smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

Before Miloh was born I compiled a  list  of things that we planned on doing as far as raising him. I revisited it a bit over a year ago... And since I yet again feel like being lazy I thought I'd revisit and do an update. I'm so lazy that two-thirds of this will be totally lifted from that last revisit... I didn't even read it. Seriously.  Cloth diapers, what we said:  for me it's environmental reasons for Staci it's that and it helps for potty training. (FYI I hate the word potty.) Cloth diapers, what we were doing a bit over two months in:  we've been using regular diapers for now because his butt is freaking tiny and his poo is disgusting. Once he grows a bit and the poo is solid we plan on going cloth. Maybe at about 6 months. Cloth diapers, what we did or are doing:  we did use clothe for about a bit less than a year. But it was on and off as he got rashes. We're still doing cloth but only at night. When in school he pretty much wears those super...

When I first started this blog I did a post about our plans for MF. One of the things I planned on creating was a style guide for MF (we didn't know if he was a boy or girl at the time). The style guide was going to have your basics; font (just because), color palette and then add some child specific things such as rules for clothes he/she would wear. One of the big reasons for the clothes do/don't list is because we (mostly Staci but maybe by only a small margin...51%) weren't fans of the stupid sayings on clothes...mostly boys clothes. I realize I'm probably offending some who only have those kind of clothes for their kids...and that's cool if you do...and you know I could care less about offending folks. If Staci had to pick the gender of our baby based on clothes it would definitely be a girl she wanted because she's bummed at how every store you go into is about 80% clothes for girls. To make things worse all the boys clothes have little saying on ...

Since I'm a dude and unable to produce milk from I never thought I woul have to defend the reason we formula feed instead of breast feed. But I received a comment on a recent post so I thought I would talk about it here. I'll get to the why we don't later but I'll start off on a tangent. First off I don't want to alienate the person who asked the comment because they say they are a reader and I'm cool with anyone stopping by. But I can't call the person out anyway because the comment was anonymous...and here is where I go into a little bit of a rant, and if you follow me on twitter you know I'm a fan of the rant. I'm assuming the comment was anonymous on purpose. Perhaps the person is a friend or someone I follow on twitter. Maybe they didn't want to ruin that relationship by coming out and saying it. I'm  a big boy and can handle criticism. Anonymous comments are never things like "Where did you get that cool toy?" they ar...

Back in July when Miloh was still a pre-kid I did a post about some of the things we planned on doing once it (now he) was born. Since I'm working on some bigger posts for next week but don't want to look lazy I thought I would check in on those things to see what we are doing and what we're not. Cloth diapers, what we said: for me it's environmental reasons for Staci it's that and it helps for potty training. (FYI I hate the word potty.) Cloth diapers, what we're doing: we've been using regular diapers for now because his butt is freaking tiny and his poo is disgusting. Once he grows a bit and the poo is solid we plan on going cloth. Maybe at about 6 months. A floor bed, what we said: floor bed instead of cribs are popular in the Montessori community and we plan on following some Montessori stuff since Staci is a teacher. A floor bed, what we are doing: he's in his floor bed. We put him in there when he was a couple weeks old. He digs it but...

Dear Mother Earth I'm not sure how you work. Are you like Santa where you know what I've been thinking and doing? If so then this won't come as a surprise. You know I have a lot of respect for you and all...and I'm not sure if I ever said the 'L' word but you know...I kind of dig you. In the years we've been friends you've stayed pretty much the same it's just me who is different. Our relationship has been changing and I think it's at a point where we just cut the ties for a little while. I know it sounds cliche but it's not you...it's me, really it is. Someone came between us and his name is Miloh. When Staci and I first learned we were pregnant we were dead set on raising our child in an environmentally friendly way. We had plans to use cloth diapers from day one...we even got a new HE washer and dryer so cleaning them would be better for you. Then we heard that cloth diapers are hard to use on super little kids, partly be...

I'm not really a video game reviewer...but then this isn't really a game review. A while ago I did a post where I mentioned that at first I thought I'd be able to hang with my sleeping baby and play some Wii. Yada yada...I bought Ghostbusters: The Video Game for Wii. I was attracted to the game because it had the original actors in it and Aykroyd and Ramis, who wrote the films, helped to write the story. I popped it in my Wii yesterday and started to play...here's how gameplay went. Step one: Disc goes into the console. Step two: Miloh starts crying because he has a wet diaper. Step three: Change said diaper and get back to the game. Step four: The game starts out in the Ghostbusters' firehouse with little introduction to how the gameplay works. It takes some getting used to because you use the remote and not the nunchuk to look around. It tells me to check out the car. Step five: Miloh cries because he wants to be bounced and have pacifier...so we...

I was pretty sick over the weekend so I didn't think about what I was going to write. And right now my head feels like it's in a vice because of sinus pressure and I can't concentrate when I'm like that...so this will be really random. One: I've really been improving on the comfort level with kids thing. I again talked to a 5 year old and felt pretty comfortable. I was even engaged in the conversation and asked questions. If you've been reading you know that's a huge step for me because kids kind of scare me and until recently I could only ask them about their shoes (because Staci told me they like when you ask that.) I think that makes it a total of 3 kids that I didn't know that I felt comfortable with. Huge number. Two: A little setback in the above area socialization. My office had a halloween party and people brought their kids. I hid at my desk. Also we didn't give candy out this year at home because I was feeling crappy so we hid out a...

A bit over a month ago I did a post about us finally getting the baby's room cleaned out. We were ready to start decorating...but the room sat...we did nothing. We knew basically how we'd decorate...no crib because we're doing a Montessori style floor bed....no chest of drawers because we're doing a closet system and probably won't get a chest until we get bigger kid furniture...we'd add a shelf system and seating and such. We planned to be way ahead in getting the room done...but things came up...travel, friends etc and the room set aside. That was until Friday when Staci got the bug to get the room together. After ditching a shelf unit from Room and Board we headed Ikea for something that worked better. It might seem odd to trade down, but whatever...the piece we got has good clean designed lines and is exactly the size we need. Here's the skinny on the why of a shelf unit...this is coming from the husband of a Montessori teacher...not someone ...

Staci sleeping on the plane to Vancouver/Whistler on our honeymoon five years ago. It took a couple of years for our families (read Jewish Mothers) to ask (read nag us) when we'd have kids. From day one Staci and I pretty much agreed on waiting 5 years. Our moms wanted little Friedmans sooner. They 'allowed' us to wait but there was some discussion on whether 5 years meant we'd start in 5 or have a kid not more than 1826 days days after getting married. We were going with starting in 5 years...and wel, our 5th year anniversary plans, which involved a trip to a winery, had to change because Staci was 6 weeks pregnant and not feeling too good. We rocked the 5 year plan perfectly.

When I was a kid I had a plan for my life. I was going to own a pet store, specializing in the breeding of gerbils, and marry Drew Barrymore. Neither of these things happened. So knowing that plans don't always come to fruition I thought I'd start a list of things we plan on doing once we have the baby. I'll periodically update as things get done, fall through or are added. Cloth diapers: for me it's environmental reasons for Staci it's that and it helps for potty training. (FYI I hate the word potty.) A floor bed: floor bed instead of cribs are popular in the Montessori community and we plan on following some Montessori stuff since Staci is a teacher. We want to make our own baby food : it sounds like a good idea because we'll know what's in it and it seems easy. The baby will be vegetarian: I have been vegetarian since I was about 14 and Staci was for a bit before the pregnancy. The dog will not be ignored: everyone says it happens. Date night: after...