My sous chef

I love to cook and fiddle around in the kitchen.  It's a pseudo passion of mine and would one day like to expand into something more, but for now friends and family get to enjoy my cooking.  We purchased a highchair for Jojo recently and he has been joining my in the kitchen.  We don't like to plop him down in front of a TV or a laptop or anything electronic.  We try our best to interact with him, and what a better way then being locked in his chair and watching daddy cook!

Usually we plop him down with some toys and he talks to us, or drools all over his toys.  Then there is the throwing of things on the floor and looking blankly at us as if it happened all by itself and just disappeared.

And dis widdle piggy went over da mauw-ten...

DAD!  The piggy dissah-peer!

Every young boy dreams of fighting kitchen robots,
just not with underdeveloped motor skills.

 But one thing he really likes is when daddy busts out the toys.  Usually he is slightly startled at first, especially when the stand mixer gets going.....





But he watches very intently as I cook, mix things, beat eggs, grab spices and so on.  I try to leave things out so he can see them, especially since cans of food and spices are colorful, and he thoroughly enjoys colors.

Anyone with kitchen appliances want to give them to me,
I promise to pose this kid in the picture and you will see sales
increase.

The benefit for me is I have someone to listen to me as I cook and he is enthralled by my abilities and sits there listening with every ounce of himself. I will stop and talk to him, hand his toys back to him and usually he just grins.  But still acts like he knows what is going on and could easily do it himself.  He is my silent admirer and I am excited for him to be able to partake in dinner with mom and dad.

But as I cook I taste and tell Jojo how good things are, what extra spices it needs or doesn't.  I tell him how we are making a roux for a homemade, adult shells and cheese dish; he gets to smell the smells and see the sights of a crazy father cooking.  And then there are times when I taste things and say, "MMmmmm, Jojo, I am excited for you to taste this when you are older" and he gives me a face like the one below....

Dad, I am excited to for you to smell this when you change me!

I know that one day he will need a step-stool to join me at the stove, and we will have to get him a black chefs jacket so Jojo and dad can match.  I am sure there will be cute pictures to be taken, and maybe we could start our own YouTube cooking show?  Who knows.  But for now my little sous chef will be my semi-silent observer, but in the near future when he is helping, maybe he will have learned something about how to more appropriately measure flour for a cheese roux and have some input into helping me.

Neptune's fist - a.k.a. Bath farts

As a parent, especially a father, there is no greater joy to be had then your baby, especially if it is a boy, letting one loose.  I can't explain it, and my wife fully doesn't understand, but passing gas, breaking wind, tooting, flatulence, farting, or whatever you call it, is a total guy thing.  Yes I know girls fart too, especially when pregnant, but guys take a certain pride in the stenches brewed in their bowels.  When  someone lets a home grown nasal decongestant go, guys may grimace, say rude things, cough, fake vomit and so on, but they will always try to outdo each other when the time for a ripe reckoning comes about.

A few days ago it was bath time for Jojo.  This is becoming an interesting process as he gets chunkier and the tub gets smaller....could be a relationship, but Nah!

This must be old....he fits!

As a parent of an infant you NEVER leave the baby by his/herself, even if in a tub within a tub (insert dramatic music here, preferably by Zach Hemsey).  In fact, start over reading this blog while playing this.....

While the music is blaring imagine yourself kneeling in a bathroom within an apartment (whoa....mind blown) and your baby is splashing around, giggling and getting rinsed off.  You're enjoying having a clean baby, your baby is enjoying the bath toys and warm water when all of a sudden you hear a noise.  You at first mistake this noise for the sound of wet baby skin being dragged across a wet surface while underwater.  You heed it not, unwisely.

As you commence leaning over the tub to rinse the toes it hits you.  This isn't a hit like a great idea, you forgot the roast in the oven and it might be slightly overcooked, or you just remembered to celebrate your cat's 15th birthday.  No, no.  This hits you like an I.B.S. attack brought on by the mighty fist of Neptune as it penetrates your nostrils and travels mightily through your intestines.

Baby bath farts.  Many have experienced them, but few live to tell the tales.  I am actually typing this from a body cast in a hospital.  They had to sew me up and then seal it all together in plaster of Paris in hopes my body doesn't go through a recurrence of the impact of Poseidon's power punch to the face.

My son Jojo threw a whopper of a butt bellow at me that night.  So bad that I cringed and almost left him in the tub alone.  Only my stalwart love for my son kept me by his side.....that the lack of oxygen in the air, and the fact that my heart stopped beating....but all that happened in love.  He has let out some stank bombs before but I was both amazed and humbled by this olfactory onslaught.

His mother would blame me, but I blame a combined genetic issue.  To bath time we return....

