Category: Family

Mom, dad and child make up the family. These posts are about the things that involve mom, dad and child.

Sonic Youth of my loins

Mom and I are excited because Baby Mojo has found his voice.

Unfortunately that is not a singing metaphor; rather our eight month old has discovered that he can talk.  I’m all for talking;  don’t get me wrong, but an eight month old talks at one volume:  a very loud and punishing auditory dagger that would have Spinal Tap dialing it down from 11.

The screaming from our son usually happens when he’s being fed solid foods.  The red in his face, packaged full of baby rage is all treble, no bass; which seems to make the shrieks hurt that much more. 

Being a new stay at home dad I know that more challenging situations will arise.  To deal me with the sonic assault coming from our son’s pie hole I’m faced with a couple options. Continue reading Sonic Youth of my loins

The Tooth Fairy took my man card

The other night Mommy Mojo and I were relaxing at home.  It had been an exhausting day and we decided to rent something from our shortlist queue of movies that aren’t too objectionable for either of us.  The Tooth Fairy was on that list.

Dwayne “Can you smell what The Rock is Cookin” Johnson,  plays an almost over the hill hockey player who is infamous for knocking out other player’s teeth.  He’s dating a single mom (Ashley Judd) with two children, the younger of which is losing some teeth.  Hockey player casts doubts on the tooth fairy, has to serve time being one-while occassionally playing hockey and being a daddy role model to the Judd’s older son. 

Hilarity, romance ensue, cue the suprise casting by Seth MacFarline and Billy Crystal, fade out with a lesson learned for everybody involved.   The Rock was good for what it was, as was, Ashley Judd-who was almost unrecognizeable, did she have plastic surgery or something?  She didn’t need plastic surgery, if she had it as she was always super cute and fun to watch in any of her damsel in distress movies with Morgan Freeman.  Bottom line, The Tooth Fairy was a semi enjoyable, Lifetime movie masquerading as a vechicle for The Rock that could’ve easily been shown on any number of cable networks. 

There you go dads, I just saved you rental fee and ninety minutes.    Having said that, this was my first time seeing such a movie now that I have a child.

So lets look at the movie from the perspective of a father Continue reading The Tooth Fairy took my man card

The 40 million year old paper weight-Sand dollars in the Sahara

Mothers and wives sometimes don’t see the value in what guys or growing boys have.  Sometimes it’s a collection, a piece of clothing or a thing that looks like an old rock. For me it started with a concert tee for Oingo Boingo, who I had seen in concert at an outdoor festival.  That was early 80s new wave at its best, even today Boingo’s music sounds great thanks in part to Danny Elfman and their tight rhythm.  Their frantic, multi layered music captured the sensibilities of a hyperactive teenage boy perfectly. Continue reading The 40 million year old paper weight-Sand dollars in the Sahara

The world’s worst screen window

Baby Mojo has been waking up at night lately.  He had been sleeping for 7-8 hours, but with spring here we think he may be getting hot.  It's too nice outside for the air conditioning to be on, half of our windows don't have screens and money is too tight to get a new screen professionally made.  What's a stay at home dad with no time to do?

Duct tape across the window, even with the sticky side facing in, would look entirely too gauche.  Mommy Mojo stepped up to the plate, did the research and found out that for $5.35 we can purchase a roll of screen material that we can cut ourselves. 
The blue painters tape around the screen says all you need to know

Technically, there’s nothing too difficult about the job.  Granted there is 0% chance of the screen window actually looking good when it’s finished, but at least it wouldn’t be challenging or take too much time. 

Measure twice, measure again, then cut once.  The surface didn’t have the area to allow for actually duct tape (damn it…), so I used some painters tape on the exterior of the screen against the window frame.  Screen window up, window open and Baby Mojo still woke up at 5AM.  His little diaper had reached the limit of its absorbency and little Mojo was at his wit’s end, poor little dude.

My jury rigged screen window at least allows for a cross breeze to go through the house.  It also has the added effect of a blue sticky surface that will trap some of the unlucky bugs.  Their screams of pain will warn the others not to approach this steel grid of security.

Does anybody out there have a hammer drill?  I needed one for a project a couple of years ago and my first thought was what the hell is a hammer drill?  It sounds like some monster hybrid tool that can cure cancer.  It’s best friends in the tool world are probably the grill router or pneumatic laser level.

I knew that I had to have a hammer drill.  When I got to the tool store I also purchased a reciprocating saw, which is equally as practical and also has a kick ass name.  That salesperson had struck novice home improvement gold.  If he said that all the rage in testosterone home improvement was a gas-powered alarm clock I would’ve signed up for that too.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who would fall for manly sounding gadgets.  Did you hear that the federal government gave a Four Star Energy Rating to a gas-powered alarm clock, cleverly named Black Gold? Somewhere Jed Clampet is grinning at the gullibility of aspects of our government.

In my current reality, the hammer drill and all of these things sound like B-grade movies on Syfy.  They’re filming Sharktopus, recently showed Mega Piranha and will air MothMan in a couple of weeks.  You know you want to watch them, quit denying it. 

In a couple of years if they get really desperate they can shoot Screen Hole, the story about the world’s worst storm window and how it created a worm hole to another dimension.   I just hope they get Michael Cera to play me and not Shia LaBeouf.

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