Last night the family was watching Jack’s Big Music Show when this video came on. The wife looks at me and says Man, he is hot.

Rich talks about it. Read it all.

Every other Saturday, me and my homies get together to play some Texas Hold ‘Em. And by play some Texas Hold ‘Em, I mean we sit around, talk shit, and drink adult beverages. There’s usually between five and eight guys and we put in $10, winner take all. It never works that way because the house rules have some low blinds, which makes the game last longer than it should. Usually the top two guys wind up splitting. I was always one of the top two guys. But the last two times, I came in third. I’ve lost my mojo. I think it happened when my brother-in-law really bluffed the shit out of me and then showed me his cards to rub it in. Anyway, here’s hoping I get my mojo back.

Last game, one of my buds said that he thought my posts about Laurie Berkner’s kind-of-hotness were funny. I told him I was serious (girls got moves). He almost fell out of his seat laughing. Then, day before yesterday, my wife asks me who this Laurie Berkner person is that I was yammering on about on my blog. I told her it was some lady who sings kids’ songs on Noggin. She didn’t know who she was. Yesterday, one of Laurie’s videos came on during Jack’s Big Music Show (which Junior happens to love) and I said That’s Laurie Berkner! She looked at me like I was nuts and said she’s not hot. I said She’s kinda hot.

The wife then tells me that it’s not any jealousy sort of thing. And tells me that she knows I find Lucy Liu hot and she concurs that Lucy Liu is in fact hot. However, she says Laurie Berkner definitely is not hot. So, maybe it is just me.

Pronounced bo bo

That’s Junior’s latest word. When she sees a sore of some kind on someone, she points out their boo boo. She likes to point out hers too but she rarely gets them. The other day she tore off at top speed through the den and took a nasty spill. Much crying ensued. I picked her up and told her she was OK. She looked at me like Don’t tell me I’m OK. Then I noticed she had a small little rug burn on her leg and I pointed to it and said You have a boo boo. She immediately stopped crying and got excited while pointing to it and yelling bo bo. She was happy to have a boo boo. Kids today.

I’ve talked about Laurie Berkner’s hotness but she really needs a new shirt. Always with the blue one.

So, what is it about Fruity Pebbles that turns them into the world’s most powerful adhesive after they’ve been sitting in a bowl of milk for a few minutes? Seriously, had to scrape them off the sink.

Sorry for all the Noggin bloggin, but a few things:

Oobi really creeps me out.

And I’m not sure that the retarded alligator who sounds like Homer Simpson is appropriate.

Despite my detractors, Laurie Berkner is hot when you factor in the dancing. No beer goggles needed.

Lazy Town is just weird and the pink-haired girl gives me the willies.

So far, while I’m a stay at home dad, Junior has learned three new phrases: Bad dog, big ball (as opposed to the little ball) and poo poo.

You’ve been watching Noggin way too much when you start to think Laurie Berkner is kinda hot.

At home with Junior all day, one of the things I feel obligated to do in my role as stay-at-home-dad (which will be permanent in a week) is to make dinner. We’re having bacon cheeseburgers and not any pre-packaged burgers either. Real meat ground from a cow who was alive three days ago that I got from some farmer friends. Anyway, I just put kosher salt on the bacon and I felt dirty.

And since I’m making burgers, thought I’d share:

1 pound of ground beef – not that low fat stuff either, if you use low fat you have to add egg and bread crumbs to make the patties stick. Use full fat to bypass burgers that taste like meat loaf.
1/2 cup Worcestershire
2 table spoons ground mustard
2 table spoons of minced garlic
4 table spoons of barbecue sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix in a bowl. Pat into 3/4 inch thick patties. Cook on the grill or (like I’m doing since it’s winter) broil for 15 – 20 minutes. Pan fried burgers kinda suck since they don’t cook even. Remove from oven. I add cooked bacon and cheese then put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes. Yum.

And if you happen to like low fat burgers, put your skirt on before coming to my house.

That’s a lot of loot considering we have only one child:

Opening gifts is hard work. Need a little drink to recharge:

Junior and I are home alone today with our Christmas loot. Blogging will be light.

