Almost Coherent Parent

Ten Tips for Listening to Books on Tape with Your Kids

Posted on 213 by 233 Posted in Field Guides, Teaching/Learning .

My kids aren’t even teenagers yet, but we already have a generational divide about listening to the radio in the car. I can’t listen to the Top 40 junk that the PE teacher at school plays for them (whole weeks of the fall were lost to never ending loops of “Call Me Maybe” because of that evil, evil man), and they can’t listen to the comedians on Sirius’ Comedy Central channel dropping f-bombs every five seconds—the only person who is allowed to swear in the car is me, evidently.

Almost two years ago now, our local children’s librarian suggested books on tape (a somewhat anachronistic misnomer, for sure) to help develop The Girl’s emerging reading abilities. Since that fateful day, while I have heard the news maybe a dozen times, I’ve also heard Katy Perry less then half that much.

Most of the time I love listening to books on tape with the kids. Here are some suggestions for listening with your kids too:

 

Start with age appropriate books, or even books for younger readers 

You want your kids to buy into listening to books instead of corporate pop, so pick stuff that they know and like first while they get into it. Because my kids are younger (the oldest had just turned five when we started), we started with picture books on tape. Make Way for Ducklings, Mabel the Cable Car, The Little House all were listened to over and over again for a few weeks, until even the kids were sick of them, and I was ready to be committed: Mabel the Cable Car’s background music is the soundtrack to my nightmares now. But they never got tired of listening to books in the car, which was the goal.

 

You get to revisit childhood favorites 

All those books you loved as a kid are most likely now on CD for your listening pleasure. But memory is a fickle thing, especially when you are under four-feet tall. Now is your chance to actually hear the stories again and understand it this time. Or pick up on things that you never noticed because you were barely literate and ignorant of how literature works. The Chronicles of Narnia are even better than you remember; this time, however, you can actually see how the lion Aslan is a Christ figure for yourself, not just because the pony-tailed stoner in your dorm kept insisting on it. A trip back to your childhood is now just a library scanner beep away.

 

Unfortunately, sometimes the past should remain in the past      

One of the books I got a few weeks ago was Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, a novel my sisters and I adored when we were in 4th grade. I didn’t remember, however, that the Holocaust was a major presence in the plot, as were allusions to sex, molestation, and masturbation. Obvioiusly, I didn’t understand any of those things when I read it as a kid, and neither did my kids. If I managed to turn out okay (aside from habit of talking about my vasectomy every few days), so will they, right? Still, we did skip ahead lots of times.

Don’t be afraid to turn off a book if you feel the themes are inappropriate for your kid(s)’s age(s). Worst case scenario, you tell them the disc is broken, which is not too much of a stretch for some library discs.

 

Stick to the classics 

If a book has been beloved for over a hundred years, it probably won’t lead you astray. Plus, I love becoming acquainted with classics that I never read as a kid. We just finished The Secret Garden this morning, and I really enjoyed it. Similarly, Beverly Cleary, EL Konigsburg, Roald Dahl won’t do you wrong. The best children’s authors knew that the adults reading the books to the children need to be entertained too.

 

Beware books you aren’t familiar with 

The flip side of #4 is that if you eventually want to try something new, you need to be aware that children’s literature has gotten pretty mature, especially for the preteen set. I randomly chose a novel for 8-10 year olds since my daughter reads a little above of her grade level. Bad idea. The story focused on a boy who is beaten by his drunk uncle so much that he runs away to the Civil War to find his brother, only to witness the Battle of Gettysburg. And this is a comedy! Some publishing executive decided that child abuse and the bloody scourging of slavery from our country are comedy gold for tweens! We didn’t even make it to the end of disc 1. So stick with the classics or find a librarian you trust to give you recommendations.

 

Stop the books regularly to discuss it 

As an English teacher, I always tell my students (even the college ones) that reading is the hardest of all the basic skills since it takes years to learn how to do it well. For that reason, I love to pause the story to make sure the kids understand the plot, and also to touch on teachable moments in the book. Because my oldest just turned seven, we stay from the more complex issues that come up (like war and slavery as comedy), but we do discuss character’s behavior and motivation. “Is Jasper being a good friend? Is it right or wrong to help a classmate in need?. . . “ and so on. This helps build comprehension and your shared values as a family.

