smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

As you all know without fail I bring you an awesome product review to you each and every Thursday. A bit ago we went to Ikea to look at a bed for Miloh. He was digging the cots at school so we thought we'd move him to a super low toddle bed. While we didn't find a bed for him we did find something... Including pure awesomeness. First thing we found was The Baby Guy's sister, brother-in-law and nieces. I spotted them because I saw a couple wach of them holding blonde headed twins in the best baby carriers on the market. Any time you see a pair of blonde girl twins and the parents have the Maserati of baby carriers you know it's his family. Sadly I didn't know if it would be stupid for me to ask if they were truly them so I didn't. I was worried that if they weren't them they'd think I was a creep, but I'd never see them again so I don't know why I'd care? I got the text too late confirming that the were in fact them so Miloh lost hi...

If you follow me on twitter or work with me you're probably going to be glad this day is here... You won't have to hear about me building a trike for Miloh any more (actually it's only 97.6% done so I'll have a bit of talking to do). Here's how the whole thing started. Before Miloh was born, when he was just MF, I started looking for his first set of wheels. I found a cool limited edition trike made by James Perse. I wanted it but there were two problems. One it was probably quite expensive... Two it was sold out. So I was now on a mission to create a cool bike for Miloh... and all matte black bike. I realized that the frame of the James Perse trike is actually a Roadster Trike . Then I had my plan. Get a used Scwhinn, strip it, powder coat it and pimp it out for Miloh. I hopped on Craigslist and found a used trike for $25. It was a bit beat up (chipped paint, a broken pedal, and dented fenders). The fenders were no matter because I was ditching them. The...

Late winter I started looking for a good way to get Miloh on my bike for some riding. You all know the basic choices out there basically trailers and bike seats. I'm not a fan of the bike seats that go in the back because I have an irrational fear that Miloh would fall out and I wouldn't know. Actually knowing Miloh it's not so irrational. He's too smart for his own good and he's able to Houdini his way out of most anything. I'm also not a fan of the trailers. I'm sure they are perfectly safe but there's still that irrational fear and I think they're not easily visible. I almost hit one in a parking lot once because it didn't have a tall flag on it. I just couldn't see it and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Back when Miloh was only known as MF and not Miloh, because we didn't know what gender he was, I found a cool trailer that's actually a side car. I love this but it costs over $500 and that's not super fun. Also I...

I'm brainwashing MIloh. I admit it. Staci caught me doing it one morning. When it's my time to do morning duty I let Miloh watch a little video on the computer after he's done with breakfast. It's a video I've shared on here before in a post about things that inspire me. The first time he saw it there was a tiny Miloh clap in the middle. The second time he watched it jaw half open in amazement. The third time he gave the more symbol at 4 minutes in which is actually a kick ass part and one of my favorites, and I'm not sure how much more Danny can give. The fourth time was magical... For me at least. Miloh said Bike-er. Then he smiled and clapped. It's no secret that I love biking and that I'd love Miloh to enjoy it too. I've been working on making him a sweet trike even though he's too short to ride it right now. I have plans to build him a super cool 12" bike and his first BMX bike will be my 1988 Haro Master . If he doesn'...

A couple posts back I mentioned I was working up my PR Unfriendly page and I'm proud to say that it's now live... In fact it's this post repurposed into a page. But before I start I should mention that "repurpose" is one of my least favorite business speak words... Fun Fact. I used to do a Gear Thursday feature, but at some point writing about gear got really boring for me (not saying Gear Thursday is totally dead but it's hiding better than Bin Laden). Aside from the boredom I was soured on reviews by all the emails I'd get for companies asking me to pimp their stuff. If you blog you know what I'm taking about. I'm not going to write a post about some stupid product, movie or such that has enough cash to hire a PR firm but expects bloggers to write about it without compensation... Or maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll receive a sample and a few for my readers... Eh... not interested. And that's why I've come up with my PR Unfriendly ...

There is a saying that an idle mind is the Devil's workshop...and I'm thinking that's a good thing. A bit over a month ago I was kind of bored and a little bit hungry. I wanted some sunflower seeds. And not just any sunflower seeds...I wanted Spitz dill flavor seeds because they freaking awesome...and better than their competitors. Then I and idea came to me...what would be better than some seeds? The answer of course is a lot of free seeds...even though in reality it would cure the craving I had then. So I sat down and wrote what I think was a funny open letter to Spitz asking them to sponsor my blog by giving me 50-100 packs of seeds. But Spitz is owned by Frito-Lay and they had no sense of humor...not that I was really expecting the seeds...but I was bummed by the total canned answer. Writing the letter was fun...and I figured I could use my talent of writing funny, sarcastic, and semi-obnoxious letters for good. The good being showing my support for brands that...

