A Love/Hate Relationship with Potty Power

I like to credit myself with having impeccable taste when it comes to most things. I also like to assume that if the world thought the same way about most things as I do, it'd be an overall better place to live.

Perhaps you scoff.

Regardless, my taste in 'what's watchable' is generally accepted by others as 'legit,' or 'right on the money.' Hence, you readers out there in cyberspace should lend an ear (preferably two) to what I'm about to tell you:

Potty Power is a soul-crushing, twenty minutes of pure hell.

Like I said before, it just may be the worst twenty two minutes you could spend in front of a television. Then again, I could never bring myself to watch more than three minutes of Glee without wanting to gash my own wrists apart, so I could be wrong there.

The production value of this children's instructional DVD is somewhere around the local, community college audio/video department's daily operating budget. In fact, I'm pretty sure Potty Power was produced by some sophomore for his midterm film assignment.

If so, he probably got a 'C,' with 'Do you have a soul?!' slathered across the top of his attached paper in bright, red Sharpie.

But let's get back to why I'm talking about this horrible, horrible program in the first place. There's a reason why I've been watching this DVD every day for the last few weeks: Alayna has been on the verge of using a toilet (instead of her pants) for the last few months, and we've driven ourselves mad trying various strategies to help drive the concept of 'its better to pee in a sanitary receptacle instead of in your drawers' home.

Potty Power, as it turns out, is the Holy Grail of potty training:





As much as I hate to admit it, the shit works. And it works really, really good. The Cannonball voluntarily uses the bathroom whenever she has to go, without asking or announcing (unless she's outside of the home), and only wears a diaper now if she's going to bed at night. That's it. After months and months of random techniques, tricks, bribes, rewards, peer pressure, and perhaps even a little degree of condescension (I get annoyed with kids crapping their pants, what can I say), Potty Power ends up being the end-all, be-all in potty training.

I hate to endorse something so horrifying, but, if you're a parent and you're willing to subject yourself to twenty two minutes of pure hell on a daily basis for a couple weeks, you'll have a potty-trained toddler. You can purchase it via Amazon here.

Trust me. I'm awesome.

- Brian

Annoying Crap My Kids Do

Hey, how's everybody doing?

We're tired.

Yours truly and the artist-formerly-known-as-Preggosaurus get no sleep these days. Our newest addition is, by all accounts, nocturnal, and prefers to hang out at 2am instead of 2pm. This makes operating at full capacity during the daylight hours next to impossible, and that's when we have to be putting forth our 'A' game in order to handle the Cannonball's shenanigans.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, since Kris pissed out our second child, Alayna's been one, giant hurricane of defiance and sass. Not directed to me, so much, but very much so to her Mom. I'm not sure if this is because Kris constantly has a life form attached to her breast or not. Who knows.

She openly defies orders, ignores warnings, and 'talks' back so frequently that 'time-outs' are becoming an almost hourly occurrence. Acting out in anger has become a problem, too. For example, Kris' cell phone was busted. We're not about to point fingers at who did it or anything, but it definitely wasn't Kris or myself. And I highly doubt Abby was able to destroy it, as she can't lift anything weighing more than a cotton ball. But we're not pointing fingers, here. Anyway, since niether Kris nor myself have gotten that publication deal for our Parenting 101: A Guide for Idiots Who Shouldn't Make Babies in the First Place book we've been compiling* yet, we're tackling toddler-wrangling on a day-to-day basis and awaiting that blessed day when Alayna and Abby are both out of the house and off to college.

September of 2028, baby. Start the countdown.

Now, if our days with Raffi taught us anything, its that there lies vast potential in the power of Television. Alayna has becomed obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba, which is cat nip for two year olds. She loves it, and the DVDs we have of it are on constant rotation in the DVD player. Sure, I'd rather watch Yo Gabba Gabba than, say, Barney or the Unmentionable Sesame Street Character That Sabotaged Grover's Career, but its still a strain on one's sanity when one has to watch it on a daily basis.

Alas, for the time being, watching an episode of hip-hoppin' robots at 6am is way better than dealing with a toddler freak out at 6am.

Say what you will. Dad treasures his sanity.

- Brian

* = We're not writing this. That's a joke. We'd be the last people who should be writing a book like this.