Went to Kohl’s and Babies R Us the other day to buy boy stuff for The Second. I found a nice little white onesie and on the front in red letters it said:

Tax Deduction

I bought it, of course. I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction that no one markets a Glock, SigArms or AR15 onesie before. But this was good enough.

And more importantly, he’s healthy and has all appendages and digits!!!

Since I call the girl Junior, guess I need a name for him.

Oops: I got excited and typed that real fast. I should point out that we just had the ultrasound and determined the gender. The Second hasn’t been born yet.

Guest blogging over at No Silence Here, Glenn Reynolds notes:

THE PHOTO ON THE RIGHT shows my daughter’s homework for the night. The backpack is full, and weighs 19 pounds. I haven’t weighed the stack of books, but it’s likely that she’s carrying one-third her bodyweight there.

She also has back problems from carrying all this, and the physical therapist said that no kid should be carrying that many books. The folks at the school, however, don’t seem to care; I’ve raised it with them but they’ve been utterly dismissive.

Given that they seem to find time during the school day to have kids write D.A.R.E. essays in which they promise that alcohol will never touch their lips, I wonder why they can’t find enough class time to get all this work done during the school day?

Knox County Schools seem to be able to find time for everything except, you know, teaching. I can’t say I’m surprised that they’re losing so many people to private schools and homeschooling, but I am surprised that the folks from Knox County don’t seem to care.

Anyone else seem to notice this trend? I’m kind of scared about when Junior starts school. Not because I think she’ll have problems but because I think that I will whenever her teachers do something stupid.

The local mall has a play area for kids and toddlers. It features various plastic playthings, like a slide and a plastic log for kids to walk across. Junior really enjoys going there and we try to take her once a week. Yesterday, I took her there for a little bit.

There was another guy there with his son and I struck up a conversation with him. We talked about the kids’ ages (his was two), the mall, Christmas and other stuff. While this was going on, Junior stood at the step to the large plastic log mulling whether or not this would be the day she actually tried to climb up on it (she hasn’t yet). Then, here comes the little boy who walks right up to Junior, pushes her shoulder (like men do when they try to pick a fight), and says what I figure is two-year-old for Outta my way.

Without hesitation, Junior takes both hands and pushes the little boy to the ground and says what I figure is 17-month-old for Oh no, you just didn’t. I was proud.

She never did climb up on the plastic log.

My in-laws came over the other night. One of my nephews is five years old. And he can’t wipe his own butt. I discovered this when he visited our bathroom, finished up, and began calling for his mom. I thought it was odd. After they were gone, I said to the wife Did you know he can’t wipe his own butt? She said He’s only five, like it was the most normal thing in the world. I still found it odd but I am apparently the only one. I figured by that age, kids could wipe their own butts but I figured wrong, I am told. Apparently, that’s the age in which they start learning how to wipe their own butts. Then it occurred to me that I have at least five years of butt wiping ahead of me.

Junior can now say No. God help us all.

Yesterday, in reference to an old pic I posted of Politically Incorrect Dog, Tom asked:

Dude, you don’t have a newer picture than that?

Turns out, I don’t have many. I was perusing through our picture files for dog pics and lately we’ve not taken many. However, we have no less than 11,000 pics of the baby. When it comes to pictures, it seems new baby trumps dog.

But here’s one:

Notice the Christmas tree in the background? Yesterday’s pic in the sombrero was actually taken this week. This one, a year ago.

In an update to this post on the odd combinations of lunches The Mrs. makes for me when cleaning out the fridge, today’s lunch includes:

Unless she’s having pregnancy induced cravings and I got hers by mistake, it’s quite an odd combo.

A while back, the Mrs. went out and bought a bunch of those toilet locks to keep Junior from playing or having an accident in our restrooms. One night, she says to me: Why don’t you go childproof the toilets? I say OK. I get up and go to each of our three bathrooms and close all the doors. I come back and proudly announce that I am done.

She didn’t like this and gave me a bit of grief over it. She insisted that I install the toilet locks. Groan. I did it and it was a pain in the butt.

