Two questions about food. . .

1. Is my son the only baby who, when he realizes he's hungry (e.g. all the time), must eat everything he can fit in his mouth right this second? So much so that he'll stuff his mouth and then come to the conclusion that he needs a drink to help wash it down, but then either a) his mouth is so full he can't suck through his sippy cup so he has to pull some food out in order to take a drink or b) his mouth is so full he can get a drink but the drink won't fit in his mouth so the milk just runs out and down his chin. What was the first question? Oh yeah, is my baby the only ravenous baby out there.
2. When you put a piece of food in your child's mouth (normally something messier than normal—non-finger food) he pulls it out just so he can set it down and put it back in his mouth by himself. Anyone else have that happen.

Bottomless pit. . .

We're raising a little eating machine. He just sits and eats and eats and eats. This morning for breakfast he ate a pancake, 3/4 of a banana, a handful of Cherrios and 5 oz of milk. . . quite a feat for a man who supposedly has a stomach the size of his own fist.

Today was heaven for him, Thanksgiving. He didn't like turkey, but the potatoes, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, and the bread. . . dear lord the boy ate 2 whole rolls, one each family dinner! The boy doesn't stop. I don't now where he puts it.

I'm worried if he keeps up this pace we're going to end up on Maury Povich in a couple years, with an 80 lbs preschooler. He's still not a big boy by any means, but if he keeps putting away so much food he'll have things flying in orbit around him in no time.

Are you prepared to rock? . . .

Is it possible to be a parent and still rock? Short answer "no," long answer 'hell no."

We went to see Jason Mraz last night (I know a concert on a Monday night what the crap is that?). We're both mostly zombies this morning. I say mostly because, though becoming parents has zapped our ability to really rock, it HAS increased our ability to function on a lot less sleep.

It was a good show, even if it was a bad venue for a rock concert. I'm glad we went, but I'm realizing I'm becoming an old man.

Warn me next time. . .

Dear Beechnut,

Why does your box of Fruit Nibbles neglect to tell me that the Fruit Nibbles contained within look like dried squirrel brains. Don't believe that they do? Click here.

Don't get me wrong, they taste great and I love your "No Junk Promise" (meaning there's no artificial colors added) but warn a guy when the food going in is going to look like the food coming out. I don't mind how they look, I'm happy to give my kid something that looks like healthy food, but the image on the front make the Fruit Nibbles look like any other brightly colored fruit snack on the market.

Just be honest. I don't mind putting little brown wrinkly things in my son. . . that sounds bad, but you know what I mean.

EDIT: Whoops wrong little brain link.

Life lessons. . .

It's been a few days since I posted. Since then Mr Schnicklefritz has learned. . .

• Canvas shopping bags are fun and, despite being stuffed into one, fun to drag all over the house.
• The correct response when daddy says "how about you drink some more milk" is to drink his milk. And yes he's now drinking nothing but good old-fashioned 2% moo juice.
• Keeping up a nap schedule sucks.
• Lack of naps makes one crabby
• Daddy's baked macaroni, peaches, bananas, and pineapple (unless choking because of being swallowed whole) kick ass! Lemons are still iffy (more video coming soon)
• The most fun game to play in the morning is to crawl to the end of the bed and play "possum" until daddy picks you up.
• Mail and bills are fun to grab and wave around while running from mommy and daddy.
• Sometimes all a little man wants to do is dance.

Big boy. . .

The guy in the office next to mine has a two-year-old son. He just went in for his two-year appointment. Everything was mostly normal except for one small thing.

He's in the 120th percentile for height.

That's right 120th. But only 80th percentile for weight.

Feed me. . .

I have tried some of the feeding ideas that some people gave me. I liked the drained soup idea, but our now more picky eater didn't like them much. He's also decided that the pancakes he loved aren't so great afterall, but bananas are the best thing ever, next to cheese puffs.

On the cheese puffs. . . I admit when I started on those I gave him the popular brand of cheese puffs, you know the one with the cartoon cheeta? Since then I have bought a bag of Snyders of Hanover's MultiGrain Aged Cheddar Cheese Puffs. We both love them and they're not that bad for him. He doesn't get anywhere near a full serving, he'll eat 3-5 depending on how long we're all sitting at the table together. I have compared them to the Gerber equivalent and they are a little higher in sodium, but still close (BTW I love the veggie dip flavored gerber little crunchers, I wish they made adult bags of those).