In the Mood (for Raffi)

the cannonball has entered that hell-phase of "terrible twos." hooray for us, right?

she's getting an early start to it, too... which we're absolutely loving at this point. tantrums, whining for no apparent reason, unrelenting getting-in-to-stuff-ishness, etc. the only thing - and believe me, we've tried finding something else - to calm this kid down when she gets all worked up is the raffster (see, "Original Gangster (for Kids").

when she first showed interest in this ol' troubadour, it was cute. "hey, our kid likes the same kid's musician that we did when we were super little - that's awesome."

yeah, well...

its been a few weeks since then... and this kid watches this concert movie every. single. day. i'm not even kidding. its gotten so bad that i'm whistling "peanut butter sandwich" and "baby beluga" at work. it gets looks, folks - nobody wants to see a grown man whistle kid tunes. its creepy.

this VHS tape has gotten so played out that its literally beginning to fall apart. adjusting the tracking on the VCR hasn't been enough to clear up the picture on the screen - its worn down from excessive use. i suppose, though, that it being on its last leg and all is a blessing of sorts... i'm just nervous what awaits us when this tape dies and we're left raffi-less (of course, we could buy the DVD, but i'm not quite willing to bite the bullet on this one yet). i'm sure 'super parents' out there might balk at the houghs using television as a means of calming down our screaming toddler; is it bad of us to sit our kid down in front of a TV for twenty eight acoustic minutes when she's in the middle of a freak-out? maybe.

...but maybe you smell bad. so shut up.

...

do they make cat nip for toddlers?

Reproducin', Part II: Bring It On Home

(continued...)

kris shot out that baby she'd been carrying around (for the last 17 months), the hospital wheeled her over from the delivery room to our post-labor room. this room, in which we would spend the next 48 hours, had a fridge, a bathroom, a couple beds, a DVD player, and a big, flat-screen TV that was bigger and better than our own TV in our house. it was a decent little set-up for the kid's first two days of post-vagina living, but nobody got much sleep.

alayna, upon bursting out of her flesh-walled prison, weighed about 6 lbs. 1 oz. and measured approximately 19 inches in length. for those of you who are as oblivious to the knowings of babyhood as myself, that's not quite dangerously small, but its definitely underweight.

being underweight isn't necessarily bad, i guess, but it does bring about some small problems. problem #1: low blood sugar. or high blood sugar. i forget which one it is, but its something to do with her blood sugar levels. one of those two. anyway, she had to have a series of blood samples taken during her first 12 hours out, which meant kris had to breastfeed more frequently and, as a result, lost a crap-ton of sleep in the process. and, as a result of her losing sleep, yours truly didn't sleep much either. this sucked.

problem #2: jaundice. i'm not sure what this condition is, really, but i'm pretty sure it has something to do with pirates. or maybe that's scurvy. i'm not sure. what i do know is that jaundice turns the skin yellow and has something to do with her liver. i guess most babies have some level of jaundice when they're born, but underweight babies are more susceptible to it. and, a sure-fire way to treat this condition is to stick the baby out in the sun and let the UV rays cook the jaundice out of her. or so i'm told (i'm not a doctor).

anyway, back to the tale... we spent about 48 hours in the post-delivery hospital ward. we had to attend some boring, pointless discharge class on how to take bathe your baby, how to hold your baby, etc... boring rubbish, and i was the only dude in a room full of newborn-wielding moms so it was pretty awkward as well. we also had a bunch of old ladies man-handle kristina's titties on a regular basis and show her how to 'appropriately breastfeed' the baby (note: if you ever want to be really creeped out, knock a girl up and stick around for the "lactation specialists...). then, finally, on wednesday, they let us take the kid home... which ruled.

hospitals are great and all, i guess, but after awhile you get sick of old ladies bossing you around and the constant smell of disinfectant and rubber. i also hate hospital food and the clammy feeling you get from the air conditioners. anyway, we brought alayna home on wednesday and introduced her to fezzig, who was not nearly as cordial as we would've hoped (though we kinda expected that from the get-go).

...and there you have it. baby-birthin', hough style. keep a weather eye out for more updates and pictures to start popping up on here. if you guys need me, i'll be elbow-deep in baby shit.

stay outta trouble...

- brian