I want to thank my precious little daughter for giving me the rare opportunity yesterday to do something I have not done for over 17 years…go Trick-or-Treating.
It didn’t dawn on me that its something we love to do but is strictly for kids (I’m looking at you weird Sophomores & Juniors) yet when we have kids of our own we can at least experience it again for a short time until they get older and want to go out with friends. It was such a great time walking up and down and around the block with Maddie going door-to-door and helping her up some tough stairs. She actually knocked or rang bells and appropriately and politely (and adorably) said “TWICK GOR TWEET” “HAPPY HALLERWEEN” and even “Thank You” when she was given her candy. She loved walking with the neighborhood kids and calling out the Elmos, Supergirls and other witches besides herself. It was just as much fun for my wife and me walking with the other parents and watching out kids have fun. I really enjoyed Halloween from a kids’ perspective again, a small sample or taste what it feels like to be 6 again.
Here’s a quick video of my little girl Trick-or-Treating:
Today my wife and I took Maddie to her first official music show/concert—Yo Gabba Gabba Live!
Maddie has seen live music before but mostly through festivals, carnivals or birthday parties. This was the first time in a darkened theatre with hundreds other families for a nice time out singing and dancing to their our favorite Yo Gabba Gabba songs. I will admit I am a Yo Gabba fan. My wife too. It’s a fun and educational show that is very easy to get hooked on. I can see how it can polarize some people but I think even if I didn’t have kids I would appreciate what the show is and tries to do. Its very entertaining and the songs are actually fun to sing. I sing the songs even when the show isn’t on the TV. I actually look forward to new episodes and even watching the same ones over and over again doesn’t bother me at all. Some kids’ shows are REALLY annoying, condescending or downright creepy or even preachy. Most common people, myself included, at first will see Yo Gabba Gabba as a weird and odd show and will struggle with remembering all the characters names but eventually everything about them grows on them. And what other childrens’ today show has guest stars like, Jack Black, Weird Al, The Shins, Sugarland, Laila Ali, Tony Hawk, Elijah Wood, Weezer and the legendary Paul Williams sing or dance on their shows? Only Sesame Street and the old Muppet Show had such celebrity endorsements.
But Maddie had an absolutely fantastic time at the show and we loved every minute of her loving every minute of it. She sang along, clapped along and even danced along to the songs. And she cannot wait to see them live again. The hardest part is telling her it might have to be a long wait until they come around to our area to perform live again. But the trooper that she is didn’t cause a fuss about it, especially when we treated her to one of her favorite dining establishments afterwards—Applebees!
My mom recently gave me a handy little tool — A Sandwich Press [or pastry sealer]. It’s essentially a small round-shaped press for sandwiches or dumplings.
It’s great for kids. You make a sandwich as you normally would and then you press down with the tool cutting the sandwich into a circle [cutting off the crusts] and making a slight seal around the edges. Maddie has usually eaten decently when I cut off the crusts and then quarter the sandwiches into nice little wedges but she normally will only eat 2 quarters at a meal. With this sandwich press she eats more than 2/3 of the sandwich which is a lot more than the usual 2 quarters and on a few occasions even ate the whole sandwich. Also since it’s sealed she doesn’t question what’s inside the sandwich. She’s eating more lunch meats and even started liking tuna fish. It’s great to pack up for school, easier to hold for her as well and very easy to clean.
I am very happy with the product and totally recommend it for any parent and especially ones with fussy eaters.
Here’s a link to the Pampered Chef’s product page in case anyone is interested:
Well Maddie’s been over a lot of milestones and hurdles in her 28 months of life. Crawling, walking, talking, eating with utensils, putting on her own shoes and even blowing her nose. But we still have the biggest milestone/hurdle to go.
THE POTTY.
She’s been on the potty many many times so far.
She doesn’t much like it—depends on her mood at the time.
We’ve tried coaxing with candy.
We read on it.
She plays with the toilet paper.
She’s even training at preschool and still nothing has happened yet.
We’ve even ran the faucet to trick her mind into going pee-pee.
But danggumit, she’s giving it some tries.
We applaud her anyway. [some positive reinforcement can’t hurt]
One thing I’ve learned though…You know that old trick of dipping someone’s hand in warm water while they sleep to make them pee themselves?
Doesn’t really work. Maybe they have to be asleep. I dunno.
I don’t know why I held off teaching my daughter the name of her naughty bits until now. I think mostly because for girls it’s not a concern early on. In other words, no extra appendage hanging between your legs. Young boys can pull and play and hold their penis especially come the time they start potty-training. My Maddie touched her crotch maybe 5 times in her life so far. Another reason I never mentioned it and I’m sure you’ll find this weird and silly but I was planning on not calling it a vagina. I could be very odd at times I will admit and part of that is my technical thinking [for lack of a better word]. I try hard to say INTER-resting instead of IN-tresting. It’s called being ironic not being sarcastic. A tomato is a FRUIT!! I blame my very precise grandmother for this who corrected me often and it must also be in my genes. It was always YES not YEAH. Like I said it’s annoying but who I am. I drive my family crazy with this habit of mine of over-correcting and being right as much as possible.
