Too Much Butt Cream Is Better Than None At All

Tomorrow Mrs. Noisewater needs the car, so immediately after work I have to take Erik Noisewater in an Uber to make it on time for his gymnastics class. To do this legally I could lug a heavy and awkward travel car seat or I could buy a booster seat since the young man is now over 40 pounds. I found a good and cheap booster at Target, which was open until 10pm, so after getting the kids to bed, I ducked out to pick it up. JESUS THIS STORY SOUNDS BORING, but just stay with me here. So while I'm there I had to pick up eggs, orange juice, and diaper rash cream. The cream looked to be buy one get one free, but when I got to the register she informed me that it was buy THREE get one free. I tried to explain to her that no one needs to walk out of Target with FOUR tubes of butt cream. I said, "Do you know how small a baby's butt crack is? It's like this (and used my fingers to show an inch long butt crack). By the time I'm anywhere near finished four tubes of this stuff, the kid won't be in diapers anymore." She asked if I just wanted the one, and I said yes, now thinking that maybe my baby booty crack lecture was perhaps a bit much.

When I came home Mrs. Noisewater was on the couch feeding our second born who had already woken up, and the first born pooped his pants so she had to deal with that too. Neither one of us was having too awesome of a night as it turns out. When I put the eggs and orange juice into the fridge I noticed there were ZERO tubes of butt cream in the bag. Are you kidding me? Then Mrs. Noisewater pointed out that I had picked out a booster seat with pink trim, and it was a little obnoxious. I would have noticed an entirely pink one, but since I was a little bit tired tonight and always a little bit color blind every night, the trim went unnoticed. Don't get me wrong, we don't assign gender colors or toys or anything else to our kids. As a matter of fact, Erik Noisewater has a pink unicorn back pack, and he rocks that fucker every day like a God damned champion. This booster seat was just tacky as all get out, so it had to go back. Plus I needed to go back for the chap-ass ointment that they had forgotten anyway.  

I got back to the store to see the two tubes of Desitin sitting on the counter, which vindicated me because a little part of me wondered if maybe I had dropped it somehow. They got me a very bland but not gaudy gray car seat instead, which was fine, until I got it home and noticed that it had a stain. I'm not going back. To hell with it. It will get more stains. 

So those are the kinds of stories I'll be telling from now on if anyone is still around. Sorry, no more drunk tales full of crazy nights and loose women. Nope. Angry dad with two Target trips on a school night - that sort of thing. Also, I should have a vasectomy coming up later this month for more dad blog fodder. Stay tuned. 

4 Topic Sunday

1. Ryan Reynolds-Looking Super Dad

I was at the library with the family yesterday. At the Chicago Public Library you can get museum passes for free entries for your entire family. Nice tip right there for the 4 people still reading this page. Anyway, so I'm diddling around on my phone while my 3-year-old son is playing with other kids and another (and better) random dad, and I hear young Erik Noisewater say, "Let's make a Transformer!" The kids and the random dad were building things out of giant Legos that were about a foot across. I hear the random dad say in a slightly effeminate voice, "Does this look like a Transformer?" I look up to see that the son of a bitch had whipped up an amazing five foot tall robot in a matter of a couple minutes, and Erik was smiling ear-to-ear. This guy looked like gay Ryan Reynolds, he was in better shape than me, better looking than me, and on this day for sure, a better dad than me. He was on the floor with everyone's kids like the Deadpool Pied Piper Super Father doing all these creative things and with boundless energy. I'm so glad that this dude exists in the time he does so that he can get legally married to another man and have a family without judgement from anyone. Just think, if he were born 50 years ago he may never have been able to be the super dad he was born to be.

The face you make at other dads when you just made the perfect Lego Transformer.

2. Bane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other night I'm putting Erik to bed and he says to me, "Daddy, why don't you have muscles like Bane? Then he starts squeezing my pathetic arms, searching everywhere on them and saying, "Where are your muscles?" Thanks a lot, kid. I mean, I can't live up to the standard of cartoon super hero physiques, but he is right that I could certainly stand to put on a touch more muscle up top. He's like my little personal trainer now. I did some push-ups with him on my back yesterday, so he and I are working on it.

Overdeveloped the trap muscles a touch, if you ask me.

3. The 1980's, the Decade of Amazing Walkie Talkies

Do you ever notice in 80's movies the kids all seemed to have walkie talkies where they could talk to their friends from their respective bedrooms from a mile away? I was a kid in the 1980's, and I didn't know one kid who had those. We had the G.I. Joe ones where you were lucky to hear your friend in the next room, and even then it was like a bad McDonald's drive through sound so you couldn't make out what the F he was saying, as if it what he was saying was anything more important than "Can you hear me?"

We have the Jolt cola. Repeat. We have the Jolt cola!!

