I believe the most appropriate term to call you these days is rascal. You’re old enough to know you’re being cute while at the same time being sneaky. And on top of that, your sincere curiosity only adds to the cuteness and the sneakiness.
As you are now becoming quite ambitious in your attempts to add words to your vocabulary, you have stumbled upon the word pop. A couple of weeks ago while I was holding you, you passed a little bit of gas… I knew immediately as I felt the vibration on my arm.
You looked up at me, as if you were asking for my confirmation, and asked, “Pop?”
I obviously immediately laughed: “Yes, good. You did just have a pop.”
To equate passing gas with the word “pop” was not something I could credit anyone in our family with. You just took it upon yourself to associate the sound you made with a word you already knew.
Therefore, you now make a habit of announcing every time you pop. But what I really love about it is that you continue to still sort of ask for my confirmation.
And now you have moved on to calling out everyone else’s pops.
Without surprise, you say “pop” a lot when your brother is around. He enjoys your special skill in identifying his mischievous actions.
I will say, I didn’t expect that you’d be able to identify what it meant to pass gas, or that you’d have your own designated word for it, before your 2nd birthday.
But hey, you have a 7 year-old brother. It comes with the territory.
Therefore, sometimes without me even realizing what I have done, you’ll look up at me:
“Daddy, pop?”
That’s your special way of saying, “You and I are the only ones in the room right now- and I know it wasn’t me, so…”
It had been a particularly difficult night, with your sister waking up several times every couple of hours. I received little rest, as I got up each time to help get her back to sleep. So by the time Mommy left for work around 6:15 AM, I collapsed on the couch in the living room, as I trusted you to take care of your sister while I was out of commission.
When I woke up about an hour later, I was delighted to see that, in your creativity, you took it upon yourself to transform an Amazon shipping box in to a couple of helmets for both you and your sister to wear, in the boat you also constructed from the same box.
I am always so proud to see you take initiative to lead your sister in fun activities, which require no direction from me or Mommy. It’s important that you figure out on your own what to do with your time, without needing me as your entertainment supervisor all the time.
The look on your sister’s face, too, is just priceless. She obviously didn’t quite understand why the two of you had box helmets, but she gladly went along with it; just like the day before when the box actually arrived:
You convinced your sister to walk back and forth from the far end of the living room, to the far end of the kitchen, with both of your heads in the box. For good reason, it reminded me of the kind of horse costume where it takes two people to walk; one in the front and one in the back.
I’m just glad that because of your creativity with a shipping box, I was able to catch a solid hour of sleep, while getting confirmation you’re old enough to take care of your sister with your sleeping dad on the couch.
In case you’re planning on watching me attempt to find my doppelganger on that Campbell’s Go soup package on the new Lifetime show, “This Time Next Year”, please note that the network has changed the date of my episode:
It will no longer be airing on February 20th, as The Olympics would serve as direct competition to viewership. Therefore, I am currently waiting to hear from The Lifetime Network on when the official new air date will be. Stay tuned to my blog, as you can imagine I will immediately advertise the new date of Episode 6 of “This Time Next Year”.
I predict the soonest that the new air date would be is March 7th. I know for a fact that my episode has not been delayed by only one week, as Lifetime’s schedule onlineshows that Married at First Sight will be airing February 27th, which is the week after the date my episode was supposed to air originally.
My episode is the season finale of Season 1 of “This Time Next Year”. So while mine is the last to air, I am grateful Lifetime made the executive decision to change the original air date to make sure it doesn’t get overshadowed by the Olympics.
I am so excited to be able to share my experience with everyone in America. Just imagine what it would be like if you had one year to find and meet your doppelganger. Imagine what it would take and what it would be like if you actually accomplished your mission.
And of course, the whole journey is documented over the course of that year.
If nothing else, hey, I got to meet celebrity host Cat Deely!
I suppose once I see the official description of my episode of Lifetime’s website, the new air date will be confirmed. You better believe l will share it here on my blog.
I assume an explanation is in order, for those of you who know me as Nick Shell, the daddy blogger. It’s just that in another corner of the Internet, I am known as Nick Shell, the hair loss guy. I have quietly gathered over 3200 subscribers on one of my YouTube channels dedicated to this topic; that’s nearly 3 times people who like Family Friendly Daddy Blog’s page on Facebook.