Big Game Baby Puke dip

There are things in life that belong together, some of those are: fatherhood, football, food and farts.  Since I have talked about poop plenty of times so far, and this blog revolves around being a father, I will now talk about football and food.  I feel these last 2 are the glue that holds many red-blooded American men together, especially during the Big Game.

I consider myself a bit of an amateur cook.  I usually stumble into things and just try to remember what I did that made it taste good.  And I have found that if in doubt….blame it on the baby (both bad food AND farts).  Besides that I enjoy a game of football, whether watching or playing with friends.  And this past Sunday was the 49ers VS the Ravens, granted the team I liked didn’t win but the food was good. 

Why am I talking all about this on a blog about being a dad?  Well every guy needs their place, or Nirvana, and mine is in the kitchen.  I just skip the barefoot and pregnant thing, not my cup of tea.

The best part is Jojo loves to chill in his newly acquired highchair, play with toys, drool, and let out his Pterodactyl screeches.  I enjoy it because I can cook and watch him, and mama does too because she can be “productive” (I still don’t know what that means but stuff gets done). 

For the Big Game I wanted to make a “wow” dip, not some run of the mill dump-n-go dip, but something that has flavor, spice, texture and cheese.  Oh glorious cheese….

So I came up with this hodgepodge of other recipes and voila - Big Game Baby Puke dip.  Why the name?  Because when I posted a picture on Facebook a friend commented it looked like baby vomit.  Thanks for the name inspiration Angel!  So here is the recipe for a great father and son/daughter experience…..oh and for the dip.

So chunky and so delicious.

Ingredients

• 3-4 chicken breasts (about 2 lbs)
• 1 stick (½ cup) of butter
• ½ cup of flour
• 4 cups of milk (I used 2% but any should work)
• 1/3 cup of sour cream
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 - 15 oz can of black beans (rinsed and drained)
• 4 cups of shredded cheese (I used a Mexican blend)
• 2 - 10 oz cans to diced tomatoes and green chilies (I used the Ro-Tel brand) – lightly drained
• 1 small can of green chilies
• Minced garlic
• Red pepper infused olive oil (not necessary but Mmmmm….so good)
• Apple vinegar to taste
• Seasonings of your choice (I used some ground dried Poblano peppers, onion powder, cumin, lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, and  smoked paprika/black pepper/Himalayan pink salt in a grinder)
• Taco seasoning (I made my own mixture)
• Side ingredient – I had a random vegan “taco filling” that I added in just to use it up

Directions

1. Boil the chicken breasts with salt, pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil (ensure you hit 165 degrees)
2. Remove and shred chicken (I use a dough blade on my Kitchen Aide stand mixer, so money when it comes to shredding)
1. While shredding add in the red pepper olive oil, apple vinegar, sour cream, and some of the taco seasoning
3. Take the butter, flour and milk and make a roux
1. Simmer it to get it real thick since the oil in the cheese will loosen it up (keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn and whisk constantly)
4. Once the roux is where you want it, add in the cheese at about a cup a time and let it melt completely.  Simmer to thicken.
5. Add the sauce to a slow cooker (preferably a well used Crock-Pot from the 70’s/80’s)
6. Mix in everything else really well
7. Let it chill on low for at least 2 hours to heat/reheat everything thoroughly (mine was on for about 4 hours)
8. Stir once it is heated through.

Use with chips, crusty bread, tortillas or whatever!

The Paternal P.O.V.

So as a father you get to witness the things that the "other guys" don't get to see happen with women.  That is the growing a baby procedure, the ultrasounds, the gaseous nature of a woman with child, the weird things hormones do, and the nesting instinct.  Oh those glorious adventures that are had on the journey to parentdom.  But post baby there is also a myriad of weird, and at times painful looking, events that need to take place.

There is a device out there that by the looks of it would make water boarding sound like a fun event on a family vacation with the in-laws, if in fact your in-laws were the former Commie leader Kim Jung Ill.

Oh reerry.

This contraption is called a breast pump.  No that isn't some new thing that they do on the Jersey Shore for foreplay, it is a device designed to drain the ducts and glands of Das Boobies.  As a guy who grimaced at the pump action penial extender return scene in Austin Powers, I saw this torture machine sitting silently next to our bed.  It's quiet reciprocating arm and humming electrical motor belay it's ability to suck the soul of a woman out through her teat.

But women find the need to congregate in places, which I loving call "Pumping Stations", to drain the breasts of their nurturing golden dew when the child is not around to do so for them.  That is understandable, but what bemuses me is they must perform the act at (what seems like) all times possible.  The idea is to increase their supply, freeze some for later, and relieve the pressure or any clogs.