4. How was everyone's holiday?

Mine was pretty awesome. It was our first one waking up in our own house with Santa coming for the kids, so pretty exciting stuff. We discovered a new drink too: Captain Morgan and egg nog. We call it Captain Nog. I just love that name. Captain Nog sounds like a ruthless cutthroat gangster on the high seas. Drunk with white goop all over his beard.

Captain Morgan Freeman himself.

It has been one heck of a long time since I have posted, and I think the most noteworthy thing to update my zero remaining readers about is that we had our second (of two and two only) kiddo in September. We had another boy by the name of Desmond Noisewater, and he is a very contented and happy young man thus far. He came a little bit early and unexpectedly so we had no one to care for his big brother, Erik Noisewater, during the birthing process. My parents got on a train to come watch Erik, but we had to take him to the hospital until they got into the city. Things progressed pretty quickly, and his mother was in quite a lot of pain and screaming, rightfully so. Erik looked really concerned and was saying, "What's wrong with mommy?" so I had to get him the hell out of there and back to the condo until my parents arrived. Wouldn't you know I ended up missing Desmond's arrival? A little bit of a drag to miss the birth of my son, but what is important was that he was born healthy. However, there is one minor mishap in that he has a low functioning and enlarged kidney due to some sort of mass inside his belly. It doesn't seem to be causing any problems for him, but it's still something in the back of our minds to make us worry and lose our minds about every now and again.

I'll make a confession here, because I know I can trust all of you. The second baby is not nearly as fun. With the first it is a lot of "Oh my God we have created life! We are keeping this youngster alive by feeding it! He has all our DNA and we are extending the survival of the human race!" Then the next time around it's more like, "For real? More sleep deprivation and live shits blasting during diaper changes and pee shooting into the wall and splattering all over me? And I'm trying to get the new guy taken care of while the older one won't leave the the F alone and won't put his dang shoes on?" All the magic and wonder you had with that first one is replaced with annoyance, and you have zero time for yourself. It's rough, I'll admit, but the alternative is leaving your kid as an only child, which my best friend and own mother can attest to is a crummy upbringing. So we do it. And don't get me wrong, we love our Desi-Bear (Yeah we call him that, so F-off), but it's just a matter of forcing yourself to be sure you're sure to will yourself into being as excited as you were for the first one and pay him as much attention as you did the other guy.

I just had to get back on the blog because I have been feeling like I am busy as hell with work and family but really losing my identity as an individual  - and on top of that feeling a little stressed out and depressed. I know that when I pump a blog onto the internets it keeps me more sane, happier, and it affords me a place to get my thoughts out. I know that when I go to a dark shitty place as I allow to let my negative thoughts spiral, one particularly nasty way I like to beat myself up is to let that inner dickhead voice say to me, "And what ever happened to all that writing you used to do, you loser?" So, the plan is to try to get on here and post a lot more, even if it's a quick few sentences on my phone during Erik's basketball or gymnastics practice. Help me out, guys. Instant message me to shame me for lack of posts every now and again. I welcome it.

What's on tap for this weekend? Kid shit. Always kid shit. But it's really what it's all about now; to see the kids happy is the best. We had a brunch at a theater nearby where you can meet Santa in one of the theaters. Anyone ever notice that all the Santas these days are actual old guys with authentic white beards? I swear to God every Santa I saw in the 1980's was a young guy with a beer gut and a fake white beard clipped behind his ears. This one was good, but he was more of the take a picture variety and not big on the "What do you want for Christmas, little boy" type." I think this stressed out Erik because he said he wanted some Transformers in a meek voice a handful of times, but old Santa with his actual old ears heard none of it. What I should of done is chimed in and said, "Okay, Erik. Santa is putting Soundwave and Shockwave down on his list and  Beardshis Elves will get right on building those boys for you." I always have stress and anxiety about the dumbest things ever like getting the picture, so I don't live in the moment and relax and think of what I need to. Why is every day bull crap so nerve racking for me? This is why I need to get my ass in front of a computer and blog more - because I have lots of thoughts like these that I cannot make sense of until I type them out.

Okay, blog buddies. I'm off to run down the blogroll to see what all of you have been up to in my admittedly long and inexcusable absence. I hope I can keep my pledge to get on here more, because I know it's good for me. Thank you.

First Dirty Movie Part 2: A Dangerous Encounter

This is the second of three stories in which three dudes sat around and told the stories about the first porno movie they ever saw as a kid.  In Dangerous' first time joining a Gancer podcast, he does an excellent job talking about the times he and his friends rode theirs bikes over to his neighbor Jimmy's house to watch a porno flick and the lengths they had to go to keep Jimmy's dad from figuring out.

Hope you enjoy.  Have a listen or download it by clicking the options at the top, and let us know what you think.

The songs in the background of this podcast are the "Ding Dong Song" by Gunther and "Sex Machine" by Sly and the Family Stone, and the picture below is actually the cover of the infamous movie in Mr. Dangerous' past!