Therefore, it’s clear that I hold value as a spokesman to younger men who are concerned with the first signs of hair loss. Of course, when people hear about my alter-ego as “The Hair Loss Guy”, their response is, “Wait, you? You still have a full head of hair, don’t you?”
Exactly. Well, like many 36 year-old men who are mainly of European descent who still have most of their hair, I also have some slight, yet largely unnoticeable receding and thinning.
I couldn’t have planned it this way, but around the time I started noticing these signs getting worse, I coincidently made some changes in my life, that arguably, have made some progress in slowing down, stopping, or possibly even reversing hair loss.
Because I’ve had people constantly asking me about this on my YouTube channel, I figured it would be a good idea to write a blog post on it too, as I am now noticing that the few times I have written about hair loss, those posts have ended up becoming some of the most consistently popular articles here on this blog.
So what are the 5 main reasons I believe I still have this much hair, when I assumed during my teen years and my 20s that I would be bald by age 35?
I technically have a decent amount of Asian DNA.
One of my theories on hair loss is that Asian men in general are less likely to go bald, but they’re also less likely to grow a good beard. (Meanwhile, in general, most men of European descent are more likely to grow thick body hair but are more likely to go bald young.)
Because of my Mexican grandmother, the MyHeritage DNA test I took shows that I am 21.6% Central American. That would indicate my ancestors who were likely Mayan, Incan, Aztec, etc. In other words, they were Native American, in modern day Mexico.
To me, it’s common knowledge that Native Americans descended from Asian, thousands of years ago, when they crossed the Bering Strait. My mom’s 3 brothers, all who are “half-Mexican”, still have all their hair, despite being in their late 50s and early 60s.
Therefore, I believe that having nearly a quarter of ancient Asian DNA has helped slow down my hair loss, compared to had I been born with only European DNA.
In case you’re curious in finding out your own ethnic background, like I did, here’s a link to the same test I took: MyHeritage DNA test.
I apply a mixture of Rosemary and Argan Oil on my hair each night.
After learning about a report that apparently showed how men who regularly applied Rosemary oil on their scalp had similar results to men who used Minoxidil instead, I decided to prove the report to be either right or wrong.
Since Christmas Day 2016, I have been faithfully applying a certain mixture of essential oils on my scalp before I go to bed each night. The general consensus among most of my YouTube subscribers is that the oil is working, especially in comparison to videos I did before I began applying it. Here’s an example:
I only use all natural shampoo, which also contains the same oils that I apply each night.
While I’m not faithful to a certain brand, I faithfully only use shampoo that specifically does not contain all those weird chemicals found in mainstream brands. By default, the shampoo I use contains the same mix of essential oils that I apply each night.
And in case you’re interested in trying out some shampoo that contains some of the oils I use everyday, here’s a link to Amazon.
I am a vegan.
Let’s face it: I’m probably one of the few, if not only, male vegans you’ve ever heard of. With now 6% of the American population being vegan, still only the minority of vegans are men. But what gives my vegan lifestyle more value when it comes to potentially preventing hair loss is the fact I’ve been a vegan so long: March 6, 2018 makes 5 entire years.
I don’t consume hormones like estrogen and testosterone from other animals since I don’t eat any animal products. Testosterone is linked to DHT. Some men are more sensitive to DHT, which is linked to hair loss. Therefore, since I am consuming zero testosterone, only producing my own, it is possible that my vegan lifestyle helps prevent further hair loss.
I have the right hairstyle.
There are definitely hairstyles which help downplay a receding hairline, without completely hiding it. I typically keep my hair short on the sides and back, and around 2.5 inches on top. I don’t comb my hair back, nor do I comb it forward.
I can’t say for certain that any of these 5 things truly prevent hair loss. However, I can’t say for certain they don’t. To me, it’s all just an experiment- and I am no professional, for sure.
The irony in all this is that I truly don’t care if I actually go bald. I am a person with a healthy self-esteem and a great understanding of my identity. I do not require hair to be happy, confident, or successful.
