating graduating from high school by spending a week at the shore with some friends. I had blown my food budget for the week by Monday and I had only consumed beer, pretzels and maybe some chips for the past three days, when I decided to take some of my beer money and buy a pizza. Domino's was the closest place. It was real good. I think my buddy Tobes and maybe Goose would agree with me.

When Lauren gave birth to Maxfield almost 5 years ago, our neighbor dropped off a plate of Chicken Cacciatore. I do not like Chicken Cacciatore but after that first night at the hospital, when I got home, I scarfed that chicken down. One of the best meals I have ever had.

I tell the first two stories because they are about meals that came at the right moment and ones I will never forget.

Just like the next one.

Our friend Lori dropped off a Lasagna on Monday. Her kindness and generosity always surprise me. Not because she is not normally kind or generous but because she is always kind and generous and nice. She truly is one of the nicest people I know. Anyway, her Lasagna, awesome.
How do I know? Besides the fact that I ate it and it was delicious, Wyatt who does not eat anything, ever, cleaned his plate and asked for seconds. And he ate the seconds. Wyatt asking for seconds is one of the highest compliments I think a chef could get. Lori, thanks for the lasagna, I need to get the recipe.

Last week I also received one of the best baby presents I think anyone could ever get. My brother John, the LawnWhisperer, brought over a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin. His reasoning, "You already have two other boys so you don't need clothes. Jackson is never going to remember what I got him as a gift, so I did not get toys. But you and Lauren, you guys are going to need the vodka."

LW was right. Best baby gift ever.

Alpha-numeric soup

Like any parent I worry about my children's education. Like most parents, I use the modern tools available to me to assist the kids with their early educational development. Tools like the television, coloring books, music, the Internet and food. All of which, I am sure, are approved by the FDA, ADA, PTA, Children's Television Workshop, and Martha Stewart.

Teaching the kids the alphabet has mostly involved the video "Here Come the ABCs" By They Might Be Giants.

After we watched that video a hundred or so times (the kids now know that gyroscope starts with the letter G, they don't know what a gyroscope is but...) we decided it was time to kick it up a notch and present the alphabet to them with food.

Maxfield and Wyatt both love tomato soup and Lauren thought that adding alphabet shaped pasta to the soup would be great for them to learn more about letters.

What we learned is that the numbers 2,8,3,5,7 are all part of the alphabet. Max pointed the numbers out to us. Look at the pictures you can clearly see numbers in the Alphabet pasta. At first, I thought that maybe we were only seeing misshaped letters. That the 8 we were seeing was somehow a B or that the 5 was a squished S. After closer inspections we were able to determine that the numbers were actual numbers.

Then I thought that maybe we bought a bad batch of Alphabet pasta. That maybe someone at the pasta factory mixed up the pasta numbers with the pasta letters. But so far every box we have bought since noticing the numbers has the numbers in it.

This mix up theory did not make sense because why would they be making pasta numbers in the first place? Who has ever heard of Numeric Soup?

The educational value of food in this country surley is slipping.