Taking a slight break from blogging about kid stuff, today I thought I’d give you a slice of TANcast in text form. The three of us group message all the time and sometimes they’re worth sharing.
Ok, that was not one of the ones worth sharing, but I only made you read that so you could appreciate this next one. The day Noah left on his trip for Thailand, we had this exchange…
I’m seeing a lot of talk lately about how bad men are at treating women. Maybe there’s been more of it or maybe I’m just becoming more aware of it. But things like that catcalling video have been making the rounds for a while now and I have to admit, it’s gotten me paranoid.
The other day at work, a co-worker who I don’t know and have never interacted with and I were riding the elevator together. SO far so good…I stayed on my side and played with my phone. (Which I would have done if she had been there or not) But then as we got off, she got out ahead of me and as I was a few steps off the elevator myself, she sneeze. Instinctively, I said, “bless you.” I immediately felt self conscious.
I was totally picturing this.
Like I said, I’ve been seeing a lot of these posts about unwanted attention from males and male privilege. Some guys think they are just being polite but they are actually harassing women. Did this count? Had I just crossed a line? Just to be safe I immediately turned and walked in the opposite direction she was going (even though my car was parked the way she was headed). This can’t be the answer for human interaction can it?
The thing is, ladies, most guys actually don’t want to be jerks. Every guy likes to think of himself as the good guy in his own story. (Except maybe Justin Bieber…pretty sure he knows he’s a douche)
Thing thing is I understand that my nervousness about politeness pales in comparison to the lack of safety women feel when interacting with men. I was walking back to may car from a gig the other night and there were a bunch of thugged out dudes everywhere. (Of all sorts of races, just for clarification). I was super on edge for the entire walk to my car. If women feel that way about all men, that would a horrible and exhausting way to live.
I want women to feel safe when they walk down the street. More than that, I want them to BE safe. I don’t want any guy threatening her or worse, making good on any threatening words or behavior. I just wish there was a way to accomplish this without throwing out chivalry and polite interactions.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lamenting that I can’t say. “hey good lookin'” to some random woman I pass on the street. But let’s be fair, I’m not really that guy…and now that I’m married, even less of a chance of that happening. But I have two sons and they are going to grow up to be men someday. I want to make sure I do everything I can to help them grow up to be the “good guys.” So do I teach them to ignore a woman sneezing or teach them to say “bless you?”
I came home from work today at a little before 7pm. By 8:10, my newborn son had crapped FIVE diapers. Five!!!
Pictured: A whole lot of crap
What the hell, man?! How much poop can this little 7 pound human produce? He must have Time Lord bowels that are bigger on the inside.
I had totally forgotten about going through this with my first born. I think Mother Nature wants you to forget. She knows if you remember how many times you have to wipe that cute little baby butt, you might think twice about how cute it really is.
I’m joking of course. Just needed to rant a bit. I wouldn’t give up my wonderful children just so I wouldn’t have to change diapers. After all, changing diapers is part of a fathers…”duty.”
That joke made every poop worthwhile!
Today was my first day back at my “day job” since James was born. Even though I actually quite enjoy what I do…it kinda sucked today.
For the last week, I’ve been able to focus on just being a dad and a husband. Being able to spend all day with my boys was great. Watching Michael grow into his role as big brother has been a great experience. But now I have to miss 40 hours of that every week.
I know I’m not the first person that has had to go through this. I imagine all working parents have to deal with this feeling at some point. None the less, it makes me a little sad. Michael was certainly very unhappy to see me go today. My wife was noticeable bummed as well. On the plus side, it seemed like James could care less…so there’s that.
I don’t know what the solution is…or even if there is one, but I just thought I could use this pace to vent a little bit.
This week: first it’s an update on Tim’s newest baby, then an encore presentation of when Andy’s mom stopped by to be a guest on the episode (yet the boys STILL behaved horribly).
00:00 – 00:28 Preshow
00:28 – 01:10 Baby Babb Update
01:10 – 03:75 Intro
03:75 – 12:39 Explaining This Horrible Show To Andy’s Mom
12:39 – 17:00 Andy Talks About His Baby
17:00 – 19:05 Tim Preps For a Comic Book Podcast
19:05 – 22:49 Swearing Around Andy’s Mom
23:51 – 28:12 Wrap Up
28:12 – 28:29 ????
[CONTENT WARNING] TANcast features mature language and immature hosts but is NOT a representation of the stand up act of Tim Babb. Listener discretion is advised.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Now that we have the second child, we’re pretty grateful that we saved so much stuff from when our first child was a baby. But one thing we seemed to have lost was the mirror for the car.