Ham and cheese is still big. Mostly he just eats bits of what we're eating. He'll eat a whole banana in a sitting. He loves the softer apples I got last week, I'll cut the flesh out for him and eat some flesh and all the skin myself.

The good part of all of this is him eating better means we eat better. We want him to eat what we're eating and we want him to eat more fruits and veggies so we eat more fruits and veggies. I like that part.

Mom's say the darndest things. . .

Overheard in our kitchen tonight. . .

“You're not going anywhere. I'm bigger than you and you're tied to a chair.”

What the F%#@! . . .

This weekend a couple we are friends with and their 2-year-old daughter came over to hang out. At one point we got out cookies and their daughter was sitting next to our little bottomless pit (he's always eating), he was in his high chair, both were eating cookies. He started to fuss. She patted him on the arm and said "don't worry little buddy, I'll get you out of this shit."

We all tried hard not to laugh.

I got to thinking about it later and it occurred to me, it's not funny.

She had learned the word in passing. There's a small window between being able to say anything around your kid and your kid repeating everything you say. They missed that window, and she now knows how to use the word "shit" in perfect context.

Everyone's seen the Landlord, it's fun to watch a little kid saying funny things. . . until it's your kid.

The little girl's mother then related a story to my wife about a couple they know who actually worked to get their son to call everybody a "douche bag." They succeeded and were happy about it. All their son is trying to do is make mommy and daddy happy. He has no idea what he's saying. All he knows is if he calls a random person a "douche bag" mommy and daddy are happy. It's exploiting a survival instinct.

And in a couple years they will be outraged when their son is suspended from school for saying something vulgar. They'll blame the teacher, the principal, and the other kid's parents for ganging up on the kid. I bet they'll never think to blame themselves for deliberately teaching their son to use the words that got him in trouble.

Especially right now, we live in a society where we tell our kids they can grow up to be anything they want to be. Words like shit and fuck have become more main stream. . . but they're still vulgar and offensive to some people, they'll still get you a fine on network television (the supreme court just heard a case on fuck last week). They can still get you fired or sued. Deliberately teaching them to your kids only sets them up for future problems. You may not have a problem with them, but someone who controls your child's fate on some issue will.

So I've decided to try and curb all spoken foul language. This may mean I'll use more foul language here, to vent it out. We'll see how that goes. I'm sure a expletive or two will slip out here and there, but I have to try. If it means I have to replace "shit" with "shoot" or "fuck" with "fudge," so be it. It'll sound silly to adults, but it'll sound better to the ears that matter most.

Box sweet box. . .

Everyone knows the old adage you give a kid an expensive toy and they'll only want to play with the box. On Thursday we received our new car seats (great price on Eddie Bauer 3-in-1 car seats at albeebaby.com). They came with 3 big boxes (yes we needed 3 seats). Later Thursday night our little tramp decided to pack his things and move into one of the boxes. He had his jingly rabbit, a book, a cloth diaper, a sippy cup and one of his mother's shoes. . . what more could a boy need to live on his own. At one point her tried to take my watch to add to his nest (is that ravens or magpies that steal shiny objects?). I was about to take a picture of that in his box, but he crawled out stole the camera and added that to his collection too. of course his mother had to drop by to check on him. Fun photos below.

• Moving day!
• Where do you put all you stuff?
• Finally settled in.
• Having a housewarming party with mommy

The dreaded MMR. . .

I don't need to site any articles here, nor do I want to. Some people believe vaccines cause Autism. Some people believe that's bullshit. The big scary shot that those who do believe is the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shot that is given at one year. Jenny McCarthy claims she saw an instant difference when her son got his MMR shot. He went from a happy healthy boy to a shell of a toddler with Autism. . . she wrote a book about this. She also claims that her son is now Autism free, as if it was some sort of pesky rash.*

I should point out here that some people believe that Autism shouldn't be "cured." That Autism isn't a disease and it is what makes their kid who they are. If we had always had a "cure" for Autism we probably wouldn't have the Theory of Relativity (Einstein didn't speak until he was 6) or Microsoft Windows (it is suspected that Bill Gates was and is still Autistic). . . maybe that last part would be a good thing. According to a few Autism experts I've heard speak, if you go to San Francisco or Seattle (the tech centers of the US) you can't throw a rock without hitting an Autistic person. Programmers, economists, theoretical physicists. . . very prone to be people with at least mild autism.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. So if in fact the MMR shot instantly causes Autism. . . then we survived it.

