Monday, January 30, 2006

Mockingbird

The other day at the doctor's office, in the crowded waiting room, out of nowhere Elias starts singing the theme to COPS: "Bad Boys, Bad Boys. What ya gonna do? What ya gonna do when they come for you!?!" He did not know it from the TV show, but from a Greatest Hits of the 90's CD I have in the car. None the less, I'm sure the whole waiting room thought I've been plopping my 2 year old son down in front of COPS!

Then the next night, after hearing another song on the radio a couple of times...in a crowded McDonald's Elias starts singing: "I don't want to say she's a gold digger..." Luckily, that's the only line from that classic children's song that he picked up!

I guess I should invest in a Wiggles CD for the car!

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Eats Like A Bird

Last night for diner, I made Worms & Dirt for our dessert. Elias was very excited at the concept of eating worms. He dug right into the gummy worm and, without me noticing, devoured the whole thing without chewing it.
Quickly, Elias began choking. I did the traditional half-ass pat on the back thing. After a few wacks on the back, it was obvious that this would require more attention. Elias started gagging and turning red! Usually he has no trouble spitting food out, but he couldn't clear his throat.
So....I reached inside his little mouth and pulled the entire, squishy, wet gummy worm out of him. Disgusting? Yes! I looked like a mother bird with a worm dangling over my kids head.

So, I did what any good mother bird would have done. I chewed the worm up and spit it back into Elias' mouth!

I'M KIDDING!!!!!!

Thursday, January 26, 2006

A Sweet Story

Monday night we experienced a Snow Squall. Apparently at age 32, there are still weather conditions that you've never heard of! In case you've never Squalled before, it's like a cross between a mini-blizzard and a real bad thunder storm.

It started right as I was putting Elias to bed. A couple claps of thunder roared about five minutes after I had left Elias' room. We muted "American Idol" and didn't hear him crying. Another five minutes passed and the thunder shook the entire house for a few seconds! I went upstairs to check on Elias, and he was still snuggled in his bed as I had left him but he had little tears streaming down his face. I asked him if he wanted to come back downstairs for a little while. "OKAY!," he shouted as her bolted out of the bed and into my arms!

He came downstairs and sat on the sofa with us and watched TV, then he played in his playroom for a little while. An hour or so later, the storm had stopped and Elias was ready for bed again.
As I took him upstairs, he kept saying, "lay down with Daddy!" I figured he wanted me to lay next to his bed till he fell asleep, but when we made it up the stairs he bypassed his room and went straight to my bedroom. He climbed up into the bed, and laid down in him Mommy's spot and pulled the blanked up over him.

So I layed down next to him in my spot. "Good Night Daddy!," he said. He put his hands behind his head like he was laying on a hammock taking a nap.

About an hour later, Jen gently woke me up! Elias and I were both fast asleep in our bed!
It was a really cool night, and one of those times where I felt so lucky to be a daddy!

Shut up! Every story doesn't have to be funny!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Skating with Celebrities

The latest train wreck of a TV show that I've gotten myself into is Fox's "Skating with celebrities" which is an obvious rip-off of ABC's hit "Dancing with the Stars." See...Fox has celebrities while ABC has Stars...it's actually totally different.
What makes "Skating" TiVo-worthy in my book, is that one of the celebrities is 80's Pop Princess Deborah Gibson. To say I was obsessed with Debbie Gibson in high school is an understatement. Debbie has always held a special place in my heart! While the rest of my class was listening to The Cure and Guns & Roses...I was alone with Debbie!
In 1995, I got to personally meet Debbie Gibson at an in-store CD signing at a Borders in Pentagon City. That was awesome!

So, as cheesy as it is...it's cool to see Debbie on a prime time television show where each week her and her professional skating partner compete against 5 other pairs for some prize or title that has never been mentioned. I guess just the satisfaction of being the greatest non-skater skating celebrity in the world is prize enough.

This week was a close call for Debbie, as the first team was eliminated from the show. Debbie and her partner were in last place until the last team of the night struck out. It seems Todd Bridges, although quite an entertaining skater, took a spill and was eliminated from the competition.

