smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

We signed Miloh up for a music class that started early winter. It was to the good place in town. When Staci asked if I was excited I really couldn't answer... I think I said "I guess so." It's because I hadn't really thought of what the class would be like... but then the night before the class I got a picture of what it would be in my head. It was going to be filled with lots of cool percussion instruments and world music. I was wrong. If you've been to a toddler music class you know what they are like. They're completely different from my vision. It was a bright white room that looked like any room. It was stocked with all sorts of instruments but nothing special. You probably know where this is going... and hopefully could figure that out by the title of the post. I'm not saying the classes are bad for all folks... but it was a super painful for me. I realized I wasn't going to dig it once we started the activities. Each one would s...

Like the title says this isn't the worst thing ever. The worst thing would be is something happened to Miloh or Staci or any of our families... except my father. Also I guess you could say "something happened" could mean something good, like winning the lottery. If you misunderstood that I'd have to say the lottery wouldn't be the worst thing... it would be pretty good... unless it happened to my father. Although if he won the lottery I'd give him a call and say "hey, I've been trying to get ahold of you for years but I lost your phone number." But here's why I'm coming to the folks on the world wide web asking for some help. We unfortunately need to rehome our dog Kalli and maybe she can find a home from someone here. This really freaking sucks and not something we're taking lightly so anyone who is even thinking of leaving some dumb ass comment should just go read something else . Kalli's an amazing dog, so loving, so...

A year ago Miloh was a week old. I'd spend nights in his room, underneath the glow of the Twilight Turtle , bouncing to soothe him as he cries. When the cries subsided you could hear the soundtrack of some Rockabye Baby lullabies playing on the iPod. Because of pure exhaustion we forget when we realized that he slept better without the music and the turtle. I'm guessing the turtle batteries and iPod died on the same day. He probably went right to sleep and so they never came back on. Right before Miloh turned one we dumped the pacifier. We saw that it was becoming an addiction and thought if we broke the habit now it would be easier than later. And since it was only used when he slept it was easy to change out his monkey  Harlow  for the pacifier. What helped the transition was a new, well old, routine. The Twilight Turtle was back on and the iPod, packed with Rockabye Baby lullabies, made a return as well. With a little fuss it worked well. In Miloh's one year do...

Let me start with the second half of the post title first. Smonk You is going a bit dim... not totally dark... no comments on the dim part. I'll still be writing but maybe at a bit less frequency. I tried to write 2 posts a week because Blogher (my ad thingy) wants people who use them to post at that frequency... and time just doesn't want to cooperate. It was so much easier to write a daddy blog before Miloh was born... I had a bit more time and was a bit less sleepy. I still like doing it and all but it takes a lot of time... and I'd rather post less often but have better stuff. So if you dig this blog the best thing to do would be to grab my rss feed  because then you'll know when I post without having to check back. Like I said, it's not going away, I have posts in mind, infographics to catch up on and infographic ideas in my mind, and I have some posts I half started and never posted but are still cool. So thanks for reading, thanks for sticking a...

This weekly tally is actually a week and one day in order to take it through January 21, the day before Miloh turned one. People have asked how we kept track of all this... Staci made a sheet we (and our nanny, my in-laws and such) would fill out. It all started because we had to track his stats because of his jaundice... so one night when I was loopy from no sleep I started these. I only planned on doing these weekly graphics for a year... so this is the last. Some folks are probably happy about that, some could probably care less and maybe some are bummed. Although these are going away I'm still behind by a couple of the month long graphics and my infographic for the 3rd and 4th quarter of his first year. Then there are some others I have bouncing around in my head. Thanks for checking them out. January 14-21

I've never really been a fan of the first birthday pics when a kid has icing smeared all over it's face. I often feel that parents stage it so they have a cute photo. Miloh must feel the same... and he apparently doesn't like frosting.

January 7 - 13