Our one-year check-up was Tuesday. He's right at 50% for height, just below 50% for weight, and at 80% on head size (big melon). He spent most of the appointment running around the office looking for something to get into. Then he got 4 shots. He has to go back for his flu shot booster in 4 weeks.

*I should clarify I have no problem with Jenny McCarthy, I greatly admire her past work. I only have issue with her suddenly being an expert on Autism. I suppose with her becoming a spokesperson for TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) puts her around experts and some of the information has rubbed off.

Equally Shared Parenting. . .

This weeks jumping monkeys episode featuredEqually Shared Parenting. I am a big proponent of this.

The idea is that both parents need to help out with. . .

• Breadwinning
• Childcare
• Housework
• and Recreation

I just need to get my wife more involved in the housework part, but over all I think we do OK. I suppose I have a more flexible work schedule which was one of their points (two people working 30 hours a week make more than one breadwinner working 40). Almost all our recreation is done together.

Anyway, there are some good tips in the How It Works section of this site for how to get both parents completely involved in having kids.

Lemonhead Jones. . .

There is almost nothing better in the whole world than the face a baby makes when they taste their first lemon. The shock and apparent disgust is only made funnier by the fact that most actually grab the lemon and eat more. . . I think it's a rush for them. Sadly I was over anxious and gave our little sour puss a lemon before I was filming him. This, however, is the second night attempt. The faces aren't as good as the first night, but I still think they are funny.

There will be more.

Dog story. . .

Only because Cara Mama is curious. About a year after we were married we adopted a dog.

Our local mall had an adopt-a-stray group in one of the stores and we'd go in to watch the dogs sometimes. It was enough to see the dogs and we normally were OK with keeping with our no pet pact we made when we got married. One day when we went in there were two dogs in the front pen. A brother and sister set. He was friendly and nice. She, Jada, was timid and shy. We imagined their story and moved on. Weeks went by and we returned and saw them there again. And a few more weeks we came back and now the brother had been adopted, leaving Jada alone in the world. We felt so sad for her we gave in and adopted her.

She was scared of us, but hated when we left her. She was couldn't stand for us to pet her, but also couldn't stand when she wasn't right by our side. We tried to get her used to being alone in our house, and tried to have her crate trained. . . she bent the bars on her crate with her teethe and snout and escaped every time. We assume that she was abused at some point from the way she acted. It wasn't long before we realized she was more than we could handle at the time.

So, tears streaming down our faces, we took her back to the adopt-a-stray shop. A few weeks later we asked about her and she had been adopted by a family with kids and two other dogs. Hopefully she's happy.

After that we decided on a strict no pet policy.

Fast forward 6 years and we have a baby. I find taking care of him so much less work than having a dog. As soon as our animal lover is old enough to take care of a pet on his own we'll review the policy, but it won't be soon.

Sign of relief. . .

Dog. . .

A couple months ago our little animal lover learned about dogs. His great aunt's australian shepherds, Sammy and Kiera, to be exact. Sammy was indifferent and a bit grumpy with him, but Kiera. . . Kiera thought he was interesting, exciting and tastedlike bacon. At least I'm assuming that from all the licking she did.

Once we came home he noticed the dogs that live next door. They were out doing their business while he was eating, his high chair offers a good vantage point to see the neighbor's yard. He pointed and said "da." We got excited and said "yes, dogs, good job buddy."

Ever since then, at least a few times a day, he points out the sliding glass door and says "da." Normally this is met with "no sweetie, they're inside sleeping" or some other such assumption. Occasionally he gets it right and then he keeps at it, pointing towards the door saying "da." "Da?" "No." "Da?" "No." "Da?" "No." "Da?" "No." "Da?" "No." "Da?" "No."

We need to get our neighbor's number to call he when he wants the dogs outside.

And then grandma's neighbors had their dog out in their back yard the other day, a back yard he can also see from a sliding glass door, a sliding glass door that he now goes to points and says "da."