After a couple of days, I hated them. When they’re on, the seat won’t stay up. As a guy, your choices are to either awkwardly lean forward to hold the seat up while taking a leak (no easy task) or peeing like a girl.

Also, these toilet locks, and I am not making this up, are held in place by double-sided tape. What this really means is that they are not held in place at all. Thankfully, they didn’t last more than a few days.

We now just shut the bathroom doors.

Junior has the sniffles. The Mrs. called the pediatrician to ask what to do about it and he stated to give her the orange Triaminic. No problem since she was going to Target anyway to pick up other stuff. While there The Mrs. discovers that, because Triaminic is now regulated like Sudafed since someone might use it to make Meth instead of for baby sniffles, Target has stopped carrying it. Too big a hassle.

Is it just me, or is it getting awful stupid in here?

Been a while since I had a science class but what I recall of my elementary school days about magnets is that they have a positive and negative side. A positive will stick to a negative but two same-charged sides won’t stick together. Meaning positive won’t stick to positive and negative won’t stick to negative. At least, that’s how I recall.

Junior has one of those Magna Doodles that has three pieces with one side of a magnet exposed (square, triangle, circle) for imprinting shapes onto the Magna Doodle. I take two magnets each of which only has one side exposed and the other side is covered by plastic (we’ll say circle and square) and they stick together. I conclude that one exposed side must be positive and one exposed side must be negative. However, I touch both exposed sides to the triangle separately, and they both stick to it. This had me understandably puzzled.

Is there some new kind of gay magnet or something?

Update: Edited for clarity. Stupid grammar.

Been a big month for Junior. She’s off the bottle and up to the sippy cup. She’s also walking, which me and the Mrs. figure makes her a toddler now and no longer a baby. Neat stuff. More importantly: We were watching Headbanger’s Ball yesterday and that tune Color of Money by Bury Your Dead (who happen to kick ass, by the way) came on. I started giving it the white-boy-head-bop. Junior chimed in with her own head-bop. My girl can head bang! Excellent.

Junior is now at the age where she no longer requires the little seat in the bathtub. We just let her hang out in there (supervised, of course) and she can crawl through the water, splash and carry on. She really enjoys bath time. But the first time dad (or, as he’s also known: dadadadadadadadada) let her do this, he got a little surprise.

After I took her out of the seat, she was busy splashing and playing. Suddenly, she stands up in the tub, looks me in the eye, lets out a very audible grunt, and then I heard that distinct sound: ploop! She made a brownie. I’ve changed countless diapers but in the tub, it was different. In the controlled setting known as the changing table, I have infinite resources at my disposal to handle this situation: a work area with removable covers, wipes, diapers, and a variety of other tools for poop-related program activities. This was something much more. It involved evoking the all-powerful. Calling forth the all-knowing, all-seeing mom (or, as she’s also known: mamamamamama). Honey, I yelled, got a minute?

She had a minute. She came in and I was holding Junior away from the offending poopie, which floated with a surprisingly delicate grace. I explained that there was a shot bunny in the tub and pointed. She says Get it out before she steps on it. I said I would but asked her to hold Junior with the thought that, while she held her, I’d go get a towel, rubber glove, tissue or aquarium net to fish out the offending dookie. Without a word or hesitation, the Mrs. reaches in (with her bare, uncovered hands) and grabs the floater and puts it in the toilet.

Now, I’m new to this dad thing and, despite loving my daughter, am unwilling to grab floating excrement with my bare hands. The Mrs. has no problem with it. I’m not sure who the weird one here is. No matter how much I love someone, I’m not cool with handling their turds.

You need to read this.

This weekend marks junior’s start of mobility. She, almost instantly, started to crawl. I mean really crawl. Before, she’d crawl a little, maybe 2 feet to get a toy or something. Now, she’s clearing entire rooms. Had to childproof cabinets and attach things that might fall to walls.

She’s not the fastest thing on the planet so the dogs don’t yet have to worry about being chased. But she is going. Mom and dad were so proud.

