Month: June 2014

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Red Hot Chili Peppers for Babies?

November 8, 2011 at 9:38 pm , by 

Eleven months.

After listening to nothing but the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ newest album in the car for the past two weeks straight, I switched to the mellow, non-consumerism theology of Jack Johnson. But my son didn’t like that very much.

You might think that I am 43 and my son is 13. Actually, I’m only 30 and he’s just eleven months old.

Something funny about my son is that he has never been able to chill out and go to sleep when confronted with appropriate lullabies and soft music. As a newborn, it took Taylor Swift’s upbeat and rockin’ album, Speak Now, to soothe him into Slumberland.

Several months later as I began driving him to daycare, he needed any given Weezer album playing in the car. And it’s been that way since July.

But a couple of weeks ago, I found the Red Hot Chili Peppers newest album, I’m With You, at Best Buy for 10 bucks. Since then, my son Jack has to have it playing on the stereo speakers.

If I try to trick him and switch to something like Jason Mraz, he wakes up and starts crying. So Red Hot Chili Peppers it is; for a total of 80 minutes a day as I chauffeur him to and from KinderCare; I work just down the block from his daycare.

Jack is such a laid-back little boy. But he makes up for it in his refusal to easily fall asleep when he needs to. It’s a struggle- always has been.

In fact, I depend on those daily naps he gets during the car ride. So if it takes a funk rock or punk rock, or even ’80′s rock to get the job done, I’m all for it.

I guess there’s just something about steady bass lines and up-tempo drum beats that help him relax enough to forget about the fact he would rather be exploring the world; especially now that he can toddle. (He turns a year old a week from today and will officially become a toddler.)

So if you’re looking to catch a ride with Jack and I, you better believe we’ll be jammin’ to the beat of “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.”

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It’s Okay, I’ve Got a Parent Pass!

November 7, 2011 at 8:08 pm , by 

Eleven months.

Not that we ever have the patience to go out for a meal with our son, but when we rarely do, it’s a safe bet that when we leave the restaurant, the waiter or waitress will have some smashed Cheerios under the table to deal with. But it’s okay; we have a “Parent Pass.”

Did we just show up 35 minutes late? Oh, that’s alright. Our wrinkled clothes with dried baby formula on them make it very clear: We have a Parent Pass.

It’s not that I’m ever intentionally trying to look cool by growing a 10 day-old beard. The truth is, four days go by (which is evidently the point of now return) without me having 90 seconds in the morning to use my electric razor. And this happens often. Parent Pass.

Similar to recently reformed zombies, first-time parents of young children like myself are still suffering from the culture shock of living in a different version of reality called parenthood. Therefore, we may appear to be any (if not all) of the following:

Frantic, dazed, confused, exhausted, unkept, unprepared, on edge, or checked out.

(No, I’m not describing a sterotypical pot head from any movie starring Seth Rogen.)

Those with a Parent Pass earn an unspoken level of (un)pitied respect from onlookers and bystanders. It’s not even a case of “takes one to know one.” Common sense says that parents of young children, especially, are constantly a bit preoccupied.

This constant preoccupation isn’t a good thing for people like me who are already awful multi-taskers. To make it worse, I’m easily distracted by the very thing I’m not supposed to be paying attention to; whatever it is. I think I fall in the “dazed and confused” category more so than the other adjectives from my list above.

I’ve recently realized that I unintentionally started my own catch-phrase; I say it at least three or four times a day: ”Say that again?”

Yes, I’m constantly a page behind and a card short of the deck. I do expect this to change, though. I don’t know at what point I’ll get normal again, but I was never that normal to begin with.

As for now, I’m totally going to take advantage of my Parent Pass; while I still have a reasonable excuse for my Keanu Reeves-ness.

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My Son Carefully Eats Baked Lay’s Potato Chips

November 6, 2011 at 4:01 pm , by 

Eleven months.

As our son Jack is approaching his first birthday on November 16th, my wife and I are doing our best to help him transition into eating solid foods. After all, he has eight teeth now so he might as well be using them.

The thing is, he doesn’t really have an appetite for much more than bananas and wheat bread. Granted, he did take a bite of a styrofoam cup last weekend… and I assume he swallowed it.

It’s weird having to train your kid: “Cheese, good. Styrofoam, bad.”