Anyway, I don’t like it when people refer to the exterior genitalia of females as a “vagina” because technically it’s not. The vagina is inside the woman. So I had this very crazy notion to teach my daughter the correct way to describe or refer to her crotch-area.
However, after discussing this with my wife and mother I decided to stop being such an ass and call it what everyone on planet Earth calls it. There’s no reason to make her an outcast early in life despite her being more correct than most people. No one likes a Smart-Alec.
Maddie started calling it her Va-China the first couple of times. I blame Ni Hao Kai Lan for that.
All I know is in a round-about way I will be worrying about that vagina or vulva or whatever for a long time; until she gets married at least.
As the title suggests, today was Maddie’s first day of school. Now she went to that toddler fun class last winter and spring but with me by her side. Today she out of the nest for the first time all by herself with all new people and kids as well as a whole new foreign place.
Before I rant on how it was more nerve-wracking for me and my wife and that she had a good day at her school I want to give a little advice first.
“Just Walk Away. Drop off the child and just walk away.”
I wish our folks had the foresight to tell us that. My wife and I even kinda knew this sage wisdom instinctively but we foolishly went against good nature and thought when we shouldn’t have thought. We said “good-bye and have a good day.” How could you not. She was already exploring her new environment not looking for us and we had to remind her that we weren’t staying. She cried. And cried intermittently for the first hour but for the remaining two hours she was fine. We tell our folks what we did and they tell us, “you never say goodbye.” Thanks for the heads-up.
But she survived and even liked it. Has been talking about it all day. She even seems cockier or more self-confident too. She keeps reminding us that her drawings are on the refrigerator. We are extremely proud and a little sad.
Time is flying so fast. She’s not even two and a half and already she’s in preschool. My wife has been in a daze all day and I think she’s a tad depressed that our baby is already making teachers laugh and bringing home stuff for the fridge. I’m just happy that she liked it and that we, as parents, survived the leaving her with strangers bit. I’m a bit pissed we made her cry by saying farewell but it wasn’t a disaster and turned out great in the end like most new things Maddie experiences.
P&G and Wal-Mart are gearing up to launch the latest Family Movie Night film Game Time: Tackling the Past which premieres September 3 at 8/7c on NBC.
As a movie fan [and a sports fan] I can honestly say even before viewing the movie that I usually avoid these TV movies on network TV aimed for “family.” Usually they are sappy, cliched and more-or-less melodramatic. Which is fine but not my cup of tea. But while watching Game Time: Tackling the Past I was never bored, or annoyed while I was watching it. However, I was never that excited to watch it either. Really, that’s the trouble with these TV Family Night movies is they are aimed for a wide audience and have to cater to as many people as possible. It’s educational in the way that they are parables and instruct, in a entertaining way, decent and upright morals that each and every one of us should know and live by. This is what to expect in a Family Night TV movie. So why do so many fail? Well, most times its the subject matter/plot or could be the stiff acting or poor production quality. Game Time: Tackling the Past does NONE of these truly wrong.
Game Time is the story of Jake Walker, a pro football tight-end who, despite a knee ailment is nearing his career high and close to breaking a receiving record. He also is in the middle of a contract-renewal with his franchise team. When we first meet Jake he is cocky and self-assured and gives the impression he is playing for that record rather than his team. However, he also seems like a nice and cordial gentleman. In the midst of the contract negotiations he receives a call from his family that his high school football coach father [Beau Bridges] suffered a major heart attack. Jake’s brother, Dean, is the assistant coach of the same high school that their father coaches at as well as their Alma Mater.
Jake, being the pro-football star, has left their small town 15 years earlier and is somewhat estranged with his family. We see in small vague flashbacks that there has been some hard feelings or strong words expressed between both Dean and their father to Jake. However, Jake races home to be with his family in their moment of crisis. Jake’s agent fully understands his trouble but urges him to come home ASAP because of his impending contract renewal. While home Jake reconnects with an old high school sweetheart, Sarah, who is divorced and Jake bonds well with her young son, Sean. While waiting for his dad to recover and his contract renewal he meets his old high school’s current team now coached by Dean, while his father reluctantly retires due to the heart condition. Meanwhile, he utilizes the school’s gym and weight-lifting equipment, which happen to be the same old equipment he used as a student there. His mother, played very well by Catherine Hicks from Seventh Heaven, holds his family together in this crisis. She is also the guiding light to Jake in how the bad blood between his brother and father could be solved and cleared.