I don’t mean they’re bad for the environment in that, aside from turning perfectly good food into shit, they spend most of their time making a ton of diapers. I’ve mentioned before that the Mrs. and I recycled. We always felt it our civic duty, no matter the inconvenience, to make sure the world was a better place by recycling and some other hippie, tree-hugging bullshit that comes with the guilt of being affluent.

We had multiple trash cans for aluminum, plastic bottles, and various colors of glass bottles. We also had bins for newspapers, magazines, cardboard and plastic grocery bags. We’d make the weekly trip to the recycling centers (note the plural: no one recycling center in our area takes all recyclables so the trip always involves two stops).

With the baby, storage space is now at a premium in the Uncle household. We’re storing Junior’s no longer used clothes, toys, knickknacks, and other vital items in the event we have another child. So, we made the decision to screw the environment. No amount of hippie, tree-hugging bullshit will clear up a 10 by 5 feet area of valuable storage space in my garage. We’re not recycling anymore.

Plus, think of all the gas we’ll save and how that will put an end to global warming. Additionally, we spend about $30 per month for trash pickup. At the end of the week, our trash can had only one or two bags of trash in it for them to pick up. Everything else, we recycled. We weren’t getting our money’s worth.

I don’t feel bad. Screw the environment, what has it done for me? At least we’re not filling landfills with clothes, toys, knickknacks, and other vital items.

When I was a wee lad, I went to the zoo with the family. While there, I took a particular interest in those giant tortoises. You know the ones, they’re virtually indistinguishable from large rocks, unless they’re moving, at which point you’d think That rock is moving. How odd. However, you wouldn’t be concerned because the rock wasn’t moving fast enough to be a threat to anything other than stationary rocks. After many minutes of watching the tortoises, one tortoise mounted another. While the tortoise was astride, his mouth was agape and he was making this bizarre sound. It sounded exactly like:

Mraaaa

Sort of like if Fran Drescher was a sheep and said Baah. The tortoise on the receiving end was making no sounds and had pulled all of its appendages into its shell. Either she was not too amused and open to said mounting, or she was a he. At the time (being a wee lad), I didn’t realize the tortoises were doing it. I got to witness some tortoise poundage but didn’t know it. I asked the parents and they offered no real explanation. I just figured it’s what giant tortoises did. Never thought about it much after.

People associate certain sounds with certain animals. Dogs say woof. Cows say moo. Ducks say quack. I assumed that certain animals were mute because we don’t associate a sound with them or we never hear them, like the tortoise. No kid’s books say that the tortoise says Mraaaa.

When I was a teenager, I took the family German Shepherd out to take care of business (he’s German, so he said Wüf). Suddenly, he took off running through the yard. Then I heard a horrible sound, it sounded like a baby crying only it was higher pitched and ceased almost instantly. The dog had caught and killed a rabbit. I always assumed rabbits were sort of mute, but they are not. I’d say that was the worst sound I’ve ever heard.

And I was once watching this Discovery Channel special on hippos. The first half of the special, the hippos were all videoed while in the water. They were peaceful, serene and had a delicate grace about them. Then the show had footage of them on land and you realize they’re just big, stupid, clumsy cows. They also say Moo.

Junior has all sorts of baby toys. She has various plastic and stuffed animals. In the process of teaching Junior about life, I’ll sit around with her and pick up one of her toy animals (like a toy dog) and inform her of the sound the animal makes. My wife was watching as I did this. I picked up the Duck, noted it went quack for Junior’s benefit. The dog says woof. The cow says moo. Then I realize junior has a toy turtle. And the turtle (being not entirely dissimilar from the tortoise) must obviously say Mraaaa.

I had to explain to the wife that horny turtles do make that sound. She got a kick out of my tale of tortoise sexuality.

Junior also has a toy whale. If there’s one thing Star Trek has taught me, it’s that impersonating a whale can only be done by computer. Junior does not have a toy donkey. Since I can’t do the whale sound, her whale says Eee Aww.

Easter’s coming up and the wife bought Junior a stuffed bunny. Great.

Why does the baby smell like beer?