 

Be ready for some horrible narrators 

Anyone who has been to the movies knows that appearing in a film doesn’t make one an actor. Similarly, a company hiring someone to read a book aloud for three or four weeks in a recording studio does not make for a gifted voice talent. I’ve lost track of all the books we’ve stopped not because there was anything wrong with the book but because the narrator’s voice or mannerisms drove The Bife or me crazy. Stockard Channing gives my wife the howling fantods. And I’m convinced that Molly Ringwald did so many drugs in the ‘80s that she gave herself brain damage: seriously, she sounds exactly like the 6th graders I used to teach who never grasped the purpose of punctuation.

 

Most narrators are fine, though 

Except for Neil Patrick Harris who recorded Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins series. He is the essence of awesome that everyone will enjoy. He might even be able to cure any Ringwald-inflicted hearing damage.

 

Have your older kids follow along 

The concept of following along in the book with the narrator just clicked for my 7-year-old. Not only does it further increase their comprehension and their reading skills, following along gives them something to do that doesn’t involve hitting her brother or complaining about the temperature. Sometimes it can be fun to turn down the volume unexpectedly and have your kid take over for a minute or two just to have them work on reading aloud and keep them on their toes.

 

Feel free to take a break

Don’t forget that you’re the adult, and you’re in charge. If you need to take a break from the purple prose describing the mice of Redwall (and who wouldn’t?), turn on some music or the news. After all, I still have satellite radio so that I can force the kids to listen to the music that was popular when I was in high school. And if you don’t do that occasionally, you shouldn’t be a parent.

 

Two Timing Tuesday: Lawn Hell

Posted on 228 by 233 Posted in My Stuff Other Places, Two Timing Tuesday .

Today I was edging the backyard with my weed whacker, thinking about how I needed to sharpen the lawnmower’s blade since the grass looked ragged. Then I started thinking about why I even knew such useless information about a lawn, which I like to think of as “ground cover that looks better than concrete.” After the edging and blade sharpening, I realized I’d spent over an hour of The Toddler’s nap on yard work and I hadn’t even started mowing the lawn yet. Then I remembered writing this piece for Dad’s Round Table, which I think is perfect for Two Timing Tuesday.

Enjoy this little glimpse into the chores I hate most, especially in the summer.

 

I hate yard work. Mowing grass, edging, sweeping up the debris, I hate it all. I’d say I hate it with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns, but I dread how tall my grass would grow with the light of a thousand suns on it. Good luck mowing that less than twice a day.

I suppose I got spoiled growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area where most of the landscape has been left as God intended it: paved. The house I grew up in has a landscaped front yard with a small plot of grass in it, which as a ten year-old, only took me about ten minutes to mow with a reel mower. Even back then, I dreamed of getting a riding mower and knocking out the lawn in twenty seconds tops. I had important things to do, like bike to 7-Eleven for slurpees or try to watch scrambled pornography from the cable box in my (much) older brother’s room.

I suppose my real hatred of yard work began when my wife and I moved to Atlanta. Since the USDA’s official designation of Atlanta’s climate should be Semi-Tropical Hot House, the lawns in front and back of our town-house seemed to grow about three inches a night. While there wasn’t a lot of work to do in our narrow, town-house yard, it had to be done regularly. Owning an interior unit meant walking the lawnmower through two other backyards to get it around to the front of our house. Which meant fighting more than just crabgrass while working in the yard.

One owner had an enormous mastiff that she let range free between her house and backyard. Luckily it preferred to sleep upstairs in her town-house, so if I opened the gate, I had a good ten seconds to sprint through the yard pushing a lawnmower in front of me before Killer ran into the yard. The dog was big enough that even from outside you could hear him lumber across the second floor and thump down the stairs; this gave me plenty of warning about when exactly I should abandon the lawnmower and save myself. Eventually, I would just push the mower through the house into the front yard just so I wouldn’t catch rabies.

I thought all that canine related stress was why I hated yard work, so I didn’t think through the landscaping implications when we upgraded from our town-home to a single-family house on a half–acre lot outside Atlanta. After only one July day of huffing smog as I pushed our gas mower around our enormous lawn for 90 solid minutes, I hated yard work once again. We still had the three inches growth at night, but now the lawn was large enough to harbor red ants and digger wasps; I discovered the latter only after I accidentally ran the lawnmower over their nest. I felt a sting and thought I’d stepped in an unseen red ant mound, but looked down to find my legs polka-dotted with wasps. I escaped with eighteen stings.

I didn’t give up doing my own yard work, even when I realized most of my stories about yard work in Atlanta involved some combination of sunburn, smoke inhalation, heat stroke, or the sentence,  “I thought I’d stepped into a red ant mound only to discover some other horrible insect trying to turn me into a human kabob.”