For you non-parents, babies have to be in a special car seat that faces backwards…because that’s safer for some reason. Anyway, if your kids is facing the other way, it kinda makes it hard to check on them, so you put a mirror on the seat and then you can see his reflection.
So I went and got a new mirror today.
It’s fine. I didn’t think much of it until I went to take it out of the package and READ some of the package…
Wait…the “clear sight” part of this mirror is “new?” What did it do before you added this new feature? If you’re mirror doesn’t give a “vivid image” you’ve failed at the one thing you were supposed to do. It’s a mirror. Does it reflect? No? Then you’re not done yet.
Yeah…nothing lets you “connect” with a baby who barely has ANY idea what’s going on like bouncing his image off a mirror in the back seat and your rear view mirror. That’s why so many people communicate through a series of mirrors.
Just put on the box, “Yup, It’s a mirror. It does what you’d expect. Buy it now!”
Marketing accomplished.
Being a parent isn’t easy. There’s the crying, diapers, temper tantrums, sickness, the cost of daycare…but NOTHING is harder than these…
I dunno who designed these baby clothes snaps, but they suck.
They’re very deceptive. When times are good, the baby is happy, and you’re not in a rush…they work fine. But as soon as the baby is crying and you’re trying to snap that stupid thing in a hurry, it WILL. NOT. SNAP! And there’s always like 50 of them! Snap, you pieces of s***!!!
Come on, people. We can take pictures of our junk with our phones, send those pictures to other people’s phones, and even post the pictures someone sent to us from their phones to the internet, but we can make a snap that always snaps?! Phone people, stop working on the phones and make a damn snap that ain’t crap!
This is the first blog I’ve written after our newest son was born. Now I remember why I didn’t blog much when Michael was born. I was TIRED (and kinda busy). They say “sleep when the baby sleeps”…ok, but when does this little poop factory ever sleep?! Let’s look at last night…
It’s 11:06pm and all 4 members of the Babb household are trying to sleep at the same time…let’s see how long that lasts
12:05am …not quite an hour before the baby pissed all the way through his diaper, pajamas, and swaddle blanket. Then he insisted on some fresh tittay juice!
12:48 Baby is changed, breastfed, and back to sleeping…now the toddler is coughing
4:31am The baby is up and hungry again. Mommy is feeding him while I “check my eyelids for holes.”
5:20am He’a dozed off while feeding. And also pooped. Time to change his diaper before we put him down
5:25am He pooped AGAIN. Less than a minute after I was done changing him
5:30am All these diaper changes have woken him back up and he’s hungry again. We have less than an hour and a half before his brother wakes up
6:00am Finally back to sleep. Less than an hour before big brother wakes up. We hurry back to bed.
6:10am Baby needs to burp. Takes 5 to 10 minutes. I run back to bed
7:19am Michael sleeps in by a few minutes, but there’s no stopping it now…the day has begun. Night time is over.
So I guess we got a few hours in there, but I assure you, we are still tired.
Must…sleep…
Well, it finally happened. I’m one of those dads who drives around in a minivan. On Saturday, we bought ourselves a Honda Odyssey.
Aw…c’mon. With a name like “Odyssey,” we couldn’t make it look any cooler?
That’s more like it. So when my wife goes back to work, this will be the vehicle I’ll be tooling around in. Yup…I’m that guy. But I have the advantage, I wasn’t particularly cool BEFORE I was minivan guy. Not like the ladies were doing double takes when I drove by in my Yaris.
Speaking of the Yaris, we’re actually keeping it because my wife gave up her car so the family could upgrade. So I’d like to give props to my lovely wife for that. She’s had her old Carolla since it was brand new in 2004. I know it’s just a car but you build up a lot of memories driving around in these things.
I gotta admit, though, this new minivan is pretty sweet. Leather seats, remote doors, cool box for drinks…and minivans kinda remind me of Star Trek shuttle crafts Although I’m a little worried about the computer interface on the “Odyssey”…
Yup, it was a long way to go for that sight gag. Oh, full disclosure, none of these pictures are of the actual van. It’s sitting at the dealership as I write this. We get to pick it up when we come home from the hospital with Baby Babb 2. A lot will be happening at the Babb household on Friday.
Today, I’m continuing my series of blogs taking a more critical eye to books that are aimed at the younger set. This one has been a favorite of mine since I can remember. It’s The Monster at the End of This Book, featuring Grover from Sesame Street.
If you had parents that hated you, I’ll describe the book for you. Grover is “in” the book and realizes the title is “The Monster at the End of This Book.” That scares him, because he’s afraid of monsters, so he tries to reason with you… Read the rest of this entry »