I Guest Blog On A .org Site!

I was just as shocked as you. I got a very nice email from a gentleman last week who kindly asked if I’d like to do a guest post for his blog DaddysHome,Inc. I immediately checked out the site and it’s an official non-profit dedicated to serving as a resource for stay at home dads. A real live .org!!

Immediately I thought, oh shit! I’m going to have put my big-boy pants on to write something for this guy? I’ll probably have to go to the damn library, put footnotes on it, and maybe even quote a PhD.

The owner of the site, Shannon, quickly put my fears to rest. “We’re all dudes, just do what you do best my man.”

So, I wrote about how the wife and I (mainly me) thought we were pregnant earlier this week.

And…here’s the post – enjoy! And makes sure you poke around the site a bit more…it’s pretty kick-ass.

The Scare!



Parking Nazi

On Valentine’s Day the wife and I laughed as we sat next to each other saying, “we should totally pack the kids up, go to a mainstream Mexican restaurant and try to dine with all the other throngs of Valentine’s Day celebrators.

Ten minutes later we were in the car, in the thick of heavy, hungry, Valentine’s-celebrating traffic trying desperately to find our spot in parking hell just so we could dine in over-priced deliciousness on a Hallmark Day.

We had become pawns in the game we laughed about just minutes ago.

But that’s beside the point.

The point in hand was that the entire time this nightmare unfolded before our eyes, our 8-year-old was back-seat-driving like it was his job.

Some of my favorite quotes from the night:

“Daddy!! Right there!!! It’s right there…two lines!! Park between them…jeeze!!!”

“Ok…Ok..OK OK Ok, back-up now!!! Awe daddy you blew it, come on!!!”

“Over there daddy I see a line! Park on the other side of it and let’s eat!!”

What you didn’t hear in-between those jarring phrases were things like:

“Dude…that’s a handicap parking space!”

“I can’t back-up, there are human-beings behind us!”

“There’s a sign in that awesome space that says ‘Residential Parking Only.’”

I was so used to the wife front-seat-driving, clutching things as I drove down the Interstate, yelling at me with phrases like “there are children in the car!!” and “oh, you should totally take a right here because there’s this cute little antique store we should visit.”

It was as if the wife had completed some satanic ritual when I wasn’t looking and dubbed the boy “Parking Nazi” so that she would have more time to play Angry Birds on her phone in the car.

And the boy owned it like it was his job.

Me: “Dude! You know I’ve been driving for almost two decades right?”

Son: “What’s a decade? Oh…and right there daddy!!! Park there…turn, turn, turn!!”

Me: “OK, first – there’s a fire hydrant there. Second, a decade is 10 years. Third, shouldn’t you be picking on your sister or flicking boogers at her or something?”

We never found a space to park that night. We ended up going home defeated, dejected, and hungry.

The boy didn’t learn his lesson. He helped me drive the entire way back home.

The only difference was now he was back-seat-driving while flicking boogers at his sister as the wife played Angry Birds while mumbling, “you told him it was OK to do it.”



For Valentine's Day I'm Giving the Wife...

It’s another awesome Hallmark Holiday that puts dudes on the hot-seat, leaving us cold, sweaty and paranoid as we procrastinate until the bitter end.

We frantically erase our Google search history so the wives don’t catch us ripping off kick-ass ideas. We go to Hallmark and convenient stores and hide behind shelves in the hopes we catch a glimpse of a guaranteed sex-gift idea being bought by another dude.

But this year…it’s different for me.

This year…I did my shopping early and I’ve knocked it out-of-the-park. I just know it.

Want to know what I’m getting her? Just keep it on the down-low.

Here it goes:

Pole Dance/Lap Dance Classes

I want my wife to feel sexy about her womanhood. What would make her feel more complete than to know how to wear next to nothing, trot into a room, and just own her man…nightly.

The Shake Weight

What?! She’s been complaining about her triceps. It’s thoughtful of me damn it!

A Cockblock Shock Collar

You simply place this loving, harmless device around your children’s neck as they nod peacefully off to sleep. On either-side of their doorway are two penny-sized attachments that send an invisible beam across.

When the restless child rises from its slumber to see what all the “commotion” is about, it sends a gentle reminder to the child that it should scutter-on back to its sleepy pad.

The Snazzy Napper

Well, it’s got a single hole…it’s shaped like a bib…and, well…it’s Snazzie!!! You put the rest together.

And to top it all off…when she’s done opening all her amazing gifts and ready to pounce me right then and there…I’m gonna drop the shock-and-awe on her by ripping my shirt off to reveal my chest hair shaved like this:

Happy Valentines Day!



Chicago "Dibs"

My wife refuses to let me participate in the coveted, Chicago tradition called “Dibs.”

Here’s the picture definition:

We currently have over two feet of snow on the ground here in Chicago.

And, let me tell you that’s no easy chore to dig out, especially when the plows throw another two feet right on top of your curb.