The wild thing is women have been doing this for a LOOONNGGG time.  I stumbled upon this thing on a Google serach:

Dude, grandma's bong gets you legit high!
Ummmm, that's not a bong brah.

You can put that thing next to dentist cleaning tools as pieces of weaponry meant to be disguised as "safe" when in reality is they will bring a Navy SEAL to his knees in agony and have him admitting to every secret they know in minutes.

The crazier part is my wife will talk to herself about Jojo, watch our son on the baby monitor, or look at pictures of him to assist in getting the milk to drop. I never realized my wife's breasts and Dubstep had so much in common. Bass drops and milk drops create a fun, glow-stick twirling environment for everyone (under the age of 1).

As a man I don't entirely understand why they need to be hooked up to these things but I can tell you my son has no qualms about it since it just goes to ensure the juice is there when itch comes around.

I have a feeling the Paternal POV might be a regular occurrence since there is so much out there we were never, as men, meant to understand.

Dr. Diaper, we can't stop the flow....

...Said the ER nurse, Mrs. Elastic.

I don't know who reads this, I am assuming friends and family, a few random people that either come across it clicking around the blogger website, and anyone that has clicked a link I left where I might have left comments.  I do know that if you have a kid, are about to, or been around them, crap does happen.  And never in a controllable, cute "oh my, look at that little solid turd" kind of way.

If the SAW movies were to use poop instead of blood, it would be THAT kind of way.

This guy'd tap out first round of this game

Every parent, nanny, babysitter, older sibling, grandparent, priest, Scout leader, and the Virgin Mary herself have dealt with the dreaded blowout.  Sometimes it is a simple up the back, or leg leak.  But then sometimes poop ends up in places you'd never expect it to be, and how it journeyed the way it did marvels even the brightest nuclear scientists in the world.  Especially an infant, breastfed baby's poop.

First off an infant's poop is a mustard, dingy yellow.  Remember in the box of Crayola crayons there was, as many a young lad has referred to it, the "poop brown" and "puke green" crayons that were never used but always pulled out to "smell" it and see if it smelled like it looked?  Yeah, take those and with the fire of Mount Doom in the land of Mordor of Middle Earth, combine then into one color.  It would become the color known as 'The Brown Eye of Sauron'.  That's the color of a baby's poop, with the all-controlling powers of the One Ring.

Secondly, a baby's poop is something to the consistency of road tar, molten magma, and used motor oil.  It's very viscous, usually hot to the touch, and becomes super sticky shortly after emission and full of shavings.  What that creates is a slurry that looks and feels like it could pass as Indian food but in actuality is a biological hazard that the UN has sanctions against countries that produce it.  So basically it is like a poisonous Slimer from the Ghostbusters.

Well on one unfortunate day the diaper was unable to hold the onslaught of the Turd Titan as it was bequeathed from my son's body.  But only on one side, and despite the colossal mess that was created, it came silently in the night like the last plaque came upon the Egyptians.  And mighty was the wailing in the streets afterwards.

Jojo demonstrates the many faces made that day.

So as good parents, and trying to prep ourselves for what was to come, we decided to change Jojo.  I had the misfortune to have the first contact made with the enemy, but the contact wasn't made when the pants were removed.  Nay, nay.  The first contact came upon the removal of the left sock.  While the term "uncorking" brings about images of people at a party opening wine or a bottle of bubbly, this uncorking brought about sheer despair.

The Tunnel of Turd.

After removing the outer layers we found ourselves in a perilous situation.  The onesie was still on the baby, and when you have a baby who inherits his father's head size, you create a scenario that will only end up with poop in the little bit of hair on the baby's head.  So after consulting a rule book that doesn't exist, my wife and I performed a procedure that I saw several times on one of my favorite childhood shows, Rescue 911.

CAREFUL DOWN THERE MOM!!

Pinkies up for safety.

Dad, I think they need to make onesies to handle my manliness, I ripped out of this one

Ahh...no poop in the fuzzies.

After the trimming came the cleansing.  Because we all know that unclean feeling that we get after we defecate down our leg.  Oh you don't know that feeling?  Try experiencing it....

Hey mom, what's that on your face?
GOTCHA!

Luckily for us this was during the Thanksgiving weekend and Nana and Papa were in town with us, so they got to relish the occurrence, if one could relish a mustard gas attack with nothing more than a paper bag and sweaty gym sock for a respirator.  So we moved on in our evening with a clean, albeit completely empty, Jojo and we all slept peacefully in a post a-poop-alyptic house.

I bite my thumb at you poopy diaper.
Until we meet again.

What has happened to kids shows?