It turns out that Jake’s contract was not renewed after all by his team due to his knee issue and is forced to find a new team or a new career. Dean extends an invitation to his brother to be Offensive Coordinator/assistant coach for the high school team which Jake turns down. With the help of Sarah, who also teaches dance at the same school, Jake gives the football team a dance routine to aid them in coordination and poise to be better football players. This is the cliched sports training montage of the film and it’s a good excuse to show it’s lighter side as well as a chance for an inspirational pop song. Eventually, Jake does become coach, his dad gets better and the bad blood between everyone goes away. The big first game of the season is coming up and Jake gets the word that another team wants to sign him for a two-year contract. Just before the big game, Jake says goodbye to everyone but Sarah’s son, Sean, who races on his bike to say goodbye to Jake. Jake then realizes that his life is better off now in his old town with Sarah, Sean and his own family coaching high school football to continue the good outstanding legacy of his father. He turns down the professional contract because with his weak and troubled knee he would never be able to give that team 100% and would only coast by in conquest of his record.
A great aspect about this movie is that you don’t have to be a fan of football to enjoy it. They never get into technical stuff that could potentially confuse the audience. However if you like football it’s not dumbed-down either. All the characters are likeable and the only antagonist in the whole film is Dr. Tate, Sarah’s dad, who keeps hounding the Walker family to acquire ringers from neighboring towns to boost the teams odds of winning, mainly because other teams are doing it. Not much of a villain but almost every time you see Dr. Tate he is pushy or complaining about the state of the team. Even though Jake is shown to be arrogant and selfish, it turns out his good family values never went away as you continually see him doing the right thing or even greater deeds not expected from selfish people. In one segment Jake, buys the high school a whole new room of weigh equipment, not just because he needed better equipment himself while he waited at home but because he truly wanted to help the team. He is also racked with guilt about his brother’s leg injury from when they played high school football. Turns out the hard feelings with Jake and his dad was from this incident in which Jake, for his own glory, dismissed his father’s play and called his own which left his brother with a leg injury which halted Dean’s future football career. Dean however has no ill feelings for this incident as being a family man and a football coach is what truly makes him happy. In fact he pities Jake’s career as he sees it as selfish and not up to their father’s standard or values. In other words, he’s only playing football for himself and his record, not for the team.
Playing for the team is the main moral in this movie and I cannot disagree with this at all. As a father now myself I want to teach my kids that teamwork and selflessness are very important virtues to have and live by. Whether it’s your family, friends or football team, they need you as much as you need them and everyone strives when you give it your all to them. In one scene, Dean scolds Jake for telling the football team that playing for yourself is just as important if not more-so than the team. However a good thing to point out is this movie doesn’t ram this point home every 15 minutes like some TV movies have in the past. Using football [or any team sport] to get this point across is not uncommon but barely used effectively as seen in Game Time.
The acting in Game Time could have been worse. It’s not going to win any awards but for a TV-made movie it’s not abrasive either. Acting veterans like Beau Bridges and Catherine Hicks give the film the lift it needs. However the romantic subplot couldn’t be more cliched. It’s the usual boy-leaves-home, boy-returns-home, boy-reconnects-with-old-sweetheart routine and I could see what was going to unfold between them on autopilot. However kudos to the filmmakers who made her a divorcee AND had Sean out of wedlock in a very moralistic TV movie. That, I did not expect.
Like I stated earlier, Game Time: Tackling the Past wasn’t bad but neither was it great. It teetered on the fence of bringing anything new to the film world yet it was decently done enough to entertain in a very enlightened way for an American family watching it together. The mere fact that I never rolled my eyes or groaned at the screen is no small feat. I have literally turned off hundreds of movies simply because they are “unwatchable.” As a father I can honestly say I wouldn’t mind watching Game Time with my family.
So if you want a decently done and moralistic movie to watch with your family I urge you to see Game Time: Tackling the Past premiering Saturday, September 3 on NBC at 8pm ET/7pm CT.
I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Dad Central Consulting on behalf of P&G and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.
I’d like to let my faithful readers know that Poppa Penguin is now a member of Dad Central Consulting www.dadcentralconsulting.com and will on occasion test and review products and blog about my experiences. This is great in a myriad of ways as a parent and as a parental consumer. More importantly it’s great as a blogger because my blog can and will most likely garner new readers and also gives me the chance to try new products and give my two cents on them to those who read my blog. Plus it sometimes rewards my reviews with a little spending money so I can spoil myself for a change and not just my daughter.
So I look very forward to being a member of Dad Central Consulting and being able to give my honest opinions on things other than simply use my blog to rant and rave about the ups-and-downs of being a SAHD. I feel more professional now being a blogger and even though I may be rewarded from time-to-time it’s allowing me to express my opinion on merchandise or media is a part of why I started this blog in the first place—informing other SAHDs and parents-alike on what I learn and learn along in my journey.