After a couple hours of digging through snow and ice to create a perfect little space for your car to fit, and for everyone to enjoy a snow-free entrance into the kid-caravan, you feel like you’ve climbed Mount Everest.

And there’s nothing worse than coming home to find some two-faced prick parked directly in your spot.

So, Chicagoans started putting lawn chairs in the street to call “dibs” on their spot

Stuffed animals

And even robbing innocent old-folks of their walkers to use to claim “dibs” on their spot.

Genius!! I know!!!

So after Snowmageddon  2011, I dug a nice snow-free home for our car and then started lugging a couple lawn chairs to the curb to use whenever one of us took the car.

My wife quickly popped her head out of the door and screamed, “what the hell are you doing with those?”

In a manly man caveman style I said, “Me protect spot. Me work hard. Me dig in snow, get sweaty. If car go vroom me put chair in spot so no one take. Me get angry if spot gone. You go make dinner….protect kids! You make self pretty for manly man husband!”

She wasn’t a huge fan of that.

In fact, I was told, “putting lawn chairs in the road doesn’t promote neighborly relations!”

I immediately reminded her that the people on this block who are actual human beings already know us and would never park in front of our house. The rest…well...the can burn!

I lost the fight

And as a result, we have access to my neatly shoveled spot 80% of the time.

The other 20% of the time I’m out late at night shoveling as much snow as I can on their car.

One day I’ll have balls enough to stand up to the wife and tell her that she can….

Hold on, I’ll finish that sentence in a second…the wife’s looking.



Chilean Hamster Ductwork Rescue 2011

Yesterday morning I went down to the wife’s at-home office in the basement to throw some “we should totally hook-up when both kids are at school today” vibes around. That’s when I heard it.

THUMP!

Me: “What the hell was that?”

Wife: “I don’t know. The furnace has been doing that all morning.”

Me: “Ummm…you know that’s not normal right.”

Wife: “Maybe an animal’s stuck in there, I don’t know.”

I went back up to my at-home office, put the headphones on and kept cranking on work. The thought did cross my mind that maybe the hamster go out….again.

For those who don’t know, the wife has managed to bring into the house a hamster, a fish, a cat, and a dog. Although I blame her publicly, I know deep down that the zoo environment I live in is a direct result of me not being man-enough to just say “no!!!!”

An hour after hitting on the wife I take my headphones off for a call. The call ends and that’s when I hear it.

THUMP! SCRATCH…..SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH

I stand, grab my cell phone, make the slow walk up to the boy’s room and find this:

Immediately I pic text this picture to the wife in the basement. A minute later we’re holding flash lights and listening to our damn ductwork trying to figure out exactly where the little furry bastard is.

That’s when we found him…in the basement, at the rock-bottom part of the ductwork right next to the filter where it connects to the furnace that has been running all day cause it was -5 outside.

And the wanna-be-rat-bastard was alive!! I mean…here’s the trip this furry guy made from the second story of our house.

He was up on a shelf, fell to a dresser, then to the floor.

Then he crawled his ass into this vent on the second floor of our house.

And fell his way through multiple ductwork chambers to the first floor, then to the basement here.

And there…he was stuck, surrounded by metal, receiving the blunt of air from the furnace, trying like hell to find freedom.

So…the wife and I embarked on an epic journey to save the little bastard despite the fact we’d both be “happier” with one less animal.

PLAN A

I thought I’d get all MacGyver on his ass and use the kids’ DS charger cord wrapped around a measuring cup to scoop his ass up.

FAIL: The measuring cup was too large to fit in the hole. (That’s what she said.)

PLAN B

Drop a large rope into the hole in the hopes the furry bastard would climb to his freedom.

FAIL: He just chewed on the end of it like a douche to try and find materials to make a nest for his new Chilean Hamster Deathtrap Home.

Right about here is where I was being all supportive and stuff to the wifey’s effort and got… “The Look.” Ok…I got half, “The Look”…but it still hurt.

Saving The Chilean Hamster & "The Look" from WhyIsDaddyCrying on Vimeo.

PLAN C

Holy shit…we still have fake Christmas garland sitting right here!! Let’s drop it in as a “Ladder of Hope” for the little bastard to climb!!!

FAIL: I have no idea what in the hell he was doing to it, but there was tons of noise and the garland may now be pregnant.

PLAN D

Drop a small cup filled with peanut butter and carrots into the Chilean Hamster Deathtrap until he climbs in then hoist him up.

SUCCESS!!!!

Here, take a look!

Chilean Hamster Rescue Mission 2011 from WhyIsDaddyCrying on Vimeo.

Teddy was saved. Although from the repeated falls that little dude made, I’m not quite sure how long he has to live in this world. We’ll be keeping an eye on him.

The wife? She was just glad the entire episode happened while the kids were at school.

Me? Well…how would you feel after spending a long-shot-possible-afternoon-sex-time fishing a damn hamster-out-of-ductwork day?