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Dear Holly or Logan: Daddy’s “Sympathy Hunger Cravings”

15 weeks.

Dear Holly or Logan: Daddy’s “Sympathy Hunger Cravings”

Dear Holly or Logan,

Mommy is now officially one week into in her 2nd trimester with you. I have noticed her nausea has seemed to have majorly subsided since crossing that line.

However, her hunger cravings are on still on full speed! And as for me, I’m along for the ride and enjoying it…

After all, it’s only right that I should “sympathize” with her hunger cravings. The best way for me to do so is to join Mommy on this!

She and your brother Jack made some vegan chocolate chip cookies this weekend. And yesterday, Mommy had me pick up some vegan cake from Whole Foods.

(And Halloween is coming up this weekend. I can only imagine the temptations Mommy will face!)

Until now, we’ve never kept fruit juice in the house, because truthfully, it’s just sugar water with vitamins. It’s a processed food so we stay away from it. Once the sugar is extracted from the fruit’s fiber, so much of the nutrition is gone and it just becomes a classier form of high calorie junk food; mostly empty calories.

But here lately, Mommy has been craving grape juice, so now we always keep some in the fridge.

It had been about 6 years since I had enjoyed a nice full glass of grape juice. Because I used to have eczema (dyshidrosis), I had to stop drinking juice because it always instantly flared up my rashes.

But now that I’ve been a vegan for 2 and a half years, I guess it somehow flushed out my body of the toxins causing my eczema to even go back into remission.

Therefore, I discovered that I can now get away with drinking grape juice again! It’s like candy to me!

I see it as a bad habit that I am enjoying a little too much right now. However, this is the time to live it up. (I’ll need to pull the plug on that once you are born, though.)

Your development inside of Mommy’s tummy is causing her to crave more of stuff she wouldn’t normally want. So I might as well enjoy a little bit of the fun along the way.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly or Logan: Daddy’s “Sympathy Hunger Cravings”

4 Comments Posted on funny, Nostalgia, parenting, Storytelling, Uncategorized

The Only Time I Got Paddled (Spanked) in Public School: Gym Class, 8th Grade, May 1995

The Only Time I Got Paddled (Spanked) in Public School: Gym Class, 8th Grade, May 1995

While I’m definitely in the minority (20% of Americans) in that I don’t believe in spanking my own child as an efficient form of discipline, I think it has become a collectively weird thought for us as American parents to consider that not that long ago, students were still being spanked (with paddles!) in the public school system.

I managed to make it all the way through 13 years of public school (that includes Kindergarten, obviously) with only getting one paddling.

I had just turned 14; it was at the end of my 8th grade year, 20 years ago: May 1995.

It was a Friday at the end of gym class, during a “free play” day. A bunch of my friends were running towards the wall, then jumping as high as they could, to see how high they could press our feet on the wall.

The wall was built of concrete cinder blocks, so we could easily measure how high we jumped by the grout in between them, using the grout lines to measure the height of where our feet hit the wall.

Turns out, I jumped the highest that day. However, no one bothered to tell me that the gym coach had just warned the other guys that the next person he saw jumping on the wall would be paddled…

So the male gym coach took me to the locker room and paddled me 3 times with a wooden paddle, while the girls’ coach witnessed it.

I could sense she felt awkward being there; knowing I was “the good kid” who was playing the scapegoat that day.

When I emerged from the locker room, having just been hit by a wooden plank on my “bum”, all my friends were lined up waiting to give me a high five and cheer me on.

I suppose it was a perfect way to score some “cool points” just in time to prepare for high school.

The paddling was obviously not effective; especially since I wasn’t aware I was breaking the recently established rule until it was too late.

All it really did was make my friends think I was cool. It was like part of an initiation process, apparently.

Isn’t it bizarre to imagine that paddling (spanking) in the public schools was still going on in our lifetime?

These days, something like that could easily be perceived as harassment or abuse. Right?

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Dear Jack: Webisode 21 of Jack-Man, “Vegan Bear Scare”

4 years, 10 months.

Dear Jack: Webisode 21 of Jack-Man, “Vegan Bear Scare”

Dear Jack,

We attempted to film webisodes 21 and 22 of Jack-Man on Saturday morning… but the cold, the light rain, and the realized need for a 3rd person to serve as cameraman and props holder got in the way of that.

Fortunately, your Pre-K teacher Ms. Aimee heard about what was going on and saved the day.

She came over on Sunday, when the weather was slightly better, and we filmed both webisodes back to back. There’s no way we could have done this without Ms. Aimee’s help:

In “Vegan Bear Scare”, we introduced the new character, Vegan Bear. Originally, I intended for him to be a gorilla, but the suit was too expensive.