As a Post Script to my previous post, I’d like to give a ton of credit and admiration to my loving Mother and Step-Father, who not only filled the void left by my dead-beat father but made me happy, healthy and made sure I had a good life. My mom is a very strong and moral person who made sure me and my brother were not affected so negatively by the divorce and nurtured us, practically by herself, for many years. I owe all that I am to my wonderful mom. I am a great parent by her lead and example of what a great and loving parent should be. I cannot thank her enough for all that she endured and persevered through emotionally and that through her strength we came out better than OK.
And much love and thanks also for my Step-Father who I also learned that, you don’t have to be related to be a great parent. I also lead by his example of what a good and moral parent should and should not be. He may not have the same genes as me but I am proud and honored to be called his Son. I cannot imagine my life without him and his support. He has been by our side longer than my biological father has and is my one, true father.
I love them both very dearly and I take pride knowing they have a wonderful son who became a great husband and father himself.
This past weekend, my estranged father passed away. I have not spoken to him in over 15 years. My brother and I in sound mind and wisdom disowned him. We were fed up with the bad behavior, the lack of love and affection as well as attention and we felt in our heart that he had given up on us so we gave him essentially what he wanted and that was free from his responsibilities and ties to us and our mother. I was a high school graduate so I really knew what I was doing at the time plus some teen angst mixed in I’m sure. But after the divorce he kept moving farther and farther away making it harder [or easier] for all involved to stay better in touch. He stopped calling us as much and the holiday and birthday cards/gifts were either months late or not received at all. In other words he gave up on us. I never regretted that letter nor looked back at that fateful decision that should be a very sad and hard decision to make but even as I learned of his demise on Saturday evening I felt nothing. Couldn’t even think of a positive memory shared with the man. I went on enjoying my evening with a good friend and watched movies and drank some beers. On my late night car drive home that same evening I tried in vain to feel sad or sorry or even hate or anger but none were to be found.
I tried to feel something because quite frankly the man who gave me life is gone for good and still nothing came. My mother’s first husband and Maddie’s grandfather is never going to be seen again and still no emotion. After two more days and spending time with my wife and daughter and my brother and mother yesterday I still feel nothing. I’m not ashamed to say I don’t feel an ounce of sadness because for 15 years he has been but a memory for me; he was already essentially dead. However, I still felt a ghost of him lurking in the shadows of my life and the possibility of him contacting me was slim but it was still feasible to still see him. Well that ghost is gone now. I’ll never talk to him again nor will be know my wife and his beautiful grand-daughter. He died utterly alone and that was his choice.
I’ve been thinking about my father a lot in these past 2 years since I’ve become a father myself. He was the inspiration [or lack thereof] for fatherhood I needed to be EXACTLY the opposite the man, husband and father he was. He abused and ruined not only his life but his family’s as well. A very bright man who not only fell from grace but stayed there for good and is now the greatest failure I will ever be unlucky enough to know. My daughter is MY LIFE now. No question or doubt. My sole motivation in life is to make sure she is happy, healthy and lives a great life. Even if she hates me I will make sure she lives a great life. My father didn’t give two shits when we wrote that letter to him. He asked me if I wrote it and stood by it and told me [TOLD ME!] he loved me and that he’ll always be there for me. But, Hey, at least I can remember vividly the last words my father told me. At least for his sake it was sweet albeit completely hollow. If Maddie wrote me a letter telling me to never bother with her again, I don’t care what continent I was on I’ll be on the first flight back to her. Of course I plan on never being too far from her ever in her life anyway to get to a letter. My esteem is high enough not to feel that my father left us because we didn’t make him proud or even make him happy. He was just never cut out or equipped to be a father. Maybe too selfish to fully give all of himself to his children but he made a ton of mistakes and we as his sons were willing to live with some of those mistakes to still call him Dad but then he made even more and worse mistakes. And now he left a very poor, miserable and lonely corpse.
As a father now I just can’t fathom treating my family the way he did. The boozing, drugs and womanizing really fucked up his life to ways I can’t believe I once called him Dad. It was sad and tragic when I was growing up but as a proud father now myself It’s downright deplorable and embarrassing that a very smart adult could treat himself and his loving family in such a destructive way. Now I’m not unique going through this life experience. Which is the sadder and more tragic aspect of this article. Many many fathers are, in a word, dead-beats to their families and it’s such a sin.
My father’s father, one of the greatest men I ever knew, told my father after the divorce “You messed up with your wife, Don’t ever mess up with your children.” Sound and wise advice I have to agree with 110%.
Sadly he didn’t heed that advice and that’s why I have zero advice from my old man. Who, at the young age of 62, is now dead with only his brothers as his next-of-kin.
However, the lesson he gave me to NEVER BE LIKE HIM, speaks volumes to my ears.
Poppa Penguin 