I am actually old enough to be aware of the opening season of Sesame Street back in 1969, and it is still a part of children’s television today.  Strangely enough, my kids are not interested in this show because they have their many other channels to glean cartoons and any number of kids’ shows.

My favorite character in the show is Cookie Monster.  He was always very pure of heart except for his addiction to all things cookie.  It’s interesting that this show has not changed much over the years.  It continues to strive to teach kids the basics of learning.  I bring all of this up because I am having a difficult time getting a particular song out of my head. 

“Oh would you like to buy an O?” Frank Oz, played the part of Bert from 1969 to 2000, and he also did some of the puppeteering for other characters.  The character I refer to is the shady sales trying to sell Ernie an “O”.  Do you know the song?  How did I get to this thought today?  I’m not sure, but I’m certain I wasn’t thinking of selling my body to women that wanted to buy the big “O”. 

Is this evidence enough that my mind is mush on this Friday? 

What is your favorite Sesame Street memory?

I have been on the threshold of sick for two days now.  At first I thought I was so tired that it was making me nauseous.  I have been fighting back that urge to hurl, but I don’t have a fever or other symptoms of the flu.

Now I’m not so sure.  Our childcare family is all sick with the stomach flu, and I’m sure that Genuine Toddler was sharing the wealth with our house too.  I must have just enough flu fighters in my system to ward off the evil of losing my lunch.  Of course, you have to have had some lunch I suppose.  That might be the other problem, I forgot to eat lunch yesterday, I never get to eat breakfast, and I forgot lunch again today.  I was so busy last night I forgot to eat any dinner so I may just be experiencing starvation.

I’m am sooooo healthy!  I discussed this further on The BlogFathers site today.  I need a vacation.

People often equate their experience here with going to a NASCAR race. They don’t attend the race to see a bunch of cars go around in a counter clockwise manner really fast, they go for the exciting car crashes. Last night was a perfect example of a car crash in the Genuine home.

Genuine Toddler is often like a shark, if he were to stop going full speed, he would drown. He only has fast or stop in his transmission. When I arrived home I knew something was wrong because I wasn’t greeted in his normal Tasmanian Devil fashion. As I put down the mail and my coat, I could tell that he was not in a the right frame of mind. Sitting on his mother’s lap staring into space was a little boy that did not feel well, at all.  He was pale and the spark was gone from his gaze.  He was in the best position he could, sitting in his mother’s lap as she rubbed his back.

As I began working on email at my desk, Mrs. G shouted for me to come help her. I dashed into the family room to find her sitting on the floor, child in hand, and needing a towel and other cleaning supplies. It seems that whatever was in Genuine Toddler’s stomach wanted to evacuate the premises. Don’t worry, this is not exactly the car wreck I wanted to explain.

We cleaned up his projectile pea soup and I tried to console him and tell him that everything was okay and that the alien in his stomach was just being hard to get along with. There is nothing worse than a child that is sick and can’t understand the reason. He continued to stare into nothingness as Mommy rubbed his back and held him tight.  My heart ached knowing there was nothing Mommy or Daddy could do to make this war in his tummy stop.

I began to run remedies of a flu bug through my mind, and looked back upon my own experience and the experience of the previous children. Knowing there was nothing I could really do to make this sickness go away, I knew I had to just help him wait it out, but I could at least make it not so bad. Then I had the perfect idea. I needed to keep him hydrated and comfortable, so I raced through my mind for the possibilities. Finally, I had the perfect idea (read as car crash).

Let’s give him one of those red all natural berry/cherry popsicles. That will hydrate him and make him feel better in his state. Those of you that are parents out there already see the crash before it happened….. red popsicle and projectile vomiting… I suppose I’m a walking commercial for Oxy Clean

I’m pretty much ready for that checkered flag.

A couple of years ago, we had neighbors move in next door that were excited to be living in a neighborhood with other children. In fact, part of the reason they decided to move into that house was because they had learned that we had two children the same age as their children. The oldest, Ben, a month older than Genuine Girl, and Madeline, a little angel only a month younger than Genuine Boy. From the moment they moved in, our children were inseparable. They did everything together that first summer. If we ever wanted to know where our children were, we could call next door and there they were playing or eating lunch with their two new best friends. The same went for Ben and Madeline, they always were a part of our family whenever they were around. What are two more children in a flock like ours? We traded babysitting often so that each set of parents could have a date night. In fact it was on one of those date nights we had when Genuine Baby was conceived.

In August of 2005, our new found friends and family changed. Ben was diagnosed with a diffuse pontine glioma which in layman’s terms is a brain tumor. My wife and I wept for not only the news of a little boy having to have such an illness, but also the prognosis that there was nothing modern medicine could do for this little boy we had welcomed into our hearts and home. We didn’t tell our children about Ben’s illness other than Ben was sick and the doctors were trying to make him feel better.

The doctors tried everything available to them but they could only prolong his life and make it last a little longer with a little more quality. We cherished every moment when he was with us, and we encouraged our kids to play with Ben whenever we could. We even had the unbirthday party for him on Saint Patrick’s Day at Chuck E. Cheese. My wife and I questioned our faith as to how a small angel with blue eyes and a golden heart could be so unfortunate. How could this be happening to him? We wept again as we made our way home from the pizza party. That next evening, Genuine Boy spent the night at Ben’s house, Madeline at our house, it was an everyday occurrence and nothing out of the ordinary.

