I hate making exact change unless I absolutely have too. I’ve never understood those people who take an extra five minutes at the cash register to count out the exact amount for their total, because god forbid they get coin back.
Oh no… nuh-nuh-nuh-not cuh-coin!!!
Or even worse are those folks who overpay by a specific amount so that the only change they receive will be in whole dollars - now there’s a waste of time.
So suffice it to say, I always have change in my pockets, sometimes quite a bit. I never expected the danger that was lurking in those pockets… the havoc that was just waiting to be wreaked. Today I caught my son (now 18 months old) not once, not twice, but three times, shoving change that had fallen out of my pockets while sitting on the couch, down his throat. Thinking back, I guess I should have been more aware that he would do this. In his mind shiny new objects = edible.
Maybe I should become one of those exact change payer people.
I’m not as conscious of it as much as I should be, but the way I act and talk around my son is affecting how he acts, and will act, as he grows older. I saw it for the first time the other night in a face he made while trying to fit a toy truck into a space it wouldn’t go. The whole situation was fairly benign, but it made me realize that not only do I have to watch what I say, but I need to watch how I act and censor my body-language.
I’m not a horrible person. Everything move I make isn’t laced with evil or malice, but I like everyone else have habits and tendencies that would probably be better not passed on to my son. Perhaps he’ll develop the same or similar habits, but I’ll leave that up to chance or nature.
It takes it to the extreme, but this video on YouTube illustrates the importance of self-censorship when it comes to raising children.
No, I’m not talking about The Wiggles or The Doodle Bops, or any of those Playhouse Disney/Nick Jr. made-for-kids bands. I’m talking about the real thing, the kind of band whose CD an adult, without children, would buy and play in their car with the windows rolled down without fear or embarrassment. Let me explain… (more…)
This past Tuesday, New Scientist published an article on their website in which they report on a recent study of the neurological happenings that take place in the brains of new fathers.
At one of my jobs (the more soul-sucking of the two), on the wall by my desk, I have one of those novelty yard signs pinned up. I’m sure you’ve seen them before. They replace messages like “Beware of Dog” with “Beware of Rabid Housewife” or instead of “No Trespassing” they read, “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.”
The one I keep at my desk reads, “There is nothing here worth your life.” And I keep it posted there to remind myself, that while being here, dealing with corporate politics and employees whom at times can seem to have the IQ of seaweed, having to work within all of the corporate rules and regulations that in a logical world would be considered downright ludicrous, and stewing in my frustrations and, at times, furious anger; all of this is just a job.
Preface: I am not a doctor and claim no medical expertise. The information in this post is a collection of publicly available knowledge and statistics on the subject of SIDS.
Now that I am a parent, one of my biggest fears (if not the biggest) is SIDS. The thought of losing my son quickly and without warning makes me more uncomfortable than I have ever felt before in my life. It has kept me up nights, made me physically ill, and, at at times when I just can’t seem to get it off of my mind, affected me to the point where I simply cannot function.
A short post today, stemming from a source of supreme frustration for my wife and I.
Recently, we’ve begun to “bump” into quite a few acquaintances of our while we are out-and-about, many of whom have babies around our son’s age. Without fail one of the first questions out of their mouths is, “Is he sleeping through the night?” We respond truthfully to the inquiry. “No,” we say, “He wakes about every 2 to 3 hours.”
“Oh, well my (insert acquaintances baby’s name here) is already sleeping through the night. I don’t know what I’d do if he was still on that frequent a schedule.”
This response almost always invokes the same gut reaction in my wife and I: first we feel ashamed, then a little insulted, and finally we have the urge for me to pin the pain-in-the-ass acquaintance to the floor, while my wife simultaneously performs the final 30 minutes of Lord of the Dance on their face. Not that we’re violent people, we just don’t like it when anyone implies that our child is not the best damn kid out there.
I came acroos this post via The Parental Olympian’s blog, and couldn’t pass up the oportunity to add another trackback to it. It’s so true; I’m a living example.
As a designer and illustrator, I pay my bills by coming up with new ideas for displaying and communicating information, whether it is instructions, a story, or meaningless babble such as this. And from time to time, as any creative will tell you, I have to deal with the dreaded creative block, an invisible force field through which original, intriguing ideas cannot pass.
I have numerous tools for fighting off this fiend, ranging from strategic thought processes to alcohol, but with the arrival of my son, I am now able to add an additional weapon to my arsenal, sleep deprivation.
It’s taken a while for me to adjust to things now that my homestead contains a population of 3 (5 if you count the pets) and I apologize for the lack of posts. But have no fear, everyone is healthy, and things are returning to some sort of schedule. As my first post since truly beginning the experience of fatherhood, I would like to share with you all some of my initial observations:
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