But that’s where we’re at. In the midst of this, we’re still unpacking from our move back into our townhouse in Nashville. On a recent fateful Thursday, my wife brought us home some leftover boxed lunches from where she works at Vanderbilt University.

While we normally don’t have chips in the house, there was a small bag of plain Baked Lay’s potato chips in each of our free lunches. So maybe for the sake of curiosity; or maybe more in an attempt to entertain ourselves, we gave him a Baked Lay’s potato chip to try out. And this is what happened:

There are so many hilarious things about this 39 second video clip and they are all very subtle. It’s the kind of clip you really need to watch at least three times before you start understanding why it’s so funny and entertaining.

First off, he’s sitting on a box like an old man; or as my sister phrased it, “like a bumpkin.” He very carefully takes each bite of the chip, then looks over to my wife for approval every time.

Thirteen seconds in, he makes a face that says, “Kinda sour, but not too shabby.”

My favorite part about it is when he looks over at my wife the third time, 23 seconds into the clip, like he’s about to say something but then instantly decides against it.

It’s as if he stopped eating to convey, “Hey, I really like this thing.” But then he was afraid if he did, we would take the chip away from him because it’s not as healthy as the vegetables and fruit we normally give him to eat.

Oh, and the crumb on his lip! Classic.

I do want to take this moment to invite you to the official Facebook fan page for The Dadabase, which doubles as my son’s official fan page on Facebook. By joining, you’ll see exclusive pictures and videos of Jack before I ever write about them here on Parents.com; if they even do make it to The Dadabase.

So in other words, you’ll get exclusive content about my son Jack; plus, you’ll be notified immediately every time I publish a new post on The Dadabasebecause you’ll see the link on your news feed.

Want to join my son’s cool Facebook club?

Here’s one more chance: Join here.

Thanks for joining The Dadabase on Facebook!

 

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5 Things That Make This Dad Want to Curse

November 5, 2011 at 12:29 am , by 

Eleven months.

I always thought that one of the most fun jobs in the world would be to censor R-rated movies for TV. Some of the curse word stand-ins are simply (and deliberately) hilarious. I remember in high school watching the edited-for-TV version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. There’s a part where Judge Reinhold’s character gets fired from his fast food cashier job for “using profanity” with a customer: “I’ll kick 100% of your face!”

Another horribly awesome substitution is for Bruce Willis’s signature catch-phrase in Die Hard. It becomes, “Yippee-ki-yay, kimosabi!” In the sequel, it’s “Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon!” This is especially funny because there definitely is no character in the movie who is named “Mr. Falcon.”

Curse words both fascinate and bore me at the same time. Cursing is so common now that it holds little shock value anymore; even if we pretend otherwise. And that’s sort of the whole point of cursing: dramatic effect. I believe it is safe to say that traditional profanity is simply losing its edge because of overkill.

In fact, I make a point not to curse both in my everyday language and in my writing, simply because it makes me feel deeply unoriginal.

Besides, why should I let our American society choose the profanity word bank for me? For example, in China, it’s “son of a turtle.” That’s an actual Chinese curse word!

In the likeness of R-rated movies edited for TV, I feel more confident as a human being by using my own profanity– as I soon will demonstrate. But admittedly, as the title of this post conveys, there are plenty of times as a dad where I become pretty tempted to be unoriginal. Good thing I have my creative curse word stand-ins…

1. When my son won’t go to sleep, though he knows and I know that he really wants to and needs to: I think there’s some really popular book out about this very thing… if only I could think of the name of that book. Profanity of choice: ”Ah, shazbot!”

2. When my son gets whiny because I’m not his mom: It’s so annoying that all my wife has to do is pick him up if he cries, and he’s fine. As for me, I have to constantly distract him with a new toy or take him on a walk outside for a change of scenery or injure myself in attempt to humor him. Profanity of choice: ”Smurf it!”

3. The fact that my son has a talent for easily finding and experimenting with the most physically threatening item in his proximity: In a room full of age-appropriate toys, he will dart towards an uncapped ball-point pen or an unprotected electrical outlet that I overlooked. He knows how to find adventure; or as I know it, danger. Profanity of choice: Royal Ruckus!

4. When my son puts up a fight as I change his diaper. Hey, I already have a track record for not changing his wet diapers as much as I should; well, he sure doesn’t inspire me to change my bad habits. Profanity of choice: ”Crash Bandicoot!”