Now that I live in Maryland, things are a little better. There are less stinging insects to battle, but it is still warm and humid enough that the yard needs to be tended to at least once week lest it becomes the botanical version of Howard Hughes at the end of his life.

But I still do it each week because that’s one major definition of adulthood: doing the things you have to do because they have to get done. My doing yard work serves as an example to my three children that you have to do things you don’t want to do in life. Whether mowing the lawn or scrubbing a toilet, these tasks are sometimes unpleasant and sometimes annoying, but you have to do them anyway. Then you have to do it over and over again. Forever. Or at least until your kids are old enough to do it for you instead, whichever comes first.

What chores make you feel most like an adult?

My Vasectomy Adventure, Part II: The Knives Come Out

Posted on 250 by 233 Posted in Wildcard .

Read part one, My Vasectomy Adventure, Part 1: Preparation here.

 

The hardest part about preparing to get a vasectomy wasn’t mental. By the time you book the appointment your mind is pretty made up. No, the hardest part was all the shaving that needed to be done. During my initial visit to the urologist, both the informative video and the nurse said that I had to shave “the area” beforehand; neither said what that meant. The pubic area? The entire scrotum? Any stray shaft hairs? To be on the safe side, I shaved everything.

Since I’m a pretty hirsute guy it’s a veritable forest down there. The night before the procedure, shaving everything took over an hour and two razor blades. The Bife actually fell asleep before I had finished.

Eventually the entire region was hairless and as smooth as the butts of the babies we were trying to keep from having. Now my penis looked like the Washington Monument: enormous, white, and on an empty field.

Not me, but that is what it felt like looking in the mirror.

Not me, but that is what it felt like looking in the mirror.

Since we still have the first three kids to take care of, we had a friend babysit my afternoon appointment. With no kids with us, my getting a vasectomy essentially became a date for The Bife and I. We went to an Indian restaurant for a buffet lunch, which was lovely, though The Bife limited me to one plate. “You don’t need to puke Indian food on your urologist,” she said. Since my urologist is Indian, I don’t think she’d mind that much, but I decided for the millionth time to listen to my wise wife.

Also, I really was afraid I was going to be sick. See, I can’t even watch ER because it is too gory. I can deal with cuts and bruises when I have to, but vivisection turns my stomach. I guess I didn’t have the balls to see my balls get halved.

The best part of this family planning date, however, was The Bife and I talking in the waiting room before my appointment. With no kids to distract us, we discussed how it felt to have no more kids. We both felt ready to move on to the next stage of our life together, past the baby and toddler stage.

That stage is the worst, with little kids who will find the deadliest thing that you own in under five minutes. The Toddler once walked up to me with a fully-loaded Civil War rifle that I’d never seen before. I never figured out where she found it.

Eventually, my name was called, and I was taken to the “procedure room.” Again, the nurse questioned whether I was sure about closing the baby door in my pants. Once again, she asked if I had any children. “Still have three. Didn’t lose any since I came here last.”

“And does your wife agree with you getting this done?” the nurse asked.

“She drove me here, and is sitting outside with a bottle of champagne to uncork when I can’t uncork any more children. Is that good enough?”

She just told me to take off my pants and climb on the table, but not in the sexy way that porn movies have convinced American males happens whenever a nurse utters those words.

Eventually the doctor arrived, and got down to business (again, not in a sexy way), ending my fertility. I’ll spare everyone the details, but needless to say that there was a lot of pushing and shoving, cutting and shooting, but much less crying and puking than I thought I would do (“Less crying and puking” could describe so many parts of my day with children, so using them describe not having children seems poetic and fitting.)

The doctor told me to keep the incision clean, no sex for ten days, and let her know if there were any problems. There would be, but I didn’t realize the problem until 10pm on a Friday night ten days later.

The next few days were filled with frozen peas, lots of Advil, and that vague stomach-ache-y feeling you get when you get hit in the nuts. After all the pushing and pulling by the doctor, I woke up with a swollen black cock, which looked strange not just because it wasn’t what I was used to, but because it was attached to a very hairless, mostly white pubic area. I felt like the recipient of the first successful, cross-race porn star penis transplant.

Frozen peas, is there anything they can't ice?

Frozen peas, is there anything they can’t ice?