By default, this is our Halloween episode, as I admit: Vegan Bear is by far the creepiest villain Jack-Man has ever encountered.

The theme song to Jack-Man states this about the series:

“Jack-Man knows just where to hit ‘em, when it comes to creepy villains.

He packs a punch and eats a healthy lunch.”

Perhaps this webisode capitalizes on that concept more than ever, with such a creepy villain and such a focus on healthy eating.

Vegan Bear explains where vegans get their protein and nutrients, from 6 sources:

Veggies, fruits, beans, grains, nuts, and seeds.

Ultimately, “Vegan Bear Scare” is technically the 1st half of the story; as Webisode 22, “Tin Roof Rusted,” will immediately pick up where Webisode 21 left off.

But I decided to release them as 2 separate webisodes because of their unique content.

Also, both of these webisodes feature Vegan Bear driving Jack-Man in the 2015 Toyota Corolla!

Here’s a piece of trivia about “Vegan Bear Scare”: it’s the only other webisode, besides Webisode 2, that doesn’t feature Green Meanie.

That’s in part because I wanted all the “villain focus” to be on Vegan Bear, not Green Meanie. The other reason is because Green Meanie shows up on the 2nd half of the story line, in Webisode 22.

I think “Vegan Bear Scare” turned out to be very exciting. However, the next one coming up, “Tin Roof Rusted” is… simply epic.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Between Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”

4 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack: Between Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It"

Dear Jack,

In the past week, I have introduced you to two ideologically opposing pieces of legendary American entertainment:

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and the 1984 music video for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

It all started last Friday when you asked me to watch “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” on YouTube. You sat on my lap and we watched the 2 minute video.

I don’t know how, but the thumbnail for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” popped up as a related video.

Despite their band’s appearance and style of music, this music video is actually clean. It’s technically less violent than the Power Rangers, as the antagonistic dad in the video willingly falls out of the window multiple times as the Twisted Sister bandmates simply walk towards him.

We’ve now watched it several times and we love the humor in it.

Over the weekend, we had dinner at your friend Isaac’s house. You and Isaac were so independent of your parents that you were in the playroom for about an hour and we barely heard anything out of either of you.

As dinner time approached, I made my way upstairs to the playroom to see you guys jumping and dancing around to the tunes of a lullaby machine.

Specifically, you two were spinning around with your arms out like the boy in the video as he transforms in the lead singer.

Isaac, who is 2 years younger than you, was learning this move from you.

Then, last night as our family was decided what we’d watch together before your bedtime, I suggested we try out Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Though it’s a staple for every ’80s kid’s childhood, I had never seen it until last night.

You were so happy when you realized you knew all the songs; as well as seeing Daniel Tiger in his younger days. (The episode we watched was from 1981; the year Mommy and me were born.)

This morning as I was getting ready, you chose to watch another episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

You expressed to me, “Daddy, I thought show was for grown-ups, but I like it!”

Yes, Mr. Rogers and Twisted Sister, in the same week.

Love,

Daddy

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Saving Your Family Money by Buying Retail at the End of the Month

Saving Your Family Money by Buying Retail at the End of the Month

I’ve spent nearly a decade working in the transportation industry. (I do that in addition to blogging and making videos for my YouTube channel.)

It’s simple common knowledge to me but I have to remind myself that most retail consumers are probably unaware of it:

You’re typically more likely to find better sales during the end of the month; which is when retailers are most desperate to move out inventory before the new month begins, because then they have to pay taxes on the inventory they didn’t sell.

I refuse to be the guy who pays full price for anything. And I don’t simply want a sale, I want the best sale.

Granted, there will obviously always be exceptions, like certain holiday clearance sales; but I have made and do make a living of off of this principle that retail stores typically save their best sales each month for those last 2 weeks.

So be at the right place at the right time. Wait until the next to the last Tuesday of the month before you buy what you want.

That’s what our family did last Saturday when we made a trip to Old Navy.

I created this “Old Navy Haul” video, which explains this concept, in addition to showing what I bought and for how much. It ends which my son hosting a “pants party”; a concept he invented recently.

My video features my newest song, “The Mandatory Dance,” which I wrote and performed for an upcoming episode of my super hero series, Jack-Man.

So keep this in mind the next time you plan a shopping trip. Make those coupons count more by buying when prices are predictably lower. Take advantage of the situation instead of letting it take advantage of you.

Please feel free to share any similar tips with me here. You may teach me something!

Saving Your Family Money by Buying Retail at the End of the Month