I grew up watching a Sesame Street, Looney Tunes, The Muppet Show, and Mr. Rogers.  As I got older I enjoyed Doug, Rugrats, Wild Thornberrys (or whatever the big nose Steve Irwin wannabe was), and a LOT of shows on the Discovery and History channel.  In fact I was the only kid in grade school that was excited about Shark Week, and saddened when we were on family vacation in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin during that same week.  I watched the first episode of American Chopper, and signed up to be on Monster Garage.  I watched what I consider "normal" TV and normal movies.  Now I am totally confused by what kids watch today.

I am the oldest of 5 kids and currently 28 (my birthday is about a month away and I'd like a nice Canon 60D or T4i) and my youngest sibling, my brother, is currently 16.  A few months ago I stopped by since they live 10 minutes away and my brother was watching some cartoon with a kid in a bunny hat and a talking dog, except it wasn't about his love for his dog like some cartoon adventures of  Old Yeller but some tree witch was sitting on the dog and her butt was eating the dog.  The kid had to find some hair or else her butt would consume his pup.  Apparently someone didn't heed the Turtle's PSA on weed, or sit long enough to get through the "This is you brain.." frying pan commercial.

Another nauseating show we have a sensation that is sweeping the nation is with a honest-to-goodness hick, Honey Boo Boo.  First off the only white trash I watched on TV was from COPS when they filmed in cities in the south and they were episodes from the early 90's (something nostalgic about a criminal running from the cops in a pair of BK high tops and funky patterned Zubaz with no shirt on and a mullet).  Who wants to watch a show with an arrogant hillbilly child and her mother?  When I saw her I thought of this (which was splendidly put together by someone else):

Really, I have no words....

What lesson can be learned from Ms. Boo boo?  At least the TMNT had their PSA's at the end of their shows.  They only PSA from Honey Boo Boo would be not to breed with family.

It's probably a good thing that we do not have cable or satellite in our home, because I can control the dog-butt-eating-tree witches from coming in and devouring what small amount of intelligence my kids have learned and stored that day...or week....or year....or life up to that point.

I feel the downfall came from the Brit's invasion via Teletubbies and their disarming cuteness, we messed with the bull and got the horns to the dome.  Ever since then I can't recall a show that had any substance to it, and most kids today would never put on a channel that taught them something.  I loved educational and historical shows, classic movies (especially war movies) and things that made me think.

Things may change, my wife and I may grow weary from having to entertain our child constantly but when the time is right I will pop in something they can learn from and we can watch together without me having a "What the crap" moment in regards to what is being strewn across the TV screen.

But until that point I will be my son's entire entertainment.  At least I don't feel I am warping his brain with nonsensical noises, belly tickles, and funny faces I make when changing his diaper or smelling his farts.  But when he is old enough and wants to know about the shows I watched, I'll have to dust of the VHS tapes and player, dig out a length of coax cable, and fire up an old tube TV.

Baby Kung Fu: The Deadliest Martial Art

In the craziness of today's world we have to arm ourselves and instruct our children in ways to protect themselves.  However very few know that a new born can possess the ability to end life shortly after they have started their own.  A recent YouTube documentary filmmaker risked his life to bring you....BABY KUNG FU!

The YouTuber PatrickBoivin made this sensational video that has gone all over the world, at least I am guessing so by the views.  But what many think is cute is actually a real thing.

My son Jojo has the ability to look you straight in the eyes, unblinking, and unleash a fury of kicks, chops, punches and war cries.  Just yesterday we were locked in a deadly battle where he just giggled to his little heart's content as he brandished his baby brass-knuckles and battle ax creating a deadly whirlwind of doom.  He thought it was funny; I was fighting for my life.  After mom came and saved me I realized that we just need a legion, nay a horde, of babies trained up in the mortiferous martial art of Baby Kung Fu.

Just like the Ewok assassins of Endor, a small group of crawling 8-month-olds could infiltrate an enemy's position and make hasty work of the enemy combatant.  Why?  Simply because a small child crawling on the floor will cry until picked up by an unsuspecting soldier who thinks the cries are a need for comfort, when in reality it is the war shrieks of a regiment of ruthless life reapers.

And reap they will.

If the enemy were to choose to fortify their position, we can take a page from the old war weapons and catapult dirty diapers into their compound till they surrender or enter the world of deceased by diaper.  Even our small garbage can that holds MAYBE a few days worth of dirty diapers could be used as a biological weapon in large scale modern warfare.

Or none of the above, because war isn't a place for babies.  They belong in a parents arms; being gazed upon lovingly, staring into their bright eyes and soaking up the moment you have as a parent and child.

Just like your face will soak up the impact of a Baby Kung Fu's flying fist of fury!

No chance for a stuntman stand-in here.
All punishment no remorse.