Things went well for the first week, but then I noticed that the incision was getting bigger and weeping more. Naturally, I noticed that it had gotten noticeably worse at 9:30pm on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. The Bife called our kids’ godmother, who is a doctor, and she said Neosporin wasn’t going to fix this problem. Evidently, such an infection is pretty common since the incision is, as the saying goes, on that playground God put right next to an open sewer.

Luckily, I got an urgent care appointment for first thing in the morning before we were to leave for camping. Twenty minutes after arriving, I had my antibiotic prescription and headed home to spend a weekend lying in the dirt and trees of the Maryland mountains.

And while I was glad this was pretty easy to fix, The Bife and I were living proof that vasectomies are safe and effective birth control: after having it done, we didn’t have sex for almost a month. Abstinence works, I guess, especially when pus is involved.

At the moment, I’m still considered fertile until I get two sperm counts taken six weeks apart. More proof that a vasectomy is the gift that keeps on not giving, unless you have a blog and feel no shame about over-sharing.

 

Two Timing Tuesday: Clifford sex and death

Posted on 241 by 233 Posted in Two Timing Tuesday .

The other day, Sarah at est. 1975 posted some of the search terms that bring people to her hilarious blog.  (You really should go there right now. . . actually go after reading this.) Among the search terms that resulted in new readers were “hairyfemales.m” and “sticky pubez in pantyz vidz.”  This made me reflect on the oddest search terms that bring readers to this blog.

Aside from the normal searches of “almost coherent parent” or some combination, I’ve been visited several times for people searching for “black death enrichment activities,” “dead Dora,” and the somewhat odd juxtaposition of “jizz parade communist.” But for almost a year, the top search term was “Clifford the Big Red Dog sex.” Though Freud famously wrote that the only unnatural sex is none at all, I might have to disagree when it comes to people into bestiality with children’s characters.

Sarah asked me to link to the blog post that Clifford sex referred to, and I happily obliged. This exchange, however,  inspired me to start a new feature on this blog: Two Timing Tuesday, where I publish an old post a second time, while also introducing it with the backstory. Think of it as VH1 Storytellers, but instead of musicians that millions of people adore, my version is for a blog that hardly anyone reads.

So enjoy one of my favorite posts. Though it has Clifford sex in it, it presents obituaries for many of the most annoying children’s characters around. Except for Caillou. He doesn’t bother me for some reason.

______________________________________________________

RIP Dora; or, I Hardly Knew Thee, Clifford the Big Red Dog 

Originally published 6/29/2011

Last week, when the kids and I went to the baby pool during adult swim, we spotted Dora the Explorer floating face down in the water. The kids didn’t think anything of it, both because she was an inflatable doll and because they didn’t inherit my sick sense of humor. Instead they just played with it for ten minutes before setting her back afloat to the wind and tides of the small concrete swimming pool that I hope is only 35% piss.

As I sat on the edge watching The Boy and The Girl splash in the water, I realized that I had witnessed every parent’s secret dream–the one that is not about small children miraculously caring for themselves while mom and dad spend a week in Turks and Caicos: actually witnessing an annoying children’s character shuffle off her mortal coil. No matter what any parent says–even the earnest ones that spout bullshit like “every child is a gift we borrow from the future”–there are children’s characters that drive us up the wall. Every night around bedtime, many, many parents imagine how happy they’d be if Junie B. Jones had never been created, or they take solace in the fact that an entire bottle of pinot noir awaits them if they only get through one more reading of “Winnie the Pooh Loves Love”.

Like most non-technology-related annoyances, this problem is hardly unique to our time or culture. I know my brother wanted to take a sledgehammer to Barney’s throat every time the dinosaur sang “I love you/ you love me. . .” back when my 16-year-old niece was a toddler. I’m sure there were Victorian parents who, after discussing the latest dispatches from the Boer War, secretly confided to friends that they wished Tiny Tim would just “shut the fuck up about Christmas and die already”. I’m sure even Mary rolled her eyes every time Jesus the Toddler asked to hear the story of Ha-Shittim the Goat Herder one more time.

For my own personal mental health, I’ve decided to provide parents everywhere the catharsis necessary to get through another day filled with talking dinosaurs, singing and dancing sheep, and precocious, post-racial scientists. In no particular order, here is the obituary page that would have me turning cartwheels if I ever discovered it upon opening the paper one morning.