Ben passed away this morning while he slept between his Mommy and Daddy. I’m struggling with my sadness, and I feel a part of me has died with him. He has left an indelible mark on me and my family, and my children will dearly miss him. I’m very happy that Genuine Boy and Ben had one last sleepover together. It will be hard to accept his passing, and for a while we will grieve with his family. My prayers are with a little boy today. You can read his story on the Steadman family blog.

My case that holds my laptop and files had a weird look to it as I walked across the floor to my computer.  As I looked in the bag, I found what was making the weird looking bulge.  Genuine Toddler seems to think it would be a cool diaper bag.  He may be correct in his assumption that business people on the go might want a diaper bag and laptop bag in one.  Thank goodness the diapers were unused!

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Spring Break has a new meaning in my life.  In the old days, it was a week off from school to do whatever we wanted.  In my household, it usually meant going skiing for a week.  This week the two oldest children are on break, but that is not the good news.  The good news is, they are spending the week with their grandmother and grandfather.  This is truly a break for Mrs. G and I and we are taking advantage of the opportunity.  This morning I laughed in the face of the alarm clock as I pulled Mrs. G close to me. 

Mrs. G is between jobs, and does not go to work until Monday next week, and therefore can sleep in as long as the two little kids allow (a dose of Nyquil at 5:00 a.m. ought to do the trick).  I too do not have to get up at our normal 5:00 a.m. and begin the drill sergeant routine trying to get kids ready for school.  I only have to worry about my own preparation for the day, which for me means getting up at the last minute to allow a quick shower, shave and a cup of coffee as I walk out the door.  It’s like not having any children at all.  This brings a small tear to my eye, not because I miss my children, although I already miss their morning antics, but because I now know what it was like to be independent of the responsibilities of family.  The tear is all about questioning my sanity of having four kids.  For now, I’ll enjoy what has become a new Spring Break for me.  Now where is that snooze button?

Actually it really makes no difference whether you are a parent, I was trying to get an idea of the people that visit here and the purpose of their visiting.  I have been involved in blogging here for over two years now, and I mainly got started in this blog to talk about my kids and family and to write stories of my day-to-day life.  It turned out to be a type of "Everybody Loves Genuine" sitcom.  The people that I first met in this arena were Mommy Bloggers.  Not many fathers were involved in blogging and not many were in the group of people that were reading my blog.  I went into my archives to have a look at the people that were commenting.  Many of them have left and gone on to other blogs.  Some have hung around since the beginning.

Of the 48 comments I counted, 37 were parents and some grandparents and even perhaps some Great Grandparents.  This is still largely the readers that visit here.  I’m not sure that they are here because they are reading a Daddy Blogger or if they just come to see if I’m still here talking the gibberish that I seem to spout day in and day out.

9 of the comments are here not as parents, and perhaps they return and read here as a form of birth control, or they get their daily dose of "Why I am glad I’m not a parent". 

Of those that commented, very few if any were readers in 2004.  This is part of the reason for the poll.  I was reading the comments in my archives and noticed names of many bloggers that for whatever reason no longer read and comment.  The Mommy and Daddy bloggers have grown in numbers exponentially, and perhaps I have drifted out of the group.  Writing for The Blogfathers, I noticed many new bloggers, and some groups that have formed their own strong readerships.  I knew of some of the bloggers, and found some old friends. 

I’m not sure of the results here and what significance they have, but it was interesting to see the difference in 2006 from when I began in March of 2004.  I have mentored many bloggers over the two years and these bloggers have moved on to different groups and moved on to different styles of writing and posting.  I hope that if you are a new reader you don’t forget to come back now and then to see the antics here, and I hope that if you are an old reader, we can continue our relationship.

I have gone through and cleaned up some of the links in the blogroll, and if I have a bad link for your site let me know.  If you don’t appear on the blogroll and used to appear there, you were removed because I made a mistake, or your blog has been abandoned or it was no longer a viable blog.  Blogrolls are a great way to network in our blogs, and it is also a wonderful way to find some great blogs you would not normally find.  I am constantly finding new blogs and great writers through surfing blogrolls of other bloggers I read.

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Are you a parent?

UPDATE: I would also like to know if you are here reading and are not a parent.  I’ll reveal my reasoning in the next post.

Just when I thought all four children were healed and healthy, Genuine Baby decides that we need to shake things up and get an ear infection.  Of course, if you really want to have fun we double the problem because after all, we have two ears. I believe the scientific term is bilateral otitis media.

We are so lucky to be blessed.  TGIF.

No I am not referring to the fact that Genuine Toddler has been on a biting spree that has everyone paranoid to play with him or have him sit on their laps.  I am referring to the fact that Mrs. G is cooking with garlic! No vampire is safe within a 500′ radius of our house.  I’m talking about that garlic amount that makes the end of your tongue numb and makes people give you that “Ew what did you have for lunch?” look that they give when smelling the garlic seeping out the pores of your skin.  I love garlic and I hear that it has medicinal qualities and can even substitute for an aphrodisiac.  Wait a minute…….lots of garlic, bubble bath with special shaving of the legs……oh crap I missed all the signs!!!  You know you are getting too old when…

Honey, can I have a do over?