However, I do recognize that thousands of younger men rely on me to help them find ways to deal with their hair loss. So that is the reason I continue to be spokesman for hair loss when I myself still have most of my hair.
I hope you found this article to be helpful. To get a daily dose of my hair loss help, I officially invite you to check out my hair loss channel of YouTube:
Allow me to introduce you to the underworld of the Internet, where people earn passive incomes, thanks to the rest of the world constantly searching for answers on Google, products onAmazon, and education and entertainment on YouTube. These are the 3 forces that help sustain the modern day Tower of Babel.
I think of it as the perfect relationship between creators and consumers.
While it might make us uncomfortable to admit it, these 3 search engines combined serve as a man-made, all-knowing, instantly accessible, god-like entity with instant answers that people can literally see right there on the screen.
No praying required, no real faith involved here. Just type a few words and immediately become more enlightened.
It’s like we’re climbing the stairs to the top of the Tower of Babel, like finding our own way to Heaven; or at least to a more convenient version of life. But hey, if that thought really makes you feel bad; that in theory, we’re all participating in the the modern day Tower of Babel, just promise to never use Google, YouTube, or Amazon again.
Do you want to instantly know how to be cured of dyshidrotic eczema without depending on prescriptions from a doctor? Just Google it, and you’ll get to me.
Okay, so maybe you personally aren’t currently looking for answers to these questions. That’s okay. Because somebody else is. All the time. And I am getting a piece of the pie.
How so? This is a glimpse at the way it works.
Having an SEO rich website, for people to stumble upon while searching something on Google:
I own the equivalent of real estate here on the Internet. I have this blog you’re reading now, which has been around since May 2009, which contains over 2400 different articles, all of which contain a minimum of 300 words each. This serves as my dragnet to “capture” a decent portion of a great number of things people might be searching at any giving moment on the Internet. Every second of every day.
Because of this, and other secret reasons, my blog (this website) has good SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Therefore, companies realize this when they themselves search for certain keywords (which I carefully implanted here on my website). They obviously want their product featured on easy-to-find platforms like mine, so they reach out to me; offering a free product and/or payment in exchange for being featured here on my “real estate”.
Having a YouTube channel with a decent amount of subscribers:
I have come to the realization that most people don’t realize YouTubers actually make money every time someone clicks on an ad that shows before a YouTuber’s video. With over 2,000 videos, and each one averaging at least 4 minutes long, I have a steady stream of newcomers landing on my YouTube channel each day.
The more who subscribe, the more views I get, the more money I make. From there, I make videos to coincide with certain blog topics that I write about here on my blog. That way, I can use both my blog and YouTube channel in connection with one another; potentially bringing my audiences together.
Having an Amazon Affiliate account to earn a commission from any items sold, from links I plant on my website and YouTube videos:
Fathom this truth… anytime you click on a link that takes you to Amazon and you end up buying anything, the person who put that link there gets a portion of that sale. The link you clicked may have been for a children’s booster car seat, but after clicking the link, you may have wandered off and instead, ended up buying organic vegan Ramen noodles.
It doesn’t matter. Amazon rewards people like me who have popular enough platforms to usher people over to Amazon and buy a product.
So obviously, in each of my most popular blog posts and YouTube videos, as well as most of my newest ones, there is at least one link to an Amazon product; as I capitalize on the fact I have a decent sized blog, with an accompanying YouTube channel.
Now knowing this about me, do you think differently of this family friendly daddy blogger?
Am I a sneaky guy who preys on unassuming people who are casually searching things on the Internet?
Or am I just another business-minded creative personality who understands how the system works; that consumers are constantly searching for answers and that I might as well be the one with some of those answers. I have just enough answers to get more than a thousand people to stumble upon my website and YouTube channel each day.
So the next time you Google something random end up on someone’s website, think, “I’m improving their power and presence on the Internet.”
The next time you need to learn something by watching a YouTube video and click on the ad that shows before it, think, “I just made that person a fraction of a penny.”
And the next time you click on a link on a website than transports you to Amazon and you buy something, think, “Somebody somewhere is getting a percentage of this sale.”
You now understand the basics of the business model of the modern day Tower of Babel.