Clifford the Big Red Dog (1963-1973)

Emily Elizabeth’s thigh highs (and Chloe in heat) drove Clifford to his unfortunate actions

Beloved children’s character Clifford the Big Red Dog was sent to a farm in the country last week where he can run and chase squirrels all day long as much as he’d like. No, you can’t go visit him because the farm is  far away and Mommy and Daddy have to work; plus, Clifford wants you to just move on and find another children’s character to love, preferably one that didn’t stretch the bounds of logic, biology, and physics so much. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but for Christ’s-sake!

Clifford was born the runt of his litter before he gradually grew–for no apparent reason–to be the size of an apartment building . Some experts suspect an overactive pituitary gland, but medical details were never released, even during Clifford’s disastrous presidential campaign in Clifford for President!!!. Clifford was a beloved resident of Birdwell Island for most of his life, until he eventually grew elderly: keeping an increasingly grumpy and horny Clifford from bothering other island residents became more and more difficult for his owner Emily Elizabeth.

Clifford was “sent to the farm” after he nearly killed Emily Elizabeth last week.  After coming near his friend Chloe when the bitch was in heat, Clifford tried to hump Emily Elizabeth with his engorged penis, an experience she described as being repeatedly crushed by a “spitting redwood tree”. Emily Elizabeth said, “I feel lucky to be alive today, especially after nearly drowning in a puddle of Clifford love.” She escaped with a concussion, a broken pelvis, and fluid (mostly dog semen) in her lungs. She had no objections to Clifford’s move, which required an oil-tanker’s worth of pentobarbital sodium and phenytoin sodium.

The “farm” is located in the atrium of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, where Clifford is set to replace the bull elephant shot by Theodore Roosevelt.

Dora the Explorer (2000-2028)

 

Without a mermaid lifeguard, Dora had no chance.

Dora the Explorer, born Dora Marquez, has died. Her bloated body was found face down in her backyard swimming pool Friday afternoon by concerned neighbors. The neighbors said they suspected something was wrong when Dora’s pet monkey Boots was found wandering the streets, highly agitated, hungry, and covered in his own filth. No foul play is suspected, especially since Dora’s arch enemy Swiper is already serving ten years in prison after being convicted of over 200 counts of swiping and prostitution. Evidently Dora was simply cleaning her pool Tuesday afternoon when she slipped, hitting her head on the side of the pool as she fell. Police believe she was rendered unconscious immediately, unable to shout “Map!” in order to get help from the anthropomorphic map (creatively named Map) she always keeps in her anthropomorphic backpack (creatively named Backpack). Map and Backpack both also drowned in the incident, unable to extricate themselves from Dora while in the pool.

Dora the Explorer was notoriously protective of her private life, never revealing where she was from. Most celeb watchers speculate she remained a non-denominational Latina because she was either an illegal alien from El Salvador or a heavily tanned white girl from Nebraska with the annoying habit of pronouncing all Spanish words with a heavy Latino accent, driving everyone around her insane.  She is survived by her brother Diego, Boots, Issa the Iguana, and her parents, Dora’s Mother Marquez and Dora’s Father Marquez.

Thomas the Tank Engine (1945-2011)

Thomas got grouchy in his old age, and wanted to bust some union heads

Everyone’s favorite “fussy little engine” died Wednesday morning after suffering mortal wounds from a boiler explosion. Island of Sodor police are treating the explosion as a homicide. Always known for being cheeky and opinionated, Thomas had lately run afoul of the Sodor Railway engineers for trying to bust the union in their latest round of contract negotiations. Thomas has long been vocal in his opposition to the engineers’ collective bargaining agreement: Thomas often stated publicly that engineers “don’t do the real work that the engines do everyday; and their paint is dull and grimy, just like the coal cars’.”

On Wednesday morning, witnesses describe Thomas ridiculing his engineer, evidently claiming he “wasn’t man enough to get a real fire going” like the cheaper, non-union Guatemalan immigrants that Thomas and the other engines have publicly asked Sir Topham Hatt to hire. Witnesses claim the engineer shoveled twice as much coal as necessary into Thomas’ boiler, moments before the explosion occurred. Police have not released the name of the suspect, who is being held without bail and is charged with first degree Train Homicide, two counts of reckless engineering, four counts of misuse of a coal shovel, and one count of abandonment of a needy little engine for jumping off Thomas moments before the explosion. No one else was injured in the explosion, which sent Thomas’ smug little face two miles away, where it was found by his friend Percy, who promptly vomited.

Thomas is survived by his domestic partner, Harold the Helicopter. In lieu of flowers, Harold asks that as a memorial to Thomas, no one ever play the happy little ear worm that is Thomas’ theme song ever again, lest everyone shoot themselves in the head in an attempt to get the song out of their brain.