Notice his Burt Reynolds pose This is probably my favorite thing that Miloh is wearing now. It's a bodyvest form Nippaz With Attitude a great clothing company from England that some friends of mine started. Ian and Leza used to work at indie record labels and that comes through in their designs and in the way they create their stuff. Instead of doing seasonal collections they try to get new stuff out every 6-8 weeks...and it's great stuff. They sent me the What Would Joe Strummer Do? shirt because I'm a huge fan of The Clash (I sing Bankrobber to Miloh to get him to sleep.) The stuff is great quality, looks cool and is different from things I've seen out there. There is a little hint to tomorrow's post in the pic. I wish I had seen the Love/Hate mittens because Miloh would have worn them as a newbie. Other fav styles of mine are below. Seriously check out Nippaz With Attitude for some great stuff...buy some.

I get a lot of emails to do reviews and all but a few go right to my virtual circular file. But a couple weeks ago I got an awesome one. It was to review a book called. Okay that's not really my thing but it's a book called  Devoted: The Story of a Father's Love for His Son  by Dick Hoyt. You may not have heard of him...actually when I first saw the name I thought I never heard it...then I saw he was half of Team Hoyt . If you're not familiar with Team Hoyt you should make yourself familiar. The team is Dick and his son Rick...they run marathons and Ironman triathlons together. The one thing is that Rick has Cerebral Palsy. So in an Ironman for instance, Dick pulls Rick in a boat for the 2.4 mile swim, rides with Rick in the front of a modified tandem bike for the 112 mile bike and pushes him in a wheelchair for the 26 mile run. And they have finished them in the time limit. With a quick check on a Sports Illustrated article  I realize I must have first seen t...

A bit ago we made the switch to cloth diapers...I forget when exactly but if you really care you can probably check out my infographics because I mention it on one of those. Any way when we made the switch I learned a few things about cloth diapers: They are easier to use than you'd think. You wind up touching a lot of pee (because you have to get the liner out of the cover.) The first few times you experience poo in a cloth diaper you will want to throw it away. You won't throw it away because they are expensive - upfront cost, but are cheaper in the long run. You will do a shitload of laundry...not sure if that's a pun but if it is then the pun is intended. The one size fits all cloth diapers are bullshit (see above re: pun) There are a shitload of different kinds of cloth diapers (see above re: pun.) If you don't have a good diaper pail bag the room will smell craptastic very soon (see above re: pun) It's obnoxious to basically make the s...

This will probably be my only post in which I use the word nipple... Coddlelife sent me a couple bottles and a silicone wrap to review. Once I received it I realized it's really hard to review bottles...you know because I don't use one. But I can talk about what I think Miloh's thoughts would be. I think they would be good...he took to the nipple right away. I was wondering because the design is really breastfeeding friendly and he isn't a fan of the boob...but he seemed to dig it. He had no problems drinking and didn't seem gassier than usual. I wasn't expecting he would be since it's an anti-colic design. I tried two different bottles out; the 8 oz. borosilicate glass bottle and the 8 oz. Polypropylene Bottle (BPA free.) I liked both and especially liked the glass one because I did glass over plastic and it was super light. They have a silicone wrap to go over the glass one so it doesn't slip. The plastic one was nice too...I like the squat siz...

Now you can stick your hand up a Fraggle's ass...how sweet is that. This weekend I saw these awesome hand puppets from Manhattan Toy (I think they are brand spanking new.) Not much I can or need to say about them except they look sweet (better in person than they are in the pics.) Images link to the Amazon pages. They also sell these at Creative Kid Stuff.

Gear Thursday is back this week with a giveaway from a great company called Paper Culture and I'm giving away $25 coupon codes to two different winners. I found Paper Culture on my search for some really well designed birth announcements. Being a designer I probably should have designed them myself but the chaos of a new baby made that impossible. When I saw their announcements I was psyched...we ordered the one below. We were super happy we went with them over some of the other places we've found. A few reasons for that...their designs are great and pretty much the style I would have designed, they are printed on really nice stock (a matte 130lb thick paper), the cards have rounded corners which makes them look nicer and real people lay out your cards. That last one was kind of important to me. You plug in your info and a designer lays it out and sends you a proof in a couple days. You can OK it, make a change or decide not to go with it...there is no obligation. Everyon...

The other day Staci bought Miloh the Skip Hop Funky Farmyard . Today she wanted to add a little something to Montessori it up a bit. So she attached a bell that she got from Etsy . Miloh instantly took to the bell and he had a tough time deciding whether to play with it or to look at himself in the cow mirror that came with the farmyard. In the end the bell won out. We have about 14 minutes of video of this but I decided to play nice and cut it down to under 2 minutes. My next video will be him staring at a grape.

If you read my Random Shorts post a few days ago you may remember that we have a new routine that we've been doing to get Miloh to sleep. One of the things that we bought to help is this Twilight Turtle nightlight. I'm not even exaggerating when I say this is one of the best things ever...it's so cool and soothing that Staci and I want to get one for our room... It's actually rather simple but so nice. It's a soft turtle with a hard plastic shell. On the shell are cutouts of constellations...so when you turn the lights on the constellations shine throughout the room. You can change the color of the lights to green, blue or amber. The green and blue are the brightest and it's reminiscent of those glow in the dark stars but a lot less hassle and a lot less permanant. It's incredibly soothing and it shuts off in 45 minutes just as your baby (hopefully) falls asleep. One thing I'm really digging is that 8 real constellations shine on your ceiling a...