If Debbie had been voted off...I could have just threw in the towel and stopped watching the show. But Debbie moves on, and I must stick with her. The problem comes if she gets voted off with two or three shows to go! I might find myself too emotionally invested in the show to walk away! I then I would have to question my sexuality!?

At this point in the game, I'm predicting that Jillian Barberre chick from FOX NFL is going to be the winner. But it's early! Who can tell! More importantly...who gives a rat's flying fig!???!

Thursday, January 19, 2006

More Fun Salads

Dear Restaurant Industry,

When I order a Cesar Salad, by default I want Cesar Dressing on it! If I wanted Thousand Island, Creamy Italian or peppercorn Parmesan I would have ordered just a SALAD!

It seems now everytime I order a Cesar Salad, the waitress or dimwitted schlub at Wendy's asks me what dressing I want!?
One time we were at KFC and my friend ordered a three piece diner. The guy behind the counter asked, "Chicken?" To which we replied, "OK, steak then!? I didn't know there was a choice!"

The pictures of all the different salads at McDonald's look all the same. I can't tell the three of them apart. Until I can tell the difference between a McCobb salad and the Bacon Ranch salad, I'm going to just have to keep on ordering the Double Quarter Pounder!

I also love at McDonald's how they put Olympic athletes on their bags and cups suggesting that anyone that has a shot at winning a Gold Medal has eaten McDonald's past their 8th birthday. I don't recall anyone taking a break during their Ski Jump or Curling match to take a massive, runny, McDonalds induced doo-doo!

One more thing...I love to get my "eat on" as much as the next Joe...but that Enormous omelet sandwich at Burger King has got to be the most disgusting looking fast food item since Roy Rogers went out of business!

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Happy New Year!

When we moved into our home in February, one of our new neighbors came up to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood. Among other things, she mentioned that the men on the street have a tradition where they all get together on New Year's Day and do something, but she didn't let on what exactly it was that they did. For the next 10 months I wondered and worried about what the "tradition" was. I had convinced myself that it had to involve guns!

Well, I found out at the block Christmas party a few weeks ago that it did not indeed involve guns. The custom was for all the men to meet up New Year's Day and follow a tradition from the Ukraine. It is good luck for a male to be the first person through the door in the New Year, so we all met up in the cul-da-sac at 12:30 in the afternoon and went to each house to greet the families a Happy New Year and to enjoy a little snack and an alcoholic beverage.

It was actually quite fun! Since I'm not much of a drinker anymore, I paced myself and didn't have too much to drink. But, one could have gotten their drink on! Everyone had a nice supply of liquor to share with their neighbors. I limited myself to one frozen mudslide and a 7 & Seven, the rest of the houses I enjoyed a Diet Pepsi.

At the last home we stopped at, we enjoyed an hour or so of billards in their basement.
An unusual way to spend a day, but very much fun indeed!

Another thing that I want to talk about (all the time) on this here blog is movies!
When you have two kids under the age of 2 1/2 you don't get to see too many movies.

New Year's Eve we watched Cinderella with my 2 year old son Elias. As you may know, I regard many of Disney's animated classics as some of the best films ever made. Cinderella is one of the all time greats, and it's always fun to share these movies with Elias, for the first time. He enjoyed it, he liked the mice. And then after the stepsisters rip Cinderella's dress and she runs into the backyard, Elias shouted, "Oh No! Cinderella is running away to the circus!" I don't know where that came from!?!

On the 1st, we watched Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. This is a result of sending my wife to the video store. It wasn't that bad, Jimmy Fallon was actually pretty good... much better than he was in that piece of crap "Taxi."

The next night we say Grizzly Man, a documentary about this guy who lived with wild grizzly bears for 13 summers until he and his girlfriend were eaten alive by one! This grizzly man had recorded over 100 hour of footage of him with the bears, including an audio only tape of him and his girlfriend being eaten. The whole movie builds up to this tape, but then then don't play it. In some sick way I was disappointed, until I realized that hearing it would have given me nightmares for the rest of my life!
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