Junie B. Jones (1992 -2024)

Sadly, as an adult, Junie B. Jones tried to hold on to the magic with books. And smack-fueled orgies.

Junie B. Jones, the former child star of stories and sticker books, has died at the age of 32, apparently of a drug overdose. Junie B. rose to fame as a kindergartner and first grader in a series of books tracing her struggles to behave and speak proper English. Long a hero to troubled children everywhere, Junie was hated by every parent and librarian who ever met her because of her poor impulse control, sassy attitude, and horrible mangling of English grammar.  In second grade, Junie was discovered to be dyslexic, and with extra tutoring and life-skills coaching, she was able to fix most of her academic and speaking errors. However, her personal behavior never improved, evidently because she was by most accounts, a diva and a total asshole by those who knew her best.

Like many child stars, Junie had trouble adjusting to life outside the lime light: most of her high school and college years, she was known as the hard-partying girl everyone went to for drugs and alcohol. After a string of petty crimes, her drunk driving arrest at 21 forced her into rehab for the first time. After she got out, she continued to struggle to get straight, and was accused of breaking her parole by stealing an jewel-encrusted necklace from a high-end jeweler a few months later. She briefly cleaned up again after having three children with four potential fathers–Jones herself was never sure who fathered her first child, July B. Jones. After a failed comeback tour, Jones was in and out of rehab for most of the last few years.

Jones died late Monday night after ingesting in the course of the afternoon grain alcohol, cocaine, panda blood, and a powerful acid known as Madame Psychosis.  She is survived by her parents, siblings, and children: Marchie, Augustie, and Decemberie. Her parents plan on finishing Junie’s last project, an autobiography entitled “Look How Fucked Up I Am Because I Didn’t Listen to My Parents; The Story of How I Wished I Had Listened, But Now It’s Too Late.”

****

I don’t know why these essentially harmless characters bother me so much (especially Clifford), but I’ll leave that for any psychiatrists reading this. I do really feel so much after such a cathartic exercise. Especially because I’d been wanting to unburden myself of these dark thoughts, which I’ve had ever since The Girl asked me to read yet another Clifford book from the library three years ago.

I realize, though, how helpful a reference this post can be for all parents who are as annoyed as me. Because the next time your child looks up at you after you finish a story and asks “What happens to Winnie the Pooh next?”, you have an idea of what to say.

“Well, sweetie, do you know what ‘diabetes-related amputation’ means?”

SAHMs vs. SAHDs: Although Mostly the Same. . .

Posted on 238 by 233 Posted in Field Guides, What I've Learned .

Aside from the obvious anatomical differences, stay-at-home parents aren’t that different regardless of whether they are mothers or fathers. They need to change roughly three thousand diapers, listen to whining that would make a mosquito jealous, feed children a snack fifteen minutes after breakfast is done, comfort them with hugs and thousands of band-aids, and  keep them from killing themselves because of that weird death instinct that evolution didn’t breed out of us. But there are more differences than just breastfeeding: blame Mars, Venus, or just society’s bullshit, the but it seems fathers (generally) are a little more relaxed in the big picture about taking care of kids than mothers. Not in every case, but generally. (I also think this is why Father’s Day shows us how little society expects from fathers.)

So let me reveal to you, the highly biased, highly unscientific differences in the daily life of stay-at-home moms (SAHMs) and stay-at-home dads (SAHDs) that I’ve learned in five years as a stay-at-home parent.

 

Feeding children

SAHM: Tend to try to feed their children three actual meals during the day. You can tell they are real meals because they have more than just chicken nuggets or plain bowtie pasta on the plate; often times vegetables also share the plate. The SAHMs that love their children try to purchase organic ingredients or make their own foods, like apple sauce. They also tend to keep track if the children actually eat any fruit or veggies. SAHMs often exchange recipes and strategies for getting children to eat.

SAHD: Try to feed their children when the children complain that they are hungry. Meals usually consist of foods that the dad likes and/or ate often in college, though with less beer. Fatherhood expert Bill Cosby understood the feeding method of fathers when he joked that they will let the child eat cake for breakfast because it has milk and eggs in it; many SAHDs—like myself—will let the child eat apple jelly because it is “essentially no different than apple sauce.” At SAHD gatherings, fathers exchange recipes for elaborate lunches of braised meats covered in hot sauces because they know there will be more for themselves since no kids are eating any of it no matter what.