5. Having to pay extra money for something he refuses to eat. Confession: I believe that “baby yogurt” is simply regular yogurt with an extra vitamin or two; just a marketing ploy for first-time parents. I learned my lesson- my son made me waste three bucks on “baby yogurt” that he wouldn’t eat. Profanity of choice: “Pac-Man fever!”

 

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Rise of the Dadmobile: The Chevy Traverse

November 3, 2011 at 11:43 pm , by 

Eleven months.

Being chosen by General Motors as one of the eight “daddy bloggers” to visit their headquarters in Detroit reminded me of the 1971 movie musical, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; only I had a golden ticket inside the largest car manufacturer in the entire world. Also, I wouldn’t be accompanied by my previously bedridden Grandpa or meet any Oompa Loompas who would sing creepy songs.

If this were simply a tour of the production line, I wouldn’t have been so engaged. But instead, I was invited to check out how GM designs the Chevy Traverse.

How exactly do they figure out where to put the cup holders? How do they keep the cabin of the vehicle from being too noisy by the time it’s filled with kids and traveling 70 mph on the interstate? How do they simulate years of wear and tear on the vehicle’s seats?

3D Virtual Reality Technology

Instead of building a prototype costing thousands of dollars each time, GM now uses what is called The CAVE (Cave Automated Virtual Environment); basically it’s a small three walled room in which the proposed interior design on the vehicle is projected. The tester, wearing virtual reality glasses, is able to interact with the layout of the interior.

I was able try it out; it was very cool. Even though I knew there was nothing really there in front of me, I kept trying to grab the gear shifter and turn the steering wheel. With those high-tech glasses, it all seemed completely real.

Ultimately, by using The CAVE, the designers and engineers are able to test the functionality of the layout; answering questions like, “Will the gear shifter get in the way of the cup in the drink holder?” As for myself, I felt pretty rad getting to play around with what seemed like a state of the art video game system.

Experiments with Actual Kids

“Take Your Kids to Work Day” is a big deal at GM. By placing actual children into the Chevy Traverse, the engineers are able to see how children of all ages and size will function inside the vehicle:

Can a child in the third row see the dvd player if they are shorter than 4′ 6″? Can a 5 year-old girl step up into the vehicle, or does there need to be a handle to assist her? Will a Nintendo DS fit into the storage unit? How well does a McDonald’s cup fit into the cup holders?

I learned that the placement of cup holders actually plays a pretty important role when designing a child-friendly crossover SUV!

Environmental Squeak and Rattle Simulator

By using a “four-post shaker” (featured above), engineers are able to get a good idea of how the Traverse will perform and sound even on the toughest of terrains. It replicates a variety of road surface conditions as each side of the vehicle is suspended at different grades. I got to sit inside the Traverse while they did this test- it reminded me of a ride at Disney World for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. (That was back in 1990, though.)

Validation Quality Overview

The Traverse is exercised for 8 hours a day on a special test track; enduring steel potholes (pictured above), extreme desert temperatures and blasting rain in GM’s “Parade of Punishment” tunnel, and run through a giant gutter of water that is two feet deep. (I could have ridden in the Traverse when this picture was taken, but I didn’t feel like getting out into the rain to run over a steel pothole.)

Seat Durability Testing

Basically, they have this huge weapon/machine that beats the heck out of the seats. When passengers sit down in a seat, they don’t perfectly place their butt directly down. Instead, they sort of scoot over the side of the seat, then settle into it; day after day, year after year. These seats have to last a long time; therefore, this heavy duty machine does the job of giving engineers an idea of how a seat will look 10 or 20 years from now.

So those are the highlights of what I got to see during my visit at the GM headquarters using my golden ticket. Pretty interesting (and slightly weird) stuff, right? They obviously go through a lot of trouble to make sure the Traverse is a quality family SUV, yet is still masculine enough for a man to drive his kids around in: There’s a reason the Traverse doesn’t have sliding doors, like a mini-van.

More importantly though, how does the Traverse hold up against the competition? I didn’t even know this until I started writing this post yesterday, two weeks after getting back from Detroit, but Parents Magazine’s parents.com website rated Traverse among its best family cars in 2010.

Stay tuned for my next trip to the GM Headquarters when I go back to shoot a commercial for the Traverse; as I have been appointed its official spokesman, representing the new demographic of real American dads driving dadmobiles. Just joking- but I think it’s darn good idea…

 

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