 

Senses of Humor

SAHM: Can be very wickedly funny and snarky with friends, but with kids, jokes only occasionally, and then only making silly jokes in baby talk voice. Many children like this, others have no reaction. Jokes are rarely made at the children’s expense; jokes primarily for the children’s benefits. Fart jokes occur rarely.

"Wow, that fart could peel paint!"

“Wow, Mommy wouldn’t make fun of me like that!”

SAHD: Often enjoy making comments to children that the children do not understand nor do they find funny. Enjoys confusing children with a dry sense of humor or making totally implausible, silly stories, like when I joked that I would sell my son into slavery if he didn’t go to sleep (for the record: he didn’t get it). Often tells funny stories involving their children making mistakes or pooping in inappropriate places. Makes jokes primarily for the benefit of entertaining himself or any other adults within earshot. My wife never appreciated my tendency to entertain myself by teaching my toddlers to say things like “My farts peel paint!” As you can see, fart jokes occur several times an hour.

 

Going to the Grocery Store / Running Errands

SAHM: Brings wipes to wipe down the cart handle before baby goes into the shopping cart; sometime a cloth covering will be used as well. Interacts with the baby in order keep the baby calm and occupied since store employees and the retirees shopping at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday will be judging her based on her baby’s behavior: if the baby fusses, old ladies bust out the stink eye. Employees often asked to not feed the baby anything that hasn’t been purchased yet: my wife gave our toddler a banana once and four clerks asked her to pay for it before doing any more shopping. People rarely hold doors open for her since if opening a door is so hard, why’d she have a baby?

"Try to eat as much of this as you can before the clerks see us."

“Try to eat as much of this as you can before the clerks see us.”

SAHD: Once the baby can sit up, puts the baby in the basket without wiping anything down, occasionally remembering to buckle them in. Uses the baby to start flirting with any woman within a ten-foot radius. When asking store employees any question, acts helpless, as though he’s never been in a grocery, much less with a baby since then everyone will help him. People open up doors for him since “he’s got his hands full.” Once, an old lady bought him a roast chicken after he said that she looked like the baby’s “Gram-gram.” SAHDs give babies a banana as soon as they enter the produce section; employees see this and smile. The price for such low expectations is being asked if he’s babysitting roughly a dozen times each trip.

 

Play dates

SAHM: For her first children, the usual SAHM will follow any child under the age of five around making sure he or she is safe. Has multiple snacks packed, ready to feed the baby should they get fussy. Helps broker the peace between all play date participants in regards to the break-dancing robot everyone wants to play with at the same time. Adult conversation is conducted in 30 second increments interspersed with tending children. Coffee consumed in morning play dates; wine at anything in the afternoon or later.

This is what afternoon playdates at Ian's house look like. (photo credit to the brilliant Dave Engledow.)

This is what afternoon playdates at Ian’s house look like. (photo credit to the brilliant Dave Engledow.)

SAHD: Dads get together and tend to talk not so much about sports as you’d expect but about books and cooking elaborate lunches of braised meats (see above). Lots of coffee consumed pre-noon, scotch or beer or both during any play date scheduled after school. Afternoon play dates often result in kids being left to play with minimal supervision: amazingly, my wife was upset when I put the 6-year-old in charge of making sure the toddler didn’t eat out of the cat’s litter box again. All disputes settled by three rounds in the Octagon.

 

Interacting with other parents during the workday

SAHM: Will regularly strike up a conversation with other mothers at the library or park, making small talk about the kids’ ages and stages. Looks at SAHDs warily, as though the fathers are either crashing the party, a deadbeat for not being at work, a potential pedophile for hanging around children all day, or a jerk who will ogle the mothers. Occasionally will make conversation with the father if he proves he’s not too creepy after an hour or so without pulling out his penis or molesting a child.

SAHD: Usually keeps to himself, rarely talking to fellow stay-at-home dads unless he’s seen him regularly for at least six months. For example, I’ve seen the same very tall bald man and his daughter at the same grocery store on Monday mornings for at least four months and never said a word to him. With other dads will talk about what they once did before staying at home. Occasionally tries to strike up a conversation with the moms if the kids are around the same age as each other. Ogles mothers when they aren’t looking, especially if there is cleavage.

 

Bedtime

SAHM: After a long day, hates putting cranky, tired kids to bed.

SAHD: After a long day, hates putting cranky, tired kids to bed.

 

So there you have the few differences between stay-at-home parents, even if 95% of our days are the same. Did I miss any differences?

 

Things My Son Has Yelled At Me

Posted on 229 by 233 Posted in Things My Son Has Yelled Recently .

The Boy is very popular among my immediate family members because of his intensity. He has always felt things strongly, even as an infant: the nurses at the hospital nicknamed him “Zero to Sixty” because he seemed to go from being fine to screaming without any intermediate crying. He is still intense, and now that he is a big kid who will start kindergarten in the fall (!), he has a way of turning a phrase too.

So let me introduce what I hope becomes a regular feature on Almost Coherent Parent, “Things My Son Has Yelled at Me Recently.”

"Take that, Mr. Impatient Man!"

“Take that, Mr. Impatient Man!”

  • “No one loves me! Fine! I’m just going to go get eaten by a bear!” –after being told pushing both his sisters would not endear him to them

Continue reading →

My Vasectomy Adventure, Part 1: Preparation

Posted on 240 by 233 Posted in Field Guides .
Not me, but that surely was my expression when I finally looked up what a vasectomy entailed.

Since our youngest child is almost two, and The Bife and I like sleeping (almost) through the night, she and I made the decision that we’d collected all the children we’ll ever have. Which means that we can turn to the safest and most reliable form of permanent birth control: getting my penis chopped off a vasectomy (official medical procedure name: The Snippety Snip).

After the procedure (see Figure 1 below), we could hope to get down regularly in the middle of the night without the risk of eventually having to get up with the resulting new baby. Once we made the decision, I called Kaiser hoping I could get it done as soon as I could find a babysitter to watch the kids. Maybe in an hour or two?

Not me, but that surely was my expression when I finally looked up what a vasectomy entailed.

Not me, but that surely was my expression when I finally looked up what a vasectomy entailed.

Evidently, urologists have thought the process through more than I have. In order to avoid premature decision making, you are required either to watch a short video in the privacy of the doctor’s office or attend a class where you can awkwardly avoid making eye contact with other dudes who want to stop pulling out or using love gloves. Naturally, I chose the video, making an appointment for later in the week. Continue reading →

Feeding All the Little Birds

Posted on 232 by 233 Posted in Field Guides, Parenting .

One of the boy’s preschool teachers loves birds, so birdfeeders come home from school frequently. The latest feeder resembles the Home Depot we lived near in Atlanta that also had a Dunkin’ Donuts in it: it has not just seeds to provide food for the birds, but it also has bits of yarn to provide home-building material for the birds to use in their nests as they get freaky this spring and have more little babies to shit in our backyard.

Similar to The Boy's cheerio feeder,but his wasn't on the tree long enough to photograph

Similar to The Boy’s cheerio feeder,but his wasn’t on the tree long enough to photograph

In the Fall, The Boy came home with a different one. That one was cheerios on a piece of string that you would hang from a branch and watch the birds lower their cholesterol with the oaty goodness. But this bird feeder suffered from a major design flaw: The Boy was more interested in making it into a Boy feeder than a bird feeder. Continue reading →

Read me on Scary Mommy

Posted on 222 by 233 Posted in My Stuff Other Places .

An essay I wrote about The Boy cutting The Toddler’s hair made it onto the much larger, much more awesome website Scary Mommy. Check it out there. But don’t get sucked into the confessional, because it is addicting, and one of the major enablers of my PADD.

And if you found Almost Coherent Parent because of Scary Mommy, welcome! Make yourself comfortable and read everything!

My Grandfather, the Giants Fan

Posted on 229 by 233 Posted in Baseball, Death, Kid's Perspective .

I can trace my love of baseball, specifically San Francisco Giants baseball, to two people: my older brother and my grandfather. My brother was a ball player himself, even playing in college. He introduced me to Will Clark and showed me how a passionate baseball fan loves the game and his team. But his was an insider’s love of the game, knowing the esoterica and lore. While he loves Giants baseball, he loves the sport almost as much, and will watch any game that’s on.

And on the seventh day, God created baseball. God's obviously a Giants fan.

And on the seventh day, God created baseball. God’s obviously a Giants fan.

But my grandfather truly showed me what being a passionate Giants fan was. His love was that of the average fan, meaning it was an imperfect love of baseball; he liked the sport, but only watched it when the Giants were on. His knowledge of the game was imperfect too: he could tell you about a hit and run, but he probably couldn’t tell you about pitch positioning in the ninth inning with a basestealer on first and a left-handed pull hitter up to bat like my brother can.

My brother taught me what baseball passion is. My grandfather taught me what fandom is. Continue reading →